[Stoner]

http://www.sundayherald.com/35545

Bush faces domestic revolt over Patriot Act ‘sneaks’




From Ros Davidson in Los Angeles



George W Bush is facing a bi-partisan attack on the centrepiece of his domestic anti- terrorism programme.
In a little-noticed but significant move, Congress has started to gut a key provision of the controversial USA Patriot Act, the main legislative response to September 11. The House of Representatives has unexpectedly voted to ban funding for the anti-terrorism law’s “sneak and peek” or “black bag” warrants.

The provision allows police or government agents to search homes secretly or confiscate property . If passed by the Senate and signed by Bush, the change would be the law’s first.

The USA Patriot (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism) Act was rushed through Congress after the 2001 attacks. It dramatically widened the government’s ability to spy on and detain people in the US. Critics claim a huge loss of civil liberties and say sneak and peak warrants are unconstitutional. Especially ominous, they say, is that agents can be dispatched from any part of the intelligence apparatus.

“It opens the door to nationwide search warrants and allows the CIA and National Security Administration to operate domestically,” said the amendment’s sponsor, Congressman “Butch” Otter, a conservative Republican. The vote is the most dramatic gauge of formal opposition to the anti-terrorism law, which has gained traction in the last three months.

Tuesday’s last-minute amendment to a £24 million funding package pulled together conservatives and liberals, including more than half of Bush’s own party members in the House .

To become law the change has to make it through the Senate – which is more deliberative and pro-civil liberties than the House – and survive any veto by Bush. The Bush administration has written to leading Congressman Dennis Hastert saying that the change would “devastate” the fight against terrorism.

The Senate, almost evenly divided between the two major parties, is unlikely to consider it before the autumn. But that is when America’s 15-month presidential race starts and Bush opponents will be keen for ammunition.

More than 140 cities and towns oppose the act, as do the conservative states of Alaska, Idaho and Vermont.

According to critics, the law allows central government to intrude in local affairs, a very delicate issue in America. Local officials also contend that they are under-funded and cannot afford to implement even the most innocuous parts: protecting chemical factories, air cargo, roads and railways, or extra fire-fighting and medical care.

Jeff Deist, spokesman for conservative Texan Republican Congressman Ron Paul, says the Patriot Act is dangerous and foolish: “We’re going to keep trying to chip away. And the Bush administration, John Ashcroft and the Justice Department will keep trying to expand it.”

A leaked internal Justice Department probe detailed dozens of cases in which the civil rights of Muslim and Arabs have been seriously violated in the name of the Patriot Act.

Attorney-General John Ashcroft, the Patriot Act’s most outspoken defender, was to have spent much of the spring and summer laying groundwork for an expanded Patriot Act II.

In mid-July the Senate voted to block funding for the administration’s Total Information Awareness project, which would allow government data-mining technology to monitor all credit card and internet use, read medical files and analyse telephone records.

27 July 2003

[Stoner]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/...clu-usat_x.htm

ACLU sues over Patriot Act seizures provision
By Toni Locy, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — The ACLU asked a federal judge Wednesday to declare unconstitutional a section of a post-9/11 law that allows agents to secretly seize a person's records and belongings during foreign intelligence and terrorism probes.

U.S. Rep. C.L. "Butch" Otter says "we just went too far" with the Patriot Act.
By Troy Maben, AP

In the first legal challenge to law enforcement's broad new powers under the USA Patriot Act, the American Civil Liberties Union says the act inappropriately allows the FBI to obtain court orders without showing "probable cause" that a subject of the records seizure is a criminal suspect or agent of a foreign power.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit on behalf of six Arab, Muslim and Christian-affiliated social services and civil liberties groups. It is the latest move by Patriot Act opponents who say Congress went too far in giving more authority to law enforcement when it hastily passed the law shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The Patriot Act, which Congress approved overwhelmingly, broadened government's ability to use electronic and physical surveillance tactics to investigate terrorism. It also allowed the FBI to share evidence developed in criminal probes with its own intelligence agents and the CIA.

But in recent months there has been a backlash against the law, largely because of concerns that it could lead to violations of civil liberties. More than 140 cities and towns across the nation have passed resolutions critical of the Patriot Act.

And last week, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 309-118 to forbid certain funds from going to Justice Department agencies that use a provision of the Patriot Act that eases restrictions on "sneak-and-peek" search warrants.

Such warrants allow agents to secretly enter a home or business to obtain evidence. Normally the subjects of sneak-and-peeks are notified within seven days of the search; the Patriot Act says only that notification must be within a "reasonable period."

