Slashdot Mirror
Bill Bans NSA Eavesdropping
An anonymous reader writes "The US house of representatives today passed a bill outlawing illegal domestic wiretapping by the government. Now government agencies are only allowed to access your private communications under terms of FISA. 'As the Senate Report noted, FISA "was designed . . . to curb the practice by which the Executive Branch may conduct warrantless electronic surveillance on its own unilateral determination that national security justifies it." The Bill ends plans by the Bush Administration that would give the NSA the freedom to pry into the lives of ordinary Americans. The ACLU noted that, despite many recent hearings about 'modernization' and 'technology neutrality,' the administration has not publicly provided Congress with a single example of how current FISA standards have either prevented the intelligence community from using new technologies, or proven unworkable for the agents tasked with following them.'"
Only in a Government do you need to outlaw something that is already illegal.
I wonder if I use bold in my signature, people will notice my posts.
"passed a bill outlawing illegal domestic wiretapping by the government"
Good thing they outlawed illegal wiretapping, since outlawing legal wiretapping would have made it illegal, thus making the above sentence redundant. Wait. I think I hurt my brain.
Vincent J. Murphy
Spandex Justice
Signing it's not a problem, just add a signing statement that it doesn't apply to the NSA and everything is golden.
Bush doesn't have the authority to do what congress doesn't have the authority to prohibit him doing. If that makes sense. So it all works out.
I'm just a bill.
Yes, I'm only a bill.
And I'm sitting here on Capitol Hill.
Well, it's a long, long journey
To the capital city.
It's a long, long wait
While I'm sitting in committee,
But I know I'll be a law some day
At least I hope and pray that I will
But today I am still just a bill.
Courtesy of http://www.jacksheldon.com/school.htm
I support the president's wiretapping legal or illegal. (Be careful what you post, I think he's monitoring us here too.)
How do you outlaw something that's already illegal?
By declaring war on it, dummy.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
Mod Parent Redundant.
Badass Resumes
Very much so. And for the most part, you can at least imagine that [despised] was created by at most a few dozen people, over a few years, with more or less the same goal in mind.
Legislation, on the other hand, is created by people who absolutely despise each other, over the course of centuries. Whenever the balance of power shifts, they add MORE source code to the mix, trying to counteract what the other guys added.
And there's no debugger. The best you can hope for is to throw the legislation out there and hope that it has the effect you want.
It would be nice to throw it out and start all over every so often, but it's impossible to know if the new bugs and switchover costs outweigh dealing with upgrading the existing hunk of crap.
And damn it feels good to be a gangster!
One of these days i'm going to find this 'peer' guy and reset HIS connection!