News Is the Amended FISA Act Threatening First Amendment Rights?

[LightbulbSun]

I'm not sure if the Senate is trying to extend the Protect America Act again, but I just caught some of the coverage of the Senate trying to amend the FISA Act. Does anyone know of the details?

 

[LightbulbSun]

http://intelligence.senate.gov/071025/s2248.pdf"

For more on this bill they're trying to pass.

 

[mgb_phys]

It's interesting that you can tell a lot about the political state from the naming of the acts.
Name them like bits of obscure tax legislation if you don't want anyone to notice them eg. FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) or RIPA (Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act)
If you think they are a bit dodgy and you want eveyone on to support them name them so that only a baby-eating communist would object. Patriot Act, Protect America Act, and the Oh_my_god_won't_someone_think_of_the_childen_act.

ps. Is this the change that let's them copy any data on your laptop when you travel into the USA?

 

[NateTG]

It's interesting that you can tell a lot about the political state from the naming of the acts.
Name them like bits of obscure tax legislation if you don't want anyone to notice them eg. FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) or RIPA (Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act)
If you think they are a bit dodgy and you want eveyone on to support them name them so that only a baby-eating communist would object. Patriot Act, Protect America Act, and the Oh_my_god_won't_someone_think_of_the_childen_act.

It's really a marketing ploy. What really ticks me off is that people are so willing to swallow the this crap, and use these politically charged names. For example, the so-called Patriot act would, more accurately, be called the "chicken little" act, or the "too frightened to read what we vote on" act.

Having spent some time growing up in Germany, I do find this stuff somewhat ironically amusing since the Nazi's were quite fond of the same sort of jingoistic and orwellian nomenclature.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Having spent some time growing up in Germany, I do find this stuff somewhat ironically amusing since the Nazi's were quite fond of the same sort of jingoistic and orwellian nomenclature.

Indeed!

 

[DrClapeyron]

The Nazis had a constitution yes, but they had no legal system the same as the United States. Whatever was passed in Nazi was law, here in the US we afford persons the oppurtunity to argue their case before a judge.

How many bills has the total membership of PF reviewed, read or given link?

 

[mgb_phys]

here in the US we afford persons the oppurtunity to argue their case before a judge.

Or at least a "special military tribunal" reporting directly to the commander in chief, same thing really.

 

[LightbulbSun]

ps. Is this the change that let's them copy any data on your laptop when you travel into the USA?

From the Senate coverage I caught on CSPAN-2 it looks as if this bill allows them to use electronic survellience on foreign terrorists. I'm sure there's more to it, but that's what I gathered from the hearings.

 

[chemisttree]

It passed in the Senate. Obama didn't vote according to the http://www.senate.gov/legislative/L...te_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=2&vote=00020" although it is being reported that he voted against it in the media. Clinton didn't vote either. It passed 68-29 and all 29 who voted against were Democrats.
This bill was passed in the House late last year and had only one amendment added to it (passed by unanimous consent in the Senate). I guess it is back to the House for finalization and then on to Bush.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The Nazis had a constitution yes, but they had no legal system the same as the United States. Whatever was passed in Nazi was law, here in the US we afford persons the oppurtunity to argue their case before a judge.

How many bills has the total membership of PF reviewed, read or given link?

Plenty, but with only 21 posts you would have no way to know, would you.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The house is going to stop this.

I want the phone companies held liable for illegal seach and invasion of privacy. Just because the Bush admin burned the Constitution, that doesn't relieve the phone companies of liablity.

Pelosi said it best: If this is really so important, then Bush would have signed the extension. Yet again we see Bush talking as if this is only about fighting terrorists or not.

Why is it that about the only time we see Bush on TV is when he's trying to trash the Constitution?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Is it even legal to exempt any organization from violations of the Constitution?

There is no declared war... I think the only time this is allowed is if Martial Law has been invoked. So I tend to doubt that even if passed the protection would stand if it went to the Supreme Court.

As for Godwin's law [oh silent poster], I invoke the lessons of history. There are times when they apply or we would have no reason to study them.

 

[edward]

Does anyone really believe that it is only potential terrorists who are under surveillance??

We all are under surveillance. They are going to gather so much information on everyday people that they are going to trip and fall in it. If you have ever attended a peace rally or visited an antiwar website your name is on a list.

If one wants to find a needle in a hay stack make the stack smaller not larger.

Billions have been spent on surveillance by Homeland Security yet on the local front in Arizona:

PHOENIX — Authorities said they broke up a sophisticated people-smuggling operation that was bringing multiple groups a day across the border in Cochise County to safe houses in Phoenix.
Two Cuban immigrants among those arrested were in charge of the operation that, on average, brought across four to six loads a day, each with six to 10 individuals who had paid $2,500 to get into the United States illegally, Phoenix police Lt. Vince Piano said Thursday.
There were 48 people named in the indictments. Ten of them were in custody.
Piano said the Cubans had been smuggling individuals for about a year — meaning they could be responsible for more than 20,000 people entering this country illegally.
But he said the operation was far more elaborate than just the two main suspects. He said it was so well organized that they actually contracted out much of the work.

http://www.azstarnet.com/news/225269

That one operation smuggled in 20,000 people in one year. Is the DHS so naive as to think that they are all just honest people looking for a better life?? It is possible for a Middle Easterner to learn to speak Spanish.

