FLE

Slaying Lyons

That devilish dilemma confronted Christopher Lyons of Oxford, Connecticut, when he, his wife, Karen, and their two-year-old boy, Spencer, fell into the clutches of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) last February. Screeners who unearthed a penknife in the Lyons' carry-on bag decided it was "artfully concealed" and called the cops. The stunned and shaken couple agreed that she would take the rap lest his job as a corporate pilot be threatened. While her son sobbed and her husband watched helplessly, this 34-year-old mother was marched away in handcuffs to be fingerprinted, photographed, and interrogated. Presumably, arresting Mrs. Lyons struck some sort of blow against terrorism, but I'm a bit fuzzy on exactly how. The Lyons' saga began when they set off on what was supposed to be a vacation to sunny Disney World in the pre-dawn blackness of a winter's day. Federalized airport security does its best to turn travel into torment, and the Lyons' attempt to board their 7 AM flight on Southwest Airlines was no exception. Screeners rifling their belongings found a Swiss Army knife with – horrors! – a 2-inch blade nestled midway through a container of "Huggies" diaper wipes. The TSA wants us to believe the couple deliberately concealed the $15 penknife so it can fine them up to $10,000 each. That Mrs. Lyons used to work as a flight attendant while Mr. Lyons is a pilot and former Marine and that both of them are, therefore, familiar with airports and security and much cleverer ways to hide "weapons" – yes, the TSA persists in calling a 2-inch blade a "weapon" – doesn't faze Our Rulers. Nor does the glaring absence of any motive or criminal record. A hearing on this criminally absurd case was scheduled for this week. "Any and all attempts to purposefully conceal a prohibited item at a passenger security checkpoint will result in the issuance of a civil penalty," sniffed TSA spokes-stooge Ann Davis. Apparently, neither she nor the other bullies at the TSA lose sleep over destroying their fellow-citizens' lives, impoverishing them, or persecuting sincere, hard-working parents trapped in a silly web of events. But never let it be said the TSA has no heart: it has magnanimously recommended the Lyons be fined only $6000 apiece, rather than the full $10,000 allowed by its regulations. I suppose the hearing will feature endless testimony about dim hotel rooms, penknives – excuse me, "weapons" – and Huggies. Let's hope the diaper in question is submitted for evidence so the court stinks as badly as the rest of this tyrannical charade....

Why the Military Shouldn't Take Charge in Emergencies

A majority of Americans in a recent poll expressed support for the use of our military as part of law enforcement during domestic emergencies. President Bush evidently shares this view, for he proposed using the military to enforce the law in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. He suggested as well that the military might be best qualified to quarantine sections of the United States in the event of a bird flu epidemic. He has proposed that the Department of Defense, not a civilian agency, receive $5 billion to stockpile flu vaccines. It's hard to think of a stance more antithetical to the political convictions of our founders. "No standing armies" was one of the rallying cries of the American Revolution. This strong historical distrust of the military later found expression in the Posse Comitatus law of 1878, still in force. Archaic as the title of that law sounds, the principle is as relevant today as it was more than a hundred years ago. Martial law is not to be imposed lightly. Recovering an understanding of why the Founders feared the domestic use of the military will be essential if we are to block this new threat to our republic....

FBI Papers Indicate Intelligence Violations

The FBI has conducted clandestine surveillance on some U.S. residents for as long as 18 months at a time without proper paperwork or oversight, according to previously classified documents to be released today. Records turned over as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit also indicate that the FBI has investigated hundreds of potential violations related to its use of secret surveillance operations, which have been stepped up dramatically since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks but are largely hidden from public view. In one case, FBI agents kept an unidentified target under surveillance for at least five years -- including more than 15 months without notifying Justice Department lawyers after the subject had moved from New York to Detroit. An FBI investigation concluded that the delay was a violation of Justice guidelines and prevented the department "from exercising its responsibility for oversight and approval of an ongoing foreign counterintelligence investigation of a U.S. person." In other cases, agents obtained e-mails after a warrant expired, seized bank records without proper authority and conducted an improper "unconsented physical search," according to the documents. Although heavily censored, the documents provide a rare glimpse into the world of domestic spying, which is governed by a secret court and overseen by a presidential board that does not publicize its deliberations. The records are also emerging as the House and Senate battle over whether to put new restrictions on the controversial USA Patriot Act, which made it easier for the government to conduct secret searches and surveillance but has come under attack from civil liberties groups....

