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New FISA Bill Would Grant Telcoms Immunity; Vote Is Tomorrow
An anonymous reader writes "This just in: a new 'compromise' FISA Bill (PDF) was just made public, which, the Electronic Frontier Foundation reports, 'contains blanket immunity for telecoms that helped the NSA break the law and spy on millions of ordinary Americans.' The House vote is tomorrow, June 20. After all the secret rooms and everything ... if they get immunity and the public never finds out what happened, the only other logical next step is to convince everyone I know not to get an iPhone." CNN covers this get-out-of-lawsuit play as well.
At least this vote will make it painfully clear which politicians should stay and which should be removed post-haste.
correct - people who realize what's going on are already freaking out.
the politicians either know what they're doing (and full well know its ethically WRONG); or they are kept out of the loop and lied to.
the ONLY way laws like this will get overturned is when it 'hits home' with someone in a position of power. and enough times to really make the news and make people think 'hmmm, this has some implications to NON terrorist people'.
if some person in power were to have THEIR emails and phonecalls tapped and some juicy bits were to leak out, maybe THEN people would take notice that swinging an axe around will sooner or later start harming innocent people.
privacy is like air (or it should be): air is a right to ALL human beings, even the evil ones. I wish privacy was valued as much as the things that physically keep us alive.
but as usual, society is decades behind when it comes to finding ETHICAL uses for technology.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Don't worry about breaking the law. As Nixon said, "If the President does it, it's legal."
In my ideal world, the people who make and enforce the rules would be held to a higher standard than the proles who merely have to follow the rules. It's bad enough when the infraction is minor like a cop doing 20 over the speed limit but when we're talking about the crimes committed in this case, it's the sort of thing that erodes faith in our very society.
I know there are people who say that there shouldn't be trials after Obama is elected, that it would be divisive and bad for the nation. Those people can kindly go fuck themselves. That same logic was used to praise Ford for not investigating Nixon. That same logic was used to praise Clinton for not seriously investigating the scandals of the Reagan and Bush administrations. All this did was let the same shit-weasels get back into positions of power the next time a Republican slithered into office. No. As a nation, we need hearings, we need trials. Bush and his henchmen need to answer for their crimes. A standard needs to be set in stone: we are a nation of laws, not men, and no man is above the law. Even Presidents will be forced to account for their actions and pay for their sins.
This will be part of our process for reengaging with the world. We've burned a shitload of bridges over the past eight years. When everyone can see an American President sitting in jail for his crimes, they'll know that justice has returned.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
their direct freedoms ARE being threatened, but they are more concerned by Jamie Lynn Spears's new baby than boring things like 'civil liberties'.
Media has replaced religion as the new opiate of the masses.
No -- they care when its their freedom to:
1) own guns
2) have abortions
3) ban guns
4) ban abortions
5) have a gay marraige
6) ban a gay marriage
nothing else is going to active a critical mass of loud people to form a permanent bloc in the legislature.
At least not in America. But hey, at least this time the politicos can say "but Sweeden is doing it, too!"
the actual discussion should be covering calls between an American citizen and someone on a watch list who NEEDS his calls tapped
If someone NEEDS his calls tapped, law enforcement can get a warrant. That's how it's supposed to work here.
Stop fearing the terrorists; they want you to be afraid, but they're toothless. Bush's senseless war in Iraq has killed more Amerricans than all the terrorists this century. Meanwile ten times as many people die every year on American highways. IMO anybody who drives an SUV needs to be on a watch list and have his phone tapped; (s)he's far more of a danger to me than any Muslim terrorist.
And some of that "homeland security" money needs to go to guard rails!
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
It's actually a lot worse than you think it is. They run polling to see which issues are important to a persons constituents. They also factor in who is in a tight campaign and who is safe. And then they decide among themselves who will vote for or against a measure.
The most recent example I can think of this happening was the war appropriations bill. The Democratic Party wanted to pass the bill. But they made sure that Hillery and Obama were set to vote near the end, so that they could vote against the measure.
You have to vote both these parties out if you want to get rid of this stuff. Not just the candidates that voted for this bill.
