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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.'"
This isn't fully baked yet. You need a Senate version, a conference, a final bill... wait for it... and a Presidential signature. Ooops.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
Oh.. another veto... just because a bill passes doesn't make it a law
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
You know, in our constitution...
"Amendment 4
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."
This is really about the separation of powers. The President insists that since he has wartime authorization, he has pretty wide authority to break the law. That is, the law is written, and he doesn't have to follow it because another law trumps it. That's what you get when you have a big, complex legal code.
This bill doesn't really change anything legally, but when it comes time for the third branch of government to have their say on the issue, Congress' intentions will be unambiguous: yes, they do mean that FISA is the ONLY way you can do domestic wiretapping.
It would be nice if laws could be simple and unambiguous, like a well-written piece of software. Instead, laws are written over a long time by a lot of different people, just like real software. Software crashes; laws get inconsistencies. You can point it out for laughs but when it's your phone they're tapping, or your right to life/liberty/property sitting in the ambiguity, it's not so funny.
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That's right. Bush will create a signing statement that basically says he's going to ignore the law. Or, he'll just veto it because he's got the world swinging from his nuts and he can if he wants to.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The US government is "at war", so they have special dispensation to break laws whenever they think "national security" is as risk.
The fact that the USA is always at war and that pretty much anything seems to count as "national security" means that on an average day they've already broken several laws before breakfast.
This bill is Congress trying to put a stop to the farce. The only fly in the ointment is that no law is final until the president signs it, and he's the one abusing the law. Is he really going to sign away his own powers? Based on his track record ("Patriot act", etc.) I doubt it.
No sig today...
What a country.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
No. It is about a power that was never made available to the federal government in the first place. Warrantless wiretapping is unconstitutional, period. That includes FISA. FISA represents exactly the same kind of reasoning as the ridiculous topsy-turvey interpretation of the commerce clause. The premise is that wiretapping itself does no harm, completely ignoring the breach of your security. Here is the fourth amendment:
You'll note the order there - it isn't an accident: first they get the warrant, then then they can search, seize and generally violate you security. This is the basis for telecommunications law that outlaws wiretapping in the first place.
FISA is based upon the very peculiar notion that they can first tap, and then ask for a warrant, and if a warrant is not issued, then they just "forget" about the tap and - somehow - everything is just peachy. But clearly, it isn't. Your security and privacy was violated, without a warrant. This of course is entirely aside from the fact that FISA is a rubber-stamp organization; just look at the statistics for warrants granted as opposed to warrants refused. Consider further the fact that I am not allowed to put a tap on your phone line. For any reason. I'm not even allowed to listen to a cell phone conversation you broadcast on an analog mode cell connection or an RF-based portable home phone. This is because it is an invasion of your privacy; and because your security is threatened. It isn't because I didn't get a warrant (I can't, as I am a citizen, not a member of law enforcement) and it isn't because I could get a warrant later, if it seemed like I needed to - I still can't. No, it is simply because your security is guaranteed by the constitution, and it is very clear that such an action would be in violation. But this is exactly what the government does with FISA. They don't bother to get a warrant, they just listen whenever they decide they want to. Clearly, FISA is unconstitutional.
Lastly, all arguments that the constitution is irrelevant here somehow because of "need" are false. If there is a real need, the constitution contains the tools required so that it may be modified such that those needs may be met. No, this is simply an end-run around the intent of the document without having to be inconvenienced by its restrictions. Remember, the constitution is the constituting authority for the federal (and state, with regard to amendments 1-10, as per the 14th) government, and any action that is forbidden on the one hand, or not an enumerated power in the case of the feds, is both unconstitutional and lacking any legitimate authority. Don't confuse power with authority.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
You know what worries me most about this, is that unless there is a direct confrontation between one of the other branches and the president before Bush leaves office then it leaves these questions unanswered. It scares me to think what an actually competent president would do with these powers.
A blog about stuff.
The problem is that having FISA issue warrants for the kind of surveillance the Bush administration wants IS NOT POSSIBLE.
How is FISA going to approve tens of thousands of warrants?
Irrelevent, because even if they could issue 10,000 warrants, 9,999 of those search requests would be completely and utterly without any merit whatsoever because the government had absolutely no reason to think that person had any useful information. FISA would not issue any of those warrants individually, why on earth would they issue them en-masse?
FISA or any other court wouldn't issue warrants for the kind of searches Bush wants. They are meritless searches. They are unconstitutional searches. They are illegal searches. That's the real reason FISA can't issue such a warrant.
Separate from FISA itself, is computerized monitoring of millions of phone calls as intrusive as a human agent listening to a particular person's phone calls? I think we'd all say no. So should we be willing to accept a lower burden on the governement for this sort of automated search?
Oh, I highly disagree. I think monitoring millions of phone calls of innocent people is WAY more intrusive than the monitoring of a single person who the agent has reason to think is doing something illegal sufficient to convince a judge that a warrant should be granted. The whole reason we have the 4th Ammendment is so that the police can't just search everyone in the desperate hope of finding a crime. Now that computers have let them do this to literally millions of people, you think it's less intrusive?!
And maybe you feel better if it's only a computer listening to you, but how exactly do you know that an agent didn't decide to listen in on your call? What do you think all that data does sitting on NSA computers; you think the NSA agents can't access it?
