Once Again, The Justice Department Fails To Tell Congress About Its Wiretapping Activities, As Required By Law

from the who-watches-this-stuff dept

The Justice Department sure doesn't like oversight -- even when it's required by law. Julian Sanchez points us to the disturbing news that, despite being required by law to report to Congress each year on "the number of pen register orders and orders for trap and trace devices applied for by law enforcement agencies of the Department of Justice," it appears that for many years the Attorney General has delivered no such report. This has happened before as well. In 2004, the Justice Department dumped five years worth of reports on Congress, and it appears it did so again in 2009. Meaning that Congress did not get the interim annual reports. That would mean that for five year periods, Congress -- who is supposed to be overseeing such surveillance activity -- has not been doing its job, effectively allowing the Justice Department to do what it wants with such surveillance efforts. And, remember, this is a Justice Department that has already been found to have massively abused surveillance activity beyond what the law allows. Doesn't that make you feel safer?
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Filed Under: abuse, oversight, wiretapping
Companies: congress, justice department


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  1. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Jun 2010 @ 9:16pm

    Just remember, you can get away with anything as long as you say it's to protect against terrorism. Just remember that next time you're busted for public urination.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. icon
    Lonny Paul (profile), 16 Jun 2010 @ 9:24pm

    So much safer...

    There should be a citizen review panel.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. icon
    ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 16 Jun 2010 @ 10:02pm

    Of course!

    " Doesn't that make you feel safer?"

    YES! YES IT DOES!

    *nervous glance*

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Jun 2010 @ 10:17pm

    Re: So much safer...

    and who will review the citizens review panel?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    y0uf00bar, 16 Jun 2010 @ 11:40pm

    Unregulatable, Unauditable, Uncontrolled

    This is part of seriously bad trend that sets a low standard for the ability of any large government agency to oversee itself, let alone other agencies.

    Is the department of defence and pentagon auditable? No.
    Is the Justice department auditable? No.
    Are environmental agencies effective? Not another oil spill again!
    How is the private health insurance industry going? Free reign there?
    How is public education going? Not so well.
    Financial industries? The bill and dispossession notices are in the works.

    Social Welfare? Get rid of that, since that is too strictly controllable, and the banksters need the money.

    Government agencies are becoming totally incapable today of changing how things are done. Things still get done, but in an uncoordinated and unsustainable way. Evolution is now happening in the degradation and corruption of all beaureaucratic processes. Reports are not worth doing, because either they will contain heaps of lies, or nobody will act on them anyway.

    Large corporations suffer the same failures of scale.

    All large human organizations suffer from diseases of
    rising entropy and energy costs, and irrelevance to the future.

    Progress just is not the same anymore.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. icon
    Mikkel (profile), 17 Jun 2010 @ 12:34am

    Not likely

    This is why I refer to the judiciary as the "legal system". Justice? They've never heard of it.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    RAH, 17 Jun 2010 @ 1:17am

    This is what happens as a massive bureaucracy collapses under its own weight.

    There's no possible way for Congress to monitor everything they are supposed to monitor, regardless of how many committees, departments or bureaus they create.

    Congressmen aren't interested in law enforcement, they're only interested in law creation.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. identicon
    RAH, 17 Jun 2010 @ 1:17am

    This is what happens as a massive bureaucracy collapses under its own weight.

    There's no possible way for Congress to monitor everything they are supposed to monitor, regardless of how many committees, departments or bureaus they create.

    Congressmen aren't interested in law enforcement, they're only interested in law creation.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. identicon
    RAH, 17 Jun 2010 @ 1:21am

    Re:

    Hmph. I clicked the 'submit' button once and received two posts. Better odds than a Vegas slot machine, I suppose.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. icon
    Technopolitical (profile), 17 Jun 2010 @ 3:33am

    Wow Mike ,, we agree here !!

    MIKE :"despite being required by law to report to Congress each year on "the number of pen register orders and orders for trap and trace devices applied for by law enforcement agencies of the Department of Justice," it appears that for many years the Attorney General has delivered no such report."

    ME : 100% in sync with you here Mike.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  11. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 17 Jun 2010 @ 4:07am

    Re: Re: So much safer...

    i will

    link to this | view in thread ]

  12. identicon
    abc gum, 17 Jun 2010 @ 5:05am

    Re: Unregulatable, Unauditable, Uncontrolled

    Entropy just isn't what it used to be.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  13. identicon
    Pixelation, 17 Jun 2010 @ 7:06am

    Oversight

    "The Justice Department sure doesn't like oversight -"

    Congress sure does. Not monitoring the Justice Department is a massive oversight.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  14. icon
    Bruce Ediger (profile), 17 Jun 2010 @ 7:29am

    Wow, no trolls on this thread.

