More Powers for FBI Intimidation Against Dissidents

Inadequate oversite allows threat to subvert 1st amendment

Terror Plan Would Give FBI More Powers

By ERIC LICHTBLAU

Published: September 13, 2008

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/13/washington/13justice.html?ref=us

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department made public on Friday a plan to expand the tools the Federal Bureau of Investigation can use to investigate suspicions of terrorism inside the United States, even without any direct evidence of wrongdoing.

Justice Department officials said the plan, which is likely to be completed by the end of the month despite criticism from civil rights advocates, is intended to allow F.B.I. agents to be more aggressive and pre-emptive in assessing possible threats to national security.

It would allow an agent, for instance, to pursue an anonymous tip about terrorism by conducting an undercover interview or watching someone in a public place. Such steps are now prohibited unless there is more specific evidence of wrongdoing.

The plan is the latest in a series of steps by the Bush administration to extend key aspects of its counterterrorism strategy beyond the end of President Bush’s tenure. An executive order from Mr. Bush in August rewrote the rules for the nation’s 16 spy agencies, and an administration legislative proposal before Congress would reaffirm that the country “remains engaged in an armed conflict with Al Qaeda.”

The proposed guidelines combine several sets of procedures into a single document governing what F.B.I. agents can and cannot do in criminal and national security investigations.

The review of the guidelines generated intense interest and occasional criticism from lawmakers and others over the summer, and the Justice Department took the unusual step on Friday of holding briefings for reporters and for civil rights advocates and showing them the draft plan.

The draft is likely to be made final soon after Robert S. Mueller III, the F.B.I. director, testifies on Tuesday before the House Judiciary Committee and on Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Democrats have promised to question him closely about the new guidelines.

After they were shown the plan, civil rights leaders said they were troubled that the new guidelines would allow the F.B.I. to use racial and ethnic factors to focus on Middle Easterners and others. “Racial profiling by any other name is still unconstitutional,” said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

But Justice Department officials insisted that the new guidelines would not change standards in place since 2003 for the use of race or ethnicity, which can be considered as a factor — but not the sole factor — in terror investigations.

“It is simply not responsible to say that race may never be taken into account when conducting an investigation,” Brian Roehrkasse, a spokesman for the department, said in a statement. “The reality is that a number of criminal and terror groups have very strong ethnic associations (e.g., the I.R.A. was Irish, La Cosa Nostra is Italian; Hezbollah is largely Lebanese).

“If the F.B.I. is charged with knowing whether there are elements of such groups present and operating within the United States, it cannot ignore those ethnic connections, any more than it would ignore the identification of a bank robber as a short white male when trying to solve the bank robbery.”

Under existing guidelines, F.B.I. agents cannot use certain investigative tools in conducting so-called threat assessments as a precursor to a preliminary or full inquiry. The revisions would allow agents to conduct public surveillance of someone, do “pretext” interviews — pose as someone other than an agent or disguise the purpose of the questions — or send in an undercover source to gather information.

Such steps are allowed in standard criminal investigations without specific evidence of wrongdoing, and officials say they want to authorize the same investigative steps in terrorism inquiries as well.

Criminal Jesuitical Department of 'Justice' Cover Up Sought

DOJ Asks Wiretap Challenges To Be Kept Secret

07-30-2008
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Bush_asks_co...pping_0730.html


In a little-reported brief filed late Tuesday with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the Bush administration asked the court to keep any review of the warrantless wiretapping law passed earlier this year by Congress secret.

The administration also asked that the court refuse to accept legal briefs from anyone other than the Justice Department itself.

The filing, made by the Justice Department, comes in response to a motion filed by the American Civil Liberties Union earlier this month asking the court to ensure that any proceedings relating to the "scope, meaning or constitutionality of the FISA Amendments Act" be as transparent as possible.

