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Significant FBI Abuses of the Patriot Act
Noksagt writes "The Washington Post is reporting that recently discovered documents indicate serious intelligence violations by the FBI. This comes just months after the U.S. House voted to extend the Patriot Act, EPIC (the Electronic Privacy Information Center) has obtained documents through the Freedom of Information Act of thirteen cases of possible misconduct in intelligence investigations. The case numbering suggests that there were at least 153 investigations of misconduct at the FBI in 2003 alone."
...we show that a program with the best of intentions gave too much power to one tenticle of government, and now it's being abused. I'm not sure how many times we need to figure this one out before we stop gravitating to one part of gov't, giving it tons of control, ending up in a one-sided system, and then complaining about it (rinse, repeat)...
Is anyone suprised by this? I'm shocked, real shocked. Who would have thought?
SecureThe.Net - Practical Resources for Securing Systems
I'm friggin' shocked that the FBI would abuse the biggest legislative threat to our civil rights EVAR.
"No beer until you finish your tequila!" -Leela's Dad
In other news: "Scientists discover the molecular composition of water"
In other news, water still wet, fire still hot, and bears DO shit in the woods. Film at 11.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Would YOU trust an organization whose name is an anagram for "fib"?
Skype is too convoluted... Now I'm reverse-engineering the Kyoto Protocol.
The American idea of dividing the powers up and setting them at each other's throats was really clever. Unfortunately, no one knows the future, and things have evolved in a way where the powers are bigger and more concentrated than any English king's powers ever were. Unanticipated side effect of the 17th Amendment. (Yeah, the idea of an evolving document was pretty good, too, but it also got misused...)
Today's FBI example is relatively minor compared to all the dead bodies in Iraq.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. - Lord Acton
see what happens when you trust the government, they pwn you all. i'm sure the Students at Pope John XIII would like to comment on this... oh wait. +1 canada
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
:(
- H. L. Mencken
*sigh*
Well, there goes that. I guess it was good while it lasted.
To the Americans who are posting comments like "wow. I never thought that would happen" I ask one question. What have you done to protect your rights, that the FBI are trampling? Posting sarcastic comments isn't doing anything to protect your rights.
Did you vote? For the fraction of you that did, what else have you done? Because you can't just protect your rights by once every 4 years (it is 4 in America, right?) ticking a box and not doing anything else until the next 4 years. I think it was Thomas Jefferson that said once the people stop fighting for their rights, the government willl take them away.
So people posting here obviously do care. But what have you done to protect them? I'm betting the majority of you haven't done a damn thing (except vote). Well this is what happens when you do nothing but vote. You've got no-one to blame but yourselves.
Oh look it's the presidents speech writer!
From the Slashdot article: "The case numbering suggests that there were at least 153 investigations of misconduct at the FBI in 2003 alone."
What percentage of abuses were discovered? That's the next question.
The U.S. government's FBI, CIA, and NSA agencies, and others too secret to have public names, are the world's most well-funded world-wide secret police and surveillance agencies. When I read the many stories like the one in the Washington Post, I think those agencies are in many cases out of control.
Many of the present problems the U.S. has in the Middle East started in 1953 when the CIA overthrew a democratically elected president of Iran. The CIA calls those problems "blowback".
There is a conflict of interest. CIA employees get raises and promotions if there are more problems. So, the actions of the secret U.S. government agencies tend to favor the creation of blowback.
Weapons makers favor blowback, too. The profits are very high in weapons making, because a lot of negotiations can be secret.
There are two kinds of oil business. One is the normal kind. Another is the kind that involves extremely high profits allowed when there is secrecy, such as when there is a build-up of war-making capacity.
You can read how the problems in the Middle East were created in this short and incomplete article: History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories.
I work for these organizations.
Totally agree with the poster above. See, people tend to get so wrapped up in the intentionally dramatic headlines (designed to boost ratings, nothing more) than to THINK about what is really going on. The FBI and all government agencies are really composed of good, hard-working folks that are trying to serve their country in the best way they can.
These people don't want to see their rights or ANY American's rights diminished. But it is tough for individuals to prove that when the media proclaims that the entire organization (composed of thousands of employees) seems to be bent of removing liberty and justice for all. Unfortunately, we live in an age where the vocal minority is given a voice ONLY when it agrees with the media company's desire for ratings or political expediency.
It's really sad that their service to the country is not given the proper respect deserved.
Chomsky, who's very name may qualify as flamebait in 2005, pointed out that the standards we are at least paying lipservice to in the USA have only been even attempted since the 1960s. Until the Knapp Commission (1972) it was basically accepted in hometown NYC that the cops operated with many of the same rules and in the same businesses as organized crime (dope dealing, pimping, extortion).
J Edgar Hoover would roll his eyes (and hike his skirt?) at what is being called 'Significant FBI Abuses'.
Regardless of where you stand in the current culture war, these higher standards are a 'good thing'.
man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
300 steps? If it's already that much trouble, why not make it 301 steps by... say... going through the judicial branch to get a warrant? Actually, I have a feeling doing it that way might take out about 200 of those other steps. But then you'd actually need -evidence- to invade people's privacy, so nevermind.
Wow big fscking surprise...fscking disgraceful. I can't wait until the end of next year when I move out of the US to go to get my masters in Dresdin Germany - no more of this crap. Maybe I'll stay there for a few extra years (or decades)
I read this morning in the metroBush treathned to VETO against a law which prohibits torture if the FBI is also affected by the law. (so he wants a backdoor for that.)
So you are saying that the bureaucracy of government is ultimately the cause for its mistakes? Why can't the process be simplified...this reminds me of the Vogons.
Translated:
FREEDOM to keep FAMILY VALUES that we approve of. They are all protecting YOU unless you are one of them. We decide if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear from a little surveillance (unless you have something to fear) from your protectors. Next sunny morning, go outside, take a deep breath, and thank GOD(R) for your unalienable FREEDOM or else.
Even more interesting would be an investigation into the benefits of the patriot act... (as abuse was inevitable)
If Microsoft was mass, stupidity would be gravity.
I was so expecting to read about significant abuses.
Instead I read about administrivia that'd bore even the most paranoid. The most concrete of which involved trying to convince some goof to become an informant.
If smoke indicates a fire, this article isn't even warm enough to scald an infant.
I agree that most of the men and women who do the grunt work in the government do have the country's best interest at heart. However, the people they work for and for whom they collect information are the ones I seriously question. These people are the ones who have an agenda. They are the ones who politically and financially benefit from certain events happening and from certain information being obtained.
I for one simply do not completely trust our government overlords!
We obviously need to reallocate more funds into the DoD Intelligence agencies.
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The problem with every government job is that we must do our work protecting, defending, or supporting ignorant people who don't take the time or have the inclination to make informed decisions or even respect the long hours and miserable pay we endure to make this country a safe place for their sometimes ignorant and ungrateful thoughts, words, or actions.
Freedom of speech for the good and bad that is in our society.
It is far easier for their brains to react with paranoid, delusional thoughts about how the government is keeping them down, or how someone ELSE is keeping them from blowing themselves up or causing harm to others. How about this concept - freedom is the ability for you as an individual to have the means to have a better life by your OWN definition, not to decrease the ability of OTHERS to enjoy their own life.
I don't know what to say. I guess this has been the case since the country was founded, but it sure makes everything more difficult.
After browsing the posts in this thread I can't help but think of the trillions of dollars we've spent on what i'll refer to as the price of "sin." Imagine living in a society where everyone played by the rules, everyone had integrity. People wanted to be honest to their neighbor not because big brother was watching but because they wanted to.
Imagine...
Putting those trillions of dollars we've spent in law enforcement, national defense, and patriot actish debates and laws into knowledge and learning. Imagine how much further along we might be. Some might argue that the price of "sin" has actually driven our technology and learning. There's a lot of truth to that. I'm just saying I'd much rather see a full page of interesting news for nerds then a bunch of threads relating to the price of "sin". Stuff that matters.
Exactly.. So Rove and Libby most likely leaked classified information to exact revenge.
How can we trust that they won't use information the FBI collects to their personal/political advantage?
These actions were actually illegal, so they could not have been authorized by the Patriot act.
Also, from the article,
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance act was passed in 1978It seems to me that these are just old-fashioned FBI abuses of power - not abuses of the Patriot act specifically.
Perhaps the weeks following a terrorist attack are not the best time to write legislation regarding what to do about terrorism.
But all the senators were panicking, and all their constituents were panicking demanding they do something, although they (the constituents) had no idea what. So no wonder that a bad piece of legislation gets written.
My solution to terrorism? Take the amount of money we've spent in Iraq and direct it towards fusion power research. Once fusion power is achieved, we don't need to prop up those regimes in the middle east any more. At last, we will be able to leave and flip them off on the way out. Then when the middle east is still a hellhole they can't blame us.
