In Cheney's world, we all report to the military (Blumner / St P Times FL)

[struggle4progress]

By ROBYN E. BLUMNER, Times Perspective Columnist
Published January 21, 2007

... As usual, the vice president cut through all the legal niceties with his explanation of why the military's use of an investigative tool known as a national security letter to obtain the banking and credit records of potentially hundreds of Americans was not a violation of the general rule against domestic intelligence-gathering by the military ...

The military says that since it has a responsibility to protect its bases, personnel and other assets in the United States, it can investigate any potential threat. But if you read the relevant provisions of Executive Order 12333, on U.S. intelligence activities, there is no doubt that its broad intent is for the military to operate overseas, with the FBI left to conduct investigations on American soil ...

So what kind of "threats" does the military consider worthy of investigating? How about the Quakers or the Rhode Island Community Coalition for Peace? A report by the American Civil Liberties Union documents nearly 200 incidents where the Pentagon accumulated and maintained in its "threat" database the activities of peace groups in the United States ...

This kind of overreaction to ideological opponents doesn't inspire much trust. It is bad enough that the FBI uses these letters by the tens of thousands when it should be getting the approval of a court before prying into our private business. Now the military has elbowed in ...

http://www.sptimes.com/2007/01/21/News/In_Cheney_s_world__we.shtml

[illinoisprogressive]

1. big brother Cheney. you know,

I cannot wait till they finally uncover the whole truth about him and what he's been doing

[enough]

2. k&r