The 4th amendment was written in a time when 'search' meant agents of the government came into your home or business and actually PHYSICALLY SEARCHED it. Automated search of electronic communication could not possibly have been considered then, and is thus something we need to consider now.
Or a "search" meant agents of the government read your mail. What's the difference between automated search of electronic communication, and a huge room in the back of the post office with federal agents reading the mail of random U.S. citizens, other than e-mail and NSA computers allows many more random citizens to be illegally searched?
The great thing about the founding fathers is that they worded things such that they described basic principles and not specific technologies, and thus we don't actually have much to consider. The invention of the telegraph and the phone didn't do much to change the way this was viewed. Neither has the computer.
But you're right, we should consider automatic en-masse surveilance without a warrant. Hmm... nope, still unconstitutional. Well that was easy. Time for tea.
The enemies of Democracy are
Warrantless wiretapping is unconstitutional, period.
And where does the Constitution say that?
It doesn't. Why doesn't it? Because in 1789, there was no such thing as electronic communication.
In 1967, the Supreme Court ruled that the protections of the fourth amendment applied to electronic searches as well as physical searches. But you must keep in mind than in 1967, electronic searches pretty much meant having people listen to other people's phone calls.
It's now 2007. Electronic searches mean a lot more than just people listening to other people's phone calls. Whether a computer monitoring all phone calls constitutes an illegal search or not is not a given. It is not unreasonable that the courts could say that computerized monitoring of phone calls is not due the same 4th amendment protections as human monitoring. Or they could say that it is. But neither has happened yet.
In the meantime, a law which says you can't use computer systems to monitor masses of phone calls isn't a bad thing - it makes it illegal now, definitively, without waiting for court interpretation of the scope of 1789's 4th amendment in 2007.
paintball
I support them by respecting the fact that they do their job, even though I don't agree with their orders. Just because I stopped giving extra funds (above my taxes) to them, doesn't mean I don't appreciate their willingness to follow orders as a good soldiers should. I would never insult a soldier for his actions in Iraq if he were under orders.
I guess there are differing levels of support...our retard-in-chief seems to see things in a binary fashion tho.
Blar.
You don't know that.
And the reason you don't know that is that the court providing oversight that would ensure such was specifically avoided.
All you have is their claims about the specifics of the wiretaps.
The reason for so few vetoes is Bush's innovative use of executive signing statements - he only vetoes when it's politically expedient. Recall that his first veto was the stem cell bill, the second one the Iraq timetable/budget.
I may make you feel, but I can't make you think.
Too bad none of them are generals. Or attorney generals.
You are welcome on my lawn.
What people tend to forget is that problems such as the abuse of prisoners only came to light because they WERE the anomaly.
I am not so sure. If it was one person in Abu Ghraib, I would agree, but when more are involved you have to ask what exactly lead to this and how systemic they are. My own suspicion is that these problems are caused not by just a few trouble makers but rather by a dispersed group of people (still a small minority) who believe that what they watch on '24' makes for good interrogation practices because they identify with the character of Jack Bower. This qualifies to me as systemic but is not a matter of the chain of command.
However, this does not really matter. The real issue is: soldiers have an obligation to uphold the laws of war. THis is even in the oath our military men and women take to faithfully execute all lawful orders. We do train our soldiers to handle these situations, and to uphold such laws. Those who fail in this regard do not deserve our respect or support. However, as the title of my post indicates, I think that they are a minority.
The reason that they tend to forget this is because our domestic enemies, aka the left, work very hard to create the false impression that our military is in the business of abusing people.
To confuse dissent with treason is to undermine the very liberties we hold dear.
In a Free Nation, I do not believe anyone, by expressing any political idea, can ever be a domestic enemy on the basis of that expression. That even includes those demogogues, like Coulter, who seem intent on destroying the very basis for our free society. For if our nation does not have the choice to give up that very freedom that defines us, can we really be truly free?
Look, at the point where we start to confuse dissent with treason, we are in serious danger of losing the very liberties which have defined our great republic. However, the proper response to people who suggest that those who differ politically are somehow to be defined as domestic enemies is to respond with rational, thought-provoking, well-framed arguments.
During the last war that was an overseas extension of our ongoing war with our domestic enemies, aka the Vietnam war, the left painted our soldiers as "baby killers," a characterization of the military that is still prevalent among the leftists of that generation to this day.
I have talked with at least one Vietnam Vet who did shoot and kill a child in self-defense. This is not a war crime, though the VC committed one when they had this kid throw grenades at our army.
If other soldiers committed war crimes by indiscriminatly killing civilians within target areas, then those soldiers and those soldiers specifically can and should be excluded from our support. However, my point is that even so, the actions of such criminals should not be used to withold support from those who faithfully executed lawful orders out of a sense of duty.
I once knew a girl whose mother "disowned" her when she joined the army after high school. The rationale was that the military was made up of nothing bu "baby killers." I was only 18 at the time, and while I knew her mother was mad, I didn't realize that her insanity was the result of leftist indoctrination. I was too young to realize that large groups of people can be hopelessly and completely full of shit. Impervious to logic, resistant to experience, and all but immune to encounters with the clue-bat. Some forms of insanity are communicable. Some do eventually come to their senses and join the rest of us in the real world, but sadly for many it is a life-long ailment.
I come from a Quaker family. Quakers have forbid members from serving in the armed forces since well before the American Revolution. There are other religious groups too with a long history of conscientious objection (Mennonites, Hudderites, and a few others). Under current statutory and con
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