Slashdot Mirror
ACLU Files Lawsuit Challenging FISA
Wired's Threat Level blog reports that the American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit contesting the constitutionality of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Recently passed by both the House and Senate, FISA was signed into law on Thursday by President Bush. The ACLU has fought aspects of FISA in the past. The new complaint (PDF) alleges the following:
"The law challenged here supplies none of the safeguards that the Constitution demands. It permits the government to monitor the communications of U.S. Citizens and residents without identifying the people to be surveilled; without specifying the facilities, places, premises, or property to be monitored; without observing meaningful limitations on the retention, analysis, and dissemination of acquired information; without obtaining individualized warrants based on criminal or foreign intelligence probable cause; and, indeed, without even making prior administrative determinations that the targets of surveillance are foreign agents or connected in any way, however tenuously, to terrorism."
but the aclu will fail as always
Fail as always? What are you smoking? They frequently win. Don't forget their former solicitor general is on the supreme court.
ACLU already listed the plantiffs in their case. Let's not forget, the only reason for FISA was because the ACLU has already won, warrantless wiretapping is illegal.
There is still a way to change this through the democratic system. But it requires people to actively vote for independent candidates; and to actively research the people running for office. Instead of thinking that you can only vote for democrats or republican. There are other parties out there, they are small, but if people are able to disengage themselves from the dogma of the two party system; perhaps things can change.
The Long Now Foundation
...and PROTECT AND DEFEND our rights?
There, fixed that for you.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
"The only option at this point is to begin militant action against our failed government institution."
Isn't voting for Libertarian Bob Barr an option?
Well, if civil liberties are your priority, then I don't know if Bob Barr is your guy. Consider:
His support for the Patriot Act, his attacks on reproductive rights of women, his support for a constitutional ban on the rights of gay couples to marry, his support for banning adoption of children by gay parents, his restriction of freedom of speech and expression with respect to the US flag, his redefinition of habeas corpus to exclude death row appealates, his opposition to medical marijuana programs...
Bob Barr seems much more like an ideological conservative than a true libertarian to me.
Bob Barr on the Issues
There is still a way to change this through the democratic system. But it requires people to actively vote for independent candidates; and to actively research the people running for office.
Obama was a civil rights lawyer and a Constitutional Law professor.
He was against this Telecom law.
Based on credentials, if anyone should have voted against such a blatantly unconstitutional law, it should have been Obama. After that vote, he can DIAF for all I care.
Change does not require actively voting for independent candidates, or researching the people running for office. It requires the people running for (and in) office to do what they said they'll do.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
FISA was passed back in 1978 after the Nixon abuses. This bill, the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, sought to legitimize the President's warrantless wiretapping program that was illegal under FISA - because that's what FISA was designed to prevent! President Nixon did the exact same thing this administration is getting away with. I guess Congress actually had the balls to rein in abuses of power back in the seventies, even with the Cold War, the Soviet Union, and the possibility of nuclear annihilation hanging over them.
It appears that Congress today has turned into a gaggle of cowards.
If you'd been paying attention over the last couple of years, you'd know that Posse Comitatus will be changed at the drop of a hat. Yes, the change was repealed - but it will be passed again as soon as there's a compelling "national emergency."
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
I hate to burst any patriotic shaped bubbles on this, but without the help of the French Navy eliminating the power of the British fleet and providing blockades and needed sea power (not to mention significant troop support), our guerrilla war may have ended a bit differently.