EFF Sues To Overturn Telecom Immunity 369
Mike writes "The title says it all — The EFF is suing to have the unconstitutional telecom immunity overturned. 'In a brief filed in the US District Court [PDF] in San Francisco, the EFF argues that the flawed FISA Amendments Act (FAA) violates the federal government's separation of powers as established in the Constitution and robs innocent telecom customers of their rights without due process of law. [...] "We have overwhelming record evidence that the domestic spying program is operating far outside the bounds of the law," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl. "Intelligence agencies, telecoms, and the Administration want to sweep this case under the rug, but the Constitution won't permit it."'"
Good luck with that (Score:5, Insightful)
Intelligence agencies, telecoms, and the Administration want to sweep this case under the rug, but the Constitution won't permit it.
This administration does what it wants, without repercussions. They've already done several things that go against the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. They don't care, won't care, and have never cared about trifles like the founding documents of the country.
What will happen? W will claim executive privilege, file papers blocking the motion, then make looking at the papers illegal again citing executive privilege.
It's Orwellian, but that - or something equally bizarre - is what will happen. Count on it.
Re:Good luck with that (Score:5, Insightful)
If it happens, it happens, but at least they're trying.
Re:Good luck with that (Score:2, Insightful)
And so we get to a elect a new administration. One choice will trample our freedom from unauthorized search, the other will trample our freedom to own guns. Pick the lesser of two evils.
Re:Good luck with that (Score:1, Insightful)
Hopefully after the election W will get sent to Iraq so the Iraqi's can thank him personally for all he has done for them.
Re:Good luck with that (Score:5, Insightful)
What makes you think that either side is going to stop unauthorized search/surveillance? Governments aren't well-known for giving up power unless forced into it. The guns are a completely separate issue. The national guard does not fear my shotgun.
Re:Good luck with that (Score:5, Insightful)
Gross oversimplification:
Both will restrict our rights across huge swaths of areas just in a proportionally different manner. The lesser of two evils increasingly looks like a third party vote or vote one party into the white house and the other into congress in the hopes that they spend more time bickering than doing anything..
Re:Good luck with that (Score:5, Insightful)
The administration has done only what it has been allowed to do. If nobody stops them there can be no other outcome. It is not the administration that has failed; it is us.
Re:Good luck with that (Score:5, Insightful)
Hillary and the congressional dems who voted for the war and continuing funding can go with him...
Re:Good luck with that (Score:5, Insightful)
The real tragedy is that our congresscritters are allowing it to happen.
The republicans are enthusiastic about law and order at the expense of liberty, and the democrats have yet to become vertebrates.
Separation of powers isn't just a good idea, it's essential to the proper operation of our system.
The problem isn't George W Bush (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is 49% of Americans don't understand what we fought for in the revolution, or in the World Wars. They thing that "fighting for freedom" means going to another country. They think freedom means more TV channels. They think it is okay for the government to ignore the constitution if there is a 1 in a billion chance it will stop another 9/11.
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance"
(Unknown - attributed to Thomas Jefferson)
Re:Good luck with that (Score:5, Insightful)
In a revolution is it better to have guns, or to have the knowledge to make guns?
Freedom of speech is everything.
Re:The problem isn't George W Bush (Score:5, Insightful)
49%? That's a great overestimate. I'd put it more around 4.9% of American understand those concepts.
Bingo! (Score:5, Insightful)
[citation needed] (Score:1, Insightful)
> And so we get to a elect a new administration. One choice will trample our freedom from unauthorized search, the other will trample our freedom to own guns.
[citation needed]
Obama praised the Supreme Court ruling that found an individual right to own guns (as opposed to a right for state militias to own guns).
Re:Good luck with that (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't see how... (Score:3, Insightful)
While I have had similar thoughts in the past, I can't necessarily find anything unconstitutional about this. Congress has offered immunity in the past for people who claim the Fifth Amendment while testifying, not to mention States Evidence mob trials. While I don't like it, it seems to kind of the opposite of Ex Post Facto. I am also not a constitutional scholar, and hate the idea that these guys can get off scott free, but there is precident to limitation of liability, which has seemed to be upheld in the past. Can someone please convince me constitutionally that I am wrong? I'd love to be in this case.
Re:Good luck with that (Score:5, Insightful)
It does make me wonder...would they not have been better waiting another 3 weeks--or until late January--to bring this suit so W has less, uh, clout with which to sweep this under the rug?
Re:Good luck with that (Score:4, Insightful)
... or vote one party into the white house and the other into congress in the hopes that they spend more time bickering than doing anything..
Like how it is now? Yeah, that's working out really well at the moment.
Re:Good luck with that (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The problem isn't George W Bush (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is 49% of Americans don't understand what we fought for in the revolution, or in the World Wars. They thing that "fighting for freedom" means going to another country
In the world wars fighting for freedom DID mean going to other countries.
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance" (Unknown - attributed to Thomas Jefferson)
That could just as well apply to vigilance against tyrants and oppressors in other countries.
My point is that your post marginalizes other people and paints them as ignorant rather than admitting that it's a difference of opinion. For liberals, the platform that they stand on is freedom of choosing your own moral standard and the freedom to live without fear of being left in an impossible situation. For conservatives, they strive for the freedom to do what they want with their own money and the freedom to govern themselves on a more granular level. If an individual state wants to institute welfare, that's fine, just don't force me and my state into it. If my state wants to ban abortion, what's it to your state? You don't believe it's murder, we do. If you believe that an unborn baby is still a human being, then allowing abortions is roughly equivalent to allowing a mother to kill her children whenever she wants.
Re:Good luck with that (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, because when bad laws are already on the books and being enforced, the best option is inaction rather than electing people who will change those laws.
Re:Good luck with that (Score:2, Insightful)
"In a revolution is it better to have guns, or to have the knowledge to make guns?
Freedom of speech is everything."
You can't speak if you are dead or imprisoned.
A gun allows a person to maintain his individual and collective life and liberty against those who would try to take them. The knowledge of how to make guns, or encrypt data, or make bombs if irrelevant if those who have that knowledge can be eliminated by force.
There's a reason the audience laughs at the scene in Holy Grail where the guy groveling in the mud is yelling out "Help! Help! I'm being Oppressed!" but gets beaten and ignored anyway. And it's not the funny accents.
Re:Good luck with that (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good luck with that (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Contractual EFF Support Link! (Score:1, Insightful)
Get a law degree and pass the bar exam
Then you must not be able to count past 3.... (Score:3, Insightful)
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
- from the American Bill Of Rights
I live in Canada. Why do I know your constitution better than you?
Re:Good luck with that (Score:5, Insightful)
"The national guard does not fear my shotgun."
Sure about that? If Obama were to order the Army to go in and pacify Central PA, there would at least be desertions and possibly mutiny.
Or as a friend of mine says, when some smartypants pulls out the "what is your shotgun going to do against a tank?" question:
"They have to get out to take a piss sooner or later."
Re:Good luck with that (Score:5, Insightful)
Then don't vote for them. Democrats and Republicans are not the only parties, and it really gets me irritated that people (en masse) seem to think they are.
Re:Noob questions (Score:5, Insightful)
If the telcos didn't do anything illegal,...
Why do they want immunity? Why object to this case?
Re:[citation needed] (Score:0, Insightful)
Don't you read right-wing propaganda? All Democrats want to make owning a gun illegal for all purposes. If another Democrat gets into office, we will lose our constitutional right to bear arms will be extinguished... Just as it was from 1933 - 1953, 1961 - 1969, 1977 - 1981, and 1993 - 2001.
The Demmycrats like Brady and his evil evil bad Brady bill means when I need to kill someone I have to wait 7 days to buy a gun.
Re:Good luck with that (Score:5, Insightful)
I dare say you'll find more gun enthusiasts and 2nd Amendment supporters in the Military than in any other significant grouping of American Citizens gathered from across the nation.
Re:Good luck with that (Score:5, Insightful)
If Waco or Iraq is any model (*everyone* has an AK), then no, your shotgun isn't going to cut it ever. Your roadside bomb would be a different story. But I'm not going to learn how to make one "just in case".
The possibility of tyranny, however small, is why we should all support the EFF here. You fight the tyranny *before* it happens, through political means, so that you don't have to use that shotgun.
Re:Good luck with that (Score:3, Insightful)
You can't have a functioning democracy where significant numbers of people are scared of any serious candidate being elected. Down that path leads coups and civil war.
I don't get the fear about Obama, though. So he'll raise taxes on a few hundred thousand people. You have an 800 billion dollar deficit, ffs. You either need to cut spending or raise taxes a whole lot, and fast. Neither of them is gonna do that.
Both want to keep fighting in Iraq. Both will likely invade either Iran or Pakistan next year. I just don't see where the big difference is.
Re:Good luck with that (Score:4, Insightful)
Plus they have the religeous fanaticism to stand against an overwhelming force that gives them the totally false hope of defeating us. Any sane group would have given up.
If they had invaded your country with an overwhelming force, would you have given up?
It doesn't take religious fanaticism to relentlessly resist an unwanted invader; a strong sense of principles and willingness to fight for them is all it takes. These traits are in ample supply in populations throughout the world.
Plus they don't have to "defeat you" they just have to sap your will to fight, and your homelands will to fund the fight for perpetuity. Since you have no real stake in being there; you WILL eventually be worn down; you WILL eventually leave.
Re:close but wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
The only reason that politicians support this misread is that, if anything, they would prefer that people would forget about the constitutional blessing of militias.
Re:Good luck with that (Score:5, Insightful)
Because it backfired. Not only did it not succeed in removing him from office, the majority of Americans found it to be petty. Increasingly so as time wore on. Many Republicans these days will even admit it was a mistake. (Not the talking heads on the radio, to be sure; their job is to rile people up.)
The article you linked verifies my point (if you actually followed the conclusion). Kucinich introduced articles of impeachment. The Republicans all voted FOR them; they desperately wanted them to come to a vote so that they could paint the Democrats as vindictive morons more concerned with taking their revenge on a president they don't like than governing the nation. Who cast them into oblivion? Democrats. Because they knew it. When the party that SHOULD support something opposes it and the one that should do everything they can to kill it wants it to proceed, you know there's some nasty politics going on. From the Democrats' perspective, it is much more important to get a democratic president elected now than it was to try to impeach Bush then.
