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:Watching the war strategy... (Score:5, Interesting)
Their loudest complaint was about US troops in Saudi Arabia.
I asked an Arab co-worker whether that was for real, and he gave me one of those "How could you even ask?!" looks. Nobody really likes foreign troops, and when those include women carrying guns and driving, it causes certain kinds of mind to explode.
We capitulated to them on that issue almost immediately.
Re:Write you Senators and Congress people (Score:4, Interesting)
Chances are, if it is a contested district, you might get a phone call back.
And there is the first problem!
According to this [wikipedia.org] ~82% of are not even close to being contested ("In the 2000 Congressional Elections, out of the 435 Congressional districts in which there were elections, 359 were listed as "safe" by Congressional Quarterly. [4] In all of these 359, there was no uncertainty as to who would win.")