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NSA Data Mining Much Larger Than Reported
silassewell writes to tell us The New York Times is reporting that the "volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged." The NSA gained the cooperation of many American telecommunication companies after 9/11 to access streams of communication, both domestic and international, as a part of a presidentially approved program to hunt for evidence of terrorist activity.
I Soviet America, the phone listens to you.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Land of the Free indeed. :-)
... how much longer are you people going to be living in your comfortable plastic bubble, continuing to claim that the US of A is the greatest and freest country in the world?
I wonder
Please work to make the system secure, even from government intrusion.
Governments come and go.. no need to drag yourself into their mess.
I've always wondered what huge companies get by turning over data to the Feds. Companies never do anything to "make the world a better place" unless they are getting something in return... reduced regulation? maybe tax reductions?
All I know is that democracy dies behind closed doors. What exactly is going on in this country?
This is EXACTLY why I'm learning Spanish! Costa Rica by the year 2010, baby.
What are you eating? isItVeg?.
The people over at Ars Technica have a great little article about this whole fiasco concerning the wiretapping of US citizens without a warrent...
8 .html
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20051220-580
From the article:
"Now let's take a look a statement of former senator Bob Graham (D-FL), who was one of the few senators to be briefed on the program. From a new Washington Post article:
"I came out of the room with the full sense that we were dealing with a change in technology but not policy," Graham said, with new opportunities to intercept overseas calls that passed through U.S. switches."
and
" This system's [TIA] purpose would be to monitor communications and detect would-be terrorists and plots before they happen... This project is not interested in funding "evolutionary" changes in technology, e.g., bit-step improvements to current data mining and storage techniques. Rather, the amount of data that the directors are anticipating (petabytes!) would require massive leaps in technology (and perhaps also some massive leaps in surveillance laws). According to DARPA, such data collection "increases information coverage by an order of magnitude," and ultimately "requires keeping track of individuals and understanding how they fit into models.""
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
This administration has always been pro-mining (and drilling), so this should be no surprise.
Learn to love Alaska
Bush Lies Watch
BY DEFINITION, the United States is the land of the free
They're brainwashed from birth, especially during the school years, towards this belief.
It DOES NOT matter what the United States does, BY DEFINITION to them, it is the land of the free
Doesn't matter how little privacy they have
Doesn't matter how much power their government has
Doesn't matter how unfair their government is
Doesn't matter how many foreign people they kill
Doesn't matter how they crush and oppress their opponents, even those with democratic aspirations, in other countries
It DOES NOT MATTER to them. They DO NOT CARE.
Get in their way, and you WILL be crushed. This is the American dream at work. To crush your enemies, laugh at their corpses, and then smugly eat your Christmas turkey and talk about how moral you are.
No really!
FTFA:
"If they get content, that's useful to them too, but the real plum is going to be the transaction data and the traffic analysis," he said. "Massive amounts of traffic analysis information - who is calling whom, who is in Osama Bin Laden's circle of family and friends - is used to identify lines of communication that are then given closer scrutiny."
This is just the sort of sensitive information that the Whitehouse did not want leaked. Now Osama is going to change his long distance calling plan.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
How can we as the American people cope with a President that doesn't even acknowledge that what he's doing is illegial? How can we further cope with a Congress that hasn't already 'stopped the presses' by calling for immediate hearings on the matter? I don't mean hearings next week, or next month. I want hearings now. This is a grave threat to our liberties, and I want it addressed right now.
Of course, this President speaks about 'freedom', but does 'freedom' include not being able to openly discuss laws and policies?
Oh, and the 'fanboy' contingent that believes that civil liberties must be curtailed in a time of conflict need not reply, because I'm not listening, and I doubt Thomas Jefferson would listen to it either.
War isn't about who's right. It's about who's left.
Yes, you, the voter. You've allowed this to happen in every vote you made for an authoritarian politician -- I can name ONE that has followed their oath (Dr. Ron Paul of Texas http://house.gov/paul )
The telecommunications companies are regulated by Congress, illegally and unconstitutionally. Communication is speech. Speech is an inherent right all humans share and can not be infringed by any government.
You give them the power to regulate, they'll make it their power to control in their favor. Initially that favor is only financial -- take care of their nepotism and cronies. Eventually they turn to "help the needy" when the regulations for the needy really only help the monopolies they've created. In the end, the control is about power -- absolute power over the minions.
Don't don the tinfoil hat, it isn't necessary. Just see that every empire has its day, and the ones most responsible are those who elected, not those who were elected.
I vote only for myself -- each and every line of each and every ballot. In my mind, I win. I picked the candidate best suited to represent my family and I.
Does anyone know a secure IM? I've heard you can interface Gaim with tor, but does it work with Gaim descendents like Adium for OS X? And can you have real time IM with these secure proxy stuff.
Also, I'd recommend Tor and Privoxy for normal browsing if you want security.
"Tip of the iceberg"
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
The problem with all these intelligence programs is the "mission creep" of where they start with what seems like a good cause then morph into being used against constitutionally protected forms of expression such as peaceful dissent and opposing viewpoints. When a program is sold as anti-terrorism in nature as its sole purpose and is given broad lattitude to push the edges of the constitution and elinimate checks-and-balances protections it is a sobering and serious grant of power we are giving one branch of the government. But when it quickly becomes another general-use law enforcement tool used in mundane investigations it is very troublesome and scary.
The "I have nothing to hide" argument rings hollow when intense surveilance is used as a political weapon.
Until such time as the administration and intelligence agencies can exercise some self-restraint and accountability I will view all these warrantless intrusions with intense suspicion.
We are a country of laws based on a strong and unique constitution. I would like it to remain that way.
I love it how people like you read parts of articles, and then jump to conclusions about what's really going on. You're a kool-aid drinking Useful Idiot.
I love living in the USA controlled by monied interests and the Republican party. They foster such an honest, compassionate, and responsible atmosphere for civil discourse.
Torture, lying, spying on citizens, the list of crimes Bush is responsible for goes on and on. Would someone give this guy a blowjob already so we can impeach him?
... RIP 9/11/2001.
It was good while it lasted.
There have been thousands of shark attacks over the years. I propose that we install cameras and other surveillance equipment in your bathroom, to prevent more unnecessary carnage. If you actually mind having your privacy invaded, it's probably because you hate America and sympathize with the sharks. What are you hiding?
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Clinton's aides were on TV saying they backed Bush on this, and it was legal.
Love to have an investigation that lead to the leaks on this. After all, Plame was important, right?
As long as you haven't done anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about.
And as long as you don't walk funny or wear all one color. And don't celebrate "weird" holidays. And you probably shouldn't visit those weird porn sites or read some of those really liberal sites. And you should eat meat, at least every now and then. Don't be militant about the vegetarian thing, you know? And you really should have a regular job. If you have a lot of free time to go to protests and stuff like that, you might get in the wrong crowd. And probably French is a better choice to learn at that community college than Arabic. Yeah, I know you like the falafel, but don't buy so much of it okay? At least pay cash (but small amounts so you don't raise suspicion) And when you finish thumbing through those books (you know the ones I'm talking about) at the bookstore or library, put them back on the shelf, okay? Actually, why are you going to the library? You've got money to buy books. Only certain types of people go to the library. And, it's okay to criticize the president, with your friends, but no need to put that stuff on your blog, you know? How about an American flag on there? Whatever you think about Iraq, just talk about how you support the troops. Sure you can support the troops but not the war, but you gotta watch how you say it. And I don't mean on your cell phone. Just don't talk about politics on the cell. Yeah I know about your depression, just try to go outside as much as you can, just fake it, whatever, it's safer when they see you come and go more often. No, the tattoo should be of the flag, or a heart, or something. Makes it easier when you're searched. Remember to say "Merry Christmas". I know, I know, but it's just a couple words. Have you considered tossing a bible into your pack in case you're searched? You should take off those pins.. they give the wrong impression. And those electronics books, you're not in school, people might think you're making something you shouldn't. If somebody asks, tell them your TV is being repaired. I think you'd look better without the beard. It's just a suggestion.
Just basically stay inside the bell curve, and you'll be fine!
George swore to uphold and protect the constitution of the USA. If he blatantly disregards law, he is in violation of his oath to be President. As such he should be impeached. Without an impeachment, the congress and supreme courts are giving up their power to the President, which would result in a dictatorship. I have already written my representatives the request to have an investigation into this issue, and hope others will follow my behavior.
> Is there anybody out there who doubts that Bush is not good for our country?
There's some as to whether he's even in the loop.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Just use Zeta talk - nobody will make any sense out of it. Unless, the government hires that talented Richard C Hoagland to decrypt the hyper meanings...
The president also swore an oath to uphold the laws of this country, including FISA, which requires him to get a secret warrant to tap the phones of citizens.
Why doesn't Slashdot support https for a start?
In Soviet USSA -everything- watches you!
Why is this post modded -1 when it's only saying the truth?
Okay. Let's say I want some open source software that I can put on an old PC, add a winmodem, soundcard, and headset, and make a functional encrypted phone that can be used on standard lines, with maybe some VoIP on the side.
What do I need? Software? Minimum hardware? Add-ons? Can I do it all with Asterisk? Will it sound awful?
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Good thing to know that if downtown New York got bombed, and thousands of people died, nobody would want to know if someone was plotting another attack like that.
Give me liberty or give me death.
> Good thing to know that if downtown New York got bombed, and thousands of people died, nobody would want to know if someone was plotting another attack like that.
Good to know that you don't think freedom is worth dying for.
Too bad about all those who died for nothing over the centuries.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Yeah, that's terrific man. "I knew all about this years ago, so who cares?"
Indeed. Who cares that the President of the United States has directly ordered the violation of the Bill of Rights, and intends to continue doing so. After all, this is all old news to Anonymous Coward on Slashdot.
this guy might have, but the story sort of got spiked eventually except for the infamous blogosphere.
7 33-2005Feb18.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36
"Anyone who trades liberty for security deserves neither liberty nor security"....Benjamin Franklin
]{
However, as regards the main topic, I've always worked from the premise that powers are abused. Therefore, I've always assumed that the power to tap email is probably being widely abused, and not just by the NSA. It's not the case that I'm doing anything of legitimate interest to legal authorities, but simply that I have an attitude of questioning authority, and they don't appreciate that.
However, if I had any actual reason to be paranoid, then the situation would be very different, and I would obviously be much more discreet about what I put into my email. That's where you encounter the bogosity aspect of Dubya's claims of the necessity of this kind of illegal surveillance. Wannabe terrorists are not going to jeopardize their complicated plans by describing them in clear email. They aren't even going to expose their real communication channels. Insofar as they are going to use technical mechanisms at all, they are going to go out of their way to obfuscate both the message, the source, and the destination--all of which are trivially easy for anyone who is actually motivated to do so.
No, there's only one aspect of this that has surprised me so far. That was when Dubya admitted he had done it. He obviously doesn't understand what "impeachable offense" means. He apparently thinks it is only related to a certain number of votes in Congress, but that's just the transient political status. What Dubya has confessed to doing is clearly a violation of the laws that he swore to defend.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
This is probably one of the most important stories of the year... not to be too dramatic, but possibly the most important story in the last ten. The US government is conducting warrentless wiretaps on its citizens, collecting information in a vest unsupervised net.
This news came to the fore the day before Christmas. And folks, it's on Slashdot Christmas Eve. How many people are paying attention to this? The New York Times is already in hot water for holding the initial story for a year. Now more and more facts are coming out, during a time when few people watch the news, Congress is out of session, and the president and his staff can be on vacation. It's on Slashdot, and I'm checking Slashdot as I'm watching Red Sleigh Down (South Park) on Comedy Central... how many Slashdot readers are looking at the site? No offesnse to the rest of the worl...
Jesus, this story may damn well disappear into the *void that's American political memory.
People, I pray that this story - the Orwellian degradation of our liberties, the expansion of the police state, the emergence of fascism as corporations and security institutions work together - does not fade away. Write your congressional representatives, write the paper, bug your friends and family, but don't ignore this issue.
We've got to make
/* Dang, I can't type that well. */
These things tend to work based on certain key phrases and words in Dictionaries. Sprinkle your speech with random terrorist-sounding words and phrases as "Vote Green for peace", "jihad", "Allah", "kill for God" and "assasinate George W. Bush" to countermeasure!
Well, if you wanna be the one to attract the NSA's attention, good luck. But you might end up in a shadow prison somewhere in eastern europe without a lawyer for a while.
The problem with the "After 9/11, everything is different" justification is that it admits no limits. Tell me, after 9/11, is there any civil liberty that you are not willing to sacrifice?
Holding thousands of people indefinitely, without charge and without any judicial review? After 9/11, everything is different.
Torturing hundreds of suspects, and outsourcing the torture of hundreds more? After 9/11, everything is different.
Continuous monitoring and data-mining of essentially all communications? After 9/11, everything is different.
Individually tracking the movement, communication, and transactions of every person in the U.S. After 9/11, everything is different.
Keeping Americans in the dark about the details and sometimes even the existence of these actions being performed in their names? After 9/11, everything is different.
This article would have so much more impact had it been released about a week after New Years'. Rather convenient that it's being announced at a time when 90% of the public is off partying.
</tin-foil>
fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.
America is arguably free and most definitely not home of the brave on average. The country which produced a citizen army that defeated the British with French help is gone, and you can blame the civil war in part for ending our era of relying on a citizen army instead of a professional one.
The average American doesn't have any ability to use a gun, nor do they have the determination to act as a militiaman in defense of their country. This is why we are losing freedom so much. The government has to do this because most people while scream bloody murder if they don't in the face of a terrorist attack. Since most Americans have no connection to their freedoms, especially since they don't have the principle or courage to fight for them, we are essentially screwed.
But on the terrorist angle, let's be serious about something. This is a Muslim on everyone else problem and welcoming more Muslims from abroad into our country is just asking for trouble. Chinese Buddhists aren't attacking us, Hindus are by and large quite content to live in total peace with their neighbors, same thing for Jews, Christians, Shintos, Sikhs. It's the Muslim immigrants from the Middle East and Pakistan that by and large want to blow up our women and children in gory displays of affection for Allah.
So instead of screwing our civil liberties, and those of our law-abiding immigrants from the rest of the world besides the heavily Muslim areas, why not simply deport all of the Middle Eastern and Pakistan Muslims from our country? Only a pathologically dishonest person can look at the history of Islam and call it a religion of peace. No, we shouldn't restrict our Muslim citizens, most of whom are very Americanized to the point that they are probably more closely connected to our culture than their religion's roots. However, let's be realistic. Deporting every single Saudi national from our country and ending our visa program with Saudi Arabia would do more to protect our country than the USA PATRIOT Act and these executive orders combined.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
Investigating purchasing a cell phone has resulted in a substancial amount of unwanted attention, not just for my buisness either. Since learning they are cooperating with tracking people without warrants, it's reasonable to assume the NSA wants ALL the data, on EVERYONE to track unsual movements/behavoirs.
Welcome to Soviet America, papers please.
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about" is such a lovely phrase. But "let he who is without sin cast the first stone". I mean, who doesn't have something they'd like to keep private, illegal or just embarassing?
You've just been reading too much. Watch the TV, no one is worried about this.
Good thing to know that if downtown New York got bombed, and thousands of people died, nobody would want to know if someone was plotting another attack like that.
Explain to me why getting a warrant precludes investigating terrorist plots.
Keep in mind that the law allows for a warrant to be obtained up to seventy-two hours after spying is initiated.
It's a simple question. Answer it.
Wouldn't it be nice:
If everybody put Shoot the Monkey or President Bush should be Kennedyed as a sig to all their internet activity, it would shunt any amount of material to the NSA gathering equiptment.
And for bonus points:
Give some Doolally the right idea.
*******
Kennedy the Monkey. (No, that doesn't quite do it I think.)
"nobody would want to know if someone was plotting another attack like that."
Lots of people are planning to blow up New York ("ZOMG, they voted for Hillary!"). Very, very few of them are credibly planning to blow up New York. If you find a credible threat, getting a warrant to listen in on their communications is little more than a formality.
If you're justified in tapping lines, you should have no problem getting a warrant and no need to fear the courts.
The USSR was a threat to world peace. Today the threat is the US.
The main problem is the stupidity and ignorance of the people in the US. Only half of the people votes, and compared to Europe people in the US cares very little about politics.
Americans are usually very delusional (which probably has some connections with christianity, since religous people are more delusional).
An example is an international health research where people from all over the world participated. First the participators would estimate their own health. The Americans were rated first, over 90% claimed their health was really good. Then the doctors ran som tests on the participators. It turned out that the health of the Americans were the worst. Over 2/3 of the Americans where over weight or obese. Talk about delusional people...
Since people don't care or doesn't know the truth, the elite can do whatever they want. The US media is the no1 propaganda machine.
The US is not a democracy according to me, it is a nation run by the corporations. As long as requires a lot of money to win an president campaign the US will not be a democracy. Politics should be about the best solutions and not about having the most money or being backed by the corporations.
And this NSA mining is just an effect of the poor democratic system.
The american people need to wake up!
You can use TLS in jabberd, but you then can't be sure it's encrypted, as most clients will try encryption, then fall back to unencrypted. I personally use the separate SSL port for jabber, and run my own server, so there's no one to intercept the communication setup traffic but me.
And yes, Adium will work with it.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
well, now, anyone can put what ever they want in to open source... even backdoors for outside access.
Oh, my point; this has nothing to do with software, its policy.
Sometimes we have to make a choice when you are attacked by a group of terrorists.
Unlike terrorists groups that want money or people released these people want to destroy our way of life.
We have two options sit and wait for another attack to happen or we can be proactive.
I have no problem with a government computer scanning data from different sources, and flagging communications that could be terrorist planning another attack. Probably 99% data collected is never seen by a human being, just processed by the computer.
This leak of how the Government is tracking Terrorist is a bigger problem then the president calling for NSA to collect this data. Look at what happened when the Clinton administration was tracking Bin Laden, it leaked they could track him by his cell phone usage. He stopped using a cell phone and we lost a good way to track him and maybe could have stopped 9/11. Now they know we are looking at all communications, and will modify how they send information to different cells.
There is always a chance of this information being used for political reasons, similar to what happened in the Clinton administration. If Bush used it against political opponents then that would be a problem, and he would be held accountable
Wise men speak because they have something to say, Fools because they have to say something!!!!
And it has been around and known about for some time. Talk about late breaking news.
Here are a couple of links about it. Hell, one of them is from Wikipedia...
Our government had information it needed to see the 9/11 terrorist attack coming. It was unable to thwart the plan because that information got lost in the shuffle of the bureaucracy.
The response: Collect a lot more information.
