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As of October, FBI To Allow Warrantless Investigations
Posted by
timothy
on Fri Aug 22, 2008 05:34 PM
from the oh-that-pesky-4th-amendment dept.
from the oh-that-pesky-4th-amendment dept.
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."
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Firehose:FBI to Allow Warrantless Investigations in October by Anonymous Coward
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We should start encrypting everything (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:We should start encrypting everything (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:We should start encrypting everything (Score:5, Funny)
I am a criminal. That's why I use encryption. Same reason I have a gun.
Parent
Re:We should start encrypting everything (Score:5, Funny)
Criminals of the USA unite! All we have to lose are our freedoms. Wait, we lost those already. Unite!
Guns, check
Knives, check
Crypto, check
Copy of constitution and laminated ten command- er amendments, check
Internet connection, check
Go! Go! Go!
Am I missing anything?
Oh yes:
Law abiding citizens of the USA unite! All we have to lose are our freedoms. Wait, we lost those already. Unite!
Guns, check
Knives, check
Crypto, check
Copy of constitution and laminated ten command- er amendments, check
Internet connection, check
Go! Go! Go!
Am I missing anything?
Parent
Re:We should start encrypting everything (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, you say you're not a criminal? Why are you using encryption if you have nothing to hide, citizen? Prepare to be boarded.
You do not chase me because I run. I run because you chase me.
Parent
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.
Parent
Re:We should start encrypting everything (Score:5, Insightful)
How do I encrypt a conversation with my family? Use pig latin?
"iHay oneyHay! owHay asWay ourYay ayDay?"
When the FBI talks about spying they mean spying. They aren't going to stop at snooping your email. They're going to bug your phone. They're going to snoop your physical mail. They're going to go through your banking records. If you raise sufficient attention (say by encrypting your trivial email) they may even park a black van down the street with a bunch of electronic equipment in the back.
Parent
WWJD (Score:5, Insightful)
I think if you told Thomas Jefferson that the United States would be up to this sort of thing, someone would have gotten a musket ball to the chest.
Re:WWJD (Score:5, Funny)
I think if you told Thomas Jefferson that the United States would be up to this sort of thing, someone would have gotten a musket ball to the chest.
I think his reaction would have been more along the lines of "Goodness, what is that peculiar blue box you stepped out of?"
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Re:WWJD (Score:5, Funny)
He's an American. He'd ask about the DeLorean ;)
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whoopie (Score:5, Insightful)
How is this any different from how they're operating now? What does it matter that they're no longer going to breaking a law they never paid any attention to in the first place? Karl Rove tells Congress to take their subpoena, shine it up real nice, turn it sideways and shove it right up their collective asses. Consequences? So far, none. Will there ever be? Doubtful. Will it be any different for the FBI? Doubtful.
Fascist America, in 10 easy steps (Score:5, Interesting)
Fascist America, in 10 easy steps [guardian.co.uk]
My history teacher pointed those out in 1997 and he wasn't thinking of the USA back then. I thought: come on, it can't be that easy! However, seeing what happens in the USA, I humbly have to retract that opinion.
Nice guy (Score:5, Insightful)
That's big of him. He'll "allow" Congress to hold hearings? Who wears the pants in this family, anyways?
Sigh... (Score:5, Insightful)
From the last link about senators complaining:
Among their fears: Americans could be targeted in part based on their race, ethnicity or religion
and
Citing remarks earlier by Mukasey about the new rules, the spokesman said an investigation would not be opened based solely on a person's race, ethnicity or religion.
That isn't the problem. I'm glad that they are attempting to slow it down and stop it, but why does it have to boil down to racism for them to stop it? Why can't they just say "this is completely against what the founders of our country intended"...?
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Score:5, Insightful)
We need the USSR back. (Score:5, Insightful)
Raise your hands, everyone who is surprised by this...
yeah, that's what I thought.
We need the old USSR back. As odd as this seems, there was actually a sense of competition going on back then -- competition for goodness. I remember mocking the USSR for having secret courts, secret laws, secret prisons. Now WE have those things. I think that at least in part it's because we no longer have competition to compare and contrast our government's behavior to, so people are less apt to associate this kind of totalitarian behavior with The Evil Empire. As a result, we become The Evil Empire.
I'm not cheering for Russia as it stomps around in Georgia, mind you, but an odd side-effect of it might be that we start acting like the USA, rather than Trashcanistan.
I hope ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And what are us Americans going to do about it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Which, as anyone here will tell you, is a terrible argument.
Parent
Re:And what are us Americans going to do about it? (Score:5, Insightful)
No one will do a single thing about it as long as they can watch their TV shows.
He said, posting on slashdot.
But seriously, what do you want to happen? Would you like everyone to rise up in an armed revolt? The last time something like that happened, we were left with the bloodiest war in US history, and that was before the advent of a lot of the modern weapons of war. Write to their congressmen? I wrote to Harry Reid while I lived in Nevada, and what I got back was a form letter that looked like it could have been written by a white house aide!
Get involved in your local party politics; grassroots efforts are the only peaceful way to pull this off, and changing from within the system seems to be the best method. Or get involved and try to grow a third party to where they can take a seat in congress.
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armed result == bloodbath (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:armed result == bloodbath (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:And what are us Americans going to do about it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just so you all know, posting indignant posts on slashdot doesn't count as defending your rights. Preaching to the converted != protest.
Parent
Trends shape history (Score:5, Interesting)
History is not made by individuals. History is made by trends. Specific individuals who are surfing at the leading edge of a trend may get the spotlight, and hence the credit, but really it was the trend that made the change, not the person.
The net effect of current trends is a lot of corruption in our government, plainly visible to the public, with a large collective yawn in response.
Sitting around shouting that people need to stand up and do something will not, in and of itself, create a trend of people standing up and doing something.
For that we will need something bigger. And more painful.
Parent
COINTELPRO (Score:5, Insightful)
Who says they need to take anything before a judge? Look at what they did with COINTELPRO. [wikipedia.org] Infiltration, psychological warfare, legal harassment, and extralegal violence were all considered acceptable tactics.
Parent
Re:Regs don't trump the constitution. (Score:5, Insightful)
they're endangering the public
I think you've just hit upon what government doesn't ever want you to realize:
It is government itself that is the biggest threat to you, your family, and your freedom.
this is a power that has a history of abuse (from the summary)
Correction: The power itself is the abuse. How can a special "right" to bypass justice itself NOT be abuse? The concept of guilty before proven innocent -- in whatever slimy manifestation it appears -- is an attack on human rights before the discussion even started.
Parent