The fourth Amendment and you.

[Zebo]

The Fourth Amendment and You
On Monday President Bush signed legislation which expanded FBI powers in an unprecedented way. Specifically, the legislation allows John Ashcroft to issue himself a "National Security Letter" in order to conduct many searches.

Warrants and subpeonas are no longer necessary. The FBI no longer needs to prove probable cause to a judge in order to conduct many searches.

Warblogging first talked about this new legislation on November 26th. That article includes a good overview of what this bill does and the manner in which it was passed.

Let's recap quickly, though. The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states:



The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.


This amendment to the Constitution, a central component of the Bill of Rights, makes clear our rights regarding government search. It states that the government should not be able to get a to search you without probable cause.

The FBI now has a power to search your records of interaction with business ? from your auctions on eBay to your purchases on Amazon.com to your interaction with your Internet Service Provider to your credit card receipts to your insurance records ? without ever proving probable cause to anybody. The FBI simply issues itself a warrant (in this case called a "national security letter," which is simply a warrant by another name) without any review whatsoever.

In fact, the entire process is so secret and without oversight that businesses served with national security letters may not tell anyone about the search. National security letters, you see, include automatic gag orders ? admitting your business has been served with a letter is an offense punishable by prison time.

So we have now reached a point where many ? most ? details of your life are available to the FBI for the taking. If the FBI feels it wants to know what you spend your money on, where you travel, what you like to buy or any number of other details about your life, it simply needs to demand the information. No court can say "you don't have probable cause" or ask "why do you need this information?"

The members of Congress who introduced this legislation into an intelligence spending bill (intelligence spending bills are generally the subject of very little debate, and their contents are generally secret) insisted that this new FBI power was necessary to combat terrorist money launderers.

They have to be kidding. How does the requirement for judicial review prevent the investigation of "terrorist money launderers"? How does the need to go before a judge and prove probable cause ? prove that you're not simply engaged in a witch-hunt ? prevent the investigation of terrorism? The answer is simple: it doesn't.

That requirement does, however, prevent other activities. It prevents the FBI from going on elaborate fishing investigations, seizing the private records of ordinary citizens who have little or no links to terrorism. It prevents the FBI from gathering information about political dissidents and other people who say or do things the government simply doesn't like. But no sane judge would say "no" to an FBI request for financial records about someone who appears to actually be engaged in terrorism-related activities.

This new power doesn't really help with terrorism investigations. It doesn't really help keep us safer. What it does is reopen the door just a bit wider ? the USA PATRIOT Act and various directives issued by John Ashcroft to the FBI have already opened the door quite wide ? to the kind of abuses the FBI had, until the Bush Administration, tried very hard to put behind it.

Those abuses include J. Edgar Hoover's investigations of Marilyn Monroe, they include COINTELPRO.

COINTELPRO, for those who don't know, was an FBI program designed "to neutralize political dissidents". The FBI engaged in widespread covert operations ? including many so-called "black bag jobs" ? designed to build massive files on dissenters and, when possible, publicly discredit them.

In 1976 a report was issued by Congress called the Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activies and the Rights of Americans. One of those targeted by COINTELPRO was Martin Luther King, Jr. The reasoning for this, as explained in the congressional report, was to "prevent the rise of a 'messiah' who could 'unify, and electrify, the [civil rights] movement." Another goal was to "prevent groups and leaders [of the civil rights mvoement] from gaining 'respectability' by discrediting them to the 'responsible' Negro community."

This new legislation, which we don't even have a name for, is yet another step in the slippery slope towards tyranny. Even as Saddam Hussein is captured in Iraq President Bush signs legislation that moves America closer to being a police state.

I might mention, by the way, that the apparently poorly named Department of Justice has just announced that American citizen Jose Padilla will still not be allowed to see an attorney. Padilla was arrested at Chicago O'Hare airport on suspicion of being a terrorist bent on exploding a "dirty bomb" in the United States. Attorney General Ashcroft announced his arrest triumphantly.

Only later would the DoJ admit Padilla is a "small fish", as Warblogging reported in August of last year. But this "small fish" has now spent a year and a half in solitary confinement at a US military facility in South Carolina. He has not been allowed to see an attorney. He has not been allowed to appeal for a writ of habeus corpus. He has not been allowed to speak to anyone in the outside world, and quite possibly has not been allowed to see sunlight in his year and a half in captivity.

The Department of Justice says that they need to continue to detain Padilla without access to an attorney because he "continues to provide valuable intelligence" to the government, as the AP puts it. An anonymous DoJ source told the AP that this intelligence gathering "would potentially be hampered and jeopardized by access to counsel." My question is this: Padilla has been detained for more than a year and a half now. What more intelligence could he possibly have to give after all this time, and how could that intelligence still be relevant?

Padilla has not been charged with a crime. He has not been brought before a judge. He has not been given an attorney. He has not been allowed to make a phone call ? not one. This in America. This with an American citizen.

Do not forget that we now have the USA PATRIOT Act and this new legislation. Do not forget that there are multiple American citizens currently being detained indefinitely by the military without charge, without access to attorneys, and without the benefit of habeus corpus. Do not forget that the Attorney General of the United States is cracking down on free speech. Do not forget that riot police are becoming more aggressive in putting down protests, as Salon.com reports. Do not forget that the US government tried very, very hard to build Total Information Awareness.

Remember that our fundamental freedoms are not only in jeopardy, but are now being violated. Remember that what makes this country great ? the Bill of Rights ? is now being shredded in Washington. And remember that the only way we can save our freedoms is to get President Bush out of the White House.

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[sandorski]

yup

 

[Bitdog]

It's Bushes Freedom act or Freedom administration, better known as BIG BROTHER.
America won't be take over by a foriegn power, it will fall apart from within, or be taken over from with in.
What Bush really want's scares me. He's not smarter than those who wrote our constution, & bill of rights
but if he had his way, we the people wouldn't have any rights.

There is also another law that goes something like this: it's illegal to create or enforce a law that is unconstutional.

Bush can sign hundreds of bad bills a day, and each one destroys hundreds of citisens across our nation daily.
When one of the bad bills is repealed it's done through the courts by a victom of the bill.
He has spent his lifes savings to get justice in our corrupt courts.
Most all his personal relationships are destroyed.
He is left bitter & insecure with our government.
To me, it's pathetic to see Bush on TV signing another bill/law.

 

[AndrewR]