the Nazis won WW2- who knew?
can't believe i was once for this 'Patriot' act- goes to show- never, ever, trust the govt., to either tell the truth or limit their powers. The Nazis won- eventually. Or maybe the omniscient Communists/fascists intenet on eliminating freedom
the 14,000 wiretaps is pretty telling... so is the power of the TSA too- and their justification: terrorists all around us. yeah. the terrorists are our govt depts- Homeland asswholery, ICE (melted ICE, they don't go after 12 million illegals, but go after fake handbags- doesn't that tell ya something)
http://www.alternet.org/world/151468/5_outrageous_examples_of_fbi_intimidation_and_entrapment_/?page=entire
5 Outrageous Examples of FBI Intimidation and Entrapment
In the 10 years since the Sept. 11th attacks, the FBI has expanded its powers, transforming into a massive domestic spying agency.
June 30, 2011 |
In 2010, the FISA court approved all 1,506 requests by the FBI to electronically monitor suspects. They were also generous with granting “national security letters," which allow the FBI to force credit card companies, financial institutions, and internet service providers to give confidential records about customers’ subscriber information, phone number, email addresses and the websites they’ve visited. The FBI got permission to spy on 14,000 people in this way.
Do they really think there are 14,000 terrorists living in the US?
That's just the beginning.
Now, the FBI is claiming the authority to exercise more surveillance powers, which include undocumented database searches, lie detector tests, trash searches, surveillance squads, investigations of public officials, scholars and journalists and rules that would provide more freedom for agents and informants to not disclose participation in organizations that are targets of FBI surveillance.
Here are five cases of FBI abuse that show the FBI deserves more scrutiny, not a free pass to continue fighting the so-called “war on terror.”
1. FBI’s Use of Warrantless GPS Tracking
Given the fact that Americans have a constitutional right to privacy, one might think you have to get a warrant to place a GPS device in a location that can track a suspect 24 hours a day. Yet, in many cases, law enforcement officers are attaching GPS devices without first getting a warrant.
...
The ACLU of Delaware filed a brief at the end of May urging Delaware to uphold its ruling on the case of the drug dealer. The brief asserts, “The Fourth Amendment protects all persons, regardless of their location, from government searches, absent exigent circumstances, unless a court has issued a warrant upon proof of probable cause.” It adds, despite the rise in use of “sophisticated electronics,” the New York Court of Appeals, for example, does not find the public’s “socially reasonable expectation that our communications and transactions will remain to a large extent private” has diminished.
Additionally, the FBI’s use of warrantless GPS tracking is invasive, for the reason outlined by a Washington, DC, federal appeals court:
A person who knows all of another’s travels can deduce whether he is a weekly churchgoer, a heavy drinker, a regular at the gym, an unfaithful husband, an outpatient receiving medical treatment, an associate of particular individuals or political groups — and not just one such fact about a person, but all such facts.
The US Supreme Court agreed on June 27 to hear the case on whether police can attach a GPS tracking devices to a suspect’s vehicle without obtaining a warrant. The court’s decision could have profound implications for US citizens because a majority carry a “tracking device” every day—a cell phone. It could define whether the FBI would be able to circumvent traditional wiretapping guidelines and just use this loophole to tap citizens through their cell phones.
2. FBI Targeting WikiLeaks and Bradley Manning Supporters
David House, co-founder of the Bradley Manning Support Network, has faced harassment since November 2010, when Department of Homeland Security agents detained him at O’Hare International Airport on his return trip from Mexico.
...
In April of this year, House sent a message on Twitter reporting that FBI agents had gone to “interrogate a West Coast friend at his place of work.” He described how his friend, who is not involved in computers or activism, was pressured to sign a non-disclosure agreement and was held for four hours after the interrogation. His friend was released after repeated banging on the interrogation room’s door. He had taken notes during the interrogation on “a scrap of magazine paper during his four-hour detention” but was made to surrender his notes before leaving his detention.
The friend said that the FBI agents wanted to know what he knew about House, his beliefs and his lifestyle. There were no questions about Manning.
...
Appelbaum continues to be detained at US airports. He was detained when returning from a vacation in Iceland on January 10 at the Seattle airport, in a Houston airport when returning from Siberia on April 12 and on June 14, he was subjected to detention without charge when he arrived at the Seattle airport from Iceland.
3. FBI Spied on Children While Using 'Roving Wiretaps,' Intentionally Misled Courts on Freedom of Information Act Requests
The FBI Intelligence Oversight Board (IOB), which is responsible for reviewing the activities of the US intelligence community, found one instance where the FBI spent a week monitoring children. According to the IOB report, a language specialist listening to the wiretap knew the FBI did not have the right target, but continued to listen in to the children for five more days.
...
