It continues to boggle my mind that our elected representatives will use their position to strip American freedom. The very freedom that put them in office. I find the erosion of personal liberty to be truly frightening. As “terrorism” has become the buzzword of the day, we have allowed our fear to supersede our liberty.
The 4th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution reads “The 4th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution reads “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.”
HR 6304 FISA Amendments Act of 2008
To amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to establish a procedure for authorizing certain acquisitions of foreign intelligence, and for other purposes.
Sponsored by # Rep. Silvestre Reyes [D, TX-16] and 2 Co-Sponsors: Rep. Peter Hoekstra [R, MI-2]] and Rep. Lamar Smith [R, TX-21]
Amazingly enough, it seems that the only sites that I could find who are upset about this legislation are liberal. Are Republicans and other conservatives really in favor of global wiretapping and searches without warrants? Are conservatives really ready to chuck the forth amendment? I am not a big lovva of the ACLU, but here is their list of what HR 6304 will do:
• H.R. 6304 permits the government to conduct mass, untargeted surveillance of all communications coming into and out of the United States, without any individualized review, and without any finding of wrongdoing.
• H.R. 6304 permits only minimal court oversight. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA Court) only reviews general procedures for targeting and minimizing the use of information that is collected. The court may not know who, what or where will actually be tapped.
• H.R. 6304 contains a general ban on reverse targeting. However, it lacks stronger language that was contained in prior House bills that included clear statutory directives about when the government should return to the FISA court and obtain an individualized order if it wants to continue listening to a US person’s communications.
• H.R.6304 contains an “exigent” circumstance loophole that thwarts the prior judicial review requirement. The bill permits the government to start a spying program and wait to go to court for up to 7 days every time “intelligence important to the national security of the US may be lost or not timely acquired.” By definition, court applications take time and will delay the collection of information. It is highly unlikely there is a situation where this exception doesn’t swallow the rule.
• H.R. 6304 further trivializes court review by explicitly permitting the government to continue surveillance programs even if the application is denied by the court. The government has the authority to wiretap through the entire appeals process, and then keep and use whatever it gathered in the meantime.
• H.R. 6304 ensures the dismissal of all cases pending against the telecommunication companies that facilitated the warrantless wiretapping programs over the last 7 years. The test in the bill is not whether the government certifications were actually legal – only whether they were issued. Because it is public knowledge that they were, all the cases seeking to find out what these companies and the government did with our communications will be killed.
• Members of Congress not on Judiciary or Intelligence Committees are NOT guaranteed access to reports from the Attorney General, Director of National Intelligence, and Inspector General.
This bill passed the House with overwhelming support from both sides of the isle. It has moved to the Senate where a cloture motion has been made. Cloture is the only procedure by which the Senate can vote to place a time limit on consideration of a bill or other matter, and thereby overcome a filibuster. Under the cloture rule (Rule XXII), the Senate may limit consideration of a pending matter to 30 additional hours, but only by vote of three-fifths of the full Senate, normally 60 votes. So a Senate vote could be expected today on the bill, actually I would have expected it yesterday. HMMM.
A good article can be read from the Associated Press.
June 27, 2008 at 5:33 pm
The governments of today-not just in the USA, have become the true definition of TREASON.
June 27, 2008 at 8:15 pm
Have you read the bill?
I mean I don’t like it too much but I don’t understand some of the points made. There is semi-annual congressional AND FISA court oversight of all “certificates” issued.
While it’s kinda hard to read and by the time you de-reference the cross references, your eyes are crossed, but I saw nothing in this bill that allows bulk targeting of communications. In fact, by stipulating minimization, it effectively prohibits bulk targeting. Show me where I’m wrong because I’m really curious.
The two main problems with this bill, IMHO, are
(A)that it takes the responsibility of surveillance initiation out of the hands of the courts
(B)it pardons the companies that we pay to keep our data secure for acting in an irresponsible and probably illegal manner with that data. Those companies should know better and have plenty of legal staff to, in fact, know better. If we had different companies to chose, we would probably do so. We’re talking about preventing anybody who feels that they’ve had their security violated by this oligopoly from taking legal action.