Another bad idea:
The White House is considering expanding the power of a little-known Pentagon agency called the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA, which was created three years ago. The proposal, made by a presidential commission, would transform CIFA from an office that coordinates Pentagon security efforts — including protecting military facilities from attack — to one that also has authority to investigate crimes within the United States such as treason, foreign or terrorist sabotage or even economic espionage.
The Pentagon has pushed legislation on Capitol Hill that would create an intelligence exception to the Privacy Act, allowing the FBI and others to share information gathered about U.S. citizens with the Pentagon, CIA and other intelligence agencies, as long as the data is deemed to be related to foreign intelligence. Backers say the measure is needed to strengthen investigations into terrorism or weapons of mass destruction.
The proposals, and other Pentagon steps aimed at improving its ability to analyze counterterrorism intelligence collected inside the United States, have drawn complaints from civil liberties advocates and a few members of Congress, who say the Defense Department’s push into domestic collection is proceeding with little scrutiny by the Congress or the public.
“We are deputizing the military to spy on law-abiding Americans in America. This is a huge leap without even a [congressional] hearing,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a recent interview.
What I wouldn’t give for a national libertarian party that was not insane.
Dexter
Most Americans are willing to sacrifice a little privacy if it brings greater safety. Is there any evidence of actual abuse on the part of the Pentagon here? Or just a lot of paranoia about potential abuses? If I start hearing about actual innocent Americans being harrassed, I’ll join the ranks of the critics. Until then, I’ll be thankful that we’ve taken steps that may help prevent another 9/11.
Sojourner
Too bad there’s no evidence to support the assumption that these invasions into privacy actually increase our safety.
Cyrus
I don’t really follow this logic… if most people are willing to give up a right, that means the government can feel free to take it from any or all the people?
Put it another way – even if this should be done, why is it being done by the Pentagon? Doesn’t enough already fall under the control of the military?
And wait a minute, where the hell did you get the crazy idea that most Americans would sacrifice privacy for security in this way in the first place? I can’t remember anyone ever going on a rant in a bar and saying “You know what this country needs? The damn military isn’t keeping files on us enough!”
“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” -Ben Franklin. An argument based on authority is a weak one, but that’s not what I’m doing; I’m just citing him because he puts it better than I would.
Also, something I wondered about the article itself:
What does it mean by that? Is it a more scary and publically acceptable term for “corporate espionage,” i.e. one company hurting another? Or is it a more vague and publically acceptable term for “economic activism,” i.e. boycotts, strikes and public awareness campaigns?
At exactly what point should we stop laughing at the people in tinfoil hats?
tzs
Considering the fun we have with identity theft, I think we need LESS maintaining of files, not more…
Add to Libertarian platform: identity theft
croatoan
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
The actual quote is, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” The quote’s author is believed to be Richard Jackson, in a book that Benjamin Franklin published.
LancasterDC
John,
I doubt you have ever made a personal appeal to the government of Iran to fix a pothole in front of your house, it may be prudent to check you logs just in case. General JC Christian at Jesus’ General reports that CIFA has been reading his blog for over a year.
Ancient Purple
Thus confirming the belief that Americans, by and large, are ignorant of American history and the American Constitution.
ppGaz
Yes, DougJ.
Most Americans are willing to see that you receive the Eternal Hot Foot for your transgressions. Perpetual jock itch. A spastic colon. A car that won’t start. A neighbor’s dog that barks incessantly at 3 am. All these things we wish upon you.
Jon H
John Cole, aren’t you just slandering the troops? Don’t you trust them?
metalgrid
It’s just a matter of perception. The GOP has long since way passed the insanity threshold of the LP.
joshua
I’m not too worried about this. Our current gov’t is so inept that if I made terrorist threats on the Internets, they’d probably bust down my neighbor’s door or that of some schmuck three states over looking for me.
BIRDZILLA
1984 BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU
Steve S
If we aren’t paranoid about potential abuses, there will be abuses… guaranteed.
That’s what our founding fathers understood when they established our government.
Al Maviva
The DOD entities in question have been in existence for a lot longer than that. One of the problems I think DOD is trying to address, is the gap between foreign intelligence gathering, and domestic intelligence/law enforcement operations. There are serious and substantial information sharing gaps between DOD and CIA’s foreign operations, and the FBI’s domestic intelligence (counterintelligence, technically) and national security law enforcement (sabotage, espionage, terrorism) enforcement branches. The apparent belief of some that there is an inviolable “wall of separation” between the foreign intelligence branches and domestic law enforcement/intelligence (a muddy dichotomy at best when you are talking about national security law crimes) is mistaken and possibly misguided. It is an outgrowth of J. Edgar Hoover’s dogfight over jurisdiction. He repeatedly bulldogged every president who would have allowed foreign intelligence gathering agencies to perform any independent function within the U.S. Rather than being a bulwark for civil liberties, it became instead an abusive arrangement, leading to the COINTELPRO operation, which included massive domestic surveillance of political groups by the FBI, which often co-opted (quite half-assedly, with poor coordination) military and CIA assets anyhow. This in turn led to the Church Committee and the hamstringing of the U.S. intelligence community.
I am not sure that DOD’s approach is the right way to do it. The investigation of national security law issues – always a gray area since the “law enforcement” portion of such investigations is blurred with the pure intelligence portion of them – has to be done by somebody if you are to have any security. In the GWOT, the home front is an actual tactical front, unlike conventional wars. The relevant threshold question is not whether this function should be performed, since it’s a necessity, but rather whether it is better to concentrate the power to do such investigations in a single agency (FBI) or to authorize other agencies to have to duke it out for jurisidiction and to coordinate with each other. Personally I am leaning towards the idea of several agencies having responsibility for this area (including responsibility for coordination) since agencies with jurisdictional interests will be quick to rat out other agencies that screw up. See, e.g. the FBI’s role in the Gitmo investigations. The alternative is that the FBI owns everything that goes on domestically, which begs the question, Who Watches the Watchers?
The other problem is that DOD may have people that it needs to watch based on their foreign activities, and the FBI has neither the manpower, nor the inclination to do so in some cases, but would probably approve and monitor / oversee DOD’s activities, so long as it didn’t cost the FBI anything in the way of resources. That’s how it works in the real world – having worked as a prosecutor I know that getting FBI assistance often involves trying to sell them on a case, and if they don’t want to get involved, you have to try to find investigative assets elsewhere. I didn’t prosecute this type of crime, but I know how the resources strains and legitimate jurisdictional issues often lead to good investigations being dropped, and I’d hate to think of that happening in GWOT related investigations.
I would hesitate to write off this DOD initiative – if DOD has in fact been pushing it – as a naked civil liberties hostile power grab.