Posted on 12/01/2001 8:12:17 PM PST by OKCSubmariner
The US Attorney General, John Ashcroft, was yesterday reported to be ready to relax restrictions on the FBI's powers to spy on religious and church-based political organisations.
His proposal, leaked to the New York Times, would loosen limits on the FBI's surveillance powers, imposed in the 1970s after the death of its founder J. Edgar Hoover.
The plan has caused outrage within the FBI itself with agents expected to act upon new surveillance powers describing themselves as 'very, very angry'.
The spying, wiretapping and surveillance campaign unleashed by Hoover against church and political groups was called 'Cointelpro', and was aimed mainly at the movement behind civil rights activist Martin Luther King, the Black Panthers, the anti-Vietnam war movement and, on the other wing, the Ku Klux Klan.
When the system was revealed, upon Hoover's death, restrictions were put on the security bureau, in the form of two sets of regulations pertaining to foreign-based and domestic groups. The rules forbade FBI agents from sending undercover agents into churches, synagogues or mosques unless they found 'probable cause or evidence' that someone in them had broken the law.
A Justice Department spokeswoman, Susan Dryden, said no final decision had been made on their reintroduction.
According to sources, the plan has caused a sharp rift within the department and the FBI. Ashcroft and the new FBI director, Robert Mueller, are pushing the plan eagerly, but there is strong opposition among officials inside both the bureau and the Justice Department.
Internal opposition to the plan will exacerbate an already fractious atmosphere in the FBI since President Bush took office.
Some agents told the New York Times that they considered any weakening of the guidelines 'a serious mistake', and that the Justice Department had 'not clearly described' the proposed changes. 'People are furious right now,' said one agent.
The changes would become part of what civil liberties groups regard as a dangerously changing legal landscape in the US: 1,200 people with connections to Islamic groups have been taken into custody, and Draconian security measures, such as wiretapping of lawyers, pushed through Congress.
Further plans are now afoot to seek out and interview some 5,000 immigrants, mostly Muslims, who have entered the US since January.
The government bureaucrats and Bush adminstartion can do no wrong in your eyes. Even Republicans in the Bush administration make big mistakes and they should be called on it by other Republicans who are honest conservatives.
It seems like every time I criticize Bush administration officials and their policies, your weak defense is that you blame it on the Democrats or liberal newspapers.
Well my critcisms are based on first hand knowledge of corruption in the FBI and DOJ in the Bush administration and my information does not come from Democrats but from Repubs who have met directly with Ashcroft.
Bob Barr and Ron Paul and Alan Keyes are conservative Republs who strongly disagree with Ashcroft and Mueller and Bush on many COnstitutional issues I just raised in my comments.
Much like the no prayer is school rules which exempt Islamists, the current patchwork of civil liberties rules exempt the political well-connected as well.
If we cannot go back to the respect for the Bill of Rights practiced under Thomas Jefferson, the least we could do is revert to the J. Edgar Hoover era when groups were target based on their threat to America rather than on their lack of connections and political muscle.
The good people on planet Mulu will be impressed
If the FBI was so intent on getting you, or us, they would have done it years ago.
And for this BS of every anti-government whacko calling himnself a "Patriot," most are turning out to be nothing but angry, nutty old men.
I'd quote Franklin on safety vs liberty, but I've been told on other threads that ole Ben was a good guy but he's irrelevant because he never faced the kind of "dire situation" we find ourselves in today. Makes you wonder....
Better than the BATF way BATF _Jim.:) You worried about your job security? Don't worry, the goverment will continue to cover for you as long as you stay in line.
WarHawk42
Bush's advisor on the Third Way and Communitarianism in the White House is Don Eberly-see reference inside article.
Bush and the 'Third Way'
September 3, 2001
By Joseph Farah
© 2001 WorldNetDaily.com
The more of George W. Bush you see, the more he sounds like and governs like Bill Clinton – perhaps minus the personal indiscretions.
This is not my observation alone. Way back in February, Washington Post staff writer Dana Milbank focused on this in a front-page news story that should be required reading for all those getting ready to e-mail me angry missives.
In that story, the Post revealed that Bush has embraced many of the ideas in a political movement called "communitarianism," which, places the importance of society ahead of the unfettered rights of the individual.
I know some of you are disbelieving me already. You think I'm joking. You think I'm pulling your leg. You think I'm exaggerating. Again, please read the original news story on this for yourself before you rush to judgment. You can find the Washington Post story reprinted on the Communitarian Network's own website.
"This is the ultimate Third Way," explains Don Eberly, an adviser in the Bush White House, using, as the Post points out, a favorite phrase of Clinton.
According to the Post, and I concur with the reporter's analysis, "communitarianism" holds that "years of celebrating individual freedom have weakened the bonds of community and that the rights of the individual must be balanced against the interests of society as a whole."
Bush is reported to have consulted with leading communitarian thinker Robert D. Putnam on the crafting of his inaugural speech.
"Some of Bush's ideas are objectionable to civil liberties advocates and strict constitutionalists on the left and the right," explained the Post, "but they have broad support in both parties."
I should think such ideas would be objectionable to people committed to civil liberties and the Constitution. The ideas expressed are the antithesis of American values.
The article also says World magazine Editor Marvin Olasky, the man credited with inventing the term "compassionate conservative," is himself a communitarian. Olasky flat-out denies it, and I believe him. So, this does call into question some of the reporter's other assertions.
Maybe you're unfamiliar with this term, communitarian. It's not one we hear every day. I would suggest opening up your dictionary and looking it up. Here's what you will find under "communitarian" if you use Webster's New World, the preferred choice of U.S. newspaper people: "a member or advocate of a communistic or communalistic community."
That's it. No alternative definitions offered. But you choose any dictionary you like. I suspect you'll find a similar definition.
But we don't have to look it up in the dictionary to see the striking resemblance between communitarian thought and communist thought. Both center on the idea that the individual needs to be de-emphasized in favor of the "community" or the "state."
The best I can decipher of this popular new idea of communitarianism is that it is not a new idea at all. To put it in its simplest form, I would describe it as a form of communism for people who believe in God.
Now Bush makes more sense to me. I fully understand why I find his policies repulsive and nonsensical. I see clearly why he is an enemy of freedom.
You see, I like individual rights. I believe in individual rights with all my heart and soul. I believe it is one of the cornerstones of true freedom, as articulated by our founding fathers. I am not ready to sell short the American Dream. I still believe in old-fashioned freedom, in self-government, in the inalienable rights of the individual and the limited powers of the state.
These are concepts at odds with communitarianism.
I reject communism – by whatever euphemism you employ.
You can read more about this philosophy and how it is playing havoc in education in this country in the upcoming October issue of Whistleblower magazine. In that issue, which will be mailed to subscribers in about two weeks, Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt, former senior policy adviser for the federal Office of Educational Research and Improvement in the U.S. Department of Education, explains how communitarian thought is dictating a national education policy. She is also author of "The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America," a book available in the WorldNetDaily store.
If this is the Third Way, I think I'll try to find another way. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joseph Farah is editor and chief executive officer of WorldNetDaily.com and writes a daily column
Fitting indeed, it is ...
Churches and places of worship are sacrosanct. This country was 'discovered' because of religious persecution elsewhere. Now, it's happening here.
You can believe what you want, but I am confident our new President would never allow the Farah's or Falwell's to be spyed upon. After all - they haven't killed 5,000 people!
Now don't het angry-er - I'm just asking, 'cause, I'm curious ...
(It is CERTAINLY tin-foil time on the old board tonight ...)
You and me both!
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