I'm not a cryptanalyst nor do I know much about cryptography however the logical choice for the NSA would be to sniff out heavily encrypted messages between domestic and foreign sources. The idea of plain-text dictionary search just seems too obvious. Rather look for encrypted traffic between say Saudi Arabia and some location inside the US. Then either attack the sources and compromise their machines or brute-force their encryption to see what they are talking about. I mean these people use cellphone detonator bombs so I would assume they are smart enough to at least PGP their emails.
I'm sure 99% of what they break is not relevant to "terrorism" but they keep it anyway.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
Okay, I'm going to go way out on a limb here and expose myself to total mod annihilation. (but before you do, at least read down to my example of why I think it's a free country.)
I think a lot of the reaction here is glib and over the top. Does anyone remember what happened Sept 11, 2001?
Yeah, there has been a lot of "unauthorized" spying, but it looks to be pretty specific (e.g., Mosques... where large Muslim populations ostensibly would have privacy to worship). The United States was attacked and continues to be targeted for major future terror attacks. And, like it or not, the community most likely to cultivate, plan, and escalate this activity is Muslim. And, a country so viciously attacked would be naive, maybe even stupid to allow unfettered large gatherings where this planning could go on with no observation.
I cringe to think spying may go on, and may be necessary, but it isn't the same world as five years ago.
As for those complaining about the abridgement of their rights and rampant government interference I would ask you, have you or anyone you know observed or experienced serious interference in your life (lives)? I haven't, and I don't know anyone who has. I do know some people get caught in the quagmire that is the increased surveillance, but for now it's probably a dear price we're paying and will for a while.
However, let me give an example of the freedom in this country. A friend recently returned from visiting friends in California. She brought back as a souvenir three toilet paper sheets... from the TP roll where she stayed. Each of the sheets had printed on it a picture of George Bush and some choice quote by him. Hilarious? Maybe, depends on your point of view. Permissible? You bet!
I may not be happy the world is a bit more wrapped around the axle these days, but I am happy to live in a country that has enough freedom that you can print the president's face on toilet paper.
Then i vote to hang the bastards for treason. please o please let me have control of the gallows, i'd love to pull the switch.
All the America-bashers and Bush-bashers come out of the closet yet again to rant about how "America is not free" and similar slogans, without addressing the actual topic.
Does no one on the Slashdot forum wish to discuss the national security issues which are behind the wiretapping, not to mention that other "scandal" regarding testing for radioactivity around Moslem sites?
I do not favor giving up any of my rights unless there is a clear benefit and a timetable for restoring those rights. That's why I support the temporary extension of the Patriot Act rather than the permanent extension advocated by the Bush administration.
Suppose someone out there is trying to smuggle a Soviet-era warhead into a major U.S. city. This scenario is probably realistic, given that the Russians have not accounted for all of their warheads and other nuclear material, not to mention the fanaticism and determination of the Muslim extremists. This is not a theoretical threat but a real one; if they *could* kill millions of people here, they *would*.
Given this scenario, is it really so terrible and wrong and evil for the NSA to be using wiretapping and internet-tapping to try to gather intelligence? That seems rather mild by comparison to the catastrophe described above. Would you prefer to wait politely until some container ship floats into New York Harbor and takes away three million lives? Not me; I would rather be prepared and knowledgeable (and alive).
That said, the major issue is that the U.S. intelligence community is not the world's best, and probably doesn't get the support it needs to do a first class job. Probably it can't, in such an open society. Israel's intelligence is probably the world's best and I have no idea how they do it, but if we get another warning about a 9/11-like attack from them I sure as hell hope we listen this time.
The Bush Administration has made its share of blunders and I would like to see them cooperating a little more with Congress and friendly governments; Bush and his team have a go-it-alone attitude which was satisfying in the dark days after 9/11/2001 but which just doesn't work in the long term.
Yes, anonymous coward, the U.S. is not a perfect country, but I doubt yours is either, wherever that may be. We have made mistakes, and no doubt we'll make plenty more. But we've also done great things and we're still groping and stumbling our way toward a better society and a more peaceful world.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
Do not conflate "US Person" with "US Citizen". Do not become completely confused as to what was intercepted. NO calls that were within the US between US Persons were intercepted without a warrant. Get that fact straight first - what is referred to in the articles online is the world-wide intercept program of the NSA, and that it included some calls that had a terminus in the US as well as in a target of interest area overseas. They are not monitoring your call to the local mosque, nor your aunt Mabel in Canada (unless she happens to work for Al Qaeda).
The relevant parts of the FISA:
Lots of legal analysis of htis going on, but this is one of the more cogent pieces I have seen. Read it and you will realize that although it sounds bad in terms of civil rights, its probably legal, and certainly proper if you take the view that preventing antoehr 9/11 is paramount importance.
If the NSA surveillance program tracks all international communications (or all international communications to al Qaeda hotspots such as Afghanistan), it does not target specific individuals as required by 1801(f)(1). If the communications are intercepted outside the U.S., the NSA program falls outside the definitions in 1801(f)(2) and 1801(f)(4). If the program excludes intentional capture of purely domestic communications, it falls outside the ambit of 1801(f)(3).
Bottom line: a massive surveillance system that intercepts millions or billions of international calls and e-mails may not constitute electronic survellance as defined by FISA, provided that the interception occurs outside the United States and neither specific individuals nor purely domestic calls are targeted.
Bush's supporters and opponents can argue about whether that's good or bad, but the law is what it is. This progrram is likely a direct outgrowth of the events of 9/11 that were arranged between overseas enemies of the US and their domestic agents (who were illegally in the US a the time of the attacks). Intercepting those communications is certainly legal, and reasonable (in terms of the 4th amendment prohibitions of warantless searches).
Remember - get the facts first, not the rumors and
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo! http://goo.gl/J9bkO
I'm an American. A young one at that (22). I grew up under Regan, Bush, and Clinton. During those 3 administrations I had pride in my country. Yeah, there were scandals and scuffs and this and that, but over all I still had pride in my country. Then came 9/11...
It makes me so made that so many people died in 9/11 for nothing. I think if most of them saw the chain of events that happened after that it would make them sick. This administration has used their deaths to propel their agenda forward. If you oppose them, you are un-american (or so they'd have you believe). It's possibly the sickest thing I've ever seen. This whole administration is on the same level as Hitler. The fact they can send countless troops not only to their deaths, but many injured and may never walk or see or live a normal life again. It's just sick.
They have undone 100 years of privacy laws in just a few short years in the name of "terrorism". Terrorism is like the fucking boogie man in this country. Completely intangable, yet we are being forced by Bush's regime to be constantly scared of it. Before 9/11 terrorism in this country was neglable. Since then, we've had no major attacks in this country. Yet I've had all my rights stripped because of this "threat" that has affect so few people personally. More people will die by morning of heart disease than 9/11 and the Iraq war combined (American deaths). Our priorties are all fucked up.
The 24 hour news channels don't help. They scare everyone into thinking there's something to be afraid of. THERE ISN'T. Be afriad of dying because you don't take care of your body. Be afriad of dying in your SUV because of a rollover. Be afraid of dying from getting AIDS from unprotected sex. Don't be afriad of dying from terrorism.
We are all dying a slow death anyway. Is living in this made up state of fear constantly really living? I sure as hell don't think it is. Our forefathers gave their lives for what? For an administration to come along and undo hundreds of years of work in an instant?
Fuck you bush adminstration for scaring people. Fuck you 24 hour news channels for spreading the bullshit scare tactics. Fuck you Americans who lie back on your sofa being manipulated by these assholes.
Bush is the real terrorist, and he's already won.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
The president has much broader reaching powers during war.
The NSA does wholesale surveillance while the FBI does retail, so to speak. Is a wholesale surveillance organization going to be applied to like 500 people or whatever the original number was? C'mon, they could have used the FBI for that. Eschelon only really has value when you let it hoover as much data as it wants ...
remember the wisdom of Mahatma Gandhi: If enough peasants die horribly, someone will probably notice
Since 911, there hasn't been another. Whether the measures implemented by the security agencies in the US are too strong, or overreaching is debatable, but we have to give them credit that what they are doing is actually working so far.
Oh well, what the hell...
We need better leaders. I'm not just referring to our dipshit-in-chief.
If more people would just stand up and fight for ideas like freedom, tolerance, compassion, and plain old common sense, humanity would be better off.
Costa Rica by the year 2010, baby.
Right on. Canada is looking better every day. Actually anywhere not currently targeted by USA nukes. Seriously.
Happy Solstice, everybody...
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
Remember when the idea of being able to go to a secret court, rather than an open court, to get a warrant was shocking?
Now, we uphold the secret court as a just alternative to what the President is actually doing.
plutonium implosion trigger
Dave Barnes 9 breweries within walking distance of my house
So...the first attempt by the NYT to create panic about supposed "spying" against American citizens turned out to be a total joke (since it was only international calls between known terrorists and people/numbers inside the U.S.) so they're trying again in an attempt to boost book sales. It's not THAT hard to track the author's names, editor's names, etc. and see that.
Do a little research and you'll find there has always been government monitoring of communication. Think about it a little and you'll realize that an essential part of providing security. There's this little blurb in the founding documents of the U.S. which talks about "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Life is first in the list, before liberty. You can't have liberty if you don't have life and the only way to have life is to protect against those who wish to take it from others.
What's next? They will discover that cell "phones" are actually radios so monitoring isn't that difficult nor subject to the laws which apply to land line telephones? They'll discover it's possible to read the contents of a sealed envelope without reading it? They'll discover most email is non-encrypted?
No, wait, I've got it. They'll "discover" frequent buyer discount cards are actually used to gather customer demographics. Yeah, and Diebold is part of the plot to "spy" on every person in the world.
Oh, yeah, that's a start. Let's also claim the large banks of the world are involved because they monitor credit card use under the guise of looking for fraudulent behavior. (Let's ignore how the Patriot Act allows real-time tracking and reporting of credit card fruad as it happens which has lead to many arrests of the thieves while they're on their shopping sprees.) Yeah, that's good, too.
OK, we've got the leftwing cooks, let's do something to bring in the rightwing cooks. Uh...we'll claim all this data is stored in a giant computer in Switzerland (built by IBM for the Nazis) called The Beast. We can't pull off the number trick which gave the numeric value of 666 to the names Reagan and Hitler this time so we'll claim GWB = 666. Yeah, that's good. Oh, and he drinks raw goat's blood during the full moon while burning black candles. All that churchy stuff is just a cover-up.
Yeah, that about covers it.
--
Honestly, this is just a bunch of stupid FUD. Of course, the American intel monitors communication. So does every other country and intel/security force. This is the real world, not cartoons. The "bad guys" don't stand out and identify themselves.
"Better a little with righteousness than much gain with injustice"
- Proverbs 16:8
I have been told that the Hebrew word that is usually translated as "righteousness" has another, overlooked sense: "objectivity". It is one thing to say, for example, that giving alms to the poor is righteous. However what makes charity righteous is that objectively the needs of others sometimes exceeds their resources, while at the same time our resources may exceed our needs. The "unrighteous" handles the misfortunes of the needy through wishful thinking: they must be unlucky because they are bad. Indeed, it would be a wonderful world where the good are rich and the wicked are poor. However, a righteous person lives in the world as it is not as he wishes it to be.
When I was young, we were taught that as part of our baptismal vows we had to "reject the glamour of evil." This is a curious choice of words. "Glamour" is an archaic English word which means a kind of magical illusion. It's saying the same thing: to live righteously, we must reject illusion that the world is place where good served by our indulging our infantile and selfish impulses.
We most commonly act unrighteously out of unjustified fear. Fear of death and misfortune. What makes the fear unjustified is that objectively speaking these things inevitably must come to us. It is not our choice. But objectively it is our choice to live in freedom. Therefore what we should fear most is the loss of liberty.
It's not that what the Bush adminstration is doing is wrong. Indeed the kind of analysis described in this article is very important in detecting an imminent terrorist attack. No, the problem is that they wish to do it outside any form of accountability. No man, and for that matter no government, can be righteous if he is not accountable to somebody who will look at his deeds with an independent and critical eye. It's not possible. That's why when we say somebody is "self-righteous", we of course understand that this means they are not righteous at all. "Self-righteous" means they're only righteous from their own self-serving point of view, a point of view that could not survive objective scrutiny.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
If this website http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/eo12139.htm is correct this NSA warrantless domestic spying etc... has been US policy since at least 1979.
Anyone know if that is for real or not?
https isn't all that, but I support it on my own site, https://freeinternetpress.com/ , and I put a little reminder image on the top left. It's pretty trivial to do, and if you believe https makes you that much more secure, go for it.
https is decryptable. The question would be, are they interested in doing it? Most people are sending the majority of their stuff in the clear. Most people assume that because they may have a secure connection to their mail server, that it's encrypted going to another server. That's far from the truth. SMTP is unecrypted, as are most implementations of POP and IMAP. Your IM messages are also unencrypted, or at least can be intercepted at the server. I picked my VoIP carrier, because their data is encrypted, but it's only that way until it has to go over traditional transports. If I call another VoIP customer on my provider, it's (as advertised) encrypted. If I call a POTS line, there goes my security.
Is it worth their while to decrypt encrypted stuff? Probably not. But, if they believe a target is worth while, they'll crack your communication like it's nothing. I'm sure plenty of people will respond with the "it would take a..." messages. It would use a (whatever), if YOU, the casual user were to do it. If they had a dedicated cluster set up for figuring out keys, then it's trivial. They can crack your encryption faster than a kid with a copy of airsnort can crack your WEP encryption.
Of course, the more encryption you use, the more suspicious you look. What are you trying to hide? Will it be faster to pick you up, seize all of your electronics, and interrogate you for the next two years?
What do you have to hide anyways? Chances are, nothing that interesting.
I've given up on the thought that anything I say or do is that interesting to them. If it was, I would have the black van still parked in front of my house, or I'd be lounging around in Southeastern Cuba. I don't do anything all that subversive. I report the news, which is already publically available.
My biggest concerns are that some wannabe agent, like a TSA agent, or local rookie cop, will harass me over things I carry. I have a laptop. I have miles of cables and adapters. I have books on security. Oddly enough, I use them for perfectly legal work. I get harassed occasionally. For quite a while, I'd be selected for secondary searches at airports, because the wire for my WiFi antenna was stuck to the top of my laptop. I'd tell them what it was. They'd half-ass search my bag, and ask questions about why I was traveling. 15 minutes later, I'd go and get on the plane. They'd miss obvious things, like my bag smelled of gunpowder, or there was a lighter in the bottom of my bag.
BTW, the gunpowder smell wasn't anything illegal. I was at the shooting range one day, and at the airport later. No gun, no ammo, but plenty of residual stink that their sniffer didn't pick up. I don't feel any safer because of the searches. I just feel delayed and violated. Why should I have to explain every device I carry with me, when they're all commercially available (and legal) products?
It still sucks that I can't carry a screwdriver. I *HAVE* to check a bag everywhere I go, because I can't carry a #2 phillips with me. It makes it very hard for me to work, if I don't have at least that.
For some reason, last time I flew, several pairs of jeans were seized. They forgot the extensive electronics and hand tools, and stole my jeans. {sigh} I'm happy they didn't take any of the electronics or tools. Those are more expensive to replace.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
how about this, maybe you go FUCK YOURSELF, then the govt will arrest you for being the stupid IGNORANT whore you are.
go stick your head in the sand somewhere else. I'm fucking sick and tired of losers like you who dont see the truth RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR EYES.
If he had just picked up the phone and got the warrents we would not be having this discussion. It is not that he 'listened in' it is just that he did it illegally.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Me. I think Bush is not only good for our country, but the best President in my lifetime. I am proud to have voted for him and would do so again if I could. The louder the Left squeals, the better I like it.
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
I know that it is typical for the Slashdot libertarian crowd to have an aversion, almost knee-jerk reaction, to any privacy related issue, we Slashdot liberals feel the same. Bush has once again crossed the line, but as a neo-pinko liberal I am not surprised, I am not even particularly annoyed. My disgust with the United States and its inability to provide an open inclusive society runs far deeper than this single incident. I am annoyed with Missle Defense, drilling in ANWR, Intelligent Design, pro-life, pro-death penalty, secret prisons, prisoner abuse, tying iraq to terror, no child left behind, get tough on immigration, get tough on crime, christian coalition, anti-welfare, anti-healthcare, anti-gun control, pro-business, anti-environment, crap. Really the entire political dialogue of the so-called United States has been broken for years, and Bush certainly doesn't see anything less than absolute god-granted carte blanche on the war on terror. Remember this guy doesn't answer to the voter, he answers to god. So my question is when can we vote on the new constitution, because I feel that I am the one living in Iraq, but I don't have the excuse of invasion?
Nothing wrong was done. Pick up a "Dummies Guide to American Government" so that you can understand that the President just doesn't launch secret programs without anyone else knowing about it. Stop skimming the headlines of articles and don't get stuck in that "read once, repeat many" syndrome. Do the research. It's not like this is the first time a program like this was launched. When did slashdot become so Anti-American? How many of our operative's identities were uncovered and made public by the news media? No one seems to be shouting TREASON and yet when SUPPORT is there for the president to use any means possible to find terrorists some people want to help the terrorists instead. Strange. I guess you just have to lose someone in a building due to a terrorist attack to appreciate what this administration is doing for you. Stop saying that America is not Free and is such a "Horrible" place to live in. Are you nuts? Have you been outside of the US lately and I don't mean some layover between flights? It's crazy out there. Take a walk in your local park and be grateful that you don't have to dodge bullets or worry about your 5 year old daughter being raped. Most importantly, if you decide to use your wonderful freedom of free speech, use it wisely. Don't spew forth nonsense. Sheep are stupid.
Software depends on how you're intending to do the encryption. If you're planning on hooking up to a regular phone system as well as doing VoIP, then you're certainly looking at using Asterisk for your exchange system.
At the kernel level, for pure VoIP, you probably want to use either Linux with either the StrongSWAN or OpenSWAN patches applied, OpenBSD or MirBSD. (I believe FreeBSD and NetBSD have IPSec, but I'm not sure.) This allows you to encrypt from your machine to the destination, using a grade of encryption that will be proof against standard wiretaps. Rijndael (AES) is (as far as anyone knows) uncrackable on existant technology and if you combine it with SHA-2, you've a system that would be impervious to any wiretap you're likely to encounter.
For working with Asterisk, you want to use a stream cipher, not a block cipher. Asterisk with Encryption WIKI has more information on how to set it all up. You basically link up a VPN and encrypt the VPN. Because some line loss is inevitable, you want an algorithm that is resistant to loss and is reasonably fast. There are phones that have hardware encryption in them, which provide higher levels of security and they are also listed.
