As of October, FBI To Allow Warrantless Investigations 574
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Attorney General Michael Mukasey has agreed to allow Congressional hearings, but not to delay, the implementation of new FBI regulations that would allow them to spy on American citizens who are not suspected of any crime. As an editorial in the New York Times points out, this is a power that has a history of abuse. In times past, it was used to wiretap Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and to spy on other civil rights and anti-war protesters."
As Dekortage points out, "Several senators have formally complained that citizens could be investigated 'without any basis for suspicion,' which the Justice Department denies."
Re:Fascist America, in 10 easy steps (Score:3, Informative)
Re:whoopie (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, yes, there will be. Remember the FBI under Hoover? It got pretty bad (the fucker had dirt on everyone.) Eventually Congress had to reign in the FBI
Re:Fascist America, in 10 easy steps (Score:3, Informative)
Police officers.
Re:We should start encrypting everything (Score:5, Informative)
Oooh, do we get to have a discussion about the formation of the Constitution and how this totally violates the Bill of Rights and how scared the citizens were of a big national government and that's why we first had the Articles of Confederation which were weak like a bad cup of coffee and now we have the Constitution which is sooooooooo being violated?!
Phew. That many 'ands' in a sentence is annoying.
IMHO (which, by the way, is never humble :-) ), our government was not intended to be a large overreaching government. Control was supposed to be retained by the people. Under the original Articles of Confederation, the U.S. government was more like an informal gathering, a club, per se. This didn't work out totally, as it was seen that a few uprisings, such as the Shays' Rebellion, could destroy the confederation.
The States sent delegates to fix the Articles, which the delegates ended up scrapping and instead creating the Constitution. However, I believe that some of this animosity towards large behemoths carried over. Look at the Bill of Rights, which were added after the Constitution was ratified. They in many instances reserve power to the people, and to the States. The federal government is thus limited in what it can do.
Even though the Bill of Rights was ratified after the Constitution was ratified, from what I understand, some States made the implied passage of the Bill of Rights a condition to their ratification of the Constitution.
Re:Fascist America, in 10 easy steps (Score:2, Informative)
Develop a thug caste: Not yet, I think so at least.
Blackwater?
Re:which the Justice Department denies (Score:4, Informative)
Whatever happened to reasonable suspicion?
What about it? Government does not need reasonable suspicion to investigate you. It needs reasonable suspicion to justify an investigatory detention, and probable cause for an arrest or seizure. Some searches and seizures are investigations, but not all investigations are searches or seizures.
The Fourth Amendment, Article V, and the Fourteenth Amendment do not prevent the government from conducting investigations for any rational purpose it darn well pleases.
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:We should start encrypting everything (Score:4, Informative)
That's pretty much what this law professor/former defense attorney says [youtube.com] at some point.
Re:nightmare (Score:3, Informative)
I wouldn't say it's poor, not at all. People still come here from other countries to have procedures done that are simply unavailable in many parts of the world. I have had some health issues myself the past year, and have been well treated by the medical system so far. But you're right that it's definitely overpriced: I'm fortunate that my employer provides decent benefits. For now, at least.
Re:What.The.FUCK (Score:3, Informative)
With that view, you can thank **McCain** for not voting to help prevent this! What a coward!
And, as you yourself point out, Obama's FISA vote doesn't actually have anything to do with this upcoming FBI surveillance ability.
So, WTF with mentioning Obama?
Also, are you an idiot? The FISA bill that Obama signed made the concession that previous violators would not be convicted, in exchange for tightening the powers of the president. So, if anything, that bill is the exact OPPOSITE of empowering government to do this kind of thing in the future. You can make the argument that not punishing previous violators sets a precedent for lax pursuit of violators in the future, but that's outside the scope of the bill itself. The fact is, the FISA bill, at least on paper, imposes greater limits on the president's ability to order wiretaps.
Re:That sucks D: (Score:3, Informative)
Right, those Iraqis are doing a horrible job at killing American Soldiers using small arms and improved explosives.....
nothing to hide (Score:5, Informative)
Why, Even If You Have Nothing To Hide, Government Surveillance Threatens Your Freedom [findlaw.com].
Falcon
Re:We should start encrypting everything (Score:2, Informative)
All war is about power, be it influence or economic. The civil war, despite all of the romantic delusions, was no different. You'll find that many wars find rallying points, particularly if the military is filled with either volunteers or citizens of a republic. That rallying cry in the civil war became slavery. In truth, it was launched over economic controls and federal influence over states.
Were the war about slavery, the Emancipation Proclamation would have been a legal (as opposed to illegal) document freeing the slaves in the Union and thereby giving the Union the moral high ground in the war.
No war between nations (megalomaniac dictatorships aside) was fought for a princess fair or slavery.
Re:We need the USSR back. (Score:3, Informative)
Do you think that COINTELPRO and spying on civil rights activists was worse than an administration that has said they don't believe in habeas corpus
Bush wasn't the first US president to deny habeas corpus. Though another president may have before him, the first president I know of that did deny habeas corpus was President Lincoln [civil-liberties.com]. And just as this Supreme Court ruled, the Supreme Court in his day ruled suspending habeas corpus [lewrockwell.com] was unconstitutional.
Falcon
Re:nightmare (Score:3, Informative)
Procedures are developed all over the world, but for every breakthrough coming from the US there seems to be dozens of REAL breakthroughs elsewhere. Start getting your news from outside the US sources and you'll start seeing it to. I recommend the BBC for a start.
Ok, let's try the BBC, which I loved to listen to on shortwave radio:
Falcon
Re:Fascist America, in 10 easy steps (Score:2, Informative)
Oh, they're way ahead of you.
Suppose you're an immigrant who has applied for permanent residency through your spouse (an American citizen). It's a long, grueling process that requires mucho paperworko and at least a couple of years to process and analyze the applicant, with enough draconian rules to make an eary 20th-century Ellis Island official blanch. Because, you know, we gotta make sure that them immigrants ain't terr'rists, nevermind that real terrorists would no longer use official routes, nor necessarily be foreign nationals.
Now, suppose your spouse dies in a car accident. Common sense would allow some time for you to grieve over your loss and maybe find some way for you to stay or pursue citizenship.
Under the Bush administration, they give you a notice to get out of the country ASAP. Now, the more legalistic among us would agree with the government on this one: their rationale for staying was just taken away from them, so their application may be rendered void. But it becomes complicated if you managed to have children by this time. Okay, says the Bush administration immigration officials, the kids can stay 'cause they're citizens, but you're leaving. Bullshit! you say and hire a lawyer. After a long, protracted process where the government plays all the dirty tricks that SCO and the various RIAA member companies played, the judge becomes pissed and orders the government to allow you to stay and finish the application. Victory?
Nope, there was a law signed ca. 2004 that gives the DHS and immigration expanded powers, to wit: they can kick you out for any reason, without recourse or appeal, or even an explanation. They legislated in a trump-card because they don't want to follow the law.
And that's just the lawyers and USCIS officials. Should we honestly expect the DEA, ATF, CIA, FBI, Secret Service, US Marshals, or the military to be free from political corruption, given it was this easy for the government to destroy someone's hopes, then spit and piss on them on the way out?
Reference: "The Audacity of Government" [thisamericanlife.org].