"The government is proposing that the intelligence court should consider the constitutionality of the new surveillance law in proceedings that will be entirely secret," Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU National Security Project, said in a release. "If the government's request is granted, the court won't hear arguments from anyone except the government and those arguments will be presented to the court in secret briefs. At the end of the process, the court will issue a ruling that is also secret. The process the government is proposing is completely unacceptable. Especially because the new surveillance law departs so significantly from the standards that have applied to government surveillance for the last 30 years, any proceedings relating to the new law's constitutionality should be adversarial and as informed and transparent as possible."

The ACLU is also seeking a court ruling declaring the law unconstitutional in the Southern District of New York.

Critics have bemoaned the law, which granted the telecommunications industry retroactive immunity for participating in a program that was at the time not authorized by law.

"This bill has quite literally no public value for citizens or civil liberties," constitutional law scholar Jonathan Turley said earlier this year. "It is reverse engineering, though the type of thing the Bush Administration's famous for, and now the Democrats are doing--that is, to change the law to conform to past conduct.

"It's what any criminal would love to do," Turley added. "You rob a bank, go to the legislature, and change the law to say that robbing banks is lawful."

ObUma FISA Flip Wrong Move

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/16/us/politics/16web-seelye.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y

(excerpt)

It was barely five years ago when the word netroots first surfaced as a description of grassroots activists who push their political agendas on the Internet, especially through blogs.

Now the word is becoming a bona fide entry in the new edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, and the netroots themselves are preparing for their third annual convention, starting Thursday in Austin, Tex.

The convention, formerly YearlyKos and now Netroots Nation, or NN08, bills itself as “the most concentrated gathering of progressive bloggers to date.” About 2,000 bloggers, activists, office-holders, vendors and others are expected to attend, with 200 members of the mainstream media tracking them (yes, roughly one old-media type for every 10 new-media hipsters.).

The convention comes just as some in the netroots are questioning Senator Barack Obama’s commitment to their values and whether their faith in him as a different kind of politician was misplaced.

Most of the discontent stems from his vote to give legal immunity to the telecommunications companies that participated in the Bush administration’s warrant-less wiretaps, after he had said he would filibuster it.

Of course with U.S. politics, the standard fall back would be that one must vote for ObUma to avoid a so-called "wasted vote" to prevent a victory by McCain (McSame).

The most plausible productive thing would be a vote instead for the Libertarian ticket of Barr-Root.

ObUma Sells Out on FISA

Some good posts at Repeal FISA about the sell out by ObUma, other Democrats and Republicans on the FISA bill to effectively repeal the 4th Amendment.

http://repealfisa.wordpress.com/2008/07/11/filibuster-obama-on-big-brother-spying/

http://repealfisa.wordpress.com/2008/07/11/the-cremation-of-the-constitution/

http://repealfisa.wordpress.com/2008/07/10/obama-begging-me-to-not-vote-for-him/

http://repealfisa.wordpress.com/2008/07/09/fisa-bill-passes-as-expected/

A vote for ObUma is a wasted vote. That man was puffed not for being a good alternative, but rather just another lackey of the Romish-Masonic criminal apostate shadow government order that gave us 911 and the PATRIOT Act- aka Jesuit Order run Georgetown University. Note for instance the behavior of that disgrace from Maryland, Senator Barbara Mikulski.

http://repealfisa.wordpress.com/2008/07/09/hold-barbara-mikulski-accountable-for-fisa-amendments-act/


Instead, vote the Libertarian Party ticket.

Criminal Telcons Bribe Politicians

Subverting the 1st Through the 4th

http://continuingcounterreformation.blogspot.com/2008/06/tim-russert-no-friend-of-4th-amendment.html

Democrats To Cave To Georgetown 'PATRIOT' Act Tel-Con Treason

http://utdocuments.blogspot.com/2008/06/statement-of-barack-obama-supporting.html

Statement of Barack Obama supporting Hoyer FISA bill

http://somd.com/news/headlines/2006/3327.shtml

Statement of Senator Barack Obama on FISA Compromise

“Given the grave threats that we face, our national security agencies must have the capability to gather intelligence and track down terrorists before they strike, while respecting the rule of law and the privacy and civil liberties of the American people. There is also little doubt that the Bush Administration, with the cooperation of major telecommunications companies, has abused that authority and undermined the Constitution by intercepting the communications of innocent Americans without their knowledge or the required court orders.

