Congressional Oversight of Executive Disappears (or almost)

In the last three months, judges in New York, Texas, and Maryland have all ruled that prosecutors need to demonstrate probable cause to be able to access cell phone tracking info from phone companies. Prosecutors, naturally, want the threshold to be lower. Scariest buried factoid: Your wireless company can track you even when you're inside buildings, regardless of whether or not you're actually on the phone. And some companies keep that information for years.

<btw - you are a sweet man but don't tell anyone i said that>

The revelation that Mr. Bush had secretly instructed the security agency to intercept the communications of Americans and terrorist suspects inside the United States, without first obtaining warrants from a secret court that oversees intelligence matters

After a series of embarrassing disclosures, Congress is reconsidering its relatively lenient oversight of the Bush administration.

Lawmakers have been caught by surprise by several recent reports, including the existence of secret U.S. prisons abroad, the CIA's detention overseas of innocent foreign nationals, and, last week, the discovery that the military has been engaged in domestic spying. After five years in which the GOP-controlled House and Senate undertook few investigations into the administration's activities, the legislative branch has begun to complain about being in the dark...

In an interview last week, Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, said "it's a fair comment" that the GOP-controlled Congress has done insufficient oversight and "ought to be" doing more.

"Republican Congresses tend to overinvestigate Democratic administrations and underinvestigate their own," said Davis, who added that he has tried to pick up some of the slack with his committee. "I get concerned we lose our separation of powers when one party controls both branches."

Democrats on the committee said the panel issued 1,052 subpoenas to probe alleged misconduct by the Clinton administration and the Democratic Party between 1997 and 2002, at a cost of more than $35 million. By contrast, the committee under Davis has issued three subpoenas to the Bush administration, two to the Energy Department over nuclear waste disposal at Yucca Mountain, and one last week to the Defense Department over Katrina documents.

NEW BEDFORD -- A senior at UMass Dartmouth was visited by federal agents two months ago, after he requested a copy of Mao Tse-Tung's tome on Communism called "The Little Red Book."
Two history professors at UMass Dartmouth, Brian Glyn Williams and Robert Pontbriand, said the student told them he requested the book through the UMass Dartmouth library's interlibrary loan program.
The student, who was completing a research paper on Communism for Professor Pontbriand's class on fascism and totalitarianism, filled out a form for the request, leaving his name, address, phone number and Social Security number. He was later visited at his parents' home in New Bedford by two agents of the Department of Homeland Security, the professors said.

Dr. Williams said in his research, he regularly contacts people in Afghanistan, Chechnya and other Muslim hot spots, and suspects that some of his calls are monitored.
"My instinct is that there is a lot more monitoring than we think," he said.
Dr. Williams said he had been planning to offer a course on terrorism next semester, but is reconsidering, because it might put his students at risk.
"I shudder to think of all the students I've had monitoring al-Qaeda Web sites, what the government must think of that," he said. "Mao Tse-Tung is completely harmless."

I'd imagine all of the professors students are monitored, in light of these additional remarks, also offered in the article.

Excellent, Walter. You don't seriously think that if there are students and professors at your "bastions of academic" freedom that are "contacting Muslim hotspots" and monitoring al-Qaeda websites, your government isn't aware of them?

If you do, we should enter into a contract regarding a certain bridge in Brooklyn. :wink:

JustWonders wrote:

Excellent, Walter. You don't seriously think that if there are students and professors at your "bastions of academic" freedom that are "contacting Muslim hotspots" and monitoring al-Qaeda websites, your government isn't aware of them?

If you do, we should enter into a contract regarding a certain bridge in Brooklyn. :wink:

Well, might be - but then illegally. And I really doubt it, such is done openly (= printed and published in university calendars)

Another example: for instance - and this is often used 'bashing' us - it is forbidden under criminal code to use Nazi enblems etc etc.
Of course, pupild read Hitelr's 'Mein Kampf' in history classes at school, political, sociological and history classes refer to present and former Nazi publications etc.

(1) Notwithstanding any other law, the President, through the Attorney General, may authorize electronic surveillance without a court order under this subchapter to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of up to one year used exclusively between or among foreign powers, as defined in section 1801 (a)(1), (2), or (3) of this title; or
(ii) the acquisition of technical intelligence, other than the spoken communications of individuals, from property or premises under the open and exclusive control of a foreign power, as defined in section 1801 (a)(1), (2), or (3) of this title;
(B) there is no substantial likelihood that the surveillance will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party; and
(C) the proposed minimization procedures with respect to such surveillance meet the definition of minimization procedures under section 1801 (h) of this title;