US Senator rails against telecom amnesty

What did I do to earn having my phone and email communications, copied, tapped, whatever you want to call it? I say this because of the copy device in SF that monitors EVERYONE'S communication. I'm pretty damn sure that I wasn't on any FISA docket, yet I'm sure my stuff is being monitored. That's an invasion of MY privacy, and a violation of MY Constitutional rights.

Perhaps that's why the amnesty clause is soooooo important to pass. These TelCo's have aided and abetted a crime against all of us. I'm sure their hearts were in the right place, but they were still the current regime's sheep. From what I understand, not ALL telco's turned a blind eye to our rights, I believe Qwest was one of the few to tell them to stuff it. At least someone has the balls to reign in abuses of power, because Congress as a whole certainly doesn't!

Happy Fourth of July, anyone?)O_,o

It is truly a sad day when so many will believe that our Government wants so much to protect us from so little. Our failed foreign policies carried out by this administration were the first stones thrown. They now want to point fingers away from their own failures.

Senator Dodd has not cowered to the whims of this administration. 

I am ashamed that those that represent me from Kansas would have sold out to such evil.

"Also, if the telcos are complying with a presidential order to tap communications, they can go to court, prove it, and go about their business."

Wrong. The "I was just following orders" line doesn't allow one to escape the bonds of legal culpability.

OK, so Egan's a far left guy. That's fine. But the reality is that the guys trying to stop this bill can't even convince the people in their own party to vote against it, let alone the full house and senate. And the reason for this is obvious. Americans don't care about this issue. Maybe if Egan could give an example on someone, anyone, who's information was actually misused, rather than ending up in a big room somewhere. Or provided a more sympathetic victim than the detainees at Guantanamo.

FISA is a litmus test issue for the far left, so the foot soldiers will fight till the bitter end. They can't bear the thought of not fighting yet another partisan fight. But the American people don't care so its going nowhere. Good riddance.

The America I grew up reading about in school wasn't a place where citizens would put up with this kind of BS. This place used to be the land of the free and the home of the brave. Now it's the land of the fearful and the home of the chicken****.

I suppose Bryan would roundly condemn the Founding Fathers as "haters of America" too since it was they that penned the Fourth Amendment requiring warrants.
There is nothing in the President's Article II powers that enable him to suspend the Fourth Amendment.
The original FISA legislation provided immunity for the telecoms for participating in lawful wiretaps. The problem arose when bush started wiretapping without any warrants and ran afoul of the law. That is why there is an immunity provision in the new FISA legislation. The telecoms would have been protected had they insisted on adhering to the law as well. They didn't.
To block citizens' access to the courts usurps the First Amendment "right to petition" and effectively eliminates the Fourth.
Existing law never required a warrant "to listen to terrorists". The problem now is that ALL communications of ALL innocent American citizens is being collected in clear violation of the law.
Bryan is either ignorant of the FISA law and the Constitution or a ready supporter of the continued slide into American fascism.

I couldn't disagree with you more Bryan.

I would try to start listing counterpoints but it's clear to me that you've swallowed gallons of the "kool aide".

Trampling the liberty given to us by the US constitution, the very reason we US citizens love America, is about the most traitorous thing you could do.

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."-Ben Franklin

Sorry to cite this much overused quote, but it applies here.

You comment of "suspected terrorists" is especially comical. If they were "suspected" than an individual warrant would be the one needed. Not this sweeping "lets catch everything and everyone we can get" warrant-less tap that the telcos handed out to Bush Co.

Try thinking outside the box next time.

...is the right to SUE in the Courts, with trial by jury. Any "conservative" who has lost sight of this is not a conservative-- s/he is rather just a "good little German", in the worst 1930s sense of the label, cheering as government moves towards totalitarianism. AT&T will be able to plead "friend of the King" and get away with just about anything, as was done in tyrannical monarchies hundreds of years ago. The USA needs to be a bit better than that, I think. Does the phrase "no one is above the law" ring a bell?

If these wiretappings were "100% legal" then SBC/ATT wouldn't be pouring campaign contributions into Senators' pockets in exchange for a NEW law which explicitly creates a retroactive exception to laws already on the books-- including the 4th AND 7th amendments from the Bill or Rights. But I guess you didn't notice, "war" justifies absolute tyranny.

Not all Americans are willing to give up our rights. Bush's war on Terrorism will last forever, (there is always evil out there in the world).

