House Approves Warrantless Wiretapping Extension 342
An anonymous reader writes "The House of Representatives voted 227-183 to update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to allow warrantless wiretapping of telephone and electronic communications. The vote extends the FISA amendment for six months. 'The administration said the measure is needed to speed the National Security Agency's ability to intercept phone calls, e-mails and other communications involving foreign nationals "reasonably believed to be outside the United States." Civil liberties groups and many Democrats said it goes too far, possibly enabling the government to wiretap U.S. residents communicating with overseas parties without adequate oversight from courts or Congres.'"
And The Reason Is (Score:1, Insightful)
The Bill seems reasonable enough. IMO, anything going out or in the US should be exempt from FISA. FISA should only apply to internal US wired calls.
Re:And The Reason Is (Score:5, Insightful)
Sheepocrats (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagined responses to this (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, right. We had their communications shut down. Whenever a legislative lemming wants to pass more laws, you should ask whether the existing laws were inadequate, or the people that were supposed to be enforcing them. We had FBI alerts on the 9/11 hijackers and a briefing on President Bush's desk. We've had FISA for years and its restrictions are so lax - allowing even for warrants after the fact - that any protest of it can't be for good reason. Instead the incompetent and corrupt are getting more power to abuse, while making sure their buddies make money off the taxpayer.
I don't want to hear "Proud to be an American" from one more person who buys into this. Sit down and shut it up. I'm fed up with people who think it's patriotic to abandon the most basic, essential reasons this country exists. Not only should we listen to old Ben Franklin about giving up freedom for security, we should realize that freedom *is* our security. Bush and his crew have killed the last of our existing safeguards. They have paved the way for full-on oligarchic tyrrany here. We not only need to stop voting in people who do this, or supposed opposition parties that enable it, we need to re-establish the law of this land.
I was excited at last November's election, but I've repented of it now. I'm neither Libertarian nor Constitutionalist, but I wouldn't hesitate to work with them to fix this. We need Greens in on this because nothing's safe when the whims of the rich trump the law. Most Americans are convinced that something's really wrong with this country, we're just not agreed on what exactly, but this is should be clear to everyone - we need the rule of law back.
Bin Laden was never a good excuse for destroying our country from within in the first place!
Repeat afer me: (Score:5, Insightful)
Email is easy, but are there any of the current crop of 'giveaway' cell phones that support it?
Apparently not enough Democrats (Score:4, Insightful)
Isn't this one of those things that a lot of people here thought the Democrats would fix once they took congress? Or is it simply OK now that the Democrats support warrant-less wiretaps?
Either way, we're getting a valuable lesson in two-party politics.
Actual Story Title: (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:And The Reason Is (Score:4, Insightful)
Legislation like this makes me terribly uncomfortable for reasons I shouldn't have to explain, and anyone who believes that we should be jumping at every shadow needs their head examined. The biggest problem is how accepting of idiotic legislation that erodes basic freedoms the average American has become.
Re:poster...post right (Score:2, Insightful)
They did exactly what they said they would do (Score:3, Insightful)
Face it, the American public at large does not care about FISA issues, Free Speech, or Habeas Corpus.
Remember Democrats are the Majority (Score:2, Insightful)
Considering that Democrats are now the majority in Congress, this bill would not have passed without their strong support. Being able to wiretap foreign communications between terrorists without having to rush out and obtain a warrant before the communication is dropped is critical in combating Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda has shown time and time again that they have a strong grasp of modern technology and its uses despite wanting to revert the world back to some medieval form of Islam.
This extension is only good for six months allowing Congress and the American people to review its use. If you feel that this will be used against you, refrain from calling foreigners and talking about plots to kill your fellow citizens. I am quite sure that the NSA has higher priorities than garden variety international booty calls to snoop on.
Re:poster...post right (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They did exactly what they said they would do (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:FISA allows permission three days later already (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:They did exactly what they said they would do (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the exact problem the republic is meant to solve. The average person doesn't have the time to learn what they need to know to do their job, and to learn what they need to do to make informed decisions on government policy. The solution is to select a few people to represent you and delegate your decision making to them. These representatives should not be making the choices you would make, they should be making the choices you would make if you sat down and studied the facts of the matter in detail.
At some point, however, we stopped electing representatives, and started electing leaders. From then on, it started to go down hill.
