Zero Reassurance

DdC · 09-19-2003, 11:55 AM

According to Attorney General John Ashcroft, all the complaints regarding Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act are much ado about nothing. Literally.

In a recent memo to FBI Director Robert Mueller, the attorney general said he had decided to correct misconceptions about Section 215, which authorizes the FBI to demand "any tangible thing" upon certifying to a secret court that it's relevant to a terrorism investigation. "The number of times Section 215 has been used to date is zero," Ashcroft said.

Well, doesn't everyone who worried about the privacy implications of Section 215 look silly now? Sure, the FBI could use Section 215, with no meaningful judicial supervision, to secretly scrutinize the private records of innocent people. So far, though, it hasn't.

This is the sort of reassurance we've come to expect from Ashcroft. A few days before he finally agreed to reveal how often Section 215 had been used, he condemned the provision's critics for stirring up "baseless hysteria."

By Ashcroft's account, crazy alarmists were trying to convince the public that the FBI was staking out libraries to "ask every person exiting the library, 'Why were you at the library? What were you reading? Did you see anything suspicious?'"

Actually, one of the critics' main points was that you'd never know if the FBI snooped through your records, because the people required to provide them are forbidden to talk about it. If the feds approached you directly, at least you'd know they were curious, and you could decline to answer their questions.

Ashcroft said the government "has no interest in your reading habits. Tracking reading habits would betray our high regard for the First Amendment. And even if someone in government wanted to do so, it would represent an impossible workload and a waste of law enforcement resources."

Notice that Ashcroft did not deny that the PATRIOT Act authorizes the government to monitor your reading habits (along with many other private aspects of your life). He just said the government has no interest in doing so.

All the government wants to do, Ashcroft assures us, is catch the bad guys, and if you've done nothing wrong you have no cause to be concerned—presumably because government officials never waste resources, make mistakes, or act maliciously. In other words: Trust us.

But the way the Justice Department has handled concerns about Section 215 and other aspects of the PATRIOT Act does not inspire trust. It says the new surveillance powers are not really new, and they're necessary to prevent terrorist attacks; people are wrong to fear FBI snooping, and they have no right to expect their records to remain private; talking about how Section 215 has been used would compromise national security, except when the attorney general decides it's politically prudent; the powers are absolutely crucial to the war on terrorism, and they've never been used.

One reason for that may be that the government is making liberal use of another PATRIOT Act provision with even looser requirements. Under Section 505, the Justice Department, including FBI field offices, can issue "national security letters" demanding telephone, Internet, credit, and bank records. This power has been used enough times in the last two years to fill a five-page, blacked-out list obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union under the Freedom of Information Act.

As with Section 215, anyone subject to such orders is forbidden to talk about them, and the people whose records are examined may be completely innocent. The government need not allege, let alone show probable cause to believe, that they are involved in terrorism.

Although Section 215 requires the FBI to seek an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the court seems to have little or no discretion in granting such requests. National security letters, by contrast, involve no outside review at all.

Section 215 is broader than Section 505 in at least one respect. It covers "any tangible thing" held by anyone, which presumably could include the PC on your desk, the diary in your night stand, the records in your doctor's office, lists of people who visit particular Web sites, and the membership rosters of religious or political organizations.

With its recent proposal for administrative subpoenas in terrorism cases, the Justice Department wants to combine the breadth of Section 215 with the unilateral authority of Section 505. It seems determined to provide a basis for people's hysteria.

Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason and the author of Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use (Tarcher/Putnam). - Copyright: 2003 by Creators Syndicate Inc.

Note: The crucial snooping powers that have never been used.

Zero Reassurance
Source: Reason Magazine (US)
Author: Jacob Sullum
Published: September 19, 2003
Contact: letters@reason.com * Website

Related Articles & Web Sites

A.C.L.U.

John Ashcroft's Assault on the Constitution

Ashcroft on Tour, and Unplugged

Patriot Act II Resurrected?

Target: 'Narco-Terror' - ABCNews.com

"All propaganda must be so popular and on such an intellectual level, that even the most stupid of those towards whom it is directed will understand it. Therefore, the intellectual level of the propaganda must be lower the larger the number of people who are to be influenced by it."
Just Say NO!
Mussolini/Nancy Rayguns

New "Drugs and Terrorism" Bill Must Be Stopped

Fax your Senators at: http://actioncenter.drugpolicy.org/c...?u=3529&l=5288

"Drugs and Terrorism" Bill Linx

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About Ashcroft
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Nazism or WoD
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Fight Terrorism Grow Your Own

patriot · 09-19-2003, 12:18 PM

That sure is a good description for marijuana laws. Much ado about nothing. They also create an impossible workload for law enforcement.

