Re: Bush Is Ready to Sick the CIA Dogs on the American People

I don't care.
stop posting this shit.
"Stagger Lee" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> http://www.sltrib.com/2003/May/05162003/commenta/commenta.asp
> Blumner: Bush Is Ready to Sick the CIA Dogs on the American
> People
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> By Robyn Blumner
> ST. PETERSBURG TIMES
>
>     Protections such as barring the CIA from exercising subpoena
> power were put in place in part because Harry S. Truman was
> concerned about creating another Gestapo.
>    -- It all happened behind closed doors, like government
> mischief typically does. The Bush administration and Republican
> leaders in Congress attempted to sneak through a provision in the
> intelligence authorization bill pending before Congress that
> would give the Central Intelligence Agency and the military the
> ability to investigate Americans.
>     Word of the pending amendment was brought to light last week
> through a leak to a public interest organization. (Thank you,
> whoever you are.) The amendment would allow the CIA and Pentagon
> to issue administrative subpoenas or national security letters to
> order businesses such as telephone and credit card companies and
> financial institutions to turn over their records on customers -- 
> all without court approval.
>     Up until passage of the USA Patriot Act in the wake of the
> Sept. 11 attacks, the Federal Bureau of Investigation could use
> national security letters under highly circumscribed conditions:
> to obtain information for counterterrorism or counterespionage
> investigations only when there was reason to believe the person
> whose records were sought was a foreign agent or terrorist.
>     But the Patriot Act wiped away those specificity and
> suspicion requirements. Now the FBI can demand whole databases of
> records on every customer without any individual suspicion as
> long as it is in the context of an authorized antiterrorism or
> intelligence probe. That means all our credit card data, Internet
> logs and other records are there for the taking upon the
> signature of the attorney general or his designee.
>     According to published reports of a private Senate
> Intelligence Committee meeting on May 1, when Democrats were
> alerted to the measure expanding this authority to the CIA and
> the military, they objected and it was pulled from the bill.
>     Though the CIA now says it is no longer pursuing the power,
> the New York Times reported that Republican Sen. Pat Roberts of
> Kansas, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has
> indicated he doesn't intend to let the matter drop.
>     Giving law enforcement the ability to conduct a search of
> personal records without judicial oversight is problematic enough
> in the hands of the FBI. But the notion that it should be offered
> to two institutions that do not generally operate within
> constitutional constraints is so patently ignorant of the checks
> built into our system of limited government that it is hard to
> believe the proposal wasn't just a bad joke.
>     As flagrantly irresponsible as Bush and his inner circle have
> been relative to the separation of powers, they have to know it
> is sacrosanct to U.S. liberty to keep the CIA and the military
> from intelligence-gathering on our soil. As Kate Martin, director
> of the Center for National Security Studies, says, "the whole
> point of the CIA is to operate outside the law." You remember,
> don't you? Assassination attempts, supporting military coups to
> protect overseas business interests and markets, a network of
> spies with no warrants required.
>     When the CIA was created in 1947, it was purposely given a
> wide berth to operate overseas, but as a safety valve for U.S.
> freedom it was prohibited from engaging in internal security or
> law-enforcement functions. Protections such as barring the CIA
> from exercising subpoena power were put in place in part because
> Harry S. Truman was concerned about creating another Gestapo.
>     Similarly, constraints on the military were established to
> keep it from becoming a tool of repression for the federal
> government. The armed forces have been explicitly prohibited from
> engaging in law enforcement since 1878 under the
> Reconstruction-era Posse Comitatus Act. Former Georgia
> congressman Bob Barr, a Republican and persistent opponent of
> mingling the military with police work, puts the reason bluntly:
> "When we send the Marines overseas, we don't have them carry a
> copy of the Miranda rights."
>     It seems the desire for this additional authority came from
> the CIA and the administration, not the military. If so, it is an
> astounding admission that the CIA and the FBI are still not
> cooperating in a way that was demanded after Sept. 11.
>     Jim Dempsey, executive director of the Center for Democracy
> and Technology, notes that the CIA claims it needs this power
> because the FBI isn't acting quickly enough to get it information
> or isn't sharing information. "And yet that was one of the
> fundamental failings identified that contributed to 9-11, and one
> of the fundamental reforms was breaking down the wall [between
> the agencies]."
>     Remarkably, says Dempsey, the response is not to fix the
> problem but to codify it. Giving the CIA the capacity to get its
> own information will virtually ensure that the turf-protective
> culture within each intelligence agency will be perpetuated -- a
> response that clearly makes us less safe.
>     There is hope within the civil liberties community that we
> have seen the last of this untenable idea in the near term. But
> who knows what the other side is capable of? Our leaders almost
> unleashed the CIA and military on Americans during a closed-door
> meeting with no public debate. Thank goodness for the watchdogs
> and the brave members of Congress who forced a retreat. Where
> would we be without them?
>    ----- 
>    Tribune Media Services, Inc
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