House of Representatives To Discuss Wiretapping In Closed Session

Nimey brings word that for the first time in 25 years, the US House of Representatives will use a closed-door session to discuss proposed wiretapping legislation. The old legislation expired last month when government officials could not agree on retroactive immunity for the telecommunications providers who assisted with the wiretaps. The most recent version of the bill, proposed by House democrats, does not include telecom immunity. Because of that, President Bush has stated his willingness to veto the bill. The Yahoo article notes, "The closed-door debate was scheduled for late Thursday night, after the House chamber could be cleared and swept by security personnel to make sure there are no listening devices."

Comments

Grant No Immunity. Get Info to ACLU.

[twitter]

They are also going to decide to prosecute or not. This is not nearly good enough and it stinks of cover up. Check out what the Wall Street Journal and ACLU have to say about this.

I wonder if they consider cell phones a listening device.

The Facts

[ewhac]

The law that permits surveillance of foreign communications -- FISA -- did not expire last month, and remains in force. What actually expired was the Orwellian-named "Protect America Act," a temporary amendment to FISA which removed the requirement for any kind of warrant for certain surveillance targets "reasonably believed" to be outside the United States.

Surveillance of foreign targets may still be conducted under the auspices of FISA -- you'll just need to get a warrant. Up to three days after the fact. From the special secret FISA court. Which has never said no. Such hardship.

Schwab

Re:The Facts

[Anonymous Coward]

you'll just need to get a warrant. Up to three days after the fact. From the special secret FISA court. Which has never said no.

Dude, they have said no as many as five times! Four of those had to be resubmitted before they were partially granted. Aside from that nearly 200 applications had to be modified before they were accepted. How can the government be expected to get anything done with these kinds of hardships?

Re:Misattribution

[Nimey]

Don't blame me; Soulskill edited my submission pretty heavily.

ZOMGBBQ, an editor who edits. Kind of.

Lying Republican Scammers

[Doc Ruby]

This stunt is the first time in 25 years that the House has gone into secret session. John Conyers (D-MI), who chairs the Judiciary Committee, skeptically agreed with the move:

The more my colleagues know, the less they believe this Administration's rhetoric. As someone who has chaired classified hearings and reviewed classified materials on this subject, I believe the more information Members receive about this Administration's actions in the area of warrantless surveillance, the more likely they are to reject the Administration's scare tactics and threats. My colleagues who joined me in the hearings and reviewed the Administration's documents have walked away with an inescapable conclusion: the Administration has not made the case for unprecedented spying powers and blanket retroactive immunity for phone companies.

Whether this is a worthwhile exercise or mere grandstanding depends on whether Republicans have groundbreaking new information that would affect the legislative process. There must be a very high bar to urge the House into a secret session for the first time in 25 years. I eagerly await their presentation to see if it clears this threshold. As someone who has seen and heard an enormous amount of information already, I have my doubts.

Leave it to the Republicans. You have to, because they refused to let Democrats call a secret session last year, when Democrats wanted to review classified FISA evidence to decide how to revise FISA as Republicans have demanded (but didn't while they owned the majority):

[House Minority Leader] Boehner's spokesman, Kevin Smith, derided the secret session proposal as a stalling tactic.

"There are clear rules and procedures for how Congress handles classified information," Smith said. "This nonsense is nothing more than another stalling tactic from a bunch of liberals who don't want to give our intelligence officials all the tools they need to keep America safe."

That kind of severe contradiction should disqualify anyone from participation in either "Intelligence" or "Judiciary" decisions.

Re:Lying Republican Scammers

[chitokutai]

Apparently, this is only the third time a secret session has been held since 1830!

Not to mention that the last time it happened in 1983 it was concerning the overthrow of the Nicaraguan government. What in the world is going on in our government?!

Re:But it is a matter of principle

[The Analog Kid]

I believe that most would assume that when the government asks something that isn't obviously illegal

Tapping phones without a warrant is obviously illegal (the except is FISA where you can apply for a warrant after the fact up to 72 hours). These companies are subject to these requests all the time, they know what the requirements are for legal wiretapping, do you honestly think they had no idea that a warrantless wiretapping program would be on shaky ground?

Re:Interesting proposition

[vux984]

Irony: incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result

How ironic that a dictionary would fail to define irony properly. :)

Seriously? Incongruity between the actual and the normal/expected result?

That is NOT really irony. For something to be ironic there has to significant force behind the expectation, and the result can't merely be incongrouous it has to be more a contradiction.

If I say 'its a beautiful day' and its actually 'partly cloudy and may be even just a touch chilly' that is not ironic. If it were pouring rain and the floods were rising, that would be ironic.

If I pick up a pen I expect it to work not be dried out, but if its dried out that's not irony. If I specifically chose to pick up the pen with the sticker 'gauranteed never to dry up' and carried it around precisely to avoid the hassle of a dried up pen ... and then it was dried up... that would be irony.