However, it does give them reason for existence.

Your tax dollars at work against you.

Real Corona · 09-19-2003, 01:26 PM

Germany, 1934.

DdC · 09-19-2003, 04:08 PM

Farben's Bushit Circus Still In Town

STATE OF THE UNION: CORRUPT

DdC · 09-19-2003, 07:42 PM

DrugSense Weekly, Sept. 19, 2003 #318
Read This Publication On-line at: http://www.drugsense.org/current.htm

SECOND ECSTASY STUDY RETRACTED

DRUG SQUADS 'HIKING UP VALUE OF HAULS'
Pubdate: Thu, 18 Sep 2003
Source: Herald, The (UK)

POLICE drug squads are exaggerating the value of drugs they seize in order to compete for a bigger share of government funding, legal sources claimed yesterday.

The so-called "street value" attached to some hauls are often several times the real price at which they are being traded, they allege. Recent individual hauls have been attributed values of UKP 25m for cocaine, UKP 800,000 for cannabis, and UKP 3m for ecstasy.

Senior lawyers, and a former drugs squad officer, have told The Herald that the values of consignments are often based on unrealistic or out-of-date assumptions about the retail price. They are exaggerated either as PR hype or to enhance funding from the Scottish Executive for the war against drugs.

A former drugs squad officer admits talking up the values of seizures, and says pressure has since grown because of the performance-related nature of funding awarded to police forces and the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency.

[snip] Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v03.n1413.a08.html

Just Us D.E.A.thieves!

Ashcroft's nephew got probation after major pot bust
Bad enough to have a vengeful Attorney General. but a hypocritical one too?

Although his arrest for growing 60 plants could have landed him in federal prison, Alex Ashcroft was tried in state court and avoided jail, despite his uncle's crusade for tougher federal drug laws and mandatory prison sentences

About Ashcroft

War On Drugs Is A Failure
By Jeff Miller

Readers' views:

While most of the world has acknowledged that the war on drugs is a complete failure and more destructive to society and drug users than the drugs themselves, the U.S. government refuses even to debate the possibility of doing anything but waging war on its own citizens. Our system of dealing with drug abuse is a system that stops nobody, including teenagers, from finding any drug they please. The enormous amount of profit that is involved with the illicit drug trade encourages criminal organizations and gangs to flourish. And with them, comes all the violence.

Countries that have experimented with decriminalization and/or harm reduction strategies have had positive results. Where ever marijuana has been decriminalized, rates of usage have been affected very little and the usage of hard drugs has decreased over time. In the late 1970s, the average age of hard drug users in the Netherlands was in the mid 20s. Now the average age is 36. This tells us that young people are never coming into contact with hard drugs.

Switzerland is experimenting with "heroin assisted treatment." So far the experiment is working very well. In the cities where the plan is in place, crime has declined up to 60 percent. The black market for heroin has been crushed, and the overall health of the addicts has gotten better. The Swiss program has seen a higher rate of people going into treatment and after treatment a higher percentage stay off the drug.

We as a society need to approach drug abuse as managers rather than moralizers. It's time to start looking at better more viable and freedom-loving options when approaching the issue of drug abuse, rather than building more prisons and spending more money.

Jeff Miller, Minnesota Marijuana Party, St. Cloud
Cited: Minnesota Marijuana Party
http://minnesota.usmjparty.com

Date: 09/14/2003
Source: St. Cloud Times (MN)
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2559

Real Corona · 09-19-2003, 11:35 PM

Quote:

Our system of dealing with drug abuse is a system that stops nobody, including teenagers, from finding any drug they please.

I disagree, I couldn't ever find good coke in my hometown.

