BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!

Subject: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: GUEST,Peace Matriot
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 10:02 AM

Despite the evidence mounting since last summer, pre 9/11, that the FBI is wholly incompetent, the Bush administration response is to...give them MORE POWER!

Doesn't that make perfect sense, oh yes!

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: wysiwyg
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 10:18 AM

We were discussing yesterday, here at home, how was it that the FBI got the job of hunting own terrorists in the first place, and then got the lucky job of taking the hit for the failure to do so? What's more likely?

So say a US covert operation got derailed in another country... It would be their law enforcement folks who'd nabbed our gang? Like the thing is merely crime, and not an act of war or espionage? I don't think so, although law would be brought into play, maybe, once they were nabbed, to make a propaganda opportunity (AKA "trial"). And I don't think we'd ever hear it covered accurately on the news on our side, either, whatever had happened. It would be deny, deny, deny.

So whose job is it, actually, to know what the other side is up to within our borders? And how (and what) are THEY doing? *G* How is slamming the FBI helping them?

And how come we didn't see Tom Ridge showcasing the new, improved FBI, out in front of the reorganization and new guidelines? What the heck has be been doing? If the FBI is getting increased powers, how is that sitting with local law enforcement, and how does that affect the delicate balance ol' Tom was said to be tinkering on?

So did I miss somehting in the news coverage, working as I have been on a huge music project, or is it a little odder than usual at the moment?

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: DMcG
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 11:06 AM

You may be interested to read about a recent European vote on something similar:

Europe votes to end data privacy
Law will allow police to spy on phone and net traffic

Stuart Millar
Guardian

Friday May 31, 2002

European law enforcement agencies were given sweeping powers yesterday to monitor telephone, internet and email traffic in a move denounced by critics as the biggest threat to data privacy in a generation.

Despite opposition from civil liberties groups worldwide, the European parliament bowed to pressure from individual governments, led by Britain, and approved legislation to give police the power to access the communications records of every phone and internet user.

The measure, which will be approved by the 15 EU member states, will allow governments to force phone and internet companies to retain detailed logs of their customers' communications for an unspecified period. Currently, records are kept only for a couple of months for billing purposes before being destroyed.

Although police will still require a warrant to intercept the content of electronic communications, the new legislation means they will be able to build up a complete picture of an individual's personal communications, including who they have emailed or phoned and when, and which internet sites they have visited.

From mobile phone records, police will also be able to map people's movements because the phones communicate with the nearest base station every few seconds. In urban areas, the information is accurate to within a few hundred metres, but when the next generation of mobiles comes on stream it will pinpoint users' locations to within a few metres.

Tony Bunyan, editor of Statewatch, said: "This is the latest casualty in the war against terrorism as far as civil liberties are concerned. The problem with wanting to monitor a few people is that you end up having to keep data on everybody."

The British government, which played a key role in driving through the new measures, has already introduced such powers as part of the anti-terror bill rushed through in the immediate aftermath of September 11, although the data retention measures have yet to be implemented.

UK civil liberties groups had hoped that if MEPs rejected data retention, it would open up the possibility of a legal challenge to the British legislation on the grounds that it was incompatible with European data protection law. After yesterday's vote they now expect the government to press ahead with implementing the act.

The measure is contained in an amendment to a bill originally intended to improve the security of e-commerce transactions. "Looking at the results, it amounts to a large restriction on privacy and increases the power of the state," said Italian independent MEP Marco Cappato, the bill's author who tried to prevent the amended clause being added.

Last night, the Home Office welcomed the result. "The UK is very pleased that the [European] council and parliament have reached agreement on a text that will ensure that the fight against terrorism and other crime will be given the appropriate weight. It is, of course, very important to protect people's fundamental rights and freedoms, but, as the tragic events of September 11 show, this must be balanced with the need to ensure that the law enforcement community can do its job."

But critics said the move amounted to blanket general surveillance of the whole population. The communications industry has also opposed data retention, questioning the feasibility and cost of storing such vast amounts of information.

John Wadham, director of Liberty, said: "This violates a fundamental principle of privacy, which is that data collected for one purpose should not be used for another.

"The police and other authorities will be able to trawl through all the details of the communications of millions of innocent people merely because there is a possibility that they might come across something suspicious."

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 11:36 AM

The FBI has no power over me...

So I really couldn't care less...

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 12:08 PM

And pigs fly...