Re:mod parent down (Score:2, Insightful)
Freedom (Score:3, Insightful)
See also "minilove" and "minitruth"
Re:mod parent down (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:mod parent down (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, it was 52% of the people who voted, which came to about 20-something percent of the population. Factor in the religious looneys who thought Bush was gonna outlaw abortion and you're left with about 16% of the population over 18. Remember all those long lines for polling places in Black neighborhoods? Now we're down to about 12%.
Given that in 2004 the Attorney General was pushing the US Attorneys (and just about every other employee of the executive branch) to "deliver" the election to the GOP, I'm comfortable saying that this President is illegitimate.
But, to be fair, the Dems did much the same thing back in the 60s, so it could be seen as turnabout between two corrupt organizations.
About 1/4 of Americans have any faith at all in the current government. If I was Bush, I'd be thinking about bringing some of those National Guardsmen home. Just in case.
Re:huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh wait
Re:And The Reason Is (Score:4, Insightful)
It doesn't matter.
A warrant is not required to listen to communications between foreign nationals outside of the United States, regardless of what kind of activity they are involved in. This is communication the United States has always been free to monitor at will.
The problem is that now some communication, even between foreigners outside of the United States, gets routed through networking or switching equipment inside the United States, which, under the outdated FISA rules, would require a warrant.
This fixes that problem, and for you to suggest the United States shouldn't be engaged in aggressive global foreign intelligence gathering and threat monitoring is ridiculous. And yes, you should have to explain why this update to an antiquated law makes you uncomfortable. It has NOTHING to do with jumping at shadows. This idea that people only support things like this out of fear is incorrect. This is fair-game surveillance of foreign communication which is perfectly legitimate on the global stage and has gone on for decades. Pretending the United States shouldn't be doing it is sticking your head in the sand to unprecedented depths.
Re:poster...post right (Score:5, Insightful)
You're so naive.
I don't know how many times I've said this, and people still don't get it. When deciding whether a law is good or bad, you should always assume that the worst scum of the earth are going to be exploiting it for their own evil agendas, and then decide if you can live with its consequences.
Let's see what the Republican who defended the law says about it:
So everything--including eavesdropping on domestic calls--is fair game if there is a reason to suspect that the American is a threat. Who gets to decide if the American is a threat? Why, the President and Attorney General, of course! And who do they have to tell? No one! And they have to be a threat of committing some sort of terrorist act, right? Of course not, they can be deemed a threat for any ol' reason they damned well please! "Wow, that person may get me voted out of office. I deem them a threat to national security." Don't think it could happen? You're not thinking hard enough, and you're still not assuming that the worst scum of the earth are in charge.
If you can't see the potential for abuse of this law, then you're beyond naive, you're an idiot. And if you think that George Bush would never abuse it in this way because he's such a nice man who is looking out for our safety, then imagine it in the hands of Hillary Clinton, because you're also giving it to whoever takes office after Bush, and whoever takes office after that, and whoever takes office after that. Do you trust whoever will be president in 20 years, even though you have no freakin' clue who that will be?
At the risk of going all Godwin in this thread, imagine that 20 years from now, a new Adolph Hitler manages to win the election. Do you trust him not to abuse the law too? Don't ever ask if you think the people in charge now will abuse the law, ask if Adolph Hitler would. Government is supposed to be designed in such a way that if a branch of government does become corrupted by a Hitler-like person, we'd be okay in the end because the other two branches would compensate for it with their checks and balances. Laws like this are specifically designed, though, to take those checks and balances away from other branches and concentrate the power in one branch (in this case, the executive branch). No matter how much you think it will only be used with good intentions, it will be abused at some point.
By passing this bill, Congress has failed us miserably yet again, and the biggest reason why is because of naive little Bush cheerleaders who are too stupid to know how government works.
Cost-benefit (Score:3, Insightful)
That's true. So, what's the cost of it? Possible violation of privacy... And the benefit? The government will be able to learn of foreign threats faster. You see, snooping on the two people abroad was and remains legal (Echelon, anyone?). It is just when one of the suspects is in the US, that the government runs into problems.
Is the benefit worth the cost? Not sure — but the majority of Congress have decided, that it is... The current (imperfect) law was extended for six months — until a better-designed one (all laws are software) can be produced...
Oh, and before anyone goes screaming about America sliding into BigBrother/Nazi Germany/whatever, just remember, that Frank Delano Roosevelt — the war-President respected even by the French today — has authorized illegal wiretaps (in the 1939 or thereabouts) with the argument, that went something like this: "I don't believe, an American court will interfere with the President fighting German saboteurs". Just who is a saboteur was up to the Executive to decide, of course... Or, sometimes, even up to the foreigners — the British agents, who were allowed to operate in the US.
