FBI Lied To Support Need For PATRIOT Act Expansion 396
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "It probably won't surprise you, but in 2005, the FBI manufactured evidence to get the power to issue National Security Letters under the PATRIOT Act. Unlike normal subpoenas, NSLs do not require probable cause and you're never allowed to talk about having received one, leading to a lack of accountability that caused them to be widely abused. The EFF has discovered via FOIA requests that an FBI field agent was forced by superiors to return papers he got via a lawful subpoena, then demand them again via an NSL (which was rejected for being unlawful at the time), and re-file the original subpoena to get them back. This delay in a supposedly critical anti-terror investigation then became a talking point used by FBI Director Robert Mueller when the FBI wanted to justify their need for the power to issue National Security Letters."
A real danger (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a laziness in the way people react to such legislative measures - a laziness that ignores the very real danger that our comfortable Western democracies could fall in to dictatorship much more easily than people think.
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
--Edmund Burke
You know (Score:5, Insightful)
Perfect example (Score:5, Insightful)
It can't be true! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:A real danger (Score:5, Insightful)
"The Proles will never revolt." -- George Orwell
Something in the woodshed (Score:5, Insightful)
I can perfectly understand the agents desire for greater powers; "I know this guys a crook so why do I have to jump through all these damn hoops just to lock him away" but there should be leadership from the top which balances these needs with the needs of society and it's here the problem seems to lie with an administration unconcerned with the needs of the society and over focussed on 'improving' it's own machinery.
I seriously hope the next US President is able to take charge of his apparatus properly and put it use for everyones good rather than fulfilling some dubious goals of your own because as I think we can clearly see now the wrong people in the Whitehouse can produce all sorts of nasty and counter productive behaviour even in areas they aren't directly interested in.
fuck you, you fucking fascist (Score:5, Insightful)
9/11 might have scared you to the point where you'll allow the government to do whatever they like with your private life. Many of us, however, aren't nearly so cowardly.
Asshole.
Lied to congress...? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:A real danger (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:A real danger (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A real danger (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:share the pain (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Lied to congress...? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:A real danger (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:fuck you, you fucking fascist (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's face it, most people are cowards and that's never going to change.
Re:fuck you, you fucking fascist (Score:3, Insightful)
Next Time, Don't Believe 'Em (Score:4, Insightful)
Remember this the next time the so-called "good guys" explain how the sweeping new powers they need to defeat terrorists and save all the children and puppy dogs would never be abused.
These people have a sense of entitlement coupled with an iron-clad conviction that they're right and everybody else is wrong that makes them at least as dangerous to the long-term survival of democracy as any pack of terrorists.
Re:A real danger (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A real danger (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:A real danger (Score:3, Insightful)
Ah thanks, I was tired of paying my taxes. You want the government to waste taxpayer money? You can pay my share too.
Re:Lied to congress...? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd like to answer your question, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to claim executive privilege.
J. Edgar would be proud (Score:4, Insightful)
Violating the Constitution is Impeachable (Score:5, Insightful)
No search or seizure is reasonable unless determined by a court to derive from probable cause for the search or seizure.
NSLs are inherent violations of the Constitution. Every time, even when they're "properly" used. When they're not even used according to the FBI's rules, there is not even a flimsy excuse for violating the Constitution.
Thousands of times, as a matter of course, or on a whim. Mueller and every other official with their hands dirty from these crooked anti-American NSLs should be impeached immediately. And then charged with criminal penalties, then slammed in prison with the people they were charged with busting. Because they're all criminals. Some, like Mueller, far more dangerous than others.
In a slightly less civilized country (but one with perhaps more dignity), Mueller would have been hanged from a tree or ripped to shreds by an angry mob. He should be grateful that we have the decency to just throw him in jail.
Which traitors would that be? (Score:3, Insightful)
Which traitors would that be?
People using their telephone to call their relatives in the middle east?
Or the ones in the White House who have violated their sworn oath to "...preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." ?
Spidey!!!
Re:Lied to congress...? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A real danger (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:A real danger (Score:5, Insightful)
My hope is that our military and intelligence community career employees will be a firewall against a greater slide into tyranny. You guys are the "militia" that's mentioned in our Bill of Rights.
After the last seven years, it's funny that the very notion of a "Bill of Rights" seems quaint and antiquated. Like something the Bush Administration has "modernized" out of existence.
