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You are here: Home / If You Haven’t Done Anything Wrong

If You Haven’t Done Anything Wrong

by John Cole|  June 13, 201111:59 am| 42 Comments

This post is in: Both Sides Do It!, OBAMA IS WORSE THAN BUSH HE SOLD US OUT!!

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You don’t have anything to hide:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is giving significant new powers to its roughly 14,000 agents, allowing them more leeway to search databases, go through household trash or use surveillance teams to scrutinize the lives of people who have attracted their attention.

The F.B.I. soon plans to issue a new edition of its manual, called the Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide, according to an official who has worked on the draft document and several others who have been briefed on its contents. The new rules add to several measures taken over the past decade to give agents more latitude as they search for signs of criminal or terrorist activity.

The F.B.I. recently briefed several privacy advocates about the coming changes. Among them, Michael German, a former F.B.I. agent who is now a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, argued that it was unwise to further ease restrictions on agents’ power to use potentially intrusive techniques, especially if they lacked a firm reason to suspect someone of wrongdoing.

“Claiming additional authorities to investigate people only further raises the potential for abuse,” Mr. German said, pointing to complaints about the bureau’s surveillance of domestic political advocacy groups and mosques and to an inspector general’s findings in 2007 that the F.B.I. had frequently misused “national security letters,” which allow agents to obtain information like phone records without a court order.

And the national security state lurches forward, gobbling everything in its path.

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Reader Interactions

42Comments

  1. 1.

    dpcap

    June 13, 2011 at 12:01 pm

    and yet, according to the Teabillies, this is liberal’s fault.

    EDiT: oops, didn’t see your tags at first, you already anticipated my snide remark. Confound it!

  2. 2.

    dj spellchecka

    June 13, 2011 at 12:08 pm

    pet shop boys “integral”

    If you’ve done nothing wrong // you’ve got nothing to fear
    If you’ve something to hide // you shouldn’t even be here

    Long live us // the persuaded we // integral // collectively //to the whole project //it’s brand new //conceived solely to protect you

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gLWFb5AcfU

  3. 3.

    gbear

    June 13, 2011 at 12:12 pm

    The main bit of information that the FBI would glean from a romp thru my trash is that I have a cat that pees and poops.

  4. 4.

    Daddy-O

    June 13, 2011 at 12:15 pm

    We’re doomed.

    The Teabillies have a point. If it weren’t for the liberals, Obama wouldn’t be President. Never mind the fact that anyone else in the White House would have done this, besides Kucinich, et al.

    Go ahead and mock me, but it is a valid and ironic point.

  5. 5.

    Alex S.

    June 13, 2011 at 12:18 pm

    @dj spellchecka:

    Wait… you are Sully!

  6. 6.

    Comrade Dread

    June 13, 2011 at 12:22 pm

    Remember, kids, it’s only big government if it prevents a billionaire from making one dollar more.

  7. 7.

    Villago Delenda Est

    June 13, 2011 at 12:23 pm

    @Comrade Dread:

    Stop oppressing Monty Burns!

  8. 8.

    Kristine

    June 13, 2011 at 12:23 pm

    Shred, burn, or pack it with the puppy poop.

    I do that with credit card offers and “courtesy” checks, too.

  9. 9.

    WyldPirate

    June 13, 2011 at 12:24 pm

    And the national security state lurches forward, gobbling everything in its path.

    Another black mark on America that Obama and the Democrats are enabling.

    And a pre-emptive middle finger to you, Brachiator, you fucking Opologist.

  10. 10.

    Fred

    June 13, 2011 at 12:28 pm

    So what is your solution John Galt Cole? Elect a libertarian who would get rid of the FBI? How about a little more information for context. Why the need for them to have more leeway? There are still laws they have to work within so this isn’t necessarily the ‘Big brother grabbing more power’ that you are trying to frame it as.

  11. 11.

    burnspbesq

    June 13, 2011 at 12:30 pm

    @WyldPirate:

    On behalf of all the commenters who are tired of your lame shtick, fuck you right back. Do you seriously think it would be better with McCain in charge?

    You and I are on the same side on this issue, but you are seriously being a dick here. Alienating your friends is not a winning strategy.

  12. 12.

    Villago Delenda Est

    June 13, 2011 at 12:31 pm

    @Fred:

    It would be great if someone took a hammer to this Turing Machine.

  13. 13.

    General Stuck

    June 13, 2011 at 12:31 pm

    After more than three decades of a right wing law and order SCOTUS, the state security apparatus knows it can stretch the boundaries ever more with five wingnuts, and a Breyer that is fairly law and order. Obama is responsible for how his two picks thus far will fall on these issues when they get the opportunity, and any future picks he gets to make if reelected. The DOJ is an entity unto itself more than any other federal agency, and they will take every opportunity to cover their asses from something bad happening and getting blamed for it. Vote and keep supporting dems is the only chance we have to turn this shit around over the long term.

