The Senate today gave AT&T and Verizon retroactive legal immunity for their roles in handing over consumer voice and data information wholesale to the NSA without a court order. Telecom providers face billions in lawsuits for their decisions to participate in the Bush Administration's warrantless wiretapping program, and have been lobbying DC relentlessly in order to derail these suits.
The highest profile case involves 22-year former AT&T employee turned whistle-blower Mark Klein, who documented AT&T's use of entire rooms (pdf) to ferry data from multiple carriers directly to the NSA. With retroactive immunity, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's case against AT&T all but disintegrates.
According to the Associated Press, the Senate voted 31 to 67 to reject an attempt to include an amendment that would have eliminated immunity. Salon has a little more detail on how voting broke down. Republicans voted unanimously for telecom immunity, while Democrats split, 31-18. Presidential candidate Barack Obama voted against immunity, while Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton was a no show. Salon opines:
quote:That's really the most extraordinary aspect of all of this, if one really thinks about it -- it isn't merely that the Democratic Senate failed to investigate or bring about accountability for the clearest and more brazen acts of lawbreaking in the Bush administration, although that is true. Far beyond that, once in power, they are eagerly and aggressively taking affirmative steps -- extraordinary steps -- to protect Bush officials. While still knowing virtually nothing about what they did, they are acting to legalize Bush's illegal spying programs and put an end to all pending investigations and efforts to uncover what happened.
Bush has said he'd veto any renewed FISA bill that did not include retroactive immunity for the phone providers. Qwest was the only baby bell to reject Uncle Sam's advances out of concern that the program was not entirely legal. That's apparently no longer a problem, as AT&T and Verizon have the lobbying muscle to make it so. There's now two FISA bills that need resolving; one in the House without immunity, and this Senate bill that includes it. Barring some last minute show of intestinal fortitude on the part of Congress, it doesn't look good for opponents of immunity.
Amigo boy is a HYPOCRITE. Ignore him. He holds no credibility as HE WOULD NOT PROVIDE THE DETAILS requested in previous conversation.
Name Address Social Security Number List of websites visited Credit History Etc
Yet he wants to defend our government for handing out the same data but doesn't wish to provide his.
OK we'll try this one more time. Based on our previous go-round, I doubt this one-note joker will change his tune, but at least others reading these posts may get it.
Your request is absurd and nonsensical. It's like saying that if I believe that the police should be given greater freedom to search suspects, that I should allow anyone who knocks on my door to search my house. Well, no. The two things are quite different.
My request is NEITHER ABSURD OR NONSENSICAL. It is a REALISTIC request. If you feel this information is not private then PROVIDE IT FOR ALL TO SEE since it would be no different than handing it to strangers in the government. Otherwise SHUT YOUR PIE HOLE. Simple now isn't it?
As for the Filibuster, they didn't try or so the article said. So who would know if it would have been overridden or not. My guess, it would have BUT STILL there's a different type of respect that goes into breaking one. If you break my filibuster, then next time you have issues, count on yours to be broken too. Hence, it still should have been given an ATTEMPT.
My request is NEITHER ABSURD OR NONSENSICAL. It is a REALISTIC request. If you feel this information is not private then PROVIDE IT FOR ALL TO SEE since it would be no different than handing it to strangers in the government.
I consider my tax return private, but I support the idea of paying for the cost of government which includes providing this information.
Face it: Your position (like many, frankly) is absurd. I can respect opposing greater government authority, or supporting better checks and balances. But, your reasoning indicates you are so partisan that even the most tenuous thoughts become absolute principles for you. It places you in the irrelevant fringe.
Still waiting for my REQUEST. Now we want that information since you have 0 objections go handing it out. As per tax return, I didn't ask just for that. However, nothing is private according to you. Therefore hand out or hush up. Simple isn't it. You have no regard for privacy and don't mind prying eyes seeing your life (IE anyone working for the government, and all third parties involved), then why I am more of a threat? You can't control what they do with said information, which is much more dangerous than an individual.
