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Telco Immunity Goes To Full Debate
Dr. Eggman notes an Ars Technica analysis of the firefight that is the current Congressional debate over granting retrospective immunity to telecoms that helped the NSA spy on citizens without warrants. A Republican cloture motion, which would have blocked any further attempts to remove the retroactive immunity provision, has failed. This controversial portion of the Senate intelligence committee surveillance bill may now be examined in full debate. At the same time, a second cloture motion — filed by Congressional Democrats in an effort to force immediate vote on a 30 day extension to the Protect America Act — also failed to pass. The Protect America Act has been criticized for broadly expanding federal surveillance powers while diminishing judicial oversight. While the failure of this second cloture motion means the Protect America Act might expire, a vote tomorrow on a similar motion in the House will likely bring the issue back into the Senate in time. It seems, according to the article, that both parties feel that imminent expiration of the Protect America Act is a disaster for intelligence gathering, and each side blames the other as progress grinds to a halt."
I really wish they would start giving honest descriptive names to Bills, rather than marketing names. Seriously, just like the new 'Economic Stimulus' bill, that should be 'It's an Election Year, here's a handout that won't really affect the economy much'. Bills to impose new taxes should have names like 'Bend over for us please' or 'Yeah, we're screwing you again.'
If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, stop calling it a peacock. Yes, I know it will never happen. One can fantasize.
Just remember, when you are reading about the fall of the American constitution that it's not because any person involved is inherently bad. Quite the opposite. Most of them are good. They love America generally speaking and want the best for their people. They have to. Power only works when you respect the people you control. When you approach each person involved in this situation and ask them just what the fuck are they thinking, they would probably tell you, and honestly at that, that they are doing the best they can for the people they represent.
I'm not saying stupidity is an excuse. I'm just saying that the supposed "inherent evil" that people want to believe politicians all possess isn't the problem. The problem is political ignorance and an extreme distance from reality that accompanies the higher eschelons of power.
This is also, I would imagine, why the fore-fathers imagined a country run by the stronger states, not controlled by a stronger federal government. Keep the power closer to the people, at lower levels, and the reality is much harder to miss.
Umm, IANALOCLS (I am not a lawyer or Constitutional Law Scholar), but my understanding has always been that only prevents the Government from passing retroactive laws that criminalize events in the past... i.e: if alcohol prohibition is passed tomorrow they can't punish me for drinking today. It doesn't prevent them from retroactively decriminalizing something.
Granted, it's a load of shit that they are even considering immunity for these bastards, but I still think you'd lose if you tried to argue against it on the basis of ex post facto laws.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I liked the comment by Sen. Bond (R-Mo.) that failure to give telecom providers retroactive immunity for any crimes they may have committed would be
He is saying -- he is actually saying -- that Congress has to prevent its own laws from being applied to a corporation, because if the courts are allowed to proceed with civil lawsuits, angry mobs of disaffected citizens will storm the corporate headquarters of AT&T and Verizon and burn them to the ground because they oppose intelligence gathering. We must circumvent the legal process to soothe the hordes of Americans who are furious at the NSA. This is surely the most bizarre panem-et-circenses ever.
Or maybe he's saying Al Qaeda sleeper cells will launch attacks on key NOCs for our internet backbone... the only thing holding them back is they're waiting for word to come that a civil lawsuit has been filed against the owning corporation and depositions have been submitted and discovery is proceeding, Allahu Akbar!
Ex post facto (Latin for "after the fact") means that a person cannot be prosecuted for violating laws passed after he/she committed an act. So if I were to call Congress a bunch of asshats, and 3 days later Congress were to pass a law banning all mockery of that very august body, I still could not be prosecuted. (And all of that could happen, because most members of Congress are, as we all know, asshats.) But ex post facto says nothing about being granted immunity after the fact. Basically, there is nothing in the constitution that prevents the government from selling out to corporations, even retrospectively. Damned asshats.
AT&T -- Your world. Delivered. To the NSA.
First they came for the first posters, but I wasn't a first poster so I didn't speak up.
Then they came for the people with hot grit fetishes, but I wasn't into that so I didn't speak up.
Then they came for the beowulf clusters, but I couldn't afford one so I didn't speak up.
Then they came for the immigrants from Soviet Russia, but I wasn't from Soviet Russia so I didn't speak up.
Then they came for the people posting lame jokes based on tired old /. cliches... by this time there was nobody left to spea&*)$)(*&@(*)@*(&%&OICARRIER LOST
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
That's a wonderful post with completely valid points. Unfortunately you overlooked the fact that had anybody bothered to connect the dots, 9/11 could have been stopped using the existing laws on the books with the powers that the Government already had.
All the wiretapping in the World isn't going to help you if the President gets a memo saying "[SOMEBODY] determined to attack US" and ignores it. All the wiretapping in the World won't help you if FBI agents in the field are being ignored by headquarters when they attempt to report suspicious activity.
