My view "Now" on eavesdropping is the same as it was "Then"

[stevenleser]

Warrant-less wiretapping = Evil

FISA Warrant wiretapping = Better than Warrant-less, still undesirable but live-able as it provides a paper trail and a way to hold people accountable.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_steven_l_071028_republicans_turning_.htm

OpEdNews 10/28/2007 at 02:47:43
Republicans turning USA into Capitalist equivalent of 80's East Germany or Werde der USA der neue DDR sein?
By Steven Leser

Wirklich

“Wirklich” is one of my favorite German words, I can’t explain why, I just like it. It means “Really” and can be used in any of the ways the English equivalent can be used. In this context I mean, with the title and premise of the article, “I’m not kidding”. This weekend, I watched the acclaimed movie “The Lives of Others” (German name “Das Leben der Anderen”) and like various people, I thought it was one of the best movies I have ever seen. Many critics have commented on the wonderful subtlety the movie displayed with how it handled many of its important concepts. Yet the movie was incredibly powerful at the same time. If a director and movie can simultaneously achieve power and subtlety, a movie is going to be a hit. This one won the academy award for best foreign film of 2007. What really sent a chill running up and down my spine was the subtle warning this movie had for those of us in the US today and now.

1980 Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands + STASI = 200X Republican Party + FBI/CIA/NSA?

The movie is in large part about a government that has run amok with spying on its citizens. When speaking of crimes and our legal system, many of us have lamented at some time that a criminal has “gotten off on a technicality”. Often, those “technicalities” involve the fourth amendment that says:

“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.”

Current Republican Party policy and belief is that warrant-less wiretapping is necessary to combat terrorism and other illegal activities. It is a short and slippery slope from there to where a government or party starts spying on anyone it considers “subversive”. From there, the slope leads to spying on regular and constitutionally obeying political opponents. Finally, as in “The Lives of Others” it leads to high level government officials using the security apparatus of the government to spy on and destroy romantic or financial rivals or other people that they don’t like, no matter the reason. Lord Acton would note this as plainly demonstrating the second clause of his famous quote that absolute power corrupts absolutely. It is amazing that William F. Buckley and John Podhoretz, both of whom mentioned the movie in articles in National Review, didn’t make the connection between the on screen STASI activities and where warrant-less wiretapping could lead. Perhaps they so blindly believe in the Republican Party, Conservatism, and the nebulous, never-ending, not-well-explained-who-our-enemy-is war on terror that they can’t see it.

Mann muss eine Gute Amerikanische Mensch sein.

I am not a huge fan of FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that establishes secret courts where warrants can be obtained, nor should anyone who is at all concerned with the upholding of the protections in the fourth amendment, but at least with FISA courts, there is a paper trail. I can live with FISA. Prosecutors and politicians have reason to fear obtaining a FISA warrant for frivolous or abusive reasons. Who is going to investigate the reasons for obtaining a warrant-less wiretap? How would they investigate a warrant-less wiretap? How would anyone know where or how many warrant-less wiretaps exist? What about the fourth amendment? Is the official position of the Bush administration, the Republican Party and Republican Pundits that the fourth amendment is a cute idea not to be taken seriously? The FBI, CIA and NSA need to push back on any requests for such wiretaps and demand the requestors go to a FISA court. I have a lot of respect for those organizations and the people in them, and I know they do not want to become the STASI. Those of us who are Guten Amerikanische Menschen should work to ensure it never becomes so.

[JoePhilly]

1. YUP ... I held the same view then and now as well.

There has to be a warrant issued by a court. There has to be a paper trail so that over-reach can be identified and investigated.

[AndyA]

2. +1

Having a "friendly" President do this doesn't make it any better than having an "unfriendly" pResident do it. It's wrong. Get a warrant.

[stevenleser]

6. That's just it, President Obama IS getting warrants through FISA courts. He's doing exactly

what I was asking for back in 2007 when Bush was President.

[MNBrewer]

17. And it's still undesirable.

[stevenleser]

19. Correct. That is my opinion too. nt

[morningfog]

42. How can you say a warrant to get ALL the data EVERYDAY from EVERY customer

is a warrant at all. That is silly fascist land shit.

[Mnemosyne]

3. K&R for truth! nt

[dkf]

4. How can we told them accountable if its top secret?

Maybe congress can oversee the Admin but how do we hold congress/Admin/Judiciary accountable if we are not in the know?

[stevenleser]

7. The point of FISA is that the request/investigation itself involves classified information.

There is a lot of classified information to which we do not have access. The only difference here is that this information is being used as a basis for an investigation and search warrant.

If that is abused, congress has the ability to check that out. As I noted in my article, if there is a paper trail, prosecutors have a reason to fear an abusive request.

[dkf]

8. Wyden knew this wouldn't go over well with the public but he had no avenue for discussion

What happens when the government as an entity goes too far, even as they agree with themselves? This isn't top secret for any other reason than it would cause a public outcry. At least I don't see why it needs to be kept secret if no ones life is at risk should it be revealed.

[stevenleser]

11. Does FISA fundamentally change that?We have bigger issues with the military if the govt goes too far

The substance of the warrants are not top secret because they would cause an outcry

[dkf]

14. Why are they top secret then?

[stevenleser]

20. They are top secret for a number of reasons, not because they would cause an outcry

Some of those potential reasons are:

1. Would reveal the existence of the investigation to a terror group and possibly alert some as yet unknown members before they are known to investigators (these unknown members would likely then flee to another country)

2. Would reveal the existence of a covert agent who obtained the information in the warrant by infiltrating the group

3. Would reveal the existence of an informer/turncoat within the group

4. Might cause the person or group of interest to execute whatever they have planned if they learned of an investigation

etc.

