House Approves Warrantless Wiretapping Extension

An anonymous reader writes "The House of Representatives voted 227-183 to update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to allow warrantless wiretapping of telephone and electronic communications. The vote extends the FISA amendment for six months. 'The administration said the measure is needed to speed the National Security Agency's ability to intercept phone calls, e-mails and other communications involving foreign nationals "reasonably believed to be outside the United States." Civil liberties groups and many Democrats said it goes too far, possibly enabling the government to wiretap U.S. residents communicating with overseas parties without adequate oversight from courts or Congres.'"

Comments

poster...post right

[Danathar]

You put in your story

"The House of Representatives voted 227-183 to update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to allow warrantless wiretapping of telephone and electronic communications."

But the first Sentence of the story you linked to reads

"The House handed President Bush a victory Saturday, voting to expand the government's abilities to eavesdrop without warrants on foreign suspects whose communications pass through the United States."

That last part about "warrants on foreign suspects whose communications pass through the United States" is SOMEWHAT IMPORTANT!!!

You made it read as if the pres got full permission to wiretap anybody without a warrant which is completely wrong. Instead of omitting the parts that you don't like, be honest and include them.

Re:poster...post right

[TheMongelloid]

How every much you might want to read between the lines and come up with some government conspiracy the article clearly states "The House handed President Bush a victory Saturday, voting to expand the government's abilities to eavesdrop without warrants on foreign suspects whose communications pass through the United States."

Re:poster...post right

[Karl0Erik]

From TFA:

"This bill would grant the attorney general the ability to wiretap anybody, any place, any time without court review, without any checks and balances," said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., during the debate preceding the vote. From your post:

Instead of omitting the parts that you don't like, be honest and include them.

Re:poster...post right

[TheGavster]

If warrants are no longer necessary to wiretap, where exactly is the check to see if the people being wiretapped are foreign nationals? The whole point of a warrant is to make sure that a requested invasive measure is being applied properly.

Re:poster...post right

[Dachannien]

That's not *entirely* true, though. The bill requires that the AG submit to the FISA court a set of procedures for determining whether a wiretap concerns people located outside the US, and those procedures have to be "in place" when the AG orders surveillance. In addition, if you happen to receive a directive from the AG ordering you to perform some action that fulfills such a surveillance order, you can file a petition with the FISA court to challenge the legality of the directive.

The opportunity for judicial review is minimal, but Lofgren overstates the matter by saying that there are no checks and balances at all.

Re:poster...post right

[kestasjk]

You put in your story

"The House of Representatives voted 227-183 to update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to allow warrantless wiretapping of telephone and electronic communications."

But the first Sentence of the story you linked to reads

"The House handed President Bush a victory Saturday, voting to expand the government's abilities to eavesdrop without warrants on foreign suspects whose communications pass through the United States."

That last part about "warrants on foreign suspects whose communications pass through the United States" is SOMEWHAT IMPORTANT!!!

You made it read as if the pres got full permission to wiretap anybody without a warrant which is completely wrong. Instead of omitting the parts that you don't like, be honest and include them. What I don't understand is what organized criminal, in this age of easy cryptography, would actually talk about their criminal activities over the phone? Even using Skype you can communicate with someone without real fear of eavesdroppers, and using GPG Osama himself could speak easy.

Are criminals really still communicating over the phone?

Re:poster...post right

[pimpimpim]

Also, when using skype, how can one check if it is from a foreign country or not. Easy way out is to assume anyone using skype is likely to be a foreign national, with dangerous ideas anyway. In the tags it said 'communication' but I read 'communism' as this scheme seems to be destined to scare the US people from talking to foreigners and hearing their ideas from the free world.

But, I have a better solution. Just let all foreign nationals get the message that is made here and stop communicating to and via the US. The US want to be isolated? Let them have it! It is not like one needs to go to the US to get a job there, as most jobs for foreign nationals are by now already outsourced to those countries themselves. The US dollar as a currency is not so important anymore nowadays either. The economic and technological downfall that will follow will hopefully put the US politics in a course where it's supposed to be, to lead their people into progress as a democratic and open country. Sweet dreams, unfortunately.

Re:poster...post right

[Zeinfeld]

The opportunity for judicial review is minimal, but Lofgren overstates the matter by saying that there are no checks and balances at all.

Currently President SFB is threatening to veto the act in any case because it does not meet his crietria for lack of accountability.

It seems unlikely that he will follow through. But in any case the ammendment times out in six months. By which time we will in all likelihood be deep into the Gonzalez constitutional crisis. It would be nice if Congress would deal with Gonzalez in the terms he deserves:

Mr Gonzalez, you are incompetent, you are a fool, you are a liar. You have committed and you have commissioned high crimes against the constitution and the citizens of this country. You have facilitated torture, you have obstructed justice, you have committed perjury. Your name will be a byword for dishonorable conduct in high office for generations to come.

Re:poster...post right

[daveschroeder]

So, by that logic, all foreign signals intelligence should require a warrant?

If your goal is to cripple US foreign intelligence capability and put us at a marked and distinct disadvantage in countless respects to the intelligence services of the rest of the modern world, then we should put that suggestion on the top of our list.

Re:poster...post right

[KingSkippus]

You're so naive.

I don't know how many times I've said this, and people still don't get it. When deciding whether a law is good or bad, you should always assume that the worst scum of the earth are going to be exploiting it for their own evil agendas, and then decide if you can live with its consequences.

Let's see what the Republican who defended the law says about it:

Republicans disputed [Democrat Zoe Lofgren's] description. "It does nothing to tear up the Constitution," said Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Calif. If an American's communications are swept up in surveillance of a foreigner, he said, "we go through a process called minimization" and get rid of the records unless there is reason to suspect the American is a threat.

So everything--including eavesdropping on domestic calls--is fair game if there is a reason to suspect that the American is a threat. Who gets to decide if the American is a threat? Why, the President and Attorney General, of course! And who do they have to tell? No one! And they have to be a threat of committing some sort of terrorist act, right? Of course not, they can be deemed a threat for any ol' reason they damned well please! "Wow, that person may get me voted out of office. I deem them a threat to national security." Don't think it could happen? You're not thinking hard enough, and you're still not assuming that the worst scum of the earth are in charge.

If you can't see the potential for abuse of this law, then you're beyond naive, you're an idiot. And if you think that George Bush would never abuse it in this way because he's such a nice man who is looking out for our safety, then imagine it in the hands of Hillary Clinton, because you're also giving it to whoever takes office after Bush, and whoever takes office after that, and whoever takes office after that. Do you trust whoever will be president in 20 years, even though you have no freakin' clue who that will be?

At the risk of going all Godwin in this thread, imagine that 20 years from now, a new Adolph Hitler manages to win the election. Do you trust him not to abuse the law too? Don't ever ask if you think the people in charge now will abuse the law, ask if Adolph Hitler would. Government is supposed to be designed in such a way that if a branch of government does become corrupted by a Hitler-like person, we'd be okay in the end because the other two branches would compensate for it with their checks and balances. Laws like this are specifically designed, though, to take those checks and balances away from other branches and concentrate the power in one branch (in this case, the executive branch). No matter how much you think it will only be used with good intentions, it will be abused at some point.

By passing this bill, Congress has failed us miserably yet again, and the biggest reason why is because of naive little Bush cheerleaders who are too stupid to know how government works.

Re:poster...post right

[SnapShot]

My sources inside the Department of Justice have revealed a rough draft of these procedures written by Al Gonzonles:

FISA court proceedures, draft 1
1. If, the suspect ever said anything bad about me, President Bush or "tricky" Dick Cheney,
2. Or, the suspect has ever filed a petition to challenge the legality of the warrentless surveillance,
3. Or, I, President Bush, "tricky" Dick Cheney, or the editorial board at Fox News really want the warrentless serveillance to be approved,
4. Then, approval for warrentless surveillance on the suspect is to be approved. It's a surprisingly low bar.

Re:poster...post right

[gb506]

But, I have a better solution. Just let all foreign nationals get the message that is made here and stop communicating to and via the US. The US want to be isolated?

So, you promote halting all communication with and travel to the United States in order to send a political message...

But you then go on to say you can still work for US companies...

It is not like one needs to go to the US to get a job there, as most jobs for foreign nationals are by now already outsourced to those countries themselves.

Let me get this straight. You'll take a job with a US company, but you say you won't communicate via the US, which I assume means never making a call through or to the US, never sending an email to anyone in the US, nor surfing a web site hosted in the US? Allow me to clue you in, shortbus: unless you're trimming the hedges or sweeping a floor in Bangalore for IBM, you will be in frequent contact via various communications vehicles with people in the US. So, unless you're willing to bite the bullet and swear off working for any US company or its foreign subsidiaries, or working for non-US companies with US clients, you're going to have to communicate with and through the US.

It is highly likely that eliminating communications with the US will hurt YOU more than it will hurt the US.

Re:poster...post right

[emptech]

Robert Mueller has testified before congress that the government has already eavesdropped on innocent Americans, who were only communicating with fellow innocent Americans. There has also been congressional testimony from the Administration that they have not even gone to the FISA court to seek approval for wire-tapping. The Bushie's claim they don't need such approval. The only reason the Bushie's come to congress for FISA extensions is so they have some legislative cover when this tactic blows up in their face.

From personal experience: I have a relative who is a low level, government bureaucrat. That relatives personal contact information was stored on both hotmail and yahoo servers. That information disappeared from those servers last December. This lack of regard for Americans privacy goes back to 9-11. This same relative warned us that October; "just be aware that no internet communication is private".

Re:poster...post right

[Lysol]

You said it! The founding fathers have been rolling in their grave for the last decade or so, no doubt about it. These guys in power are simply the worst in history, the f*cking worst! So blatantly corrupt, so ideological, so twisted insofar as calling the bill of rights 'quaint'.

Ben Franklin said:
Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Sad but true. If people really think that this is gonna just be used for the big, bad, terrorists (who seem to lurk around every corner) then they are deluding themselves. Like the poster said, there is no oversight, so a foreign suspect can be anyone according to the pResident and ag. And when the judiciary is stacked with conservative appointees, then who's going to rule these clearly unconstitutional laws illegal?! That's the problem, absolute power which is absolutely what these guys are after. I really hope people wake up and impeach these guys because if ANYONE'S deserved it, it's them.

Oh and after that glorious day, let's get a third party in there too because the democrats and republicans are two sides of the same coin: government by the wealthy, for the wealthy.

Re:poster...post right

[Anonymous Coward]

"So, by that logic, all foreign signals intelligence should require a warrant?"

What logic is that? Apparently your own substitute for it, because one doesn't reach that conclusion by any sane parsing of TheGavster's post.

All domestic surveillance (all surveillance occurring within the borders of the United States, to be clear) must require a warrant and court review. Without a warrant requirement, police agencies can claim anyone (including a US citizen located inside the US with no foreign nor criminal ties) is a valid target, because there is nobody checking nor allowed to check whether this is true. Surely this is not so difficult to understand.

If you think this puts us at a "distinct disadvantage in countless respects to the intelligence services of the rest of the modern world," I would suggest that it certainly does put our intelligence services at a distinct disadvantage in comparison to the intelligence services of some third-world dictatorship -- and that this is quite a good thing.

Re:poster...post right

[TheGavster]

I didn't say anything about "all foreign signals intelligence". The issue here is monitoring communications by individuals inside the United States. There should be some sort of process before you go recording phone calls from a particular address. If that address is the Chinese embassy, it shouldn't be that hard to make the case. If it's some random suburb in the midwest, I'd like to think that there's some process to ensure that the person is actually foreign, and doesn't just have dark skin and a beard.

Re:poster...post right

[daveschroeder]

You said:

If warrants are no longer necessary to wiretap, where exactly is the check to see if the people being wiretapped are foreign nationals? The whole point of a warrant is to make sure that a requested invasive measure is being applied properly.

Now you say:

I didn't say anything about "all foreign signals intelligence". The issue here is monitoring communications by individuals inside the United States.

No, it's not, at all.

It's about monitoring communications by individuals outside the United States, where the traffic may incidentally flow through communications or networking equipment inside the United States.

Under the current law, that requires a warrant. Even if all parties to the communication are foreign nationals outside of the United States. That's ridiculous, and is something that the current law never could have foreseen. Monitoring such communication does not require a warrant, and this fixes the issue where the communication may incidentally travel through equipment physically within the US.

There should be some sort of process before you go recording phone calls from a particular address. If that address is the Chinese embassy, it shouldn't be that hard to make the case. If it's some random suburb in the midwest, I'd like to think that there's some process to ensure that the person is actually foreign, and doesn't just have dark skin and a beard.

The problem here is that you assume the warrant is the only acceptable "check". That's the thing that is crippling foreign intelligence gathering that falls into this category now. The "check" happens within the intelligence community itself. If both parties are reasonably believed to be outside of the United States, but the traffic is traveling through equipment in the United States, no warrant is required. If it's not clear (i.e., not "reasonable" to believe), or if the parties are inside the United States, a warrant is required.

If your next response is along the lines of, "Well, how can we trust them to do the right thing?" I'd ask, even with a warrant, how can you trust them to do the right thing? I mean, really. And then, how can you trust the FISA court? Maybe we should have another court to check to see if FISA is really doing what you want. The answer is that there is Congressional oversight of the intelligence services. Some, myself included, don't think it's enough, but that, in addition to the processes built into the foreign SIGINT collection, is where the "check" lies.

The only "solution" would be to require all such monitoring of communication have an associated warrant, because, by the logic you are using, that's the only way to "check" if the monitoring is allowable. But that's ridiculous. See the problem, here? And no, it's not simple, efficient, or even useful to saddle all foreign SIGINT with warrant requirements.

Re:poster...post right

[ralewi1]

Are criminals really still communicating over the phone?

Yes, they do. And so does every government and extra-government entity in the world, because at some point they need logistics, and Khaled-the-Camel-Driver isn't going to have encrypted communications. And as far as people who are "off the grid", they have people that call Khaled for them, and eventually, they get rolled up.

Re:poster...post right

[faloi]

By passing this bill, Congress has failed us miserably yet again, and the biggest reason why is because of naive little Bush cheerleaders who are too stupid to know how government works.

You mean like the naive Bush cheerleaders in the Democrat controlled house? I don't disagree with anything you're saying, but I think ignoring the fact that both parties are at least ok enough with it to get it passed worries me somewhat. The Democrats, if they had a backbone, could've stopped it.

Re:poster...post right

[daveschroeder]

Monitoring of foreign communications has never required a warrant, nor should it. This simply reflects the current technological state of affairs with respect to foreign signals intelligence.

If you believe that foreign signals intelligence should be burdened with warrant requirements because it incidentally travels through the United States, then we're in disagreement.

This is an update to a law so that intelligence agencies can reasonably execute their longstanding foreign intelligence roles within the law. If you believe that someone is secretly going to be arbitrarily declaring everyone "foreigners outside of the United States" even when they're not - in other words, completely ignoring and running afoul of the wording or spirit of any law - then they could be doing that anyway, regardless of what any law says.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with intelligence monitoring of foreign communications. Because modern technology means that some of these communications may travel through US communications equipment does not suddenly mean that they should be saddled with warrant process requirements and everything else that implies. It is simply not practical, and it flies in the face of the very purpose and methods of foreign intelligence collection.

The naïveté here is yours.

Re:poster...post right

[Dachannien]

Currently President SFB is threatening to veto the act in any case because it does not meet his crietria for lack of accountability.

Either "SFB" refers to someone other than the actual President of the United States, or you didn't bother reading TFA.

Re:poster...post right

[glarbl_blarbl]

"Well, how can we trust them to do the right thing?" I'd ask, even with a warrant, how can you trust them to do the right thing? I mean, really. And then, how can you trust the FISA court? We used to be able to trust the judicial system, until Nixon declared war on drugs. Then the problem grew by an order of magnitude when Gonzales was directed to turn DoJ into another wing of the republican party. I can't understand why you are defending the handover of more power to these corrupt liars, but I will defend to the death your right to do so. That's what America is supposed to be about.

Re:poster...post right

[Reziac]

And what about when your Skype or other VOIP *happens* to be routed through some foreign server, simply because that was the least congested route at that moment??

And that's hardly a new problem. Back in the early days of the 'Net, some folks amused themselves by tracking the convoluted routes their email took. I knew a guy whose email (sent from and to U.S. hosts) commonly went by way of Singapore, for no visible reason and of course completely beyond his control.

Re:poster...post right

[Silver Surfer 1]

Instead of invoking Hitler perhaps inserting Lincoln or Roosevelt instead would be more honest. I am surprised your post was not modded -1 flaimbait or troll. So anyone who disagrees with you is niave or stupid?

Re:poster...post right

[glarbl_blarbl]

Does anyone seriously think/believe that Bush and the government really want to hear where their marijuana stash is hidden? I think the government has more important things to do with their time. More than 700,000 people were arrested for cannabis last year, 90% of them for simple possession. http://www.drugwarfacts.org/marijuan.htm

Re:poster...post right

[illumin8]

Monitoring of foreign communications has never required a warrant, nor should it. This simply reflects the current technological state of affairs with respect to foreign signals intelligence.

Let's say I'm a US Citizen. I go on a trip to a foreign country, and call my family back home. Because it's a foreign call travelling to the US, it gets picked up and data mined. My privacy has just been invaded, without a warrant or due cause, even though my US constitution specifically forbids this from happening to me, a US Citizen. Now do you see the dilemma? They can't just, after the fact, scratch the whole record of my privacy being invaded. My privacy was invaded, without probable cause, just because I used a telephone in a foreign country.

Wake up and smell the fascism America... Seriously, fascism, the merger of corporate (AT&T) and government (GWB) power, is nearly complete. In all major industries: energy, telecommunications, healthcare, food, drugs, pharmaceuticals, government and corporations are complicit in building the police state of tomorrow. It will be much worse than 1984...

Re:poster...post right

[pimpimpim]

How many 100% US-made products are actually exported, compared to the amount of imported products? The US is more dependent on the rest of the world than the other way around. In India, where outsourcing started, there are already companies that are completely independent of the US companies they started working for. The only influence the US has is monetary, but with the huge US debts, and the decreasing strength of the US dollar, this will weaken. The current isolating policy the US government seems to want will not help this matter. That's all that I'm trying to say.

Re:poster...post right

[pimpimpim]

True, that, this actually makes it an international problem, since it allows anyone to spy on all of us, depending on local legislation that affects non-local traffic. Amazing, isn't it. In the end it all boils down to the amount of effort a country will do to decode all the network traffic. Did you know that the former eastern republic of Germany (calling themselves 'Democratic', by the way, always be afraid of governments that need to explicitly state they are democratic) had racks and racks of tape recorders with some sort of analog speech recognition that would start as soon as someone at some phone line would say a 'dangerous' word? This was not even computer-based, as computers didn't really exist at the time (until the end of the DDR, the only computer to come out of it was a copied Acorn as far as I know). Still, they wanted to do this amount of effort, and they did. This goes to say that anything that can go wrong with your privacy, will go wrong.

Re:poster...post right

[Master of Transhuman]

Exactly. The whole point of this law is to MAKE ABUSE EASY!

In fact, that's the whole point of the entire Bush administration! Anybody who hasn't figured that out by now definitely belongs with the 25-30 percent of the US morons who still support Bush in anything.

And all the morons here who are citing "foreign nationals" are either just that - morons - or people who know damn well the point is to make abuse easy and they agree with that because they're closet fascists themselves.

Re:poster...post right

[Master of Transhuman]

Wait until Bush attacks Iran.

We're gonna see isolation you wouldn't believe, starting with China, pissed off because they're cut off from Iranian oil and gas, dumping a trillion US dollars on the market. What's left of the US economy, already devastated because of the $10-20/gallon gas prices the war will cause, will evaporate.

Re:poster...post right

[StikyPad]

While I think your point is valid, I don't think name calling furthers your goals.

There are two scenarios which don't involve people being completely evil (as most people are not). First is the well intentioned, but misguided, individual. He has a good agenda, but he's tempted to use "unconventional" methods to achieve it. In fact, those unconventional methods fly in the face of the ultimate goal, but he's too preoccupied with achieving the goal to realize that.

Second is that without the risk of getting caught, people will tend to be more "adventurous" in their behavior. That doesn't necessarily make them bad people -- a lot of otherwise good people STAY good people because they recognize the possibility of getting caught.

Without oversight, both of those groups have a strong possibility of abusing the system. In fact, it takes an extremely noble and virtuous individual to restrain from using unchecked power to further a personal agenda when there is no possibility of getting caught. That's not to say such individuals don't exist, but they are a rarity, and there's no reason to assume that anyone possesses such virtue, world leader or not.

Re:poster...post right

[triffid_98]

You make it almost sound like Democrats genuinely want to protect your rights. Face facts man, Republicans want your rights, Democrats want your rights, voting for either simply becomes a question of which rights you're most willing to give up this election season. Would you rather have legal abortions or legal guns? Would you rather have big media or big oil own your politician's vote? Would you like a tax and spend government or do you prefer our current print and spend government?

You mean like the naive Bush cheerleaders in the Democrat controlled house? I don't disagree with anything you're saying, but I think ignoring the fact that both parties are at least ok enough with it to get it passed worries me somewhat. The Democrats, if they had a backbone, could've stopped it.