09-19-2003, 11:55 AM	#1 (permalink)
DdC Decade Yahookan Join Date: Feb 1999 Location: Santa Cruz,CA,USA Posts: 2,117 Blog Entries: 5 Thanks: 51 Thanked 607 Times in 399 Posts	Zero Reassurance According to Attorney General John Ashcroft, all the complaints regarding Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act are much ado about nothing. Literally. In a recent memo to FBI Director Robert Mueller, the attorney general said he had decided to correct misconceptions about Section 215, which authorizes the FBI to demand "any tangible thing" upon certifying to a secret court that it's relevant to a terrorism investigation. "The number of times Section 215 has been used to date is zero," Ashcroft said. Well, doesn't everyone who worried about the privacy implications of Section 215 look silly now? Sure, the FBI could use Section 215, with no meaningful judicial supervision, to secretly scrutinize the private records of innocent people. So far, though, it hasn't. This is the sort of reassurance we've come to expect from Ashcroft. A few days before he finally agreed to reveal how often Section 215 had been used, he condemned the provision's critics for stirring up "baseless hysteria." By Ashcroft's account, crazy alarmists were trying to convince the public that the FBI was staking out libraries to "ask every person exiting the library, 'Why were you at the library? What were you reading? Did you see anything suspicious?'" Actually, one of the critics' main points was that you'd never know if the FBI snooped through your records, because the people required to provide them are forbidden to talk about it. If the feds approached you directly, at least you'd know they were curious, and you could decline to answer their questions. Ashcroft said the government "has no interest in your reading habits. Tracking reading habits would betray our high regard for the First Amendment. And even if someone in government wanted to do so, it would represent an impossible workload and a waste of law enforcement resources." Notice that Ashcroft did not deny that the PATRIOT Act authorizes the government to monitor your reading habits (along with many other private aspects of your life). He just said the government has no interest in doing so. All the government wants to do, Ashcroft assures us, is catch the bad guys, and if you've done nothing wrong you have no cause to be concerned—presumably because government officials never waste resources, make mistakes, or act maliciously. In other words: Trust us. But the way the Justice Department has handled concerns about Section 215 and other aspects of the PATRIOT Act does not inspire trust. It says the new surveillance powers are not really new, and they're necessary to prevent terrorist attacks; people are wrong to fear FBI snooping, and they have no right to expect their records to remain private; talking about how Section 215 has been used would compromise national security, except when the attorney general decides it's politically prudent; the powers are absolutely crucial to the war on terrorism, and they've never been used. One reason for that may be that the government is making liberal use of another PATRIOT Act provision with even looser requirements. Under Section 505, the Justice Department, including FBI field offices, can issue "national security letters" demanding telephone, Internet, credit, and bank records. This power has been used enough times in the last two years to fill a five-page, blacked-out list obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union under the Freedom of Information Act. As with Section 215, anyone subject to such orders is forbidden to talk about them, and the people whose records are examined may be completely innocent. The government need not allege, let alone show probable cause to believe, that they are involved in terrorism. Although Section 215 requires the FBI to seek an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the court seems to have little or no discretion in granting such requests. National security letters, by contrast, involve no outside review at all. Section 215 is broader than Section 505 in at least one respect. It covers "any tangible thing" held by anyone, which presumably could include the PC on your desk, the diary in your night stand, the records in your doctor's office, lists of people who visit particular Web sites, and the membership rosters of religious or political organizations. With its recent proposal for administrative subpoenas in terrorism cases, the Justice Department wants to combine the breadth of Section 215 with the unilateral authority of Section 505. It seems determined to provide a basis for people's hysteria. Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason and the author of Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use (Tarcher/Putnam). - Copyright: 2003 by Creators Syndicate Inc. Note: The crucial snooping powers that have never been used. Zero Reassurance Source: Reason Magazine (US) Author: Jacob Sullum Published: September 19, 2003 Contact: letters@reason.com * Website Related Articles & Web Sites A.C.L.U. John Ashcroft's Assault on the Constitution Ashcroft on Tour, and Unplugged Patriot Act II Resurrected? Target: 'Narco-Terror' - ABCNews.com "All propaganda must be so popular and on such an intellectual level, that even the most stupid of those towards whom it is directed will understand it. Therefore, the intellectual level of the propaganda must be lower the larger the number of people who are to be influenced by it." Just Say NO! Mussolini/Nancy Rayguns New "Drugs and Terrorism" Bill Must Be Stopped Fax your Senators at: http://actioncenter.drugpolicy.org/c...?u=3529&l=5288 "Drugs and Terrorism" Bill Linx Stop the New Patriot Act About Ashcroft Ashcroft's Errant Hammer New Terror Laws Used Vs. Common Criminals President Seeks More Anti-Terror Authority President Urging Wider US Powers in Terrorism Law It'll Kill You -- Wait, No It Won't Bush Administration Should Stop Picking on The Ill Santa Cruz City Council Targets Bush SC Good Times: Patriots in Action Metro SC: Showtime for 9/11 Yankee Doodle Doofus A.C.L.U. spray Nazism or WoD John Pee Walters, terrorist Censor America! Fight Terrorism Grow Your Own __________________ Al Capone and Watergate were red herrings to divert the countries attention from the Fascist acts of eliminating competition. Booze/Ethanol then Ganja//Hemp.

