Laws Against Criminal Uses of Electromagnetic Energy Weapons

(1) The European Union Parliament (1999)
The European Parliament A4-0005/1999 Paragraph 27 calls for a worldwide ban on weapons that might enable “any form” of the "manipulation of human beings".
https://peacepink.ning.com/profiles/blogs/european-parliament-a400051999

(2) H.R. 1160 (2001)
Introduced March 22, 2001: terminate operation of the Extremely Low Frequency band
https://peacepink.ning.com/profiles/blogs/house-bill-hr-1160-2001

(3) H.R. 2977 (2001)
Introduced by Rep. Dennis Kucinich: peaceful uses of space; prohibiting (the unlawful use) of electromagnetic weapons
https://peacepink.ning.com/profiles/blogs/usa-bill-hr-2977-ih

(4) The Human Rights org (2002)
Media Guide to Disarmament: electromagmentic resonance weapons
The United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) formally listed a special category of psychotronic [psycho-"mind" & tronic="electronic"] mind control and other electromagmentic resonance weapons in their 2002 Media Guide to Disarmament.
http://www.unidir.org/files/publications/pdfs/2002-media-guide-to-disarmament-in-geneva-95.pdf ;

(5) Berkeley, California (2002)
Ban the weaponization of space and mind control
https://peacepink.ning.com/profiles/blogs/berkeley-resolution-of-ban-the

(6) Michigan: House Bill 4513 (2003)
Classify harmful electronic or electromagnetic devices
https://peacepink.ning.com/profiles/blogs/house-bill-4513

(7) Michigan: House Bill 4514 (2003)
Add to statutes to define crimes
https://peacepink.ning.com/profiles/blogs/house-bill-4514

(8) Massachusetts: Chapter 170 of the Acts of (2004)
Possession of electronic weapons
https://peacepink.ning.com/profiles/blogs/massachusetts-act

(9) Maine: Chapter 264 H.P. 868 - L.D. 1271 (2005)
Criminal uses of electronic weapons
https://peacepink.ning.com/profiles/blogs/maine-act-hp-868

(10) Missouri House bill 550
introduced by Jim Guest to against illegal chip implants.
https://peacepink.ning.com/profiles/blogs/584-jim-guest-of-mo-usa-bill

(11) Electronic Surveillance Laws in USA
http://www.ncsl.org/IssuesResearch/TelecommunicationsInformationTechnology/ElectronicSurveillanceLaws/tabid/13492/Default.aspx#OH

(12) Michigan House Bill 1026
For the re-opening of investigative hearings into the Counter- Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) and other intelligence and law enforcement programs and agencies, and an expansion of those hearings to include renewal of previously curtailed abuses, and other activities sanctioned by the USA PATRIOT ACT.
https://peacepink.ning.com/profiles/blogs/usa-bill-hres1026-cointelpro

(13) H.R.5662 IH-- STALKERS Act of 2010 (Introduced in House - IH)https://peacepink.ning.com/profiles/blogs/stalkers-act-of-2010-hr5662

(14) US Code: Chapter 32: 1520 and 1520a - Restrictions on use of human subjects for testing of chemical or biological agents

https://peacepink.ning.com/profiles/blogs/us-codechapter-32-1520-and

(15) Criminal Justice, New Technologies, and the Constitution , May 1988

http://www.fas.org/ota/reports/8809.pdf

(16) 2010 California Code: Health and Safety Code: Chapter 1.3. Human Experimentation

https://peacepink.ning.com/profiles/blogs/2010-california-code-human-experimentation

(17) European Convention on Human Rights

The European Convention is still the only international human rights agreement providing such a high degree of individual protection. State parties can also take cases against other state parties to the Court, although this power is rarely used. There are comparable protections issued in the Bill of Rights under the United States Constitution as well as the English Bill of Rights. I used the European Convention on Human Rights as it is an International Agreement.

Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights

Article 8 provides a right to respect for one's "private and family life, his home and his correspondence", subject to certain restrictions that are "in accordance with law" and "necessary in a democratic society". This article clearly provides a right to be free of unlawful searches, but the Court has given the protection for "private and family life" that this article provides a broad interpretation, taking for instance that prohibition of private consensual homosexual acts violates this article.

Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights

2. Article 9 provides a right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This includes the freedom to change a religion or belief, and to manifest a religion or belief in worship, teaching, practice and observance, subject to certain restrictions that are "in accordance with law" and "necessary in a democratic society"

1. Article 10 provides the right to freedom of expression, subject to certain restrictions that are "in accordance with law" and "necessary in a democratic society". This right includes the freedom to hold opinions, and to receive and impart information and ideas.

2. Article 13 - effective remedy

3. Article 13 provides for the right for an effective remedy before national authorities for violations of rights under the Convention. The inability to obtain a remedy before a national court for an infringement of a Convention right is thus a free-standing and separately actionable infringement of the Convention.

(18) Section 1983 of Title 42 of the United States Code

A victim may recover compensatory damages,

https://peacepink.ning.com/profiles/blogs/united-states-code-section-1983-of-title-42

(19) Russian Federation law

The addendum to the article 6 of the Russian Federation law On Weapons, "was approved on July 26, 2001. It states: within the territory of the Russian Federation is prohibited the circulation of weapons and other objects the effects of the operation of which are based on the use of electromagnetic, light, thermal, infra-sonic or ultra-sonic radiations" (30).

(20) International criminal justice standards and Non Lethal Weapons

International criminal justice standards and Non Lethal Weapons NATO policy that express : ... “The research and development procurement and employment of Non-Lethal Weapons shall always remain consistent with applicable treaties, conventions and international law, particularly the Law of Armed conflict as well as national law and approved Rules of Engagement.”

International criminal justice standards The following criminal justice standards were adopted under the auspices of the United Nations:

• 1979 Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials, and the • 1990 Basic Principles on the Use of Force. (Page 36)

http://www.adh-geneve.ch/docs/projets/Non-Kinetic-EnergyOctober2010.pdf

(21) UNIDIR has listed non lethal weapons( mind control ) weapons as weapons of mass destruction.

“NON-LETHAL” WEAPONS It is difficult to oppose the development of new means and methods of warfare, which would lead to fewer deaths, injuries, disabilities or deprivation to civilians. However, the term “non-lethal weapons” is applied to a range of old and new weapons the use of which is, purportedly, associated with low lethality. Such weapons can be classified according to how they damage or incapacitate the human body. The following categories of weapon have been cited as having “non-lethal” capabilities: kinetic energy (rubber bullets, sponge bullets, etc.); entangling technologies (nets, sticky foam); chemical weapons; biological weapons; acoustic beams; electric shock technologies; infrasound; and electromagnetic waves of a variety of wavelengths.10

http://unidir.org/pdf/articles/pdf-art2359.pdf

http://www.unidir.org/html/en/search.html?q=non+lethal+weapons&sa=

Some lawsuits filed by Soleilmavis
https://peacepink.ning.com/profiles/blogs/some-lawsuits-filed-by

Kidnapped by Mind Control Weapons, and Sent to US Embassy in Hong Kong

https://peacepink.ning.com/profiles/blogs/kidnapped-by-mind-control

Defence Secretary Warns Of EMP Weapons Threat

UK infrastructure is vulnerable to bombs creating an electromagnetic surge, says Phillip Hammond

Defence Secretary Phillip Hammond will urge the government to invest into military protection against Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) weapons at a conference in London today.

According to Hammond, UK’s electronic infrastructure is vulnerable to the possible use of specially developed EMP weapon, which produce a surge of electromagnetic radiation, similar to that which might come from solar activity, or from a nuclear explosion high above the earth. The response to these weapons has to go beyond conventional military means, Hammond will tell the third Electric Infrastructure and Security Council (EIS) Summit

The E-bomb

EMP can appear in the event of extreme Space Weather, as well as a result of a nuclear explosion high above the earth, or a specifically-developed, non-nuclear weapon.

