The FISA fight: Nutroots lose, America wins; Update: Senate passes FISA reform bill
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I’ve been keeping you up-to-date on the FISA fight in the Senate (see here and here). This morning, a series of votes took place and you’ll be happy to know that the defeatist Dems were defeated.
Carter Wood at the NAM’s ShopFloor blog sums up the votes:
The Senate has just rejected an amendment to S. 2248, the FISA amendments legislation, by Sens. Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Russell Feingold (D-WI) that would have stripped out the retroactive immunity for telecommunication companies.
The vote was 31-67. Roll Call vote here.
This is a clear statement in favor of effective, legal surveillance of suspected terrorists overseas, and an endorsement of good corporate citizens aiding in the protection of Americans. A very important vote…
…UPDATE (12:13 p.m.) Second string of Kos commentary here. Quotes e-mail from Senator Reid’s office: “If, as appears likely, none of the amendments to strike or modify the provisions of the bill concerning retroactive immunity are adopted, we expect Sen. Reid to oppose cloture and oppose final passage of the bill.”
UPDATE (12:34 p.m.): Cloture invoked, 69-29. Senate now breaks.
The Senate Roll Coll votes are here.
Dow Jones dispatch reports:
The U.S. Senate Tuesday voted down an amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that aimed to strip out immunity for telecommunications companies alleged to have cooperated with the government’s warrantless wiretapping program.
The result of the vote makes it increasingly likely that phone companies will receive retroactive immunity from civil lawsuits over their involvement in the controversial wiretapping program.
The development comes even though Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and other senior Democrats have argued in favor of the amendment.
The vote was 67-31 against removing the immunity provision.
The Senate has been divided over the legislation underpinning the warrantless wiretapping program for weeks. At the heart of the debate has been over whether the phone companies should be sheltered from the dozens of lawsuits they potentially face.
The amendment was backed by Sens. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and Russell Feingold, D-Wis.
In last-minute arguments before the vote, Dodd pointed out that three out of four Congressional committees that had considered the immunity issue had decided against granting retroactive legal cover to the phone companies.
Only the Senate Intelligence Committee’s version of the FISA legislation includes an immunity provision. It is that version which is currently on the Senate floor. Last year, the House approved legislation which made no mention of immunity.
Even if the final Senate bill includes immunity, the matter will have to decided at a meeting between leaders of both houses of Congress to resolve differences over legislation.
The White House has threatened to veto any bill that doesn’t include immunity for the phone companies.
Lawmakers hope to conclude voting on the FISA legislation later Tuesday.
The nutroots are despondent. Profanity-spewing despondent. See here and more here.
***
Telecom immunity should have never taken this long to approve. The immunity covers companies who received assurances from the Department of Justice that their cooperation broke no laws, and they cooperated to help defend the US from attack. Their reward for trust and assistance should not be billion-dollar class-action lawsuits, which would have been nothing more than a back-door attempt to kneecap intelligence operations that kept this nation safe for more than six years after 9/11.
The House has to put this bill into motion now, and the clock is ticking. The Democrats set up these sunset provisions as a means to pressure the White House, and once again they have had the opposite effect. Faced against bipartisan agreement in the Senate on immunity, expect the House to quietly acquiesce.
John Boeher’s office sent me the following this morning:
It speaks volumes about the national security priorities of congressional Democrats that they have failed to permanently close the terrorist loophole. And it certainly speaks volumes that they have failed to do so because they have bowed to the demands of those on the Left seeking to derail common sense terrorist surveillance laws that would help keep our country safe from attack.
With the deadline coming this Saturday, will Democratic leaders finally work with Republicans to permanently close the terrorist loophole in our nation’s terrorist surveillance laws and extend appropriate liability protections for third parties who have stepped up to the plate in the interest of our national security? Or will the Majority’s allies on the Left demand that Congress backs down from this responsibility once again, kicking the can even farther down the road while the safety of Americans at home and abroad hangs in the balance?
Update 7:30pm Eastern. The Senate passes FISA reform. 68-29, with three not voting (Clinton, Graham, and Obama). Roll here.
The 68-29 Senate vote Tuesday to update the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act belied the nearly two months of stops and starts and bitter political wrangling that preceded it. The two sides had battled to balance civil liberties with the need to conduct surveillance on potential adversaries.
At issue is the government’s post-9/11 Terrorist Surveillance Program, which circumvented a secret court created 30 years ago to oversee such activities. The court was part of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a law written in response to government abuse of its surveillance authority against Americans.
The surveillance law has been updated repeatedly since then. Congress hastily adopted a FISA modification in August in the face of dire warnings from the White House that changes in telecommunications technology and FISA court rulings were dangerously constraining the government’s ability to intercept terrorist communications.
Shortly after its passage, privacy and civil liberties groups said the new law gave the government unprecedented authority to spy on Americans, particularly those who communicate with foreigners.
That law, already extended once, expires Feb. 16.
