tomeboy writes “For many of my colleagues on this board this piece, originally published in “The” Ohio State Universities Lantern, will provide a wonderful opportunity to leave those “echo chambers” mentioned by Blake in a recent post.
A nugget:
….But what about the alleged widespread abuses of the Patriot Act? Short answer: They simply don’t exist. The DOJ’s Office of Inspector General is required by law to file a semi-annual report on Patriot Act -related civil rights abuses. His last report, released two weeks ago, states that in the previous six months there were 1,266 reported abuses. Seven hundred and twenty were, however, dismissed as “unrelated” complaints. These included “complaints that the government is broadcasting harmful electronic signals to individuals, claims that the government is intercepting dreams, and allegations that the government is using subliminal messages to force people to engage in certain acts.”
Of those remaining, 162 were within the jurisdiction of the OIG, and 17 warranted a closer investigation. In the end, they found nothing: “None of the 162 matters involved complaints alleging misconduct by DOJ employees related to their use of a substantive provision in the Patriot Act.””
You missed the point
Complaints about the USA PATRIOT Act by civil liberties groups do not revolve around any alleged abuses. Those complaints revolve around the potential for abuse. Not only is that potential very real, but the crypto-fascist Bush administration is pushing for ever greater potentials for abuse on a fairly regular basis. The DSEA might be dead as a single piece of legislation, but provisions of it have been attached as riders to other laws. And why should any free person be concerned about the potential for abuse? I reiterate: It should be obvious to any person old enough to tie his own shoes that given the potential for abuse, someone somewhere is going to realize that potential.
The most glaringly obvious example of that is the recent COINTELPRO fiasco at Drake University. For another recent case of government abuse, see the story about sailormongering at Truthout.org.
It is generally believed among fiction writers that the FBI and the CIA don’t talk to each other because of interdepartmental rivalry and sheer arrogance. I wonder how much there is to that stereotype and how much of a part, if it exists, that it played in the WTC tragedy. If it does exist, scribbling a few words on paper aren’t going to change anything. What I’d like to know is: which law, exactly, previously forbade these two entities from sharing information about attacks against and from within the country?
Interdepartmental rivalries aside, the phenomenon of linkage blindness has been documented in the Encyclopedia of Serial Killers. Basically, it’s when an investigator sees evidence and just can’t believe it because it is too incredible. The idea, for instance, that a bunch of terrorists are going to circumvent the airport security of The Mightiest Nation on Earth, hijack not one, but four commercial airliners simlutaneously, and fly them into buildings as guided missiles. Don’t forget than an FBI agent wrote a memo to her superiours some time before that actually happened and those superiours didn’t follow up on it.
I Give Up! UNCLE!!!!!!!!!!!!
Fang, I count the word “potential” six times in your opening paragraph. I simply can’t fight that word with facts. Logic tells us, so this novice understands, that each hypothetical given by you, including dream interceptions, electronic signals and subliminal mind twisting have the “potentialâ€? to happen.
I concede!
(OFFTOPIC sabres at the ready)
Your selection of proposing Greenpeace as the unassuming victim of Uncle Aschroft is foolhardy. Perhaps “poorly researched” is more collegial. As a gmo advocate I follow this group’s antics and two-bit street theater with bated breath. “Hippiecritesâ€? as I like to call them. Even their founder hides his face at their mention. These “anti-capitalists” who make a living scaring the hell out of people only to use “tax-exempt” funds to purchase organic good companies? The same folks who pulled into the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in a petro guzzling ship while admonishing the natives to use wind power??
From your piece
>>…..Greenpeace now could lose its tax-exempt status — a potential death knell for a large public interest organization.
Greenpeace is going to lose this anyway. Sailormongering the least of the reasons.
“Greenpeace bends tax laws to fit its radical agenda�
Copley News Service
October 7, 2003
Money can be transferred from a 501(c)(3) to a 501(c)(4) organization, but only if it is earmarked for legitimate educational expenditures. Notes PIW, “This is not happening with the wholesale transfer of funds from Greenpeace Fund Inc. to Greenpeace Inc.” There is no firewall between the groups; there is no designation of educational grant purpose.
