Congress Expands FBI Spying Power (Wired News)

[BlueEyedSon]

Congress approved a bill on Friday that expands the reach of the Patriot Act, reduces oversight of the FBI and intelligence agencies and, according to critics, shifts the balance of power away from the legislature and the courts.

A provision of an intelligence spending bill will expand the power of the FBI to subpoena business documents and transactions from a broader range of businesses -- everything from libraries to travel agencies to eBay -- without first seeking approval from a judge.

More: http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,61341,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1


This should be big news if it passed in both houses.....

[jayfish]

1. NO ONE IS TOLD ABOUT THIS SH*&.

And once the damage is done it's too late. I'll give you an example. Saturday, my mother was over to the house to see her grandkids and help my wife with some wallpaper. To give you a bit of background on my mom, she is an avid Clinton hater and Bushista enabler. She was up on a ladder and somehow the topic of conversation turned to how bad resident W* is. She asked my wife "why do you think he is so bad?". At that point I thought it was a good time for me to jump in. I said, "well for one thing, do you get overtime pay? Because your illustrious president is about to take it away from about 2 million of us." She just about fell off of that ladder. After I explained it to her she couldn't believe it, she never even heard of the idea. The union run, librul media is at it again.

Jay

[BlueEyedSon]

2. *kick* Can someone confirm this with another source?

thx

[54anickel]

3. Looks like it's being done piecemeal

http://www.al.com/news/huntsvilletimes/index.ssf?/base/news/106958253493240.xml

So President Bush and Ashcroft are expanding Patriot I with piecemeal legislation and executive orders. For instance, last week the House approved a provision in the 2004 Intelligence Authorization bill that will permit the FBI to demand records from a number of businesses, without the approval of a judge or grand jury, if the agency feels the records are relevant to a terrorism investigation. Previously, only financial institutions were obliged to turn over such records to the FBI. Under the Intelligence Authorization bill provision, securities dealers, currency exchanges, travel agents, car dealers, post offices, casinos and pawnbrokers would face the same possibility.

Despite the approval of that measure by the House - it passed 263-163 with some conservative Republicans voting no - some in Congress remain concerned that the war on terrorism may be stretching the nation's traditional concepts of civil liberties.

[benfranklin1776]

4. Here is confirmation in all of its odious stench.

Link from ACLU website. http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=14434&c=206&SubsiteID=58

This piece of legislative puerile garbage needs to be undone posthaste next session of Congress since, once more either the intrepid Congressfolk had no knowledge of what they were voting on or did not wish to stop the broader intelligence bill lest they be branded "unpatriotic." Its overbroad sweep basically destroys the fourth amendment completely since there is now no requirement of any showing of probable cause for these national security letters to be issued requesting business records that contain individual's most intimate personal data i.e.phone records, ISP records, insurance records, travel records etc. They are never reviewed by a judge nor will the FBI even release a list to Congress of how many times these letters have been used. So now the government can send out a national security letter and root through almost any business record at will. Great tool to use to amass political intelligence. Hoover would be proud. Dennis Kucinich has already introduced the SAFE act to repeal the worst provsions of the first (UN)Patriot(IC) Act and he, and others need to adjust this Act to undo this evisceration of the fourth amendment.

[Walt Starr]

5. Step one: STOP CALLING IT THE PATRIOT ACT!

The only way to raise awareness is to call these pieces of shit what they are:

ENABLING ACTS!

[benfranklin1776]

6. Indeed an apt characterization.

Or "alien and sedition acts" redux.

[Zhade]

8. My roommate calls it the TRAITOR ACT.

I agree.

[schultzee]

7. Stealth bomb on citizens. Michael Jackson was more important

[BlueEyedSon]

9. kick