This sounds like suppression to me. Of the worst kind possible. Like that which was seen in the old Russia and other repressive countries like some of those in the middle east. It makes me wonder about how much freedom one really has in the USA...
Discussion Topic
Life Under An FBI Gag Order
Posted on 11/06/09, 10:57 am
Librarians Describe Life Under An FBI Gag Order
Life in an FBI muzzle is no fun. Two Connecticut librarians on Sunday described what it was like to be slapped with an FBI national security letter and accompanying gag order. It sounded like a spy movie or, gulp, something that happens under a repressive foreign government. Peter Chase and Barbara Bailey, librarians in Plainville, Connecticut, received an NSL to turn over computer records in their library on July 13, 2005. Unlike a suspected thousands of other people around the country, Chase, Bailey and two of their colleagues stood up to the Man and refused to comply, convinced that the feds had no right to intrude on anyone's privacy without a court order (NSLs don't require a judge's approval). That's when things turned ugly.
The four librarians under the gag order weren't allowed to talk to each other by phone. So they e-mailed. Later, they weren't allowed to e-mail.
After the ACLU took on the case and it went to court in Bridgeport, the librarians were not allowed to attend their own hearing. Instead, they had to watch it on closed circuit TV from a locked courtroom in Hartford, 60 miles away. "Our presence in the courtroom was declared a threat to national security," Chase said.
Forced to make information public as the case moved forward, the government resorted to one of its favorite tactics: releasing heavily redacted versions of documents while outing anyone who didn't roll over for Uncle Sam. In this case, they named Chase, despite the fact that he was legally compelled to keep his own identity secret.
Then the phone started ringing. Pesky reporters wanted info. One day, the AP called Chase's house and got his son, Sam, on the phone. When Chase got home, he took one look at his son's face. "I could tell something was very wrong," he said. Sam told him the AP had called saying that Chase was being investigated by the FBI.
"What's going on?", Sam asked his father. Chase couldn't tell him. For months, he worried about what his son must have been thinking. As the case moved forward, the librarians had to resort to regular duplicity with co-workers and family mysteriously disappearing from work without an explanation, secretly convening in subway stations, dancing around the truth for months. The ACLU even advised Chase to move to a safehouse.
After the Bridgeport court ruled that the librarians constitutional rights had been violated, the government appealed the decision to U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Around the same time, the Congressional spin machine kicked into overdrive. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin) wrote an op-ed in USA Today that said:
"Zero. That's the number of substantiated USA Patriot Act civil liberties violations. Extensive congressional oversight found no violations. Six reports by the Justice Department's independent inspector general, who is required to solicit and investigate any allegations of abuse, found no violations."
Once President Bush reauthorized the Patriot Act, the FBI lifted the librarians' gag order. "By withdrawing the gag order before the court had made a decision, they withdrew the case from scrutiny," Chase said.
This eliminated the possibility that the NSL provisions would be struck down.
Today, the Connecticut librarians are the only ones who can talk about life with an NSL gag, despite the likelihood that there are hundreds if not thousands of other similar stories out there. "Everyone else who would speak about is subject to a five year prison term," Chase said.
The prison term for violating the gag order was added to the reauthorized Patriot Act.
Life in an FBI muzzle is no fun. Two Connecticut librarians on Sunday described what it was like to be slapped with an FBI national security letter and accompanying gag order. It sounded like a spy movie or, gulp, something that happens under a repressive foreign government. Peter Chase and Barbara Bailey, librarians in Plainville, Connecticut, received an NSL to turn over computer records in their library on July 13, 2005. Unlike a suspected thousands of other people around the country, Chase, Bailey and two of their colleagues stood up to the Man and refused to comply, convinced that the feds had no right to intrude on anyone's privacy without a court order (NSLs don't require a judge's approval). That's when things turned ugly.
The four librarians under the gag order weren't allowed to talk to each other by phone. So they e-mailed. Later, they weren't allowed to e-mail.
After the ACLU took on the case and it went to court in Bridgeport, the librarians were not allowed to attend their own hearing. Instead, they had to watch it on closed circuit TV from a locked courtroom in Hartford, 60 miles away. "Our presence in the courtroom was declared a threat to national security," Chase said.