Doubtful they can work out the differences in the bills by then, Democrats in both the Senate and the House prepared short-term extensions that would keep the law in effect for several more weeks. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky blocked an extension attempt Tuesday. Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the senior Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, said Republicans in the House would fight another extension and said Bush would not sign it.
On the way to passage, the Senate rejected by a vote of 67-31 a move to strip away a grant of retroactive legal immunity for the companies. It also rejected two amendments that sought to water down the immunity provision.
One of the amendments, co-sponsored by Republican Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, would have substituted the government for the telecom companies in lawsuits, allowing the court cases to go forward but shifting the cost and burden of defending the program.
The other, pushed by California Democrat Dianne Feinstein, would have given a secret court that oversees government surveillance inside the United States the power to dismiss lawsuits if it found that the companies acted in good faith and on the request of the president or attorney general.
While giving the White House what it wanted on immunity, the Senate also expanded the power of the court to oversee government eavesdropping on Americans. The amendment would give the FISA court the authority to monitor whether the government is complying with procedures designed to protect the privacy of innocent Americans whose telephone or computer communications are captured during surveillance of a foreign target.
The bill would also require FISA court orders to eavesdrop on Americans who are overseas. Under current law, the government can wiretap or search the possessions of anyone outside the United States — even a soldier serving overseas — without court permission if it believes the person may be a foreign agent.
See what others have said
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Trackbacks
- Senate Rejects Feingold FISA Amendment. : American Pundit
- FISA Update: One small step for the Senate, one big hissy fit for the Left
- Wake up America-
- Macsmind
- UrbanGrounds » Blog Archive » FISA — A Win for American = A Loss for Democrats
- Plumb Bob Blog » FISA Vote Highlights Democrats’ Realpolitik
- BelchSpeak » Post Topic » Congress to EFF regarding FISA: STFU, STFD
- Senate Votes on Telecom Immunity: Clinton Absent | SeattlePoliticore
- Telecom Immunity Passes — Pirate’s Cove
- Neocon News » FISA victory round up. Dem amendments fail, cloture invoked.
- Breakfast Scramble | BitsBlog
- Michelle Malkin » FISA fight: No more band-aids
Michelle, surely they’ll claim victory somehow.
i’m betting it will be about the ‘broader message’…or something like that.
How did Sen. McCain (M-Ariz.) vote…???
Great, retroactive immunity from lawsuits for ILLEGALLY wiretapping Americans. And your proud of this why????
I received a reply back from one of my Senators here in NJ, namely Senator Menendez asking him to vote in favor of the telecoms by granting them immunity. Well, the hatred and ire he felt towards to the Bush Administration and the telecoms jumped from the pages of the letter. Not that I expected much different. Nevertheless, it is as you say - a win for America.
Osama Obama — yea; McCain — nay. The Hildebeest — not voting.
Seems clear enough to me….
MrScribbler
What is you source?
When I clicked over and read some of the comments a second ago, Michelle, I think you may be describing their responses lightly.
I’m all for surveilance of terrorists but it needs to be done legally. If the telecoms did break the law then they should be held accountable.
Because the trial lawyers are prevented from picking the pockets of telecom firms who did their best to assist a nation under attack.
Next moronic question.
Click on the links to the Senate roll call vote page. That is what they are there for…
Because I have nothing to hide or of which I should be ashamed that I do or have done on my phone. Do you?
thank-God. this is where we have to fight, now as the presidency is a vacuum of liberals either of which has or will have a (r) or a (d) behind their name.
if we have a dem in the white house the reps will fight tooth and nail against anything they propose. if it is a rep (mcpain) we will surely have our backs against the wall.
Since I don’t spend much time talking on the phone with terrorists in other countries, this doesn’t seem to be a problem for me.
In case you haven’t noticed scooter, people are trying to KILL US. We are at war with an enemy that doesn’t subscribe to the Geneva conventions and is using our technology and laws against us. We have to make adjustments to protect ourselves in time of war.
During WWII we rationed gasoline, and didn’t make phone calls to the Gestapo. This is no different, if we don’t all fight together we will all die together.
So it’s fine for telecoms to break the law just because the goverment asked them to do it?
I guess I’m technically challenged, but I don’t find a break-out of individual votes.
Sorry if I’m missing something obvious…
Telecoms were already granted prospective immunity by the Protect America Act — meaning they cannot be held liable in the future if they act pursuant to government certification that the requests are legal. That already ensures all the “cooperation” that we could possibly want. AT&T and Verizon participated in illegal wiretapping of American citizens for profit while other companies chose not to at a financial loss. Are we to reward unlawfulness. Why have the laws if you are just going to ignore them. As is often stated on this site “what part of illegal don’t you understand”.
As Tiger said, we’re “a nation under attack”. I realize the MSM doesn’t do too good of a job reporting it but we are engaged in global war on terror where our enemies don’t use conventional means and, strangely, don’t seem to want to abide by the Geneva Convention rules.
We have to make adjustments ourselves to remain safe and protect our citizens, even the people whining that it is “illegal”.
