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Widespread Spying Preceded '04 GOP Convention
Frosty Piss alerts us to a story in the New York Times reporting on details that are emerging of a far-flung spying operation lasting up to a year leading up to the 2004 Republican National Convention. The New York Police Department mounted a spy campaign reaching well beyond the state of New York. For at least a year before the convention, teams of undercover New York police officers traveled to cities across the US, Canada, and Europe to conduct covert observations of people who planned to protest at the convention. Across the country undercover officers attended meetings of political groups, posing as sympathizers or fellow activists. In at least some cases, intelligence on what appeared to be lawful activity was shared with other police departments. Outlines of the pre-convention operations are emerging from records in federal lawsuits brought over mass arrests during the convention.
When I read that, I couldn't help but feel an overwhelming sense of well, nothing. Our government as a whole has fallen so far it is no longer suprising or even "despicable", it's almost routine, and that is the truly disgusting part.
(a) Ineffectual: writing or congresspersons, letters to the editor, voting.
(b) (Typically) Crazy: armed revolt.
It's like none of us (including me) knows how to navigate the territory between those two extremes. Heck, I don't even know whether or not there is any territory in between.
Is this why we're damned to stand bye, then get over these things and go watch the newest B.S.G episode to forget about the state of the nation? We're just convinced that there's no effective way to deal with these things without resorting to violence, which we're (sensibly) loathe to do?To be fair, how would they know who to stick in the Free Speech Zone if they didn't spy on them, first?
How do you know the "extremists" aren't police plants? Once upon a time, that would have sounded like a paranoid remark, but with this crowd, who knows?
And kids, don't forget, not only should we start planning how to disrupt the 2008 Republican Convention, we should make "plans" even if we have no intention of going. Make those spies earn their pay. Shouldn't be hard to get their attention, if they are willing to infiltrate the Quakers and Billionaires for Bush.
Once the FSB determines who the troublemakers are, the Kremlin orders its loyalists in the city governments to suppress dissent. In fact, on March 24, Russian authorities arrested all the peaceful protestors before they could begin their rally.
Will Washington follow in the footsteps of Moscow and go to the next logical step after spying? I hope that the answer is "no", but I cannot be 100% certain that the answer is "no".
Ok, I did not read the part about NYPD officers posing as sympathizers. That completely blows my argument up. I was under the impression that the officers were silent, uninvolved observers. There's nothing to look at here, carry on.
The sun beams down on a brand new day, No more welfare tax to pay, Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light...
Somehow I find it unlikely that the NYPD is up to date on current law in every jurisdiction where these activities took place. The likelihood of them having violated the legal rights of citizens increased with every new jurisdiction they entered for this conduct.
It should be noted, for example, that California's Constitution has an explicit right to Privacy, and the state AG has directed local law enforcement that "it is a mistake of constitutional dimension to gather information for a criminal intelligence file where there is no reasonable suspicion of criminal activity". In other words, what these officers did is blatantly unconstitutional in California, and only questionably unconstitutional in other jurisdictions.
It's okay, I support the right of you to be a fool willing to throw out the rights of anyone other than yourself, as long as they disagree with your politics. Continue to tell yourself that 90% of the world's population and 75% of the American population is wrong about current policy and that you, in your infinite wisdom, are the only one who understand how true peace and order may be brought to the world.
Thank you! If only you'd tell law enforcement agencies that, perhaps more peaceful protests could take place and we could all forget that the phrase "agent provocateur" ever existed!
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
The problem here isn't necessarily what they were monitoring, but why they were monitioring it. As the article repeatedly states, one must have grounds for an inquiry (i.e. possible illegal activity, backed up by either compelling circumstantial evidence or hard empirical evidence) before conducting a covert inquiry. As an example: it would be perfectly legal, in most cases, to begin covert surveillance of a target if the object of the investigation could in some way be demonstrated to be a possible factor involved in illegal activty, such as someone here in TN buying extremely large amounts of, say, nyquil (can be used in making crytsal methamphetamine), so long as the amounts were truly beyond any conceivable norm (compelling circumstantial evidence). While this would by no means be enough for an arrest or conviction, a judge could be convinced to allow wiretapping, diversion of assets towards surveillance, etc. However, one bottle of nyquil would not be enough (one would hope) to get this kind of permission.
