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New "JUSTICE" Act Could Roll Back Telecom Immunity
Asmodae writes to tell us about a bill proposed in Congress that could roll back telecom retroactive immunity along with adding other privacy safeguards. The "Judicious Use of Surveillance Tools in Counter-Terrorism Efforts" (JUSTICE) Act advocates the "least intrusive means" of information collection and imposes many limitations on the process. "One of the most significant aspects of the JUSTICE Act is that it will remove the retroactive immunity grants that were given to the telecom companies that participated in the NSA warrantless surveillance program. The companies that cooperated with the surveillance program likely violated several laws, including section 222 of the Communications Act, which prohibits disclosure of network customer information. The immunity grants have prevented the telecommunications companies that voluntarily participated in this program from being held accountable in court."
JUSTICE!? I want JUSTICE!!
I guess lawmakers are like Slashdotters who only read the headline.
this is going to end well. I really hope that the crazy right wing are too tied up with healthcare reform to figure out that another one of their favorite intrusions into civil liberties is about to be abolished.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Fuckin' A baby!
While they are watchin' your hands, Kick'em in the Nads!
Finally, an acronym that might be completely the opposite of what it stands for.
hate to suggest it, but aren't retroactive laws mostly unconstitutional? I realize this is simply putting the punishments back into place that were in place when the acts were committed. They can remove the immunity that was inacted to block the EFF's civil lawsuits, but thinking they could be held criminally liable again my just be wishful thinking.
Remember the names Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) come election time. They seem to be some of the good guys, but they didn't find a republic to co-sign the bill, so this has little chance to go anywhere.
The real Sig captains the Northwestern. This one captains
However the constitutional protection against ex-post-facto laws would keep those companies from being charged with what they did in the past I would think. Or not, IANAL
Their guy got elected president, but has said that he doesn't support legislation like this. In many ways, Obama is only slightly different than Bush. This is fodder for rabid supporters, but doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of actually passing.
It's also a damned stupid thing for them to do, because pandering to the fringe here only further hampers their party's electoral chances next year.
But, it's all good, I suppose, because the Administration's actions on the possible prosecution of government employees (CIA) sends the signal. Being hellbent for vengeance makes for an awfully short political future. In this case, it'll likely be for the President.
I don't see how that's going to be in the bill when and if it's passed. Obama made it abundantly clear his choice was to "move on", and the Democrats don't quite have the numbers they need to push that through, or the desire. Perhaps it's just a negotiating ploy to get something else out of the right.
Bruce Perens.
So the Department of Homeland Security rolls up in the black SUVs with guns and says "Give us what we want or we will shut you down" to AT&T, Sprint, Verizon etc...So they cooperate and give the government what they want (whether they like it or not since the alternative is being forced to close). Now the government, albeit with different elected officials, comes back years later and says, "we are going to investigate and possibly prosecute you for cooperating"? Can someone please explain why that is even remotely fair to the telecoms?
Do legislators even bother reading the Constitution any more?
It was illegal when you first passed telco immunity because it was an Amnesty law.
Now to make a law repealing it would be an ex post facto violation.
Good work guys, soon the Constitution will only be suitable as toilet paper (just like my 401k).
Seriously, can't people just get over this? The companies did what they did at the request of the government. It's done. Going back to punish them will not resolve a single thing. It's purely vindictive.
What needs to be done is to write a clear and concise law that tells them they absolutely can not do so again, no matter which government agency makes the request. The law should also make it clear and provide for sanctions for any government agency making such requests in the future.
The ones that started the problem, from workers of the NSA all up to G.W.Bush, passing for all in the congress that voted for that law, are accountable in any way for that privacy violations?
Probably those telcos aren't exactly saints, but here the blame is put in the wrong target.
...does every single freaking US law have to have an acronym that is readable, or is that just BS? TD
Todd: I hope it proves as delicious as the farmers that grew them
How about we stop worrying so much about prosecuting the people complying with the demands until we get to the people who were behind the demands?
Ex post facto is about changing the legality of actions taken in the past, relative to their legality when the action was taken.
