http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...5110501366.html

 

"The FBI now issues more than 30,000 national security letters a year, according to government sources, a hundredfold increase over historic norms. The letters -- one of which can be used to sweep up the records of many people -- are extending the bureau's reach as never before into the telephone calls, correspondence and financial lives of ordinary Americans. "

 

Then they give gag orders to stop the recipients from saying anything about it.

 

The records it gathers describe where a person makes and spends money, with whom he lives and lived before, how much he gambles, what he buys online, what he pawns and borrows, where he travels, how he invests, what he searches for and reads on the Web, and who telephones or e-mails him at home and at work.

 

And who can forget the real kick in the balls -- NO JUDICIAL OVERSIGHT.

 

Two years ago, Ashcroft rescinded a 1995 guideline directing that information obtained through a national security letter about a U.S. citizen or resident "shall be destroyed by the FBI and not further disseminated" if it proves "not relevant to the purposes for which it was collected." Ashcroft's new order was that "the FBI shall retain" all records it collects and "may disseminate" them freely among federal agencies.

 

Man, the days of individual liberty and lives free of government intrusion without due cause for them to look at an individual's life seem to be gone...and we're all marching lockstep offering to give up our rights.

 

And for those in the "What Me Worry? Government hasn't abused its authority to go after the bad guys before!" crowd -- Government has never abused its authority before!...Except for the Palmer Raids, McCarthyism, the Red Scare and COINTELPRO, you’d be right. (and right now they are as well...f***ing thugs)

Oh, you're just a trouble maker Apu.

 

If you don't openly cherish the fact that the FBI can without cause find out what you read, who you know, what you buy, and how many times a day you take a crap. . . then, the terrorists have already won.

 

Only this administration, with a veep who is actively and openly fighting to exclude the CIA from McCain's torture ban bill, can equate giving up all reasonable expectations of privacy with patriotism.

 

And people are still buying into it. :banghead