Saturday, April 29, 2006
Do You Feel Any Safer?
The Los Angeles times is reporting that the FBI is using it's powers under the Patriot Act to spy on thousands of Americans. I hate to say I told you so.
As the Times reports, "the FBI issued thousands of subpoenas to banks, phone companies and Internet providers last year, aggressively using a power enhanced under the Patriot Act to monitor the activities of U.S. citizens, Justice Department data released late Friday showed. According to the new report, the FBI issued 9,254 national security letters in 2005, covering 3,501 U.S. citizens and legal foreign residents."
The Cleveland Plain Dealer also reports the troubling news. As the Plain Dealer tells us, we may never know how many people the FBI has watched, as Friday "was the first time the Bush administration has publicly disclosed how often it uses the administrative subpoena known as a National Security Letter, which allows the executive branch of government to obtain records about people in terrorism and espionage investigations without a judge's approval or a grand jury subpoena."
So the FBI knows that I bought a Diet Pepsi at the Texaco on Highway 7 last week. Awesome. Meanwhile, does anybody know what's in the 80% of cargo containers not inspected at the Port of Houston? No? I didn't think so.
As the Times reports, "the FBI issued thousands of subpoenas to banks, phone companies and Internet providers last year, aggressively using a power enhanced under the Patriot Act to monitor the activities of U.S. citizens, Justice Department data released late Friday showed. According to the new report, the FBI issued 9,254 national security letters in 2005, covering 3,501 U.S. citizens and legal foreign residents."
The Cleveland Plain Dealer also reports the troubling news. As the Plain Dealer tells us, we may never know how many people the FBI has watched, as Friday "was the first time the Bush administration has publicly disclosed how often it uses the administrative subpoena known as a National Security Letter, which allows the executive branch of government to obtain records about people in terrorism and espionage investigations without a judge's approval or a grand jury subpoena."
So the FBI knows that I bought a Diet Pepsi at the Texaco on Highway 7 last week. Awesome. Meanwhile, does anybody know what's in the 80% of cargo containers not inspected at the Port of Houston? No? I didn't think so.
