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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.
Senate Democrats propose surveillance law changesWednesday September 23, @08:29AM
The AP is reporting (via yahoo) that Senate Democrats are actually trying to restore some of Americans' rights and freedoms that were lost when government panicked after 9-11.
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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.
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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?
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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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Obligatory Onion: BREAKING: Democrats Hoping To Take Control Of Congress From Republican Minority In 2010
But what do you expect? After all, as Biden said, some of the guys he campaigned for are turkeys.
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The thing is, the Democrats are as power hungry as the Republicans. And the PATRIOT act was passed by a nearly unanimous vote.
A pox on both their houses, I say.
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Because too many people's brains shut down when they hear the word "terrorist." Tell people that you're going to round up folks and ship them off to a prison where they'll sit for years without any trial and people will oppose it. Tell people that those folks are suspected terrorists and their brains shut down and they nod in agreement. With their brains shut down, they don't think about abuse of power at all.
Add in party loyalty and abuse of power allegations get answered with "But he's a respected member of Party X! Everyone in Party X is looking out for my interests. Not like those traitors in Party Y!" They don't stop to think that, even if the "Party X" member isn't abusing his power, he could easily be voted out of office and replaced by someone from Party Y. Then, of course, those same people will proclaim: "It's obvious that Party Y Politician is using powers that are unconstitutional! We've got to reign in this out of control government NOW! Toss the traitor out of office!!!" The fact that "their" party used the same powers doesn't matter. What matters is that the powers are only good when wielded by a member of "their" party (and then, sometimes only by an appropriately extreme right or left wing member of the party).
Personally, I view all powers that the government requests with two questions:
1. How can this be abused and are there mechanisms in place to prevent abuse?
2. How would this be used by a politician who I disagree with on the issues?
If I don't like the answers to either question, I can't support the granting of the powers, even if it would - in the short term - advance an issue I believe in.
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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?
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There is a stark difference. Democrats win by promising to spend your money, and Republicans win by promising NOT to spend your money, but then spend it anyway once in office.
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The actions the telecoms took were legal under the PATRIOT act
No, they weren't. Not even USAPATRIOT authorizes unlimited spying on domestic sources with no warrant. And nobody in the government has ever even claimed that the actions were legal under USAPATRIOT. The only statutory legal justification for the program would have been FISA and they did not go through FISA. The only claim on legality they ever made was AG Gonzales' legal theory that the President can ignore any law he wants as long as he thinks it's really important for national security that he do so -- a legal theory with what I will generously call "flaws".
Not even John Ashcroft thought the surveillance program was legal, and he was a huge proponent of USAPATRIOT. Does that not tell you something?
That's why Congress had to retroactively make those actions legal. That is the ex post facto law. Undoing an ex post facto law is not, itself, ex post facto.
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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.
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