Electronic Frontier Foundation Uncovers Widespread FBI Intelligence Violations
eff.org
eff.org
"Homeland Security" has become such a huge industry, how will we ever get them to scale it back down and give up all their little ways to violate the people they are supposed to protect?
IIRC, the wealthy were able to stay out of Vietnam by going to college. Perhaps if the children of the influential were drafted as well, things might be different. Then again, knowing this country, any law reinstating the draft would not be complete without a loophole for the wealthy.
Of course, but back then, it was an indirect way of keeping the children of the wealthy out of harm's way, as manufacturing still had a big presence in the US. Rather than going to college, the children of the middle class/poor went to work in factories after high school, and so they could be sent to war.
> were drafted afterward unless they were in an essential occupation
That's good to know. Were there any other loopholes used by the wealthy (there must have been some)?
That seems to describe conscription to me. I'm not sure what "part of the social contract" means.
Sorry the rant. Point I was trying to make, the devil is in the specifics. Taxes are social contract, yes, but overtaxing and then wasting the money is still stealing. Same with draft - 3-6 months of learning military skills which might be useful in case of an invasion is reasonable social contract. Drafting in order to be part of an invading army is not.
Ironically the reason for the draft in Germany was the belief that if everybody was involved with the military then it couldn't be taken over by a single political fraction.
So for exactly the same reason - if they and their sons had been dodging IEDs in middle eastern country of the month - they wouldn't be so quick to vote for any politician who wanted a war for oil
Maybe so, but traditionally conscription has been all about maximizing manpower to fight a protracted war, and isn't a concept that is typically associated with pacifism.
The Civil War changed everything. Fighting the war required a huge modern Federal Army and Navy. Men got used to the idea of serving in the standing military (instead of militia service). Occupying the southern states after the war required a larger standing army. The experience of Imperial France occupying Mexico during the Civil War made leaders rethink the old militia system (militias had not done so well fighting a professional army in the War of 1812). And with the final great push of settlers westward, the larger professional army was useful in suppressing the Indians, which had largely been conducted by state and territorial militias before the War.
America in the latter half of the 19th century became a culture accustomed to militarism. The federal government, growing more rapidly in the aftermath of the war for many reasons, found the bureaucratic disciplines of a military carry over well to other government services.
WWI required not only a rapid military build-up, but for the first time in our history the federal government directing industrial production. That was a new genie let out of the bottle. WWII more of the same within one generation; Cold War immediately following introduces continuing state of war that doesn’t much affect our lifestyle; Korea, the first major shooting war without an explicit declaration of war by Congress; Viet Nam, more of the same – and all the time ever-larger Leviathan finds new areas it can intervene in society (not passing judgment here, just saying).
The FBI, like any other police force, no doubt has its share of officers who do the wrong thing from time to time. But if the actual numbers are eight hundred violations over ten years among the thirty thousand employees of the FBI, then... well, that doesn't seem all that bad to me.
You also need to ask: what prompts the report of a routine activity in an investigation 30 months after the activity takes place?
Most scary to me:
"almost one-fifth involved an FBI violation of the Constitution, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or other laws governing criminal investigations or intelligence gathering activities"
"From 2001 to 2008, the FBI engaged in a number of flagrant legal violations, including: submitting false or inaccurate declarations to courts, using improper evidence to obtain federal grand jury subpoena, accessing password protected documents without a warrant"
These are serious issues -- this isn't like the local police getting free lunch or looking the other way. You're talking about an FBI agent lying to a grand jury or a Federal judge. Both are serious felonies. Another thing that is disturbing is that it looks like the FBI isn't following its own procedures internally. So the people who are supposedly running the agency have no clue what is happening.
I'm not trying to say that the FBI is like the KGB or is inherently evil. I'd be willing to bet that 98% of the people working there have the best of intentions. But you have a situation where these good people are in highly compartmentalized, secretive units within this massive bureaucracy with this important mission. The middle management is driven to deliver results, but not accountable for their actions.
That combination of mission, drive and unaccountability is a recipe for systematic abuses of power.
Given this, why should we presume there is proper discipline?
I was surprised that they went the airport scanner route since it'll reduce jobs. However, I suppose they've paving the way for more passive invasive technology to be sold and used in more common areas. Profits from hardware, installation, maintenance contracts and training are probably bigger than what exists now.
Is it reasonable to assume that the actual number is 50 times higher? Please decide for yourself instead of just taking the EFF's word for it.
Also, when considering the scope and scale of these violations, recognize that little distinction is being made between simple violations of procedure and scandalous invasions of individual privacy. If you feel that violations of Constitutional rights are more significant than missed administrative deadlines, this is an important distinction, one that the EFF's "Big Number" only serves to obscure. In fact their own report states that the number of violations involving "violation of the Constitution, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or other laws governing criminal investigations or intelligence gathering activities" is "almost one-fifth" of the already much-deflated total.
The 768 number is based on one release of documents, which only lists reported incidents. The FBI Inspector General estimated 6,400 violations between 2003 and 2006 based on a statistical sample.
Say the actual number is alot lower -- 10,000 for the period from 2001 to present. That would mean that like 98% of NSLs (about 40,000 are issued annually) were proper and consistent with the rules. But that 2% still means that there was probably 2,000 incidents where serious violations of constitutional rights were committed by people sworn to protect and defend the constitution.
Specifically, I'm hesitant to assume that the proportions of the EFF's sample are representative or that they 'scale up' to the number reported by the Inspector General and beyond. The main reason being while the EFF's sample is specific to violations recognized and reported as such, the Inspector General's report is specific to NSLs and not specific to things initially recognized as violations. The later report cites such comparatively minor violations as typos which are likely to be under-represented in the IOB documents, where more serious (and obvious) violations likely over-represented.
That is to say: there may be several thousand additional violations, but the proportion of them which are of the (arguably) more benign classes of clerical mistakes and "overproduction" may be much higher than in the EFF's sample. I think that 20% is very unlikely to be reflective of the (unknown) whole and I think the findings in the Inspector General's report[1] support that.
I think we can all agree there was rampant, epidemic lawbreaking in the Bush Administration, though, and that it appears to be continuing under Obama. Massaging the exact number smacks of an effort to distract.
Scary thought that chances are... of those truly guilty and convicted, there's at least one or a few who committed a heinous crime and could now walk from illegal/improper police work. That's just as scary as violating other's rights and wrongful convictions.
Another loss for liberty and safety.
I disagree. There will always be evil in the world; one criminal more or less is a drop in the bucket. What truly hurts a nation is when innocent citizens cannot be sure that their innocence will protect them from their own legal system.
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