Police state rulemaking by DoJ, a bit more is needed, DU!

[Boondog]

USDoJ proposed new administrative rules http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main?main=DocumentDetail&o=09000064806a3765 to enhance authority of and encourage state and local police to collect domestic intelligence about Americans, share the sensitive data with federal agencies and retain it for at least 10 years. The proposed changes would revise the federal government's rules for police intelligence-gathering for the first time since 1993 and would apply to any of the nation's 18,000 state and local police agencies that receive roughly $1.6 billion each year in federal grants. In other words, do this or lose your federal funding.

Because of the quiet introduction of these proposed changes on 7/31/08, it has received little press attention. The Washington Post broke the story on 8/16/08 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/15/AR2008081503497.html, roughly halfway through the public comment period that will close on 9/2/08.

If you wonder why this can get out there so quietly, take a look at the Federal Register and understand that thousands of pages of rules are published, and without extreme vigilance, these things just slip through. Juxtapose the quiet nature of this rulemaking against the Bush admin’s usual cacophony that accompanies legislation and rulemaking that they think they can sell politically.

This was certain to follow on the heels of the passage of Pub.L. 110-261, the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, and this is how rulemaking works. Congress gave the President broad, vague, and terrifying authority under the FISA amendments this year, and the only way to challenge rulemaking is to prove that DoJ is exceeding its statutory authority. A hard thing to do given that blob of police state authority handed over to the executive branch in the FISA amendments. Olberman called it an “embryonic police state” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IomU-ZXq9OE. I think it’s at least Dubya at 10 running around waterboarding pets and blowing up frogs with firecrackers by now.

Read the proposed rules, understand them, and make comments before 9/2/08. At least there will be a public record of objections to further local preemptive law enforcement in the absence of a crime. You can submit comments at the first link above.

But, but, to register public comments, they got me!

Surely the government would not undertake activities that could be strategically utilized/abused to intimidate the citizens into compliance and uncontested further loss of civil liberties??? Through the public comment part of regulatory "reform," even? Why, that sounds like this is a police state!

The only way I figure I can get any relief from this fear of the terrorists is to just go ahead and get on the list. That's why I'm going to file comments. Then all you people without a 10 year record by which they know what toothpaste you use fall heavily under my suspicion. Without knowing your toothpaste, where you drink beer, and with whom, and when, and how much, and what you said that one night, and how often you peed, I deem you: Suspicious.

Seriously, some specifics of the proposed rulemaking I noticed: The rule changes add "organization" ("amended to clarify that criminal intelligence information shall be collected and maintained about organizations" by your local folks in blue - if they want $ under the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968); remove certification requirements that the "system has adequate policies and procedures in place to insure that access is available only to authorized users; adds "homeland security" and "domestic and international terrorism" to the panoply of things local law enforcement has to keep their eyes on and report to some sweaty guy at a computer in Virginia; removes a requirement of written authorization to access (too cumbersome in our 21st century Jetson's life, now just click on "accept" button and away you go); removes the word "imminent" from an existing exception by which a "project" may give information to "a government official or any other individual when necessary to avoid imminent danger to life or property" - now it only has to be "reasonably necessary to avoid danger..."

In the explanation part of the Fed Reg entry, 9/11 is mentioned 3 times, and the words "securing our homeland," "terrorism," "national security," "counterterrorism" show up more times than I care to count.

There are no rule changes designed to create additional congressional oversight, judicial review, or criminal and civil sanctions for violations. No notification requirements either, other than if you go to the pokey, the 10 year period is tolled while you are in there, so I guess you know when you get out they will be keeping the goods on you for a while. We know you are planning something...

[Boondog]

1. Comment on these proposed rules!

Maybe I wasn't direct enough in my original post. Public comment is essential on rulemaking. This is the nuts and bolts of participatory government. I didn't see any links in the original posts related to this rulemaking, I didn't see encouragement to comment. Just kind of a general resignation and sigh. They may put all the comments in a box and round file it, but don't sit back and snipe without doing what you can to incrementally affect a possibly inevitable outcome. We survive on increments right now. Civil liberties survive on increments, and constant vigilence.

This didn't come out, even in the Washington Post, until halfway through the comment period! ACLU's on it, and a few other organizations, and I may not know constitutional law from Adam's housecat, but now's the time on this (as it was with the FISA amendments, as it was with the AUMF, as it was with war funding each year, as it is with Guantanamo, etc.).

Don't fall for their "essential tool in the fight against terrorism" bullshit either. Read the proposed rules, understand what they do, and register your objections, if you have them. The links are there in my post. Request more protections for civil liberties if that's your thing. Expound on the Bill of Rights. Beat your chest and make a big noise. Be the first in your neighborhood on "the list," because it won't stop until everyone's in the same boat. That's how civil liberties go. To paraphrase Jonathan Turley, civil liberties slip through the fingers like sand, and it's a lot harder to pick them up than to close your fist.

Chest-beating Boondog

[sazemisery]

2. K&R, Boondog

I'll be commenting today.

[sattahipdeep]

3. Democratic Timidity

Jeremy Scahil July 19th, 2008, at Netroots Nation in Austin, Texas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFMCFvKMJks

Talk by Naomi Wolf - The End of America

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjALf12PAWc&NR=1

:hi:

[Boondog]

8. Love it

"Cheat on Obama, with a little bit of conscience." Right on. Now, particularly in light of the tightening polls, is the most important time for shaping the next administration. And certainly it takes courage not to let the fear that Obama will not be elected duct tape our mouths and shut off our minds. Or turn us into reciprocal mud-slinging autobots (though there is room for a bit of that). As we all know, it's not Obama's supporters' constructive criticism of his policies that is bringing the numbers down. It's the attacks, the cynicism, racism, and denial of McCain's campaign. And I would argue that the more Obama's supporters take an active part in shaping the policies of his potential future administration, the more pressure is exerted on him and his to make good choices and institute real "change," the more assured the misled American public will be of who he is and what he stands for. And the better his chances get of being elected.

Thanks for the links! I haven't watched the Naomi Wolf link yet but will do so tonight.

[Supersedeas]

4. there ought to be immediate PUBLIC hearings--why no Dem Congressional Response to this?

[phusion]

5. Your WaPo link is missing...

Any idea where it went?

Thanks!

[Boondog]

7. Try this one

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/15/AR2008081503497_pf.html

Spencer S. Hsu and Carrie Johnson, staff writers

[EFerrari]

6. This would be really bad for us and bad for law enforcement, too.

How can Congress let the Bush Justice Department get away with this.

[Boondog]

9. The abuses of this system are much better documented than

the terror plots foiled thereby. And it's been well-documented on DU how a close look at all of the govt's reported foiled terrorist plots through domestic surveillance, when govt even releases enough information to put a story together, turn out to be so much propaganda and bullshit.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DEFDA1F3CF932A35751C0A96E948260
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/19/AR2005121901777.html
http://www.washtimes.com/news/2008/jul/18/maryland-troopers-spied-on-activist-groups/
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0519/dailyUpdate.html

Just a small sampling. Thus my concerns that while these proposed rule changes don't appear to do a whole lot, a word deleted here, a term added there, a procedure changed over there, the overall effect is to further encourage, nay coerce, local law enforcement into infiltration of groups that are not politically or religiously popular with the Bush regime.

And I agree with you that this will be very hard on local law enforcement agencies. Federal govt coercion (through Omnibus Crimes Act funding withdrawal threat - on which so many local law enforcement agencies rely) to retain records, turn them over to who this time?, and the inevitable politically or religiously motivated and misdirected individual whose actions will further erode public trust in law enforcement... Bad scene.

[tbyg52]

10. Anyone know how you view the comments?

They said they were public, but if you can see them online I haven't figured out how yet.

[Boondog]

11. The way I understand the process

Is they receive public comments, consider them..., then by 30 days before implementation of the rule, publish the final rule in the federal register (including comments received and their responses to the comments). This cite is from OMBwatch, but it summarizes the basics of the Administrative Procedures Act for rulemaking by a federal government agency.

http://www.ombwatch.org/article/articleview/176/1/67

[tbyg52]

12. Thanks.

I think they should make the comments public as they come in. (Like they care what I think....)