FBI Net-wiretapping rules face challenges

New federal wiretapping rules forcing Internet service providers and universities to rewire their networks for FBI surveillance of e-mail and Web browsing are being challenged in court. Telecommunications firms, nonprofit organizations and educators are asking the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., to overturn the controversial rules, which dramatically extend the sweep of an 11-year-old surveillance law designed to guarantee police the ability to eavesdrop on telephone calls. The regulations represent the culmination of years of lobbying by the FBI, the Justice Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration, which have argued that "criminals, terrorists and spies" could cloak their Internet communications with impunity unless police received broad new surveillance powers. The final rules, published this month by the Federal Communications Commission, apply to "any type of broadband Internet access service" and many Internet phone services. "The concern is that what is being proposed is inordinately expensive to achieve the results that the FCC and the Department of Justice would like to secure," said Sheldon Steinbach, general counsel to the American Council on Education, which filed its legal challenge late Monday. The rules are set to take effect in April 2007. Another legal challenge from businesses and nonprofit groups is set for Tuesday. "The FCC simply does not have the statutory authority to extend the 1994 law for the telephone system to the 21st century Internet," said Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which is joining the second challenge. Also participating are the Center for Democracy and Technology, Pulver.com, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the telecommunications trade group CompTel. The 1994 law, called the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act or CALEA, required telephone companies to rewire their networks and switches to guarantee ready eavesdropping access to police. That prospect dismays privacy advocates and telecommunications providers who worry about the expense and argue that Congress never intended the law to apply to broadband links. A House of Representatives committee report prepared in October 1994 says CALEA's requirements "do not apply to information services such as electronic-mail services; or online services such as CompuServe, Prodigy, America Online or Mead Data; or to Internet service providers."....

Florida Becomes First State to File Legislation to Preserve Citizens’ Rights During Emergencies

This week, legislation to prohibit firearm confiscation (HB 285) was filed in Florida to help preserve the right of citizens to lawfully possess firearms during an officially declared state of emergency. The bill was filed by Florida Representative Mitch Needelman (R - Melbourne) and has the full support of the National Rifle Association (NRA). “The breakdown of civil order in New Orleans during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina demonstrates that Americans’ right to keep and bear arms are especially important during a state of emergency,” declared Chris W. Cox, NRA’s chief lobbyist. “As promised, the NRA is taking measures to ensure that the Second Amendment is not another casualty during a declared emergency in every state across the country. This week, Florida becomes the first state to take that important step.” HB 285 clarifies the authority of the governor during a declared emergency by asserting that “nothing contained in this chapter shall be construed to authorize the seizure, taking, or confiscation of firearms that are lawfully possessed.” The New York Times reported in early September that legally possessed firearms were being confiscated from law abiding citizens, quoting the superintendent of police that "only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons." A Louisiana state statute allows the chief law enforcement officer to "regulate possession" of firearms during declared emergencies....