U.S. Rep. C.L. "Butch" Otter, R-Idaho, sponsor of the House measure, says "there are things in the Patriot Act that are appropriate." But, he says, "We (Congress) just went too far" in the original law.

The Justice Department has been trying to improve the Patriot Act's image.

Attorney General John Ashcroft has defended it in nearly every speech he has made recently. A federal law enforcement source says that Justice officials pressed FBI Director Robert Mueller to cite the law's attributes during an appearance on Capitol Hill last week.

Justice spokesman Barbara Comstock said Wednesday that the act was "long overdue" and closed "gaping holes" in the government's ability to track terrorists.

In its lawsuit, the ACLU targets only the records-seizure provision, which first was criticized by librarians. The provision's use is shrouded in secrecy, so the lawsuit's plaintiffs do not know whether their members have been subjects of seizure orders.

But they suspect that they have, given several instances in which FBI agents have questioned the groups' members about contributions to Muslim charities that are under investigation. They believe they also have drawn the FBI's interest because they have criticized detentions and deportations of Arabs and Muslims since 9/11.

The lawsuit says the act's provision threatens individual privacy and free-speech rights. It violates the First Amendment by indefinitely "gagging" libraries, hospitals, Internet providers and businesses from telling subjects of the orders that the FBI has confiscated their records, the lawsuit says.

Comstock says the provision's use is limited and can't be used to investigate "garden-variety crimes

[plschwartz]

US anti-war activists hit by secret airport ban
By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles

03 August 2003

After more than a year of complaints by some US anti-war activists that they were being unfairly targeted by airport security, Washington has admitted the existence of a list, possibly hundreds or even thousands of names long, of people it deems worthy of special scrutiny at airports.

The list had been kept secret until its disclosure last week by the new US agency in charge of aviation safety, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). And it is entirely separate from the relatively well-publicised "no-fly" list, which covers about 1,000 people believed to have criminal or terrorist ties that could endanger the safety of their fellow passengers.

The strong suspicion of such groups as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which is suing the government to try to learn more, is that the second list has been used to target political activists who challenge the government in entirely legal ways. The TSA acknowledged the existence of the list in response to a Freedom of Information Act request concerning two anti-war activists from San Francisco who were stopped and briefly detained at the airport last autumn and told they were on an FBI no-fly list.

The activists, Rebecca Gordon and Jan Adams, work for a small pacifist magazine called War Times and say they have never been arrested, let alone have criminal records. Others who have filed complaints with the ACLU include a left-wing constitutional lawyer who has been strip-searched repeatedly when travelling through US airports, and a 71-year-old nun from Milwaukee who was prevented from flying to Washington to join an anti-government protest.

It is impossible to know for sure who might be on the list, or why. The ACLU says a list kept by security personnel at Oakland airport ran to 88 pages. More than 300 people have been subject to special questioning at San Francisco airport, and another 24 at Oakland, according to police records. In no case does it appear that a wanted criminal was apprehended.

The ACLU's senior lawyer on the case, Jayashri Srikantiah, said she is troubled by several answers that the TSA gave to her questions. The agency, she said, had no way of making sure that people did not end up on the list simply because of things they had said or organisations they belonged to. Once people were on the list, there was no procedure for trying to get off it. The TSA did not even think it was important to keep track of people singled out in error for a security grilling. According to documents the agency released, it saw "no pressing need to do so".

It is not just left-wingers who feel unfairly targeted. Right-wing civil libertarians have spoken out against the secret list, and at least one conservative organisation, the Eagle Forum, says its members have been interrogated by security staff.

The complaints by the ACLU form part of a pattern of protest since the 11 September attacks, with the Bush administration repeatedly under fire for detaining people on the flimsiest of grounds in the name of the "war on terror". Many Muslims have had a hard time, especially if they have a surname such as Hussein.


2 August 2003 19:42
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[Stoner]

Perhaps the source for 'Adolf's Wish List' is running out of money?


http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0...html?foo=Darpa's%20Ditziness%20Dents%20Budget%2009-16

Darpa's Ditziness Dents Budget

By Noah Shachtman


02:00 AM Sep. 16, 2003 PT

Under increased scrutiny for a series of controversial programs, the Pentagon's far-out research arm has had its proposed budget for next year slashed by hundreds of millions of dollars in the Senate.

Some of the cuts to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency were expected: Lawmakers have been trying for the better part of a year to excise the notoriously far-reaching Terrorism Information Awareness database program. But others seem to have come out of regulatory left field. Widely hailed research into using the brain to control robotic limbs, and training the mind to function on little or no sleep, will come to an end if the Senate's version of the Defense Department Appropriations bill becomes law.