Re:poster...post right

[faloi]

Nah, like I said... Ignoring the fact that both parties are ok with usurping our rights is a problem. Neither party wants to protect our rights. Heck, neither party really even cares about protecting the rights they claim to care about.

Re:poster...post right

[Danathar]

The point of my response was not about the "right" or "wrong" concerning wiretaps, it was just that the original poster "re-interpreted" the story to his slant.

Regardless of if you think the the part he left out really makes a difference it should of still been in his post since it was in the original story and was important to the original Author.

Re:poster...post right

[Catmoves]

Just a couple of questions: Since IPs do not suggest what country an email or any other communication comes from, how do our snoops in the gov decide which communications they can look at? Well, do you suppose they have to look at your emails? And maybe listen in to your phone calls? After all, how else would we know you weren't talking to the Taliban? You're talking to aunt Marge? Maybe. And maybe you're talking to a mole in Iraq through interlocking phone connections all over the world. Someone needs to decide. But of course your government wouldn't listen in to your calls, nor read your email, now would they? Just because they can?

And The Reason Is

[dammy]

"The administration began pressing for changes to the law after a recent ruling by the FISA court. That decision barred the government from eavesdropping without warrants on foreign suspects whose messages were being routed through U.S. communications carriers, including Internet sites."

The Bill seems reasonable enough. IMO, anything going out or in the US should be exempt from FISA. FISA should only apply to internal US wired calls.

Re:And The Reason Is

[vidarh]

The entire point of FISA is to provide oversight of surveillance involving foreign parties. Internal US wired calls is entirely outside the scope of FISA, for a very good reason: They are already covered elsewhere.

Re:And The Reason Is

[CaymanIslandCarpedie]

You seem confused. FISA stands for (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) in case you weren't aware. Internal communications are covered by a seperate set of laws. You are saying laws on foreign intelligence gathering shouldn't apply to foreign intelligence gathering but instead for internal?

Re:And The Reason Is

[BlueStrat]

The entire point of FISA is to provide oversight of surveillance involving foreign parties. Internal US wired calls is entirely outside the scope of FISA, for a very good reason: They are already covered elsewhere.

The purpose of FISA is to provide oversight to wiretapping of communications between *known and suspected enemy foreign nationals outside the country* and US citizens. If a foreign terrorist is calling someone in the US, it would be stupid to *not* be listening.

This bill is to bring an old law up to date. What it concerns is eavesdropping on the communications between two suspected enemy foreign nationals, whose communications *happen* to be routed over wires that *pass through* the US.

The way the law was worded before, required a warrant to listen to two foreign parties because it didn't make any distinction on *who* the parties were, or *where* they were, only the fact that the communication occurred on wires that were inside the US.

I agree with other posters that are of the opinion that this is really a non-issue as far as the rights of US citizens are concerned. US citizens never had the right to expect that communications to/from parties *outside* the country would *not* be monitored. This has been the status quo for decades.

Cheers!

Strat

Re:And The Reason Is

[Eggplant62]

What, do you think these foreign nationals go around, wearing t-shirts, saying, "Hi, I'm a foreign national engaged in terrorism against America!"? How does one differentiate between someone who is a terrorist and someone who is not?

Legislation like this makes me terribly uncomfortable for reasons I shouldn't have to explain, and anyone who believes that we should be jumping at every shadow needs their head examined. The biggest problem is how accepting of idiotic legislation that erodes basic freedoms the average American has become.

Re:And The Reason Is

[crake07]

First off, FISA=Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, so the idea that FISA should regulate "internal US wired calls" doesn't really make sense. Those calls fall under the purview of the regular courts.

The reason that this bill is so insidious is that it appears reasonable at a glance, but it greatly expands the power of the executive and allows for the surveillance of almost anyone. In section 105A of the statute, it redefines "electronic surveillance," and allows for any surveillance which is "directed" against a person overseas. It does not require that one of the parties in the email/phone call actually be overseas, merely that the surveillance be directed against someone overseas. Here, from the actual text of the Orwellian-named "Protect America Act of 2007":

"`Sec. 105B. (a) Notwithstanding any other law, the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General, may for periods of up to one year authorize the acquisition of foreign intelligence information concerning persons reasonably believed to be outside the United States if the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General determine, based on the information provided to them. . ."

The key point is that the information need only concern persons reasonably believed to be outside the US. For example, if I were to send you an email from Rhode Island to Massachusetts, in which I discussed Osama Bin Laden, my email would be fair game under the act because it concerns a person (OBL) reasonably believed to be overseas. This would still violate the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 because it is obviously a domestic wiretap. But Bush & Co. thought of this, so they inserted section 105(A) right in the beginning of the Protect America Act of 2007! It reads as follows:

"Sec. 105A. Nothing in the definition of electronic surveillance under section 101(f) shall be construed to encompass surveillance directed at a person reasonably believed to be located outside of the United States."

You may notice that further down in the PAA of 2007, the following:

"SECT5: (b) Table of Contents- The table of contents in the first section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1801 et seq.) is amended by inserting after the item relating to section 105 the following:

105A. Clarification of electronic surveillance of persons outside the United States."

The above merely points out the obvious modification of FISA--section 105A already technically modified it. So FISA has been modified by the act (obviously) and "electronic surveillance" is redefined to mean any surveillance directed against someone overseas. Think about that for a few minutes. The language change is substantial.

The statute effectively repeals the 4th Amendment (although this is not possible; a statute cannot repeal an amendment to the Constitution) because it provides for secret violation of the 4th Amendment. The government is not required to notify the person under surveillance; combined with the Military Commissions Act of last year, this statute gives the government carte blanche to secretly wiretap any person in the United States, even two citizens, and to secretly disappear them to Gitmo or anywhere else. The act is unconstitutional, but it can never be challenged; by the time someone is notified that they are under surveillance, they are already in an orange jumpsuit being tortured in an overseas concentration camp.

History should tell us that secret surveillance of an entire population, combined with extraordinary rendition and overseas camps run by government intelligence services which openly use torture to extract confessions is a recipe for disaster. But both parties in Congress are motivated only by Realpolitik considerations of re-election and fund raising. The state of the Union is secondary to their personal considerations and the

Re:And The Reason Is

[BlueStrat]

What, do you think these foreign nationals go around, wearing t-shirts, saying, "Hi, I'm a foreign national engaged in terrorism against America!"?

Oh, I don't know...maybe the fact that the call is originating in a foreign country, and that it terminates in the same or a different foreign country?

Also, just to be clear...the "suspected enemy/terrorist" qualifier tag is just to save the NSA time and narrow things down. *All* countries have *always* reserved the right to eavesdrop at their discretion, to the extent they are able, on foreigners outside their country for whatever reason suits them.

Even countries that are our allies eavesdrop on our communications for a multitude of reasons, from military intel to industrial and tech espionage and identification/suppression of dissenters in their home country..sometimes directly from their embassies in this country. This has always been true.

Cheers!

Strat

Re:And The Reason Is

[daveschroeder]

What, do you think these foreign nationals go around, wearing t-shirts, saying, "Hi, I'm a foreign national engaged in terrorism against America!"? How does one differentiate between someone who is a terrorist and someone who is not?

It doesn't matter.

A warrant is not required to listen to communications between foreign nationals outside of the United States, regardless of what kind of activity they are involved in. This is communication the United States has always been free to monitor at will.

The problem is that now some communication, even between foreigners outside of the United States, gets routed through networking or switching equipment inside the United States, which, under the outdated FISA rules, would require a warrant.

This fixes that problem, and for you to suggest the United States shouldn't be engaged in aggressive global foreign intelligence gathering and threat monitoring is ridiculous. And yes, you should have to explain why this update to an antiquated law makes you uncomfortable. It has NOTHING to do with jumping at shadows. This idea that people only support things like this out of fear is incorrect. This is fair-game surveillance of foreign communication which is perfectly legitimate on the global stage and has gone on for decades. Pretending the United States shouldn't be doing it is sticking your head in the sand to unprecedented depths.

Re:And The Reason Is

[^Case^]

A warrant is not required to listen to communications between foreign nationals outside of the United States

Apparently the legislation covers communications between U.S citizens and foreign nationals also. The NY Times has a piece on it saying that:

President Bush signed into law on Sunday legislation that broadly expanded the government's authority to eavesdrop on the international telephone calls and e-mail messages of American citizens without warrants.

So perhaps the intention of the law is pointed towards foreigners, but your statements that this law will only fix problems with foreigner to foreigner communication seems to be false if the NY Times are right.

Re:And The Reason Is

[billtouch]

I guess I don't understand here. The law implementing the FISA court, also gives the government right right to monitor traffic anytime they need to and they have 48 hours to submit a warrent to cover that tap retroactively. That isn't sufficient time? Why do they need to ever go warrentless?

The natural state of government resists oversight. It takes specific laws to ensure that we can inspect what our government does. We have FOI act now and many states have government in the sunshine laws to help us find out what they are doing. Look at the White House now with the firing of those prosecutors. They refuse to release any information about what they did even to the point of refusing supoenas. In my time on earth, I have noticed that overwhealmingly, its the bad guys who hide under cloak of darkness.

It is laws like this that make it possible for the executive branch to operate in secrecy. If there comes a question about a particular wiretap, do you really think the administration will send enyone to congress to discuss it? Everything sleazy can hide under the cloak of executive privilege - and its legal.

Bill

mod parent down

[Anonymous Coward]

This -does- give full permission to wiretap anybody without a warrent. Anyone can be wiretapped without oversight as long as the claim is made that they are suspected of communicating with said foreign suspects.

Re:mod parent down

[erroneus]

Uhm... many people contend that he wasn't elected at all. There were so many questionable aspects in the election itself and the final decision made in federal court is also very questionable. Gore should have won.

Re:mod parent down

[br14n420]

I believe the issue in the 2004 elections was just a media-blast with little basis in reality. Well, unless you just wanted to see a mark in history changed on who got the popular vote. Gore still would not have won the presidency regardless of what the popular vote count was. The folks you guys chose to vote for you made the ultimate decision. Fact is, the US has plenty of opportunity to change-up the electorals, but since people appear to be generally ignorant of how the system works, they clung to what CNN/Fox/WSB had to say and didn't take any action what-so-ever.

The election of the President of the United States and the Vice President of the United States is indirect. Presidential electors are selected on a state by state basis as determined by the laws of each state. Currently each state uses the popular vote on Election Day to elect electors. Although ballots list the names of the presidential candidates, voters within the 50 states and the District of Columbia are actually choosing Electors from their state when they vote for President and Vice President. These Presidential Electors in turn cast the official (electoral) votes for those two offices. Although the nationwide popular vote is calculated by official and media organizations, it does not determine the winner of the election. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Elector al_College

Re:mod parent down

[PopeRatzo]

52% of you americans voted this baboon into office again.

So they say. And that's "President" Baboon to you, frenchie.

Actually, it was 52% of the people who voted, which came to about 20-something percent of the population. Factor in the religious looneys who thought Bush was gonna outlaw abortion and you're left with about 16% of the population over 18. Remember all those long lines for polling places in Black neighborhoods? Now we're down to about 12%.

Given that in 2004 the Attorney General was pushing the US Attorneys (and just about every other employee of the executive branch) to "deliver" the election to the GOP, I'm comfortable saying that this President is illegitimate.

But, to be fair, the Dems did much the same thing back in the 60s, so it could be seen as turnabout between two corrupt organizations.

About 1/4 of Americans have any faith at all in the current government. If I was Bush, I'd be thinking about bringing some of those National Guardsmen home. Just in case.

Re:mod parent down

[alisson]

It's not terribly hard to get a wire-tap warrant in the first place. Since the idea is to gather evidence, you really only need potential evidence.

Re:mod parent down

[erroneus]

selected on a state by state basis as determined by the laws of each state.

Of the states that were in contention or had highly strange disparities between exit polls and actual counts, did you bother to check what the state policies are in regard to popular votes equating to electoral votes? If I'm not mistaken, both Ohio and Florida laws directly link the electoral vote result to the collective popular vote results. In that case, Gore should have won.

It's one thing to state general rules, but to see where those rule fit in and what applies specifically to the situation requires a little more thought and work than most people are prepared to do.

Re:mod parent down

[Arainach]

Actually, although the media didn't report on it much, there were many suspicious things going on in the Ohio counting and voting in the 2004 election - a state that would have given Kerry the victory. This is made all the more unusual by the fact that in violation of federal law almost 2/3 of Ohio's counties have destroyed records from that election. http://www.alternet.org/story/58328/

Re:mod parent down

[DavidTC]

At least when the Dems cheated, the country got JFK.

Re:mod parent down

[RenderSeven]

How come no one talks about the long lines in white middle-class republican polling places?? Here in NH I was at the polls when they closed, and watched well-organized democrat squads complete with lawyers, radios and video cameras stop the election when the second hand hit 12 o'clock. They physically blocked the lines and threatened everyone from the voters to police with lawsuits unless they turned around and went home without voting. They did this across the state, only in districts that were known to vote heavily republican.

Personally I dont know how to interpret the law. If youre in line to vote when the polls close, do you get to vote? It seems a place where we should err on the side of letting everyone vote, but I dont know. Maybe the dem goon squads had it right, but its not right to selectively enforce according to your political bias. So our town got sued by the DNC for letting people vote after the polls had technically closed, and other towns got sued by the DNC for *not* letting people vote past closing time. Anyone who claims that only democrat-voting blacks got disenfranchised is just cherry picking their facts. The whole election cycle sucked for everyone.

Re:mod parent down

[thule]

Anyone can be wiretapped if you call a party that is under investigation with a court approved wiretap. The tap specifies only one party, but both sides can be listened in on. This is the way it has always been. The NSA can listen to anyone as long as they are outside the law of the United States. If that party happened to call into the US the NSA did not stop listening. The problem before 9/11 was that the NSA could never pass the information about the US side of the conversation to domestic law enforcement.

There was a Washington Post article that mentioned how the FISA judges were concerned about using NSA information to issue further FISA warrants on suspects inside the US. See Secret Court's Judges Were Warned About NSA Spy Data

Re:mod parent down

[mpe]

This -does- give full permission to wiretap anybody without a warrent. Anyone can be wiretapped without oversight as long as the claim is made that they are suspected of communicating with said foreign suspects.

How many members of the US government should be getting their phones tapped right now (but are not)?

Re:mod parent down

[PopeRatzo]

There are more voters in one ward in Akron or Cleveland than in the entire state of New Hampshire. If you're trying to say that there were Republicans disenfranchised during recent elections, I'd suggest that with all the US attorney's specifically instructed to look only for Democratic voter fraud, you'd think they'd find at least one example.

This is one argument that you might want to take down the street to the park to see if the squirrels will buy it, because nobody here's going to.

Re:mod parent down

[harks]

Does the phone call have to be to or from someone in a foreign nation?

Re:mod parent down

[Master of Transhuman]

"If I was Bush, I'd be thinking about bringing some of those National Guardsmen home. Just in case."

I believe that is already in the works, according to some articles I've seen recently, where the Pentagon is setting up systems and training for urban control IN THE US using the same methods being used in Iraq (i.e., shoot anybody who doesn't stop their car instantly - although they don't admit that.)

Bush and the neocons KNOW - but don't care - what is going to happen when they attack Iran. They KNOW that car bombers and suicide bombers will start operating inside the US - and they intend to gut what little is left of the Constitution in response to the stupid panic the US people will experience when a car bomber cleans Times Square at rush hour and a couple suicide bombers blow themselves up in the New York subway system at rush hour.

The odds of their BEING a 2008 election - or one four years later - is receding as the war plans for Iran are finalized. The sales of arms to Saudi Arabia and Israel just announced are intended to make them buy in to the Iran war (for the Saudis) and convince Israel (who doesn't need to buy in) to initiate the Iran war on their own in order to bring the US into it when Iran retaliates against the US in Iraq.

Israeli Minister Avigdor Lieberman has told the Israeli government that they have the "green light" from the US to initiate the war on Iran. This is how Bush will evade Congressional authorization to attack Iran - let the Israelis do it. When Iran retaliates against the US - as it has said it will - Bush will have a free hand in attacking Iran with no Congressional dissent - especially from the Democratic election front-runners Clinton and Obama who are already on board with such an attack.

The attack will also be coordinated with an Israeli attack on Syria and Lebanon. Israel will attack Syria, roll up Damascus, then cut left and come in on Hizballah's flank in the Bekaa Valley.

The neocons and Israel are going for broke. They intend to "bomb the Iraq war off the front pages" and further destabilize the Middle East and seize more state power here at home, while the Israelis use the war as cover to further ethnic cleanse the Palestinians.

This will undoubtedly occur sometime between now and the elections next year - the timing is unclear, but probably after the reports from Iraq due in September and October arrive. Bush will need to move to avoid even further problems with the US Congress, where even Republicans are getting antsy about the Iraq war. The Israelis will bail him out, as they have been planning for another war with Syria and Lebanon to make up for their humiliating defeat last year. They are also getting antsy about Bush's inability to derail Iran's nuclear energy program because he can't get either the Pentagon or Congress to just allow him to attack Iran unilaterally.

It's a done deal now, though.

Re:mod parent down

[RenderSeven]

NH Population (2000): 1,235,786

Akron Population (2000): 217,074

Cincinnati Population (2000): 332,252

So I guess that makes you, like, ignorant and a bigot. "I got more brains in my pinky than all you hicks" or something along those lines? Classy guy.

But I'm clearly not saying Republicans were disenfranchised. I think I even tried to be fair about it saying Im not sure how to interpret the law. I know a lot of people didnt get to vote because they were late, and because the DNC selectively enforced poll closings. Go look it up rather than write some ass-hatted bullshit. Our police decided to let everyone that was in line at closing time vote and turned everyone else away. We got sued and won in court, with a fairly liberal court, a democrat governor, and a democrat legislature. But you're right - no one on slashdot will buy it. Hopefully I get modded down enough to stop wasting my time posting anything here.

Re:mod parent down

[homer_ca]

What this means is that they're not wiretapping specific suspects. They're trolling through the phone calls placed between foreign countries but are routed through the US. Spying on foreign phone calls of foreign citizens is legal without a warrant. Spying on them while they're being routed through the US was questionable, but now it's legal.

The big problem is, the phone switches that route foreign calls route US calls too. With no oversight, we won't know if how often they accidentally or deliberately intercept the phone calls of US citizens too, not counting the US targets who have a warrant.

Re:mod parent down

[DavidTC]

Kennedy certainly could have handled Vietnam better, but blaming him for the entire war is a bit silly. Yeah, he escalated it, but he wanted out. And he intelligently kept it at the level of military advisors instead of actually trying to fight the war.

Kennedy could have and should have stopped Vietnam before the actual war. But saying it's his fault is ignoring the fact we were there in an advisor role before Kennedy, and we were there in an advisor role after him, and all he did was send more advisors. (Admittedly, a lot more.) When Kennedy was assassinated, less than 400 Americans had killed ever in Vietnam. (And some of those before him.)

Lyndon B. Johnson is the person who escalated the thing into an actual meat-grinder of soldiers.

Sheepocrats

[Anonymous Coward]

The Democrats are totally useless. They get control of both Houses of Congress in part because the American public is tired of Bush and his blatant power grabs. Then they go and authorize the very programs that have been found illegal. They are gutless chicken shits and I am ashamed to have voted for them.

Re:Sheepocrats

[stinerman]

Well you better throw them out next election by voting for the Republicans (and then Democrats the next election, etc.). You wouldn't be dumb enough to vote for a minor party or independent candidate who can't win, would you? You'll vote for the Democrats and you'll like it. If they don't do your bidding you'll vote Republican and like it. Anything else is treason.

Voting for a minor party means that you've siphoned votes from one of the major party candidates. How dare you steal their votes by voting for a different candidate! If you're liberal, the Democrats have already bought and paid for your vote. If you're conservative, the Republicans have done the same.

For the love of God, vote for someone who is going to make a difference. They can't win unless you vote for them! And even when they don't win, at least you won't have the taste of bile in your throat when your party does something like this.

Re:Sheepocrats

[unamiccia]

Chances are your congressional Democrats voted against the measure, unlike a single Republican senator and only two Republican representatives.

Democrats currently have 49 votes in the Senate (Senator Johnson from South Dakota is still out sick). That's 11 votes shy of passing legislation -- you need 60 votes to defeat Republican filibusters -- and 18 votes shy of overcoming a Bush veto of any nonevil legislation.

The 41 House Democrats who voted for this measure disgust me -- but 181 Democrats voted no. (Republicans? They rushed to destroy the Fourth Amendment by a vote of 186 to 2.)

In the Senate, the goddamned Republicans were unanimously in favor of this bill. Sixteen goddamned Democrats joined them, and if any one of them represents you I hope you consider it your duty to let them know early, often, and loudly how ashamed you are of them.

But the other 27 Democrats, joined by all zero of their nonevil Republican colleagues, voted against this horrible law.

Am I sick with anger about this? Sicker than you -- but I'm also angry about this "Democrats are totally useless" crap. Don't like how thin and impotent the congressional Democrats are? Don't like how imperfect their leadership is in the face of nearly total Republican evil? Fine, neither do I -- but I think it's a bit less counterproductive to dwell on monolithic Republican evil than the Democrats' failure to achieve omnipotence in the last election, won't you?