Of the stream ciphers out there, FEAL/SEAL and Chameleon seem to be the most reputable.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The real privacy concerns to me are whether the NSA is sharing this information to be used by others for purposes other than those used to justify the monitoring. For instance, if they hear that I have a real big order of yeast and barley malt enroute from one company, and a lot of lab equipment on order from another company, will they alert the ATF that I have just ordered the necessary ingredients and supplies to start distillng alcohol? Although illegal where I reside, a still is not a security risk, and passing on that type of information seems to me to be the greater privacy risk, and goes against the whole reason for the monitoring in the first place. Of course, others may disagree, and no, I don't have a still.
and routers have been engineered for something called "legal surveillance". I think cnet did an article more than two years ago that provides a glimmer of how this type of intrusion is built-in. (Google for "cisco" "eavesdropping" ought to do it.) The horrid thing about this is that the hardware manufacturers have built routers with this capability because various governments requested the capability.
You mean the Clinton Administration was responsible for all those fraud companies that elected Bush?
So why did George sort them all out in his first 100 days? Does he wear his underpants over his trousers or something? I thought he was one of the anti-heroes that wears his bedding to barbeques.
US politics is extremely interesting. Totally mystifying but my goodness, compulsive. Take the early release of senior Iraqi poisoners for example. How come they are still keeping some tourists in prison in Cuba of all places?
And how am I going to explain all this to my grand-children if I don't get married and have a family?
Nothing wrong was done.
Bullshit.
Pick up a "Dummies Guide to American Government" so that you can understand that the President just doesn't launch secret programs without anyone else knowing about it.
Point out the page on which "Dummies Guide to American Government" says that the President can order warrantless spying on Americans.
Stop skimming the headlines of articles and don't get stuck in that "read once, repeat many" syndrome. Do the research. It's not like this is the first time a program like this was launched.
Name another time that the President has ordered warrantless spying on Americans.
When did slashdot become so Anti-American?
When did defending the Bill of Rights become anti-American?
How many of our operative's identities were uncovered and made public by the news media?
I don't know, how many? And what does that have to do with the fact that the President has ordered warrantless spying on Americans?
No one seems to be shouting TREASON and yet when SUPPORT is there for the president to use any means possible to find terrorists some people want to help the terrorists instead.
Explain to me how not getting a warrant helps the terrorists. While doing so, keep in mind that the law allows you t retroactively get a warrant up to 72 hours after spying is initiated.
Strange. I guess you just have to lose someone in a building due to a terrorist attack to appreciate what this administration is doing for you.
To appreciate direct and unabashed violation of the Fourth Amendment? I'm afraid it will take a lot more than that for me to appreciate it.
Stop saying that America is not Free and is such a "Horrible" place to live in.
Exactly where did I say what you quote me as saying there?
Are you nuts? Have you been outside of the US lately and I don't mean some layover between flights? It's crazy out there. Take a walk in your local park and be grateful that you don't have to dodge bullets or worry about your 5 year old daughter being raped.
Explain to me exactly what my five year old daughter being raped has to do with the President ordering warrantless spying on Americans.
Most importantly, if you decide to use your wonderful freedom of free speech, use it wisely. Don't spew forth nonsense. Sheep are stupid.
They sure are.
http://www.fallacyfiles.org/eitheror.html
...or...
Either:
a. You support Bush in whatever he wants to do
b. You are supporting the terrorists!
At Bush's inauguration, he swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America. The Constitution says NOTHING about suspending ANY rights or portions of the Constitution just because the President says to.
...welcome our new NSA overlords.
No, screw that... where's my gun! Time to overthrow the gov... hey, who are you? Get out of my house! Let go of me... I haven't even posted this yet...
It seems that one of the key missing components in understanding this issue is the technology factor.
Over the last 20 years, the NSA has basically seen their world turned upside down. 20 years ago, it was fairly easy for them to tap a phone line, track who was doing what, etc. There was not nearly the level and depth of technology that there is today. Old technology systems (telephone, etc) were built in a hierarchical fashion and owned by a single corporation (often government). It was pretty easy to get the access you needed exactly where you wanted it in order to do your job (which would be providing the right intelligence at the right time).
The technological revolution of the past two decades has been a
nightmare for the NSA (and other intelligence agencies as well). They just cant keep up. Like any government bureaucracy (especially one that is over 25,000 people strong), turning the NSA ship takes a long time. Modern communications systems are completely distributed in nature (the Internet), and owned by thousands of different entities. Various technologies come and go faster than you can build tools to target them. A terrorist can buy one prepaid cellphone today, use it for a week and then buy a completely different one the next week. Sending emails and other Internet communications is even harder to track. Messages rarely take the same route twice, each hop along the way is owned by someone different, and many communications are encrypted so
well that the NSA could take months to decrypt a single message.
Furthermore, since 9/11, a large part of NSA's tasking has changed from targeting foreign nation-states with well defined assets, structures, etc to targeting shadowy terrorists with few connections, little hierarchy, fluid infrastructures, etc. You *cannot begin* to imagine what an enormous challenge this poses in a world of modern technology and communication systems.
So, what do you do when there is way too much information to process, way to many ways for that information to get from its origin to destination without you seeing it, etc? Well, the NSA realizes that they cannot listen to it all (nor do they want to). What they can do is try and get a small random sampling from thousands of different sources and somehow find ones that might be interesting using sophisticated voice processing software, keyword search, etc. By looking for keywords, certain accents, specific voices, etc they can hopefully try to narrow down the needle in the haystack. It is still an insane job, but by combining intelligent collection targeting with the sifting software they hopefully will snag a few terrorists which they can then monitor more closely in order to build out the social networks of terrorists.
This is why Bush said that FISA was for long-term monitoring. You
cannot get FISA warrants for each and every one of these small samples you take when trying to dig a needle out of the haystack. It would just be absurd, and would waste much more time than it was worth. So, you do this random sampling without getting court pre-approval, and then when you find something interesting, you get a FISA warrant to do more in-depth and long-term monitoring.
Bush understands this because he talks to the intelligence agencies
every day. He knows that the terrorist threat is very real, and he will be damned before he lets another attack happen on US soil. Critics of the NSA eavesdropping are being overly simplistic in their understanding of how intelligence is gathered in the modern world. Their suggestions are basically equivalent to throwing in the towel on the war against terror because they want to cripple the ability to gather intelligence, and you cannot fight an enemy without intelligence.
Unfortunately, opening all of this up to the public makes the enemy that much more aware, and thus the task that much harder. It does indeed compromise sources and methods and I hope that whoever leaked the project gets grilled for it.
do we REALLY need that quote EVERY time dubya removes some of your liberties? I do agree with the quote 100% but i've seen it on almost ALL liberty-removing posts here on /.
In other words, they didn't just tap the phones of a few people.
They invaded the privacy of EVERY person in the country.
Rather than provide leadership and encourage us to cooperate with each other as a society, they've chosen the route of paranoia, secrecy, and tyranny.
You fucking pussy. Millions died in battles spanning two centuries to secure YOUR country the rights and freedoms which permitted it to come this far, and you're willing to wipe your ass with their sacrifice over a blind-luck sneak attack and the loss of two buildings and 3000 lives. You don't deserve to call yourself an American. From this foreign perspective, it's particularly nauseating that so many like you have no problem with your country dishing it out yet squeal like bitchs under the bed when it comes to taking it. Do your nation a favour and STFU.
Great. Hell is a "fact" just as Moscow is a "fact".
Nope. No bias there.
In America phone company connects NSA to you.
Reminds me of the end of the cold war. Eastern Europe opened up the army and police recording centers/bunkers -both copper/optic for the press.
Thousands of files and tapes - and a computer database link back to the KGB.
Optical taps where placed by the former East German Secret Police (STASI) on the optical links between West Berlin and West Germany.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
I don't think this would fully protect you.
They are interested in patterns in calling to and from certain countries. The actual content analysis wouldn't come up until later.
And wouldn't you think that if you were using encryption, that would raise up even more flags?
I'm not saying that you shouldn't use encryption or that you should lay down and take what ever the government throws at you, but I don't understand how encryption could have protected you from any of this.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Not many people will dispute the facts that wire tapping is a necessary. What most people at least the ones with a brain have a problem with is wire tapping without
either probable cause and a court order. The founding fathers outfitted our govt with a system that is supposed to be self regulating. There is no reason whatsoever to remove the courts from the process they are there as a check to ensure privacy and constitutional rights are not violated.
Got Code?
Go to google groups and search for "NSA line Eater".
Prepare for entries going back to at least 1986.
The problem is, without the other branches of government watching, how will you even know if he abuses it?
After all, isn't it better for the president, during a war, to have information on what the Democrats will be pushing as "talking points" so he can spend less time preparing on stuff that won't be brought up and more time "fighting the terrorists"?
Isn't it better for the President, during a war, to have as much information about who is financing what with the Democrats? That way, he can have his responses ready instead of wasting his time and efforts that would be better put to "fighting the terrorists"?
And so on. Once you start surrending ANY freedomes for ANY cause, then that cause can be used to "justify" the removal of any other freedom or restriction.
No matter what they do, the "terrorists" can never defeat the US. Only we the citizens of the US can do that. And we do that by abandoning our Constitution.
Its Time: Impeach Bush Now Nothing more to be said..
Fred Grott(aka shareme) http://mobilebytes.wordpress.com
Yes.
There are some here who simply refuse to recognize the quote for its significance.
This quote, along with others, should have been pounded into the head of every single American during their education, in their Civics class. Oh wait. We don't have any civics classes anymore.
Lovely America we live in now, eh?
There is a war on, and wars always cost some civil liberties. However, there's no draft, no wage and price controls, no concentration camps. We should count our blessings that all we have to put up with is some wiretapping and data mining.
Just wanted to highlight that line... I think you speak for a suprisingly large number of people when you say that.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
Godwin's Law in just over an hour....must be an effect of the Christmas cheer. (Sorry for using the C-word).
If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"
So
First they came for the
You know the rest.
More people die on the highways than have ever been killed by terrorists in ANY year in the US.
No. You're confusing the part for the whole.
Because the terrorists were Muslims
Does not make Muslims terrorists.
Many people have cats as pets
But not everyone who has a pet has a cat.
You are taking your previous logical fallacy and extending it to contradict one of our basic rights in our Constitution.
Actually, it is exactly the same as it was 5 years ago. The only difference is that YOU have had certain items forcibly displayed to YOU.
Israel has had to deal with suicide bombers for years longer.
Yes. I know Muslims who have been threatened by overzealous "patriots" here.
That's great. You might want to re-read the bit I wrote about how it is YOU who hasn't seen things that have existed for others for years.
That's great. Meaningless, but great.
When members of Congress cannot even discuss the meetings the President calls with their lawyers
I think you're a little bit confused about "freedom".
There's a lot of legalistic horseshit flowing back and forth over this entire brouhaha, but it's a fairly simple thing to analyze. Jefferson, Franklin, and Adams, et al, would have supported a strong personal right to privacy if they were alive today to discuss it for the same reason that they supported the second amendment. The second amendment was written in so that the people would be able to defend themselves from their own government. Private communication would be protected *for the same reason*, and no other.
Thinking outside my Head
In short, there's absolutely nothing anybody can do about him. There are no effective safeguards and no meaningful counterbalances for this kind of situation. The best any moderate can hope for is that both the 2006 and 2008 elections are decided by great enough margins towards those who want effective safeguards, that it'll be as easy to stabilize and secure the system then as it has been for the current administration to corrupt it.
My personal preference would be for a constitutional amendment that added a wholly new branch of Government - outside the Executive, Legislative and Judicial - that has all the necessary powers, clearances, means and protections to investigate corruption at absolutely any level in every branch of Government. That is it. That is all it would do. Just investigate. Because it was independent of all other branches, it would not have political appointments made to it, could not be ordered to stop, or indeed even ordered to start. The power of such a body is not in what it could do, but in what it could know.
Government is often corruptible, not because it is powerful - most humans are powerful over something in their lives, but aren't necessarily abusive - but because few in Government have any reason to believe anyone'll know about it. The moment you can guarantee that (a) someone WILL know about it - no matter how classified the information, and (b) they're utterly protected against reprisals if they talk, then those in power will be much less likely to step over the line. (And, if they do genuinely feel as though they have to, they're going to put every ounce of effort into establishing WHY no alternatives are viable, because they WILL be asked questions later.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
By that same practice, I can show you where the Bible condones rape and slavery, as long as you're not the right religion.
I take it you have no concept of "context" then.
Again, I can show, in the Bible, where God condones rape and slavery. Yet you won't find many Christians or Christian churches that condone such now, will you?
Check your bias.
but pours.
"Some fight for law. Some fight for justice. What will you fight for? One day, you will see."
Your core civil liberties - the ones your ancestors fought for in the Revolutionary Wars - were "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". Nothing about speech there. And all three CAN be taken away by terrorists, and HAVE been taken away by the current administration*.
*The administration has carried out policies of assassination, incarceration without charge or review, and intimidation of selected political and ethnic groups. That would seem to violate all three of the core civil liberties on which the Constitution is built. These core civil liberties are not protected within the Constitution, presumably for the same reason you don't put the foundations inside the building. But if you erode those, the whole structure is going to fall down. Remove the foundations and you remove everything.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Lest I seem too Libertarian, I must add that I believe in positive liberty, that is, the government should facilitate the growth of personal, human liberty, rather than removing it.
"Use Open Source, and Encrypt"
Are up to something? Are you hidding something? Are you making calls to "suspicious" countries. Are you talking mischief? No, let's them tape me, let's them record all my talks with my mom, with my grandma, my brother and all the happy friends calls. I want all my telephone conversation BE STORED so I will be able to use it agains whatever stupid accusation or charge they may EVER channel at me.
And btw: don't you think encryption will only make thinks worse for you? Ok, let's encrypt all my grandma talks with military strength cypher.. let's see what happens.
And, sure, this is "war"...
Give me a break.
But
Why was a secret court setup to approve those warrants specifically for the government?
people will catch the story when duped.
One program I had to de-bloat was about 15 million lines long, most of it very badly maintained Motif GUI code. I added a 1,000 line widget set to the code, and was then able to remove 14 million lines of unnecessary redundancy.
Adding the right stuff, therefore, CAN lead to removal of the wrong stuff. Adding a pin to a balloon will remove bloat.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
...if they didn't, y'know, kill the evidence.
"Unformed psyches"? Sounds like someone struck a nerve... hopefully even through your rage you'll be able to comprehend that if lying about having sex with someone is an impeachable offense, lying about illegally spying on the American public is nothing short of treason.
You know if we were bombarded daily (spend a few seconds to think of a country where this happens NOW) I'd accept being "spied" on the phone if:
1. this would actually help stop the attacks
2. I was sure the collected information not related to terrorism activites won't be used inappropriately and not stored
But guess what, you can't guarantee any of those. So what happens is just stuff going down the slippery road.
You can bet that for every piece of info on "terrorism" been discovered with those technologies, there's 100x the times of information collected illegally by corrupted agents and then sold to people who have interest in it.
It's even possible that terrorist abuse this law to obtain additional information they need for their attacks. Ever thought of that?
Wow, it's amazing how you just gloss over that word effects and pretend its not in the Fourth Amendment. Then you go on to pretend that yelling across the street is the same as speaking privately in your home on the telephone. Geez, and you have the audacity to criticize others for posting on Slashdot their armchair legal opinions. Pot meet kettle.
Incorrect. The standard by which "shouting across the street" is not afforded a reasonable expectation of privacy clearly does not apply when considering the prohibition of using a scanner to intercept cellular communications. As written in Bartnicki v. Vopper the US Supreme Court recognizes that US Code Title 18, Part I, Chapter 119 is valid:
(yadda yadda yadda... you can read the rest for yourself).
The interception of a cellular communication is, in fact, subject to a warrant specifically because it is designed and intended to be used as person-to-person communications unless specifically used otherwise - dialing into a group party line, for example.
I have no objections: in my book parking across the street with a geiger counter does not reasonably constitute a search; furthermore it is a reasonable and expected function of the government to monitor air quality. This is entirely different than the use of thermal imaging which was used to detect grow-lights within residential homes: a practice which was prudently struck down by the Supreme Court (a rare correct decision).
If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"
I've already shown that he considers "Hell" to be a location the same as Moscow is. You want more evidence of his bias?
Or is this about the quotes he uses? I'm not arguing that those quotes may be authenitic. I'm saying that by using them out of context, given his bias, they do not show anything other than his ability to find a thread.
Again, I can show how, using selective quotes, the Bible supports rape and slavery. What "proof" is that?
Yeah, that's pretty sad, isn't it? Given what appears to be your bias, that's the best you can do.
How about "statistics"?
15 suicide bombers attacked the US in 2001. And they came in from another country.
http://www.islam101.com/history/population2_usa.h
In 1992, there were at least 5 million Muslims in the US. Now, either those 5 million aren't "real" Muslims and don't follow the "real" Islamic religion
Now, because I know that statistics will never sway someone's religious bias, we'll see how you accept these numbers.
Further the right of the people extends to the citizens of the united states, not citizens of other nations or foreign agents operating on U.S. soil.
You say that non-citizens such as people with immigrant status, foreign students or workers or tourists do not have these rights? Please give us the benefit of your Judicial wisdom. I don't think that the US or most Western countries have a separate body of law for legally resident non-citizens.
Either you're lying, you voted for Bush knowing he was lying throughout his campaigns, you're a mindless partisan, or you're a complete idiot. I'm not sure which. I'm not sure I want to know.
Even better, you can apply on-line...
This sort of large scale analysis of interpersonal communications is exactly what the European Parliament has just passed into law. The Bush Administration may actually be doing it, but at least they're keeping it secret and pretending they aren't. At least they know it's shameful and immoral, and counter to the ideals of a free society.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
What makes you think that encryption is secure?
And I will assume that you think that closed source is insecure (as in a back door). Cool. But what makes you think that Redhat or Novell is anymore secure? Do you believe that they are less patriotic than Microsoft (and possibly Apple)?
How did Echelon help deter the 9/11 attack? Oh, it didn't. More importantly, WHY? Doesn't anyone find it rather odd that despite already having the most all-encompassing surveillance technology available and in operation, 9/11 occurred anyway? What's different about the no-warrant wiretaps and TIA (or whatever they're choosing to call it today?) Could it be that the government is merely looking for a way to force public acceptance of a hideous (and, based on the lack of results from Echelon) probably unecessary surveillance state?
Again, see above.
Not talking original phones. Talking cell phones. Which you said was the same as shouting it across the street.
