Build Date: Mon Nov 9 13:02:38 2026 UTC
If you don't
have political opinions, I will personally break down your door and
curbstomp you.
-- Miles Standish
Start paying cash
2007-01-14 08:54:08
Banal, perhaps, but never boring: your Pentagon and her National Security Letters!
The Pentagon has been using a little-known power to obtain banking and credit records of hundreds of Americans and others suspected of terrorism or espionage inside the United States, part of an aggressive expansion by the military into domestic intelligence gathering.
The C.I.A. has also been issuing what are known as national security letters to gain access to financial records from American companies, though it has done so only rarely, intelligence officials say.
Banks, credit card companies and other financial institutions receiving the letters usually have turned over documents voluntarily, allowing investigators to examine the financial assets and transactions of American military personnel and civilians, officials say.
The F.B.I., the lead agency on domestic counterterrorism and espionage, has issued thousands of national security letters since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, provoking criticism and court challenges from civil liberties advocates who see them as unjustified intrusions into Americans’ private lives.
But it was not previously known, even to some senior counterterrorism officials, that the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency have been using their own “noncompulsory” versions of the letters. Congress has rejected several attempts by the two agencies since 2001 for authority to issue mandatory letters, in part because of concerns about the dangers of expanding their role in domestic spying.
T O P S T O R I E S
John Dvorak has passed. I’m of mixed emotions. First off I’m more positive about his contribution to the overall technology journalism of the early PC days through the 90s, despite how many things he got wrong. He was a firebrand and commanded attention. (More...)
America's National Recording Registry Inducts Culturally Significant Artist - Weezer!
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California Glory Hole attracts huge crowds
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Republican State Senator busted after soliciting a teenage girl
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Parents claim measles is not that bad after having only one child die
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C L A S S I C P I G D O G
Canadians Not So Different After All
Nobody wants to be prejudiced. But sometimes you can be biased and not even realize it. I think many Americans are biased in this way against Canadians. I never really stopped to think about it, but I myself used to be this way. I guess I thought that Canadians were "stuck-up" — you know, smarter and better cultured than us. But then I got educated about Canadia. (More...)
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Australian Troops Set for Days of Debauchery to the Tunes of Kylie Minogue
This weekend Australian troops in East Timor will be able to put their feet up and push all the images of mass graves and charred remains from their minds as they relax to the giddy melodies of Kylie Minogue - including exclusive unplugged performances in the militia-ravaged and blood-spattered border towns of Balibo and Suai. (More...)
Patient Joab's scientifick editorial discusses aspect of the space-time-beer continuum never before processed by sub-bush-robot minds!!! Too fabulantastic to contempulate! (More...)
Yet another delicious SPOCKTAIL from the SMRL Beverage Science Labs! Check under the cap for your chance to win thousands of fabulous prizes! (More...)
A Nobel Prize-Winning Author Describes Liquor
Curled up cozy with a good book? All warm and snuggly and thinking about friends far away? So am I, reading the greatest story by the greatest writer -- when he suddenly starts waxing philosophical about liquor! (More...)
