FBI

Judge Strikes Down Part of Patriot Act

September 6, 2007 by The Associated Press

A federal judge struck down parts of the revised USA Patriot
Act on Thursday, saying investigators must have a court’s
approval before they can order Internet providers to turn over
records without telling customers.

U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero said the government orders
must be subject to meaningful judicial review and that the
recently rewritten Patriot Act "offends the fundamental
constitutional principles of checks and balances and
separation of powers.

The American Civil Liberties Union had challenged the law,
complaining that it allowed the FBI to demand records without
the kind of court order required for other government
searches.

The ACLU said it was improper to issue so-called national
security letters, or NSLs - investigative tools used by the
FBI to compel businesses to turn over customer information -
without a judge’s order or grand jury subpoena. Examples of
such businesses include Internet service providers, telephone
companies and public libraries.

Yusill Scribner, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office,
said prosecutors had no immediate comment.

Jameel Jaffer, who argued the case for the ACLU, said the
revised law had wrongly given the FBI sweeping authority to
control speech because the agency was allowed to decide on its

Well ... ok ... Libby was found not-guilty on account of making false statements to the FBI; but he was convicted on 4 others and stands to be in jail for up to 30 years :

Jury convicts Libby on four charges - Politics - MSNBC.com:

Libby faced two counts of perjury, two counts of lying to the FBI and one count of obstruction of justice. Prosecutors said he discussed Plame's name with reporters and, fearing prosecution, made up a story to make those discussions seem innocuous.

Libby's defense team said he learned about Plame from Cheney, forgot about it, then learned it again a month later from newsman Tim Russert of NBC’s “Meet the Press”. Anything he told reporters about Plame, Libby said, was just chatter and rumors, not official government information.

Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said that was a lie. But Libby's defense team had argued that it would be unfair to convict Libby in a case where so many witnesses changed their stories or had memory problems.

“We think we made an appropriate decision, and we have no regrets,” Fitzgerald told reporters after the verdict was announced.

Dick Cheney though, is still at-large; alebit with a blood clot in his leg waiting to explode.

The FBI is investigating the NYPD's actions during the 2004 Republican Convention protests. Starting with the RNC protests, the NYPD has taken fairly draconian methods of dealing with protesters. I witnessed a little of this when I saw the NYPD use motor scooters for crowd control, actually pushing into the crowd with their scooters...and the cops were not in uniform, making it seem like it was an attack by hoodlums. More recently, I saw on Current TV footage of NYPD officers (out of uniform) actually antagonizing protesters to start a fight so they could arrest people.

Well, it looks like some of these practices are going to bite the NYPD in the ass: