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08/08/2007: "Gov't expands secret powers while America watches TV"

Congress acted quickly over the weekend to pass a warrantless eavesdropping bill that would expand the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) before Congress adjourned for their August recess on Monday. The Protect America Act of 2007 (S. 1927) was passed by the Senate on August 3 (Roll Call 309), followed by the House on August 4 (Roll Call 836). President Bush then signed the bill into law on Sunday, August 5.

The Protect America Act gives the federal government the authority to monitor American citizens' phone conversations and e-mails, providing they are corresponding with persons "reasonably believed to be located outside the United States." This bill, which was drafted mostly by the White House, is in response to the 2005 scandal where President Bush was ridiculed for authorizing the National Security Agency to conduct a secret wiretapping program targeted at persons within the United States who were believed to be in communication with al-Qaida, or members of other terrorist organizations. A lower court ruling later found that program to be unconstitutional.

[ Obviously, "freedom" is an illusion, but you should not hand absolute power to democratic oligarchs! ]

http://capwiz.com/jbs/issues/alert/?alertid=10160266

Replies: 2 Comments

on Wednesday, August 8th, Osama bin Laden said

The NSA and its Echelon project already intercepts and analyzes virtually all internet traffic.

Good ol' boy Poindexter was working on the 'Total Information Awareness' project, which probably relates to this in some way.

We're living in sick times.

on Wednesday, August 8th, Uncle Jerry said

One little quibble: the "resistance" crowd regularly goes on paranoid ranting editorials in such a fashion as to suggest that such measures are "for sure" going have major impacts on roughly 1/4 of the population. I don't like the shit either, Karl, but you're sounding an awful lot like the bone-heads who, after the Trade Tower Attack, seriously believed that every other neighborhood in the country and specifically THEIR'S ESPECIALLY was going to be Anthraxed in a week or two. There's more likelyhood that you'll never break any of your bones in your life than be killed in a mall-bombing or abducted in a Black-Ops raid. This is coming down on almost none of us yet we all like to pretend it is because our pointless lives are almost guaranteed to be completely isolated from anything of the sort. I'm not bitter, just making an observation.