National Insecurity
Betraying our ideals without even knowing it.
There’s a country that earlier generations might not recognize in which the national government’s criminal investigative agency can execute its own warrants without court approval; present them to private companies and demand information about people who are not necessarily suspected of criminal wrongdoing; and — if that were not enough — forbid those companies from telling anyone — not even the target of the investigation.
The country I have in mind is not a Latin American banana republic or a Middle Eastern dictatorship. It’s the United States of America.
The warrant-like orders requiring no judge’s signature are called national security letters. In the last nine years the FBI, Defense Department, and CIA have issued well over a hundred thousand national security letters. The FBI has exceeded even the broad powers granted by Congress, and that overreach continued for years after it came to the attention of bureau lawyers. Earlier this year the inspector general of the Justice Department documented the FBI’s frequent violations of the law. (See it here in pdf form.) If the government is now operating within the law, that is no reason for complacency: The law itself is an abuse.
Not Far Enough
Nevertheless, it doesn’t go far enough for President Obama, who campaigned against Bush administration civil-liberties violations like warrantless wiretapping. Obama wants Congress to expand the scope of national security letters even more. It’s another case of a Progressive political figure one-upping the conservatives at “national security” measures once he gets his hands on power.
Unfortunately, these things get little public attention — do most people even know that national security letters exist? I can’t help asking: Shouldn’t we be concerned about this? I’d have expected people who claim to revere the Constitution to be rather upset by a law that authorizes federal intelligence and investigative agencies, on their own initiative, to demand private records without a court-issued warrant and in the absence of specific criminal activity — while keeping the target in the dark so he can’t challenge the demand before a judge. What happened to the separation of powers and the First and Fourth Amendments? We’re talking about some venerable and hard-won protections in Anglo-American law, protections that have now been blithely nullified. (Watch for the September issue of The Freeman, with Joseph Stromberg’s examination of the history and present condition of the Fourth Amendment.)
According to the Washington Post, the Obama administration says it wants to clarify existing law so that national security letters can unambiguously include among the information demanded: “the addresses to which an Internet user sends e-mail, the times and dates e-mail was sent and received, and possibly a user’s browser history.”
Browser history? Could a browser history be used to build a criminal case against someone? “Electronic communication transactional records,” the undefined phrase that Obama wants added to the law, would not include the content of communications – or so say administration lawyers. After all that’s been going on of late, why should anyone believe that?
The legal clarification is said to be necessary because some Internet service providers refuse to turn over such information on grounds that doing so would violate the law, although most reportedly do.
Why not just get a warrant?
A national security letter, an administration official said, “allows us to intercede in plots earlier than we would if our hands were tied and we were unable to get this data in a way that was quick and efficient.”
This is a boilerplate rationalization – complete with the tied-hands trope — for unchecked executive power. It was the same excuse used to justify warrantless eavesdropping even though the FISA court expedites the obtaining of warrants. (This is not to say the FISA court is an adequate safeguard of civil liberties. It has functioned more like a rubberstamp than a real independent court.) If the powers that be had liberty among their priorities, they’d find a way to have a real court issue warrants quickly.
National security letters did not begin with the 9/11 attacks and the Patriot Act. They originated in 1978 but were used infrequently and were limited to suspected foreign agents directly under investigation. Institutions served with a letter could not be forced to comply. In the 1980s and ’90s the power was broadened: Targets no longer had to be foreign agents under investigation; the information sought merely had to be declared “relevant” to a terrorist investigation or intelligence operation. No “probable cause” is necessary. Compliance became compulsory. The 2001 Patriot Act expanded the power even more. (Some of the issues, such as the gag order, are being litigated thanks to the ACLU. Apparently there has been no final resolution.) As noted, that virtual blank check wasn’t enough for the FBI. For example, it often sought information unrelated to any existing investigation, and informal “sneak peaks” and “exigent letters” were used to get around the loose law when the FBI found it inconvenient.
Isn’t this the sort of thing that sparked that revolt against the British Empire?
One has to be concerned with how much the American people are willing to put up with nowadays. National security letters are not the only problem. Congress passed, a president signed, and the Supreme Court upheld a law forbidding Americans to give vaguely defined “material support” to government-designated foreign terrorist organizations, even if that support is nothing more than conducting a seminar on nonviolent conflict resolution for a group that directs none of its activities at Americans. (Ominously, Solicitor General and soon-to-be Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan argued the case for the Obama administration. Chief Justice John Roberts chided her for refusing to acknowledge that the law infringes freedom of speech, which was otherwise okay with him.)
