Posted on 06/13/2004 4:16:27 PM PDT by wagglebee
Last February, two Army counterintelligence agents showed up at the University of Texas law school and demanded to see the roster from a conference on Islamic law held a few days earlier. Their reason: they were trying to track down students who the agents claimed had been asking "suspicious" questions. "I felt like I was in 'Law & Order'," said one student after being grilled by one of the agents. The incident provoked a brief campus uproar, and the Army later admitted the agents had exceeded their authority. But if the Pentagon has its way, the Army may not have to make such amends in the future. Without any public hearing or debate, NEWSWEEK has learned, Defense officials recently slipped a provision into a bill before Congress that could vastly expand the Pentagon's ability to gather intelligence inside the United States, including recruiting citizens as informants.
Ever since the 1970s, when Army intel agents were caught snooping on antiwar protesters, military intel agencies have operated under tight restrictions inside the United States. But the new provision, approved in closed session last month by the Senate Intelligence Committee, would eliminate one big restriction: that they comply with the Privacy Act, a Watergate-era law that requires government officials seeking information from a resident to disclose who they are and what they want the information for. The CIA always has been exempt—although by law it isn't supposed to operate inside the United States. The new provision would now extend the same exemption to Pentagon agencies such as the Defense Intelligence Agency—so they can help track terrorists. A report by the Senate Intelligence Committee says the provision would allow military intel agents to "approach potential sources and collect personal information from them" without disclosing they work for the government. The justification: "Current counterterrorism operations," the report explains, which require "greater latitude ... both overseas and within the United States." DIA officials say they mainly want the provision so they can more easily question American businessmen and college students who travel abroad. But Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman concedes the provision will also be helpful in investigating suspected terrorist threats to military bases and contractors inside the United States. "It's a new world we live in," he says. "We have to do what is necessary for force protection." Among those pushing for the provision, sources say, were officials at northcom, the new Colorado-based command set up by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to oversee "homeland defense." Pentagon lawyers insist agents will still be legally barred from domestic "law enforcement." But watchdog groups see a potentially alarming "mission creep." "This... is giving them the authority to spy on Americans," said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, a group frequently critical of the war on terror.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Actually, Kate, these jihadists are not Americans, and no I don't really give a damn what their passports say. A guy who wants to kill a bunch of Americans is a terrorist and I am far more comfortable when the intelligence community is tracking them down.
Gosh darn it, are we just gonna lay down and die for these jihadists?
Seems to me that our intelligence gathering, both foreign and domestic, worked a whole lot better before the Dems and their "Watergate-era laws" made it difficult if not impossible to conduct necessary intelligence operations. We should have scrapped those laws long ago.
Spies in America?
Spies tracking down possible terrorists?
Spies possibly preventing the next big attack?
Spies who are working FOR America to protect Americans?
Or before Clinton had Gorelick write a memo to protect his illegal fundraising activities that indirectly lead to the deaths of over 3000 Americans.
Perhaps if our government would enforce existing immigration laws and get serious about securing our borders, we wouldn't need to send Army Intel agents around the country doing investigations concerning espionage.
This seem very clear to me, probable cause, unreasonable searches, If you are a terrorist and want to destroy American assets and kill American citizens, apprehension is reasonable and probable cause is present.
to give the crybabies more information - I was in the Marine Corps stationed at Camp Pendleton (EARLY 70'S) as S-2 chief.
That means Intelligence, Conbat Intelligence, AND ....
COUNTER-INTELLIGENCE!
errr ... counter-intelligence means you go after the bad guys no matter where they are! You would not believe the number of Soviet, NVA, NK, Red Chinese, agents that are all over our cities.
What should we do? Just hand them everything? (maybe we could have given them carter before he almost destroyed us).
But then again - carter was probably the ultimate communist agent!
"why even have the FBI if other agencies are necessary to perform the functions of that agency?"
Because we already have qualified assets (people etc) available. Would you rather they hire 10,000 more fbi agents? That would be real nice to create a gestapo type agency.
As to those who question the CIA - I will only say this - NONE of the other agencies will put up with the CIA within our borders. Like our govt that was created with our "seperation of powers", having the sources split among seperate groups keeps any one agency from becoming too powerful. If they ever try to merge the intelligence services, run like hell or be ready to fight.
Carter was not a communist agent, he was a communist dupe.
If you want real commies look to Clinton, Rodham, and John F'n Kerry.
They are the real thing.
"It's no secret our enemies come from Islamic backgrounds, and the sooner citizens force our government to accept this FACT, the sooner we can correct the situation."
Students attending a conference on Islamic Law? One wonders if these were of 'Islamic background'? BTW, you do recognize that some US citizens are of Islamic background? Would you put them off-limits for intelligence collection?
you're problably more correct than I, but I make no distinction between "active agent" and "useful idiot" - they will both try to destroy us - I swore an oath to eliminate those who would destroy us.
Eliminate, for the squemish of you, does not necessarily mean kill - just nutralize the ..... hmmm .... threat.
Carter was a very naive dupe. He appeared to view the world with pink-tinged glasses. The things he did (and is still doing) makes me cringe.
Enforcing existing Immigration laws is NOT enough. Changing existing Immigration laws that allow citizens from enemy states into our nation is necessary.
Here's another thought on Immigration. There are changes afoot, but not to tighten Immigration. The changes are to grant amnesty to Illegal Immigrants, and has wide, though not universal support among Democratic and Republican office holders. Most people only picture this amnesty as being applied to the Illegal Immigrants from Mexico and other Hispanic nations. WRONG! It would apply to all Illegal Immigrants, even those from enemy states.
I prescribe to the theory that klintoon has Russian employees that perform the arkancide duties when needed.
Wish I could agree, but you put your finger on the problem: we allow scum to become "citizens" who then threaten us and hide behind their "citizenship," much as a cancer invades the body. You can't cut it out without removing some healthy flesh, but if you leave it, chances are it will kill you.
As you suggested, we need to stop granting citizenship to so many questionable candidates.
We need to stop issuing visas to so many questionable applicants.
We need to change a lot of things if we are to protect the rights of genuine citizens.
First off, the FBI, the same FBI that conducted domestic surveillance during WWII, and oversaw the surveillance and capture of foreign spies AND terrorists, still has this function. Rather then allowing this agency to shirk their responsibility, and expand government by shifting the responsibility to other government agencies, hold the FBI accountable.
Further, many US citizens of Islamic background are not natural born citizens. Nullify their citizenship and repatriate them from whence they came.
And the FBI is the government agency tasked with providing the surveillance that is now being shifted to other agencies. Something more then enemies within our borders is wrong if people will not hold the FBI accountable to the lawful functions of that agency. We've already thousands of FBI agents available to us, and laws to support their functions. Why should citizens accept an agency not performing their tasks?
If this were a business, and if you owned the business, and an employee were not performing the responsibilities of their employment, would shift the responsibilities to another employee already task with fulfilling employment obligations, or would you hire another employee to cover for the non-performing employee? I think not. You would first call the employee on the carpet and make the shortcomings of that employee quite clear, and demand immediate improvement. Failure to improve would prompt you to fire the employee and hire another capable of adequately meeting the demands of the job.
Also, I'm not too fond of people that see the failure of any government agency to perform adequately as an excuse to expand government.
Doesn't the oath that people in our military take include definding the constitution against "all enemies foreign and domestic". It sounds like the army has every right to track those who preach treason.
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