FBI Set to Investigate People Without Any Evidence of a Crime

Well, consider this rather disturbing:

The Justice Department is considering letting the FBI investigate Americans without any evidence of wrongdoing, relying instead on a terrorist profile that could single out Muslims, Arabs or other racial and ethnic groups.

Wouldn’t that kind of be like investigating depressed kids who like wearing black to school to see if they’re going to try to shoot up their school, whether there is any actual, you know, evidence that they are even thinking of doing it?

Or perhaps investigating to see if a person who is in financial trouble and who has a spouse with a big life insurance policy on them is planning on murderering their spouse.  You know, just in case.

And the reason why they may start doing this is rather lame:

Law enforcement officials say the proposed policy would help them do exactly what Congress demanded after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks: Root out terrorists before they strike.

Um, there are better (and more efficient) ways of doing this than by just investigating people “just in case.”

First of all, there is something wholly un-American about law enforcement investigating someone even if they have absolutely no reason to do so besides fitting some sort of profile (and how reliable may that profile be to begin with?  Isn’t it like picking on people because they appear to fit a stereotype?)

Second, what do you think your friends and family would do if word suddenly got out that you were being investigated for terrorism, even if you were doing no such thing?

Third, this would seem to fly in the face of the 4th Amendment (not that Bush has cared about it before).  How can you get a warrant to investigate someone in the absense of even the suspicion of a crime?

And fourth and finally, just as anything dealing with domestic spying, how can we know that the FBI is spying people for the reasons that they say they are?  You know, how do we know that “being a registered democrat” doesn’t suddenly make one fit a profile for being a domestic terrorist, and open you up for spying, for example?

Just another reason why we have to have a democrat in the White House.

Economy Loses 62,000 jobs

Good luck to all those new college graduates this spring and summer. Finding a job may be a little tough:

Employers cut payrolls by 62,000 in June, the sixth straight month of nationwide job losses, underscoring the economy’s fragile state. The unemployment rate held steady at 5.5 percent.

Ouch.