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Secret Court: Government Lied to Get Wiretaps Approved
Paersona writes "Ever wonder what Colleen Kollar-Kotelly is doing to pass the time while she waits for the next step in the Microsoft case? Apparently she is now serving as the lead justice of the FISA court that oversees intelligence agencies' requests for domestic wiretapping. Today, the Washington Post reveals that the FISA court has released a rare public report rebuking the FBI and Justice Department for their handling of wiretap requests." The New York Times also has a story about the FISA court. The court's opinion is available.
This is a good sign that Kotar-Kotelly isn't afraid to take on the current powers that be. Many people, even ones with good track records, have taken up a don't-rock-the-boat attitude since you know when. It's good to see that it hasn't hit K-K. If she's willing to stand up to the PATRIOT-enabled FBI, it bodes well for her honesty in the Microsoft case.
This woman seems to wield a lot of power over both individual citizens and major corporations. I would like to know more about her.
Please notice the court said that they were opposing the new procedures that Ashcroft wanted, based on the previous errors and lie. It sure would have been nice if the FISA court had acted or spoken up when those lies and errors occured, instead of now. The FISA court specifically opposed allowing the FBI to share intel data with criminal prosecutors without the courts permission. I agree with the FISA court - the idea is that this prevents the FBI from using secretive intel excuses to do snooping they could not do under regular rules, then come back and use it under the regular legal rules. Thus the fact that the FBI lied or mislead in the past is good evidence why they are right.
However - liberals like the Washington Post will not make any mention that many of the lies they told occured under the Clinton Administration. Don't you wonder exactly what cases they lied about? Probably just a right wing conspiracy anyway - I am sure that the Clinton administration never used the IRS or the FBI for their own political purposes; I am sure they did not illegally use INS databases to solicit votes from illegal aliens in California.
I am a republican, but I agree completely with the FISA court here. I don't want either party to give the FBI the kind of power they had under that crackhead Hoover. It's just too bad that most knee jerk liberals will blindly go along mumbling about Bush/Ashcroft without realizing the massive abuses that already occured previously under "their guy".
...and you people have the gall to be discussing the FISA court rebuking the FBI and Justice Department???? My *god*, people, GET SOME PRIORITIES!
While I agree with you that a load of shit is going on around the world (and always has been): it's imperative that you clean things up in your own house, regardless of what the neighborhood looks like. If you want to stand for civil rights and liberties, for justice and equal opportunities and oppose the idea police/military regimes you have to follow your own ideals. Otherwise they are worthless and "The Free World" becomes another meaningless term used for propaganda, political power struggles and disposal of the opposition (as it probably is right now, anyway). If you don't pay attention to our society's very foundation then our course is meaningless. And protection from arbitrary, unchecked wiretap is part of this foundation, we call it privacy. And no, privacy is not for terrorists only.
This is hardly surprising, considering the FBI and Justice Department have always seen the ends to justify the means. The Justice Department, FBI, and CIA have always looked for loopholes in the law, pushed the limits of the constitution, and flat out broken the law in attempts to circumvent our right to privacy in order to obtain information about people. They seem to think that they have a right to know anything about any person at any point in time, and that their "right" to know pre-empts people's right to privacy because it's in the best interest of the country.
If you write an email that suggests something unpopular, or that you have considered (but not taken) a particular course of action, should the government step in as a "preventative measure"? Common sense says no, but is there a case you can think of where the ends justify the means? Case in point:
If the FBI had sought the right to tap the phones of the suicide bombers 3 days before Sept. 11th, but had no real evidence or reason to do this, could you have condoned it at the time, not knowing that it could have prevented the greatest domestic disaster in our lifetimes?
Basically, government agencies have tried to prey on the fears of Americans after 9-11 in order to achieve the greater flexibility in domestic espionage that they have always sought. Are they justified? I say no, because I believe that our personal liberties are inalienable. But some people believe that the sacrifice of certain freedoms is preferable to living in fear.
Thoughts?
-AAAWalrus
While I agree with you that a load of shit is going on around the world (and always has been): it's imperative that you clean things up in your own house, regardless of what the neighborhood looks like.
Very well said.
It should be pointed out that the 3,000 deaths in New York, while tragic, are hardly a blip in the population.