I posted five angry letters to congresspeople (and two big thank yous to my good Democratic senator and my good Democratic congressperson) before I came posting to Slashdot. What did you do?

Re:Sheepocrats

[Churla]

Simply put the majority of hand over which happened in the last congressional election was done on the Democrats having a predominantly "Send us to DC and we will fix this mess and stand up to a president who has gone horribly astray".

Now people are asking them to do the job they were sent to do. If they aren't then they deserve any shellacking they get. People don't expect the republicans to turn on their boy in the white house, they do expect the Democrats not to roll over for him.

Instead to the untrained eye it would seem like they are spending their time in a bunch of high visibility witch hunts to make themselves look good while at the same time passing legislation like this , which is "new boss, same as the old boss".

Re:Sheepocrats

[jafac]

There is (and has been) a significant faction within the Democratic party; perhaps the overwhelming majority of Democrats, who accept at face-value, the "conventional wisdom" that this country has "shifted to the right" (the proof being, Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton->1994 congress, Bush 43) - This faction really came about as a response to their party's stunning defeat in 1980, which was a significant electoral loss, but it was a HUGE propaganda loss for them. Their response was a strategy of compromise and triangulation. Trying to use polls and focus groups, to test the waters to see where the people were with a given issue (with the corporate-dominated newsmedia STEERING the people along the way).

The result: Clinton was an elected Democrat, but honestly, he was pretty far over to the right. He was accused of being pretty left wing, but what did we really get under Clinton? Welfare "reform", expiration of EPA milage standards on autos, no healthcare plan, 8 years of sanctions and bombings of Iraq, with no real progress, Don't-ask-don't-tell, the DMCA, CALEA, Telecom deregulation that's led to this consolidation nightmare, and a serious lack of securities oversight that led to the Enron fiasco.

Thanks to this faction within the Democratic Party (the DLC), the left in this nation (that is, really the political CENTER, that is now referred to as the "left") has no representation at all. This is why our election turnouts suck, and why there's something like 25% favorability ratings for our congressional, judicial, and executive officials.

The DLC has forced center-right and rightwing democratic candidates for the last several elections; which is one of the reasons why the Democrats keep losing elections: the Democratic base is turned-off by these candidates. They hated Kerry - Kerry was "picked" by voters in the Eastern 1/4 of the country before the primary process was completed. Same with Gore - and it wasn't really Gore, it was Lieberman; who has a solid liberal voting record, but leans strongly conservative in his rhetoric, particularly in foreign policy (where the US spends most of it's tax dollars). Lieberman lost this election in 2000, Kerry's backing of the war, and milktoasty change of stance lost it in 2004, and it's looking like Clinton is the DLC candidate of-choice (oh - they're TERRIFIED of Obama!) - and HER backing of the war is going to LOSE the election in 2008.

It's encouraging to see that Obama got so much backing this year - and that the DLC actually ALLOWED Kucinich into the debate hall this year (he was not allowed to debate in 2004, because of his vocal anti-war stance: he was detained by security trying to enter the debate hall as a spectator, they were so afraid of him!). But the fix is obviously in, the poll numbers, the MONEY, all point to Clinton being the "annointed one" this time, and again, the DLC is going to offer America a choice between "far-right" and "a little less far-right".

FISA allows permission three days later already

[Dr. Manhattan]

FISA allows them to do the wiretapping, and then get permission up to 72 hours later. How frivolous are their reasons that they can't even be arsed to get a retroactive warrant?

Re:FISA allows permission three days later already

[NessunoImp]

There seems to be a lot of ignorance and hyperbole on slashdot regarding FISA.

First, the basics of "FISA". FISA is a statue meant to govern how and when government agencies may gather FOREIGN intelligence. FISA warrants are warrants issued by FISA-established courts authorizing the government to wiretap or survey individuals or phone numbers. A FISA warrant cannot be issued on domestic communications, since American residents and citizens are (yes, still) covered by the United States Constitution's protection against unreasonable search and seizure. So, to boil it down,

Second, warrantless wiretaps are and will always be legal (and constitutional) when both ends of the communication are outside the United States, not American citizens, and no part of the communication is routed electronically through the territorial US. Why? Because such people and communications are utterly outside the jurisdiction of the US Constitution. Think of it this way, should the US have to get a warrant (FISA or otherwise) to intercept a satellite phone conversation between Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri in Pakistan? What jurisdiction does a US court have to rule on that matter? Answer: None.

Third, the legislation in question was needed and rushed in before Congress goes on vacation because of a new ruling by a FISA judge, which had the effect of overruling the NSA's previously established powers under FISA. In other words, a judge decided in a new ruling to overturn the way things had been previously been done. This had the effect of placing our intelligence community in <a panic because it effectively crippled our ability to intercept foreign communications. See this Newsweek article for more info. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20075751/site/newsweek /

Fourth, the legal issue at hand. The brand new FISA judge ruling concerned the issue of when you know one end of the conversation is foreign, but you don't know where the other one is. In other words, should an unknown second party be assumed to be American or in the US for purposes of foreign intelligence? The new ruling said yes, but previous rulings had said no. For more info on this, see the LA Times. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la- na-spying2aug02,0,5813563.story?coll=la-home-cente r

The concern of the intelligence community was that given the current advanced state of technology and the ability to mask identities, the ruling effectively destroyed the ability of the US to wiretap ANY communication where one side was anonymous.

Maybe that's what some people here on Slashdot want, which is fine to argue. But I hope the discussion is at least conducted soberly and with some attachment to the actual difficult legal and national defense questions at hand.

Re:FISA allows permission three days later already

[Anonymous Coward]

How, exactly, would having to get a warrant for wiretapping anonymous communications "effectively destroy" the ability to do said wiretaps? Seeing as, as GP pointed out, you can get the warrant retroactively.

Re:FISA allows permission three days later already

[daveschroeder]

Monitoring traffic outside of the United States does not require a warrant, never has, and never should.

This fixes FISA so that communication between persons exclusively outside of the United States without a warrant, even if a portion of the communication is physically routed through the US, which, under the current law, would require a warrant.

It's a much-needed update to an antiquated law. The fact that you think monitoring communications between foreigners outside of the United States should require any kind of warrant - and that you got modded up for it - speaks volumes.

See this Newsweek story for the issue at hand.

Re:FISA allows permission three days later already

[Mr2001]

Third, the legislation in question was needed and rushed in before Congress goes on vacation because of a new ruling by a FISA judge, which had the effect of overruling the NSA's previously established powers under FISA. In other words, a judge decided in a new ruling to overturn the way things had been previously been done. My understanding is that they had only "previously been done" that way by the current administration since FISA was passed. That is, the judge didn't change precedent, he just ruled that Bush's surveillance program was illegal.

The brand new FISA judge ruling concerned the issue of when you know one end of the conversation is foreign, but you don't know where the other one is. In other words, should an unknown second party be assumed to be American or in the US for purposes of foreign intelligence? The new ruling said yes, but previous rulings had said no. What, exactly, is so bad about assuming they're American? All it means is you need to get a warrant, right? Which is something you could do easily and retroactively under the existing law.

The concern of the intelligence community was that given the current advanced state of technology and the ability to mask identities, the ruling effectively destroyed the ability of the US to wiretap ANY communication where one side was anonymous.

Maybe that's what some people here on Slashdot want, which is fine to argue. You have failed to show how the existing law would prevent the US from tapping foreign communications. Before you go supposing that anyone here wants that outcome, start by showing that it's actually a likely one.

Re:FISA allows permission three days later already

[hcjiv]

Wish I had a bundle of mod points to give... This is a great post and so much more informative than the "They've burned the constitution, stolen our freedom and the sky is falling!" posts. Well done.

Re:FISA allows permission three days later already

[daveschroeder]

You have failed to show how the existing law would prevent the US from tapping foreign communications. Before you go supposing that anyone here wants that outcome, start by showing that it's actually a likely one.

Easy.

The current law prevents the US from tapping foreign communications without a warrant:

1.) If one side of the communication is foreign and one or more additional parties masks their identities or the location can't be determined, and

2.) Most crucially, if the communication is routed through communications equipment within the United States.

This is crippling to foreign signals intelligence, which has never required a warrant, and should not saddled with the fundamental requirements of a warrant. If the parties can be reasonably believed to be outside the United States, that traffic is more than fair game for foreign SIGINT.

Your issue seems to be that the US should "just get a warrant" if there is any doubt. That misunderstands the basic principles of foreign intelligence gathering. There is no need for a warrant if the parties are foreign nationals outside of the United States, and the fact that the traffic might at some point travel through equipment in the United States is incidental. For foreign intelligence, we should NOT be erring on the side of getting a warrant. That was not what FISA was ever intended for.

"But this gives the intelligence agencies a blank check!" No, it doesn't. By that logic, any kind of monitoring any intelligence community component ever does should require a warrant. After all, how can we really be sure they aren't monitoring Americans within the United States? First, that's what Congressional oversight is for, and second, that's patently foolish position to take, and ignores the realities of the purposes of foreign intelligence gathering, particularly signals intelligence, and puts the United States at a marked disadvantage to the intelligence agencies of every other modern nation.

This is a much-needed update to an antiquated law that reflects the realities of monitoring foreign communications, which never has required, and never should require, a warrant of any kind from any court.

Re:FISA allows permission three days later already

[DavidTC]

No, that was already legal. FISA allowed such wiretaps without a warrant, in the US, if the AG would swear, under oath, that such taps did not intercept US citizens. This is how, traditionally, we go about bugging embassies, for one thing.

What this made legal is for the NSA to continue to make the mistakes they already say they are making and cannot fix. The NSA does not have the technological ability to determine when a communication starts or ends in the US when wiretapping within the US, and hence their huge wiretap array systems they've installed in US telecoms are tapping US citizens. Sometimes both ends of a converstation are in the US!

Now, that's legal because, someone, somewhere, is willing to assert it's 'targeting' non-US citizens. They can make it as loose as they want, and as over as many people as they want, while continuing to say it 'targets' non-citizens.

Re:FISA allows permission three days later already

[daveschroeder]

The technological situation is exactly the problem, yes.

We need to be able to monitor foreign communications, without a warrant, including those that may be incidentally traveling through the United States.

This is a problem that will never be solved, because, with today's technology, it may not be apparent where the ends of a conversation are.

The two issues you note are inextricably intertwined. The only practical way to intercept the kind of communication the NSA is looking for is to do exactly what they're doing. That's the technological reality.

So we can choose to monitor none of this communication, or make good faith efforts to cherry-pick only foreign communications when it can be reasonably asserted as such. I choose the latter, no matter which party controls the White House or Congress.

When they say any communication of any kind between any two people, including US citizens, can be actively and substantively monitored and targeted, then I'll raise the alarm. Until then, this is an update to an old law to reflect the practical technological capabilities at hand.

Re:FISA allows permission three days later already

[SuperKendall]

What about the violating the laws of the countries where these wiretaps are made?

All governements spy on other governements, and even citizens. Ask the French about spying on US businessmen travelling abroad, to gain intelligence for French biusinesses - something the head of french intelligence admitted occurs on TV some years ago. That includes bugging busness class on Air France...

Re:FISA allows permission three days later already

[daveschroeder]

What about the violating the laws of the countries where these wiretaps are made? Or does the US always request the required warrants from the local courts before they go about their business? As a citizen under the star circled banner, I'm not crazy about the idea of being monitored by your loonie government only because unwarranted wiretaps happen legal in your country.

First, unwarranted wiretaps do NOT "happen legal in [our] country". That's the whole point of updating the FISA law: monitoring the content of communications between parties within the United States DOES require a warrant. Monitoring of foreign communications does not, and never will.

This is about the monitoring of FOREIGN communications (which may incidentally physically travel through the United States) not needing a warrant. And no, the US, nor any other country, does not comply with other nations' laws when it does intelligence gathering. That's the purpose of foreign intelligence, and all nations will always do it. Nations spy on their friends, enemies, neighbors, and anything else they can get their hands on, and this will never change.

Re:FISA allows permission three days later already

[DavidTC]

When they say any communication of any kind between any two people, including US citizens, can be actively and substantively monitored and targeted, then I'll raise the alarm.

They did say that. All the AG has to do is lie and say it was someone else who was targeted. And, hey, we already know he can lie.

Before it was, at least, perjury, although entirely uncheckable, and now it's not even that. Yay progress.

I will repeat: This is about as useful as laws against murder would be if anyone could just assert they thought it was self-defense and the case gets thrown out of court, with no checks on whether or not a reasonable person would have thought that.

No, wait, it's less useful than that, because it wouldn't even see a court. It's like you could just yell 'self-defense' to the arresting officers and they'd have to let you go.

Or maybe he'll just 'forget' why he authorized that tap, although he'll be sure he had some sort of legal reason. And, no, he won't turn over any documents or let anyone testify, because that's executive privilege. If someone impedes the investigation into any abuse, he'll just refuse to arrest them for contempt of Congress, and if he is forced to arrest them anyway, Bush will just commute their sentence. Do you think any sort of abuse of this is going to lead to any sort of punishment or even admission of wrongdoing?

It would be one thing to trust a government that actually behaved in a trustworthy behavior, that is actually concerned with at least appearing to do the right thing, but trustworthy behavior and how the current administration has behaved towards warrentless-wiretapping are about as far as humanly possible. Don't forget Bush got out there and lied for three years about the existence of his programs, and then the AG has repeatedly mislead and misdirected investigations into it. We still don't know the full extent of everything that's been done under 'this program', or 'all these infinite wiretapping programs that the AG won't explain which he's talking about at any time', and you want to trust them?

Re:FISA allows permission three days later already

[daveschroeder]

Why wasn't the law specifically worded to permit warrantless surveillance only when the interception point is outside of the borders of the US? This would serve to reduce warrantless spying on Americans, and it would coincide with your stated aim.

It is. And that's exactly what "my" am is, as is the aim of the update to FISA.

It allows for monitoring of phone calls, e-mails and other communications involving foreign nationals reasonably believed to be outside the United States.

The word "reasonable" has legal precedent and meaning.

So, is your stated aim a lie, or is the law only accidentally designed to allow warrantless surveillance upon US citizens, in their homes, communicating with other US citizens in their own homes? You haven't got a leg to stand on, either way.

Both of those statements are incorrect.

The aim is to allow for monitoring of phone calls, e-mails and other communications involving foreign nationals reasonably believed to be outside the United States, which have never required a warrant, and should not require a warrant on the basis of the incidental path that a particular message took to get to its destination.

Since the law is specifically worded to concern foreign intelligence (which intrinsically and specifically means non-domestic intelligence collection) and foreign nationals outside the United States, it appears there is a disconnect between the update to FISA and your understanding of it. If you believe that the "reasonably believed" wording is to allow for wiggle room so that the government can spy on anyone, you're completely wrong, as "reasonable" is a standard that courts apply routinely; i.e., it would have to be pretty darned apparent that the subject of the monitoring is almost certainly outside of the United States, and that there wouldn't be any reason to believe they are anywhere else. It's not just a matter of someone declaring that someone is outside the United States even when they're really not and then monitoring them. But since you can't guarantee that, the wording allows for reasonable leeway.

Re:FISA allows permission three days later already

[dodongo]

"It is helpful to first get the facts straight."

I wholeheartedly agree with this, however you're overlooking the difficulty of getting "facts straight" in a situation where top-secret shadow courts get to retroactively authorize spy ops that they later proactively decide were illegal, and expect an administration that has severe difficulty coloring between the lines to obey such a ruling.

Lots of clauses there, I know, but trust: they're held together by snark.

Re:FISA allows permission three days later already

[daveschroeder]

They did say that. All the AG has to do is lie and say it was someone else who was targeted. And, hey, we already know he can lie.

Then he can lie and ignore the law under any circumstances, no matter what the law says.

Before it was, at least, perjury, although entirely uncheckable, and now it's not even that. Yay progress.

Ugh. So your concern is that they'll lie and ignore the law, but that now this update to the law allows them the escape of being able to say they thought they were targeting someone outside the US? Well, if they realize they are targeting someone within the US, a warrant is required, as it always has been.

Don't get me wrong: I can understand the argument you're making, but foreign intelligence simply does not require a warrant, and I do not believe it should even if it incidentally travels through equipment on US soil. There is no way to solve this problem except to require that all traffic that is a legitimate target of foreign intelligence which incidentally travels through US equipment would require a warrant.

I will repeat: This is about as useful as laws against murder would be if anyone could just assert they thought it was self-defense and the case gets thrown out of court, with no checks on whether or not a reasonable person would have thought that.

No, wait, it's less useful than that, because it wouldn't even see a court. It's like you could just yell 'self-defense' to the arresting officers and they'd have to let you go.

The law is clear on the application. The only reason the wording says "reasonably believed to be outside the United States" is because "reasonable" is a fairly well-established legal standard, and, technologically, it can't be guaranteed under all circumstances that subjects "reasonably believed to be outside the United States" actually are.

You're imagining a scenario where that suddenly means they could theoretically say that any traffic falls under this guideline, but that's simply not the case. There has to be a reasonable belief that the subjects are outside the United States. Not just a random assertion. The perjury standard still applies. If your concern is that there are no checks and balances, there never were any warrant-level requirements on foreign intelligence operations, and shouldn't be.

Or maybe he'll just 'forget' why he authorized that tap, although he'll be sure he had some sort of legal reason. And, no, he won't turn over any documents or let anyone testify, because that's executive privilege. If someone impedes the investigation into any abuse, he'll just refuse to arrest them for contempt of Congress, and if he is forced to arrest them anyway, Bush will just commute their sentence. Do you think any sort of abuse of this is going to lead to any sort of punishment or even admission of wrongdoing?

All of these arguments are applicable under any wording of the law.

And, as I said, if you believe that persons in the administration will just ignore the law, do whatever they want, and that even if they are caught, Bush will just commute or pardon, then what does the wording of the law even matter? I imagine the response will be something along the lines that this just makes it even easier for them to shred the Constitution.

No, this is exactly what I said it was: an update to a law to monitor communications that should NEVER require a warrant to monitor, period.

It would be one thing to trust a government that actually behaved in a trustworthy behavior, that is actually concerned with at least appearing to do the right thing, but trustworthy behavior and how the current administration has behaved towards warrentless-wiretapping are about as far as humanly possible. Don't forget Bush got out there and lied for three years about the existence of his programs, and then the AG has repeatedly mislead and misdirected investigations into it. We still don't know the full extent of everything that's been done under 'this program', or 'all these i

Re:FISA allows permission three days later already

[dircha]

"There seems to be a lot of ignorance and hyperbole on slashdot regarding FISA.

First, the basics of "FISA". FISA is a statue meant to govern how and when government agencies may gather FOREIGN intelligence. FISA warrants are warrants issued by FISA-established courts authorizing the government to wiretap or survey individuals or phone numbers. A FISA warrant cannot be issued on domestic communications, since American residents and citizens are (yes, still) covered by the United States Constitution's protection against unreasonable search and seizure."

Yes there is, and sellouts like you are peddling an awful lot of it.

I'm sorry, but given the choice I'm going to have to stand with the ACLU on this, and I would encourage others to do the same http://www.aclu.org/safefree/nsaspying/31144res200 70731.html.

It's also interesting that this is Mr. Nessunolmp's first post on Slashdot.

Re:FISA allows permission three days later already

[stinerman]

Case 2 isn't a problem. If no US citizens are involved, our country doesn't afford any protections to them.

Case 1 is the problem. Obviously if the other end is outside our country then it devolves into case 2. If the other end is inside our country (read: one end is a US citizen in the USA*), then this would certainly constitute an illegal search and seizure under the 4th amendment.

The standard argument boils down to saying that we have to error on the side of gaining intelligence rather than protect the liberties of our citizens. That is a losing argument on its face.

Let us also recall that under case 1, the wiretap can still be carried out using the standard FISA procedure, which as we all know, almost never rejects a warrant request.

This notion that we need to stop an attack at all costs is frankly ridiculous. I recall a slashdotter saying something along the lines of "if this is what we have to do to stop another attack, then I'll take another attack". I couldn't have said it better myself. The cure is worse than the disease.

Re:FISA allows permission three days later already

[DavidTC]

Then he can lie and ignore the law under any circumstances, no matter what the law says.

No, because FISA wiretaps went through a court. And the 'swearing under oath' thing went through Congress. In both cases, there were things in effect to check him if they lied about having legal justification for the taps

And the NSA was not supposed to do them without one of those two things on penalty of imprisonment. And, yes, the NSA had oversight that actually worked, which is why the executive had to go get WH lawyers (Including our current AG) to make up some bogus legal justification to give to them.

Ugh. So your concern is that they'll lie and ignore the law, but that now this update to the law allows them the escape of being able to say they thought they were targeting someone outside the US? Well, if they realize they are targeting someone within the US, a warrant is required, as it always has been.

And, as I said, if you believe that persons in the administration will just ignore the law, do whatever they want, and that even if they are caught, Bush will just commute or pardon, then what does the wording of the law even matter? I imagine the response will be something along the lines that this just makes it even easier for them to shred the Constitution.

What does that have to do with anything? Just because I believe that someone is ignoring important laws doesn't mean I should logically support those laws being loosened. In fact, that's actually a pretty irrational position to take.