"Darpa got too much of the wrong kind of publicity, the kind that invites mockery and ridicule, and now the agency is paying the price," Steven Aftergood, with the Federation of American Scientists, wrote in an e-mail.

Darpa's Information Awareness Office -- the group, formerly headed by John Poindexter, responsible for TIA and for the proposed online trading floor dealing in possible terrorist attacks -- would be most deeply cut by the congressional cleaver.

"I am still determined to shut the entire program," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), a longtime TIA critic, told The New York Times last month. "I want to close the Poindexter umbrella."

The Senate bill eliminates $103 million from the Information Awareness Office's $169 million requested budget, wiping out controversial programs like Human Identification at a Distance, Darpa's effort to identify potential suspects by the way they walk. ( )

Other projects have been shelved in the Senate bill, as well. Funds from Darpa helped launch Duke University's Center for Neuroengineering, where Craig Henriquez was one of a team of researchers developing techniques to control mechanical limbs using brain power alone.

In a widely cited paper in Nature, Henriquez's colleagues showed how a monkey, implanted with a series of electrodes in its brain, could move a robotic arm -- just by thinking about it.

The center received $5 million per year, as part of Darpa's Brain Machine Interfaces push. Now, that money may be drying up.

"There's potential for other funding, but probably not as big as Darpa, and with a lot of delay," he added. Darpa has a long history of going after the far-fetched, the seemingly impossible. "We can't shoot for the moon as much as with a Darpa project."

Yaakov Stern, a professor of clinical neuropsychology at Columbia University, was working on a $35 million research effort, Continuous Assistance Performance, to better understand how a lack of sleep affects peoples' thoughts and actions.

The idea, ultimately, is to have soldiers operate with little or no shut-eye. Tired troops have been blamed for a number of "friendly fire" incidents in Afghanistan and Iraq. So, to Stern, "the military application here is pretty straightforward."

Senate financiers don't agree.

"We're unclear on the defense applications of some of the research," said Tim Bouley, a Senate Appropriations Committee spokesman.

Stern and his colleagues just wrapped up the first phase of their efforts. They were counting on Darpa funds to continue. If they don't get the money, "We'll have to gear down this whole line of research," he said.

And that could affect more than just soldiers. Airline pilots, truck drivers, doctors -- even freelance reporters -- all work under sleep-deprived conditions, he noted. And treatments that curb fatigue's effects on memory and judgment could inspire new methods for dealing with diseases affecting memory and thinking, like Alzheimer's.

In recent years, Darpa's budget has "gone up dramatically," noted Elaine McClusker, co-chairwoman of the Coalition for National Security Research, an academic and industrial science advocacy group. In inflation-adjusted dollars, next year's requested budget -- $2.9 billion -- is more than 55 percent higher than 2000's.

With all that money, McClusker said, "it's harder to explain it all to (congressional) staff. They ask, 'What is all this money going into Darpa, and what are they spending it on?'"

The controversy surrounding projects like LifeLog -- Darpa's all-encompassing diary project -- and TIA haven't made matters any easier.

"Increased public attention on what Darpa's doing has increased the Hill's attention," McClusker said. "Even members with direct supervision (over Darpa) don't ordinarily pay attention to specific programs without some external stimulation."

And when lawmakers do scrutinize, McClusker added, they usually give detailed reasons for the added attention. In this case, only the vaguest of statements have been made, she said.

Now, Darpa allies like McClusker are teaming with the agency to try to get the programs restored.

"The proposed congressional cuts to Darpa's biology programs will cripple Darpa's strategic thrust in the life sciences and seriously impede Darpa's mission to prevent technological surprise," agency spokeswoman Jan Walker wrote in an e-mail. "If these cuts hold, they will increase the probability that we will eventually face enemy war fighters who are physically safer, stronger and more capable than our own."

That might be overreaching. After all, America's military budget in 2003 was larger than those of 25 big-spending nations combined, according to the Center for Defense Information, a Washington-based think tank.

But even Darpa critics, like the Federation of American Scientists' Aftergood, is sympathetic to the agency's difficulties.

"The appropriations process is more of a meat ax than a surgical instrument," he wrote. "It does not carefully distinguish what is valuable from what is expendable. And it is quite likely that some useful work that was conducted by Darpa will now be delayed or discarded," he writes. "But with the exploding budget deficit, that is going to become a familiar story."

