Anything goes: the new FBI government spying guidelines

[Better Believe It]

Anything goes: the new FBI guidelines
By Michael Ratner and Margaret Ratner Kunstler
June 21, 2010

President Obama campaigned on protecting our civil liberties, so you might have expected his attorney general, Eric Holder, to provide people with greater protections from FBI snoops. But he has not. And it is about to get even worse.

The new Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide will empower the FBI to dispatch surveillance teams, to follow targets, to dig through trash, to search commercial databases and to expand the use of informants to infiltrate a wide range of organizations.

If you are part of a group that disagrees with government policy in Iraq or Afghanistan, or that dislikes nuclear energy, the next time you throw out your trash, an FBI agent may be examining it a few hours later — from what you eat to what you buy to what you read and think.

The next time you attend a meeting to fight for better schools, protest drug testing on animals or criticize almost any aspect of government policy, the person next to you may be an informant, recording everything you say. Or perhaps the informant will participate in the meeting, steering the organization’s activities in ways the government wishes.

Read the full article at:

http://www.progressive.org/mpratner062111.html

[Wilms]

1. Your post has been subjected to Warrant-less Unrecing. n/t

[midnight]

2. K&R...

[Hawkowl]

3. Better than a Republican!

NOT! This is perhaps the most egregious Bush policy that Obama has perpetuated. So it will continue no matter who wins the Presidency in 2012. Inspiring voter turnout? NOT!!!