this is MORE then a “violation of our privacy”, it’s MORE then “unconstitutional”

they are stealing, plain and simple, stealing information they want, stealing political information to hold over their ponent’s head, stealing bussiness information like professional contacts, like purchasing sources, like prices

they are stealing competitive bids, they are stealing manufacturing secrets

and they CANNOT deny that is what they are doing because they insist NOBODY check to make sure

there is only ONE reason they don’t want someone to check to see if they are or are not stealing

and THAT reason is that they are stealing

I WISH dodd and ALL the democrats started framing this discussion the way it needs to be framed

they are stealing my information, they are looking up my wife’s dress, they are peeking in my daughters widnow

and UNTIL they PROVE that they are not, then they ARE

and THAT is the way this discussion NEEDS to be framed

I’m leaving the Democrats if this passes.

I’ve had it.

we can feild a NEW party, call it “the constitutionalists”

that will get members from BOTH parties, it will be a SECULAR party, it’s platform will be religion OUT of politics, corporations are NOT people, only PEOPLE can contribute to political campaigns

and it will be the party of GOVERNMENT FOR PEOPLE, BY PEOPLE

it will be AGAINST government for corporations by corporations

thank you so much for this!

i almost missed it, but newtonusr pointed it to me on the late late night thread…. will read in the morning, right now me and my insomnia are dueling to see if i’m going to get to sleep. but, i did want to leave a note to let you to know i’d see it.

more later….

thank you, thank you!

What I want is simple: if you cannot vote then you cannot donate money. Period. Since corporations do not exist except on paper. Since they are NOT people and have NO vote, they don’t get to give any money to any politician.

Simple. Only VOTERS can give money.

ditto

I’ve had it.

john kerry? – he didn’t say shit when the young fellow was being tased….no confidence in that guy!! hope sen dodd can get something done but the lobbyists are putting screws to rocky et al sooo looks as if telecom folks will prevail – surprised? hope i’m wrong………

Kerry has been the only Senator to initiate a filibuster of anything (Alito), so if you dont want him involved you really narrow your options.

Back in 1978, when we still had a Congress worthy of the name, the contours of the Fourth Amendment were clearly illuminated and re-fortified by passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). FISA stipulated an exception, from the warrants otherwise mandated, when any federal government “electronic surveillance is solely directed at — (i) the acquisition of the contents of communications transmitted by means of communications used exclusively between or among foreign powers” and that such surveillance meet the following requirement [under Section 102a(1)(A)] before being exempted from FISA’s otherwise-applicable probable cause warrant requirement [that a target be a foreign agent or an agent of a foreign power] for collection of foreign intelligence that implicates the privacy rights of U.S. persons:

“[That] there is no substantial likelihood that the surveillance will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party.” – The 1978 FISA gold standard

[Presidents have issued Executive Orders requiring the AG to certify probable cause as to a U.S. person being a foreign agent before said person is targeted (as opposed to inadvertently and incidentally surveilled) for surveillance, when located overseas and therefore (seemingly) exempt from FISA’s warrant requirements.]

The 2007 PAA’s [Protect America Act’s] deliberate weakening and undermining of the protective fortification around the Fourth Amendment reduced the standard [under Section 105B(a)] for being exempted from FISA’s otherwise-applicable warrant requirements for collection of foreign intelligence that impacts the privacy rights of U.S. persons, to this:

“[That] there are reasonable [as defined by the Executive Branch’s AG & DNI, subject only to a “clearly erroneous” FISC review standard] procedures in place for determining that the acquisition of foreign intelligence information under this section concerns persons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States…” – The 2007 PAA waffle standard

in addition to allowing such a standard to apply to warrantless surveillance conducted within our borders, via this new definition in Section 105A that creates a FISA-coverage-exception for surveillance conducted within our borders:

“Nothing in the definition of electronic surveillance under section 101(f) shall be construed to encompass surveillance directed at a person reasonably believed to be located outside of the United States.”

