Posted on 12/13/2012 7:54:32 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Remember when government needed something called a warrant or even probable cause to look at your records? Good times, good times. Im nostalgic for the halcyon days of, er, February of this year, before the Attorney General of the United States signed off on an order allowing the government to access pretty much everything it wanted in the name of counterterrorism. The Wall Street Journal found out about the order and got a FOIA request to force its exposure:
Top U.S. intelligence officials gathered in the White House Situation Room in March to debate a controversial proposal. Counterterrorism officials wanted to create a government dragnet, sweeping up millions of records about U.S. citizenseven people suspected of no crime.
Not everyone was on board. This is a sea change in the way that the government interacts with the general public, Mary Ellen Callahan, chief privacy officer of the Department of Homeland Security, argued in the meeting, according to people familiar with the discussions.
A week later, the attorney general signed the changes into effect.
Through Freedom of Information Act requests and interviews with officials at numerous agencies, The Wall Street Journal has reconstructed the clash over the counterterrorism program within the administration of President Barack Obama. The debate was a confrontation between some who viewed it as a matter of efficiencyhow long to keep data, for instance, or where it should be storedand others who saw it as granting authority for unprecedented government surveillance of U.S. citizens.
The rules now allow the little-known National Counterterrorism Center to examine the government files of U.S. citizens for possible criminal behavior, even if there is no reason to suspect them. That is a departure from past practice, which barred the agency from storing information about ordinary Americans unless a person was a terror suspect...
(Excerpt) Read more at hotair.com ...
Somewhere they're smiling.
It unbelievable to me that a bunch of incompetent college kids where able to pull off what Adolf and his Nazis couldn’t. It doesn’t say much for the people living in this country these days.
We need to put the brakes on this. I know what I’m doing tomorrow when I wake up. All my reps are going to get an earfull.
I wonder if these witch hunts will include voting records.
Sure, I know they’re SUPPOSED to be secret ballots, but...
Amazing how fast we could spiral downward once they got that pesky little piece of paper called the Constitution out of the way.
Smiling? I think rather that they are in torment, as all the evil ones go to Hades and remain there until the end, when Hades is thrown into the lake of fire. (Luke 16:19-31 & Revelation 20:13-14)
Turns out he was right.
Principal, though he wasn’t.
this is funny they need to start wiht the terrorist in the whitehouse who has hidden all his records...
I have no children.
Who’s laughing now?
I do feel for my young neice and nephew though....
the Attorney General of the United States signed off on an order allowing the government to access pretty much everything it wanted in the name of counter-terrorism.
Call me crazy, but the AG can’t legally sign an order that is counter to the Constitution.
Of course since when does RULE OF LAW apply in an obama regime/
Bush started this police state crap, spending tens of billions on unnecessary and unaccountable new agencies, when 9/11 was caused by a weak Clinton and the Gorelick Wall. And after all the grandmas and nursing mothers were stripped searched by TSA, the underwear bomber still got through and was only stopped by passengers.
Republicans are soulless. They could get some traction if they stood up for freedom and against fascism like this. That is a passionate care of the public...much more so than the glory and pride of men playing in the butts of men, sex workers and whores.
Indeed, I would attribute a lot of Ron Paul's popularity to a stand for freedom... also interesting is the reaction some Republicans give when one says "Ron Paul was/is right about X."
LIEbertarian radicals took over Ron Paul’s expression and when that happened Paul moved from and ideology and expression of American freedom to an expression of radical left’s social causes and mentality.
Globalism is not an American ideology in economics nor in culture. It is being conducted by elitists self interested in global government and enriched by the current global trade rule structure imposed upon American voters from outside their power and influence. It’s political ideology is closer to the Chi-coms than it is to America’s constitutional ideology and rule. Republicans have to figure it out and control the globalist mentality! It is destructive and soulless. It is meaningless to Americans and leave a void for leftists to fill with anal sex.
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