Unsafe and Insecure

Warrantless wiretaps, bad (and illegal) as they are, apparently aren't enough for Preznit Incompetent Lying Idiot and his crime family administration. The Carpetbagger Report, citing a story from U. S. News, has a post up accusing the Bushists of moving in the direction of warrantless physical searches now as well.

We've all heard, of course, about the Bush administration's warrantless-search program that included officials tapping phones and reviewing electronic communications without warrants. Moving the ball forward in a disturbing way, U.S. News published a very important story this week about an angle to warrantless searches that we hadn't heard before: physical searches.

In the dark days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a small group of lawyers from the White House and the Justice Department began meeting to debate a number of novel legal strategies to help prevent another attack. Soon after, President Bush authorized the National Security Agency to begin conducting electronic eavesdropping on terrorism suspects in the United States, including American citizens, without court approval.

Meeting in the FBI's state-of-the-art command center in the J. Edgar Hoover Building, the lawyers talked with senior FBI officials about using the same legal authority to conduct physical searches of homes and businesses of terrorism suspects — also without court approval, one current and one former government official tell U.S. News. "There was a fair amount of discussion at Justice on the warrantless physical search issue," says a former senior FBI official. "Discussions about — if [the searches] happened — where would the information go, and would it taint cases."

FBI Director Robert Mueller was alarmed by the proposal, the two officials said, and pushed back hard against it. "Mueller was personally very concerned," one official says, "not only because of the blowback issue but also because of the legal and constitutional questions raised by warrantless physical searches."

The article suggests the administration hasn't searched homes and businesses in the United States without warrants — but that Bush officials believe they could do this whenever they want. (More...)

Of course, if you've got nothing to hide (or steal), you shouldn't be afraid of government agents rifling through your personal effects, right? I'm sure every good Bush-supporter out there would be more than happy to do his or her patriotic duty and let the police or the FBI take a good, close look into their closets and drawers and under their beds. Really, it's the American thing to do.