F.B.I. Agents Get Leeway to Push Privacy Bounds

I really don't mean to turn this into a political blog. Really. But when I see these stories about privacy rights eroding, with very few people doing anything about it, I find it alarming.

WASHINGTON — The Federal Bureau of Investigation is giving significant new powers to its roughly 14,000 agents, allowing them more leeway to search databases, go through household trash or use surveillance teams to scrutinize the lives of people who have attracted their attention.

The F.B.I. recently briefed several privacy advocates about the coming changes. Among them, Michael German, a former F.B.I. agent who is now a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, argued that it was unwise to further ease restrictions on agents’ power to use potentially intrusive techniques, especially if they lacked a firm reason to suspect someone of wrongdoing. 

Source Article.


I'm not so naive to assume that every one of these changes is terrible and they all should be done away with. Some of the may be justifiable. But I fear that there really won't be anyone looking into that's in a position to truly review the new powers being assumed.