Telecom Immunity Bill Hides Spying Provisions 202
Corrupt notes an Ars analysis of the FISA bill of which the telecom immunity provision has been getting all the attention. Timothy B. Lee enumerates the ways in which the bill loosens current protections on domestic wiretapping and opens up whole new areas to government eavesdropping. "The legislation eliminates meaningful judicial oversight of eavesdropping between American citizens and foreigners located overseas, and effectively legalizes dragnet surveillance of domestic-to-foreign traffic. It stretches out the judicial review process so much that the government will in many cases be able to complete its surveillance activities before the courts finish deciding on its legality."
Judicial oversight (Score:2, Insightful)
What are you so worried about? (Score:5, Insightful)
What do we have to be so darned worried about? It's not like the President would compile an "Enemies List" of people to wiretap, or something. This is America, right?
oh crap [wikipedia.org]
Is it just me? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yello (belly) alert (Score:3, Insightful)
The difference between terrorism and ordinary murder is the intended victim - politicians.
This is a vast oversimplification. Try telling that to the families of those killed in a certain Israeli pizza shop or in the WTC.
I agree that we should not tolerate the constant creep in executive powers, all of which is being made in the name of national security, but let's not lose our perspective on the nature of terrorism either.
And about the FISA bill, make the effort, call your senators and let them know where you stand.
Re:Yello (belly) alert (Score:5, Insightful)
How about the billions in chasing phantom terrorists, waging two wars, creating the DHS, funding a massive wiretapping dragnet, new TSA security crackdowns, general security crackdowns, and plenty of pricey court cases arguing against the 4th Amendment.
Your pathetic attempt at distraction ignores the devastating cost of our overreaction.
Re:Yello (belly) alert (Score:5, Insightful)
And how many billions does it cost for those murders? 9/11 may have "only" killed 3,000 people, but it cost us several billion in clean-up, insurance, legal costs et al and sent our economy into a tailspin. All these pathetic analogies to deaths from bee-stings or bath-tub accidents or homicide ignore the devastating economic costs of terrorist attacks.
I would say that say "several billion" more than covers the clean-up, insurance and legal costs. While the hit to our economy is way into the trillions - how much have we wasted on Iraq alone, and then there is the sum of all the time wasted by TSA theatrics.
The difference is that the economic cost of terrorist attacks is largely self-inflicted - we do it to ourselves out of irrational fear. That's why the bee-sting and bath-tub death comparisons are apt -- they are meant to illustrate that our society does not have an irrational response to bees despite them killing more people than terrorists, so maybe we should get a grip and stop reacting irrationally to terrorism too.
Re:nice work (Score:4, Insightful)
It's the government's own idiocy that jeopardizes security. They almost immediately abuse such laws to go after non terrorists. Maybe they should also ask for Telecom Throttling Immunity so they can secure enough bandwidth (a DOUBLING) to copy every data bit into analysis programs (hmmm ISP network stress overload coincidence?), and also secure Copyright Infringement Immunity to mass violate everybody's copyrighted content. I nominate the agency be honorably named ThePirateGov. They should also perhaps budget 999 TRILLION dollars a year to compensate for the government legal liability.
How are citizens supposed to keep their ears and eyes open for terrorism unless they upload and download *everything*, to make sure that every data bit isn't overlooked for possible terrorist activity? We can now clearly see that copyright and ISP throttling is aiding and abetting terrorist activity. How do we know there aren't secret terrorist plans in files named mileycyrus.mp3? Don't let the terrorists win -- end copyright now!
Re:Judicial oversight (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yello (belly) alert (Score:5, Insightful)
Wake the fuck up. Our senators don't give a flying shit about you and nor have they ever cared about what citizens believe. They are not there to represent you, me, or anybody, except they are there to represent the government of your state, nobody else. It is the house that represents you, not the senate. The house has already passed the law therefore the senate will just pass it as well since clearly the people that were suppose to represent us has failed us all.
Senators only care about one thing, money and power, and they're getting both with this bill. So, we're fucked and there is nothing we as citizens can do anything about it cause the government went corrupt a long time ago and it just continues to get bigger and bigger.
