Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Nat Hentoff has a blistering column about Bush's new attempt to codify his unconstitutional power grab and preserve it for the next president.
In his last months, the president is working to ensure that his successor, whomever that may be, will have the greatly expanded power of the executive branch (unprecedented in American history) that Bush instituted after 9/11. Bush's current chief enabler in this ever-increasing surveillance of American citizens in our daily lives is Attorney General Michael Mukasey.Aware of Mukasey's plan for new FBI guidelines that could begin national security and criminal investigations of racial and ethnic groups without any evidence of wrongdoing, the heads of the Senate Judiciary Committee - Chairman Patrick Leahy and ranking member Arlen Specter - have asked the attorney general to delay the implementation of these echoes of the regime of J. Edgar Hoover until Congress is able to review these changes. Mukasey agreed but wants the expanded surveillance of us to begin Oct. 1.
Here's what the new guidelines would actually do:
As Lara Jakes Jordan of the Associated Press (Aug. 18) pointed out: "The new policy, law enforcement officials said, would let agents open preliminary terrorism investigations after mining public records and intelligence (including tips from informants) to build a profile of traits that, taken together, were deemed suspicious." There would be no evidence of criminal activity.
Of course, Congress won't just do its job and prevent those changes from taking place. They clearly have the constitutional authority to do so but they're terrified of looking soft on terrorism in an election years. Hentoff makes it personal and shows the kind of abuses that inevitably flow from such policies:
Michael German, a former FBI agent for 16 years and now a policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, warns that if Mukasey is allowed to go ahead, he will be undermining the restrictions placed on the FBI after the omnivorous dragnet approach of Hoover's COINTELPRO (domestic Counter-Intelligence Program) during the late 1950s and early 1960s.Says German of Mukasey: "He talks about 'arbitrary or irrelevant differences' between criminal and national security investigations, but these were corrections originally designed to prevent the type of overreach the FBI engaged in for years."
Long after those years, I obtained my FBI file through the Freedom of Information Act and found I had been "a person of interest" to the COINTELPRO agents even though I was on record in books and articles as a passionate anti-Communist since reading, when I was 15, Arthur Koestler's "Darkness at Noon" about Stalin's ceaseless harvesting of suspicious traits. And I was just one of millions of innocent Americans looked into by the FBI as Hoover promised "an FBI agent behind every mailbox."
But Hentoff, you see, had a bad habit of hanging out with civil rights activists and known subversives like Lenny Bruce and Max Roach. As far as J. Edgar Hoover was concerned, that constituted probable cause.
Politics
Comments
Ha ha, conservatives are running scared because now, after his (fingers crossed) election Obama, thanks to GWB, will have the power to toss them in Gitmo.
As I intend to become president in 2024, I personally support the continuation of these powers so that I might spite my ends .... continue the war against terrorism without hindrance.
Posted by: I am so wise | August 28, 2008 9:41 AM
The Founding Fathers are probably spinning in their graves fast enough to supply the energy needs of the entire northeast. Fear was the only tool the Bushies needed to break down the limitations on government that Jefferson, Madison, et al put in place to protect the freedom of the people.
Posted by: Lisa D | August 28, 2008 9:45 AM
Did you see the >news story about Hoover's letter asking for Truman to set up a framework for the suspension of habeas corpus in certain circumstances? It's remarkable in that, apart from the fact that it would have covered about 12,000 American citizens, it's actually much more in tune with the rule of law than the Bush administration's use of warrantless wiretapping and indefinite detention. The detainees would have had hearings within a set period of time, for instance. And it would have required Congress to officially vote to suspend the writ. And this was from the most paranoid, overreaching spy chief in American history.
Posted by: Ginger Yellow | August 28, 2008 9:48 AM
Gah. Screwed up the link. Here it is: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/dec/24/usa.korea
Posted by: Ginger Yellow | August 28, 2008 9:56 AM
The Founding Fathers are probably spinning in their graves fast enough to supply the energy needs of the entire northeast. Fear was the only tool the Bushies needed to break down the limitations on government that Jefferson, Madison, et al put in place to protect the freedom of the people.
Posted by: Lisa D | August 28, 2008 10:18 AM
Interesting how on one hand, Bush is so keyed up on surveillance, but on the other hand, he puts on the blinders and only exposes himself to what he wants to hear.
Posted by: Herod the Freemason | August 28, 2008 10:40 AM
Herod: nail, hammer, BAM! Which is exactly why giving law-enforcement all this new leeway won't make America any safer -- no matter how much raw data they're able to collect, they'll only see what fits their prejudices anyway.
Posted by: Raging Bee | August 28, 2008 11:27 AM
You can bet your bottom dollar that the surveillance will NOT extend to any of the Bush Administrations closed meetings, interoffice emails, or other constitution-avoiding activities, and that Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, et al will NOT be on the list of suspicious Americans.
