Bigawd, if people didn't have anything to hide they wouldn't fear their friendly local FBI. It's only the criminals who are afraid of this sort of thing.
Good on them. That right-wing is vigilance at it's best.

God bless the right-wing.

Gotta couple of stories. Friend of mine was defending a couple of Native Americans who he said were "set up" by the FBI on a murder charge. A couple of guys who had been raiding Native American graves and selling artifacts for years had been murdered.

Agents were prosecution witnesses, had precious few notes or pictures, no real hard copies of their activity.

On cross my friend asked them about notes, photos, etc. The agents denied having any. Over and over, in every way he could think of, until the judge told him to move on.

That night my friend called William Kunstler, got through, and asked if he had any ideas.

Kunstler laughed, told my friend that the FBI calls hard copies of information by the form number of their memos. Suggested he ask for something like a "BK-30". That's not it, but it was something.

Next day he asked them for the memos by their number. They said they did have some. The judge gave them 2 hours to bring them in or he was going to have them in jail along with the SAIC for obstruction of justice. They brought in two boxes of stuff. The defendents were found not guilty.

In the '60s a friend of mine in grad school ran afoul of the FBI. He was an intense SOB, and though Caucasian was involved in Black Power stuff.

He got a package from his local mailman one day. Knock on the door, handed a steel box about the size of a cigar box, welded shut. Was labelled "Curry Powder", and had a return address from India.

He accepted it, and right behind the mailman were 6 cops. The box had some heroin, no curry powder.

Went to court, it turned out he could establish he had no connection with the stuff, the package had not been mailed from India, and there was no real indication of the origin. The judge said he was convinced the FBI mailed it to the guy to get rid of him. My friend couldn't follow up on it, as it had been covered fairly well. He did have a "Get Out Of Jail Free" pass for a few years. No one wanted him to chase that down.overed fairly well. Not perfectly, but fairly well.

Did you know, the FBI can lie to you about anything, everything, and if you lie to them you will go to jail. About anything, no matter how relevant, should they decide to pursue it.

Some of us don't wonder that Ashcroft has to cover Justice. Can't stand the scrutiny of her watching over him.

And, the conservatives should be happy. Freedom is just abused by most people, and only people with something to hide would object to surveillance. Only someone who wanted another WTC would object to helping the authorities.

Some liberals know you just can't trust ANYTHING called the "Patriot Act".

Arf