Slashdot Log In
Telco Immunity Goes To Full Debate
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Jan 29, 2008 09:06 AM
from the finger-pointing-all-around dept.
from the finger-pointing-all-around dept.
Dr. Eggman notes an Ars Technica analysis of the firefight that is the current Congressional debate over granting retrospective immunity to telecoms that helped the NSA spy on citizens without warrants. A Republican cloture motion, which would have blocked any further attempts to remove the retroactive immunity provision, has failed. This controversial portion of the Senate intelligence committee surveillance bill may now be examined in full debate. At the same time, a second cloture motion — filed by Congressional Democrats in an effort to force immediate vote on a 30 day extension to the Protect America Act — also failed to pass. The Protect America Act has been criticized for broadly expanding federal surveillance powers while diminishing judicial oversight. While the failure of this second cloture motion means the Protect America Act might expire, a vote tomorrow on a similar motion in the House will likely bring the issue back into the Senate in time. It seems, according to the article, that both parties feel that imminent expiration of the Protect America Act is a disaster for intelligence gathering, and each side blames the other as progress grinds to a halt."
Related Stories
[+]
IT: Technical Risks of the US Protect America Act 141 comments
A group of respected security researchers has released a paper on the security holes that would be opened up if a broad warrantless wiretapping law is passed. The subject could hardly be more timely, as Congress is debating the subject now. Steve Bellovin, Matt Blaze, Whit Diffie, Susan Landau, Peter Neumann, and Jennifer Rexford have released a preprint of Risking Communications Security: Potential Hazards of the Protect America Act (PDF), which will appear in the January/February 2008 issue of IEEE Security and Privacy. It will hit the stands in a few weeks. From Matt Blaze's blog posting: "As someone who began his professional carrier in the Bell System (and who stayed around through several of its successors), the push for telco immunity represents an especially bitter disillusionment for me. Say what you will about the old Phone Company, but respect for customer privacy was once a deeply rooted point of pride in the corporate ethos. There was no faster way to be fired (or worse) than to snoop into call records or facilitate illegal wiretaps, well intentioned or not. And it was genuinely part of the culture; we believed in it, even those of us ordinarily disposed toward a skeptical view of the official company line. Now it all seems like just another bit of cynical, focus-group-tested PR."
[+]
Your Rights Online: US Senate Votes Immunity For Telecoms 623 comments
Ktistec Machine writes to let us know that the telecom companies are one step closer to getting off the hook for their illegal collusion with the US government. Today the US Senate passed, by a filibuster-proof majority of 67 to 31, a revised FISA bill that grants retroactive immunity to the telecommunications companies that helped the government illegally tap American network traffic. If passed by both houses and signed by the President, this would effectively put an end to the many lawsuits against these companies (about 40 have been filed). The House version of the bill does not presently contain an immunity provision. President Bush has said he will veto any such bill that reaches his desk without the grant of immunity. We've discussed the progress of the immunity provision repeatedly.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Protect America Act... (Score:5, Insightful)
If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, stop calling it a peacock. Yes, I know it will never happen. One can fantasize.
It's Orwellian is what it is (Score:4, Insightful)
But it got through. Why? Because in a time of national panic (9/11) you wouldn't vote against an act called the Patriot act would you? You are a patriot aren't you?
Jingoism and marketing need to die.
Parent
Not surprising (Score:3, Interesting)
As those cowardly French say: eqality, liberty, and fraternity...
It's not that each person is evil (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not saying stupidity is an excuse. I'm just saying that the supposed "inherent evil" that people want to believe politicians all possess isn't the problem. The problem is political ignorance and an extreme distance from reality that accompanies the higher eschelons of power.
This is also, I would imagine, why the fore-fathers imagined a country run by the stronger states, not controlled by a stronger federal government. Keep the power closer to the people, at lower levels, and the reality is much harder to miss.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It is fair to say that my experience of the world does not provide much support for this notion.
Real peace at last? (Score:3, Interesting)
It might take some time but... (Score:4, Funny)
Radicals (Score:5, Interesting)
I liked the comment [gpo.gov] by Sen. Bond (R-Mo.) that failure to give telecom providers retroactive immunity for any crimes they may have committed would be
He is saying -- he is actually saying -- that Congress has to prevent its own laws from being applied to a corporation, because if the courts are allowed to proceed with civil lawsuits, angry mobs of disaffected citizens will storm the corporate headquarters of AT&T and Verizon and burn them to the ground because they oppose intelligence gathering. We must circumvent the legal process to soothe the hordes of Americans who are furious at the NSA. This is surely the most bizarre panem-et-circenses ever.
