Patriot Watch links to this USA article about the FBI's increased need for translators in it's war against terror--and these two little paragraphs buried in the middle of the article:

The FBI also needs more translators to decipher evidence from an increasing number of secret wiretaps and other electronic surveillance that the agency is conducting on U.S. citizens and possible al-Qaeda sympathizers in this country. Timely translations can help agents ensure that a terror plot is not in the works.

A senior FBI official says that in the past year, a secret federal court has granted about 2,000 requests by government agents to conduct electronic eavesdropping. In fiscal 2002, the court approved 1,228 similar requests under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

The ACLU has learned lots more through a Freedom of Information Act Request to which a Judge ordered the Justice Department to respond.

Presidential hopeful Wesley Clark outlined a three point plan yesterday for catching Osama bin Laden:

First, Clark said he would pressure Saudi Arabia to contribute to a joint U.S.-Saudi commando force to scour the Afghan-Pakistani border where bin Laden is thought to be hiding.

Second, Clark proposed reassigning some of the intelligence specialists, linguists, and special operations forces now searching Iraq for weapons of mass destruction to the hunt for bin Laden.

Third, he said the United States needs to repair relations with allies and friends.

Another stealth attack by Congress is upon us. This time it's a buried provision in the intelligence communities' budget bill for the coming year. It expands the FBI's authority to issue "national security letters" to obtain business records without prior judicial approval.

Currently, the FBI can issue these letters (they are like subpoenas) to banks and other financial institutions in terror and espionage investigations. The budget bill expands the businesses to which such letters may be issued:

The measure now awaiting final approval in Congress would significantly broaden the law to include securities dealers, currency exchanges, car dealers, travel agencies, post offices, casinos, pawnbrokers and any other institution doing cash transactions with "a high degree of usefulness in criminal, tax or regulatory matters."

Bush proposed such expansion in a speech two months ago.

Critics said the measure would give the federal government greater power to pry into people's private lives. "This dramatically expands the government's authority to get private business records," said Timothy H. Edgar, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "You buy a ring for your grandmother from a pawnbroker, and the record on that will now be considered a financial record that the government can get."

Versions of the bill have already passed both the House and Senate. The matter now goes to a House-Senate conference committee to iron out a final version.

Some Democrats have begun to question whether the measure goes too far and have hinted that they may try to have it pulled when the bill comes before a House-Senate conference committee. Other officials predicted that the measure would probably survive any challenges in conference and be signed into law by President Bush, in part because the provisions already approved in the House and the Senate are identical.

Update: The ACLU weighs in.

The Patriot Act is not just for terrorists anymore. Who should be investigated? Play cartoonist's Mark Fiore's Patriot Act Game and find out if you're a Patriot. You might just get a junior prosecutor badge. We won't be getting one. Our score was so low we almost didn't have one.

If you've got an anti-war website, don't be surprised to get a knock at your door. The FBI is making in person visits to anti-war websites.

Cryptome received a visit today from FBI Special Agents TR and CK from the FBI Counterterrorism Office in New York, 26 Federal Plaza, telephone (212) 384-1000. Both agents presented official ID and business cards. SA Renner said that a person had reported Cryptome as a source of information that could be used to harm the United States. He said Cryptome website had been examined and nothing on the site was illegal but information there might be used for harmful purposes. He noted that information in the Cryptome CDs might wind up in the wrong hands.

SA TR said there is no investigation of Cryptome, that the purpose of the visit was to ask Cryptome to report to the FBI any information which Cryptome "had a gut feeling" could be a threat to the nation.

Proving he couldn't care less what Congress or the people think, Attorney General John Ashcroft continues to march to his own drummer. He issued new National Security guidelines Wednesday for the FBI--making it easier for them to do background checks on people.

The guidelines enable the FBI to conduct a "threat assessment" of potential terrorists or terrorist activity without initial evidence of a crime or national security threat, as required to begin a more formal preliminary or full investigation. The purpose is to ensure the FBI approaches these investigations "with an eye toward early intervention and prevention of acts of terrorism before they occur," according to the guidelines.

The FBI will be allowed to collect information on "individuals, groups and organizations of possible investigative interest" in national security cases in the ways that agents already can in cases involving more traditional crimes such as illegal drugs and organized crime. ... the relaxed guidelines would, for example, enable the FBI to run a credit check on an individual or run a person's name through law enforcement databases without opening a formal investigation.

....Timothy Edgar, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said the guidelines raise another caution flag in the nation's fight against terrorism. ....This is exactly what Americans are worried about," he said. "It's the notion that the government can put your life under a microscope without any evidence that you're doing anything wrong." Edgar said the changes could mark a return to the days when the FBI routinely opened investigations on Vietnam War protesters and other dissidents, before the first national security investigation guidelines were issued in 1976.

[link via The Agonist.]

Update: The ACLU responds to the guidelines, saying the Justice Department is overlooking the lessons of Waco, Ruby Ridge and Watergate. [link via Cursor.]

The Patriot Act is being used in a public corruption trial in Las Vegas. It's a case that has nothing to do with terrorism. he charges involve strip club owner Michael Galardi and politicians.

Federal authorities confirmed Monday the FBI used the Patriot Act to get financial information in its probe of Galardi and his dealings with current and former politicians in Southern Nevada. "It was used appropriately by the FBI and was clearly within the legal parameters of the statute," said Special Agent Jim Stern of the Las Vegas field office of the FBI.

Like we've said before, Congress got hood-winked into passing the Patriot Act. It was always the Justice Department's intention to use the powers authorized by the Act in non-terror related criminal cases and Congress, in its post-9/11 fervor, just looked the other way.