I have done nothing of which I am ashamed on my phone, like talking to terrorists or terrorist supporting organizations, so I don’t have a problem with FISA.
Heck! They can publish my phone records, if they want. There aren’t even any phone sex numbers or the like on their to embarass me.
Yes, I am happy about that!
How would you feel if the ATF or some other agency hired another company to break into your house and take all your guns? Would that be OK too? Illegal is illegal. Some of these telecoms chose to break the law, even though they knew it was illegal, because the goverment asked them to do so. Just because they were asked to do something illegal does not mean it’s OK.
What law was broken? If laws were broken, the telecoms would be subject to criminal prosecution. That hasn’t happened. So again, what laws were broken?
Scooter56 is right on the money!
So the telecoms broke into people’s homes and seized their telephones? Try a better analogy.
First: the Telecoms didn’t violate any laws - nor did they spy on Americans.
Why is it that so many people (Americans!) seem to want the terrorists to have clear, secure channels of communication through which to plan and organize attacks against America?
Now, let’s see……..
You’re talking about a tangible item being taken from me versus the U.S. government reviewing phone records for terrorits or terrorists sympathizers. Apples and oranges, maybe?
Okay. The government can give them their phone records back, after they have reviewed them. Is that better?
But, they can keep mine. I don’t need them.
Ummm…maybe the whole part of intercepting any/all data that went across the networks without a warrant? AT&T began preparing facilities for the NSA to spy 9 months before 9/11 took place. So it’s OK to break the law because the goverment asked them to and then use something that happened at least 9 months later (9/11) as justification for what was happening earlier?
How would I feel if the government knew every charity to which I contributed, the location of my home, the number of children living there, their ages and social security numbers, how much invest income I earned and where I earned it, how much I spent on health care, etc.?
I’d feel like it’s April 15 again. The IRS does more to violate the privacy of citizens than any other government agency.
Sucks, doesn’t it?
wow, these trolls are absolutely riled up today.
before accusing anyone of law breaking, please describe the exact law that was broken by listing the statute so that i can read what it says and verify through my own analysis. i would like to determine by reading the law, that yes the law was in fact broken by these companies.
othewise, throwing out an accusation without the facts to back it up just makes you an obnoxious troll.
What the Senate did will (a) vest vast new powers in the President (even one you may not support) to spy on the calls and emails of American citizens, inside the U.S., with no warrants, and (b) grant amnesty to telecoms that broke multiple federal laws (yes TIGER, you can look them up). In sum, it will legalize the “Terrorist Surveillance Program” that the President ordered for years in violation of the law — a program aimed at eavesdropping on U.S. citizens, inside the U.S.
This threatens the privacy of all Americans, not just those in the opposing political party.
But some of you think no law was broken. Then why do they need retroactive amnesty? Or should I say retroactive Shamnesty?
brent, the reason is because your buddy Billy Jeff had already allowed the same action while he was in office?
get your facts straight before you go on a rampage. yes, billy jeff was involved in the same activity before 9/11.. wow go figure..
TexasTiger
I read a great editorial a few days back on Townhall.
The author was using what I will always call the “Polar bear test” from now on.
When you are fat, stupid, and happy, you might fret over whether polar bears have enough ice to live on.
When you are up against it, you wonder how polar bears taste.
Dangerously, most Americans have not realized they have to take the “polar bear test” relating to the GWOT, or they are still too fat, stupid and happy to care.
Michelle gave a link to the bill, and you can drill down to the specific amendment here
He’s not my buddy. I love how you call me a troll for disagreeing with letting the goverment give amnesty to telecoms that broke the law. I’m about as conservative as they come and have posted here for some time. Your personal attack is laughable. And that still doesn’t answer the question as to why it’s justifiable to break the law and then use something that took place months later as justification for the earlier, and continued, law-breaking.
If you want a little more background I suggest doing an internet search for the following: Hepting vs. AT&T, Mark Kleain, Room 641A and Narus STA 6400. That’ll give you enough reading to keep you busy for a weeks.
Thanks for keeping on top of this and passing the info along, Michelle.
Since we don’t have ankle monitors on our fine elected officials it’s nice to have someone to pass along the heads up on matters good and bad.
Scooter - you have yet to show a single law that has been broken!
No one gave the President any powers to spy on any Americans.
No laws were broken by the telecoms.
Why do you want the foreign terrorists determined to attack the USA to have clear, secure channels of communication?
Brent - again - please indicate which exact specific laws were broken by ANY telecoms!
Maybe you think there is a law against intercepting terrorist communications overseas.
I would have loved to see your arguements during WWII. “December 6, 1941 - We mustn’t intercept Japanese Navy codes without warrants for each individual transmitter and each individual person using that particular transmitter” Any guesses on the outcomes of the Battle of Coral Sea and the Battle of Midway with those tactics?
walterc said:
“Great, retroactive immunity from lawsuits for ILLEGALLY wiretapping Americans. And your proud of this why????”
Heh, as they say on “The Feud” - “Good answer!”.
http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/att/att-complaint.pdf
Then why the retroactive amnesty? To protect the telecoms from litigation where no laws were broken? Please explain.
