Bush wants terrorism law updated

[rodeodance]

Source: ap




Bush wants terrorism law updated

By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer 16 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - President Bush wants Congress to modernize a law that governs how intelligence agencies monitor the communications of suspected terrorists.


"This law is badly out of date," Bush said Saturday in his weekly radio address.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, provides a legal foundation that allows information about terrorists' communications to be collected without violating civil liberties.

Democrats want to ensure that any changes do not give the executive branch unfettered surveillance powers.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070728/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush;_ylt=AtNb704ZP_S_.KQMZx17X7oGw_IE

[rodeodance]

1. "The administration claims the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act must be 'modernized.' Actually,

Caroline Fredrickson, director of the Washington legislative office of the American Civil Liberties Union, contends the White House is asking for more power to conduct warrantless domestic and international surveillance.

"The administration claims the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act must be 'modernized.' Actually, it needs to be followed," she said. "The reality is, their proposal would gut FISA."

The ACLU said the legislation backed by the administration would give immunity from criminal prosecution and civil liability for the telecommunication companies that participate in the NSA program. The ACLU urged lawmakers to find out the full extent of current intelligence gathering under FISA before making changes.

"The only thing more outrageous than the administration's call for even more unfettered power is a Congress that would consider giving it to them," Frederickson said.

In a statement this past week, Reyes said: "To date, our review has uncovered

[Frustratedlady]

2. Is that so he can say he is going to ignore it in his signing statement?

Somebody needs to tell him these new changes aren't retroactive, as you know he'll sneak some bit of wording in to cover his butt for past violations.

[IChing]

5. "Modernized" means to him going the way

of the German autobahn and the Volkswagen.

[Trillo]

3. Wants to usurp Judicial Branch oversight

"Simply put, in a significant number of cases, we are in the unfortunate position of having to obtain court orders to effectively collect foreign intelligence about foreign targets located overseas," he wrote the committee chairman, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas.

Bolding is mine.


I guess it's no small irony that to Britain, or Australia, or France, etc., an American citizen is an overseas foreigner, and could be defined as a "target" for their intelligence collection, the database of which could shared with others, including the American government.

Edited to add: Presumably, the American government's intelligence could thus be shared with other governments, without any Judicial Branch (impartial) record of the transaction and contents. (is there monetary value herein?)

Just the other day we read about European Union commercial jet passenger information being shared with our government, even though that information about each of their citizens was supposed to be protected by their government's privacy laws.

In writing this out, it appears to be the Corporatist Takeover of all past laws and customs of all the world, including our own.

[gulliver]

4. Let's find out if he broke the law first.

Then, impeach him, throw him out of office and into prison if he did break the law. Bush really misses his GOP Congress. It really looks like he thinks he broke the law. Now he wants the law changed. He must be kidding.

[Stalwart]

6. So, What Are We (They) Missing?

"Our intelligence community warns that under the current statute, we are missing a significant amount of foreign intelligence that we should be collecting to protect our country," Bush said.

I think that what they are missing is collecting all communications of all citizens and storing it so that when real time intelligence discovers something they can go back and pull the strings on everything in retained communications that it links to. Actually I don't think they are capturing all they can today. The only limitation is ability to store it. Therefore some broad criteria for what to capture has probably been established as a function of ability to store it.

The real time key to the past is not known until it emerges in real time. All past communications have to be retained in order to connect the real time key to find links to retained communication information.

It is a real time world but all that real time only identifies things that must be linked to the past to tell the full story.

Of course they will not "fish in history" until there is probable cause in accordance with law to do so. That does not mean the government cannot build a dam to retain all the water to fish in when fishing is allowed?

The fact that the government has built the dam and is making a huge lake out of all communications is the big cat that I think will soon jump out of the bag and the government is in a panic that this will happen.

I like the dam and fishing analogy, maybe that is how they will explain it to the public. Of course, nobody will ever fish in the lake without a license to do so.

Protection is paramount, where does that put the constitution?

[dardango]

7. Not only...

should they not do this, they should repeal everything they've already given him!



DemocracyInteractive.com - A Real-Time Progressive Free Speech Zone

[donkeyotay]

8. Our president has been a capable leader, so if he says he needs

anything at all to keep us safe, well, then it's our duty as patriots to give him whatever he says he wants. He's done a fabulous job so far, even though it's been such hard work. And the CIA has never abused their power. The FBI has never abused its power. The IRS has never abused its power. Our Congress has never had a committee member in cahoots with a war profiteer, so if the fine military contractors need a few more billion to spy on a few more million, I support them completely. In fact, let's cut out the middlemen and get rid of the congress. I bet Our President could do a much better job of keeping us safe without them. :sarcasm:

[Miss Chybil]

9. He already has unfettered surveillance powers.

Nobody had to give them to him, he just took them. Hail to the King.

[BearSquirrel2]

11. One of the forthcoming impeachment counts ...

Yes, and this will be one of the impeachment articles the House ultimately indicts him on. All in good time. The primaries are next Spring. This is prime time for the impeachment. The Senate trial should precede the 2008 election.

[ryanmuegge]

12. Absolutely. Hail to the King and his corporate white knights.

Good thing we're so involved with spreading Democracy abroad.

[BearSquirrel2]

10. If Bush wants to run the 2008 election on creating a police state ...

If Bush wants to run the 2008 election on creating a police state, he can be my guest. I hope he stumps from state to state on his proposal to gut the FISA law and allow the federal government to tap anyones phone without a warrant and keep all those records a secret.

See, the problem here is that Hillary Clinton is running for office. This might not click when the knuckledraggers are thinking about their hero Bush. However, if you asked these same people if they would like Hillary to have these powers they'd probably respond by loading their guns.

Go, go Bush!!! Stump it in every state in the nation. Burn your own Republican candidates and expose yourself for the Busholini that you are.