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 03:52 PM

I am reminded during president Regans words during his innaugural speech, "I consider international terrorism to be the greatest threat to world peace and security" History will prove his words to be succintly prophetic. In order to combat such violence, it may be neccessary to allow the FBI and CIA to co-operate with different organizations in ways that were not though possible before. Revision of traditional roles will require modification of mandates. Are you all so paranoid that the elected officials and organizations that fight to secure your laws and liberty are not trusted? The world has become a dangerous and violent place, hopefully they will be better able to protect us; failure to do so may be catastrophic.

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: Don Firth
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 04:09 PM

"Are you all so paranoid that the elected officials and organizations that fight to secure your laws and liberty are not trusted?"

No, I'm not paranoid. But anybody who thinks that elected officials and organizations, especially those that "fight to secure your laws and liberty" are to be trusted implicitly shows an abysmal ignorance of history. One way to find out what a "dangerous and violent place" the world can become is to give such officials and organizations autonomy.

You'd think this lesson would have been well learned by now, but obviously not.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: Ebbie
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 04:16 PM

Speaking of trusting our see-all, know-all, stay-on-top-of-everything agencies, did you see what Newsweek is saying?

Evidently the CIA knew for almost two years that two of the operatives, whom they had identified as terrorists tied to the al Quaeda and who eventually crashed the planes were in this country living, traveling and attending flight schools. And they never notified either the FBI or the Immigration people.

Oh, yes, we can trust them. All of them.

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: InOBU
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 07:09 PM

See my post yesterday on this, "the FBI and the Peace Feather"... Bush has taken our right to freedom of religion, and well, his bad. Cheers Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: GUEST,DW at work
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 07:51 PM

Trust poor communication to be at the bottom of it all. You'd think with all the media available, someone would maybe, pass a message to the other team?

Clinton: you may just regret that one day, my boss doesn't take kindly to that kinda talk.

DW

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 11:08 PM

Who's yer boss there DW?

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: Devilmaster
Date: 03 Jun 02 - 12:02 AM

if you want a good book that looks into the fbi to a certain extent, look for 'No Heroes' by Danny Coulson.

Danny used to be in charge of the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team or HRT.

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: CarolC
Date: 03 Jun 02 - 12:05 AM

They got only one team for hostage rescue?

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: Hrothgar
Date: 03 Jun 02 - 04:36 AM

Are there two questions here?

1. Should any law enforcement body need this much power?

2. If somebody is going to have it, should it be a bunch of stumblebums like the FBI?

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: InOBU
Date: 03 Jun 02 - 06:08 AM

Well, one other question. For most of our history, the Society of Friends was a victim of religious persicution, from which we had a short respite, and has now been reintroduced by this president. Let me assure you ... it IS an abridgement of my religious freedom to have the FBI infiltrate our religion and come to worship gatherings, not to worship - but to spy. There can be no clearer abridgement of the first amendment than to say, in order to practice our religion, we should accept an FBI file. Socialist Workers Party v. the Att. Gen, is only a few decades old, the Surpreme Court spoke to this issue, and like Andrew Jackson, this "president" now says, "The Supreme Court has decided, now let them enforce that descion..." same on us for accepting this.
Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: Ebbie
Date: 03 Jun 02 - 11:16 AM

Larry, I don't understand. Are you saying that the FBI is attending your meetings? Officially? On what premise?

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: Naemanson
Date: 03 Jun 02 - 12:45 PM

"Are you all so paranoid that the elected officials and organizations that fight to secure your laws and liberty are not trusted?"

Guest, are you old enough to remember the Viet Nam War? Are you old enough to remember that the FBI spied on Martin Luther King because he was obviously against the establishment? Do you remember terms like "establishment" and "body counts"? There are reasons for the restrictions on the FBI. I had hoped to live long enough not to see them unleashed again.

"Trust poor communication to be at the bottom of it all"

I work for the US Federal Government but not in this line. I know that any reorganization is only for show. There are fiefdoms and rice bowls to be protected and a real reorganization would upset all of that. So they will rename some offices, add another layer of bureaucracy to the mix and submit it as a whole new agancy. But, the same people will be in charge and the same agents will be out there not talking to one another.

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 Jun 02 - 01:56 PM

The reason these super-hot security agencies didn't pick up on the impending attack was that they were too busy fighting turf wars. You're saying, Guest, that we should trust these twits!??

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: InOBU
Date: 03 Jun 02 - 03:21 PM

The FBI, when it was legal to do so, inflitrated the Quakers, we are told, by agents, because they concidered us to be equivalent to ... or in actuality a comunitist front group, shows you the lack of savey and education of these guys, eh? So, in the past, our religious gatherings where attended for the purpose of spying. Bush has declared he has the power to do that again, in an executive order last wends., in spite of the Sup. Ct. saying the contrary, not very long ago.
Cheers Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: InOBU
Date: 03 Jun 02 - 03:27 PM

Here is a little more light on the subject... Larry FBI's New Authority Draws Criticism

By PETE YOST .c The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration is drawing sharp criticism from civil libertarians and others for new terror-fighting guidelines that will allow FBI agents to monitor Americans at religious services and in other public meetings.