In fact, concludes PIW: “it is near impossible for Greenpeace Fund Inc. to argue that these funds were earmarked for charitable purposes because its $3.7 million grant in 2000 was described in its Internal Revenue Service return as being made for ‘general support,’ as opposed to specific program activity.” Most of what Greenpeace does could be counted as political advocacy, always confrontational, frequently illegal and sometimes violent.
On The Fence
So this pushes me back closer to the fence. It raises some good points. But I’d also like to agree with Fang-Face in that it’s not the abuses, but rather the potential for abuses. While the 4th Ammendment grew from experience, I would think, given time, this law will lead to abuses.
“Wide Spread” seems to be a phrase mostly used by people writing about those worried about the law, rather than those actually worried about abuses, but that’s only after a quick review.
“It should be obvious to any person old enough to tie his own shoes that given the potential for abuse, someone somewhere is going to realize that potential.“
I can’t say it much better than that. We not only need protection from obvious enemies, we need our laws to protect us from those who on most days do a good job enforcing them, but who are also prone to abusing them on occaision.
The secretive nature of the Bush Administration also would raise questions about any reporting based on what’s going on behind the scenes.
But…. good story, good point, worth a read, it should raise doubts for PAPs.
Re:On The Fence
My support for the Patriot Act is integrally tied to our state of war. Yes war. A word conspicuously avoided in many of these discussions. At least to these eyes.
Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus during the Civil War only to follow with the equally “constitutionally concerning” Emancipation Proclamation. The
latter having the ignominious honor of the greatest federal land seizure in history.
Question. Would our colleagues today, many of whom I dare presume would support them Yankees, spend their time pontificating “potential” problems? (3 point bonus for triple “p” alliteration?)
Honestly, consider this question while pondering the moral dimension of the Civil War. A war waged against state sponsored slavery.
Surely genuine constitutional concerns during wartime are not relative??
Re:I Give Up! UNCLE!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hello, Tomeboy.
By the principles of theoretical physics, that is correct. Mind you, electronic signals, if you mean electromagnetic transmissions are a reality. And we’re pretty good at detecting them. NASA has radio telescopes that could pick up the EM pulses from a cell phone ringing on the surface of Mars. Which should prove useful if any human explorer ever drops one and can’t find it.
Tests on subliminal programming back when it was used against moviegoers pretty much debunked the idea, it seems.
Dream interception will depend on telepathy and there is no indication that is anything beyond a wild idea. Unless you mean that somebody in a few dozen centuries might build a device to pick up electrochemical impulses in neural synapses and translate them into a signal. Be kind of hard to filter out the noise from all the other firing neurons, though.
Be that as it may, we aren’t dealing with theoretical physics here, Tomeboy. We are dealing with sociology, psychology, and clearly exhibited consistent patterns of behaviour. Governments are not trustworthy. Never have been, and I for one don’t think they ever will be. And George Bush has clearly shown time and time again that civil liberties are something to be subverted to the service of capitalism. Junior is quoted from 19 Dec 2000 as saying, “If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier — so long as I’m the dictator.” To be fair, I don’t think that was anything more than his standard, fumbletongued stupidity talking, but I still wouldn’t buy a used car from the fool.
A keypal of mine once wrote of Ashcroft’s losing to Mel Carnahan:
I’ve never seen any reason why I should trust Ashcroft, myself, either.
What this whole issue boils down to is this: why enact a law you are never going to use?
If section 215 is in the USA PATRIOT Act then it is there for a purpose. Which purpose is defined by the words it contains. “Intent” of the government doesn’t enter into it. If that section allows for something then that thing is perfectly legal however heinous it might be. Or, at least, until the Supreme Court says otherwise.
Section 215 is a Damoclean sword hanging over the heads and civil liberties of library patrons.
Um, war?
Last I was told, the war ended last April. There are people getting killed, but they are not me or my friends so that is OK.