January 28, 2005
Senators Warner and Allen and Representative Moran
Senators Warner and Allen and Representative Moran
PO Box 8208
Alexandria, VA 22306-8208
January 28, 2005
The Honorable John William Warner
United States Senate
225 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510-4601
The Honorable George F. Allen
United States Senate
204 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510-4604
The Honorable James P. Moran
U.S House of Representatives
2239 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515-4608
Dear Senators Warner and Allen and Representative Moran:
As your constituent, I urge you to support and cosponsor legislation that would ensure free speech activities are protected from unnecessary FBI spying. I do not believe the FBI or local police agencies should be able to spy on protected activities without reasonable suspicion of illegal activity. To do so otherwise is an unnecessary and unconstitutional restriction on my privacy.
New FBI spying powers are not needed. The previous guidelines never prohibited the FBI from entering mosques, other houses of worship or political meetings so long as there was reason to believe evidence of a crime or terrorism would be found. The new guidelines allow government agents to attend peaceful gatherings to spy on individual participants.
The original Attorney General guidelines were implemented in response to FBI excesses and campaigns of harassment in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. In fact, between 1960 and 1974, the FBI kept files on one million Americans, and investigated 500,000 so-called “subversives” such as Martin Luther King, Jr. — all without a single court conviction. By rolling back the protections in the original guidelines, we are returning to a situation we know has previously resulted in abuse. I don’t want to “trust” that my government will do the right thing. I want to KNOW that they will do the right thing via adherence to clear and concise guidelines.
The new guidelines are a misdirection of proper resources and a recipe for disaster. These new guidelines allow the FBI to sweep in more information about more people, even if they haven’t done anything wrong. Agents must then sift through all this useless information to try and find the needle in the haystack. The result is that we are less safe because the FBI will not be able to analyze the vast amounts of information and less free because the FBI will now be spying on innocent religious and political activity.
As a former Marine who swore an oath to Support and Defend the Constitution, I once again, I urge you to support legislation that would ensure proper protections for free speech activities.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this matter and trust you will support the Constitution and reject a further trade-off of our liberties for a false sense of security.
Sincerely,
James Landrith
February 9, 2005
Mr. James Landrith
PO BOX 8208
Alexandria, Virginia 22306-8208
Dear Mr. Landrith:
Thank you for contacting me regarding your concerns with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) using surveillance resources to watch peaceful protesters.
I appreciate your bringing this troubling matter to my attention. While I have not been made aware of any examples of the FBI participating in these sorts of activities, I remain concerned that powers given to the government under the USA PATRIOT Act have the potential for abuse that could hinder the rights of Americans.
For this reason, you may be pleased to know that I have been a cosponsor of the “SAFE Act” introduced by Representative Otter in the 108th Congress. If enacted, this bill would repeal the more controversial elements of the USA PATRIOT Act and includes putting reasonable limits on the government’s authority to obtain warrants for roving wiretaps, obtaining sneak and peek search warrants for physical evidence and reinstates protections for libraries, bookstores and businesses.
As a strong proponent of appropriate efforts to protect the intrusion of government in people’s private lives, you may be assured that I will continue to work for this legislation’s passage and to monitor these issues closely in the coming year.
Please feel free to visit my updated website at http://www.house.gov/moran that contains information on topics that may be of interest. Thank you again for contacting me.
Yours truly,
James P. Moran
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