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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSecret FISA Court Tosses Privacy Overboard
In the law, they call it a fishing expedition investigators digging through as many private records as they want just to see if something incriminating turns up.
Go into almost any big courthouse on almost any given day, and lawyers will be arguing whether a request for information amounts to nothing but a fishing expedition. If people are to have any privacy, the argument goes, no one should be able to poke through their personal affairs without a good reason.
But thats not an argument that holds much sway over at the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. As Mondays Wall Street Journal detailed, virtually no fishing expedition is too broad for FISA.
The usual rule governing searches is that they must be relevant to the case at hand. So how can FISA justify allowing the National Security Agency to sweep up phone records of millions of people who are under no suspicion at all? By redefining the word relevant to the point where it pretty much means everything. Phone numbers that people dialed, where they were calling from and the length of the conversations are all considered fair game under FISAs interpretation of the Patriot Act. For FISA, the word relevant has become irrelevant.
The ability to use technology to keep tabs on people has been shooting ahead so fast its hard to keep track of the privacy implications. A recent Washington Post article, for example, reported that police have loaded more than 120 million drivers license photos into searchable databases. Commercial services track what we look at on the Web, where we go and what we buy.
MORE...
http://www.suntimes.com/opinions/21210335-474/secret-fisa-court-tosses-privacy-overboard.html
midnight
(26,624 posts)their data base...
Hatchling
(2,323 posts)They'll add it to your packet.
midnight
(26,624 posts)Gregorian
(23,867 posts)HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)But some of us sold out their principles when a supposed democrat does it.
midnight
(26,624 posts)HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)If he turns any more corporatist he'll be an infinite-dimension chess master.
:rolleyes:
magellan
(13,257 posts)cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
Uncle Joe
(58,365 posts)They don't believe they deserve better, Joe McCarthy, Jay Edgar Hoover, Richard Nixon etc. etc. weren't enough, they want more, only this time an authoritarian on steroids.
DirkGently
(12,151 posts)As the author of the Patriot Act, I am extremely troubled by the F.B.I.s interpretation of this legislation, he said in a statement. While I believe the Patriot Act appropriately balanced national security concerns and civil rights, I have always worried about potential abuses. He added: Seizing phone records of millions of innocent people is excessive and un-American.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)DirkGently
(12,151 posts)This isn't wire intercepts and steaming open letters. Even if it didn't appear the law was being interpreted over broadly, why would anyone think a scheme from the Carter Administration would be adequate oversight in the first place.