FISA myths and facts

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FISA myths and facts

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Turk
Forum Elder

Joined: 09 Dec 2006
Posts: 3340

Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 2:54 pm Post subject: FISA myths and facts

There are no intellegence gaps in fisa
sept the 11 was the government dropping the ball
911 did not happen cause of fisa.

Fisa has been updated 50 times since it was established.

http://www.aclu.org/safefree/n.....70731.html

MYTH: We need this now.

FACT: This is not the time to hand even more power to an administration that has denied the legislative branch's constitutionally mandated oversight role and refused to hold the attorney general accountable for a series of contradictory statements. The only thing more outrageous than the administration's call for even more unfettered power is a Congress that would consider giving it.

MYTH: The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act needs to be modernized.

FACT: The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act has been updated more than 50 times since being enacted in the '70s. It was updated as recently as last year.

MYTH: We need warrants to wiretap foreigners abroad.

FACT: Current law allows foreign-to-foreign communications to be intercepted without a warrant. What this proposal is really about is the right to wiretap Americans - without a warrant - who are speaking with people overseas.

MYTH: FISA has not kept up with new technology.

FACT: There is absolutely no new technology that evades FISA. Even the man responsible for prepping and filing all FISA applications, James Baker, head of the Justice Department's Office of Intelligence Policy and Review, has said that, "There's no type of collection that's prohibited by the statute." FISA was modernized by the Patriot Act, by Intelligence Reform legislation and by the re-authorization of the Patriot Act - indeed has been updated 50 times since it was enacted in 1978.

MYTH: Congress knows the facts about the NSA warrantless spying program.

FACT: The Senate Judiciary Committee asked for the legal rationale for the program nine times before issuing subpoenas, and still hasn't received an answer due to consistent stonewalling by the administration and the Department of Justice. The American public and their elected senators and representatives do not yet know the full extent of the warrantless wiretapping program and the extent to which FISA has been violated. So why would Congress grant additional power to this administration?

MYTH: The telecom giants need immunity.

FACT: The administration has asked for a provision that would give immunity - from criminal prosecution as well as civil liability - for the telecom companies' participation in any future warrantless wiretapping program. It is unprecedented to give sweeping immunity to an entire industry - especially before a full and public airing of the facts.

http://blog.aclu.org/index.php.....ctics.html
Debunking Bushes state of the union scare tactics
There is no need to modernize fisa and give immunity to the telecommunications company for breaking the law.
In this link are facts and figures pertaining to the oversight of the fisa court.
http://epic.org/privacy/wireta.....stats.html
only five fisa requests were denied out of 20,000
requests

joeyjock
Forum Elder

Joined: 24 Dec 2006
Posts: 2108
Location: Fort Lauderdale

Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 4:00 pm Post subject:

There is NO reason whatsoever to change the FISA law
it allows surveillance for 72 hours without a warrant
it has refused very very few warrants in its years of operation

AND!!!!

It wasn't the FISA court who failed to pick up the conversations of pre-9/11 it was the admin who dropped the ball

DO NOT LET THEM CHANGE THE SUBJECT
THEY FAILED YOU NOT THE COURTS

fellfire
Forum Elder

Joined: 13 Apr 2007
Posts: 2021
Location: Washington DC

Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 4:06 pm Post subject: Re: FISA myths and facts

Turk wrote:

There are no intellegence gaps in fisa
sept the 11 was the government dropping the ball
911 did not happen cause of fisa.

Fisa has been updated 50 times since it was established.

I am in agreement here, Turk. The FISA court has not been a problem with the US gathering intelligence and it certainly had little impact on 9/11

And, although, I am in general agreement with the ACLU statements (thanks for giving the link), these "myths/facts" need to be updated. They are over 6 months old - some are still correct, others a patently false now.

Quote:

http://www.aclu.org/safefree/n.....70731.html

MYTH: We need this now.

FACT: This is not the time to hand even more power to an administration that has denied the legislative branch's constitutionally mandated oversight role and refused to hold the attorney general accountable for a series of contradictory statements. The only thing more outrageous than the administration's call for even more unfettered power is a Congress that would consider giving it.

MYTH: The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act needs to be modernized.

FACT: The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act has been updated more than 50 times since being enacted in the '70s. It was updated as recently as last year.

I agree that Congress has bend itself so far backard for this lame duck president that they are up their own asses and talking out the side of their mouth.

Updating FISA, as needed, is a great thing. It serves its purpose as a check and balance on a very sensitive part of our society. What the administration is doing here is an attempt to grab more power for the executive branch at the expense of our expectations of a right to privacy.

Quote:

MYTH: We need warrants to wiretap foreigners abroad.

FACT: Current law allows foreign-to-foreign communications to be intercepted without a warrant. What this proposal is really about is the right to wiretap Americans - without a warrant - who are speaking with people overseas.

MYTH: FISA has not kept up with new technology.

FACT: There is absolutely no new technology that evades FISA. Even the man responsible for prepping and filing all FISA applications, James Baker, head of the Justice Department's Office of Intelligence Policy and Review, has said that, "There's no type of collection that's prohibited by the statute." FISA was modernized by the Patriot Act, by Intelligence Reform legislation and by the re-authorization of the Patriot Act - indeed has been updated 50 times since it was enacted in 1978.

In these responses, the ACLU is out of date. Currently, the courts are unclear how to act on foreign-to-foreign communication that passes through US servers. This is a fact and something that FISA does not address. Having a blunt sword of a law that prevents Intelligence gather on all US servers is simply stupid and the ACLUs seeming ignorance on the matter is frustrating. Servers are not new technology, but what is newly illuminated is the prospect of intercepting f-to-f comm passing through a US server.

This one aspect of the FISA statute needs clarification, not wholesale slaughter of the intent of the law. Unfortunately, it seems that the administration is using this dent in FISA to gut the entire act.

Quote:

MYTH: Congress knows the facts about the NSA warrantless spying program.

FACT: The Senate Judiciary Committee asked for the legal rationale for the program nine times before issuing subpoenas, and still hasn't received an answer due to consistent stonewalling by the administration and the Department of Justice. The American public and their elected senators and representatives do not yet know the full extent of the warrantless wiretapping program and the extent to which FISA has been violated. So why would Congress grant additional power to this administration?

This administration has lost all credibility that it has any concern for the rights of most Americans. I would ask congress to continue to delay dealing with FISA until after January 20, 2009.

Quote:

MYTH: The telecom giants need immunity.

FACT: The administration has asked for a provision that would give immunity - from criminal prosecution as well as civil liability - for the telecom companies' participation in any future warrantless wiretapping program. It is unprecedented to give sweeping immunity to an entire industry - especially before a full and public airing of the facts.

The immunity question being raised has nothing to do with telecoms future liability: the Protect American Act spells out a process that forces companies to comply with the government requests, it is no different then a company being subpeonaed for records and having immunity from prosecution because of the subpeona.
What is at issue here is immunity for the telecoms 'voluntarily' supplying the government with customer records. "voluntarily' meaning that the government had no legal grounds to subpeona the records, so the question is raised as to why the telecoms agreed. The ACLU has clarified this position in other posts and it is an important distinction over the 'sky is falling' cry of "Immunity for the telecoms!!!".

joeyjock
Forum Elder

Joined: 24 Dec 2006
Posts: 2108
Location: Fort Lauderdale

Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 4:08 pm Post subject:

But it is Beyond me why the Senate rolled over on this
why on earth are they allowing the telecoms immunity on this subject

fellfire
Forum Elder

Joined: 13 Apr 2007
Posts: 2021
Location: Washington DC

Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 4:18 pm Post subject:

joeyjock wrote:

But it is Beyond me why the Senate rolled over on this
why on earth are they allowing the telecoms immunity on this subject

It is remarkable that this entire Congress has acted like Bush has just been elected. They seem so desperate to get something - anything - done that they cave into anything the Administration wants to make it past a veto. Pelosi and Reid seem paralytically terrorized by the prospect of sending a bill to the WH and getting it vetoed.

The argument from the telecoms side is "We were just doing what the government asked us to do to protect America, we should not be sued for being patriotic".