[As opposed to known to be, or very likely to be, outside the U.S. because actually surveilled there.]

A “significant” (not “primary”) purpose [which has just been ruled an unConstitutionally permissive purpose by a federal district judge in Oregon] of any such PAA-permitted surveillance must be to obtain foreign intelligence information, and the PAAct appears to require that said information come from or with the assistance of private sector “communications service providers” or equipment used to transmit or store such communications (corporations that get paid by us for this assistance).

Summary: So we went from FISA’s prohibition against the collection of any communication involving a U.S. person [which has been supplemented by an EO-directed, AG-approved surveillance target upon a showing of probable cause that someone’s an agent of a foreign power or a foreign power, when someone is located outside our borders], except where such collection was incidental in spite of a prior Executive Branch certification that any such U.S. person involvement would be quite unlikely to exist – - to the PAA’s free rein to monitor and collect without a FISC warrant or AG finding of probable cause, outside and inside our borders, communications involving U.S. persons provided only that such collection is incidental to surveillance claimed to be “directed at a person” and/or “concern[ing] persons” who are “reasonably believed” (by the Executive Branch, unless that belief is proven to be somehow “clearly erroneous” by the FISC) to be located outside our borders. Leaving unspoken the inference, of course, that such “reasonable beliefs” could be entirely mistaken, to no particular effect, except for the effect of infringing on the Constitutionally-protected rights of Americans.

The original FISA probable cause individualized warrant requirement covered all surveillance of U.S. persons located within our borders (unless it accessed systems known to be exclusively used by non-U.S.-persons), and included strong protections against non-incidental, targeted surveillance of U.S. persons outside our borders, in accordance with the reasonable expectation of privacy under the Fourth Amendment that all such U.S. persons are entitled to.

The PAA gutted FISA’s privacy protections for U.S. persons both home (especially, since that’s where those protections are strongest under FISA) and abroad, by allowing an Executive Branch claim about its intended surveillance objective to override any invasion of the privacy of the communications of Americans ‘incidently’ impacted in the course of that surveillance – surveillance whose intended focus, under PAA’s new Section 105B, is (not) defined and identified as follows:

“(b) A certification [by the AG & DNI] under subsection (a) is not required to identify the specific facilities, places, premises, or property at which the acquisition of foreign intelligence information will be directed.”

Let’s re-read the language of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. – The Fourth Amendment

If this isn’t unConstitutional government in action, nothing is.

Http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/RL34143.pdf

H.R. 3773 (the RESTORE Act) attempts to modify the Protect America Act’s revisions to FISA, rather than simply repealing the PAA language [except for Sections 4 and 6 which it does repeal] and starting anew with clear and precise language, as Rush Holt’s alternative bill does (which the Democratic leadership seems to be stifling).

First, H.R. 3773 removes the new PAA Section 105A FISA-coverage-exception definition that implicitly allows warrantless surveillance of U.S. persons within our borders.

However, the RESTORE Act then proceeds to allow such warrantless surveillance of U.S. persons within our borders by another route:

“[E]lectronic surveillance that is directed at the acquisition of the communications of a person that is reasonably believed to be located outside the United States and not a United States person for the purpose of collecting foreign intelligence information…by targeting that person” shall be conducted [pursuant to a FISC order as follows]:

105B. (a) IN GENERAL.— Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General may jointly apply to a judge of the court established under section 103(a) for an ex parte order, or the extension of an order, authorizing for a period of up to one year the acquisition of communications of persons that are reasonably believed to be located outside the United States and not United States persons for the purpose of collecting foreign intelligence information…by targeting those persons.”

Not “solely” directed at, and not “known to be” outside the U.S. or “known to be” not U.S. persons. Which leaves a lot unsaid, and therefore a lot of room for spies to ‘play’…

The application for said FISCourt order must contain:

”(b) APPLICATION INCLUSIONS.— application under subsection (a) shall include—

(1) a certification by the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General that—

(A) the targets of the acquisition of foreign intelligence information under this section are persons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States;

(B) the targets of the acquisition are reasonably believed to be persons that are not United States persons;

Also required in the application is the same PAA private sector involvement of a “communications service provider,” and the “significant” (not “primary”) foreign intelligence information purpose certification, as well as:

(2) a description of—

(A) the procedures [data-mining computer program parameters, in effect] that will be used by the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General during the duration of the order to determine that there is a reasonable belief that the targets of the acquisition are persons that are located outside the United States and not United States persons;

(B) the nature of the information sought, including the identity of any foreign power against whom the acquisition will be directed;

But, again, retained intact from the PAA is this data-mining provision:

(c) SPECIFIC PLACE NOT REQUIRED.— application under subsection (a) is not required to identify the specific facilities, places, premises, or property at which the acquisition of foreign intelligence information will be directed.

In short, the RESTORE Act restores only in name the privacy rights of U.S. persons inside the U.S., and does nothing about the privacy rights of U.S. persons outside our borders. In fact, the PAA’s undermining of FISA’s original fortifications around the Fourth Amendment will remain, to a signficant degree, if the RESTORE Act becomes law:

RESTORE leaves intact the Protect America Act’s evisceration of FISA’s prohibition against the collection, within our borders, of any communication involving a U.S. person, without the issuance of a warrant by the FISCourt upon a finding of probable cause that the target is a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power, unless the surveillance is only inadvertently and incidentally collected against almost all likelihood (because a required prior Executive Branch determination that “no substantial likelihood” exists of such a communication being captured) during the targeting of non-U.S. persons here or elsewhere. Standards are definitely slipping, thanks to the existence of a secret court in a nominal democracy.

So the RESTORE Act would make semi-permanent the PAA-revised FISA’s free rein to monitor and collect without an individualized, probable cause FISCourt warrant, within our borders, communications involving U.S. persons provided only that such collection is incidental to surveillance claimed to be [”directed at a person” and/or “concerns persons” under PAA] “directed at the acquisition of the communications of a person,” and/or that “the targets of the acquisition of foreign intelligence information” [under RESTORE] are persons, “reasonably believed” [by the Executive Branch (unless the FISCourt determines that said belief is determined to be somehow “clearly erroneous” under PAA) that said procedures are unreasonably designed (under RESTORE)] to be located outside our borders, and also “reasonably believed” by the AG & DNI not to be U.S. persons, under RESTORE.

The one concession to this permanent undermining of the Fourth Amendment and FISA that the RESTORE Act would pretend to authorize – beyond a lot of after-the-fact reporting requirements and some other issues around the edges – is to require that a FISCourt judge review (apparently just once a year) in advance a description of the procedures [computer program parameters] the AG & DNI will use “to determine that there is a reasonable belief that the targets of the acquisition are persons that are located outside the United States and not United States persons;” The FISC judge is then directed by RESTORE to approve that application for a year-long spying order if the judge finds that said “procedures”…are reasonably designed to determine whether the targets of the acquisition are located outside the United States and not United States persons;” [and that minimization is in place and normal FISA, particularized, probable cause warrants are applied for under Section 104 of FISA in cases where it is “reasonably believed” that involvement of a person within our borders is implicated].

Note the lack of concern about enforcement of this basket/blanket general warrant provision:

“(2) FAILURE TO COMPLY.— If a person fails to comply with an order issued under paragraph (1), the Attorney General may invoke the aid of the court established under section 103(a) to compel compliance with the order. Failure to obey an order of the court may be punished by the court as contempt of court.”

If this all seems unnecessarily complicated – it’s because it is. This is our government hiding its on-going access to and partnership with the largest private, corporate-owned communications networks in the nation, and around the world, for purposes of massive data collection and analysis. AT&T apparently started, 11 days after the Bush administration came into office in early 2001 – though the planning had been done during the Clinton administration, perhaps under Mike McConnell himself – construction of a parallel “network operations center” (that matched its own in NJ) for the exclusive use of the U.S. Government’s National Security Agency. That’s alleged in one of those lawsuits now pending in CA, which our Congress and President can’t wait to wipe off the books by passing “immunity” for this open, willful, wholesale corporate/government invasion of our privacy in absolute contravention of the Constitution.