The senator from Louisiana uses your tax dollars to enrich her political associates who in return enrich the senator from the proceeds they received from her. She likes your paying of taxes as well. She might even enjoy your paying of taxes more than you do.
My request is NEITHER ABSURD OR NONSENSICAL. It is a REALISTIC request. If you feel this information is not private then PROVIDE IT FOR ALL TO SEE since it would be no different than handing it to strangers in the government. Otherwise SHUT YOUR PIE HOLE. Simple now isn't it?
Dude. seek help. There was an executive decision made in a time of national crisis. Several corporations complyed with requests from OUR gov't in order to prevent anymore attacks. They not only deserve immunity, they deserve our Thanks. This has nothing to do with an ordinary law abiding citizens private information, unless of course he/she are accomplices.
It was an abusive executive decision that was made and should not have been followed by anyone because current laws said otherwise. No government entity has any right to violate our rights like that because it is convenient for them.
If you want to give up your rights so you can feel safer feel free, but don't expect nor require the rest of us to do the same to accommodate you and the panzies around you.
It was an abusive executive decision that was made and should not have been followed by anyone ...
If that we're so *obviously* true (as the Commentariat constantly insist), it should be a cinch to impeach the President. Or, to get the DoJ to file criminal charges against the telcos. Or, to recall Senators who support immunity. Or, to replace them during reelection, and change the laws, etc.
Instead, all we're hearing about is *civil* court. That's your right. But, it's hardly the high road we'd expect you to take if it were such a clear abuse of power.
oh brother. you and your futile attempt to downplay "civil court".
what you suggest is impossible because the usual recourse in this situation, DoJ filing criminal charges, is impossible because the DoJ / attorney general is in bed with the Whitehouse. have you been sleeping the last 7 years?
Prevent more attacks? So they happen every day? So can we use this argument arbitrarily. I think more will occur. Give me the information I request with no oversight. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself and an overzealous government. Why do you think states were given rights, so the federal government couldn't make all the decisions. Now they are, and we're left being LESS SAFE. IE if we're so GOD DAMN PARANOID the big bad boogeyman is out to get us, then why remain a democracy? We can become an authoritative country and then supersede the need for more than one person to make a decision in the time of emergency? Sounds better to me. Better yet, let's be like china where people have no right to protest wrongs. Even better, then if this single figure makes a bad decision, we can't complain or we're arrested / shot. Here's the best, if we're so eager to trade our rights, doesn't it mean they terrorists won? After all, terrorism is meant not to simply cause panic but CHANGE the way people live! Notice how your argument has a lot of slippery slopes involved. Hence, I prefer my good old checks and balances, NO MATTER the situation.
Depending on the Era and generally courts still gave permission. In the 1950s with McCarthy, the FBI did so but they did with oversight. Granted, they targeted EVERYONE but they did with permission. In the 1960s with the Monitoring of peace groups, courts still oversaw such activities. I'm not going to think for one moment that ALL were done with court orders. I'm only saying those that WEREN'T then or NOW broke the law. Plain and simple.
Dude. seek help. There was an executive decision made in a time of national crisis. Several corporations complyed with requests from OUR gov't in order to prevent anymore attacks. They not only deserve immunity, they deserve our Thanks. This has nothing to do with an ordinary law abiding citizens private information, unless of course he/she are accomplices.
"Those who are willing to give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither, and will lose both." Benjamin Franklin
"Those who are willing to give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither, and will lose both." Benjamin Franklin
Why do self-styled freedom fighters always misquote the Founders? Franklin wrote:
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
The addition of those adjectives make his comment less absolute. Logically, it means it's not wrong to give up "non-essential liberties" and/or, for "permanent safety."
Also, keep in mind that the Founding generation embraced "big government" (relatively speaking) more than any generation since their time. They gave up the Articles of Confederation after 12 years for the Federal Constitution.
They did it for a good reason. But, it's a myth to ascribe a perfect baseline to them. Should we use the very limited government of the Articles? Or, the relatively *gigantic* Federal government which they choose instead? (The one with all the qualifiers, such as "reasonable" searches and seizures?
