posted
It is a FACT OF LIFE here... probably not so much in Alaska...tho..
If someone feels that I am the " new satan ", they are going to get me, no matter what defense I have. You could go and read millions of articles that contain facts, not just opinions on many things that have gone on in our history and then your head would begin to hurt. I can not control any of this, I enjoy the " freedom " that I think that I currently have. In the event that things get to a level that I am ucomfortable with, I will change the way that I do things, and how I live accordingly. I have no intention of doing anything that would garner too much attention from people that would feel threatend by me. I am happy just being Steve, I am not anything special, I am just a guy.
There are some very interesting things brought up in the movie " enemy of the state "...
Very good flick... If we are seeing it there, it has been around for a while...movies are like religion, they are there to entertain, but also to condition the masses.
By the time you realize that you are in trouble, you will be caught, and it will be over...
So do not get involved in activities that could lead to negative consequenses..seems pretty black and white to me...is that too racist for any of you?? TOUGH SHIT!!!
Posts: 771 | From: Farmington | Registered: Oct 2000
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posted
From a NY Times Op-Ed Article........... I don't know the validity of the info, it was just passed along to me.
"You Are a Suspect"
November 14, 2002 By WILLIAM SAFIRE
WASHINGTON - If the Homeland Security Act is not amended before passage, here is what will happen to you:
Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend - all these transactions and communications will go into what the Defense Department describes as "a virtual, centralized grand database."
To this computerized dossier on your private life from commercial sources, add every piece of information that government has about you - passport application, driver's license and bridge toll records, judicial and divorce records, complaints from nosy neighbors to the F.B.I., your lifetime paper trail plus the latest hidden camera surveillance - and you have the supersnoop's dream: a "Total Information Awareness" about every U.S. citizen.
This is not some far-out Orwellian scenario. It is what will happen to your personal freedom in the next few weeks if John Poindexter gets the unprecedented power he seeks.
Remember Poindexter? Brilliant man, first in his class at the Naval Academy, later earned a doctorate in physics, rose to national security adviser under President Ronald Reagan. He had this brilliant idea of secretly selling missiles to Iran to pay ransom for hostages, and with the illicit proceeds to illegally support contras in Nicaragua.
A jury convicted Poindexter in 1990 on five felony counts of misleading Congress and making false statements, but an appeals court overturned the verdict because Congress had given him immunity for his testimony. He famously asserted, "The buck stops here," arguing that the White House staff, and not the president, was responsible for fateful decisions that might prove embarrassing.
This ring-knocking master of deceit is back again with a plan even more scandalous than Iran-contra. He heads the "Information Awareness Office" in the otherwise excellent Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which spawned the Internet and stealth aircraft technology. Poindexter is now realizing his 20-year dream: getting the "data-mining" power to snoop on every public and private act of every American.
Even the hastily passed U.S.A. Patriot Act, which widened the scope of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and weakened 15 privacy laws, raised requirements for the government to report secret eavesdropping to Congress and the courts. But Poindexter's assault on individual privacy rides roughshod over such oversight.
He is determined to break down the wall between commercial snooping and secret government intrusion. The disgraced admiral dismisses such necessary differentiation as bureaucratic "stovepiping." And he has been given a $200 million budget to create computer dossiers on 300 million Americans.
When George W. Bush was running for president, he stood foursquare in defense of each person's medical, financial and communications privacy. But Poindexter, whose contempt for the restraints of oversight drew the Reagan administration into its most serious blunder, is still operating on the presumption that on such a sweeping theft of privacy rights, the buck ends with him and not with the president.
This time, however, he has been seizing power in the open. In the past week John Markoff of The Times, followed by Robert O'Harrow of The Washington Post, have revealed the extent of Poindexter's operation, but editorialists have not grasped its undermining of the Freedom of Information Act.
Political awareness can overcome "Total Information Awareness," the combined force of commercial and government snooping. In a similar overreach, Attorney General Ashcroft tried his Terrorism Information and Prevention System (TIPS), but public outrage at the use of gossips and postal workers as snoops caused the House to shoot it down. The Senate should now do the same to this other exploitation of fear.
The Latin motto over Poindexter"s new Pentagon office reads "Scientia Est Potentia" - "knowledge is power." Exactly: the government's infinite knowledge about you is its power over you. "We're just as concerned as the next person with protecting privacy," this brilliant mind blandly assured The Post. A jury found he spoke falsely before.
