Although somehow, not that surprising:
WASHINGTON — In the wake of the National Security Agency spying scandal, the American Civil Liberties Union shifted attention Tuesday to the FBI with a report that described the bureau as “a secret domestic intelligence agency.”
The report says that changes in law and policy since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have allowed the FBI to expand its intelligence-gathering and investigative authorities, infringe on Americans’ privacy and evade constitutional oversight.
The report lauded the FBI for protecting the United States from criminals, terrorists and hostile foreign agents, but it said the bureau also has “regularly overstepped the law, infringing on Americans’ constitutional rights while overzealously pursuing its domestic security mission.”
Titled “Unleashed and Unaccountable: The FBI’s Unchecked Abuse of Authority,” the report makes 15 recommendations for changes at the bureau. The group released it as James Comey is in his first month as FBI director, in hopes that the new leadership would respond to calls for evaluation and reform.
“The FBI’s role in our society has drastically changed over the past dozen years,” said Michael German, ACLU senior policy counsel and a former FBI agent. “It’s long past time for Congress to conduct a public examination of how they’re utilized and reform the FBI to protect Americans’ rights and protect their security.”
I was in Chestertown, MD a few years ago celebrating their re-enactment of the Tea Party (funny, that was right before the wingnut “Tea Party” came into existence); anywho, my new cell phone ended up at the bottom of the Chesapeake – I thought that was apropos at the time!
LOL
The Patriot Act. Junk that Act and 50% of our police state would disappear. Then there’s the Democrat Carl Levin’s National Defense Authorization Act. The Democrats and the Republicans are both assisting the 1% in building the police state.
What imhotep said.
The 1% owns the majority of the members of both parties. It will be next to impossible to effect any significant changes until we remove corporate cash from our electoral process.
Step 1: A Constitutional Amendment removing ‘personhood’ from business entities.
Step 2: Outlaw lobbying and PAC’s.
Step 3: Public campaign finance as the only legal method of political advertising.
I just tune the ACLU out. Everything they pretend to do is just noise after they sold out on Citizens United. That decision underwrites and enables the national security state. Don’t give the ACLU a damn dime. They are just false front.