Telecoms on hook for illegal spying
p2pnet news | Freedom:- The full House of Representatives and Senate Judiciary Committee have for now voted to keep telecommunications companies on the hook for their role in illegal government spying on Americans , says the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation).
“The bills each make changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA),” it says, but despite veto threats from the White House, “neither of the two bills give blanket amnesty to telecoms that took part in the massive warrantless domestic surveillance program”.
The two bills would clear the way for dozens of lawsuits against the telecoms to go ahead, allowing federal courts to rule on whether dragnet domestic surveillance documented is legal, says the EFF, acting for the plaintiffs in Hepting v AT&T, the first class-action lawsuit accusing it of violating the law and customers’ privacy by collaborating with the National Security Agency (NSA) in “dragnet government spying”.
“While the Senate Judiciary Committee bill as written does not affect this and other lawsuits over the Administration’s warrantless surveillance, provisions that allow the cases to proceed while also affording the companies some form of limited liability relief could well be added back into the bill when it is debated on the Senate floor,” says the foundation.
“A conference committee will then meet to reconcile the House and Senate versions.”
Also See:
EFF – Congress Keeps Telecoms on the Hook for Illegal Spying, November 15, 2007
Telecoms on the Hook for Illegal Spying
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November 16th, 2007 at 1:54 pm
They can no vote admisty for the telecom that would be unconstitutional just as the warentless search and the torture at abou greb and Gatanamo. The law that will authorize warentless search would be unconstitutional and therefore void. Also making the law retroactive would be by itself unconstitutional too.
November 17th, 2007 at 10:47 am
If the immunity clause is snuck back in during debate, or during conference, then there is only ONE thing left to do for any patriotic human being: remember remember the 5th of November.
Do yourselves a favor. Go read the minutes of the Continental Conferences from the early days of the United States. The founding fathers foresaw our current predicament, and surmised a solution. All we have to do is watch, wait, and remind our “elected” political “representatives” that we REMEMBER the words of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, et all. It is doubtless that the monkeys-in-office remember them, and are sweating in fear that WE WILL NOTICE WHAT THEY ARE DOING!
And well they should. Any grade school child in the USA knows how our country was founded, and WHY. We have a legacy that these bastards are pushing us closer and closer to with every illegal self-serving heinous act of BushCo and pals. How long until this NEW self-appointed “King George” has to be fought against? He ALREADY has mercenary forces INFESTING our country (Blackwater), ALREADY has rendered our personal communications insecure (massive warantless wiretapping), ALREADY started mass-arrests (Swift, Operation Falcon, NYC demonstrations, etc), ALREADY turned us into a debtor nation for the aggrandizement of his family and personal friends (record SURPLUS turned into a record DEFICIENT), ALREADY invalidated our right to self-rule (the past seven years)….
How much more is it going to take before all you can see on Faux Noise is endless replayed stories about OJ and kitties, because it and all the other neocon bastions are under siege? How long until we end up with our OWN version of the French Revolution? And will the shitwads-in-power see the writing on the wall in time to DO THEIR FUCKING JOBS AND IMPEACH THE BASTARDS ALREADY!!!
Or do they WANT the violence, as an excuse for all-out (and possibly NUCLEAR) war on the US populace? A pretense for old-fashioned fascist rule, or holy-war style Armageddon? Anybody who doesn’t seriously consider those possible motivations hasn’t listened to the CONtards or DINOs (Democrats In Name Only) for the past 10 years.
Either possibility fills me with fear, anger, despair, and sorrow.