Is it enough that the government can enter your home and search it without your knowledge with no finding of probable cause to a judge (USA Patriot Act), wiretap your telephone and email communications through the NSA, examine your foreign financial transactions, declare you an "enemy combatant" and detain your forever without legal counsel or trial (Military Commissions Act)? Now the Department of Defense has been investigating Americans through an office established by former Secretary Donald Rumsfled called the Counterintelligence Field Activity Agency (CIFA).
Former Deputy Secretary and wing nut Paul Wolfowitz oversaw this activity to use TALON, a database program they were prohibited from using by Congress, and obtained the personal financial records of American citizens. Only the FBI has statutory authority to investigate Americans and do counter-terrorism investigations and they are regulated by nonsensical laws like the constitution. Obviously this has been an Administration out of control and running roughshod over the Bill of Rights and our freedoms while maintaining publicly that our troops are overseas defending freedom.
If this is the freedom our soldiers are dying to protect it's definitely time to bring them home because they're wasting time, lives and resources. Some excerpts from The Washington Post article about this program:
"Domestic intelligence-gathering by the CIA and the military is sharply restricted. In the military's case, such activities have generally involved investigations of direct threats to military installations and personnel in the United States, as well as inquiries into possible criminal activities by uniformed or civilian Defense Department employees."
"The agency's size and budget are classified, but congressional sources have said that the agency spent more than $1 billion through October. One counterintelligence official recently estimated that CIFA has 400 full-time employees and 800 to 900 contractors working for it."
According to the Post, Defense officials used the TALON database to access raw data on war protestors. Peaceful opposition and protests are perfectly legal in this country and are protected activities under our constitution. The scope of an effort using up to 1,300 people shows this was a significant effort and not targeted at just the Cindy Sheehans at Camp Casey (as bad as that would be).
This means that if you've protested the Iraq War your financial records may have been seized and examined, without probable cause or a warrant, by Department of Defense workers or contractors. This is extreme and brings to mind the excesses of the Nixon Administration during the Vietnam War. New laws and regulations were passed as a result of those violations of rights and freedoms to insure such abuses would not be repeated. It appears the George W. Bush White House is the reincarnation of the Nixon White House.
If this Administration violated the laws of this land and our constitutional guarantee of freedoms while insisting our troops were fighting to defend those very same freedoms the President should resign from office immediately. We cannot trust him to abide by his oath of office.
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