Senators Want Secret Warrantless Wiretap Renewal

An anonymous reader writes "A group of Senators are meeting in secret today, while most people are focused on the 'debt ceiling' issue, in order to try to rush through a renewal of the FISA Amendments Act, which expressly allowed warrantless wiretapping in the U.S. The law isn't set to expire until next year, but some feel that the debt ceiling crisis is a good distraction to pass the extension without having to debate the issue in public. The meeting is being held in secret, but it's not classified, so people can demand to know how their Senator voted."

Comments

And You Know They Will Get It!

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Welcome to the "new normal" in America, where "Citizen" is a term that is interchangeable with "Felon" or "Enemy".

Re:And You Know They Will Get It!

[hairyfeet]

I'm just glad my grandfather who fought against this kind of shit in WWII isn't around to witness this shit. WTH has happened to this country? When you have BOTH parties voting AGAINST the people while at the same time practically tripping over themselves to give away the future of this country to special interests for literally pennies on the dollar?

This is why I'm making a call out to every one here at /. since WE are the geeks, the smart ones, the ones our friends and relatives and coworkers listen to I urge EVERY SINGLE ONE HERE to not only vote Green and New Whig straight down the ticket but do everything in your power to get everyone you possibly can to do so as well.

A true multi party system is the only chance this country has short of our own Arab Spring and it is clear that BOTH the Ds and the Rs are not gonna listen to the will of the people. The New Whig Party is made of Iraq vets thinking we should get our boys home and the Greens believe in a true safety net for the poor along with affordable housing and health care, things I bet many here would support.

So let us change the system, so that horseshit like this won't be the status quo. I'll even give out a slogan for free "A vote for a Democrat or Republican is a wasted vote" because that is EXACTLY what it is, as they no longer listen to the will of the people. So vote Whig and Green, and push everyone in your sphere of influence to do so as well. Let 2012 be a REAL case of "Hope & Change" and not just more empty slogans!

Re:And You Know They Will Get It!

[redemtionboy]

No Libertarian? Regardless, we will never have more than a two-party system until we change the election system. A pure first-past-the-post system will only support 2 parties. If you want more parties you need to eliminate primaries and move to a two-tier run off election system. All candidates are thrown in the ring for the first election, and unless one candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, the top two candidates return for a second election. This election system takes emphasis off of parties and more on the individuals running. Granted, it's not a perfect system, but it's a hell of a lot better than what we've got or a proportional representation system. If you want to see this change happen, it needs to move from the ground up, starting with city elections and moving to statewide. You must first cripple the beast before you attack it.

LOL! American Freedom!

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL! Is this the "American Freedom" we secretly heard so much about when I was a youth growing up in Hungary during the Cold War?

Re:LOL! American Freedom!

[Nadaka]

If we don't collapse economically thanks to the US senate, there is some small hope that justice and liberty can be restored in time. America needs a valid liberal progressive party instead of the conservative democrats and regressive republicans.

Re:LOL! American Freedom!

[aekafan]

Hell, I think we would be much better off if we were forced to default. What most call collapse would economically force us to pull our military c**k out of the worlds ass and take care of issues at home. I cheer the coming default, which will happen no matter what Washington does, and I hope those D.C. bastards burn for it.

Re:LOL! American Freedom!

[TheGratefulNet]

I've been listening to more and more old style folk music (pete seeger, woody guthrie, that era of true progressive lefties) and if you hear the 'fight' in their words and songs and compare to what the right calls 'liberal', you'd see that there are no liberals left in politics or in any kind of power.

if you mention 'unionize' to most people, they look at you like you've said a naughty word. yet, many decades ago (but less than a century) we *needed* the union movement to balance the power that the corporations had. it worked and we got 5 day work weeks.

now, likely, you and I are in software or technology and we say "WHAT 5 day work week?".

exactly.

which is why we need unions for software and technology-based workers; and all businesses where the overly-powerful corporations get to dictate, essentually unquestioned, what we do, how we get paid and even IF we get fulltime benefits (healthcare, etc).

if we had a progressive party or even members of left in the government, we'd see more balance. we might see worker rights increase instead of steadily decrease.

if you have not heard those old folk and freedom songs, give them a listen. look into almanac singers, the weavers, pete seeger, joan baez. they all had a deep feeling for our country and were real patriots. they'd all be extremely ashamed (those that are still living, I'm sure they are ashamed) of what the US has become. we made so much progress in the 60's, only to reverse and actually lose ground in this decade.

we need more rebellion and more public show of dissatisfaction with our so-called leaders.

listen to some of those old songs and put them into today's context and you'll see that we're going thru the same kinds of repression again and again. we have to fight it, again and again, too, it seems.

That explains everything.

[dgatwood]

Suddenly, it makes sense why all the senators and representatives are making so much noise about the debt ceiling instead of just voting to fix what should have been a relatively minor and uncontentious issue. To paraphrase Douglas Adams, the purpose of government is not to wield power, but to distract attention away from it.

Re:That explains everything.

[TaoPhoenix]

I need some input from the Lawn Crowd, did it feel like this in the Watergate days? I'm getting the horrible feeling that after a nice quiet 90's with nothing but a fun little sex scandal we're seeing a whole different class of nastiness today.

