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!
Ombudsman? (Score:5, Funny)
Person: Are you the ombudsman for National Security Letters?
Me: Yes.
Person: I'd like to complain about the FBI's issuance of one against me. I was cleared and they're now storing all my personal information forever.
Me: Sir, you're not supposed to know about that.
Person: But I...
Me: I'm afraid you're now a threat to National Security.
Person: Wait, what the... No, I'm an innocent man! I'M INNOCENT DAMN-*gunshots* *silence*
Me: I love my job.
Re:Ombudsman? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Ombudsman? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:McCarthy called (Score:3, Insightful)
In late 2003, the Bush administration reversed a long-standing policy requiring agents to destroy their files on innocent American citizens, companies and residents when investigations closed. Late last month, President Bush signed Executive Order 13388, expanding access to those files for "state, local and tribal" governments and for "appropriate private sector entities," which are not defined.
Is it just me, or does this demonstrate nothing but the most vile contempt for the citize
Future's so bright, gotta wear shades! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Future's so bright, gotta wear shades! (Score:4, Insightful)
Tourisme (Score:2, Insightful)
When I was a kid I wanted nothing more than to emigrate to the US of A. At the moment, I don't even want to visit it as a tourist.
How things can change in less than a decade...
Slashdot post... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Slashdot post... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not just this one thing. It's everything. The more I learn about and watch develop the current shape of the USA, the less I like it. The less I want to cross the atlantic, the less I want to be an American.
There is also a difference between the EU, where I have a right to view the data they have on me (and have it alter if necessary) and the US, where privacy is being eroded. And everything happ
Re:Tourisme (Score:5, Interesting)
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:Tourisme (Score:2)
Look up US-VISIT and UKUSA... if my dad didn't live in the US I would honestly never go there again.
Tourism and terrorism (Score:3, Insightful)
Not that an individual couldn't do some damage, but it wouldn't particularly advance the USSR's goals to kill a few people at a time (or even a few thousand). And if they did piss us off by, say, flying planes into a few buildings, we knew right where the USSR was and could drop a few bombs of our own on it.
The war we're engaged in now is
Re:Tourism and terrorism (Score:3, Insightful)
The deaths, injuries, and other assorted damages commited by terrorists on the US pale in comparison to the damages the government has inflicted on the Constitution in a purported effort to protect us. Even were I to believe every word they said about the evidence and their purposes and intentions, I would still consider everyone who either votes for or enforces the "PATRIOT" act a felon who has comitted malfeasance.
My actual thoughts do not g
Re:Tourisme (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you serious? Let's see.... Go to an office supply store in San Francisco, buy some posterboard and a fat marker. Write up a sign that says "Down with Bush. Republicans are a bunch of morons." Put it on your car and drive around. See what happens.
Try the same thing in China, except have the sign say "Down with Hu Jintao. Communists are a bunch of morons." Put it on a car and drive around. See what happens.
Try having a student-led demonstration in the capitol of each country. (
Re:Tourisme (Score:4, Insightful)
Right before 9/11, I was offered a job in the US, but it fell through (guess for what reason) and at the time, it was really difficult because I wanted to leave Canada for the US. Looking back now, the job not coming through is the best thing that could have happened to me because I definitely would be making a quick exit out of the US of A.
As well, I used to love driving to Buffalo, NY to spend money shopping, and took yearly vacations to places like Florida and Alaska, but since 9/11, I have not even come close to American soil. The last thing I need is to be body cavity searched or interrogated. Sure, I have nothing to hide, it doesn't mean I want to submit myself to a complete loss of my personal freedoms. America, it's been a slice, I hope one day you'll become a place of freedom again, when it does, I'll be the first in line to come over to celebrate.
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.
Re:Tourisme (Score:5, Insightful)
- Is not free
- Is not democractic
- Don't have free speech
- Has more criminals than any other country and put a larger percent of it's population behind bars than any other country.
- Has a cruel and barbaric justice system
- Has a completly corrupt and criminal political system
- Has more poverty than any other 1st world country
- Has an increasingly horrible education system
- Have their own world history which differs quite a bit from the history that the rest of the world knows.
- Indoctrinates it's people about the same as old Soviet Union did and about the same as todays North Korea and China.
I cpuld go on and on about these things but I'll stop here. Now I will be labeled as a USA hater, when it is the opposite. I actually love USA enough to care about what it does and how it is conceived around the world. If you hate USA, the current course if fine and you really don't have to say anything, just continue to support it's actions. That is hating USA when you really don't care what the rest of the world thinks.
Re:Tourisme (Score:2)
You illustrate an interesting point (Score:3, Insightful)
You can love your country and hate the current administration. There is no conflict between those positions.
Shooting ducks in a barrel (Score:2)
Ha! By what definition? You're not free to create anarchy, but I'd say you're a lot more free than most countries."
By the definition of our own Constitution. The Patriot Act does away with little things like due process and equal justice under law...
"- Is not democractic
Again, by what bizarro definition do you think this is true? We have elections which is more than some countries have, representative government, etc, etc. You might not like the pols that get elected, but that's tough. You don
Re:Tourisme (Score:5, Informative)
If you want to play that game then the U.S. is permanently indebted to France. If it were not for France the rebels in the U.S. might well have lost the revolution and America would still be a British colony. The revolution was for the most part not going all that well until Yorktown. The victory at Yorktown was due in large part to French intelligence on the movements of British army, half the army that laid siege to Yorktown was French and most importantly the fleet that bottled up the British from the sea and prevented its escape or relief was French.
There is another angle on the "debt" the world owes the U.S. for World War II. In defeating Nazi Germany the lion's share of the work was done by the Soviet Union. Certainly the U.S. helped a lot in providing war material, strategic bombing, and opening a second front, but the outcome of the war was really decided on the Eastern front in 1940-1941 when the U.S. wasn't even in the war. The Soviet Union would most probably have won World War II on its own though it certainly would have taken longer.
You will no doubt also want to take credit for precipitating the fall of the iron curtain and the Soviet Union, but in reality most of that change came from within, from the Polish and Solidarity, and Gorbachev. Much of the collapse of the Soviet Union can be attributed to its misguided war in Afghanistan where it impaled itself on an unbeatable insurgency, a lesson America should study closely in Iraq.
"You probably watch american TV and listen to american music too while eating a mcdonalds cheeseburger and a drinking a budwiser."
Dude that is some serious cultural ignorance. American TV is bad, most American movies are bad, McDonald's is some of the world's worst imaginable unhealthy food, and Bud is exceptionally poor beer by the standards of the rest of the world. Not sure many American's, with a clue, would even agree with you on the worth of American TV, fast food or beer. All you are doing is showing the extent to which Americans, and to some extent the rest of the world, is falling prey to American cultural hegemony, due to things like saturation advertising, mass marketing, brain washing and use of military force to project its misguided culture on the world.
All in all you are just further reinforcing the negative opinion most people outside the U.S. and many in the U.S. have of the classic ignorant, arrogant American.
Re:Tourisme (Score:2)
Re:Tourisme (Score:2)
In part, yes. But it was also because I wanted to be a scientist and do research. I saw the USA as the place to be for a scientist.
I saw America as the land of the free, when you could develop yourself to the fullest. Where research was done. Where the technology was invented and created. I knew that in previous times, France and Germany were the scientific forerunners, but that the states had taken over.
Today, I am a scientist, but I wouldn't wan
Re:Tourisme (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It's better here than anywhere else (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes.
Antrax (we still don't know what happened with that, right? Yeah, we're sure doing a bang-up job fighting terrorism), DC shooter, happy-face mailbox bomber (that was post-9/11, right? or was it right before? If it was the latter, then disregard it, obviously)
We had a major attack in '93, and another in '95 (IIRC), so that was a 2-year gap followed by a 6-year gap ('95-'01), and the second one was domestic terrorism, so it was 8 years between "Al Qaeda" attacks. Yes, there were the embassy bombings, but putting aside that whole "embassies are technically US territory" thing, those were in other countries, and we've certainly lost a lot of people in foreign countries to similar attacks since 9/11, in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
It's only been 4 years since 9/11. If we go another 4 or 5 without a foreign-origininating attack, we'll be doing OK I suppose, though with only 2 prior major foreign attacks to work with, it's not like we've got enough data points to say much about this anyway, so arguments either way using this information are rather pointless. It could be that the 8-year span was an unusually short one anyway, or maybe unusually long. There's no way to tell.