No, this is exactly what I said it was: an update to a law to monitor communications that should NEVER require a warrant to monitor, period.

No, it's an update to the law allow the monitoring of communication without any oversight. Using systems that can include things it is unlawful to tap without a warrant. I don't care if something is legal or not, everything that could be use to violate the rights of American needs some sort of multi-branch government oversight.

As to the domestic NSA programs, it's pretty clear that pen register information is exempt from warrant requirements. The programs were secret. Congress was briefed and the programs had to be reauthorized every 45 days. Why even bother to brief Congress and authorize intelligence programs? To have deniability once it leaks out? Come on. And, again, if, as you seem to believe, they'll just do whatever they want anyway, then what's the difference? Why even update the law at all?

Um, you don't appear to actually know anything about the NSA warrantless-wiretapping scandal at all. Hint: Briefing a few people in Congress that you're violating the law and swearing them to secrecy on penalty of imprisonment does not make something legal.

No matter what your political stripe, this FISA update has a very specific purpose, and that is to continue to allow unfettered foreign SIGINT collection without warrants or other administrative requirements, even - rather, especially - when the traffic travels through equipment within the US. And thankfully, Congress agrees.

You're, at this point, lying even based on what you already admitted. The updated law doesn't make tapping foreign traffic legal. That already is legal. It makes 'accidentally' tapping domestic traffic legal if you 'really' were trying to tap foreign communication. The difference between you and I is that you don't see the single quotes in that last sentence.

And here's a fun question for you: Do you have an idea what the false positive rate is? Do you have the slightest idea at all what it would be? No, of course not, that's classified. We don't know if the NSA is tapping two US citizens per ten thousand foreign calls, or if they're tapping ten thousand citizens per two foreign calls, or if they are literally just tapping everyone.

That last one, I should point out, makes their system legal even without any sorts of lies, so even

Re:FISA allows permission three days later already

[Mr2001]

This is crippling to foreign signals intelligence, which has never required a warrant, and should not saddled with the fundamental requirements of a warrant. Please explain how requiring a warrant would be "crippling" to any intelligence-gathering activities, in light of the fact that you can tap first and get the warrant later.

There is no need for a warrant if the parties are foreign nationals outside of the United States, and the fact that the traffic might at some point travel through equipment in the United States is incidental. For foreign intelligence, we should NOT be erring on the side of getting a warrant. That was not what FISA was ever intended for. Well, I say we should be erring on the side of getting a warrant. Since the warrants can be obtained retroactively, it won't even put a speed bump on the road to gathering information; it'll just provide some judicial oversight, in line with the Fourth Amendment.

You say we should be erring on the other side -- the side of potentially wiretapping Americans without a warrant? Convince me. Don't just state it as if your opinion is gospel.

Re:FISA allows permission three days later already

[cc_pirate]

The key thing here though is how do they know whether the traffic they are monitoring is really foreign? The answer appears to be that they DON'T know this until AFTER they listen to it (sniff it, whatever the technical method is)...Matter of fact, I think I might know some rooms at AT&T in Los Angeles and San Francisco and Atlanta, etc., where they are doing these very things.

So in other words, this gives the government CARTE BLANCHE to intercept all US CITIZEN traffic, listen to it, read it, whatever, to determine whether or not it is "FOREIGN". If it is not "FOREIGN" then the government is supposed to ignore it, but are you seriously NAIVE enough to really believe that will happen? Especially if they see something they think might be interesting?

What this REALLY does is give away the 4th Amendment to the Constitution. You might remember it. It said something like "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."

It might as well not exist now, because the government gets to figure out AFTER the fact if they are violating it, and if they ARE, there are NO CONSEQUENCES whatsoever and you won't even know they violated it. Not only that, but they can use the illegally gathered information to target you for additional information gathering to support a warrant.

I'll say it again. This law has destroyed the 4th Amendment, even though it was already very tattered, this kills it utterly.

Refute this, go ahead, I dare you.

Imagined responses to this

[Dasher42]

I can hear the Al Quaeda operatives now: "Oh shit, habibi! Talk quieter!"

Yeah, right. We had their communications shut down. Whenever a legislative lemming wants to pass more laws, you should ask whether the existing laws were inadequate, or the people that were supposed to be enforcing them. We had FBI alerts on the 9/11 hijackers and a briefing on President Bush's desk. We've had FISA for years and its restrictions are so lax - allowing even for warrants after the fact - that any protest of it can't be for good reason. Instead the incompetent and corrupt are getting more power to abuse, while making sure their buddies make money off the taxpayer.

I don't want to hear "Proud to be an American" from one more person who buys into this. Sit down and shut it up. I'm fed up with people who think it's patriotic to abandon the most basic, essential reasons this country exists. Not only should we listen to old Ben Franklin about giving up freedom for security, we should realize that freedom *is* our security. Bush and his crew have killed the last of our existing safeguards. They have paved the way for full-on oligarchic tyrrany here. We not only need to stop voting in people who do this, or supposed opposition parties that enable it, we need to re-establish the law of this land.

I was excited at last November's election, but I've repented of it now. I'm neither Libertarian nor Constitutionalist, but I wouldn't hesitate to work with them to fix this. We need Greens in on this because nothing's safe when the whims of the rich trump the law. Most Americans are convinced that something's really wrong with this country, we're just not agreed on what exactly, but this is should be clear to everyone - we need the rule of law back.

Bin Laden was never a good excuse for destroying our country from within in the first place!

Re:Imagined responses to this

[vertinox]

I was excited at last November's election, but I've repented of it now. I'm neither Libertarian nor Constitutionalist, but I wouldn't hesitate to work with them to fix this. We need Greens in on this because nothing's safe when the whims of the rich trump the law. Most Americans are convinced that something's really wrong with this country, we're just not agreed on what exactly, but this is should be clear to everyone - we need the rule of law back.

If you really want change, hack the 2008 election by registering republican and vote Ron Paul in your state primaries regardless of your political affiliation. He's the only 2008 candidate that has voted against the war Iraq and the Patriot Act. I don't agree with all his views, but after hearing him speak out against Giuliani during the debates I realized he knew what many of us had been thinking all along about what is happening in Washington and overseas for the past several decades.

Personally, I don't think he's got a chance in hell at this point, but its worth trying I figured... And even if he looses its better to have him running as the republican candidate and loose than rather than have Rudy or the others win. If he wins so much the better.

If you don't know who this guy is you should see the video of him at Google HQ where they invited him to speak. He's quite against wire tapings, Patriot Act, and knows the real reason behind terrorism isn't because they hate our freedoms but rather our government foreign policy for the past 50 years.

(To be fair, he didn't vote in this particular bill for or against since he wasn't in DC because of the campaign but in 2001 he was one of the handful of people to actually vote against the original update)

Re:Imagined responses to this

[Swampash]

I was excited at last November's election, but I've repented of it now.

Here is a story.

It's the story of a place called Mouseland. Mouseland was a place where all the little mice lived and played, were born and died. And they lived much the same as you and I do.

They even had a Congress. And every four years they had an election. Used to walk to the polls and cast their ballots. Some of them even got a ride to the polls. And got a ride for the next four years afterwards too. Just like you and me. And every time on election day all the little mice used to go to the ballot box and they used to elect a government. A government made up of big, fat, black cats.

Now I'm not saying anything against the cats. They were nice fellows. They conducted their government with dignity. They passed good laws--that is, laws that were good for cats. But the laws that were good for cats weren't very good for mice. One of the laws said that mouseholes had to be big enough so a cat could get his paw in. Another law said that mice could only travel at certain speeds--so that a cat could get his breakfast without too much effort.

All the laws were good laws. For cats. But, oh, they were hard on the mice. And life was getting harder and harder. And when the mice couldn't put up with it any more, they decided something had to be done about it. So they went en masse to the polls. They voted the black cats out. They put in the white cats.

Now the white cats had put up a terrific campaign. They said: "All that Mouseland needs is more vision." They said:"The trouble with Mouseland is those round mouseholes we got. If you put us in we'll establish square mouseholes." And they did. And the square mouseholes were twice as big as the round mouseholes, and now the cat could get both his paws in. And life was tougher than ever.

And when they couldn't take that anymore, they voted the white cats out and put the black ones in again. Then they went back to the white cats. Then to the black cats. They even tried half black cats and half white cats. And they called that coalition. They even got one government made up of cats with spots on them: they were cats that tried to make a noise like a mouse but ate like a cat.

You see, my friends, the trouble wasn't with the colour of the cat. The trouble was that they were cats. And because they were cats, they naturally looked after cats instead of mice.

With apologies to Clare Gillis.

When the Democrats swept into power in Congress I listened to all the liberal commentators talking about how it was Good News and how Things Would Be Different Now and how the Bad Guys were out and the Good Guys were in. And I shook my head and thought of Mouseland.

Re:Imagined responses to this

[AoT]

He also has longtime ties to racist groups and other far right nut bags. But, it's ok to elect a racist, as long as the white people aren't wire-tapped.

Re:Imagined responses to this

[nickmalthus]

Yeah, whatever happened to Give me Liberty or give me death! in this country. Our forefathers had experienced despotic tyranny first hand and created a system of checks and balances in their great experiment to prevent it. I fear that the old adage "Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it" will prophetically come true in our country.

Re:Imagined responses to this

[DavidTC]

For once, this isn't actually throwing your vote away, either.

Ron Paul is the only Republican who actually would have a chance of winning the general election. Anyone who thinks Giuliani or Romney can win the general election are entirely delusional, as both those are positioning themselves as Bush 2.0 to win the primary. You can't 'move outside for the primary, move to the center for the election' when moving back to the center in that time would require FTL travel.

In other words, thanks to the large disconnect between the 23% that still support Bush, and vote in the Republican primary, and the actual sane people who vote in the general election, a vote for Ron Paul is basically the only way to not throw your vote away in the Republican primary, as he's the only Republican that could possibly win.

However, thanks to the stupidity of people currently voting in the Republican primary, Ron Paul has almost no chance of winning it, and hence the Republicans will lose in 2008. A concentrated effort to stir up support among disgruntled Republicans might let him win, but most people stopped being Republicans when they lost their minds, and really have no interest in going back and trying to fix the problems.

Me? I'd like Ron Paul as president and a powerful Democratic Senate and House with enough people for a veto-override. But more in 2012 than in 2008, because there's some stuff that needs to be be done before then. I'd like Edwards in 2008, but odds are I will not have to pick between Ron Paul and a Democrat in the first place.

Re:Imagined responses to this

[vertinox]

He also has [blogspot.com] longtime ties to racist groups and other far right nut bags. But, it's ok to elect a racist, as long as the white people aren't wire-tapped.

Ummm... I've never read or heard anywhere that supports that Ron Paul is racist and wants non-whites wiretapped. Even the closing paragraph of this blog says "Ron Paul may or may not be a racist"

That blog has proven nothing but tried to encourage the reader to start thinking that it could be possible that it is true.

Re:Imagined responses to this

[toddestan]

Ron Paul is the only Republican who actually would have a chance of winning the general election. Anyone who thinks Giuliani or Romney can win the general election are entirely delusional, as both those are positioning themselves as Bush 2.0 to win the primary.

Actually, a lot depends on who the Democrats choose as their nominee. I would have said the same thing about Bush winning the election in 2004, but then the Democrats gave us John Kerry. Giuliani and Romney could easily win against Hilary Clinton if you ask me.

Re:Imagined responses to this

[Dasher42]

For me, Ron Paul is actually a close second to my natural favorite. I do like him, despite major differences. For one, I wonder what he'd want to do about our infrastructure, which is an issue made more visible by Katrina and the recent bridge collapse in Minnesota. His interpretation of the Constitution is a rarity in politics, maybe a bit more strict than I'd like, but with all the ballooning of government power, I think we need more people like him.

I'm a liberal, and I'd rather have an honest conservative like Ron Paul in power than the current lot.

Re:Imagined responses to this

[DigiShaman]

Ron Paul is the only Republican who actually would have a chance of winning the general election. Anyone who thinks Giuliani or Romney can win the general election are entirely delusional, as both those are positioning themselves as Bush 2.0 to win the primary.

I suggest you do some polling research on Fred Thompson. (http://www.usaelectionpolls.com) Both Giuliani and Fred have been bouncing between 1st and 2nd place. Fred has the strongest Republican grass roots campaign going for him. Yet, in the past he's been very reluctant to run, but now he's turning around to the idea. For someone getting the least media attention (and not being invited to any debates), he sure has a strong following.

I'm not sure if this is his strategy, but it's best not to join in on the mudslinging fest this early. Just let all the other RINOS (Republicans In Name Only) exhaust each other, then swoop in for the glory 1-2 punches.

Fred doesn't see himself as the next "Reagan" and publicly states as such. But supporters of him think otherwise (myself included). And make no mistake about it; there is a LOT of Fred Thompson supporters in America.

As for Ron Paul, he's nothing more than a Trojan Horse for the anti-war activists. That right there kills his chances at of being elected by republicans.

Re:Imagined responses to this

[Reziac]

I got the notion that Ron Paul's core attitudes may be rather extreme from reading his OWN site (I get his weekly newsletter, and often agree with him). That detractors will slant things in the worst possible light -- well, that goes with the territory.

Overall... I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea of Ron Paul as president; OTOH I've yet to see another candidate that I prefer.

Re:Imagined responses to this

[dircha]

"We've had FISA for years and its restrictions are so lax - allowing even for warrants after the fact - that any protest of it can't be for good reason."

Well said, and it helps to know that freedom defending organizations like the ACLU echo this sentiment (http://www.aclu.org/safefree/nsaspying/31144res20 070731.html).

Re:Imagined responses to this

[DavidTC]

I don't trust Hillary, she's too close to the DLC, although she wisely stayed out of their debate and now is moving away from them.

The Republicans managed to build up a lot of irrational dislike of her at the start of Bill's presidency, but that was back when just saying the word 'liberal' worked to trash someone. There are people who'd never vote for her, but that category is fairly close to the people who'd never vote for a Democrat at all. (This has always been the fatal Democratic flaw: They try to avoid the irrational dislike of hardcode GOPers. Luckily, they've apparently figured out those people don't vote for them anyway, so they can just ignore them.)

Bill was the most popular president of recent times, and health care, which is big this time around, is something she actually tried to address once, so she's got cred there if she'd just admit what happened last time: She and the Democrats in Congress got tricked into repeatedly weakening the system to include existing insurance companies, and then got stabbed in the back when the Republicans didn't support it anyway. If she'd just come out and say that, I might be willing to vote for her in the primary if it looks like Edwards isn't going to win. (Or Richardson, but it already somewhat looks like he isn't going to win.)

But you're crazy if you think Giuliani or Romney could beat her in the general election. They are walking an incredibly fine line because Bush has managed to divide the country almost perfectly, 1/4th on one side and 3/4th on the other, into wanting diametrically opposed things. For example, one side wants people tortured, the other side does not. One side thinks the war in Iraq was a good idea and going well, the other believes the sky is blue. Etc.

Before this election, there were vague statements that candidates could make that would work in the primary, and then be 'clarified' for the general election. But the Republican candidates are being asked very explicit questions like 'How many people do you think we should be torturing' that are rather hard to back away from, and, right now, they have to answer to win the primary.

So those two have to continue to appeal to the 1/4th to win the primary without doing something that will piss off the other 3/4th, or vis versa...and the joke is that, at some point before the primary, one of them will slip off the edge to one side or another.

The only Republican hope for the general election is that one of them slips to the left, thus the other one can simply not talk at all until after the primary, and win it and can move safely to the left then. If one of them slips to the right, they will win the primary and lose the election. (Or the other, seeing them go off to the right, will leap after them, and win the primary instead and still lose the election.)

Re:Imagined responses to this

[DavidTC]

Ha, I should have known there was Thompson supporter.

Do you know why Thompson has support? There's one, single reason:

Because he has absolutely no positions on anything whatsoever.

The second he gets in the race, he'll actually have to, you know, come up with some actual positions, which will either piss off the 25% and he won't win the primary, and piss off the 75% and he won't win the election.

And, yes, he is, indeed, the next Reagan...empty-suit actor waiting to be filled with whatever position will get him the most votes. But I've already explained why that can't possibly work this election, because there are no positions that can win the Republican primary and the general election, because the general population is of the opinion that the 25% of the people who continue to support the president, and likewise who vote in the Republican primary, are totally utterly batshit insane.

No, wait, there are two reasons he has supporters. The second is: Because no one's actually bothered to dig up any dirt on him, because he's not fucking running. If he was actually running they might actually do it, and the 'lobby for abortion providers' is just the tip of the iceberg. And he's waiting amazingly late to get in the election. The Democrats already gave up on Gore months ago.

Waiting so late is a pretty clever ploy to keep from having to say anything stupid at this point, which would work great if, by the time of the primary, the 25% had come to their senses. He could leap in at the last minute and say he's always been against all that, without having had answered questions on the record as to how many people we should torture and that we should bomb Iran. The problem is that that is not going to happen in time for him to enter the race, and probably not happen at all before the primary.

Re:Imagined responses to this

[DigiShaman]

Do you know why Thompson has support? There's one, single reason:

Because he has absolutely no positions on anything whatsoever.

Really? Because his voting record speaks for itself as a true conservative.

Before launching baseless and shallow attacks at the man, perhaps you should educate yourself on him first. If this seven minute interview doesn't highlight his positions for you, well buddy, you're on your own to figure it out. God knows I couldn't have explained it any better.

Re:Imagined responses to this

[The One and Only]

Do you know why Thompson has support? There's one, single reason: Because he has absolutely no positions on anything whatsoever.

He's the Republican Obama, circa 2006!

Re:Imagined responses to this

[DavidTC]

Yes, he has a position on all those amazing issues...

...except that simply voting for something isn't taking a position on it.

Until he actually stands up in front of the public and proclaims those positions, people will obviously not dislike them. Um, duh. Until someone is running, people do not bother to attack their positions, so the only people who think they know them are his supporters. (I would urge you to notice the 'think' there also.)

I will rephrase since you seemed to have missed it: The second he gets in the race, he'll actually have to, you know, state some actual positions, which will either piss off the 25% and he won't win the primary, and piss off the 75% and he won't win the election.

And in addition to the positions his voting record would seem to imply, he's also going to be asked some rather blunt questions about the war on terror he's been avoiding so far by avoiding the debates.

Re:Imagined responses to this

[The One and Only]

Anyone who thinks Giuliani or Romney can win the general election are entirely delusional, as both those are positioning themselves as Bush 2.0 to win the primary.

That alone is kind of laughable considering that both Giuliani and Romney were quite liberal as Mayor and Governor, respectively. Not that Bush is much of a conservative, but Giuliani is pro-gay, pro-choice, and what we used to call a "liberal Republican" while Romney was more of the same until he had a sudden epiphany and became anti-abortion. OF course, Giuliani has the credibility to be a jack-booted thug when it comes to terrorism, since that's what he did about crime in New York City.

Re:Imagined responses to this

[DavidTC]

Hey, I'm right there with you, I'm not a big fan of Obama either. I don't think he has enough experience. I think he'd make a good VP, and, if so, he should run in 8 years or so for Prez.

I'm not a Hillary fan either, but it looks like one of them is going to be our next president, and I'd slightly rather have her.

Re:Imagined responses to this

[The One and Only]

To me, the only benefit to Obama would be ushering in a brighter and more optimistic era in terms of the public attitude and public discourse. Now Obama and Hillary have gotten into the business of making their positions almost in arbitrary opposition to each other--Hillary announces one position, Obama announces the opposite, Obama announces a position, Hillary announces the opposite. Rather silly, and the positions we're getting out of Obama are at best naive. I liked him a lot better last year, as you might imagine.

Re:Imagined responses to this

[StikyPad]

I'm too boggled by the hypocrisy of your statement to make a good argument right now, but suffice to say that "hacking the system" to ensure your candidate wins is exactly the sort of behavior one is presumably trying to PREVENT by requiring oversight for wiretaps. If that's the sort of country you want to live in, then let's give Bush another 4 years.

Re:Imagined responses to this

[TheRaven64]

For one, I wonder what he'd want to do about our infrastructure Unfortunately, he's rely on Adam Smith's invisible hand to sort it all out. While I agree with many of his policies, he seems to place more faith in the free market than most Christians do in Jesus. Hopefully he'll realise that competition and natural monopolies (or oligopolies) don't work well together if he gets elected, but if he doesn't I can see him doing some serious economic harm to the country. In spite of that, I'd still consider him a relatively good choice, since it's easier to fix economic problems than constitutional ones.

Re:Imagined responses to this

[KudyardRipling]

The problem is that the only people who can afford to run for public office are 'system-sycophants': Wealthy businesspeople/entertainment people and shyst^H^H^H^H^Hlawyers. If someone who is of our stratum were to get somewhere in politics, be assured of car crashes, airplane crashes or even the black SUV or black Crown Victor[Pwrrt-THuD! bagtagdragdragdrag...]

Jury Nullification works. That is why no judge will dare mention it. That is why military tribunals exist.

Re:Imagined responses to this

[FleaPlus]

For me, Ron Paul is actually a close second to my natural favorite. I do like him, despite major differences. For one, I wonder what he'd want to do about our infrastructure, which is an issue made more visible by Katrina and the recent bridge collapse in Minnesota.

