Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
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.
There seems to be a lot of ignorance and hyperbole on slashdot regarding FISA.
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- na-spying2aug02,0,5813563.story?coll=la-home-cente r
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/newswee
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
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.
Yeah, that's always been the problem with democracy. Damn government does what the people want rather than doing the *right* thing.
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.