Privacy Abuse Linkfest

A commentor in my previous post about our government’s increasingly paranoid information collection tactics provided this massive list of stories, so I’m passing them along:

• FBI apologizes to lawyer held in Madrid bombings: Link
• Homeland Security saves America by busting a toy store owner for legally selling a Rubik’s Cube knockoff: Link
• FBI invokes Patriot Act for Criminal Copyright Infringement: Link
• Though warned in 2001 to use this power sparingly, FBI agents issued more than 47,000 National Security Letters in 2005, more than half of which targeted Americans: Link
• Drug-tunnel bust aided by controversial provision of USA Patriot Act: Link
• FBI Improperly Used Patriot Act to Gain Information on Citizens, Justice Department Says: Link
• Search Records Requests under Patriot Act Ruled Unconstitutional: Link
• Police invoked the Patriot Act when surreptitiously entering and searching a home or office without notifying the owner 108 times during a 22-month period, according to a one-page summary released by the Justice Department: Link
• Police Log Confirms FBI Role In Arrests of anti-War Protesters: Link
• Patriot Act smackdown: Librarians 1, FBI 0: Link
• FBI Papers Indicate Intelligence Violations: Link
• After 9/11: The War on Immigrants: Link
• Patriot Act report documents civil rights complaints:
  Link
• ACLU, Muslims sue FBI over mosque surveillance: Link
• Patriot Act used to round up “eco-terrorists.”: Link

It should give us all a good idea exactly what our government is doing to make sure we’re safe from Rubik’s Cube knockoffs, war protestors, library books, copyright infringers, lawyers and immigrants.

I know I feel safer…