09-19-2003, 12:18 PM	#2 (permalink)
patriot Liar,Cheat,and Fraud Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: United States of Saudi Arabiaa Posts: 1,679 Thanks: 34 Thanked 154 Times in 103 Posts	That sure is a good description for marijuana laws. Much ado about nothing. They also create an impossible workload for law enforcement. However, it does give them reason for existence. Your tax dollars at work against you. __________________ A true patriot is always ready to stand up against his own government. We can't be using plants that come from the Lord for beneficial purposes. Now hurry up, or we'll be late for church. The bigger the lie, the more people will believe it.-Adolf Hitler Legalizing marijuana won't grow our economy-Barack Hussein Obama 2009

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09-19-2003, 01:26 PM	#3 (permalink)
Real Corona Old School Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: NEW YORK Posts: 10,027 Thanks: 0 Thanked 4 Times in 4 Posts	Germany, 1934.

09-19-2003, 04:08 PM	#4 (permalink)
DdC Decade Yahookan Join Date: Feb 1999 Location: Santa Cruz,CA,USA Posts: 2,117 Blog Entries: 5 Thanks: 51 Thanked 607 Times in 399 Posts	Farben's Bushit Circus Still In Town STATE OF THE UNION: CORRUPT

09-19-2003, 07:42 PM	#5 (permalink)
DdC Decade Yahookan Join Date: Feb 1999 Location: Santa Cruz,CA,USA Posts: 2,117 Blog Entries: 5 Thanks: 51 Thanked 607 Times in 399 Posts	DrugSense Weekly, Sept. 19, 2003 #318 Read This Publication On-line at: http://www.drugsense.org/current.htm SECOND ECSTASY STUDY RETRACTED DRUG SQUADS 'HIKING UP VALUE OF HAULS' Pubdate: Thu, 18 Sep 2003 Source: Herald, The (UK) POLICE drug squads are exaggerating the value of drugs they seize in order to compete for a bigger share of government funding, legal sources claimed yesterday. The so-called "street value" attached to some hauls are often several times the real price at which they are being traded, they allege. Recent individual hauls have been attributed values of UKP 25m for cocaine, UKP 800,000 for cannabis, and UKP 3m for ecstasy. Senior lawyers, and a former drugs squad officer, have told The Herald that the values of consignments are often based on unrealistic or out-of-date assumptions about the retail price. They are exaggerated either as PR hype or to enhance funding from the Scottish Executive for the war against drugs. A former drugs squad officer admits talking up the values of seizures, and says pressure has since grown because of the performance-related nature of funding awarded to police forces and the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency. [snip] Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v03.n1413.a08.html Just Us D.E.A.thieves! Ashcroft's nephew got probation after major pot bust Bad enough to have a vengeful Attorney General. but a hypocritical one too? Although his arrest for growing 60 plants could have landed him in federal prison, Alex Ashcroft was tried in state court and avoided jail, despite his uncle's crusade for tougher federal drug laws and mandatory prison sentences About Ashcroft War On Drugs Is A Failure By Jeff Miller Readers' views: While most of the world has acknowledged that the war on drugs is a complete failure and more destructive to society and drug users than the drugs themselves, the U.S. government refuses even to debate the possibility of doing anything but waging war on its own citizens. Our system of dealing with drug abuse is a system that stops nobody, including teenagers, from finding any drug they please. The enormous amount of profit that is involved with the illicit drug trade encourages criminal organizations and gangs to flourish. And with them, comes all the violence. Countries that have experimented with decriminalization and/or harm reduction strategies have had positive results. Where ever marijuana has been decriminalized, rates of usage have been affected very little and the usage of hard drugs has decreased over time. In the late 1970s, the average age of hard drug users in the Netherlands was in the mid 20s. Now the average age is 36. This tells us that young people are never coming into contact with hard drugs. Switzerland is experimenting with "heroin assisted treatment." So far the experiment is working very well. In the cities where the plan is in place, crime has declined up to 60 percent. The black market for heroin has been crushed, and the overall health of the addicts has gotten better. The Swiss program has seen a higher rate of people going into treatment and after treatment a higher percentage stay off the drug. We as a society need to approach drug abuse as managers rather than moralizers. It's time to start looking at better more viable and freedom-loving options when approaching the issue of drug abuse, rather than building more prisons and spending more money. Jeff Miller, Minnesota Marijuana Party, St. Cloud Cited: Minnesota Marijuana Party http://minnesota.usmjparty.com Date: 09/14/2003 Source: St. Cloud Times (MN) Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2559

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