Where I could be sympathetic to a person, who acting in full faith that they were being patriotic, makes a mistake in supporting the government's request; I have no sympathy for a corporation. A corporation is not an individual and has extensive resources at its disposal to KNOW if it is breaking the law or not. I do not doubt that the Bush administration "twisted arms" to get the telecoms cooperation (that's why the WH is so eager to get the telecoms immunity), but the telecoms do not feel pain - that is a human feature - so they obviously could not be tortured. The telecoms DID (or should have) know that they were outside the law in their actions.

joeyjock
Forum Elder

Joined: 24 Dec 2006
Posts: 2108
Location: Fort Lauderdale

Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 7:18 pm Post subject:

The republicans have them afraid of their own shadow...
its absolutely ridiculous that this man has done the things that he's done and NOBODY says a damned thing

But the head of the House Judiciary Committee had to take down their phone banks for a while because they are constantly being deluged with calls for him to start impeachment hearings

fellfire
Forum Elder

Joined: 13 Apr 2007
Posts: 2021
Location: Washington DC

Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 10:00 pm Post subject:

joeyjock wrote:

I am not with you on the impeachment hearings, joey, but I applaud your conviction on the matter. Go for it!

Turk
Forum Elder

Joined: 09 Dec 2006
Posts: 3340

Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 2:46 am Post subject:

http://uspolitics.about.com/b/.....lk-out.htm
Good news from the house of represenetives
The house does not approve the senate version of fisa amendments which included telecommunications immunity
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/n.....80214.html
House Stands Up to Threats from the White House on Domestic Surveillance (2/14/2008)

ACLU urges careful consideration of cherished constitutional rights

For Immediate Release
Contact: (202) 675-2312 or media@dcaclu.org

Washington, DC – The Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives stared down the White House today and decided to stick with their version of revisions to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The House voted to adjourn without letting the phone companies off the hook for breaking the law by helping the government spy on Americas. The House is leaving town and allowing the unconstitutional Protect America Act to expire this weekend

joeyjock
Forum Elder

Joined: 24 Dec 2006
Posts: 2108
Location: Fort Lauderdale

Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 1:14 pm Post subject:

I am heartened by the House's actions so far but I'm not going to hold my breath
They have a history of standing up in the beginning and then scurrying away like little mice when it gets heated later on

Turk
Forum Elder

Joined: 09 Dec 2006
Posts: 3340

Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 7:48 pm Post subject:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITI.....index.html
More scare tactics from the white house regarding fisa
MYTH: We need this now.

FACT: This is not the time to hand even more power to an administration that has denied the legislative branch's constitutionally mandated oversight role and refused to hold the attorney general accountable for a series of contradictory statements. The only thing more outrageous than the administration's call for even more unfettered power is a Congress that would consider giving it.

MYTH: The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act needs to be modernized.

FACT: The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act has been updated more than 50 times since being enacted in the '70s. It was updated as recently as last year.

MYTH: We need warrants to wiretap foreigners abroad.

FACT: Current law allows foreign-to-foreign communications to be intercepted without a warrant. What this proposal is really about is the right to wiretap Americans - without a warrant - who are speaking with people overseas.

fellfire
Forum Elder

Joined: 13 Apr 2007
Posts: 2021
Location: Washington DC

Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 2:33 pm Post subject:

Since your just reposting what you posted, I will just repost my response to your repost

fellfire wrote:

Updating FISA, as needed, is a great thing. It serves its purpose as a check and balance on a very sensitive part of our society. What the administration is doing here is an attempt to grab more power for the executive branch at the expense of our expectations of a right to privacy.

Quote:

Turk
Forum Elder

Joined: 09 Dec 2006
Posts: 3340

Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 2:44 pm Post subject:

The ACLU is not out of date
you propoganda artist

fellfire
Forum Elder

Joined: 13 Apr 2007
Posts: 2021
Location: Washington DC

Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 3:26 pm Post subject:

Turk wrote:

The ACLU is not out of date
you propoganda artist

Well, you idiot, your myth post was from 6 months ago and the discussion has changed - even the ACLU has changed the discussion on some of those myths. Rather then parroting a website, why don't you try and learn something.

The communications interception part of the FISA ddebate has been about intercepting f-to-f communications on US based servers where the possibility existed (given the way the Administration wanted to execute the ability) that US citizen's communications would be intercepted as well.

For your information, flakebrain, the Administration has been saying "trust us ... we will not violate US citizen's privacy" and of course the ACLU responded with "Screw that" (rightly so, I might add). The issue now is that the Admin wants to intercept f-to-f communications (which is not under FISA) and be trusted with any US-to-F communication caught up inadvertantly. I think this is a bogus position and that FISA should be invovled in any wiretapping operation that occurs on US soil even if it is targeted at foreign nationals.

FISA is nimble enough to give an administration free reign with foriegn nationals and still protect US citizens who are in the mix.