FBI Releases Secret Subpoena Information

gollum123 writes to mention a CNN article, reporting on an FBI information release. The number of secret subpoenas the Bureau filed last year reached 3,501. These documents allowed access to credit card records, bank statements, telephone records, and internet access logs for thousands of legal citizens without asking for a court's permission. From the article: "The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the same panel that signs off on applications for business records warrants, also approved 2,072 special warrants last year for secret wiretaps and searches of suspected terrorists and spies. The record number is more than twice as many as were issued in 2000, the last full year before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001."

I wonder

[eclectro]

Do they secretly subpoena slashdot posts? Maybe it's the Feds that keep modding me down...

Re:Rolling Stone said it best...

[McGiraf]

Dear sir, you hugely overestimate the average slashdotter's attention span.

credit card history

[Lord Ender]

Last year, when trying to kill time in DC (I'm from Ohio), I decided to head out to a bar. I noticed a bachaelorette party going into a particular bar and decided that's wehre I'd spend my evening (seemed like an easy decision). I handed over my credit card and opened a tab.

I kept trying to get the attention of some of those girls, but none of them so much as returned my glances. So I struck up a conversation with the friendly guy next to me.

Turns out the girls were ignoring me because it was a gay bar!

Now, if someone looks through my credit card history, they're going to think I'm into men.

So all I can say is, these secret warrants suck! And if you're FBI and monitoring my internet use and credit card history--I'm not gay! Really! I just hope your software is good enough to corelate this post with that Visa log.

Re:The difference...

[Dis*abstraction]

Of course it agrees with you. It's Wikipedia--it'll agree with anyone with the time to edit it.

Re:credit card history

[EllisDees]

>Now, if someone looks through my credit card history, they're going to think I'm into men.

Not that there's anything wrong with it... :)

o.b. simpsons

[Karhgath]

About what Chenney is saying... this reminds me of the Simpsons.

Homer: Well, there's not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol is sure doing its job.
Lisa: That's specious reasoning, Dad.
Homer: Thank you, sweetie.
Lisa: Dad, what if I were to tell you that this rock keeps away tigers.
Homer: Uh-huh, and how does it work?
Lisa: It doesn't work. It's just a stupid rock.
Homer: I see.
Lisa: But you don't see any tigers around, do you?
Homer: (Looks around) Lisa, I'd like to buy your rock.

Re:How will this affect me?

[tomhudson]

Speaking of jokes ...

Q: How can you tell Cheney is lying?
A: Bush's lips are moving.

Q: Why doesn't the Bush cabinet use condoms?
A: There's no end to those pricks.

Q: Why aren't there more sex scandals in the Bush cabinet?
A: They're too busy f*cking the rest of the country.

Top reasons why the post office had to recall the GWB/Cheney Freedom stamp?

1. people were spitting on the wrong side
2. they're so sleezy that even the glue won't stick
3. in tests, postal workers would insist on hand-cancelling each one, over and over and over
4. any mail with one would automatically be classified as "suspicious" or "junk"
5. nobody would pay 33 cents for it

When it was pointed out that normally, you can't "honor" a living person
http://www.usps.com/news/online/02_0314_2.htm [usps.com]

Although guideline No. 2 says, "No living person shall be honored by portrayal on U.S. postage," (the key word is "honored") occasionally, postage stamps have depicted living people -- either through the use of a photograph or illustration -- as design elements that commemorate a theme rather than an individual.

... they produced a copy of an "executive privilege finding" from Alberto Gonzales, that it was okay because the stamp was to be part of the "Heroes of the Modernization of the Constitution". The postmaster then shot himself in shame.

Close call

[Ohreally_factor]

That's how most men become homosexuals. They accidentally go into a gay bar, and the next thing they know, they're sucked into the homosexual lifestyle.

we started to notice . . . a few rainbows posted around the place

I'm sure you know by now to only go into bars that have a leather motif if you want to avoid gay bars.

I call BS

[Chmcginn]

You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity.

-Robert Heinlein

I have to admit, I was torn myself, until last year. The response to Katrina pretty much proved that the current administration isn't nearly cunning enough to think their way out of a paper bag, much less orchestrate a massive conspiracy involving thousands of people.

Re:credit card history

[Anonymous Coward]

Allow me to construct a quick summary of your story for the FBI to store in your official record.

"So I struck up a conversation with the friendly guy next to me [...] it was a gay bar [...] I'm into men."

HTH.