If this does not scare you, you are not paying attention.

[elbales]

There's a bill, SB2453, that just passed the Senate Judiciary Committee. It should scare the pants off of anyone who values any sort of privacy. Or, hell, just the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution--you know, that document that the current Administration is using as tp. It expands the NSA's powers. Wow. I guess the Patriot Act didn't take enough away freedoms. It must not have, 'cause there's still dissent. And, you know, dissent equals disloyalty!

You can read about it at Salon.com, and you should. Here's an appetizer to convince you you should care.

The bill:

• Redefines surveillance so that only programs that catch the substance of a communication need oversight. Any government surveillance that captures, analyzes and stores patterns of communications such as phone records, or e-mail and website addresses, is no longer considered surveillance.


• Expands the section of law that allows the attorney general to authorize spying on foreign embassies, so long as there's no "substantial likelihood" that an American's communication would be captured.


• Repeals the provision of federal law that allows the government unfettered wiretapping and physical searches without warrants or notification for 15 days after a declaration of war. The lack of any congressional restraint on the president's wartime powers arguably puts the president at the height, rather than the ebb, of his powers in any time of war, even an undeclared one.


...


• Allows the attorney general, or anyone he or she designates, to authorize widespread domestic spying, such as monitoring all instant-messaging systems in the country, so long as the government promises to delete anything not terrorism-related.


• Moves all court challenges to the NSA surveillance program to a secretive court in Washington, D.C., comprised of judges appointed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Only government lawyers would be allowed in the courtroom.


• Allows the government to get warrants for surveillance programs as a whole, instead of having to describe to a judge the particular persons to be monitored and the methods to be used.

ETA: Augh! I should have said; got the link from psybelle. Who didn't like it either.

Comments

[akk]

Eeek.

without warrants or notification for 15 days after a declaration of war

considering the "war record" of the current administration that almost equals
"permanent".

spying on foreign embassies, so long as there's no "substantial likelihood" that an American's communication would be captured

Please work for world peace & international respect. If you are an American, call foreign embassies 24/7.

Scary government doesn't cover this.
But then, they already explicitly allowed themselves spying on everything & everybody worldwide - except the domestic US - years ago, so...
Welcome to the rest of the mistreated planet. :(

[elbales]

seriously.

[akk]

yes.

[emidala.livejournal.com]

one more year, and I'm done. it's 2006, not 1984. this is so goddamned wrong that I've lost faith in this entire country.

[elbales]

i have to keep faith and fight, because this is my country. but i'm not going to be stupid about it, either. i'll leave before i let them shove me back into the kitchen and walk out the door with my birth control.

[kiri-l.livejournal.com]

I'm going to borrow this wholesale into my LJ with credit if you don't mind. =)

[elbales]

help yourself! :)

[cryptile.livejournal.com]

. . . so. What Freedom do the Terrarists hate, again?

[elbales]

...um.

The kind we don't have any more? O_o