House Says No To Retroactive Immunity
from the about-time dept
Despite a fear-mongering campaign filled with outright lies and fabrications, it appears that the Democrats in the House are actually asking the right questions about why we should grant retroactive immunity to telcos for potentially breaking the law in helping give the government access to information. They approved the version of the bill that they announced earlier this week, which would not get the telcos off the hook if they broke the law over the past few years.Throughout this whole process, the one thing that has never been explained clearly is why it would possibly make sense to give the telcos immunity for breaking the law. There are perfectly legal means for the government to go out and request the information they wanted. To not go through those legal means makes very little sense, unless the government knew that it would not get approval. To anyone who claims that the government "needed" to do this, can you explain why they would "need" to do this without following the legally prescribed paths to do so? The US government is not free to do whatever it wants without oversight. That's why we set up a government with three separate branches to have oversight of each other. Otherwise, the system can and will be abused. What's happening here is that there appears to be quite a bit of evidence that the system was abused, and the White House (and the members of Congress who agree with the White House) are saying that we should ignore that. That seems problematic.
Luckily, (and, to be honest, surprisingly), it appears that some in Congress recognize this point, and are stating it quite explicitly. The EFF highlights the comments of Nancy Pelosi:
"Why would the Administration oppose a judicial determination of whether the companies already have immunity? There are at least three explanations:Of course, this is not nearly over yet. The Senate still needs to vote on legislation and the President would still need to approve it -- and he's made it clear that he'll veto any bill that doesn't include immunity. For all his complaints that not having a bill approved would make the US less safe, it would appear that it's his demand for retroactive immunity that is actually holding up the bill's passage. There is nothing in the current bill that makes the country any less safe. The only thing holding it up is a desire to brush aside questions about whether or not earlier activities broke the law.
First, the President knows that it was the Administration's incompetence in failing to follow the procedures in statute that prevented immunity from being conveyed -- that's one possibility. They simply didn't do it right.
Second, the Administration's legal argument that the surveillance requests were lawfully authorized was wrong; or [third,] public reports that the surveillance activities undertaken by the companies went far beyond anything about which any Member of Congress was notified, as is required by the law.
None of these alternatives is attractive but they clearly demonstrate why the Administration's insistence that Congress provide retroactive immunity has never been about national security or about concerns for the companies; it has always been about protecting the Administration."
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Filed Under: congress, immunity, telcos, wiretapping
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hip, hip, hooray
...even if it doesn't last.
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Re: hip, hip, hooray
Meanwhile, it's been clear for a long while to anyone actually paying attention to what has been going on that the Administration (not just Bush, all of them) should have been put on trial.
With actual Jail Time as punishment. Bush has done more harm than good for the American people, even non-Americans realize this. Only the completely sideways blind Americans that can't see beyond their party and church congregation think otherwise.
Note, I think religion can be a good thing. It's a sad stereotype that most of the people supporting Bush claim to be Christian, yet miss the point of Christianity entirely. Why bring back the Crusades? That shit was senseless.
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Re: telco immunity
a trial bias is relatively easy to set, and could give bush et al a 'vindication'.
it isn't about the telcos, it's about the administrative branch's ability to strong-arm anyone they choose into doing whatever they request.
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I guess 'cause this is an election year, they finally got off their asses.
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There is a God...
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Missing a
"To not go through those legal means makes very little sense, unless the government knew that it would NOT get approval."
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Re: Missing a
Ooops. You're right. Fixed now.
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Ha Ha Ha!
Looser.
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Time for a reality check
First, name anyone IN the United States that was illegally tapped. You can't.
There was one group that sued and it was dismissed because they couldn't show that they had actually had their phones tapped.
What is happening is simple. When FISA was first passed, most communications were routed via satellites and cables. For over a century the U.S. was monitoring those communcations.
Technology marches on. These days a surprising number of overseas calls go through American switches. The NSA, who's job it is to listen to hostile and potentially hostile people and countries, would tap these switches.
The two parties were not in the U.S. One could have been in the Philippines and the other in Germany. They are NOT covered by the U.S. constitution.
Occasionally they would get a hit that was in the U.S. and they would get a warrant. (FISA)
Now what happened is some moron judge decided to impose the need for warrants on calls not originating or terminating in the U.S. but just happened to go through a switch. This has had the effect of shutting down a huge amount of intelligence gathering capablity.