Re:Yello (belly) alert (Score:5, Insightful)
let's not lose our perspective on the nature of terrorism either
We already did. Forty thousand people die on American highways every single year. Those deaths are no less traumatic to the families than the WTC deaths to those families, or those murdered by non-political murderers.
I want some of that homeland security money to go to guard rails.
Re:Judicial oversight (Score:5, Insightful)
When would the courts decide this? You are implying that there would be a trial.
Seriously? (Score:2, Insightful)
You think the intent is to gather evidence to take to court? For this rev of the executive branch? Seriously?
So it's even worse than we thought... (Score:5, Insightful)
If people don't start swamping their representatives with letters, calls and e-mails telling them to strangle this evil piece of legislation in its cradle, a lot of the things that make the United States a place worth living in will start sliding away.
Bin Laden must be laughing himself sick. One terrorist act that kills fewer people than died every single day during WWII, and the US starts throwing the rights and freedoms its heroes bled and died for down the nearest toilet...with enthusiastic applause from hysterical soccer moms and authority-worshiping lackwits.
Mod parent up (Score:2, Insightful)
Having also been downmodded for critizing Obama, I think it's definitely time to end the witch-hunt against detractors that has begun to permeate this community.
Re:Yello (belly) alert (Score:5, Insightful)
The difference between terrorism and ordinary murder is the intended victim - politicians.
This is a vast oversimplification. Try telling that to the families of those killed in a certain Israeli pizza shop or in the WTC.
How is it a vast oversimplification?
Generally speaking, the entire point of terrorism is to further political or ideological goals.
Most people define terrorism by the motivation and intent of the attack, not by the scale.
As an example, the difference between terrorists (Beltway Snipers) and mass murderers (Columbine HS shootings) is entirely one of motivation and intent. Or another example would be hostage taking. What differentiates bank robbers who take hostages from Hezbollah or Hamas taking hostages? Why do we not call hostage-taking-bank-robbers terrorists?
The GP is 100% correct.
The difference between terrorism and ordinary murder is the intended victim - politicians.
Checks and Balances (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Judicial oversight (30+ days of spying w/o) (Score:5, Insightful)
You're missing the point. The oversight process in this bill permits spying to take place for thirty days to four months before being forced to stop. The govt can spy for thirty days (plus the 1 week before submission of certification) even if judicial oversight rejects their case the moment it is presented.
The timeline assuming the agency's goal is maximizing the spying time:
0 day - spying begins without any preamble
1 week - Gov must submit certification for review
1-30 days + 1 week - judge must returns review
if judge objects
30 days after review- the govt must stop spying
unless they appeal to FISA
then they could have another 30 days
If the judges and courts have full queues that could push the whole thing to four months.
Assuming it gets rejected they presumably (IANAL) cannot use the evidence in court. Nonetheless they were legally empowered to look through your internet/telephone underwear drawer for over a month. How are you feeling about your 4th amendment rights now?
The article goes on to describe how the constraints make this law very easily abused to include spying upon americans for a wide variety of pretexts. That is the other half of the problem.
This is a terrible law even if you ignore autocracy being implemented by the telecom amnesty provisions.
Re:Slashdot community helped to keep a lid on it. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yello (belly) alert (Score:3, Insightful)
I live in the DC area and I very vividly remember what those three weeks of the Beltway snipers were like. But the snipers were not terrorists; they were spree killers. They had no political agenda or ideological goals. They may have had a terrorist-like effect on the DC area, and I'm sure they were thrilled by that, but mostly they were twisted fucks that got off on killing people.
In any case, I'm not entirely sure what your point is. You say yourself that terrorism is typically defined by the motivation or the intent of the attack -- and I agree with you on that -- and then in the next breath you then define terrorism as having to do with the intended victim. Which is it? What politician was targeted in that Sbarro's in Israel?
Re:Mod parent up (Score:3, Insightful)
I've suffered the same fate from misguided moderators. It would be great if people realised that flamebait/troll/overrated does NOT mean 'I don't agree with this guy'.
Obama scares the hell out of me. He's no different, and possibly worse, than your average politican yet his followers seem to think he can walk on water and part the Red Sea. What really scares me is not that he's hoodwinked so many people though; it's his absoulte lack of experience combined with his absolute dishonest that scares me.
Re:Yello (belly) alert (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a vast oversimplification. Try telling that to the families of those killed in a certain Israeli pizza shop or in the WTC.
That is a vast oversimplification as well. The fact that people died in the 9/11-attacks is very very tragic, but they were not the target of the attacks, they were collateral damage. I'm pretty sure the attackers didn't care about the deaths of "infidels", but they were attacking the symbols of Americanism (note that I'm not writing America/USA or Americans here). Collateral damage was acceptable for them. Just as it was when "the Coalition" invaded Iraq. Just as it has been in every major conflict.
Re:Yello (belly) alert (Score:3, Insightful)
9/11 didn't send our economy into a tailspin. An ill-planned war, and greed (mortgage "investment") sent our economy into a tailspin. Nothing more, nothing less.
12% Approval (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's an interesting stat, everybody tends to like (tolerate) their Senator and Congress Critter, however Congress and Senate have about a 12% overall approval rating.
These numbers really don't make sense, not at all. Each congress critter / senator is part of the whole and thus part of the problem for everyone who isn't part of that 12%.
FISA is just a symptom of the problem of overly complex and burdensome legislation. I'm sure there is SOME part of FISA that you (everyone) would agree is okay perhaps even needed, however that is over shadowed by all the parts that you (everyone) don't like, hate, despise or whatever.
Which is why, almost overwhelmingly, we don't like FISA as a whole. The process sucks, because just enough people like each part to get it included into the whole, but the whole is untenable.
This directly mirrors our view of congress, we like the part we voted for, but no the aggregate whole.
Personally, I'd like to see a new Constitutional Ammendment that every 8 to 16 years, the nation as a whole votes on all the congress critters and senators as an aggregate group, Yes / No. And if they get a "NO" then they (the aggregate whole lot) can never run for any office ever again (not even honorary town dog catcher), and lose whatever pension they might have coming.
It is time to clear out the deadwood.
People Want Action, Even Bad action (Score:4, Insightful)
Simple:
People want to see something done to protect them even when it isn't possible.
Politicians are doing exactly what they are supposed to do, get themselves re-elected by catering to those that elected them.
The sad fact is most people didn't elect them though, just a small, focused, and motivated groups. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
Don't complain when they do this when your idea of participating in politics is going to vote.
That is the smallest part of participation.
It would be no different to say you ran a marathon after driving it in an SUV, getting out 10 feet in front of the finish line and crossing it. You didn't run a marathon and voting is just crossing the finish line of the political system. We are lazy.
People are pissed at special interest groups because a group of people pooled their money, hired lobbiest, and worked hard to get their agenda through.
A few Special Interest Groups
NRA
Teacher's Union
Pharmacutical Companies
Trade Unions
Your Local Church\Syna\Mosq\temp\etc....
The United Union of Gnome Collectors
International Union of Bloggers
Red Cross\Crescent
GLBA-ETC (can keep up anymore with them...)
PETA
Green Peace
Shriners
Masons
NAACP
Free Press Ascc.
WC3
EFF
YOUR EMPLOYER
Which one are you a member of? Want your voice silenced or ignored? Every time you hear them say that special interest groups have to go, don't forget some of the ones above...
If all the people complaining about special interest groups made thier OWN special interest group you'd dwarf the resources of all the others at $5 dollars a month. Informal servey at my local mall reveals the only people that complain about special interest groups involved in government, well, don't belong to one.
We get the government we deserve and right now we deserve little if anything.
Obama talks about change, but he's from the same democrates that have been running around for over a 100 years. What change was there? Mc Cain is a republican? Why keep flip-flopping between two parties that have shown in the last 100 years their primary goal is to grab more power for... well their own party.
Seriously, we have no one to blame for this except ourselves. If we want change we need to stop listening to money, advertisements, and nicely laid out speeches and catch phrases and start listening to reason. The time for 15 minutes attention spans needs to come to a halt!