Forced to make information public as the case moved forward, the government resorted to one of its favorite tactics: releasing heavily redacted versions of documents while outing anyone who didn't roll over for Uncle Sam. In this case, they named Chase, despite the fact that he was legally compelled to keep his own identity secret.
Then the phone started ringing. Pesky reporters wanted info. One day, the AP called Chase's house and got his son, Sam, on the phone. When Chase got home, he took one look at his son's face. "I could tell something was very wrong," he said. Sam told him the AP had called saying that Chase was being investigated by the FBI.
"What's going on?", Sam asked his father. Chase couldn't tell him. For months, he worried about what his son must have been thinking. As the case moved forward, the librarians had to resort to regular duplicity with co-workers and family mysteriously disappearing from work without an explanation, secretly convening in subway stations, dancing around the truth for months. The ACLU even advised Chase to move to a safehouse.
After the Bridgeport court ruled that the librarians constitutional rights had been violated, the government appealed the decision to U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Around the same time, the Congressional spin machine kicked into overdrive. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin) wrote an op-ed in USA Today that said:
"Zero. That's the number of substantiated USA Patriot Act civil liberties violations. Extensive congressional oversight found no violations. Six reports by the Justice Department's independent inspector general, who is required to solicit and investigate any allegations of abuse, found no violations."
Once President Bush reauthorized the Patriot Act, the FBI lifted the librarians' gag order. "By withdrawing the gag order before the court had made a decision, they withdrew the case from scrutiny," Chase said.
This eliminated the possibility that the NSL provisions would be struck down.
Today, the Connecticut librarians are the only ones who can talk about life with an NSL gag, despite the likelihood that there are hundreds if not thousands of other similar stories out there. "Everyone else who would speak about is subject to a five year prison term," Chase said.
The prison term for violating the gag order was added to the reauthorized Patriot Act.
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Reply #1 11/06/09 11:00am
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Reply #2 11/06/09 11:01am
Now this is strange... I see it finally posted, but the first time I posted my above comment, I got a notice saying 'no such post exist in the group.' SPOOKY! Maybe the FBI is watching?
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Reply #3 11/06/09 11:05am
[Theme from X Files plays] -
Reply #4 11/06/09 11:06am
No kidding Bear... This is like something out of one of Orson Wells's novels. -
Reply #5 11/06/09 11:54am
[Theme from Twilight Zone plays in background]
You have stepped into the Twilight Zone. Where reality is a dream and dreams are reality. Nothing appears as it seems and everything is real. The FBI under Hoover had more dirt on more people than the CIA could find on Castro. Today they probably have files on just about everyone. I know they have a pretty thick file on me. I could probably request a copy of it but I wonder what it would look like. They had to investigate me in 1965 for a Top Secret clearance. More than once too since my TS Clearance was updated when an even higher clearance when I transferred to Omaha, Nebraska and worked at Headquarter SAC. I had to have it updated even more when I became part of Operation Looking Glass, the airborne mobile command center for SAC. So I know they have a file on me. Makes one wonder who else they have them on.
I know Peter Chase and this is something he really does not talk about a lot unless asked. To hear him tell it personally is scary as hell. To go around not being able to say anything and people knowing you are under investigation is not fun. Glad he and Barbara got through it. Now Plainville Library is under fire again. This time because one of those arrested for the Pettit killings wrote a book that is out now. The alledged killer has not even gone to trial yet and the book is out. The town is trying to get the library to withdraw the book before it arrives. The Library has something like 43 people on a waiting list to read the book. If anyone does not know what happened, google Pettit and the Cheshire killings. -
Reply #6 11/06/09 12:46pm
Uh Orson Welles never wrote a novel ? -
Reply #7 11/06/09 12:52pm
The town I lived in when I first came to Alaska had a standing policy on the front door of the Library saying that they would not comply with any Unauthorized requests for Library Records by the FBI or anyone else. The courts still have the option of pursuing an obvious breach of Constitutional Rights. -
Reply #8 11/06/09 1:41pm
You are right Druid. My bad. I was thinking of Orwell's 1984. -
Reply #9 11/06/09 9:06pm
H.G. Wells did War of the Worlds. Orson Wells was an actor was he not? -
Reply #10 11/06/09 10:35pm
Yes. I was thinking of Orwells 1984, the one about Big Brother watching us.
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