FBI Widens Use of National Security Letters 379
An anonymous reader writes "The Washington Post reports that the FBI has drastically increased its use of National Security Letters (NSL), which permit it to collect information without judicial oversight. According to the article, the use of NSLs is up by a factor of 100, and the records are kept forever (in the past they were thrown away if the subject was cleared). Deep in the article, the author reports that NSLs were used to collect records '[...] of every hotel guest, everyone who rented a car or truck, every lease on a storage space, and every airplane passenger who landed in [Las Vegas]' for a two week period, in response to a terrorism threat in 2003. Those records, apparently, will be kept forever by the federal government. There's an ombudsman, and a procedure to resolve complaints, but the mere existence of an NSL is secret, so it's not clear how anyone can complain!
Re:Tourisme (Score:1, Interesting)
seriously, I'm considering emigrating from the UK, as we're getting some similar nasty laws, we're just a few years behind the US.
Who cares? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Tourisme (Score:5, Interesting)
They can't really analyze all of this (Score:3, Interesting)
Want to fix it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Second step would be (this I'm sort of deriving from an article I read) - to send the senators and representatives home, and allow them to use video conferencing instead. I think this would allow more "real" people to eventually get elected - and be *willing* to get elected, since they wouldn't have to move out of their home towns - leaving friends, family, and a sense of what's going on locally in their state behind them.
On certain issues you could also institute country wide referendums. More technical issues would have to be decided by the senate/house - which is why electing competent people would still be important.
Last but not least, it might be a good idea to make being a senator/representative a part time job, and let them keep their day jobs. That would keep them in touch with daily life, and also effectively curb the amount of useless legislation that's passed each year. (Along with mitigating the effects of lobbyists - since they wouldn't fear losing their jobs, they would merely be doing a service for their country.)
Oh, and term limits might also fit into that plan quite well to enforce the idea that "this is not your permanent job".
Not that the scenario will ever happen in my lifetime without a nation-wide catastrophy or revolt, but it doesn't hurt to throw the ideas out there.
Re:Ombudsman? (Score:2, Interesting)
Stasi (Score:5, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi [wikipedia.org]
Fixing Gov't (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not sure we want the majority to rule. The purpose of a democratic republic is to seat a group of informed representaives.
make being a senator/representative a part time job, and let them keep their day jobs.
Nah. People pay attention to where their bowl of rice is coming from. We don't want them paying less attention to their senator/representative job than they already do. This would make them (if possible) even more susceptible to bribes and lobbying.
term limits might also fit into that plan quite well
I object to term limits because imagine you have really good representation, a really good, effective member. Couple years, bang! He's fired. Someone new comes in, probably not as good as what you had. I know it's hard to imagine now, but let's don't force good people out of office.
I think a better start would be to revoke the corporation's right to free speech, and forbid them from contributing to campaigns. Period. Corporations are not people and do not act like people, so we should not let them drive our elections. They are far too able to throw large volumes of cash at election campaigns. They have too much say over how we are governed.
I also think we should try really hard to break up the power structures in the two big parties. There is such a huge interlocking collection of debts and favors controlling who gets to be a nominee that it is (usually) impossible for anyone fresh and different to get on the ticket. Does anyone really believe that there is nobody in the Republican Party better qualified to lead the US than George W.? Neither party puts forward their best candidate anymore. They put forward the one who best manipulates the existing power structure.
Re:Tourisme (Score:1, Interesting)
Ditto. My trip to the US was actually to help out the US Airforce with something (defence contractor etc.), so they lost out a little when I said no way, not with the fingerprinting and PATRIOT act and all that
Re:Tourisme (Score:4, Interesting)
The guards would just glance at my passport and wave me through. Same coming back.
So why is it any different now?
Re:Sarcasm (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:this isn't cancer (Score:5, Interesting)
I am a full time student and uninsured. I pay my taxes, in full, on time, every year. I am an American Citizen and have been for all of my 25 years on this earth. I have no criminal record of any kind.
My foot is currently broken, and I believe I have established that I am both 'uninsured' and an 'American' (one in good standing, too). I do not have the resources to pay for X-Rays, Doctors, a Cast, or possible therapy. How can I get the government to pay for my treatment?
