Bushco's single most desired goal with this next FISA gutting is the retroactive telecom immunity provisions. Why?
As the law professors over at Balkinization make clear, Cheney's sole goal is to make sure that what Bushco did, law-breakingwise, never gets revealed in court. Blanket civil immunity ends all hope of any court ever learning what actually happened under the felonious Bushco regime. That's why they gotta have it.
Dems, if you fail on this one, you're done.
Posted by euzoius at October 16, 2007 08:55 AMI believe you'll find authority was found in the prior admin. If it was ok then, it's ok now.
Posted by peter at October 16, 2007 09:26 AMAfter the last FISA vote I have no doubts that the Dems will cave once again!
after awhile, all of the Democratic incompetence or spinelessness (or whatever) must be viewed as complicity
Posted by Gay Veteran at October 16, 2007 10:31 AMShow it to me Peter.
Posted by Steve Soto at October 16, 2007 11:52 AMTry this one Steve,
The Clinton administration announced July 17, 2000, that it would seek broad powers to compel Internet Service Providers to allow FBI monitoring of email messages, using a powerful software package devised by the police agency and given the ominous title of “Carnivore.”
Because Carnivore examines every email message handled through a given ISP, it closely resembles a form of telephone surveillance called a “trunk side” wiretap, in which the tap is placed, not on a particular phone, but in a telephone company switching center. Such wiretaps have been illegal in the United States for more than 30 years, since they give police access to all phone calls rather than those of a specific target. Under the Clinton administration plan, the email equivalent of such illegal wiretaps would now be permissible.
The Clinton administration's posture is that messages sent over the Internet should be treated in the same way as telephone calls. That is, monitoring ordinary email should require a court order (a restriction of police power), while monitoring email over cable lines should be made easier. But in practice, given the different character of email and telephone communication, the proposed measure amounts to a sweeping expansion of police powers.
For instance, current law gives police virtually unlimited right to “transaction” surveillance of telephone calls. Telephone companies routinely hand over to the police, on request, logs of all calls made from a particular telephone and to whom. This power would now be extended by requiring ISPs to provide police the logs of email messages, when they were sent and to whom, as well as the record of web sites visited.
Or this one from 1999;
May 27, 1999
Lawmakers Raise Questions About International Spy Network
By NIALL McKAY
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/05/cyber/articles/27network.html
Or this from 1996:
http://www.cdt.org/publications/pp_2.29.html
And this one two;
http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/fact_sheet_july96.html
This last one has so much legalese in it.
In her testimony, Gorelick made clear that the president believed he had the power to order warrantless searches for the purpose of gathering intelligence, even if there was no reason to believe that the search might uncover evidence of a crime. "Intelligence is often long range, its exact targets are more difficult to identify, and its focus is less precise," Gorelick said. "Information gathering for policy making and prevention, rather than prosecution, are its primary focus."
Enjoy!
The issue too is what information is harvested in the wide, "degree of separation" net -- without warrant -- to be examined, later, at leisure. Apparently it's one or two degrees.
If you tele-corresponded (email, voice, whatever) with someone who corresponded internationally with any party that the out of control Whackjob in Chief sees as a personal, political, religious, ideological or -- if anyone's still buying his ginned up War on Whatever -- actual terrorist threat, you've lost inalienable rights guaranteed under the Constitution and international law.
Merely ordering Pakistani takeout is now enough to strip you of the constitutional protection against the Repugs abusing govt resources to spy on you without a warrant.
Dems too if they win the WH in '08. (I'm finding it harder to believe they will, given the broken promises to stop the corruption of the admin.)
Posted by Ellie at October 16, 2007 08:11 PMConservatives used to hate Big Gubmint. Now they love it. Worthless authoritarians.
Posted by Gay Veteran at October 17, 2007 05:31 AMYo, pete! Where's the demand for RETROACTIVE IMMUNITY FOR DOMESTIC SPYING?
That's the issue, dumbass. But thanks for your demonstration that the Clinton administration was indeed trying to fight terrorism (contrary to conservatives' baseless caterwauling since 09/11/2001).
As usual, nice pro-Bush water-muddying, ppp.
Posted by bartcopfan at October 17, 2007 08:14 AMMy mostly Republican real estate office has a few Iranians who came here in the late 70's and some still have family and friends in Iran. They call and Email back and forth, call and Email here and presto! our office number gets trapped. I call and Email home and my number is now trapped. In fact, every agent I call now has his own number in the NSA data base along with every number they call. It is an endless spider web of numbers many of which belong to the reddest of Republicans. It is almost funny. Of course, the old stand by "I have nothing to hide, feel free to spy on me" would most certainly be the pat answer if it were ever to come out.
Posted by Dianne at October 17, 2007 09:21 AM