This law is an Ex Post Facto law, making what was an illegal act legal, so if this law passes, it should be unconstitutional as per Article 1 Section 9 of the Constitution.
Note that judges have somehow taken that "No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed." sentence to mean that ex post facto laws that make the punishment worse are unconstitutional, but that isn't what the constitution says. Maybe that is one of those hidden things like in amendment 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
"Wait, what? What does wiretapping have to do with meatballs and massage? This guy is making my head hurt, that's it! I'm gonna vote for the guy who doesn't make me feel stupid."
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I just called my congresswoman. I spent about 10 minutes speaking to her staffer and then her, letting them know that I opposed the new "compromise" bill.
Mentioning that I served 42 months in Iraq/Afghanistan probably got me the "in" to talk to her, but every voice needs to be heard.
Yeah, but I just wrote to my representative now that I saw this. So it does do something: To The Honorable Peter T. King: It has come to my attention that once again telecom immunity has reared its ugly head in a bill authored in the House of Representatives. As my representative in the United States Congress I must request that you oppose this bill. Immunity for corporate entities who cooperated with federal officials to break the law is not acceptable. In America, we hold criminals accountable, whether they are businessmen, military men, government officials, or law enforcement officers. FISA courts have time and time again proven themselves to be adequately expedient and sagacious in its role protecting Americans-- both from external threats and from threats against their rights. I implore that you cut through the rhetoric of a more "safe" America and instead continue to ensure there is an America worth protecting-- one which treats all its citizens as equal under the law and respects their rights to privacy.
The issue is that as soon as they took the program out from under the supervision of the FISA court it became nearly impossible for anyone to figure out who they were spying on or how sweeping and abusive the program became. It doesn't really matter if they were only listening to calls of foreign nationals, once they bypassed the courts they could spy on anyone they felt like and probably did. They violated the Constitution by spying on people without a warrant, period. When you let your government spy on you without court supervision, its really easy for your government to collect dirt on opponents to discredit and blackmail them, to snuff out dissent, to win elections, and then your representative Democracy is pretty much gone. We've been there before. Nixon and Hoover very nearly destroyed our Republic in the 60's and 70's which is why FISA was created.
By circumventing FISA the Bush administration was turning the clock back to a time when our government was abusively spying on people for no good reason. Since abuse was happening before FISA was created chances are its occurring now that FISA has been gutted. Chances are its even worse this time around since digital communications and computers make it possible to eavesdrop on a much larger scale than you could in 1968. Back then agents actually had to listen to and read everything. Now computers can sift through everything and kick out every email or phone call which has a keyword of interest.
I'm not sure I'm really that concerned about granting immunity to the telecoms. When the NSA and the President told them to do it, it took extraordinary balls to say no. Qwest did and their CEO ended up in prison partially because of his refusal to play ball with them. Qwest lost a big classified government contract because of their refusal to participate, their stock tanked and their CEO was charged for misleading shareholders because he couldn't talk about all this classified blackmail.
I'd be glad to let the telecoms go, as long as the people in the government who told them to do it go to jail, the people at the not, not the people in the middle or at the bottom. Throwing the telecoms in jails is about like throwing the privates in Abu Graib in jail. Its become clear the torture they were doing at Abu Graib and Gitmo was ordered by the highest levels of the Bush administration, especially Cheney and Addington. They should be going to jail, not the flunkies who did what their government ordered them to do in the panic post 9/11.
@de_machina
Your FISA court allows a warrant to be obtained after the wiretaps. They have three days to get the warrant after the tap is in place.
So if there's a dire emergency, they can tap immediately then get a warrant later. The rule of law still applies to these emergency wiretaps. That's a good thing.
The only reason to grant immunity retroactively then forbid investigation is that some illegal wiretapping went on and someone doesn't want you to find out what it was.
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ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
The big problem is not that it grants them immunity, it's that in doing so it blocks an investigation into what the Government was doing. Which of course is WHY the bill is granting them that immunity.
Perhaps you didn't notice... The democrats agreed to pass the bill too. You see, we already voted the republicans out. It accomplished nothing.
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