The Fourth’s Emendment
Posted by Charles II on May 12, 2008
Richard Schmitt, LA Times (via t/o):
The number of Americans being secretly wiretapped or having their financial and other records reviewed by the government has continued to increase as officials aggressively use powers approved after the Sept. 11 attacks. But the number of terrorism prosecutions ending up in court – one measure of the effectiveness of such sleuthing – has continued to decline, in some cases precipitously….
A recent study showed that the number of terrorism and national security cases initiated by the Justice Department in 2007 … declined 19% in the last year alone, dropping to 505 in 2007 from 624 in 2006.
By contrast, the Justice Department reported last month that the nation’s spy court had granted 2,370 warrant requests by the department to search or eavesdrop on suspected terrorists and spies in the U.S. last year – 9% more than in 2006. The number of such warrants approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has more than doubled since the 2001 terrorist attacks.
The department also reported a sharp rise in the use of national security letters by the FBI – from 9,254 in 2005 to 12,583 in 2006, the latest data available.
Those are the cases they’re willing to tell us about. Of roughly 15,000 cases where the privacy of one or more people was compromised, 500 actually panned out– and many of those are doubtless penny ante cases, such as overstaying a visa. Even granting that terrorism cases are serious business, a 3% success rate– of which probably 95% have nothing to do with terrorism– does not speak well of their investigative methods.
I want my Fourth Amendment back.
6 Responses to “The Fourth’s Emendment”
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Raf Uzar said
Same story was in Poland when Law and Justice were in power.
Raf
http://uzar.wordpress.com/
Charles said
I think we have been a bit more fortunate than Poland, Raf. But if so, only because a fraction of us have been zealous to defend civil liberties.
MEC said
Didn’t the Busheviks promise not to use the expanded surveillance powers for domestic law enforcement?
Gosh, did they LIE to us?
Phoenix Woman said
I know, MEC. Shocking, isn’t it. (NOT.)
Stormcrow said
This is a classic example of the consequences of information overload. Like the CCTV fiasco. Same process is in action here.
The Bush Regime’s Reichssicherheitshauptamt promiscuously rakes in everything but the kitchen sink, and then they don’t have enough people to process what they have collected.
So the more information they collect, the lower this drives their success rate. After seven years making the same damned mistake over and over and over, and paying the price in blown cases, they still don’t see this.
As secret policemen, they wouldn’t be fit to clean out Reinhard Heydrich’s toilet.
Amateurs, poseurs, and fools, every one.
Charles said
And that’s a wrap.