The official blog of the Libertarian Party
November 08, 2005
FBI Is Using the Patriot Act to Expand Domestic Surveillance
The FBI has expanded its use of domestic surveillance under the Patriot Act. It uses "national security letters" to look at the records of multiple individuals who may not be suspected terrorists themselves, but who may have had casual contact with a suspected terrorist.
National security letters were originally created in the 1970's for espionage and terrorist investigations, as an exception to consumer privacy laws, according to the Washington Post. It allowed the FBI to secretly examine the customer records of suspected foreign agents. The Patriot Act changed the guidelines for the use of national security letters by permitting clandestine scrutiny of American citizens and visitors who are not alleged to be terrorists or spies, according to the Washington Post.
There is little oversight to the 30,000 national security letters the FBI issues every year. The Justice Department or Congress does not review the letters after they have been issued, according to the Washington Post. The White House only maintains statistics that are only found in classified reports and helped defeat legislation that would have required public accounting.
Two years ago, President Bush ended a policy that required agents to destroy their files on innocent American citizens, companies and residents when investigations closed, according to the Washington Post.
The increasing use of national security letters has raised serious privacy concerns. A federal investigator can ascertain where a person lives, where he/she works, what he/she buys online, where he/she travels, and what he/she does on the Internet, according to the Washington Post.
Jeffrey Breinholt, a Justice Department official, downplayed the potential civil liberties abuse through the use of national security letters, calling them "eccentric." He stated that collecting information on innocent Americans does not harm citizens unless "someone decides to act on the information, put you on a no-fly list or something." He further added it would be a "pretty small chance" that the government would commit a serious error such as mistakenly freezing your assets based only on bank or phone records.
Jameel Jaffer, a staff attorney at the ACLU, believes this increased domestic surveillance will have a "chilling effect" on individuals. He said, "If the government monitors the Web sites that people visit and the books that they read, people will stop visiting disfavored Web sites and stop reading disfavored books. The FBI should not have unchecked authority to keep track of who visits al-Jazeera's Web site or who visits the Web site of the Federalist Society."
Posted by at November 8, 2005 03:45 PM
Reader Comments:
1984 arrives 21 years late.
When 9-11 occured, there were public opinion polls that were taken showing a majority of the American people would gladly give up some of their liberties for the sake of security. I was also surprised to learn back then that not that many people knew about the Bill Of Rights and the whole Constitution, and what this nation had to go through to get them. Now, I believe that the people of the United States are starting to get it now. They are starting to wise up. I believe the blessing of this recognition was the due to the Patriot Act, and its violations to individual liberties.
I firmly believe that one day there will be a gathering of many individuals of a million or more that will call for the repeal of the Patriot Act. I believe that process is well under way right now, and that it will pick up more steam in the future. What a day that will be.
Good article, another Matt. From the end of that article, "We?re talking about Big Brother at its most extreme," says one White House staffer. "We know things about people that their spouses don?t know and, if it becomes politically expedient, we will make sure the rest of the world knows."
Maybe I should stop posting here.
There won't be any mass uprising against the Patriot Act until it starts being used on mainstream people. Even then - just look at the outrages in the War on Drugs - the sheep will assume the victim had it coming.
The worst phrase in the history of language is "Well if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to be worried about."
Everybody has something to hide.
The Patriot Act is our OUR SAFETY . . . right.
I think Benjamin Franklin said it best:
"They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Alex Pugliese said, "I firmly believe that one day there will be a gathering of many individuals of a million or more that will call for the repeal of the Patriot Act. I believe that process is well under way right now, and that it will pick up more steam in the future. What a day that will be."
Sadly, there are probably over a million non-violent offenders ALREADY in jail, due to the unjust war on drugs (which appears to have been the dress rehearsal for PATRIOT ACT enforcement). If having a million people call for the repeal of a law meant anything, the Controlled Substances Act would be history now, just on the strength of the incarcerated (or formerly incarcerated) population, alone.
Demonstrations are all well and good, but these feelings must be turned into votes FOR candidates and ballot propositions that will truly secure and increase our liberty, and AGAINST candidates and measures that will tighten the screws and deprive us of our liberties. The politicians need to be afraid of the electorate, not because we will demonstrate on their doorstep as an angry mob, but because we will fire them if they don't actually live up their promises to preserve, protect, and defend the constitution and ... most importantly ... SECURE OUR LIBERTIES!
Had to deal with the Patriot Act this afternoon. Helping a friend transfer an IRA fund from her ex-husbands name to her own name. She had to provide a ridiculous amount of personal information, which the Merrill Lynch person admitted was required under the Patriot Act or I should say the non-patriotic act.