Hype and reality

Gun-control advocates seemed so certain. When the federal assault-weapons ban expired on Sept. 13, 2004, gun crimes would surge dramatically. Sarah Brady, a leading gun-control advocate, warned it would "arm our kids with Uzis and AK-47s" and "fill" our streets with the weapons. Sen. Charles Schumer ratcheted up the rhetoric, labeling the banned guns "the weapons of choice for terrorists." Not only would murder rise, but especially firearm murders. Murder and robbery rates should have gone up faster than other violent-crime rates since they are the crimes in which guns are most frequently used. Only states with their own assault-weapon bans would escape some of the coming bloodshed. Well, what happened? On Oct. 18, the FBI released the final data for 2004. It shows clearly that in the months after the law sunset, crime went down. During 2004 the murder rate nationwide fell by 3 percent, the first drop since 2000, with firearm deaths dropping by 4.4 percent. The new data show the monthly crime rate for the United States as a whole during 2004, and the monthly murder rate plummeted 14 percent from August through December. By contrast, during the same months in 2003 the murder rate fell only 1 percent. Curiously, the seven states that have their own assault-weapons bans saw a smaller drop in murders last year than the 43 states without such laws. States with bans averaged a 2 percent decline in murders. States without bans saw murder rates fall by more than 3.4 percent. Indeed, that, too, suggests that doing away with the ban actually reduced crime....

Whistleblower Has Elite Interests Running Scared

If people know of Sibel Edmonds at all, they know her as an FBI whistleblower. Since mid-2002, her face has graced newspapers across America; she's testified before numerous senators and had her deposition subpoenaed by family members of 9/11 victims; as late as September 2005, Vanity Fair devoted 11 pages to her. Yet almost no one can tell you what she has to say. Like a star in a silent movie, Edmonds has been cast as the heroine in a legal drama whose details are obscure. That's because Sibel Edmonds is the most gagged person in the history of the United States, at least according to her ACLU lawyers. If gag orders were nickels, she'd be rich. Since her dismissal from the FBI in March 2002, Edmonds has borne the burden of state censorship with relative aplomb, working constantly within the law to make her story heard. After she gave a brief spate of interviews, John Ashcroft invoked the "state secrets" privilege, silencing her before the press and denying Edmonds her day in court. Apparently, her lawsuit involves secrets so secret that not even Edmonds' lawyers are allowed to know the reasons why her case cannot be tried. Aside from an independent investigator, the Supreme Court is her only remaining option, and the Court will decide whether or not to hear her case in mid-October. After the FBI fired her, Sibel Edmonds sued the bureau for negligent endangerment, negligent investigation, conversion of property, and infliction of emotional distress, among other things. During her six-month stint as a translator in the FBI's Washington, D.C., unit, she had stumbled upon what she alleges were serial acts of espionage on the part of one of her colleagues, Melek Can Dickerson, who worked with Edmonds evaluating all sorts of missives and communications, and translating into English those communications pertinent to ongoing FBI investigations. Dickerson, it turns out, was a former employee of the American-Turkish Council, a Turkish organization under investigation for espionage and bribing public officials, and she considered most of her former colleagues' communications to have no pertinence whatsoever. Edmonds thought otherwise and reported her colleague. Getting no response, Edmonds reported her again and again, moving up the chain of command until Edmonds herself was finally fired. Shortly thereafter, Dickerson and her husband fled the country....

Oklahoma City FBI surrenders documents to court

Under pressure from a federal judge to produce at least 87 pages of "un-redacted" internal FBI documents related to the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, the Oklahoma City FBI office has filed under seal documents with a Salt Lake City federal court that could unlock some of the mysteries surrounding the terrorist attack that left 168 dead. Along with the documents under seal the agency cited a number of reasons the court should continue to protect persons whose names were originally blacked out of some of the crucial documents and certain facts the FBI alone possesses about activities at a paramilitary terrorist training camp called Elohim City. Filed in federal court in Salt Lake City, Utah, attorneys for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) argued that the FBI Oklahoma City office should not have to make public details that some believe could prove the FBI had prior knowledge of the plot to bomb the Oklahoma City federal building, but somehow failed to stop it. This litigation is part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by Salt Lake City attorney Jesse Trentadue. At the center of the controversy is an unclassified copy of a memorandum marked "From the Director of the FBI" that contains several references to an FBI undercover operation at Elohim City before the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building....

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