I am shocked, shocked, to learn that the FBI has been abusing the National Security Letters to obtain information that would properly require a search warrant.
Note this nugget: The FBI imposed (or said it did) new controls and oversight upon the use of NSLs. However, "several other Justice Department and FBI officials familiar with this year's findings have said privately the upcoming report will show the letters were wrongly used at a similar rate as during the previous three years."
So, let's recap:
They can rummage through your records (bank, library, whatever) without a warrant.
They can wiretap your telephone without a warrant.
They can do a "sneak & peek" search without a warrant and then use what they saw in their burglary to justify a real search warrant.
They can copy all of your e-mails without a warrant.
They can arrest you without charges and hold you without trial.
They can torture you.
What part of "we are living in a police state" is unclear to you?
When Your Explanation Runs Out Of Juice, Part 2
24 minutes ago
5 comments:
None at all. When the Patriot Act passed in 2001, I said "Welcome to Soviet America, comrade!". Things like this just make it more apparent, that's all.
Which of course is the problem. The best police state is where most people don't feel like they're living in a police state. The current police state is becoming far too intrusive, what with its in-your-face "your papers please" all over the place and so on and so forth. The folks running our police state need to get their stuff together, or folks are gonna start getting pissed and start tossing fascists off the roofs of buildings and stuff, or worst yet, stop coming to these shores to prop up the state (most of the fresh talent that keeps our economy innovating is not American). Then we truly *do* become "Soviet America", complete with empty grocery store shelves, ration lines, the works.
- Badtux the Soviet Penguin
Sounds like the stuff they were doing back in the sixties under LBJ and Nixon. Except for the email, of course.
Some things never change.
What part of "we are living in a police state" is unclear to you?
People won't get it until you have to show papers to get from place to place in the country.
Note that the Supremes have danced on the "your papers, please" thingy and said that yup, you must show your papers upon demand. Try flying without showing your papers. Duh. Ain't happenin'. Gotta have an official government-issued travel passport (either an official passport or other official government-issued ID). Try getting anywhere in this country more than a few hundred miles without flying nowdays. Ain't happening, too expensive to drive (the gas is more than an airline ticket), and Greyhound takes ages to get anywhere.
So yes, "your papers, please" is here -- and nobody seems to give a shit. After all, Big Brother loves you and only wants to protect you from those big mean islamowhatchamacallits that are gonna swim the Atlantic with knives in their teeth and sneak into our bedrooms and KILL US ALL if kindly Big Brother doesn't watch over us in our sleep. Big Brother loves us. Why don't you love Big Brother too?
- Badtux the Orwellian Penguin
bobg, they also were not detaining people without trial or torturing them. the "third degree" had been effectively outlawed and, at least through the middle 1960s, the supremes were cracking down hard on police abuses.
that all changed starting with the reichquist court.
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