Moreover, last week the Washington Post documented the rise of “Top Secret America,” or what I’ve dubbed the “obscene feeding frenzy at the public trough” — namely the unbelievable expansion of the government’s costly and hopelessly complicated global surveillance apparatus. It may not make us safer — in fact it may be reading our emails — but it’s making a lot of people and contractors richer.
Are we so afraid that we are eager to trash irreversibly what’s left of our civil liberties? Is that what we have reduced ourselves to? Have we no sense of the ideals we have betrayed?
Those who know the movie A Man for All Seasons will be reminded of the scene in which Sir Thomas More and William Roper clash over the value of law as a check on the arbitrary government power. This might be a good time take More’s argument to heart.
Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!
More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!
Comment by JT on 30 July 2010:
Fusion centers & national security letters. The noose grows tighter!
Comment by Sheldon Richman on 30 July 2010:
You think there’s a pattern?
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Comment by Daniel Shapiro on 30 July 2010:
Anyone who desires a deeper understanding of the cause of this particular phenomena that Mr. Richman describes in this article may benefit from reading “Our Enemy the State” by Albert Jay Nock.
Comment by Dennis on 30 July 2010:
Good stuff as usual! The passage from the movie script is an excellent touch. It seems we are traveling on The Road to Serfdom and the guys who are making the maps scare me.
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Comment by ken lusk on 31 July 2010:
No one comments that it is defict spending, the proceeds from the Treasury bond sales, that fund the Pentagon and the rest of the National Security Police state. This is evidenced by the facts tht there were 400 lobbyists in D.C.[District of Criminals} in 1980, 45,000 today all creating and chasing the deficit $ proceeds.Reagan initiated the huge deficits to fund and create the National Security Police State[NSPS]and it has been expanded by every administration and now both Democrats and Republicans are really the War Party, with their illusion of the 2 Party’s, Kabuki Theater for the general public, the mindlessness whom can’t, or don’t know how to, discern thought from facts, including the thoughts of others which are construed into facts by the mindlessness which has been institutiuonalized by governement, businesses, and pretend christian churches, which give mindlessness legitimacy.
Comment by Timothy Kelly on 31 July 2010:
The federal government today is a rogue state: a virtually lawless, self-justifying institutuion which brooks no meaningful dissent. The country’s been on this path for a long time (say, since 1865?)and we are just now reaching the moment of crisis. The libertarian-conservative writer Joseph Sobran has remarked the U.S. Constitution serves the same purpose as the royal family does for Great Britain. It provides the governing class a patina of legitimacy thus enabling them to continue their plundering ways without provoking a rebellion among the plundered.
And make no mistake about it, America is divided into two classes, those who profit from the State, and those who slave for it. This is the true nature of the State. I think it was John C Calhoun who first made this observation in his Disquisitions on Government.
It is true, the great enabler for all this abuse is the Federal Reserve which finances the government’s criminal enterprises with debt-based fiat money. The Achilles heel of our empire is the US dollar. Should the U.S. government’s creditors begin to repudiate it, the Feds will no longer be able finance their patriot games.
Now if you blanche at the notion that our national government is, indeed, a tyranny, I invite to look up the definition of that word. Tyrants don’t necessarily have funny mustaches or strut around in garrish uniforms and jackboots. Tyranny is simply a state that is no longer constrained by the law. Americans are now ruled over by a national government which, in all practical terms, acknowledges no limits on its powers.
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Comment by Peter Biddulph on 1 August 2010:
Welcome to East Germany, but this time there’s no Berlin Wall.
Comment by anon on 1 August 2010:
Peter
actually you may not be aware of the so called constitution free zone 100 miles around the country potentially around the airports as well.
not that the increased power grabs surprise me it is just the control freaks pushing at the boundaries untill they get a dictatorship and the hour is late. and elections are merely replacing one control freak with another in all likelyhood.