“That is why last year I opposed the so-called Protect America Act, which expanded the surveillance powers of the government without sufficient independent oversight to protect the privacy and civil liberties of innocent Americans. I have also opposed the granting of retroactive immunity to those who were allegedly complicit in acts of illegal spying in the past.

“After months of negotiation, the House today passed a compromise that, while far from perfect, is a marked improvement over last year's Protect America Act.

“Under this compromise legislation, an important tool in the fight against terrorism will continue, but the President's illegal program of warrantless surveillance will be over. It restores FISA and existing criminal wiretap statutes as the exclusive means to conduct surveillance – making it clear that the President cannot circumvent the law and disregard the civil liberties of the American people. It also firmly re-establishes basic judicial oversight over all domestic surveillance in the future. It does, however, grant retroactive immunity, and I will work in the Senate to remove this provision so that we can seek full accountability for past offenses. But this compromise guarantees a thorough review by the Inspectors General of our national security agencies to determine what took place in the past, and ensures that there will be accountability going forward. By demanding oversight and accountability, a grassroots movement of Americans has helped yield a bill that is far better than the Protect America Act.

“It is not all that I would want. But given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay. So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as President, I will carefully monitor the program, review the report by the Inspectors General, and work with the Congress to take any additional steps I deem necessary to protect the lives – and the liberty – of the American people.”

Comments (21) | Trackbacks (2)

ACLU About Warrantless Wiretapping

http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spying/35653prs20080613.html

Home : Safe and Free : Surveillance

ACLU Urges Congress Not to Legalize Warrantless Wiretapping (6/13/2008)

If Deal Includes Immunity It’s a Gift From Congress to Telecommunications Companies

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (202) 675-2312 or media@dcaclu.org

WASHINGTON – The American Civil Liberties Union comments on a reported deal on gutting the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The following can be attributed to Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office:

“This FISA deal looks like the unconstitutional Senate bill in sheep’s clothing. Whatever silk purse Hoyer tries to make of Bond's sow's ear and no matter how they try to sell it, the end result of all this negotiating will be exactly what the administration has wanted from the beginning — FISA rewritten to delete court oversight of surveillance and immunity for its pals at the telephone companies.”

“From the language we’ve seen, we’re back at square one, looking at a bill just like the old Senate bill that lacks meaningful judicial involvement. The Fourth Amendment requires prior and individual court review before the government digs into our private conversations. It is clear the next vote will be on a bill that fails this test — by permitting the government to conduct mass untargeted surveillance, sometimes without prior court review, and sometimes with prior court review — and then only when the government unilaterally decides that it is willing and able to answer to the judicial branch.”

“It is also clear that the deal is intentionally designed to grant immunity to companies that facilitated illegal wiretapping. If the only role for the court — be it District or a FISA court — is to determine whether the companies received a request from the Administration, and not to determine whether those requests were legal, it’s a sham review. The president has publicly acknowledged that the companies were repeatedly sent authorizations to turn over Americans phone calls and emails. It is absolutely guaranteed that current and future cases will never determine whether this administration and its friends in the telecom industry broke the law.”

“The ACLU urges Senators to vote against this deal if it is brought to a vote next week.”

To learn more about Senator Kit Bond's (R-Mo.) FISA proposal, go to: www.aclu.org/safefree/spying/35652res20080613.html

For more information, visit: www.aclu.org/fisa

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Email Beneath US Homeland Security- Douglas Willinger email stopped

http://continuingcounterreformation.blogspot.com/2008/06/douglas-willingers-email-deactivated.html

John McCain Criminally Apostate to 4th Amendment

Republican Party Nominee for U.S. President Endorses Unlawful Wiretapping
Effectively Endorses G.W. Bush/Tel-Con Treason

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/06/us/politics/06mccain.html?ref=opinion

Oliver North Beneath U.S. Romeland Security

http://prisonplanet.com/articles/may2008/310508_b_north.htm