FBI Violated Electronic Communications Privacy Act

An anonymous reader writes to tell us of a report from the Washington Post which alleges that the FBI "illegally collected more than 2,000 US telephone call records between 2002 and 2006 by invoking terrorism emergencies that did not exist or simply persuading phone companies to provide records." The report continues, "E-mails obtained by The Washington Post detail how counterterrorism officials inside FBI headquarters did not follow their own procedures that were put in place to protect civil liberties. The stream of urgent requests for phone records also overwhelmed the FBI communications analysis unit with work that ultimately was not connected to imminent threats. ... FBI officials told The Post that their own review has found that about half of the 4,400 toll records collected in emergency situations or with after-the-fact approvals were done in technical violation of the law. The searches involved only records of calls and not the content of the calls. In some cases, agents broadened their searches to gather numbers two and three degrees of separation from the original request, documents show."

Comments

Better Dead than Red?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

When I went to buy a printer the other day I was confronted with a dizzying array of choices. Do I want a laser printer or inkjet? Do I want one that supports Linux or is Windows-only OK? What is the cost of maintenance after purchase?

Then I remembered I don't have a personal PC to connect it to.

So too, in this case, I have to wonder what the benefit of having "civil liberties" is if the end result is being killed by a terrorist attack. Being alive is a prerequisite to enjoying civil liberties, so being dead means being unable to enjoy them. We should be preserving life now, as the most important first step, and we can focus on preserving our civil liberties later since we'll still be alive to fight for them.

Re:Better Dead than Red?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Yeah, why don't you pass me some of that global warming Kool-aid while you're at it. After all, if we're going to start ignoring things we can't see, we might as well start with greenhouse gases.

I'm sorry I'm not tough enough to hang with an ITG like yourself. Being wary of danger isn't common sense, it's "cowering" now. Ever since Bush's second term I've had trouble keeping up with the changing doublespeak vocabulary.

Re:Duhh...

[Shakrai]

We can't have a ME ME ME ME attitude all the time, and live with one another.

Yes we can. Our country was founded on the principles of liberty and self-determination. You have no right to compel me to purchase health insurance if I decide that I could use the money for something else.

Your examples above are nothing more than irrelevant strawmen that have nothing to do with the issue currently under discussion. They might have been valid if we were talking about a single-payer system -- but that's not what's on the table, is it? Instead we are talking about a system that's going to compel you to do business with private interests, regardless of how you feel about them (what about moral and/or religious objections to the way they do business?) or whether or not you feel you are getting value for your money.

Do you want me to list the ways that such a system violates our Constitution?