I'm sure he'd argue (rightfully) that all of those things are state matters.

Re:Imagined responses to this

[toddestan]

The way I see it, each party has about 25-30% of the voters as a die-hard, won't budge at all base. While the Democrat side of this is rather hard to spot nowadays, the Republican side is easy to spot because it's all they have left (that's why I don't see Bush's popularity rating dropping much anymore - there will still be some defectors, but for the most part the ones that have remained with Bush for this long have demonstrated pretty well that they aren't going to budge no matter what). Of course, 25-30% of the votes don't win elections, so in order to win you have to sway over a good portion of the remaining 60-75% of the voters, who for the most part will go either way on a given election (minus the few % that go third party). Now, this group is a finicky bunch, and the way I have seen a lot of them vote is downright scary. Instead of making an informed decision, they just look to see which side they hate more, then go vote for the other side. The Republicans seem to understand this pretty well, but the Democrats not so much.

In my mind, this is why Bush got re-elected in 2004. People looked at John Kerry, decided they didn't like him, and voted for Bush instead. Some of this was legitimate gripes (like John Kerry is an ultra-rich, stuffy career policitian), but a whole lot of this was also due to a huge Republican smear campaign.

Now Hilary is interesting. She's got pretty good support amonst the Democrat base, but at best the response amonst the 60-75% is lukewarm at best. For the most part, they don't like her. I like to say that she represents everything that's wrong with the Democratic party. People view her as an old school tax and spend liberal, she supports (or atleast supported) the Iraqi war and the Patriot act. She's for things like censoring video games, and seems to have strong ties to corporate interests and big money. The little guys out there don't feel that Hilary will represent them. Bill Clinton's old scandals like Whitewater also leave a bad taste in people's mouths, and the fact that she's a carpet bagger who pretty much used New York in an attempt to leapfrog to the Whitehouse really turns people off of her. Like John Kerry, she just screams career politician, and people don't like that.

Now what I see happening is Hilary getting the nod, mostly because the Democratic base seems to like her, and being the die-hards, they're the ones who'll go vote in the primaries. If this happens though, she's going to face a huge uphill battle trying to carve out her portion of the 60-75% to win, as these people don't like her as much as they like Obama, or even someone like Edwards or Al Gore even. The Republicans know this, and I can see some of them practically salvating at the prospect of Hilary Clinton getting the nod. Like John Kerry, they think they can successfully take her down with another massive smear campaign, I would say that they have a pretty decent chance of suceeding at that.

Of course, as you say a lot of this does hinge on who the Republicans nominate - if their nod is terrible, it'll do a lot to swing people over to the Democrats. However, don't forget that they were successful in getting Bush back in again for a second term.

Re:Imagined responses to this

[Dasher42]

While I don't believe in strict construction of the U.S. Constitution, I do appreciate it when strict constructionists have their say, because they show how far beyond any reasonable interpretation things like this domestic spying are. Sometimes I even think they're right. The executive branch sorely needs someone who believes in keeping government power from trampling human rights. That's why Ron Paul is viable.

The Constitution gives the Federal government to regulate interstate commerce, which is why it has a role to play in this bridge on an interstate highway. It has a right to enforce safety standards, and the duty to fund it. This was something the writers of the US Constittution considered debatable - the main concern being whether federal funds and powers were affecting the states equally.

That strict/loose debate is here, and the attacks on human rights, habeas corpus, and the rule of law the Bush administration has made is way, way out there. This is just plain scary and wrong and against anything any educated patriot of this country stands for.

Re:Imagined responses to this

[DavidTC]

The Democrats need to do is pick someone who actually is willing to fight for something those people in the want, and have wanted for a long time. Like some sort of health care solution, or doing something about the fact more and more people are falling out of middle class and into the poor. Edwards is the big guy here, but understandable, the big money does not head his way.

Failing that he needs to have 18 CHA like Obama. :) And luckily Obama seems to be cribbing from Edward's platform. I wish we'd get Edwards/Obama, but maybe we'll get Obama/Edwards. (Someone once suggested, semi-seriously, that, to take advantage of Gore's popularity, a Democrat candidate should promise to appoint Gore to the EPA and have him tour with them. I wish someone would do the same with Edwards to some appropriate position. And Richardson, put him in the State Department.)

Of course, they all need to stay away from the third rail, supporting the Iraq war. Instead of just coming out and saying it, a lot of them are gradually building up to being totally anti-war by the election, which is cowardly, but, really, they can't end the war by their platform before they get elected anyway, so it doesn't actually matter.

WRT to Hillary: A lot of the 'dislike' of Hillary was Republican drones spewing their dislike of Hillary. You're right about the 25% at each end, but what you missed was that that is where at least 95% of 'the dislike' is coming from, the lunatic right managed to injest so much hatred for Bill and Hillary (That's how they got created in the first place) that it spilled over into the public sphere and looked as if it was some sort of general dislike.

You and I may dislike her for being a carpet bagger, and, not a career politician, (All candidates are that, they basically have to be.), but one that has been part of the 'mainstream beltway thought'(1) that she may not realize how incredibly wrong about every single thing they actually are. But most people don't know those things and don't have any actual opinion about her. They may think, like you, thanks to the Republicans, that people generally dislike her, but they don't dislike her.

As for the Republicans, I'm not too worried about any candidate that continues to desperately cling on to that third rail of Iraq and Bush support no matter how much it shocks the general population into disliking them. There's No. Possible. Way. they can reposition themselves fast enough after the primary to actually stand a chance. The only Republican that stands a chance in the election is Ron Paul, and while he may be incredibly popular, I'd give 1:10 odds of him actually winning as the Republican machine will stomp him.

No, I'll give the Republicans 4:5 odds they'll elect Giuliani or Romney. Ironically, those two are perfect Republican candidates...for 1996. They could move far enough right to win the primary, and then easily move back left where they started...but the Republican base caught on to that behavior, and are now asking incredibly specific questions they can't weasel out of, plus requires them to tie themselves to Bush, which they can't weasel out of either.

And to the crazed Fred Thompson supporter elsewhere in the thread: Avoiding entering the race to keep from having to go on the record in the wingnut debates was clever.
Avoiding entering the race at all? Not really that smart plan, because, it turns out to be elected, people actually have to know who you are. That is all.

1) These are the thoughts that say "Democrats must appear tough", which, apparently, means being Republicans-lite, "Democrats must appease the religious loons", hence their random censoring of things, and "Democrats must not let themselves be called 'socialists'", hence the skuttling of all the new social programs. Every single one of those ideas is dead wrong, (Except the first one, which became right on 9/11 and stopped being right about 2003, so was right for one election.) and ye

Re:Imagined responses to this

[toddestan]

With respect to the Democrats, yes they really do need to pick a canidate that has wider support for the mainstream. They essentially have the same problem the Republicans have - the canidates get chosen by the diehards, and they don't reflect the moderate position very well. Plus, they really do need to hammer in the issues into people's heads, so when they think of Democrats, they think of universal health care, or something like that. It's not that the Democrats don't have positions, they just don't hammer it in like the Republicans do.

With Hilary, it really doesn't matter so much why people dislike her (or why they think they dislike her), it's just that it's out there. That makes her battle that much harder, especially since the Republicans will do their best to reinforce people's preconcieved notions about her. I don't see anything other than a very tough and ugly battle for her, should she get the nod. The other problem that she has is people in the middle really view her as more of the same, and are more ready for fresh ideas (Obama, Ron Paul). It doesn't help at all that she's literally another Clinton.

I still wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the Republicans. I thought that the Iraqi war was going to sink Bush in 2004, but he managed to still win (thinking back, it's not so much that he didn't have the support he needed, it's just that the people who don't like him really do not like him, and were pretty vocal). Of course, a lot has changed since then, and the war really hurt them in 2006. However, the Democrats have managed to hurt themselves pretty badly in the past few months too by not taking a stand against the Executive branch.

Even so, you're still right about the Republicans. Guliani and Romney are pretty unelectable. McCain has gotten himself stuck in a no-mans land, where his pandering to the Republican base lost what supporters he had left in the mainstream, while on the other hand the Republican base didn't buy it. Guliani and Romney may find themselves in that no-mans land too if they really screw up. That leaves Ron Paul the best canidate by default, though I don't see him getting the nomination. Right now, the Republicans are playing the "ignore him and he'll go away" game, which will probably work. Failing that, expect a few friendly fire shots from the smear machine (see McCain in 2000).

Re:Imagined responses to this

[DavidTC]

With Hilary, it really doesn't matter so much why people dislike her (or why they think they dislike her), it's just that it's out there. That makes her battle that much harder, especially since the Republicans will do their best to reinforce people's preconcieved notions about her. I don't see anything other than a very tough and ugly battle for her, should she get the nod. The other problem that she has is people in the middle really view her as more of the same, and are more ready for fresh ideas (Obama, Ron Paul). It doesn't help at all that she's literally another Clinton.

I agree with the rest of this, but I think you're really completely wrong here. Go out and ask people, right now, if they'd rather have another term of Clinton in the White House or another term of Bush.

Now, if the race is against a clone of Clinton politically vs. a clone of Bush politically, guess who's going to win? Now assume the Clinton-clone is squeaky-clean, 'family'-wise, whereas it's the Bush clone with infidelity and divorces.

Hillary has a lot of perceived dislike because it's imagined that a lot of other people disliked her ten years ago. No one actually dislikes her for any valid or logical reason (That they can figure out.), and voters aren't completely stupid, at least not anymore. If she actually shows up again, you'd be amazed how quickly the 'dislike' of her just melts away.

And the problem with the Dems isn't that the candidates get choses by the 'diehards'. If they did, Edwards would have won easily. The problem is that the candidates get chosen by the Democratic political machine, which was, until recently, run by the DLC, which is, and has been, in every single way, with a near-perfect-track record, completely and utterly wrong about what voters want. The only president they've managed to get elected is Clinton, who listened to them and implemented several incredibly stupid policies like NAFTA, which he was never called on because both the left and right machine still wants everyone to think they are good ideas.

Which is why I dislike her, she's still the DLC candidate, although, like I said, at least she ignored their debate. But the average voter doesn't know any of that stuff, and it would be very hard for a Republican to paint her as 'Too conservative', even though she is. They used to be able to paint her, and Clinton, as 'fascists', but, heheh, good luck with trying that now.

Repeat afer me:

[nurb432]

"I will encrypt all my communications"

Email is easy, but are there any of the current crop of 'giveaway' cell phones that support it?

Re:Repeat afer me:

[Eddi3]

There was a Slashdot article on this earlier in the year:

http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/04/15/21 27254

And a quick Google search for good measure:

http://www.google.com/search?q=cell+phone+encrypti on

-Eddie

Re:Repeat afer me:

[hacker]

Funny thing, your second link to "cell phone encryption" lead to this Wired article which documents a flaw in the encryption used, thereby rendering most of it useless for current "secure phones".

Re:Repeat afer me:

[dr_dank]

Encryption is only good if your friend on the other end is willing to go through the trouble of setting it up like you did. As long as its done in such a way that you don't know its happening, most people don't care if they're being tapped. If you insist on encryption, you'll find yourself talking only to your tinfoil hat friends before long. Joe Sixpack down the street can't be bothered.

Re:Repeat afer me:

[nurb432]

its not 'tinfoil hats' so much as its just none of their damned buiness.

Even if all im doing is ordering a pizza.

Re:Repeat afer me:

[dr_dank]

I agree 100%, but most don't care enough to bother. Out of sight, out of mind. Encrypted communication is useless if the party you want to communicate with doesn't use it.

Re:Repeat afer me:

[Vitriol Angst]

I was listening to I think the TWIT show -- it was a pro who used to work with Government hacking work. He mentioned that Skype is encrypted and still a headache for the Government--about the only phone system that is right now. Everything else though, can be considered tapped. Cell Phones and home phones, can be listened to, without you "picking up" the line, and of course, all cell phones since 2005 have a GPS in them -- whether or not YOU are taking advantage of it.

Apparently not enough Democrats

[goldspider]

"Civil liberties groups and many Democrats said it goes too far"

Isn't this one of those things that a lot of people here thought the Democrats would fix once they took congress? Or is it simply OK now that the Democrats support warrant-less wiretaps?

Either way, we're getting a valuable lesson in two-party politics.

Re:Apparently not enough Democrats

[tom's a-cold]

Either way, we're getting a valuable lesson in two-party politics.

Tweedledum and Tweedledee. There is only one party, the corporate party. The so-called parties just represent different corporate factions within that party. There's going to have to be a lot more pushing back from the public before the Democrats will do anything. Even then it will be reluctant and half-assed. They're just playing good cop to the Republicans' bad cop. If you want to understand the Democrats, go back and learn about Kennedy's response to the civil rights movement. And in 45 years it hasn't changed much. This is not the party of real change. It's a party of mitigation and excuses. They're the PR shills for the ruling class; the Republicans are the goons with tire irons. But they ultimately serve the same interests.

Positive change will never originate from Washington. They will have to be dragged along, as always.

Every one of these idiots should be shot...

[Eggplant62]

... for the treasonous erosion of our rights. Warrantless wiretapping they say? Sorry, but that goes against the grain of what this country stands for, the right to privacy and the freedom to conduct one's affairs without the worry of someone listening in.

This constant harping on the bugaboo of terrorism as the reason for doing idiotic shit like this is just a cover for being able to conduct the war on drugs and the war on filesharing and the war on our basic rights as free people.

Fuck them all. Next election, vote for anyone but the incumbent. They're all idiots, I know, but at least the idiots that are currently in session shouldn't be allowed to continue to ruin the country.

Re:Every one of these idiots should be shot...

[TheRaven64]

Fuck them all. Next election, vote for anyone but the incumbent. According to TFS, 183 voted against this. If you want to make a difference, then make sure you vote for any member of the 183 and against any member of the 227 who happens to be up for election in your area, and make it clear that this is the reason for your vote. Start now; if your representative is in the 227, then write to them and explain why they have lost any chance of having your vote at the next election. Better yet, write to the local chairman of whichever party he or she stands for, and tell them you will not vote for this candidate, but you would consider voting for one who considered personal freedoms to be important.

Re:Every one of these idiots should be shot...

[Statecraftsman]

I link to the voting record. This should be in the summary in my opinion.

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2007/roll836.xml

Re:Every one of these idiots should be shot...

[Vitriol Angst]

A-fucking-men.

The vote for Domestic spying allows the little Bush fascists to contine spying on the "opposition" and basically makes Democracy impossible.

Really, it's not YOUR guilt that matters -- it's that certain Democrats who voted FOR THIS, are probably guilty of something like Mark Foley. So, just like the Mob, when they've got dirt on you, they can trust you.

Call these your "compromised" representatives. There is no other issue when the Constitution is in jeapordy. We will be really lucky to vote in 2008.

Actual Story Title:

[bryanp]

The actual title of the story is "Bathrooms in Capitol Building run out of toilet paper; Senators forced to use Fourth Amendment instead."

They did exactly what they said they would do

[megaditto]

The issue here is doing what's right vs doing what's popular. The Democrats always went where the vote is, and the vote just wasn't in "helping terrorists win."

Face it, the American public at large does not care about FISA issues, Free Speech, or Habeas Corpus.

Re:They did exactly what they said they would do

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, that's always been the problem with democracy. Damn government does what the people want rather than doing the *right* thing.

Re:They did exactly what they said they would do

[TheRaven64]

This is the exact problem the republic is meant to solve. The average person doesn't have the time to learn what they need to know to do their job, and to learn what they need to do to make informed decisions on government policy. The solution is to select a few people to represent you and delegate your decision making to them. These representatives should not be making the choices you would make, they should be making the choices you would make if you sat down and studied the facts of the matter in detail.

At some point, however, we stopped electing representatives, and started electing leaders. From then on, it started to go down hill.

Re:They did exactly what they said they would do

[dircha]

"Yeah, that's always been the problem with democracy. Damn government does what the people want rather than doing the *right* thing."

That's why the founders of this nation had the foresight to establish a Constitutional Republic, not a Democracy.

Democracy implies majority rule. Majority rule is mob rule. One of their chief concerns was to protect the rights of minorities from the tyranny of the majority.

Between New Deal Democrats AND Republicans, and activist courts, unfortunately those protections have largely fallen by the wayside.

Though it's not fair to say that the government does what the people want, when most people don't vote, and most of those who do vote aren't informed. The government doesn't do what the people wants. The government does what the people LET IT get away with.

Remember Democrats are the Majority

[toupsie]

Civil liberties groups and many Democrats said it goes too far, possibly enabling the government to wiretap U.S. residents communicating with overseas parties without adequate oversight from courts or Congres.(sic)

Considering that Democrats are now the majority in Congress, this bill would not have passed without their strong support. Being able to wiretap foreign communications between terrorists without having to rush out and obtain a warrant before the communication is dropped is critical in combating Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda has shown time and time again that they have a strong grasp of modern technology and its uses despite wanting to revert the world back to some medieval form of Islam.

This extension is only good for six months allowing Congress and the American people to review its use. If you feel that this will be used against you, refrain from calling foreigners and talking about plots to kill your fellow citizens. I am quite sure that the NSA has higher priorities than garden variety international booty calls to snoop on.

Re:Remember Democrats are the Majority

[TheRaven64]

Considering that Democrats are now the majority in Congress, this bill would not have passed without their strong support

There are 435 seats in the house of representatives. Of these, 410 voted. To gain a majority from those voting, they required 206 votes. The Republican party controls 202 seats, meaning that if they had voted en bloc, they only needed 4 Democrats to vote with them in order to win. I haven't seen the exact break down of voting for this act, but it's entirely possible that 202 Republicans and 25 Democrats voted for this bill, and 183 Democrats voted against it.

The Democrats only control congress if they all agree. It doesn't take many dissenters to lose that control. We've seen this a few times here in the UK where the party on government has had a very small majority; they've failed to get acts passed because one or two members of their own party decided to abstain, letting the other two parties get the majority vote.

Re:Remember Democrats are the Majority

[DavidTC]

Correct. This isn't a failure of the Democratic takeover of the House. This is a sign the takeover was not large enough, and that there are still some Republicans who are pretending to be Democrats.

Not that I want the party marching in lockstep, but, Jesus Christ. Giving more power to the people you're investigating for abuses of that exact same power, and who won't give you any straight answers? WTF? Those 41 Democrats are out in a year and half.

Well said!

[iknownuttin]

Bin Laden was never a good excuse for destroying our country from within in the first place!

That sentence alone is worth a +5 Insightful. I wish I had points.

exactly

[commodoresloat]

grandparent is wrong. The "F" in "FISA" stands for "Foreign"; the claim that FISA should only apply to domestic calls is ridiculous.

Re:Unabombers still right even though he's crazy.

[Dachannien]

would be delighted if anyone out there sent me scenarios

.... Old age?

Nobody here's dumb enough to fall on your sword.

Freedom

[viking2000]

New definition: Freedom, the governments right to freely with no obstacles to do as they wish. This typically includes, but is not limited to trampling all over your individual rights.

See also "minilove" and "minitruth"

'Protect America Act' adds a big loophole

[Anonymous Coward]

What is does is change the previous definition where Gonzales would have to swear on oath that it is NOT domestic spying, to Gonzales swearing on oath that he REASONABLY BELIEVES it is not domestic spying based on the evidence given to him.
He had this power before, but he had to swear on oath the truth about the spying, now he can swear a lie on oath and simply claim he was misinformed or the evidence given to him was incomplete.

The new wording is this:
"`Sec. 105B. (a) Notwithstanding any other law, the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General, may for periods of up to one year authorize the acquisition of foreign intelligence information concerning persons reasonably believed to be outside the United States if the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General determine, based on the information provided to them, that--"

The old wording was this:
"(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; "

Look on the bright side

[desideria]

Passing this bill will allow congress to go on their vacation unabated.

In soviet America ...

[houghi]

... the governement watches you.

Hollywood must be so happy. They now can re-use their old scripts and just replace KGB by Homeland Security,

Re:Unabombers still right even though he's crazy.

[headkase]

Not being willing to fall on a worthwhile sword every once in a while makes you a sheep.
I'm saying I believe I have the freedom to write everything in that above post without fear that the secret police might show up in the middle of the night to take me to an education centre. So when I see people cringing in their expressions whether they be online or in real-life I am saddened because they're conforming to a shape that benefits not themselves but others.
Ballot box, Soap box, Jury box, Ammo box. I think the US is in the soap box right now. Of course as the saying goes 'In order to sustain Freedom use these boxes in this order.'

This traffic doesn't need a warrant

[daveschroeder]

It's because listening to foreign communications (communications between two parties outside of the US) doesn't require a warrant, never has, nor should it.

The problem this addresses is that sometimes, foreign communications (including communications exclusively between individuals outside of the United States) now travels through switching or network equipment within the United States, which would require a warrant under the current antiquated rules.

See this Newsweek article for a basic overview of the issue. Some excerpts:

The post-Watergate Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) required a warrant for eavesdropping on people in the U.S. But after 9/11, the administration asserted that warrants weren't needed to surveil communications involving suspected terrorists even inside the U.S. The controversy over "warrantless wiretapping" made intel officials gun-shy about eavesdropping even on messages they would have regarded as fair game before 9/11.

