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Senate To Reconsider Wiretap Immunity

Posted by kdawson on from the true-patriots dept.

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.

10 of 222 comments (clear)

  1. Proof once again... by MikeRT · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Proof once again... by mcgrew · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Indeed. But I think that's what the war on (some) drugs is really about -- a power grab that has turned the US into a police state. We have secret police ("plainclothesmen" and "undercover agents") only because of victimless crimes like drugs, gambling, and prostitution. We have the highest incarceration rate of any nation on earth, with a high percentage of them being non-violent drug prisoners.

      The worst part is, these laws cause the very problems they allegedly were written to combat. For example, "marijuana leads to harder drugs". Well DUH, of course it does; the same people who sell pot sell the other drugs. "Got any weed, man?" "No, dude, it's dry. I have lots of coke, though, good shit, too." Then there's "think of the children!" Odd how it's easier for a teenager to buy pot than beer or cigarettes, and easier for a teenager to get than for an adult.

      Don't get me started on drug gangs and their violence. When prohibition was repealed, the alcohol wars between rival gangs ended.

      We are a nation of fools, blindly following the leadership of the amoral.

      --
      Free Martian Whores!
    2. Re:Proof once again... by ZekoMal · · Score: 5, Insightful

      With the introduction of TV, they can scare us all into believing that drugs cause so much violence. With the hiding of history, they can make us forget that prohibition leads to violence.

    3. Re:Proof once again... by corbettw · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In my experience, the only gateway effect of marijuana is when someone finally tries it and doesn't die of an overdose or go mad, they start to think "Hmmm, if the cops and politicians lied about the effects of pot, maybe they lied about all the other stuff, too? Might as well try some meth, what's the worst that could happen?"

      This is how my younger brother got hooked on speed and barbiturates, which led directly to his death of an overdose. He tried pot in high school, nothing bad happened, so he figured the other stuff couldn't be that bad, either. The idiocy fueled by the War on Drugs killed my brother.

      --
      God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
  2. Re:Show of Hands by spartacus_prime · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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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    If you can read this, it means that I bothered to log in.
  3. Bush Admin Lying Sacks of Shit by curmudgeon99 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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!

    1. Re:Bush Admin Lying Sacks of Shit by ZekoMal · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Hovever - What Exaclty is a phone company supposed to tell the FBI or CIA when they show up with a request from the AG/President? "No, you must get some local judge to ok that"? When that company wants to open a new office/expand/file tax returns will that "lack of cooperation" be held against them?

      When you fear retribution from your own government for following constitutional laws, your government failed.

    2. Re:Bush Admin Lying Sacks of Shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Bypass Wired and NYT's filtering and read the source for yourself: the Administrative Office of the United States Court report on applications for delayed-notice search warrants.
      http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/SneakAndPeakReport.pdf

      You want Table 2, on page 6.

      Top categories in order of frequency of report: drugs, fraud, weapons, tax evasion, racketeering, "unspecified," fugitive, theft... terrorism is so far down the list that it doesn't get a percentage to show its proportionality. In terms of raw frequency, there were 843 drug-related reports, and 5 terrorism-related reports.

  4. Re:Show of Hands by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    My blog
  5. Re:And Obama is selling us out by MobyDisk · · Score: 5, Informative

    I thought this was a troll, but it isn't.

    Obama Backs Extending Patriot Act Spy Provisions