Benjamin Franklin: "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
This is the story of your government in action to protect the president from reality, er... protect the citizens from the truth, er... fight terrristss!
As you read, you will appreciate old Ben more and more.
From the Hartford Courant, by June Sandra Neal:
On Feb. 15, 2005, someone walked into a Connecticut library, sat down at a computer and used the Internet from 4 to 4:45 p.m.
Five months later, two FBI agents walked into George Christian's Windsor office and handed him a letter. It demanded "any and all subscriber information, billing information and access logs of any person or entity related to" the library computer's IP address on that February day.
"It was addressed to the wrong person; it was dated May 19, 2005, and it referred to an event that had taken place six months ago."
The document they handed Christian was a national security letter, a piece of the Patriot Act few people had heard of at the time.
[...]
The librarians never argued the government's need to conduct clandestine surveillance in the pursuit of homeland security. Their concern was solely the absence of a court order, given that the government could easily obtain one from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court, created to handle these issues. Further, they wanted the gag order lifted, not to disclose the contents of the letter, but to be able to testify before Congress, which was debating re-authorization of the Patriot Act. They wanted to say that national security letters were indeed being used on libraries - something the government had denied.
The board members did their homework and discovered that, a year earlier, the American Civil Liberties Union had sued on behalf of a private New York Internet company that received a national security letter. The judge ruled that the letter violated the company's constitutional rights. However, that ruling had been stayed and could not help them now.
[...]
Because the terrorists tried to scare us all, we should refuse to be scared. The best way to honor those who died on 9/11 is to support our freedoms. If we are quiet, we take away the very thing we are fighting for. "
Chase: "The NSL is catastrophic for the nation. For government to be viable, it cannot abuse its powers. It's just as important as the privacy of the voting booth."
[...]"This administration has repeatedly shown that it will hide behind the cloak of national security to silence its critics and cover up embarrassing facts. Every time the government invokes national security in defense of secrecy - as they've done most recently with NSA [National Security Agency] wiretapping - the American public should remember these four librarians."
Read the entire article.
As you read, you will appreciate old Ben more and more.
From the Hartford Courant, by June Sandra Neal:
On Feb. 15, 2005, someone walked into a Connecticut library, sat down at a computer and used the Internet from 4 to 4:45 p.m.
Five months later, two FBI agents walked into George Christian's Windsor office and handed him a letter. It demanded "any and all subscriber information, billing information and access logs of any person or entity related to" the library computer's IP address on that February day.
"It was addressed to the wrong person; it was dated May 19, 2005, and it referred to an event that had taken place six months ago."
The document they handed Christian was a national security letter, a piece of the Patriot Act few people had heard of at the time.
[...]
The librarians never argued the government's need to conduct clandestine surveillance in the pursuit of homeland security. Their concern was solely the absence of a court order, given that the government could easily obtain one from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court, created to handle these issues. Further, they wanted the gag order lifted, not to disclose the contents of the letter, but to be able to testify before Congress, which was debating re-authorization of the Patriot Act. They wanted to say that national security letters were indeed being used on libraries - something the government had denied.
The board members did their homework and discovered that, a year earlier, the American Civil Liberties Union had sued on behalf of a private New York Internet company that received a national security letter. The judge ruled that the letter violated the company's constitutional rights. However, that ruling had been stayed and could not help them now.
[...]
Because the terrorists tried to scare us all, we should refuse to be scared. The best way to honor those who died on 9/11 is to support our freedoms. If we are quiet, we take away the very thing we are fighting for. "
Chase: "The NSL is catastrophic for the nation. For government to be viable, it cannot abuse its powers. It's just as important as the privacy of the voting booth."
[...]"This administration has repeatedly shown that it will hide behind the cloak of national security to silence its critics and cover up embarrassing facts. Every time the government invokes national security in defense of secrecy - as they've done most recently with NSA [National Security Agency] wiretapping - the American public should remember these four librarians."
Read the entire article.
posted by Clyde at 9:36 PM
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