Re:It's better here than anywhere else (Score:2)
Re:It's better here than anywhere else (Score:3, Insightful)
The regime currently in power is using the "war on terrorism" to strip Americans of their rights, especially that of privacy. They justify their unconstitutional methods with the claim that "no further acts of terrorism have been committed on US soil", while totally side-stepping the reality that Al-Queda seems to spend a lot of time (between terrorist attacks) to plan their next offensive.
The Dubya regime has been just as ineffective in their optional war in Iraq as in securing th
Re:It's better here than anywhere else (Score:2)
And the states haven't even paid the price for that. A few hints: trillions, China, superpower and next.
Not to mention a military close to a breaking point. Every news report I see on that is the same: not enough volunteers, not enough equipment, national guard understaffed and also under equipped, Iraq not under control, military spending increase.
Oh, and voting irregularities etc.
Americans are perceived as arrogant. Will you please drop the attitude and open your eyes!
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.
Re:It's better here than anywhere else (Score:2)
How frequent was that before 9/11? So you're saying that years after an attack there have been no others indicates success, when there was the same lack of attacks before 9/11? Wow, your security has increased from stopping 0 plane or suicide bombings to
No one's
Re:It's better here than anywhere else (Score:2)
You would be very wrong. Let's list them out shall we...
Pre-9/11
World Trade Center attack of 1993
USS Cole attack
Oaklahoma City Bombing
US Embassy bombings from 1993-2000 6 in all IIRC
All the hostage takings from 1970 on including the Iranian Hostages
Pan Am flight 103 and other airline bombings
Post 9/11
World Trade Center attack 9/11
Pentagon attack 9/11
DC Anthrax attacks (never solved)
DC Sniper attacks (solved)
WV / OH Sniper attacks (never solved)
Bomb ma
Re:It's better here than anywhere else (Score:3, Insightful)
Too much Fox News for your 2 neurons, eh...
Let's try this in simpler terms. Our invasion and continued occupation of Iraq is making us MORE at risk of attack not less.
Here is your assignment:
Assume another country, say China since they would have the resources, decided to invade the US on the grounds that we have WMD. Further say that they, not us, will be the ones to "reb
Re:bigot? (Score:2)
Re:bigot? (Score:2)
Even if homosexuality is born-in, or genetic, or however you want to say it, that doesn't mean that performing the acts or entertaining the desires can't be wrong. The Bible also says that any sex (or even entertaining the desire for sex) outside marriage is wrong. (And by that, it means God-ordained marriage between a man and a woman, not the legal-agreement marraige that is virtually arbitrary outside tax reasons, and has nothing to do with religion of any sort.) So, if yo
Re:bigot? (Score:2)
By your logic it has been even more blatantly wrong for claiming that any sex outside marriage is wrong, because in general people are naturally predisposed to lust after anyone they find sexually attractive.
There are good reasons for curtailing that stuff (in biblical times). Specifically, the number of illegitimate births would be corrosive to the social fabric. Nowadays, we have the pill and ru486 and condoms, so the rules are different. Society needs to evolve to deal with the fact that I can screw 1
Re:Tourisme (Score:2)
Re:Tourisme (Score:5, Informative)
That is as soon as you have worked a year after finishing your degree.
Re:Tourisme (Score:2)
From Py to the Wiz [slashdot.org]:
Three words... (Score:4, Funny)
One the one hand it's useful, but on the other it contradicts our constitutuion. Man I love polidicks[sic].
Re:Three words... (Score:2)
Re:Three words... (Score:2)
but surely the absolute right to privacy means that there are no reasonable searches.
Under what circumstances is it reasonable for someone to barge their way into my home and look around entirely on the grounds that they have a piece of paper with someone's signature on it?
