civil liberties

Go spy on yourselfHere's your latest, go-to, textbook example of the difference between modern mainstream journalism and journalism that provides actual, solid political context. It's the difference, in this particular case, between the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Madison's Progressive magazine.

Start with the Journal Sentinel, which on Oct 2 ran an Associated Press story concerning the federal Homeland Security office's intelligence "fusion" centers. The AP story, quoting a US Senate report, summarized the shoddy, even dangerous performance of the fusion centers:

A multibillion-dollar information-sharing program created
in the aftermath of 9/11 has improperly collected
information about innocent Americans and produced little
valuable intelligence on terrorism, a Senate report
concludes. It portrays an effort that ballooned far beyond
anyone's ability to control.

What began as an attempt to put local, state and federal
officials in the same room analyzing the same
intelligence has instead cost huge amounts of money for
data-mining software ..., investigators found. (See the URL below for more)

WTF is going on?

WASHINGTON – The extraordinary powers of customs and border agents to invade the privacy of individuals at the U.S. border are spreading inland and creating what amounts to a “Constitution-free Zone” that covers fully two-thirds of the American population, the American Civil Liberties Union said today in a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.

197.4 million people live within 100 miles of the U.S. borders, and the government has just assumed extraordinary powers to search U.S. citizens within these zones.

This is not tinfoil hat stuff. Look at the map (scroll down a little). Do you know what this means?

“In the United States, citizens are not supposed to need an internal passport,” said Steinhardt. “This is our country and we are free to go where we please, without being stopped and interrogated by the authorities, as long as we are not behaving illegally or in a way that is clearly suspicious.”

Those longing for an accounting of Bush's historic abuse of power may get their wish.

In Salon, Tim Shorrock has uncovered new modes of state surveillance of Americans, and revealed documents contemplating "a potential investigation of the White House that could rival Watergate."

Breaking new ground on the government's programs monitoring Americans to be used in a declared national emergency, Shorrock reports on programs "designed for use by the military in the event of a national catastrophe, a suspension of the Constitution or the imposition of martial law."

Some excerpts: