FBI Releases Secret Subpoena Information 282
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."
This is insane. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:How will this affect me? (Score:5, Interesting)
On the tangent a bit, according to some results 100k+ people have died in the last few years thanks to the war in Iraq. Oh, but they weren't roman^Wamerican citizens, so we don't talk about them and it makes it all right, right?
My point is, why the craze about terrorism and not about sufferings caused by actions supposedly taken against terrorism? The answer is simple, currently most of the media runs "managed" news. They don't "censor", just set a very low weight to otherwise important news, that is their biggest power not leaning/bending opinions with words.
Re:How will this affect me? (Score:3, Interesting)
As one quick example of how laws might apply to you even if you think that they wouldn't in R v Shivpori (House of Lords) the Ratio stated that you can be guilt of attempting something (illegal) even if what you were attempting was impossible
Re:How will this affect me? (Score:5, Interesting)
outside of 2001, fewer people have died in America from international terrorism than have drowned in toilets. Hell, if you consider how many people die from eating peanuts each year then it really is them that you should be afraid of...
On a slightly different note, one of the main purpose of terrorism is to generate "advertising" in a lot of circumastances, and I do think that the 9/11 attacks were for this end, being afraid of terrorism, changing what you do in you life is letting the terrorist win; it gives them what they want.
What are we getting in return? (Score:3, Interesting)
Judging by the war in Iraq, bungled response to Katrina, the military wholesale spying on US citizens, the Justice Dept. all but admitting AT&T is helping them monitor communications in America, bankrupting the budget and the endless lies how are we supposed to trust that the government is doing the right thing? Just because Gonzales says this conduct is constitutional doesn't make it so.
I think it's pretty safe to assume this expansion of police powers does not make us any safer. It's a waste of resources, it's intrusive, and further undermines the pitiful remnants of our civil rights. Another failed policy from a failed administration. If it wasn't so dangerous and being wielded by corrupt, incompetent people it would be laughable.
Re:How will this affect me? (Score:3, Interesting)
A couple of buddies of mine just went through a secret subpeona last weekend and believe me it was no picnic for them.
Basically, they were flying back from a NASCAR race in their little puddle jumper, had to divert away from their flight plan due to a weather situation. The guy flying did everything in the correct manner, notified air traffic control, stayed away from the weather, etc.
Unfortunately, what my pilot buddy didn't know was that he was overflying George Bush who was physically at the military base whose airspace my buddy was traversing (legitimately mind you, they've done it three previous times without incident).
To make a long story short, an F16 was involved (not good), a large irritated rotweiler (not good) was involved, spread-eagled face-down positions were involved (not good), and several loaded, safeties off, pointed at my buddies, shotguns were involved (not good).
During the three hour interrogation, the secret service asked my pilot buddy "So Mr. So and So, just exactly what is up with you exploring the George Bush bobble-head doll website on so and so date". My buddy replied, "Oh, that had to have been my ultra-liberal wife looking at those websites". Which is 100 percent the case given I know what a fan of GWB my friend is and how his wife doesn't particularly care for GWB.
So the duration between the time my buddies were first spotted "off-course" and the interrogation was about 2.5 hours to three hours.
During that three hours they figured out who owned the plane, where they were supposed to land, had police and SS waiting for them there (plus at an alternate airport), and got my buddy's surfing logs out to a field agent.
The secret service guy did tell my buddy that this sort of situation happens all the time in the Washington DC area.
So 3,000 occurances a year nationwide doesn't surprise me a bit given a couple of my bone-headed NASCAR enjoying buddies got caught up in it last weekend.
Was the action warranted? That's debatable, and always will be. My buddies certainly didn't care for it, especially since one of them had been needing to urinate for the 5 hours or so hours prior to landing and the secret service really just didn't care that much about his urinary issues.
One thing it did do was that it got my buddies out the door a lot quicker than if they had been forced to be held overnight in a jail cell (not good) while a judge looked it all over and gave her approval.
What if some aids infected inmate had decided to make one of my buddies his new girlfriend for the night? That would have been a lot worse than having your rights trampled per having a judge issue a subpeona to get your GWB bobblehead dool surfing habits revealed. Or is there someone out there who would rather have had the aids?
Heartwarming none the less ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Expecting the neo-con mod down in 3..2..1....
Re:How will this affect me? (Score:3, Interesting)
First, as people have stated, the government can think you are doing something wrong even if you aren't, or they can claim you are. Or other people who bear you ill will can "out" you.
Second, what if you don't morally agree with the laws? If you are seeking to change the laws that you find offensive, it would make you an instant target: "he doesn't agree with the law, therefore it's obvious he's breaking it."
Next, there are so many little laws that no one follows or everyone bends. It's illegal to spit in some places for instance, or certain sex acts are illegal. If the government has something else against you, they can leverage these little laws against you. Or they can simply try to expose some embarrassing part of your life, cornering you into working for them for something or other.
Finally, take something like the speed limit. Most people can drive by a police officer at +10mph over the speed limit and not worry about being pulled over for a ticket. Most people think this is just a case of the officer being flexible and reasonable. Unfortunately, there is no room for flexibility or reason in law enforcement. If something requires 'flexibility' and 'reasonableness' then it means it's FLAWED. Here's why: if someone in a beat up old car with dreads smoking a hand-rolled cigarette drives by a cop at +10mph over the speed limit, he's gonna get pulled over. Yup, therein lies the problem with 'flexibility' and 'reasonability.' Most people become passive sheep in the face of it, thinking, oh, it's a good thing to have a law that restricts dangerous behavior but the police won't nab me for it because they're understanding that it's rush hour and it requires situational enforcement. In reality, such laws empower the police to arrest at will. Everyone is breaking the law all the time. Now you just pick who you want to spy on or target. Racial profiling or any other excuse you need to pick on someone, don't worry, chances are they're already breaking the law in some capacity.
Re:How will this affect me? (Score:3, Interesting)
Well.. to be fair, people dying from peanuts doesn't have the same economic impact of people dying in a flaming collapsing building. Love the rest of your post, but I'm feeling nitpicky today.
Re:Republicans bring us smaller Government (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Wow! (Score:4, Interesting)
So, by my math, thats ~1.3 people killed per "attack". To put that in perspective, Americans have murdered each other the past few years at this rate:
2000 - 15,586 murders
2001 - 16,037 murders
2002 - 16,229 murders
2003 - 16,528 murders
2004 - 16,137 murders
But the average number of people killed was probably closer to 1.0, so that could not be an "attack" or terrorism.
So, the moral of the story is that living in the US is more dangerous than all of the terrorism in the world.