If you want to irritate the hell out of the FBI and other snoops, obtain and install openPGP or other email encryption software and encourage your friends to do the same, and then use it to exchange emails, whether the email is sensitive or not is immaterial. The point is the FBI can't read it and it will drive them absolutely bonkers.
Actually, on a fully serious note, I would encourage everybody to encrypt anything they send anyway, because its not just the government snooping.
The Libertarian Party is a joke! You talk about being about personal freedom and personal choice. Yet, most take a pro-life position. How in the hell is that not hypocritical? If you deny a women the right to do with her body what she wants, you do not really believe in personal freedom at all. And spare the "fetus" is a living being.
If the Libertarian Party is such a joke then why does 38% of the population share the same view points? While the people who "think" they are republican really aren't. They're just voting for the lesser of two evils.
QUOTE: "Yet, most take a pro-life position."
Most?? Candidate X, it's actually split. Some Libertarians are pro-Choice (like myself), and some are pro-Life. The party doesn't take an official stance on the issue, other than to agree that there should be no government-funded abortions.
Your assumption, that Libertarians are all hypocrits just because (i)some(/i) Libertarians are pro-Life, is very reactionary. Your conclusion, that the Libertarian Party is a joke, is a joke.
Some Libertarians are pro-Choice, and some Libertarians are pro-Life. That's just the way it is.
Alex Peak
President
College Libertarians of Towson
wwwnew.towson.edu/clt
Alex Peak: I think "Candidate X" is a troll. He/she has posted on other threads as well.
I forgot where I read this but apparently the FBI had been using the On-Star passive listening system to ease-drop on conversations. The courts ordered them to stop only because their ease-dropping interfered with the emergency calling function. Once the feds figure out a work around you know that they will be back.
PGP will do you no good. I remember when the guy developed it many years ago. The FBI found out about it and they couldn't crack the code. So they caused a lot of problems for this guy. I can't remember if they locked him up for a while "in custody", but I do know that he was VERY worried about what they were going to do to/with him. He eventually came to a (forced?) settlement that gave them the keys to the back door.
Unfortunately, it didn't get much press or concern... probably because of that argument of 'if you aren't doing anything wrong, then why does it need to be secret'. Also unfortunate is that that logic only flows one direction... the wrong direction.
Yes, there are a lot of things that get developed, inventions and things. If the government do not like it, even with good intentions and of course if they do not get money. They ruin your life with threats, lost of money and whatever.
Alright, clearly they've been doing this stuff for as long as anyone can remember, this is just the first time they've made it known to the public. I'm not all that bothered by it personally, since I'm probably on file anyway given my political leanings (not to be paranoid or anything. That's just what they do.) I think there's a way for us to get around this though. If everyone in the libertarian party would write a letter to a terrorist (just to say hi, nothing sinister or unamerican) and then go to the library and check out "Jihad Made Easy" or some other godless literature, we could water down their domestic watch-list to such a point that it'd be useless. If they want to spy on some of us, let's make them spy on all of us.
Where outside of government are people rewarded for failure? I find it interesting that due to the fact that the government failed to prevent 9/11 from happening, they subsequently gain more power to intrude into persons privacy. If you fail at your job, do they reward you?
Sligtly off topic for just a moment:
Well, the people of San Francisco have proven, once again, they are the biggest morons on the face of the earth. By a vote of 58% to 42% they enacted a total firearms prohibition and confiscation. All firearms and ammunition must be surrendered by April 1st, 2006 and sadly that is not an April's Fool joke. In my humble opinion, all these morons that voted for this should, for their open contempt of the Constitution, and general stupidity, should be permantly stripped of their citizenship and forever barred from jury duty, voting, holding office and all the rest. I would love to charter them all a boat to China, were they can work at Walmart's slave labor camp, in they autocratic hell they all deserve.
Just needed to get that rant out of me, was extremely p*ssed off about that vote. Please don't mind all my wishful thinking. :)
On further consideration, I will amend my comment about "biggest morons on the face of the earth" to cover just that 58% who voted for that travesty. If I were part of the 42%, I would seriously consider moving out of the Bay area. :)
"Well, the people of San Francisco have proven, once again, they are the biggest morons on the face of the earth."
don't be so harsh, they also approved a measure banning military recruiters from government schools. so they're only stupid on SOME issues....
