Big Brother Negroponte
Hentoff, Nat
Bill of Rights Watch Nat Hentoff Big Brother Negroponte 1984 was never just fiction. George Orwell was well acquainted with the all-seeing eyes of Big Brother Joseph Stalin. But what Orwell could...
...Only the opposition party, regenerating itself as the party of the Constitution, can redeem Frank Church's pledge now Nat Hentoff is a columnist for The Village Voice, Free Inquiry, and The Progressive...
...In 1975, Senator Frank Church, Democrat of Idaho-chairman of the Senate Committee that shed harsh sunlight on the COINTELPRO lawlessness of the FBI, as well as the CIA-pledged: "The American people need to be reassured that never again will an agency of the government be permitted to conduct a secret war against those citizens it considers a threat to the established order...
...Indeed, Senate Democratic Minority Leader Reid-during the skirmishing over who will replace Sandra Day O'Connor-said that Alberto Gonzales, who's supposed to be holding the fort on civil liberties at the Justice Department, is qualified to be on the Supreme Court...
...At the Justice Department, this reorganization will fuse three previous offices dealing with intelligence and terrorism into one office-headed by a new assistant attorney general, who will be ultimately responsible to Big Brother Negroponte...
...But, according to Frances Fragos Townsend, the increasingly influential White House security adviser, civil libertarians need not fear because, she told The Washington Post, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will ensure that all the intelligence operations here at home will be within our world-celebrated rule of law...
...But in 1975, Congress was taking the separation of powers very seriously...
...The ACLU's astute analyst of the Bush Administration's devious moves to unravel the Bill of Rights, Tim Edgar, told the June 30 Washington Post: "Spies and cops play different roles and operate under different rules for a reason...
...The FBI is being effectively taken over by a spymaster who reports directly to the White House...
...I'm a veteran of J. Edgar Hoover's COINTELPRO (counterintelligence program) era, and when the FBI came calling to demand my sources for its uprooting of the Constitution, it didn't get them...
...That time has passed...
...Now the OIPR will answer to the same boss as the people [FBI, CIA, et al.] seeking the warrants in the first place...
...It's alarming that the same person who oversees foreign spying will now oversee domestic spying, too...
...He is the author of "The War on the Bill of Rights and the Gathering Resistance...
...Now, in a radical reorganization of domestic and foreign spying, John Negro-ponte-the new national director of intelligence- will be in overall charge of the FBI and CIA, among other data gatherers...
...But what Orwell could not foresee was the ever more advanced surveillance technology that the Bush Administration continually perfects to collect everyone's personal information...
...But where were the cries of alarm from opposition leaders Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and Howard Dean...
...In a June 30 National Public Radio report, Ari Shapiro made the relevant point that one of the now merged offices, the Office of Intelligence Policy Review, was responsible for "telling Justice Department lawyers when they were overstepping the law, seeking a wire tap or search warrant...
...But I am not being an alarmist in expecting a much more efficient return of COINTELPRO...
...Negroponte . . . is known for his ability to adapt to whatever Administration he is serving...
...Testily, and accurately, a New York Times July 1 editorial notes that the very same Gonzales "has a dismal record on the proper limits of government," and even more troubling, "Mr...
...One result will officially once again involve the CIA in domestic intelligence, in partnership with the FBI...
Vol. 69 • September 2005 • No. 9
