FBI Taps Wrong Number Using the Patriot Act

Does this upset anyone?

See Article:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9546933/

 

"Outrage" would be a better word. Where to begin.

 

Of course, similar mistakes occur in non-terrorist related investigations as well.

What's the relevance of the Patriot Act to that? Did some section of the Patriot Act cause the technical errors?

Why did AP put this story out, written as it was, as if it was a straight news story and not a signed opinion piece? It's things like this that fuel charges of media bias.

Lastly, why isn't this thread in the political forum?

 

Why should it....

It is what is called a mistake. Mistakes are made all of the time with ot without the Patriot Act. People get the wrong leg cut off in hospitals for goodness sake. People get arrested because of mistaken identity. Cause and effect does not imply that anything done wrong with the backing of the Patriot Act is caused by the Patriot Act.

 

Mistake or Planned?

Do you think the FBI could use the "mistake" excuse to tap anyone at will?

 

Re: Mistake or Planned?

Once again, the mistake excuse could be used with or without the Patriot Act.

 

No Mechanism for Repeal

Yes, but with the Patriot Act the individual under surveillance is given no avenue to repeal. They cannot contact the FBI and say you have made a mistake please stop your actions.

 

Yes you can....

There is the same avenue as normal. You file a law suit....

 

The Cost of Freedom

DTechBA

I'm sure you may have a million dollars to fight the federal government in court but the average person does not have the means to do that.

By the time you get through the court system the investigation would be completed and the damage to an individual's finances would be substantial.

Lawyers and courts are a last resort because it means that the citizen under investigation would be sacrificing their future financial livelihood to obtain justice. This is not a reasonable mechanism for appeal because it discriminates against the poor who cannot afford to fight.

 

You confuse things

Regardless, it is the same alternative you have absent the Patriot Act. You seem to think there is some difference and there is not. If someone busts down your door to serve a warrant when they meant to break down your neighbors door (a not uncommon occurence) what is your recourse? It is the same.....

 

Monitoring

This is not about "breaking doors down" it is about monitoring your phone and computer access.

 

Re: Monitoring

No it is about mistakes and what to do about them. Don't confuse the issues with your distaste for the Patriot Act....

 

Elimination of Checks and Balances

"PATRIOT gives sweeping anti-privacy powers to domestic law enforcement and international intelligence agencies and eliminates checks and balances that previously gave courts the opportunity to ensure that those powers were not abused."

http://www.eff.org/issues/usapa/

If someone claims they made a mistake there are no checks or balances to insure it is not done on purpose.

 

Re: Elimination of Checks and Balances

And just how is that any different than any other police issue.

Hint, it isn't......

 

Consequences

It is different because the consequences for the action are monitored by the courts in a normal warrant. The Patriot Act removes the checks and balances.

 

Those of us who view the Patriot Act with disdain might be, it's probably true, quick to condemn any mistake associated in any way therewith, even if said mistake would or could have happened with or without the Patriot Act. Law enforcement was, after all, tapping phones long before the Patriot Act.

But missing from this conversation is the fact that before the Patriot Act wire taps by law enforcement -- at least legal ones -- were fewer and further between than most people realize... this notwithstanding the fact that actors playing law enforcement officers on TV and in movies tossed around how they could get a phone tap with such frequency and ease. In fact, before the Patriot Act, for there to be anywhere even close to 1,000 federal wire taps, nationally, in a typical year was highly unusual. Prior to the Patriot Act, it was actually a pretty big deal to get a wire tap. Many, many, many requests for same were routinely denied. Most judges -- even conservatives ones -- were loathe to authorize them. Law enforcement knew it must have some pretty darned compelling reasons or there was really no point in even bothering to draft the affidavit.

The Patriot Act changed all that.

Wiretaps are now easier for law enforcement to get... and without nearly as much judicial oversight; with more (I dare characterize as unconstitutional) secrecy and less opportunity for recourse by the citizenry; and, therefore, by all indications, the number of them has skyrocketed. Of course, since even said number of wiretaps -- at least the true number -- is also secret, it's difficult to know just how much higher than the traditional well-under-a-thousand-in-a-typical-year number that used to be the case the true number is today.

Liberals/progressives (or, perhaps more accurately, those on the Left) find that sort of thing, at the very least, disconcerting. Conservatives have the attitude that if you have nothing to hide, then you should not fear governmental snooping into your life. This, of course, is precisely the kind of intrusive, I-want-to-feel-safe-at-any-costs-even-if-it-costs-someone-else-their-liberties attitude against which this country's founding fathers sought to protect all Americans when they made it so difficult to do so by the way they worded the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It was, after all, Benjamin Franklin who wrote, in 1759:

• "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
  temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Many Americans -- an increasing number, it now, gratefully, seems -- are put-off, alarmed or even terrified by our diminishing Constitutional rights as a consequence of such abominations as the Patriot Act. Its mere name is alarming. If the McCarthy era taught us anything, it was that as soon as someone in government starts telling everyone what is and isn't patriotic, then something's terribly, terribly wrong.

Whenever there is any group of Americans that is so irked by something as an increasing number of Americans are irked by the Patriot Act, it should be expected that whenever there is a mistake in any way associated therewith, said group will rise with calls of "See! We knew this would happen! See!" and they will atrribute the error to that which they hate, even if that's not really got anything to do with it.

However, the increased number of wiretaps, and the decreased care with which law enforcement is now approaching them which the Patriot Act allows, does have something to do with it; as does the opportunity for law enforcement to use the "oops" excuse whenever it's caught tapping the wrong line. This, I think, is the angle at which Laser100 is approaching it. The problem isn't the error so much as it's the environment which now exists wherein such an error is statistically more probable, alongside the lower statistical probability of our civil rights not being abridged, or even abrogated, by it all.

 

Re: Consequences

It does? I might not be reading it properly, but I don't see that.

Generally speaking, all the Patriot Act does is amend relevant sections of the United States Code to bring them up to date concerining things like modern telecommunications and money laundering.

Read it for yourself here:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d107:h.r.03162:

 

Don't be sucked-in Laser100. Bill knows better. He's just baiting you now. Just provide him (and the readers) with some of your best links to web pages which explain precisely how the Patriot Act does far, far more than that -- like this one, for example -- and then just leave it be.

 

I know better than what, exactly? What am I trying to suck people into?

My purpose in this thread is simple and straight forward. I think that there's a lot of mythology and paranoia swirling around the Patriot Act.

Obviously I might be missing something, but I really do fail to see all the fascist parts that everyone assures me are in there.

All I'm asking is that somebody, anybody, actually inject some substance into this discussion by specifying which sections of the Act they don't like, and why they oppose them.

The text is available here:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d107:h.r.03162:

 

And the link I provided does precisely that. It is but one of many such links that I could provide here... and that I sort of do, if you think about it, with the Liberal Oasis link in my signature. That, in my case, is the most energy I'm willing expend trying to convince someone who's so misguided -- and so thoroughly convinced of his rightness therein -- that he could so outragiously characterize the Patriot Act as something that merely "amend relevant sections of the United States Code to bring them up to date concerining things like modern telecommunications and money laundering."

Oy.

You're welcome to your opinion, Bill. Many, many people who are very smart, very honorable, and very respectable happen to share your opinion. I don't. Clearly Laser100 doesn't. I don't know about him, but I can live with the disagreement.