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TechnoratiForget Retroactive Immunity, FISA Bill Is Also About Prospective Immunity
Leave it to George Bush to point out a little-noticed aspect of the FISA bill that he likes, but you should hate.
In his chortle over the Democratic cave-in on FISA, Bush said, "It will ensure that those companies whose assistance is necessary to protect the country will, themselves, be protected from lawsuits for past-or future-cooperation with the government."
The news lies between those dashes.
Opponents of the FISA bill, from the ACLU to Russ Feingold, have been focusing on retroactive immunity for AT&T and Verizon and the other telecom companies.
But what may be even more alarming is the prospective immunity that telecom companies and Internet service providers and others are guaranteed by this bill.
Here are some of the relevant passages:
"The Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence may direct, in writing, an electronic communication service provider to a) "immediately provide the Government with all information, facilities, or assistance necessary . . . b) maintain under security procedures approved by the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence any records concerning the acquisition or the aid furnished. . . ."
And here's the kicker: "No cause of action shall lie in any court against any electronic communication service provider" for providing this information.
Thus we have the Congress granting to the Executive Branch and the private sector enormous new powers to violate our privacy.
In essence, the government can now conscript the private sector to do its dirty work. But don't pity the companies; the government will pay them for coughing up our secrets, the bill says. "The government shall compensate, at the prevailing rate, an electronic communication service provider for providing information, facilities, or assistance."
It gets worse.
The prospective immunity extends beyond telecom companies and ISPs to include even landlords and custodians, and it is not limited to the provision of communication contents or records.
Check out Title VIII: "Protection of Persons Assisting the Government." A "person" is defined as "an electronic communication service provider" or "a landlord, custodian, or other person who may be authorized or required to furnish assistance. . . ." Note how wide open is the category of "other person."
And "assistance" is defined as "the provision of, or the provision of access to, information (including communication contents, communications records, or other information relation to a customer or communication), facilities, or another form of assistance." Notice how wide open is the category of "another form of assistance."
All of these "persons" providing "assistance" are now immunized by this bill for their future actions so long as the Attorney General certifies them in court.
Look what's happening here: The combined powers of the Executive Branch and the private sector are now arrayed against the individual.
This is not what our Founders had in mind.
Matthew Rothschild is the editor of The Progressive magazine.
© 2008 The Progressive
21 Comments so far
Show AllI thought Schwarzenegger ALREADY had done so, with "matching" fireplace MANTEL icons ( he has a very tall ceiling ):REAGAN
NIXON ?
Time to disinter Nixon and beatify the innocent bugger.
We'll not only be paying taxes to murder innocent people, but we'll be paying people to spy on us! What a country!
"No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed."
Gosh, you'd think constitutional law professor Obama would have heard of that.
Or, of course, "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."
I believe we have to think of the government and telecom corporations as equal partners in this abomination. Who else besides intrusive government would like to know all about you? Corporations, of course. They have been developing more sophisticated "surveillance" techniques for years. Every American should have been concerned
Also, it's looking like the "surveillance state" is an end in itself, just like the "security state", as the cancer of capitalist expansion has discovered new markets for invasion, control, and "growth". The new growth business of unconstitutional surveillance written right into the law.
What a classic and obvious illustration of the incompatibility of corporatism and a republic. Well, it's on the table for anyone who wants to look at it. They've grown up side by side, and it is time for Americans to make their choice. Obama and most of our "representatives" have made theirs.
Bastille Day July 14
"We announce to the world the true principles of our actions. We wish an order of things where all low and cruel passions are enchained by the laws; all beneficent and generous feelings awakened; where distinctions arise only from equality itself; where the citizen is subject to the magistrate; the magistrate to the people, the people to justice. Where industry is an adornment to the liberty that ennobles it and commerce the source of public wealth, not simply of monstrous riches for a few families. We wish to substitute in our country morality for egoism, probity for a mere sense of honor, principle for habit, duty for etiquette, the empire of reason for the tyranny of custom, contempt for vice for contempt for misfortune; the grandeur of man for the triviality of grand society. We wish, in a word, to fulfill the course of nature, to absolve providence from the long reign of tyranny and crime."
Maximilien Robespierre
"This president broke the law," said Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis.
So does this new "law" immunize the Pres, the NSA, CIA, FBI, and Military Intelligence operatives from criminal prosecution, or just "telecoms" from civil lawsuits?