Last month, the government published a response to the Defence Committee’s report on the developing threat of EMP. It stated that both natural and man-made EMP poses “known and significant” risks to the UK infrastructure, including National Grid and satellite networks.

Now Hammond has said that the response must go beyond conventional technology, according to a report in the Daily Telegraph.

If EMP is weaponised, the so-called “E-bomb” could generate surges in voltage and current inside electronic equipment, burning out microchips and circuitry. The possibility of a natural disaster such as the 1859 Carrington Event will also be discussed at the conference.

“One of the challenges we face, particularly at a time of limited resources, is to make the case for spending on defence and security solutions that cannot readily be seen by the public – that cannot be shown off on the parade ground – that could be digital, not necessarily physical,” says the text of Hammond’s speech.

Avi Schnurr, the chief executive officer of the US Electric Infrastructure and Security Council (EIS) and a White House adviser on the issue, told The Telegraph: “We are beginning to realise that, unfortunately, all our societal eggs are in one fragile electric basket, and we are not sufficiently protecting ourselves.”

“We have become potential victims of our own technical advancement. The evolution of national electric grids and key infrastructure components means that we are more vulnerable to EMP than ever before,” he added.

Microprocessors are delicate creatures, aren’t they? Take our quiz!

How Far Should Neuroscience Evidence Go in Court Trials?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100220204806.htm

ScienceDaily (Feb. 20, 2010) — A lawyer is trying to convince a jury that his client really is crazy. It's usually a tough argument to sell in a court of law. But what if the lawyer has a picture of his client's brain that shows there's something biologically wrong with it? Can that evidence help persuade a jury? Should it even be allowed as evidence?

Reference

Those are some of the questions that were addressed during a presentation and mock trial Feb. 20 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in San Diego.

Hank Greely, a Stanford law professor and expert on the legal, ethical and social issues surrounding the biosciences, took on the role of prosecutor during a presentation titled "The Brain on Trial: Neuroscience Evidence in the Courtroom."

"The prosecutor's typical position is that brain scan evidence shouldn't be used because they say it's not scientifically useful," Greely said. "They say it will confuse the jury, that it's not relevant, that the technology isn't good enough yet. But most of all, they'll say that's fine that you found this person has an abnormal brain -- but how many other people have similar abnormalities and don't commit crimes? The answer will be: quite a few."

With no hard-and-fast rules on whether neuroscience evidence should be allowed in state and federal courts, Greely is studying criminal cases in California that have featured brain scan images to help prove guilt or maintain innocence.

He's so far found that defense attorneys are more likely than prosecutors to try using neuroscience evidence, but he cautions that the tool is a double-edged sword.

While an MRI result showing a deformed or malfunctioning brain could conjure empathy and a finding of innocence, it could also lead jurors and judges to opt for convictions and long sentences based on the assumption that such a damaged mind will only convince the person using it to offend again.

"Neuroscience evidence will probably mostly be used alongside behavioral evidence," Greely said. "There will always be behavioral evidence to show a defendant was crazy as a loon. Neuroscience will be able to further hammer home the idea that the person truly has a problem."

Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Stanford University. The original article was written by Adam Gorlick.

Patriot Act renewed despite warnings of 'secret' law

news analysis The U.S. Congress has approved a four-year extension of the Patriot Act despite warnings from senators that the Justice Department has twisted the 2001 law into a "secret" surveillance mechanism far broader than Americans realize.

"I believe that when more of my colleagues and the American public come to understand how the Patriot Act has actually been interpreted in secret, they will insist on significant reforms too," said Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who tried to block the renewal. Sen. Mark Udall, a Colorado Democrat, offered a similar warning.

The cautionary note from two members of the Senate Intelligence committee -- who are briefed on classified activities and are tasked with overseeing the NSA, CIA, and the Justice Department's "intelligence activities" -- is highly unusual, and perhaps even unprecedented.