Re:That explains everything.

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Suddenly, it makes sense why all the senators and representatives are making so much noise about the debt ceiling

No, not really. Despite what many on slashdot think, warrantless wire-tapping isn't terribly controversial with the most of the US. Remember, the only time we hear about public discontent with the TSA is when they grope a baby or a grandmother - the bullshit constitutional smokescreen of "administrative searches" isn't even mentioned, much less questioned. No one is getting groped over the phone, so most people don't give a damn.

I wouldn't be surprised to find that this meeting had been scheduled months in advance. But even if it wasn't, it's just opportunism to schedule it now, not the cause of the debt ceiling fiasco, just a side-effect.

Re:That explains everything.

[the eric conspiracy]

It was much worse in the Wategate days. You could tell Nixon was a meglomaniac who might start a nuclear war or conduct a coup d'etat to stay in power.

Congress pretty much rallied together to rid the country of this madman.

The current budget stuff is pretty sickening, but really is a throwback to earlier times in the republic when politics was pretty disgusting as a normal way of life. It isn't the same level of insanity as having a completely deranged President.

Re:That explains everything.

[Philip K Dickhead]

I need some input from the Lawn Crowd, did it feel like this in the Watergate days? I'm getting the horrible feeling that after a nice quiet 90's with nothing but a fun little sex scandal we're seeing a whole different class of nastiness today.

No, it wasn't like this.

Watergate was a relatively singular event, which elicited widescale public outrage. You couldn't go anywhere without it being a topic of convesation and dispute.

This is one of ten-thousand such outrages, perpetrated over the past decade. Like most of them, people don't know of it happening, or why it might even be wrong.

Sleep tight, America.

Re:That explains everything.

[TheGratefulNet]

I disagree, I don't think it was worse in the watergate days.

the wholesale cut-out of personal freedoms - WORLD WIDE (yes, the US controls the intertubes. this is news to you? all core routers go thru US owned datacomm centers, dummy; and every one of them that is on the backbone has taps for (cough) calea use. and other things.

watergate only fucked over the US and not really citizens, but it was mostly politicians doing the hurting to each other.

this stuff we have now is them doing it to US.

far, far worse for us all. its the sell-out of privacy, in official terms!

and yes, I was around in the nixon days; as a child but still was very aware of the tv coverage and even what we were discussing in school. it was still ok to discuss current events in school, back then.

Re:That explains everything.

[TheGratefulNet]

I hated nixon. of course.

but I still see that as limited damage compared to world-wide surveillance that now passes as 'ok'.

not only is there more spying, but it feels a lot less 'free', now, than it did back then. just in general. we always talked about 'the russians' and how they were a 'papers please' kind of society and government. but today, them is us! the things we held up as differentiating are no longer. I see that much, much worse.

Re:Which Senators was in the secret meeting?

[nschubach]

FTA:

        Dianne Feinstein, California (chair)
        Saxby Chambliss, Georgia (vice chair)
        John D. Rockefeller IV, West Virginia
        Olympia J. Snowe, Maine
        Ron Wyden, Oregon
        Richard Burr, North Carolina
        Barbara A. Mikulski, Maryland
        James Risch, Idaho
        Bill Nelson, Florida
        Daniel Coats, Indiana
        Kent Conrad, North Dakota
        Roy Blunt, Missouri
        Mark Udall, Colorado
        Marco Rubio, Florida
        Mark Warner, Virginia

FTFY

[Hatta]

in order to try to rush through a renewal of the FISA Amendments Act, which unconstitutionally allowed warrantless wiretapping in the U.S.

Re:Which Senators was in the secret meeting?

[somersault]

Not all of them support the warrantless wiretaps

[secret citation needed]

Re:Which Senators was in the secret meeting?

[Jafafa Hots]

Seeing as warrantless wiretapping is clearly unconstitutional, it's thoroughly inappropriate to be doing it at all.

Re:ugh...

[TheGratefulNet]

sigh.

its not about ballot box; that obviously does not work.

its not about soap box; they don't listen to us.

its not about ammo box; their guns are bigger than ours

you know what its about? IGNORE THEIR SO-CALLED LAWS.

they ask for it and so we give it to them. they have ruined the respect of the rule of law; so we are not obligated to follow their made-up bullshit laws.

yes, you risk 'problems' in life; but so did so many patriots in our past. be patriotic and IGNORE CONGRESS' LAWS.

we already ignore the copyright bullshit. we copy things 'right', actually (lol), but we don't follow bullshit made-up laws.

civil disobedience: we have a long history of it. its needed, now, folks.

Re:Mod parent up

[redemtionboy]

If you believe Obama is actually trying to balance the budget, then all you need to do is look at what his plan actually entails to think otherwise. The same goes for Boener's plan. Both add over $7 Trillion in new debt over the next 10 years and spending levels continue to rise. If they were actually interested in balancing the budget, the would put us on a path to reduce spending and actually balance the budget, but all this is is a bunch of smoke and mirrors to make us think they're doing the right thing. In reality, all they're doing is continuing to expand the power of the federal government, the executive branch in particular. We need to return to Clinton administration levels of spending, adjusted for inflation of course. We can't keep the Obushma empire going.