Hmmm.
*Yawn*. yeah yeah yeah. Bush bad. Republicans evil. Conservatives power mad.
yada yada yada.
You liberals will probably implode when Bush finally leaves office.
...its simple. Australia is a shining light to freedom and democracy the world over. Why? Because we have aussie_a running around agitating the democratic process. No Patriot Act type laws in Australia is there. No sir. No US style reformation of the tax system here. No US style dismantling of the public health system. Gun laws. What guns? Hmmm.
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
Good point, so expect to be modded as flamebait. I read people complaining about how they are being repressed because of BS like this and from my viewpoint, nothing has changed. I guess I don't live close enough to the boundaries of the law.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
Take a pill - it was only posted 20 minutes ago. Given time it will be rated 500% Funny !!!
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
Perhaps you did a mighty job for the "Freedom of the Americans", but chauvenism like the Americans mostly portray and force on the world is making alot of people very nervous. It's your safety at no matter what cost it seems sometimes.
You state our work protecting, defending, or supporting ignorant people who don't take the time or have the inclination to make informed decisions, which is actually considering the people you serve as morons and making decisions FOR them. That's not freedom.
You're working in a secret service, these morons are not aware of what you are or aren't doing. The paranoia solely is a result out of this not knowing and having been decided for.
You don't sound like you like your job much anymore and feel frustrated, perhaps you should find another carreer then.
The FBI and all government agencies are really composed of good, hard-working folks that are trying to serve their country in the best way they can.
;) So I've been doing it in my own personal time) and I'm concentrating on Thomas Jefferson at the moment. And I've always thought he (along with the other founding fathers) were more then a little crazy. But when I see what they stood for, and what current America is like, I understand why they had the opinions they did.
The road to hell is paved by good intentions. That's how the quote goes, doesn't it?
But it is tough for individuals to prove that when the media proclaims that the entire organization (composed of thousands of employees) seems to be bent of removing liberty and justice for all.
No, what's tough to prove it is this secrecy your organization (along with other organizations like it) demand. When government agency works in secret (which the FBI does, even if it does have to explain itself to a court, that court is also secret so therefore it doesn't count), it takes the power out of the people's hands, and once the power no longer resides in the people's hands corruption is soon to follow. From what little information that has been able to be wrest out of the FBI's hands, it depicts a picture that it they're making mistakes on a regular basis. Even the FBI who defends the report that has been public said that most of them were clerical errors. Most.
When the FBI refuses to explain itself to the people (no matter what justification it uses to keep it's actions secret), then the people have lost their power, and the FBI becomes a danger to freedom. I've been reading about the founding fathers of America (in Australia we don't get it shoved down our throats at school
Thomas Jefferson in particular fought against what America has become. And the FBI is only a small part of the problem (although I'm inclined to say it's a symptom of the problem, with the problem being the people have stopped protecting their rights).
There were surely ways to handle the issue without Patrioct Act. But somehow they werent "radical" enough to prove that govt is concerened. Prtiot Act Could be one
quick and essentially dirty solution for a while, and in the mean time there was need to make the whole process of comunication among agencies seamless instead extending this act till forever. So welcome to real wrold folks. You wish u had voted:)
What determines probable cause to monitor possible terrorist suspects? From your post it seems obvious that it takes a lot less paperwork to monitor a suspect. How much paperwork does it take to make someone a suspect once you have probable cause? How many weeks or months of investigation goes into finding a terrorist to wiretap into oblivion?
And of course, you'll never tell the guys you're watching that they're being monitored, because that'd totally defeat the purpose of trying to catch them and anyone they might associate with.
Meh. I don't subscribe to any conspiracy theories or civil rights deterioration rants, but I can see bad ideas when they present themselves. The Patriot Act has the potential to turn anyone the government feels like watching into a terrorist, whether they've actually done anything or not. That doesn't mean anyone actually DOES that, but the potential exists. I think that's where most of the outrage exists. That and all the general dislike of anything George W Bush thinks is a good idea.
You know what happens when prosecutors and law enforcement break the rules and abuse power? That's right, kids... nothing.
There are innocent people in jail. Innocent people have been sentenced to death in America. When a district discovers an error, or DNA evidence becomes available that wasn't previously, and clears a person who has been rotting in jail for ten years, mostly there is no follow-up... innocent man goes free, end of story. No bloody lawsuit. No prosecutor disbarred for grievious abuses of presecutorial discretion (which, btw, is absolute). No shit.
Our legal system is supposedly based on "Innocent until proven guilty," but there is no "innocent." The best you can do is "not guilty," which isn't the same. And a problem exists in that being accused is the same as being guilty... because prosecutors don't make mistakes.
scary stuff
The Admin and the Engineer
If you aren't doing anything wrong whats the big deal?
I also realize that it is a little scary knowing that these guys can abuse their power. I have enough faith in my governemnt to say "Outta sight, outta mind." It kind of makes me wonder what all these people who feel their rights have been violated are hiding.
We need the left to keep the right in check, but we also need the right to keep the left in check. So, hopefully one day it will all even out. (yea, maybe that has nothing to do with this)
Give an example of how you are being restricted in exercising ANY civil right since these policies were put into place.
Free-Speech Zone - The administration quarantines dissent
You might not realise it, but you're living in a fascist country. To quote Mussolini (!):
"If classical liberalism spells individualism, Fascism spells government."
it's in my head
Yes!! That is exactly the problem!
See, we have SO may people creating the regulations, and each one can only add little pieces to the entire project. So imagine having a thousand people creating the parts to an airplane, and they all have their own ideas as to how the final plane will look/operate/etc. When they get together to put that plane together, do you really think it is going to be a streamlined, efficient, or cohesive product?
To make matters worse, you can't create the plane (or process) in one go either. It must be done over time, then tested, then changed, voted on, etc etc (remember that phrase in HHGTTG about the Vogons saving their own grandmothers?). Man, this is exactly the problem!
How to fix? Well, first is to recognize that this is the truth as to how legislation and processes are created or changed. Don't blame the current administration for a screwed up process that we ourselves haven't taken steps to improve over the many years it took to create. Also, don't blame the few people in the current administration when there are hundreds of others who helped create or modify the proposed legislation.
These are only a subset of cases that the FBI decided to refer to the Intelligence Oversight Board, which is again a subset of the total number of investigations.
Why is the FBI investigating abuses of power by the FBI?
How naive. Many whites weren't adversely affected by racial segregation 40 or 50 years ago. Though obviously that doesn't mean nobody was. Just because it doesn't affect you personally doesn't mean nothing's changed.
How in the fucking world am I going to successfully enslave the population of this country when I have to compete against the US Government? It's time for the government to butt out of my business.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
The Congress doesn't have a latin motto over the door or anything like that. But maybe now with the Patriot Act they should have one. I suggest "Inter arma enim silent leges".
I agree, the vast majority of people in the FBI, and all government agencies, are good people. But, all it takes is one bad guy. Look at John Connolly, H. Paul Rico, John Conditt, Robert Hanssen... FBI agents are still human beings, they're just as capable of corruption, or even simple mistakes, as anyone. This is why our government needs checks and balances. Every law enforcement agency needs to have some transparency and judicial oversight, they can't just go running around, doing whatever they want, spying on whoever they want, while only being accountable to themselves. We don't want to return to the bad old days of J. Edgar Hoover, the bad old days of Joseph McCarthy, or the bad old days of Nixon using the FBI and CIA as political tools.
As long as we have independent forums for discussion by individuals (electronic and otherwise) then people will be watching the government and discussing every minute detail of their actions. Throughout human history power has been abused and throughout human history the abusers have ultimately been bitchslapped to the dung heap of history be replaced by a slightly improved abuser who is in line for another bitchslap. That's why they call it a revolution. Power corrupts, people get pissed, corrupted get spanked, and the world keeps on spinning.
I support the Bush administration. They can't run the country but they're shortening the time it'll take before the whole regime gets an overhaul. And keep on whining people, the whiners of today become the dissenters of tomorrow.
Perhaps I'm a bit biased because I so often see the negative side of law enforcement, but it shouldn't be a surprise to any member of any minority community that this is going on.
Cointelpro actually used illegal means against the 60s and 70s radicals. It's amazing that the current FBI waited for new powers to be legally authorized.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
No, but posting informative comments peppered with sarcasm might. For instance, did you know a law can be created without discussion these days in America? I certainly didn't. The Family Entertainment and Copyright Act (FECA) has been amended, without published notice of proposed amendments, under the authority of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. If anyone can navigate that maze of spagetti code to see how these new amendments apply, I'm sure you'll find sharing BMG's latest offerings an offense punishable by death. What next? Taxation without representation?
Yeah? How the hell are we supposed to prove it? So many of the damn details are under wraps! Asking someone to prove something that they're prevented from proving because of the very thing they're claiming is intellectually dishonest.