Attorney General John Ashcroft on Thursday freed the FBI to visit Internet sites, libraries, churches and political organizations as part of an effort to give the beleaguered agency new tools to pre-empt terrorist strikes.

``Our philosophy today is not to wait and sift through the rubble following a terrorist attack,'' Ashcroft told a news conference.

But critics said the new guidelines were just another erosion by the Bush administration of Americans' constitutional freedoms in the name of fighting terrorism.

``The administration's continued defiance of constitutional safeguards seems to have no end in sight,'' complained Rep. John Conyers, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee.

``It only serves the purpose of heightening the scare in the society and the paranoia against Muslims,'' said Shaker Elsayed, secretary general of the Muslim American Society.

The FBI is under scrutiny in Congress for possibly missing hints about threats of suicide hijackings prior to Sept. 11. Partly in response to such criticism, FBI Director Robert Mueller has announced a broad reorganization of the agency designed for a new proactive approach to terrorists, spies and computer hackers.

The guidelines announced by Ashcroft represent a loosening of restrictions laid down in the 1970s. They will allow FBI agents to enter any public place for the purpose of detecting or preventing terrorist activities.

In the realm of computers and the Internet, the revisions authorize the FBI to use commercial data mining services and to engage in online research, even when it isn't linked to an individual criminal investigation.

The revised guidelines will push the decision-making for an array of investigative steps away from FBI headquarters in Washington and down to individual offices around the country. The special agents in charge of each office will hold the keys to setting investigative steps in motion.

President Bush and Ashcroft insisted that the revisions weren't a threat to civil liberties.

``We intend to honor our Constitution and respect the freedoms that we hold so dear,'' the president said. Ashcroft said agents in the field ``are frustrated because many of our internal restrictions have hampered'' their efforts to move quickly.

Under present guidelines, Ashcroft said, agents ``cannot surf the Web, the way you and I can,'' and cannot simply walk into public events to observe people and activities.

Ashcroft said nothing in the guidelines would permit the FBI to routinely build files on people or organizations.

Critics disputed that.

``Apparently, Attorney General Ashcroft wants to get the FBI back in the business of spying on religious and political organizations,'' said Margaret Ratner, an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights. ``That alone would be unconstitutional, but history suggests the FBI won't stop at passive information gathering.''

``They are using the terrorism crisis as a cover for a wide range of changes, some of which have nothing to do with terrorism,'' said James X. Dempsey, deputy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology.

Dempsey predicted that one new tool, the power to mine commercial data, will be used in drug and child pornography and stock fraud and gambling and ``every other type of investigation the FBI does.''

Nicholas Graham, a spokesman for America Online, said, ``If law enforcement asks for our cooperation, we absolutely do cooperate with them in a criminal investigation. We have always been careful to strike a careful, reasonable and appropriate balance between protecting our members' privacy and their safety while working with law enforcement.''

Stringent guidelines on FBI activities were put in place in the 1970s because of the FBI's domestic surveillance of prominent Americans, including the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., whose private life was subjected to electronic surveillance.

The American Civil Liberties Union said the lifting of restrictions could renew abuses of the past.

King's ``persecution by law enforcement is a necessary reminder of the potential abuse when a government with too long a leash seeks to silence voices of dissent,'' ACLU legislative counsel Marvin Johnson said.

Others, however, were much less critical of the revisions.

``The impact is far less significant and far less subject to abuse than what was enacted into law'' by Congress after the Sept. 11 attacks, said attorney Raymond J. Gustini, who chairs a subcommittee of the American Bar Association on electronic privacy and co-chairs an ABA task force on financial privacy.

The new anti-terrorism law put in place new legal authority in such areas as money-laundering, e-mail monitoring, detention policies and domestic surveillance by the CIA.

``The FBI really needs this right now,'' Gustini said. ``They're under a microscope now more than any other player other than the president. It's very important for the FBI to deliver.''

On the Net: FBI site: http://www.fbi.gov

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: Naemanson
Date: 03 Jun 02 - 08:01 PM

Why do I have a vision of crew cut guys in bad suits rubbing their hands together and licking their chops over the chance to finally show the world how the US is riddled with pinkos, n-----lovers, and queers.

