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Senate To Reconsider Wiretap Immunity
bughunter passes on a report from Wired Threat Level about the effort by Democratic lawmakers to roll back some provisions of the Patriot Act. Three of its provisions expire at the end of this year, and the reform attempt is expected to be attached to legislation to renew them. "Lawmakers are considering key changes to the Patriot Act and other spy laws — proposals that could give new life to lawsuits accusing the nation's telecommunications companies of turning over Americans' electronic communications to the government without warrants. On Oct. 1, the Senate Judiciary Committee likely will consider revoking that immunity legislation as it works to revise the Patriot Act and other spy laws with radical changes that provide for more government transparency and more privacy protections." Among the other likely goals of reform efforts, according to Wired, are limiting the government's power to issue National Security Letters, and limiting "black bag" searches to cases of spying or terrorism — 65% of past searches were authorized in drug cases.
That the War on Drugs has done more to rape civil liberties than any other government initiative in modern times.
The fine summary leaves out the minor fact that Obama is opposed to watering down the Patriot act.
So much for hope and change.
You would think that, with a Democratic majority, this sort of stuff would pass without much trouble. This administration is too nice to the Republican minority.
If you can read this, it means that I bothered to log in.
As expected when they proposed it--the Patriot Act was not used as advertised.
Just 3% of the "National Security" Letters were used for terrorism-related cases.
65% of them were instead used for drug cases. So many of the actions taken by the Bush Administration to allegedly protect us from "Terrorists" were instead used for the meat and potatoes Law and Order issues the Republicans favor. Despicable!
They're all owned for by the same 'campaign contributors', so why on earth would they be different? Are you saying that Democrats aren't enough honest enough to stay bought?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
You would think that, with a Democratic majority, this sort of stuff would pass without much trouble. This administration is too nice to the Republican minority.
It's not a Republican vs. Democratic issue. I know it seems like it, but it's not. The Democrats are going to put on a nice show for all of us to show us that they at least "tried", but in the end, this won't pass. Big telecom has powerful lobbies, and the TPTB in the military and civilian intelligence agencies have all deemed telecom immunity to be too important to national security.
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You need to add some more questions. A very important one I can think of is "How long do they request to have this power?" If the answer is "indefinitely" then there'd better be a damn good answer to those other two questions you listed.
Why is it that the only bills that ever seem to "sunset" are tax cuts?
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
In order for companies to function, they need some predictability. Congress' granting retroactive immunity to the telcos set a bad precedent. But having done so, revoking it also sets a bad precedent.
No, it sets a good precedent -- don't think you can break the law, and then have Congress retroactively cover your ass, because it won't stick. You want predictability? How about "obey the law as written, not as you hope it might be in the future"?
Undoing the damage done by retroactive immunity is a good thing.
On the other hand, is it ever late too late to seek justice?
No, but... *shrug* The question is, among all the injustices done during the previous administration which will go unpunished, is it so important to punish this one? I'm not really sure. Frankly I tend towards the line of thinking that says "lets move on". It was a crazy time. We, as a nation, were crazy. A lot of people did bad things and ultimately I think most of them at some level believed they were doing good. Not just "I was following orders", but "I was following orders in order to Save America".
I dunno. I'm very much against retroactive immunity, but at the same time I'm not so sure how diligently we should pursue prosecution for every violation of the law in the last 8 years. I am much more concerned with making sure it doesn't happen again in the future, and I'm not a big believer in punishment as a deterrent for future crimes. No criminal thinks they are going to get caught, and for a lot of the crimes in question the perps probably really believed they were not committing crimes. I'm not sure seeking justice in these cases is, you know, productive.
The enemies of Democracy are
oh- the Democrats did that (voted for PATRIOT) out of sheer calculating political cowardice.
The NAZI era Germans called it the "zeitgeist" - the mind of the times, everyone was caught up in the frenzy, Germany was so fucked up (economically) after WWI, and the people wanted so badly to believe it was everyone's fault but their own. (dudes, you lost a war. . . that you started). Mass-denial, and failure to take responsibility for their actions (and consequences for WWI were huge, because it was a huge fucking clusterfuck of a war) - and desire to blame it on everyone else: the Jews, the Commies, the French - is what put Hitler into power.
9/11 had the same exact effect on the US. (and I'm not buying into the terrorist notion that 9/11 was "the result of our mideast policies" - that's also childish blame-shifting. . . I'm just saying you don't blame and punish an entire culture for something that a few hundred whackjobs cooked up on their own). I think that the chickens of US imperialism and arrogance are coming home to roost, and the years following 9/11, Iraq, and all that crap, were part of it. Will the US suffer the devastation that Germany suffered after WWII? Look at photos of downtown Berlin after the Soviets got through with it. God, I hope not.
Those who do not learn the lessons of History, are doomed to repeat it. And even those who DO learn the lessons of History, are doomed to sit by and watch others repeat it.
So - to vote against USA PATRIOT would have been political suicide for the Dems. On the other hand, Obama's act of courage (voting against the Iraq war) is probably a big part of what got him elected. Some demographic of Americans still DO actually prefer political courage.
That's not saying I would not have wanted my representatives to grow a fucking spine, and stand up for my rights. . . and what is objectively Right. That would have been nice, but I think it's expecting too much of people who, as a profession (career politicians), are generally deeply flawed individuals, in a system that generally rewards mediocrity, cowardice, and corruption.
But this is what I mean when I say there is no FUNCTIONAL difference between Republicans and Democrats. Folks point out the obvious differences, and tell me, hey dude, that's not cool. Then I watch as a guy like Obama goes from "Yes we can!" to signing off on renewing the Patriot Act provisions, in the space of a couple of months. Dude; that's not cool.
And no - there's no third-party in particular that I think would be any better. I think it's the system that's hopelessly broken, and incapable of steering us back onto the right track.
I'm just stocking up on ammunition and canned food, and waiting for the inevitable, like everyone else.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.