In the case reported in the article, the NYPD was effectively conducting surveillance of the one bottle of nyquil people. Simply being involved in a political protest group is by no means indicitive of illegal activity; however, the police apparently deployed assets to groups with apparently peacful intentions, with no cause to suspect illegal activity (one bottle of nyquil.) Now, if the police could show that Group A. had been responsible, say, for severe property damage at the WTO riots in Seatlle, that is compelling circumstantial evidence (did it before, might do it again) that could be used in obtaining permission for covert intelligence gathering (55 gallons of nyquil, so to speak). This does not seem to be the case here, however.
The reason that this distinction is so important is that power does tend to corrupt, not necessarily morally, as the old adage is often taken to be stating, but more often ethically. You're a cop: protect and serve, preserve the peace, and all that. By the very nature of your job, if you're dedicated to it, anyways, you are going to always be pushing as close to the edge as possible. But where exactly is that edge? Where society (in the form of government, an ethical government one would hope) places it. Only when these distinctions are upheld, only when this line is constantly reinforced and restated, does the concept of checks and balances truly work. In this case, the police have overstepped their authority, it seems. Conducting an investigation with no probable cause is no different than pulling random people off of the street and interrogating them for a crime that one has no reason to suspect they comitted. Case in point: guys, how would you feel if everytime a woman was raped in your town, every male was wiretapped, followed, and snooped on? You might say that such a thing would be different, but it's not. After all, you have a penis (these people were involved in protest groups), and almost all women are raped by men (these groups are similar in form to groups that have created disruptions in the past), so all men should be surveilled equally (RTFA).
The argument can go on and on: it is logically sound. However, the thing that is most compelling to me in this instance is it reminds me of the FBI during the Cold War, expecially during the Mcarthy era, and the Vietnam war. Do we not find it disturbing that people like MLK Jr., John Lennon, and the vast majority of the faculties of NE colleges were under surveillance, that dossiers were compiled on their potential "socialist," or "Communist," leanings, due to no more evidence than that they "fit the profile,"? Same thing here. Such policies were the product of Hoover and his protegees at the FBI, which nowadays are
Mod Points: Helping you keep your opinion to yourself.
That has almost nothing to do with the chilling effects of spying on legitimate political groups.
Tangentially, you're making all sorts of errors in generalizing from the behavior of the most visible protesters. I originally responded to a comment about "destructive assholes", and was pointing out that not all protesters, or political groups, fall into that category. If you conflate the two, you're helping us as a society go down the road I'm warning about, because it makes it all too easy to legitimize excessive investigative tactics.
And if that's all they did, there wouldn't be an issue. However, a point which the NYT article raises is that NYPD's collection and sharing of information went beyond this. I'm saying that this is something to be wary of, that it can very easily get out of hand. Simply saying "Yay NYPD" as the comment I responded to essentially did, is missing the point.
I agree completely, and not because I want to. For too long I considered myself a patriot, proud to be an American and proud of the tradition laid down by our founders. I believed we had created the greatest nation on earth, and I do still believe that for awhile, that was true.
And yet.. at some point, I saw too much, and the scales were removed from my eyes and I saw before me a nation of horror, and no matter how hard I try I cannot put that genie back in the bottle.
I know, as does anyone who spends more than 5 minutes thinking about this, where all of this is going..
How all of this will end...
In fire.
There is only one end to what we have built. And brother, it ain't pretty.
