Who's Watching You Surf?

Privacy watchdog groups and members of Congress are making grim guesses about how often the FBI peeks into records of U.S. citizens' Internet activity and phone calls.
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But because the Department of Justice has blocked much of the content of its reports, the watchdogs can't get enough information to draw conclusions...............

According to the FISA court's own records, spying orders approved by the secret court jumped 30 percent between 2001 and 2002. However, federal and state court orders approving surveillance dropped by 6 percent, say recently released government reports.

It's impossible to glean from this data exactly how many people, hard drives, or Web site visits are being monitored. But the conclusion that some privacy advocates have come to is that the Justice Department is dispensing with normal procedure and going straight to the foreign-intelligence court...................................

Congress has also requested reports on how the Justice Department uses the Patriot Act. The response has not entirely satisfied some citizens' groups, however.

The recent rise in surveillance approved by the FISA court--which targets only non-Americans--is due to the war on terrorism, and has helped to prevent subsequent attacks on U.S. soil, say Justice Department representatives.

Attorney General John Ashcroft, testifying recently before the House Judiciary Committee for the first time since September 2001, said the government needs more powers to fight terrorism and is seeking to extend the Patriot Act past its 2005 expiration date.

But Ashcroft did not address what kinds of records the government could subpoena under that law. ....................

The Senate is considering a similar bill, introduced in February.

The Domestic Surveillance Oversight Act (S. 436) plans to "assess over time whether the government has turned more of its powerful surveillance techniques on its own citizens, as opposed to non-U.S. persons," says Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), who cointroduced it.

"I always feel very uncomfortable" about government surveillance, says Senator Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), a cosponsor of the bill.

Leahy was joined in introducing the bill by Senators Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania). The measure is in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

If the bill becomes law, it would also require annual reports about how many citizens' financial, library, and educational records the Justice Department seized or read. Grassley says it is intended to circumvent the "roadblocks" to transparency set up by the Justice Department and the FBI................................

Though critics worry that the FBI will entrap innocent people under FISA, Corallo says the government established the secret court to prevent the type of FBI and CIA abuses performed during the Cold War.

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the patriot act, is infringing upon our rights as a people, and could easily be used to put us in a state of New World Order, and martial law. a growing minority belive that the united states government had a large role in the events of nine eleven. bush, is likely going to be relelected, the democrats are in chaos, and no candidate has a real way out of this war on terror. before the election in 2oo4, i can almost guarntee, some event that will give bush enough support to win again, push us again, into four more years of suffering. i as an american, am not going to take this sitting down, nor will i take it at all. we will restore patriotism, honor, and most of all the constitution. i know many agree with my sentiment. and we have many options available to us. civil disobidience will not work in this case. we face too determined a government, to fall to the tactics of mandela, or ghandi. we must fight. we must, get up, pick up our arms, and take back our government.