“The Government argues that there are times when the interests of national security require the Government to mislead the Court. The Court strongly disagrees. The Government’s duty of honesty to the Court can never be excused, no matter what the circumstance. The Court is charged with the humbling task of defending the Constitution and ensuring that the Government does not falsely accuse people, needlessly invade their privacy or wrongfully deprive them of their liberty. The Court simply cannot perform this important task if the Government lies to it. Deception perverts justice. Truth always promotes it.”
Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, containing the roving wiretaps provision was recently extended by Congress, despite a bipartisan alliance that attempted to challenge the extension of expiring provisions with little to no debate.
4. FBI Entrapment of Muslims
...
5. The Criminalization of Travel by the FBI
...
Suppressing the right of American groups to travel is not new to U.S. government policy. In 1992, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) mounted a case on behalf of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), Geo-Vista Global Experiences and Veterans for Peace asserting regulations on group travel to Vietnam and Cambodia were "making it impossible to organize academic study groups, to travel with study groups, to travel with colleagues to assess humanitarian aid and to engage in group fact-finding trips."
Secretary of State James Baker eventually lifted the regulations, making it permissible for groups to travel to the two countries.
Tom Burke is another traveler alleged to have provided “material support to terror.” Burke was at home with his wife and daughter on September 24, 2010 and began to receive phone calls from people in Chicago and Minneapolis informing them the FBI had raided their homes. Burke thought the FBI might be coming to raid his house. He decided his daughter needed to get to kindergarten before the FBI entered his home. He left with his daughter.
Burke thought he needed to write a press release, took his computer and got in his car to go find a web café. On the way he noticed that his car was being followed. He called his wife and they agreed he should drive to the parking garage at her work. As Burke reached the parking garage, the car that had been following him sped off. An SUV sped into the road right behind him and followed him into the garage. Burke was served with a subpoena to appear before a grand jury. His wife was later served with a subpoena too.
"We've been doing solidarity work with people in other countries who get killed for doing what they do,” Burke explains. “When I went to Colombia in 2003 with a labor union delegation, at that time three Colombian trade unionists were being killed every single week. And that was the scariest week of my life." Burke was with the human rights director of the oil workers union. All week he had to have armed security, know who was with the group and whether they were in a safe place.
Months into targeting the activists, there is no evidence that any of these activists provided "material support for terrorism."
Reminiscent of how animal rights and environmental activists have been targeted in recent years, the FBI is going after the activists, wrecking their lives, intimidating Americans who believe in their right to dissent. It is pressing on, widening its investigation despite a growing backlash against the investigation. And some of the activists fear indictments from the investigation may be coming soon.
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the 14,000 wiretaps is pretty telling... so is the power of the TSA too- and their justification: terrorists all around us. yeah. the terrorists are our govt depts- Homeland asswholery, ICE (melted ICE, they don't go after 12 million illegals, but go after fake handbags- doesn't that tell ya something)
http://www.alternet.org/world/151468/5_outrageous_examples_of_fbi_intimidation_and_entrapment_/?page=entire
5 Outrageous Examples of FBI Intimidation and Entrapment
In the 10 years since the Sept. 11th attacks, the FBI has expanded its powers, transforming into a massive domestic spying agency.
June 30, 2011 |
In 2010, the FISA court approved all 1,506 requests by the FBI to electronically monitor suspects. They were also generous with granting “national security letters," which allow the FBI to force credit card companies, financial institutions, and internet service providers to give confidential records about customers’ subscriber information, phone number, email addresses and the websites they’ve visited. The FBI got permission to spy on 14,000 people in this way.
Do they really think there are 14,000 terrorists living in the US?
That's just the beginning.
Now, the FBI is claiming the authority to exercise more surveillance powers, which include undocumented database searches, lie detector tests, trash searches, surveillance squads, investigations of public officials, scholars and journalists and rules that would provide more freedom for agents and informants to not disclose participation in organizations that are targets of FBI surveillance.
Here are five cases of FBI abuse that show the FBI deserves more scrutiny, not a free pass to continue fighting the so-called “war on terror.”
1. FBI’s Use of Warrantless GPS Tracking
Given the fact that Americans have a constitutional right to privacy, one might think you have to get a warrant to place a GPS device in a location that can track a suspect 24 hours a day. Yet, in many cases, law enforcement officers are attaching GPS devices without first getting a warrant.
...
The ACLU of Delaware filed a brief at the end of May urging Delaware to uphold its ruling on the case of the drug dealer. The brief asserts, “The Fourth Amendment protects all persons, regardless of their location, from government searches, absent exigent circumstances, unless a court has issued a warrant upon proof of probable cause.” It adds, despite the rise in use of “sophisticated electronics,” the New York Court of Appeals, for example, does not find the public’s “socially reasonable expectation that our communications and transactions will remain to a large extent private” has diminished.