We have had more than 50,000 people die in car accidents since then. All horribly mutilated, some burned beyond recognition, others decapitated, some crushed within the tin can that became their automobile, some crushed beneath the wheels of an oncoming car, and so on and so forth, ad nauseum. In short, each death was horrible, left behind it a wake of trajedy and grieving, and each represents a life that ended much sooner that it should have.
Yet we live with this stark reality every year, and few if any of us fear to climb into an automobile and drive to work.
The terrorists can scare us, can knock down a couple of buildings (as can a 5.0 richter earth quake, a big forest fire, or a wopping hurricane, and we get a lot more of those than we do terrorist attacks), but they cannot do us any real, significant harm!
Even the economic damage the fear they create is minimal. The markets had recovered virtually all of their 9/11 losses and the economy was on the upswing, until Enron, WorldCom, and a whole slew of other corrupt American executives and CEOs were caught with their hands in the life savings of the middle class, pilfering the nation's wealth for their own miserly gains. In the wake of such criminal behavior the markets and the economy tanked as every thinking person recognized and chose to avoid further opportunity for the wealthy to defraud them, and as a result of this behavior, and our governments neglect in regulating and preventing it, the economy now shows no signs of recovering, an unpleasant event that is entirely self-inflicted by greedy, rich CEOs and executives whose ethics died shortly after the umbelical was cut, and the tame politicians they've had in their pockets for the last twenty years. Such subhuman filth, who represent the highest, most priveleged economic class in America, are responsible for most of our economic troubles and hardships, not Osama and his flea-ridden, filthy followers.
Indeed, the terrorists, in contrast to our own corrupt officials, aren't even relevant.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't go around the world eradicating them and their followers wherever we find them, nor does it mean bin Laden's head wouldn't look good on a pike.
It does mean we shouldn't allow Aschcroft and his cronies to ride roughshod over the constitution, and that we shouldn't allow Bush Junior to use the country's military and spend our strength fighting Daddy's unfinished, and unrelated, battles a la Iraq.
Frankly, if the choice I'm given is between freedom with a 3,000 death/year terrorist pricetag, and an Orwellian society that maybe, perhaps, reduces that number to a few hundred, or even to zero, I'll take the three thousand deaths per year and keep my freedom thankyou very much. My car is far more likely to kill me than some towel-head Saudi fanatic hiding out with his donkey in some dirty cave in Afghanistan or Pakistan, and I'm not about to stop driving because of it.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
"Speech". You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
> Sure, it's not a right to destroy government property, but it's vandalism, not terrorism.
Destroying government property for no reason at all is vandalism.
Destroying government property (or most other uses of violence / force by non-uniformed combatants) in order to change policy is the definition of terrorism.
Granted, a rock's nowhere near as lethal as a bomb, but that's a matter of degree, not a matter of principle - by throwing that rock, you're saying to the drones in the building that if they continue to work for the institution against which you're protesting, they put their personal safety at risk. If throwing rocks through government office windows in order to change policy isn't terrorism, why not step up to Molotovs? Little chunks of lead? Where do you draw the line?
You have the right to peacably assemble and protest. You have the right to petition Congress for a redress of grievances.
Where I come from, speech comes in many forms. Sound waves. T-shirts. Handbills. Source code. Executable code. But "igneous", "metamorphic", or "sedimentary" aren't on the list.
Likewise, "stuffed into a bottle of flammable liquid and lit on fire" doesn't constitute a Constitutionally-protected way to deliver a petition.
The point he's trying to make is that the warrants were obtained while Reno was in the USAG's office, not Ashcroft. The Post article clearly misleads the reader implying that it is Ashcroft and Bush's fault. There is a story on this in the LA Times which clearly states at the end of the article that there the Judge who made the ruling is pleased with the way that Ashcroft has cleaned up the problems that Reno left behind. The only reason this is in the press now, is because we're closing in on the 60 day limit cutting off paid advertising, read: choking out free speach, on broadcast media regarding political candidates under the new campaign finance reform. The liberal, misleading, press is trying to help the liberal, misrepresenting, politicians to get elected in Novemeber. If you haven't figured it out, Reno is running against Bush in Florida...that is why no mention of her or Clinton is made anywhere regarding this issue. The media puts this out now, hoping get the people thinking Bush/Ashcroft bad, Democrats good. Before groups are not aloud to put advertising out for their favored candidate.