A Senator accuses the President of breaking the FISA law; the FISA law states specifically that "even a sitting President" can be prosecuted for violations. If a Senator accused me of breaking a law, surely the cops would be up my ass in two seconds.
Yet... nothing. What's up with that?
Hello???
What Rothschild and Sirota are really saying is the passage of the FISA "revise" has now enabled more than the surveillance of you by government officials on an electronic level, now when you wear that T-shirt of dissension to the local Walle-mart, one of their store greeter/snitches will inform the local police stores, which will then monitor: your daily movements, your telephone, your computer usage, your visitors and talk to your neighbors. Then they will come in your home while you are not there and search it. Then, at 2:30 in the morning, just after you have gotten your six month old cholicy infant to sleep, the DHS, the FBI, the DEA, the AFT, the local sheriff and your next door neighbor will arrest you and rendition you to…?
That's right your neighbor. He "thought" he smelled ganja burning and it was coming from your backyard. Or, maybe, you had a New Year's eve party 12 years ago and didn't invite him. Or that local politician was resentful because you didn't let him stick his sign into your dichondra lawn.
Oh well… you have nothing to fear, you've done nothing wrong. You are sure they will recognize their error and release you within six or seven years.
HARHARHAR.
DogLeg July 11th, 2008 7:46 pm: "U.S. Constitution; Article 1; Section 9; 3rd Para.;
No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed."
Passer by – what are you writing their founding fathers?
founding fathers – It's a constitution. Did we say "constitution"? we meant "laws" or "loose guidelines", no "disposable rules of thumb" really. What was the question?
"U.S. Constitution; Article 1; Section 9; 3rd Para.;
No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed."
The companies that participated with the Bush administration are not entirely immune from the people boycotting their products----if their money into the hands of the corrupt system is the motivation for their immunity---then cut off their money---and they will feel the pain---and most likely much sooner than if they were prosecuted, taking consideration the appeals process and the recent S. Court decision in the favor of Exxon--------we the people have more power than the corporate bodies may imagine we do-------------
I started to boycott them when the news came out--------they may have laughed at me and my letter but they would stop laughing if they received a million of them----------and then no money from the authors of those letters---my few dollars are nothing-------millions are.
Just a thought-
Thanks for your time--------
So now the telecoms are now shamelessly paid-off to enlist in the ever-expanding surveillance state. This means the government can openly generate(or outsource to another greedy conglomerate) a massive permanent database of everyone's visited web site, email, phone calls(landline, VOIP, cell, text message), electronic purchases, tv viewing habits(IPTV, and now probably digital cable), travel itinerary, web searches etc. And don't think that the myriad of profiling filters will be restricted to terrorism. If you're a middle-aged Caucasian male who watches "Hannah Montana" or buy a couple of Noam Chomsky books or subscribe to The Nation or google hydroponics or attend a Quaker bake sale, expect an deeper probe and investigation into the minutiae of your life. Orwell was off by a quarter century.
kitty tc---- where are you now dear? Please, for the sake of any future credibility for you rants, read the above and then tell us all again what "suckers" we are for still fighting for our Constitutional rights against Dem sell outs. Or that it isn't important that Barrack Obama voted FOR this abomination of a bill. Otherwise, please spare us your ugly sarcasm. It is getting damned annoying, especially since you refuse to answer well thought out questions and challenges to your views. Usually people here do try to discuss, even when they differ. ANd that means explaining the rationale for your stated remarks. Get it??? It's a discussion forum.
Notice this is not limited to electronic survailence. Your landlord may now, at the behest of the FBI, without a warrant, enter your apartment without notice and read thru your mail and search your closets and your storage bins.
That little clause in your lease that says the landlord must give 24 hours notice before entering your apartment while you aren't there is officially null and void.
Did AT&T and Verizon get paid big money to spy on us? If so how much? Anyone know?
Did AT&T and Verizon get paid big money to spy on us? If so how much? Anyone know?
Our tax dollars at work.
its that simple? they are going to pay the private corporations to continue to spy on us with full immunity from the constitution? what possible comment can anyone make? um.. lets see.. thank goodness?
So now we can expect the local neighborhood burglar to be immunizes for providing "another form of assistance" like your passwords and deposit box keys. Heckovajob Congress!
IMPEACH OBAMA, et al !!!!!!
It also means that everything illegal (tapes, etc) that Nixon conducted are now "legal", both in the past, and in the future.
So tell me again, how did the citizens of America allow it to come to this?