William Pelham Barr has been nominated to be the next US Attorney General. He had the job once before, serving from 1991 until 1993 under then-President George H. W. Bush. His time as AG may have been brief, yet while in that post Barr managed to leave an indelible mark on American society. As the American Civil Liberties Union notes:
"While serving in the George H.W. Bush administration, Barr helped develop what became a “blueprint” for the National Security Agency’s mass phone surveillance program. In 1992, he and his then-deputy Robert Mueller authorized the Drug Enforcement Administration to begin amassing phone call data in bulk, ordering telephone companies to secretly hand over the records of all phone calls from the U.S. to countries — which eventually grew to be well over 100 nations — where the government believed drug traffickers were operating."
A number of organizations working on social justice, civil rights, privacy, and personal freedom are calling on the Senate to reject Barr's nomination. On this edition of Prison Pipeline, we hear the reasons why.
- KBOO