I’m sure anyone that bothers to read this blog already reads BoingBoing, but I thought this was important enough to post over here as well.

On the face of it, this new loophole might not seem to be such a big problem, barring the facts of a) retroactive telecom immunity and b) the implication that Bush will never be held accountable for numerous felonies. Unfortunately, it also really is, as far as I can tell, a back door to greatly expanded wiretapping powers. Beyond the obvious fact that it requires only certification and loose judicial review rather than a warrant, it does so in the following way:

1. It Eliminates the requirement that there be probable cause that a foreign target is a suspect of any kind - terrorist, criminal, ore “foreign agent.” They merely need be your French grandmother, as long as they are outside the United States and not a U.S. person, and if the government says wiretapping them is for the purpose of collecting “foreign intelligence information” (e.g., her Pommes Frites recipe)
2. It requires the cooperation of telecoms in these efforts
3. It eliminates of the need to specify a particular email address or phone number to be wiretapped
4. 1-3 together imply that certifications of wiretapping on individuals is not the issue. The point is to use telecom cooperation to target large collections of data on communications between U.S. Persons and foreigners. This implies data mining - where, for instance, because a foreign target has communications passing through a given domestic switch, any communications (domestic or international) passing through that switch are subject to collection, analysis, and storage. There are “minimization requirements” meant to ameliorate this, but it is unclear if they really help.
5. The compromise of domestic communications in (4) is exacerbated by the fact that targets need only be “reasonably believed” to be outside the U.S.
6. It includes only minimal court oversight - who it is that is subject to warrantless wiretapping will not be know to the FISA court; the government can wiretap before it court order is sought and continue to do so even if it is denied - during a lengthy appeal process.

Here’s the full blog entry from KetchupandCaviar.com

Is he a cunt or a coward? Or just a human being groping consciencelessly for power? Or does he know something we don’t? We’ll never know.

What we do know now is that the Telecom’s that assisted President Bush in his illegal wiretapping (even those which happened well before 9/11) will be totally exonerated from any criminal proceedings. There is speculation as to whether civil suits will be able to be brought, but realistically the money it would cost to bring a civil suit against a giant corporation will probably head that off at the pass.

We also know that the next President of the United States will have unprecedented power to eaves drop on every single American at any time without worry or warrant.

Here’s the roll call from the Vote. At least Durbin has got some balls and some concern for the future of this country.

I have worked for your nomination and voted for you, as I did when I lived in Illinois. This has been the election I have been waiting for - one about hope and about change. I do hope I am right about change.

I understand politics and the need to compromise,[…]

However, there must be some point, there must be some principles, there must be some line that you do not cross. In my view, the new FISA bill is that. It is a simple attempt to camouflage the spineless response of a Democratic congress that is afraid to stand up to the President on civil liberties and is happy to allow any corporation to be blameless for violating our basic rights.

So, I ask myself, why would Senator Obama and the other Democrats cave in to the President. The answer that comes to mind most quickly is the “politics of fear”. Are you afraid of being labeled “soft on terrorism”?

Read the full article

I don’t claim to know all the nuances of National Security, but I can clearly spot when a person rescinds on their word. In this case that someone is Obama. On multiple occassions he has explicitly stated that he would filibuster any attempts at immunity for the scoflaw telecoms who were illegally made to wiretap American citizens.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/6/25/194859/776/86/541977

Now, it looks like we have seen what is the first, but certainly will not be the last indication of how Obama’s highball rhetoric of “Change” is little more than election time chum for the pea-brained sharks of our country.

I have emailed my Senator, Mr. Obama, requesting an explanation for his change of position and promising that should he support this FISA bill that he will lose my support for the Presidency. As of today I have heard nothing from him, not even an auto-responder.

So now I need to choose whether I will forgo my right to vote in this election or vote for a Libertarian candidate should there be one. What’s a bummer is, as more people become frustrated with Obama’s inability to install his faeryland politics on the beltway we’ll see more and more diseffectors to the McCain camp or other third parties which will ultimately put McCain in office. But frankly, I won’t support Obama simply as the lesser of two dipshits.