Powered by Max Banner Ads
Court Upholds Warrantless Searches Overseas
The second-circuit court of appeals has ruled the requirement for warrants and Miranda warnings do not apply to American citizens living abroad.
The authorities may lawfully conduct searches and electronic surveillance against United States citizens in foreign countries without a warrant, a federal appeals court panel said on Monday, bolstering the government’s power to investigate terrorism by ruling that a key constitutional protection afforded to Americans does not apply overseas.
The unanimous decision by a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in Manhattan, came in the case of three Al Qaeda terrorists convicted a few months before 9/11 in a conspiracy that involved the 1998 bombings of two American embassies in East Africa.
Thank God the ruling came down in favor of national security. The idea that Americans living abroad are entitled to the same rights as Americans living at home is absurd. This is was just another attempt by the ACLU to gum up the works and prevent our intelligence agencies from protecting this country.
(hat tip Hot Air)
Shock: The ACLU Says The Military Is Spying On Americans
From the AP:
The military is using the FBI to skirt legal restrictions on domestic surveillance to obtain private records of Americans’ Internet service providers, financial institutions and telephone companies, the ACLU said Tuesday.
The American Civil Liberties Union based its conclusion on a review of more than 1,000 documents turned over by the Defense Department after it sued the agency last year for documents related to national security letters, or NSLs, investigative tools used to compel businesses to turn over customer information without a judge’s order or grand jury subpoena.
“Newly unredacted documents released today reveal that the Department of Defense is using the FBI to circumvent legal limits on its own NSL power,” said the ACLU, whose lawsuit was filed in Manhattan federal court.
ACLU lawyer Melissa Goodman said the documents the civil rights group studied “make us incredibly concerned.” She said it would be understandable if the military relied on help from the FBI on joint investigations, but not when the FBI was not involved in a probe.
What a surprise, the ACLU thinks another tool in our fight against terrorism is unconstitutional. There has yet to be a single power granted to the government after 9/11 that the ACLU hasn’t deemed “unconstitutional”.
It’s a given that absolutely anything we do to make it harder for terrorists to attack us the ACLU is going to disagree with.
The ACLU is one of the most destructive and dangerous left-wing organizations on the planet. They use the courts to push an extremist agenda that undermines our national security and erodes the traditional fabric upon which this country was built.
-Chris Jones
Britain becoming a Big Brother society, says data watchdog
Britain is in danger of “committing slow social suicide” as such Big Brother techniques as surveillance cameras and recording equipment spread into every aspect of our lives, the nation’s information watchdog will warn this week.
A new report from Richard Thomas, the information commissioner, will say that the public needs to be made more aware of the “creeping encroachment” on civil liberties created by email monitoring, CCTV and computer tracking of our buying habits.
It is understood that one of the concerns in Mr Thomas’s report is the use of special listening devices which can be placed in lamp posts, street furniture and offices. These are already widely used in the Netherlands to combat crime and anti-social behaviour.
More than 300 of the cameras with built-in microphones have been fitted in benefit offices and city centres. The equipment can pick up aggressive tones on the basis of decibel level, pitch and speed at which words are spoken.
Westminster council has already started piloting the listening devices, but experts say the use of these microphones raises questions about how surveillance can be used to intrude into the private lives of citizens.
He will also call for greater regulation of companies that supply surveillance technology which provides “convenience or safety for the more affluent majority”, but not for the vulnerable such as children, immigrants and the elderly.
His warning comes as MPs launch their first inquiry into the impact of surveillance in Britain. The Home Affairs Select Committee will investigate the use of video cameras to monitor high streets and residential areas as well as the holding of personal information on both government and commercial databases.
On Tuesday, Mr Thomas, who last year warned that Britain was “sleepwalking into a surveillance society”, will tell the committee at its first hearing that new safeguards must be introduced to protect the public from the increasing intrusion of surveillance into their daily lives.
Civil liberty campaigners have already warned that Britain is becoming a Big Brother society where its citizens are increasingly being watched. There are more than four million CCTV cameras in this country, one for every 14 people, and the national DNA database which was set up by police to combat crime now holds 3.5 million profiles.
Posts