Re:FOIA (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A real danger (Score:1, Insightful)
I admit that I would love to voice my opinion to my elected officials expect for a few things...
I could find what I'm looking for, but I admit that I do have this over arching feeling that "it doesn't matter, my voice isn't heard". This day and age I often ask myself "what would it take to get me involved?"
The answer that I come up with is a politician who has a blog and/or forum they actively participate in.
Think of it in terms of World of Warcraft forums. There you have a community of people. Fairly often, you'll have "blue" post some news or information up as well as respond to people in the community.
It's that kind of response that I need to see. It doesn't mean that *I* have to be responded to, but I need to see that they *are* responding to *the normal person* and that there's a record of it.
The only catch is, to participate on these forums, one would have to register with their real name/information to try and break the (Internet + Anonymous = F*ck hat) formula. *Hopefully* that would keep discussion civil. Of course, that's also opening the door to "Internet Rage" where retribution attacks are carried out in real life based on some internet messaging.
What to do, what to do.
Re:A real danger (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not being complacent or apathetic, it's being realistic. Face it, when Sony can write a check for ten million to the Democrat candidate and a ten million dollar check to the Republican candidate and ten million for media advertising, the media doesn't cover the Greens or Libertarians except to tell you that a vote for them is a wasted vote, and no matter which candidate loses, Sony wins, the American people lose, and there isn't a damned thing you or I can do about it except "waste our vote" on a "third party" candidate.
Slashdot Republicans all accuse me of being a liberal and slashdot Democrats all accuse me of being a neocon, and I accuse both camps of being fools and stooges for the corporations that run both major parties. And in the end it doesn't matter at all because your vote is pretty much meaningless.
But fool that I am, I still go to the polls and vote against the Demoicrats and Republicans.
Re:NSLs (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, It's Been Quite A Heck (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet, there's no hollering and screaming in the public for heads to roll. The Democratic majority in Congress, our supposed check on this kind of abuse, still does not call for impeachment.'
Soon, my friends, very soon, there will be little recourse but to converge on Washington DC and burn it to the ground.
But in the small hope that that can be avoided, please call and write your Congresspeople and demand impeachment for these and all the many other crimes they've committed.
It has happened before. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:A real danger (Score:1, Insightful)
Somehow? Somehow? It's been killed by two simple things: 1) the public is more interested in Britney Spears, professional sports, and the scary crime/terrorist/health bogeyman of the day than in anything thoughtfully political, especially if it's an issue in a foreign country; and 2) the news media gives the public what they want and as cheaply as possible.
Supply and demand and the bottom line ($$). It's that simple. The fourth estate [wikipedia.org] still talks proudly about their importance as an impartial balance to the other institutions in a democracy, but it's really a secondary issue when you look at the priorities of the people in charge of it. Money comes first. If there's a way to deliver the same hour or pages of media to the public more cheaply and the public still keeps buying it, the managers will choose it every time. It's why genuine investigative journalists are nearly extinct while paparazzi flourish. The latter are cheaper and get more headlines.
The real question is what it's going to take for people to wake up and give a @!$^#!
Re:A real danger (Score:4, Insightful)
So don't ever say it's "meaningless". It isn't. You're just jaded (along with 99% of the population).
Re:A real danger (Score:5, Insightful)
It's much more profitable to report on Britney and American Idol than on political muckraking. For that matter it's more profitable to cover the Presidential race as a horse-race, complete with sound-bites, than it is as a serious political discourse and critical event. To think about it, political muckraking typically offends those with wealth and power, and that's clearly not profitable.
After profit IS the most important thing, isn't it?
Re:Bush's "Shock Doctrine" Case in Point (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a massive troll (Score:4, Insightful)
The second laughable problem is that the FBI shouldn't need to justify the emergency. The director is correct. But they should be held accountable to what's done in such an emergency. If a police officer turns on his lights and sirens simply to run a red light and causes an accident, you get a fat check! The FBI doesn't need to demonstrate that it has an actual emergency, but does need to be held accountable to what it's done after the fact. The same concept applies to anyone or anything else. The cops don't pull you over randomly in your car and ask if you've been speeding because you aren't guilty until it's observed. You don't get shaken down on the street for assault and battery because you have a baseball bat.
This is why slashdot has gone to the dogs. Without linking to the original context of the testimony, you can't possibly hope to have any meaningful discussion. DON'T YOU LOVE SPIN?
to what country should we flee ... (Score:3, Insightful)
To Soviet Russia ?