It is completely natural to be suspecious of something done in secret, and the more power being wielded behind that curtain, the more natural it is. In fact, it is healthy to be suspecious of this.
And even if all the spooks involved have been perfect saints, the fact of the matter is, powers such as these get abused, sooner or later. It's only a matter of time.
...crtitic, and sorta like basher. Well...
I can't.
I can't handle jokes about this anymore. I'm not living in US, nor even was fan of this country (however, lot of people are smart, clever, etc. up there). I just wonder isn't US a big example of that, when you just start to ignore (for sake of better life, working long hours to achieve somethingt) what in your country all four powers do. Yet, in some time, lot of guys just bet high-profit game (like creating war or conflict, nothing hard, I would say) and get billions.
Problems is here not only with US, but with capitalism in whole. Capitalism in theory is good and I really don't wanna wave communism or socialism flag. However, in reality, both capitalism and communism is so much abused systems that I see that they simply won't work in future. There will be always some Enron, there will be some weapon guys who would like to create conflict, instead to solve one.
What to do? Get these guys to court? Don't make me laugh. They work in envorement out of laws reachability. Get them shot? Would work for some people, and not for all, and who will be this who will judge them?
What we have in creation here is simply modern feodalism. In fact, it never got away, just it was adjusted for new situation. However, there is problem that in feodalism there was some kind code of justice. I guess nothing of that exists today. It is just brutal anarchy.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
You still haven't proven WHAT, if anything, HAS changed.
Have any of your constitutional rights been removed?
Have your personal civil liberties been infringed or removed?
Has this administration had ANY affect on your ability, as a law-abiding citizen, to operate or live as you see fit?
I would venture the answer to all the above is NO. If you can prove otherwise, post some actual examples. The rest of us would love to hear what we don't seem to be missing...
And by the way, having protesters in a different area from an event is NOT new. Can you imagine Satanists being allowed inside a Baptist convention? Just an example.
"The fact of the matter is that these measures have not removed or degraded ANY civil liberties in this country. If you think otherwise, PROVE IT! Give an example of how you are being restricted in exercising ANY civil right since these policies were put into place."
It's called FEAR, and it affects the excersize of people's rights in a very real way. People are less likely to speak up, or even go to the library to get information about their own government if they believe that the government will abuse its authority to monitor such activities. You don't have to change laws to take away peoples rights, you can just make them too afraid to use them. The FEAR that these laws, and the apparent abuses stemming from these laws cause is a DIRECT DEGRADATION of our civil rights.
By the way, the president now has the right to secretly arrest you, without trial or cause recourse or oversight, fly you to a foreign country to be tortured by contractors, in secret, until such time as you die. You don't have any rights anymore.
"Significant FBI Abuses of the Patriot Act"
If the FBI did something illegal or contrary to DoJ guidelines then this has *nothing* to do with the PATRIOT act! It's simply illegal or improper action.
These actions say nothing about the PATRIOT act itself, because the FBI officers were acting outside that act!
You may as well retitle this posting to "Significant FBI Abuses of the Taxation Act", because that's just as accurate.
This doesn't really give us anything to compare it to. How many cases of misconduct were there each year before the PATRIOT act? How many agents are there? How many investigations were there with no misconduct?
The example given talks about an FBI investigation into a US citizen and that the investigating agent was months late on filing the 90-day and the 1-year report. Regardless of the severity of this misconduct, I'm not sure I see what this has to do with the PATRIOT Act. If the agent was forced to get a warrant prior to the investigation, it doesn't mean that agent would have necessarily complied with all of the follow-up paperwork.
I just find it hard to get up in arms over what little information was presented. Or maybe I'm just missing the point.
I read over the article, as if there would be some deep secrets unveiled. Talk about a disappointment.
Here is a sample from it
Some of the case details provide a rare peek into the world of FBI counterintelligence. In 2002, for example, the Pittsburgh field office opened a preliminary inquiry on a person to "determine his/her suitability as an asset for foreign counterintelligence matters" -- in other words, to become an informant. The violation occurred when the agent failed to extend the inquiry while maintaining contact with the potential asset, the documents show.
Translation: The FBI started an investigation into a potential informant. They started to use the informant while the investigation was not completed. OMG!!!!!!! The sky is falling!
More juicy was the details that much of it were mere "technical violations". So someone did what they were authorized to do, but neglected on little tidbit.
I am skeptical of EPIC. This is one of the many organizations that has gone out of their way to oppose a national ID card system and scared people with propaganda.
If we had a federated national ID card system with biometric identifiers, could that better alert our govt about criminals, terrorists, illegal aliens, etc? What about the billions of dollars in fraud happening each year? I think so. Isn't our drivers licenses/SSN/*extensive_patchwork_of_ID_sources/ our de facto ID card these days? An ID card that any illegal can get?
Maybe I am off the subject. Maybe not. EPIC scares me more than some FBI guys going overboard. In fact, I think I would like the ideas of FBI agents going overboard in order to accomplish their missions.
"Why suspend the habeas corpus in insurrections and rebellions? The parties who may be arrested may be charged instantly with a well defined crime; of course, the judge will remand them. If the public safety requires that the government should have a man imprisoned on less probable testimony in those than in other emergencies, let him be taken and tried, retaken and retried, while the necessity continues, only giving him redress against the government for damages. Examine the history of England. See how few of the cases of the suspension of the habeas corpus law have been worthy of that suspension. They have been either real treasons, wherein the parties might as well have been charged at once, or sham plots, where it was shameful they should ever have been suspected. Yet for the few cases wherein the suspension of the habeas corpus has done real good, that operation is now become habitual and the minds of the nation almost prepared to live under its constant suspension." --Thomas Jefferson--
"The following [addition to the Bill of Rights] would have pleased me:...No person shall be held in confinement more than __ days after he shall have demanded and been refused a writ of habeas corpus by the judge appointed by law, nor more than __ days after such a writ shall have been served on the person holding him in confinement, and no order given on due examination for his remandment or discharge, nor more than __ hours in any place of a greater distance than __ miles from the usual residence of some judge authorized to issue the writ of habeas corpus; nor shall that writ be suspended for any term exceeding one year, nor in any place more than __ miles distant from the station or encampment of enemies or of insurgents." --Thomas Jefferson--
"Our [legislators should not] be deluded by the integrity of their own purposes and conclude that... unlimited powers will never be abused because themselves are not disposed to abuse them. They should look forward to a time, and that not a distant one, when corruption in this as in the country from which we derive our origin will have seized the heads of government and be spread by them through the body of the people; when they will purchase the voices of the people and make them pay the price. Human nature is the same on each side of the Atlantic, and will be alike influenced by the same causes." --Thomas Jefferson--
"By a declaration of rights, I mean one which shall stipulate freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of commerce against monopolies, trial by juries in all cases, no suspensions of the habeas corpus, no standing armies. These are fetters against doing evil which no honest government should decline." --Thomas Jefferson--
Ah yes, but if the less corrupt bastard wins, then next time an even less corrupt bastard will run, since obviously the less corrupt you are the more likely you are to win. Naturally, the time after that, Mr. L. C. Bastard will be outflanked by a much less corrupt bastard, who will win, because the gosh-darn voters keep preferring the less corrupt candidate, no matter what the other guy promises....and, by and by, you'll have bastards that are as pure as driven snow running for office. Evolution in action!
O' course, if you the predator of politicians don't do your part to cull the herd every four years, then natural selection doesn't work. That was the point, eh?
this brings to mind similar abuses happening recently in the UK - not similar in what the abuses consisted of, but in the way they came about: a government wants more power to control/monitor people and uses fear as a justification; in the UK's case the Prevention of Terrorism bill was introduced on the back of 9/11 and 'intelligence' (or what passes as it, these days) about threats to UK security.
The end result? An old man gets man-handled out of a political conference and arrested under new anti-terrorism laws, all for shouting "rubbish!" at a speaker. Yes, anti-terrorism. A woman is arrested for walking along a cyclepath (see, she should have been cycling, not walking: clearly a potential terrorist threat there). A man is shot dead without warning because he lived in the wrong apartment block (although the government tried its best to make people think he was a terrorist, or failing that, an illegal and therefore unimportant immigrant). And apparently several thousand other similar abuses we don't even hear about. But don't worry about the new laws - they won't be abused, because we're the good guys. Anyone who says otherwise is a liberal cry-baby and probably a terrorist sympathiser (which, by the way, will soon be illegal anyway. really).
The whole gist of government and law making in these countries seems to be changing; where once there was an assumption that fewer laws were better laws, that power should be granted only where specifically needed and only to those who really needed it, now the aim is to have as much unfettered power as possible, with as few safeguards, because it's Us against Them and our (infallible, selfless) governments need more power to protect us. If that means that we're now all suspects, that we can be shot dead just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or arrested and locked up for months without charge just because someone has voiced a suspicion, then so be it - it's for our own good and we should be thankful. Anyone who says otherwise must have an ulterior motive, and is probably a terrorist or a sympathiser anyway.