[Stoner]

An example of broken trust. Business co-operating with the government on issues that were promised to be confidential. The last statement in bold says it all(IMO).
(and brought to you by Fox News )


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,97987,00.html

Privacy Group Urges Probe of JetBlue

Monday , September 22, 2003

WASHINGTON — A privacy-rights group asked U.S. regulators Monday to prosecute JetBlue Airways Corp. (JBLU) for secretly giving the names of more than a million of its passengers to an anti-terrorism screening program.


JetBlue violated a promise to maintain customer privacy when it gave passenger information to a military contractor last year, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (search) said in a complaint filed with the Federal Trade Commission (search).

JetBlue apologized last week for handing over passenger names, addresses and phone numbers in an effort to help the U.S. Defense Department identify possible terrorist threats.

According to documents posted on the watchdog site www.dontspyon.us, defense contractor Torch Concepts Inc. (search) crossed passenger lists with additional personal information such as Social Security numbers and income levels in a data-mining program to determine whether passengers could be assessed for a security risk.

Data aggregator Acxiom Corp. (ACXM), which provided the additional information, was also named in the EPIC complaint.

Both companies misled consumers through statements on their Web sites that said they would not share personal information with third parties or give consumers some say in how that information is shared, EPIC said.

"Such action violated the publicly posted privacy policies of both companies and misled consumers in a very unfair and deceptive manner," EPIC staff counsel Marcia Hoffman told reporters in a conference call.

EPIC also asked the Federal Aviation Administration (search), the Army and the Transportation Security Administration (search) for further information about the program.

An FTC spokesperson declined to comment.

Such use of passenger information is common in the travel industry, according to author and privacy activist Edward Hasbrouck. Reservation firms have provided airline and hotel records on several occasions to government contractors looking to test their screening systems, he said, and much customer data is poorly protected against computer hacking.

"The abuse of privacy by JetBlue was not unusual," said Hasbrouck, who called on Congress to investigate industry practices. "What was unusual is JetBlue actually having a privacy policy."

A JetBlue spokesman did not return a call seeking comment.

An Acxiom spokesman was not immediately available for comment

[~Candy~]

Jack just for your reading pleasure in case you missed it..........

http://forums.techguy.org/showthread...66#post1179466

Oh, and I just stumbled upon the one I couldn't find for free before:

U.S. data mining riles Latin America

By HUGH DELLIOS
Chicago Tribune

MANAGUA, Nicaragua - For a people who have grappled with American meddling for more than a century, Nicaraguans were surprised to find that Uncle Sam's long reach may now extend right into their private lives.

The latest intrusion was by information companies rooting out identity documents, driver's license numbers, phone records and other personal data, all of which were made available to the U.S. government for screening.

Prosecutors in Nicaragua, Mexico and elsewhere across Latin America have opened investigations into the business of private information mining after discovering that the U.S. Justice Department hired a Georgia company to collect personal information on up to 300 million people throughout the region without their knowledge.

The company, ChoicePoint Inc., in turn hired local subcontractors to dig out the information. Company officials said they only collect data from the public realm and never deal in sensitive information such as bank records. But investigators across the region want to know who is collecting what information and how it might be used.

The project is part of the U.S. government's attempt to expand its intelligence sources in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. U.S. officials say the data are being used by the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies to verify the identities of foreign-born criminal suspects, illegal immigrants and suspected terrorists.

Yet such data-digging has rung alarm bells for U.S. privacy advocates already critical of Washington's efforts to collect information on American citizens under such programs as the Defense Department's Terrorism Information Awareness project.

That project, run by 1980s Iran-contra figure John Poindexter until his resignation in August, is being curtailed after drawing stiff condemnation from civil libertarians and members of Congress.

South of the border, the Justice Department project has stirred concerns about the U.S. acting as "Big Brother" and interfering in the affairs of countries that pose little threat. Officials in Nicaragua worry it could fuel a black market in private information in nations already plagued by corruption and lacking official oversight to prevent abuses.

"It was a big surprise, because this information cannot be in the hands of a private company," said Maria del Carmen Solorzano, the Nicaraguan prosecutor investigating the information collecting. "They could use this information for all kinds of different ends, even those we can't imagine."

Several countries, including Nicaragua, Colombia, Costa Rica and El Salvador, are trying to change their laws to better protect their citizens from what is being labeled as "information trafficking."

News of the project came at a sensitive time, during the war in Iraq, which was extremely unpopular across a region well-acquainted with U.S. intervention.