Oh yea, I can't, because we're the only country in the world where our government sponsored healthcare only helps non-Americans, such as illegal immigrants and Iraqis. I've tried, I can't get shit for myself. I would be more than happy for you to prove me wrong, because a cast really would be nice.
~Rebecca
Re:It's better here than anywhere else (Score:4, Interesting)
And I just looked it up: the "smiley face bomber" was also after 9/11. 2002, in fact.
So there HAVE been terrorist attacks within the US borders since 9/11. Several, in fact.
Now, there HAVE NOT been any foreign-created attacks (well, the Anthrax may have been, who the hell knows, since the government seems to have stopped caring about that) since 9/11, but the gap between the last two attacks by Al Qaeda was 8 years. It has only been 4 years since the second one, so if they have the same gap this time, it won't be 'till after the next presidential election that we get hit again. So, without changing anything or taking any special action after 9/11, the president should have been able to get 8 years without attacks anyway.
AND AGAIN, this is all using the previous Al Qaeda attacks in the US as a model for predicting future ones, and since there have only been 2, it's hard to say anything based on that.
In other words, saying "the president's doing such a good job because there havn't been any attacks since 9/11!" is dumb by any standard, even based on the little bit of data that we do have; conversely, EVEN IF we had an attack tomorrow, it'd be only slightly less silly to say that that was evidence of him doing a bad job. It's a poor metric by which to measure performance, without other data sets to support it.
The "fighting them over there instead of over here" thing is one of the dumbest mantras to come out of the right in the past few years, and that's saying a lot. Odds are, we wouldn't be fighting them over here anyway, at least not any more so than we had been before 9/11. Putting the money from Iraq into investigations and law enforement would have taken a bigger bite out of real terrorist threats than the war has, by an order of magnitude, and probably resulted in a net gain in the "loss of US life" category, given how many US citizens (not just soldiers) have died in Iraq. Putting that money into research for treatments and cures for cancer and heart disease would likely have saved more lives than either of the other options.
Contractual law, anyone? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Tourisme (Score:4, Interesting)
As well, another aunt & uncle got kicked out of the US when the government refused to renew my uncle's visa despite possessing a pretty unique skill, being steadily employed by the same company for 30 years, and having lived in the states for at least the last 5. Now he has to travel from Canada to the US every week or two for work.
At one time my parents used to drive to Grand Forks North Dakota once a year to go shopping, now I wouldn't set foot in the country unless I was passing through to Mexico or the Bahamas, or on a business trip. The uncle who is American, has been interrogated on his way back into the US on at least one occasion, worst I've ever had going through customs in my own country is being asked if I had any foreign fruits or veggies in my bag.
Data Analysis Is Required (Score:2, Interesting)
Note that the purpose of the law allowing NSLs was to foil terroristic activities, not to deter crime per se. Use of NSLs for criminal prosecution is IMO illegal as the law is defined. That is the reason why the above numbers on criminal indictments versus foils should be collected - to determine if the law is being abused to make criminal prosecution easier rather than to pursue terroristic threats.
The above statistics could help in analysis of the effectiveness of NSLs vis-a-vis subpoenas, search warrants, and other legal instruments. Such statistics may indicate that a given legal instrument is ineffective and therefore, although it appears useful, is truly not so.
IOW I would like to see statistical proof that NSLs are a useful legal instrument for fighting terrorism and not merely legal instruments that will be abused by some later administration with consequent loss of our civil rights.
My personal belief is that NSLs are ineffectual and serve primarily as a distraction (and a huge waste of effort) from the FBI's proper role in law enforcement. Certainly there is an argument to be made for the use of legal instruments such as NSLs in a domestic counter-terrorism organization (such as MI-5 of England) but, since the USA has no such organizations (the FBI being relegated by law to pursuit of only criminal indictments, the CIA to purely foreign operations, and NSA et al restricted from domestic operations) I do not see a proper place for NSLs in the current legal structure. Consequently NSLs will eventually be defined as illegal by the courts. Unfortunately this is a very slow process.
-xeo_at_thermopylae