But you and I will be because we have been located on the internet as being pro-science and pro-environment, two things which undoubtedly will raise flags in internet searches of names similar to ours.
And the PZ Myers regulars are going to get crucified since its a certainty that atheism will be a flag raiser. That'll teach 'em not to believe in God, eh?
Locking up some scientists and athiests and throwing away the key has a name on FOX news: Its called "victory in the GWOT."
Take that, you Godless rationalists!
Posted by: yogi-one | August 28, 2008 12:05 PM
Executive priviledge is bullcrap, and unfortunately the Supreme Court has no regard for the Constitution (especially the "literalists;" yeah I'm talking about Scalia and Thomas).
Posted by: JStein | August 28, 2008 12:06 PM
Ginger Yellow:
These are indeed perilous times when J. Edgar Hoover looks like a champion of civil liberties!
Posted by: ZacharySmith | August 28, 2008 12:29 PM
Internal guidelines of the FBI are not laws, and most certainly can't supersede our Constitutional liberties. Mukasey can make all the "reforms" he likes, it's not going to remove my right to sue his ass for everything its worth when he spies on me.
I'm at a loss for why the Congress is approaching this so tentatively. It is Congress's job to pass laws, not the Executive Branch's, the FBI investigative guidelines are those laws; internal memos are only meant to make clear what tactics that are allowable within that framework the Bureau will use. To begin with, Mukasey has no authority to issue internal orders to violate the privacy rights. Secondly, he has no authority to determine what acts do and do not constitute a violation of privacy. Thirdly, he has no authority to interpret the Constitution or decide how and in what instances a Right is important or violable. The response of the Congress should simply be to issue a public statement that all FBI agents who act in accordance with the rule change will be acting in violation of the Constitution and the laws governing the foundation and activity of the FBI, violating the civil rights of the subject in question, thus not only invalidating whatever prosecution they might be putting together against said individual, but also exposing themselves, as a citizen, to both civil and criminal proceedings.
Posted by: Julian | August 28, 2008 1:21 PM
hmm, I seem to have missed a few words in revising the above post. On the second line it should read "The Congress passed laws establishing the FBI and its limits;" and the first 'that' should be excised from the third line.
Posted by: Julian | August 28, 2008 1:24 PM
Wow. Who would have ever guessed that someone who had associated with the great Lenny Bruce would one day write for the Worldnutdaily?
Posted by: Sadie Morrison | August 28, 2008 2:27 PM
Oh sure...assuming you can PROVE he spied on you. And, of course, any subpoena to the FBI will be quashed on national security grounds. And even if you find something damning, someone will manage to be shocked, SHOCKED to find such an abuse of power clearly outside the intent of the guidelines. The best you would get would be an injuction telling them not to do it again to YOU, assuming you got anything at all (which is damn unlikely)--you won't get one red dime from Mukaskey, as he is working within his role as a Federal agent, and therefore immune from personal damages.
Ain't liberty grand?
Posted by: Shygetz | August 28, 2008 2:42 PM
I don't think Hentoff is writing for WND as they are carrying his syndicated column. But it still makes you wonder.
Posted by: Bill in NC | August 28, 2008 2:44 PM
At least Mukasey is out in four months.
Posted by: Reality Czech | August 28, 2008 3:14 PM
Apart from Congress' weakness when it comes to defending our rights, I'm always amazed at how many of my fellow citizens are okay with this. In fact I'm sure that a big part of why Congress has been so passive. If the citizenry were clamoring for their rights and polls showed it, you can bet the politicians would be all over it. But most the time when I talk to folks they say something like, "whatever it takes to keep my family safe from terrorists."
As Ministry of Truth thread has me in a 1984 frame of mind it occurs to me that the Bush administration has found a way to make "Big Brother is Watching You" palatable. They just needed to add one little word after "watching"... "over."
Posted by: Abby Normal | August 28, 2008 3:26 PM
I just got my travel dossier from the DHS via FOIA request yesterday, 11 months after I requested it. It shows the information collected about my international travel in the Interagency Border Inspection System (IBIS)/Treasury Enforcement Communications System/Automated Targeting System. The latter system assigns a risk factor to passengers to decide who gets special screening, even though Congress forbids doing that unless an individual's name is on a government watch list.
To date I've not ever had special screening except when I had to make a last-minute change of flight.
Posted by: Jim Lippard | August 28, 2008 8:27 PM
I'm sure I've got a marked travel dossier, too. When I returned from Syria in June, I was flagged and sent to a special desk for questioning. It was all rather hilarious, as the half-my-age customs agent kept repeating, "But what were you doing over there?" as though I might eventually break down and admit to something. Most interesting was when he very carefully asked if I had met with any officials of the Syrian government. I hadn't, but I plan to next time--I wonder what will happen next year! At any rate, my travel dossier will probably have some special encoding in it.
Posted by: James Hanley | August 28, 2008 9:27 PM