If we drank to every ignorant statement amigo boy said, we'd be dead from alcohol poisoning by now. Best take a sip of alcohol free beer or something. You'll live much longer. To that, cheers.
Amigo, do you simply copy and paste your replies? None of them have anything of substance within them. Seriously, you'd be better off not posting, than pretending like anyone cared about what you had to say. At this point, we've all called you for what you are... Someone that spouts off, provides no proof, and best of all doesn't want to be held accountable for the same things he supports time and time again.
And for the 41st time Im still waiting from the man who claims to advocate for something yet, wants privacy himself. Repeating is the only thing you seem to understand since you repeat your freedom fighter line 100000000000 times every post.....So point stand.. Give us that information Mr. Hypocrite. How come you won't? You keep finding every excuse not to. Anyhow, this issue has been beaten to the ground. Ever notice how hardly anyone agrees with you? It's not because you are fighting a righteous battle. It's because you're fighting an uphill one that you won't win.
Unfortunately even natural selection hits a wall when it comes to politics.
Does not matter. Just heard on the radio today that in schools where you can vote at 17 the students were sitting apart from eachother based on party preference.
If our political parties do nothing this will end up hurting our country in a big way. We do not need a Northern Ireland going on here.
Its easy to prevent a Northern Ireland when all Email/Telephones/IM/maybe postal mail/internet traffic is recorded by CIA/NSA, so they would catch plots very easily, now why they didn't catch 9/11, go ask Bush about it. I invite conspiracy theorists to join in this thread. All else fails you can claim "unlawful combatants" and just carpet bomb and do an Iraq, if the "evil side" has planes/tracking missiles, its easy, just rotate the super secret ray gun that sits on a secret satellite in outspace into place and fire.
Remember that secret military technology is always 10-30 years ahead of what the public knows, think of all those blackbird spy planes, if rumor said it was true in the 1980s, im sure it has been fully R&Ded by now. »en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St ··· programs
Other ways of dealing with civil unrest include night time disappearings, Nazis and Communists and Military Regimes in South America perfected it and it worked pretty well. Heck, even our CIA acknowledges its an effective tool. »en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex ··· endition
If the govt doesn't want to/can't murder you, a cop can always pull you over and find a Kilo of cocaine in your trunk, now the Govt is safe from you. Simple as day. TRY AND DISPROVE THAT.
Technology could allow putting all Americans under a lie detector to prove their loyalty, if they fail, shot on the spot, political Darwinism. Sounds like something Hitler would do.
The chance for a revolution in the USA would be the Military attacking the President/Congress, or another superpower secretly funding a revolution, EU, Asia, and Russia don't seem open to doing that any time soon. Look at other countries, its plain as day.
Also President could legally as "commander-in-chief" send the army to congress and 3/4ths of the state Houses/Senates and forces to pass an amendment making him Supreme Dictator for life. 232 years of democracy gone in a second. Basically a President organized Military Coup, happened so many times in other countries.
I am doing the same, but sadly I doubt it has any affect. the save us all from the terrorist lot will lead us into Orwell's 1984. He was right, just off by several decades.
People vote based on looks, and tidbits they remember from previous candidate ad campaigns of that party, and whatever Fox News/CNN says. If that fails you can just have Tony, Sal, Anthony, and Vito show up with a couple crowbars at the CEO of Diebold's house to change the votes, end of problem, or program your Lexus's onboard computer to floor the pedal at a certain time while your driving home, after the crash pour some vodka on you and throw the bottle in the car, a sad end to an alcoholic right?
With mechanical voting machines/paper voting it requires a much bigger conspiracy to pull off election fraud, which means the process is safer.
While I understand the frustration, I guess I can't go that far to support such a sentiment.
Sometimes I wonder tho, what the outcome would have been if instead of crashing planes into the Twin Towers, they'd merely waited until the State of the Union address and then crashed them into the Capitol Building instead.