Broad U.S. Wiretap Powers Upheld Secret Court Lifts Bar on Terror Suspect Surveillance
By Dan Eggen Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, November 19, 2002; Page A01
A secretive appeals court yesterday cleared the way for the Justice Department to use broad new authority to conduct wiretaps and other surveillance of terrorism and spying suspects in the United States, overturning a lower court that had blocked Attorney General John D. Ashcroft's efforts out of fear the new powers would be abused.
The special three-judge panel, issuing its very first ruling, found that the USA Patriot Act -- enacted in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks -- allows intelligence investigators and criminal prosecutors to more easily share information about ongoing terrorism and espionage cases.
The decision represents a clear legal triumph for Ashcroft, who has aggressively attempted to implement new procedures governing Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) wiretaps and search warrants, which are never revealed to suspects and are approved by a special court that meets in secret at Justice Department headquarters.
The appeals court's action "revolutionizes our ability to investigate terrorists and prosecute terrorist acts," Ashcroft said at a Washington news conference. "The decision allows the Department of Justice to free immediately our agents and prosecutors in the field to work more closely and cooperatively in achieving our core mission -- the mission of preventing terrorist attacks."
In a sign of the ruling's potential reach, Ashcroft yesterday announced a slate of new actions designed to intensify the use of secret surveillance in the United States, including the designation of special intelligence prosecutors in every federal court district and the creation of a new FBI unit that will seek intelligence warrants.
Civil libertarians and defense attorneys described the 56-page ruling as a tremendous setback, arguing that it would allow the government to aggressively spy on innocent U.S. citizens with few restrictions and little oversight. The lower court ruling that had rejected the new guidelines proposed by Ashcroft accused the FBI of misleading the special intelligence court in 75 separate cases, all of them under then-FBI Director Louis J. Freeh.
"Having found out that the fox has eaten half the chickens, the court has decided the fox should have more authority over the chicken coop with virtually no oversight," said Joshua L. Dratel, who argued against Ashcroft in a brief filed by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. "When you start expanding authority like this to where there's no standards, all you increase are the number of innocent people who are surveilled unnecessarily."
Yesterday's ruling comes amid preparations to thwart domestic terror strikes if the United States goes to war with Iraq, including ongoing efforts by the FBI to monitor and interview Iraqis in the United States.
"This is a very big win for this administration," Stewart Baker, a former general counsel for the National Security Agency, said of the ruling. "It is going to be the definitive statement on this issue for years to come."
The decision came on the same day that a San Francisco-based federal appellate court blocked a challenge to the detention of more than 600 suspected terrorists and Taliban fighters at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled that a group of clergy and professors has no legal standing to represent Afghan war prisoners, effectively ending that attempt to mount a court challenge on their behalf.
In a third case yesterday, the government told a federal appeals court in Washington that releasing the names of hundreds of domestic detainees in the terrorism investigation could help the al Qaeda terrorist network. The Justice Department is appealing the ruling of a U.S. District Court judge, who ordered the names released.
Under the rules that govern surveillance of terror and spy suspects, Justice Department lawyers applying for authority to use wiretaps and conduct searches face less formidable legal obstacles than they would in seeking similar measures in regular criminal courts. In essence, they must persuade the FISA court only that there is probable cause to believe that the suspect is an agent of a terrorist group or foreign power.
Under yesterday's ruling, they will now be able to obtain those warrants more easily and pass on the information they gather to criminal prosecutors.
Bush administration officials stressed that, in their view, the appeals court was not granting authority to wiretap a wider range of suspects. Rather, Ashcroft and other officials said, the ruling simplifies the process for running such investigations by avoiding the need to halt an intelligence probe once investigators observe evidence of a crime by the suspected terrorist.
"We think the procedures and government showings required under FISA, if they do not meet the minimum Fourth Amendment warrant standards, certainly come close," the three-judge panel wrote in the ruling, parts of which were classified. "We therefore believe firmly . . . that FISA as amended is constitutional because the surveillances it authorizes are reasonable."
The appeals court also found that government lawyers appear to have been misinterpreting secret wiretap law since the 1980s by construing limitations that did not exist within federal statutes. Many lawmakers and other critics have argued since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks that Justice and FBI attorneys had grown too timid in their pursuit of secret warrants, citing, for example, their failure to seek one in the case of alleged terrorist conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, who was detained weeks before the strikes on New York and Washington.
Victoria Toensing, who oversaw terrorism prosecutions in the Reagan Justice Department, said the court's ruling was long overdue, and that misinterpretations of surveillance law had severely hampered prosecutors and investigators.
But Ann Beeson of the American Civil Liberties Union said she was "deeply disappointed" in the decision, contending that it sets up the intelligence court as a "rubber stamp" for "intrusive" surveillance warrants.
"As of today, the attorney general can suspend the ordinary requirements of the Fourth Amendment in order to listen in on phone calls, read e-mails and conduct secret searches of Americans' homes and offices," Beeson said.
Because the targets of the intelligence court's warrants do not know they are being monitored, there is no provision for an appeal of yesterday's ruling by anyone other than the government. But leaders of the ACLU and other groups said they were investigating other options to challenge the decision.
Legislative reaction to the ruling was mixed. Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said the decision "should untie the government's hands and help prevent terrorist attacks." But Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), who has wrangled with the Justice Department over FISA provisions, cautioned that the ruling still imposes important restrictions on the government's conduct.
The ruling issued yesterday involves two obscure and usually secretive courts: the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which oversees intelligence warrants sought by the FBI; and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, a special panel set up to handle any appeals. Both were created by Congress in 1978 as part of FISA, which was approved after revelations of CIA and FBI abuses during the Cold War and civil rights eras.
Appointed by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, the current intelligence appeals panel comprises three semi-retired appellate court judges: Ralph B. Guy, Edward Leavy and Laurence Hirsch Silberman. All were originally Reagan appointees to the bench.
The intelligence court had never publicly issued a joint ruling until May, and the appeals panel had never heard a case. The current legal wrangling began six months ago, when the intelligence court ruled against procedures proposed by Ashcroft to allow criminal prosecutors and intelligence investigators to more freely share information.
In arriving at its decision, which was not made public until August, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court outlined dozens of past abuses of the surveillance law and concluded that Ashcroft's proposals "were not reasonably designed" to safeguard the privacy rights of U.S. citizens.
In seeking review, government lawyers wrote in court papers that the intelligence court had "wholly exceeded" its authority in refusing Ashcroft's requests. They argued that Congress had clearly approved broader surveillance authority in the wake of Sept. 11.
posted
Justice Dept. Drafts Sweeping Expansion of Anti-Terrorism Act
By Charles Lewis and Adam Mayle Center for Public Integrity
(WASHINGTON, Feb. 7, 2003) -- The Bush Administration is preparing a bold, comprehensive sequel to the USA Patriot Act passed in the wake of September 11, 2001, which will give the government broad, sweeping new powers to increase domestic intelligence-gathering, surveillance and law enforcement prerogatives, and simultaneously decrease judicial review and public access to information.
The Center for Public Integrity has obtained a draft, dated January 9, 2003, of this previously undisclosed legislation and is making it available in full text (12 MB). The bill, drafted by the staff of Attorney General John Ashcroft and entitled the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, has not been officially released by the Department of Justice, although rumors of its development have circulated around the Capitol for the last few months under the name of “the Patriot Act II” in legislative parlance.
“We haven’t heard anything from the Justice Department on updating the Patriot Act,” House Judiciary Committee spokesman Jeff Lungren told the Center. “They haven’t shared their thoughts on that. Obviously, we'd be interested, but we haven’t heard anything at this point.”
Senior members of the Senate Judiciary Committee minority staff have inquired about Patriot II for months and have been told as recently as this week that there is no such legislation being planned.
Mark Corallo, deputy director of Justice’s Office of Public Affairs, told the Center his office was unaware of the draft. “I have heard people talking about revising the Patriot Act, we are looking to work on things the way we would do with any law,” he said. “We may work to make modifications to protect Americans,” he added. When told that the Center had a copy of the draft legislation, he said, “This is all news to me. I have never heard of this.”
After the Center posted this story, Barbara Comstock, director of public affairs for the Justice Dept., released a statement saying that, "Department staff have not presented any final proposals to either the Attorney General or the White House. It would be premature to speculate on any future decisions, particularly ideas or proposals that are still being discussed at staff levels."
