Politics: Beware the Patriot Act II End Run
Once the red flag was raised on the "Domestic Security Enhancement Act," the people we don't pay who sit in Washington watching the people we do pay thought that all the attention would be a good thing except for one danger. The DSEA, known as Patriot Act II, would be snuck through, attached to other legislation, broken up into smaller chunks and passed under the fog of war (or the patriotic frenzy following another terror attack), or pushed through on a super-secret end run.
Yesterday, one of those possibilities reared its head in the guise of a clause inserted into the intelligence authorization bill under consideration in the closed-door Senate intelligence committee. The clause would have given the CIA a stunning domestic power currently only being abused by the nice folks at the FBI. If passed, the CIA (which I was taught wasn't allowed to spy on Americans; those were the days) would be allowed to issue subpeonas called "national security letters." These letters essentially compel a business -- say, a credit card company, or an internet service provider, or a doctor's office, for instance -- to reveal a whole pile of information about private citizens. The subpeonas are administrative, and that means that they are not issued by a judge, and a judge can't quash one, and no judge in the world can help you if you want to defy one. Like I said, the FBI has this power now, but they wanted to give it to the CIA, as well.
The proposal was beaten back, but because everything happens in secret in the Intelligence Committee, there is no way to know what else is looming, looking to menace our rights next.
Perhaps its a FISA court warrant, which you won't even know has been issued to authorize spying on you, and which Ashcroft obtained over 1200 of last year, setting a record for spying on Americans.
Or maybe you will be arrested, profiled and monitored by your local police force for exercising your First Amendment rights to free speech.
But there's always a chance that you will have stormtroopers bust into your house, crash through your bedroom door and drag you and your partner into the street in handcuffs. Who knows?
Once the red flag was raised on the "Domestic Security Enhancement Act," the people we don't pay who sit in Washington watching the people we do pay thought that all the attention would be a good thing except for one danger. The DSEA, known as Patriot Act II, would be snuck through, attached to other legislation, broken up into smaller chunks and passed under the fog of war (or the patriotic frenzy following another terror attack), or pushed through on a super-secret end run.
Yesterday, one of those possibilities reared its head in the guise of a clause inserted into the intelligence authorization bill under consideration in the closed-door Senate intelligence committee. The clause would have given the CIA a stunning domestic power currently only being abused by the nice folks at the FBI. If passed, the CIA (which I was taught wasn't allowed to spy on Americans; those were the days) would be allowed to issue subpeonas called "national security letters." These letters essentially compel a business -- say, a credit card company, or an internet service provider, or a doctor's office, for instance -- to reveal a whole pile of information about private citizens. The subpeonas are administrative, and that means that they are not issued by a judge, and a judge can't quash one, and no judge in the world can help you if you want to defy one. Like I said, the FBI has this power now, but they wanted to give it to the CIA, as well.
The proposal was beaten back, but because everything happens in secret in the Intelligence Committee, there is no way to know what else is looming, looking to menace our rights next.
Perhaps its a FISA court warrant, which you won't even know has been issued to authorize spying on you, and which Ashcroft obtained over 1200 of last year, setting a record for spying on Americans.
Or maybe you will be arrested, profiled and monitored by your local police force for exercising your First Amendment rights to free speech.
But there's always a chance that you will have stormtroopers bust into your house, crash through your bedroom door and drag you and your partner into the street in handcuffs. Who knows?
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