I have a bad feeling about this.... Where is the force when you need it?

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Jun 02 - 08:12 PM

I think you are all very strange people. You dont trust em but complain that they dont stamp out terrorists. You would condem Bush for trying to do something, and not offer any alternatives to his actions. In other words you are petty minded and very narrow minded individuals. Stick to music, you might actually know something about that.

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: Ebbie
Date: 03 Jun 02 - 08:19 PM

This leaves the residue of uncleanliness in the olfactory faculties, or to put it another way: This stinks.

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: InOBU
Date: 03 Jun 02 - 09:38 PM

Well Guest... as far as offering other options for Bush, you haven't read much on mudcat if you don't think we (on both and all sides) have not offered alternatives. As to sticking to what we know, I worked for one of the three and with two of the lawyers who prevailed on the case Socialist Workers Party v. the Att. Gen. - the case offended my this executive order. You will find a rather broad degree of expertise on the part of folks on this board of all political persuations. Get a life, get a name, Cheers Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: leprechaun
Date: 04 Jun 02 - 02:58 AM

This can't be the same Guest who posts in all the other threads. He's making too much sense.

Listen up folks. It's all of our jobs to fight terrorism. Let's say the FBI had tapped the phones or searched the apartments of some suspected terrorist. Let's say they had put flight school students of middle eastern descent under increased scrutiny. Who would have excoriated them for being fascists? Who would have hollered racial profiling, and gleefully leaped to the defense of the poor maligned flight student who just happened to be middle eastern?

Who?

It's not hard to know who.

The very same snot-nosed dribbling shit-ass sons of bitches who are now accusing them of "dropping the ball."

You can't blame somebody for dropping the ball if you never let them leave the bench.

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: Airto
Date: 04 Jun 02 - 04:08 AM

As far as I know, the article from the Guardian posted by DmcG above is relevant to Americans as well. The new snooping powers being introduced in Europe are part of a co-operation agreement with the US and, I think, Canada. Does anyone else know more?

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: InOBU
Date: 04 Jun 02 - 06:37 AM

Hi Lephrichan... I am not against the FBI doing it's job. In fact, if they had not screwed up, and had the CIA not screwed up, well, who knows. The concern is infliltrating WITHOUT probable cause. With the existing rules, if they did their job well, they might have stopped the highjacking, but the FBI is asking for greater power, not being held to a standard of greater effectivness. It seems if the FBI did it's job well, it could do its job without treating minority religions like mine, as the enimy.
Cheers, Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: leprechaun
Date: 04 Jun 02 - 10:50 AM

And what I'm saying is they don't need greater power. They need to stop having hate groups from both ends of the spectrum dictate how they do their jobs. If they had stopped the hijacking, would you have said, "Good job. You averted a tragedy." No. You would have said, "The evil FBI spooks are picking on an Arab man and violating his rights." Each move every FBI agent makes every day has the potential to be scrutinized by people who are predisposed to examine their work in the worst possible light. For that reason, the standard for action is always substantially more than probable cause. It's that attitude from a part of the public that slows down the investigations. It's that attitude that makes the bureaucracy a necessary defense against the inevitable accusations of bad faith.

The job of a defense attroney is to twist the evidence into plausible lies to help his client get away with a crime. Before the FBI agent makes a move, most of the potential lies have to be countered. I'm not an FBI agent, but I work with some. By the time I arrest somebody, I have a mountain of evidence against them. I don't make my move until I know he can't escape. But I knew he was guilty months or even years before. I know who, where, how, what, and sometimes why. The hard part is knowing when.

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: InOBU
Date: 04 Jun 02 - 10:57 AM

LEP! The Supreme Court is hardly a hate group! And in fact, I have praised FBI members on occation, for example I had a grand talk with a young agent who had discovered criminal tampering during a case by the Assist. US. Dist Att.. I did, however tell him, I did not think much would happen to the DA, and in fact that was the case. She was not prosicuted, the USDA's office claiming that she had a split personality, and so - she only went into private practice, and was not even disbarred, fined or anything else that would have happened to a member of the defence bar.
I understand your perspective on defence lawyers, and it is well put in Ullivar's book, Tempered Zeal, which argues, forcefully that we don't need defence lawyers, that a well meaning investigatory system would work. It follows a case, here in the 9th precinct of New York.
His point is a little undermined by the fact, a friend of mine, overturned the conviction, mentioned in the case, which was based on a typed unsigned confession. My friend not only proved the fellow innocent, but they latter caught the murderer, so the defence lawyer, doing his job, actually aided the police. SO! Please don't put words in my mouth, old pal, I assume your good intentions, so please assume mine.
Giving more power without oversite is not a good recipie for a safe society.
Stay well, good luck...
Cheers Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: Naemanson
Date: 04 Jun 02 - 10:44 PM

"The job of a defense attroney (sic) is to twist the evidence into plausible lies to help his client get away with a crime." Which for my side of the argument can be changed very slightly to read: "The job of a prosecuting attorney is to twist the evidence into plausible lies to help his client (the State) convict the innocent."