    Personally, I am more worried about thieves and criminals getting access to my personal info, that can really do some personal damage, at least if I had anything to damage.

  14. 14.

    Uncle Clarence Thomas

    June 13, 2011 at 12:36 pm

    .
    .
    Fortunately, President Obama is keeping his fierce campaign promise not to interfere with the needs of the ever-expanding national security state.
    .
    .

  15. 15.

    cleek

    June 13, 2011 at 12:37 pm

    @WyldPirate:
    our system of government/elections will never allow someone to reduce ‘security’. never has, never will. it doesn’t matter who is in office. as long as politicians have incentive to cover their asses, they will.

    every elected politician knows that any attack that happens on their watch will be blamed on them if it’s discovered that there was even a suggestion that they prevented the FBI/CIA/NSA/etc from doing the one thing that might have prevented the attack. and the one thing is always perfectly obvious in hindsight, especially to partisan opponents.

  16. 16.

    Villago Delenda Est

    June 13, 2011 at 12:39 pm

    Benjamin Franklin was right.

    We deserve neither liberty nor security.

  17. 17.

    burnspbesq

    June 13, 2011 at 12:43 pm

    The fundamental problem here is that we’re asking the FBI to do two very different things, law enforcement and counter-terror. You can’t be the cops and MI-5 at the same time; the MI-5 mindset eventually poisons the law-enforcement culture.

    It’s time to put the two functions in separate agencies.

  18. 18.

    Citizen Alan

    June 13, 2011 at 12:54 pm

    The government will need these powers to protect the monied elites from angry mobs of starving peasants as America begins the next phase of its descent into Neo-Tsarism. We can even see the contours of this next phase in the comments to the earlier post about fruit rotting on the trees in Georgia. Eventually, there will be an open movement to essentially reinstitute plantation slavery by forcing convicts to work in the agriculture sector for no pay. You know, like serfs.

    Arguments that there is no difference between the Democrats and the Republicans are not necessarily wrong so much as incomplete. It is more accurate to say that there is only one party: the Rich Man’s Party. However, the Rich Man’s Party has, for the last century or so, been sharply divided into two factions. The Democratic Rich Men believe that it is essential to provide some kind of minimal social safety net so that the peasants don’t get uppity. The Republican Rich Men sullenly accepted that argument back in the Depression because of legitimate concerns about rising Soshulism. And they continued to accept it all the way to the 1980’s. Now, however, the Republican Rich Men believe that with an intrusive police state, total media control, skillful manipulation of artificial class/race distinctions, and a deliberately failing educational system, it is finally possible to treat the peasants like the peasants they/we are. This is because (a) a plurality of the peasantry don’t mind being treated as peasants as long as there is a lower class of untouchables (gays, Latinos, blacks) for them to shit on in return and (b) anyone who does mind being a peasant can either by dismissed as an extremist by the media, arrested on trumped up charges, or both.

    God Save the Tsar!

  19. 19.

    Linda Featheringill

    June 13, 2011 at 12:58 pm

    Invasive FBI tactics are not new, although that doesn’t make them right. But ask anybody who lived through the Vietnam War about the Friggin’ Bureau of Investigation.

    On the other hand, perhaps expressing outrage might be effective this time. Go for it. Good luck and if I can be of any assistance, please let me know.

  20. 20.

    gene108

    June 13, 2011 at 1:04 pm

    @Fred:

    Another black mark on America that Obama and the Democrats are enabling.

    The military industrial / security complex in this country is a greater force than any single individual politician.

    To change the way it operates takes something significant, such as the Cold War, because the U.S. really didn’t maintain much of a standing Army prior to WW-II and usually demilitarized after conflicts, such as WW-I.

    The end-of-the Cold War was also a big deal, which got people thinking about cutting back the size of the military without an immediate threat staring us in the face.

    The end of the Vietnam War / Watergate Scandals that pushed for an all volunteer military and curbing the powers of the CIA.

    On the flip side, 9/11/01 started up the expansion of the military / security complex and it’ll take something just as significant as the ending of the Cold War and / or another Vietnam / Watergate type scandal to get us to scale back.

    Unless everyday folks finally look around and say WTF is going on with such a huge military presence and expansive security powers, things won’t change.

    I think the long slogs in Iraq and Afghanistan have started changing peoples attitudes towards interventionism, though the military still want to keep going at it.

    There’ll come a tipping point, when we’ll have enough political will in this country to scale back on the military / security complex. Until then, no single politician is going to be able to push through any meaningful changes.

  21. 21.

