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FBI Investigating Lamo Via Patriot Act Provision
umm qasr writes "Mark Rasch, a columnist for SecurityFocus wrote in his Register-reprinted column that the FBI has sent a letter, invoking provisions of the Patriot Act, to journalists reporting on the Adrian Lamo case: 'The letters warn them to expect subpoenas for all documents relating to the hacker, including, apparently, their own notes, e-mails, impressions, interviews with third parties, independent investigations, privileged conversations and communications, off the record statements, and expense and travel reports related to stories about Lamo.' Good to see that our First Amendment rights are being upheld by the FBI."
new award.. in additinon to the Godwins law etc i will add Minus law use of the word slippery slope to promote a political standpoint automatically means you lost the debate since you are talking aout of your ass and ran out of points.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Oh, talking down to me really works.
It's one thing to talk the talk, but can you walk the walk?
You're not a journalist, so it's easy for you to say "Oh, FIND ANOTHER JOB." Hey, fuck you man. Get off your high horse and think what it's like to be in someone else's shoes for a second.
I'm in Ireland just now. the SS can't get me here. Besides, I have nicer guns at my family's house in America than the cops in the town do.
What America needs is an armed moral authority dedicated to the ideals of the Republic -- sort of like the IRA, only with better bombs.
Nice to see your on board with the Bush & Rumsfeld program. No questions just blind obidience that's what the US needs. I do hope you're still waving the flag for the war in Iraq, they obviously had enough evidence. How about Iran/N. Korea building nukes, better take care of those trouble makers. STAND UP STARIGHT AND WAVE THAT FLAG.
I'm not so much worried about murder, it's a very low % crime. I am concerned about spineless cowards who want the goverment to protect them. Yes, I am talking about you. Who's life is it your's or the goverments? Who is responsible for it you or the goverment? Stop living in fear and start enjoying life.
The time is rapidly approaching in the US when each citrizen has to decide what is right and wrong, the legislatures and law makers have long since given up and gone south. The situation _VERY_ closely parallels Germany in the mid 30s. What's your defence going to be, I was only following orders?
I really doubt anyone can say right now that USA is the Land of Freedom anymore. How can it be that people don't understand that giving away rights for security doesn't work. You loose rights AND security, with freedom also in the pack.
Creepy vision of the future, the nation that says it will "defend freedom anywhere" is not free, how can it "save" the other nations from not beeing free? Really weird.
Welcome to the hell of American politics - you can vote either Democrat or Republican which makes no noticeable difference.
Bullshit. I'm sick of hearing this lie propagated. The real problem was that the Democrats (and more than a few Republicans) were too spineless to put up a fight in the wake of September 11, and when the Ashcroft submitted the FBI's wish list they just approved it without even reading the fucking thing. Most of them probably thought that if they didn't vote yes, the RNC would be running ads against them next election cycle telling their constituents how they wanted to let the terrorists win. Do a Google search for "Max Cleland Homeland Security" if you don't believe me. Russ Feingold, an ultra-liberal, has risked his political career before and was the target of a concerted GOP takedown attempt back in 1998, but most of his colleagues would prefer to take a stand on other issues that aren't quite so politically volatile. And today's congressional GOP is not known as being a place where dissent is easily tolerated - you don't fuck with Tom DeLay.
Despite what Fox News would have you believe, there is a fair amount of bipartisan opposition to the Patriot Act, and the excresence labelled Patriot Act II was shot down due to protests from the entire political spectrum from the ACLU to hardline religious conservatives. It looks like the sunset provisions (most of them, at least) will not be changed, since there's wide realization that giving the DOJ a blank check may not be a wise course in the long run.
In terms of the Dems vs. GOP choice, these parties are still in power because they continue to reflect the views of most Americans. People generally don't want a heartless, minimalist government like the Libertarians promise us, and very few people are convinced by the Greens' socialist blather.
As an additional historical note, bear in mind that an increasing number of voters have been enfranchised over the past two hundred years, and direct democracy has become quite powerful at the state level, at least judging from my experiences in WA and CA. The sort of things that make it to ballot over here make quite a lot of reasonable people decide that we actually need less democracy, not more.
What is it? Are you all in such a hurry to crucify the Administration, the FBI, and everything right of center that you have to jump to the wrong-headed conclusions that you have? Or do you just not care about the truth?
According to the article 'The Letters' aren't subpoenas, threats, or lawsuits (don't know where that one came from, but it's platered all over the comments here). They are notification of INTENT to GET a subpoena. This means that the FBI *thinks* that they can get subpoenas for this information, and they don't want the journalists destroying it to avoid turning it over if and when they get them. This is COMMON practice to prevent the intentional destruction of evidence.
It's important to remember that journalists do not have limitless rights to protect their sources, in fact they never have. There is nothing in the posted editorial that shows how any journalists rights have been trampled on, or even reduced as a result of the Patriot act - it's merely conjecture.
IF the courts issue the subpoenas based on the FBI's requests, and IF the journalists feel the subpoenas are in fact unconstitutional or innapropriate, then the legality and constitutionality of the issue SHOULD be visited. However, until you have the facts before you, don't throw around words like Facist, Nazi, etc. It just makes you sound ignorant..
D
now you may mod me down - I've got Karma to burn...
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?
Excuse me, but why the fuck should the FBI be wasting time and money going after pedophiles?.
Because pedophiles should be shot in the head?
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.