Additionally, the FBI’s use of warrantless GPS tracking is invasive, for the reason outlined by a Washington, DC, federal appeals court:
A person who knows all of another’s travels can deduce whether he is a weekly churchgoer, a heavy drinker, a regular at the gym, an unfaithful husband, an outpatient receiving medical treatment, an associate of particular individuals or political groups — and not just one such fact about a person, but all such facts.
The US Supreme Court agreed on June 27 to hear the case on whether police can attach a GPS tracking devices to a suspect’s vehicle without obtaining a warrant. The court’s decision could have profound implications for US citizens because a majority carry a “tracking device” every day—a cell phone. It could define whether the FBI would be able to circumvent traditional wiretapping guidelines and just use this loophole to tap citizens through their cell phones.
2. FBI Targeting WikiLeaks and Bradley Manning Supporters
David House, co-founder of the Bradley Manning Support Network, has faced harassment since November 2010, when Department of Homeland Security agents detained him at O’Hare International Airport on his return trip from Mexico.
...
In April of this year, House sent a message on Twitter reporting that FBI agents had gone to “interrogate a West Coast friend at his place of work.” He described how his friend, who is not involved in computers or activism, was pressured to sign a non-disclosure agreement and was held for four hours after the interrogation. His friend was released after repeated banging on the interrogation room’s door. He had taken notes during the interrogation on “a scrap of magazine paper during his four-hour detention” but was made to surrender his notes before leaving his detention.
The friend said that the FBI agents wanted to know what he knew about House, his beliefs and his lifestyle. There were no questions about Manning.
...
Appelbaum continues to be detained at US airports. He was detained when returning from a vacation in Iceland on January 10 at the Seattle airport, in a Houston airport when returning from Siberia on April 12 and on June 14, he was subjected to detention without charge when he arrived at the Seattle airport from Iceland.
3. FBI Spied on Children While Using 'Roving Wiretaps,' Intentionally Misled Courts on Freedom of Information Act Requests
The FBI Intelligence Oversight Board (IOB), which is responsible for reviewing the activities of the US intelligence community, found one instance where the FBI spent a week monitoring children. According to the IOB report, a language specialist listening to the wiretap knew the FBI did not have the right target, but continued to listen in to the children for five more days.
...
“The Government argues that there are times when the interests of national security require the Government to mislead the Court. The Court strongly disagrees. The Government’s duty of honesty to the Court can never be excused, no matter what the circumstance. The Court is charged with the humbling task of defending the Constitution and ensuring that the Government does not falsely accuse people, needlessly invade their privacy or wrongfully deprive them of their liberty. The Court simply cannot perform this important task if the Government lies to it. Deception perverts justice. Truth always promotes it.”
Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, containing the roving wiretaps provision was recently extended by Congress, despite a bipartisan alliance that attempted to challenge the extension of expiring provisions with little to no debate.
4. FBI Entrapment of Muslims
...
5. The Criminalization of Travel by the FBI
...
Suppressing the right of American groups to travel is not new to U.S. government policy. In 1992, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) mounted a case on behalf of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), Geo-Vista Global Experiences and Veterans for Peace asserting regulations on group travel to Vietnam and Cambodia were "making it impossible to organize academic study groups, to travel with study groups, to travel with colleagues to assess humanitarian aid and to engage in group fact-finding trips."
Secretary of State James Baker eventually lifted the regulations, making it permissible for groups to travel to the two countries.
Tom Burke is another traveler alleged to have provided “material support to terror.” Burke was at home with his wife and daughter on September 24, 2010 and began to receive phone calls from people in Chicago and Minneapolis informing them the FBI had raided their homes. Burke thought the FBI might be coming to raid his house. He decided his daughter needed to get to kindergarten before the FBI entered his home. He left with his daughter.
Burke thought he needed to write a press release, took his computer and got in his car to go find a web café. On the way he noticed that his car was being followed. He called his wife and they agreed he should drive to the parking garage at her work. As Burke reached the parking garage, the car that had been following him sped off. An SUV sped into the road right behind him and followed him into the garage. Burke was served with a subpoena to appear before a grand jury. His wife was later served with a subpoena too.
"We've been doing solidarity work with people in other countries who get killed for doing what they do,” Burke explains. “When I went to Colombia in 2003 with a labor union delegation, at that time three Colombian trade unionists were being killed every single week. And that was the scariest week of my life." Burke was with the human rights director of the oil workers union. All week he had to have armed security, know who was with the group and whether they were in a safe place.
Months into targeting the activists, there is no evidence that any of these activists provided "material support for terrorism."
Reminiscent of how animal rights and environmental activists have been targeted in recent years, the FBI is going after the activists, wrecking their lives, intimidating Americans who believe in their right to dissent. It is pressing on, widening its investigation despite a growing backlash against the investigation. And some of the activists fear indictments from the investigation may be coming soon.
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9digg
7Share
[w1]
posted by booknpenlover at 6:58 PM
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