And it's prompted intense speculation about what kind of constitutionally dubious surveillance, which could include vacuuming up cell phone location records, the Obama administration might be engaging in.

By now it's clear that of the three sections of the Patriot Act that would have expired last night, the Democratic senators are concerned with Section 215 of the law, better known as the "business records" portion. It allows FBI agents to obtain any "tangible thing," including "books, records, papers, documents, and other items," a broad term that includes dumps from private-sector computer databases, with limited judicial oversight.

The Justice Department confirmed in March that Section 215 "has been used to obtain driver's license records, hotel records,car rental records, apartment leasing records, credit card records, and the like." Todd Hinnen, acting assistant attorney general for national security, told a House of Representatives committee at the time that such directives were constitutional because they are "not a 'search' within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment." (The Fourth Amendment, of course, prohibits "unreasonable" searches and seizures.)

A month earlier, FBI director Robert Mueller elaborated on how Section 215 is used, saying it lets the bureau obtain "records relating to the purchase of hydrogen peroxide." According to a transcript (PDF), Mueller told the Senate Intelligence committee that a secret foreign intelligence court has approved over 380 uses of Section 215 since 2001. Hydrogen peroxide can be used in bomb-making.

Mueller hinted that there was a secret legal memorandum prepared by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel that authorized a broader use of Section 215 than is publicly known. That would echo a series of Top Secret legal memos prepared by the Office of Legal Counsel under President Bush. One said waterboarding was not torture (PDF). Another (PDF) claimed that the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program "is lawful."

Wyden, who was present at the February 2011 hearing, told Mueller that he was "increasingly troubled" that intelligence agencies are "relying on a secret interpretation" of the Patriot Act. "I believe that the American people would be absolutely stunned," Wyden said, if they knew what was actually going on.

At the moment, Section 215 says that an order must be approved by the secret FISA court if the FBI shows the data "sought are relevant to an authorized investigation" dealing with terrorism -- a requirement that provides little privacy protection in practice.

Wyden has proposed rewriting Section 215 to add some teeth to the privacy protections. Instead of mere relevance, he suggested requiring that the investigation fall into one of three categories: relating to a foreign government, an espionage investigation, or "an individual in contact with, or known to, a suspected agent of a foreign power."

That's much more limiting. More precisely, it would curb use of Section 215 as a data vacuum cleaner that the FBI may be using to hoover up customer databases from companies such as pharmacies, bookstores, retailers, credit card providers, telephone companies, and so on.

It's true that exabytes upon exabytes of data could, in theory, be helpful in investigating terrorism and other crimes. This was the motivation behind the Total Information Awareness idea, after all. But it's also true that nobody in the U.S. Congress believed that they were giving the FBI such sweeping authority when enacting the law nearly a decade ago.

Udall, who with Wyden proposed a series of unsuccessful pro-privacy amendments, said his recommended change to Section 215 would "require the FBI to show a nexus to terrorism when seeking a court order requesting access to business records. This is currently not a requirement, meaning the government may demand access to business records ranging from a cell phone company's phone records to an individual's library history."

At the moment, Udall said this week, the FBI can "collect business records on law-abiding Americans" who have no connection to terrorism. "We ought to be able to at least agree that the source of an investigation under Patriot Act powers should have a terrorist-related focus," he said. "If we can't limit investigations to terrorism, where do they end?"

Julian Sanchez, a policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute, believes the use of Section 215 that so alarmed the Democratic senators relates to the warrantless tracking of the locations of Americans' mobile devices. In a blog post, Sanchez suggests that Section 215 could be creatively interpreted by the Justice Department "to enable physical tracking of anyone with a cellphone," and subsequent data-mining could indicate whether two people are sharing the same physical location.

It's a plausible explanation, perhaps even the most plausible one. Wyden has drafted legislation that would curb warrantless access to location histories by police (see CNET Q&A with him). Wyden's so-called GPS Act says that, in general, it's illegal to track someone wirelessly except with a warrant signed by a judge, permission of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, or during an emergency situation -- language that would curb any such use of Section 215.

