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Every 37 Years We Learn Something New

By TChris, Section Civil Liberties
Posted on Tue Jul 01, 2008 at 12:24:55 AM EST
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So now we learn that 37 years ago, the FBI illegally wiretapped phone phreak Joe Engressia because J. Edgar Hoover deemed him a threat to national security (because only the FBI should be entrusted to do illegal things with telephones). What do you suppose we'll be learning about 37 years from now?

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    Every 37 Years We Learn Something New | 14 comments (14 topical)

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    I Cringe To Think (5.00 / 1) (#1)
    by creeper on Tue Jul 01, 2008 at 02:41:38 AM EST
    but I'd guess what we'll be learning is just how much money Bush's friends made during his administration.  

    Let's face it.  The worst is already known about the crooks in office now, at least insofar as their seizure and abuse of all power is concerned.  But we haven't begun to scratch the surface of the insider deals.

    without a free press (5.00 / 1) (#11)
    by nellre on Tue Jul 01, 2008 at 08:06:40 AM EST
    we don't stand a chance if the press continues to be hypnotized by it's own image, and whores itself to the "powers that be".

    "The most effectual engines for [pacifying a nation] are the public papers... [A despotic] government always [keeps] a kind of standing army of newswriters who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, [invent] and put into the papers whatever might serve the ministers. This suffices with the mass of the people who have no means of distinguishing the false from the true paragraphs of a newspaper." --Thomas Jefferson to G. K. van Hogendorp, Oct. 13, 1785. (*) ME 5:181, Papers 8:632

    oh... (none / 0) (#2)
    by Alec82 on Tue Jul 01, 2008 at 03:18:36 AM EST
    ...I expect some info on the disastrous "intelligence" that led us to war...although I doubt it will take 37 years. For what it is worth, it is out there now.

     

    Socialism (none / 0) (#3)
    by Wile ECoyote on Tue Jul 01, 2008 at 05:30:22 AM EST
    doesn't work.

    Don't you mean crony capitalism? (none / 0) (#12)
    by Molly Bloom on Tue Jul 01, 2008 at 08:29:00 AM EST
    When did we try socialism anyway?

    Parent
    We're humans.... (none / 0) (#13)
    by kdog on Tue Jul 01, 2008 at 08:40:40 AM EST
    no system "works", because they all involve humans.

    I'm starting to learn towards anarchy as the best non-working system...sh*t's f*cked no matter what, may as well be free eh?

    Parent

    The outrages today aren't even illegal. (none / 0) (#4)
    by Calvados on Tue Jul 01, 2008 at 06:13:33 AM EST
    Perhaps it took a depression to get the people into office who found it wise to pass laws protecting privacy in the then-modern medium of telephony.

    Between recent capitulation on FISA and the lack of any serious privacy legislation on non-medical personal data, much of the information that agencies would want to use to observe people can be obtained legally, though the FOIA requests 37 years hence will be disturbing nonetheless.

    Perhaps we should vote for whichever presidential candidate is more likely to destroy the economy.  Another depression might finally induce us to elect people more intent on protecting our rights than taking them away in favor of either corporations or an oligarchy.

    Well, I don't know about 37 years from (none / 0) (#5)
    by Anne on Tue Jul 01, 2008 at 07:38:57 AM EST
    now, but I was interested to read this in my morning newspaper today:

    It was a painful moment for Baltimore's chief narcotics prosecutor when he recently dismissed drug-dealing charges against three men and said in court that they were not guilty.

    Assistant State's Attorney Antonio Gioia later said the case was tainted by dishonest police work by two veteran police officers, who he believes lied in court documents to justify the arrests, and at least two others.

    Concerned that the Baltimore Police Department was slow to act, Gioia and his team of prosecutors launched their own investigation into Detective Deryl Turner and Sgt. Allen Adkins.

    He said the investigation uncovered enough evidence of wrongdoing to ban the officers from testifying in court, and prosecutors are now dropping all cases in which their testimony is crucial to winning a conviction.

    While I'm glad these officers won't be compromising cases, I would be interested in your take on the issues here - should they have been fired?  Is it right for prosecutors to simply refuse to bring cases where these officers were involved, if the officers have not been convicted of anything?

    The more I read the article, the more questions I have.

    The prosecution (none / 0) (#8)
    by jccamp on Tue Jul 01, 2008 at 07:57:59 AM EST
    has an ethical responsibility to only present testimony that it believes to be truthful. If the prosecutors in Baltimore believe that specific individuals have perjured themselves in the past, and cannot be presented as truthful, then those witnesses can (and should), in effect, be banned as the basis for future prosecutions.
    Other jurisdictions have done the same thing in the past, even in cases where civil service protections have prevented the employees suspected of lying from being terminated.

    The processes - prosecutors selecting witnesses and governmental boards deciding job actions - are separate and can reach differing conclusions on the same conduct.

    Parent

    Will anyone care? (none / 0) (#7)
    by MO Blue on Tue Jul 01, 2008 at 07:53:26 AM EST
    The thing that probably upset me the very most about this whole FISA issue was the fact that there was not wholesale outrage by the American public.

    Large segments of the original "outraged" crowd are now willing to forgo their outrage and objection because "their guy" is now part of the problem.

    Who will stand against the government spying on its citizens 37 years from now when it has been reduced to "no big thing" in this generation?

    i think most people understand that (none / 0) (#9)
    by sancho on Tue Jul 01, 2008 at 08:01:52 AM EST
    once the technology exists to be "spied" upon, one will be "spied" upon if the govt., or someone in the govt., thinks it has a compelling interest to spy upon you. ultimately, the issue is about technology and what it allows and not about laws that might quixotically be said to contain the technology, desireable as those may be.

    one has to get off the information/communication grid not to be easily observed. most of us like being on the grid.

    Parent

    More of the Same? (none / 0) (#10)
    by CoralGables on Tue Jul 01, 2008 at 08:01:55 AM EST
    37 years from now we will be discussing more illegal wiretaps and more falsely imprisoned inmates on death row. And probably more cases of executing innocents since Florida Governor Charlie Crist on Monday said he would like to see executions accelerate.

    In 37 years... (none / 0) (#14)
    by kdog on Tue Jul 01, 2008 at 08:46:56 AM EST
    maybe we'll stop jailing people over plants....and laugh at how we used to...but that's will probably take 370 years....we are stupid beasts sometimes.

    Watching the Corby documentary last night, I kept waiting for someone to say executing (or caging for 20 years) a human being over a bag of reefer is the height of cruel barbaric stupidity...but no one did.  Instead they insisted on her inncocence of the heinous "crime", which may well be, but regardless of innocence or guilt...the real crime is a barbaric criminal justice system in Bali and most of the world.

    that they illegally wiretapped (none / 0) (#15)
    by cpinva on Tue Jul 01, 2008 at 11:14:47 AM EST
    someone else.

    What do you suppose we'll be learning about 37 years from now?

    and illegally went through their email, etc.

    any other questions i can answer for you?

    Every 37 Years We Learn Something New | 14 comments (14 topical)

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