Friday

Bush sets up domestic spy service

US President George W Bush has ordered the creation of a domestic intelligence service within the FBI, as part of a package of 70 new security measures. The White House says it is enacting the measures to fight international terrorist groups and prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction. The authorities will also be given the power to seize the property of people deemed to be helping the spread of WMD. An independent commission recommended the measures earlier this year. The new measures form part of Mr Bush's overhaul of US intelligence agencies, aimed at bolstering the fight against terrorism and weapons proliferation. The FBI is to be re-organised, and will include another new intelligence body called the National Security Service. It will assume responsibility for intelligence work within the US, and combine the Justice Department's intelligence, counter-terrorism and espionage units. Correspondents say the measure is designed to help dissolve the barriers between the FBI and the CIA. John Negroponte, who was given the new job of US director of national intelligence in April, will be charged with putting the changes into effect.

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He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For imposing taxes on us without our consent;

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury;

For transporting us beyond seas, to be tried for pretended offenses;

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies;

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments;

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

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