Either it is the same as shouting it across the street and there is no need for cops to ever get a warrant for tapping a cell phone
or it is not the same and the cops need to get warrants. The later seems more likely because the cops do need warrants.
Really ??? You can't think of laws in the U.S. or other "Western Countries" (if i were asian or middle eastern I think would be horribly offended) that apply only to non citizens ? Really Really Really nothing comes to mind. No right, no restrictions on action, nothing comes to mind. Hmmm you did actually make an effort to look before you posted right ??
So, did somebody finally flat-out lie?
xkcd.com - a webcomic of mathematics, love, and language.
Take a look at OTR. Both a gaim plugin and a proxy are provided. So, although GAIM has the best integration and support for all protocols, you can use it with any client if all you need is AOL AIM support.
OTR provides three important cryptographic assurances which are omitted in most chat crypto implementations. Perfect forward secrecy (so if your keys are later compromised it doesn't back compromise all your conversations), Denyability (a log of your traffic and a copy of the key can't be used to prove you said something, gaim-encryption uses digital signature so it can be used to prove you said something, not what you expected a privacy plugin to provide!), and authentication (you know there isn't a man in the middle intercepting your communication, believe it or not Trillian's encryption support does not have any authentication!).
OTR will also work over any IM network (at least with the GAIM plugin, the proxy is aim only right now), so you can combine OTR with a SSL/Jabber server to hide who you're talking to (or that you're 'talking') from someone sniffing the wire, while OTR hides what you say from the server operator.
OTR at least as a Gaim plugin is easy to use and can be installed by the computer phobic with only a small amount of handholding.
In any case, should this message ever get modded high enough that you see it... give OTR a look!
"A few more points:
* There is a war on, and wars always cost some civil liberties."
That doesn't make it legal. But most important-WE ARE NOT ENGAGED IN A WAR. There has been no declaration of war by Congress. Declare an official war and I might be a tad more accepting. Not a vague excuse to expand excutive powers.
"Hate Bush or not, I believe he's doing this to defend the country."
Oh, I believe that he believes he is doing this to defend the country. He is wrong. The greatest threat to this country comes from the executive branch not the terrorists.
"I have seen no real evidence that he's doing it to spy on Democrats or look good in the polls or line his pockets."
So, breaking the law is okay just as long as it doesn't benefit you? And unless you have a security clearance AND are part of the group involved in the intelligence gathering you would have no real evidence.
I have no significant problem with this being used against foreign powers or citizens. Unease, yes. But there is no excuse for its use against US citizens. If you can't get a rubber stamp from a FISA court, retroactively, the intelligence has no value for fighting terrorism. As a matter of fact, we don't lack intelligence-we had enough to prevent the 9/11 attacks. The problem is using the intelligence and the right kind of intelligence (on the ground in foreign countries). If anything it can be argued that this program makes us less safe.
You've missed the point.
They're not analysing what you're saying. They're analysing who you're saying it to. It's the connections they're looking at, not the content. Encrypt all you like, they don't care.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
The terrorists can't kill all of the Americans in the world, and they're not going to achieve some sort of capitulation from the U.S. government. So, how do they "destroy" America, as is their stated goal? They do so by trying to take away the things we most have in abundance: money and freedom.
Or to arrive at the same point, Bush would say "they hate us for our freedom."
The money thing is a no-brainer, as we're spending a lot more money frisking old ladies at the airport than Al Queda is having to spend to keep us in fear.
As for the freedom portion, what constitutes our freedom? What is our freedom but the rights we enjoy under the Constitution? Freedom, for U.S. citizens is the right to say whatever you want. It's the right to believe, or not believe, in whatever god you see fit. It is the right to keep and bear arms, the right to refuse the quartering of soldiers in your own home, the right to be secure in your person, house, papers and effects. You see where this is going.
These were no idle privileges tossed in on a lark. Indeed, some argument was made that to define rights might imply others weren't granted. So, the ones in the Bill of Rights are the special ones. The ones that need emphasizing. These things are our freedom; and Al Queda has convinced our government that they need to take some of them away. And through our government, Al Queda has convinced a great many of us of the same thing.
We're so afraid of the bogeyman that at the mere mention of the word "terrorist" we're ready to surrender the very things that make our society enviable.
The terrorists are winning, and not through strength of arms.
P.S. As far as stopping 9/11, when the National Security Advisor ignores a memo entitled "Bin Laden Planning to Attach United States" I believe we're past the point at which these other sorts of things would have been useful.
Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!
accountibility and balance are the key, the executive branch's power is no greater than the judicial or legislative. the warrant process serves a very valid purpose and can't be disregarded because of "a state of emergency."
i pity you fools who argue in defense of this, hopefully you can at least partially overcome your ignorance before your life is over.
When will people understand that the only way to have privacy is by technology, not by law. Because as long as it is technologically possible to listen/read what you say/write, someone [1] will do it.
Make it impossible: SSL, GPG.
[1] Be it the NSA or the local mailserver administrator or the router administrator.
Pupeno
You mean the NSA has been listening to my hot chat with my girlfriend? Damn - I hope they get a hard on, as I do :D
above is an example of "double think"
Words: Benjamin Franklin (January 17, 1706 - April 17, 1790)
Emphasis: mine
This would work better when coupled with Onion Routing. TOR would work nicely. Speed might be an issue, but that is a temporary problem.
I don't think you've thought this through all the way. Do you really think you're going to be given access to all the secret recordings the government has been making of your phone calls? It's much more likely that the only parts of those recordings that ever see the light of day will be the ones they use (possibly out of context) to try and convict you.
And btw: don't you think encryption will only make thinks worse for you? Ok, let's encrypt all my grandma talks with military strength cypher.. let's see what happens
Using encryption software is perfectly legal, at least in the USA.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Yes evil always lurks in dark passage ways....
Nobody is arguing that intel on communications is a bad thing. The real news is bypassing the courts to make sure that what and who they are spying on is legitimate. For instance, we don't want them spying on democrats in order to get the jump on them politically so that they can consistently stay in power by being to outmanuever them. Information is power, and how they get that information should be regulated.
Secondly, if the President can do all this. Why bother with a the patriot act at all? Seems like he has all the power he needs to do what he's doing. Thirdly, he told the American public that he's going to the court to do wire-tapping. Now we find out thats not whats going on at all. Somebody isn't playing straight with us. That's the news. The NSA/FBI/CIA spying is not news and that I agree with you.
sri
Really ??? You can't think of laws in the U.S. or other "Western Countries" (if i were asian or middle eastern I think would be horribly offended) that apply only to non citizens ? Really Really Really nothing comes to mind. No right, no restrictions on action, nothing comes to mind. Hmmm you did actually make an effort to look before you posted right ??
I have lived in the US as a foreign student. AFAIK I had the same rights as US citizens as long as I had legal residency status. Please give examples of US laws that apply only to non-citizens (legally resident). e.g. is there a law that says the police can search my house without a warrent if I am not a citizen? Did you make an effort to find such laws before you posted?
The only difference in rights is that non-citizens can have their residency status revoked and be deported. There are no separate US laws for non citizens.
I don't know about places like Saudi Arabia or Israel.
Do not use OTR. It is snake oil. It is trivial to launch a man in the middle attack against OTR. It simply cannot work as designed. The current recommendation to use a phone call or similar out of band communication is questionable.
In general, well known encryption systems such as OpenPGP (pgp/gnupg), or SSL/TLS are more secure then "home-brew" encryption. The well known systems are understood and well tested. Other encryption systems often miss important details that render the encryption useless. A secure system is much more then a 256 bit AES algorithm.
Use one of the jabber clients that supports OpenPGP (gnupg) encrypted messages. Jabber SSL is not a full solution. Several clients are prone to man in the middle attacks as those clients do no validate the server certificates. Jabber with SSL does not provide client to client encryption and authentication either. Jabber with OpenPGP does.
What is there to worry if you are doing nothing wrong?
I ask this because the government CANNOT indict you on some tip that the NSA gives. It MUST do further investigating. In order for them to even get a search warrent they need to have "probable cause" (look it up). Which is quite a lot of evidence in and of itself. The government also cannot use the evidence that is gathered from the NSA surveillence itself because (I'm no lawyer, correct me if I'm wrong) technically it was obtained illegally. And evidence obtained illegally was ruled in Weeks vs. US (exclusionary rule) and Mapp vs. Ohio (exclusionary rule also applies to states) to be unusable in courts.
So, from what I see, its quite hard to be "accidentally" indicted as a criminal. Therefore, I think we're overreacting.
Don't get me wrong, I think what they're doing is wrong and illegal. I'm just saying that I think we're all overreacting.
When the president comes out in a live radio address and admits to pissing on the 4th amendment* of the Constitution, yes this quote needs to be brought up again and again. I have no problem with wiretaps and whatnot as long as a court gives out the appropriate warrent. AFAIK- The FISA court rarely rejects wiretap requests, Bush could have easily taken the legal route and not trampled on our liberties.
*4th Amendment - The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
"Some fight for law. Some fight for justice. What will you fight for? One day, you will see."
"He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security." Benjamin Franklin
Interesting that the parent gets modded "troll". Slashdot modding at its best.
Note that "for years now" should be "for decades now".
Stick the term "NSA line eater" into google groups and see the output in 1986.
Echelon has been around a long time, people. It's been pretty widely known for a long time as well.
It's fine to debate whether the program is wise, or legal, or whether it should be legal. But implying this is something relatively new and shocking is reminiscent of Claude Raines in Casablanca.
The more interesting question is, what were the specifics of the bypassing of the FIS court, and what the reasons for that were. Was there a new interpretation for the existing exceptions, or did the increasing ability of technology turn an existing exception into something beyond the original intent of FISA? This isn't clear to me. Frankly, this is a case where details matter, and they are quite lacking.
As is common, those that know the full story aren't talking, and that that are talking, largely don't know the full story.
If you are truely serious, you should never vote in your entire life. If the forefathers of America knew it was going to turn into a bunch of schmucks like you they'd have firebombed the whole 13 colonies.
Well duh. Everyone knows the 4th Amendment is almost totally destroyed. It's just sad and surprising to see the other shoe drop. I mean anyone with any inteligence has just been waiting to hear something like this confirmed in the mainstream news. And are we really at war, yada yada yada? And lastly, yeah you see no evidence that the current administration is spying for its own benefit. No need for an investigation or accountability. I'm sure we can just turn our eyes away now that they have this system setup and running, there doesn't seem to be anything going on here now so let's just lay the matter of abuse to rest...
And what about Thomas White who, prior to his appointment to Bush's cabinet as Secretary of Army, was a senior chairman at Enron and also happened to sell 200,000 shares of Enron stock for $12 million just before the company's collapse? Or Robert Zoellick--Bush's Deputy Secretary of state--who was previously a paid consultant on the Enron advisory board? Or Karl Rove--Bush's chief political advisor, who had significant stock in Enron, and helped get republican strategist Ralph Reed a consulting contract with Enron during Bush's first presidential campaign? Or John Ashcroft--who wasn't allowed to participate in the criminal investigation of the Enron scandle because of a "possible conflict of interest," and had also received more than $57,000 from Enron? Or Lawrence Lindsey, the current chief economic advisor of the whitehouse, who happens to be a former director on Enron's board? Oh, and let's not forget about the $1.75 million that Enron and Kenneth Lay gave to the G.O.P. during the 2000 campaign.
So is Bush going after corporate accounting fraud by giving those responsible cabinet positions and letting them make national policies? There's definitely corruption within the democratic party as well, but if you think Republicans are any better, you must have been living under a rock for the last 50 years. And what mess did Bush clean up after Clinton? You mean like that $200 billion surplus at the end of the Clinton administration that Bush turned into a $8 trillion deficit while cutting back on education, employment services, health, housing, law enforcement, and other programs that might actually improve our society?
Yea, thanks for all the dead arabs and U.S. soldiers Dubya, and thanks for trampling on the Constitution. The war on terrorism is going great. We're sure to win this thing any day now...
Seriously, one of the best posts on Slashdot in recent memory. Well-contained, to the point, and well thought-out.
Thank you for raising the bar.
It seems prudent to assume that one's personal IT assets are scrutinized routinely by the NSA and possibly seven other countries, simultaneously. If there is a harm to rectify, it's probably the same as the harm caused by spam -- except that with federal budgets, we citizens have a right to expect that our phones are tapped, our computers scanned and our keystrokes logged as efficiently, delicately and above all, as undetectably (and so bug-free) as possible. Otherwise, what are we paying taxes for?
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
Have you ever done a packet capture? You get everything traveling across the wire, then you have to filter out what you don't want to look at in order to focus in on the traffic you WANT!
Remember Carnivore? It was nothing more than a packet capture program that would ONLY capture traffic that you had a warrant for, essentially a reverse packet capture. There was such an outcry about the FBI using Carnivore that they scrapped it and used {gasp} ethereal!
When the NSA monitors traffic traversing transoceanic cables, they capture all the data; emails, voice traffic, internet traffic, everything! THEN they drill in on the conversation they're trying to monitor.
I've worked at ISP's, I've arbitrarily monitored traffic passing through internet backbone links, I've seen unencrypted data flying through the pipe, tons of it, and I don't need a search warrant to monitor your data. Its your fault you didn't encrypt it.
So, I guess you could say that I am worse than ANY of the NSA agents! In fact, every single damned ISP is 100,000x worse than any NSA agent because we have NO constraints on what we do with the information. I can send in anonymous tips about a drug deal being planned via email or IM, they can't. I can notify a wife about a cheating spouse.
You have NO privacy anyway, get over it. Anyone that thinks they have any privacy just doesn't know where to look for their information.
Good security is based upon reality and common sense. Common sense is a function of having common knowledge.
Whoa there sport...
Re-reading my original post, I misspoke somewhat. I didn't mean to imply that Eschelon has value in this type of situation. Let me restate:
No-one, not even our current administration, is going to attempt to leverage Eschelon on a dataset as small as 500 people...it'd be a waste of time. The system wasn't designed to listen to me and your and your uncle Steve, it was designed to listen to me and you and your uncle Steve and *everybody else*, pretty much all at once. To do anything else with it is swatting flies with a sledgehammer. The reason these clowns went to the NSA in the first place was to get that big data hoover, it wasn't to get a way to sniff 500 people's traffic...the FBI has shit that can do that. They wouldn't have gone to the NSA if they didn't want that wholesale functionality.
remember the wisdom of Mahatma Gandhi: If enough peasants die horribly, someone will probably notice
WE ARE NOT ENGAGED IN A WAR. There has been no declaration of war by Congress. Declare an official war and I might be a tad more accepting. Not a vague excuse to expand excutive powers.
I too would have preferred a formal declaration, but according to John Yoo:
Neither presidents nor Congress have ever acted under the belief that the Constitution requires a declaration of war before the U.S. can engage in military hostilities abroad. Although this nation has used force abroad more than 100 times, it has declared war only five times
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
AFAIK I had the same rights as US citizens as long as I had legal residency status.
You don't even need that. If you're here illegally, you're still protected by the constitution. If the INS finds out, of course they can deport you.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Take a look at Remote Action Interface - RAI it's solves many security problems currently expienced using the internet. here the link to the complete article http://birarai.blogspot.com/ Bira Rai birarai
But there's good news! The NSA has found out that Osama Bin Laden saved a bunch of money on his car insurance by calling Geico.
Wow, I can't think of a Slashdot post with more intelligence (no puns intended) or more insight.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
from FISA
Subchapter 1 (Electronic Surveillance) has the relevant passages of the law.
Though perhaps you didn't want to give us the link to that, because if you had, someone would have gone and read the law and seen that you're full of shit.
Section 1801
(i) "United States person" means a citizen of the United States, an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence (as defined in section 1101 (a)(20) of title 8), an unincorporated association a substantial number of members of which are citizens of the United States or aliens lawfully admitted for permanent residence, or a corporation which is incorporated in the United States, but does not include a corporation or an association which is a foreign power, as defined in subsection (a)(1), (2), or (3) of this section.
from Section 1802
(1) Notwithstanding any other law, the President, through the Attorney General, may authorize electronic surveillance without a court order under this subchapter to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of up to one year if the Attorney General certifies in writing under oath that--
(A) the electronic surveillance is solely directed at--
(i) the acquisition of the contents of communications transmitted by means of communications used exclusively between or among foreign powers, as defined in section 1801 (a)(1), (2), or (3) of this title; or
(ii) the acquisition of technical intelligence, other than the spoken communications of individuals, from property or premises under the open and exclusive control of a foreign power, as defined in section 1801 (a)(1), (2), or (3) of this title;
(B) there is no substantial likelihood that the surveillance will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party;and
(C) the proposed minimization procedures with respect to such surveillance meet the definition of minimization procedures under section 1801 (h) of this title; and
if the Attorney General reports such minimization procedures and any changes thereto to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence at least thirty days prior to their effective date, unless the Attorney General determines immediate action is required and notifies the committees immediately of such minimization procedures and the reason for their becoming effective immediately.
Unless the communications take place completely under means controlled by a foriegn power (i.e., not involving US communications carriers), they are potentially subject to FISA judicial oversight requirements. If any party involved in said communication is a US person in the statute, a court order is required. This does not just apply to communications
Second, stop beating the shit out of that straw man. Nobody is saying that the government isn't or shouldn't be wiretapping. We have laws, however, that govern how it's done. Those weren't followed. That's against the law.
The rest of your post is just a bunch of crap to distract from what utter bullshit the premise is and how intellectually dishonest you are.
The majority of US presidents, legislators and judges have violated their oaths, including the representative you just wrote.
What I did was pick out the generics of what was being done. That was hard-coded into a function. The specifics of what was needed for any given instance was passed in as a parameter. Each screen was reduced to a handful of function calls and some data.
How does this apply to Government? Well, I'd say start with the basic principle of what I did. You've a library of generic functions (which is basically what top-level departments are supposed to be) and data for the specifics (which is what the subdivisions are supposed to provide). But because this is treating them as a library of functional components, you have to invert the power structure. Atomic operations should always be treated as LOW level.
Functions common between departments should be pulled out and made common. That should be the job of the civil service. It's what they are there for. So, eliminate ALL duplication and centralize that in your political C library.
Ok, what about my suggestion for a new branch? How does that fit in? Well, it serves the same purpose as having an error handler. Trapping error conditions that cannot be trivially caught in advance is a Good Thing, but a program cannot do this inline efficiently or effectively. There will be too many cases where such errors will occur outside of an inline handler. It is also massively redundant, as most such checks will be identical and duplicated across most of the code.