According to both administration and congressional officials (anonymous when discussing such issues), the White House and intelligence czar's office are now urgently trying to negotiate a legal fix with Congress that would make it easier for NSA to eavesdrop on e-mails and phone calls where all parties are located outside the U.S., even if at some point the message signal crosses into U.S. territory.

[...]

Much of the electronic communications NSA once pored over, between two parties communicating with each other outside the U.S., used to travel via satellite or radiolike signal, leaving NSA free to pluck the messages out of the air. Technological innovations, however, have shifted more and more traffic--both e-mail and telephone calls--to hard-wired or fiberoptic networks, many of which have critical switching or transit facilities inside the U.S. Therefore, intel-collection officials concluded that FISA court authorizations should be obtained to eavesdrop not just on messages where at least one party is inside the country, but also for eavesdropping on messages between two parties overseas that pass through U.S. communications gear.

Re:huh?

[JackieBrown]

Wow, it's a good thing that the Congress majority is Democrat so this won't happen.

Oh wait ....

Re:Stop with the FUD!

[BlueStrat]

Um, no. The old law, while it does require a warrant, DOES NOT require that the warrant be obtained before the wiretap. There is a 48 hour window AFTER THE WIRETAP HAS OCCURRED to request the warrant.

Um, yes. You're referring to a different part of the law, concerned with a different scenario. It has different requirements for intercepts that are carried on physical wire within the US borders, and was written without consideration that the participants could *both* be foreign nationals, and *both* be located outside the country. It assumed that communications carried on wires within our borders would only contain communications where at least one party was likely to be a US resident/citizen, and/or originate or terminate within the US.

There should be no warrant needed to intercept communications occurring between two parties outside US borders, whose signal path just *happens* to pass through the US on its' way. It should be no different than current intelligence monitoring done on worldwide communications outside the US.

Cheers!

Strat

Re:Unabombers still right even though he's crazy.

[headkase]

I was more thinking we should build giant-space-based-lasers and fry the whole eastern-seaboard just to make sure. But your ideas are good too! ;) :)

Liars

[bobbuck]

If Gonzales is such an untrustworthy liar, why bother with the law at all? Just spy and say he didn't, or make up the evidence for a retro warrant on the old rules. Don't bother to reply. I don't want to take time from your Jihad duty.

Re:Liars

[DavidTC]

If Gonzales is such an untrustworthy liar, why bother with the law at all? Just spy and say he didn't, or make up the evidence for a retro warrant on the old rules. Don't bother to reply. I don't want to take time from your Jihad duty.

Hey, fucktard, the executive branch did lie about this program's entire existence for three goddamn years.

Let them have their wiretapping

[selfdiscipline]

I think this legislation is a good thing, and I'll tell you why:

Encryption should be ubiquitous in modern communication, and this is just another argument for it. Privacy and freedom aren't things we should take for granted. They need to be actively maintained, because there will always be nefarious elements working to undermine them. The day that encryption becomes illegal, or the day that we are required to give encryption keys to law enforcement upon request is the day that I leave this country.

foreigner are "people" too...!

[majid_aldo]

Why? Because such people and communications are utterly outside the jurisdiction of the US Constitution. Think of it this way, should the US have to get a warrant (FISA or otherwise) to intercept a satellite phone conversation between Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri in Pakistan? What jurisdiction does a US court have to rule on that matter? Answer: None.

remember, the constitution was supposed to be self-evident! why is wiretapping US citizens NOT OK while tapping foreigners OK?!?!?! what a great example of practicing your ideals.

Re:foreigner are "people" too...!

[QuoteMstr]

Joe: For the last time, I'm pretty sure what's killing the crops is this Brawndo stuff.
Secretary of State: But Brawndo's got what plants crave. It's got electrolytes.
Attorney General: So wait a minute. What you're saying is, you want us to put WATER on the crops?
Joe: Yes.
Attorney General: Water?? Like, outta the toilet?
Joe: Well, I mean... It doesn't have to be out of the toilet. But yeah, that's the idea.
Secretary of State: But Brawndo's got what plants crave.
Attorney General: Yeah, it's got electrolytes.
Joe: Okay, look. The plants aren't growing. So I'm pretty sure that this Brawndo stuff's not working. Now I'm no botanist, but I do know that if you put water on plants they grow.
Secretary of Energy: Well, I never seen no plants grow outta no toilet.
Secretary of State: Hey, that's good! You sure *you* ain't the smartest guy in the world?!
Joe: Okay, look. You want to solve this problem and I want to get my pardon. So - why don't we just try it, okay, and not worry about what plants crave?
Attorney General: But Brawndo's got what plants crave.
Secretary of Energy: Yeah. It's got electrolytes.
Joe: What are electrolytes? Do any of you even know?
Secretary of State: It's what they use to make Brawndo.
Joe: Yeah, but, why do they use them to make Brawndo?!
Secretary of Defense: Cuz Brawndo's got electrolytes.

Re:foreigner are "people" too...!

[moogle001]

So now we're applying our laws and customs to everyone in the world? Well, good thing we've got the justification for invading other countries down pat.

Re:foreigner are "people" too...!

[iiii]

why is wiretapping US citizens NOT OK while tapping foreigners OK?!?!?!

Because a government's primary job is protecting it citizens.
That includes

1. protecting their rights to privacy
2. protecting them from hostile actions of other governments and non-governmental organitzations, and
3. protecting their economic interests by creating beneficial (or at least not harmful) relationships with other nations

Tasks 2 and 3 are accomplished much better with excellent information about those other governments, nations, and non-governmental organizations, i.e. intelligence.

Those foreigners are people, you are correct. But the fact that they are foreigners means that they have their own government, whose job is to look after *their* interests. And believe me, *their* government has no qualms about coming here and collecting all the intelligence they can on us, and *their* government is not going to extend whatever protections they have to our citizens.

Cost-benefit

[mi]

Anyone can be wiretapped without oversight as long as the claim is made that they are suspected of communicating with said foreign suspects.

That's true. So, what's the cost of it? Possible violation of privacy... And the benefit? The government will be able to learn of foreign threats faster. You see, snooping on the two people abroad was and remains legal (Echelon, anyone?). It is just when one of the suspects is in the US, that the government runs into problems.

Is the benefit worth the cost? Not sure — but the majority of Congress have decided, that it is... The current (imperfect) law was extended for six months — until a better-designed one (all laws are software) can be produced...

Oh, and before anyone goes screaming about America sliding into BigBrother/Nazi Germany/whatever, just remember, that Frank Delano Roosevelt — the war-President respected even by the French today — has authorized illegal wiretaps (in the 1939 or thereabouts) with the argument, that went something like this: "I don't believe, an American court will interfere with the President fighting German saboteurs". Just who is a saboteur was up to the Executive to decide, of course... Or, sometimes, even up to the foreigners — the British agents, who were allowed to operate in the US.

Re:Cost-benefit

[ml10422]

We American kids are taught to venerate our "Great Presidents" like FDR and Lincoln. Some of us, however, have grown up, read more history, and come to realize that we weren't being sold one view of the past. FDR was one of the most shameless power grabbers in the history of our country.

Re:Cost-benefit

[Elemenope]

World War II was a war with readily identifiable enemies, discrete military and political goals, and concrete benchmarks for meeting those goals. There were also 'victory conditions' easily defined, that marked, once achieved, the conclusion of the war. The "War on Terror" is none of those things, and has no discernible victory conditions.

Comparing an extraordinary or constitutionally-questionable surveillance power or privilege from WWII to one today is beyond absurd. Unlike in a regular war, which typically ends after some period of time, in a permanent war, freedoms gone are gone for good, because it is problematic to reasonably postulate a time when the tools used to prosecute the war will no longer be necessary. In addition, the experiences of both France and Israel (and most recently the US) have shown that counter-intelligence techniques and powers quickly migrate from the military into the domestic law enforcement context, and are difficult to remove once they have made that migration.

Re:Cost-benefit

[mi]

World War II was a war with readily identifiable enemies

United States weren't at war in 1939, when Roosevelt allowed British spies to eavesdrop on communications and — quite possibly — even to kill some Americans engaged in trading with the Nazis.

Comparing an extraordinary or constitutionally-questionable surveillance power or privilege from WWII to one today is beyond absurd.

Oh, no, dear. It was not "questionable". It was unquestionably illegal. And no, the comparison is not "absurd" (nor "beyond absurd"). The point was, Roosevelt has done something quite illegal, but he is still respected today.

Unlike in a regular war, which typically ends after some period of time, in a permanent war, freedoms gone are gone for good, because it is problematic to reasonably postulate a time when the tools used to prosecute the war will no longer be necessary

I'm quite confident, this war will end too — just like during the Cold War we are pitted against a bankrupt ideology, which can not win on merits and so resorts to violence. Back then it was Communism. Today it is Caliphate. It may take us a while, but prevail we shall... Children of today's Che Guevarra-wearing morons will be "shocking the neighborhoods" (and pissing off the "contards") with Osama's portraits on their T-shirts...

Re:Cost-benefit

[WgT2]

FDR was one of the most shameless power grabbers in the history of our country.

Because he was Socialist at best and a Communist at worst.

Re:Cost-benefit

[Master of Transhuman]

"point was, Roosevelt has done something quite illegal, but he is still respected today."

Right - and we're all going to respect Bush in the future.

Right.

I think Kristol wrote something like that recently. And he was considered a complete lunatic for doing so.

The only reason we respect Roosevelt today is because nobody except people over 60-70 years old even remember the asshole.

It's called "whitewashing history."

Or did you forget the part about Pearl Harbor being ALLOWED to happen so the US could get into the war. An interesting parallel with 9/11 - and numerous other events like the Tonkin Gulf.

All of which is irrelevant to the point that warrantless wiretapping - no matter the EXCUSE being used - can - and based on past RECENT history WILL - be abused and therefore should not be allowed regardless of the so-called "cost/benefit" - which has never been established in any event.

Re:Cost-benefit

[keeman]

> You see, snooping on the two people abroad was and remains legal

No, sorry, it is and always has been illegal. The fact that our Constitution is has been shredded through constant government propaganda against the bogeyman du jour, amendment 4 makes no exception to whether or not the target is inside the country (or in an airport, or on a public road in a car, or any of the other throusands of "exceptions" invented by would-be tyrants).

If the Feds want to search somebody or seize something, you get a warrant, in a public court with evidence presented for public scrutiny. This couldn't be more clear from the Constitution, or the Federalist/Anti-Federalist papers. Yes, probably this would help the "terrorists", such as they are. The founders of this country understood this very well. They were more worried about secretive, power-mad government kind of government that we have had in various degrees since the Civil War.

They were worried about presidents starting wars.

They were worried about people getting thrown into turture dungeons with no legal recourse and without even being accused of anything.

They were worried about the the police arming itself to the teeth while banning weapons from the population.

They were worried that the government would confiscate property without going through open, public courts (drug-war confiscations, anyone?).

They were worried that the republic could not function if the government operates in secrecy.

In short, they were worried about real problems that have killed millions of people in the 20th Century. They were worried about this country becoming a Soviet Union, a Cambodia, a Red China, a Nazi Germany, an imperial Rome... They knew that the price of being trying become completely safe from threats like terrorism would come at a cost of joining these countries in tyranny. The fact that we are now talking about how we need to make greater concessions to our Constitutional protections to fight terrorists (body count 3000 odd, territory conquered: some crappy mountains in Afghanistan, notable weapons: pissed off people) than were "needed" to fight the Soviets (body count: millions, territory conquered: nearly half the world, notable weapons: enough nukes to pave the planet and the kind of army needed to roll through Europe in a week) shows exactly how this road is traveled down.

How can you have system where the country is ruled through power of decree by one man in total secrecy, with powers to disappear people at will, and no oversight whatsoever and NOT get a dictatorship after a few elections? Let's pretend Bush really IS a nice guy who we can trust with these powers. What happens when some psychopath like Hitler manages to get elected to hold that office(and he was).

> just remember, that Frank Delano Roosevelt

And if the the guy who did his best to create full governmental over the economy (bullying the supreme court into reversing itself on Constitutional decisions against it) thought it was ok, them who are we to argue?

Roosevelt the economic genius that managed to sustain a depression for more than 10 years, but somehow now gets credit for ending it although anyone proposing the kinds of policy he implemented will get laughed out of Econ 101.

Roosevelt the patriot who was actively plotting ways to get the Japanese to attack us (so that we could get into war with Germany, we didn't give a rip about the Chinese at the time) while campaigning on a platform of having done such an awesome job of keeping the country out of foreign wars.

Roosevelt the supporter of international democracy, who worked with Stalin to decide which countries got to have the pleasure of nearly a half-decade of Soviet occupation.

How anyone can use this guy as a positive example of how to be president will be for historians to scratch their heads over.

Scott

Re:Cost-benefit

[plague3106]

You don't get the benefit you describe at all. Instead, the government wastes more time listening in on calls that are of no value at all; calls that a judge would have said "no, there's not enough evidence" to listen in on, and thus waste time listening to.

Roosevelt is also not infallible. You could say the same things about US internment camps of the same error; just because it was done for some vague good doesn't mean it was right or moral.

Re:Cost-benefit

[secolactico]

Or did you forget the part about Pearl Harbor being ALLOWED to happen so the US could get into the war.

Can you provide a reference regarding this?

Re:Cost-benefit

[Mr. Slippery]

Because [FDR] was Socialist at best and a Communist at worst.

Really, you should learn what socialism and communism are before making such statements.

FDR saved capitalism from itself by regulating it. He co-opted the left, mollifing radicals and preventing meaningful economic reform while doing nothing to distribute control of economic resources to the workers.

Yes, FDR brought about more of a command economy; but the command economy versus free market axis is orthogonal to the capitalism versus socialism one.

Socialists have little love for FDR, and he had little love for them.

Re:Cost-benefit

[WgT2]

FDR saved capitalism from itself by regulating it.

Shyster.

That socialist, at best, prolonged the suffering of the United States in the 1930's by his horrible administrative means. Most depressions, or economic corrections, don't last for more that 4 fours: he made it last almost 3 times as long - 11 years.

He was sympathetic to the communists and helped them to take over Eastern Europe after World War II. Can you say: 'Blood on his hands'?

His extensive government programs DID NOT help the United States. At best they slowed the people in their economic recovery. At worst, and this is extremely damaging, he shaped the people into being dependent, instead of interdependent, on the government (the liberal's Utopia) for their basic needs. Germany started doing that in the late 1800's: from the cradle to grave - and look what came from them in the next century: the main villain in two World Wars and a Holocaust.

Oh, yeah, I forgot: thank you FDR for the fiasco that is Social Security!

Re:Cost-benefit

[Master of Transhuman]

It's a known controversy. Do a Google. Plenty of articles on it pro and con.

Nobody can be certain that Roosevelt allowed the war to happen, but there appears to be some evidence of this. IIRC, it was more the Secretary of State who influenced the result than Roosevelt, but I might be wrong.

Posted Right

[Doc Ruby]

Most of Earth's telecom passes through the US. Your distinction is meaningless. Also, dropping the FISA restrictions means Bush/Cheney/Gonzales can spy on Americans who are "incidentally" part of the communications.

Communications with anyone. There is practically no need for any evidence that anyone being spied on has commited any crime, is a terrorist, or is of any value in getting any evidence of crime or terrorism. Our human rights to protection from unreasonable searches, to presumption of innocence, to due process, are out the window.

So Cheney/Bush can spy on us. On you. Feel safer? Feel American? Or do you feel more like an East German under their Stasi police state?

Re:Posted Right

[Reziac]

Yep... my first thought was... Oh shit, we're dead. (Meaning, our freedom as individuals within our own country is now officially dead.) And as others point out, it's not just what Bush might do. It's what Hillary might do, or anyone else with less than stellar motives. To understand their impact, proposed laws and regulations must ALWAYS be evaluated under worst-case conditions, NOT just under conditions of idealism and wishful thinking.

But it goes right along with the "Papers, please!" and "Step this way, Komrade!" mentalities that are overtaking every government process. Just another brick in the wall.

Re:Posted Right

[Doc Ruby]

I fear a Democratic trifecta (House/Senate/WHouse) in January 2009. Without even Iraq War blame to get them caught, and a bigger majority than Republicans had.

The two parties are not the same. Republicans are worse. But absolute power corrupts everyone absolutely. Democrats, like anyone else, are bad enough without being Republicans. Absolutely powerful Democrats is scary. And here they are giving themselves the power, late enough that it will also be blamed on Bush. But when they catch it in 2009 for themselves, it won't matter who gave it to them. Only that they have it.

And once you're gone, you can never come back.

Blackmailing Congress

[Doc Ruby]

The CIA/NSA is using the spying they've already done (illegally, massively for at least 5 years) to blackmail Congress into granting the Unitary Executive ("dictator") any powers he wants, under cover of a "struggle with Congress" that signs over war authorizations, spying authorizations, anything the dictator wants.

Blackmailing not just Democrats. Blackmailing Republicans, too, to enforce their lockstep rubber stamps. But Republicans also get the offer of getting cut in on some power (as long as it doesn't cross Cheney/Bush). Democrats just get cut in on cosmetic power sharing, so they can be the decoy party in our soviet politburo.

Re:Blackmailing Congress

[tsotha]

Yeah, sure. And your evidence for this is... what, again?

Re:Blackmailing Congress

[Doc Ruby]

Hey, whatever happened to that Anthrax Bomber? They must be pretty crafty to survive the greater part of a decade's "Global War on Terror" without even being identified, after striking directly at Congress.

Re:Blackmailing Congress

[tsotha]

What does that have to do with the price of tea in China? The fact remains you have no evidence - none, zip - that there's any blackmail of public officials going on. Of course it's possible, in the same sense it possible the illuminati control our government, or the Bilderbergers, or some shadowy European association of ex-pat Greeks. But it's gonna take more than your own fevered dreams to convince normal people the fix is in.

By the way, I don't think it's any great feat for the Anthrax "bomber" to remain undetected. Ted Kaczynski managed to stay on the loose while sending sixteen bombs over eighteen years. He'd still be out there if he own brother hadn't turned him in. The fact that we haven't caught the Anthrax guy isn't proof of anything. It doesn't even suggest anything.

No, border searches

[redelm]

No, it only applies to "reasonably believed to be outside the US". In essence, these are border searches needing no warrent. The language is probably to cover roaming and the email equivalents.

Like it or not, the US (and most nations) have always exerted strong jurisdiction over what crosses their borders. Information isn't exempt.

Swap your iPhones for Cryptophones

[xmedar]

Cryptophone and use PGP and TOR online and be secure.

YOU are an accused terrorist

[dkarma]

anytime this corrupt Attorney General or this corrupt administration says so.
Anyone who believes this is limited to "foreign" intercepts is naive and ignorant to say the least.
We will never know who is being spied on because it is "secret".
Just assume it is you because it probably is then go read the fourth amendment to the constitution.
Prepare to be angry if you're not already.

DEM: 41 yea, 181 nay. REP: 186 yea, 2 nay.

[Ambiguous Puzuma]

There's a link at the bottom of the article that shows the vote breakdown.
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2007/roll836.xml

I have only three words...

[hacker]

I have only three words...

Encrypt, encrypt, encrypt!

They have no right to listen, and no reason to be suspiscious. I happen to live in a two-party state where recording of phone calls has to be known to all parties on the call. Since they're not notifying me or the other party on the calls I make, their use of the data they may glean, is inadmissible and against the law.

Just encrypt everything, locking down your conversations, speak in code, use encrypted SMS messages and so on.

Don't let them in, because they have no right or reason to be there. Period.

They want to make it hard for us to enjoy our freedoms, then I'm more than happy to make them earn their right to violate them by making it ridiculously hard to decrypt/brute/crack any encryption that I may use.

It's OK, they're just foreigners.

[nick_davison]

I'll leave it to other people's words to explain why trying to make distinctions, just violating what your country upholds as someone's rights when it comes to one group - be they 'just foreign nationals' or whatever - is about as purely un-American as you can get:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

Re:It's OK, they're just foreigners.

[Speedracer1870]

Haven't we already been over this in another article? Look, the "first they came..." speech can't be thrown about willy-nilly at anything you happen to dislike. Next, there is a whole lot more to the historical documents of this nation then just what your small brain can memorize. Really, are you not capable of an original thought? Write your own shit, man!

fools, cowards, traitors

[Scudsucker]

We've come to expect this crap from the Republicans in the House and the Senate. But the Dem base is livid that the politicians they worked hard to elect, like Klobuchar, McCaskill, and Webb, just voted not just for fascism, but for incompetent fascism. The people in charge of this operation will be guys like Gonzalez, who despite shredding the Constitution on surveillance and torture and endless detentions are too fucking stupid to know when an Arab company is about to take over the largest ports in the U.S. And before some muslim, mexican hating wingnut suddenly starts crying racism, the problem wasn't an Arab company coming into the U.S., it's that the Administration didn't know it was happening. But back to the Democrats.

They are fools because they just rolled over to placate the 28% who will never vote for them anyway, while pissing off the millions that actually do vote for them. They are fools because they enable the Big Lie from the administration that we need to cut back on liberties and oversight because they endanger us.

They are cowards because 6 years after 911, they still roll over for the most unpopular president since Nixon when Bush accuses them of being weak. And they still haven't gotten it through their thick fucking skulls that by giving into the right wing rather than standing up to them, Democrats are epitomizing weakness, not strength.

