House passed telecom immunity bill, Senate sure to follow. its legal to spy on us now

[Mobilus]

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll437.xml

Those are all the people who voted for and against it. It will go to the Senate shortly but since the Senate already passed a bill similar to this they will probably pass it.

It is now legal to spy on us without warrants.

The congress has assumed the power to pardon illegal actions retroactively.

For the period when it was illegal to spy on us without warrants Congress has now said they will prevent any civil lawsuits against people who broke the law, even though they broke the law.

Here are new provisions which the bill includes:

_Require FISA court permission to wiretap Americans who are overseas.
_Prohibit targeting a foreigner to secretly eavesdrop, without court approval, on an American's calls or e-mails.
_Require the government to protect American information or conversations that are collected when in communications with targeted foreigners.
_Allow the FISA court 30 days to review existing but expiring surveillance orders before renewing them.
_Allow eavesdropping in emergencies without court approval, provided the government files required papers within a week.
_Prohibits the president from superseding surveillance rules in the future.



All of those protections are stupid and pointless when considering that the government doesn't even have to obtain a warrant until a week after they have already done the wiretap, and when they screw-up and don't get their retroactive warrant, there are no consequences. Wonderful.





EVERYONE, call your Senators today and tell them to stand up for civil rights and filibuster this crap when it comes to the Senate in the next few days!!!!!!




By the way, because of VOIP this law effectively also covers the entire internet.

[PoRTWoLF]

Ha i laughed when i read filibuster. brings a tear to my eye someone actually used that outside my civics course.

and again HA, let them try and tap my pr0xeez
<--not l33t but damnit i make due.

So how does the whole less and less freedom thing fly?
I hope our generation raises some SANE leaders that will fix all this in the future. Provided the "Anti-Christ" Barack Obama loses. I want him to win but my mom is all "OMfG it izzz teh 4nt1-Chr1s7z00rz"

I love the ignorance in religion now-adays.


EDIT: +rep for this lol, much needed discussion i think.

[NickF]

**** me sideways and lick my nuts, what a ****ing surprise.

[BD-ICY]

lol.

They gonna listen in on our phone sex :O

[han_han]

What happened to serious discussion? I think this is total horse****. We need to stop these types of legal actions against our freedom to piracy--I mean privacy. Every minor bill against our privacy is going to threaten our secrets and such. This is a power that is bound to be abused; this bill should not be passed.

[Mookster]

To add insult to injury, in the near future, internet is more than likely to absorb damn near every type of communication other than that which occurs face to face; telephone being one.

[Mobilus]

Here's an update. Everyone go here and sign this petition. Chris Dodd has been fighting this for over a year and it's basically up to him and whatever support he can get in the Senate to stop it.

stop warrantless spying on Americans!

[el-camino-ss]

Here's an update. Everyone go here and sign this petition. Chris Dodd has been fighting this for over a year and it's basically up to him and whatever support he can get in the Senate to stop it.

stop warrantless spying on Americans!

I dont want spam

[Mobilus]

It's not really spam with the stakes so high huh.....

Plus its germane to a topic already under discussion. Just think, for every person who signs that it will take an extra second of the Senate floor's time to read your name as the amendment's co-sponsor which might stop the bill all by itself.

If this bill gets through the Senate we are all screwed. It will give the government unprecedented power to spy on us without any oversight at all. (after all, if they can wait 30 days to get a warrant after they've already spied, what's the point of getting the warrant later at all? There's not even any consequences in case they don't get the warrant later so there's no incentive not to simply wiretap everyone and then say "sorry, oh well" when the court doesn't give you a retroactive warrant).

The telecoms need to be punished for their role in this also.

[el-camino-ss]

The page looks a little fake too me, I don't want floods of pron in my inbox after "signing" it.

[MiCrOz]

Does this include cell phones or just landlines?

[Mobilus]

I can vouch for it's legitimacy, I originally got it in an email from Chris Dodd's Senate address since I signed up for his mailings when he was running for President.

Microz, it applies to all forms of voice communication including landlines, cellphones, and because of VOIP, the entire ****ing internet (they claim they have to intercept ALL data just to determine which packets are VOIP packets)

[el-camino-ss]

Seems real to me, not even a .gov.

http://advomatic.bm23.com/public/?q=landingpage&fn=Mail_LandingPage_Link&id=1c1sal9lif76e2hlphhjcjllpc0d9&page=subadd&type =p&ssid=9531

[Mobilus]

Well unfortunately it passed the Senate today 69-20. It is now legal to spy on us without a warrant and also the telecoms now get immunity from having broke the law for 6 years with thousands of illegal wiretaps.

4th Amendment R.I.P.

[SC_Modder]

I'm pretty sure the government has been wiretapping people for more than six years, and they've never cared. Whenever they've been caught, they basically would just say, "Ooops, sorry" and keep doing it anyhow.

[XCreepingDeathX]

I'm pretty sure the government has been wiretapping people for more than six years, and they've never cared. Whenever they've been caught, they basically would just say, "Ooops, sorry" and keep doing it anyhow.

Exactly. It's not like this is anything new.

[Mobilus]

It's new that the government is trying to make it legal and constitutional. Believe me, that is completely new.

Before when they got caught at least they had to stop and someone, somewhere got fired and people could sue for damages. This bill directly instructs the courts to not only overlook the unconstitutionality of this law, but it tells the courts to retroactively forgive the illegal actions of the telecoms!