Http://www.rockymountainnews.c…..66,00.html

See especially Exhibit F of the 10-31-06 3rd Section 5 CIPA Submission in the newly-released Qwest litigation documents:

http://denver.rockymountainnew…../cipa2.pdf

The Rush Holt FISA Modernization bill (H.R. 3782) also weakens FISA, but may be a reasonable accommodation to the current realities of how we monitor overseas traffic today. His bill adds another method of monitoring and collecting traffic for purposes of foreign intelligence that is (thought to be) generated and “transmitted exclusively” by those outside our borders while also excepting that category of intelligence collection from the “no substantial likelihood” of U.S. person involvement gold standard exception to FISA warrants that kept the NSA from (legally) doing such data-mining collection on Americans within our borders in the past.

Holt’s bill provides for quarterly FISCourt review (of some sort) of the Executive Branch acquisition of such communications of persons “reasonably believed” to be located outside our borders and not known to be U.S. persons. I think his bill may need some amendment to provide for stricter minimization requirements, but even with that it seems to basically give DNI McConnell the room he needs to keep using the ATT/NSA “network operations center” and associated ‘global spying’ operations that now seem to be based within our borders, and which apparently regularly include (or can’t verifiably exclude) the data of innocent Americans (especially their cell-phone and e-mail traffic).

Rep. Holt’s bill is also a good-government bill, with some provisions for streamlining operations and reforming process while increasing the size of the FISA Court and increasing funding.

Basically, Holt did a much more careful and precise job of amending FISA with a minimum of verbiage, got rid of all the language of the PAA up front, and is using a few phrases to limit the new category of U.S.-based, beyond-our-borders spying to “electronic surveillance [that] is solely directed at – (iii) the acquisition of the contents of communications transmitted exclusively between or among persons reasonably believed to be located outside of the United States” – without requiring the FISCourt to grant a once-a-year sweeping ‘order’ for less specific, more permissive U.S.-based spying that amounts to a blanket or basket or general warrant approval of certain computer program parameters using PAA language, as the RESTORE Act does. [Next time, perhaps the Intelligence Committees of Congress ought to consider the need to change the law before just letting the Lt. Gen. Haydens and Mike McConnells - ‘operators of the world’s largest communications network’ - and the Executive Branch unilaterally redefine the infrastructure landscape, unimpeded, until the deed is irreversibly done.]

I think Members of Congress should absolutely be supporting the Holt version (H.R. 3782) of a new FISA bill, with amendments as appropriate. I can’t see any reason to retain much of the sloppy, vague, confusing, far-too-permissive, and almost certainly unConstitutional language of the PAAct, by enacting the unwieldly RESTORE Act instead of Rush Holt’s clearly superior, precise and narrowly-drafted alternative bill.

SanderO @ 103

You people are hopeless niaive.

The laws are for the powerless. The powerful get special treatment ALWAYS.

Don’t you see the kabuki here?

Well, that first part of your comment to “you people” sounds a bit “superior” in tone. As egr says, not exactly the way to win friends and influence people. Especially, influence people, I would add.

I don’t mean to pile on, but according to the tenets of anarchy, the laws are for the powerful to be used against the little people. There isn’t one law I know of that is designed to protect the small fry from the bigger fish in the pond.

tw3k @ 26

That was AT&T

$14,900 from Bell South

$13,000 from verizon

That’s still damn cheap for a US Senator!

I mentioned something about that when Hart was here and CHS didn’t like it one bit.

God forbid we call senators and congresscritters what they are.

I don’t care what party designation they’re collecting their graft under….unless it’s walking on Tenth Avenue and 15th Street in a dress and makeup with stiletto heels, it’s a pros, retired or not retired.