Maybe we should be asking why all of those failures happened instead of bending over backwards to give the Government sweeping new powers to monitor our daily lives.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Republican Senators are right now stonewalling and trying to prevent a one-month extension of the same legislation they insisted last year was vital, urgent, and necessary to prevent terrorist attacks in "days, not weeks." The President has said he would veto a one-month extension of this legislation that, last year, we supposedly needed to stop the terrorists from attacking America.
They are protesting a one-month extension so that people who aren't paying attention will pressure Democrats to cave in and give Republicans what they want. The Republicans are literally -- if you believe their own words -- exposing America to danger of terrorist attack as a political tactic to pass the legislation they want.
And what they want is retroactive immunity for corporations so that we, the people, have no legal recourse to discover whether those corporations cooperated with the Bush administration in breaking the law.
The tools are already available. They allow the NSA to spy, and they allow American corporations to assist that spying. It's just that the laws must be followed. They are not difficult to follow. And corporations already are immune from both civil and criminal consequences if they can just demonstrate that, even though they broke the law, they acted on a good-faith belief at the time that what they did was legal.
If you think this about whether we can monitor what the terrorists are talking about, you're wrong.
Unless you think that warrantless wiretaps are a good idea, the rest of this bill is pretty damn bad as well.
Maybe we should look at it the other way around. George Bush has been the only president in the 20th century to allow such a devastating foreign attack on our soil.
It might just be that the threat of terrorism isn't as serious as you seem to think.
But the most important argument against creating a "total surveillance society" in order to prevent terrorism is that there already is a very good legal system for allowing the kind of surveillance against terrorists that you seem to believe we need. It is called the FISA court and gives our government plenty of tools for fighting terrorism.
Finally, for me it comes down to this: Yesterday, we heard one GOP senator after another say that the telecoms did nothing wrong in allowing the government to eavesdrop, and the program is completely legal. Well then, why do they need immunity? Why not leave it up to our legal system and a jury of citizens to decide whether any laws were broken.
blcamp, I live in the shadow of Sears Tower. I'm as concerned about my wife and daughter as you are about your family. But as I've said before, I will take my chances with the terrorists, but leave my liberties intact.
You are welcome on my lawn.
OK. I'm all for making the tools available, once the make sure that they safeguard our everyday civil liberties and that their continued use is based on regular and accurate validations their efficacy.
Seriously: Safeguard our liberties first then worry about security.
Security in the United States today is Security Theater. It's operatic in it's grandeur and stupidity.
5 Year olds and US senators on 'No Fly Lists'? Falafel stakeouts in San Fran looking for Iranian sleeper cells? The Secret Service strong-arming high school students for anti-war anti-bush speech? Calling the Bomb Squad on hot chilies, LED cartoon advertisements, and state owned traffic monitors? Arresting, Beating, Nearly Shooting & Killing innocent people because they act or look different?
There is no way I'm willing to give up any of *anyone's* liberties for that sort of buffoonery.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
9/11 wasn't a good thing. But face it: Big deal.
;).
:). I can tell you for sure that many passengers will look at each other and have a go at the hijackers.
Nobody else is going to easily do it again even without all the "Patriot" bullshit. The 9/11 hijackers "ruined the market" for future hijackers.
Before 9/11 the "unwritten protocol" was - hijack announced, everyone meekly stays in their seats, nobody (mostly) gets hurt, negotiations start, hijackers get something, passengers get to go. Unless of course the hijackers were crazy enough to do El Al
After 9/11 hijackers WILL have a more difficult time with passengers and air crew, the cockpit doors are reinforced. Enough passengers will think "If I'm going to die anyway, I'm going to make sure that hijacker suffers first". If everyone just threw their shoes and stuff at the hijackers at the same time it will really hurt
In fact even _DURING_ 9/11, passengers on board one of those planes figured out what was happening, and one of the planes didn't hit the target.
You think most hijackers haven't figured that out? Only a few stupid ones (or mentally ill) have tried since 9/11. They have to move on to other methods if they want to crash into towers - charter/steal private planes etc.
The bulk of the new procedures like banning liquids and checking shoes is just to make the stupid sheeple feel safe.
The fact that the US Gov lies to its citizens regularly, and puts in laws that don't actually address the problem shows to me that the US Gov is a greater danger to US citizens than the "evil terrorists" are.
The 9/11 killed like 3K? And cost the USA how much?
In comparison the US Gov started a war in Iraq (based on _deceit_ ) and got how many killed? And cost the USA how much?
Not to mention the US Gov has been trampling over the "precious" US constitution which so many US citizens _allegedly_ value so much. They don't even bother to amend the constitution, they just ignore it or twist the interpretation so much.
The US people should serious consider who really is their biggest enemy.