EFF Finds Evidence Of Over 40,000 Intelligence Violations By The FBI Since 9/11

from the yes,-40,000 dept

Wed, Feb 2nd 2011 1:42pm — Mike Masnick

We've pointed out, multiple times, how the FBI has been caught abusing the Patriot Act with things like using National Security Letters to get information it had no legal right to obtain. Even worse, when President Obama issued a blanket absolution for the FBI breaking the law it seemed like no one batted an eye. In fact, you may not have even heard about it, because the press just didn't think that breaking the law to spy on Americans is really that big of a deal.

So, once again, it seems unlikely that this story will get much attention, but the EFF has, via a series of Freedom of Information Act requests, determined that the FBI may have committed over 40,000 intelligence violations since 9/11, 2001.

Yes: 40,000.

On top of that, the research uncovered evidence of the FBI "lying in declarations to courts, using improper evidence to obtain grand jury subpoenas, and accessing password-protected files without a warrant." And yet, why aren't we hearing much about this? Why aren't there stories everywhere covering this massive abuse by the government? Instead, we just get Congress rubber stamping a renewal of the Patriot Act, without even taking into consideration what's happening.

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Filed Under: abuse of power, due process, fbi, patriot act, privacy, warrants

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Anonymous Coward, 2 Feb 2011 @ 1:49pm

Laws are stupid.
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- Anonymous Coward, 2 Feb 2011 @ 2:26pm
  
  Re:
  Even the anti murder one?
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  - Anonymous Coward, 2 Feb 2011 @ 2:33pm
    
    Re: Re:
    Especially Bart.
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- DrPaypayTee, 13 Feb 2011 @ 2:16pm
  
  Response to: Anonymous Coward on Feb 2nd, 2011 @ 1:49pm
  Everything is stupid. Don't do anything, but also, don't do nothing. Fucked. Don't give a shit or your shit will get fucked.
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:Lobo Santo (profile), 2 Feb 2011 @ 1:49pm

Explained...
Perhaps nobody batted an eye as nobody was in the least surprised. Not even a little bit. It's almost a given the US government is lying to and spying on its own citizens.
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- Ben, 2 Feb 2011 @ 2:46pm
  
  Re: Explained...
  Was it Tiberius who said that "the people make the government it deserves" or was it Augustus? Anyway, whoever said it was right, sheep will always be led to the slaughter.
  
  If I live to see this massively corrupt construct come tumbling down, I will cheer!
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Anonymous Coward, 2 Feb 2011 @ 2:01pm

Why would the gov, who controls (or works very closely with) the major news outlets, let them prove to their people that they fail utterly as a government? Seriously?
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- The eejit (profile), 2 Feb 2011 @ 2:22pm
  
  Re:
  Because that's news. Which is, y'know, what the press is for.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 2 Feb 2011 @ 2:32pm
    
    Re: Re:
    Any other place in the world, yes. In the US, news is what the govt allowed agencies to talk about. Every morning, they get memos about what they can't talk about for the day. Is that really the "free press" that "reports the news" as most like to think?
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    - Jay (profile), 2 Feb 2011 @ 3:40pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      " Every morning, they get memos about what they can't talk about for the day. Is that really the "free press" that "reports the news" as most like to think?"
      
      [citation needed]
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Chris Rhodes (profile), 2 Feb 2011 @ 2:17pm

Correction
In fact, you may not have even heard about it, because the press just didn't think that breaking the law to spy on Americans is really that big of a deal if Obama is the one doing it.

Fixed that for you. When a Republican screws you, it's because he's a fascist. When a Democrat screws you, it's because he has your best interests at heart.

Oh, the partisan blinders of the general public. How I love thee . . .
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- Anonymous Coward, 2 Feb 2011 @ 2:32pm
  
  Re: Correction
  When a Republican screws you, it's because he's a fascist. When a Democrat screws you, it's because he has your best interests at heart. Yeah ... I'm pretty sure that both sides are calling each other fascists (or communists, or nazis, or whatever).
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  - Chris Rhodes (profile), 2 Feb 2011 @ 2:59pm
    
    Re: Re: Correction
    Well, the left certainly has "fascist", but I think the buzzword on the right is now "socialist". It's all academic, of course, because both sides are both of those.
    
    Regardless, I was really talking about the media. The awful violations under the Bush regime were vigorously discussed all over the airwaves (even if just provided Fox with an opportunity to extol the virtues of them), but with Obama . . . silence.
    
    Still sending people off to torture them in a foreign country? Still protecting the people who signed off on warrant-less wiretapping? Still denying FOIA requests at an astounding rate? Check. Check. Check. Not a peep from MSNBC.
    
    Guess doing terrible things is okay as long as it's your personal favorite running the show.
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    - Jay (profile), 2 Feb 2011 @ 3:45pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: Correction
      I've made this argument before and I know it's not the most popular, but dang... It's not JUST the president, it's the bureacracy and the environment. He is the focal point, just as any president will be but you have to think, what keeps the system running? The Prez is only there for 4 years, but I'm sure the Generals (who spend on military "toys"), aides (who know how people think by being shadows), among the other parts that keep the machine running are just as likely to cause problems than Obama fixing them.
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      - Chris Rhodes (profile), 3 Feb 2011 @ 8:26am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Correction
        You're correct, in a sense. The president does not have full control of the government (and, might I add, thank God), so it would be unfair to blame him for all the troubles we have today, especially when he wasn't even the one who started them.
        
        All of the things I mentioned, however, he does control, completely. He is the commander-in-chief of the military; what he says, goes. He controls the government attorneys that fight in court to keep the extent of the government's warrant-less wiretapping secret. He controls the rules under which the departments under him handle FOIA requests.
        
