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Pentagon Seeks A Loophole In The Privacy Act
CygnusXII writes "As reported over @ wired.com. It seems that Homeland Security isn't the only govermental body wanting to keep a database on the good old U.S. population. 'The bill would allow Pentagon intelligence agents to work undercover and question American citizens and legal residents without having to reveal that they are government agents. That exemption currently applies only to law enforcement officials working on criminal cases and to the CIA, which is prohibited from operating in the United States.' Kinda adds a whole new meaning to 'We want you!', or should it be 'We want all your secrets'?"
That exemption currently applies only to law enforcement officials working on criminal cases...
Which is to say that the DoD is trying to get into the subject area that is presently the property of the FBI along with state and local police forces. It's not that this kind of work can't be done by the US Government, but that the wrong division is asking to do it.
The DoD runs our armed forces... they are not designed for law enforcement and when they are asked to do so they usually do a poor job of it. This provision in the law should be stricken and replaced with more funding to the FBI and other police forces so that the people who should be gathering info on US soil can continue to do so correctly.
Secrets? I haven't had any secrets for 3 years now.
I'm sorry, but if someone wants to ask me questions, and they A) aren't wearing a police uniform or B) identify themselves as law enforcement/criminal investigators, I'm not saying jack.
"Pentagon officials say the exemption would not affect civil liberties and is needed so that its agents can obtain information from sources who may be afraid of government agents, such as a green-card-holding professor of nanotechnology who formerly lived under a repressive government."
And this is supposed to make him feel better how? By HIDING the fact that he's talking to a government agent?
You're right. The DoD is not designed for law enforcement. And there is no reason for the DoD to have undercover agents checking on US citizens (and legal residents).
Do you really want Military Intelligence officers spying upon US citizens on US soil?
From the article:
"In February, Army intelligence agents improperly sought information about attendees at a University of Texas law school conference about Muslim women. Conference organizers refused to provide a videotape of the event to the officers and publicized the request, leading to an apology by the Army."
The only way to keep the government honest is to keep it open.
How about one day you're hanging out at a bar, and you meet a girl who seems really friendly, you get along, and you start to go out. You happen to be a writer, and one day your typewriter breaks, and guess what? she happens to have a typewriter she can give you! Then you find out a year from now that the typewriter is bugged and records everything you write ...
This is what happened to Philip Agee, CIA defector, in Paris. A long and elaborate ruse involving gaining his trust and a series of 'accidental' occurrences seemingly unrelated. But that was done outside of the US, where warrants aren't necessary and it's basically just espionage.
Do you really want this kind of thing to be able to happen domestically? No constitution, no bill of rights, no need for warrants, no need for transparency--just all out domestic espionage operations.
It really is quite sad.
The government can raid my house, throw me in prison, and ruin my life - all in the name of national security. It's an extremely disturbing thought.
Big government / brother is not science fiction anymore, it is a reality. It's disturbing, to say the least. RFID imbedded in to everything you buy, is just the next step. This database doesn't suprise me in the least. They've kept records for years, it's what they do.
I live in illinois, it's a police state. I've already been fined several hundreds of dollars for jaywalking, and owning a NOT USED, CLEAN, TOBACCO pipe. You are guilty until proven innocent, around here.
I'm 24, an american, and I want to leave. This is a nightmare. A law may come in to fruition, that if I leave and a draft is reinstated, I will be sent back here and possibly thrown in jail, or be forced to serve for a country I don't believe in. We aren't all greedy capitalist pigs, you know. Some of us are actually decent human beings.
I hate to be such a pessimist, but if you live in the states, your life is going to be more difficult, and if anything - MORE dangerous than it is now. Throw a wrapper out of the window of your car? You could be signaling terrorists that are on the side of the road planting IED's. Think i'm joking? Just wait. It's a pretty far fetched example, but with this administration, would you expect anything else?
... the do so at their peril. Just following orders is no excuse to engage in supporting despotism. The possee comitatus act allows for the military to be used in extreme circumstances inside the united states, so it becomes a matter of interpretation on a case by case basis. You are required to follow orders, but not illegal orders. The commander in chief does not have a blank check in these matters, although current thinking and actions by the military tend to indicate they don't understand this very well,(don't *want to understand it* is more my opinion), and your two examples ARE examples of it being abused, yet the orders got followed. Pity. Bad precedents after bad precedents. Following illegal orders puts you outside your oath, because if the person issuing you the order is doing so illegally, you must not follow it, and any citizen being persecuted by this illegal order has the moral and legal remedy of resisting whatever is being forced upon him. that's in the laws as well as all the other stuff.
Anecdotal but a few years ago my nephew, a career army nco, quit. He refused to re up despite being offered a huge amount of cash to do so. He is not very political,never was as far back as I can remember, but he told me he simply refused to go along with what he knew was coming, martial law,dictatorial military rule, and especially he didn't agree with what they were trying to brainwash him into, which is that the second amendment is only a government granted privelege, not a born with right, and that only regular military, the guard, and selected civilian police have any "right" to keep and bear. He also said it was rare to hear the term "civilian" without it being part of "fingcivilian" to help get that mindset established, part of a demonisation processs, similar to what police are undergoing today. The stories he related to me indicated that that is an on-purpose aspect, an indoctrination they are carrying out for the future. My personal opinion is that it is an accurrate assessment of his,because I haave heard correlating anecdotals based on talking to a number of other individuals I know who were serving. He was instructing at west point at the time, and I tell you, I was shocked. Here's a young man who liked baseball, girls, 4 wheel drives and hunting, and it was his interest in guns and hunting and being exposed to some gunrights information, etc, before he joined that clued him into what was going down. He did NOT want to quit, he had purposely gone in directly out of high school,just like his father way back, my BIL, but he stuck to his principles and did, he wanted nothing to do with todays new "follow any orders no matter what" army.
I think the trends are ominous, and I am not exaggerating when I will state I feel the USA in 2004 has more parallels with mid 30's germany than most people want to admit to right now.