Like another poster said, power which can be abused is the same as power that will be abused - it's only a matter of time. And at the moment the governments of many countries - the US and the UK especially - are doing their utmost to get as much power as possible, and to remove any safeguards that may be in place (trials? judges? evidence? they only get in the way - we know who's guilty because our intelligence tells us so, anything else just plays into the terrorist's hands).
If i was Bin Laden i'd be pi**ing myself laughing - it's amazing how a couple of planes and a bomb here and there can derail centuries of democracy and accountable government, where dozens of wars, natural disasters, the nuclear threat and the cold war all failed.
Anyone here actually READ these 93 pages of "significant abuses" described in the documents provided by EPIC?? Not one action by the FBI without court order from a Judge. Lots of delinquent internal reports and (apparently) new agents failing to re-report their case status every 90 days. One court authorized search apparently conducted by personnel outside the FBI?, one lawful email interception that went over it's alloted time because the ISP didn't shut it off as scheduled. Help me Oliver Stone fans out there - Can anyone here show me an instance of "significant abuse"??
You think you've got it bad, in the UK we've had hecklers arrested under the terrorism act, its dropped when someone more senior realises whats going on but the absolute fucking cheek of it, how dare a law enforcement officer arrest an 80 year old man 'under suspicion of terrorism' for telling the prime minister he was full of crap, when they know full fucking well that it has nothing to do with terrorism. It makes you speechless that some fucking cunt could do this, abusing a law like that is like police brutality. I want to see people outraged every time this happens but peoples outrage is slowly eroding away. There are police and people in the government who will stick up for us and try and stop this abuse but it seems like they are shrinking. This is the kind of bullshit we said would happen when these laws were created - who was right? If you are ever confronted by police who threaten to arrest you under some terrorism law 'because they can' when that clearly doesn't apply, make sure you take it all the way with complaints and legal action, they need to be fired its as simple as that.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
let's be more generous than yoru source and start with an assumed 200 investigations. Then lets assume there are only 250 million citizens of the U.S.
That means an investigation (not a proven violation, just an investigation) for every 1,250,000 people. Viewed another way that is 0.0000008 % contribution to an investigation per citizen.
How much does that drop when the numbers are changed to reflect the actual population and the number of actual violations? Pffff...
This is miniscule and an incredibly weak attempt at FUD. At least try something plausible next time.
Once you start doing something for good reasons, you'll inveitably end up doing it for bad reasons. Commander Vimes, Thud!
--- Back to the trees, back to the trees !
As William S Burroughs put it:
"Control can never be a means to any practical end... It can never be a means to anything but more control..."
And this is precisely what we are seeing.
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
Sandra really kicked some ass being Miss Congeniality, FBI is super cool. Where do I sign up?
Reading between the lines, I get something like this: "One, or several, agents continued 'surveillance' on female 'suspects' in order to bring inappropriate pressure on them to ... any guesses?
"... roughed-up and beat up uncooperative subjects, who were then warned to keep their mouths shut or 'face the consequences', after which the case file was edited ..."
Of course, I have the advantage of knowing many bad cops.
Yeah...there's this thing called society. Laws are made to keep society a pleasant place to live. Cracking down on terrorists and drug dealers keeps us all safe, if you like it or not.
At the same time, the House should be strengthened...
Hmm, I'm having a hard time following this...let's see, the answer to government's abuse of its power is to increase the power of government...um...drat...
[scratches head]
No,wait...now I get it! You mean we should increase the power of good government and decrease the power of bad. Of course! Why didn't I think of that? Now, all we need to do is sit down and write this nifty idea into law. A Constitutional amendment along the following lines ought to do the trick:
No part of government that is Bad shall have any power over the people of these here United States. On the contrary, all power shall reside strictly with the part of government which is Good.
Problem solved! But I wonder why Madison didn't think to write this into the Constitution itself? Maybe he was drunk?
Christ, we'd better get this problem under control, then, no? I say we need someone strong and powerful to put an end to the abuse of power by strong and powerful people.
Yeah, and one of the principles of our society is that there are some things more important than security.
You won't get me distracted by just "abuses". My position will still be that whole piece of crap has to be revoked.
Here's one: "Power attracts the corruptible," wrote Frank Herbert, author of the science fiction series Dune. "Suspect all who seek it. We should grant power over our affairs only to those who are reluctant to wield it, and only then under conditions that increase the reluctance.""
Beating up people in little rooms, if you do it for a good reason you do it for a bad one.
"If you don't like our country, why don't you get out?"
"What, and become a victim of your foreign policy?"
I'm not from the US, so I may be ill-informed. It does seem that there are issues with travelling in the US, Even if you're american. Additionally, there are some (admittedly crack-pot looking) sites keeping a a list of government endorsed breaches of the first amendment.
Then of course, there's what appears to be the FBI acting as thought police.
That this information gets released AFTER the act is extended.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
So I took what may be considered the coward's way out (and if you call it that, I won't disagree) and simply left the country. Now I am living in a place where I have absolutely no voice at all. On the plus side, I am living under one of the most peaceful governments in the world (at least until they try to remove the war-renouncing ammendment from their constitution). But on the negative side, there is nothing I can do to fight their corruption except voice my concerns to those who can vote.
But for those of you who are still in the US fighting it out, it is not only your right, but your DUTY to vote for who you think is RIGHT, not for who you think is the lesser of two evils. If the person you want to see as president is not running, write them in! Get your like-minded friends to do so. Start a grass-roots campaign.
Worst case? (and probably what will happen) Nothing changes, but at least you have the clear conscience of voting your heart. 2nd Best case? The person you wanted to run takes notice that he/she has support and actually runs next time around. Meanwhile, assuming he/she is already some sort of representative, that person will feel he/she has a stronger voice in the legislature and hopefully start using it. Best case? Not only does the person you want take notice, but those who are running also take notice and actually realize that people aren't happy and maybe, just maybe (I know...I am WAY out on a limb here) they change their ways and policies to match what people want.
If you start nothing, then nothing will ever change. If you start something, things may not change, but a.) at least you have a clear conscience, and b.) there is at least a chance for change.
I know this doesn't mean much coming from a person who decided to run away from the problem. I also know that it is pretty naive. However, I also know that if people don't even attempt to effect a change, then nothing will ever change.
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
Thanks to various House and Senate elections, there's generally some component of the Federal Government subject to turnover every 2 years.
I know that for a while it LOOKED like only one person ran the country, but I think that's over now. One of our primary defenses against extremism is that continual churn.
The price of eternal vigilance is a newspaper, some paper and a pen, and half an hour of your time per day. Write to your congressperson, senator, the white house, newspapers, anyone. But write.
Abusing the Patriot Act? Sounds more like abusing power... and we've NEVER heard of any police force or government agency abusing power before have we? [/sarcasm]
- clarke.html
There is a distinctive difference between abusing power, and abusing the Enacted Law: Abusing Power is using your resources to do something you shouldn't be, and would never be allowed to do. Abusing the Enacted Law (Let's say the Patriot Act), would be doing something that is approved to do under that Law, but using it to harrass someone you don't like.
I'm no choir boy, but I do like to play devils advocate here... So chew on this thought:
The Patriot Act was renewed again because it helped gather intellegence to stop London Style Bombings here in America, along with some other plotted attacks. Hell, we even have Mr. Clarke (Bush hater himself) stating that the preserves civil liberties: 'I can't find anything wrong with it [the Patriot Act], and if I'd had it prior to 9/11, it would have been a hell of a lot easier to stop 9/11.'
Harvard Gazette Link: http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2004/04.29/03
I think the point that hits ME the most, is that the same people bitching and moaning now, would be the EXACT same people bitching and moaning that we didn't do enough. Were you one of those Koolaid drinkers that said Bush didn't do enough to stop the attacks? What about Clinton? Did he do enough? Can we say Able Danger? (Don't know? Look it up...)
You can't have it both ways folks. But you MUST make a choice.
www.slightlycrewed.com - Because aren't we all?
who can acually have that opinion.
A quick Google gives the following translation from Latin...
"In times of war the law falls silent."
- Neil Wehneman
My legal education, in nifty podcast format
No sig for now.
Everybody gets to vote (18 y.o. and up)
Read slashdot at -1 for about a week. If that doesn't open your eyes to the inherent flaws of democracy. . . well I don't know what to say.
Idiots are easily fooled, and idiots make up a significant part of the population. That's the reason assholes like Karl Rove are political power-brokers. . . his shithead tactics work. Hence corruption in the highest seats.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
Let me into your home for a few hours while your at work and I'll find something you'd not like your neighbors to know. If I can't find something, I'll fabricate it. Perhaps, you should start worrying now.