Of course, a system without the ability to search would be unworkable, that's where interpretation comes in.
Remember kids, what happens in Vegas stays in... (Score:5, Insightful)
Did you guys really vote for all this, um, stuff? Take your country back.
The thing is... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Remember kids, what happens in Vegas stays in.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you really think the average voter has any idea what a national security letter might be and if they did the proper checks and balances such a thing would need. Or if they are even aware of the big privacy debate going on? They don't. During the last election, from what I was told first hand, people voted on:
1. Terrorism: Usually "Bush will teach them 'Rabs" kind of attitude.
2. Gay marriage: This was surprisingly everywhere before the election and no where now. Funny how that works.
3. Abortion: The usual crap here.
4. Vietnam: Kerry's status as a vet opened up the old vietnam wounds.
Only political junkies cared about privacy, civil rights, economic stability, social security, judge appointments, etc.
I don't think most countries are too different, the LCD tend to vote on hot button issues and the educated and elitist classes take on everything else. Asking "Did you people really vote for this stuff" is kinda non-starter. People don't even vote on this stuff, they vote for what they know.
Essentially this is your classic "raise the discourse" argument, but one of the nice things of being at the top of the world as a superpower in about a dozen different ways is that there's little incentive to learn about foreign policy, civil issues, other countries, other systems, etc. As long as there is wealth and safety one can remain fairly ignorant of a lot of things. This eventually does bite one in the ass and will probably coincide with the loss of a superpower status as Europe and Asia keep rising.
Re:Remember kids, what happens in Vegas stays in.. (Score:2)
Some scientists are talking of trying to restore the US to a pre-human state, BEFORE even they settled the Americas, they've found several large species that died out around 12k-14k years ago because of various pressures of humans that arrived in the Americas.
Sarcasm (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Sarcasm (Score:3, Interesting)
uuugh (Score:3, Insightful)
You know who else knows that information? (Score:4, Informative)
Which I used to rent the car, purchase the plane tickets and secure my rental garages.
They also know where I live, my phone # and my mother's maiden name!
Re:You know who else knows that information? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:You know who else knows that information? (Score:2)
The worst part of this is that... (Score:5, Insightful)
Like is said for gun control laws, if you outlaw it, only the criminals will have it. This sort of crap will ensure that only criminals are outside of the jurisdiction of legal daily surveilance, thus achieving nothing but ill will and a semi-police state.
If you think this is a troll, try again... When the government invents a reason to spy on you without your permission or that of the courts, they have found a way to be the big brother that we all despise and fear. Never mind tin-foil hats, when they know what you had for breakfast without having to lift a finger, the tin-foil hat does no good.
How long will it be before it is made illegal to thwart such efforts by use of misleading electronic activities, and botnets that spoil the information gathered with false information and misleading information. How long before identity theft is not the real problem, but being accused of anti-american activities is the problem because of clever botnets that have seeded the government databases with information about you and your activities?
Where is the oversight to stop the government from doing that, then arresting you on trumped up charges based on bad information... damn, the US started an entire war on bad information...
FSCK, this is bad!
Re:The worst part of this is that... (Score:2)
Who can complain? (Score:5, Insightful)
There's an easy solution.
Everyone should complain.
Re:Who can complain? (Score:2)
Everyone should complain.
I had the same thought...
Let's see how much they want to keep abusing this power if, once a year, they get 250 million requests for mediation!
Of course, sadly, in reality only a few of us "paranoids" will bother to complain, and rather than taking us out of their records for not having committed any crimes, it will simply red-flag us for further scrutiny...
The times, they are a changin' (Score:5, Insightful)
But it's frightening how Uncle Sam has managed to sidestep such safeguards in the name of "national security".
I shake my head in disgust when I think of the governments trouncing basic rights to protect us against a threat that claims as many people per decade as cancer does in one day !!
this isn't cancer (Score:2)
It doesn't matter how many people die. What matters is how much money it costs us in the process. It's always about the money.
Re:this isn't cancer (Score:3, Insightful)
No, but when you add up the $100,000+ treatment costs of the millions of uninsured Americans who do get cancer that the government pays... well, guess what? Billions of dollars.