Re:A real danger (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's been longer than 7 years (Score:5, Insightful)
A genuine desire to do good is not sufficient to avoid corruption. In fact it might make you more vulnerable to it, since you are able to rationalize away that corruption for being neccessary for greater good. When you bend the rules, or follow their letter while ignoring their spirit, you can silence your conscience; after all, you aren't pursuing your own good, but common good, so you aren't doing anything wrong.
And of course once you've bent the rules just a little, there's no reason not to bend them just a tiny bit more, and then more, and then even more, until one day you are doing shit like the summary said - all the time having nothing but the best of intentions. "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions." That's one saying people working in intelligence agencies should really take to heart.
Re:A real danger (Score:5, Insightful)
shocking! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A real danger (Score:5, Insightful)
So, the net effect of campaign finance laws is to make buying Congressmen cheap, although the complexity of delivering that money legally presents a separate cost barrier to ordinary citizens. It's expensive to set up a lobbying firm, but the marginal cost of buying legislative influence is actually shamefully low, once you have the mechanisms in place to do it legally.
Re:A real danger (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:share the pain (Score:3, Insightful)
Thing is, it really IS "just a piece of paper" in that regard. It counts so long as the government agrees to respect those rights, and the day they don't (which could be next Tuesday for all we know), we're just as screwed as every other country.
The only consolation is that because the Second Amendment has been in place for so long, that the US citizenship is generally armed fairly well. By the time we actually have to stand up and use those arms though, the government will have certainly declared that little inconvenience null and void.
The same actually applies to voting though a lot of people are a bit naive on that. Voting out your leaders for better ones only works so long as those people are willing to concede to the results. If G.W. Bush announced this Novermber that he's sorry, but for the safety of the country and to protect us against the terrorists, he must "delay" the election results and maintain the presidency indefinitely, then he'd keep office, plain and simple, until "we the people" rose up against him violently. The ballot box is meaningless unless it can be enforced via the ammo box.
Re:Kids (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:This is a massive troll (Score:3, Insightful)
Bullshit, pure and simple bullshit. Cops and those in authority have, and always will, act arbitrarily.
Whether you have long hair (1960s - 70s), the "wrong" skin color (1700s - present), the wrong ideology, facial features, attitude, whatever, you can be a target at the momentary whim of someone else who holds "authority".
Just because you haven't been yet is due in large part to the actions of those who have shown the light of publicity on the dark motives of those who would abridge your liberties in the name of security, national or otherwise.
Re:A real danger (Score:1, Insightful)
I'd love for the jowl-wagging bible-thumping war-drumming fucktards to get what's coming to them, but there's a distinct pattern of me bankrolling it all. And all the anti-tax people care about is ending taxes for the programs that actually do some amount of good. You don't see Grover Norquist getting angry about our military spending.
Re:A real danger (Score:2, Insightful)
Self-fulfilling prophecies generally are.
If you adopt this mindset, your chance of success is zero. If you do bother to take action, your chances of success are greater than zero. If you really want change to be effected, the logical choice of action is quite clearly the latter one.
Mod parent up! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:share the pain (Score:3, Insightful)
This is coming across as a bit grimmer than I really set out for it to be.
So, what you're left with is essentially ground armored vehicles that are of some limited use. Tanks, large guns, etc. Still, as was proven in Vietnam, these are largely ineffective against a guerrilla force that practices hit and run and sniper attacks rather than large engagements, and that inherently blends in with the rest of the population.
It's been proven time and again that it is extremely difficult to deal with a guerrilla force on it's own territory. The advantage of fully automatic weapons over semi or even bolt or pump action isn't as significant as you think, and with a population of over 300 million people in this country but less than 2 million in the standing army, you can be we have the numerical superiority to handle it. The question is NOT whether or not we COULD take back our government, it's a question of whether or not people will a) be willing to lay down their life for their liberty as they once did, or, no offense intended, but b) go with your rationalization that they have bigger guns so we should just drop the trousers, bend over, and ask if they wouldn't mind using some lube.
Because if you've already accepted your line of thinking, the only thing between us and slavery is the military's whim.
Re:A real danger (Score:3, Insightful)
And maybe it'll make somebody think a little.
-Trillian
Re:share the pain (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure we have 2 million standing. But how many do you honestly think will be left if they have to start killing their own people?