...welcome our new FBI overlords.
an ill wind that blows no good
"Patriot act" indeed.
Which means the law has little to do with this, except that the messups happened to be under surveillance powers granted by PATRIOT. Well, presumably they were, anyway. Considering otherwise intelligent people think PATRIOT is used to keep enemy combatants at Guantanamo, you can never be sure.
is that the presidential order allowing to hide previous presidents info, the Iraqi war, the patriot act, the sibel edmunds gag order, and the white house traitor(s) have had very little scrutiny by our free press.
Back in the 70's (and I would assume before), the press was all over the nixon abuses as well as the abuses of our war. Even in the 80's, the gipper came under much more scrutney for the multitudes of illegal acts being committed by so many in his staff (including himself). And I am quite certain that everybody here remembers the scrutney that Clinton came under. IOW, it was a free press and was not only reporting, but also investigating.
But in the last 5 years, the free press has lost its capacity for not only good reporting, but good investigation. More work like this needs to occur, if for no reason, as to prevent the abuses such as what we are seeing. No doubt we will see more shortly about the white house traitor(s). Hopefully, the supremes will lift the gag order on Sibel Edmunds and we will get a real glimpse of how our goverment operates.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
[This comment was reviewed and removed by the FBI. Don't fuck with us.]
If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear
I agree.
-Uncle Joe Stalin
The senior FBI official said those cases not referred to the oversight board generally involve missed deadlines of 30 days or fewer with no potential infringement of the civil rights of U.S. persons, who are defined as either citizens or legal U.S. resident aliens. I realize that this is trusting the fox to guard the hen house but this article doesn't have evidence of serious infractions. That is not to say that serious infractions arn't occuring or they couldn't occour or, even worse, we have no way of knowing that the occured. All the comments I see about abuse of power and corruption might hold true but the evidence presented in this article does not fundamentally support that arguement.
So are you suggesting that terrorists couldn't be fought if freedom isn't first taken away? Are you suggesting that law enforcement and government agencies shouldn't have to be held to the law as well? That is what I see you implying. If not, then what exactly is your point? Couldn't it be possible that there are bad people besides terrorists and drug dealers, and some of these bad people might actually hold office or law enforcement positions? You can't deny that in other countries there is massive corruption, greed, and violence committed by governments. What makes the US so special? That it's a democracy? Germany was a democracy before the Nazis took over. Again, what is your point?
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
Abuses of power will happen with or without a Patriot Act. If there were no Patriot Act, or 9/11, or fanatical terrorist enemy, there would STILL be abuses by the FBI. What many people are calling abuses are actually mistakes. An agent can make an honest mistake in the performance of a job (just like we all can, right?). This is not an abuse of power, it's just a mistake, and the law provides for remedy for those harmed by improper action. One valid criticism of the Patriot Act is that it makes remedy more difficult. But as this story shows, the information does come to light eventually.
The important thing here is that we offer a fair trial to the accused and punish them harshly if guilty. Accountability is important.
Most people have not mentioned that information about abuses has come to light we hold our government accountable through many means - in this case, the FOIA.
While most slashdotters would love to believe the US = 1933 Germany, it's just not the case.
Good heavens Miss Sakamoto - you're beautiful!
What a typical bunch of whining slashdot liberals. Waaah waaah, my government is evil like all my friends told me so I'll just regurgitate a bunch of lame quotes and say "We told you so".
Grow up.
The US Federal gov't is made up of fellow americans. It is made to govern and protect you, and it has done a fine job so far, hasn't it? You all sit in your comfortable chairs, blathering liberal nonsense about the hand that protects you. The fact that you can make these comments at all is an indicator that the Fed is working. Idiots.
The article doesn't allege family members disappearing. Mostly it accuses the FBI of doing investigations without filing the proper paperwork. In fact most of the time it's stuff for which they had received permission but failed to file the necessary continuing paperwork.
I'm not thrilled about this; having a secret court allowing the FBI secret rights is a step towards a real police state. So the article is extremely troubling, and the allegations need to be investigated.
But nobody has disappeared. Yet. If they have it's not an "abuse of the act", it's an out-and-out coup. And you don't find out about coups via FOIA. This is telling the FBI to get its act together before it decides its capable of worse.
I'm agent Jones of the FBI, and you are all on notice that you will be investigated as potential terrorists. After all, those who aren't with us are against us.
----
Postin' anon - there might be some element of truth to my humor.
I'm not sure what argument I am making here but the whole idea of the Patriot act was that it would be limited to use in going after terrorists. Apparantly, the controls in place depended largely on moral and ethical constraint of the individual exercising the power. That might be enough for me or you, but it's easy to see that it doesn't work for everyone... there are people who simply don't, by our perspective, morals or ethics...let alone a conscience.
Bush is something of an idiot in my opinion if he thinks for even a moment that the intention justifies the means.
" The best of intentions? I hardly agree that the PATRIOT Act was signed into law with the best of intentions."
And once again, we demonstrate that "sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice".
(With apologies to Arthur C. Clarke)
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself
As far as I can tell, Americans, like most people, will eventually get what they deserve*
When their government has become totalitarian, and their court system has removed all individual responsibility; When all personal freedoms have been all but eradicated, perhaps then the Americans will wake up and realize that all the important things that the founding fathers sought to protect have been twisted and corrupted into a yoke with which to enslave the citizens to a life of mere consumerism.
I'll be getting the hell out of here as soon as voter ignorance and apathy have screwed things up enough to make living in the US unbearable - since I don't have a vote to try to change anything myself. Freedom here is flatlining and the people operating the defibrillator aren't paying attention!
* I mean this on a macro scale. Individuals face injustice all the time.
No really? How bad does it need to get before we finally take up arms against our own government? At the very least, we should all band together to do something. What kills me is that our founding fathers had the courage and the ability to revolt against such injustices, but we seem to just roll over and take it.
Do we write letters? Have a march in Washington? Stop paying our telephone bills as a country until this problem is solved (considering that's an area they are tapping)? Or do we really have to get nasty and take up arms and start a revolution where lots of people get killed? I certainly don't want to die or to kill people to maintain freedom in this country, but it seems to me that it's exactly where we are headed.
Now, I don't know what else was attached to the patriot, but... it's a pretty purple law. Democrats and Republicans seemed to vote for it with equal vigor.
i sts/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1& vote=00313
The ONLY senator who didn't vote for it was Senator Feingold (D) from Wisconsin.
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_l
The danger with sarcasm like this, is that it often gets taken at face value, as it did here. I don't have any mod points right now, and anyway there isn't a +1 Sarcastic or +1 Misunderstood. You may take some solace from the fact that it happens to the best of writers, e.g. Ed Zern.
I am not a crackpot.
> If a person is unable to make the right decision when presented with the question, "Should I rob this bank or not?", then how can you even consider that they'd make a good decision when asked, "Which candidate should run the country?"
There are an awful lot of holes in this concept, both because of abusability and because of the fundamental disconnect you're following. Firstly, assuming that someone who robs a bank can't make a good political decision, even twenty years after the crime and ten years after release from jail, does a huge disservice to the idea that someone can reform themselves. After all, when a person gets out of prison, is it not said that he's paid his debt to society? Secondly, what if the decision wasn't so severe as to enter into armed robbery? What if the offense is smoking pot, which some believe shouldn't be a crime? Prohibiting those who think that a given law is unjust from voting on the basis of violating that law is a self-reinforcing method of supressing dissent. Also, it's too easy to abuse the concept of eliminating voters using post-conviction disenfranchisement. For example, simply arrest everyone in a protest that you don't like, and charge them all with minor crimes. At this point you can remove them from the voter pool, effectively crushing opposition. This particular abuse has already happened in real life, so I find it difficult to belive it wouldn't happen again.
> Just assume that all prisoners would vote for the party on the left, if they weren't such psychotic social degenerates incapable of functioning in a civilized society.
This would require me to assume that all prisoners are psychotic social degenerates, and I will not do such a thing. This is just stupid and prejudicial, and it sounds disturbingly similar to arguments presented about why black people shouldn't have been allowed to vote.
Virg
Interested in reading about blowback? There is a book by that title: Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire.
Notes: Excerpts from the book.
There are many books about blowback. That is one of the better ones. There is so much material that no one book even comes close to covering all of it.
Osama bin Laden said he was motivated to strike back at the U.S. when he watched the U.S. government's bombing of Beirut, Lebanon. I didn't even know the U.S. Navy was involved in war in Beirut until some news story reported bin Laden's complaint.
I'm against all violence. Those Americans who believe in violence, however, must realize that people who are attacked may decide to be violent in return.
Thirty years ago, if the U.S. government had prepared for peace as vigorously as it prepared for war, the wars would not have happened, I think.