Error checking in Government is handled inline and is massively duplicated. A very substantial portion of Government is tied up in accounting, for example. For reasons of secrecy, many of the departments that are the most wasteful also have the poorest accounts and billions simply vanish. The DoD and intelligence departments routinely ignore the GAO and Senate. They know they'll get the money they want, regardless. The DoE isn't much better, especially as much of energy policy is decided in strictest secrecy. As for the House and Senate ethics committees - internal investigations only ever turn up what is politically expedient. You wouldn't get far if criminal trial juries could only ever have criminals on them.
No, it would be better to have one group with absolute, unquestionable access to EVERYTHING, regardless of security considerations, that handled ALL the accountability (financial and legal). You eliminate those functions ENTIRELY from each and every department and replace the IRS with a department whose sole purpose is general-purpose Government I/O - such as delivering tax information and collecting money. You can also eliminate the GAO entirely.
Redundancy is the biggest contributor to bloat. Unnecessary functions come a close second. We've so far eliminated a lot of redundancy, by inverting the power structure (so primitives don't have more power than the high-level operations driving them) and by moving a common, generic operation that is too prone to be corrupted when inline into an independent thread.
Once you've done that, Government should appear lighter, as you don't have all the heavyweight stuff at the top and you've properly threaded the exception handlers. Now, are there any unnecessary functions we can get rid of as well? Well, if the Senate adopted Proportional Representation or some similar system, then you could eliminate the role of Vice President. Why have a person whose sole real job is to tie-break, when you can just change the system to one that can't tie?
In fact, at this point, it is unclear what role a President would have. Most countries have a Prime Minister, who is merely the head of one of the houses, so would be the Majori
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
"I have no significant problem with this being used against foreign powers or citizens"
:D
I have a big problem with it, I don't live in the USA. But I have no significant problem with this being used against citizens of the USA
BTW I also assume that if a network only uses routers, firewalls, and/or software from the USA, then the NSA can just breeze right through without even slowing down (if you're Cisco and the NSA tells you that if you want to export your products then you'll install a back door and keep quiet, then that's what you'll do). Therefore the NSA probably knows all it wants about what my Government is thinking.
Borg:"Lawsuits are irrelevant. GPL3 is irrelevant. DRM is good. We understand security... Alert! MS are assimilating us!
Actually, I'll make a small alteration to that. Those doing the collecting (ie: not actually processing anything, they're just doing the grunt work) could be kept on for 5 days maximum. That would be sufficient to get badges prepared, brief the raiders, get them to the site, raid the place, get them back, gather the materials found and debrief them. After that, their anonymity is gone anyway, so they'd be much less effective and much more open to bribes.
Keeping things running flat-out and then cycling things as rapidly as possible should keep both the politicians and corporations out of it. They'd not have enough time to react, before there had been sufficient turnover to make whatever they were reacting to moot.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
If i had any mod points you would certainly get mine.
Great post.
I'm not informed enough on this matter to come down on one side or another, but your post does little convince me if for no other reason than all but one of your several references goes to the same source. Even if we were to ignore the fact that this particular source is going to have a clear, known bias, it's just plain poor form.
Don't take this as me bashing the National Review. My point is merely that if you're going to go to the trouble of citing multiple times to make a point, seeing [somesite.com] [somesite.com] [somesite.com] over and over in your post diminishes the value of said citations. It just makes it look like you're parroting the view of a single source.
The NSA spying was more widespread than initially reported. Which means that, once again, the American people were lied to by the Bush administration. Sadly, this just is not news any more.
Normally, when one is confronted with a habitual liar, you can just ignore the person. Unfortunately, this particular liar could do some serious damage to the country (hell, already has, IMHO) and it's unlikely that we'd be able to rid ourselves of him. Even worse, if we did, then we'd have Cheney as president. An even bigger liar. (If he's not lying, then he's got to be even more deluded than Bush; which would be quite difficult.) One has to hope that somewhere evidence is being collected and plans are being hatched to impeach the lot of them. (Uh, waitasec... President Hastert? Man, we are so screwed.)
"I have seen no real evidence that he's doing it to spy on Democrats or look good in the polls or line his pockets."
That may be, but I don't trust the rest of his posse any farther than they can be thrown. Bush himself may not have a nefarious use for such information, but I'll bet Mr. Rove, for instance, is cackling and rubbing his hands with glee.
I don't think I've ever seen such a pile of bullshit as the OP's post.
First, a court order is required for any surveillance of communciation where one of the parties is a "US Person". Unless your the President and decide that is an incovenience.
Second, Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness is not a checklist. It's not a pecking order. They are integral to each other. If your premise about them were correct, then it would have been written: Life, or Liberty, or the Pursuit of Happiness. However, that's not the way it was written. They are meant to be inseperable; each on their own is not enough. Life without liberty or the ability to pursue happiness is not really a life. The founding fathers understood this, and if you would take the time to understand the document you are cherrypicking sound bites from, you might understand that too.
Power corrupts, but it takes time. Therefore, if you have only the briefest instant of time, you can only have the smallest degree of corruption. Also, if they can't DO anything, then most of the advantages power provides that allow corruption to occur are severely crippled.
I think it could be made to work, in a way that really would be a good idea. I also think it is inevitable that something analogous to this approach will evolve, sooner or later, because Governments are the least able to police themselves but are the most in need of being policed. The only questions in my mind are: (1) how, in fact, this will come about, and (2) when. If you look at every system that has failed in history, it is because corruption has spread from the center, precisely because Government is powerless to monitor itself. Ergo, if you want a failure-resistant system, you have to find a way to add monitoring.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
If the USA let the UN gain control of the Internet root servers, it would be so much harder to monitor everyone...
But with the current control structure, the USA can effectively monitor the entire planet's communications.
European nations have already recognized this.
big brother is already here.
If was using the information to spy on political opponents, it would've been leaked already.
The Bush administration has a lot of enemies within among the career bureaucrats in Washington who are itching to get even because he upset their applecart.
Soooooo...... anything found under FISA could not be used to prosecute anyone as a terrorist?
But, isn't that what they're trying to do? Find and stop the terrorists?
Unless they intend to "stop" the terrorist without resorting to any of our "legal" measures?
"...all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights..."
Not all whites, all American citizens, not even strictly speaking men...
I just found out there's no such thing as the real world. It's just a lie you've got to rise above. - John Mayer
Point out the page on which "Dummies Guide to American Government" says that the President can order warrantless spying on Americans.
Didn't the [Truong] court decide that the president had Constitutional authority to do these sorts of things, if they were under "National Security"? Constitution trumps law...
Name another time that the President has ordered warrantless spying on Americans.
Ford and Clinton in recent history
To appreciate direct and unabashed violation of the Fourth Amendment? I'm afraid it will take a lot more than that for me to appreciate it.
I don't remember where exactly, but I believe the Supreme Court (in a Truong related brief) stated explicitly the president could override 4th ammendment privileges in the case of a National Security issue.
Don't like it? Start doing what is provided for in the Constitution... contact your representatives, and get them to work on an Ammendment. (Bush isn't as popular as some folks think, and he won't be around next term)
For the people saying "oh I have no problem with this, it keeps me safe," you really need to understand the core reason people are getting so upset. The government is allowed to wiretap, spy, etc on anyone they want, however they need a warrant. If the need is pressing they even have the right to start wiretapping immediately, as long as they get a warrant within 48 hours. They can even go longer and if they had good reason the judge will retroactively give them a warrant, AND its not like they're going before a public court to do this: they can get the warrant in a secret court.
Why the hell do they need to be wiretapping in total secrecy and without anyone to check their actions? Digustingly unamerican.
Hey that's a great idea, and that's exactly why the president wouldn't release the names of the corporations that served on Cheney's energy commission. That's why he won't talk about the outing of Valarie Plume, and that's why... ah what's the point, you just don't get it.
J
I don't remember where exactly, but I believe the Supreme Court (in a Truong related brief) stated explicitly the president could override 4th ammendment privileges in the case of a National Security issue.
Bullshit. Sure, the fourth amendment might be applied differently in certain situations, but it is never "overridden." It is just as much a part of the Constitution as Article II.
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
To which you replied:
You don't understand what "context" is, do you?
Here, this is a quick google search for the first quote he uses. You will notice that the sites listed do not point to any Islamic texts, but to sites where you can purchase his book or refutations of his book.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q= %22believers%2C+fight+the+unbelievers+who+are+near +to+you%2C+and+let+them+find+in+you+a+harshness%3B +and+know+that+Allah+is+with+the+godfearing%22&btn G=Search
And now for comparision, a quote from the Bible, searched via Google.
Phrase: "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22For+to+us+ a+child+is+born%2C+to+us+a+son+is+given%2C+and+the +government+will+be+on+his+shoulders.+And+he+will+ be+called+Wonderful+Counselor%2C+Mighty+God%2C+Eve rlasting+Father%2C+Prince+of+Peace.%22&btnG=Google +Search
There. The links it shows are all church related sites and you find a link to a Bible search site on the 2nd page.
That that seems to show is that the phrase he used on his site is far more popular in his book than in any Islamic sites.
You might want to look into the history of abortion clinic bombings. In the continental US, there have been more abortion clinic attacks by "Christians" than there have been attacks by Islamics.
And without the WTO attack, the "Christians" would have killed more people.
You're "guessing"? I specifically stated it was in the Bible. Here's a good place to start.
http://bibleresources.bible.com/passagesearchresul ts.php?passage1=Judges+21&version1=9
As for Islam, yes I have. I've shown millions of Muslims who live in the US and who do NOT subscribe to jihad against it.
Maybe you missed something called "The Civil War"?
Since then, most people do not seem to have felt that the situation required armed resistance. Although there are several militias out there preparing for it.
Far be it from me to mock idiots on Slashdot, but I'm in a holiday mood.
"Warrantless searches happen all the time, and have been repeatedly upheld as legal."
I couldn't help but notice that every single one of his examples have undergone judicial review. I'll let you figure out the moral of this story.
"There are good reasons for not getting FISA warrants."
It's funny that he brings up the Moussaoui case, because the bipartisan report at http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2003_rpt/fisa.html specifically mentions it as well. Before you flame me for actually researching official reports instead of basing my opinions on what a few disingenuous and intellectually dishonest neocon dipshits write, you might want to take a look. The report concludes that the mishandling of the Moussaoui case was due to a lack of proper FBI training and problems within the agency, not through any failing of the FISA court. Inefficient FBI processes were what lead to warrant applications not being made within the 72-hour time limit to the court. There' much more in that vein, but this is the best part:
"IV. The Importance of Enhanced Congressional Oversight
An undeniable and distinguishing feature of the flawed FISA implementation system that has developed at the DOJ and FBI over the last 23 years is its secrecy. Both at the legal and operational level, the most generalized aspects of the DOJ's FISA activities have not only been kept secret from the general public but from the Congress as well. As we stated above, much of this secrecy has been due to a lack of diligence on the part of Congress exercising its oversight responsibility. Equally disturbing, however, is the difficulty that a properly constituted Senate Committee, including a bipartisan group of senior senators, had in conducting effective oversight of the FISA process when we did attempt to perform our constitutional duties."
[...]
"Oversight of the entire FISA process is hampered not just because the Committee was initially denied access to a single unclassified opinion but because the Congress and the public get no access to any work of the FISA Court, even work that is unclassified. This secrecy is unnecessary, and allows problems in applying the law to fester. There needs to be a healthy dialogue on unclassified FISA issues within Congress and the Executive branch and among informed professionals and interested groups. Even classified legal memoranda submitted by the DOJ to, and classified opinions by, the FISA Court can reasonably be redacted to allow some scrutiny of the issues that are being considered. This highly important body of FISA law is being developed in secret, and, because they are ex parte proceedings, without the benefit of opposing sides fleshing out the arguments as in other judicial contexts, and without even the scrutiny of the public or the Congress. Resolution of this problem requires considering legislation that would mandate that the Attorney General submit annual public reports on the number of targets of FISA surveillance, search, and investigative measures who are United States persons, the number of criminal prosecutions where FISA information is used and approved for use, and the unclassified opinions and legal reasoning adopted by the FISA Court and submitted by the DOJ.
As the recent litigation before the FISA Court of Review demonstrated, oversight also bears directly on the protection of important civil liberties. Due process means that the justice system has to be fair and accountable when the system breaks down.
Many things are different now since the tragic events of last September, but one thing that has not changed is the United States Constitution. Congress must work to guarantee the civil liberties of our people while at the same time meet our obligations to America's national security. Excessive secrecy and unilateral decision making by a single branch of government is not the proper method of s
Ken Starr (the Independant Counsel who brought the charges of perjury against Clinton) was assigned to investigate the Whitewater scandal. The perjury happened in a deposition in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case (which was totally unrelated to Whitewater). When Starr could not make anything stick in the Whitewater affair, he wagged the dog to make the case about Clinton's personal life. Thanks to Linda Tripp, he had evidence that Clinton had lied under oath in a totally different investigation (Paula Jones). If it weren't for Ken Starr's behavior, Clinton most likely would not have been charged with perjury, and he certainly would not have been impeached. What is more ridiculous than Starr's findings is that they actually started impeachment proceedings against Clinton for it.
Sorry I'm not sourcing this ... but as I understand it, the Framers thought the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights (particularly the First) were so fundemental and so necessary as to be self-evident. And as such they were not included in the original document. Some of the ratification hold-outs weren't convinced, knowing that men were essentially ignorant and power-hungry and demanded their enumeration.
I think you can google this up either in some of the letters of the Framers or in the documents surrounding the constitutional convention.
Just a drive-by comment. Off the cuff...
Respecfully,
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
Or you could just change the semantics of the language. (commerce clause, eminent domain, ...)
I am just glad that I don't live there. History will not judge the terrible regime that has existed in the US over the last 50+ years kindly. From the genocide in Cambodia and Laos, to the current slaughter in Iraq, US regimes have long had the deeply seated crass criminality of bannana republic dictatorships. Widespread spying on its own people by the police state in the US is just further confirmation of the arrival of US fascism. One only has to remember that Hitler used the same justifications of 'national security' for removing peoples' rights.
If they can't use thermal imaging, then HOW THE HELL can they use a geiger counter?!?! Are you daft? Heat radiates out too. If you wanted you can make a radiation image of the place. Go one way or the other, if you do both you look like a dolt. If it projects out, I doubt it's private anymore.
Tell you what you can do to thank me. Please designate me as your foe, so we can eagerly ignore each other henceforth.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
As for those complaining about the abridgement of their rights and rampant government interference I would ask you, have you or anyone you know observed or experienced serious interference in your life (lives)? I haven't, and I don't know anyone who has.
You must not be brown.
Ha ha, only serious.
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
Dada is forever promoting his wet dream of unregulated telecom. He seems to have only taken econ 101 where competition = good and not graduated to 201 where they explain barriers to entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barriers_to_entry and natural monopolies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly.
"What's that?"
"He must have been dragged away while typing it."
"You don't type, 'Let go of me' while someone is dragging you off, you just say it."
"Perhaps he was dictating."
"Oh shut up..."
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
Actually people are treating US Person as if its US Citizen - and its clearly not. A "US Person" can be a legitimate target for routine intercepts, especially when engaged in activities hostile to the US involving people overseas. US Person is a temporal designation, and subject to change based on activity and location.
US Citizen is not.
Yet people here on Slashdot seem to think US Person == US Citizen.
THAT is what I was cautioning against. Hardly irrelevant difference.
As for "Histrionics" - they're all yours. The Bullshit here is your misunderstanding (or is it a deliberate distortion, a lie perhaps) of the ease with which FISA warrants are granted? Its almost impossible to get warrnts sufficient in scope and speed to follow across several media forms without going outside the bounds of the FIS _ and you will nto it was not written with the speed of modern commuications in mind. People swithcing from Sat phones to land lines to cells, to "trhow away" mobiles, to VoiP, to Blackberry email, to IM... FISA courts are unable to cycle rapidly enough and allow the cross connections needed to follow across thsoe boundaries.
The bullshit, my friend, is yours and based on your ignorance of the limitations of FISA courts and the pace with which modern intercept operations must be conducted, especially with multiple terminus international communications. Remember, the 4th amendment is not absolute with regards to warrants (the "reasonable" clause give a lot of lattitude to searches where immediacy is important), and the President has fairly large amount of lattitude under Article II of the Constitution.
Or would you rather the enemies operate unfettered and mostly unobserved, like they did prior to 9/11?
It comes down to who you trust. Apparently you trust Al Qaeda more that your fellow citizens who work at the intellgience agencies. I find my trust to go the other way, given I know some of the latter, and have seen the former's handiwork up-close in NY City and Mosul.
I'm not an apologist as much as a realist - unlike you who seems to have forgottent here are bad people out there who wish to destroy the US and are even now engaged in the attempts to do so. A "slip" in one direction results in lawsuits, a slip in the other results in mass casualty. You cannot treat both risk sets as if they are identical. Wake up. Its not Sep 10, 2001 world anymore.
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo! http://goo.gl/J9bkO
This isn't about partisan politics, the critics of this spying have a very firm basis in law and fact. For God's sake, the NSA's own site says that spying on Americans without a warrant in unconstitutional:
http://www.nsa.gov/coremsgs/corem00003.cfm
It doesn't get more clear cut than that.
Hyperbole is the worst thing ever.
Actually, Lincoln was a Republican.
I read a bumper sticker the other day... "When Clinton Lied, Nobody Died"
Sums it up nicely i think.
From here over the Atlantic, Nixon looks like a prime example of the US naivity over politicians. He was a crook. His first VP was a crook. Many of his staff were crooks. He did a deal to get a hand-picked VP on the understanding that a pardon would be forthcoming were it to be needed. He waged a secret and illegal war, he engaged in hideous illegality internally and he lied, lied, lied to you.
And the US people let him go into affluent, unpunished retirement. His funeral was well-attended by politicians, who presumably saws nothing wrong with his actions.
Why would Bush be frightened of Nixon's fate? The USA rewarded Nixon handsomely.
ian
Actually HE DIDNT LIE IN COURT. When asked if he had had sexual relations, he asked the judge to define sexual relations. The judges definition excluded nonpenetrative sex, so Clinton could quite merrily reply in court under oath that he didnt have sexual relations. Its a huge play on words, but thats what lawyers and courts revolve around and in this case it fell in the defendants favour.
If your goverment orders a law that sais they must be able to read your emails, you comply or go to jail.
It doesn't help at all to have a secure system because they are inside it.
My quality social news site.com.
Hack the sas system!
Why doesn't someone sue Bush/the government?
