CIA, FBI, NSA Keep Expanding Their Reach

The Independent reports:

CIA wins fight to keep MPs in dark on rendition
Court keeps UK role secret – as No 10 calls for police to question Labour ministers
Cahal Milmo , Nigel Morris  Wednesday 11 April 201

American intelligence agencies including the CIA and the FBI have won a court ruling allowing them to withhold evidence from British MPs about suspected UK involvement in "extraordinary rendition" – the secret arrests and alleged torture of terror suspects.


A judge in Washington DC granted permission for key US intelligence bodies, including the highly sensitive National Security Agency, to exploit a loophole in US freedom of information legislation which bars the release of documentation to any body representing a foreign government.

This is extremely important because it means these clandestine agencies--which for the better part of the time answer to no one--have been given card blanche legitimacy for their work outside their jurisdiction. It's difficult not to see this as an intimidation tool to be used against journalists and bloggers--and at some point even hostile politicians--the world over.

To be sure, the American judiciary seems to have been extremely accommodating to the CIA, FBI and NSA. Rather than taking the reasonable broad approach to the issue and acknowledging the violation to the sovereignty of the injured country, the court chose to turn a blind eye to this gigantic point: 

The US agencies were trying to avoid official embarrassment on both sides of the Atlantic by using a narrow legal exemption to prevent the disclosure of critical papers, said Tony Lloyd, a Labour MP and the vice-chairman of the group. He called the judgment "disappointing". (Emphasis added)

No surprise there either, as the judicial branch in the US has long ago ceased to serve the taxpaying citizen, and instead is no more than a rubber stamp for the State, which it serves. 

However, if we were to blame someone for the massive intrusion of the State into every pore of life, it certainly must be those among us who believe that governments can be limited by the voting public. I'm the first to admit that I was one of these saps until not too long ago.

Governments will always tend toward expansion, due to the fact that those sucking on its tit continually seek to prolong their "employment" and increase their income and inevitably, their influence on shaping society as they see it fit.

Again, this is only a natural tendency, which those of us who are to suffer from it must seek to limit and prevent. Yet, too often we leave it to someone else to do it for us!