"You got pecks? I got Tecs!"
It says nothing about the reported violations being in any way linked to the Patriot Act.
I was FOR the Patriot Act! I'm a good Corporate Citizen!
Take them, not me!
TAKE THEM, NOT MEEEEEEEEE..... asdk v v[awweinv ''adv
"If god did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him" --Voltaire
For anyone intrested, here is the PDF file obtained by the EPIC by the FBI.
f oia/iob.pdf
http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/usapatriot/
"The documents suggest that there may be at least thirteen instances"
This doesn't mean that there are thirteen abuses.
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
Hey! Thanks for patronizing me! I really appreciate it.
Perhaps the reason we're paranoid and ungrateful is simple: we've been lied to by what some consider the highest power in our government-- the President. We've been lied to by the last several administrations, really.
The most recent, most aggregious lies were told us to lead us into a war that gained us, the citizens of the United States, nothing. It had nothing to do with protecting us. It had nothing to do with anything that matters to 99% of the population. That other 1%? It gains them profit. And it's killed tens of thousands of people, thank you very much.
So, perhaps it's not easy for us to trust our government right now. When secrecy leads to human rights abuses (Abu Ghraib, Gitmo), war (Iraq), and a steady deterioration of our basic rights, it's hard to fucking take you guys seriously!
I mean, c'mon! If you want to defend the US, cool. That's great. I really do appreciate what hard-working, honest government employees do for us. But if you're going to defend it, by God, you'd better defend the Constitution, and not be pleased when a law is passed that is in direct opposition to the principles on which this country was supposedly founded.
When I joined the Army 20 years ago, I took an oath to defend our country from all enemies, foriegn and domestic. I took that oath seriously; I still do. And when I see enemies of the principles of the Constitution, I get a little upset.
So sue me. Tell me how ungrateful I am. That's fine. I just have 5 words for you:
Fuck you, you hypocritical lout.
I question the basic trustworthiness of our government. That doesn't make me a traitor, or ungrateful, or a bad person. It just means that I've heard enough lies from those who are supposed to be serving us. I've seen enough abuse of power to know that it not only happens, it happens often. And I'm fed up, and pissed off, angry, and kind of hungry.
How about this concept - freedom is the ability for you as an individual to have the means to have a better life by your OWN definition, not to decrease the ability of OTHERS to enjoy their own life.
How about this concept: my idea of a better life is one in which liberty is the driving political principle, and corporations are nothing more than charters granted by the citizens of the US (and may be dissolved when the corporation goes against the greater good), and everyone has food to eat, and the United States doesn't go to fucking war every time some fuckwad President wants to play armies, and those selfsame butt-reaming Presidents who lie to us fucking go to fucking jail for fucking warcrimes.
Geez. Thanks for listening. I'm sorry you had to sit through my therapy session.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Never trust anyone who shouts about "family values" but never says what those values actually are.
Technoli
Your welcome to reply, however make sure it is about an actual abuse of the patriot act and not one you *think* is a violation. Senator Feinstein (D-California, former mayor of San Francisco) found that many supposed violations in fact had nothing to do with the patriot act at all. They used other laws that have been on the books for decades. She couldn't find a single violation and it wasn't due to a lack of effort.
Abuse?!?!!? The Patriot Act effectively suspends democracy. To imply that these FBI agents are operating beyond the "law" shows this articles bias.
The Patriot Act itself is an abuse of the laws that exist to protect THE PEOPLE. You know, Habius Corpus, innocent until... oh forget it.
Technically, the USA is a Fascist state. The Patriot Act is the tip of a legal iceberg that begins in jailing your fellow Americans and ends in the White House torturing foreigners to death.
Don't watch the silly monkey, pay attention to the man behind the curtain!
Here's one: "Power attracts the corruptible," wrote Frank Herbert, author of the science fiction series Dune. "Suspect all who seek it. We should grant power over our affairs only to those who are reluctant to wield it, and only then under conditions that increase the reluctance.""
Me thinks Herbert has read some Plato. That power should be given to those that want it the least was mentioned in "The Republic". Oddly enough to support the idea that philosopher-kings would be better rulers than could be had under a democratic system.
You wouldn't believe how many times I was told I "wasted" my vote, that I should have voted for Gore or Kerry to stop Bush.
The problem is that too many people see it as only a 2-party game. Yes it's zero-sum, but it's multi-polar, not bipolar.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I'd change a few things,
1st - members of the house selected at random, just like jury duty.
The pros - No more election campaigns (i.e. corporate bribes)for congressmen.
A legislative body made up of common men. The diversity of opinions would
be great enough that only the REALLY important issues that pretty much everyone
could agree on would make it through.
2nd either keep the senate as an elected body or repeal the 17th amendment.
This way the corporations would still have someone to buy.
3rd Change the structure of the supreme court. I'd like to see a court made up
of the chief justices of every STATE supreme court. The would give the STATES
back the necessary check on federal power.
4th A balanced budget amendment which says that when any passed budget contains a deficit, the shortfall will be paid by the senators. This would keep the senate at odds with the house.
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
Give government organizations the power to do anything they want basically and they abuse it???? WIERD...
Did anyone here actually read the article? The Patriot Act is mentioned two times in the whole thing, both in the first two or three paragraphs. Most of the cases disclosed appear to be about FISA related violations, not necessarily violations enabled by the Patriot Act. Most are said to be administrative in nature (late renewal filings, late annual reports, etc.). Some minor types of violations, such as getting information after a warrant had expired. Very few major violations (5 year long spying on an individual without proper oversight notification was mentioned in the article). Also in the article is that these relatively few cases were investigated within the justice department and reviewed at both executive and legislative levels and action has been taken as appropriate. More often than not the solution was simply to update the paperwork and berate the people responsible for missing deadlines. In cases where there were material violations the information attained illegally can not be used in any court proceeding and will be destroyed (yeah... I don't believe that either).
... I'll rephrase: the government may very well be running amok, but this article and the documents at the center of it are not indication of problems above and beyond any other area of problems in regard to how government is working or even how law enforcement or the justice department is working.
The point is that there is oversight taking place, both internally through justice department investigation and through legislative review of exiting laws and abuses. Also it isn't at all clear from this article that there were any violations that were enabled by the Patriot Act. Regardless of the law or regulation governing law enforcement there will be violations. The question to be asked is if the frequency of these kinds of problems are greater than violations of other regulations and laws, this acticle doesn't touch on that bit of necessary context. This article is talking about a few hundred investigations over a three year period with 13 looking to be worthy of being called violations. This is not government run amok.
Yeah, Waco and Ruby Ridge come to mind. Ooops sorrry, that was under a Democrat administration, so those don't count. Never mind...
SSShhhh... Don't actually read the article. This is soapbox -I-mean- slashdot - your supposed to fly off the handle after reading the headline. Lets all jump on our 'America is an evil empire' soapbox!
Also, as someone said before, how does this compare to what was happening before the patiot act? (And why is this being omitted??) All these are 'technical' oversights I dont see any trend or 'evil conspircy' afoot. Just isolated simple human mistakes.
Nothing here is 'siginicant'. Just some leftist group trying to create a new media mountain out of a molehill.
The fact that these reports are being 'investigated' tells me that the process is working.
The other side of the story is almost never told. You will almost never hear (either because its un-newsworthy or because it could jeopardize other investigations) about the patriot act doing good things, like catching terrorists before they strike... Who wants to read about that anyway? If in all of 2004 there were only 100 some odd "abuses", I like to call them mistakes, I think thats not a bad record. If this act helps prevent even one case of terrorism, in 2004, then it was worth the 100 + mistakes.
Remember, we had suspicion about something like 9/11 happening but had our hands tide in legal restraints because we couldnt obtain the court orders to track and monitor those guys.
> This isn't an "ad hominem attack". It's a reprise of reality.
/. is pretty much overrun with liberals so anything remotely related to conservatives or Republicans is going to get short shrift. Did you read that article? Much worse things than that happen in local police departments every single week, which have nothing at all to do with the Patriot Act whatsoever.
/. which requires that anything done by a Republican is automatically evil while anything done by a Democrat is automatically a pure as the driven snow.
/. is an amusing site at times, but anyone who comes here for anything serious is an idiot.
No, it's actually a weak ad hominem attack.
> The simple fact is that
Why is that relevant? The FBI utilizing aspects of the USA PATRIOT act in ways that are illegal is relevant. What other police departments do isn't relevant to this article. Mentioning them in this discussion is what is generally called "changing the subject".
> Does that excuse what the FBI did? No, but there's a certain perspective here on
I only half agree with you. Democrats don't get a free ride here either.
> What about that incident in NOLA last week where a 64 year old man was given a brutal beat down by the city's cops? New Orleans is run almost exclusively by Democrats.
