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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.'"
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.
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.
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.
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?
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
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!
"I will encrypt all my communications"
Email is easy, but are there any of the current crop of 'giveaway' cell phones that support it?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
"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.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
The actual title of the story is "Bathrooms in Capitol Building run out of toilet paper; Senators forced to use Fourth Amendment instead."
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it." Col. Jeff Cooper
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.
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.
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
Yeah, that's always been the problem with democracy. Damn government does what the people want rather than doing the *right* thing.
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.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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; "
Wow, it's a good thing that the Congress majority is Democrat so this won't happen.
....
Oh wait
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.
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:
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.
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.
--- widget evolution: enhanced, plus, super, ultra, extreme, exxxtreme, ultra-extreme,
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.
--
make install -not war
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.
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.
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.
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.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I link to the voting record. This should be in the summary in my opinion.
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2007/roll836.xml