I am not saying the FBI or the CIA dropped the ball. The bureaucratic process did that.

All I am saying is that the restrictions on the CIA and the FBI are in place because those agencies have abused their trust in the past. I do not trust them to be any better in this day and age so the restrictions should stand.

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: leprechaun
Date: 04 Jun 02 - 11:56 PM

It looks to me like lots of people are against the FBI doing their jobs. This one was a can't win situation, if you want to lend any credence to the inevitable bashers. If we arrest, or even dare to look at somebody BEFORE they actually commit a crime, the hate groups are ready to pounce. Apparently we expect the FBI to predict the future so accurately they can stop somebody who isn't doing anything overtly illegal yet. As long as they can do it without offending our libertarian sensibilites.

That's a Catch-22.

The police and the prosecuting attorney (will that do?) are limited to that part of the truth they are allowed to bring before a jury. The defense has a whole universe of plausible lies to choose from after they read the reports, see the evidence, and suppress whatever part they can.

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: DougR
Date: 05 Jun 02 - 12:17 AM

Behave yourself, and you have nothing to worry about. :<) DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: Hrothgar
Date: 05 Jun 02 - 01:28 AM

I wouldn't want the FBI to be the ones to decide whether I am behaving myself!

In Auatralia, we've just had the spectacle of backbench members of the Government (Liberal) party watering down proposed legislation which would, among other things, have inverted the need for the prosecution to prove guilt, so that the accused would have to prove innocence. Fortunately, this bit was deleted, but the Government is still trying to give the Attorney-General the authority to declare any organisation a terrorist organisation.

This is only fifty years after the Liberal party's attempt to have the Communist Party proscribed was overturned by the High Court. The Liberals have never had any sense of or memory for history, and they keep showing it.

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: GUEST,ozmacca
Date: 05 Jun 02 - 02:14 AM

Hrothgar, I have to add that the Liberals have never shown much sense of any kind, historical or otherwise. Unfortunately, I don't see much hope across the floor in the Opposition benches, with their declared intention to remove themselves from Union attachments, and their past record in kow-towing to big business and the economic rationalists. The Democrats seem to be more interested in playing silly buggers (but may have lost the rules), and the Greens want to stop any development of any kind, and are prepared to stop anybody selling major organisations ... sometimes.

It's not the FBI having power that should worry us. They are simply a tool of the govt. A tool might get out of hand from time to time, but if you want to do any job, you'd better have the tools to do it with. What bugs me is that political parties are prepared to do anything at all , not for the benefit of the country, but to hang on to the benefits they've struggled so long and so hard for. And it seems that the same thing goes in the UK and US as well as in Oz. We seem to get reports of conspiracies at every corner and radicals and reactionaries under every bed. Just remember friends... just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.

My firm belief is that we should abolish the party system altogether and have an elected government that has a set number of seats - not constituencies, but a real national representation - no nominations, no candidates and no fund-raising. Everybody who is eligible to vote is also eligible to be voted for, and first past the post puts you in office for a fixed term. No extensions, no exceptions, unless you die, go insane, or move abroad. Oh, and probably most important - Pay to be fixed at the national average income level.

Let's see the time-servers and party puppets survive then, where each person has to produce results to prove himself worth re-electing, and not just be the lesser of a number of evils.

I'll climb down off my soap-box now.

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 05 Jun 02 - 02:38 AM

Here's a thought..... if you follow closely the teaching of many of the world's religious leaders and figureheads (love one another, share what you have, do unto others as you would have them do you, if a man asks to borrow your coat, give him your shirt as well, Allah requires you to feed the poor, etc, etc), then you are probably living the communist ideal. All communities (spot the root word here) living and sharing equally, as many Christian, Quaker, Muslim, Bhuddist, Taoist and Shinto religions do, are a commune, thus are communists. Jesus was the perfect communist. Communism in theory is the perfect balance of 'to all according to their needs, from each according to their means'. It's only when humans forget the teachings of their prophets and messiahs and greed takes over, that things go wrong.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Jun 02 - 02:41 AM

Absolutely spot-on Liz. There's a very neat line "The Prophets agree, the followers differ" that puts it perfectly.