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." Benjamin Franklin

Good Paranoid More...
Why would you attack? Because American Foreign Policy is more like What America wants from the rest of the world.

Ok buddy.... you call yourself an American...

The government has made you paranoid beyond belief...

What happened to the Constitution......... and all those freedoms guaranteed by it...

Your government took them away and said we'll protect you....... but they just said that to take away your FREEDOM.......



To the ignorant fascist above flogging this as 'stupid': America is the People, not the government. The citizens must come first in every decision, and they were clearly left out of this one. Telecoms were allowing wiretaps that were intended for domestic surveillance on incoming and outgoing communications. It's a violation of privacy, reasonable assumption of confidentiality, and Constitutional rights. And they simply have to be made an example of to set the precendent that this kind of activity is not only unacceptable but diametrically opposed to the principles upon which the USA was founded.

Additionally, America is not at war. Congress must declare war, and they have not done so since 1942, so whatever ongoing war you imagine is taking place is simply you being easily brainwashed by overt propaganda or misinterpreting the ignoble and belligerent actions of the US president.

If your port city gets attacked it is not the failure of surveillance, intelligence, and the general butchering of guaranteed freedoms you so crave, it is the failure of diplomacy on our part to resolve grievances with our neighbours beforehand, instead of carrying on with our current foreign policy of antagonisation and escalation.

Telecom companies need to stick to their utilitarian business model of providing an unmoderated, unbiased, uncorrupted, and - optimally - uninterrupted service for a fee. What they've done is tantamount to a phelobotomist taking a blood sample from you and then using it to grow a clone to sell into slavery or prostitution.

If anyone should be executed for treason, it should be you or any other US citizen who is the first to stand up and be ready to not only sacrifice his own freedoms but those of his neighbours in favour of farther-reaching and greater oppression at the hands of megacorporations and poorly-supervised government agencies.

Frankly, the only war Americans are fighting right now is the war against the ignorant 20% of people like Bryan too stupid to even understand the issues he's talking about. 

The "wiretappings" are not legal.

Bush failed to catch Bin Laden.

There were no terrorists in Iraq before Bush wagged the dog.

Bryan, you obviously hate our Constitution, the laws upon which this country are based. 

So why do you hate America Bryan?

Just because you insert the word "FACT" in front of your statement doesn't prove what you are stating is indeed a fact. People toss around the phrase "it's a fact..." irresponsibly. If you are stating something is a "fact" then provide supporting links.

Fact: The wiretaps did not follow the law, and were therefore illegal. But this article is about a new law, so that point is moot. If the wiretaps were in fact legal, there would be no need for amnesty now, would there?

Fact: We (the U.S.) are not officially at war (and haven't been since WWII), so the "we're at war" argument is incorrect. 

Fact: No conservative would argue for nearly unfettered government ability to wiretap, so the whole "This is a liberal-Democrats-who-hate-America" argument is ridiculous. Conservatives believe in small government ruled by the people (remember the folks who were disgusted by Waco & Ruby Ridge? Those were conservatives.)

Those who get their political and legal knowledge from Fox news deserve to publicly make asses of themselves, as they invariably do.

1. There has been a FISA Court through which wire-tapping warrants could be obtained with little delay in emergencies. Yes, I hear FISA judges even work during times of war.

2. Perhaps we should re-evaluate our intelligence gathering system before taking the easy route and reducing the rights of US Citizens yet again. Perhaps we should consider investing more resources into human assets in gathering intelligence rather than tapping everyone's phone line 'just in case'. Human assets, I believe, usually produce better intelligence anyway, and this is especially true when dealing with Middle Eastern extremists.

3. Does anyone SERIOUSLY contend that the telecoms allowed the wire-tapping in the belief that it was legally permissible (self-serving White House legal memos aside)? Last time I checked, even the smallest of the involved telecoms had at least one lawyer on staff who probably knew at least a little bit about this topic. Sarcasm aside, these telecoms knew it was wrong but they allowed the wire-tapping anyway.

4. Isn't it interesting to see that one of the major telecoms, Qwest, did NOT allow the wire-taping (as far as I know). Does anyone remember what happened to the guy running that company? Of course, that is merely a coincidence. Our government does not punish citizens who refuse to cooperate with it. Right?

