Thread: Moral Authority?

Originally Posted by kmchugh

Clearly, you and I disagree on the issue of whether the PA violates our constitutional rights. For myself, I believe that I have both judicial opinion (which is really the only opinion that matters in practice) and legislative precedent on my side. You disagree. But, that's OK, we are allowed to disagree.

Here's something new on that matter: a bill which would allow the DIA to spy domestically. Seems like a return to the pre-Watergate days.

Oct. 5, 2005 - The Pentagon would be granted new powers to conduct undercover intelligence gathering inside the United States—and then withhold any information about it from the public—under a series of little noticed provisions now winding their way through Congress.

Citing in part the need for “greater latitude” in the war on terror, the Senate Intelligence Committee recently approved broad-ranging legislation that gives the Defense Department a long sought and potentially crucial waiver: it would permit its intelligence agents, such as those working for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), to covertly approach and cultivate “U.S. persons” and even recruit them as informants—without disclosing they are doing so on behalf of the U.S. government. The Senate committee’s action comes as President George W. Bush has talked of expanding military involvement in civil affairs, such as efforts to control pandemic disease outbreaks.

The provision was included in last year’s version of the same bill, but was knocked out after its details were reported by NEWSWEEK and critics charged it could lead to “spying” on U.S. citizens. But late last month, with no public hearings or debate, a similar amendment was put back into the same authorization bill—an annual measure governing U.S. intelligence agencies—at the request of the Pentagon. A copy of the 104-page committee bill, which has yet to be voted on by the full Senate, did not become public until last week.

At the same time, the Senate intelligence panel also included in the bill two other potentially controversial amendments—one that would allow the Pentagon and other U.S. intelligence agencies greater access to federal government databases on U.S. citizens, and another granting the DIA new exemptions from disclosing any “operational files” under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). “What they are doing is expanding the Defense Department’s domestic intelligence activities in secret—with no public discussion,” said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, a civil-liberties group that is often critical of government actions in the fight against terrorism.

But Don Black, a DIA spokesman, said Wednesday that the new provisions were limited in scope and would only give the DIA the same investigative powers as the FBI and CIA—powers that are crucial to the agency’s expanded mission in tracking the terrorist threat. “We’re not trying to do investigations of people inside the United States,” he said. “What we’re trying to do is follow leads about terrorist activities.”

The proposed new powers governing the Pentagon’s intelligence operations comes at a time when there is already internal debate within Washington over proposals to expand domestic Defense Department activities—in part because of the outcry over the botched response by other U.S. government agencies to the Hurricane Katrina disaster. President Bush ratcheted the debate up Tuesday during his press conference when he suggested for the first time that the U.S. military might be used to quarantine members of the public in the event of an outbreak of the avian flu. “And who best to be able to effect a quarantine?” Bush asked during his press conference. “One option is the use of a military that’s able to plan and move. And so that’s why I put it on the table.”

But the move to expand Pentagon intelligence activities inside the United States carries special resonance—in part because of embarrassing disclosures about the U.S. military engaging in domestic spying during the 1960s and 1970s. Revelations that the U.S. military had penetrated and spied on antiwar protestors led to tight new restrictions imposed by Congress. One of the chief restrictions is a legal requirement that the DIA or any other Defense Department intelligence agency conform to the provisions of the Privacy Act, a Watergate-era law that requires government officials seeking information from a U.S. resident to disclose who they are and what they want the information for.

The full article Here