And lastly, they are traitors for egregiously violating their oath of office, in which they promise to defend the Constitution. Not the country, though the right wing talking point that this is "to protect us" is bullshit. The Constitution. And this is why I hold Webb especially responsible: how many government jobs has the man had? How many oaths of office has he taken? He just broke those oaths and sold us out.

Re:fools, cowards, traitors

[Sri Ramkrishna]

Mod parent up!

Re:fools, cowards, traitors

[vaporland]

i agree. i voted for webb, convinced many others to do so as well.
at least with macaca boy, you KNEW what you were getting - I thought webb was a man of character.
i met with a group of citizens in webb's richmond office to discuss net neutrality. we passionately made our case. we never got as much as a phone call in return.
three boxes of democracy: ballot, soap, ammo. one down, two to go...

Spineless

[Giggles Of Doom]

Curse you, you 227 spineless bastards. Don't let these clowns get re-elected.

Nope. Just anything in the US.

[khasim]

So, by that logic, all foreign signals intelligence should require a warrant?

Nope. As long as the tap is placed in Afghanistan or such, then it is fine.

If you're placing a tap in the US, then you need a warrant.

If your goal is to cripple US foreign intelligence capability and put us at a marked and distinct disadvantage in countless respects to the intelligence services of the rest of the modern world, then we should put that suggestion on the top of our list.

So what you're saying is that anyone with any clue would NOT use these routes because everyone else in the "modern world" is already tapping them.

Here, let me put it in context for you. We've been "fighting" the "war on drugs" for HOW MANY YEARS now? And we've still not won. Despite the drugs coming in from other countries. Where we could tap their communications. So it would seem that the methods you appear to be advocating have failed.

Fascism begins when the efficiency of the Government becomes more important than the Rights of the People.

Re:Nope. Just anything in the US.

[daveschroeder]

If you're placing a tap in the US, then you need a warrant.

Even if the communication isn't intercepted in the United States, if foreign communication travels through the United States, under the current law it requires a warrant. In situations such as this, the fact that a portion of a communication (where the two parties are outside the United States) travels through equipment in the United States is incidental.

So it would seem that the methods you appear to be advocating have failed.

(I'll just ignore the huge "war on drugs not 'won', therefore all signals intelligence must be a failure" logical fallacy, here...wow...)

If you believe that signals intelligence is not an extremely valuable tool for foreign intelligence, you:

1.) Don't know your history, and

2.) Are willfully ignorant of the realities of foreign intelligence gathering, by not only the United States, but the intelligence services of the rest of the world.

To say monitoring such communication should require a warrant is laughable.

Re:Nope. Just anything in the US.

[daveschroeder]

This is utter BS, intended to distract from the actual argument. The effect of this new wiretapping law is to permit warrantless surveillance of United States citizens in their homes. This is why we object to it.

No. This does not permit this at all, in any way, shape, or form.

You are mistaken as to what this law does, and why.

You want a law clarifying that foreign surveillance, performed overseas, doesn't require warrants when the communication happens to be routed through the US? Then pass that law, not the one you are supporting to which we object.That you conflate the two indicates willful blindness or the purest ignorance this world knows.

Wrong. It's very clear what this law does.

It allows monitoring of communication between parties outside the United States by US intelligence services, even if the traffic is passing through the United States, without a warrant.

If you believe warrantless surveillance performed upon the citizens of a state by that state's police force are not an extremely dangerous tool used to consolidate power in the hands of the government, then you clearly haven't got even an inkling of what history is.

Except this isn't for surveillance of "the citizens". It's for surveillance of persons outside the United States. The law and wording are clear, and if you choose to jump to conclusions that can't even reasonably be drawn from its clearly stated purpose and intent, that's your problem.

bullshit

[Scudsucker]

Shredding the Constitution is not popular. The incompetent, lying Alberto Gonzalez is not popular. The president is not popular. The media is not popular. If the media and Democrats did their jobs, they would point out the fact that when the Administration claims that FISA needs to be changed to protect America, the Administration is lying.

Face it, the American public at large does not care about FISA issues, Free Speech, or Habeas Corpus.

Each time the Democratic Congress has caved to Bush, their poll numbers go down. I guess we thought Congress had hit rock bottom when they caved to Bush on the Iraq Supplemental, Reid and Pelosi had to prove us wrong by digging a new, deeper hole. And breaking a few sewage pipes in the process.

Re:Stop with the FUD!

[DavidTC]

Except the NSA has repeatedly admitted it doesn't have the ability to tell the difference between calls where one end terminates in the US and where they don't, so are actually listening to them all.

Change the focus.

[khasim]

So Cheney/Bush can spy on us. On you. Feel safer? Feel American? Or do you feel more like an East German under their Stasi police state?

Ask them if they'll be happy when President Hillary Clinton has these same executive powers.

Without judicial oversight.

With years of experience knowing what NOT to put on paper or telephone recordings.

With a Congress full of Democrats to support her.

It's not whether your team gets super-secret legal authority to do whatever. It's whether the other team gets super-secret legal authority to do whatever. You might trust your own people. But this means you'll have to trust the other team as well.

Re:Change the focus.

[Doc Ruby]

I totally agree.

Something ain't right there ...

[khasim]

This is fair-game surveillance of foreign communication which is perfectly legitimate on the global stage and has gone on for decades. Pretending the United States shouldn't be doing it is sticking your head in the sand to unprecedented depths.

If it has "gone on for decades", then what is the problem NOW?

Why and How has the existing system suddenly failed?

Re:Something ain't right there ...

[daveschroeder]

If it has "gone on for decades", then what is the problem NOW?

Why and How has the existing system suddenly failed?

This system failed because more and more foreign communication is traveling through equipment physically within the United States.

Under the current law, monitoring of such communication, which never required (and shouldn't require) a warrant, suddenly requires a warrant, because of the incidental fact that some of the traffic travels through the US.

This fixes that critical problem.

See this article for a brief overview.

Explain the fallacy.

[khasim]

(I'll just ignore the huge "war on drugs not 'won', therefore all signals intelligence must be a failure" logical fallacy, here...wow...)

Explain where the "fallacy" is.

If you have to lie, then you've lost already. I never said that "all signals intelligence must be a failure". Despite you putting quotation marks around it.

I said that we could not even stop the drug trade. After YEARS of being able to tap communications outside the US.

And the drug trade move a LOT more material and people than terrorism does.

1.) Don't know your history, and

You can make all the claims you want. But I have examples. And you've been unable to refute my example so far. The drug trade move literally TONS of material into the US every single year. And hundreds of people. And we are still unable to stop it even with tapping communications outside the US.

Re:Explain the fallacy.

[daveschroeder]

The fallacy is that you apparently, by your statements, are asserting foreign SIGINT doesn't work, because if we have that capability, we should have been able to "win" the war on drugs.

You have said that twice now. It is fallacious to draw that conclusion. That's the fallacy. No lies; sorry to disappoint.

And claiming that you don't know your history is an easy claim to make if you think foreign signals intelligence hasn't worked.

Lastly, we're not even talking about drugs, and you chose to bring it up. Newsflash: it's not a binary game. You don't have to completely eradicate something to successfully fight against it. This is completely separate from either of our opinions on drugs.

Re:Explain the fallacy.

[cHiphead]

I'll come out and state it to your face, SIGINT DOES NOT WORK. The conclusions analysts provide from SIGINT data are best-guess conclusions. Its the tradeoff, you either go full big brother and get some useful SIGINT, or you stop fucking kidding yourself that SIGINT on such a huge population is worth shit. Police action and investigative intelligence is what we need, not more signal intelligence.

Cheers.

Seems like the senate is a bit embarrassed

[UU7]

The US Senate website is not publishing the roll call of votes by Senators on the bill to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act making President George W. Bush's illegal wiretapping order retroactively legal.

http://pressesc.com/news/87005082007/senate-websit e-withholding-spy-law-roll-call

Re:Seems like the senate is a bit embarrassed

[iter8]

I don't know why senate.gov doesn't have the vote up yet. It should be 00309, but the list ends at 00308. In the meantime, http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/8/4/04858/2 9657 lists the Senate democrats who voted for the bill. No republicans voted against it.

Pure technical information as to what is going on

[SuperKendall]

If warrants are no longer necessary to wiretap, where exactly is the check to see if the people being wiretapped are foreign nationals? The whole point of a warrant is to make sure that a requested invasive measure is being applied properly.

The deal is not that we are tapping foreign nationals exactly. The case this bill is meant to solve is more complex - tapping communications from other countries that route through our own. Because we have such a large communication infrastructe it is not infrequent that calls made from one country to another outside the US, actually route through the US - and the government wants to be able to tap those calls when the happen.

You may resume your regularily scheduled partisan bickering. I just wish we had an article that outlined technically exactly what is happening, that everyone could base the bickering on.

Heh, The Democrats

[iminplaya]

really are the surrender party. They surrender to Bush at every turn. Let this be a lesson. You will get nowhere with these people. Vote the bums OUT! Or keep your mouths shut!

Re:Heh, The Democrats

[iminplaya]

Why? Vote out both faces of the Party. Vote in a non-aligned candidate. And so what that some voted against it? Not enough of them did. The rest can vote against it while being for it, knowing that it will pass anyway. But they look good with all their righteous indignation on the TV. Some of the worst Shakespeare you'll ever see. But oh, so effective.

Re:Heh, The Democrats

[iminplaya]

...the fanatics WILL take control.

They already have. Here's a little gem from the NYT, "Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the measure "does violence to the Constitution of the United States." Yeah, and she was there holding it down while the rest were raping it, front and back. Nice skirting around the real word, "violate". She's a pig. The fanatics have already taken control of both sides of the Party and voting for it only strengthens it further. An eloquent speaking fanatic is still a fanatic. Don't be fooled. You will get no help from the democratic side. They represent the same interests as the republicans. As both Hillary and Edwards have said, they will both continue to accept money from the lobbyists and from Wall Street. And that's who they will represent, without a doubt. They already do. And besides, the dems were trying to legalize all this kind of stuff during Clinton's term. It was a republican named John McCain(torture and patriot act sellout and savings and loan scandaleer) who made the most fuss against it.

Look at the facts.

[khasim]

The fallacy is that you apparently, by your statements, are asserting foreign SIGINT doesn't work, because if we have that capability, we should have been able to "win" the war on drugs.

It isn't that it does not work. It is that it is not sufficient for even the "War on Drugs".

You have said that twice now. It is fallacious to draw that conclusion. That's the fallacy. No lies; sorry to disappoint.

Yeah, keep repeating yourself. The FACT is that we have been tapping their lines and they are still able to move TONS of material and HUNDREDS of people through our country.

Now, you can claim that that fact is a fallacy all you want, but it is still a fact.

We tap their communications and they still move TONS of material through our country.

The problem now is...

[SuperKendall]

That foreign calls routing through American have to be treated as if one end is in America if you can't tell exactly where it is (more than possible given the complex nature of networking today). That was a recent ruling and changes precident used for decacdes, under republican and democratic presidents alike. This has nothing to do with what you're thinking of which is monitoring calls from the US to outside the US without warrants. The change of law is designed to affirm the previous assumption so that we can monitor communications outside the US.

How is that a problem?

[khasim]

This system failed because more and more foreign communication is traveling through equipment physically within the United States.

How is that a problem? It would seem to me that it would be easier to tap that way.

Under the current law, monitoring of such communication, which never required (and shouldn't require) a warrant, suddenly requires a warrant, because of the incidental fact that some of the traffic travels through the US.

And ... ?
FISA allows up to 72 hours AFTER the event to get a warrant. Even in your scenario, there doesn't seem to be a problem.

See this article for a brief overview.

And that article says:

But after 9/11, the administration asserted that warrants weren't needed to surveil communications involving suspected terrorists even inside the U.S.

Again, FISA allows up to 72 hours AFTER the even to get a warrant.

I'm going to have to trust our Founding Fathers on this one.

Fascism begins when the efficiency of the Government becomes more important than the Rights of the People.

Re:How is that a problem?

[daveschroeder]

How is that a problem? It would seem to me that it would be easier to tap that way.

Uh, it is, but when that happens, it requires a warrant.

Monitoring of communication between two parties outside the United States does not require a warrant, and never will. But because of today's technology, sometimes that traffic can flow through the United States.

Which suddenly means it is subject to the warrant requirements.

Which it shouldn't be.

And ... ?
FISA allows up to 72 hours AFTER the event to get a warrant. Even in your scenario, there doesn't seem to be a problem.

Yes. There is.

The monitoring of such communications has never required a warrant, but now increasingly does require one, crippling foreign signals intelligence with warrant requirements because FISA didn't foresee the realities of modern communications.

Again, FISA allows up to 72 hours AFTER the even to get a warrant.

I'm going to have to trust our Founding Fathers on this one.

Fascism begins when the efficiency of the Government becomes more important than the Rights of the People.

Requiring the FISA process, even retroactively, on all foreign signals intelligence collection completely cripples that capability.

This has nothing to do with the founding fathers or fascism. It has to do with updating a law to reflect today's reality. And by "today's reality" I don't mean "post-9/11"; I mean the fact that more foreign communication that never had warrant requirements suddenly does because of the way traffic is routed. Crippling our intelligence capability because of what amounts to a technological technicality is foolish.

Thankfully Congress agrees.

Political brinksmanship and an "October Surprise"

[hey!]

What's going on here is that Democrats don't want to be "responsible" for another 9/11.

They want a bill that gives the administration wiretap powers, but subject to independent judicial oversight. However, any limitation on the Administration's power to wiretap faces a Republican filibuster in the Senate.

This leaves the Democrats with a choice: pass a bill without oversight measures, or be blamed for stopping the wirtap program altogether. Stopping the program altogether exposes them to an "October Surprise": a terrorist attack that might hypothetically been prevented if the administration could wiretap as they pleased.

Never mind the logical niceties: that the program could have operated effectively with judicial oversight, that the Republicans filibustered the bill, or that the Administration didn't have the Arabic language skills to handle all the intercepts they might have made. The Republican line from the last two elections was that a vote for a Democrat was a victory for the terrorist, that Democrats are traitors who are on the side of the terrorists. Nothing would suit them better than proclaiming that in front of another smoking hole in a major American city.

So, the Democrats punted for six months to see if the administration's popularity drops enough to get the bill they want through the Senate. The process will repeat until the Administration is so wounded nobody will stand up for it, or until after the 2008 elections.

Cowardly? Certainly. But you're right in one thin:, the problem is its the same old stupid, unreasonable boss. The problem is us. If we don't have the balls to defend the freedoms our ancestors handed down to us, then we don't deserve those freedoms.

Another example of Godwin's Law

[Danathar]

What Risk?...you DID go all Godwin, if you didn't want to risk it you should not done it.

Bad

[anonieuweling]

This is o-so bad for Americans; no warrant, no check on whatever thing that should be OK to proceed. This is even worse for non-Americans (yes, we are the oppressed of the world) since our communication, that by accident passes over the USA, can be intercepted at will without any reasonable regulation at all. What if we would intercept any American traffic?

The Problem

[fthomas]

The problem is expecting Democrats to stand up for your constitutional rights. They don't believe in your "rights". Your rights are what they give you. And wiretapping you without a warrant IS their goal. That's why they are for it. They just happen to agree with the neocons on this one.

Don't expect a democrat to defend your liberties.

Don't expect a neocon to respect your freedoms either.

You need a CONSTITUTIONALIST to defend your LIBERTIES.

Until you recognize this, you're going to be disaapointed by people you think will represent you.

Vote Ron Paul!

Disappointed in Amy Klobusher, D-MN

[smchris]

Half of why she was elected was probably her years as a county prosecutor -- the "law and order" angle -- where she had strong media exposure for hard work and competence. But the other half of her image was as a nerdy bicycling granola-mom. I think we assumed she would be liberal.

But perhaps she isn't rising to the office where faithfully upholding the law means upholding the constitution and the _rule_of_law_.

Re:Disappointed in Amy Klobusher, D-MN

[TheRaven64]

You know, the one law I would really like to see would be the application of truth in advertising laws to politicians. If you vote for any bill that is against the principles you declared when you stood for election, you should be punished.

Charleton Heston said it best

[wonkavader]

"You maniacs! You [shat on our constitution again]! Damn you! Damn you all to hell!"

Re:huh?

[stinerman]

To be completely fair, only 41 Democrats voted for the measure. Two Republicans voted against.

Of course, that doesn't change the fact that the Democrats control the House and should have insisted on more privacy safeguards. I really am starting to get tired of the Democrats calling foul on Bush administration law violations and then pass laws making the programs legal.

History has shown that when the Democrats throw away their focus groups and polls and start standing up for their beliefs, they do well. One day, they might find their collective spines. Don't hold your breath, though.

Up to 72 hours later.

[khasim]

Uh, it is, but when that happens, it requires a warrant.

Yes, it does. And that warrant may be applied for up to 72 hours AFTER the event.

You continue to ignore that. Because it invalidates your entire position.

The traffic HAS to cross the US. This isn't about anything we pick up from Echelon or whatever. So it's already a sub-set of everything out there.

The traffic HAS to be from or to a suspected terrorist. So it's even a smaller sub-set of the sub-set.

And a warrant is allowed up to 72 hours AFTER the event.

Requiring the FISA process, even retroactively, on all foreign signals intelligence collection completely cripples that capability.

You keep claiming that. Yet you have been unable throughout all you posts to explain how it is "crippled" (your word).

They can still tap it. The tap can still happen. There is nothing saying they cannot tap it.

There is no "crippled" as you like to claim.

Fascism begins when the efficiency of the Government becomes more important than the Rights of the People.

Re:Up to 72 hours later.

[daveschroeder]

I'm not ignoring anything.

The 72 hours later bit for FISA is irrelevant.

This unnecessarily saddles foreign intelligence gathering, which has never required a warrant for good reason, with warrant requirements.

Again, see this article for a brief overview of the issues.

Monitoring this kind of traffic should not require a warrant process of any kind, period. It flies in the face of the method and purpose of foreign signals intelligence. It's that simple. You can refuse to understand that if you wish.

Re:Up to 72 hours later.

[daveschroeder]

Should the government have the power to compel access to the communication networks and records of a US company or US citizen without a warrant?

To be clear - and I know you know this, but I want to make it clear for others who may not understand - that's not what this addresses. This addresses the monitoring of the entirety of content of communication between parties outside of the United States. This has always been legal and does not require a warrant, never has, and never should.

But to answer your question: if you are speaking of information about records that define only start and end points of a communication, but NOT the content of the communication (e.g., telephone numbers dialed or calls received), such records constitute a "pen register", which does not constitute a search under the Fourth Amendment, and which therefore does not require a warrant (Smith v. Maryland, 442 US 735 (1979)). Similarly, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, often cited as the most liberal appeals court, found that IP addresses visited and to/from addresses on emails (but again, not the content of the communication) constitutes a pen register and therefore does not require a warrant (US v. Forrester (2007)).

On this basis, no, I do not believe that such monitoring legally requires a warrant.

Re:Up to 72 hours later.

[daveschroeder]

My question was not about pen registers, it was about the distinction between the government collecting intelligence of non US citizens outside the USA, and the government forcing a US citizen to provide access to their records and communication networks without a warrant.

So, to be clear, you're referring to collection activities relating to monitoring communication between parties outside the United States that happens to be traveling via US equipment? My apologies; I thought you were bringing the domestic logging issue into the discussion.

Returning to my original question, should the government have the power to compel access to the communication networks and records of a US company or US citizen without a warrant?

In the course of collection activities relating to foreign signals intelligence where the passage of the information through US equipment is incidental, and the request is made to the operators of that equipment carrying the traffic in support of this activity, yes.

Re:Up to 72 hours later.

[cheezus_es_lard]

If it's valid for the government to monitor communications without a warrant, what law exists that precludes civilian access to the same? The only reason your neighbor can't read your mail is because it's against federal law- if we are systematically tearing down protections of communications from government interception, what prevents individuals from using these precedents as their case against prosecution for the same?

This is regardless of the origin/destination of the communications. Where in the past, the content of phone calls is treated much as your mail, it's still illegal for your neighbor OR your police force to open your mailbox and read the to/from on your mail, sans warrant. So according to the government, if I put a pen trap on your phone line, it's acceptable, but not if I listen to your calls- or if I record only the URLs you visit on your computer. The method they make it illegal is via 'unauthorized access to systems/networks' laws.

I still see a need for a reconciliation here, between protections afforded the U.S. Mail and that given to computers and telephones. If your mailbox requires a warrant to be opened, they should require a warrant to run a pen register or to intercept to/from fields in email.

Re:Up to 72 hours later.

[daveschroeder]

I am not talking about a "request" of the operators of that equipment, I am talking about the government forcing a US citizen to provide access to their records and communication networks without a warrant.

This is getting into semantics now. Yes, I think the operators of the equipment should be compelled to respond to this request without a warrant. If you want to call that "forcing", fine.

Also, the legislation proposed does not constrain the access to "where the passage of the information through US equipment is incidental." Would it be presumptuous of me to presume you don't support the legislation as written?