Another hint about what the FBI is doing comes from former Sen. Russ Feingold, a Democrat who was defeated last fall. He said in a February 2010 floor speech that:

Section 215 has been misused. I cannot elaborate, but I believe that the public deserves some information about this. I and others have also pressed the administration to declassify some basic information about the use of section 215, and it has declined... We must find a way to have an open and honest debate about the nature of these government powers, while still protecting national security secrets, and under current conditions that simply isn't possible... Lawyers in the Office of Legal Counsel looked for every possible loophole in statutory language to justify what I believe were clearly illegal wiretapping and interrogation programs. That should also teach us that we must be extraordinarily careful in how we draft these laws: We must say exactly what we mean and leave no room for reinterpretation.

One of the Wyden-Udall amendments (PDF) divulged a bit more detail about the Section 215 timeline. It said on February 2, 2011, the House and Senate "intelligence committees received a secret report from the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence" relating to "intelligence collection authorities" relying on portions of the Patriot Act that were about to expire. That amendment would have required the Justice Department to describe "the legal basis for the intelligence collection activities" described in that report.

Those amendments failed. So did similar amendments proposed by Sen. Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican.

The Senate approved the final version of the Patriot Act extensions by a 72 to 23 vote on Thursday. The House followed with a 250 to 153 vote, and President Obama "signed" it into law that evening.

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Comments

Mark Iannicelli October 15, 2022 at 8:07am

Norberg Sweden
Mark Iannicelli October 15, 2022 at 8:06am

Correction: phone applications, Norbert Sweden and the FBI and Marshall wanted me to say the wrong thing against the Turkey Doctor Miller so they could imprison me for Eugene Francis and Parker.
Mark Iannicelli October 15, 2022 at 8:03am

The Americans will never stop. Perpetrators like Parker that owns convenience store and has his office on St. Simons Island, Georgia and Eugene Francis and David and Tim Moody and their relatives who are Redneck high school drop outs live out of their suit cases getting DHS funding to coerce bikers to construct meth labs so they can get rewards on seizures or try to make Synthetic Heroin connections also invade hospital recovery rooms and inject radioactive poison in my legs and probably others. This is done to attract electromagnetic frequencies to debilitate health. When living in Milwaukee Eugene Francis had a US Marshall and FBI agent show up at my door with a letter I had sent Dr. Stephanie Alexander Miller who let them inject me during a hernia operation at Rose Medical Center in Denver Colorado. This is what the tax payers money is being spent on. It is state sponsored organized crime. In Kinston North Carolina DHS recipient Tim Moody had an agitator harass me my girl friend and mother at a subway in Walmart and spit in my face. I filed a police report. I am eligible to apply for political asylum in the EU in July 2024. In my opinion TIs should ignore Sweden because American trash gave refugees gangstalking phone Apts in Stockholm, Gunsta Norbert an Knivsta and not only did Swedish law enforcement ignore me they actually participated in gangstalking against me and assisted the peps . I will ask Germany this time .
Soleilmavis May 16, 2012 at 5:14am

Defence Secretary Warns Of EMP Weapons Threat

UK infrastructure is vulnerable to bombs creating an electromagnetic surge, says Phillip Hammond

On May 14, 2012 by Max Smolaks 0

http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/emp-bombthreat-77863

Defence Secretary Phillip Hammond will urge the government to invest into military protection against Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) weapons at a conference in London today.

According to Hammond, UK’s electronic infrastructure is vulnerable to the possible use of specially developed EMP weapon, which produce a surge of electromagnetic radiation, similar to that which might come from solar activity, or from a nuclear explosion high above the earth. The response to these weapons has to go beyond conventional military means, Hammond will tell the third Electric Infrastructure and Security Council (EIS) Summit

The E-bomb

EMP can appear in the event of extreme Space Weather, as well as a result of a nuclear explosion high above the earth, or a specifically-developed, non-nuclear weapon.

