National "Security" Letters?
So first up in disturbing news is this little gem:
Concord Monitor Article
Here are the key parts:
"The FBI now issues more than 30,000 national security letters a year, according to government sources, a hundredfold increase over historic norms. The letters are extending the bureau's reach as never before into the telephone calls, correspondence and financial lives of ordinary Americans."
"Issued by FBI field supervisors, national security letters do not need the imprimatur of a prosecutor, grand jury or judge. They receive no review after the fact by the Justice Department or Congress."
"The Bush administration defeated legislation and a lawsuit to require a public accounting, and it has offered no example in which the use of a national security letter disrupted a terrorist plot."
"The burgeoning use of national security letters coincides with an unannounced decision to deposit all the information they yield into government data banks - and to share those records widely, in the federal government and beyond. In late 2003, the Bush administration reversed a long-standing policy requiring agents to destroy files on innocent American citizens, companies and residents when investigations closed. Late last month, President Bush expanded access to those files for "state, local and tribal" governments and for 'appropriate private sector entities.'"
"Former representative Robert Barr Jr. of Georgia, who finds himself allied with the American Civil Liberties Union after a career as prosecutor, CIA analyst and conservative GOP stalwart. 'There's no checks and balances whatever on them. It is simply some bureaucrat's decision that they want information, and they can basically just go and get it.'"
"Because recipients are permanently barred from disclosing the letters, outsiders can make no assessment of their relevance."
"To establish the 'relevance' of the information they seek, agents face a test so basic it is hard to fail."
"Barr, the former congressman, said that 'the abuse is in the power itself.'
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So it's useless, ineffective, intrusive, unnecessary, and an abuse of power. Great.
Welcome to the Police State.
Concord Monitor Article
Here are the key parts:
"The FBI now issues more than 30,000 national security letters a year, according to government sources, a hundredfold increase over historic norms. The letters are extending the bureau's reach as never before into the telephone calls, correspondence and financial lives of ordinary Americans."
"Issued by FBI field supervisors, national security letters do not need the imprimatur of a prosecutor, grand jury or judge. They receive no review after the fact by the Justice Department or Congress."
"The Bush administration defeated legislation and a lawsuit to require a public accounting, and it has offered no example in which the use of a national security letter disrupted a terrorist plot."
"The burgeoning use of national security letters coincides with an unannounced decision to deposit all the information they yield into government data banks - and to share those records widely, in the federal government and beyond. In late 2003, the Bush administration reversed a long-standing policy requiring agents to destroy files on innocent American citizens, companies and residents when investigations closed. Late last month, President Bush expanded access to those files for "state, local and tribal" governments and for 'appropriate private sector entities.'"
"Former representative Robert Barr Jr. of Georgia, who finds himself allied with the American Civil Liberties Union after a career as prosecutor, CIA analyst and conservative GOP stalwart. 'There's no checks and balances whatever on them. It is simply some bureaucrat's decision that they want information, and they can basically just go and get it.'"
"Because recipients are permanently barred from disclosing the letters, outsiders can make no assessment of their relevance."
"To establish the 'relevance' of the information they seek, agents face a test so basic it is hard to fail."
"Barr, the former congressman, said that 'the abuse is in the power itself.'
-------------
So it's useless, ineffective, intrusive, unnecessary, and an abuse of power. Great.
Welcome to the Police State.
posted by CTF Editor at
4:34 AM
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