At the time the actions in question were taken, they were illegal. After this bill is passed, they will be equally illegal. That there was some interim period in which that legality was changed due to an actual ex post facto law does not affect the constitutionality of this law. Nullifying an ex post facto law isn't itself ex post facto.
To use a Van Damme analogy, Time Cop isn't breaking his own rules against changing the timeline when he restores the time line after someone screws with it.
The enemies of Democracy are
Obama initially opposed the retroactive immunity bill, but switched his stance before the vote (and received contributions from the telcos for it, just like all the flip-flopping congressmen did).
Having been bought, he won't risk buring any important bridges by biting the hand that fed him. Expect him to veto this bill (if it ever gets to his desk, which it probably won't, for the same reason given above).
Take off every constitution
You know what you doing
Move constitution
For great justice
I have to wonder if the telcos overheard something compromising and that's why Obama flipped.
Follow the money. The telecommunications companies have billions. Trial lawyers are parasites and they go after healthy hosts.
If you really believe that the left is less intrusive of civil liberties than the right, you just don't have enough experience with the left. Or you're willfully ignoring it. They just usually attack different civil liberties than (some of) the right attacks, but you can bet your bottom dollar that once they have their highest priorities taken care of, they'll go after the rest. One of the first to go will be - no surprise - freedom to dissent. That's neither particularly left nor right, governments of all stripes tend to dislike criticism and will suppress it if they can, by any means they can.
Don't believe any of that? Try living and working in a communist country for a while. It'll open your eyes.
If you really believe that the left is less intrusive of civil liberties than the right, you just don't have enough experience with the left. Or you're willfully ignoring it. They just usually attack different civil liberties than (some of) the right attacks, but you can bet your bottom dollar that once they have their highest priorities taken care of, they'll go after the rest. One of the first to go will be - no surprise - freedom to dissent. That's neither particularly left nor right, governments of all stripes tend to dislike criticism and will suppress it if they can, by any means they can.
Don't believe any of that? Try living and working in a communist country for a while. It'll open your eyes.
Having seen serious combat in many countries and *gagged* by the official secrets act there are some things I would like to post anonymously but am afraid slashdot would get a subpoena for my details so it makes no difference anon or not. Therefore I am going to jump in and tell you what has been occuring at GCHQ http://www.gchq.gov.uk/ because no matter what I do or say on slashdot, I am pretty high up on the radar and my phone calls have been monitored too as I am trained in counter-espionage and ISTAR. Despite what the government tells you, it is easy to end up on a database as a threat or just for speaking your mind. There are secret files held on people and it does not matter whether you use the "Freedom of Information Act" you will never get access to those files. Wiretapping is redundant and "deep packet inspection" has been used by GCHQ for as long as I can remember with my career in the Mil going back to 1985 even on nix SLIP accounts. GCHQ have had the abilitiy to triangulate you using your Mobile/Cell phone since 1992! All your civil liberties are eroded beyond belief. Sorry if I rant too much but my reply to the topic is putting out an Amnesty and then after all the info-gathering getting punished. Remember all governments will and can change their minds without contridicting themselves. I say power to the people.
All cows eat grass!
They seem to be some of the good guys, but they didn't find a republic to co-sign the bill, so this has little chance to go anywhere.
Reply to This
It's insane to blame Republicans for not being able to pass a bill when the Democrats have a filibuster proof majority, AND a Democrat in the white house!
Republicans might help but if it does not pass it's just as much on the Democrats as the Republicans.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Having all these bills with names like "USA-PATRIOT" and "JUSTICE" (and a few I can't remember offhand) does sound rather Orwellian. If Britain is "sleepwalking into 1984", then the US seems to be racing towards it as fast as possible...
Telecos usually have EULA's that say voice and data services cannot be used for illegal activities, and are suspect to monitoring for such activities. The Police, FBI, etc usually have a "reasonable cause" loophole that makes it so that they can bypass a warrant if they think someone is doing something illegal and there is no time for a warrant to get issued.
The problem is that when a warrant is served there is usually a leak in the government that tells the suspect that they are being monitored and they change their activity to avoid being arrested, this is corruption in our government.