We are the fire that lights our world.. and we are the fire that consumes it.
problem with what you say is the fact we had this problem over 100 years ago, where the big companies virtually owned congress, the govt allowed abuses of the people, there were few to no labor rights, and children worked at slave wages. If you got hurt on the job, you were fired and kicked out of your company owned home and left to die out on the streets. If you were a woman who worked at a sewing company, you were eventually fired or forced to have your clitoris removed in some circumstances for fear of masturbation. Thank the inventor of cornflakes (not the frosted ones, that was his brother who went on to make billions and owned a ranch in pomona, california) for that bullshit.
yet somehow, our ancestors made inroads and put an end to all of that.
we're now facing slightly tougher odds, though I can see why some cynicism can be had here, it's because people are more well off and more apathetic. Especially generation Y. However, look at what happened in nazi germany, people were happy in the first few years because they had everything and everything was stable and good, then someone got power hungry. When people started losing everything, they started wanting their great leader dead and were happy when we invaded, only ones not happy were the facists who were pretty much in for a hardcore assraping.
Yeah I agree it isnt going to be pretty, and it isnt going to happen overnight, but by no means, I dont think this country is going to meet its end. we may lose some states at the worst.
It's more than that.
l /dp/1583227563/
There is no argument that USAs serve "At the pleasure of The President".
*IF* George Bush had simply asked them to resign, there would be no scandal.
*BUT* George Bush chose to lie about the reasons they were asked to leave, defaming those USAs who in fact had very highly rated performance reviews.
Pay attention to this simple fact:
It's not the action, it's the cover-up.
And the kicker here? NO COVER UP WAS NEEDED. They just did the cover-up move out of habit.
And then Gonzales lied to Congress. And it all fell apart.
Hmmm.. Why is it important for all the USAs to be "Loyal Bushies" to use the criteria Alberto Gonzales office was using according to their emails?
It's the simple fact that the entire administration is vulnerable to charges for violating 18 USC 371.
Let me excerpt a bit of Elizabeth de la Vega's book, from the Model Indictment she drew up. ( She's an ex-United States Attorney, btw. )
From USA v. Bush. http://www.amazon.com/United-States-George-Bush-a
11. Pursuant to the Constitution, their oaths of office, their status as Executive Branch employees, and their presence in the United States, BUSH, CHENEY, RICE, RUMSFELD, and POWELL, and their subordinates and employees, are required to obey Title 18, United States Code, Section 371, which prohibits conspiracies to defraud the United States.
12. As used in Section 371, the term "to defraud the United States" means "to interfere with or obstruct one of its lawful government functions by deceit, craft, trickery, or at least by means that are dishonest." The term also means to "impair, obstruct, or defeat the lawful function of any department of government" by the use of "false or fraudulent pretenses or representations."
13. A "false" or "fraudulent" representation is one that is: (a) made with knowledge that it is untrue; (b) a half-truth; (c) made without a reasonable basis or with reckless indifference as to whether it is, in fact, true or false; or (d) literally true, but intentionally presented in a manner reasonably calculated to deceive a person of ordinary prudence and intelligence. The knowing concealment or omission of information that a reasonable person would consider important in deciding an issue also constitutes fraud.
14. Congress is a "department of the United States" within the meaning of Section 371. In addition, hearings regarding funding for military action and authorization to use military force are "lawful functions" of Congress.
15. Accordingly, the presentation of information to Congress and the general public through deceit, craft, trickery, dishonest means, and fraudulent representations, including lies, half-truths, material omissions, and statements made with reckless indifference to their truth or falsity, while knowing and intending that such fraudulent representations would influence Congress' decisions regarding authorization to use military force and funding for military action, constitutes interfering with, obstructing, impairing, and defeating a lawful government function of a department of the United States within the meaning of Section 371.
It looks like it would take a SINGLE United States Attorney with the guts to do their job, as per their oath, and the ENTIRE administration would be perp-walked at the same time.
Explains why Bush will ultimately give away whatever he's asked. That's a hella big club to hold over his head.
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