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FBI Widens Use of National Security Letters
An anonymous reader writes "The Washington Post reports that the FBI has drastically increased its use of National Security Letters (NSL), which permit it to collect information without judicial oversight. According to the article, the use of NSLs is up by a factor of 100, and the records are kept forever (in the past they were thrown away if the subject was cleared). Deep in the article, the author reports that NSLs were used to collect 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 [Las Vegas]' for a two week period, in response to a terrorism threat in 2003. Those records, apparently, will be kept forever by the federal government. There's an ombudsman, and a procedure to resolve complaints, but the mere existence of an NSL is secret, so it's not clear how anyone can complain!
Man, I want THAT job.
Person: Are you the ombudsman for National Security Letters?
Me: Yes.
Person: I'd like to complain about the FBI's issuance of one against me. I was cleared and they're now storing all my personal information forever.
Me: Sir, you're not supposed to know about that.
Person: But I...
Me: I'm afraid you're now a threat to National Security.
Person: Wait, what the... No, I'm an innocent man! I'M INNOCENT DAMN-*gunshots* *silence*
Me: I love my job.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Did you guys really vote for all this, um, stuff? Take your country back.
Everybody's a libertarian 'till their neighbour's becomes a crack house.
Well, I would imagine that just by posting to Slashdot you are registered 'for all eternity' in some federal register. So, what's your point?
Same here. In fact, I also canceled a trip to a professional conference in S.F last summer. Didn't feel to be tracked (photograph, fingerprints, ...). Better go to china, you just need a visa.
Million Dollar Screenshot
Only criminals will go to the trouble to avoid being caught in such a web of information collection, leaving innocent private citizens as the only victims in this process.
Like is said for gun control laws, if you outlaw it, only the criminals will have it. This sort of crap will ensure that only criminals are outside of the jurisdiction of legal daily surveilance, thus achieving nothing but ill will and a semi-police state.
If you think this is a troll, try again... When the government invents a reason to spy on you without your permission or that of the courts, they have found a way to be the big brother that we all despise and fear. Never mind tin-foil hats, when they know what you had for breakfast without having to lift a finger, the tin-foil hat does no good.
How long will it be before it is made illegal to thwart such efforts by use of misleading electronic activities, and botnets that spoil the information gathered with false information and misleading information. How long before identity theft is not the real problem, but being accused of anti-american activities is the problem because of clever botnets that have seeded the government databases with information about you and your activities?
Where is the oversight to stop the government from doing that, then arresting you on trumped up charges based on bad information... damn, the US started an entire war on bad information...
FSCK, this is bad!
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
I recall posts from about 7 years ago where our American brethren would profusely claim such laws would (could) never exist in the U.S., and it was kind of comforting to know such a human-rights haven existed (contrast: we don't have a bill of rights in Australia).
But it's frightening how Uncle Sam has managed to sidestep such safeguards in the name of "national security".
I shake my head in disgust when I think of the governments trouncing basic rights to protect us against a threat that claims as many people per decade as cancer does in one day !!
Well, in today's present society the first step would be to automate voting, and get rid of the electorate delegates - that would ensure the majority actually does rule (assuming the techonology is implemented correctly).
Second step would be (this I'm sort of deriving from an article I read) - to send the senators and representatives home, and allow them to use video conferencing instead. I think this would allow more "real" people to eventually get elected - and be *willing* to get elected, since they wouldn't have to move out of their home towns - leaving friends, family, and a sense of what's going on locally in their state behind them.
On certain issues you could also institute country wide referendums. More technical issues would have to be decided by the senate/house - which is why electing competent people would still be important.
Last but not least, it might be a good idea to make being a senator/representative a part time job, and let them keep their day jobs. That would keep them in touch with daily life, and also effectively curb the amount of useless legislation that's passed each year. (Along with mitigating the effects of lobbyists - since they wouldn't fear losing their jobs, they would merely be doing a service for their country.)
Oh, and term limits might also fit into that plan quite well to enforce the idea that "this is not your permanent job".
Not that the scenario will ever happen in my lifetime without a nation-wide catastrophy or revolt, but it doesn't hurt to throw the ideas out there.
I think the submitter missed an important part of the article, which is this quote[ ...In late 2003, the Bush administration reversed a long-standing policy requiring agents to destroy their files on innocent American citizens, companies and residents when investigations closed. Late last month, President Bush signed Executive Order 13388, expanding access to those files for "state, local and tribal" governments and for "appropriate private sector entities," which are not defined. ...]
This lack of respect to privacy is troubling....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi
In the last ten years, traffic has killed about 400.000 Americans. Terrorism has killed less than 4.000. I'm still amazed how the American public is prepared the give up all kinds of civil liberties just to fight the risk that is 100 times smaller, not to mention that the success chances are doubtful. Accepting a small - tiny! - terrorism threat is a small price to pay for a free society.
Well, I've been living in USA since 1999 and over the years I have realized that USA:
- Is not free
- Is not democractic
- Don't have free speech
- Has more criminals than any other country and put a larger percent of it's population behind bars than any other country.
- Has a cruel and barbaric justice system
- Has a completly corrupt and criminal political system
- Has more poverty than any other 1st world country
- Has an increasingly horrible education system
- Have their own world history which differs quite a bit from the history that the rest of the world knows.
- Indoctrinates it's people about the same as old Soviet Union did and about the same as todays North Korea and China.
I cpuld go on and on about these things but I'll stop here. Now I will be labeled as a USA hater, when it is the opposite. I actually love USA enough to care about what it does and how it is conceived around the world. If you hate USA, the current course if fine and you really don't have to say anything, just continue to support it's actions. That is hating USA when you really don't care what the rest of the world thinks.
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
>Did you guys really vote for all this, um, stuff? Take your country back.
Do you really think the average voter has any idea what a national security letter might be and if they did the proper checks and balances such a thing would need. Or if they are even aware of the big privacy debate going on? They don't. During the last election, from what I was told first hand, people voted on:
1. Terrorism: Usually "Bush will teach them 'Rabs" kind of attitude.
2. Gay marriage: This was surprisingly everywhere before the election and no where now. Funny how that works.
3. Abortion: The usual crap here.
4. Vietnam: Kerry's status as a vet opened up the old vietnam wounds.
Only political junkies cared about privacy, civil rights, economic stability, social security, judge appointments, etc.
I don't think most countries are too different, the LCD tend to vote on hot button issues and the educated and elitist classes take on everything else. Asking "Did you people really vote for this stuff" is kinda non-starter. People don't even vote on this stuff, they vote for what they know.
Essentially this is your classic "raise the discourse" argument, but one of the nice things of being at the top of the world as a superpower in about a dozen different ways is that there's little incentive to learn about foreign policy, civil issues, other countries, other systems, etc. As long as there is wealth and safety one can remain fairly ignorant of a lot of things. This eventually does bite one in the ass and will probably coincide with the loss of a superpower status as Europe and Asia keep rising.