CIUDAD DEL ESTE, Paraguay - The Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia has taken root in South America, fostering a well-financed force of Islamist radicals boiling with hatred for the United States and ready to die to prove it, according to militia members, U.S. officials and police agencies across the continent.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17874369/

Could this all boil down to the fact that he who does not fuel the fear of terrorism loses power?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

That one operation smuggled in 20,000 people in one year. Is the DHS so naive as to think that they are all just honest people looking for a better life?? It is possible for a Middle Easterner to learn to speak Spanish.

This is how we know that Bush's war on terror is a joke... not to mention his attempt to give control of our ports to a foreign nation during a "time of war". For that I think he should be prosecuted for Treason.

Thank God we have people like Lou Dobbs keeping tabs on all of this. He effectively killed the ports deal.

 

[Gokul43201]

Statement of Ron Paul on H.R. 5104

A bill to extend the Protect America Act of 2007 for 30 Days

30 January 2008

Rep. Ron Paul, M.D.​

Madame Speaker, I rise in opposition to the extension of the Protect America Act of 2007 because the underlying legislation violates the US Constitution.

The mis-named Protect America Act allows the US government to monitor telephone calls and other electronic communications of American citizens without a warrant. This clearly violates the Fourth Amendment...

http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2008/cr013008h.htm

I know that Obama voted in favor of an amendment to strip the immunity granted retroactively to telecom companies (this amendment was not passed by the Senate). I don't know if or how he voted on the final version of the bill.

 

[edward]

Since the Patriot Act this surveillance goes a lot deeper than just federal surveillance. Telecom companies including Internet service providers are not only just providing all of your Internet information to the federal government. The information is also being sold.

A lot of the information is used for marketing purposes, but a lot of it goes to private companies who compile an entire data base on individuals.

Companies such as Entersect buy this information along with all of your public public records and also sell it. Entersect, along with a number of other companies ,sells primarily to local law enforcement agencies.

Any website that anyone has ever visited that may cause you public embarrassment if revealed, is in your local police data base. Ok let's just call it porno.

They also have, on a local basis a record of any web sites you may have visited such as anti war, anti government and both left wing and right wing web sites.

I have a nephew who worked for Entersect then finally quit in disgust and told me that: They were just making up sh$t about people. I asked him why they would do that. He said that they did a market study and found out that police departments want to see bad things about people not just bland information.

For instance, If you have had a speeding ticket, your local police data base will indicate that "You have a problem with obeying traffic laws." They had even programmed their software to insert "has a problem with" in front of just about anything.

There is a high rate of error in the data sold to local law enforcement. I had a friend print out my personal information from the Tucson police Department.

Guess what?? I am shown as being married to my son's ex wife. I have a problem with that

The whole crazy scenario needs a name. I suggest: Mission Creep Gone Wild

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Mission Creep?

Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore.

I have always wondered if the many hours spent at the NSA, CIA, DOD etc sites have flagged me as a potential terrorist.

It is time for a class-action suit and criminal prosecution of everyone involved in this business. I wish I had the money to put a lawyer on this full-time.

 

[Gokul43201]

Heard of InfraGard? I came across this on the radio a couple days ago, but most of it is old news.

www.infragard.net
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InfraGard

InfraGard is a United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) program that began in the Cleveland, Ohio, Field Office in 1996. It was a local effort to gain support from the information technology industry and academia for the FBI's investigative efforts in the cyber arena. The program expanded to other FBI Field Offices, and in 1998 the FBI assigned national program responsibility for InfraGard to the former National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) directed by RADM James B. Plehal USNR and to the FBI's Cyber Division in 2003.

The ACLU had voiced its concerns with the InfraGard program a few years ago. The relevant report is found here: Combatting the Surveillance Industrial Complex

The ACLU expresses concern that InfraGard is the corporate equivalent of Operation TIPS.

Operation TIPS, where the last part is an acronym for the Terrorism Information and Prevention System, was designed by President George W. Bush to have United States citizens report suspicious activity.

It came under intense scrutiny in July of 2002 when the Washington Post alleged in an editorial that the program was vaguely defined.

Overview

The program's website implied that US workers who had access to private citizens' homes, such as cable installers and telephone repair workers, would be reporting on what was in people's homes if it were deemed "suspicious."

Operation TIPS was accused of doing an "end run" around the United States Constitution, and the original wording of the website was subsequently changed. President Bush's former Attorney General, John Ashcroft denied that private residences would be surveiled by private citizens operating as government spies.

 

[edward]

I have warned my daughter to be wary about participating in rallies and demonstrations.

Somewhere in the chaos we have lost America.

FindLaw) -- The FBI, no longer content with working to maintain order at political events, is now preemptively identifying and interrogating ("interviewing") possible demonstrators. It has summarized this strategy in a memo.

To make matters worse, the Department of Justice blessed the FBI strategy in its own memo -- suggesting that no First Amendment concerns are raised by the interrogations.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/08/25/chill.political.speech/index.html