When you give an enforcement arm the power to do things and say "But only under 'exigent' circumstances," guess what happens. ALL circumstances suddenly become exigent.

This surprise only morons--i.e., right wingers, politicians, and the broderite pundits.

This acronym is in the story, but I can't see anywhere what this stands for or what this entity is.

Ha ha. Glenn, because you so rarely use such invective, it is so effective when you do.

This article has been submitted to Digg. Please give it a digg everyone.

Off topic: Did you happen to catch Murtha on Late Edition with Blitzer? There was a fantastic moment I know you would have appreciated, where Blitzer had asked Murtha about the predictions that Iraq will fall into chaos if the US withdraws "precipitously", Murtha's response (roughly)

"Why would I believe that? Why would I believe them? Everything I predicted in Iraq has come true, everything they predicted has not come true. Why would I believe that just because they say it? I don't believe it. The nations in the region don't believe it. The American people don't believe it. These people are ignoring the mandate given to the Congress to bring the troops home."

I wrote to Crooks and Liars to ask that they put that clip up. It's exactly the kind of thing you've frequently said Glenn, in explicitly pointing out the total lack of credibility the neo-cons should have, and yet everyone takes their predictions seriously. Awesome to see Murtha just dismiss it out of hand.

Not to minimize or disagree what a profound violation this is of every principle enshrined in the Constitution, a big part of the problem here is that it's all too easy.

The physical requirements of wiretapping or of obtaining paper phone records served as a deterrent in the past. The fact that getting the data now is simply a matter of transferring a file over the internet makes it much harder to construct laws that will not be flouted.

Moreover, it's clear that people don't much care. There are effective encryption technology that anyone can use to prevent government interception of their messaging traffic. If this technology were widely used, it would be pretty effective in stopping the value of this kind of thing. Right now, because it's uncommonly used, the use of such technology is suspicious in itself and may lead to increased surveillance.

People hand personal data all the time to agencies that cannot be trusted with it, like drug store chains. If you use discount cards and frequently use credit cards, there is a rich data stream that, because it exists, will be used. Likewise if you use an electronic toll paying device or a cell phone, your movements can, and will, be tracked.

the convenience of these devices and services pretty clearly trump privacy concerns with the overwhelming majority of Americans.

In this context 'limited' means

a.) 'restricted in its ability to interfere via taxation or regulation with my becoming obscenely rich', or

b.) 'restricted in its ability to interfere with the rise of a native inherited aristocracy'.

Those are the 'limits'.

Only in a country where Velveeta can be passed off as cheese could this junta be passed off as libertarian.

"When a lawyer in the FBI's national security law branch, Patrice Kopistansky, noted in late 2004 that the proper legal justifications were frequently missing or extremely late, she did not advise agents to "change their process," the senior official said. "Our advice was instead to . . . use these letters only in true emergencies" and institute "covering practices."

These included ensuring that the bureau's agents had opened a related investigation and promptly sent a formal national security letter to provide legal backing for the demand."

The CAU, it would appear, was most interested in CYAing.

It's time to go for the throat.

It's the "Communications Analysis Unit" of the FBI, through which these demands for records are issued.

Communications Analysis Unit

Yes, I actually intended to include a paragraph about that aspect of the story, and may add something later - once some FBI officials found out about the illegal demands for information, they issued -- sometimes months later -- the requisite paperwork in order to make it appear as though there was compliance, rather than actually doing anything to prevent future abuse.

Thanks GG for this infuriating piece. Suggest you identify what CAU in the piece up top somewhere. Your piece is more disturbing than was the discussion involving DeLay and Pearle on MTP this morning--and that's saying something. I hope that Feingold is drawing a bead on this issue.

The Odious Mr. Delay would be disturbing to me if only shown sitting on his ass eating an apple.

That he is being given a seat at the table when serious issues are being discussed is much more than merely disturbing.

I did find it rather amusing, however, when Odious was claiming that "the Surge" was working, only to have Pearle come back a moment later and claim that it was too early in the process for oponents to claim "the Surge" was bad strategy.

Perhaps Pearle also finds discussing issues with Odious as distasteful as I. It's too bad that no one at the table called these clowns on their most apparent contradictions.

Speaking of Pearle, once he started quoting Democratic lawmakers from 1998, it was apparent he knew he had lost the debate. Has he ever held an honest job?

You don't mind pissing in a cup to "prove your innocence" in order to get or keep a job.

You don't mind your bank accounts being subjected to scrutiny in order to show that you aren't "laundering money".

You don't mind having your assets seized on mere suspicion of "drug crimes".

You don't mind random traffic stops in order that you may "prove your innocence" once again.

Like the proverbial frog in the pot of simmering water, you have long since been cooked and you didn't even notice.

It's not like the FBI hasn't done this sort of thing in the past, just Google COINTELPRO.

http://www.alec.org/criminal-justice.html