Swap your iPhones for Cryptophones (Score:3, Insightful)
YOU are an accused terrorist (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyone who believes this is limited to "foreign" intercepts is naive and ignorant to say the least.
We will never know who is being spied on because it is "secret".
Just assume it is you because it probably is then go read the fourth amendment to the constitution.
Prepare to be angry if you're not already.
I have only three words... (Score:3, Insightful)
I have only three words...
Encrypt, encrypt, encrypt!
They have no right to listen, and no reason to be suspiscious. I happen to live in a two-party state [callcorder.com] where recording of phone calls has to be known to all parties on the call. Since they're not notifying me or the other party on the calls I make, their use of the data they may glean, is inadmissible and against the law.
Just encrypt everything, locking down your conversations, speak in code, use encrypted SMS messages and so on.
Don't let them in, because they have no right or reason to be there. Period.
They want to make it hard for us to enjoy our freedoms, then I'm more than happy to make them earn their right to violate them by making it ridiculously hard to decrypt/brute/crack any encryption that I may use.
It's OK, they're just foreigners. (Score:4, Insightful)
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.
fools, cowards, traitors (Score:3, Insightful)
They are fools because they just rolled over to placate the 28% who will never vote for them anyway, while pissing off the millions that actually do vote for them. They are fools because they enable the Big Lie from the administration that we need to cut back on liberties and oversight because they endanger us.
They are cowards because 6 years after 911, they still roll over for the most unpopular president since Nixon when Bush accuses them of being weak. And they still haven't gotten it through their thick fucking skulls that by giving into the right wing rather than standing up to them, Democrats are epitomizing weakness, not strength.
And lastly, they are traitors for egregiously violating their oath of office, in which they promise to defend the Constitution. [senate.gov] Not the country, though the right wing talking point that this is "to protect us" is bullshit. The Constitution. And this is why I hold Webb especially responsible: how many government jobs has the man had? How many oaths of office has he taken? He just broke those oaths and sold us out.
Re:poster...post right (Score:1, Insightful)
What logic is that? Apparently your own substitute for it, because one doesn't reach that conclusion by any sane parsing of TheGavster's post.
All domestic surveillance (all surveillance occurring within the borders of the United States, to be clear) must require a warrant and court review. Without a warrant requirement, police agencies can claim anyone (including a US citizen located inside the US with no foreign nor criminal ties) is a valid target, because there is nobody checking nor allowed to check whether this is true. Surely this is not so difficult to understand.
If you think this puts us at a "distinct disadvantage in countless respects to the intelligence services of the rest of the modern world," I would suggest that it certainly does put our intelligence services at a distinct disadvantage in comparison to the intelligence services of some third-world dictatorship -- and that this is quite a good thing.
Something ain't right there ... (Score:3, Insightful)
If it has "gone on for decades", then what is the problem NOW?
Why and How has the existing system suddenly failed?
Re:Cost-benefit (Score:2, Insightful)
Political brinksmanship and an "October Surprise" (Score:5, Insightful)
They want a bill that gives the administration wiretap powers, but subject to independent judicial oversight. However, any limitation on the Administration's power to wiretap faces a Republican filibuster in the Senate.
This leaves the Democrats with a choice: pass a bill without oversight measures, or be blamed for stopping the wirtap program altogether. Stopping the program altogether exposes them to an "October Surprise": a terrorist attack that might hypothetically been prevented if the administration could wiretap as they pleased.
Never mind the logical niceties: that the program could have operated effectively with judicial oversight, that the Republicans filibustered the bill, or that the Administration didn't have the Arabic language skills to handle all the intercepts they might have made. The Republican line from the last two elections was that a vote for a Democrat was a victory for the terrorist, that Democrats are traitors who are on the side of the terrorists. Nothing would suit them better than proclaiming that in front of another smoking hole in a major American city.
So, the Democrats punted for six months to see if the administration's popularity drops enough to get the bill they want through the Senate. The process will repeat until the Administration is so wounded nobody will stand up for it, or until after the 2008 elections.
Cowardly? Certainly. But you're right in one thin:, the problem is its the same old stupid, unreasonable boss. The problem is us. If we don't have the balls to defend the freedoms our ancestors handed down to us, then we don't deserve those freedoms.
Bad (Score:2, Insightful)
The Problem (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't expect a democrat to defend your liberties.
Don't expect a neocon to respect your freedoms either.
You need a CONSTITUTIONALIST to defend your LIBERTIES.