I'm not sure but I see some parallels between all of this and the McCarthy Era. Back then it was the scare over Communism, which ended up ruining a lot of lives and ending a lot of careers for people who didn't deserve it. Today its the fear of Terrorism, and its going to cause the same things to happen. The Patriot Act and all that's been happening since 9/11 is EXACTLY what Osama Bin Laudin wanted to happen. We played right into their hands. 9/11 was just the catalyst needed to cause of this to take place, sad but true. While the government thinks its trying to protect us from terrorism the Terrorist are looking at all of the rights we enjoyed being taken away in the name of National Security and are having themselves a good old belly laugh.
We're giving the Terrorists what they want, we are acting in fear of them and that is the aim of Terrorism to induce fear in order to get what you want. The Terrorist want America to live in fear of them because they hate us, they know they'll never get us to leave the Middle East and cut off ties to Israel so they'll be content to keep us afraid of them and forcing the government to take away more and more of our rights in the process.
Michael "TheZorch" Haney
thezorch@gmail.com
http://thezorch.googlepages.com/home
Is the grammatical error in your sig intentional?
It's official. Most of you are morons.
The voters in this country have been completely marginalized. Their vote no longer really matters, because it doesn't matter who gets elected. If Kerry had won, the boat we are in wouldn't really be that much different. The President isn't the only person in our government who makes things how they are.
He has a lot of influence sure, but the gears of our bureaucracies can't be stopped or slowed by just one man in most cases. The real problem we have is with the way our government is setup and the way that corporations have infected it. The original idea of the 3 branches of government was a good one for its time, but it is much less applicable in our era.
Take into account also, that the majority of the people who live in this country probably wouldn't score over 1000 on their SAT (based on the old 1600 scale, don't think they've determined what "average" is on the 2400 scale yet, but I don't know). These are the ones that buy into the hype of the candidate and all of his or her claims, who vote based on emotional pull rather than logic.
The sad part here though, is that there is no solution. No change you can make will fix this, because it is a problem with human nature.
All your base are belong to Google.
Its almost impossible to get warrnts sufficient in scope and speed to follow across several media forms without going outside the bounds of the FIS
More bullshit.
The FISA warrants can be made retroactive within 72 hours. That means go ahead and wiretap the motherfucker anywhichway you want. Just make sure you get clearance afterwards.
I'm not an apologist as much as a realist
Hardly.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Nobody here has "forgottent here are bad people out there who wish to destroy the US and are even now engaged in the attempts to do so." What you seem to have forgotten is that sometimes, those people are politicians burdened by their own sense of moral authority. A "slip" in one direction doesn't just result in lawsuits. It results in government organizations using torture as an intelligence-gathering tool. It results in people being detained indefinitely, without having charges brought against them and without access to legal counsel.
In short, these "slips" result in an America that commits the same sort of human rights violations that enrage and sicken us when they are done by third-world dictators. These "slips" dilute and tarnish the message of freedom and democracy that we want the world to understand and share. These "slips" encourage and excuse tyrannical governments around the world, and destroy the moral authority our country desperately needs when speaking out against them.
I agree with Bush on one matter: the world will always be unsafe so long as people live under regimes of fear, oppression, and tyranny. America is setting an example for all those regimes, right now. The message? Things like "civil liberties" and "the rule of law" can be set aside whenever those in power feel that such ideals interfere with the pursuit of their own safety and security.
You are the one who needs to wake up. In the "post-September 11th world" you keep talking about, it is more important than ever that we cling to our love of freedom, and set an example that can inspire and rally the forces of good around the world. If that course of action made it easier for terrorists to function, I would still recommend it. But besides being good for the American soul, I think it would give us the leverage to do good in the world, push for necessary reforms, and inspire moderate and peace-loving Muslims around the world to stand up against the bloodthirsty few.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
In other news OBL re-ups NYT subscription
do we REALLY need that quote EVERY time dubya removes some of your liberties?
Seeing how you feel the need to complain, doesn't that mean liberties are being removed at some rate? Is that good?
Your argument about "U.S. Persons" not being "U.S. Citizens" is a nonsensical one, because the only relevant definition of "U.S. Persons" in this discussion comes from FISA itself. That law explicitly states that U.S. Persons are not to be the subject of searches and wiretaps without a court order. You are correct that a U.S. Person can cease to be one, but the only example I can think of is when an immigrant has his or her greencard revoked. At that point, the person at least has the ability to know that he or she is no longer protected under FISA.
You seem to be arguing the absurd: that even though I am a U.S. Citizen, I cease to be a U.S. Person while I'm on the phone to Spain, or when I'm on the phone with someone who happens to be under investigation, or when I've posted a communist screed to my blog. If that's not what you're trying to imply, then please be a dear and explain how the distinction between "U.S. Citizen" and "U.S. Person" (a broader category that is also protected under FISA) is germane to this discussion.
Your claim that our enemies operated unobserved prior to September 11 is overstated. They certainly weren't "unfettered and unobserved" when U.S. agencies were able to stop the Millennium attacks. The dots were there to be connected prior to September 11 as well.
Finally, at best you've made a coherent argument that FISA is insufficient to the task of hunting terrorists. Even if doing an end-run around the law is making us safer, that doesn't make Bush's actions legal, and your attempts to justify the legality (as opposed to the necessity) of this program border on the ridiculous. You've made three arguments:
1) US Citizen != US Person: Irrelevant, because under FISA both are categories of people who cannot be wiretapped without a warrant from the Court.
2) The president has broad authorities under Article II of the Constitution: Where, specifically? Where does it say that the president can ignore the laws of Congress?
3) The Fourth Amendment only protects against unreasonable searches and seizures: Yes, when speed is of the essence, a warrant might not be needed, or might be obtained retroactively. But there still needs to be probable cause, and "She's making a phone call to Afghanistan" doesn't cut it.
The way FISA is written, in order to conduct a warrantless search against a "foreign power", the person conducting the search must have a reasonable expectation that they're not going to get information about a U.S. Person (citizen, legal alien, or U.S. corporation). That means that neither end of the transaction is a U.S. Person. The President cannot violate FISA just because he believes that doing so will help him conduct his "war on terror".
Finally, to preemptively counter a popular defense: Bush is not a wartime president, much as he'd like to think he is. He will not be one until such a time as Congress makes a formal declaration of war.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Too bad you had to toss that in the end there. You just totally discredited what started out as an intelligent post.
Idiot. Your side lost the election according to the rules set forth by the constitution. Get over it already and do something constructive.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
He has a lot of influence sure, but the gears of our bureaucracies can't be stopped or slowed by just one man in most cases.
What are you talking about? This happened because the NSA is under the Executive branch and because Bush signed an executive order directing the NSA to do so.
The original idea of the 3 branches of government was a good one for its time, but it is much less applicable in our era.
I don't think you could find a BETTER modern example of why we need three branches of government. This kind of executive abuse is exactly why we have courts to strike down his shenanigans and Congress to impeach him.
the keystroke loggers on Windows really are wicked.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
There are a couple of nice timelines (no I don't feel like looking for them) that shows the Administration does this as standard operating proceedure. Bad news is released late on Friday, so it has the weekend to cool down. Or they try and cover up bad news with other news, like the nominations of Supreme Court justices.
You're beyond full of crap. You're beyond a troll. Trolls show nuance and plausibility.
If the phone calls only involved known terrorists, then getting a warrant from FISA would have been childs play. The fact that this program specifically avoided getting warrants implies one of two things:
1) The program was monitoring a large sampling of international calls for which no probable cause could be justified.
2) The program was only monitoring "suspected terrorists," but those people were only known as such due to intelligence gathered via torture. If law enforcement went to FISA with "we tortured person W and got the names of persons X, Y, and Z, whom we'd like to wiretap," it would be thrown out.
Neither of these options is legal, neither of these options is ethical, and neither of these options can be dismissed by your trollish "Of COURSE the government monitors communications!"
Your craptitude also extends to your constitutional scholarship. I don't think even Bush has claimed that, because "Life is first on the list" means that the government can ignore the rest of the Constitution whenever doing so might save lives.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Don't forget most jabber clients support GPG as well. :) I use PSI and have been using GPG for years. I recommend KGPG for a good gpg key managing program.
Why?
I'm actually curious. I've never understood the visceral hatred that so many people have for the religious activists, volunteers, and peaceful human beings that constitute the left wing of the US.
Most of us do not hate you. We are sad that you are consumed by so much hate, and would like to see a country that would not treat its citizenry so badly that that kind of blind hatred is not engendered.
OTOH, you might just be a troll. I don't know, because I've met people whose hatred of the left is so bad that the police have to keep them from interrupting and attacking peaceful demonstrations. Peace be unto you.
Why can't I mod "-1 Idiot"?
> They asked him it during a sexual harrassment trial...where his sexual history, particularly his on the fucking job sexual history is actually relevant to the case....in other words, they actually had a right to ask him.
Actually, judge Wright ultimately ruled otherwise. She did allow it in the depositions, but later ruled it inadmissable as evidence in the case.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
THat's the Declaration of Independence which hold no legal power what so ever. You might want to make reference to the 14th Amendment instead, which says much less quotably, that the governemtn will pass no laws abridging personal rights and will offer all citizens equal protection under the law.
> There is a war on, and wars always cost some civil liberties.
FYI, Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus and the courts ruled against him, even in a civil war.
The US Constitution simply doesn't give the executive branch to do whatever it thinks necessary in a crisis. (And rightly not: the "continual crisis" is probably the historically most popular mechanism for destroying nations' freedoms.)
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> Not only was Clinton too busy having his dick sucked to take any notice of the largest frauds in American history
What I find funny is that right-wingers are still hauling out Clinton distract attention from the current administration's excesses.
Sure, Clinton, like every other president in living memory - with the possible exception of Carter - was a liar and a crook. Does that mean we should just go along with unjustified wars and the wholesale destruction of our civil liberties?
Do you think Johnson's exploitation of the Tonkin Gulf "incident" was OK on the grounds that Nixon was a liar? Or the Iran-Contra affair was OK because of something Kennedy did?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> And what mess did Bush clean up after Clinton? You mean like that $200 billion surplus at the end of the Clinton administration that Bush turned into a $8 trillion deficit while cutting back on education, employment services, health, housing, law enforcement, and other programs that might actually improve our society?
Hey, Bush is just following his mandate: to make sure the rich get richer quicker.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
In addition to what the other s have had to say re: what you're so outraged about. "Willful disregard of a law is potentially an impeachable offense. It is at least as impeachable as having a sexual escapade under the Oval Office desk and lying about it later." From the Barron's editorial. This is about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It's about what makes America...America. And frankly, America deserves better.
It's like the old people say. They have been doing this for years anyway. Did you really think the NSA wasn't spying on us. I never thought that. The courts that process wiretaps at a federal level pass almost every request that comes through.
The ONLY reason to do this is to skip past the paper trail. I think it was done to monitor high profile people without accoutability and that is its sole purpose.
The courts already rubber stamped everything that came through anyway. If they needed faster wiretaps they could even tap first then run the papers, but there is no reason ever to remove the courts from the process other that you don't want people to know who you spied on.
Not that it would have been entirely impossible to bypass the courts just now its an official process not something you need to worry about someone blowing the whiste on.
He is spying on people who are not terrorists otherwise the courts would give him the wiretaps. The FBI is investigating PETA and GreenPeace with their funding boosts. Oh yea I bet those guys are planning the next dirty bomb riight.
What a world of incompetent public officials. Lets smoke em out of their holes boys. We'll start with Greenpeace !!
"...as a part of a presidentially approved program to hunt for evidence of terrorist activity"
There are no terrorists except for those in the U.S. government. 9/11 was an inside job. It's an endless series of boogiemen.
Boo!
Did you try to obtain a job with a student non work visa ?
You cryptofascist libertarians who don't care, even secretly cheer this, that's fine. You can welcome it, in fact I see no reason why you should donate all your privacy to the government in order for them to make it cheaper to do and therefore save you your holy sacred tax dollars.
Me? I'm not thrilled by it, I think it's dangerous. So what we should do is have two societies in America:
One that's opaque, secretive but prys open the secrets of all its individuals.
One that's transparent and leaves individuals alone.
I'll stay in mine and you stay in yours. I'm totaly fine with that. That I think is totally in line with the Libertarian screw you I got mine ethos.
Why doesn't Slashdot support https for a start?
/. to use HTTPS?
Assuming you are not trying to be funny or a troll, why exactly would you want
Actually, they asked him that during a trial about suspect real estate deals. The wholy irrelevant sex was simply leveraged in order to force a married man to lie about having an affair.
I have a plan. Using mainly spoons, we'll tunnel our way out of the city...
I note, for instance, a new search engine, http://www.podzinger.com/, which indexes and searches inside podcasts. It basically converts them to text and does a search on that. It's a cute demo site by BBN Technologies, a company with excellent speech recognition systems that also does most of its work for the feds. If the speech recognition engine can create that, would it not be possible for the NSA to be doing high-volume scans of phone calls? Sen. Graham is right that they have new technology. They've apparently been given access to major telephone transmission links. But it's also obvious now that the policy was changed too.
And which part of this war don't you see?
Thank you ML for those very eloquent words, I'm going to bookmark that post because I've often tried to express these very sentiments to my friends and associates but ultimately failed to convince, presumably due to my own ineptitude. I never imagined these ideas being put so succinctly. Merry Christmas.
He will not be impeached.
The problem is not limited to the President. I was not singling the Executive branch out. This problem is government-wide. The voters no longer have the ability to change government policy, because the people they elect are not representing them, but merely representing enough of their desires to get themselves into office, and then ignoring them except when they need to save their collective asses.
All your base are belong to Google.
There was an article not to far back about how phone tap devices could be tricked, is that applicable to how phone is being spied on now? Should this be a part of every phone call?
...
THERE IS NOT A "WAR" ON, though. Many times in our nation's history, the congress has declared war and afforded the president with extraordinary war powers.
Now, just like korea, vietnam, kuwait, and now iraq, the military actions have been _authorized_ by congress, but no war declared. I can understand how these are called wars, though.
But just because Bush says this is a "war on terror" (tell me when THAT ends?) doesn't mean that we're "at war"?
To be using the word "war" wili-nilli like this demeans the true gravity of the concept of limiting civil rights and affording the president extra powers in times of REAL war.
INsigNIFICANT
Please, point me to the criminal statute the President has violated. As far as I know, there is none. The laws involved dictate what steps are required in order that any evidence gain via a wiretap be admissable in a court of law. If the NSA, acting under this executive order, gathered evidence, without a warrant, it's simply not admissable. As far as I know there is no law that says they can't. In fact, in some situations they have up to 72 hours after performing the surveillance to *retroactively* apply for a warrant.
I am not defending the president. I don't think the NSA should be doing what it's doing. I think the president is violating the privacy of US citizens. I think Congress should pass a law to reign in the executive and his powers in this arena. But as far as I know, the president has violated no existing criminal statute. He just collected a whole bunch of inadmissable evidence.
Well, there clearly is a war going on. Probably not the one you think, but a war all the same. "They hate our freedoms" should clue you in a bit. See, according to legend them thar terrists hate our freedoms and what do you know? Immediately, the gorvernment starts taking them away. What side do you think the government is on? Who do you think the war is against?
I guess you are referring to my supposedly lost freedoms -- but I haven't lost any, so I don't see your point... All I know is that we have seen no terrorist attacks on American soil in over 4 years...
We have one writter-philosopher in our country that says that there is no difference between "soviet political elite" and "american political elite". I think that now it is at least worth of thinking about it, right?
Well, I've got to get back to work. When I stop rowing, the slave ship just goes in circles.
Except Vince Foster.
(and, really, who knows how many other unknowns?)
resigned
except what he did is probably legal. Clinton and Carter both signed executive orders allowing warrantless searches and surveillance. Clinton even expanded it to domestic only situations.
i asked the guys that run the extensions page for mozilla.org because the pages loaded significantly slower and they claimed if everyone encrypted all internet connections we would all be safe from hacking. last time i checked, hackers dont intercept publicly availible information. but as far as security, windows users are still going to get their spyware fomr webpages and such, just encrypted.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Why would I make you an enemy ?
You're a fantastic example of the wise and tolerant left.
Free Speach as long as you agree with the party line
A little name calling thrown in just to show the great intellectual superiority you posess.
People like you get out the republican vote like nothing else.
Name another time that the President has ordered warrantless spying on Americans.
There were the times Carter authorized warrantless electronic surveillance and Clinton authorized warrantless searches. Clinton even expanded it to cover purely domestic situations.
There's a surprising amount of case law in this area, and all of it has consistently found the president is authorized to do this.
You may want to start reading the news... And speding some time reflecting on the fact that if you are not personally affected by some action now, it does not mean that you will not be affected later.
Btw, you might want to look at history for examples of people who found that their freedoms had beed taken way too late to do anything.
About your comment on the 4 safe years: as someone else said somewhere on this thread, you are confusing correlation with causation. Since 9/11 there have been no attacks here in Argentina either, and I would be a fool to think that that is because of the measures taken by the USian government, wouldn't I?
the nsa until recently was not even known to the general puplic. the nsa has been tapping all overseas phone calls for quite some time now. several years ago i read an obscure article about the nsa and thier headquarters outside of washington, d.c. its basicly a building within a building filled with, quess what, lots of super computers. they are not using these things for any kinda video rendering , but to monitor phone conversations. they monitor all overseas calls to and from the U.S. and they monitor ALL phone calls made around the entire planet. we know its against the law for them to tap our phones here in country soooooo the have canada and britain ect. do it for them and exchange information as a way to sidestep the laws.
FISA provided an exception to the 4th amendment for foreign intelligence gathering. The first Subchapter specifically mentions this, and the third goes into more detail.
I did a little more reading, and I may have overstated... as it was only one or two courts interpretation; however, it is not bullshit either. It's apparently not a "settled" issue.
m endment04/05.html#t156
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/a
Scroll down to footnote 156, and check out that attached cases.
Just wondering why you claim that no warrant is needed for the cops/FBI to listen in on cell phone conversations ... then claim that nothing heard on them can be used in court without a warrant.
Then you try to imply that the law enforcement agencies of the United States of America would use the information gained to counter terrorism in a non-legal fashion.
Rather, it sounds like you don't know what you're talking about and are flailing around for any "explanation" to "justify" your previous claims.
Right on, my conservative brother!
I am *so* fucking tired of those whiney liberals always voting against increased government, a reduction in "civil rights" (whatever the hell *those* are), increased spending, and war.
Those Democratic pussied don't realize killing people takes *money,* goddamnit. Lots and lots of money. And the government needs to know which of its citizens are anti-war, meaning pro-terrorist. Anyone speaking out against our President and his cabinet are treasonous bastards, just as bad as the terrorists who flew those planes into those buildings, killing all those people.
