Sneaky Subpoena
Hentoff, Nat
Ashcroft Watch Nat Hentoff Sneaky Subpoena Speaking to some sixty million of us in his State of the Union address on January 20, George W. Bush urged the Congress seated before him to renew those...
...He is the author of the recently published book "The War on the Bill of Rights and the Gathering Resistance...
...The operative FBI investigative word is "relevant" to a national security investigation-the same language that opens the records of libraries and bookstores under Section 215 of the Patriot Act with the same gag rules...
...There will be resistance from a good many of the members, indicated by the applause when Bush gave the expiration date...
...The recipients of the National Security Letters are bound by law not to reveal they've gotten the letters...
...He is known mostly, if at all, as Paula Jones's lawyer in a lawsuit that led to the suspension of the perjurious Bill Clinton's law license...
...Those dissenters were not applauding him...
...The most detailed account of the range and effect of these National Security Letters was reported by John Whitehead, a constitutional lawyer who is president of the Rutherford Institute in Charlottesville, Virginia...
...Ashcroft Watch Nat Hentoff Sneaky Subpoena Speaking to some sixty million of us in his State of the Union address on January 20, George W. Bush urged the Congress seated before him to renew those sections of the USA Patriot Act that expire on December 31, 2005...
...Postal Service...
...But in keeping with the secrecy with which the Patriot Act and subsequent executive orders are being implemented, John Ashcroft pulled a fast one on Saturday, December 13, the day Saddam was captured...
...As Judge Andrew Napolitano, the only insistent regular protector of the Constitution on television-for the Fox News Channel, no less-says: "Now, without you knowing it, the Justice Department, whose lawyers and agents have sworn to uphold the Constitution, can easily subvert it by learning where you travel, what you spent, whom you slept with . . . what you confided to your lawyer and insurance and real estate agent without having to demonstrate any evidence or even suspicion of criminal activity on your part...
...At post offices, FBI agents can actually read the mail of targets in these investigations...
...As Whitehead notes, "Anyone working in law enforcement knows how fluid the term 'relevant' may be...
...National Security Letters are a form of administrative subpoena," explained The Washington Post in an alarmed editorial on January 3. The FBI can request business records, phone records, Internet activity, or financial data with such a subpoena, the Post noted, so long as you are "relevant" to a national security investigation...
...On January 12, Whitehead said that the FBI's authority "to subpoena business records of nearly every kind of financial transaction and conduct is, in effect, a search and seizure [violating the Fourth Amendment] without demonstrating probable cause that criminal activity is afoot...
...Nat Hentoff is a columnist for The Village Voice, Editor & Publisher, and The Progressive...
...It's a question you ought to put to your Representatives and Senators...
...With all the profusion of media, it is such unsung patriots as John Whitehead and Andrew Napolitano that keep ringing the liberty bell while Michael Jackson and Kobe Bryant get the headlines...
...The letters were to have been part of Patriot Act II, but once that draft was leaked by a heroic member of the Justice Department to rouse opposition, Ashcroft has been trying to get some of its provisions into law piecemeal- this time, without public hearings or floor debate...
...And these subpoenas can be issued by relatively low-level bureaucrats without going to any court...
...So how did this equivalent of the British "general search warrant" that helped provoke the Revolution slide noiselessly through Congress...
...With national attention directed at Saddam's extraction from the spider hole, Bush signed the 2004 Intelligence Authorization Act, which includes a provision that gives the FBI the power-without having to go to any court-to get an extensive range of personal records through the greatly expanded use of National Security Letters...
...Also subject to these National Security Letters are credit card companies, airlines, car dealerships, stockbrokers, and the U.S...
...Whitehead happens to be a persistent, relentless attacker of the Ashcroft-Bush war on the Bill of Rights...
Vol. 68 • March 2004 • No. 3
