DNI Admits FISA Surveillance Violated the 4th Amendment 132
colinneagle writes, quoting Ms. Smith: "It's official; the government's spying efforts exceeded the legal limits at least once (PDF), meaning it is also officially 'unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment.' The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) sent a letter to Sen. Ron Wyden giving permission to admit that much. This started with Sen. Wyden requesting that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) declassify some statements regarding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act enacted by the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. Although this FISA power is supposed to sunset in December 2012, in May a new Senate bill extended the warrantless wiretapping program for five more years. That vote was regarded as the first step 'toward what the Obama administration hopes will be a speedy renewal of an expanded authority under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to monitor the U.S. e-mails and phone calls of overseas targets in an effort to prevent international terrorist attacks on the country.'"
Re:Write you Senators and Congress people (Score:5, Funny)
Dear Citizen,
we like our new powers. we're not giving them back. dream on.
have a nice day. (and vote quimby!)
Re:Too late (Score:0, Funny)
Really, anyone living in constant fear is an idiot.
That's where you're wrong. Only those who live in constant fear of ANYTHING bigger than they are can claim to be truly enlightened! Sure, all the added paranoia will mean I'll be dead by the age of 37 from stress-related complications and lack of sleep wreaking havoc with my health, plus I'll never be happy due to my all-consuming obsession over never-ending all-or-nothing demands for unrealistic, unfeasible, and/or unsustainable goals that anyone with even the most basic of real-world social research would understand the sheer absurdity of (if said demands are even well-defined at all, which is a big "if", on the scale of the original Laconic "if"), but would YOU rather die well past the age of 70 in relative happiness and comfort, being a productive member of society, accomplishing things, and having a social life that might extend outside of internet echo chamber chat rooms, knowing that all this time THEY might be looking at you at some point? Huh? HUH?
Yeah, that's what I thought.