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: leprechaun
Date: 05 Jun 02 - 04:31 AM

Larry - I've had defense attorneys help me out too. Some of my best informants were referrred to me by their defense attorneys. I had a federal defense investigator help me break a case with information from a defendant. We actually have some honest defense attorneys in our town.

Doug R says, "Behave yourself and you have nothing to worry about." He's absolutely right. And that advice should apply to FBI agents and law enforcement officers. However, it's quite possible the rules and procedures I use to arrest somebody today will be changed by the time he is brought to trial. The moving goal post syndrome.

Neamanson's sic little switcheroo doesn't work in the real equation. A prosecutor or an investigator who gets an innocent person convicted is doing a piss-poor job in anybody's book. A defense attorney who gets a guilty person off is doing exactly what they are expected to do. So even in the most ideal scenario of our legal culture, the tool of the prosecutor is the truth, and the tool of the defense attorney is other than the truth.

Remember that guy that lost every case to Perry Mason? How did that sucker keep getting elected District Attorney?

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: InOBU
Date: 05 Jun 02 - 08:06 AM

In a perfect world, Lep, you are absoultly right, as our dear Liz would be... but the court room has to deal with the world as it is at the moment. Problem is the pressure on DAs to show a high instance of winning, and few DAs advance their carreer through the use of procicutorial descretion. Problem is that there is a total failure of morals in the law schools. The culture promotes the idea of win at all costs, so that, for example in the case of a certain ex-football player, things are so tampered with, that the trial cannot be an equal playing field (no pun intended). WHen you have terms in the police force here in New York like Testilieing, where one conforms the facts to the needs of procicuting the defendant. I saw a perfect instance of this in a trial, where we had a truely innocent defendant, finally cut free by a panel of judges in spite of a conviction - because his innocence was so evident, well two police officers testified to completely different fact patterns, one officer who had retired used to classic fact pattern at the time of his being on the force, the second, who was still on the job, the fact pattern was the contempory one... win at all costs, hide exculpitory evidence, it is not just the defence who choose what part of the truth is shown.
That is just the real world, it is not the good guys against the bad guys, it is humans on both sides with all the warts, and that is why we have the protections of the Constitution, so well meaning governments will not billet troops under your roof, use that army to influence elections, search through your private life, and cause you to worry wether gointg to church will give you an FBI record which may inflence your rights.
Liz you are right, and that must be our best aspiration.
Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: Naemanson
Date: 05 Jun 02 - 10:00 AM

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. - William Pitt, British Prime Minister (1759 - 1806)

I have this statement as a sign on the door to my office on a military base. I have been told it is unpatriotic to display those words. The sign remains. I believe it is patriotic to question the moves of our government and make people think about what we are doing.

You know, my point is that if humans are involved the system will be abused at some point. Liz said it and many more as well. The restrictions on our various law enforcement organizations are there for good reasons. As Larry has pointed out, from experience, lying occurs on the prsecution's side. As Leprechaun has pointed out, also from experience, lying occurs on the defendent's side as well.

Our legal system assumes innocence until guilt is proven. Therefore it becomes the prosecutor's place to prove guilt.

Conservatives, in MY experience, are generally leery of people who do not conform to their standards. Law enforcement agencies and the military, once again in MY experience, include a large proportion of conservatively minded individuals. Thus, the humans in those organizations MAY err on the side of their concerns and abuse their office to uphold their world view.

On the other side the liberals may fight hard to upset the plans of those conservatives. The same logic applies.

There is no middle to that road. Those of us who consider ourselves liberal MUST question the acts of a government that would rein in our freedoms in the interest of "preserving" our way of life. What they would do in the name of preserving our way of life would be to destroy our way of life.

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: Don Firth
Date: 05 Jun 02 - 11:49 AM

Well said, Naemanson!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: Ebbie
Date: 05 Jun 02 - 11:55 AM

My son in law is a prosecutor so that, as he said, he wouldn't have to lie for his clients. Our legal system (maybe everyone's legal system?) is imo the most cynical of all cynicism. Outcome has very little to do with truth and justice.

If I didn't commit a certain crime and the courts find me guilty of having committed it, I am still not guilty. And vice versa.

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: leprechaun
Date: 05 Jun 02 - 01:30 PM

I have no objection to the protections built into our Constitution. In fact, it's my sworn duty to defend them. Same goes for every FBI agent. Within that framework I'm still able to put deserving people in prison. But I don't do so recklessly. I pick my targets. I build a rock-solid case. In a target-rich environment I don't have time to waste investigating innocent people. As long as I'm acting in good faith, I generally have nothing to fear.

