Mcjoan has a great post at Daily Kos today titled "Privacy, Bush Style." Which is, of course, none at all.She writes about Secretary Chertoff's position on fingerprints as this relates to a guy in Kansas who was held by the FBI for two weeks on the supposition that he was linked to the Madrid bombing in 2004 by a fingerprint. Now the guy in question had not left the U. S. since 1994, but no matter. And the Spanish police were skeptical that the man's fingerprint matched the digital photo of the print from a bag in Madrid, but that wouldn't stop our FBI. When the Spanish police ID'd the Algerian whose prints were on the bag, the gentleman was finally released.
Ya gotta wonder what constitutes probable cause anymore because John Yoo has postulated that the Fourth Amendment 'has "no application to domestic military operations." We still don't know how the administration defines "domestic military operations" or whether the memo in which John Yoo declared the suspension of the Fourth Amendment is still operable. The current Attorney General refuses to answer those questions.'
What do you know about the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, its scope and applicability? [Hint: it is about limits on use of military power in domestic policing.]
We live in interesting times. Given all the domestic spying going on, it may be assumed we have all come to the attention of people in authority. The third legendary curse is that we may find what we are looking for. I suggest we think carefully about what we seek.
--the BB
1 comment:
This stuff makes me mad. Back in college I was a member of the AFA (Search and Rescue speciality) we COULD NOT be deputized in the case of an emergency because of the restrictions on military action within the domestic arena.
That was for simple stuff like crown control, how the heck far have we fallen in 12 years?
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