That's a bit of a switchup there... Previously Obama was not showing up for big votes and Hillary was. Now we've got Obama showing up and Hillary absent. Curious...
A bunch of blood sucking lawyer Sen. Edwards types would have gotten class action status.
Lawyers sue, get filthy rich
Telco customers get a coupon and a new "Wiretap lawsuit recovery fee" line item on their bills
You can't punish a corporation without punishing it's customers and in this case it was the customers who were potentially wronged.
Follow money when it comes to votes. They either take money from the telcos or the trial lawyer unions. Obama for example has historically gotten tons of campaign bribes contributions from the trial lawyer association (now the American Assoc of Justice) members.
Might as well fire up the new email sig and get it over with.
And don't feed me the 'whats the problem, terrorists new world we live in, government asked' bullshit. At least one company had the lawyers with common sense and balls enough to say no, and FISA worked perfectly fine before the telcos decided to break the law.
Spinless Bastards. Every one of them. Just remember, to those who are in office now and to chimpy who is on his way out: now we can spy on your calls and emails too.
Memo to the next president: tap chimpy's phone/email for all hints of self incriminating types of evidence.
What pisses me off even more is that while I love SBCDirect folk, ATT is my only option, and I need internet as that's what I do for a living. Were it not for that, I'd be dropping ATT like a bad habit.
-- Let them eat cake and false positives.
-----BEGIN NSATT SNOOP BLOCK----- building bomb tower terrorist grenade c4 explosive plot hijack plane police feds white house guns dirty device convoy president war chemical death drop off mule undercover launch rocket drug covert cell cerin mass infidel Allah package subway mass ------END NSATT SNOOP BLOCK------
That's right, Democrats and Republicans alike, all who voted to provide protection for the scumbag Telcos who aided the Bush Administration in shredding the Constitution.
These arrogant assholes in Congress have acted against their constituent's interests, and the country's founding principles, for nearly eight years. They believe they are, like the Bush and the Telcos, above the law. They believe they are immune from redress through the ballot box, and they may well be, if electronic voting becomes the mandate across the land.
This is NOT the America I was born into. More and more, the government shows nothing but contempt for the rule of law, and the rights of its citizenry. The judiciary has been politicized to the extent that it is as corrupt, untrustworthy and despicable as our elected leaders.
At least Obama and a few others voted against immunity, so maybe there is some hope decency and rectitude haven't been extinguished altogether. However, the spineless fucks who run the Democratic side of the aisle have CHOSEN to look the other way, and join with unrepentant Republicans to sweep the criminal acts committed by the Bush Administration "under the carpet", and to prevent future investigation and prosecution of these criminals, and those who aided and abetted them, by the Justice Department of the next president.
Absolving the crimes of Bush, his cronies, and the corporate entities who aided them will not promote the healing of the body politic. The wounds will fester if not redressed.
McCain: FOR Immunity Clinton: No show (Good as allowing it) Obama: AGAINST immunity
Hmmm. Maybe I should take a second look at Obama. He's the only one who did the right thing in this case.
McCain, Clinton and Obama: Would erase the 2nd Amendment in a heartbeat. Examine their voting records concerning the Right to keep and bear arms. If they vote to limit or remove one Right. They will vote to limit and remove all Rights. How then can any be trusted, when they all have an axe pointed at the tree of liberty?
Politicians of either party can't be trusted as far as one could throw them. Obama is posing on this privacy issue to get votes, nothing else.
The 2nd Amendment is the sole Amendment keeping all our other Rights from toppling like dominoes. Enough with the F&*king political correctness. "Common sense" gun laws is civil disarmament
NRA: To See Where Gun Licensing Leads, Look To England
"Republicans voted unanimously for telecom immunity, while Democrats split, 31-18. Presidential candidate Barack Obama voted against immunity, while Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton was a no show. "
The telcos get immunity from being sued over their illegal wiretapping with the NSA. Guess congress gets bought again by lobbyists. And another note Obama took a stand and voted no even though he is a businessman and hillary clinton once again (a gripe of mine with her) doesnt take a stand and doesnt even vote. If we did it we would get arrested and charged but with all the big money they go scot free. I remember talking briefly to you about this and this is the final outcome. Clintons lost my vote.