Yes, it would be. The passage of the communication through US equipment is incidental. The legislation does not have to contain that word for that to be the case. The traffic's passage through the US is, by nature, incidental to its content and the parties to the communication. That's why I support its capture without a warrant.

I am also curious if you see any fourth amendment problems with the search and seizure of US citizens and their assets in this legislation? Not with the targets of the surveillance, but in the forced compliance of US citizens implementing the governments surveillance.

I do think that potential problems could be asserted. But I also would imagine that most equipment such communication could even travel through would be large multinational network operators with a good understanding of how legislation such as this may apply to them. I also don't think that foreign intelligence targets should be afforded additional protections or hindrances to their monitoring simply because traffic passes through the US. It is already the case that persons can legally be compelled to comply with government requests, and that such requests are not necessarily always in the form of a warrant.

Re:Up to 72 hours later.

[Anonymous Coward]

I do think that potential problems could be asserted. But I also would imagine that most equipment such communication could even travel through would be large multinational network operators with a good understanding of how legislation such as this may apply to them. I also don't think that foreign intelligence targets should be afforded additional protections or hindrances to their monitoring simply because traffic passes through the US.

While I think we can assume large telcos and ISPs will be among the targets of this law, there is nothing in this law that restricts its use to those targets. The law, as written, allows the government to demand of any US citizen all information that relates to any person who is a non citizen currently residing outside of the US. The law is not restricted to eavesdropping on just internet and telephonic voice communication, it applies to "all information, facilities, and assistance" and:

(3) the acquisition involves obtaining the foreign
                intelligence information from or with the assistance of a
                communications service provider, custodian, or other person
                (including any officer, employee, agent, or other specified
                person of such service provider, custodian, or other person)
                who has access to communications, either as they are
                transmitted or while they are stored, or equipment that is
                being or may be used to transmit or store such communications;

This includes written communications such as notes and diaries, voice messages on personal answering machines and copies of sent emails residing on personal computers.

You could have your home searched and your computers seized, without a warrant, simply because of that exchange student that lived in your house last year. And on top of all that be sworn to secrecy.

Or maybe even because somebody thinks an exchange student lived with you last year even though that was not true.

Are you sure you are ok with all of that?

Re:Up to 72 hours later.

[daveschroeder]

The law does not allow for the search or seizure of property or equipment of US residents on US soil, only of communications that are actively traveling via US communications equipment between parties outside of the United States. Not a personal computer of a US citizen on US soil who might have lived with an exchange student that might have a copy of an email communications on a computer. By definition, that traffic contains a person within the United States, and is excluded. This covers telecommunications equipment, and is not construed to mean personal laptops or telephones of US citizens in any legal sense, because an endpoint of the communication in that context is within the United States.

That is neither the intent nor wording of the law. So no, I don't believe that the law, either in letter or spirit, allows any of the slippery slope you describe.

So yes, I am okay with it, as-is. If this really did effectively do away with the Fourth Amendment - or, for that matter, if any of the other updates of laws to keep up with the times did away with the Constitution as much as people imagine they do - then I doubt a Democratic Congress would be voting for their implementation.

Re:Up to 72 hours later.

[Anonymous Coward]

The law does not allow for the search or seizure of property or equipment of US residents on US soil, only of communications that are actively traveling via US communications equipment between parties outside of the United States.

That is just plainly false. Quoting from the bill:

(3) the acquisition involves obtaining the foreign
                intelligence information from or with the assistance of a
                communications service provider, custodian, or other person
                (including any officer, employee, agent, or other specified
                person of such service provider, custodian, or other person)
                who has access to communications, either as they are
                transmitted or while they are stored, or equipment that is
                being or may be used to transmit or store such communications;

You really should read the legislation. It is not that long.

That is neither the intent nor wording of the law. So no, I don't believe that the law, either in letter or spirit, allows any of the slippery slope you describe.

I have been quoting from the legislation. If there is wording in the law that supports your position, I would be happy to look at it. Your proclamations that the law says something absent any quotations from that law are unpersuasive.

Re:Up to 72 hours later.

[daveschroeder]

If you believe it will be used to arbitrarily execute search of and seizure of property from US citizens on US soil without a warrant, then you are reading things into the law that simply aren't there. I've already read the language, and I, and thankfully, the majority of Congress, agrees with it. Storage in this context is understood to apply to transient storage. If I believed the FISA wording change would be used as you believe it will be, I would be against it to. However, again, that is not the purpose of this update.

The update is purely to allow foreign intelligence gathering when BOTH endpoints are outside of the United States, even if information travels through US equipment. In any home or residential context, unless a person is operating networking or routing equipment out of their home, they are by the conventional definition understood to be a party of the communication, not a conduit. Therefore, a warrant would be required.

This legislation is targeted at major commercial ISPs, network operators, and telecommunications companies. It cannot be applied in the manner you imagine without a warrant. I know you're construing it that way, and illustrating a "slippery slope" argument. However, that is not the purpose or function of the law in the context of electronic surveillance on US soil when at least one endpoint is on US soil. The exchange student example is an endpoint in the context of electronic communications. The commercial networking operator is not.

Re:Up to 72 hours later.

[RingDev]

I agree with your points, save one:

It cannot be applied in the manner you imagine without a warrant. That should read: "It should not be applied in the manner you imagine without a warrant."

We have already seen that members of the AG, DoJ, FBI, and White house have no qualms with stepping over the line of what should and should not be done. Just because there is a law in place doesn't mean the current leadership will choose to enforce it.

-Rick

Re: foreign suspect

[evought]

How do you tell when a Hotmail account represents a foreign suspect? All email can be reasonably be suspected to have at least one endpoint with a foreign national and there is no way to tell without extensive investigation. This really does give them an open ended surveillance ability with minimal oversight where they can claim an honest mistake any time they cross the line.

Democrats will not protect your freedom either

[dircha]

What more evidence do we need? Democrats were swept into power on the promise to get us out of Iraq, to restore our liberties that they and their Republican colleagues sold out wholesale after 9/11, and to bring this corrupt administration to justice.

The enemy of your enemy is not your friend.

We are still in Iraq and there is no end in sight. Rather than having the backbone to bringing the measure to withdraw back to the floor again and again to push it through, and continue to push their campaign promises in the media, they have effectively given up on the issue, whining to their supporters and the media that it is too hard.

And now these Democrats are actively working with this administration, the same administration they told us is the most corrupt and secretive in history, to sell out yet more of our freedoms, to give yet more power to this president and the executive branch.

They are, our representatives, nearly every one of them, pathetic, spineless, schmucks. They have betrayed us all once again.

And it should come as no surprise, because these are the same Democrats and Republicans who sold us out by writing the president a blank check in Iraq. The same Democrats and Republicans who sold out our liberties by signing onto the biggest forfeiture of our liberties since the establishment of this nation. The same Democrats and Republicans who proudly signed the bill granting retroactive immunity to prosecution for every military and government agent who has tortured, kidnapped, and committed atrocities in our name.

We must act now to take back our liberties, our dignity, and our good name in the world; it is the most important cause of this age. If 2008 leaves us with Giuliani, Hillary, McCain, Obama, Romney, or any of their ilk in office, we will see more of the same and worse, and it will be too late. It will be too late to restore the freedoms that have been stolen from us. 2012 will come and go, and the robbery of the patriot act and the legacy of this administration's unprecedented executive power grab will be solidified in our nation's history and in the public conscience.

If you do not act now, what has been taken from us will never be restored, and your children's children will look back upon this generation, if there is freedom enough to look at all, as the generation that finally lost it all, lost that for which the blood of countless patriots was shed, and November 4th 2008 as the day the Republic finally died.

It is only the office of President of the United States of America that can save us from this fate. And in this battle, Freedom has one final front. Your help is urgently needed this very week. Is your freedom worth even an hour of your time? Now is your opportunity to prove it. You must sign up today. Mission information will be emailed to you directly. http://www.ronpaul2008.com/events/iowa-straw-poll/

Re:Democrats will not protect your freedom either

[KingRoo]

The "withdraw from the UN, back to a gold standard, life begins at conception" Ron Paul? No thanks.

Case for impeachment ruined?

[Sri Ramkrishna]

So one of the things we got Bush and Gonzales on is that they've been wire tapping illegally and lying about it. Won't the update of the FISA bill allow them to argue that since it's no longer illegal means they are no longer culpable? After all, if congress believes they are updating for the sake national security then no law is broken? I don't know if the changes are retroactive or not.

But if they have then I suspect that Democrats have also cut their our collective throats in making a case to impeach either Gonzales and/or President Bush and Vice President Cheney. If that's true, this is a colossal fuck up. This was the only real legal ground Congress has for "high crimes". We can't really prove that Bush lied regarding intelligence in Iraq and the war.

What a bunch of crap. Goddam Democrats. I lay this at the feet of Emannuelle Rahim. That asshat has gotten everything wrong and should be kicked out. Even new Democrats like Jim Webb has voted for this. I can only shake my head in resignation.

sri

Re:Case for impeachment ruined?

[coffinsurfer]

You sir, are an IDIOT. Nothing Bush has done has risen to the level that the US Constitution calls for, for an impeachment. Not to mention that you are totally clueless about this wiretapping. U.S. Supreme Court UNITED STATES v. UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT, 407 U.S. 297 (1972) 407 U.S. 297 UNITED STATES v. UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN ET AL. (PLAMONDON ET AL., REAL PARTIES IN INTEREST) CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT No. 70-153. Argued February 24, 1972 Decided June 19, 1972 http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?c ourt=US&vol=407&invol=297 thus finding that the domestic spying against agent or foreign powers operating in the US was INDEED CONSTITUTIONAL!!! So do yourself a major favor and shut up as you are showing your ignorance more by yourself then anything anyone could ever post to prove same. Now go eat your cookies and drink your milk as it is time for you to have your nappy changed and to take a nap.

Addendum (*)

[stinerman]

I'm not going to get into if a call is to a US citizen outside the US. That is a very tangled web, and I wish to defer that discussion for clarity's sake.

Voice of America reports the opposite outcome?

[Orig_Club_Soda]

http://voanews.com/english/2007-08-04-voa2.cfm

Legislation sought by President Bush to revise U.S. law regarding anti-terrorist electronic surveillance overseas has failed a vote in the House of Representatives.

By Dan Robinson
Capitol Hill
04 August 2007

Senate approves a similar bill 60-28

[Orig_Club_Soda]

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/08/03/fisa.up grade.ap/index.html

Close call

[belg4mit]

I'me no fan of the two party system, or the increasingly weak-willed Democrats,
but this isn't *as* extreme of a defection as some are making it out to be. 40
fucking "red-state" Democrat votes. On the other hand, the 20 lazy fucks whom
abstained from voting on such a sickeningly saccaharine and deceitfully named
bill as "Protect America Act" ought to have their pay docked since they can't
even manage to do their "jobs."

Let's make it easy. Here's the scenario.

[khasim]

Jack Bauer is in the super secret NSA communication intercept room along with various other people.

Unnamed extra #1: "Sir, you need to see this. It's Osama's cell phone! And the call is coming across OUR circuit!"

JB: "Dammit! He's up to something. I want that call intercepted and get me a translator! I want to know what he's saying and to whom he is saying it!"

Unnamed extra #2: "But sir, if we don't get a warrant within the next 72 hours, that will be ILLEGAL!"

JB: "No problem. I only need 24. Just tap that call!"

JB walks over to a different phone and picks it up.

JB: "Get me the FISA court! This is an emergency!"

Begin one-way telephone communication bit ...

JB: "I have an emergency and I need a warrant! No, I'm not going to wait! Yes, I will be right over! That's right, I want your Liberal judge ass sitting on that bench when I arrive!"

JB slams down the phone and walks over to unnamed extra #1.

JB: "Are you getting it all?"

UE#1: "Yes sir. Will there be a problem with the warrant?"

JB: "Not as long as I still have 3 days to get it there won't be."

JB then grabs some paper work and runs to his car. He then races across D.C. avoiding enemy mines, fighter aircraft and snipers. He screeches to a halt outside of the Court and runs up the steps. He slams open the door to the judge's chambers and throws the paperwork at him.

JB: "Listen, you have less than 71 hours and 26 minutes to sign that warrant or I'll have your terrorist loving Liberal ass!"

Unnamed Judge: "Always nice to see you, Jack. Here's your warrant. Let's see, that leaves you 71 hours and 24 minutes to get back to your secret spy base. Can you manage that this time without speeding or running over anything? Hmmmmm?"

JB: "You Liberal judges make me sick! My ass is on the line every time I have to drive over here! Good bye!"

JB then runs down to his car, notices the parking ticket on the windshield and throws it away. He then gets in and races back to work. Avoiding various mines, attacking aircraft and snipers.

Yes, I can certainly see how a 72 hour limit on getting a warrant AFTER THE FACT would be a "crippling" restriction on our intelligence gathering.

What if the judge HAD BEEN AT LUNCH for an hour? What if Jack Bauer had decided to WAIT 3 DAYS before calling the judge? What if Jack Bauer's car had gotten a FLAT TIRE?!? Does he have a can of Fix-A-Flat?!?

Republicans

[antdude]

Republicans are no better. Who is actually better? No one!

You mean

[/dev/trash]

The same Dems who also VOTED for this treasonous piece of legislation.

Re:Pure technical information as to what is going

[Master of Transhuman]

"tapping communications from other countries that route through our own. Because we have such a large communication infrastructure it is not infrequent that calls made from one country to another outside the US, actually route through the US - and the government wants to be able to tap those calls when the happen."

No, that's the EXCUSE. The REALITY is probably one one-hundredth or one one-thousandth of "interesting" calls fit that criteria.

First of all, if you already KNOW the call is interesting, tap it outside the US with Echelon or whatever which everyone is saying we can and do ALREADY. So why do we need this law? If you do NOT know the call is interesting, the only way to know is to tap EVERYTHING - and that is by definition un-Constitutional. THIS law is intended to bypass the Constitution by using an EXCUSE to MAKE ABUSE EASY!

It's a "get out of jail free" card for Gonzales and the FBI and the NSA and the rest of the alphabet soup crowd to abuse the system - just as the FBI has been caught abusing the Patriot Act repeatedly (not that they weren't abusing the rest of the "justice" system for decades now - just ask the American Indian Movement who won Federal court cases proving the FBI did illegal blackbag jobs for years against them.)

It's that simple.

It has absolutely NOTHING to do with legitimate signals intelligence or fighting terrorism or anything else that could be construed as legitimate under the Constitution.

It should be apparent by now to anyone with an IQ over 50 that ANYTHING the Bush crowd does is both illegal and un-Constitutional by definition and is intended to increase the power of the state at the expense of the population and/or to line the pockets of their cronies.

The Bush administration is purely and simply a CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE - much like the entire Bush family. People who refer to "the Bush crime family" have it exactly right. Has everybody ignored the recent documentary about how one of the Bush elders planned a military COUP in the US decades ago? HELLO!

Re:Its not OK to take an emotional hyperbole

[nick_davison]

Interesting how you equate nothing beyond quoting two of the most famous passages of text of the last millenium with emotional hyperbole.

Now, I'd argue that any speech, to be worth speaking, should trigger a strong response but I wouldn't accuse either of those passages of being hyperbole.

As for what I wrote, interestingly enough, I didn't write anything - I let those passages speak for themselves. Perhaps it's like a rorschach test: the very absence of anything reveals more about the viewer in the emotions that actually come from within.

It perhaps raises more questions about your own bias that you'd manage to find emotional hyperbole even in silence if you felt the other person, behind that silence, held a view different to your own.

There are certainly many concepts that fall within the broad brush of "conversational terrorism". One of which, however, is the act of learning just enough of the buzz phrases to attempt to throw them around to belittle anyone one disagrees with.

Now, had I made stiring speaches about how generations of Americans have fought and died to hold dear the concepts enshrined... yada yada... then you might have had a point. To throw out a phrase like emotional hyperbole, when confronted by nothing more than two classic passages and silence, simply cheapens the term and reveals more of the person who'd try to do so.

Re:Political brinksmanship and an "October Surpris

[jfern]

Existing law allows for wiretaps without a warrant. They just need to find a friendly judge to give them a warrant after the fact. The problem is that it takes a lot of effort to shop around for the judge who will give you a warrant for spying on your political opponents. No good for Bush, so the Republicans and 57 Bush enabling Democrats had to make it easier for him.

What other response can I give?

[SuperKendall]

That's what THEY want YOU to think. Yow!

Send your emails to the presdent

[tyrebeiter]

So, if the Prezdent wants to read our emails, it would un-American to object. Send them to him--all of them. I did. president@whitehouse.gov

Re:Its not OK to take an emotional hyperbole

[Orig_Club_Soda]

Whatever - its still an appeal to emotion whether its a popular writing or not. And its funny, rather than arguing the issue - you take addition hyperbole.

Never heard of Congres

[tutwabee]

I've never heard of Congres before. Is this anything like Congress or is this a new type of cheese?

Use spamenography

[cpghost]

Encrypt, encrypt, encrypt!

Soon, encryption for private e-mails will be forbidden as well. But don't worry: hide your communication in spams: I'll coin the term spamenography for that (like steganography). Ideal to thwart traffic analysis and it provides a lot of plausible deniability.

Re:Use spamenography

[hacker]

Soon, encryption for private e-mails will be forbidden as well.

Let them forbid it. I'll keep using it, as will several hundred thousand of my closest friends.

Hiding spam in emails is old news, but certainly not the way to get the problem addressed or fixed. If you try to "hide" your communications, now you're putting yourself in the exact position that they want you to be in, avoiding the laws, "hiding" your information.

Don't hide it, openly encrypt it. Let them know you won't stand for their illegal, warrantless games.

I've got one word to respond to this

[kalirion]

Blackbriar

Bush Got Leverage

[murnshaw]

I think it's fairly obvious that Bush's unauthorized wiretapping has dug up enough dirt on current Democrat House members that he could basically blackmail them to get this sort of thing passed. Well, things could be worse. Cheney could be forcing an ultimatum down Congress against Iran & North Korea, or diverting funds from the Treasury to his Big Corporation buddies... Just another conspiracy theory, but it makes sense, no?

Perspective!

[moogle001]

They revised the law for SIX MONTHS. They're going to come back to it to give it a better review. Only a SMALL NUMBER of democrats voted for it. Most Republicans did. Could Slashdot be more melodramatic?

Property Rights

[huckamania]

It boils down to basic property rights. Property crossing a border is subject to unlimited search and seizure. Every country on earth recognizes this fact.

If one end of a conversation is outside of the US, then the property is crossing the US border and is subject to search and seizure. End of story.

Re:Property Rights

[imgod2u]

Only things coming into the United States is subject to search and seizure. Things going outside may be searched with reasonable cause. That last part makes whoever does said search and seizure accountable.

A communication between a US Person and a foreign person is two way. What the foreign person says and is received by the US Person is subject to search and seizure. What the US Person says is not. This allow both to be monitored without restraint or accountability.

Godwin's Law doesn't necessarily apply

[Joe the Lesser]

Godwin's law, and the added losing caveats attributed to it, is often misused to ridicule valid reasoning. Godwin made the law because chumps were using Hitler analogies when the topic wasn't severe, like about Bill Gates, and he didn't want real proper uses of a Hitler argument to be watered down.

If the topic of the post is actually fascism, which government spying on the populace was a part of, then Godwin's law does not apply.

Godwin's law is supposed to be applied when, for example, I say George Steinbrenner is worse than Hitler, because the topic is wholly unrelated to fascism.

The Constitution does not establish rights

[onemorechip]

It only establishes protections for certain rights. Your rights exist with or without the Constitution (and hence they are "unalienable"). Protection just means that Government personnel cannot infringe those rights with impunity. If the protections are eroded -- by an overreaching executive branch, a complacent Congress, or a judicial branch that looks the other way -- then you still have those rights. But they will get trampled all over.

Re:Political brinksmanship and an "October Surpris

[dynamo]

A fair election could be prevented if the administration could wiretap as they pleased. Well, at least that would be true if such a thing weren't already being prevented in so many other ways.

How could the democrats be so completely powerless and stupid as to bend over for ANY bill they don't have a LOT of support on. And hint, most americans don't want to be spied upon. Really.

I'd really rather see the government as a whole shut down than to continue on it's current suicidal path.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could elect open-source algorithms to make voting decisions? The source could finally be completely known and people could know what they're voting for.

Re:huh?

[dynamo]

"only 41 Democrats"?????!

On the same positive tip, the administration is "only" wiping out MOST of our civil rights for now.

YAY!

FISA has denied only 1 warrant in its history

[Tungbo]

according the the NYT articles. So how URGENT is it really to change a law to avoid going in front of a secret rubber-stamp court ?

Re:Stop with the FUD!

[BlueStrat]

If we invert your argument, you have no objection
to the UK monitoring communications between two
US citizens. After all, the rights of folk in the
UK aren't being violated, so it's OK.

And you think this *doesn't* already happen, why?

Newsflash! Countries already do this, even between allies. France regularly spies on the US with every means at their disposal, both for political/diplomatic, as well as industrial intelligence reasons. Israel does also. As does the UK. Basically every country spies on every other country to as great an extent as practically/politically feasible and possible.

Cheers!

Strat

Women, Ponds, and Swords

[Dareth]

To quote your sig, "Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government."

I definately agree. As we all know, the best swords are delivered by Santa Claus!