    Hey, neither "anonymous coward", the e e cummings stylist, or the ex-Anti-Mike have bothered to comment on this one.

    I call upon Techdirt to "out" trolls who get enough "report" buttons pushed on them. Publish times-of-day and IP addresses for trolls' comments.

    At the very least, identify "Anonymous Coward" posts by something that maps to an IP address (maybe plus salt to avoid brute forcing things like SHA hashes). This allows those of use with 1 identity to figure out if one "Anonymous Coward" poster is the same as the other (e.g., is the e e cummings troll the same as the ex-Anti-Mike troll?).

    link to this | view in thread ]

  15. icon
    harbingerofdoom (profile), 17 Jun 2010 @ 7:37am

    Re: So much safer...

    there already is one. its called an election.

    too bad too few people care enough to do it.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  16. icon
    Technopolitical (profile), 17 Jun 2010 @ 8:10am

    Re: Wow, no trolls on this thread.

    i agree

    link to this | view in thread ]

  17. identicon
    NAMELESS.ONE, 17 Jun 2010 @ 8:18am

    @14

    you want trolls outted so your law firm can start some new kind of lawsuits do ya

    YOUR the kind that makes anonymous needed in life WHY
    CAUSE YOU HATE CAPSITALS DRIVES YOU UTTERLY DEVOID OF SENSE AND MEANING AND YOU GO DANCING AROUND A ROOM MAD

    oh well back to regularly scheduled PROGRAMING FORM YOUR FAVORITE STATE RUN TV STATION.

    AND now that this place too has and is going lawsuity and ani anonymous , i guess ill just tell all the peeps to stay away and mike can talk too...himself

    never underestimate the power of 'word of mouth'

    and this is what happened to michael geist and why his site now only has basically lawyers yapping amongst themselves

    link to this | view in thread ]

  18. identicon
    Any Mouse, 17 Jun 2010 @ 9:42am

    Re: Wow, no trolls on this thread.

    So, you want.. to take the anonymous posts... and make them /not/ anonymous? Think about that for a moment...

    link to this | view in thread ]

  19. icon
    Bruce Ediger (profile), 17 Jun 2010 @ 9:50am

    Re: Re: Wow, no trolls on this thread.

    Ha ha! I think you got me. My face is red!

    Still, distinguishing one anonymous coward from the crowd of them isn't really-o, truly-o de-anonymizing, is it? Maybe it is. Guess I didn't think this through enough.

    There's got to be some grounds where a long-time troll can be "outed".

    link to this | view in thread ]

  20. icon
    Nastybutler77 (profile), 17 Jun 2010 @ 10:36am

    Perhaps we should start calling it the "Injustice Dept." from now on.

    And Bruce, while I don't think revealing IP addresses is a good idea, I do think it would be nice to be able to tell which AC was which, as long as they still stay anonymous. Maybe color coding?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  21. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 17 Jun 2010 @ 12:14pm

    Re: Not likely

    There's no such thing as justice. Get over it.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  22. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 17 Jun 2010 @ 2:37pm

    Re: Re: So much safer...

    there already is one. its called an election.

    If it voting could make a real difference, it would be illegal.

    too bad too few people care enough to do it.

    Oh, but they do. They're just voting "none of the above". Give them the choice of candidates they support and they'll actually go to the polls.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  23. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 17 Jun 2010 @ 3:23pm

    Re: Wow, no trolls on this thread.

    This allows those of use with 1 identity to figure out if one "Anonymous Coward" poster is the same as the other

    No, it wouldn't. IP addresses do not correspond to individuals. Perhaps you should refrain from making technical recommendations on subjects about which you are obviously ignorant. You're not a judge or a politician, are you?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  24. icon
    chris (profile), 18 Jun 2010 @ 6:25am

    Re: Re: Re: Wow, no trolls on this thread.

    There's got to be some grounds where a long-time troll can be "outed".

    who cares?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  25. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 21 Jun 2010 @ 10:36am

    Re: Wow, no trolls on this thread.

    Also, many people have dynamic IP addresses that change over time causing the hash to change unpredictably. and many hostmasks also change over time being that many hostmasks contain their related IP addresses. and trolls can also use the report button just as well and they are most likely to abuse it.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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