Got a Whole Lotta Rights That Are Ready to Burn

The FBI gets what it asks for, warrants or no, when it wants to know who might be having a little bit too swingin' a time in Las Vegas. Note that it didn't go asking after any specific bad guys it was hunting; it wanted to know about everyone that was there.

Comments

[A.W.]

Yeah, no warrant but they got a subpoena which is another valid method of getting the information that has been used only since... um... THE BEGINNING OF THIS REPUBLIC.

And the subpoena was only to give legal cover for the hotels in case their customers had a cow.

Really, please demonstrate to me how any of this is an innovation? The gov has been acting like this, under Dems and Republicans, for years. And you are only waking up to that reality now? Well, aren't we selective?

[dhex]

so much for "...stays in vegas" eh?

[Lonewacko: I Blogged Across Am]

"What happens in Vegas... stays in your FBI file."

"What happens in Vegas... stays in Echelon."

Someone should make up some nice posters or something parodying those TV ads and post them all over Vegas or the Internet. That'd be one way to shame these hotels into having a bit of a backbone.

I really don't think this is as usual as A.W. thinks. Usually such warrants will name a specific hotel, or a specific time, or a specific person. This was much broader than that. Here's another slogan: "With a big enough subpoena, we'll all finally be safe." (BTW, this story originally appeared in the casinocitytimes.com, then TalkLeft got it, then me and I spread it to freerepublic.com. It'd be nice to take concern for privacy away from the "liberals.")

[dude]

Wonder how useful this can be. I mean, if you're going to blow up Vegas, stay in another town that's an easy drive. Or under another name ("Abu Mohammed" is probably not a good idea). Or sleep in your car. Meanwhile the FBI gets a document dump somebody has to sort though. Maybe a computer does it and coughs up every dicey name or something.

[dude]

Wonder how useful this can be. I mean, if you're going to blow up Vegas, stay in another town that's an easy drive. Or under another name ("Abu Mohammed" is probably not a good idea). Or sleep in your car. Meanwhile the FBI gets a document dump somebody has to sort though. Maybe a computer does it and coughs up every dicey name or something.

[Tom from Texas]

When we were in Vegas a few years ago, a multi-generational Muslim famiy was staying a few rooms down from us (I'm sure doing research for a future terrorist hit). I got a kick out of seeing them walk down the hall, grandpa and the three grown sons sauntering ahead carrying little more than tubs of quarters, while many paces behind was the pack caravan of veiled wives/daughters, pushing strollers and laden with diaper bags, backpacks and older crumbcrunchers. Bowed by the weight of the bags my wife always overpacks, and the 10 billion fucking stuffed animals my kids won at various arcades, I began to wonder if there wasn't something to this Islam after all.

[Lonewacko]

In-Jean-yous idea, dude.

[Tee Hee]

Tom-

Then move to Iran already.

I mean, it's gotta be better than Texas.

[amr]

I suspect they did all this just to get the dirt on Britney.

[Tom from Texas]

Tee Hee,

Actually, last week I drove through Iraan (stet), Texas, and asked a local how the town came to get that name. He had no idea.

I can still live in Texas and reside in Moscow, Paris, Athens or Palestine, On the whole, however, I would rather be in Dimebox, Muleshoe or Cut-n-Shoot.

[Vigilance Matters]

Well what would YOU do, if you were president and needed to speak to Bill Bennett urgently?

😛

[ex-boy]

It'd be nice to take concern for privacy away from the "liberals."
It'd be nicer, Lonewacko, for everyone concerned about this matter to work together to stop such abuses of government power.
But libertarians always seem more concerned with preserving the purity of their ideological fluids than with accomplishing anything.

[Rick Barton]

"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home"
James Madison

The record of history is clear.
If we don't let our congress people know that this invasion of privacy is unacceptable, we will be hastening the demise of liberty in our republic. It CAN and WILL happen here unless we stop it. If the readers of this blog won't fight back, who will?

As Jefferson observed; Freedom is rarely lost all at once, but after much of it is forfeited, it is quite difficult to retrieve.

Our future liberty and that of our children may well depend on our taking action now.

[Jean Bart]

Andrew,

I have no idea; I am not a Parisian innkeeper. BTW, there are no Parisian police. So if the book claims that there are, well that should be an indication of the veracity of the book's claims.

Phil,

Actually, a mayor of a suburb of Paris has the "time to waste... ." Volohk of course omits that the Mayor's actions have been stopped for the time being and that this will go before the Constitutional Council soon. Oh those little facts that undermine your entire argument.

[Andrew]

Jean

This is reaching back to a novel I read a long time ago (The Day of the Jackel), but didn't French inn-keepers routinely submit guest records to the Parisian police? (Daily, I gather). I have no idea whether that would be very feasible today.

I suppose it wouldn't be the first time that what is considered scandelous in Vegas, was routine in Paris.

[Andrew]

Perhaps that was only because of the Algerian War...because of the terrorists?

[Phil]

Jean Bart is in a good position to comment, since France, having already completely conquered the threat of terrorism, has time to waste on preventing people from wearing the garb of their choice at their own civil wedding ceremonies. Which, by the way, the are legally obligated to take part in if they want to be legally married. But they can't wear a headscarf.

Slavery is freedom! Viva Le Republic!

[Jean Bart]

Welcome to the world of "anti-terrorism." 🙂

[Kevin Carson]

Tom,

My favorite was North Zulch.

A.W.,

I'm pretty sure libertarians were criticizing such jackbootism before the Bush-Ashcroft era. I've got three books by James Bovard on that theme, all written under the reign of Auntie Jen. Maybe *you* just started paying attention to criticism of civil liberties when they were criticizing Republicans.

There are a lot of Freeper types, BTW, who squealed like stuck pigs over Waco, but have been oddly silent since January 2001.