I would like to see how this impacts the MPAA and RIAA cases where Telcos handed over IP ownership information from people who had IP addresses the MPAA and RIAA accused of piracy via file sharing. Maybe they won't be able to voluntarily hand that information out anymore without a warrant.
What needs to be done is the Patriot Act needs to be repealed and replaced with one that is Constitutional and keeps the suspect's rights and allows warrants to be issued faster to prevent them from being tipped off.
Right now the current system accesses voice call and Internet data and then does a keyword scan for trigger words and then logs the data. It isn't wiretapping everyone, but accesses the database and pulls up suspect data going to foreign telephones and IP addresses of known terrorist network ownership. I am sure there are false positives when people are joking around with bomb jokes and the like as well, so innocents are getting wiretapped as well as the guilty.
But getting back to the EULA, can an EULA violate the Constitution or any law? That is a good one, because if it cannot then any EULA can be found Unconstitutional and thus invalid. If someone breaks the Telco's EULA for voice or data does that give the Telco the right to have the government wiretap them or is a warrant still needed?
So far there haven't been any terrorist attacks on the USA main states since 9/11, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the warentless wiretappings have stopped it. There could be other factors like a better intelligence system, undercover agents, or people reporting suspicious activity leading to followups and investigations.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
So what you can't pass is an ex post facto law. What that means is you can't have something that is legal, change it to be illegal, and then prosecute people who did it before it was illegal. So take MDMA as an example. When it was first created, there was nothing illegal about it. The US is basically a "legal by default" nation, if there isn't a law saying you can't do something, you can. So when it was made creating, possessing, and using it were fine. It was then made a scheduled substance and outlawed. Ok, well after that, if you used it you could get in trouble. However had you used it before, you were fine, it wasn't illegal then, and they can't retroactively make it illegal.
Well in this case, it would appear as if the telecoms broke laws that already were on the books. What they did was illegal when they did it. The government then said "We are giving you immunity for you you did." They didn't repeal the laws, nor did new laws make it illegal, it was just that they said you weren't going to be gone after for this specific incident.
So changing their mind on that doesn't run afoul of the ex post facto law provision near as I can tell. What they did was illegal when they did it, and has remained so. The government just tried to give them a pass in that one incident.
So where are the trolls who slagged Obama off after he didn't vote against the immunity bill ?
Nothing to say ?
Someone else lazily, and deliberately, equates "the progressive Left" with "those who would install Communism in America".
What an anachronistic piece of buffoonery, all too familiar from the lunatic fringe of the Right.
Can't you keep on-message? One year it's Terrorism is the Ultimate Enemy of Civilisation and Freedom. Now in 2009 we're, laughably, back to the Red Menace. What's it going to be next year? The Moors? Oh right. It's always open season on the Moors...
Now if you can just find sleeper cells of Arab Communists you'll be in freaking Wingnut Heaven. Stay tuned to FOX folks, you heard it here first.
you had me at #!
0%
The executive branch *does* have the power to break the law.
So do I.
So do you.
I think what you meant is that they are not exempt from observing it.
Sometimes the executive branch argues that a specific law allows an exemption for their actions.
That argument is either supported or not, before the fact or after.
Reasonable people can disagree about whether or not emergent circumstances justify an exemption.
In the face of an actual terrorist threat - say, a confirmed dirty bomb in a populated area - it would be perfectly reasonable to most people to take extreme actions to prevent catastrophe.
In such a case, I can readily see where laws against torture and mayhem would be determined by a jury to be not applicable in those specific circumstances.
It's risky to rely on jury nullification though, and that's way those in power try to bolster their case through legal gymnastics so they don't have to roll those dice.
It would take criminal charges, which requires that 12 jurors agree on a guilty verdict.
Given that it's a nonviolent offense, and that revoked immunity rankles a lot of people just as much as the violations, it's a non starter.
Even with a guilty verdict in a criminal trial, Obama would likely simply issue an order of clemency.
