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Perry Metzger on NSA surveillance of US citizens    [ Politics ]

"As you may all be aware, the New York Times has reported, and the administration has admitted, that President of the United States apparently ordered the NSA to conduct surveillance operations against US citizens without prior permission of the secret court known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (the "FISC"). This is in clear contravention of 50 USC 1801 - 50 USC 1811, a portion of the US code that provides for clear criminal penalties for violations.
...
The President claims he has the prerogative to order such surveillance. The law unambiguously disagrees with him."

- from A Small Editorial About Recent Events by Perry Metzger.

The Security Threat of Unchecked Presidential Power    [ Politics ]

"This past Thursday, the New York Times exposed the most significant violation of federal surveillance law in the post-Watergate era. President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to engage in domestic spying, wiretapping thousands of Americans and bypassing the legal procedures regulating this activity.

This isn't about the spying, although that's a major issue in itself. This is about the Fourth Amendment protections against illegal search. This is about circumventing a teeny tiny check by the judicial branch, placed there by the legislative branch, placed there 27 years ago -- on the last occasion that the executive branch abused its power so broadly."

- from The Security Threat of Unchecked Presidential Power by Bruce Schneier.

Retail vs Wholesale Surveillance    [ Politics ]

Bruce Schneier has a good essay on the Bush administration's use of illegal NSA surveillance.

... and then they came for me    [ Politics ]

"Once the war began ... resistance, protest, criticism, complaint, all carried with them a multiplied likelihood of the greatest punishment. Mere lack of enthusiasm, or failure to show it in public, was ‘defeatism.’ You assumed that there were lists of those who would be ‘dealt with’ later, after the victory."

They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45