I normally wouldn't be so harsh, but this is an infringement of the most important right of all, the right to keep and bear arms. I do tend to be rather passionate on this particular subject, as my previous message obviously shows. :)
In any event, the NRA has already filed lawsuits against this law. Trouble is, San Francisco falls under the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which is not exactly a friend to the Second Amendment in itself. Given that we can expect hostile responses from the District Court for Central California and from the Ninth Circuit, we will have to try to get an emergency stay against this law from the Circuit Justice, who happens to be Sandra Day O'Connor or Samuel Alito if he is confirmed to the Court in her stead. While I am not the biggest fan of O'Connor, I am fairly confident she would issue an indefinate injunction against the law, until the lawsuit works its way up to the Supreme Court, where I am very confident that the law will be struck down.
Mike: you might get rewarded if you can convince the boss you didn't have the tools for the job.
That's what happened here: the voters' representatives were convinced they needed to "tool up." Re San Francisco - anyone want to make a bet on the direction of the crime rate after 4/1/06?
While you're wailing about San Fran, don't let the less than great state of Texas off the hook. There the good folks 1) Voted to give public money to private rail companies to relocate their lines, and 2) to make gays and lesbians officially third-class citizens. In short, by a vote of 76% to 24%, they decided to formally add bigotry to their constitution. What a bunch of yahoos.
John,
Perhaps some information would ease your mind.
If a government exists to provide for the general welfare and that also includes the right of the people to be secure in their own homes, seems this is a correct issue for government to address.
Condition - Trains hauling hazardous cargo sometimes wreck. San Antonio experianced several last year. The railroads right of way was secured long before the population took up residence, so to avoid great loss of life as the traffic increases, the people approved a plan to move them out of populated areas. (Trains are just not that difficult to wreak) That means buying the existing right of way so they can buy others, and cost reimbursed for moving.
Land next to, future right of way is restricted to avoid a reoccurance of the conflict between residential and industrual use of that land.
Using the democratic process this is a case of the many agreeing to pay to protect the few next to the railroad tracks.
Something wrong with the plan or principals?
from
http://hammeroftruth.com/
2005 Ballot Initiatives: Mixed Bag for Libertarians
Nov 09 2005 at 10:08 am · filed under: Politics, Libertarian, 2005 Elections
Stephen VanDyke — Governing.com has the best roundup of how the ballot measures did. I’ll attempt to dissect how libertarian ideals fared.
In California the Libertarian Party actually posted a handy guideline to the initiatives, here’s the matchup on how things went (results indicate all measures failed):
Prop. 73 (Parental Notification): No position. Result: No
Prop. 74 (Teacher Tenure): Yes. Result: No
Prop. 75 (Paycheck Protection): Yes. Result: No
Prop. 76 (Live Within Our Means): Yes. Result: No
Prop. 77 (Redistricting): Yes. Result: No
Props. 78 and 79 (Prescription Drug Prices): No. Result: No
Prop 80 (Energy re-regulation): No. Result: No
In Ohio the Libertarian Party urged voters to vote “no” across the board, here’s the election results:
Issue One (High-Tech Spending Package): No. Result: Yes
Issue Two (No Questions Absentee Ballot): No. Result: No
Issue Three (Lower Individual Contribution Limits): No. Result: No
Issue Four (Redistricting): No. Result: No
Issue Five (Election Board): No. Result: No
In New York the Libertarian Party called for a “no” vote for giving more power to the legislature to craft the state budget, calling the budget amendment a “trick.” The measure failed.
In Maine, voters rejected a referendum that would have thrown out a law, passed by the legislature this year, barring discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. A win for libertarians.
In Texas, an amendment banning same-sex marriage passed. A loss for libertarians who don’t want any state control of marriage.
Washington State banned smoking in any indoor public place. A loss for running your business as you see fit. Yet Seattle killed the monorail by rejecting funding (win for libertarians). Maybe Disney will buy the blueprints for the plan.
UPDATE: Tim West has posted some preliminary Libertarian vote totals over at LFS. The most favorable result is:
VA House of Delegates District 36 with 92% of the precincts in
K R Plum Democratic 15,071 79.14%
D E Ferguson Libertarian 3,912 20.54%
-----------------
and this is from isil.org/fnd
San Francisco gun vote: Tough law or thin gesture?
New York Times
by Matt Richtel
"With warring gangs igniting a surge in homicides here in the last year, voters on Tuesday will consider a sweeping proposal to curb the violence: the nation's strictest municipal gun control ordinances, a measure that would ban possession, sale and manufacture of handguns and ammunition within city limits. Polling data taken over the summer suggested that the measure, Proposition H, enjoyed overwhelming support of likely voters. But it has since come under attack from a coalition of critics - including the National Rifle Association and a smattering of community groups - and legal experts say that should it pass, it is likely to face a stiff challenge in state courts." (11/05/05)
Wouldn't worry about the San Fran thing. It'll probably be overturned by SCOTUS. At least it should be, I hope so. As another poster pointed out, it isn't only SF that did dumb things, look at Texas and its policy of making gay folks 3rd class citizens.