It is very hard for an ordinary person like myself to "know" what is really going on behind the scenes, but it does seem that there is enough evidence of wrongdoing here by telecoms & government officials that SOMEBODY ought to be held accountable. Sorry - the Republicans losing the White House this November isn't good enough.

Agreed with first poster. Our globalist liberoids want the SCOTUS to have domination over everyone everywhere. All your kriminals are belong to us!

At least the Supreme Court stood up for the obvious intended purpose of the 2nd Amendment today.

Bush has accomplished what no terrorist could ever do - destroy the constitution.

The wiretaps were clearly without proper warrants. Anyone who bothered to challenge the request got a shrug from the feds because they knew it would not stand up in court.

The real problem is a president who is above the law. Time is almost up and the legacy is a huge deficit, wars without end, a constitution in tatters, and financial meltdowns. Now that we've all been shafted, why not turn on the slobbering fools who carried out the illegal orders?

MODs shouldn't be applying editorial commentary to someones post - it shows severe bias, if not a sense of inferiority or persecution.

One may not agree with the the telecom bill or the comments posted but it is evident of an unfair playing field. One could even argue it as 'totalitarian.'

I agree completely, however the US citizen does not matter anymore. The US is all about Capitalism (totalitarianism?) now a days and my vote/opinion just doesn't count anymore. Trust me, I'm voting, things just aren't going the way the common (read as "sane") voter wants.

Wiretapping is always legal! But not when they are warrantless. Even during war, where do you come up with that outrageous statement? And they aren't using it for terriost only, they have used it on domestic people and listening to their daily lives. If it was, no one would give a shit. THey are listening to all calls, whenever they want. 

You are the reason why the rest of the world hates america, cause you don't know facts but talk like you do and assume whatever we do is right.

Dodd should not be giving speeches about corruption, lest he get some more favorable loan terms while he writes bills about the 'evil' mortgage companies.

Look - you can agree/disagree with FISA, but I'm not sure why people object to the telco amnesty provision. 

After 9/11, the US gov't pressured/requested wire taps from the phone companies - it's not like the phone companies took this upon themselves to do this. The phone companies should not be attacked and sued for doing what was asked of them. If you have problems with the decision to do this take it up with the US gov't; don't feed the greedy trial lawyer machine by allowing them to attack companies that were doing what the US gov't asked them to do.

So feel free to agree/disagree with FISA, but the telco amnesty which applies to a very specific event (it is not open ended) is not a 'destruction of rule of law'.

"In times of war you do not need warrants to put a wiretap on suspected terrorist."

Did you miss the part where they (specifically, at AT&T's San Francisco hub) were tapping communications between EVERYONE indiscriminately?

If Brian is so rabid about protecting the telecoms and so worried about a terrorist attack where he lives I suggest that he enlist in the US Army and put his money where his mouth is. Otherwise his comments are typical of the Chicken Hawks who talk tough but won't put their butts on the line expecting others to do his bidding.
Conrad

Wiretapping is not illegal. The question is of warrantless wiretapping which is illegal.

Also, if the telcos are complying with a presidential order to tap communications, they can go to court, prove it, and go about their business.

The crime would fall to the president who issues the illegal orders.

Also, the current FISA requires the telcos to cooperate with a wiretap warrant. They aren't going to say "no."

Telcos don't need protection if it is as easy to prove they have done nothing wrong as the president implies.

For these wiretaps, since FISA, over 99% of them have been approved. That's pretty good, but apparently not good enough. They can even pursue approval *after the fact* when time is of the essence.

This process has worked well but for some reason the current president wants to make all the decisions himself without following the law.

Retroactive immunity is a symptom of a larger disregard for the law by the current executive branch.

For the record, I've been a republican since I was old enough to care (grew up with Reagan). I am deeply ashamed of what George W. Bush is doing and has done in the name of my party.

This is just another person who hates america....
Stupid senator who does not want to offend anyone....
FACT:
The wiretappings are 100% legal.
In times of war you do not need warrants to put a wiretap on suspected terrorist.

Protecting the Tele companies that are cooperating with the protection of this company is the only sane thing to do.

The democrats didn't like the war time provisions so they are trying to get the teles to not help by keeping them vulnerable to suits.

I live in a major port city.... If it gets attacked because the DOD couldnt get the tele companies to let them listen to the terrorist I think the dems who are blocking the bill should be hung as traitors...

We are at war we don't have time to fool around. 

[Er, anyone know who "we" are at war with? MOD]