Just after I posted that last...

Just after I posted that last entry, I came across this from ABC News' blog.

I talk on this blog a lot about being wary of new powers granted, even if the stated purpose is noble, because they can and will eventually be misused.

In this case, the Patriot Act. Most defenders of the Act point to it as a vital and necessary tool in the war on terror. More than one such defender has told me that if I'm not a terrorist, I have nothing to fear from the Patriot Act, or that it's okay with them that the Patriot Act infringes on some of our freedoms, because it's only there to help fight terrorism.

Well guess what: The FBI is using at least one aspect of the Patriot Act to go after non-terrorists. In this case, it's to track down leakers of classified information. That tracking of calls to and from ABC news that I mentioned in the previous blog entry? It seems it's the result of an FBI "National Security Letter", which allows the FBI to subpoena usage records from telephone companies, ISPs, libraries and similar places without a warrant or a judge's review.

So much for the law being in place to fight terrorism. No chance for a judge to look at the leak in question and determine whether it was a true, illegal, damaging-to-national-security leak or a case of patriot whistle-blowing, exposing an illegal activity which deserved to be exposed. No oversight at all, the FBI can just demand and recieve the information.

Oh, and here's the most insideous part of the whole thing: It's very difficult to challenge the Constitutionality of this law in court. Wanna know why? There are two facts which combine to make it so:

1. Traditionally, the courts have not allowed just anyone to file a challenge to a law. In most cases, the Courts will only hear such a challenge by someone who has been affected (and can reasonably claim that it was wrongfully so) by the law.


2. The National Security Letter portion of the Patriot Act makes it illegal for the entity served with the NSL to disclose the nature of the records they had to give up or even tell anyone that they have been served with one.

So, you can only challenge the law if it affects you, but there's no way for you to get reliable evidence that the law has been used against you.

We really are watching our civil liberties eroding away like a pencil in the hands of a toddler who has just discovered the electric pencil sharpener.

And the hell of it all is, it really is starting to feel like no one cares. No one loves what this country stands for enough to stand up FOR it. In fact, the rats most fervently clinging to the sinking ship accuse those of us who DO care of being the ones who hate America.

Liam.