A few months ago we started hearing rumors about FBI guidelines that would allow the Bureau a much wider parameter to investigate (READ: SPY ON) Americans. Well, not so much rumors as a piece by AP reporter Lara Jakes Jordan.
We’ve been anticipating these guidelines since the story broke but they haven’t yet surfaced. Well, it looks like the Bureau has been doing some door knocking on the Hill as of late because we got some riled up Senators. I didn’t know you could rile up Senators in August but I’m glad to hear it. My husband, Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.), is leading the charge along with Senators Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) (bless his heart) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.).
Let’s look at the big picture for a minute. These guidelines seem to be, given the accounts we’ve read about, a horrible idea. BUT. Put them together with this and you’ve got yourself the workings of a new domestic spying agency. Didn’t someone see this coming? Oh yes, that’s right. We did. (Deeper analysis here.)
Handing greater latitude to an agency that has proven that it can’t police itself with even the most stringent guidelines is a mistake. Combine the lack of an outside check with what look to be incredibly vague guidelines for suspicion and you’re looking at a constitutional disaster in the making.
Anyway, it looks like the Attorney General has flinched and will hold off on the new guidelines for now, waiting to hear congressional testimony from FBI Director Robert Mueller next month. Maybe while he’s visiting, Mueller can shed a little more light on why the FBI felt the need to violate previous guidelines (and, um, the law) to spy on reporters?
August 23rd, 2008 at 1:07 am
There is alot of domestic spying going on on the roads in this country. I have been observing it for the past two years and have made inquiries to DOT, FMCSA, State Police, and more and have gotten no information about who is doing this and what is the info being used for.It apears to be targeting the trucking industry.
If anyone knows about this program and would like to contact me, feel free. isaactarnett@yahoo.com
August 25th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Are you actually married to Feingold? Otherwise this kind of tongue-in-cheek style might warrant quotation marks, an asterisk, something just to tip off readers. I read it literally…
November 7th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
Hipocracy is rampant amongst the politically minded as well as a wish for wisdom which actually is nothing more than tongue and cheek. Though there is an exception to every rule I wont grant it to you on your reply because we all know who is married to Feingold.
I would still like to know why so much tax money is being spent on domestic spying and who is behind it.
It has a similiar form to that used by the Nazi Regime before it came into power.
And please pardon my writting style as I am not an english major , only a layman who is observing the evolution of my country under the present powers that be.