Bush Consolidates the National Security State

[Echo In Light]

Bush Consolidates the National Security State

The Washington Post revealed Friday that the FBI is continuing its systematic violation of Americans' Fourth Amendment guarantees against "unreasonable searches and seizures."

A Justice Department report concluded that the Bureau had repeatedly abused its intelligence gathering "privileges" by issuing bogus "national security letters" (NSLs) from 2003-2006. On at least one occasion, the FBI relied on an illegally-issued NSL to circumvent a ruling by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to obtain records the secret court deemed protected by the First Amendment.

While the Bush regime claims that the Bureau requires sweeping authority to invade the privacy of American citizens to "protect the homeland" from the Afghan-Arab database of disposable intelligence assets, al-Qaeda, Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine determined that fully "60 percent of the nearly 50,000 security letters issued that year <2006> by the FBI targeted Americans," according to Post reporter Dan Eggen.

Despite the FISA court twice rejecting Bureau requests to obtain sensitive private records, determining "the 'facts' were too thin" and the "request implicated the target's First Amendment rights," the FBI used an NSL as a "work around" and proceeded anyway.

The stunning disregard for all legal norms under the Bush regime is encapsulated by FBI general counsel Valerie E. Caproni's statement to investigators that "it was appropriate to issue the letters in such cases because she disagreed with the court's conclusions."

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