Last month, the government published a response to the Defence Committee’s report on the developing threat of EMP. It stated that both natural and man-made EMP poses “known and significant” risks to the UK infrastructure, including National Grid and satellite networks.

Now Hammond has said that the response must go beyond conventional technology, according to a report in the Daily Telegraph.

If EMP is weaponised, the so-called “E-bomb” could generate surges in voltage and current inside electronic equipment, burning out microchips and circuitry. The possibility of a natural disaster such as the 1859 Carrington Event will also be discussed at the conference.

“One of the challenges we face, particularly at a time of limited resources, is to make the case for spending on defence and security solutions that cannot readily be seen by the public – that cannot be shown off on the parade ground – that could be digital, not necessarily physical,” says the text of Hammond’s speech.

Avi Schnurr, the chief executive officer of the US Electric Infrastructure and Security Council (EIS) and a White House adviser on the issue, told The Telegraph: “We are beginning to realise that, unfortunately, all our societal eggs are in one fragile electric basket, and we are not sufficiently protecting ourselves.”

“We have become potential victims of our own technical advancement. The evolution of national electric grids and key infrastructure components means that we are more vulnerable to EMP than ever before,” he added.

Microprocessors are delicate creatures, aren’t they? Take our quiz!
Soleilmavis March 26, 2012 at 12:54pm
How Far Should Neuroscience Evidence Go in Court Trials?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100220204806.htm

ScienceDaily (Feb. 20, 2010) — A lawyer is trying to convince a jury that his client really is crazy. It's usually a tough argument to sell in a court of law. But what if the lawyer has a picture of his client's brain that shows there's something biologically wrong with it? Can that evidence help persuade a jury? Should it even be allowed as evidence?

Reference

Functional neuroimaging

Thalamus

Seizure

Neuropsychology

Those are some of the questions that were addressed during a presentation and mock trial Feb. 20 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in San Diego.

Hank Greely, a Stanford law professor and expert on the legal, ethical and social issues surrounding the biosciences, took on the role of prosecutor during a presentation titled "The Brain on Trial: Neuroscience Evidence in the Courtroom."

"The prosecutor's typical position is that brain scan evidence shouldn't be used because they say it's not scientifically useful," Greely said. "They say it will confuse the jury, that it's not relevant, that the technology isn't good enough yet. But most of all, they'll say that's fine that you found this person has an abnormal brain -- but how many other people have similar abnormalities and don't commit crimes? The answer will be: quite a few."

With no hard-and-fast rules on whether neuroscience evidence should be allowed in state and federal courts, Greely is studying criminal cases in California that have featured brain scan images to help prove guilt or maintain innocence.

He's so far found that defense attorneys are more likely than prosecutors to try using neuroscience evidence, but he cautions that the tool is a double-edged sword.

While an MRI result showing a deformed or malfunctioning brain could conjure empathy and a finding of innocence, it could also lead jurors and judges to opt for convictions and long sentences based on the assumption that such a damaged mind will only convince the person using it to offend again.

"Neuroscience evidence will probably mostly be used alongside behavioral evidence," Greely said. "There will always be behavioral evidence to show a defendant was crazy as a loon. Neuroscience will be able to further hammer home the idea that the person truly has a problem."

Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Stanford University. The original article was written by Adam Gorlick.
Soleilmavis November 11, 2011 at 8:46am

SCOTUS On GPS, Still Lags Far Behind Technology

Too bad that the US court system is decades behind technology. For the past 40 years crime families and Communists embedded in local, state and US government agencies kept me under 24 hour surveillance. Orwell's Big Brother arrived in my life and has not left. That is and was bad. Those who make the laws are mostly clueless about available technology which is also capable of tormenting humans from adjacent buildings and floors of buildings. Technology can go through walls. Thermal imaging was addressed by the Court in KYLLO V. UNITED STATES (99-8508) 533 U.S. 27 (2001) 190 F.3d 1041, reversed and remanded. Some states (MA, MI and ME) have laws making use of some devices which emit electromagnetic radiation, ultra sound and other beams or waves. US Code makes exposing a human to radiation punishable by a fine of $2 million. But local police refuse to address such abuses. Instead local police, crime families, FBI informants and Communists use the technology to control, to provoke and to discredit their targets. Psychiatric criminals join crime families and Communists to destroy people, for personal, political and economic reasons. The US Constitution falls and fails to protect individuals being tormented by government criminals who use new technology.

