Senate Judiciary Committee approves Big Brother bills

cyberpj

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Fri Sep-15-06 08:13 AM
Original message

Senate Judiciary Committee approves Big Brother bills

Edited on Fri Sep-15-06 08:40 AM by cyberpj

Senate Judiciary Committee approves Big Brother bills
9/14/2006 6:26:37 PM, by Ryan Paul

The Senate Judiciary Committee has approved two competing bills designed to overhaul electronic surveillance laws and address the legal ambiguity of the NSA's wiretap program. One of those bills, the National Security Surveillance Act (S.B. 2453), would legitimize the NSA's controversial domestic surveillance activity, and thwart current efforts by the EFF and ACLU to challenge the legality of the program in court.

Authorized by an executive order signed by President Bush in 2002, the extralegal spying program enables the NSA to engage in covert domestic surveillance of American citizens and foreign nationals. Revealed to the public last year by the New York Times, the NSA's controversial program has become the subject of contentious debate. After the Senate decided not to pursue an inquiry into the program at the insistence of vice president Cheney, the EFF and several other organizations filed suits against the government and the telecommunications companies that facilitated the program. The federal government tried to crush the litigation by invoking the state secrets privilege. Although the ACLU's case was dismissed, Judge Vaughn Walker rejected the state secrets argument, and decided to permit the EFF to pursue it's case against AT&T. The Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation lawsuit against the NSA was also permitted. Characterizing the program as unconstitutional, Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ordered the NSA to halt unwarranted surveillance activity earlier this month.

Sponsored by Senator Arlen Specter and described as a "compromise" with the White House, S.B. 2453 radically redefines surveillance, dramatically expands the power of the executive branch, substantially weakens fourth amendment protections, and imposes limitations on judicial and congressional oversight to an extent that critics (including myself) claim is antithetical to the Separation of Powers doctrine and the American system of checks and balances.

If passed, S.B. 2453 would legalize the NSA's current domestic spying activity, and permit the government to establish entire electronic surveillance programs with a single FISA warrant. The bill would also change the definition of surveillance to allow the government to intercept "dialing, routing, addressing, or signaling" data from purely domestic electronic communications without requiring a warrant. In essence, the government would be free to compile massive databases that track the source and destination of practically all domestic e-mail messages and phone calls as well as the web browsing habits of American citizens. The bill further expands the NSA program by permitting interception of the content and substance of purely domestic communications in cases where one party is located on "property or premises under the open and exclusive control of a foreign power," enabling interception of messages sent to or from foreign embassies located in America.

more... (if you can stand it)
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060914-7751.html