Gene Lyons: Nothing to hide, nothing to fear in Bushworld

http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Editorial/184484/

Nothing to hide, nothing to fear in Bushworld
Gene Lyons

Here’s an artifact of archaic, pre-9 /11 thinking I stumbled across on the Internet: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” Readers who remained alert through high school may recognize the Fourth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution. Awfully stuffy, don’t you think ? Who says “shall” anymore ? “Particularly describing,” indeed. No red-blooded patriot would use the phrase. It reads like something written by sissies in powdered wigs. Besides, who’s to say what’s unreasonable if not our glorious leader, George W. Bush ? In Bushworld, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. In Bushworld, we don’t need no stinkin’ warrants. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales emphatically assured Congress in November 2005 that a Washington Post article suggesting widespread misuse of so-called national security letters, or NSLs, by the FBI was substantially false. A veritable parade of administration witnesses assured congressmen contemplating the re-enactment of the Patriot Act that stringent Justice Department supervision prevented it.

NSLs are a potential police-state tool, essentially granting investigators sweeping powers previously enjoyed by such innovators in security as the Soviet KGB. Issued entirely without judicial oversight—no prosecutors, judges or grand juries—they allow the feds a secret peek at intimate aspects of our lives.

“The records it yields,” wrote the Post’s Barton Gellman, “describe where a person makes and spends money, with whom he lives and lived before, how much he gambles, what he buys on-line, what he pawns and borrows, where he travels, how he invests, what he searches for and reads on the Web, and who telephones or e-mails him at home and at work.”

NSL recipients, like banks and telephone companies, are forbidden to notify customers that their records have been copied into FBI databases. Combined with widespread wiretapping conducted by the National Security Administration, they render privacy rights all but nonexistent.

And here’s the beauty part: It’s all top secret. Nobody can contest these abuses in court because nobody can prove they have legal “standing.” It’s not just George Orwell’s “1984” that needs frequent rereading, but Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22.”

more...

Moose and squirrel has been gone for weeks.