The lack of judicial oversight for the executive branch's data gathering powers granted by the Act evaporates any circumstances in which the First Amendment could reasonably and effectively be used for unpopular speech or unpopular assembly.
The banking regulation amendments effectively prohibit large scale anonymous or unpopular publishing and communication/organization of effective resistance.
A shining example presently is the harassment of the social networks of Wikileaks associates and supporters. Another is the collection and use of Twitter and GSM metadata of protesters in New York.
The next time something like COINTELPRO happens, it won't have a wikipedia page for it, and those attempting to draw attention to it will be jailed indefinitely without trial.
Note that this is the same FBI that targeted Martin Luther King - but now with no sunlight. If you don't see the real, live implications of this sort of tyranny, you aren't paying attention.
The government issues over 40,000 NSLs a year, now.
What the FBI did with Martin Luther King came to light years later. Meanwhile, we're seeing their moves with regards to organizations like WikiLeaks in real time. There is far more sunlight today than there was.
National Security Letters are also wildly overblown. They are a formalization of things the FBI was already doing. With that formalization has come increased judicial oversight: the PATRIOT Act Reauthorization in 2006 gave recipients subject to the gag order recourse in court.
You think if the FBI circa 1950 wanted information from you, you'd be able to go complain to a federal court?
The banking regulation amendments effectively prohibit large scale anonymous or unpopular publishing and communication/organization of effective resistance.
A shining example presently is the harassment of the social networks of Wikileaks associates and supporters. Another is the collection and use of Twitter and GSM metadata of protesters in New York.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/fbi/fbi-informant-infilt...
The next time something like COINTELPRO happens, it won't have a wikipedia page for it, and those attempting to draw attention to it will be jailed indefinitely without trial.
Note that this is the same FBI that targeted Martin Luther King - but now with no sunlight. If you don't see the real, live implications of this sort of tyranny, you aren't paying attention.
The government issues over 40,000 NSLs a year, now.