[Population: One] <A HREF="http://popone.innocence.com/ar

[bryant]

The words chilling effect come to mind, somehow. (Via regis.) This is an isolated incident — perhaps. It’s a story told by a liberal — certainly. I don’t care. This shouldn’t happen. If I call the FBI and report that someone was reading something suspicious, that’s not an incident. That’s someone reading.

A few months ago, I got one of those scam emails from someone pretending to be Paypal. I called the Boston FBI office to report it. I literally couldn’t get someone to take my report. “Did you lose over $5,000?” “Well, no.” “Sorry, we don’t deal with cases in which nobody lost $5,000.”

But apparently they deal with cases where someone was reading a suspicious, liberal-slanting printout. Nice to see where the priorities are.

The good people over at the Volohk Conspiracy have written extensively on the Patriot Act. The general thrust of their argument is that the Patriot Act does not give the government rights it would not otherwise have. I submit that while this may be literally true, there are other factors at work.

If law enforcement officials perceive the Patriot Act as permitting certain types of actions, they are more likely to carry out those actions whether or not it actually permits them. It’s a question of perceived permission. While injustices thus created will (hopefully) get ironed out eventually, that is not entirely a comfort to those caught in such injustices. Chilling effect.

And now people are calling the FBI on bearded guys reading liberal editorials in public. Good thing I don’t have a beard.

Comments

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

What makes it hit home for me is that I am also a Semitic-looking bearded man...who has been to the Caribou Coffee on Powers Ferry. (If I'm thinking of the right Caribou Coffee.) At first I was willing to somewhat nervously accept the explanation at the end of the article, i.e. that the FBI does have to investigate any evidence of terrorism--but you're right, this wasn't evidence, this was reading. Yikes.

[genitiggie.livejournal.com]

Yow. I'm glad I don't live your side of the canal any more.

[bryant]

Well, as long as you stay on the continent you're more or less OK.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,999605,00.html

Careful

[(Anonymous)]

This is Earl.

People should save their invective for real cases of abuse - we are not short of those - but in this case, polite gov't agents showed up and followed up a tip (we do not >know< what the FBI was told by the tipster) that turned out to be bogus. While this is a waste of time and effort, this has always been a hazard of law enforcement. You should be concerned about jerks in coffeehouses here, not the FBI in this instance.
[Since I will lay good money that the tip did not say "reading suspicious liberal-slanting printout", your comparison of e-mail scams to this tip seems excessive. Unleash the rhetoric on serious abuses, please, or you cheapen it.]

Re: Careful

[bryant]

Well, we do know that the identifying item for them was the papers. Here's the money quote:

"Someone in the shop that day saw you reading something, and thought it looked suspicious enough to call us about."

Now, sure, I'm betting that the tipster didn't say "I caught him reading Noam Chomsky." But there are two possibilities here, assuming the story we're told is accurate.

Either a) the tipster didn't get a clear view of the papers, or b) he did get a clear view of them. This further divides into i) he gave an accurate report, or ii) he gave an inaccurate report.

I'd say that an accurate report in either case (a) or (b) is not justification for the FBI to ask a guy questions. I don't want to live in a country in which the government feels justified in following up tips which consist of "I saw some dangerous-looking person reading something that I couldn't see clearly."

And I probably don't. Chances are the report was inaccurate. Chances are the tipster claimed it was something like bomb-making instructions, god knows.

However, based on what the FBI was willing to tell him, they followed up on a wholly insufficient tip. I don't think it's reasonable to expect us to make excuses for the FBI. The agents had every opportunity to tell Mark exactly what he was being accused of, either during or after the interview. They gave him information which, on the face of it, doesn't justify what they did.

I'm not being alarmist based on anything I've made up. I'm being alarmed based on the content of what Mark Schultz says the FBI told him.

Consider: if they'd said "A guy called us and said he saw you reading bomb-making instructions," there'd be no issue here. Clearly the FBI needs to investigate that right now. But that's not what they said.

Re: Careful

[(Anonymous)]

Earl again:

Yes - you should be alarmed >at your fellow citizens<.
I repeat - polite gov't agents checked out a tip that was bogus, and sufficiently important to look into - this is not unreasonable behavior on the part of any gov't agent. The FBI did >not< specify the tip, nor was it their duty to disclose to him their tip (especially if it was "bomb instructions"). Consider: what professional law enforcement agents tell the interviewee what the tip was? The agents asked him questions specific enough to elicit answers, without too much leading of the witness.
Imagine your sister as the FBI agent(s) (easy for me). I repeat: you should be deploying your rhetoric against the tipster here, not the FBI.