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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?
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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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
As an Australian, I can say you're right about everything except the guns. If you're a private citizen and have a valid use for a rifle, it's just a matter of paperwork, always has been even before the buyback scheme. Which, by the way, was mostly about removing automatic weapons from the public - fair enough too; I highly doubt there's many legitimate reasons to fire hundreds of rounds per minute (some that were in the business of culling feral stock from helicopter had cause to complain though). Pistols are difficult, because apart from sport there's no practical reason to have one, although IIRC if you're part of a gun club I believe it isn't too much hassel if you use pistols that are kept at the club at all times.
This might appear odd to you, I guess it's a culture difference. You have an absolutely fucking scary culture with guns over there. In Australia, we automatically exclude the possibility of using a gun against a human. Writing "Self-defence" on the application form to obtain a gun license will guarantee you won't get to own one (legally). Unlike Americans, we don't believe guns are useful just because it's a gun. We acknowledge it's a lethal weapon which must be used with care. It is a priveledge, not a right. A liability, a responsibility. We acknowledge that not every random bastard on the street is going to be responsible and rational enough to engage in safe gun ownership. You must have a legitimate reason to own one, this includes agricultural and sporting applications. Letting people own a gun purely because "it's teh c00l" or "self protection" does not benefit society at all.
As for the smh article, the PM does not have absolutel control. Even if his legislation does get through, it is highly vulnerable to a high court challenge. One of the fundamental parts of our constitution is a separation of powers between the executive and judicial arms of the government. His new legislation expects the courts to become "servants to the government" by "assisting where necessary" with speedy issueing of warrants etc. even in cases where suspects may have no actual evidence (in the traditional sense) against them.
This is upsetting a lot of QCs (Queen's Council - top brass barristers) and a couple of state-level governments.
It is unlikely the judicial branch will take this lying down - this won't be the first time the government will be "disappointed" by the courts not doing their bidding.
We haven't heard the end of this: Anti-terror laws: 'unconstitutional' summit
"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--
"If you don't like our country, why don't you get out?"
"What, and become a victim of your foreign policy?"
Pistols are difficult, because apart from sport there's no practical reason to have one
Pistols are designed for shooting people. Sometimes this is necessary.
How can something as fundemental as self defense not be a right? Firearms meerly serve to make this right equal for those with more/less physical strength.
The writers of the constitution didn't put the second ammendment in so we could hunt deer or shoot tin cans. It is so we can protect ourselves from the government and overthrow it if necessary. It is so we can have guns that we can fight a corrupt army lead by a corrupt government.
--- tangent ---
At the time, that meant you could have your flint lock musket and flint lock single shot pistol, and probably better models than the government could afford to supply the army with. Even through the civil war, people could go buy repeating rifles (6-14 rimfire bullets) and six shot black powder revolvers, same thing the infantry had (if they were lucky enough to have repeaters - most had muzzle loading rifles). Sure, they had cannons, and a few breachloading ones at that, but you had a fighting chance.
They didn't forsee one weapon that could kill millions of people at a time. Should I be able to have one? Common sense says no. The Constitution says yes.
The masses are the crack whores of religion.
" 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