[From article]
"A Supreme Court justice on Tuesday expressed major concerns that the government would engage in round-the-clock surveillance reminiscent of the totalitarian world of the George Orwell novel 1984 if the court ruled in the government's favor."

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/192445-justice-bre...

Justice Breyer warns of Orwellian government
By Sarah Peters -
The Hill
11/08/11 04:13 PM ET
Soleilmavis August 22, 2011 at 2:44pm

It isn't legal for a private individual, a company or a corporation to use electronic harassment on you. The military and law enforcement, however, can use non-lethal weapons (see USC Title 50 Chapter 32 Section 1520a).
Further, testing of electronic equipment; discovering unauthorized electronic surveillance; training of intelligence personnel by officers the United States is allowed.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/50/1805.html
Notwithstanding any other provision of this subchapter, officers, employees, or agents of the United States are authorized in the normal course of their official duties to conduct electronic surveillance not targeted against the communications of any particular person or persons, under procedures approved by the Attorney General.
steve ahmann May 30, 2011 at 3:23am

law says non-US citizens can still sue in US cvourts for torture:

http://www.slate.com/id/2100460/
Soleilmavis May 29, 2011 at 1:32pm

May 28, 2011 6:08 AM PDT

Patriot Act renewed despite warnings of 'secret' law

by Declan McCullagh
Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20067005-281.html

news analysis The U.S. Congress has approved a four-year extension of the Patriot Act despite warnings from senators that the Justice Department has twisted the 2001 law into a "secret" surveillance mechanism far broader than Americans realize.

"I believe that when more of my colleagues and the American public come to understand how the Patriot Act has actually been interpreted in secret, they will insist on significant reforms too," said Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who tried to block the renewal. Sen. Mark Udall, a Colorado Democrat, offered a similar warning.

The cautionary note from two members of the Senate Intelligence committee -- who are briefed on classified activities and are tasked with overseeing the NSA, CIA, and the Justice Department's "intelligence activities" -- is highly unusual, and perhaps even unprecedented.

And it's prompted intense speculation about what kind of constitutionally dubious surveillance, which could include vacuuming up cell phone location records, the Obama administration might be engaging in.

By now it's clear that of the three sections of the Patriot Act that would have expired last night, the Democratic senators are concerned with Section 215 of the law, better known as the "business records" portion. It allows FBI agents to obtain any "tangible thing," including "books, records, papers, documents, and other items," a broad term that includes dumps from private-sector computer databases, with limited judicial oversight.

The Justice Department confirmed in March that Section 215 "has been used to obtain driver's license records, hotel records,car rental records, apartment leasing records, credit card records, and the like." Todd Hinnen, acting assistant attorney general for national security, told a House of Representatives committee at the time that such directives were constitutional because they are "not a 'search' within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment." (The Fourth Amendment, of course, prohibits "unreasonable" searches and seizures.)

A month earlier, FBI director Robert Mueller elaborated on how Section 215 is used, saying it lets the bureau obtain "records relating to the purchase of hydrogen peroxide." According to a transcript (PDF), Mueller told the Senate Intelligence committee that a secret foreign intelligence court has approved over 380 uses of Section 215 since 2001. Hydrogen peroxide can be used in bomb-making.

Mueller hinted that there was a secret legal memorandum prepared by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel that authorized a broader use of Section 215 than is publicly known. That would echo a series of Top Secret legal memos prepared by the Office of Legal Counsel under President Bush. One said waterboarding was not torture (PDF). Another (PDF) claimed that the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program "is lawful."