        He has the ability to stop any of these things right this very minute, if he wanted to. But he doesn't, and the media (apart from Jon Stewart, who appears to be rapidly becoming the only principled media figure out there) doesn't seem to care, because the previous guy who they disliked is now gone.
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Anonymous Coward, 2 Feb 2011 @ 2:42pm

I'm sick of the US government making stupidly obvious moves and then acting all innocent. Enough pussyfooting around! Just declare martial law already! Sheesh!
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Qyiet (profile), 2 Feb 2011 @ 2:59pm

Why aren't we hearing much about this?
We arn't hearing about it because at just over 10 a day they are isolated incidents, not a systematic abuse of the system and its lack of oversight at all.
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Anonymous Coward, 2 Feb 2011 @ 3:26pm

I am surprised on some days that the EFF can find their own asses, let alone 40,000 anythings.
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- Anonymous Coward, 2 Feb 2011 @ 10:39pm
  
  Re:
  Thanks for your useful contribution, TAM.
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Anonymous Coward, 2 Feb 2011 @ 3:42pm

At this point I'm rooting for the terrorists. At least I KNOW when they are terrorizing me.
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Hephaestus (profile), 2 Feb 2011 @ 3:45pm

I was wondering this morning why Darrell Issa wanted to know about FOIAs.
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Skeptical Cynic (profile), 2 Feb 2011 @ 4:48pm

Government (even in the U.S.) always seeks to further their own gains.
And that means they work to make sure they have the most control.
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Jesse, 2 Feb 2011 @ 4:54pm

If you vote against the Patriot Act, you aren't a Patriot.
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- The eejit (profile), 3 Feb 2011 @ 1:44am
  
  Re:
  OR you're a Fascist Liberal Jew. And Yes, I've had that one before, and ?I don't even remotely look or have modern Jewish ancestry.
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M. Hilton, 2 Feb 2011 @ 8:09pm

The reason we're not hearing that much about it is that the government thinks we're not intelligent enough to understand that they're protecting us-from what, I don't know-but I do know this: the Patriot Act was the single-most terrible law to ever be enacted in this country, next to the Sedition Act.
Under this law, you ARE guilty before proven innocent, and don't you dare protest otherwise.
We really don't want to know this stuff. It might make us mad and demand some answers that the government isn't going to be able to give us.
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Feb 2011 @ 7:52am

I love how the wording is slightly different in the EFF release, trying to keep themselves from being pinned down and liable:

"Indications that the FBI may have committed upwards of 40,000 possible intelligence violations in the 9 years since 9/11"

Indications, may, possible.

In other words, maybe not.

Congrats to Mike Masnick for being a sucker and falling for the most ass covering press release of the year so far.
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Annonymous, 3 Feb 2011 @ 11:22pm

To M. Hilton...."AMEN!"
It is unbelievable to me what the FBI, CIA and Homeland Security is being allowed to do to innocent American citizens thanks to their immaculately funded and massively built Fusion Centers which appear to have no real internal controls and absolutely NO OVERSIGHT.

And the media is scared to death to report on govmt intelligence agencies' well-known abuses of innocent US citizens who are victimized because they made someone very influential angry, OR maybe they are a whistleblower OR maybe they have had the nerve to excersize their Right to Free Speech and become an Activist of some kind, OR maybe one of the members of the Hate Groups who are paid & trained as so-called "Community Policing" just didnt like a new neighbor so they decided to put that person's name on the ever-growing Targeted Suspicious Person List maintained by Govmt Intelligency Agencies. WELL after that happens, then the poor neighbor who is a law-abiding citizen and whom has done nothing to nobody has their name transferred from Targeted Suspicious Person List to COMMUNITY DANGEROUS PERSON LIST along with pedfiars and other very serious criminals which then prompts the community to panic for safety by going to and working with the paid Hate Group Reps who work with CIA & FBI on survelliance program investigations. The poor neighbor is then harassed by community who has been convinced that targeted new neighbor is "VERY DANGEROUS PERSON" and this harassment includes vandellism, use of radioactive spy devices, use of electronic harassment laisers (radiation....really), use of sound devices planted around poor neighbor's home to constantly harass, survelliance bugs used on poor neighbor's phone/computer/radios, constant vandelism to private property, slander campaign of poor neighbor in community = ORGANIZED STALKING & ELECTRONIC HARASSMENT in which thousands of Americans are being victimized by every day and nobody seems to care and nobody ever helps. ORGANIZED STALKING is ORGANIZED CRIME that is permitted by govmt inteligence agencies, local/state authority, media etc - all who is suppose to be protecting citizens' it is the ultimate betrayal of power & justice.

So if you know someone who is being victimized by this new and rapidly growing crime called Organized Stalking (aka Gang Stalking) & Electronic Harassment, please LISTEN WITH AN OPEN MIND to their recounts AND THEN HELP THEM BY TELLING YOUR SENATORS AND CONGRESSMEN THAT YOU DO NOT SUPPORT GOVERNMENT'S INVOLUNTARY SURVELLIANCE PROGRAMS.
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- Anonymous 2, 1 Sep 2013 @ 6:03pm
  
  Organized Stalking
  Great comment. For an archive of news articles on gang stalking search "FightGangStalking."
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You'll Probably Assume I'm a Conservative, 13 Feb 2011 @ 1:24pm

Doesn't anybody actually read this stuff?
The "40,000" number is a questionable estimate made up by th EFF. The number of potential violations actually described in the documents they have is 768.
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Bob, 15 Feb 2011 @ 10:00am

It's okay when Democrats do it.
It's just not okay when Republicans do.
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