White House Wins On Spying, Telecom Immunity 658
EllisDees sends in a Washington Post report that Senate Republicans have outmaneuvered Democrats, who withdrew a more stringent version of legislation to control the government's domestic surveillance program. The legislation that will go forward includes a grant of legal immunity to telecommunications companies that have assisted the program.
Re:Bush Win = Constitutional Loss (Score:2, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Democrats (Score:3, Informative)
Slight correction: (Score:4, Informative)
In a Democrat controlled Congress, the Republicans can still use "soft of terrorism" to get certain Democrats to vote however they want them to.
http://picayune.uclick.com/comics/trall/2007/trall071001.gif [uclick.com]
and
http://www.workingforchange.com/webgraphics/WFC/TMW08-15-07Large.jpeg [workingforchange.com]
Re:ex post facto (Score:5, Informative)
Contact your representative, THEN post to Slashdot (Score:5, Informative)
It's easy. If you don't know who to contact or how to phrase your objection use this link:
https://secure.aclu.org/site/Advocacy?pagename=homepage&id=727&page=UserAction [aclu.org]
Note that you can modify the letter template before you hit send if you don't agree with all of the text or wish to add points of your own.
There is another informational article on Salon [salon.com].
(*) Does not apply to non-US citizens. (Although nothing actually stops you from mailing them anyway.)
How they did it (Score:4, Informative)
So far, the best collection of linkage and summary I've seen on this has been at The Mahablog [mahablog.com] (Warning: liberal. Like me, so, deal.)
Re:Bush Win = Constitutional Loss (Score:5, Informative)
Why immunity is GOOD (Score:2, Informative)
Well, without asking you where in the Constitution you found that information, I'll address you concern (as ill-founded as it is).
Immunity in this case is a GOOD thing. Here's why.
In the case of giving testimony, should there be no immunity, the telcos and their representatives can choose not to incriminate themselves, and thereby avoid giving ANY testimony about who did what when.
Once immunity is granted, the telcos CANNOT refuse to testify on grounds they may incriminate themselves. Should they chose to avoid giving testimony, contempt is now an option.
Immunity prevents the telcos from hiding behind the "self-incrimination" excuse.
And before you come up withe reasons why it won't work, look at all the mob trials. Immunity is SOP there, and works incredibly well for exactly the reasons I stated.
From what I can tell, all the crowing about the immunity being a bad thing comes from the ignorance of the population that reads slashdot, and has no bearing on reality.
Re:This quote: (Score:2, Informative)
I'm really not sure what point you're trying to make here... but it sounds like you're confused about what the current law allows and reacting to the timeframe without understanding what the timeframe relates to.
The powers that be can do thier survelience, then after it has been done and while they are acting on that information go to a court and say "Hey, we spied on these people, here's why and here's why we couldn't wait to ask you before we did it; do you think that we were right to do so?"
And you'd have no objection to officials having a camera in your bedroom either. I mean, it's obvious that they'd only use it if they thought a serious crime was being committed. I can't see how a corrupt official could misuse it.
Cheney's Law: Executive Power Abuse (Score:2, Informative)
Off by one error (Score:3, Informative)
What the framers are telling us here is to pay attention to the spirit of the Bill of Rights, not just the letter. There is no right of privacy explicitly recognized in the Bill of Rights, but the SCOTUS has found it in the "penumbra" of various provisions of the Constitution. This kind of language makes a strict constructionist spit, but you have to restrain the government from attacking the underlying interests protected by the Bill of Rights, otherwise the Ninth Amendment means nothing.
With respect to the idea that "If it's not in the Constitution, the federal government's not allowed to do it," that makes things seem more simple than they are. It is true that the government only has powers granted to it by the Constitution, but the Constitution is not a strict enumeration of government powers. The government has powers which are reasonably derived from the responsibilties it has been given. "Reasonable" is a big problem, I agree. If we were writing it today, we'd probably write it differently.
I think one kind of situation the tenth applies to is the gay marriage debate. This is precisely the kind of thing that is up to the states and to individuals living in them. If Massachusetts wants to mary gays, and the gays themselves want it, then it's none of the other states' business. They don't have to recognize the marriage, but they have no business trying to undermine Mass laws. I think, however, the Federal Government is obliged to recognize Mass marriage law.
Re:Can anybody say "Ex Post Facto" (Score:3, Informative)
Now, it is legal to fart in the Capitol Building. You fart in there.
They pass a law saying it is illegal to fart in the Capitol Building, pre-dating the bill, so you are arrested. Nuh-huh-huh.
Ex Post Facto means literally "After the fact".
Case in point: Indiana Chicken 'rapist' [vegsource.com]
He was tried under animal cruelty statues and theft. Note at that time there was no bestiality law in effect, so Indiana could not try him on a law that did not exist at the time of said crime. Now, there is a bestiality law on the books (thanks to the chicken fucker).