Dictionaries often fail to accurately capture the complete meaning of a word, because words are inherently difficult to concisely define with other words. That's no surprise -- the entire point of adding a word to a language is often that other words fail to accurately capture its meaning.

Another example is "underwhelm"; which is defined in one dictionary at least as: "To fail to excite, stimulate, or impress." Again, that doesn't really capture it quite right. If one eats a bagel for breakfast and is not excited stimulated or impressed that doesn't mean one was underwhelmed by it. Its a necessary condition, but not a sufficient one.

To be underwhelmed is not merely to fail to be impressed, but to becognizant of the fact that you have failed to have been impressed. If you ate a bagel and it made no impression on you, if someone asked you about your breakfast, you'd absently say 'it was fine' without 2nd thought; you haven't been underwhelmed. But if you'd sat there eating your bagel and came to the realization that it really wasn't particularly good, that its taste and texture really did nothing for you, then you might come to say that you found it underwhelming.

Re: Let Freedom Reign

[SethJohnson]

If you make use of government health care, do you really want everyone to be able to read your medical records?

As it stands, one of the first things Bush / Cheney did when they took control was to pass the Medical Privacy Act. Perhaps the most ironic aspect of this law is that it opens patients' private medical records for scrutiny by ALL insurance companies.

Seth

Re:U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 9

[FleaPlus]

Sorry, but ex post facto only applies when criminalizing a previously legal activity, not the other way around. Otherwise it would also be unconstitutional to do things like grant amnesty to illegal immigrants.

Re:But it is a matter of principle

[ecbpro]

The Japanese were using this techniques on US captives in WWII and were convicted for this by the US. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/02/AR2007110201170.html

Re:Interesting proposition

[vux984]

> How ironic that you fail to understand the difference between sarcasm and irony. :)

How ironic that I'm being corrected by someone who doesn't realize that sarcasm is itself defined in terms of being ironic.

>> If I say 'its a beautiful day' and its actually 'partly cloudy and may be even just a touch
>> chilly' that is not ironic. If it were pouring rain and the floods were rising, that would be
>> ironic.

> No, that would be sarcasm.

It would, in fact, be both 'sarcasm' and an 'ironic statement' because they are in fact one and the same. The above is a textbook example of an 'ironic expression'.

The Merriam Website defines sarcasm as:

1: a sharp and often satirical or ironic utterance designed to cut or give pain

2 a: a mode of satirical wit depending for its effect on bitter, caustic, and often ironic language that is usually directed against an individual b: the use or language of sarcasm

Both defs define sarcasm in terms of irony. This isn't an accident. :)

Re:But it is a matter of principle

[DrLang21]

While comparing Bush to Nazis may be a little extreme, it does call for some serious examination of how the Nazi party operated early on. Hitler did everything he could to undermine the German legislature when he was still just Vice Chancellor. He also enacted warrentless domestic spying that included wire taps, warrentless searches, and brute force watching people. All of this was done with an extreme air of secrecy. Behind closed doors citizens were held indefinitely without trial and subjected to torture. They were not given access to a lawyer (not that it would soon make a difference since after Hindenburg died, lawyers were required to be NSDAP members).

Now to say that Bush is comparable to Nazi's is far fetched unless you can show a true intent for National Socialism (Hitler's variety of it at least) and a maximally aggressive effort against those who don't fit the Nationalist bill. He would probably need plans to invade Canada, and many professions would legally require membership in the GOP.

Re: Let Freedom Reign

[aproposofwhat]

Here in the UK, there's currently a debate over whether to allow wiretap evidence in the trials of 'terrorists' for precisely that reason - if the evidence were to be introduced, details of how it was gathered would have to be released to the defence, and the worry is that those details might allow a determined adversary to circumvent the evidence gathering.

How much of this argument is total hooey is left as an exercise for the reader - the fact remains that wiretapping is widespread in the UK, every well organised group knows this and takes appropriate countermeasures, and the only people likely to be incriminated by wiretap evidence are rank amateurs whose chances of a successful attack are minimal.

Re:Republicans and Democrats will do NOTHING.

[Nimey]

People who are willing to violate the Constitution never believed in it anyway.

As Franklin said to a passer-by, "A Republic, if you can keep it."

Re:U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 9

[Jane Q. Public]

You are not correct. A pardon (amnesty) is not "retroactive"!!! It says, in essence, "We acknowledge that a crime has been committed, but we will pardon those who committed it."

Doing it "retroactively", on the other hand, is a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT matter! To pass "retroactive" immunity, a law is passed that says something like, "We declare this activity to be NOT ILLEGAL, and we make this ruling effective as of two years ago." This has an effect similar to a pardon, but it is not the same thing.

Do you understand the distinction? It is subtle but it is a real and very important difference. It is permissible to pardon for a crime that has been committed, but it is NOT permissible to pass a retroactive law. Contrary to what you state, retroactive laws ARE unconstitutional, no matter what they are doing... criminalizing or de-criminalizing.