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FBI Employees Face Criminal Probe Over Patriot Act
DevanJedi writes "According to an article at Wired.com , several FBI agents are under investigation for illegally acquiring information an American citizens. Overzealous agents used 'misleading emergency letters' obtain phone records of thousands of Americans. This marks the first time government officers have been prosecuted for misuse of the Patriot Act. From the article: 'Unit employees, who are not authorized to request records in investigations, sent form letters to telephone companies to acquire detailed billing information on specific phone numbers by falsely promising that subpoenas were already in the works. According to a third source, FBI officials also said at the meeting that some bureau employees have already been granted immunity from prosecution in the investigation. The third source, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, did not recall, however, that FBI officials described the investigation as "criminal."'"
Immunity is usually granted in exchange for testimony. If they're granting immunity from prosecution to someone who knew about it but did not participate, or small offenders to convict a big offender, I can live with this. They should still be fired, but I'd rather punish the big offenders than every small fish.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Unfortunately, it became legal precedent in the early, formative years of the USA (and probably before) to "undo" the proceedings against a criminal for which the evidence against him was acquired illegally. This is due to a lack of logical understanding and separation of duties. Now we have an entire legal culture built around loopholes and exploitation thereof. Consider a scenario in two different ways:
A murder is discovered, and a suspect is charged. The police illegally search the suspect to find a "smoking gun" piece of evidence. There's no question in anyone's mind that this person is the murderer. The person even admits that they did it.
Scenario #1 - "Reality": The weasel/lawyer defending the suspect gets the case thrown out because the police conducted their search illegally. All evidence against the murderer already presented in this case is considered inadmissable because it may have been affected by the illegal search. The killer goes free.
Scenario #2 - "The Right Way": The "tainted evidence" defense is pure crap and doesn't work. Heck, it's not even attempted. The killer gets what's coming to him. BUT... the police still carried out that illegal search. Bring charges against the officers responsible for the illegal search. Dismiss them (fire them) and fine them, then bar them from ever serving as a police officer ever again. In fact, disallow them from being a security guard, private detective, or even a toll booth operator. They should never be in a position of responsibility for the physical safety or authority to grant access to property in the primary responsibilities of their job ever again. This way, you get a system that properly punishes crime, while deterring counter-criminal-crime in the process.
Bottom line: these FBI agents are criminals and should be prosecuted as such.
Congratulations! You just described The Trial , by Franz Kafka. The story was written in Czechoslovakia, just prior to the rise of Fascism in Europe, but I'm sure that the purest coincidence.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
What I want to know is when do we get to spend $70 million in taxpayer dollars and sick a Ken Starr-like special investigator on the current administration? Somehow 70m spent on finding out if our president lied about spooging on an interns dress seems kinda foolish and contrite compared to the antics of this current crop of criminals.(oops I meant politicians) Although, I wish Bill had thought of executive privilege when it came to his admin being forced to testify. Seems to work well for Bush/Cheney & Co.
I don't doubt someone, somewhere out there knows how the PATRIOT Act has been used to combat terrorism. But that misses the point. The real issue here is one of abuse or, at the very least, risk of abuse.
If we could trust that power wouldn't be abused, we wouldn't have to worry about civil rights. We could allow those entrusted with our welfare complete power, safe in the knowledge that their actions weren't being guided by personal gain or bias. We'd know that they carefully considered their actions before taking them. And we'd be safer for it.
The reality is that people are human - even those who are entrusted with the duty to safeguard us all. As such, they are prone to all the bias and temptations people are always confronted with. Our laws, complete with checks and balances, are there to not only safeguard the population but to give pause to those who are entrusted with authority and take action against those who abuse that authority (or prove to be otherwise unworthy).
In short, the issue with the PATRIOT Act isn't whether it's effective against terrorists. It's a matter of whether it has the right checks-and-balance to ensure that it is both effective as well as resistant to abuse. History is proving abuse is widespread. And critics already point out that much of the power involved in the Act already existed... we've just stripped away the checks that are designed to curtail abuse. Odd, that.