Comment by Walter L. Bradley Jr. on 1 August 2010:
The bought and paid for politicians that comprise government of the United States, ensure that said government continues to function as a wholly-owned subsidiary of the “Ruling Corporatocracy” whose other subsidiary ‘the military-industrial complex’ that Eisenhower warned us of, is leading our nation down the path toward becoming a fascist, tyrannical Police State America!
The very same Wall Street Cabal of Central Bankers and Trans-National Corporations that were behind the plot to overthrow the U.S. Government in the 1930′s. And supported Hitler and Mussolini”s rise to power while continuing to do business with both regimes through their corporate counterparts in both nations before, DURING and after WWII. Were NEVER held accountable for their crimes!
And it is that “very same” Wall Street Cabal of Central Bankers and Trans-National Corporations and their decedents that own and run the U.S. Government today. (With the “Bush Crime Family’s” political dynasty being the most notable example.) Bush’s Nazi roots shine brightly in his “Patriot Act”, which is a nearly verbatim copy of Adolf Hitler’s “Enabling Act” which allowed him to establish a “legal” dictatorship!
All that is required now is another False Flag Operation in the United States akin to the False Flag Op of 09/11/2001. And the ‘Continuity of Government’ plan will be rolled out, the constitution suspended, the FEMA concentration camps opened for business and a fascist tyrannical Police State America will be born.
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Comment by K T Platman on 2 August 2010:
Boy sure is a bunch of right wing nut wackos here
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Comment by Rocketman on 2 August 2010:
Reply to K T Platman: Right wing wackos? It’s not crazy to see what is coming down the pike and be terrified of it. Like the old Pogo cartoon “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
Comment by Yir'meYaHH on 3 August 2010:
‘The We The People’ “LOVE” “The Beast”
‘The We The People’ DE-’sire’, support, and pay for ‘their’ RANK
PAGAN TRADITIONS which “YHVH” calls “A B O M I N A T I O N S”
— that is, ‘they’ WANT and SEEK AFTER ‘Satan’ —
but “YHVH’s SHabbâths” as part of HIS (FOR-)EVER-LASTING
COVENANT/COMPACT/AGREE-MEANT ‘they’ TOTALLY IG-NORE!!!
So don’t wonder how such things come about!
YOU WANT ‘Satan’ — that’s PRE-cisely who/what YOU’re getting!!!
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There will be “THE WEEPING” and “THE GNASHING”
of “THE TEETH”!!!
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Copyright © ’2010′/”6010″
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Comment by Tim M on 4 August 2010:
K T Platmans eloquent prose and incisive yet well researched retoric is so inspiring I think I’ll just shoot myself now.
Comment by Manion on 5 August 2010:
It’s Sir Thomas Moore, not Thomas More
Comment by Yir'meYaHH on 9 August 2010:
‘The We The People’ have thrown out ‘their’ “CREATOR’S LAW”/’Torah’ — “THE (FOR-)EVER-LASTING COVENANT/COMPACT/AGREE-MEANT” — and then ‘they’ wonder how and what has occurred to ‘their’ “law” (being thrown out)!!!
In a PRE-cise mirror-image RE-flection!!!
‘They’ worshipped “the dollar”! And ‘they’ don’t have “dollars” anymore!!
‘They’ worshipped “the gold certificate”, “the silver certificate”, and “the federal reserve note” — and ‘they’ don’t have those anymore!!
‘They’ have become a ‘demon-crazy nation’ — “Democracy” ‘Demo(n)crazy’ — but ‘they’ were supposed to be a “RE-Public” BY “LAW”!!! (And yet most think that “Democracy” = being free! Every alternate word out of Ronald Reagan’s mouth was: ‘Democracy’!)
You are ‘free’! You’re ‘free’ to ‘the banksters’!!
MOST do NOT under-stand the words that ‘they’ use:
We are NOT “AMERICA” — which includes Guatamala, Paraguay,
Brazil, and so forth!
We ARE the “united States of America”!!! (Small ‘u’ on purpose.)
IF you don’t “under-stand” the words — then your thought
patterns and expressions are CON-clusive! You’re in ‘Babylon’
and “babble-on”!!!
http://www.Bayith-YHVH.org
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Copyright © ’2010′/”6010″
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Comment by Paul R. on 5 September 2010:
Comment by Manion on 5 August 2010:
“It’s Sir Thomas Moore, not Thomas More”
Uh, no it isn’t.
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