Christian Leftist

From the NYT article on the abuse of national security letters:

The F.B.I. cast a much wider net in its terrorism investigations than it has previously acknowledged by relying on telecommunications companies to analyze phone-call patterns of the associates of Americans who had come under suspicion, according to newly obtained bureau records.

The documents indicate that the Federal Bureau of Investigation used secret demands for records to obtain data not only on individuals it saw as targets but also details on their “community of interest” — the network of people that the target was in contact with. The bureau stopped the practice early this year in part because of broader questions raised about its aggressive use of the records demands, which are known as national security letters, officials said.

What this means is whatever or whoever the F.B.I. determines to be ‘relevant’ or within a suspect’s “community of interest” is fair game. Say someone named Margie Johnson shares a name with a suspected terrorist sympathizer in Scotland. That name comes up on the T.S.A.’s No-Fly list when she goes to an airport. Now, assuming that the two Margie Johnsons are one and the same (and that’s a big if, but the T.S.A. screw-ups are a beef for another barbecue), the F.B.I. would keep track of her calls and any meetings, activities, etc. that they deem suspicious.

It turns out Margie attends a local genealogy group meeting every Saturday at the local library. She also checks out a few books afterwards and usually returns those books in a few days. Since the feds tend to assume everyone is guilty until proven innocent, maybe they think these group meetings are suspicious and that she’s passing secret messages in the library books or learning how to build bombs.

Too bad you joined that group two weeks ago. The national security letter that went out? It covers everyone involved in the group. You thought you were just trying to find your lost great uncle from Romania!

It also covers anyone who was in the library and checked out or turned in a book in the time frames when Margie was present in the library. The library has to send their records of electronic checkouts and drop-offs and give the F.B.I. the names of all of those people. Now they’ll follow you and everyone else the sweep turns up. It’s already established that the F.B.I. has used its terrorist surveillance field agents and local law enforcement to monitor anti-war activists and others critical of the Bush administration.

In 2005, the Bureau instructed a telecommunications company to provide “a community of interest for the telephone numbers in the attached list.”

There are a lot of ways in which the vague language applied in many cases could be interpreted.

Hypothetically speaking, of course. But “relative” is a ‘relative’ term nowadays.

We all knew it was only a matter of time before that whole “we’re-the-government-and-we-can-send-out-letters-and-tell-you-to-turn-over-private-information-on-your-clients-and-you-can’t-say-anything-because-of-national-security-risks” thing blew up like a spark in sawdust. Of course, I didn’t think it would take this long for some sane judge to finally bring the hammer down on a ridiculous provision that makes every U.S. citizen guilty until proven innocent, but better late than never.

Yesterday, Victor Marrero of the Federal District Court in Manhattan struck down the provision in the USA PATRIOT ACT that allowed the F.B.I. to demand civil and financial records from any business or institution with the mailing of a so-called “national security letter.” Some 143,000 of these “national security letters” went out to retailers, local governments and police stations, communications networks and institutions of learning between 2001 and 2006, many of which appear to have been issued under dubious pretenses.

This is a terrific, if possibly short-lived, victory for the ACLU against the Bush administration. But underneath all of the lawsuits, the threats, the rhetoric and the fine print, one essential truth has come to light:

Don’t f*** with librarians.

Justice is served.

FBI Director Robert Mueller’s heavily redacted notes that the House Judiciary Committee released on Thursday confirm that Andrew J. Card Jr. and Alberto Gonzales put enormous pressure on then-Attorney General John Ashcroft to approve an extension on controversial warrantless wiretapping by the NSA within the U.S.

The Bush administration has denied that Gonzales’s and Card’s talks with Ashcroft right after his gall bladder surgery were about the warrantless surveillance, but James Comey, who was acting as Attorney General while Ashcroft remained hospitalized, said that he “thought he saw [the two men] trying to take advantage of a sick man] when they pressed Ashcroft to sign the extension. Comey had already refused, saying that parts of the bill were illegal, so Gonzales and Card, then the White House’s Chief of Staff, headed over to Ashcroft’s bedside to convince him to sign the bill, thinking that his signature would override Comey’s temporary power. It is clear from his restraint during testimony that Comey was livid about the event, and the scandal nearly caused a wave of resignations at the Department of Justice.

Apparently, Robert Mueller arrived after Card and Gonzales had left, and Comey related the incident to him in front of Ashcroft. Mueller’s notes also describe frequent visits by Vice President Dick Cheney to Ashcroft’s bedisde prior to the showdown with Comey, indicating that Cheny may have played a significant role in the move to have Ashcroft’s office authorize the legislation.

I want to make it clear that I am not certain whether this warrantless wiretapping extension was a bill, and act, etc., so I just used the words bill and legislation to represent the legal action presented in the proposal.

You can read more about the chain of events in these NY Times articles:

Mining of Data Prompted Fight Over U.S. Spying [older NYT article, so read it while you still can]
FBI Chief’s Notes Detail Ashcroft Visit [the AP report]
Notes Detail Pressure on Ashcroft Over Spying [NYT article from today]