*sigh*
Four years since 9/11 and USA PATRIOT, and WE'RE NO SAFER. And the politicians in DC think that we need even *more* laws and more enforcement to do the job....! >:^(
What a joke, our elected officials are.
Way off the subject: The Institute for legislative Action (ILA) is the legal arena as NRA membership funds may not be used for legal actions. The ILA acts using funds members donate for that specific purpose.
While S.F. is not the only city voting against private firearms, the IAL will require it pass Second amendment muster. Also expect to see the Democratic party activists attack your freedom to buy ammunition during the next campaign.
"Using the democratic process this is a case of the many agreeing to pay to protect the few next to the railroad tracks.
Something wrong with the plan or principals?"
You bet...it's another example of using the coercion of taxation to subsidize private business. We do it for farmers, exporters, airlines, etc ad nauseum...and it is wrong! A boondagle by any other name...
I'm sad to admit that approximately 75 % of my state proved itself to be idiotic yesterday.
Yeah, Paul. The LPO really messed up in asking people not to support issues 2 through 5. I was so ticked when I got the e-mail I sent a nice note to Robert Butler. It really irks me that the LP would not support critical reforms that are needed to get rid of the culture of corruption that infests Ohio and let that son of a Bush steal another election.
Especially Issue 2, which is a back-door way to defeat electronic voting. Absentee ballots always create a paper trail, since its extremely unlikely that they will mail an electronic voting machine to your house. And getting that communist Ken Blackwell out of the election business would be the best thing that could have happened to LPO. Ken always manages to pee on our ballot access whether we get the signatures or not.
But above all, what I can’t believe that the stupid people of Ohio passed Issue 1, the proximate result thereof is Ohio’s constitutional measure protecting against runaway state spending has been short-circuited. What a fraud. So now we get a great big new debt to pay to finance more than a billion bucks in corporate handouts. Some people have lost the right to live among us
To the anonymous poster about San Fran guns:
"Although law enforcement, security guards and others who require weapons for work are exempt from the measure, current handgun owners would have to surrender their firearms by April."
Isn’t it funny how cops are always exempt from these things? That must be because they are the only ones who know how to properly use them, right? Its a good thing I don’t live in San Fran. You all would be reading about me. I'd give them my guns -- bullets first.
In my opinion Its just a matter of time before people begin reaching the breaking point. The government will go too far eventually and the people will react just as they did in france.
John Shuey;
The railroads aquired their right of ways in the 1800's and have no justification to move but cities need them to do so. On the face of it, taxes are reimbursing their cost.
I only knew where they were moving maybe I could buy options on that property. Seems anything concerning government ever is seldom clean free of self interests.
Anyway in a republican government, with a demcratic process some made a proposal and asked the people if they wanted it. The majority voted for it. I guess you didn't!
"Yeah, Paul. The LPO really messed up in asking people not to support issues 2 through 5. I was so ticked when I got the e-mail I sent a nice note to Robert Butler. It really irks me that the LP would not support critical reforms that are needed to get rid of the culture of corruption that infests Ohio and let that son of a Bush steal another election."
I agree. Why is is that the LP backed similar issues in California, where it would benefit Republicans to have less gerrymandering, and then opposes fair elections in Ohio....again to benefit Republicans?
They're going to conservative conferences, lauding SS "reform" which would lead to more gov't control of markets; pushing a weak, regime-appeasing exit strategy in Iraq; won't bring up Bush impeachment (but jumped all over Clinton impeachment - go back and read the release, and think about how it applies now), are now endorsing vouchers (let's turn private schools into de facto gov't schools), and many prominent LP leaders support the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the national sales tax scam....
It's now becoming the Republitarian Party.
Pretty soon it's going to be a matter of "I did not leave the LP, the LP left me..."
if the patriot act become law whats next laws that are classified them selves so combined with the idea that Ignorance of the law is no excuse breaking the law now anyone can be areasted for anything in the name of national security
http://quotes.ibnerd.net/politicalquotes_1.html
After 9/11, Bush made two statements: "Terrorists hate America because America is a land of freedom and opportunity." and "We intend to attack the root causes of terrorism." ..Sounds like everything is going according to plan.
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1984 arrives 21 years late.
Posted by: Libertarian TV at November 8, 2005 04:01 PM