You don't use the word "relevant" much, do you? Not only are neither of these sentences relevant to the article, they're not relevant to each other.
> Now which would you prefer? Someone wasting their time reading old emails and then having to destroy them, or you getting hammered so bad that your blood is literally running on the sidewalk?
I'm going to go with the choice that your false dichotomy doesn't present, which is "neither of them". Just because you can point out an incident of abuse of power that's worse than the ones addressed in the article doesn't make the stuff addressed in the article any more acceptable.
> In any of those incidents listed in the article, did anyone lose their life? Did anyone end up in a hospital? Did anyone end up with a broomstick rammed up their spincter? Did anyone end up in prison for 10 years because a cop planted a bag of cocaine in his car?
In "any of those incidents listed in the article", did someone overstep their authority or abuse their position? Well gee, it seems they all qualify for that, which is what the article is about. See, there's that darn "relevant" thing coming up again.
> These are all things done by local police forces prior to, afterwards, and independent of the Patriot Act.
Does that fact that corruption happened before the USA PATRIOT act mean that abuse of that act shouldn't be called to task? Does that fact mean that the USA PATRIOT act cannot be flawed? Didn't think so.
> Let's face facts here.
Knowing this, you came here why? Perhaps you might want to look up "facts" when you're looking up "relevant".
Virg
The cowards who think that our entire world must be changed because a couple fanatics did something fanatical, and that Freedom should be outlawed because it interferes with the safety of the populace deserve every bit of malice they get.
I can't get over how beautifully ironic it is that the terrorists won under the mantle of "The terrorists may have already won!".
It's been a long time.
This could just have easily been expressed "The Washington Post has obtained documents indicating that the FBI aggressively investigates any reports of their agents violating Federal law in pursuit of their duties, maintains extensive records of these investigations, and provides them to the press in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act."
But that wouldn't do.
Wikipedia on Blowback: Blowback is a term used in espionage to describe the unintended consequences of covert operations.
The local police use the patriot act to bust up parties at my local college. The patriot act allows police to enter a closed house without permission.
The irony here is that I registered as a Republican because they were the party of "fiscal responsibility". Ha.
The republican party hasn't been the party of fiscal responsibility since before Reagan. That's in part why some republicans left the republican party and started the Libertarian Party in 1971 when Nixon was pres. unlike Nixon these people believed in small government and liberty.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Wait a minute, let me find my surprised look...it's around here somewhere...oh, here it is. (insert gasp of shock and horror here)
If these are the ones we've discovered, imagine the number that have gone unnoticed.
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
Which is why they allowed it to happen, it was a power play to grab more power. No I don't really believe this but here are some who do. Me, I'm still trying to figure out how burning jet fuel can melt steel.
FalconShould there be a Law?
The point:
1) Of course power corrupts. That is why we need less government in all aspects of life.
2) You guys are so bitchy about public library records (and I stress *public* library), nobody will listen to you chicken littles if something serious comes along. Get some priorities.
It looks to me like all of the so-called significant violations outlined in the article are problems with paperwork.
The key word is "reported". How many more serious violations weren't reported? No, I don't trust government any more than Thomas Jefferson did.
FaclonShould there be a Law?
Ah, Sibel Edmunds. Most people I know haven't even heard of her, never mind know that she was fired for complaints she made about incompetence in the translation unit she worked in. To be fired for pointing out problems then to be slapped with a gag order when she files a lawsuit and having the info "classified" after testifying before congress.
FalconShould there be a Law?
How many people complaining about Bush/Ashcroft/PATRIOT were supporters of Clinton, Reno, the 1994 Crime Bill, and the 1996 Anti-Terrorism Act?
I won't speak for others but I never supported either Clinton and his admin's or Bush and his admin's attempts to pass any of these laws. Quite the opposite I support efforts strike many laws from the law books. As long as I'm not or anyone else isn't harming another then there shouldn't be any law saying what we can or can not do.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Why do you even allow protestors NEAR the Prime Minister?
We are the world's greatest democracy and we can't even LOOK AT the president in a motorcade. Who do you think YOU are?
You better think again about not needing a gun...
This article has numerous references to court cases saying essentially the police do not have any legal obligation to protect you if you call them when you're in trouble. Just look at what happens when law and order break down due to natural catastrophes, and say to yourself "who is going to protect me"? Not the police!
At the time of this posting, there are ~1200 posts about CmdrTaco not being able to use CmdrTaco in WoW. There are ~500 posts for this story.
That alone speaks volumes about how (we) Americans view this issue.
That was before they became one...
You admit that gun restrictions don't change crime rates, yet still claim that guns are a menace. It seems to me that you're basing your argumentation on an axiom that you can't let go of.
Now, personally, I'm not terribly concerned with self defense. If my home is ever invaded by a gun wielding maniac, my opinion may change if I survive, but chances are, I won't, even if I kept a loaded weapon in the house. But I can hardly fault anyone for wanting to protect him/herself.
But that's not the point of gun ownership in the United States. The point of gun ownership is simply to keep the government in line. You argue gun ownership no longer serves that purpose. Surely, our armed forces carry much more powerful weapons than a citizen could sanely be allowed to own. However, it does not logically follow that this inequity of firepower means the citizens are made completely powerless. Indeed, there are far more citizens than there are soldiers, and numbers play an important role in war, epsecially in a conflict on own's own land.
It is such an alien, amazing, surreal thing to entertain the thought of trying to asassinate members of government with firearms as a means to make the world a better place.
It is alien, amazing and surreal, only because you have never faced such circumstances. Your perception of normal is in stark contrast to much of human history. In fact, fuck history, it's in stark contrast to the present in much of the world.
If it ever got so bad that this was necessary, you're going to need more of a plan than just buying big guns.
Quite right. But guerilla warfare is hardly a foreign concept to a significant number of people alive today. In fact, this whole discussion seems rather ridiculous with the backdrop of guerilla warfare going on around the world right now.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Indeed. They may have died, but that doesn't mean it was completely in vain.
And that's the point, really, one that almost noone gets. The 2nd ammendment isn't simply about preserving one's own life and liberty; it is much more far reaching than such pettiness. It's about preserving society from the corruption that comes from within. It is *understood* that those brave enough to take up the arms that the constitution guarantees them the right to posess, will likely die. They will die, and if the cancer has been allowed to grow long enough, many, many people will die. But maybe, just maybe, if enough people are willing to pay the ultimate price, the peoples' freedom will survive.
And around and 'round again... People get freedom. People lose freedom. Lots of fucking people die. And then, maybe, those that come later will have freedom again.
The 2nd ammendment is designed to make the freedom half of the cycle longer lasting, and the loss of freedom and death more brief.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
I am generally inclined to agree with your comments about "people with inadequate training and lax handling..." and I would agree that there are some fundamental problems in the way that firearms allow any idiot to randomly kill people. However, my question for you has to do with your third line.
You mention that "[you] don't have even a fraction of the gun deaths per capita that [Americans] do." Do you know how many deaths there are, per capita? I haven't looked, but I'm curious. I will agree that a knife wound or blunt trauma is generally easier to heal than a gunshot wound, but they can be lethal, or cause serious complications.
My point here is, of course, that just because fewer guns were involved doesn't mean fewer crimes were committed.
Please tell us morons here in the US where this perfect country is? We keep hearing about how fucked up our country is by everyone living in places that have no problems what so ever. I would really appreciate hearing about these countries along with the name of such places. Maybe you could help us imigrate there also. Can we get free health care and free drugs there? Can we start and run a profitable business there of our choosing? Will we have more freedom than we have here in the US? Oh yes thats right, of course, because your country is perfect. Please tell us where you live!
The difference between protesters being forced to other areas is that those protestors pay the salaries of and vote for those they're protesting. Remember, these people are supposed to be our representatives. If they're not doing a good job representing us, we sure as hell have a righ to protest. Certainly no Satanist pays any Baptist preacher's salary. It's an entirely different issue.
In either case, I don't have to prove the grandparent right to show that your logic is flawed, as it is and was. Maybe nobody's civil liberties are being taken away, but the fact that you don't see a change isn't sufficient to show that.
Also, imagine there was a law that allowed for police to arrest you because they didn't like you. Imagine also that, although the law had been in effect for 10 years, there were no cases of it actually happening. That doesn't make the law ok, and we have still lost some rights. Though by your logic, since nobody has been affected by it, we haven't lost any rights.
Hate to break it to ya... even if you are a billionaire, it won't do much good against the current establishment of Demirubs and Republicrats. Look at Ross Perot; a Texas billionaire and was not able to get a signifigant amount of the votes. He did change the climate of discussion during the election in which he ran from emotional soundbytes to facts and figures. Unfortunately even with all of his money and power, it didn't do much to change things.