[dkf]

23. Revealing the existence of this data gathering revealed none of those things.

It still makes no sense to me why asking Verizon for all these records needs to be a secret except to keep the public from insisting it be stopped.

[stevenleser]

24. What was revealed, exactly? That a warrant exists? Sure. Do we know the wording of the warrant to

include why it was asked for/granted?

[Aerows]

30. Bingo

It's was kept secret because they knew the public would be as appalled and as pissed off as they are.

[stevenleser]

34. Based on what are you saying that? There is nothing in Greenwalds article that suggests that.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order

[Aerows]

35. I don't need to read

an article to have the common sense to know that people would be pissed off when they found out the government was spying on them. Do you?

[stevenleser]

37. Nope, Motive/Causality vs Expected/Imagined response

Posit A- What you asserted before: "The reason it was kept secret is that people would be mad if they found out" Implies you know for sure the motive

Posit B - What you are saying now: "It's common sense that people would be mad if they found out" Implies you know the reaction to an act, not a motive.

[Aerows]

39. Well

Are people pissed off?

Because it seems to me that there are an awful lot of people that are, and some that are trying to spin this into being something that either isn't as bad as it is, or are trying to justify it. It was kept Top Secret.

Common sense says that this won't go over well with the public. I'll leave you to do the math and trying to turn it into a debate over semantics and logic.

[Aerows]

29. That's exactly why it was kept top secret

Because they knew if the public found out, they would be as pissed as they are and should be.

[GoneFishin]

5. This incident is a mockery of even the FISA court which rarely refuses a warrant request.

When the warrant request is for phone records for essentially everybody then what we have is no longer an investigation but a fishing expedition.

[Fumesucker]

9. Just the amount of paper to print a hundred and something million warrants seems a trifle excessive

Entire forests would have to through the chipper for that, not environmentally friendly at all.

[The Link]

10. So, the difference between evil and livable for you is a warrant...

that appears to be a foregone conclusion in most, if not all, cases?

[stevenleser]

12. That is what the fourth amendment protection requires, a warrant. nt

[The Link]

13. Either evil really means "kinda bad" in your world..

or livable really sucks.

[stevenleser]

21. liveable (FISA) is highly undesireable.

I am not a fan of it, as I noted.

[Warren DeMontague]

15. The idea that you can get a "warrant" that applies to everyone

Sort of makes a mockery of the idea of a "warrant".

[MNBrewer]

18. True.

[Aerows]

31. Exactly

Warrants get issued for probable cause. What part of probable cause extends to every fucking body?

That's exactly what the 4th Amendment was about.

[cherokeeprogressive]

16. Imagine yourself a dolphin in a sea full of tuna.

Since you don't know any dolphins personally, you can just ignore that huge net coming your way. After all, the net isn't coming for YOU, right? It's coming for the tuna. No worries here... just be real still, say nothing to the tuna, and the net will surely pass you by. The other dolphins are pretty indignant about the size of the net but you simply laugh. You're safe. It's the tuna they're after. Besides, didn't they pass some kind of law or something saying dolphins were barred from tuna nets? Yup. They did. Don't worry, you've got the law on your side.

Enjoy the cannery, friend.

[stevenleser]

22. That analogy really doesn't apply.

I'm not ignoring anything or imagining that someone else other than me can/will "get caught by the net".

I'm simply distinguishing two less than ideal situations by labeling one completely illegal and unacceptable, and the other barely liveable

[cherokeeprogressive]

25. To me it is neither "less than ideal" or "barely liveable".

It's simply unacceptable. I can understand your willingness to live with it though.

[stevenleser]

26. I'm not sure you do understand.

The "willing to live with it" was in comparison to warrant-less wiretapping where there is no paper-trail and no ability to hold people accountable for abusive wiretaps after the fact because there would be no record of them.

This is akin to someone who is anti-war saying, if you are going to push for wars I don't like, at the very least get a declaration of war.

It doesnt mean they like the war. It means at least go through the motions to make those wars Constitutional.

[cherokeeprogressive]

27. You are much more trusting of your government than I am.

Good luck with that.

[stevenleser]

28. Nope, I'm not. Nothing about what I have written suggests that. nt

[Aerows]

32. You can't issue a warrant

for probable cause for everybody. But that's what they are using to justify this, and it's illegal. What part of probable cause is there to wholesale gather data on the American public? "Just because we want to?"

Um, sorry, you will never convince me that this is anything other than a violation of the 4th Amendment and they kept it secret because they know this, and knew the public would be justifiably upset by it.

[stevenleser]

33. Again, I am not saying I like it. I'm not even sure this warrant will stand an appeal

I'm saying this is incrementally better than warrantless wiretapping where we never knew who was being recorded or why and had no ability to find out anything after the fact.

[Aerows]

36. How is this better?

In any way, shape or form? A Warrant for everybody that was kept secret? EVERYBODY. How on earth is that probable cause, because, you know, that's what a warrant establishes.

It's horseshit to call it a warrant, because you can't have probable cause for huge swaths of the population "just because". This is the only one we know about, too. You DON'T think that they are doing this at every phone company? I have a bridge to sell you if you don't think so.

[stevenleser]

38. How is it better? Really? Versus something we would never even know about?

Before 2006, the NSA would just do this and record all of our phone conversations too and there would be no Greenwald article because no one outside of the NSA would ever know about it and there would be no paper trail.

One secretive agency of one branch of government taking near unilateral action without a paper trail versus the oversight of three branches of government with a paper trail.

[Aerows]

40. Oh, it would be so much better

to find out about it in 2038. 25 years from now. Well that makes it SO MUCH better.

[Bonobo]

41. As I understand it, one of the core principles when seeking a FISA wiretap...

is that it is supposed to be as focused and limited as possible.

Doesn't sound like this one is terribly limited or focused.