An Office of Legislative Affairs “control sheet” that was obtained by the PBS program "Now With Bill Moyers" seems to indicate that a copy of the bill was sent to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert and Vice President Richard Cheney on Jan. 10, 2003. “Attached for your review and comment is a draft legislative proposal entitled the ‘Domestice Security Enhancement Act of 2003,’” the memo, sent from “OLP” or Office of Legal Policy, says.
Comstock later told the Center that the draft "is an early discussion draft and it has not been sent to either the Vice President or the Speaker of the House."
Dr. David Cole, Georgetown University Law professor and author of Terrorism and the Constitution, reviewed the draft legislation at the request of the Center, and said that the legislation “raises a lot of serious concerns. It’s troubling that they have gotten this far along and they’ve been telling people there is nothing in the works.” This proposed law, he added, “would radically expand law enforcement and intelligence gathering authorities, reduce or eliminate judicial oversight over surveillance, authorize secret arrests, create a DNA database based on unchecked executive ‘suspicion,’ create new death penalties, and even seek to take American citizenship away from persons who belong to or support disfavored political groups.”
Some of the key provision of the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 include:
Section 201, “Prohibition of Disclosure of Terrorism Investigation Detainee Information”: Safeguarding the dissemination of information related to national security has been a hallmark of Ashcroft’s first two years in office, and the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 follows in the footsteps of his October 2001 directive to carefully consider such interest when granting Freedom of Information Act requests. While the October memo simply encouraged FOIA officers to take national security, “protecting sensitive business information and, not least, preserving personal privacy” into account while deciding on requests, the proposed legislation would enhance the department’s ability to deny releasing material on suspected terrorists in government custody through FOIA.
Section 202, “Distribution of ‘Worst Case Scenario’ Information”: This would introduce new FOIA restrictions with regard to the Environmental Protection Agency. As provided for in the Clean Air Act, the EPA requires private companies that use potentially dangerous chemicals must produce a “worst case scenario” report detailing the effect that the release of these controlled substances would have on the surrounding community. Section 202 of this Act would, however, restrict FOIA requests to these reports, which the bill’s drafters refer to as “a roadmap for terrorists.” By reducing public access to “read-only” methods for only those persons “who live and work in the geographical area likely to be affected by a worst-case scenario,” this subtitle would obfuscate an established level of transparency between private industry and the public.
Section 301-306, “Terrorist Identification Database”: These sections would authorize creation of a DNA database on “suspected terrorists,” expansively defined to include association with suspected terrorist groups, and noncitizens suspected of certain crimes or of having supported any group designated as terrorist.
Section 312, “Appropriate Remedies with Respect to Law Enforcement Surveillance Activities”: This section would terminate all state law enforcement consent decrees before Sept. 11, 2001, not related to racial profiling or other civil rights violations, that limit such agencies from gathering information about individuals and organizations. The authors of this statute claim that these consent orders, which were passed as a result of police spying abuses, could impede current terrorism investigations. It would also place substantial restrictions on future court injunctions.
Section 405, “Presumption for Pretrial Detention in Cases Involving Terrorism”: While many people charged with drug offenses punishable by prison terms of 10 years or more are held before their trial without bail, this provision would create a comparable statute for those suspected of terrorist activity. The reasons for presumptively holding suspected terrorists before trial, the Justice Department summary memo states, are clear. “This presumption is warranted because of the unparalleled magnitude of the danger to the United States and its people posed by acts of terrorism, and because terrorism is typically engaged in by groups – many with international connections – that are often in a position to help their members flee or go into hiding.”
Section 501, “Expatriation of Terrorists”: This provision, the drafters say, would establish that an American citizen could be expatriated “if, with the intent to relinquish his nationality, he becomes a member of, or provides material support to, a group that the United Stated has designated as a ‘terrorist organization’.” But whereas a citizen formerly had to state his intent to relinquish his citizenship, the new law affirms that his intent can be “inferred from conduct.” Thus, engaging in the lawful activities of a group designated as a “terrorist organization” by the Attorney General could be presumptive grounds for expatriation.
The Domestic Security Enhancement Act is the latest development in an 18-month trend in which the Bush Administration has sought expanded powers and responsibilities for law enforcement bodies to help counter the threat of terrorism.