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:this isn't cancer (Score:2)
No one who dies of cancer does so in a fiery ball that destroys a Billion dollars worth of infrastructure.
Meh, that's a weak argument - saying that special measures are needed to combat terrorism because they blew up the WTC ignores the fact that, for all the spectacle they caused, they didn't really kill that many people, and had as much effect as a bad ice storm or a F3 hurricane (which we get a few of each year anyway). It also ignores the fact that the new measures are fairly ineffective at their sta
Newsy (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Newsy (Score:2)
They can't really analyze all of this (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:They can't really analyze all of this (Score:2)
Thats what they do. And now without silly rules to prevent data sharing, they will have free-reign.
Remember, the NSA gets more money than the FBI and CIA. With their powers combined, they can rule the planet!
Or just make the average citizens life horrible. You pick.
Re:They can't really analyze all of this (Score:2)
Re:They can't really analyze all of this (Score:2)
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.
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.
the problem is (Score:2)
The current system works, the problem is people don't pay enough atttention when they are electing their representattives.
-everphilski-
Re:the problem is (Score:2)
Of course, with a 75-80 year life span, we can assume that ~25% of those can't vote, leaving 225M voters.
Slightly more than half.
One problem with the party system, though: people don't know about other parties. Even without media coverage, the Libertarian Party got on average 2% of the vote last election.
Re:Fixing Gov't (Score:3, Insightful)
Corps are subdivided groups. The employees typically do not have much say over how politically active the firm is. Often the political activity of the firm is inimical to the employees (outsourcing, anyone?), the general public (e.g. any spending by tobacco companies), or the environment (DuPont, Halliburton, Union Carbide, Ford, GM, etc.) The concentration of wealth has created a concentration of power. I like the free market as m
Re:Want to fix it? (Score:2)
Are you crazy?! The "majority" consists of hysterical, bible-thumping idiots! If we had true majority rule, we would have voted ourselves a police state as soon as we saw the footage of the planes hitting the towers on TV.
In fact, I'd say the reason we've come so close anyway is that we
Re:Want to fix it? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
looking closer... (Score:5, Insightful)
This lack of respect to privacy is troubling....
Re:looking closer... (Score:2)
Forget Bin Laden! (Score:5, Insightful)
To quote one 'Madpride' from another board:
Respect For Privacy (Score:2)
And, after all, that privacy represented the privacy of every american taxpayer who paid taxes to support Miers in doing this, so by keeping all that information secret, they were helping out each and every person's individual privacy.
Re:looking closer... (Score:2)
Yeah, that sounds good: "This lack of respect to privacy is cause for rebellion!" What do you all think?
Snitches playing FBI for a bunch of chumps (Score:3, Insightful)
Stasi (Score:5, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi [wikipedia.org]
Re:Stasi (Score:2)
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2005/11/us-
Sig Heil!
Re:Stasi (Score:2)
Article Text (Score:4, Informative)
Under the shield and stars of the FBI crest, the letter directed Christian to surrender "all subscriber information, billing information and access logs of any person" who used a specific computer at a library branch some distance away. Christian, who manages digital records for three dozen Connecticut libraries, said in an affidavit that he configures his system for privacy. But the vendors of the software he operates said their databases can reveal the Web sites that visitors browse, the e-mail accounts they open and the books they borrow.
Christian refused to hand over those records, and his employer, Library Connection Inc., filed suit for the right to protest the FBI demand in public. The Washington Post established their identities -- still under seal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit -- by comparing unsealed portions of the file with public records and information gleaned from people who had no knowledge of the FBI demand.
The Connecticut case affords a rare glimpse of an exponentially growing practice of domestic surveillance under the USA Patriot Act, which marked its fourth anniversary on Oct. 26. "National security letters," created in the 1970s for espionage and terrorism investigations, originated as narrow exceptions in consumer privacy law, enabling the FBI to review in secret the customer records of suspected foreign agents. The Patriot Act, and Bush administration guidelines for its use, transformed those letters by permitting clandestine scrutiny of U.S. residents and visitors who are not alleged to be terrorists or spies.
