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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.
The issue of 'wiretapping' the Internet seems to be a bit like gun control. If you make it hard to legally own a gun, you make it harder for innocents to protect themselves from criminals.
Basically, with encryption technology being what it is and open source being what it is, it is possible for those who want to conceal their data from the government. Thus, they will.
So, really, where does this put us?
1) Stupid criminals may get caught.
2) Innocents may get falsely IDed through whatever automated filtering is done on unencrypted traffic.
3) Those that have the foresight to think that they may not want their data to get intercepted will utilize the free, existing encryption tools to protect themselves.
So, basically the people that are actually skilled enough to be dangerous are unaffected by this.
Could the value for the NSA only come in if they specifically targeted a specific suspect host's traffic and applied a lot of processing power to brute forcing the encryption? If that is what they are after, I see value to national security and convicting criminals.
If it is anything else, it seems very misguided. However, there was a lot of money put into Carnivore so who knows.
Technically speaking, the bill doesn't provide for amnesty. What that bill does do is require telcos to provide the letters the Bush administration gave them that said the programs were legal. Essentially, if the telcos can prove that Bush et al. told them this was legal, they get off the hook.
So I suppose if the executive branch told your company it was legal to do anything, you'll never be held accountable for your actions.
That's a pretty dangerous precedent. Why doesn't Bush let our oil companies know it's legal to drill in ANWR? He can give them the CYA letter and off they go.
Don't you think that it might send a bigger message if, for example, Obama could come to the floor with a list and/or recordings of say, 15-20000 phone calls saying that they're switching parties to vote for him because of bullshit legislation like this?
Playing to your own base is one thing. Playing to the enemy by showing you're up in their base, stealing all their votes is quite another -- and that's the sort of show stopper.
Who says you even have to actually be a Republican. Just call and say you're switching parities because of it. Then call your legislator and say the same.
The death of a democracy starts the moment its people no longer care enough to fight against the erosion of civil liberties. Looking back over the years, it's clear that the American people no longer have the will to defend any of the rights that are the cornerstone of this nation and that is really sad, watching an entire civilization slowly commit suicide like that...
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
This vote, the recent one in Sweden, wiretapping, surveillance, censorship; governments across the western world basically totally ignoring long held principles for individual rights and freedoms. They keep doing it, and nothing seems to be able to stop it.
I'm led more and more to the conclusion that our system of democracy isn't working anymore. I don't know why, and I'm pretty sure it did work before. Governments usen't be able to get away with even proposing this nonsense. Whatever we had that worked before doesn't seem to be there anymore.
Don't get me wrong now. I still believe in democracy, at least I think I do. Is the kind I believe in the one we actually have, or ever had? I vote. I see others voting. But I still see a disconnect between the actions of government and the will of the people. What has gone wrong? Is it just my vision that's in error here?
Is the fact that this recent shift occurred contemporaneously with the rise of the internet a coincidence? Is it just fallout from 9/11? Or something more? Is it the media? The corporations? The fall of communism? Globalisation? Or is it just the fact that we have indeed reached true democracy, and the currently evolving system of oppression is in fact what the people truly want?
I think there's a problem with our democracy. Something is broken, and I don't know what it is. The end result is that democracy is not working the way it once did. Maybe I'm just a fool raised on too many fairy tales about the way things should work. I'd like to think that, but I do perceive the shifts in our society, laws, and governments to be very real. Either the west is collectively shifting into some other system of government, or the very concept of democracy is itself undergoing some kind of phase change.
May the Maths Be with you!
Once again, this why I refuse to belong to either party.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
The problem is that people don't care about enough stuff. They see the two party system as the following:
Republican: Low taxes, Pro-life, Anti-free speech, pro-rich, pro-big business, Pro-gun, Religious, Anti-homosexual
Democrat: High taxes, Pro-choice, Less Anti-free speech, pro-average citizen, Anti-gun, Secular, Pro-Healthcare
To so many people, they really only care about 1 issue deeply, and so they vote based on that issue alone, and with two polar opposites it works well to always have a party that supports that one particular issue.