But there are those out there in the hate our government world who are predisposed, extremely predisposed, even blindly predisposed, to deny that I am acting in good faith. And you know who you are. Much of the bureaucracy now in place, the procedural rules that go beyond constitutional protections, is there to protect well-meaning investigators from those who automatically would twist their motives to satisfy their paranoid, belligerent worldview.

Prior to 9-11, if the FBI had yanked Mousa-whoever out of flight school and searched his apartment and seized his computer, how many of you would have supported them? And how many would have demanded the public pillory for any FBI agents responsible for persecuting poor Mousa-whoever?

This "the FBI could have prevented the 9-11 attacks" Monday morning quarterback session is pure unadulterated HORSESHIT. And it is perpetrated by the very self-same individuals who would certainly have screamed for the pillory.

The FBI doesn't need more power. It needs the support to do the job without being intimidated and sabotaged by anti-government hate groups.

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: mousethief
Date: 05 Jun 02 - 02:17 PM

The reason we are paranoid about the FBI not acting out of proper motives is that it is your good faith, and very little else (or so it seems to us), that prevents this country turning into a police state or worse. The power to spy on US citizens is highly suspicious because it's so incredibly abusable, and abuse of that power can lead to a situation none of us would want, but once in place none of us could fight.

Anybody who's read any history of the Stalin-era Soviet Union can spin you yards and yards of horror stories about internal investigation agencies with too much power and not enough good faith. Some of us would very much like to avoid that sort of thing happening here -- it almost did during the McCarthy era, and our entire nation hung on a razor's edge until someone had the nerve to stand up to McCarthy and tell him off to his face (I never remember the guy's name) and his reign of terror fell like a house of cards.

Next time we might not be so lucky.

Thus, we think, better to handicap the FBI (et al.) up front, than try to fight them on the back end should they become corrupt (or worse).

Maybe this is irrational, maybe it's counter-productive. But the one thing it's NOT is unamerican.

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: Don Firth
Date: 05 Jun 02 - 03:34 PM

With all due respect, leprechaun, what bothers me is the kind of mind-set that allows someone to say "In a target-rich environment I don't have time to waste investigating innocent people." It sounds to me that you have decided who is innocent and who is guilty before you do your investigating. Without being able to demonstrate probable cause ahead of time, you run the danger of harassing innocent persons. That crosses the line between prosecution and persecution.

I don't doubt your integrity, but I do question your statement.

During the McCarthy era and well into the Sixties, I was not particularly politically active. In fact, I often took a dim view of what I considered to be the excesses of some of the things I saw going on around me. Nevertheless, many people (including the FBI) automatically assumed that I and many of my friends were communists or communist sympathizers. Why? Because we sang folk songs, that's why! I notice that same kind of mentality is operating in this thread. If I voice any misgivings about trusting government agencies to always do the right and just thing, there are those here whose knee-jerk reaction is to assume that I—and anyone else who shares those misgivings—is some kind of flaming liberal. If you doubt this, reread some of the posts above. I believe that more than amply demonstrates the prudence of those misgivings.

There are many people who are condemned, not for what they are, not for anything that has actually been proven against them, but for what other people think they are.

I believe the Founding Fathers had a few cogent things to say about whether or not one should trust the government. Before someone starts making accusations, they should learn a little history.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: Naemanson
Date: 05 Jun 02 - 05:02 PM

"Prior to 9-11, if the FBI had yanked Mousa-whoever out of flight school and searched his apartment and seized his computer, how many of you would have supported them? And how many would have demanded the public pillory for any FBI agents responsible for persecuting poor Mousa-whoever?"

Not me. That's because the FBI would have requested a search warrant based on the information on hand. They would have probable cause that the suspect was planning some criminal act. They would have discovered evidence to indict the suspect and the case would follow based on that body of evidence. And we would have been grateful.

Now after 9/11 we have people of middle eastern descent being yanked off the street for detention and questioning based, as far as we (the rest of the US citizens) know, on no evidence or probable cause.

The first case makes the FBI heroes. The second makes them villains. Can you see what I see in that?

Like Don I do not question your integrity. But your own statements indicate a predisposition could be considered dangerous. I have seen it many times in the past.

I used to work for the Justice Department myself. I saw my co-workers automatically assume the people we dealt with were "dirty" even though the vast majority of our interactions were with people who were breaking no laws and being no threat.

I now work for the Department Of Defense. I see my co-workers automatically seeing enemies lurking in every corner. But it just ain't so! People don't understand the statistics of the situation. There are plenty of people in this world who love the USA. Yet the news only covers the few incidents caused by those who don't.

