The FBI Is Spying On You And Me

Sunday :: November 06, 2005

The FBI Is Spying on You and Me

Jeralyn Merritt

The Washington Post reports today that the FBI has been obtaining and reviewing records of ordinary Americans in the name of the war on terror through the use of national security letters that gag the recipients.

"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 -- one of which can be used to sweep up the records of many people -- are extending the bureau's reach as never before into the telephone calls, correspondence and financial lives of ordinary Americans."

What's a national security letter?
"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 executive branch maintains only statistics, which are incomplete and confined to classified reports. The Bush administration defeated legislation and a lawsuit to require a public accounting, and has offered no example in which the use of a national security letter helped disrupt a terrorist plot."

Keep reading the article. It gets scarier by the paragraph.
"The records it gathers describe where a person makes and spends money, with whom he lives and lived before, how much he gambles, what he buys online, 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."

(snip)

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/013011.html

Jeralyn Merritt's discussion of the WaPo article goes on to say that the ACLU is fighting this practice of National Security letters. She also addresses the questions an average person might have when reading this, such as: "I don't know any terrorists, so why should I worry about this?" She asks the reader, have you ever gone to Las Vegas, for example? Apparently thousands of people who've simply gone on a vacation in Vegas have been investigated in this way, simply because they stayed in proximity to an alleged "terrorist".

Will congress take us back to the more democratic days preceding the passage of the Patriot Act? Hell no--not any time soon. THEREFORE, IT IS EVEN MORE IMPERATIVE THAT WE RESTORE THE DEMOCRATIC MAJORITY TO CONGRESS. BECAUSE IT WOULD BE OH SO SWEET TO SEE THIS HAPPEN TO SEAN HANNITY, AND TO SEE HIM HAVE TO GO BEGGING TO THE ACLU FOR HELP.

on a way to check and see if you're being monitored?

Thanks
V

You could espouse every radical belief on the planet, read all the wrong literature, associate with the wrong people and be tangentially linked to a 'terrorist' group....

the WaPo article and Jeralyn Merrit's (TalkLeft) analysis say that, for example, a cop stopping you could even probably get your credit report.

I think credit agencies, when you request your credit report, tell you who has previously requested it. Or, at least, a lender could run it and see if you had recently been turned down for loans, and could see WHO turned you down.

Seems like one could ask, say, their phone company, to whom it had provided records (recently). While I think the Patriot Act lets the phone companies get away with not answering such a question, I bet some of the little people in a phone company might just see your request as a routine customer request, and maybe they'd tell you something.

If anyone suffers ANY legal consequences resulting from the gathering of this info, I hope they fight it like hell. If they do, then their case can be publicized and that will put a face--the face of an average American being terrorized by his/her own government--on the problem. Then the fight to get rid of the Patriot Act will have the same appeal that, say, Cindy Sheehan, gives to the fight to stop the deaths in Iraq. (Whether or not one likes Cindy Sheehan, it is undeniable that putting the face of one individual on this problem makes the problem hit home for all average Americans.)

I hope the democrats regain the majority! Wouldn't it be GREAT to see, say, Sean Hannity, suddenly find himself highly offended at having had his records pulled??

indignities. POS's Limpballs and Coulter would be a nice additions also! :evilgrin:

V

Bank statements, invoices, that kind of thing. Tear it up small if you do not have a shredder, soak the bits in hot water, and mix it up with the catshit from the kitty litter!!!!!

I keep that stuff in my house or use a shredder.

I have bank statements in boxes going back ten years.

Just hoping they are watching.

Lettre de cachet: formerly in French law, private, sealed document, issued as a communication from the king. Such a letter could order imprisonment or exile for an individual without recourse to courts of law. Of very early origin, the lettre de cachet came into common use in the 17th cent. as an instrument of the new monarchy. Although its actual use was restrained, the issuance to local officials of lettres de cachet with the space for the name left blank inspired great fear. The occasional invocation of them against leaders of opinion, including Voltaire, became a symbol of arbitrary royal power and tyranny. They were abolished by the Constituent Assembly in the French Revolution. Napoleon I briefly renewed use of the lettres de cachet.

http://www.bartleby.com/65/le/lettrede.html

but they probably are spying on me.

I hope y'all at the FBI enjoy watching me crank one off, blast cd's by Billy Idol, Queen, AC/DC, Bill Hicks, Siouxsie & The Banshees, etc., drink red wine while I cast a curse on republicans everywhere, eat a stale slightly mouldy tv dinner and burp so loud it shakes the house! Hope y'all don't get so bored you consider suicide, oh wait excuse me YES I DO!

Lu Cifer, YUMMY! FISH STICKS AGAIN!

Welcome to Soviet America:




Well, what if ordinary citizens started collecting similar publically-available information about the authorities? Would this Breinholt fellow still consider such data collection and scrutiny to be "harmless"?

I doubt it. Breinholt is basically saying, "I have no objection to my invasion of your privacy." But if citizens decided to start dossiers on their watchers, then I imagine that this would quickly be labelled a "threat" -- even if such activities were entirely legal.


All's fine and fair in a police state -- if you happen to be the police.