    Stan of the Sawgrass

    June 13, 2011 at 1:08 pm

    oh, gawd….
    I’ve just spent about a week trying to find all my serial#s and keycodes after my hard drive went splooie. I’ve got the UPGRADE numbers, but not the original #, so I’m shut out of my working files on so many apps. If I just say– here and now–“That Bin Ladder dude was one righteous harem-banger, I’m sorry he’s gone, but at least Al Kay Eaten is still kickin’ infidel butt!”– does that mean the Feebs will harvest the info on my hard drive, and maybe I’ll get the stuff then??
    Ehhhh…. I’ll probably have to go thru FOIA, and I’d be dead broke and dead anyway by the time I got it. I think my old porn collection’s in there somewhere, too (hetero! Just like OBL’s!), so they might tell my mom. Fvck it, then.

  22. 22.

    Fred

    June 13, 2011 at 1:10 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: Why is your handle in that communist language? Why are you not using American language? Why do you hate the US?

    Why are you defending John Galt Cole? Known Libertarian sympathizer and G Dubya voter? Or are you also part of the same group of flawed thinkers?

  23. 23.

    WyldPirate

    June 13, 2011 at 2:10 pm

    @burnspbesq:

    You and I are on the same side on this issue, but you are seriously being a dick here. Alienating your friends is not a winning strategy.

    Of course I don’t think it would be better if McCain were in charge.

    The point is that FBI works for the Justice Dept who works for Obama. Assuming that this increased level of intrusiveness isn’t mandated by law (and if it was, it was likely passed with Dem majorities), then it would seem that the Obama administration is indeed sanctioning the increased level of intrusiveness.

    Just because McCain would be worse, is no reason to excuse the Obama administration for this horseshit. You are quite welcome to do so if you wish, but I’m certainly not going to be quite about it when an alleged progressive Democrat president endorses increased and unnecessary expansion towards a police state.

  24. 24.

    WyldPirate

    June 13, 2011 at 2:19 pm

    @cleek:

    our system of government/elections will never allow someone to reduce ‘security’. never has, never will. it doesn’t matter who is in office. as long as politicians have incentive to cover their asses, they will.

    The incentive to cover their ass is to insure that they are electable.

    Two things, in my view, would override the desire to CYA. One is term-limits. The second is individuals of the caliber who set aside their desire to be elected to do what is “right”. The version of what is “right” is always open for interpretation or change, but from my current understanding of the Constitution as it stands now, this level of additional intrusiveness by the FBI is unnecessary and dangerous to the maintenance of individual protections of privacy under the 4th amendment.

  25. 25.

    burnspbesq

    June 13, 2011 at 2:40 pm

    @WyldPirate:

    from my current understanding of the Constitution as it stands now, this level of additional intrusiveness by the FBI is unnecessary and dangerous to the maintenance of individual protections of privacy under the 4th amendment.

    Ahh, now I see the problem.

    You’re not familiar with the last 35 years of case law, and are laboring under the mistaken belief that the Fourth Amendment means what it appears to say. Silly boy, thinking originalism is a consistent philosophy of jurisprudence.

  26. 26.

    Redwood Rhiadra

    June 13, 2011 at 3:42 pm

    @WyldPirate: Um – what makes you think term limits would do a damn thing? The Presidency is already term limited. And while Congress isn’t, it’s the President who takes the blame and the President who therefore has the CYA mentality.

  27. 27.

    fuzz

    June 13, 2011 at 3:45 pm

    There was a good guest post on a blog run by Tom Ricks about this sort of thing. It was from a soldier coming home and writing about how galling it is when people thank him for ‘protecting our freedom’ the exact same freedom we have given away while he was gone

  28. 28.

    WyldPirate

    June 13, 2011 at 3:51 pm

    @burnspbesq:

    You’re not familiar with the last 35 years of case law, and are laboring under the mistaken belief that the Fourth Amendment means what it appears to say. Silly boy, thinking originalism is a consistent philosophy of jurisprudence.

    Guilty, I’ll admit. I do realize that much of it has been ripped top shreds in recent years though I don’t know the intricacies like you would.

    I see something like the loosening of the leash on the FBI as just another nail in the coffin of what rights to privacy we have remaining.

  29. 29.

    WyldPirate

    June 13, 2011 at 3:56 pm

    @Redwood Rhiadra:

    Um – what makes you think term limits would do a damn thing? The Presidency is already term limited.

    depends on when the hypothetical disaster scenario someone proposed above would occur, doesn’t it?

    An attack in the second term and the accusation that a President didn’t “do enough” to keep it from happening wouldn’t hurt him/her.

    I also realize that my wish that someone had the internal set of values to do what was right because it is right is quaint and outdated as well. Not gonna happen anymore as someone with that sort of ethical code would never reach a point to be motivated to run, much less win.