The FBI now issues more than 30,000 national security letters a year, according to government sources, a hundredfold increase over historic norms. The letters -- one of which can be used to sweep up the records of many people -- are extending the bureau's reach as never before into the telephone calls, correspondence and financial lives of ordinary Americans.
Issued by FBI field supervisors, national security letters do not need the imprimatur of a prosecutor, grand jury or judge. They receive no review after the fact by the Justice Department or Congress. The executive branch maintains only statistics, which are incomplete and confined to classified reports. The Bush administration defeated legislation and a lawsuit to require a public accounting, and has offered no example in which the use of a national security letter helped disrupt a terrorist plot.
The burgeoning use of national security letters coincides with an unannounced decision to deposit all the information they yield into government data banks -- and to share those private records widely, in the federal government and beyond. In late 2003, the Bush administration reversed a long-standing policy requiring agents to destroy their files on innocent American citizens, companies and residents when investigations closed. Late last month, President Bush signed Executive Order 13388, expanding access to those files for "state, local and tribal" governments and for "appropriate private sector entities," which are not defined.
National security letters offer a case study of the impact of the Patriot Act outside the spotlight of political debate. Drafted in haste after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the law's 132 pages wrought scores of changes in the landscape of intelligence and law enforcement. Many received far more attention than the amendments to a seemingly pedestrian power to review "transactional records." But few if any other provisions touch as many ordinary Americans without their knowledge.
Senior FBI officials acknowledged in interviews that the proliferation of national security letters results primarily from the bureau's new authority to collect intimate facts about people who a
you've never been to Alpha Centauri? (Score:4, Funny)
I eventually had to go down to the cellar. With a torch. The notice was on display at the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "beware of the leopard".
Some deaths more important than others? (Score:5, Insightful)
Simple (Score:2)
Re:Some deaths more important than others? (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, once you realize that it's just as likely for somebody to walk down the street and gun you down for no reason, you get a little perspective.
The only way to beat fear is to confront the fear; hiding from the feared thing only makes it worse.
False argument, false data (Score:4, Insightful)
1) Cause billions of dollars of damage in less than an hour's time and shut down an entire industry for days.
2) Generally result from malicious intent from people who have declared they will not be happy until millions of Americans are dead
3) Paralyze an entire nation's ability to move people and goods
4) Happen as the result of an accident
Also, please provide a source for your 400,000 dead in past four years statistic. Statistics I've found from 1998 say around 49,000 died in North America from car accidents that year. Sounds like you're pulling your numbers out of thin air.
Re:False argument, false data (Score:2, Insightful)
The destruction in NYC was paltry compared to the ongoing expenditure fighting the "war on terror".
2) Generally result from malicious intent from people who have declared they will not be happy until millions of Americans are dead
Sure, but the point being made by the previous poster was that their ability to do that is not especially strong, and the "intelligence" services are not exactly adept at pr
Re:False argument, false data (Score:2, Insightful)
and re: 3) Paralyze an entire nation's ability to move people and goods
I was stuck in Toronto after 9/11, and I sure would've liked to be able to get home to Denver, I'm still baffled as to why air travel was stopped. I mean, Al Queda took their best shot, flying airliners into structures, and I'm sure they were thinking they'd get a whole lot more than they did. America freaks, acts like
National Security Letters are unenforceable (Score:4, Informative)
If you receive one, you need to get legal advice before complying.
The proposed legislation to criminalize NSL noncompliance, S.1680, has no cosponsors and isn't going anywhere.
The FBI can still go before a judge and get a subpoena, but that requires judicial authorization, and you can fight a subpoena in court if it's overreaching.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Allow me to explain the plan: (Score:5, Funny)
or that all-time favorite,
Laws in America are like... (Score:2, Funny)
You know, there is a limit. (Score:3, Funny)
Translation into American (Score:4, Funny)
Damn those slashdot editors
Re:Translation into American (Score:2)
NRA? (Score:2)
While the National Rifle Association is always asking for donations to fight for our rights, last i heard you didnt have to declare anything to them...