Or maybe he's saying Al Qaeda sleeper cells will launch attacks on key NOCs for our internet backbone... the only thing holding them back is they're waiting for word to come that a civil lawsuit has been filed against the owning corporation and depositions have been submitted and discovery is proceeding, Allahu Akbar!
Re:Radicals (Score:4, Funny)
Well, to be fair, the only proven way to stop a horde of radicals with pitchforks and torches is to calmly explain to them that the criminals spying on them paid millions of dollars to politicians who then let them off the hook. "You mean we have no legal recourse against those who wronged us?" the mob will say. "Well, there's hardly any point to physical retaliation unless it can be accompanied by lengthy judicial review of an accompanying civil lawsuit!"
Parent
Slogan (Score:5, Funny)
Capitulation Happens (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't be to distracted by the retroactive immunity (Score:4, Informative)
The *real bill* (Score:4, Interesting)
We've just been pussy-footing around for the past 7 years. GWB is very nearly a King already, between Signing Statements and Executive Privilege. The mechanisms of tyranny are in place. The checks and balances of government are broken. So the question becomes, "Do you trust GWB?" as well as, "Do you trust the next President?"
Name a spade a spade, and maybe people will finally wake up to the slippery slope we've been sliding down.
Re:Hmm (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps it's time to remind your representatives that you want some ROI here. My constitutional rights are very expensive. If their abuse of my rights does not land bin laden in jail, or bolster the free world by some provably huge fscking margin, then I'm going to want to see rolling heads. So far... I'm thinking of rolling heads (figuratively speaking... say hello to the nice FBI agents)
Parent
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Umm, IANALOCLS (I am not a lawyer or Constitutional Law Scholar), but my understanding has always been that only prevents the Government from passing retroactive laws that criminalize events in the past... i.e: if alcohol prohibition is passed tomorrow they can't punish me for drinking today. It doesn't prevent them from retroactively decriminalizing something.
Granted, it's a load of shit that they are even considering immunity for these bastards, but I still think you'd lose if you tried to argue against it on the basis of ex post facto laws.
Parent
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Would you rather have a shovel, or a backhoe with busted hydraulics? I don't give a damn what tools they want if they can't figure out how to use the ones they currently have.
Re:Love It Or Hate It... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a wonderful post with completely valid points. Unfortunately you overlooked the fact that had anybody bothered to connect the dots, 9/11 could have been stopped using the existing laws on the books with the powers that the Government already had.
All the wiretapping in the World isn't going to help you if the President gets a memo saying "[SOMEBODY] determined to attack US" and ignores it. All the wiretapping in the World won't help you if FBI agents in the field are being ignored by headquarters when they attempt to report suspicious activity.
Maybe we should be asking why all of those failures happened instead of bending over backwards to give the Government sweeping new powers to monitor our daily lives.
Parent
Re:Love It Or Hate It... (Score:5, Insightful)
Republican Senators are right now stonewalling and trying to prevent a one-month extension of the same legislation they insisted last year was vital, urgent, and necessary to prevent terrorist attacks in "days, not weeks [salon.com]." The President has said he would veto a one-month extension of this legislation that, last year, we supposedly needed to stop the terrorists from attacking America.
They are protesting a one-month extension so that people who aren't paying attention will pressure Democrats to cave in and give Republicans what they want. The Republicans are literally -- if you believe their own words -- exposing America to danger of terrorist attack as a political tactic to pass the legislation they want.
And what they want is retroactive immunity for corporations so that we, the people, have no legal recourse to discover whether those corporations cooperated with the Bush administration in breaking the law.
The tools are already available. They allow the NSA to spy, and they allow American corporations to assist that spying. It's just that the laws must be followed. They are not difficult to follow. And corporations already are immune from both civil and criminal consequences if they can just demonstrate that, even though they broke the law, they acted on a good-faith belief at the time that what they did was legal.
If you think this about whether we can monitor what the terrorists are talking about, you're wrong.
Parent
What are you smoking? (Score:4, Insightful)
So, you want to join the debate about this bill but you don't care what anyone thinks about the bill? Won't that sort of hinder your ability to engage in rational discourse?
See? The discussion is over the attempt to rid the bill of a provision protecting telecoms from the consequences of their past criminal activity. This has nothing whatsoever to do with monitoring terrorist activities, apart from the fact that certain members of congress (Jeff Sessions, for example) led by VP Cheney are willing to scuttle the bill if they can't get their friends a "get out of jial free" card.
Uh, what attacks would that be? And how does that have anything to do with the PAA which, as I just pointed out, has little or nothing to do with the telecom immunity? As far as I recall, all of the so-called "threats" that have been thwarted have turned out to be bogus, and none of them--none of them were found using the powers under PAA. So what's the connection?
Perhaps. But even if, as you say, "SOMETHING NEEDS TO BE DONE" a minute's thought leads to the conclusion that giving big corporations a blank check to violate our nations laws probably isn't it.