Remember, the U.S. is at war even if certain people don't want to deal with that fact. (See hole in the ground in NYC)
If this passes and we get hit again, and it's later determined we could have stopped it but were blocked by the courts, well, it won't be pretty.
It has been forgotten I think, but the 911 commission found that we had the data to put together the plot, but because of all the rules put in place the intelligence services could talk to the FBI. (The so called Wall)
To top it off, the one who wrote those rules was actually ON the commission. She should have been removed at that point and asked a few very pointed questions.
I forget which Supreme Court justice said this, but it goes something like "The Constitution is not a suicide pact."
(And no, this isn't one of the current members of the Court)
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Re: Time for a reality check
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Re: Time for a reality check
"There was one group that sued and it was dismissed because they couldn't show that they had actually had their phones tapped."
Wrong, but nice try at twisting reality to fit your argument. The case that was dismissed was an attempt at class action lawsuit - it wasn't that no one could prove they were tapped, the case's premise was that they could have been tapped. The judge, rightly, denied this class action.
"Now what happened is some moron judge decided to impose the need for warrants on calls not originating or terminating in the U.S. but just happened to go through a switch. This has had the effect of shutting down a huge amount of intelligence gathering capablity."
I would like to know more about this one. Please provide some evidence of this. Right now, I'm tending to disagree since judges can't require warrants, the law does. Judges only decide whether to grant them.
"It has been forgotten I think, but the 911 commission found that we had the data to put together the plot, but because of all the rules put in place the intelligence services could talk to the FBI. (The so called Wall)"
That has absolutely nothing, not a thing you could somehow string together, to do with this. Further, it only proves the point that this warrantless wiretapping is not needed - before we even started warrantless surveillance we already had plenty of info.
Bottom line - if you want to do something that isn't currently legal, then you can't do it until the laws are revised to make it legal. That's the way this country is supposed to work. The chickens are coming home to roost - time to worry if you've been mucking about in ways you shouldn't have been.
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Re: Time for a reality check
I can't - agreed. Name one "plot" where this has protected the US. - You can't. Name one terrorist that was caught because of this program that otherwise could not have been caught through legal means. You can't. If the laws prevent us from getting the information we need, then there is nothing preventing the President from going to congress and requesting that the law be changed. But that wasn't done (after the fact maybe - but not before hand). If the law was broken, then the law was broken. No person is above the law - especially THIS president. No president has put us in MORE danger than THIS president. If you feel safer today than you did September 10, 2001 it is a false sense of safety. Given that Al Qada attacks every 7-9 years, the last 7 years of quiet is anything but proof of Bush's success.
-CF
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Re: Time for a reality check
Sorry, you're wrong. Foreign-to-foreign calls are not covered under FISA, and the NSA is free to wiretap without warrants regarding those calls.
The truth was that it was all over emails. (wired's Threat Level had an article on this) You don't know for a fact whether both the sender and recipient are outside of the country, and therefore it became necessary for a judge's approval.
Not that the bar for a FISA warrant is very high...
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Re: Time for a reality check
You would sell your freedoms and the freedoms of your fellow citizens out of fear for the future? I would rather live free and suffer for it than hand myself over to the control of another and consider myself 'safe.'
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Re: Re: Time for a reality check
Especially since your appendix is more likely to kill you than Al Qaeda.
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/09/71743
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Re: Re: Time for a reality check
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Overfilling
GO MCCAIN!
GO MCCAIN!
GO MCCAIN!
GO MCCAIN!
GO MCCAIN!
GO MCCAIN!
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Re: Overfilling
http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/wp-content/2006/09/barbietanner5.jpg
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Where's my phone???
I have to say I had the strongest urge to call him up (anyone have his number?) and ask him just what the hell he was thinking asking our lawmakers to pass a law designed solely let others break the law.
WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH OUR COUNTRY?
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wrong evilned
Here are the details of the aggrieved US citizens who are challenging the legality of these activities:
NSA Multi-District Litigation: Documents Relating to All Cases and Dismissed Cases
https://www.eff.org/cases/att
In the future you should try and provide evidence to support your opinion. At least make sure that contradictory evidence can't be found through a simple web search before you go spouting off.
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more info
https://www.eff.org/issues/nsa-spying
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So there.
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Three cheers for spine!
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QWest didn't go along...
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