'08 Looks like this:
Hillary: "Why the hell would I vote for a women that didn't have the balls to throw out her cheating husband after at least 12 years of infidelity. If you can tolerate a traitor in your marriage where else would you?"
Barack: "I've done little in congress, have no military campaign experience, and I am basically a closet socialist that lacks the balls to run as a socialist (not saying their bad). I'll bring change by following party lines and making sure that I keep my democrat backers happy..."
Mc Cain: .... .... .... I think we have a pulse.... "The tubes need to be regulated..." .... can we get a canidate that isn't a fossil? Please...
We have no sense of personal responsibility left as a nation and can't perform the most basic forms of critical thinking. We beg for Big Brother in our actions and expectations but condemn Big Brother in our words.
We compain about the cops when they are there and bitch about them never being around when they're not.
We have come to expect simple answers, simple solutions, in a world that has never been, nor ever will, be simple.
We have become a planet (not just to pick on the US) of hypocrite.
The environmental types complain about global warming and want ethanol but then bitch about people starving due to high food costs
The capitalist demand free market but work hard and making sure patents and copyright are enforced by the government rather then market forces.
Re:Judicial oversight (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually what it comes down to is, will it get to the right court.
Re:Is it just me? (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, considering that Bletchley Park (and all the XX Committee efforts) were used in the interception and decryption of encrypted military communications from a country on the other side of a declared war, I don't see the comparison.
Perhaps you were thinking of the Mail Censor? People's post was read, any "secrets" redacted, and the letter forwarded.
Why is this different? Because it was international mail that was censored, and it was known to be happening (usually there was a nice big stamp "Cleared by the Censor" on the envelope, which rather gave it away), and they weren't holding what they found against you (mainly); they merely wanted to make sure you weren't posting "information useful to the enemy" (say a frontline soldier mentioning his unit, and where he is). Very different to the current surveillance.
Re:Personal Checklist (Score:2, Insightful)
Privacy Rights (Score:5, Insightful)
You are assuming the evidence is being used against you. As it turns out, if the cops illegally search you, and find evidence of wrongdoing on the part of someone else, that other person has no grounds to appeal the illegality of the search. Nor, unsurprisingly, do you have grounds to object to the search - the recourse for an illegal search is that the results cannot be used against you. Thus, you have no recourse if they're going after someone else.
Note that this is a double-edged blade; if they find something searching someone else's stuff on you, you have no recourse. Before this legislation the evidence could be thrown out because the telecom tap was illegal. Now, it's not.
Re:Yello (belly) alert (Score:3, Insightful)
Can't we, as citizens, vote?
We can. I do. It's been working great so far, hasn't it?
Re:Yello (belly) alert (Score:3, Insightful)
In a novel or story (can't remember its name, sorry), Robert Heinlein mentioned four boxes: Ballot, jury, ammo, and soap. Slashdot is the fourth box, as is the comments sections of the online editions of the mainstream newspapers.
Lets try and avoid the third box if we can.
Get realistic (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally, I'd like to see a new Constitutional Ammendment that every 8 to 16 years, the nation as a whole votes on all the congress critters and senators as an aggregate group, Yes / No. And if they get a "NO" then they (the aggregate whole lot) can never run for any office ever again (not even honorary town dog catcher), and lose whatever pension they might have coming.
Exactly who is going to enact such vindictive and short sighted legislation? That would be a great way to further expand the power of the executive branch so maybe Emperor Bush would be in favor. Darth Cheney would certainly approve.
Really, I think we already have enough cowardly, pandering, and/or dogmatic leadership as it is. Realistic term limits (say 12 years max in either branch of congress) would substantially accomplish your goals. Not that I expect those to ever get into law either.
Re:Yello (belly) alert (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem with YOUR oversimplification is that with terrorism, collateral damage IS the political agenda furthering mechanism.
If they only wanted to blow the towers up, they could have done it at night. They WANTED the Americans dead. Go look at the video of Osama dancing during the newsplays of the day (9/11). He was happier than hell that it took out much more than he ever expected.