Scumbags? (Score:2, Informative)
It's just that people like to think of it as being that clear-cut, when it isn't.
Collecting foreign signals intelligence on foreign targets (i.e., non-US persons) outside of the United States DOES NOT (and should not) require a warrant, or any court oversight. That includes:
1.) When the other end of the conversation is also foreign; and
2.) When the other end of the conversation is within the United States
Yes, you read that right. Just because a target of foreign intelligence collection makes a call to even a US citizen within the United States doesn't mean it suddenly requires a warrant. That's how it's always been. A warrant is only required when it is a US citizen and/or the target is on US soil. That has always the case, and is the case with all iterations of the various legislation (Protect America Act, RESTORE, this agreement, etc.).
The "new" issue is that the United States should also be able to do 1.) and 2.) above without a warrant when the traffic travels through the United States, either incidentally or by design. The warrant requirements for domestic surveillance are designed to protect the target of the surveillance, not the mechanisms, processes, techniques, or companies that enable the surveillance. If the target of the surveillance does not fall under warrant requirements, no warrant should be required.
The legal questions arose because the interception of the communication happening on US soil put it in an understandably gray area. But it was NOT clear that it was illegal or unconstitutional, as some seem to think it so clearly was!
The whole process of court oversight and warrants is designed to protect people who are afforded the protections of the laws and constitution of the United States. Foreign persons outside of the United States DO NOT get these protections. You may think they do (you'd be wrong), or think they should (laudable, but laughable, idealism), but the fact of the matter is, they do not.
The Protect America Act was overly broad and prone to abuse because one person, the Attorney General, was the entity to "sign off" on the declaration that a target was reasonably believed to be a non-US person outside of the United States. The new legislation will use FISA processes for that signoff, but still without warrants.
The funny thing everyone is missing here is that the only point of contention was whether or not telecoms should be granted retroactive immunity for the assistance they already provided. The House Democrats are the ones who introduced the RESTORE Act. Here, look and see what it does [thinkprogress.org]. It allows warrantless surveillance of communications where a foreign target outside of the United States is a party, regardless of where the other endpoint is, and regardless of whether the intercept is done on US soil. The primary difference between it and the Protect America Act is that FISC (the FISA court) oversees the process, targeting procedures, and signs off on targets being reasonably believed to be outside of the United States.
How is it illegal to provide assistance for the monitoring of things that have have already been found to not require a warrant [wikipedia.org] (in the case of the logging of start and endpoints of phone numbers, but NOT content, which constitutes a "pen register", or of targets that have no warrant requirements whatsoever (non-US persons outside of the US)?
Warrants are there to protect US citizens and other persons afforded the rights of the Constitution and US law. Warrants, in this context, affirm that the target of surveillance is protected by applicable laws and has certain rights. Warrants provide a judicial oversight process.
Foreign targets outside of the United States have NEVER had any of those rights or protection
Re:Bush Win = Constitutional Loss (Score:3, Informative)
That would be perfectly legal.
And perfectly OK with me. And most of the people responding here.
But that isn't what this bill does.
It's already legal to wiretap suspected criminals, whether they be terrorists, thieves, or drug dealers. Even if they're only in the United States with no international part to the conversation whatsoever. And it has been legal for a very long time.
With the advent of FISA, it even became legal to begin the wiretap first, and get the warrant later. And even that can be OK in some cases. Shaky, and easy to abuse, but a good case can be made that it's needed.
Skipping the warrant altogether, giving blanket permission to wiretap anyone, for any reason, with no record ever being made of it having been done, or why, or who authorized it, yeah, that's a very, very, very bad thing by an order of magnitude over what was there before.
Re:Scumbags? Wrong (Score:1, Informative)
As noted below parts of FISA have been ruled unconstitutional. SO YES it is illegal. Your strawman argument is crap. A court ruled it was illegal to intercept communications where both parties were outside the US, that was the reasoning behind updating FISA. The Democrats were on board with that part, but the repubs put all kinds of extras in there (like the immunity) which is not exactly an earth shattering development (evil people do evil things). Yes some Dems love big business and don't mind the idea of legalizing anything that helps profits, but thats not a case to dismiss all the problems with FISA or the administrations handling of this issue. Then theres all the scare tactics the Repubs used to ram the vote down congresses throat. Everything around FISA has been yet another Repub. clusterf#!k.
If you want a detailed, thoughtfull analysis from, i dont know, a constitutional lawyer, I suggest you check out Glen Greenwald's blog at Salon. He's far more knowledgable than I.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald [salon.com]
might also check out the eff. who are involved in this case
while you're there, give 'em some money, because there are too few people fighting the good fight and far too many like the parent spreading misinformation.
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2007/09/parts-fisa-held-unconstitutional [eff.org]
http://w2.eff.org/Censorship/Terrorism_militias/fisa_faq.html [eff.org]