I think we need more parties that are decent size. If the Christians formed a party, the Libertarians and the Constitution party merged and increased their size, if the Green Party began to pull from the Democrats, etc etc and these parties began to actually detract from the establishment, we would start to see a change. Forget running for president - these parties would need to start in the local and federal legislature. All they need is 1/3rd of the bodies in some places, and then the other two parties would HAVE to play ball with them in order to pass any legislation.
Libertas in infinitum
SUVs are a hell of a lot more popular in the US than guns are, and I'm willing to bet that they cause orders of magnitude more deaths. I also think that, like guns, most people who have them do not actually have a need for anything that dangerous to those who use them, the public at large, and -- unlike guns -- the environment.
I have lived in a home with multiple firearms and I live in a state with concealed-carry law, yet I have absolutely never had any fear about being shot (accidentally or otherwise). Since I live in a good neighborhood I have never seen a gun fired in anger. However I am frequently afraid whenever I see a 4-ton SUV being piloted by some idiot holding a phone up to their head, and this happens regardless of what neighborhood I'm in.
How come all those people who want to ban guns aren't spending their resources on a much more deadly and popular threat -- SUVs?
dom
...why not abolish the corporation as a legal construct? Why should those who run a business not be responsible for what it does, like everyone and everything else? Let them get insurance like the rest of us!
(And I urge everyone here to watch The Corporation to see why corporations are Bad(tm).)
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
Dear me, you sound quite angry. I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings. Perhaps I should have expressed myself less sardonically. I just assumed from the aggressive take-no-prisoners style of your own comments that you wouldn't be upset by a fairly robust style of disagreement. Please accept my apologies for clearly misunderstanding the sort of argument you're willing to entertain.
Of course I won't "mark" you as a "foe." Indeed, I've never "marked" anyone as such and can't really see beginning. I feel a bit old to be keeping a "big meanies" and "bestest friends ever" list.
When will people learn that governments are supposed to run on default deny, not default permit!?
I'm an American. I vote. What else, specifically, should I be doing?
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
I sympathize with your apathy regarding the worth of your vote in federal elections, however the important thing to remember each november is that there are a LOT of races being decided on that ticket - Not just House/Senate/President. If you are dissatisfied with the Blue/Red dichotomy don't despair, instead vote for 3rd parties at a local level. These elections for treasurer, sherrif, secretary etc, are sometimes decided by just a few votes, because they go un-noticed. Once in the machine these people can start making 3rd party canidates seem more viable and serious. I really doubt a 3rd party canidate will ever become president. The system is just set up to prevent it. However a successful "Massive Political Movement" will not start at the top, it will start at the bottom, utherwise it is just so much media Sound and Fury. Elect enough minor judges, tax commisioners, and other "small offices" and you start building a lasting foundation for your pyramid rather than an unsupported tower. Eventually you you build a party that isn't a "3rd party" but "a party" and then can play ball with the big fish.
At the federal level? Bite the bullet and vote to minimize the damage done in the meantime. Register as a member of the party you oppose and vote down the most objectionable canidates in the primaries. Give money to your favorite PACs.
I got zip googling for "World Trade Center firetrap". Changing it to "'World Trade Center' firetrap" I got one from IMDB, their page about Dean Cain. Ah, I got a bunch when I mootered "'World Trade Center' firetrap". Looking at the first 10 results, only one said it was one without any data supporting the claim. Most results were about other buildings being firetraps and one was about a floating boat that was one.
What melted the steel was the burning of the office furniture, paper, etc., and this didn't require jet fuel.
Office furniture doesn't burn hot enough to melt steel, also the smoke from such a fire would be black and not the white that was seen. Steel often melts at around 1370 degrees C (2500F). Yet in the WTC there were temperature in a few hot spots greater than 800F in these hot spots (some over 1300F). Even using the 1300F temperature, that's still below 2500F. That's a big difference between what the temperature in the WTC was and the melting point of steel.
Falcon
Darn, the entities for degree aren't working.Should there be a Law?
>
>Spoken like someone who has never voted before themselves.
Spoken like someone who's just received a solid hit to a sensitive nerve.
> Maybe wherever you are it's normal to hear mortar fire at night and
> have a differnt President get overthrown every nine months, or have
> friends die fighting the police
Would you mind explaining how you got from "did you vote?" to a coup d'etat?
Your response to the poster's quite reasonable questions is, sadly, all too typical of discourse in America today: everything is blown to a ridiculous extreme, and middle ground or compromise be damned.
You want to know why the political landscape is in such terrible trouble here? Look in the mirror - if a man can't ask a simple question about political participation without someone ranting about mortar fire in the streets, how are the real questions like redistricting, safety vs. checks-and-balances, and budget balancing going to even be addressed in a sensible manner?
You want better government? Get off your ass! Don't fly off the handle into kneejerk ranting every time you disagree with something, and don't accept that response from others, especially your representatives. Educate yourself about the issues, and what your representatives are doing about them. Educate your friends and assosciates. Write dead-tree letters to your representatives - real ones, not form letters - and encourage your friends to do the same (each such letter is assumed to stand for 1000 people too lazy to write in; how else do you think tiny special-interest groups get things done?).
You want someone to give you an easy way to do this, and to stop spouting the "every blizzard starts with a single snowflake" you can do it! platitudes?
Tough luck, buddy - they're right. Moaning that you can't change everything is no excuse for not trying to change anything. And, deep down, I bet you know that, and I bet that's why you went off on the parent poster.
News to ya - hiding from the problem only makes you feel worse; it'll only feel better when you start fixing the problem. Even if you fail.
I never made ANY such claims. You, OTOH, keep acting as if you know what is best for everyone, and take a serious condescending tone with anyone who supports the right to posess firearms.
I simply explained our right, and the justification for that right, to own firearms. And, idiotically, you kept blabbering about personal defense, to me, when I specifically stated that that was not an issure I care about one lick.
My "preception of normal" comes from the normal standards of the society I live in. My "perception of normal" is local to where I live. It is correct, and appropriate, for the context in which I currently live. I don't pretend I'm trying to say what's good for you (though my original post should have been worded differently, for sure).
Be that as it may, I submit that you should widen your perceptions and accept the necessities in other parts of the world. If the simple realities of existence in the rest of the world, not all or even most, but large portions, is so "alien" to you, I can only take that as a sign of ignorance. Furthermore, history is rife with violent uprisings that eventually lead to greater freedom, or fought back against encroaching, malicious powers; that you are so sure you are so safe from such necessity is foolish, IMO. But I still would not presume to tell you what's best for you.
And guerilla warfare seems rather ridiculous with the backdrop of non-gun-wielding nations around the world right now.
That is absolutely in defiance of logic. There are guerillas all over the place fighting for the things we take for granted. That's not ridiculous, that's human nature, and for some people, necessary for their very survival.
But guerilla warfare isn't the point, just an example of effective use of common arms for fighting an enemy with far greater military power, which falsifies many of your earlier arguments in the myriad of silly comments you posted.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
For example, what's with this "essentially certain?" That "essentially" is a weasel word if I ever saw one! You're trying to avoid making a commitment, aren't you?
Well, this is not easy to say, but...I've decided we just can't go on like this. I'm not ready for the level of commitment you want. I want to see other foes, you know? It wouldn't be fair to you to not let you know. I'm sorry. It's not you, it's me, OK?
I wish you the best of luck in finding a lifelong foe that is really worthy of you. I'm sure you will. Listen, plenty of foes out there would think themselves the luckiest foe in the world to have you for an enemy. You'll be OK.
I've been modded down more than one for whinging about the Patriot Act and the sweeping police-state type powers that grants to law enforcement. The short version is that if you staying or passed through Las Vegas during their target time frame, you've been investigated by the FBI and the data they harvested about you is being permanently stored and shared with "private sector entities where appropriate".
What kind of data are they harvesting you ask? To quote the Washington Post article, "it does permit investigators to trace revealing paths through the private affairs of a modern digital citizen. The records it yields describe where a person makes and spends money, with whom he lives and lived before, how much he gambles, what he buys online, what he pawns and borrows, where he travels, how he invests, what he searches for and reads on the Web, and who telephones or e-mails him at home and at work."
Who are they collecting data on? Take Las Vegas, NV as an example. Quoting the Post's article again, "The Department of Homeland Security declared an orange alert on Dec. 21 of that year, in part because of intelligence that hinted at a New Year's Eve attack in Las Vegas. The identities of the plotters were unknown. The FBI sent Gurvais Grigg, chief of the bureau's little-known Proactive Data Exploitation Unit, in an audacious effort to assemble a real-time census of every visitor in the nation's most-visited city. An average of about 300,000 tourists a day stayed an average of four days each, presenting Grigg's team with close to a million potential suspects in the ensuing two weeks. An interagency task force began pulling together the 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 the city."
3 cents,
Queen B
HDGary secures my bank