Personally I wish he had been removed from office, because I think Bush has clearly done illegal things that warrant it. I also realize that he would never have been removed; that it would have been an entirely symbolic gesture that would have ground the congress to a halt, further politicized the nation and even introduced renewed uncertainty into the outcome of this presidential election. Symbols can be important, but I tend to prefer results.
Sorry, but that is one of the stupidest things I have ever read on Slashdot.
If I went hunting with somebody I had been friends with for years and got shot in the face, I damn sure wouldn't assume it was malice on my friend's part. And if some asshats tried to make political hay out of it as if it was somehow anything more than an accident, I too would defend my friend. It has nothing to do with being terrified of him or his "boss," it has to do with not being a shitty friend.
He SHOULD feel bad that the accident that he obviously thinks nothing of turned into some sort of controversy and maligned his friend, and if he felt that calling a press conference to tell people to shut up about it would help in the least he's right to do it. I would. If you wouldn't, well, I certainly wouldn't want to be your friend.
There are plenty of problems with Bush, Cheney, Republicans and even government in general. Let's focus on them instead of trying to invent more on stupid bases.
Re:Contractual EFF Support Link! (Score:3, Insightful)
Read up on the topic, and explain the issues to your friends. Get them to talk to their representative (or even better, their prospective representative if you're in a state that's facing a change of incumbent this election). Wiretapping has had an amazing response among politically-active americans (far more than many other tech civil liberties topics), but it needs to be kept in the limelight for any change to take place.
This is true whether you're a republican, independent, or democrat. There will be a large re-alignment of issues after this election: there's no reason why the Republican Party will want to be associated with previous policies of surveillance and co-opting private companies for government intrusion. Make it clear that you think that standing against surveillance is the right thing to do, and supporting the encroachment of civil liberties that has happened in the last eight years is wrong, no matter your party.
Re:Good luck with that (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe it would be more clear if
the democrats have yet to become vertebrates
was reworded as
and the democrats have yet to effectively use their majority lead to show the republicans that they shouldn't be allowed to get away with the BS they have been pulling
Re:Good luck with that (I say bullshit) (Score:3, Insightful)
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
From Wikipedia: "The essential problem was posed by Plato in the Republic, his work on government and morality. The perfect society as described by Socrates, the main character of the work (see Socratic dialogue), relies on laborers, slaves and tradesmen. The guardian class is to protect the city. The question is put to Socrates, "Who will guard the guardians?" or, "Who will protect us against the protectors?" Plato's answer to this is that they will guard themselves against themselves. We must tell the guardians a "noble lie." The noble lie will inform them that they are better than those they serve and it is therefore their responsibility to guard and protect those lesser than themselves. We will instill in them a distaste for power or privilege; they will rule because they believe it right, not because they desire it."
Having moved back into civilian life, I realize that our country's founding fathers knew their shit. While a few are disillusioned, most learn soon enough.
Re:Good luck with that (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Good luck with that (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The good of guns. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Noob questions (Score:2, Insightful)
Ok, so *maybe* the companies thought they were legally required to disclose the information. Or *maybe* they were intimidated into doing it. But those would be perfectly valid arguments in court. That's not to say that they are necessarily true, or that they would hold up, or that the companies shouldn't have known better. But isn't deciding things like that the reason we have a court system? Again, granting them immunity seems at best unnecessary and at worst unjust.
Regarding the "We thought we had to because the government told us to" scenario, it sounds a bit implausible. First of all, we're not talking about your average Joe on the street getting hassled and illegally searched by a couple of street cops. The upper levels of the large telcos are very savvy and have access to plenty of legal advice. And even most average Joes know that they should not voluntarily submit to a search without the officer having probable cause and/or a warrant. Second, the telcos gave away something that wasn't theirs to give. If you want to let the police in for a warrantless search of your house, go ahead. But if you have a spare key to my house, you'd better think long and hard before giving that up for the same warrantless search, and after that long hard think you should probably come to the conclusion that you need to see a warrant first.
Re:Good luck with that (Score:3, Insightful)
Simply outlaw all weapons and set up a deadline to have them all turned in. After that date, anyone found with a weapon will be killed, along with their family and their neighbors. You have to get the people scared enough to rat out those who still want to resist. Rome was pretty good at using brutality to pacify conquered people, which is why they were so successful.
Re:Fighting tyranny before it happens. (Score:3, Insightful)
Violent revolutions tend to become dictatorships. Because the bunch capable of and willing to exert the most violence will end up at the top.
That is why Karl Marx (and Engels) encouragement of violence was a fatal "design flaw" in their "guide to starting Communism".
Only in a few rare cases has a violent revolution immediately resulted in a peaceful democracy. Only a very few would hand over power once they have seized it.
I strongly recommend sticking to peaceful means. You might enjoy being a Tyrant a bit too much for your own good.
OK you'd probably resist the temptation, but maybe not your "friend" who kills you.