Even I fall partially into this trap (not by supporting because of 1 issue, but rather not supporting and going 3rd party over 1 issue), in that I actually do normally vote for a third party (Libertarian), but I would PROBABLY vote Democrat if they would keep their darned hands off my guns. In truth my preference is that I want a system with the freedom the the Libertarians parade (ie, keep your hands off my guns, end the "war on drugs", leave the prostitutes/johns alone, don't outlaw scientific study like stem cell research, etc), but with more provided social services that the Democrats promise (ie, national healthcare, investment in national communications infrastructure, etc).
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Generally, people only care about liberty when it's their own freedom being directly threatened.
here's my idea on how it could 'hit home':
wiretap a bunch of random people. scan for 'juicy embarassing things' that they are saying. of course (...) make sure its not a national security thing - just find embarassing personal things that people are saying in private.
THEN PUBLISH TRANSCRIPTS. once a day, from some random person, in the newspaper. keep doing it until people SEE THE LIGHT.
eventually people will see that the talk is mostly personal stuff and not at all 'security issues'. at THAT point, they'll finally understand that this is just a power grab to scare and control the population.
but until enough innocent people get caught in the net (heh heh) - nothing will change and our liberties will continue to erode.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Laura at War & Piece has two good question for Pelosi that get to the gist of the issue:
Doesn't that actually endorse and extend to private actors the Nixonian view that if the president says it's legal, it's legal, regardless of what the law says and the Constitution says? Wouldn't that set an awful precedent that an administration could get private actors to do whatever they wanted including breaking the law?
Answers: Yes and yes.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Look. If you want you vote to reflect your personal preference, then vote for whomever you feel like. What I'm saying is that the election system in the US, which awards a seat in a representative body (or executive body) on a winner take all basis.
In those kinds of elections (first past the post), a third party doesn't have a chance to impact major policy unless they represent >30% of the electorate.
It is just a fact of the political system. A proportional representation system would reward third parties but we don't have one of those.
So you guys are all worrying about Bush wiretapping a few conversations so you can sue AT&T, while the government just grabbed all the financial data.
I can't speak for Democrats, particularly since I haven't officially abandoned the smoking wreckage of the Republican party by changing my registration yet. However, since I have been worried about Bush and the evolving disaster of a presidency his administration has inflicted on the nation for the last 8 years, perhaps I'm a suitable proxy.
First off -- how exactly are you privy to the rough number of conversations the administration had wiretapped? What exactly is "a few"? 10? 100? A million (still just a fraction of a percent of Americans)?
Second -- what makes you think it's wiretapping in general people are averse to? I certainly don't have a problem with wiretapping done in accordance with the law. But see, that's not what we're talking about here. Otherwise, we wouldn't even be discussing immunity.
Third -- what makes you think the same people who are nervous about "extralegal" wiretapping wouldn't be nervous about the IRS having access to all payment data? Not that this is the same thing as handing stuff over to, say, the CIA, but I suspect your implication is a false dichotomy. It *does* make me worry if the state's asking for blanket access to financial transaction records without a warrant.
So I do appreciate the notice, really. Just not sure why you had to throw in the non-sequitur conclusions. Though by all means, if you have conclusive evidence about the number of illegal wiretaps, a general allergy to well-overseen and legal wiretaps, or that most people who are worried about wiretaps don't care about your news once informed, by all means, feel free to present it.
Tweet, tweet.
Actually, we did. It was over turned with a Constitutional Ammendment, which limited the total number of US Reps to the number we have today.
Originally it was one rep per 30,000 people. Currently the reps represent over 20 times that number. I'd wager that we had the number of reps needed to provide 30K to 1 representation we'd have more parties.
Additionally the Constitution provides that each State sets the rules for setting the Elector for President. The States have decided winner take all, but it doesn't have to be that way. Again, I can assure you that if we had 30K + 2 (senators) to 1 ratio, and states gave proportional or even by district electors, we'd have more parties.
But as it is, the parties (D) and (R) have joined together to limit this by the rules put into place by the legislatures of the various states.
It is this limitation which prevents third parties, and if I were to file a suit, would be the basis for my lawsuit; that the (D) and (R) parties have formed an illegal cartel to prevent third parties from succeeding.
The best and only way to fix this, is to kick out the (D) and (R) people from State Legislatures by voting third party people into office, or by ballot initiative to change the State Constitution / Laws regarding Electors for President.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I wonder if Dodd's "I will fillibuster any telecom immunity" is still valid - or if that was just during the election cycle.
Your vote is never a throw away vote, even if it's for a third party.
No, your vote is *always* a throwaway *unless* you vote for a third party.
