Misc. Ramblings

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December 29, 2003

While We Were Sleeping

While we were misdirected and watching Sadam's mouth being probed the President was signing into law what is euphemistically called Patriot Act II. The President and his Republican run Congressional allies slipped through sweeping new governmental controls massively concentrating dictatorial powers into the Executive branch of the federal government.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is now free to gather financial information from almost any source without the requirement of judicial review and warrant. Heretofore, the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution protected U.S. citizens from unreasonable search and seizure. The Amendment was passed to thwart the abuse that comes with absolute power, even if used for what some would describe as beneficial purposes.

The new law does away with this protection by allowing the FBI to require entities to provide all your financial information by simply sending them a letter. Once the business receives the letter, they can not inform you of the inquiry and must provide everything listed in the letter.

In my opinion, this is yet another indication that the Bush administration has an agenda to create the most powerful, some would say Imperial, centralized government in the history of this country. An agenda that they will push forward using any means possible.

I fear we will all live to severely regret ever having elected these people into power.

You can read more about it here.

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Comments

Posted by: sjon at December 31, 2003 11:53 AM