The USA Patriot Act, signed into law by President Bush on Oct. 26, 2001, gave law enforcement officials broader authority to conduct electronic surveillance and wiretaps, and gives the president the authority, when the nation is under attack, to confiscate any property within U.S. jurisdiction of anyone believed to be engaging in such attacks. The measure also tightened oversight of financial activities to prevent money laundering and diminish bank secrecy in an effort to disrupt terrorist finances.
It also changed provisions of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was passed in 1978 during the Cold War. FISA established a different standard of government oversight and judicial review for “foreign intelligence” surveillance than that applied to traditional domestic law enforcement surveillance.
The USA Patriot Act allowed the Federal Bureau of Investigation to share information gathered in terrorism investigations under the “foreign intelligence” standard with local law enforcement agencies, in essence nullifying the higher standard of oversight that applied to domestic investigations. The USA Patriot Act also amended FISA to permit surveillance under the less rigorous standard whenever “foreign intelligence” was a “significant purpose” rather than the “primary purpose” of an investigation.
The draft legislation goes further in that direction. “In the [USA Patriot Act] we have to break down the wall of foreign intelligence and law enforcement,” Cole said. “Now they want to break down the wall between international terrorism and domestic terrorism.”
In an Oct. 9, 2002, hearing of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism, and Government Information, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher testified that Justice had been, “looking at potential proposals on following up on the PATRIOT Act for new tools and we have also been working with different agencies within the government and they are still studying that and hopefully we will continue to work with this committee in the future on new tools that we believe are necessary in the war on terrorism.”
Asked by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) whether she could inform the committee of what specific areas Justice was looking at, Fisher replied, “At this point I can’t, I’m sorry. They're studying a lot of different ideas and a lot of different tools that follow up on information sharing and other aspects.”
Assistant Attorney General for Legal Policy Viet Dinh, who was the principal author of the first Patriot Act, told Legal Times last October that there was “an ongoing process to continue evaluating and re-evaluating authorities we have with respect to counterterrorism,” but declined to say whether a new bill was forthcoming.
Former FBI Director William Sessions, who urged caution while Congress considered the USA Patriot Act, did not want to enter the fray concerning a possible successor bill.
"I hate to jump into it, because it's a very delicate thing," Sessions told the Center, without acknowledging whether he knew of any proposed additions or revisions to the additional Patriot bill.
When the first bill was nearing passage in the Congress in late 2001, however, Sessions told Internet site NewsMax.Com that the balance between civil liberties and sufficient intelligence gathering was a difficult one. “First of all, the Attorney General has to justify fully what he’s asking for,” Sessions, who served presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush as FBI Director from 1987 until 1993, said at the time. “We need to be sure that we provide an effective means to deal with criminality.” At the same time, he said, “we need to be sure that we are mindful of the Constitution, mindful of privacy considerations, but also meet the technological needs we have” to gather intelligence.
Cole found it disturbing that there have been no consultations with Congress on the draft legislation. “It raises a lot of serious concerns and is troubling as a generic matter that they have gotten this far along and tell people that there is nothing in the works. What that suggests is that they’re waiting for a propitious time to introduce it, which might well be when a war is begun. At that time there would be less opportunity for discussion and they’ll have a much stronger hand in saying that they need these right away.”
To write a letter to the editor for publication, e-mail letters@publicintegrity.org. Please include a daytime phone number.
Copyright 2001, The Center for Public Integrity. All rights reserved
posted
I think this was talked about a few weeks ago and the response was the document was only "proposed" and was not a draft of a new law. Most of this stuff pertains only to non-citizens anyway. It will be interesting to see what the actual legislation is like if it ever makes it to congress.
Posts: 5484 | From: St. Paul, Mn | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
It still seems that many of the ideas are quite Orwellian, which is truely scary. Yeah, its purposed to only apply to this "group", but when have you trusted the govt to not overstep its bounds, or twist and manipulate a legal interpritation (Rep's, & Demo's alike, and certainly from Administration to Administration). I don't particularly trust this administration anymore than the last.
I'm not a big "conspiracy" believer, but its long been said that they won't take away freedom as a whole in one sweeping blow, but bit-by-bit, inch-by-inch.......
Posts: 2469 | From: Anchorage, AK | Registered: Oct 2001
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