The Dem’s coming response is obvious: “The Republicans and their President, Mr. Bush, are bent on taking away all of our freedoms, guaranteed by the Constitution, and this is just another step in that direction.”
Brent - you missed it again.
A complaint is not evidence that a law was broken.
I can file a lawsuit over anything I want to, regardless if any law was actually broken.
Did you ever hear of Tom Delay?
When you find a specific law that was broken, please post it here:
Scooter - Yes, exactly.
To protect the telecoms from litigation where no laws were broken.
Maybe you’ve never heard of the ACLU - they do that kind of thing all the time.
To be fair, MrScrib, McCain was a “not voting”, along with both Dems, on FISA legislation just a few weeks ago;
U.S. Senate Roll Call
Nice to see my lying crapweasels in the Senate voted on the right side of this one. Finally some very good news from our political process! It’s the first really good news this week.
scooter
Maybe I can help you there. I am a trial lawyer. Even a completely unfounded lawsuit can cost an innocent defendant millions of dollars to litigate, given a few bad breaks and a fuzzy judge.
In that cicil complaint I do not see site to any USC that was violated. Please site the law(s) violated by the Telcos.
In my opinion, the reason why the administration wanted the retroactive immunity was as insurance. In our great adversarial legal system, we have black on one side, and white on the other, and litigate until an agreeable shade of grey is reached. If you start out with black on one side and grey on the other, you end up at a darker shade of grey.
As Rep. Boehner stated, the telecoms thought that they were following the law, and were advised that they were by the Justice Department. Unfortunately, that won’t stop any ACLU zealot from dragging them into court, just to make a point. If immunity is written into the law, maybe, just maybe, it will slow them down a bit.
And to those of you commenters who are screaming about laws being broken, why aren’t you bitching about the treason and sedition being committed daily by Code Pink? As if the government really cares what you are talking on the phone about, unless you are talking to a known terrorist.
And the banks could probably be concerned (I’m not saying that they are) because they are trying to help the government track funds being funneled to terrorists, and would prefer not to have their butts dragged into court either. As if the government cares how much porn you rented at Blockbuster.
It seems as though people are really straining to see the forest when the trees are right in front of them.
There seems to be an underlying presumption that the clause is meant to cover up previous misdoings. I do not personally think this is the case.
The clause is transferring culpability to the federal agency. This protects the telecom from having to parse what is already difficult legalities.
In the event that an intelligence agency needs this information in a hurry to track a terrorist, do you want a telecom CEO worrying about whether or not they will be sued and thereby delaying the release of the information?
I am uncertain why there was a post here that suggested that the telecoms were ‘profiting’ from this… How did they profit?
Ragspierre - exactly.
My grandmother had a woman who hated her so much that she filed a lawsuit against her every thirty days so she would have to go to court and defend herself. The lawsuits cost (iirc) about $25 each, while the time and defense cost a couple of hundred each time. The stress was listed as a contributing factor in my grandmothers death.
Soon after my grandmother died, the woman started filing suit against my mother and her sister. It only ended when the woman died herself.
So the Bush administration decides which lawsuits are unfounded by their siding with AT&T in the lawsuit and pushing for retroactive immunity. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to let the suits play out instead of spending the millions in lobbying cost?
Seems more like CYA. The suit by the EFF against AT&T seems pretty grounded, and the best way to discover what has actually happened in suspected cases of warrentless wiretapping.
That’s a fascinating story, JHS. The woman must have had some major issues.
Illegal warrantless domestic spying has been justified by the authoritarian right because “we’re under threat of terrorist attack.” A recent GOP issue ad, filled with outright lies, and promoting retroactive immunity for telecom spying finished with this line: “the terrorist threat to America never expires” (emphasis theirs). It follows that the authoritarian right is granting permanent suspension of the rule of law if it is deemed necessary to combat the terrorist threat.
Authoritarian objection #1: “What the companies did wasn’t illegal!” — Yes it was. A FISA court ruled that it was illegal.
Authoritarian objection #2: “They didn’t know it was illegal. They did it in good faith!” — The Bush administration has been seeking retroactive immunity for companies that illegally helped them spy on domestic communications. But immunity was already granted to actions performed in good faith. Why is further immunity needed if good faith actions are already immune? Because their actions were not performed in good faith. A judge rejected that argument from AT&T. They clearly knew what they were doing was illegal. They did it anyway, and were paid by the government to do so.
The saddest thing about all this is to watch self-professed Conservatives — long the proponents of small government, “don’t tread on me,” the supremacy of the law, justice and the Constitution — completely abandon their principles. Is the threat posed by an incredibly small gang of religious fanatics really so grave and existential to warrant the destruction (or “suspension”) of the rule of law? Do you really think that terrorists pose a greater threat to us than the prospect of an ever more powerful government that ignores the law when it wants to?
What is the primary purpose of government? According to the Declaration of Independence, the founding document of this country:
Our government exists to secure our rights. These rights are absolute (unalienable means that they can’t be taken away). The invocation of the protection of one right cannot be used to eliminate or suppress another. That idea implies that there is a zero-sum conflict of rights in which one must be diminished to protect another. This isn’t true. This is a canard that is thrust upon the American people so that they might be terrified into surrendering their rights to the government in exchange for the undeliverable promise of absolute safety. This is the exact same thinking that Democrats use to promote Socialized medicine. It is the exact same thinking that Democrats use to restrict gun ownership and carrying. It’s a cowardly and truly defeatist view of the relationship between citizens and their government in which the government has the authority to dictate the rights that the people retain and in which the government can take these rights away “for the common good.”
WOW, best dodge of a question I have seen all week.
Bob and weave, Soap. If we watch it long enough, we might learn how to do it too.
Someone please tell me why there has never been a national “debate” on why these leftist collaborators would seek to derail common sense approaches to surveillance. Probably because it would expose their treason to the average American. Can’t have that…. All of their arguments are hysterical and illogical. Let’s hold their feet to the fire.
Not a dodge at all. These suits brought against AT&T are a way to find out the what our government is doing in regards to violations of the FISA laws. Seems the Justice Department is a little behind in investigating itself. I know many of you seem to be quite comfortable with your government spying on you, but apparently some aren’t.
Sorry, Scooter…
I tried hard, but still found your comment incomprehensible.
That is not a shot at you, or you alone, since there is a lot more heat than light been shed in this thread.
I am not an expert on this issue. I have no knowledge of any law having been violated by a private telecom, which is not to say it has not happened.
What I do know, having been in business, is that businesses are asked to navigate a minefield of law and regulation, and they seldom have all the resources they would wish to decide issues in a moment.
If you were the president of an American telecom in the post-911 world, and you had a representative from, say, the NSA come to your office and ask you, as a matter of national security, to provide access to international communications, what would you do?
the government listening to conversations… just what Thomas Jefferson and James Madison wanted
Would that be folks who have something to hide, by chance?
You still dodged the question. I will show you how it is done. Pay attention.
If I (a US citizen) am communicating with terrorists and planning an attack on your mall, I pray you are smart enough to WANT someone listening in. If my neighbor (a US citizen) is communicating with terrorists and planning an attack on US soil, I pray someone is listening in. Since I am NOT communicating with terrorists, I have nothing to worry about. I pray ANY AND EVERY “US citizen” who is communicating with terrorists is being listened to.
Question: If one is sooooo concerned about someone listening in on their communication, why are there no self-contained portable soundproof devices being sold to people so they can sit or walk in malls, or other public places, to insure that nobody hears what they are saying?
I mean, every time you open your mouth in a public place, someone may be listening!
Good point. I wish people were as paranoid about privacy when they reach for their cell phones while on public transportation.
I have often contemplated taking notes and then handing them a transcript.
…sorry for going OT.
First, I am the president of a American telecom……OK just a shareholder of AT&T.
FISA was written with the cooperation of AT&T and other companies to ensure they had the clarity they needed — if they received written certification of legality from the AG, then they were required to cooperate with surveillance requests, but if they did not receive such certification, then the requests were by definition illegal and they were prohibited from doing so. The law already provides all the protections telecoms need and wanted for legal surveillance on Americans. This was the law they deliberately broke when they allowed the Bush administration to spy on Americans without warrants. There are several protections already in the law regarding good faith (we gotta get the terrorist).
That said, what is in question is the unfettered access by the government to the telecom records and communications of millions of American citizens. The Bush administration has lost a couple of rounds, in both the suits brought by the EFF and ACLU and now seeks blanket immunity for the telecoms (and apparently itself).
alamedaman - Please show me where the government is listening to conversations…
Or, in public restrooms. (Did they wash their hands before they grabbed that phone, by the way?)
ROFL Oh, goodness. Do you think it would be a problem for them today? I mean - COME ON - terror attack with planes that did not exist during their time. Communication infrstructure that did not exist during their time….
Just Jefferson’s and Madison’s, JHS.
http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=5&docID=hsnews-000002661145
Yes, indeed, salt. Or people in stores and walking down the street with ‘em glued to their ears, yakking away. That’s OT rantworthy.
Scooter - why do you keep deliberately trying to get it so totally wrong?
NO laws were broken.
NO Americans were spied on without warrants.
Why is it that you seem to want the terrorists to have secure communications?
I think you are guilty of unfettered hyperbole, scooter.
Just for fun, let’s assume…as you seem to…that nobody in the Executive Branch has
1. a brain in their head AND
2. absolutely no regard for the fundamental rights of citizens
By what leap of logic do you suppose that the courts, the “loyal opposition”, people like me, etc., would let them have
“unfettered access…to the telecom records and communications of millions of American citizens…????
Hmmm???
I don’t think he will answer that question.
So should I interpret that to mean that I have the right, under freedom of speech, to yell “Fire” in a crowded room and not have to worry about anyone losing their life?
The Declaration of Independence was the first step in instituting a government among men, but the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and one of the primary reasons for establishing a government is to Provide for the Common Defense. Why would you insist that that be done with one hand tied behind our backs?
An article at about Lawrence Wright calling “former members of Zawahiri’s terror organization in Egypt” and that “they wanted to know what [they] were talking about.”?
Well, why would the Feds be worried about someone talking to known “jihadis”, as Wright called them?
I thought you might have something about them listening to him having phone sex, not talking to known terrorists.
Outstanding post Mark! Couldn’t agree more. Amazing how quickly the right wing authoritarians occupying a dark corner of the conservative movement are willing to give up individual liberties in response to fearmongering by those in power who wish to consolidate and obtain additional power. I am a proud Barry Goldwater conservative, and the kind of stuff some of you are espousing would be unrecognizable to the Senator. Blindly follow the federal government and let them muck around in every aspect of your lives if you want. I’ll just go ahead and “live free or die”.
Let me show him how it is done again.
I sure hope to god that terrorists who are calling anybody - ESPECIALLY A “US CITIZEN” and planning an attack are being listened to.
That was a no-brainer and I gave up nothing!!!
Good try but the call was to an attorney in England.
dakine - Nobody is giving up any individual liberties. Nobody on my side is fearmongering. If anything, the only people fearmongering are people like you about supposed giving up of individual liberties.
There has been NO “illegal warrantless domestic spying”.
That first statement shows that nothing Mark has said on this topic has any credibility whatsoever.
JHSII, Scooter suffers from BDS. He or she is probably unaware of the disorder as they were not personally attacked on 9/11 and since it was in inside job (inside al Qaeda) and we have not been struck here since, all this stuff about protecting ourselves can be handled by the local police. I wonder what Scooter will say if Hillary garnishes his wages to pay for my socialized medicine? This must be a bridge because there are trolls afoot.
“They wanted to know about phone calls made to a solicitor in England” who was upset that I was talking to some of her clients, who were jihadis, former members of Zawahiri’s terror organization in Egypt, and they wanted to know what we were talking about.” (emphasis mine)
That particular phone call he references was to the solicitor/attorney about other conversations he had had with whom?
And, you were saying?
Got to run folks. It’s been intersting today. I may check back in later.
Has anyone here that is worried about the government listening to millions of conversations considered the technical infrastructure that would be required to do so?
Does the same group believe that these resources are not specifically targeted?
Could power be abused? Of course. I don’t think anyone here is giving the government carte blanche to do whatever they want. Labeling those that believe the legal hurdles in tracking terrorists should not be so high as to make law enforcement extremely difficult as ‘authoritarians’ is hardly reasonable.
On topic for this post, we are suggesting that the responsibility lies with the government and not the telecoms. I haven’t seen anything that is giving the government immunity.
This is fascinating…in a sort of twisted way…
This is a debate as old as our Republic…older, really, since it would go back to the Declaration.
It isn’t reducible to simplistic formulations, either, and it shouldn’t be.
There has always been a tension between civil liberties and effective security policy. Just as almost all of us would want, and just as all of us would expect.
Nobody is so blind that they cannot see that the greatest danger to civil liberties is the reaction that comes when enough people look at the smoldering pile of goo that used to be their family or loved-ones. Then, we risk the entire convulsive loss of the whole ambit of civil liberties.
On the other hand, we do not want to look over people’s shoulders at the library, or monitor what they look at on the internet.
So, where, on the continuum do we find the proper balance. That is a poser. It should be, and I hope it always will be. I would not want to live in a place where everyone thinks it is a none-issue or a given.
Some of you keep asking what laws were broken. Here’s a short list of applicable laws violated by the White House when it demanded the telecoms comply:
Section 222 of the Communications Act of 1934 provides that “[e]very telecommunications carrier has a duty to protect the confidentiality of proprietary information of . . . customers.”
18 U.S.C. 2511 makes warrantless eavesdropping a felony
18 U.S.C. 2702 requires that any “entity providing an electronic communication service to the public shall not knowingly divulge to any person or entity the contents of a communication” without a court order
There are others, but those are the most relevant.
Ragspierre: My bad. I picked up the results of a vote on an amendment to the bill.
Reverse Osama Obama and McCain’s votes on the final cloture vote.
The Hildebeest still didn’t vote.
The complete vote is now up on the link MM provided.
Scribbler–
Thanks! I live in constant fear of discovery of my various limitations!
It’s a comfort to know I sort of had it right.
That seems a reasonable summation, Rags. I don’t know anyone who would argue terrorists should be protected from monitoring or, conversely, anyone who would argue for unbased, broad fishing trips.
I think the most concise summary of the debate is this (which I risk misquoting)…
“The Bill of Right is not a suicide pact!”
So the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit staffed by lawyers, activists and others, goes around filing lawsuits for people allegedly to protect them from “Big Gubmint.”
In this case they filed the lawsuit in the San Francisco/Oakland court after trolling 10,000 AT&T customers and having four respond. They hoped to turn it into a class action lawsuit.
Here is their response to today’s vote in the Senate.
“It’s time for Speaker Pelosi to draw a line the sand, and make clear to the president that this House of Representatives is never going to pass any bill that includes immunity for lawbreaking telecoms,” said (EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kevin) Bankston. “It’s time for the president to show that he cares more about American lives than about the phone companies’ bottom lines by actually working toward a bipartisan agreement on how to update surveillance law for the 21st century.”
Sounds to me like they were ready to pounce on every telecom they suspected of “collaberating with the enemy” (my words) if the immunity was passed.
If the retroactive immunity had been stripped and a law passed giving the telecoms immunity from the time of passage, it would have been a legal bloodbath.
I say the retroactive immunity is to protect large chunks of our economy from leeches like EFF that would cause mayhem just to stick a finger in the eye of big business and the federal government.
I also think the only reason Bankston is so ticked off is because his nice, fat fee just went up in smoke. Just my two cents … for what it’s worth.
OT, perhaps, but I feel it should be noted that local police officers make warrant-less arrests as the norm, not the exception. We have a reasonable expectation that they exercise their judgment on probable cause appropriately and investigate when they do not.
Perhaps our argument is determining the balance for probable cause for this surveillance in the event that a warrant would take too much time?
As purplepeep and Ragspierre have noted, the balance is key. I agree with them that it doesn’t seem as if anyone is arguing 100% one way or the other.
I am an American citizen but my calls and other communications are monitored. (Regardless of what happened with the FISA act) Why? Because my Mother held security clearance for a long time. I live in a foreign country. I regularly communicate with people in Communist China and (gasp) Muslims as well.
I am an ardent opponent of nearly every aspect of what our government has become. Yet amazingly, at this point in time I have no concerns over that and let me explain why.
My communications must be monitored to insure the security of this nation. That is actually one of the very few powers that the federal government does have. That is not a right of the federal government but a constitutional requirement. This is also the reason their inability to secure our borders causes me severe anguish.
Whether my communications are routed through the US makes no difference nor should it because of the potential for someone in my position to potentially cause irrevocable harm to the nation or her security.
In times of war (We are at war, whether people wish to admit it or not. This is the reason that people overlooking acts of sedition irritate me so badly) steps must be taken that are often unpleasant.
Runners and messengers are considered high-priority targets. (Three virtual cigars for any civil war buffs who can tell me the name of Lee’s messenger and the general the message was coming from) Radio communications and other methods of communications were actively monitored in every major war the dems got us into this century. (All but one were entered into by dem establishments. Anybody have a withdraw plan for Germany yet?) Despite the Hollyweird version, many brave British sailors gave their life to capture an Enigma encoding machine so that we could more actively monitor enemy communications.
Just because some guy is a Barrister in England gives me no pause to believe that there may not be questionable activities there. Helen Thomas lookalike Lynne Stewart was an attorney. She had protection based on Attorney/Client privileges. Does that mean her actions should never have been investigated?
What disturbs me is people allowing government to come into my home and tell me whether I can smoke or not or perform other activities. It bothers me when they are recording conversations on the street via security cameras. It bothers me when they come into my home and tell me how I can or cannot raise my children.
Reading my communications and listening to my phone calls? Not such a concern to me. If you think the NSA is going to care about someone’s nickel and dime pot-selling, I think your fears are misplaced. When communications within the USA by LEGAL US citizens are being monitored without cause, justification or after a war her ended, then it is time to start worrying.
Sadly, I think the people of the US as a general rule remain so apathetic … even in the face of all we encounter here … would still simply accept it as another inevitable intrusion.
THAT scares me!
And again, I must apologize for such a verbose response
:claps for WarTip and bows in his general direction
Great post!
WarTip…that’s the best I’ve heard in a long time.
Any ordinary citizen doing normal everyday things is not the concern here. Show me ONE citizen who has claimed abuse by wiretapping…just one.
Do I think about it? No, I don’t. Because I’m not involved in any illegal international or even national activities, so I’m not worried about some government official wiretapping me. Besides, if they did, they’d find the conversations very boring and a complete waste of their time.
Wile - Please explain why there has yet to be a criminal prosecution if, as you say, the White House violated those laws.
I can give you an explanation. Those laws were not violated because they do not apply to enemy combatants in time of war.
I’m glad you weren’t on our side during WWII. We’d now be speaking eiher German or Japanese.
Never thought the day would come when I’d hear Americans dissing freedom.
Here ya go. Of course you don’t really want to see one; you thought you could get away with the challenge since illegal wiretapping is done in secret.
Sorry for the absence. Had to step out to put up some more Hillary ‘08 yard signs.
But seriously…the telecoms are not facing civil lawsuits because of any criminal wrongdoing. Criminal acts are prosecuted in the criminal court system. Torts are pursued in civil suits.
If I slip and fall on the sidewalk in front of scooter’s trailer, I can hire John Edwards to sue scooter even though scooter broke no law.