--MarkusQ
Parent
Re:Love It Or Hate It... (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe we should look at it the other way around. George Bush has been the only president in the 20th century to allow such a devastating foreign attack on our soil.
It might just be that the threat of terrorism isn't as serious as you seem to think.
But the most important argument against creating a "total surveillance society" in order to prevent terrorism is that there already is a very good legal system for allowing the kind of surveillance against terrorists that you seem to believe we need. It is called the FISA court and gives our government plenty of tools for fighting terrorism.
Finally, for me it comes down to this: Yesterday, we heard one GOP senator after another say that the telecoms did nothing wrong in allowing the government to eavesdrop, and the program is completely legal. Well then, why do they need immunity? Why not leave it up to our legal system and a jury of citizens to decide whether any laws were broken.
blcamp, I live in the shadow of Sears Tower. I'm as concerned about my wife and daughter as you are about your family. But as I've said before, I will take my chances with the terrorists, but leave my liberties intact.
Parent
Re:Love It Or Hate It... (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously: Safeguard our liberties first then worry about security.
Security in the United States today is Security Theater. It's operatic in it's grandeur and stupidity.
5 Year olds and US senators on 'No Fly Lists'? Falafel stakeouts in San Fran looking for Iranian sleeper cells? The Secret Service strong-arming high school students for anti-war anti-bush speech? Calling the Bomb Squad on hot chilies, LED cartoon advertisements, and state owned traffic monitors? Arresting, Beating, Nearly Shooting & Killing innocent people because they act or look different?
There is no way I'm willing to give up any of *anyone's* liberties for that sort of buffoonery.
Parent
Re:Love It Or Hate It... (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody else is going to easily do it again even without all the "Patriot" bullshit. The 9/11 hijackers "ruined the market" for future hijackers.
Before 9/11 the "unwritten protocol" was - hijack announced, everyone meekly stays in their seats, nobody (mostly) gets hurt, negotiations start, hijackers get something, passengers get to go. Unless of course the hijackers were crazy enough to do El Al
After 9/11 hijackers WILL have a more difficult time with passengers and air crew, the cockpit doors are reinforced. Enough passengers will think "If I'm going to die anyway, I'm going to make sure that hijacker suffers first". If everyone just threw their shoes and stuff at the hijackers at the same time it will really hurt
In fact even _DURING_ 9/11, passengers on board one of those planes figured out what was happening, and one of the planes didn't hit the target.
You think most hijackers haven't figured that out? Only a few stupid ones (or mentally ill) have tried since 9/11. They have to move on to other methods if they want to crash into towers - charter/steal private planes etc.
The bulk of the new procedures like banning liquids and checking shoes is just to make the stupid sheeple feel safe.
The fact that the US Gov lies to its citizens regularly, and puts in laws that don't actually address the problem shows to me that the US Gov is a greater danger to US citizens than the "evil terrorists" are.
The 9/11 killed like 3K? And cost the USA how much?
In comparison the US Gov started a war in Iraq (based on _deceit_ ) and got how many killed? And cost the USA how much?
Not to mention the US Gov has been trampling over the "precious" US constitution which so many US citizens _allegedly_ value so much. They don't even bother to amend the constitution, they just ignore it or twist the interpretation so much.
The US people should serious consider who really is their biggest enemy.
Parent
Re:Love It Or Hate It... (Score:4, Insightful)
The trick to terror prevention is ensuring your safety without causing more damage than the terrorists could have. Alienating people is rarely a good idea because that only gets more people motivated to join the terrorists. Alienating entire countries is just as bad because they might not want to do business with you anymore (yes, that's possible; China is a viable alternative) and your economy suffers. Alienating your own people is even wore because it creates unrest and might even get som of them to help the terrorists out of the belief that the current government needs to be replaced.
Just finding terror suspects and killing them at any cost is quite likely to get the country into more trouble than just dealing with them like one did before the whole War on Terror(TM) started. The correct approach lies somewhere in the middle. One needs to be careful enough not to upset everyone but thorough enough to actually catch the dangerous plots. That requires more deliberation than zealotry.
Parent
Re:More surveillance and less oversight? (Score:5, Funny)
First they came for the first posters, but I wasn't a first poster so I didn't speak up.
Then they came for the people with hot grit fetishes, but I wasn't into that so I didn't speak up.
Then they came for the beowulf clusters, but I couldn't afford one so I didn't speak up.
Then they came for the immigrants from Soviet Russia, but I wasn't from Soviet Russia so I didn't speak up.
Then they came for the people posting lame jokes based on tired old /. cliches... by this time there was nobody left to spea&*)$)(*&@(*)@*(&%&OICARRIER LOST
Parent