Tag Archives: freedom

On the Confirmation of Loretta Lynch

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…for Attorney General to replace Eric Holder.

During confirmation hearings which started yesterday [emphasis added],

Her biggest challenge could be explaining her support and participation in civil forfeitures, a legal process in which law enforcement agencies can seize money and other assets without charging or convicting the owners….

And so…

After nearly three years of legal battles, the federal government last week dropped its case against the Hirschs, who own a distribution company that serves convenience stores on Long Island. The government agreed to return more than $446,000 in assets and cash seized by the Internal Revenue Service in 2012 under federal civil asset forfeiture laws, even though the Hirsch family was never charged with a crime.

This was a case approved and brought by US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Loretta Lynch.

Hmm….

Because We’re Not Being Spied on Enough

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The Justice Department has acknowledged constructing a database to track the movements of millions of vehicles across the U.S. in real time.

And

A Justice Department spokesman told Fox News that the tracking program is compliant with federal [law]… claiming it “includes protocols that limit who can access the database and all of the license plate information is deleted after 90 days.”

Perhaps (although with this Justice Department or this administration, that’s hard to see), but that doesn’t make it right, or consistent with the precepts of our Constitution. And how do we know the information is “deleted after 90 days?” We don’t know when it was collected, starting that clock. We have only the Eric Holder DoJ’s word that the data are deleted. We know from experience with IRS “lost emails” that “deleted” doesn’t necessarily mean deleted.

Another kicker:

It is not clear whether the tracking is overseen or approved by any court.

The Wall Street Journal had this from its original tale:

The primary goal of the license-plate tracking program, run by the Drug Enforcement Administration, is to seize cars, cash and other assets to combat drug trafficking, according to one government document. But the database’s use has expanded to hunt for vehicles associated with numerous other potential crimes, from kidnappings to killings to rape suspects, say people familiar with the matter.

The program’s current scope is this:

[It] collects data about vehicle movements, including time, direction and location, from high-tech cameras placed strategically on major highways. Many devices also record visual images of drivers and passengers, which are sometimes clear enough for investigators to confirm identities, according to DEA documents and people familiar with the program.

The documents show that the DEA also uses license-plate readers operated by state, local, and federal law-enforcement agencies to feed into its own network and create a far-reaching, constantly updating database of electronic eyes scanning traffic on the roads….

That’s the problem with a government program—it grows, it never shrinks, it never is eliminated. When the program is a secret one, its expansion is hard to discern, and the program is even harder for a free people to control. When the program is used to spy on the citizens, it’s extremely dangerous to our liberty.

What will happen when the program is further expanded—because anonymous donations to this or that political organization is viewed, by government, to be inimical? What will happen when the program is used to harass groups of Americans of whom the men in government disapprove, or of whom the men in government especially favor? Think that can’t happen? Look no further than this Justice Department and white voter intimidation by New Black Panthers and this DoJ’s avowed policy of not going after voter crimes involving white victims and black perpetrators. Look no further than this administration’s use of the IRS to go after political groups the White House doesn’t like.

Expansion of Ukraine Occupation

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The Russian-backed (with 9,000 of their own) rebels in Ukraine and Ukraine signed a cease fire agreement in September, including an agreement to withdraw their respective artillery units from that cease fire line.

Having done that,

a rebel rocket attack early Saturday morning (24 Jan) killed 29 people [at least 30 according to Reuters] in the port city of Mariupol[]

which Russia has been trying to seize for some months pursuant to their effort to open a land route to Russian-occupied Crimea. The day before,

[T]he rebels rejected a [renewed] peace deal and said they were going on a multi-prong offensive against the government in Kiev to vastly increase their territory.

Alexander Zakharchenko, leader of the Russian-backed Donetsk People’s Republic said this of the Russian/separatist forces’ plans:

Today an offensive was launched on Mariupol. This will be the best possible monument to all our dead because we will avenge them all[.]

So much for the value of a Russian commitment.

Trust

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First we have the NSA collecting personal telephone call data. Now we find out about this shadowy program, which was uncovered only because DEA had to give up its existence pursuant to a criminal case involving a man accused of planning the export of technology to Iran:

The Drug Enforcement Administration has formally acknowledged that it maintained a sweeping database of phone calls made from the United States to multiple foreign countries.

And

…the program relied on administrative subpoenas to collect records of calls….

Not even a secret, but at least Article III, judge granting (or, rarely, refusing) warrants to search. Now we have, also, the same sort of warrant issued administratively (but just as sub rosa if not outright secretly).

What other secret databases is the Federal government keeping on its employers, us citizens?

These two programs, shrouded as they’ve been, are illustrations of why government cannot be trusted with such collections absent open, publicly sought and issued or refused 4th Amendment warrants. These two programs demonstrate instead that, without such public requests and issuances/denials, the Constitution will be ignored at convenience.

An aside: DoJ says this DEA collection program has been discontinued. There’s no evidence, though, that the database has been destroyed. DoJ is only willing to claim that the contents have been deleted. We know, of course, from IRS deletions that deleting doesn’t necessarily mean deletion.