The US house of representatives today passed a bill outlawing illegal domestic wiretapping by the government.
An amendment to the House Intelligence Reauthorization Bill by Representatives Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ) states that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) shall be the exclusive means by which domestic electronic surveillance for the purpose of gathering foreign intelligence information may be conducted, and makes clear that this applies until specific statutory authorization for electronic surveillance, other than as an amendment to FISA, is enacted.
"Congress has signaled that it will not allow the president to continue the National Security Agency’s illegal eavesdropping," said Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office. "Passage of the Schiff/Flake amendment is Congress drawing a line in the sand. This amendment reaffirms that FISA is the law and it needs to be followed."
Congress originally passed FISA to provide the exclusive authority for the wiretapping of people in the United States in foreign intelligence investigations to protect national security.
As the Senate Report noted, FISA "was designed . . . to curb the practice by which the Executive Branch may conduct warrantless electronic surveillance on its own unilateral determination that national security justifies it."
The Bill ends plans by the Bush Administration that would give the NSA the freedom to pry into the lives of ordinary Americans.
The ACLU noted that, despite many recent hearings about "modernization" and "technology neutrality," the administration has not publicly provided Congress with a single example of how current FISA standards have either prevented the intelligence community from using new technologies, or proven unworkable for the agents tasked with following them.
"We applaud Congressmen Schiff and Flake for their work to uphold the rule of law," said Michelle Richardson, ACLU Legislative Consultant. "Today is the first move towards Congress growing a backbone. We hope that the Senate will follow their lead and not be swayed by the administration and Department of Justice’s unconstitutional attempts to eviscerate FISA."
Bill banning NSA eavedropping
Awesome news, hopefully the Senate will pass it.
excellent
Impeach! Impeach!
I'm proud to be an aclu member. My membership dues are going to a worthy cause.
How can you outlaw something
How can you outlaw something that is already illegal? This makes no sense...
way to go Congress- this
way to go Congress- this clown bush has been getting away with things Nixon only dreamt of... Today was a good day for the Constitution.
what the hell is bush doing?
I've been a Republican all my life but am glad that this is Bush's final term because I doubt that I could vote for him again. I don't think he's smart enough to realize the implications of giving the NSA so much power. You create a supressive monster when you do that. Damn, Bush, you're not that ignorant are you? His anti-terrorism efforts are going way too far. Thank you, Congress, for stopping this rediculous attack on our privacy.
"Those who would sacrifice liberty for security, deserve neither." ~Benjamin Franklin
Odd
If it was illegal to begin with why do we need a law banning it?
Why you need a law banning illegal things
Laws are not self-executing, which means that laws do not just rise up of their own accord and wander the countryside looking for evil-doers to slay. Laws are dead letters until they are animated by the necromancy of judicial interpretation, which means that until a judge says what a law means and how the courts are going to interpret and enforce it, it means nothing. By the same token, once a judge states how the courts will interpret and enforce a law, that's the functional definition of the law. That's what the law really is.
So, for example, when the First Amendment to the United States Constitution says that, "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech," does that mean that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech? No. The courts have "interpreted" the First Amendment in ways that allow Congress and agents of Congress (e.g., the FCC) to abridge all sorts of speech. The law means what the courts say it means, nothing less and nothing more.
Here, the courts over time have interpreted FISA and other laws in ways that allow all sorts of things of which Congress does not approve. By passing this law, Congress resets the boundaries and says to the courts, "no, sorry, all of those 'interpretations' that you've made that say that we didn't mean what we said are wrong; we hereby inform you that we actually meant what we said." In theory, courts will now use this (if it passes) as an aid to interpreting the various laws on this topic.
Obviously, the courts get to do whatever they want for reasons that they are not obligated to explain (though they often do, frequently truthfully). However, this statement by the Congress should cause future interpretations of laws to conform more faithfully to the actual text of the laws.
A Useful Collection of Docs RE Warrantless Domestic Surveillance
Here is a collection of related documents converted to html from pdf. It could be useful.
http://thewall.civiblog.org/rsf/nsa.html
Cheers,
-dcm
so the idea is to create a
so the idea is to create a law that outlaws something that was already illegal
clap clap
write all the bills you want, congress,
but without enforcement what good are any of them
Redundant
Banning an already illegal act will have no effect. It's all feel good legislation. Just another law that won't be enforced.
A rebuke followed by active prosecution for violating the existing law would be more effective.
"double secret probation"
gotta rip out the NSA spyware first!!
This law is only a reaffirmation of existing law and means nothing unless *enforced*. The spying will continue unabated until the NSA LGX/Splitter wiring and NARUS STA racks are ripped out from every installation around the country. Now, who exactly is going to do that? Not Congress. Not Gonzales- he doesn't enforce the laws of the nation, he's in office to make sure that what Bush and Cheney want, Bush and Cheney get. Any ideas?
The NSA is spying,
The NSA is spying, ILLEGALLY, on every single domestic phone call you make & every single email you send.
They are nothing more than a criminal gang of mobsters, who hide behind false claims of 'National Security'.
They are traitors to the People,
They are traitors to the Constitution,
They are nothing more than sleazy little gangsters using US government police powers to veil a long string of criminal activity.
The US government is currently a mostly criminal organization.
Hi
Hi,
I stumbled upon your site today and was quite impressed. I really liked the design. Did you make it yourself?
I wanted to let you know about ReadPrint.com -- a massive non-profit library similar to Bartleby -- except its far better organized and user friendly. We've been using it extensively in school nowadays -- it's great for doing research since you can search within the books.
wiretapping by the government
I have read the emails above concerning the government's illegal wiretapping. How would anybody (who is an American born citizen and has served this country in a war) like it if your daughter dated a Moroccan (who was NOT A TERRORIST) and a neighbor of yours (who is obsessed with your daughter and he's 20 years older than her) turned your family into the government and had your phone tapped, had your daughter's boyfriend deported and told not to come back and then this prejudicial psychopath has the nerve to ride up and down the road watching your daughter, has her followed by other people in his hate group, puts a defamatory list of derogatory names for every nationality on a 12 year old's website (a petition website for them to get jobs at 12 years old), has someone run into the back of your car with your pregnant daughter in it and the baby dies because it was born at 6 months and then 7 months after that as I said has this young man (who loves your daughter) deported because he wants his son with your daughter so he can get to her also. This is the kind of sick people we have here in the U.S. We don't need Al quai da to come into this country and terrorize us, we have American born citizens who terrorize other Americans (they are called Hate Groups). My husband served in Vietnam and could have died over there but didn't. This man who has terrorized us has never served in the service, works 1-2 days a month and has a thousand people who do his dirty work for him and look up to him like he is a king. I have never in 55 years of my life experienced anything like this! If the FBI really wants to catch the terrorists, stop taking tips from insane people (or neighbors in our case) and start looking for the real terrorists before our country gets destroyed while you are wasting precious time on nitwits---WAKE UP FEDS!!!!!
By the way, we have talked to an attorney, and hopefully we can prove this man has done all this dirt to us. As if this wasn't already enough, we believe this sicko paid my youngest daughter's boyfriend to be with her, get her to have 2 kids and ruin her life!!!! This is a true American citizen who loves the U.S.???? I don't think or know so!!!! This man is the one who needs to be deported permanently!!!
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