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Telecom Immunity Bill Hides Spying Provisions
Corrupt notes an Ars analysis of the FISA bill of which the telecom immunity provision has been getting all the attention. Timothy B. Lee enumerates the ways in which the bill loosens current protections on domestic wiretapping and opens up whole new areas to government eavesdropping. "The legislation eliminates meaningful judicial oversight of eavesdropping between American citizens and foreigners located overseas, and effectively legalizes dragnet surveillance of domestic-to-foreign traffic. It stretches out the judicial review process so much that the government will in many cases be able to complete its surveillance activities before the courts finish deciding on its legality."
More murders are committed every year on American soil than all the American terrorist deaths in the 21st century. The difference between terrorism and ordinary murder is the intended victim - politicians.
It wasn't the world trade center or even the Pentagon that created the hysteria over terrorists. It was the plane that didn't make it out of Pennsylvania, the one aimed at Congress.
My government is run by cowards.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
What do we have to be so darned worried about? It's not like the President would compile an "Enemies List" of people to wiretap, or something. This is America, right?
oh crap
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Is it just me, or does anyone else remember how in the 80s we were always being told that the Russian government (oooh, these evil Ruskies!) spied on their people and that the US was above that sort of behavior? And is it any surprise that it's essentially the same people in power now who are FOR this sort of governmental behavior? I guess as long as they got a boogeyman somewhere......
Who says it ever gets to the courts?
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
When would the courts decide this? You are implying that there would be a trial.
Liberty you never use is liberty you lose.
If people don't start swamping their representatives with letters, calls and e-mails telling them to strangle this evil piece of legislation in its cradle, a lot of the things that make the United States a place worth living in will start sliding away.
Bin Laden must be laughing himself sick. One terrorist act that kills fewer people than died every single day during WWII, and the US starts throwing the rights and freedoms its heroes bled and died for down the nearest toilet...with enthusiastic applause from hysterical soccer moms and authority-worshiping lackwits.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
When I was in school I learned that our government is a system of Checks And Balances. What the article is telling me is that the Telcom bill is removing all of that as unnecessary.
We are Dead Stars looking back Up at the Sky
You're missing the point. The oversight process in this bill permits spying to take place for thirty days to four months before being forced to stop. The govt can spy for thirty days (plus the 1 week before submission of certification) even if judicial oversight rejects their case the moment it is presented.
The timeline assuming the agency's goal is maximizing the spying time:
0 day - spying begins without any preamble
1 week - Gov must submit certification for review
1-30 days + 1 week - judge must returns review
if judge objects
30 days after review- the govt must stop spying
unless they appeal to FISA
then they could have another 30 days
If the judges and courts have full queues that could push the whole thing to four months.
Assuming it gets rejected they presumably (IANAL) cannot use the evidence in court. Nonetheless they were legally empowered to look through your internet/telephone underwear drawer for over a month. How are you feeling about your 4th amendment rights now?
The article goes on to describe how the constraints make this law very easily abused to include spying upon americans for a wide variety of pretexts. That is the other half of the problem.
This is a terrible law even if you ignore autocracy being implemented by the telecom amnesty provisions.
That's something that scares me about Obama. He seems to be capable of doing no evil, according to many of his supporters. When some negative aspect regarding him is brought up, it is simply dismissed without regard. Which, in some sense, is reminiscent of Bush and his supporters. I'm not saying Obama is or will be as atrocious as G.W.(I pray to zombie-jesus that no president during the rest of my lifetime will be as bad as W). I'd just like to point out that we shouldn't exempt Obama from the scrutiny and skepticism that should always be employed.
Here's an interesting stat, everybody tends to like (tolerate) their Senator and Congress Critter, however Congress and Senate have about a 12% overall approval rating.
These numbers really don't make sense, not at all. Each congress critter / senator is part of the whole and thus part of the problem for everyone who isn't part of that 12%.
FISA is just a symptom of the problem of overly complex and burdensome legislation. I'm sure there is SOME part of FISA that you (everyone) would agree is okay perhaps even needed, however that is over shadowed by all the parts that you (everyone) don't like, hate, despise or whatever.
Which is why, almost overwhelmingly, we don't like FISA as a whole. The process sucks, because just enough people like each part to get it included into the whole, but the whole is untenable.
This directly mirrors our view of congress, we like the part we voted for, but no the aggregate whole.
Personally, I'd like to see a new Constitutional Ammendment that every 8 to 16 years, the nation as a whole votes on all the congress critters and senators as an aggregate group, Yes / No. And if they get a "NO" then they (the aggregate whole lot) can never run for any office ever again (not even honorary town dog catcher), and lose whatever pension they might have coming.
It is time to clear out the deadwood.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
There is a group on facebook to lobby Senator Obama and follow-up groups to lobby every Senator individually:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=17961184023
Groups for Minnesota Senators Klobuchar and Coleman:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=17065979228
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=18283117073
You are assuming the evidence is being used against you. As it turns out, if the cops illegally search you, and find evidence of wrongdoing on the part of someone else, that other person has no grounds to appeal the illegality of the search. Nor, unsurprisingly, do you have grounds to object to the search - the recourse for an illegal search is that the results cannot be used against you. Thus, you have no recourse if they're going after someone else.
Note that this is a double-edged blade; if they find something searching someone else's stuff on you, you have no recourse. Before this legislation the evidence could be thrown out because the telecom tap was illegal. Now, it's not.
[Ego]out