  30. 30.

    tkogrumpy

    June 13, 2011 at 4:00 pm

    The really maddening thing about this is that the F.B.I. never was competent to use the tools they had 40 years ago which of course were much less intrusive, let alone the powers they seek in today’s police state. These new powers will always be abused without adding anything to the bureaus abilities to fight lawlessness.

  31. 31.

    Stefan

    June 13, 2011 at 5:16 pm

    @burnspbesq:

    Hmmm…that’s actually very smart. Never considered that problem as it applies to the FBI before. I think you may be on to something here.

  32. 32.

    Stefan

    June 13, 2011 at 5:19 pm

    @WyldPirate:

    First, you realize term limits already apply to presidents, right?

    Second, it’s an interesting argument that “less accountability to the voters” is the way to go in protecting liberty….

  33. 33.

    Stefan

    June 13, 2011 at 5:21 pm

    An attack in the second term and the accusation that a President didn’t “do enough” to keep it from happening wouldn’t hurt him/her.

    It wouldn’t? You don’t think that human beings, especially human beings as ambitious as you have to be become president, are concerned about their reputation and legacy?

  34. 34.

    WyldPirate

    June 13, 2011 at 5:31 pm

    @Stefan:

    There is a difference between getting hurt politicallyWRT to re-election prospects–which an attack in the second term wouldn’t do–and having their “legacy” trashed. That was what I was talking about WRT to making the choice between preserving privacy vs the installation of an ever-tightening police state.

    Besides, Bush, despite all indications that his administration ignored practically every warning, wasn’t hurt in the first term by that clear failing.

  35. 35.

    burnspbesq

    June 13, 2011 at 7:42 pm

    @WyldPirate:

    Look at the bright side: you still have a reasonable expectation of privacy with respect to the contents of your trash cans, until you wheel them out to the curb.

  36. 36.

    burnspbesq

    June 13, 2011 at 7:46 pm

    @Stefan:

    You don’t need Jack Bauer to investigate securities fraud cases (although the thought of Jack Bauer interrogating Lloyd Blankfein would probably get Cole all tingly). Conversely, CPAs with badges are not the best tool for the job of rolling up suspected terrorist networks.

  37. 37.

    Tonal Crow

    June 13, 2011 at 8:02 pm

    And yet another reason to donate to the ACLU.

    But I fear that the police state will continue to swell until we take it to Tahrir Square the Washington Monument.

  38. 38.

    Tonal Crow

    June 13, 2011 at 8:06 pm

    @tkogrumpy:

    The really maddening thing about this is that the F.B.I. never was competent to use the tools they had 40 years ago which of course were much less intrusive, let alone the powers they seek in today’s police state. These new powers will always be abused without adding anything to the bureaus abilities to fight lawlessness.

    It’s worse than that. More zero-suspicion or low-suspicion data means more useless data among which to lose the lead needed to prevent a terror attack.

  39. 39.

    mclaren

    June 13, 2011 at 8:52 pm

    As a practical matter, what this really comes down to is the FBI breaking down the doors of Ma & Pa Kettle and arresting ’em at gunpoint for downloading.

    This is all about using the DHS and the FBI as private police forces for Big Content. Use bitorrent? You’re going to prison. Your elementary school age child downloaded a TV show from a filesharing site? You’re going to prison. You loaned a buddy a DVD you ripped from that Netflix disc you copied? You’re going to prison.

    American industry can no longer compete with the third world because our wages are too high, so if we put the middle class in prison, we can get ’em to work for 7 cents an hour.

    It’s the underpants gnome theory of American industrial policy:

    STEP 1: FELONIZE EVERYTHING

    STEP 2: PUT EVERYONE IN PRISON AND PAY ‘EM A PITTANCE TO MANUFACTURE STUFF

    STEP 3: PROFIT!

  40. 40.

    burnspbesq

    June 13, 2011 at 9:25 pm

    @mclaren:

    Some days your lunacy is mildly amusing. This is one of those days.

  41. 41.

    dj spellchecka

    June 14, 2011 at 2:09 pm

    @Alex S.:

    nope, not sully…don’t even read him anymore

    i’m quite possibly the only 62 year old straight male psb fan in the great state of ohio….

    seeing this from john “If You Haven’t Done Anything Wrong
    You don’t have anything to hide,” instantly made me think of integral…

    the “going through the trash” made me instantly think of aj weberman

Comments are closed.

Trackbacks

  1. cleek » Fear The Reaper says:
    June 13, 2011 at 12:15 pm

    […] This kind of stuff will stop happening as soon as the public stops demanding that the government protect us all from the kinds of evils that candidates accuse each other of not doing enough to protect the public from. […]

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