I never thought anything could wake up the libs and make them realize that without adequate surveillance resources they're taking ownership of the next terrorist attack. When it came down to it, they were actually able to put the safety of the nation first and politics second. (Obama is a clueless ninny living in a dream world, it's amazing that he had the guts to take a stand on anything.)
Very depressing. As sad as it is that 18 Democrats would bow to the telecom lobby it wouldn't have mattered. The Final score was 31-67. If all 18 Dems that voted against it had voted the right way it would have been 49-49 which in the senate is a loss.
Corporations run this country. It gets proven over and over again. Noone should be surprised. I just wonder when they will push the envelope too far.
I thought the Democratic-controlled Congress were going to bring about the "change" that the Republicans couldn't/wouldn't? This just goes to show the Democrats are just as corrupt, inept, and stupid as the Republicans.
EDIT: Let's not forget the "ethics reforms" they talked so vigorously about enacting... and yet did absolutely nothing once they seized power. More broken promises by the Democrats... feels like Bill Clinton's 1992 speech saying "every kid in America who wants to go to college will be able to" promise.
I am neither pro or con for At&T or any other corporation. To me the real issue is that there were rules (laws) in place for the President to follow. He could have gone thru the FISA court and if his request had merit a warrant would have been issued that the telco companies would have had to follow and our gov't would not be in the twisted situation it is in now. Warrants have been issued immediately (over cell phones) so time delay is not a valid argument. But once again Bush has shown in his arrogant way that the laws and the constitution mean nothing to him. If our representatives really cared about us "we the people" this is a no brainer......you go with the existing laws. Of course this is not what is happening. History will speak about the representatives who tied their horses to the wagon called Bush regardless of what he did.I do not call myself a Republican or a Democrat because I choose not to blindly follow because of a "name". I am just a very concerned American citizen, in the later part of his life, that is very concerned with what is being done to our country by our politicians and our judicial system. I have no axes to grind and no pony in the race. God Bless America !!!!!!!
To me the real issue is that there were rules (laws) in place for the President to follow. He could have gone thru the FISA court and if his request had merit a warrant would have been issued that the telco companies would have had to follow and our gov't would not be in the twisted situation it is in now.
That's true. But, Presidents have acted outside "what's legally available at the time" and were later justified. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation broke existing property laws. It required the 13th Amendment to make his action legal. Roosevelt violated the Neutrality Act when he exchanged of "ships for bases." It required the Lend-Lease Act to make that legal.
Should those who followed the President in good faith (freeing slaves or piloting ships) be held to *civilly* liable? If the Presidents weren't considered to be guilty, why should those who followed them?
That's where I take exception with self-styled freedom fighters. They use words like "crime," but they can't rise to the level of a criminal trial of impeachment, nor criminal charges against the telcos. The wiretapping law has been amended to better accommodate the President's actions. But, self-styled freedom fighters are resorting to civil court (the same place where people win the lottery when they spill hot coffee on themselves). That seems to be as perverted as what they accuse the "system" of doing to them.
If they don't like it, they should work within the laws to change the system. Elect better politicians. Change the laws on surveillance. Etc. They're just looking for a cheap political shot which will do nothing except trickle down to customers (or taxpayers when the government recompenses the telcos with lucrative no-bid contracts).
face it mark: a crime (whether civil or criminal) was committed by AT&T (and VZ). they should be punished for it. their corporate lawyers had every legal reason to tell the government to go to hell BUT they didn't. they made the CHOICE to break the law.
stop being their Public Relations department cheerleader.
How had will it be to push the lawsuit up to the us supreme court?
You mean the EFF lawsuit? I think that the point of this bill is to stop that lawsuit, and others like it. So it would never be tried, much less appealed.