Wah - Slashdot User

Journal Journal: Ending the Heath Care debate

Journal by Wah on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @05:06PM

It's been more than a few days since I shared my wondrous insights with my legions of fans here at /. (does two people count as a legion?), and there's been a bunch of back and forth on the health care debate so far, so insteadof doing some massive fact-laden post,we'll pick up this thing mid-stream and go with it (besides, the debate has devolved to the point where facts mean little, and are quickly ignored).

FBI Lied To Support Need For PATRIOT Act Expansion 396

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday April 16, 2008 @08:05AM from the control-freaks-in-the-ascendent dept.

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "It probably won't surprise you, but in 2005, the FBI manufactured evidence to get the power to issue National Security Letters under the PATRIOT Act. Unlike normal subpoenas, NSLs do not require probable cause and you're never allowed to talk about having received one, leading to a lack of accountability that caused them to be widely abused. The EFF has discovered via FOIA requests that an FBI field agent was forced by superiors to return papers he got via a lawful subpoena, then demand them again via an NSL (which was rejected for being unlawful at the time), and re-file the original subpoena to get them back. This delay in a supposedly critical anti-terror investigation then became a talking point used by FBI Director Robert Mueller when the FBI wanted to justify their need for the power to issue National Security Letters."

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