Comments on: FISA: Dialing For The Rule Of Law

By: ubetchaiam

ubetchaiam — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 21:34:08 +0000

Wouldn’t surprise me John; Feinstein isn’t as skilled as Greenspan is but she’s still good at it. I still would like to see ‘page 90′.

By: john in sacramento

john in sacramento — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 21:25:58 +0000

That’s the legislative version the ‘wink, wink, nudge, nudge’ sketch

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ona-RhLfRfc

If the pResident (or Attorney General) says it’s not, it’s not illegal

By: Nell

Nell — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 21:18:09 +0000

Just got off the phone with Webb’s L.A. for FISA issues, who said that the vote may be delayed a day because Reid is shuffling things around to make it easier for those who want to attend Helms’ funeral. FWIW. Calls etc. should continue and intensify, and this may give us another day. Aide had not yet discussed the bill and the likely amendments with Webb, will do so tomorrow. He said they hadn’t all been filed. I know Dodd’s has been, couldn’t get an answer on Webb’s position, but was invited to call back tomorrow for same. A bad sign (in addition to the reality that Webb voted for immunity in February) is that the aide defended the bill-with-immunity on the grounds that it would still be possible to sue individuals and the government.

On the ray-let of hope side, aide said that the recent al Haramein decision was having an impact with members (”changing the game a little”). Said I hoped it was doing so in a direction more favorable to stopping this bill, since the decision made plain that what Dems claim was “won” in the “compromise” — exclusivity — was already in FISA.

By: CarolynU

CarolynU — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 21:01:48 +0000

I’d call all 100 senators, but my area code always gives away the game!

Seriously, I’m lookin’ forward to the festivities here.

I don’t think it matters. Call them all anyway. I usually do not get asked if I am a resident, or for my zip code. And if I am, I give it, and remind them, if I’m calling someone in a leadership position like Reid, or Pelosi etc - that they are not just representing their constituency as Majority Leader or Speaker, they represent all Americans

Once or twice people have gotten snippy but not usually.

By: CarolynU

CarolynU — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:49:52 +0000

Christy, very cool tool to help call. I’m switching back to my regular capital switchboard numbers, though for the list of Senators. The voice prompting you to “be polite” is taking too much time for me to move down the list.

Capital Switchboard:

1 800 828 0498

I have been dealing with very polite staffers, in one office after the next, who let me go on for a couple minutes without trying to get me off the phone. I get the feeling they’ve all been told to handle us carefully.

By: ubetchaiam

ubetchaiam — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:45:56 +0000

SA 5060. Mr. WHITEHOUSE (for himself, Mrs. Feinstein, and Mr. Nelson of Florida) submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by him to the bill H.R. 6304, to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to establish a procedure for authorizing certain acquisitions of foreign intelligence, and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

On page 90, strike line 13, and insert the following:

“(ii) determined to be lawful; and

“(C) provided based on the good faith and reasonable belief of the electronic communication service provider that compliance with a written request or directive described in subparagraph (B) was lawful; or

By: ubetchaiam

ubetchaiam — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:45:15 +0000

Can’t find the ‘page 90′ using Thomas.loc.gov to see exactly what the Whitehouse Amendment that Feinstein is co-sponsor of is saying; anyone help?

By: ondelette

ondelette — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:41:31 +0000

Sorry, forgot to mention: Under this bill, if they decide they need your “accidentally collected” personal identification information to interpret whatever they are listening to, or to conduct foreign policy, they don’t need to destroy it, anyway.

Neat, hunh?

By: ondelette

ondelette — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:32:59 +0000

The bill allows surveillance of targets for whom the names and addresses are still not known. Under the circumstances, the requirements in the minimization rules that they delete such information are meaningless. Consider the following information: Each of 7 people are members of a database and each is a member of one of 7 groups. No two members are members of more than one group, all members are members of at least one group as any other. Under these circumstances, regardless of whether you destroy the personal information of any member, you can always use group memberships to target a single individual. Group memberships in this kind of set up are who you call on the phone, or even which vocabulary words you use most frequently, not to mention nationality or political affiliation.

This is the simplest possible example of what is called an admissible set for an inverse finite Radon transform (sometimes in more general situations called a Galois connection). What it means is that if a database exists that contains enough categorical (who is in what group) information, it can always target individuals even though the identification information has been deleted. If part of the identification information is where the individual is (and it is), then one can claim that there is a reasonable expectation that that person is outside the United States with as much surety as one can testify under oath before a Senate committee that one “does not remember.”

I hope this helps clarify whether, after the passage of this bill, there is anybody they cannot legally target temporarily (for 7 to 60 days depending on court interations after the targeting has started). Once they narrow to a specific individual, this bill, together with those passed before (Patriot Act, FISA upgrades), allows them to claim what this bill says needs to be claimed to get a warrant, and continue the surveillance.

Any bill that does not include rolling back information as a requisite for minimization, and allows targeting without personal information, as this one does, allows spying on you. Period and end of story. Go to the White House complaint list for the Leahy bill (SJC version from last Fall) and read what the Bush people hated in that bill, if you don’t believe me.

By: ubetchaiam

ubetchaiam — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:31:50 +0000

Thanks for the posting SonomaRus; I called her office and they said she had no position on the Dodd/Feingold/Leahy amendment AND based on her letter, she will vote against it as -in her mind- it is not better than that she is co=sponsoring which is the Bingamon amendment:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/.....110e7RSQ0:

I don’t have the complete text of HR6304 -at this time- so what is being struck I can’t comment on.
Here is the amendments submitted:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/.....001:S56298

And I just read that voting on the bill won’t occur until Wednesday so the Repub’s can go make nice about a racist whose ‘friendliness’ apparently was more important to them than his policies.