Wyden, who was present at the February 2011 hearing, told Mueller that he was "increasingly troubled" that intelligence agencies are "relying on a secret interpretation" of the Patriot Act. "I believe that the American people would be absolutely stunned," Wyden said, if they knew what was actually going on.

At the moment, Section 215 says that an order must be approved by the secret FISA court if the FBI shows the data "sought are relevant to an authorized investigation" dealing with terrorism -- a requirement that provides little privacy protection in practice.

Wyden has proposed rewriting Section 215 to add some teeth to the privacy protections. Instead of mere relevance, he suggested requiring that the investigation fall into one of three categories: relating to a foreign government, an espionage investigation, or "an individual in contact with, or known to, a suspected agent of a foreign power."

That's much more limiting. More precisely, it would curb use of Section 215 as a data vacuum cleaner that the FBI may be using to hoover up customer databases from companies such as pharmacies, bookstores, retailers, credit card providers, telephone companies, and so on.

It's true that exabytes upon exabytes of data could, in theory, be helpful in investigating terrorism and other crimes. This was the motivation behind the Total Information Awareness idea, after all. But it's also true that nobody in the U.S. Congress believed that they were giving the FBI such sweeping authority when enacting the law nearly a decade ago.

Udall, who with Wyden proposed a series of unsuccessful pro-privacy amendments, said his recommended change to Section 215 would "require the FBI to show a nexus to terrorism when seeking a court order requesting access to business records. This is currently not a requirement, meaning the government may demand access to business records ranging from a cell phone company's phone records to an individual's library history."

At the moment, Udall said this week, the FBI can "collect business records on law-abiding Americans" who have no connection to terrorism. "We ought to be able to at least agree that the source of an investigation under Patriot Act powers should have a terrorist-related focus," he said. "If we can't limit investigations to terrorism, where do they end?"

Julian Sanchez, a policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute, believes the use of Section 215 that so alarmed the Democratic senators relates to the warrantless tracking of the locations of Americans' mobile devices. In a blog post, Sanchez suggests that Section 215 could be creatively interpreted by the Justice Department "to enable physical tracking of anyone with a cellphone," and subsequent data-mining could indicate whether two people are sharing the same physical location.

It's a plausible explanation, perhaps even the most plausible one. Wyden has drafted legislation that would curb warrantless access to location histories by police (see CNET Q&A with him). Wyden's so-called GPS Act says that, in general, it's illegal to track someone wirelessly except with a warrant signed by a judge, permission of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, or during an emergency situation -- language that would curb any such use of Section 215.

Another hint about what the FBI is doing comes from former Sen. Russ Feingold, a Democrat who was defeated last fall. He said in a February 2010 floor speech that:

Section 215 has been misused. I cannot elaborate, but I believe that the public deserves some information about this. I and others have also pressed the administration to declassify some basic information about the use of section 215, and it has declined... We must find a way to have an open and honest debate about the nature of these government powers, while still protecting national security secrets, and under current conditions that simply isn't possible... Lawyers in the Office of Legal Counsel looked for every possible loophole in statutory language to justify what I believe were clearly illegal wiretapping and interrogation programs. That should also teach us that we must be extraordinarily careful in how we draft these laws: We must say exactly what we mean and leave no room for reinterpretation.

One of the Wyden-Udall amendments (PDF) divulged a bit more detail about the Section 215 timeline. It said on February 2, 2011, the House and Senate "intelligence committees received a secret report from the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence" relating to "intelligence collection authorities" relying on portions of the Patriot Act that were about to expire. That amendment would have required the Justice Department to describe "the legal basis for the intelligence collection activities" described in that report.

Those amendments failed. So did similar amendments proposed by Sen. Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican.

The Senate approved the final version of the Patriot Act extensions by a 72 to 23 vote on Thursday. The House followed with a 250 to 153 vote, and President Obama "signed" it into law that evening.

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