Title:
Michigan Wiretapping: A Law You Can not Live with
Author:
Ghazey Aleck
Date:
3/14/2002
Year:
2002
Article:
03/14/2002
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Ghazey Aleck
1-800-608-7375
The next time you place an order by credit card on your phone or call your mother you may have to wonder exactly who is listening in. Through no fault of your own, you may be giving valuable and personal information to complete strangers you have never met.
This information could then be used for a number of nefarious purposes: to discredit political activists, to make purchases on your credit card, or even to steal your identity. And worst of all, it will be legal to obtain such information from your private discussions in Michigan if a new wiretapping law passes.
The Michigan State Senate recently passed Senate Bill 803 and if it becomes law, you or someone you love could be the target of Michigan’s new secret police. The new secret police will be able to enter your home, place listening devices, rifle through your computer and never tell you they were even there. Not only could they be listening in on your activities, you might be one of the 169 (on average) innocent people who are overheard by each of these cloak and dagger operations.
Government officials have abused surveillance operations for as long as these techniques have been in available. In the 1960’s, J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI, with the permission of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, got permission to do ‘wiretapping’ on none other than Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. What did Hoover do with this information? He leaked portions to the press to discredit Dr. King and his cause and portray him as a communist.
If passed, it is possible ambitious politicians like Gubernatorial candidate Jennifer Granholm, who under the new law gets to approve (hand pick) the judges who would approve the wiretaps, could use this law to spy on her political rivals and leak information to the press or things even worse, not to mention what individual members of the secret police might do.
According to Libertarian Party of Michigan Chairman, Ghazey Aleck, “There has not been such an assault on individual rights since the Nazi’s controlled Germany, and we all know what happened with such unlimited government power. The Michigan State legislature is heading down a slippery slope that could end with the destruction of your right to live unmolested and in private. The Michigan Attorney General should be out to protect your right to live in peace and privacy. She should not endorse secret police tactics of any kind. Law abiding people should never have to be afraid of the police, yet this is what is being accomplished by the onslaught of laws like these.”
If you think these kinds of tactics should never be allowed in a free society like the United States, the Libertarian Party of Michigan agrees with you. Laws like these had been a mainstay with the KGB in the former U.S.S.R. It should never be allowed to occur in the United States.
Yet, it may already be too late. With the support of Michigan Governor John Engler, Lt. Governor Dick Postumous, and Attorney General Jennifer Granholm, Michigan families will probably soon be under the watchful eye of ‘Big Brother’ turning Michigan into a modern Third Reich. Speak up now, or watch what you say later, it’s your choice, not theirs.