So give it up scooter. It’s a trick question. The telecoms are exposed in the civil court system even though they broke no laws.
I do so miss my freedom to make unmonitored phone calls to my Al Qaeda buddies. Boo hoo hoo.
Alphonse,
But is there any indication of whom the calls were to? Again, there may issues there that we do not see. Mind you, anyone who has seen my site or knows me understands full well how I think about this centralized form of government that has invaded our lives and eroded our rights. However, there is no indication of what the phone calls were about or whom they were with.
If it involved calls to countries in question, I would have to agree with the actions. Again, our sovereignty and the protection of these Independent but United States of America is one of the very few rights or responsibilities that the federal government does actually have.
Again, as is the case with me, there are law-abiding citizens whose calls and actions need to be monitored even when they have done nothing wrong. Just living in the same house with my Mother when I was growing up, I know I learned about many things I should not have known about.
What if? What if I happened to enjoy too much of a refreshing adult beverage one night (The beer in the Philippines is very good and cheap too) and I was speaking to one of my friends who happens to be Muslim? A very innocent conversation could reveal things that should not be known.
While my actions may have been completely innocent, what if some of my friends had other friends or connections which were not so innocent? I am not saying that I hold any state secrets in my head. To suggest that would be ludicrous. However, if anything were revealed that could potentially cost the lives of thousands of Americans, wouldn’t you want the people “protecting” (Government Protection sounds like an oxymoron coming from me but … there are always exceptions) you and your family to know about it before any disaster befell you or the ones you love?
Should I force my wife to quit doing business in order to satisfy that same government? Should I attempt to get the government here to kowtow to meet my needs the way many foreign invaders do in America? (I doubt it would be so successful here though)
There have always been abuses of power within the government. I could start with the current administration and count back to Lincoln and list abuse that has taken place, often at the cost of innocent lives and our money. I am no supporter of the federal government as it stands.
What I do expect is that they leave We The People to live our own lives and take care of the VERY FEW Constitutional responsibilities they do have. When abuse is discovered, that too should be brought to the attention of We the People and those fattened bureaucrats should be held fully accountable to the law. That is just one of the many things that are currently lacking in our (illegal) centralized government.
Hold them to account yes, but let them (Make them?) do their damn jobs on ALL of our borders, cyber or otherwise.
You would never believe it, but I moved here to become politically apathetic … sorry for another long post!
As I was reading the article, I was looking for clear evidence that no warrant existed. I am not arguing either way, but the article did not present a factual position that this was ‘warrantless’, only the position of the lawyer representing the plaintiff (above).
I agree it is like proving a negative, I suppose, but it still seems like there is a lot more to this case.
Story still seems suspect…
Here’s my read, from a very casual understanding of the issues…
people use words or phrases that flag their calls, which pass through a super-computer sieve that looks for certain key items…
or they are making calls to or from known bad guys or their support people overseas.
This leads to actual recording of their calls, mostly limited to and from people of interest.
IF that is the scenario, there is PROBABLE CAUSE all over that,
…but NATIONAL SECURITY interests don’t really require that level of showing before they can conduct surveillance…and they don’t require a warrant…even from a FISA court…
according to my very limited knowledge of such things.
See HERE
Thanks, lee…
but that was hours ago, and the cloture vote wasn’t up when I was trying to find how he voted; hence my senior moment.
I find it “interesting” that both Clinton and Obama were absent for the final vote.
Damn weasels! Graham was also absent. Another weasel. All other Republicans voted YES for the final bill. Senators Dodd and Feingold should be hung out to dry !!!
There is precedent for intercepting communications into and out of the country in time of war that dates back to the revolution and before. It’s been done in EVERY war, and oh by the way, without judicial oversight or even ‘probable cause’. Just because the technology has changed from flowing copper plate calligraphy on velum sealed with wax and carried across the ocean on a square rigged ship made of wood, to VoIP calls from a dingy internet cafe in north west Pakistan to a mosque in Dearborn makes no difference. Furthermore, just to put in in a personal frame of reference, if some fumble fingered jihadi dials my cell phone by accident, NSA damn well better be listening in on that and every other call he makes.
Yes. It’s quite impressive stuff, capable of splitting a percentage of the light traveling down an OC-X fiberoptic pipeline and then analyzing that incredible torrent of traffic looking for pre-programmed keywords.
We’re talking about domestic warrantless spying, as restricted by the Fourth Amendment.
I’m not arguing semantics here; I am arguing legal technicalities. We are not at war! Only Congress has the right to declare ware and that has not happened. We are engaged in what could best be called a “police action” in Iraq and Afghanistan. If there was a specific declaration of war by Congress, then your points would be valid.
The President cannot arbitrarily decide what laws the executive branch will ignore and not expect there to be some outcry. As far as why there has been no prosecution, all evidence has been deemed “National Security” and no one, not even a judge, has been allowed to review that evidence. Checks and balances are written in the constitution.
And, thanks for the personal attack. We were at war with both Japan and Germany during WWiI. Ergo, using that situation to bolster your argument for this case is moot.