I say keep the restrictions in place and make the FBI and other investigatory agencies do their jobs under those restrictions. Spend serious money on upgrading their ability to communicate and training them to abandon their culture of secrecy that makes them keep information within their own agencies.

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Jun 02 - 05:09 PM

"Give us the tools and we shall finish the job" and "In harsh or melancholy epochs, free men may always take comfort from the grand lesson of history, that tyrannies cannot last except among servile races. The years which seem endless to those who endure them are but a flick of mischance in the journey. New and natural hopes leap from the human heart as every spring revives the cultivated soil and rewards the faithful, patient husbandmen." -- Sir Winston Churchill

Give the FBI the tools to finish the job, then if they abuse them remove them.

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: Ebbie
Date: 05 Jun 02 - 06:14 PM

Leprechaun, I think it's easy to fall into the 'us versus them' kind of thinking. And in this mode, it is you who is us and we who are them. (Follow that?)

You assume that we would cry foul and worse if 'you' were to pluck the investigated suspects off the street. (The operative word here is 'investigated'.) I don't believe that to be true. If the FBI, et al, had arrested anyone, whether Muslim or Buddhist, and told us what they found and on what grounds they had suspected villainy, I believe we would support them.

Look at Robert Hansen- we, the people, accepted the premise that he stole secrets for profit from his own country, because we were informed of the trail of evidence that led to him. I don't see much difference in our willingness to support them now.

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: InOBU
Date: 05 Jun 02 - 08:15 PM

In this thread we are speaking about two groups, Religions, like mine, and the Supreme Court, so again, I have to ask my dear Lep, which is the anti government hate group, the Quakers or the Supreme Court (or the defense bar???) Cheers Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: GUEST,petr
Date: 05 Jun 02 - 09:19 PM

first of all I wouldnt agree with if you behave yourself nothing will happen to you.. case in point. Peter a good buddy of mine, 18 years old traveling for the first time ends up in a small town in Texas. Of course being a guitarist in the 70s hes got hair down to his butt. Gets picked up by the cops for vagrancy. Apparently theres a law that if you dont have a hotel key in your pocket, youre a vagrant. (It doesnt matter that he has $300 US cash on him, which would easily have covered any hotel room in that town). He got off with (an ironic) $300 fine and never went to Texas again. 2nd case. CIA experimented with LSD on unsuspecting people in Winnipeg in the 1950s (those people certainly committed no crimes.) One of them was even the wife of a Member of Parliament. They sued and later won a settlement from the CIA. $3billion US spent on counterespionage per year and the only reason that last flight didnt hit the Whitehouse was because there was a football team on the plane. (QUoted from NewYorker) Im not opposed to some more investigative power, but there need to be checks and balances.

Even 6mths after 9/11 some of the hijackers received their student visas to attend flight school - now that kind of crap shouldnt happen. Petr

Subject: RE: BS: Just What the FBI needs MORE POWER!
From: Naemanson
Date: 05 Jun 02 - 09:39 PM

There is a very easy to understand reason that the FBI didn't stop the terrorist attacks on 9/11. It has nothing to do with incompetance. The FBI doesn't hire fools. It has nothing to do with plots or sinister plans. It is a simple process of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.

I have worked for the government for 23 years and I see it every day. Here is the picture. Here is how it works. Agency A has a plan to do Action A. Action A will impact Department Z and Agency B. The head of Agency A tells the head of Department Z and Agency B of the plans over lunch. They in turn tell their subordinates. However, the subordinate in Department Z doesn't think this is a good idea. He tells his department head who turns a deaf ear. The Department Z subordinate determines he is not going to cooperate. As a consequence, when Action A is implemented Department Z is not in place. No is done about it unless a disaster results. Then memos circulate, fingers are pointed, and the media has a field day.

So the head of the various departments, in a show of support for each other determine that a reorganization needs to happen so this disaster will never happen again. They meet in serious discussion and finally draft a plan to reorganize their organizations.

And when the dust settles, Department A is now called Agency C with the same people in charge doing the same work but usually getting paid better than when they worked for Department A.

Agency A is now called Department C with the same people in charge of subordinates doing the same work but usually getting paid better than when they worked for Agency A. Department Z is now called Agency D also with the same people in charge of subordinates doing the same work but usually getting paid better than when they worked for Department Z.

And in reality nothing has changed. This is called bureacracy. It is eternal. It is immune to any and all forces. It only grows. Not even the President Of The United States Of America can affect it.