"It's espionage," said Alejandro Bendana, director of the Institute of International Studies in Managua. "The U.S. is going to know more about the Nicaraguan people than the Nicaraguan government. They can say, 'Here is a list of Nicaraguan undesirables. Keep them under control,' or they will say to the airlines, 'Don't let them onboard.'"

In late 2001, the Justice Department signed the first of several contracts with ChoicePoint, a company that collects biographical information and sells it to employers and insurance companies for resume checking and identity verification. Other clients are media organizations, including the Chicago Tribune.

The contract called for personal information on citizens of Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua and Venezuela, ChoicePoint officials said. The company has since ceased collecting data in Argentina and Costa Rica.

U.S. officials say the purpose of the contract was national security. They contend that the information will bring quicker identity verification, such as when officials are trying to uncover a smuggler among a group of illegal immigrants, as well as enhance their ability to detect suspicious patterns of behavior that could lead to the discovery of terrorist cells.

ChoicePoint officials say all the information comes from public sources, such as driver's license lists, civil registries and telephone records. The U.S. government doesn't have open access to the data, they say, but must apply to see the information only when attempting to verify the identity of someone under suspicion.

The company says it makes its local subcontractors certify in writing that the information they pass along was obtained legally.

"There has never been any allegation anywhere that ChoicePoint did anything untoward," said Chuck Jones, a spokesman for the company. "There have been lots of things reported in the press - that we had photographs and fingerprints and blood types - and none of that is true. It was names, addresses, phone numbers - things like that."

But the investigations in Latin America have raised questions about the methods used by at least one of ChoicePoint's subcontractors to obtain information.

Earlier this year, ChoicePoint destroyed part of its Mexico database after Mexican officials alleged that it included information from the government's national voting registry, which would be illegal.

According to Mexican officials and media reports, ChoicePoint purchased the information for $250,000 in 2001 from a consumer information company called Bases de Datos, which was marketing it as part of a database called Guide to Potential Sellers and Buyers in the Mexican Republic.

Bases de Datos said it bought the information from another company. Mexican investigators would like to question the alleged supplier from that second company, but he apparently has gone into hiding.

ChoicePoint officials say they have cooperated fully with Mexican authorities, including returning 10 disks with the voter information. They blamed the problems on the subcontractor for "falsely" certifying that the information was legally obtained.

"ChoicePoint acted in good faith," J. Michael de Janes, ChoicePoint's general counsel and chief privacy officer, said in a statement in June. "Unfortunately, our Mexican data supplier abused its position of trust and took advantage of the people of Mexico and ChoicePoint."

In response, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security stopped using ChoicePoint's data on Mexican citizens, a department spokesman said. "It was an extremely useful database, but it was (only) one of the tools we used," said Garrison Courtney, the spokesman. "We have a lot of other, different databases."

Meanwhile, Mexican prosecutors want proof - beyond a company news release - that ChoicePoint destroyed its original copy of the suspected voter files. The Mexicans sent a delegation to company offices in Alpharetta, Ga., to witness the erasing of the files, but the company first requested a statement from Mexico exonerating its employees of any wrongdoing.

The Mexicans refused, saying they couldn't make such a statement in the middle of their investigation.

"Because of the simple fact that (the list) has left the electoral arena and has been used in a commercial form, for other ends, there is a presumption that a crime has been committed," said Maria de los Angeles Fromow, Mexico's special prosecutor for electoral crimes.

The Nicaraguan investigation also has run into problems.

After the ChoicePoint project was made public in an Associated Press report, La Prensa newspaper accessed the Web site of Guatemala-based company Infornet. Among the data it found were the banking records of the Nicaraguan national police chief and personal information on the vice president, two former presidents and a judge.

Shortly afterward, police raided the Managua offices of Infornet and two other data-collection companies. But they have not been able to question the employees of Infornet because the employees left the country, prosecutors say.

Del Carmen, the prosecutor, said any government official who sells official data such as banking records to a private company could be subject to a criminal charge.

Police in Guatemala also raided Infornet's offices in that country after receiving complaints about invasion of privacy after the ChoicePoint contract became known. An Infornet spokeswoman denied any wrongdoing by the company.

Citing confidentiality agreements, ChoicePoint officials would not comment on whether Infornet was one of the company's subcontractors in Central America. And Jones, the spokesman, said ChoicePoint "does not have, has never had, nor would we want to have financial records on any Latin American citizens."

"We are obviously very concerned about this," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, which first uncovered the existence of the federal contract with ChoicePoint.