Balloon Juice is covering the story as well.

We don't know if we buy the terrorism connection here or not. What is true is that the Taliban banned opium production and the farmers adhered to the ban. And that since the Taliban has been out of power, the farmers have resumed growing poppy with a vengeance, resulting in Afganistan once again becoming the world's largest opium producer:

Opium cultivation is spreading like a "cancer" in Afghanistan, a United Nations survey has found. Afghanistan produces three quarters of the world's illicit opium - the raw material for heroin - and two thirds of all opiate users take drugs of Afghan origin, according to a report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.

The UN said yesterday that unless the problem was tackled the country could be over-run by violence, corruption and terrorism. High prices for opium had recruited more farmers, spreading poppy cultivation to 28 of Afghanistan's 32 provinces, from 18 four years ago.

....He added: "Out of this drug chest, some provincial administrators and military commanders take a considerable share. The more they get used to this, the less likely it becomes that they will respect the law, be loyal to Kabul and support the legal economy. Terrorists take a cut as well: the longer this happens, the greater the threat to security."

Sounds like the terrorists are at the bottom of the feeding pool--after the politicians and military leaders.

[link via Buzzflash]

The reason we say tread with caution here is the Bush Administration's plans for the Victory Act --linking drug crimes to terrorism, redesignating them as crimes of "narco-terrorism" and upping the already draconian penalties.

We don't doubt that some of the money earned from Afghan poppy farming finds its way into the hands of terrorists. But let's not paint with too broad a brush without something more. And let's be vigilant about keeping terror laws and drug laws separate, except in such instances where the two clearly are linked. We already have laws that penalize terrorism and laws that penalize illicit drug activity. We see no need to combine them.

We realize the U.N. rather than the Bush Administration is the genesis of this new report, but we don't put it past Ashcroft and Hatch to start quoting it as support for the Victory Act.

We don't know if we buy the terrorism connection here or not. What is true is that the Taliban banned opium production and the farmers adhered to the ban. And that since the Taliban has been out of power, the farmers have resumed growing poppy with a vengeance, resulting in Afganistan once again becoming the world's largest opium producer:

Opium cultivation is spreading like a "cancer" in Afghanistan, a United Nations survey has found. Afghanistan produces three quarters of the world's illicit opium - the raw material for heroin - and two thirds of all opiate users take drugs of Afghan origin, according to a report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.

The UN said yesterday that unless the problem was tackled the country could be over-run by violence, corruption and terrorism. High prices for opium had recruited more farmers, spreading poppy cultivation to 28 of Afghanistan's 32 provinces, from 18 four years ago.

....He added: "Out of this drug chest, some provincial administrators and military commanders take a considerable share. The more they get used to this, the less likely it becomes that they will respect the law, be loyal to Kabul and support the legal economy. Terrorists take a cut as well: the longer this happens, the greater the threat to security."

Sounds like the terrorists are at the bottom of the feeding pool--after the politicians and military leaders.

[link via Buzzflash]

The reason we say tread with caution here is the Bush Administration's plans for the Victory Act --linking drug crimes to terrorism, redesignating them as crimes of "narco-terrorism" and upping the already draconian penalties.

We don't doubt that some of the money earned from Afghan poppy farming finds its way into the hands of terrorists. But let's not paint with too broad a brush without something more. And let's be vigilant about keeping terror laws and drug laws separate, except in such instances where the two clearly are linked. We already have laws that penalize terrorism and laws that penalize illicit drug activity. We see no need to combine them.

We realize the U.N. rather than the Bush Administration is the genesis of this new report, but we don't put it past Ashcroft and Hatch to start quoting it as support for the Victory Act.

Patrick Taylor of Open Source Politics (LegalWrites) analyzes the Department of Justice's website, Preserving Life and Liberty. The site was established to convince us all that the Patriot Act is being wrongfully maligned. Instead, Taylor says, it is "ham-fisted propaganda plain and simple." He's right. Go read his analysis.

Our prior post on the website is here.

Patrick Taylor of Open Source Politics (LegalWrites) analyzes the Department of Justice's website, Preserving Life and Liberty. The site was established to convince us all that the Patriot Act is being wrongfully maligned. Instead, Taylor says, it is "ham-fisted propaganda plain and simple." He's right. Go read his analysis.

Our prior post on the website is here.

Here's most of the transcript of Cher on C-Span: via Atrios]

Peter Slen, C-Span Moderator: Good Morning Miami Beach

caller: Good morning! Thank you for C-span, I watch it every day! Uh, I would like to say i had the occasion the other day to spend the entire day with troops that had come back from iraq & had been wounded and..um...I also visited troops during the vietnam era...but the thing that I was most shocked by...um...as I walked into the hospital the first person i ran into was a boy about 19 or 20 years old who'd lost both of his arms...and when I walked into the hosptial & visited all these boys all day long...uh...everyone had lost either one arm...one limb or two limbs or had lost one limb and there were...there were a lot of legs that seemed to be missing and a couple of the boys told me it was because that their vehicles ...that the rockets pierce the vehicles so much its like being kind of in a tin can...it doesnt have...there isnt...the walls of the humvees are very soft and theres no protection...but three guys in the same vehicle have lost a leg. ...and another thing that I saw was that...um...if they'd lost one leg that... that shrapnel that had hit the other leg had been so devastating that they were having to pull like the thigh...you know...the muscle and the thigh around the bottom of the calf to try to make the leg workable but in some cases these boys had lost one legand the other leg was so damaged that they weren't sure what they were gonna be able to do.

C-Span Moderator: Where did you spend tthe day?

caller: Walter-Reed.