To all Americans here...

[Subrick]

Acoording to a new law, wiretapping is okay.

By PAMELA HESS, Associated Press Writer

26 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Bowing to President Bush's demands, the Senate approved and sent the White House a bill Wednesday to overhaul bitterly disputed rules on secret government eavesdropping and shield telecommunications companies from lawsuits complaining they helped the U.S. spy on Americans.

The relatively one-sided vote, 69-28, came only after a lengthy and heated debate that pitted privacy and civil liberties concerns against the desire to prevent terrorist attacks. It ended almost a year of wrangling in the Democratic-led Congress over surveillance rules and the president's warrantless wiretapping program that was initiated after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The House passed the same bill last month, and Bush said he would sign it soon.

Opponents assailed the eavesdropping program, asserting that it imperiled citizens' rights of privacy from government intrusion. But Bush said the legislation protects those rights as well as Americans' security.

"This bill will help our intelligence professionals learn who the terrorists are talking to, what they're saying and what they're planning," he said in a brief White House appearance after the Senate vote.

The bill is very much a political compromise, brought about by a deadline: Wiretapping orders authorized last year will begin to expire in August. Without a new bill, the government would go back to old FISA rules, requiring multiple new orders and potential delays to continue those intercepts. That is something most of Congress did not want to see happen, particularly in an election year.

The long fight on Capitol Hill centered on one main question: whether to protect from civil lawsuits any telecommunications companies that helped the government eavesdrop on American phone and computer lines without the permission or knowledge of a secret court created by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

The White House had threatened to veto the bill unless it immunized companies such as AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. against wiretapping lawsuits.

Forty-six lawsuits now stand to be dismissed because of the new law, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. All are pending before a single U.S. District Court in California. But the fight has not ended. Civil rights groups are already preparing lawsuits challenging the bill's constitutionality, and four suits, filed against government officials, will not be dismissed.

Numerous lawmakers had spoken out strongly against the no-warrants eavesdropping on Americans, but the Senate voted its approval after rejecting amendments that would have watered down, delayed or stripped away the immunity provision.

The lawsuits center on allegations that the White House circumvented U.S. law by going around the FISA court, which was created 30 years ago to prevent the government from abusing its surveillance powers for political purposes, as was done in the Vietnam War and Watergate eras. The court is meant to approve all wiretaps placed inside the U.S. for intelligence-gathering purposes. The law has been interpreted to include international e-mail records stored on servers inside the U.S.

"This president broke the law," declared Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis.

The Bush administration brought the wiretapping back under the FISA court's authority only after The New York Times revealed the existence of the secret program. A handful of members of Congress knew about the program from top secret briefings. Most members are still forbidden to know the details of the classified effort, and some objected that they were being asked to grant immunity to the telecoms without first knowing what they did.

Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Arlen Specter compared the Senate vote to buying a "pig in a poke."

But Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Mo., one of the bill's most vocal champions, said, "This is the balance we need to protect our civil liberties without handcuffing our terror-fighters."

Just under a third of the Senate, including Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, supported an amendment that would have stripped immunity from the bill. They were defeated on a 66-32 vote. Republican rival John McCain did not attend the vote.

Obama ended up voting for the final bill, as did Specter. Feingold voted no.

The bill tries to address concerns about the legality of warrantless wiretapping by requiring inspectors general inside the government to conduct a yearlong investigation into the program.

Beyond immunity, the new surveillance bill also sets new rules for government eavesdropping. Some of them would tighten the reins on current government surveillance activities, but others would loosen them compared with a law passed 30 years ago.

For example, it would require the government to get FISA court approval before it eavesdrops on an American overseas. Currently, the attorney general approves that electronic surveillance on his own.

The bill also would allow the government to obtain broad, yearlong intercept orders from the FISA court that target foreign groups and people, raising the prospect that communications with innocent Americans would be swept in. The court would approve how the government chooses the targets and how the intercepted American communications would be protected.

The original FISA law required the government to get wiretapping warrants for each individual targeted from inside the United States, on the rationale that most communications inside the U.S. would involve Americans whose civil liberties must be protected. But technology has changed. Purely foreign communications increasingly pass through U.S. wires and sit on American computer servers, and the law has required court orders to be obtained to access those as well.

The bill would give the government a week to conduct a wiretap in an emergency before it must apply for a court order. The original law said three days.

The bill restates that the FISA law is the only means by which wiretapping for intelligence purposes can be conducted inside the United States. This is meant to prevent a repeat of warrantless wiretapping by future administrations.

The ACLU, which is party to some of the lawsuits that will now be dismissed, said the bill was "a blatant assault upon civil liberties and the right to privacy."

[Spectre]

Good Shit, now the government will learn about all the crazy stuff here on ST!. but really its stupid, im about to get up and move to the Uk/Europe. New World Order BEWARE!!!!!. So much for peoples right, they have gone down the shit hole, and as Americans we wont do anything about it, execpt expecting someone else to. but in the end no one cares. So we sit back, let it happen, then complain about it. When we are the ones to blame. Its the Red Scare all over again.

[phil]

Indeed, Tv's Joe Lauzon. I'm still a tad skeptical about the whole NWO thing but I'm being open about it and been investigating more about it considering that recent things dealing with the gov't have been very questionable (including, of course, the aforementioned wiretapping allowance posted by Subrick). I guess if no one will stand up, there's only one other alternative: Play GTA IV in order to hone our weaponry skills and kill off the corrupt go't trash.

[Subrick]

Yet if you did that, Jack Thompson would have a reason and proof to sue you. Ya know, seeing as how the gov. can do webtapping on anything as well, from websites to PC games to consoles.

Edited July 10, 2008 by Subrick

[The Don]

The New World Order is still awhile off, as soon we fully have the Middle East under control and move to a localized government then it will be time, and too late. The world is fucked...

[Spectre]

I say when this NWO shit hits the fan, all of us from ST ban together and fight the power, Hell Yeah! GI Joe!!!

[Aero]

fuck that, u should all move to n.ireland (cept subrick) and we'll kick jonny out.

northern ireland always gets over looked, so you'll be safe here, then when everyone has blown eachother up n shit, we can all claim a country or 3.

[The Don]

Dibs on America. I wanna be the one to fuck it up the next go round.

[phil]

I say when this NWO shit hits the fan, all of us from ST ban together and fight the power, Hell Yeah! GI Joe!!!

LOL. We'll need a good base of operations, though.

fuck that, u should all move to n.ireland (cept subrick) and we'll kick jonny out.

northern ireland always gets over looked, so you'll be safe here, then when everyone has blown eachother up n shit, we can all claim a country or 3.

Hmm. Sounds good, Aero. You guys also found that assload of gold and we can use that in a bartering system to buy weaponry.

Dibs on America. I wanna be the one to fuck it up the next go round.

No fair, Don! I wanna take the helm of our great (but severely misguided) nation and put her back on the map as a country that people hate less than now.

[Nemo]

doesnt affect me the slightest. let the government know how i like my pizza, maybe they can pass a bill that'll get it here faster.

also, ur86, those in the uk have pretty much the same, if not less rights as those here in the us. just sayin.

[Subrick]

Except that in England, you can say fuck on TV. But that's beside the point of this topic.

[Nemo]

you seriously cant measure a country's citizens' liberties by what obscenities they can say on THE FUCKING AIRWAVES. swears arent outlawed on cable, they're discouraged. you see, networks have these things called sponsors and the ones that pay the most money arent really interested in pouring their money into not-so family friendly tv. that aside, i can disprove your point with 3 simple keystrokes: HBO.

also, ever heard of video surveillance? the uk is the world's leader in it. dumbass.

[Aero]

erm, yeah, swearing is discouraged over here too, especially before the 9pm watershed, example -

big brother, friday night eviction, davina (the presenter) used to always say "this is davina, you are live on channel 4, please do not swear" before 9pm. however, after a year or 2, when ppl were fighting over sponsor rights, they now say the same thing before and after 9pm as they dont want to upset sponsors :S

[The Don]

Sorry Phil, you were late to the party... I'll let you have Alaska.

[Aero]

i take it its safe to say when yo u all leave northern ireland it's mines? i also want spain tho, cos, like the weather here is shit, and theres gonna be more than enough countries for us to own a few.

[The Don]

In that case I got dibs on Japan as well.

[Spectre]

I call Russia, cause its like big and stuff

[phil]

Sorry Phil, you were late to the party... I'll let you have Alaska.

You keep Alaska and give me Florida, my home state.

[The Don]

No can do Phil, that's the penis of America.

[phil]

But why do I have to have a state that's literally connected to Canada? Can I just please have Florida?

[The Don]

Okay Phil, I'm a nice guy... how about New Mexico?

[phil]

No thanks, Don. Please just let me have my home state. I'll make sure no Cubans get into the U.S. by rafting over the waters into Florida.

[Aero]

don claimed america, he doesnt have to give you any state!

[The Don]

Exactly, and now you get no state.

[Chillalex]

funny thing is whilst you americans are kicking up a fuss saying omg my countries going to shit lets go to the UK, I'm sitting here contemplating moving over there.