"They (U.S. officials) have been very aggressive, and at some level it's understandable. Unfortunately, I think too often recently the U.S. has jeopardized not only our privacy laws but also other countries'."

[bassetman]

Originally posted by Stoner:
http://www.sundayherald.com/35545

Bush faces domestic revolt over Patriot Act ‘sneaks’




From Ros Davidson in Los Angeles



George W Bush is facing a bi-partisan attack on the centrepiece of his domestic anti- terrorism programme.
In a little-noticed but significant move, Congress has started to gut a key provision of the controversial USA Patriot Act, the main legislative response to September 11. The House of Representatives has unexpectedly voted to ban funding for the anti-terrorism law’s “sneak and peek” or “black bag” warrants.

The provision allows police or government agents to search homes secretly or confiscate property . If passed by the Senate and signed by Bush, the change would be the law’s first.

The USA Patriot (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism) Act was rushed through Congress after the 2001 attacks. It dramatically widened the government’s ability to spy on and detain people in the US. Critics claim a huge loss of civil liberties and say sneak and peak warrants are unconstitutional. Especially ominous, they say, is that agents can be dispatched from any part of the intelligence apparatus.


<snip>
.

27 July 2003

Good one Stoner!

Same on your's Candy!

[Stoner]

Ahhhh....Choicepoint


AcaCandy....did you see my post #123 Here

They even had a role in the Florida balloting mess. Not to the Bush administrations disadvantage, either!!

[Stoner]

Thought I'd show Choicepoints stock growth chart for the last 5 years.
Guess the recession didn't hurt them a bit
Data mining for fun and profit (what's the harm in a 'little profit' )

Source

[Stoner]

Well............here's something of interest concerning Checkpoint.
There does seem to be a circle of corruption involving one Kenneth Langone who has involvements from sitting on the corporate governance committee of the New York Stock Exchange to Checkpoint to even Home Depot.
Langone appears to be responsible for some excessive CEO compensation packages.......such as the $180 million that Grasso was to recieve.

a money trail perhaps?


full story here> http://atlanta.bizjournals.com/atlan...06/story4.html

Be sure to check out page 3--conflicts of interest
Especially the $14 mil that Checkpoint charged Home Depot for services

One guy sitting on two boards swapping money---sweet deal


Now remember- Checkpoint collects data on 'you'
Feel comfy?

[~Candy~]

Home Depot Did you see my post regarding their new 'check yourself out' machines? New $20 dollar bills won't work in them Wonder who their consultant was on that deal

Thanks for the links above, and no, I did not see your post. I think I had you on my ignore list in May














Lol, just kidding.............


I'm still stuck on page 5............I have other chores to do today

[Stoner]

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0...Power%2011--24


Congress Expands FBI Spying Power



By Ryan Singel | Also by this reporter Page 1 of 2 next »


02:00 AM Nov. 24, 2003 PT

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.

Under the Patriot Act, the FBI can acquire bank records and Internet or phone logs simply by issuing itself a so-called national security letter saying the records are relevant to an investigation into terrorism. The FBI doesn't need to show probable cause or consult a judge. What's more, the target institution is issued a gag order and kept from revealing the subpoena's existence to anyone, including the subject of the investigation.

The new provision in the spending bill redefines the meaning of "financial institution" and "financial transaction." The wider definition explicitly includes insurance companies, real estate agents, the U.S. Postal Service, travel agencies, casinos, pawn shops, ISPs, car dealers and any other business whose "cash transactions have a high degree of usefulness in criminal, tax or regulatory matters."

Justice Department officials tried earlier this year to write a bill to expand the Patriot Act. A draft -- dubbed Patriot II -- was leaked and caused such an uproar that Justice officials backed down. The new provision inserts one of the most controversial aspects of Patriot II into the spending bill.

Intelligence spending bills are considered sensitive, so they are usually drafted in secret and approved without debate or public comment.

Chris Schroeder, a Duke law professor and former assistant attorney general in the office of legal counsel at the Justice Department, said the re-insertion shows that "people who want to expand the powers of the FBI didn't want to stop after Patriot II was leaked."

"They are going to insert these provisions on a stealth basis," Schroeder said. "It's insidious."

James X. Dempsey, executive director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, echoed Shroeder's analysis.

"On its face, it's a cryptic and seemingly innocuous amendment," Dempsey said. "It wasn't until after it passed both houses that we saw it. The FBI and CIA like to try to graft things like this into intelligence bills."

House Intelligence Committee chairman Porter Goss (R-Florida) defended the new definition, saying it was necessary to keep pace with terrorists and the changing economy.

