I bet with this post title you thought I was gonna give some tasty tale of booze, sex, and dabauchery. Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm actually going to draw your attention to this Washington Post article about the FBI's use of National Security Letters. These letters are used by the FBI to obtain all manner of private info (phone logs, email lists, what books you checked out, online purchases, website visits, etc...), without the approval of a judge or grandjury, or for that matter, the oversight of Congress.
The post cites one particular example that really struck me. You may or may not remember the orange alert that was issued for Las Vegas right before New Years 2003. To investigate the terror threat, the FBI used these letters, among other means, to gather information on anyone that stayed in a hotel, rented a car, or flew on a plane to Las Vegas during a two week period. Are you kidding me? Think about that for a second. That's well over a million people. The FBI tracked the movements (at least vaguely) of a million people during a two week period. And who knows what other kind of information they gathered that wasn't revealed in the Post report. If you were visiting Las Vegas for New Years 2003, then you have an FBI file. What's even more disturbing is that even though the investigation didn't turn up anything, the government is still keeping all of that data for possible future use. Because of this, I've decided to write congress a letter:
Dear Congress,
Please excercise your constitutionally mandated task of government oversight.
Thanks,
-Management
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