New Guidelines Would Give F.B.I. Broader Powers-AGAINST US FOR NO REASON

[babylonsister]

New Guidelines Would Give F.B.I. Broader Powers

By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: August 20, 2008


WASHINGTON — A Justice Department plan would loosen restrictions on the Federal Bureau of Investigation to allow agents to open a national security or criminal investigation against someone without any clear basis for suspicion, Democratic lawmakers briefed on the details said Wednesday.

The plan, which could be made public next month, has already generated intense interest and speculation. Little is known about its precise language, but civil liberties advocates say they fear it could give the government even broader license to open terrorism investigations.

Congressional staff members got a glimpse of some of the details in closed briefings this month, and four Democratic senators told Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey in a letter on Wednesday that they were troubled by what they heard.

The senators said the new guidelines would allow the F.B.I. to open an investigation of an American, conduct surveillance, pry into private records and take other investigative steps “without any basis for suspicion.” The plan “might permit an innocent American to be subjected to such intrusive surveillance based in part on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, or on protected First Amendment activities,” the letter said. It was signed by Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.


more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/washington/21fbi.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&ref=todayspaper&adxnnlx=1219320074-/WSmjLAD4HSS6hvKX6fNoA&oref=slogin

[Truth4Justice]

1. There is a reason: Because they can and no one will stand up to them.

Welcome to a nightmare come true.....again!

[bdamomma]

2. why would these Senators do something like this?

one of those Senators who signed is mine.

"It was signed by Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island".

[babylonsister]

4. They wrote a letter in protest, not support. nt

[bdamomma]

6. thanks for explaining that Sister.

this was also posted on another thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3831580

what did Keith call it the other nite, an embryonic police state??? He got that right.

[Blackhatjack]

3. Any question we have moved beyond constitutional guarantees for our citizens?

The 4th Amendment guarantees are almost completely gone in the name of 'security.'

[The Stranger]

5. Ode to the Nancy Disaster (brought back by popular demand)

Oh, Nancy Disaster,
Do you see what is going on?
Everywhere, everywhere everywhere,
More police powers, secrecy, loss of rights,
So you must be in on it,
You must be one seeking to benefit from all of this,
How could you turn traitor so?

[barbtries]

7. and it's coming from...

justice. mukasey? and why? i want the REAL why my rights are falling away like dead leaves.

[sattahipdeep]

17. Who are the real architects?

SEN. ROCKEFELLER: So to sum up, then, you do not have to be
Russian, Chinese or somebody else in order to do cyber terrorism. You can do
that as an individual, untrained in Afghanistan or Pakistan, from within the
United States if you're angry enough about something that you think that by
doing that you will bring meaning to your life simply because you feel
disenfranchised.

MR. MUELLER: Yes, meaning to your life. You know, even if you were
not disenfranchised, it brings additional meaning to your life. You can be a
college student in Atlanta or elsewhere.

SEN. ROCKEFELLER: Correct -- or a doctor. You're correct.

MR. MUELLER: And we've had instances along those lines.


Transcript Senate Select Cmte. on Intelligence Hearing.

http://www.dni.gov/testimonies/20080205_transcript.pdf

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QP2tKBtUpVg

[dmr]

8. Give an inch, they take a mile -

- snip -

... without any clear basis for suspicion ...

- snip -

... In 2002, John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, allowed F.B.I. agents to visit public sites like mosques or monitor Web sites in the course of national security investigations. The next year, Mr. Bush issued guidelines allowing officials to use ethnicity or race in “narrow” circumstances to detect a terrorist threat.

The Democratic senators said the draft plan appeared to allow the F.B.I. to go even further in collecting information on Americans connected to “foreign intelligence” without any factual predicate. They also said there appeared to be few constraints on how the information would be shared with other agencies.

Michael German, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union and a former F.B.I. agent, said the plan appeared to open the door still further to the use of data-mining profiles in tracking terrorism.

“This seems to be based on the idea that the government can take a bunch of data and create a profile that can be used to identify future bad guys,” he said. “But that has not been demonstrated to be true anywhere else.” ...

- snip -

Little by little, yet fast and faster, they take more and more away from us. All in the name of national security.

The very sad thing is, this is just one snippet of so many imposing others that infringe, inflict, deduct, whatever and whoever we are, or once were ...

Have you seen this DU thread?

[rubberducky]

9. Out of control imperial executive.

:kick:

[alfredo]

10. FBI's new emblem

[alfredo]

11. Mukasey turned out to be just another bush fascist.

[librechik]

12. they want to blackmail us like J Edgar Hoover did, and the Stasi in East Germany

they just love expanded police powers--to keep us all safe, of course.

Then again, with the new rules it would be easy to plant all the evidence they want.
Or they can just lie about you, like they did to Stephen Hatfill and Bruce Ivins.

Great stuff, huh? America--what a country!

[HCE SuiGeneris]

13. Than you FISA... and all you traitors in both houses who allowed this.

"We've come a long way, baby!" :puke:

[bertman]

14. This is a heinous development, but I believe it's just one more propaganda effort to

distract us from Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Impeachmentgate, and all the other relevant lawbreaking that COULD be used as grounds for action against the Bush crime family.

The reason I say it's a propaganda effort is that a new President and Congress could certainly roll this back while it's still in its crib.


We will continue to see a deluge of these types of travesties until Bush goes out or martial law begins.



edited for grammar

[sattahipdeep]

18. Congress....lol

ROCKEFELLER: And I understand that. What I'd like to get you to focus on
for a minute or so is that which is carried on by people who have become
disaffected, either through unemployment, which now presumably will grow,
through the example of a cause, the attraction to a cause, and it may not be
that they actually go to al Qaeda or they get their training in Afghanistan,
but they simply decide to create malevolent actions within the United States
for purposes which can either be twisted or which reflect their fundamental
unhappiness within the American society as it's held before them in many
ways.

MR. MUELLER: I think that is a possible explanation for certain
actors who would take the dissatisfaction, the disenfranchisement in the
United States, and couple it with the radical Islamic ideology, and the two
would reinforce each other.

[Festivito]

15. They can also spy on the guys in charge of our RETIREMENT FUNDS.

Knowing who is about to sell a certain stock can make someone else a nice profit.

Have NOTHING to hide? Guess again.

[AzDar]

16. Kick....

:kick: