IP: PATRIOT Act creates Intelligence Behemoth

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33340-2001Nov3.html

Molded by wartime politics and passed a week and a half ago in furious 
haste, the new anti-terrorism bill lays the foundation for a domestic 
intelligence-gathering system of unprecedented scale and technological 
prowess, according to both supporters and critics of the legislation.
Overshadowed by the public focus on new Internet surveillance and "roving 
wiretaps" were numerous obscure features in the bill that will enable the 
Bush administration to make fundamental changes at the Federal Bureau of 
Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency and several Treasury 
Department law enforcement agencies

<snip>

The new law reflects how profoundly the attacks changed the nation's 
thinking about the balance between domestic security and civil liberties. 
The bill effectively tears down legal fire walls erected 25 years ago 
during the Watergate era, when the nation was stunned by disclosures about 
presidential abuses of domestic intelligence-gathering against political 
activists.



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