Liberals are *so* fucking stupid, they don't even realize Bin Laden doesn't even *matter* any more. This has gone so far beyond him, he's just a babe in toybox. Now America's enemies are *Americans*. Americans, just like those whiney fucking pussy liberals.
God, I hate people who are against big, intrusive government, people who want to curb the greatest spending spree of any US President *ever*, who would rather spend that money on Americans.
They are betraying everything American stands for.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
If you want to play that way, then we also cover the past 2,000 years.
Oops, Christianity loses big time. Ever hear of the "Crusades"?
That is because you are biased and do not want to look at the facts.
Yeah, and if I needed any more evidence that you don't know what you're talking about, you just provided it. Yes, it most certainly was.
Geography does not fight.
... because those states had local laws that those people had voted for and that they were afraid the Federal government would force them to change.
It was people who believed the government should act a certain way attacking the people who believed the government should act a different way. The people doing the attacking were in certain states
You seem to be big on making up criteria to suit yourself. But that doesn't change the facts. The southern states did not like the way the Federal government was going so they declared themselves to be their own nation and started a war.
Just as all the states had done during the Revolutionary War with England.
"All"? "Decades"? Again, there have been MORE "Christian" attacks on abortion clinics than there have been Islamic attacks in the continental US.
Are you going to get that through your head?
Or will you keep denying it because it doesn't suit your bias?
Where?
You did.
No you did not. The closest you came was suggesting that maybe the Muslims in the US followed a different type of Islam.
Nope.
This concept of "context" just kicks you ass every time, doesn't it?
No. It was never about "violence all together".
It was about the quotes on that page being taken out of context to portray Islam as violent.
That's what this "context" thing is about. Taking a quote where it says that dying in battle against the enemy is holy WITHOUT the quotes where killing women and children is a sin is called taking the quotes out of context.
Yes there are. But they also forbid violence against innocent women and children. Which makes it kind of difficult to be a suicide bomber and still follow Islam.
Yes you have. And you
Warrentless spying on Americans by Presidential order and which Presidents have ordered it?
How about ALL of them in the last 100 years or so, every single one.
Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Hoover, Kennedy...Sheesh, it would be easier to name ones who HAVEN'T done this.
I don't agree that it's right but it is nowhere near as unique as you would like to believe. It's actually been quite common and likely S.O.P. for a very, very, very long time now.
If you somehow don't know this then you have no business debating this topic; your ignorance precludes your participation.
Why should I worry? This is a 95% CHRISTIAN nation!
Well that world from those Escape From "Insert (Major or not) City here" seem to be getting a little closer to the truth. So to speak I mean... That USA was an improved USSR type system. Where whole cities either broke off(figurtivly or acturally) and went to the dumpster and then some. And the good ol'US of A let it happen or just didn't care at the time, or didn't till the Prez or his Daughter got stuck there with or without a doomsday weapon for the US.
We already have quite a few middle east nations mad or at least upset(to say the least) at us, but unlike the films we did(try to) do something about it or let it ride. We have allies for years foaming at out "self-protection" actions. Especially, when they break treaties with now(politically speaking) noneistant foes(The ABM one...). We even snub them too at times.
NSA, The only way to secure is to do "pre-eventive" strikes within our boarders because of all that data we got from taping everyone's(even the White House's, more so than they already are)data, voice, and thought(see CIA "Remote Viewing") transmission's? All without the usual warrents they usually get even in "Secret" operations? Anyone know if their local "Cigarette smoking man/men" has heard of this befoe hand(X-files rip)?
Forget Aliens, Were'er already too messed up enough or about there, that they wouldn't want a piece of the US or parts of the world for that matter. They could learn more by paying for Goggle Earth premium on where the best areas to get rid of/take care of/theirs.
It's a wonder that NSA World got canned?
This has been debunked several times http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/outrage/clinton.htm/
Go put on your tinfoil hat and look for terrorists in the bushes out in your yard.
I think you missed the latest talking points. We'll be sure to send those along shortly.
"Our interests are to see if we can't scale it up to something more exciting," he said.
because it was found that none of the survivors had shot the marshal. It's a shame that they refused to leave when they had the chance.
"Our interests are to see if we can't scale it up to something more exciting," he said.
if you are not personally affected by some action now, it does not mean that you will not be affected later.
True -- but it does not mean that I will be affected later too. So...what now?
Btw, you might want to look at history for examples of people who found that their freedoms had beed taken way too late to do anything.
But I haven't lost a single freedom yet -- what is your point?
About your comment on the 4 safe years: as someone else said somewhere on this thread, you are confusing correlation with causation. Since 9/11 there have been no attacks here in Argentina either, and I would be a fool to think that that is because of the measures taken by the USian government, wouldn't I?
Well, yeah, but you haven't given me any proof that there isn't a correlation -- so what do we do now? I think there is, you think there isn't -- it's a matter of opinion.
Oh, I don't know - it's considered wrong to read satallite transmissions that penetrate your house just because they are sent by DirectTV... And apparently it's "hacking" to use an open wireless access point, even though it's radiating out into the street...
With that logic, Gieger counters, Thermal imaging and really anything aside from listening without technical assistance would be a no-no.
Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3
Well, it appears that the current administration is spying on citizens without going through the motions of getting a warrant &c. The fact that you personally have not been spyed upon is only circumstancial.
This has not happened in an indefinite later: it has already happened. Moreover, we know this has happened but it is not illogical to assume that other similar things are going on and have gone on in the past.
The correlation is patent; what you mean is that I have not given you proof that there is no causation.
Regardless of that, you seem to think that the effectiveness of policies like the ones implemented (at least, of those policies we have heard about, as we can very reasonably conclude that there are policies that have been implemented but of which we have heard nothing yet) is a matter of opinion. I find that worrying. Indeed, any policy which is not accompanied at its inception by criteria as objective as possible to measure its effectiveness appears suspect in my view.
In a way, every policy works until it fails; for example, the homeland security policies that the US had in place before 9/11 worked pretty well, until they resoundlingly failed. And, notice, your argument about the current policies would have applied to the older policies just as well on the 10th of september.
http://www.thecre.com/fedlaw/legal22q/uscode50-180 1.htm
s c_sec_50_00001802----000-.html
Yep. The parts you are quoting are from "Sec. 1801. - Definitions".
You might want to read the ENTIRE section.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode50/u
Notwithstanding any other law, the President, through the Attorney General, may authorize electronic surveillance without a court order under this subchapter to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of up to one year if the Attorney General certifies in writing under oath that--
(A) the electronic surveillance is solely directed at--
(i) the acquisition of the contents of communications transmitted by means of communications used exclusively between or among foreign powers, as defined in section 1801 (a)(1), (2), or (3) of this title; or
(ii) the acquisition of technical intelligence, other than the spoken communications of individuals, from property or premises under the open and exclusive control of a foreign power, as defined in section 1801 (a)(1), (2), or (3) of this title;
(B) there is no substantial likelihood that the surveillance will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party; and
(C) the proposed minimization procedures with respect to such surveillance meet the definition of minimization procedures under section 1801 (h) of this title; and
if the Attorney General reports such minimization procedures and any changes thereto to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence at least thirty days prior to their effective date, unless the Attorney General determines immediate action is required and notifies the committees immediately of such minimization procedures and the reason for their becoming effective immediately.
===and===
(3) The Attorney General shall immediately transmit under seal to the court established under section 1803 (a) of this title a copy of his certification. Such certification shall be maintained under security measures established by the Chief Justice with the concurrence of the Attorney General, in consultation with the Director of Central Intelligence, and shall remain sealed unless--
(A) an application for a court order with respect to the surveillance is made under sections 1801 (h)(4) and 1804 of this title; or
(B) the certification is necessary to determine the legality of the surveillance under section 1806 (f) of this title.
====
So, no, the president is not allowed to tap the phones of US citizens without any warrant or judicial oversight.
What is it about the document that is incomprehensible to you ?
I realize that discussion with a liberal more often than not resembles a deprogramming session but this is rediculous.
Notwithstanding any other law, the President, through the Attorney General, may authorize electronic surveillance without a court order under this subchapter to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of up to one year if the Attorney General certifies in writing under oath that
(ii) the acquisition of technical intelligence, other than the spoken communications of individuals, from property or premises under the open and exclusive control of a foreign power, as defined in section 1801 (a)(1), (2), or (3) of this title;
So yes the president may intercept communications of US persons without a warant. If you want more check the war powers act and article II of the constitution. Or just refer to intercepts of telegrams during the civil, intercepts of telephone calls, encrypted transmission and telegrams during world wars I, II, the korean war and the vietnam war.
And just how are you using the word OR ?? Seeing as Judicial oversight was not mentioned before this point except in the specific case of warrants it looks like you are trying to change the discussion to something that doesnt have to do the initial point.
In the days of Ronnie Raygun a lot of people (myself included) despaired that we were seeing the lead up to a nuclear war. George II (the first George rejected the offer of kingship) has his faults - like exceeding the power of the executive branch - but we can be thankful that Reagan is gone. Bush cannot start a nuclear war, is politically on the way out and being listened to by less areas of government each day. The worst he could do at this point is an economic depression.
Wrongo.
First off, the President was granted specific legal permission by the Congress post 9/11. Congress makes the laws, not the court. There is no need for a specific warrant. Additionally, and I know this will shock you, individual people don't have phone numbers exclusively and permanently applied to them. Of course monitoring communications will pick up irrelevant communications, the same way undercover cops seeking specific criminals will look at other people. The "bad guys" don't have floating black skulls over their heads like characters from a Sims game.
Your #1 comment is ludicrous. The absurdity of your comment is exactly what I was mocking. The "bad guys" don't announce themselves, be they terrorists or any form of criminal. The only way to find there communications is by direct knowledge or traffic/content analysis.
Your #2 is just as ridiculous and purely false. Which is it? Direct knowledge or data sifting? You can't have it both ways nor are those the only options. Torture? BS.
You certainly don't understand much about law, especially as it applies to electronic communications. Monitoring communications most certainly is legal, regardless of your lack of knowledge. Apparently, you also don't have the ability to separate sarcasm from obvious statements, even with breaks in the post to show exactly that.
Yeah, what says you can trust whoever the current guys are?
I want to be free to think, say (and do..?) what I want without anyone listening o looking.
Courts are only needed to authorize surveillance under some circumstances, not all. In this case, Congress granted a specific permission for any actions the President feels are necessary. They did this three times.
The Patriot Act isn't just to grant the President the equivalent of War Powers. There were a lot of structural problems with the restrictions placed on law enforcement and intel. Information sharing was very restricted and frequently prohibited. The most obvious aspect was prohibition between domestic and international intel. There are others, though, like one state being able to talk with another or the Feds. This let a lot of domestic criminals hide much easier. Commit a crime in one state then skip to another, that sort of thing.
Nope. Do some real research on the legal aspects of monitoring non-terrestrial communications.
Court orders are only needed in specific instances. Commonly used instances, yes, but still specific, and not an all-inclusive "any US citizen." That was the post-Watergate stuff that is, quite thankfully, derailed now. Think about it, bin Laden calls a "U.S. citizen" so no records can be kept of who he talked with? How do you define "U.S. citizen"? By phone number? Pffff...
Life without liberty or the ability to pursue happiness is still life. By definition, "life" has dominance in the sentence.
So the Attorney General MUST let the Court know what is happening.
But in the situations where he does not need a warrant, the Court MUST still be informed.
Personally, I would prefer a massively interlinked network of radiation detectors: every bridge, tunnel, stoplight, rail crossing, overpass, underpass and a few other randomly selected sites, as well as every police car, ambulance and fire engine should all have network detectors. Not only would the bad guys be unable to move any bad stuff without being caught, the not-so-bad guys who simply move radioactive waste along inappropriate routes (or on the way to illegal dumping) would be caught as well, and the relative exposures would be of massive benefit to a variety of sciences as well.
If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"
Maybe he was talking about a Mafia-style organization?
And it isn't just the bad guys one needs to fear - is a good read. I really would have no objection if the local LEOs had detection devices in every vehicle - this would have been picked up much sooner, nor would it construe an illegal search any more than keeping the windows rolled down in case somebody screamed "help! police!".
If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"
You must be projecting your own feelings for me. I don't hate you. I just hate your ideas about politics and economics.
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
In the first instance, most persons, even us techies, are completely ignorant of the fact that although the CIA etc can not spy on American citizens, the Canadians/British/Australians/??? CAN and are ALLOWED to and ENCOURAGED to do so. The CIA are busy keeping an eye on the Canadian/British/Australians/etc. You ALL forget that these countries' governments and agents have EXTENSIVE information sharing programs in place ... following these facts give us the understanding that they are spying ( legally ) on each others' citizens and
( illegally ) building the superdatabase ...
A guy I know is an exotic vehicle sales / restorer ... went down to the states a little while ago, carrying $60k cash ... have you ever tried to wire or transfer this kind of money - takes a few business days, with extensive governmental interference and BS ... tried to be honest when asked if anything to declare ... taken aside and questioned etc ... normal; and naturally expected ... after a couple hours everything checked out, his history of similar activity etc, the logic of his actions, the fact there was a seller verifying and waiting for him ... when he asked what the delay was, they stated that he was lying ! About what? you don't have $60k on you, you have $60,500 ! (the $500 was for toll booths hotels/meals etc ...)
the new bills with the metallic inserts - they can count the friggin money in your pocket at a distance !!!
So in conclusion, welcome to the Super State that Stalin and Lenin and Mao could only dream of and NEVER achieve - the Americans WIN again ...
Question Authority before IT questions You
Try the UN Charter.
Then don't think of it as "enemy". Think of it as an annotational convenience to avoid wasting each other's time. I would do it myself, but unfortunately, the total number of slots is limited, and there are constructive reasons for using "friend" slots. Since you have no constructive purpose here, there's no loss to you in desinating me as your foe.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Yeah, sure. Your sig screams teenage male Protestant. Claim whatever you want to. If you weren't Christian, you'd have a better understanding of religious bias because you'd have seen it every day of your life.
Yet you insist upon using a religiously biased site for your "source".
Whatever you want to call it. It's about splitting from one government to form your own. Just as we did in The Revolutionary War. That's when we split from England. Got it?
Maybe you might want to look into history a bit there.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cwphtml/tl1861.html
It seems that they initiated the hostilities.
To you it does not. Actually, I think you're lying on that and just trying to cover up your ignorance.
There isn't much difference between the Civil War and the Revolutionary War.
The "subject" was your claim that the religion of Islam supports violence.
I've shown you evidence that is statistical (fewer attacks by Muslims in the US than by Christians) and contextual (Islam forbids harming women and children).
Because you refuse to accept it does not mean that I haven't presented it.
Like I said, this concept of "context" kicks your ass every time.
The quotes you cited WERE taken out of context because he didn't include the quotes about not harming women and children.
Don't even try that bullshit.
Here is how the thread went:
So, no, you DID post a link with quotes taken out of context.
Again, the quotes are not the question.
The question is whether he took them out of context. Which he did. Which I've demonstrated. Which I've also shown, statistically, is how 99.99% of Muslims practice their religion.
Because you and he have a bias does not make them wrong and you two right.
And, for the last time, this concept of "context" KEEPS KICKING YOUR ASS. I've explained that already and you are u
well, now, anyone can put what ever they want in to open source... even backdoors for outside access.
And people can write closed-source apps with the same backdoors. The difference is that open source can be reviewed. As for the copy of the application installed on the computer in question... it's not like backdoor access can be easily written into any compiled program.
"The use-mention distinction" is not "enforced here."
And one more thing to add--if you have nothing to hide, you shouldn't mind leaving the bathroom door open when you're on the toilet. The ridiculousness of this "terrorist surveillance" really hit home when I found out the government considered the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group devoted to pacifist and humanitarian efforts (and I'm a member, by the way), was on a terrorist watch list.
I prefer to be an activist through actions rather than appearances, so I keep my hair short and dress somewhat conservatively to avoid undue attention--to stay inside the bell curve, as you put it. And although you were being sarcastic, I think I will throw a Bible in my backpack in case of a search. Pretty good idea.
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
The objective of a terrorist is not to make you question your system of government. Terrorism is only designed to cause fear. That fear is to be used for political gain, however, that political gain is localized to the terrorist. Id est, changing US policy to Saudi Arabia would be a terrorist political goal. A terrorist who is not a US citizen would have no reason to degrade US civil liberties. Someone who wants to disrupt your politics without gain to them is probably an anarchist.
Anyone who tells you 'the terrorists win' if we do something internally is fear mongering. They are not a terrorist, because while they are using intimidation to acheive a political objective (e.g. re-election), they are not threatening to inflict that violence themselves. They are fearmongerers, not terrorists.
Asking anyone who your having sex with has nothing to do with harassment. It's trolling. Nothing else.
My intention was to highlight the ideals we purportedly follow. The 14th amendment as quoted says "citizens" a much more specific term which limits the scope markedly from what the Declaration set out for us.
I just found out there's no such thing as the real world. It's just a lie you've got to rise above. - John Mayer
Sorry I don't filter on that basis. Opinions I disagree with especially those I violently disagree with are the most important ones for me to consider. As I said if anything I would moderate you as a friend but theres not enough in just blind knee jerk reactions warrant that.
Its a real shame that the constitutional scholars here couldnt think their way through to the real issues. There were valid and interesting matters raised by the NSA's data mining. If the nsa can do this in bulk who can do this more selectively? Just how much privacy is really possible in an information based economy ? What happens when this becomes a do it at home project ? Or what happens when you can do van eyck freaking at work with a device disguised as a watch ?
The above are interesting. We hate the president so what he has done must violate the constitution and he should be impeached for it, isnt interesting, its just sad.
Worked for FDR. Appointing rum runner and stock swindler Joe Kennedy as head of the S.E.C.
It seems that Clinton would order bombing and other major troop activity when his lies were unfolding. It is probably coincidence but it does appear that every time something was coming out that should have been damaging to him we bombed something. Most remember-able to me was that aspirin factory in the Sudan thought to be a terrorist training camp.
Co-incedence? evil right wing conspiracy to discredit him? i don't knw but i'm not sure nobody died when clinton lied. Of course this is asuming you actual think bushed lied about something. The aspirin factory in the sudan sort of negate that though.
Still you spout absurdities.
You're basically saying that, because one in every 100,000 Americans died in a terrorist attack on September 11, that the other 99,999 need to give up "liberty" and "pursuit of happiness" until such a time as our infallible leaders in the government ensure that there is zero risk of "life" ever being taken away from its citizens again.
That's nothing but a recipe for eternal dictatorship. If the founders of this country had wanted the government to be able to protect our lives by any necessary means, then they wouldn't have written the Bill of Rights to specifically forbid the government from doing certain things, regardless of whether those actions are "for our own good."
