"Because I said so..."

That's what Vice President Dick Cheney said yesterday in defending the policy which allows the Pentagon and the CIA to obtain the financial records of Americans from their banks without a court issued warrant. From today's NY Times:

Vice President Dick Cheney yesterday defended efforts by the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency to obtain financial records of Americans suspected of terrorism or espionage, calling the practice a “perfectly legitimate activity” used partly to protect troops stationed on military bases in the United States. ...

“There’s nothing wrong with it or illegal,” Mr. Cheney said. “It doesn’t violate people’s civil rights. And if an institution that receives one of these national security letters disagrees with it, they’re free to go to court to try to stop its execution.” [Emphasis added]

"These national security letters" are not court-issued warrants, merely letters issued by the government to obtain records. Of course banks can fight them by going to court, but to do so requires the cost of retaining lawyers and filing fees. It is unlikely that financial institutions, which are, after all, in the business of making a profit, are willing to put forth the money to do so if their customer is not one with a huge deposit. The Vice-President is fully aware of this, as is the rest of the administration.

These national security letters are being used in what is at best fishing expeditions, as the article makes clear.

Pentagon officials said the financial documents obtained through the national security letters usually did not establish an individual’s links to terrorism or espionage and had rarely led to criminal charges.

But officials said the records still had intelligence value, and the Pentagon plans within the next year to incorporate the records into a database at its Counterintelligence Field Activity office. [Emphasis added]

And there is the real goal: not protecting US military bases, but gathering information on US residents. In other words, the CIA and the Pentagon has now been given the green light to engage in domestic law enforcement, contrary to law.

Chilling. Absolutely chilling.