Only with a third party is worthwhile change possible. Voting either of the two major parties is saying that the worst excesses of either are what you want to see more of.
Third parties face huge barriers to entry due to a collection of factors. The first cut: a lot of intelligent folks simply stay away from politics in the first place due to these and other issues. The second cut: those interested in pursuing all but the most minor political positions really must be career-minded the way things work today. To have a viable career, this pretty much means running with one of the two major parties. (Head of snake, meet tail.) The third cut: unfortunately, many of the folks left after the first two cuts seem to be wholly unelectable. As in, if you read their platforms in detail, you realize that they're fscking nuts. At best, they are well-meaning but lack requisite insight into human nature and/or the real-world ramifications of their lofty ideas. At worst, they're really nuts: spouting off about eliminating UFO influence on our toaster ovens and the like. (My state's voter pre-election voter pamphlets occasionally offer excellent comic-relief while researching candidate backgrounds.)
The more interesting question is why candidates in the "second cut" above don't rally around a third party. Part of the reason is simple: virtually none of the USA voting districts use a ranking-based system of election, such as IRV or Condorcet. This provides a barrier to entry most notably seen in the 2004 US Presidential election as the "Nader effect". Nader was never a viable candidate to win, so many voters felt they were forced to choose between "voting their conscience" and "voting for the lesser evil." The real effects are much deeper, however. An excellent third-party or independent candidate might win an election in such a system by garnering a lot of first and second place votes from voters across the spectrum. The effect could be rather de-polarizing, and would allow a foot in the door for new parties.
Now all of this neglects other serious issues, such as campaign funding and media influence and coverage. Third-parties have an additional barrier in the form of achieving sufficient fund-raising to win a campaign, and achieving media backing. As sad as it sounds, it is absolutely necessary today to get the word out and successfully market a candidate to the people in order to win a contested election. This can require large to massive amounts of money... and the strings that go along with that.
Media outlets get to further warp the funding/marketing issues by providing whatever balance and bias of coverage they want. Whether through carelessness, explicit bias, or even implicit biases, mass-media has come to have an astonishing effect on distorting our democratic processes. Not garnering media support can leave a campaign dead in the water. As a simple example, consider the viability of a candidate for any high-level office with a platform of serious media ownership reform. I have trouble imagining that getting very far.
I called Melissa Bean's office a few minutes ago, and gave the poor lad who answered the phone a very impassioned reading of the reasons I believe this bill should be voted down.
The very nice, sympathetic young man mentioned that he's been getting an avalanche of calls like mine since the news of this congressional "compromise" broke.
The bill may well pass tomorrow, but not because the people who represent us didn't hear our opinions.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Better yet, start going through, and publishing the contents of, politicians' garbage. There's a ton of precedent now that people's trash on city streets is not protected private property anymore, let's see how some mayors and police chiefs like having the contents of their fridge, or unshredded paperwork disclosed.
In fact, someone already beat me to it:
http://cryptome.org/tia-brass.htm
Causation can cause correlation
Damn I had to no idea he was such an anti-gun nutjob until I read his Wikipedia page. I wasn't going to vote for him anyways due to his big-government predilections but he is really out there.
For all the "change" he claims to promote, he rarely seems to toe the Dem party line pretty well on the big issues. He's created this straw man of the typical politician, but I don't recall any of them coming out and admitting that they like lobbyists, soft money, backsliding, etc. How am I supposed to believe that he's different when his positions on the things that are easier to call him on are so typical?
If you really want to make an impression don't email it, they see an email and think that someone just copy and pasted and emailed, not very highly motivated.
Ideally would be to hand write your message and snail mail it. Unluckily they have a workaround in place against this (vote is tomorrow).
Take your hand written letter and FAX it to your representative, ideally from home but if you don't have a modem or fax machine there used to be lots of fax gateways on the net. Hopefully they are still there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
All I know is that we just had a 5-4 supreme court vote in favor of law and order. If McCain won, that balance will probably tilt into 4-5 hell. I know Obama would appoint someone that favors the rule of law. The fact that he's much more pro-civil rights is just sweet icing on the cake. I'm willing to just say fuck it when it comes to health care. I oppose national health care, but I care a lot more about civil rights. And, since any Republican is going to outspend any Democrat, it seems that the money might as well go to health care.
Cow Cube