Recently in Civic Liberties Category

Via Crooks and Liars, we see CNN's Jack Cafferty get right at the point when discussing the FBI's abuses of the horribly misnamed PATRIOT Act:

"This is the kind of stuff that happens when the war on terror is used as an excuse to circumvent our civil liberties, which has become the hallmark of the Bush administration."

Why does the Bush Administration hate the Constitution and the Bill of Rights so much? Over at the DailyKos, BruinKid quotes from an AP story about the new terrorism bill:

WASHINGTON - U.S. citizens suspected of terror ties might be detained indefinitely and barred from access to civilian courts under legislation proposed by the Bush administration, say legal experts reviewing an early version of the bill.

A 32-page draft measure is intended to authorize the Pentagon's tribunal system, established shortly after the 2001 terrorist attacks to detain and prosecute detainees captured in the war on terror. The tribunal system was thrown out last month by the Supreme Court.

Our system of government is not designed to be dependent on the executive branch showing good judgement. There are supposed to be checks and balances. Separated powers.

U.S. citizens can be detained indefinitely and barred from the civilian courts based on very broad and vague guidelines.

Hello, Congress? It's time to defend the Constitution. Actually, it's well past time.

Here's another example of our run-amok Congress. CNET News's Declan McCullagh reports:

Annoying someone via the Internet is now a federal crime.

It's no joke. Last Thursday, President Bush signed into law a prohibition on posting annoying Web messages or sending annoying e-mail messages without disclosing your true identity.

In other words, it's OK to flame someone on a mailing list or in a blog as long as you do it under your real name. Thank Congress for small favors, I guess.

McCullagh provides an example showing why this measure is really a huge problem in a supposedly free society:

Think about it: A woman fired by a manager who demanded sexual favors wants to blog about it without divulging her full name. An aspiring pundit hopes to set up the next Suck.com. A frustrated citizen wants to send e-mail describing corruption in local government without worrying about reprisals.

In each of those three cases, someone's probably going to be annoyed. That's enough to make the action a crime. (The Justice Department won't file charges in every case, of course, but trusting prosecutorial discretion is hardly reassuring.)

The president could order the Justice Department not to enforce this obviously unconstitutional law. If any Republicans out there still cared about limited government, they would lead the charge to see this law overturned.

(Hat tip: Atrios.)

Over at Sivacracy.net, we learn how a civics student can become an enemy of the state thanks to the folks at Wal-Mart.

Via Majikthise, we read a stunning concurring opinion in a Montana Supreme Court decision giving police the right to rummage through garbage without a warrant or court approval.

Justice James C. Nelson concurred with the decision, but at least he welcomed us to Orwell's 1984 while doing it. So at least we have that going for us:

And, I also know that my most unwelcome and paternalistic relative, Uncle Sam, is with me from womb to tomb. Fueled by the paranoia of "ists" and "isms," Sam has the capability of spying on everything and everybody--and no doubt is. But, as Sam says: "It's for my own good."

In short, I know that my personal information is recorded in databases, servers, hard drives and file cabinets all over the world. I know that these portals to the most intimate details of my life are restricted only by the degree of sophistication and goodwill or malevolence of the person, institution, corporation or government that wants access to my data.

I also know that much of my life can be reconstructed from the contents of my garbage can.

I don't like living in Orwell's 1984; but I do. And, absent the next extinction event or civil libertarians taking charge of the government (the former being more likely than the latter), the best we can do is try to keep Sam and the sub-Sams on a short leash.

As our Opinion states, search and seizure jurisprudence is centered around privacy expectations and reasonableness considerations. That is true even under the extended protections afforded by Montana's Constitution, Article II, Sections 10. and 11. We have ruled within those parameters. And, as is often the case, we have had to draw a fine line in a gray area. Justice Cotter and those who have signed the Opinion worked hard at defining that line; and I am satisfied we've drawn it correctly on the facts of this case and under the conventional law of abandonment.

That said, if this Opinion is used to justify a sweep of the trash cans of a neighborhood or community; or if a trash dive for Sudafed boxes and matchbooks results in DNA or fingerprints being added to a forensic database or results in personal or business records, credit card receipts, personal correspondence or other property being archived for some future use unrelated to the case at hand, then, absent a search warrant, I may well reconsider my legal position and approach to these sorts of cases--even if I have to think outside the garbage can to get there.