Until you recognize this, you're going to be disaapointed by people you think will represent you.
Vote Ron Paul!
Disappointed in Amy Klobusher, D-MN (Score:3, Insightful)
But perhaps she isn't rising to the office where faithfully upholding the law means upholding the constitution and the _rule_of_law_.
Re:poster...post right (Score:3, Insightful)
If you believe that foreign signals intelligence should be burdened with warrant requirements because it incidentally travels through the United States, then we're in disagreement.
This is an update to a law so that intelligence agencies can reasonably execute their longstanding foreign intelligence roles within the law. If you believe that someone is secretly going to be arbitrarily declaring everyone "foreigners outside of the United States" even when they're not - in other words, completely ignoring and running afoul of the wording or spirit of any law - then they could be doing that anyway, regardless of what any law says.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with intelligence monitoring of foreign communications. Because modern technology means that some of these communications may travel through US communications equipment does not suddenly mean that they should be saddled with warrant process requirements and everything else that implies. It is simply not practical, and it flies in the face of the very purpose and methods of foreign intelligence collection.
The naïveté here is yours.
Re:Cost-benefit (Score:3, Insightful)
World War II was a war with readily identifiable enemies, discrete military and political goals, and concrete benchmarks for meeting those goals. There were also 'victory conditions' easily defined, that marked, once achieved, the conclusion of the war. The "War on Terror" is none of those things, and has no discernible victory conditions.
Comparing an extraordinary or constitutionally-questionable surveillance power or privilege from WWII to one today is beyond absurd. Unlike in a regular war, which typically ends after some period of time, in a permanent war, freedoms gone are gone for good, because it is problematic to reasonably postulate a time when the tools used to prosecute the war will no longer be necessary. In addition, the experiences of both France and Israel (and most recently the US) have shown that counter-intelligence techniques and powers quickly migrate from the military into the domestic law enforcement context, and are difficult to remove once they have made that migration.
Re:Imagined responses to this (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't trust Hillary, she's too close to the DLC, although she wisely stayed out of their debate and now is moving away from them.
The Republicans managed to build up a lot of irrational dislike of her at the start of Bill's presidency, but that was back when just saying the word 'liberal' worked to trash someone. There are people who'd never vote for her, but that category is fairly close to the people who'd never vote for a Democrat at all. (This has always been the fatal Democratic flaw: They try to avoid the irrational dislike of hardcode GOPers. Luckily, they've apparently figured out those people don't vote for them anyway, so they can just ignore them.)
Bill was the most popular president of recent times, and health care, which is big this time around, is something she actually tried to address once, so she's got cred there if she'd just admit what happened last time: She and the Democrats in Congress got tricked into repeatedly weakening the system to include existing insurance companies, and then got stabbed in the back when the Republicans didn't support it anyway. If she'd just come out and say that, I might be willing to vote for her in the primary if it looks like Edwards isn't going to win. (Or Richardson, but it already somewhat looks like he isn't going to win.)
But you're crazy if you think Giuliani or Romney could beat her in the general election. They are walking an incredibly fine line because Bush has managed to divide the country almost perfectly, 1/4th on one side and 3/4th on the other, into wanting diametrically opposed things. For example, one side wants people tortured, the other side does not. One side thinks the war in Iraq was a good idea and going well, the other believes the sky is blue. Etc.
Before this election, there were vague statements that candidates could make that would work in the primary, and then be 'clarified' for the general election. But the Republican candidates are being asked very explicit questions like 'How many people do you think we should be torturing' that are rather hard to back away from, and, right now, they have to answer to win the primary.
So those two have to continue to appeal to the 1/4th to win the primary without doing something that will piss off the other 3/4th, or vis versa...and the joke is that, at some point before the primary, one of them will slip off the edge to one side or another.
The only Republican hope for the general election is that one of them slips to the left, thus the other one can simply not talk at all until after the primary, and win it and can move safely to the left then. If one of them slips to the right, they will win the primary and lose the election. (Or the other, seeing them go off to the right, will leap after them, and win the primary instead and still lose the election.)
Re:Sheepocrats (Score:3, Insightful)
Voting for a minor party means that you've siphoned votes from one of the major party candidates. How dare you steal their votes by voting for a different candidate! If you're liberal, the Democrats have already bought and paid for your vote. If you're conservative, the Republicans have done the same.
For the love of God, vote for someone who is going to make a difference. They can't win unless you vote for them! And even when they don't win, at least you won't have the taste of bile in your throat when your party does something like this.