Sbarro? Yup, again, the terrorists could have blown it up when it was empty. Empty buildings don't scare politicians NEARLY as much as losing a few families, (save them kidses) and it being on the front page of the news.
Collateral damage in the case of the US led invasion is completely different. That is a planned military exercise, designed to minimize the threat of collateral damage. Terrorism is designed to MAXIMIZE collateral damage, or the idiots with the bomb vests wouldn't fill them full of (insert small projectiles like nails, screws, etc here).
--Toll_Free
Re:Yello (belly) alert (Score:3, Insightful)
The economic costs of 9/11 are due to overreaction, paranoia and fear. Furthermore, the economy was already in trouble by 2001, since the dot-com bubble had already begun to burst.
The truth is, as horrific as 9/11 was -- and certainly not to belittle the loss that the victims' families have had to deal with since that day -- it was still a drop in the bucket compared to the constant loss of life that we all accept as "the way it is." The difference is, when we get behind the wheel of a car, we think that our superhuman reflexes and above average intelligence will keep us out of trouble. Accidents only happen to the other guy. The terrorist attack on 9/11 forced us to face the reality that it could happen to us and most of us are very, very uncomfortable facing the fact of our own mortality.
Re:Yello (belly) alert (Score:4, Insightful)
collateral damage IS the political agenda furthering mechanism
Sorry, but I disagree. At least in the 9-11 case. 9-11 was about the symbols. If it was about people, they would have flown all 4 planes into Skyscrapers and they would have done it at a slightly later time so all 4 buildings would have been packed with people.
If they only wanted to blow the towers up, they could have done it at night.
They could, but seeing they were mediocre pilots at best, it would have been a hell of a lot more difficult at night. In fact, having flown myself (gliding), I'm pretty darn sure they wouldn't have been able to hit the pentagon at night. VFR without a horizon, without clear ground sight, lots of blinking lights is and no proper training/experience, is rather a silly gamble.
He was happier than hell that it took out much more than he ever expected.
He was happy that the towers fell. No-one figured that would happen. The things were designed to survive a plane crashing into them. Skyscrapers normally don't collapse because of fire. I doubt the terrorist had the knowledge by which they knew the towers would fall.
Sbarro? Yup, again, the terrorists could have blown it up when it was empty.
I wasn't talking about Sbarro in my post, just 9-11. In all honestly, I don't even know that attack. But I believe that it refers to a attack in Israel. That's a different kind of Terrorism, which is much more about hatred between two civilian populations. The Terroists attack on 9-11 were about US hegemony, hence they attacked those symbols. If they wanted to attack civilians, they would have crashed a jet in the stadium during the Superball. Or they would have crashed all four jets in places with lots of people. If there would have been only 100 people working in the WTC, they still would have done the same.
Collateral damage in the case of the US led invasion is completely different.
Tell that to the families. Do you actually think they care whether family members die by a terrorist attack or a military attack?
Terrorism is designed to MAXIMIZE collateral damage, or the idiots with the bomb vests wouldn't fill them full of (insert small projectiles like nails, screws, etc here).
Some terrorism is, some terrorism isn't. Not all terrorism is the same. Read a good book about it. Look at some documentaries about the topic. (There is actually a good one about a terrorist group in Iraq. While being terrorists, they denounce the attacks on civilians f.i.).
Not true of this Obama supporter. (Score:1, Insightful)
> That's something that scares me about Obama. He seems to be capable of doing no evil, according to many of his supporters.
That's not true. I disagree with him strongly about approving a FISA that allows immunity. I wrote them about that. And I stopped donating until there's some reform.
But that doesn't mean I suddenly plan to vote for McCain. McCain is strongly in favor of taking away our liberty and in favor of telecom immunity.
I'd rather have a 3rd rate fireman than a 1st class arsonist as president.
So if all the focus is "Obama is evil!" I'm still going to complain, because you'd have us ignore McCain, Bush and the rest. Those two in particular plan to create more problems. I'm not happy with Obama over this. But I'm even more disgusted with McCain.