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Title: The DEA Is Spying on Millions of Cars All Over the U.S.
Source:
The Atlantic
URL Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics ... -cars/384864/?UTM_SOURCE=yahoo
Published: Jan 27, 2015
Author: Conor Friedersdorf
Post Date: 2015-01-27 11:38:14 by Deckard
Keywords: None
Views: 1880
Comments: 7
Jonathan Ernst/Reuters Once again, Americans face a tradeoff between liberty and security. On one hand, the Drug Enforcement Administration has been building "a database to track in real time the movement of vehicles around the U.S., a secret domestic intelligence-gathering program that scans and stores hundreds of millions of records." If you drive in populated areas your movements have very likely been tracked. On the other hand, the result is that illegal drugs are no longer sold on U.S. streets, the price of getting high is too high for most to pay, and international drug cartels are all but gone, as are overdose deaths and street gangs that profit from narcotics. I kid, of course—not about the huge imposition on the privacy of innocents that the federal government is perpetrating with a license plate tracking program run by the DEA, which is real, so much as the notion that the DEA will achieve success with it. The DEA will obviously continue to lose the War on Drugs. We've traded our freedom to drive around without being tracked for next to nothing. Those who would cede essential liberty for the promise of security may deserve neither, but ceding it for the promise of a drug-free America is just delusional. The federal government could imprison every recreational drug user in America and it still couldn't win the drug war because, among other things, the federal government can't even prevent heavy drug use within the federal prison system. Even if the DEA spied on millions of Americans' phone calls it still wouldn't be able to win the War on Drugs, which I know because the DEA was also doing exactly that. Not that the DEA thinks this is about winning the drug war so much as perpetuating itself. Says the Wall Street Journal, "One email written in 2010 said the primary purpose of the program was asset forfeiture—a controversial practice in which law-enforcement agencies seize cars, cash and other valuables from suspected criminals." The ACLU, which exposed large swaths of this program by doggedly filing Freedom of Information Act requests, put out a statement that aptly articulates why the government's actions here are so wrong. Said Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst, collecting location information about Americans not suspected of any crimes "raises very serious privacy questions. It’s unconscionable that technology with such far-reaching potential would be deployed in such secrecy. People might disagree about exactly how we should use such powerful surveillance technologies, but it should be democratically decided, it shouldn’t be done in secret.’’ Unfortunately, leaders in the U.S. law enforcement community feel that they're justified in secretly adopting sweeping new methods with huge civil liberties implications. Their behavior is an affront to self-government.
With sweeping power to monitor the movements of so many Americans, the federal agency will continue to lose the hopeless drug war.
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#1. To: Deckard (#0)
Meh. The pro-statist ACLU and its subversive cousin, the SPLC always release half-hearted statements like this as cover. They are part and parcel of the problem that's destroying freedom. The ACLU NEVER follows up on their filings, nor sues the gubmint. FAKE. FAKE. FAKE. That said, several alphabet agencies are now tracking citizens for no other reason that...THEY CAN. (and for future "reference.") It also helps justify their own respective existence and budget.
Yeah, we know about your hatred for th ACLU. Fortunately they are starting to get quite a few things correct. The ACLU, which exposed large swaths of this program by doggedly filing Freedom of Information Act requests, put out a statement that aptly articulates why the government's actions here are so wrong. What's Sarah Palin doing to alert Americans to these abuses?
They'd find some excuse anyways. Those with an authority fetish always do.
You go, girl!
"The biggest mistake that libertarians make is the way they view government and private sectors. Government is the root of all evil, and the private sector is the source of all good. Libertarians have never figured out that people are the same whether in the government or in the private sector." --Paul Craig Roberts
Saying I have an "authority fetish" is like me saying you have a criminal fetish. I doubt you do... try and keep your posts credible.
Every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves. What is equally true is that every community gets the kind of law enforcement it insists on. Robert Kennedy
Not even close, badge bunny.
The ACLU, which exposed large swaths of this program by doggedly filing Freedom of Information Act requests, put out a statement that aptly articulates why the government's actions here are so wrong.
#2. To: Liberator (#1)
The pro-statist ACLU
“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” - Ron Paul
Americans who have no experience with, or knowledge of, tyranny believe that only terrorists will experience the unchecked power of the state. They will believe this until it happens to them, or their children, or their friends.
Paul Craig Roberts
#3. To: Deckard (#0)
#4. To: TEA Party Reveler, Gatlin, GrandIsland, Palmdale (#3)
Have you noticed that porkers like Gatlin, SOD, GrandIsland, Yukon and Palmdale don't comment on stories that make their pig poop stink even more?
“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” - Ron Paul
Americans who have no experience with, or knowledge of, tyranny believe that only terrorists will experience the unchecked power of the state. They will believe this until it happens to them, or their children, or their friends.
Paul Craig Roberts
#5. To: Deckard (#4)
pig poop stink
#6. To: Deckard (#4)
Those with an authority fetish always do.
#7. To: GrandIsland (#6)
Saying I have an "authority fetish" is like me saying you have a criminal fetish.
“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” - Ron Paul
Americans who have no experience with, or knowledge of, tyranny believe that only terrorists will experience the unchecked power of the state. They will believe this until it happens to them, or their children, or their friends.
Paul Craig Roberts
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