...parent informative. Ex Post Facto law is prosecuting someone for a crime that was not a crime at the time it was commited, like they did to David Hicks.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
The democrats are finally on the right track. BUT, offer the telcos immunity if and only if they will give up ALL THE INFORMATION OF WHO they dealt with and what information was given. If they are caught hiding any of this then have everybody in that company all the way to the CEO do a LOT OF TIME. More importantly, some telcos that were claiming that they did not participate needs to be re-examined. Ever wonder why ATT, Verizon, AND QWEST got a large gov. contract? Do you REALLY think that Qwest would be part of that if they had told W's admin to go f. itself?
Very important that dems track where information is gathered and where it went to. Look, having the NSA experts gather info on everybody is not a bit deal. The problem is that the patriot act said that the info was to be given. Find out what info was given and to whom. That is where you will find many civil liberties smashed.
Finally, the dems need to look at how secure things are. For starters, Qwest and Verizon are sending lots of coding out of the country. Not a problem, it all goes to India, right? Bunches do, but they BOTH USE Hong Kong and I am told that some of Qwest is using regular China heavily. Amazingly, Qwest has some of our supposedly secured federal lines being managed by Hong Kong (possibly China). This is a quiet secret. And I doubt that the feds know this.
W's admin SPOKE about security, but even reagan never sold us out as much as W did.
/.
I wonder if it occurred to the telecom execs that the word "retroactive" could easily be applied again, and possibly not to their advantage. Spineless weasels to a man, except for the US West guy who told the feds to take a hike.
What does the fourth amendment have to do with whether or not the telcos broke the law?
One question: in which country was that spy Valerie Plame, when her own government betrayed her by publicising her name? Was she in Saudi Arabia at the time? What do they do to spies there?
Feingold if you ask me is the "only" legislator that honors the constitution he always has my vote.
Got Code?
My father was a prosecutor for over 20 years, and defense attorney for 15 years. He told me that in all of his years as a State attorney he never seen a warrant request by the police not granted. The only ones judges declined to sign where the ones he convinced the judge that the he did not believe the police had sufficient reason for a warrant.
So everyone that believes simply having judicial review of a warrant is somehow making you safe from state intrusion is living in constitutional fantasy land.
Living in Chile
If you walked into a government office, and an official asked you to kneel down and fellate him, would you?
What if he said it was a legal request, happens all the time, sorry you didn't read the memo posted on the door when you entered?
Would you at least ask to get an independent lawyer's opinion? I would. Most businesses would. In fact, I believe there were several companies which either initially or completely refused to hand over information with just a letter. Other companies just said oh sure no problem, here's everything you could want.
Full text of the JUSTICE Act at http://www.eff.org/files/HEN09874.pdf or http://www.juliansanchez.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/JUSTICEAct.pdf
EFF's) blog post on the bill http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/09/eff-supports-justice
Feingold's press release http://feingold.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=317927
My Dailykos diary http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/9/17/19226/5990
Facebook "Pass the JUSTICE ACT" group http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=134538932549
Ben Masel: 51,282 votes for US Senate in the Wisconsin Democratic Primary
It never hurts.
Senator XXXXX,
Several fellow democratic Senators have introduced legislation titled the JUSTICE ACT. The JUSTICE ACT would introduce stronger safeguards and higher standards of judicial oversight for surveillance activity. It aims to reform the most abusive characteristics of the PATRIOT Act and would also roll back a controversial provision of the FISA Amendment Act that granted telecom companies retroactive immunity for their participation in the Bush administration's extralegal warrantless surveillance program.
The proposal is broadly endorsed by privacy advocates and civil liberties groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Senator Feingold says that the goal of the act is to ensure that surveillance and intelligence-gathering activities are properly empowered while guaranteeing that rights are respected and investigative privileges are not misused.
As a voting constituent I urge you to publicly display your support for this act. Give Senator Feingold a call at (202)-224-5323 and tell him you have his support. Please get in front of the camera and promote this bill.
There will be opposition from the right but we have the majority to make this happen. Please respond telling me whether you're FOR or AGAINST this act. If you're against please explain why. Thank you.