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
I didn't read it. You are wasting your fucking time--just like you always do, mostly likely. Your only purpose in my life is to provide a red dot.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
The legislative branch makes the law, the executive branch executes the law, and the judicial branch interprets the law. Thanks for the fifth grade civics lesson.
The "Authorization to Use Military Force" passed just after September 11 cannot be interpreted as broadly as you claim. The fact is, while the measure was being debated, the Administration specifically asked Congress to add the words "in the United States" to the resolution. That demand was rejected. Therefore, Congress couldn't have intended for it to be interpreted the way you and Shrub are interpreting it.
You're a complete loon, you know that? U.S. citizens have the expectation that they will be secure in their "persons and papers", which has been interpreted to include their phone, e-mail, and other private communications. If the NSA is regularly monitoring or intercepting these phone calls, that is illegal. If the President authorized it, that means he committed an illegal act. The NSA has never been granted the authorization to conduct surveillance inside the U.S., and for good reason. The routine monitoring of citizens is not a slippery slope you right-wing nutjobs will be dragging us down.
I know you're a loon, because you claim that Bush's critics don't want us recording Bin Laden's phone calls to U.S. citizens. Bull. If a known terrorist contacts someone inside the U.S., then that lead should be pursued, using an easily granted court order.
You pretend that law enforcement is completely hogtied so long as the NSA is forbidden from listening in to any phone call they like. If law enforcement finds a lead, they can even ask for a warrant after the fact.
I still stand by my earlier premise: Either Bush circumvented the FISA process because he wanted the NSA to do data mining (which would require huge volumes of warrants, each of which would lack critical probable cause), or he wanted to do surveillance on people who had been named in tortured confessions. Nobody has presented me with a compelling third option, because in every case I've seen proposed, the succinct answer is, "Dude, they could get a warrant to do that."
If you think my thoughts on that point are absurd*, then tell me what it is that Bush might be doing that requires that he circumvent the warrant process. So far, all you've proposed is "listen in on Osama's phone calls," a case in which a warrant would certainly be granted.
* Not that it's clear you even read them carefully, since you responded with "Which is it? You can't have it both ways." I said it might be one or the other, so your response leaves me scratching my head.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
A budget surplus is not the same as national debt, smart guy. http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=1821&sequence =0 this shows the annual budget. In 2004 we had a 412 billion dollar deficit. Needless to say, an $8 trillion budget deficit would pretty much do us in, since our GDP in 2004 was on the order of $11 trillion.
LK
He has been here for a while, little brother, quite a while; so watch it - the teeth are close to your rear.
How many beans make five, anyhow ?
I aslo remember the question wasn't if he had had sexual relations but, "have you ever had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky, as that term is defined in Deposition Exhibit 1, as modified by the Court?". His responce was "I have never had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky. I've never had an affair with her."
The definitions the court used were,
Although it should be noted that Clinton's lawer pointed to the first definition and it was later detmined that clinton was only refering to the first definition when all three were in use by the court.
Did you try to obtain a job with a student non work visa ?
We were talking about civil rights as discussed in the article, such as free speech, search and seizure, arbitrary detention. Legal foreign residents have these same constitutional rights as US citizens except for the limitations of their residency status.
According to predictions, 2006 is the year the Republicans will remember for the next 100 years. Of course, none of the parties will be around in 100 years. It will begin with the Supreme Court and end with the fall of capitalism. By 2012 no one will care about such things, or bother to remember. Australia will the the unwilling world superpower, governed by women and alligators. All the Big Brother activity will wind up in the oceans along with some newer underground government agencies. Bush will be impeached.
Congress is also decided by whoever has the most money, together with where the political boundaries are that week. (See: DeLay and, indeed, most other boundary cherry-pickers.) Again, not exactly redeeming qualities.
The judges are currently political picks by the President (see above) and approved by Congress (see above). As demonstrated, time and again, nominees are rarely honest during the interview process, making any approval process a farce anyway. Because there is no transparency, justice cannot be seen to be done. In high profile cases (eg: O. J. Simpson), the judge seems more interested in the book deals afterwards rather than in maintaining any semblance of sanity in the courtroom.
In all of these cases, I cannot see how a random pick could be any worse than the existing system. It's much more likely to be proportionally representative of the population, so arguably could present a better case of representing them. By reducing terms to the absolute minimum that can still be productive and useful, you eliminate the existing situation where stagnation and inertia are killing all rational debate, and where lobbyists can control virtually all aspects of Government.
Maybe you'd need the President to stay in office for more than a few months, to keep international affairs in any kind of order, but the current system has become a really bad joke. The jury pool system is bad, but it's actually the most functional, most respected, most honest segment of the entire governing system that we have.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
...for if it does prosper, NONE DARE CALL IT TREASON.
That is exactly what is happening today. Bush is a traitor to the US, but the press has no balls, the Democrats no spine, and congress no brains.
Sadly, if this doesn't reverse, we are witnessing the death of America as we know it.
Read a preview of my novel CYBERCHILD at www.smartalix.com/cyberchild
LOL, Try the alien and sedition acts. Surprise Theres more of course but you might try doing your own research, you might learn something. I don't know which "Western" country you are from but I would bet dollars to donuts that the law their makes distinctions between citizens and non citizens as well.
As for possessing nuclear weapons, remember that you are talking about terrorists here - and there is little or no terror in "maybe they have a nuke" but plenty of terror in "they blew up a nuke in that city - how may more do they have?". If a terrorist group gets hold of a nuke the world will know about it in a few short days.
He must have been involved while still in high school! Perhaps you mean he added to it - how exactly?I've gone from saying the president DOES NOT have the authority to order taps on US citizens without court oversight to saying that the president DOES NOT have the authority to order taps on US citizens without court oversight.
You've gone from saying that no court oversight was ever needed to saying that the court oversight that was required doesn't matter.
And you'd be wrong.
Unless you can show that the required documentation was filed with the court.
Bush and Co have said that such was not needed because we are at "war" and he is "Commander in Chief".
So, either show that the correct documents were filed or admit that Bush violated the law.
It's not about whether the FBI monitors little old me. (Privacy advocates, hold on for a minute -- I care about little old me, too, but Gravis Zero doesn't).
It's about whether the FBI monitors popular political leaders and whether those FBI files somehow end up in the White House from time to time.
so... you want the backgrounds of potential leaders of this country to go unchecked? as for the MLK thing, i would like to think be have progressed forward from then as there are equal rights for citizens now.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Preetty simple to see that you're wrong - again go bakc and READ the law, and check the refernced posts on Powerlineblog, and a few libertariani law blogs as a counterweight. The constitution is the cental document in allowing current (and all past) Presidents to do exactly what was outlined: warantless interceptsof US Personss when given the set of circumstances outlined.
1802 (a)(1)(A)(i) states explicitly "as defined in section 1801 (a)(1), (2), or (3)", *not 1801 (b), so CLEARLY it does cover the possibility of including some United States Persons in warnatless searches.
Anyway, this still doesn't address the court's opinion that it is a constitutional authority of the president, which would exeed legal authority by definition.
Between FISA's gaps and loopholes. the circumstances of the actions, the exceptions and limitations on FISA granted by past court decisions, and the modifications of the law from the Patriot Act and the congressional Authorization to Use Military Force, the President (ANY president) is well within his powers (powers in a Constitutional sense) handling exceptional circumstances as outline previously in my argument.
If we dont like it, we need to amend the COnstitution or pass laws that are far more specific and will pass a court test.
And that was my original point: slashdotters tend to foam at the mouth rather than think. I was pointing out that this is one of those cases where far too may were foaming in fear without really understanding what was truly going on.
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo! http://goo.gl/J9bkO
So ... you want the backgrounds of potential leaders of this country to go unchecked?
Unchecked by whom?
I absolutely DO NOT WANT the White House to be secretly checking FBI background files on potential leaders.
I want media, political organizations, and voters -- on all sides -- to do the checking.
the media has a total lack of integraty. political organizations, bias or slanting the story? the FBI is the best and most thorough out of the three. you cant believe the media, they are just full of shit. oh and voters? what are they going to do, listen to the media? exactly. your total distrust of the government is not the smartest thing to do. multiple perspectives are good... unless you choose the media or some crackpot.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
You realize that you and I are part of the media right now, don't you?
In the example I cited, the FBI didn't make its opposition research available to the voters. Hundreds of background files somehow, mysteriously, ended up in an office in the White House.
Let me get this straight: You *didnt* read what i wrote, but yet you feel you can judge what i was saying and accuse me of being a troll and insult my intelligence?
You are worse off then i thought. Ever thought of jumping off a bridge? Ridding the rest of us from the burden of having to use our tax dollars to support your sorry ass would be a good thing.
Such a small man. We feel sorry for you.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I'm guessing that you meant to say that the national deficit isn't the same as the national debt. You're right, I made a mistake in my post implying that they are the same. But that is irrelevent. The 2004 deficit was $412 billion, whereas at the end of Clinton's term there was a budget surplus of over $200 billion. In Clinton's 8 years of presidency, the national debt went up a little over $1 trillion--drastically reducing the rate at which we had been incurring debt up to that point--whereas, Bush has increased our debt over $2 trillion in just 5 years. If you take inflation into account, the results are just as dramatic: in Clinton's 8 years of presidency he did not increase the national debt at all, in fact, he lowered it. In contrast, Bush increased our national debt by $1 trillion compared to before he took office.
Clinton proved to be quite fiscally responsible--something which is not so simple as just cutting the funding on random government programs. Bush proved to be quite the opposite--End of argument.
There's one more thing I feel I should bring to your attention: 2000,2001, and 2002 are not the late 90's. And all but 2 of the scandals listed on that Forbes page happened in 2002. So either you can't read, or you can't count.
I am not trying to defend the Republicans involved in these scandals, but I refuse to let this fall down the memory hole. These scandals did not take place on the watch of George Bush, and yet they are being portrayed that way in the mainstream media.
Too much Law; not enough Order.
So you assume that any trial that begins in 2002 is about a crime that happened atleast 2 and a half years ago? Let's look at the facts, shall we?
SEC charges against Adlphia were in regards to accounting fraud commited between 1999 and 2001.
SEC charges against AOL were in regards to accounting practices after their merger with Time-Warner: from 2000 to 2002.
Bristol-Myers Squibb - states in the article--very clearly--that they inflated their 2001 revenue by $1.5 billion.
CMS Energy's round-trip trades occured between the 3rd quarters of 2000 and 2001.
Duke Energy's round-trip trades occured in 2001 and 2002.
Dynegy committed round-trip trades in 2001 and included them in their 2002 first quarter revenue.
El Paso Energy's round-trip trades occured in 2001.
Halliburton - lol, do I even need to explain this one? I don't think the Bush administration will be clamping down on this one any time soon.
Homestore.com - inflated revenue in 2001.
Kmart's SEC investigation was about actions taken in 2001.
Merck's false revenues were declared from 1999-2001.
Mirant was convicted of energy gouging from 2000-2001.
Peregrine Systems reported false revenue from 2000 to 2002.
Qwest fraudulently concealed the fact that, based on a series of accounting errors, it improperly recognized $112 million of revenue between 2000 and 2002 from its Wireless division.
Reliant Energy committed energy gouging in 2000 and 2001.
WorldCom fraud was masterminded starting in 2000 but took place up till July 2002 when the company filed for bankrupcy.
Stop talking out of your ass. This page also details the amount of money each of these fraud committing corporations contributed to the Democratic or Republican parties during the 2002 election cycle. It's pretty obvious which party is in favor with the white collar criminals.
Oh yea, and the Bush administration also has very close ties to most of those Texas power companies. Bush met with the president of atleast one of the companies that was convicted of energy gouging, and swindling California out of billions of dollars in the 2001 energy crisis. And Cheney even defended those companies afterwards in a TV interview on Dateline.
And looking at the political contributions made by these companies, maybe you shouldn't be thanking Bush for putting these criminals away, but thanking these criminals for helping get Bush elected.
alien and sedition acts
(Rather like the PATRIOT Act)
Repealed or expired over 2 centuries ago, according to
http://www.bartleby.com/65/al/AlienNSe.html
Things have changed since then. In recent decades the US has been pressuring other countries to give foreigners (esp. US investors) equal rights. So they have ratified reciprocal treaties.
/Self removes jaw from floor.
/Self trys very hard to stop laughing
/Self Slaps forehead
Is your point just to contradict yourself ?
Lets see, theres a separate court system for non citizens in the us.
The right to work is restricted
They can be removed by being declared undesirable.
BTW none of the above was instituted with the patriot act.
The fact that the us has to pressure for reciprocal treaties on property rights is the proof that they are not accorded equal rights.
Oh as to the equivalent rights and "for all western nations", try buying land in Canada some time, (only applicable if non canadian), or getting a property dispute edjudicated in mexico. Well in mexico it will probably go to whoever is best able to grease the judge so your rights defacto are equivalent.
Yeah... we all know that no Republican would EVER lie under oath, or do anything else dishonest. God FORBID. You act as if Clinton was the first guy to get his rocks off in the White House while in office --which is far from true. While I absolutely do not condone his actions-- nor do I believe he was our best President... this holier-than-thou shit is not going to wash with me. EVER.
You're right. Echelon didn't help deter 9/11. Nor did it help prevent 9/11 (which is what I think you intended to say). Read Imperial Hubris. The author makes the point that we have sufficient signals intelligence data. We have lots and lots. What we are missing is good analysts, and enough analysts to make sense of the data: what matters and what does not. Restricting our SIGINT isn't going to help. Expanding our SIGINT will only be a marginal help. What is needed is to bulk up the number of experienced analysts who can actually make some sense of the massive amounts of data we're pulling in. Without analysts, more surveillance doesn't actually improve our capabilities.
The Rise and Fall of Online Community
It's intersting to see the changes between the DoI and the Constitution. For example the DoI declares it not only our right, but our duty to overthrow a tyranous government, the constitution however expressly labels this treason, one of the highest crimes in existance. The things that got lost in translation between the two are few from few and far between.
What is this "separate court system for non citizens in the us"? Does it have a name? Or are you making this up?
"try buying land in Canada some time" Americans I know have not mentioned any problems buying homes here.
What is this "separate court system for non citizens in the us"?
Try thinking the answer should come to you.
Americans I know have not mentioned any problems buying homes here.
Try Googling canadian foreign land purchase restrictions
And I leave you with a famous quote from Pauline Kael "How can this be? Everyone I know voted for McGovern!"
In cases of international intelligence foreign relations, and conduct of war, the coequal constitutional powers of the executive are not necessarily subject to laws written by congress. The president, as commander in chief, has full authority to intern whole groups of people to camps, nationalize the entire steel industry, drop bombs on people, even declare martial law if necessary. If you look at the constitution-
Article II makes the President Commander in Chief of the armed forces. As such he is preeminent in foreign policy, and especially in military affairs. This was no accident; as Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist No. 74, "Of all the cares or concerns of government, the direction of war most peculiarly demands those qualities which distinguish the exercise of power by a single hand." The federal courts have long recognized that when it comes to waging war, the President, not Congress or the courts, is the supreme authority. In Fleming v. Page, 9 How. 603, 615 (1850), the Supreme Court wrote that the President has the Constitutional power to "employ [the Nation's armed forces] in the manner he may deem most effectual to harass and conquer and subdue the enemy."
As for your Fourth Amendment argument that: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
The key here is unreasonable. One of the many situations where warrantless searches have been approved is when the government is seeking foreign intelligence information, such as information relating to potential terrorist threats. Next to the Constitution itself, of course, the highest authority is the United States Supreme Court. At least three Supreme Court cases have discussed this subject.
In 1967, the Court decided Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347. Katz involved the warrantless interception of a conversation held by a criminal defendant in a phone booth.
U Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507 (2004) nited States v. United States District Court, 407 U.S. 297 (1972)
This specific question was first addressed by the Fifth Circuit in United States v. [Cassius] Clay, 430 F.2d 165 (5th Cir. 1970). "we do not read the section as forbidding the President, or his representative, from ordering wiretap surveillance to obtain foreign intelligence in the national interest."
In 1974, the Third Circuit decided United States v. Butenko, 494 F.2d 593 (3rd Cir. 1974) "prior judicial authorization was not required since the district court found that the surveillances of Ivanov were "conducted and maintained solely for the purpose of gathering foreign intelligence information."
Three years later, the Ninth Circuit decided United States v. Buck, 548 F.2d 871 (9th Cir. 1977 "Foreign security wiretaps are a recognized exception to the general warrant requirement...."
1980, the Fourth Circuit decided United States v. Truong For several reasons, the needs of the executive are so compelling in the area of foreign intelligence, unlike the area of domestic security, that a uniform warrant requirement would, following [United States v. United States District Court, 407 U.S. 297 (1972)], "unduly frustrate" the President in carrying out his foreign affairs responsibilities. "
United States v. Duggan, 743 F.2d 59 (1984) "Prior to the enactment of FISA, virtually every court that had addressed the issue had concluded that the President had the inherent power to conduct warrantless electronic surveillance to collect foreign intelligence information, and that such surveillances constituted an exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment."
2002, the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review decided Sealed Case No. 02-001 "The Truon
If common sense were common everyone would have it.
>>What is this "separate court system for non citizens in the us"?
o untry.cfm?id=Unitedstates
> Try thinking the answer should come to you.
Except maybe for immigration related matters I don't know of any.
>Try Googling canadian foreign land purchase restrictions
"Are there restrictions on foreign-based corporations owning land in Canada?
No. There are generally no restrictions on foreign ownership of Canadian land and there are generally no consents or government approvals required to buy or sell land. However, many provinces require that foreign corporations be extra-provincially registered in the province before being entitled to own real estate in that province."
www.osler.com/expertise_crossborder.aspx?id=10398
In the US:
" Foreign and domestic enterprises are treated equally under the law, foreign investors are not required to register with or seek approval from the federal government, and there are no local content requirements or ownership restrictions on most industries. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, however, "Foreign investments face restrictions in banking, mining, defence contracting, certain energy-related industries, fishing, shipping, communications and aviation." The government also restricts foreign acquisitions that threaten to impair national security. Restrictions on financial transactions with Cuba and Cuban nationals, Burma, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, the Taliban, specified terrorist groups, and specified drug traffickers are strict and enforced. There are no controls or requirements on current transfers, access to foreign exchange, or repatriation of profits. Purchase of real estate is unrestricted on a national level, although purchase of agricultural land by foreign nationals or companies with at least 10 percent foreign ownership must be reported to the U.S. Department of Agriculture; some states impose restrictions on purchases of land and other types of investments by foreign companies."
http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/c