"This provision brings the definition of 'financial institution' up to date with the reality of the financial industry," Goss said on the House floor. "This provision will allow those tracking terrorists and spies to 'follow the money' more effectively and thereby protect the people of the United States more effectively."

The expansion surprised many in Congress, including some members of the intelligence committees who recently began reconsidering the scope of the Patriot Act.

Timothy Edgar, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, decried the expansion of an executive power that is not subject to judicial oversight.

"The more that checks and balances against government abuse are eroded, the greater that abuse," Edgar said. "We're going to regret these initiatives down the road."

National security letters, or NSLs, are among the most-used antiterrorism powers, and are among the least-known or scrutinized. The Bush administration has pushed to expand their use. In the spring, it tried unsuccessfully to allow the CIA and the military the right to issue such subpoenas.

The FBI says it can't say how many times it has issued itself NSLs because of national security. A few weeks ago, civil liberties groups forced the Justice Department to release some of those records, but Justice handed over a six-page, blacked-out list.

Other portions of the funding bill eliminate annual reports to Congress on several controversial matters, such as foreign companies' involvement in the spread of weapons of mass destruction, the effectiveness of the intelligence community and antidrug efforts.

The bill also nixes reports on how many times national security letters are used to access individuals' credit reports.

After a joint committee reconciled the two versions of the bill, both houses had to vote to approve the compromise version, which is usually considered a formality. While Friday's Senate vote was a voice vote, on Thursday, 15 Republicans in the House broke ranks and voted against the entire intelligence-funding bill in protest of the national security provision. The bill passed by a vote of 264 to 163.

Though debate was limited, a handful of representatives, including Butch Otter (R-Iowa), spoke out against the bill.

"In our fight for our nation to make the world a safe place, we must not turn our backs on our own freedoms," Otter said. "Expanding the use of administrative subpoenas and threatening our system of checks and balances is a step in the wrong direction."

The ACLU's Edgar said he was surprised by the extent of the Republican defections. It shows how views in both parties have changed about granting unchecked antiterrorism powers.

Edgar also argued the extension may anger strong interest groups -- such as casinos, Realtors and travel agents -- who previously weren't part of the civil liberties debate.

"They had no idea this was coming," Edgar said. "This is going to help to continue to expand the list of people and organizations that are asking questions about civil liberties and Patriot Act powers."

Members of Congress who were upset by the provisions and the process that led to their passage may hold hearings on the matter early next year.

Neither the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kansas) nor the ranking minority member, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia), responded to requests for comment.

The FBI directed press calls to the Department of Justice, which didn't respond by press time.

The Justice Department has vigorously defended its use of the Patriot Act for both terrorist and nonterrorist investigations and set up a website to respond to its critics.

[Servant of Eru]

This image may be offensive to some, but I found it appropriate. Mods, remove it if you find it inappropriate.

[Wino]

Why not? We've had a chance to take it out for a spin - so let's repair or remove the bad parts for the sake of our citizens. Bold is my doing in article.

Susan Ives: Trash Patriot Act and start over from scratch


Web Posted : 12/06/2003 12:00 AM

Forty years ago this month six men presented a search warrant at the door to a small white house in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of San Antonio, authorizing them to search for books, papers and records of the Communist Party. In their four-hour search they didn't find any.
But they carted off more than 2,000 items, including John and Cecilia Stanford's marriage license and a pile of books, including some written by John Paul Sartre, Pope John XXIII and Hugo L. Black.

When Maury Maverick Jr., the ACLU attorney representing John Stanford before the Supreme Court, got to the bit about Hugo Black, the court broke out in laughter. As well they might. Justice Hugo L. Black was sitting on the bench with the eight other justices hearing the argument. Stanford won his case against the state of Texas — and got his not-so-subversive books back.

When Stanford told this story Thursday night at the City Council meeting, the audience broke out in applause. What happened to him could happen to any of us. The USA Patriot Act makes such fishing expeditions legal.

About 50 opponents of the Patriot Act attended the City Council meeting, presenting a four page resolution "affirming civil rights and liberties and declaring opposition to federal measures that infringe on civil liberties."

To date, three states — Alaska, Hawaii and Vermont — and more than 200 cities and counties have passed resolutions opposing the Patriot Act. Two Texas communities are on the list: Austin and Sunset Valley, a town of 327 brave souls six miles from the state capital.

Chicago. Philadelphia. Tucson. Minneapolis. Missoula. Boise. Kalamazoo. Two hundred and twenty-two communities, big and small, liberal and conservative, in 27 states.

The resolution proposed to City Council on Thursday leads off with two pages of "whereas's." Two of the most chilling criticisms of the Patriot Act are that it:

Permits the FBI to conduct surveillance of religious services without evidence that a crime has been or may be committed;

Expands the authority of federal agents to conduct "sneak and peak" searches, never notifying the subject of the search.

The resolution contains two pages of "therefores," explaining what the city will do. The first is that the city "affirms its support of fundamental constitutional rights and its opposition to federal measures that infringe on these rights and liberties."

Other proposals are more concrete, such as directing libraries to notify patrons that records of books they borrow could be demanded by federal agents and directing Bexar County's homeland security official to request information on federal monitoring of political and religious gatherings and other meetings protected by the First Amendment.

The next step is for a council person to propose the resolution. District 5's Patti Radle has indicated her support.

The Patriot Act, all 342 pages of it, was passed only 45 days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

It is a hastily compiled compendium of everything that law enforcement has dreamed about over the past 30 years.

Some of it is perhaps needed, updating old laws to accommodate today's sophisticated technology.

Most of it is repugnant to those who treasure liberty. The sensible action, now that we've had time to calm down, would be to trash the act and start over from scratch.

Instead, the U.S. attorney general has proposed Patriot Act II that, among other provisions, would expand the authority of the government to hold citizens indefinitely without disclosing the charges made against them. Bye-bye habeas corpus.

John Stanford ended his talk quoting Justice Potter Stewart, who delivered the opinion in his case:

"Vivid in the memory of the newly independent Americans were those general warrants known as writs of assistance under which officers of the Crown had so bedeviled the colonists... They were denounced by James Otis as 'the worst instrument of arbitrary power, the most destructive of English liberty, and the fundamental principles of law, that ever was found in an English law book,' because they placed 'the liberty of every man in the hands of every petty officer.'"



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
suives@texas.net

[Stoner]

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/36798


Patriot Act Grows
While Americans watch Saddam delousing

Written by Karl Bode

On the same day the media was bogged down with images of Saddam Hussein being searched for head-lice, a new provision to the Patriot Act was signed into law by the President. Quietly tucked away in an intelligence spending bill, the changes broaden the ability for the FBI to obtain financial records from any number of sources with what opponent say is little accountability. -

Under the Patriot Act, ISP's and network administrators can give the green light to government surveillance of computer networks without a judicial order, without informing the person monitored, without Judicial oversight, without reporting the tactics to congress; all while essentially eliminating many of the rights of the person being monitored. These controversial portions of the act aren't well discussed at the 'cheerleaderesque' website developed by the DOJ.

Recent analysis of the website by the Center for Democracy and technology claims the website "provides misleading, incomplete and, in some cases, incorrect information." Among other statements, the DOJ claims that "Peaceful political organizations engaging in political advocacy cannot be considered terrorists under the PATRIOT Act's new definition of domestic terrorism."

Not necessarily true, says the CDT, who notes that all someone needs to do to acquire the label of domestic terrorist is violate an existing law "involving risk of serious injury." That could include blocking traffic at a protest, or accidentally harming someone during a struggle. Like most hotly debated legislation, it's the loose wording of the Act, leading to potentially significant abuses, that gives privacy advocates cause for concern.

When additional changes were passed by Congress last Thanksgiving, only a few scattered outlets - like Wired News and oddly - Adult Video News - paying attention. While the original Patriot act allows the FBI to request data from your ISP with no court order or judicial oversight, these new changes, tucked away in the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004, broaden those powers further. The provisions expand the definition of "financial institution" and "financial transaction", allowing the FBI to monitor everything from Pawn Shops to your ISP with more authority.

Opponents claim that the already weakened system of checks and balances is being eroded futher, and the Fourth Amendment (protection against unreasonable searches and seizures) faces a serious threat. Supporters claim the changes are necessary to track the money funding terrorist operations and prevent further attacks. In between these two groups are usually those who don't care either way, since they're "not doing anything wrong".

The debate between these groups was overshadowed (intentionally or otherwise) by three days of Saddam capture video and elaborate (and fully 3D) explorations of the hole Iraq's one-time leader crawled out of. As usual with American media, all other news is often buried during major events - something all politicians have learned to use to their advantage to minimize controversy.

A few weeks later finds the changes being noticed by a few. This San Antonio Current article takes a look at the recent changes, and discussion is ripe over at Dave Farber's Interesting People mailing list (explore the thread index to see multiple and opposing opinions).