Senate Approves Telco Amnesty, Legalizes Bush's Secret Spy Program

[GarfieldtheCat]

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken

Originally posted by: GarfieldtheCat
Well, to most people (excepting Bush and Cheney), the EO isn't above the law, so the President is bound to follow it. So it seems like that is pretty clear. Unless somewhere I missed the part that the President is allowed to do whatever he wants, and is above the law. The FISA says that it is the sole law regarding wiretapping, so I don't see how anything else would supercede it, until this new law was passed today.

The FISA states you can't wiretap without a warrant. The AUMF or anything else can't change the law, or somehow make something illegal legal. Murder is illegal, does that mean murdering terrorists has become legal all of a sudden because of the AUMF?

And I disagree about muddying the waters. It seems you don't mind that the law is (actually was) being broken, since you didn't do anything illegal. IOW, if you obey the law, you don't need any protection. Then you should hold the telco's to the same standard.

The whole "DoJ" approved it doesn't have anything to do with it. Congress passing the laws, not the DoJ. If the AG told you could (for example) smoke marijuana in public, would you believe him? Do you think the police office arresting you would believe your story? Or the judge?

Even if the DoJ said "Don't worry guys, we'll make it legal", that implies that it is still illegal at the time that they did it. In which case, the telco's are still breaking the law, along with whoever in the DoJ and WH that are promising things. It doesn't absolve the telco's of their responsibility.

They now that, that's why they bought the Senate to give them amnesty. If they KNEW everything was legal and above-board, they wouldn't care about it.

This is all well and good about FISA, but to whom does FISA apply? Does it address Telecom complicity when given a written request by a government agency to do so? Or does it apply to how our own government should collect intelligence?

My argument is about the Telcos. I've already explicitly stated that if Bush broke some laws and involved the Telcos, go after Bush and his boys.

FISA (from what I have read on the law) specifically says that it is the ONLY law that governs ALL wiretapping to takes place within the US. As such, it doesn't matter what the DoJ says, it is still illegal.

Even if the DoJ tells them "they will be taken of, wink wink" that doesn't change the fact that it is illegal. All it does is make it two different criminal parties (DoJ and Telcos) instead of just the telco themselves. There is no passing of illegality from one party to another.

There are plenty of instances where the gov't have asked people/companies for things/information/data, and the companies said "no, it's illegal", or "no, I need a warrant first". That is the ONLY proper response to someone asking for something that they don't have the legal authority to get.

Just like in my example above with smoking drugs, it doesn't matter what anyone tells you about it being legal/illegal. The law saws it is, and you get arrested and go to court. No judge is going to say that just because someone told you it was OK, you can do it.

And we are talking about billion dollar companies with lots of lawyers that specialize in privacy laws, and have been dealing with this for 30 years. They clearly knew what they were doing, they knew that it was illegal, and they knew whatever the DoJ said or did doesn't matter. If they did, they wouldn't have pushed for amnesty.

The whole reason for the FISA in the first place was because of shit like this happened in the 70's, when the CIA/NSA/FBI wanted wiretaps on everyone from MLK to Vietnam protesters, all int the name of "National Security". Congress found out about it, called Bullshit on it (rightly so, I might add), and wrote the law specifically to make sure it covered all domestic wiretapping just to prevent this sort of thing.

So this isn't something that no one knew about, or hadn't thought about. The telco's wanted the money and got it. They (and Bush) deserved to be punished, hard. This is a free country, not the USSR or North Korea, where everything you say and do is recorded or taped.

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
The DoJ has literally nothing to do with determining whether something is legal or not? So when it says that the Attorney General is "to give his advice and opinion upon questions of law when required by the President of the United States" that advice or opinion carries no weight? It has nothing to do with determining whether an action is legal or not?

And the DoJ's mission statement:

To enforce the law and defend the interests of the United States according to the law; to ensure public safety against threats foreign and domestic; to provide federal leadership in preventing and controlling crime; to seek just punishment for those guilty of unlawful behavior; and to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans.

btw, which agency is the head of our civil courts in the US? Could it be the Department of Justice?

So I think my analogy about the IRS stands pretty well. Since the DoJ is the ultimate controlling authority it seems that if the Telcos should feel pretty confident when they get a letter that tells them an action is OK.

So, no, I'm not done and I'm curious to see what your next response will be.

Did you even read your own link?

The DoJ is not the head of civil courts in the US. That would be an egregious violation of the separation of powers. Civil courts are part of the judiciary the same way criminal courts are, and they are all under the supreme court just like any other. Your link states the DoJ represents the government when it is sued in civil court... ie. it's the president's lawyer. Civics class man...

And no, the 'advice and opinion' of the attorney general holds zero weight in court. As said before, whether or not the DoJ thinks something is legal or not means nothing as to if it actually is. So back to the fundamental point, just because the DoJ sent someone a letter in no way protects them from civil liability in this case. The telecoms knew this, and they illegally turned over information anyway. They got busted, and now they should have to pay the price.

An interesting idea brought up in a slate article was the fact that the whole idea that if the government said something was legal, then it was legal even if it contradicted the law, was the classic hallmarks of a police state.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
The DoJ has literally nothing to do with determining whether something is legal or not? So when it says that the Attorney General is "to give his advice and opinion upon questions of law when required by the President of the United States" that advice or opinion carries no weight? It has nothing to do with determining whether an action is legal or not?

And the DoJ's mission statement:

To enforce the law and defend the interests of the United States according to the law; to ensure public safety against threats foreign and domestic; to provide federal leadership in preventing and controlling crime; to seek just punishment for those guilty of unlawful behavior; and to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans.

btw, which agency is the head of our civil courts in the US? Could it be the Department of Justice?

So I think my analogy about the IRS stands pretty well. Since the DoJ is the ultimate controlling authority it seems that if the Telcos should feel pretty confident when they get a letter that tells them an action is OK.

So, no, I'm not done and I'm curious to see what your next response will be.

Did you even read your own link?

The DoJ is not the head of civil courts in the US. That would be an egregious violation of the separation of powers. Civil courts are part of the judiciary the same way criminal courts are, and they are all under the supreme court just like any other. Your link states the DoJ represents the government when it is sued in civil court... ie. it's the president's lawyer. Civics class man...

And no, the 'advice and opinion' of the attorney general holds zero weight in court. As said before, whether or not the DoJ thinks something is legal or not means nothing as to if it actually is. So back to the fundamental point, just because the DoJ sent someone a letter in no way protects them from civil liability in this case. The telecoms knew this, and they illegally turned over information anyway. They got busted, and now they should have to pay the price.

An interesting idea brought up in a slate article was the fact that the whole idea that if the government said something was legal, then it was legal even if it contradicted the law, was the classic hallmarks of a police state.

Fine. Go ahead and use litigation as a means to hamstring our intelligence collection capabilities so you can have your little moment of glee at the thought of someone sticking it to Bush. You can bet though that if there's another attack that could have been prevented and wasn't because this litigation scared companies away from cooperating with our intelligence agencies, be prepared to take the blame for it, blame I will gladly heap upon you with scorn and derision.

 

[NaughtyGeek]

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
Fine. Go ahead and use litigation as a means to hamstring our intelligence collection capabilities so you can have your little moment of glee at the thought of someone sticking it to Bush. You can bet though that if there's another attack that could have been prevented and wasn't because this litigation scared companies away from cooperating with our intelligence agencies, be prepared to take the blame for it, blame I will gladly heap upon you with scorn and derision.

Wow, dramatize much. If our security in this nation hinges upon the government and corporations being able to break the law at will, then we deserve to be bombed into oblivion. Without the law, we are NOTHING!

 

[RightIsWrong]

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
Fine. Go ahead and use litigation as a means to hamstring our intelligence collection capabilities so you can have your little moment of glee at the thought of someone sticking it to Bush. You can bet though that if there's another attack that could have been prevented and wasn't because this litigation scared companies away from cooperating with our intelligence agencies, be prepared to take the blame for it, blame I will gladly heap upon you with scorn and derision.

Was this a parody post? You sound like a third grader.

Please explain how illegally wiretapping ALL U.S. citizens and then data mining the information is going to prevent another attack?

Do you truly believe that there are people here in this country that are completely off the radar of the FBI, NSA or whatever alphabet soup organization you add here?

The likelyhood that a person that fits the above description being able to do something on such a grand scale to pull it off without detection by legal methods is not even close to nil....it is nil.

You can surrender all of your rights and civil liberties and hide from the "Islamo-facism terrorist" boogie man all you want. As for me and the rest of the country, I think we will take our chances with being the target of a terrorist attack (which are less than being struck by lightening twice) and keep our freedoms (at least the ones that we still have left).

So how do these common risks compare to your risk of dying in a terrorist attack? To try to calculate those odds realistically, Michael Rothschild, a former business professor at the University of Wisconsin, worked out a couple of plausible scenarios. For example, he figured that if terrorists were to destroy entirely one of America's 40,000 shopping malls per week, your chances of being there at the wrong time would be about one in one million or more. Rothschild also estimated that if terrorists hijacked and crashed one of America's 18,000 commercial flights per week that your chance of being on the crashed plane would be one in 135,000.

Even if terrorists were able to pull off one attack per year on the scale of the 9/11 atrocity, that would mean your one-year risk would be one in 100,000 and your lifetime risk would be about one in 1300. (300,000,000 ÷ 3,000 = 100,000 ÷ 78 years = 1282) In other words, your risk of dying in a plausible terrorist attack is much lower than your risk of dying in a car accident, by walking across the street, by drowning, in a fire, by falling, or by being murdered.

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken

Fine. Go ahead and use litigation as a means to hamstring our intelligence collection capabilities so you can have your little moment of glee at the thought of someone sticking it to Bush. You can bet though that if there's another attack that could have been prevented and wasn't because this litigation scared companies away from cooperating with our intelligence agencies, be prepared to take the blame for it, blame I will gladly heap upon you with scorn and derision.

I very much do hope this scares the telecom companies away from complying with illegal government requests. That's sorta the whole purpose of the law, don't you think?

Never fear though, your laughably stupid fearmongering won't be necessary. The newer versions of the bill offer prospective immunity, meaning that if the telecoms get such assurances in the future that they will in fact be immune from prosecution/civil liability. I think this is a terrible addition to the law, but at least it's part of the law. My problem with this isn't so much that I don't like what the law says, it's that the administration and the telecom companies deliberately broke the law and are now trying to immunize themselves from the consequences of their actions. These companies and the administration acted completely out of control, and they can and should be smacked down for it. It's the only way they will think twice before breaking the law in the future.

I'm very sorry to hear however that you think that our intelligence community is being unreasonably hamstrung by the 4th amendment and associated legislation. There are many other countries that do not have such protections for their citizens and so for your increased safety I would suggest you move to one of those. You are also free to lobby your congressmen for a repeal of the 4th and 9th amendments if you so desire, but until that point I guess we'll just have to live in terrible danger.

It is interesting to see how you think that people would only stand up and say that people shouldn't be able to wantonly break the law without consequences because they don't like Bush. You are truly going off the deep end at this point.

Nice to see that instead of admitting you were wrong you threw a temper tantrum though.

 

[fskimospy]

Haha, that's funny. I go to slam TLC for being an idiot and before I can even hit post there are already two other people stomping on him. I guess that last post was a bit of an easy target though.

 

[freegeeks]

the land of the free

 

[Harvey]

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken

Originally posted by: Harvey

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
If you aren't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about.

Summed up.

Tell us about it again AFTER the jack booted storm troopers take you away to your personal undisclosed cell for a little "friendly" waterboarding persuasion... if you survive.

Don't give us any crap that you're not worried because you haven't done anything wrong. That's what lots of people thought when the nazis took over Germany, and Stalin was just as fair and gentle with those who died under his tyrannical reign.

In case you hadn't noticed, your Traitor in Chief and his cabal of murderers, traitors and torturers are as close as this nation has ever come to a facistic tyrannical dictatorship. :|

If you support them, instead of the Constitution, YOU are part of the problem. :thumbsdown:

You're always good for a view of the paranoid side of life and a hearty chuckle about it, Harvey.

Thanks for the bellylaugh.

You're always good for a view of moron who wouldn't know the Constitution from toilet paper. People who like YOU didn't think it would happen to them. People who like YOU are the reason the nazis torturers and murderers rose to power in Germany. People like YOU are the reason the Bushwhackos traitors, torturers and murderers took over the government of the United States of America.

YOU are disgusting. Thanks for making me lose my breakfast. :thumbsdown: :|

 

[GarfieldtheCat]

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
Fine. Go ahead and use litigation as a means to hamstring our intelligence collection capabilities so you can have your little moment of glee at the thought of someone sticking it to Bush. You can bet though that if there's another attack that could have been prevented and wasn't because this litigation scared companies away from cooperating with our intelligence agencies, be prepared to take the blame for it, blame I will gladly heap upon you with scorn and derision.

:Q

FISA has worked for over 20 years. We haven't had any problems with it. We are a nation that follows it's own laws, and the FISA is OUR LAW.

Why do you feel that you and the gov't are all of a sudden not bound the laws of our country? Does that I mean I can break the law now as well?

Please explain why you think the government should not follow it's own laws, and should be allowed to arbitrarily make people/companies perform illegal acts.

Because once you allow that, you are in a lot more trouble then you think. What's next, require all companies to get gov't approval before hiring anyone, so they can "check" them to make sure they not a terrorist?

 

[Arkaign]

Originally posted by: RightIsWrong

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
Fine. Go ahead and use litigation as a means to hamstring our intelligence collection capabilities so you can have your little moment of glee at the thought of someone sticking it to Bush. You can bet though that if there's another attack that could have been prevented and wasn't because this litigation scared companies away from cooperating with our intelligence agencies, be prepared to take the blame for it, blame I will gladly heap upon you with scorn and derision.

Was this a parody post? You sound like a third grader.

Please explain how illegally wiretapping ALL U.S. citizens and then data mining the information is going to prevent another attack?

Do you truly believe that there are people here in this country that are completely off the radar of the FBI, NSA or whatever alphabet soup organization you add here?

The likelyhood that a person that fits the above description being able to do something on such a grand scale to pull it off without detection by legal methods is not even close to nil....it is nil.

You can surrender all of your rights and civil liberties and hide from the "Islamo-facism terrorist" boogie man all you want. As for me and the rest of the country, I think we will take our chances with being the target of a terrorist attack (which are less than being struck by lightening twice) and keep our freedoms (at least the ones that we still have left).

So how do these common risks compare to your risk of dying in a terrorist attack? To try to calculate those odds realistically, Michael Rothschild, a former business professor at the University of Wisconsin, worked out a couple of plausible scenarios. For example, he figured that if terrorists were to destroy entirely one of America's 40,000 shopping malls per week, your chances of being there at the wrong time would be about one in one million or more. Rothschild also estimated that if terrorists hijacked and crashed one of America's 18,000 commercial flights per week that your chance of being on the crashed plane would be one in 135,000.

Even if terrorists were able to pull off one attack per year on the scale of the 9/11 atrocity, that would mean your one-year risk would be one in 100,000 and your lifetime risk would be about one in 1300. (300,000,000 ÷ 3,000 = 100,000 ÷ 78 years = 1282) In other words, your risk of dying in a plausible terrorist attack is much lower than your risk of dying in a car accident, by walking across the street, by drowning, in a fire, by falling, or by being murdered.

Wow, TLC should just go ahead and go back to his bunker and fire off a few more Sieg Heils to his beloved Führer. The sheer volume of his hysteric straw-men arguments and false logic have only been matched by the variety of insults he proceeds to fling every time he gets shot down. I'm pretty right-wing on a variety of issues, but I think even Mussolini would look to his right and see TLC cackling away in delusional psychosis.

 

[Fern]

As long as this merely prevent trial lawyers from suing the telcos I'm fine with it.

Anybody who thinks that suing them in court for money is a way to punish the telco's is retarded. They're businesses and will just pass it own to us consumers/customers. How would that punish the company?

If an exec did something wrong, criminally prosecute him/her.

Fern

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: Fern
As long as this merely prevent trial lawyers from suing the telcos I'm fine with it.

Anybody who thinks that suing them in court for money is a way to punish the telco's is retarded. They're businesses and will just pass it own to us consumers/customers. How would that punish the company?

If an exec did something wrong, criminally prosecute him/her.

Fern

Well by that logic we should never sue any business ever.

The only way to get businesses to change behavior is to charge them money as that's the only language they understand. A great example is with taxes, if you want to get a corporation to stop acting a certain way, tax the hell out of it. They won't continue the behavior and just raise their rates for the most part, they will do something else. In this case they won't pass it on to consumers, or if they do raise their rates it will make them vulnerable to competitors that won't have such a burden upon them. Either way the telecoms lose out, which is the whole purpose of punishing their illegal behavior.

In addition through the diffusal of responsibility it is often difficult to pinpoint a single person or small group of persons who are responsible for acts to enough of a degree that they would be criminally liable. So, a lot of these times the choice is between excusing the behavior altogether and suing the company. Obviously you can't just excuse it.

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: eskimospy
Well by that logic we should never sue any business ever.

-snip-

They weren't doing something inapropriate to increase profits, or decrease costs, or harm a competitor. It appears they were making a good faith effort to comply with US government. To open that up for a "trial lawyer" bonanza seems inapproritae to me.

Fern

 

[RightIsWrong]

Originally posted by: Fern

Originally posted by: eskimospy
Well by that logic we should never sue any business ever.

-snip-

They weren't doing something inapropriate to increase profits, or decrease costs, or harm a competitor. It appears they were making a good faith effort to comply with US government. To open that up for a "trial lawyer" bonanza seems inapproritae to me.

Fern

Then it was merely a coincidence that the one company that did not comply with the "requests" didn't get any .gov monies and their CEO was indicted for insider trading shortly thereafter?

 

[GarfieldtheCat]

Originally posted by: Fern

Originally posted by: eskimospy
Well by that logic we should never sue any business ever.

-snip-

They weren't doing something inapropriate to increase profits, or decrease costs, or harm a competitor. It appears they were making a good faith effort to comply with US government. To open that up for a "trial lawyer" bonanza seems inapproritae to me.

Fern

Really? You don't think they get big money from the NSA/CIA/etc ? The telco's get LOTS of money from gov't contracts, and QWEST didn't go along with the wiretapping,a nd they got cut off from contacts.

Sounds like a "for profit" decision to me.

Anyway, illegal is illegal, regardless of whether or not a profit was made. And this is illegal.

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: Fern

Originally posted by: eskimospy
Well by that logic we should never sue any business ever.

-snip-

They weren't doing something inapropriate to increase profits, or decrease costs, or harm a competitor. It appears they were making a good faith effort to comply with US government. To open that up for a "trial lawyer" bonanza seems inapproritae to me.

Fern

Good faith my ass. I can't possibly understand how people can think the telecoms didn't know what they were doing was violating the law. They have huge legal departments who can recite these laws in their sleep. Just because it is the government asking you to do something illegal doesn't make it any less illegal. It makes you a co-conspirator.

I also don't buy that they weren't thinking heavily about the impact to them of government contracts. Look what happened to Qwest when they denied the government because they thought the program was illegal. So they certainly did something inappropriate to increase profits. That doesn't even matter though, they knowingly and purposefully opened themselves up to liability through massive violations of long established statutes and betrayed the confidence of their customers. Their customers certainly have a case against them, and they should push it as far as it will go. Thank god for trial lawyers, in cases like this they are the only ones left protecting the rights of AT&T/Verizon's customers as the government is MIA on the issue.

 

[RightIsWrong]

Eskimospy,

I feel that I have to correct you on this statement:

Thank god for trial lawyers, in cases like this they are the only ones left protecting the rights of AT&T/Verizon's customers as the government is MIA on the issue.

The .gov wasn't MIA on the issue....they were IOI (In On It) on the issue.

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: RightIsWrong

Originally posted by: Fern

Originally posted by: eskimospy
Well by that logic we should never sue any business ever.

-snip-

They weren't doing something inapropriate to increase profits, or decrease costs, or harm a competitor. It appears they were making a good faith effort to comply with US government. To open that up for a "trial lawyer" bonanza seems inapproritae to me.

Fern

Then it was merely a coincidence that the one company that did not comply with the "requests" didn't get any .gov monies and their CEO was indicted for insider trading shortly thereafter?

Originally posted by: GarfieldtheCat

Originally posted by: Fern

Originally posted by: eskimospy
Well by that logic we should never sue any business ever.

-snip-

They weren't doing something inapropriate to increase profits, or decrease costs, or harm a competitor. It appears they were making a good faith effort to comply with US government. To open that up for a "trial lawyer" bonanza seems inapproritae to me.

Fern

Really? You don't think they get big money from the NSA/CIA/etc ? The telco's get LOTS of money from gov't contracts, and QWEST didn't go along with the wiretapping,a nd they got cut off from contacts.

Sounds like a "for profit" decision to me.

Anyway, illegal is illegal, regardless of whether or not a profit was made. And this is illegal.

What gov money are you guys talking about?

Fern

 

[RightIsWrong]

Seek and ye shall find:

Full story

According to sources familiar with the events, Qwest's CEO at the time, Joe Nacchio, was deeply troubled by the NSA's assertion that Qwest didn't need a court order ? or approval under FISA ? to proceed. Adding to the tension, Qwest was unclear about who, exactly, would have access to its customers' information and how that information might be used.

Financial implications were also a concern, the sources said. Carriers that illegally divulge calling information can be subjected to heavy fines. The NSA was asking Qwest to turn over millions of records. The fines, in the aggregate, could have been substantial.

The NSA told Qwest that other government agencies, including the FBI, CIA and DEA, also might have access to the database, the sources said. As a matter of practice, the NSA regularly shares its information ? known as "product" in intelligence circles ? with other intelligence groups. Even so, Qwest's lawyers were troubled by the expansiveness of the NSA request, the sources said.

The NSA, which needed Qwest's participation to completely cover the country, pushed back hard.

Trying to put pressure on Qwest, NSA representatives pointedly told Qwest that it was the lone holdout among the big telecommunications companies. It also tried appealing to Qwest's patriotic side: In one meeting, an NSA representative suggested that Qwest's refusal to contribute to the database could compromise national security, one person recalled.

In addition, the agency suggested that Qwest's foot-dragging might affect its ability to get future classified work with the government. Like other big telecommunications companies, Qwest already had classified contracts and hoped to get more.

Unable to get comfortable with what NSA was proposing, Qwest's lawyers asked NSA to take its proposal to the FISA court. According to the sources, the agency refused.

The NSA's explanation did little to satisfy Qwest's lawyers. "They told (Qwest) they didn't want to do that because FISA might not agree with them," one person recalled. For similar reasons, this person said, NSA rejected Qwest's suggestion of getting a letter of authorization from the U.S. attorney general's office. A second person confirmed this version of events.

In June 2002, Nacchio resigned amid allegations that he had misled investors about Qwest's financial health. But Qwest's legal questions about the NSA request remained.

Unable to reach agreement, Nacchio's successor, Richard Notebaert, finally pulled the plug on the NSA talks in late 2004, the sources said.

This story also blows TLC's main talking points (that he never did substantiate with anything other than his opinion anyway) out of the water. First, there were no letters. Second, the NSA didn't feel that it was on strong enough legal ground to even get a FISA warrant (of which almost 99% of all requests are approved).

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: RightIsWrong
Seek and ye shall find:

Full story

In addition, the agency suggested that Qwest's foot-dragging might affect its ability to get future classified work with the government. Like other big telecommunications companies, Qwest already had classified contracts and hoped to get more.
Sounds to me that if this can be proven somebody in the government needs to get into trouble, not the telcos.


Unable to get comfortable with what NSA was proposing, Qwest's lawyers asked NSA to take its proposal to the FISA court. According to the sources, the agency refused.
I've heard this before. This kind of language make it sounds like the illegality of this stuff is not cut-n-dry as many here seemt o say

The NSA's explanation did little to satisfy Qwest's lawyers. "They told (Qwest) they didn't want to do that because FISA might not agree with them," one person recalled. For similar reasons, this person said, NSA rejected Qwest's suggestion of getting a letter of authorization from the U.S. attorney general's office. A second person confirmed this version of events.
I think that the NSA needs to do some explaining. Prior gov objections to using the FISA court often focused on the need to move quickly without delay.

Well, there was already a fricken delay what with all this negotiating etc.

And if they thought that the FISA court wouldn't agree with them, why the h3ll were they proceeding?

And if the AG (Gonzo then?) wouldn't agree either, these people sound like rogue gov agents.

If these allegations are true, sounds like the bad behavior is on the part of the government, not necessarily the telcos.

Fern

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: Fern

Originally posted by: RightIsWrong
Seek and ye shall find:

Full story

In addition, the agency suggested that Qwest's foot-dragging might affect its ability to get future classified work with the government. Like other big telecommunications companies, Qwest already had classified contracts and hoped to get more.
Sounds to me that if this can be proven somebody in the government needs to get into trouble, not the telcos.


Unable to get comfortable with what NSA was proposing, Qwest's lawyers asked NSA to take its proposal to the FISA court. According to the sources, the agency refused.
I've heard this before. This kind of language make it sounds like the illegality of this stuff is not cut-n-dry as many here seemt o say

The NSA's explanation did little to satisfy Qwest's lawyers. "They told (Qwest) they didn't want to do that because FISA might not agree with them," one person recalled. For similar reasons, this person said, NSA rejected Qwest's suggestion of getting a letter of authorization from the U.S. attorney general's office. A second person confirmed this version of events.
I think that the NSA needs to do some explaining. Prior gov objections to using the FISA court often focused on the need to move quickly without delay.

Well, there was already a fricken delay what with all this negotiating etc.

And if they thought that the FISA court wouldn't agree with them, why the h3ll were they proceeding?

And if the AG (Gonzo then?) wouldn't agree either, these people sound like rogue gov agents.

If these allegations are true, sounds like the bad behavior is on the part of the government, not necessarily the telcos.

Fern

The thing is that it's not rogue government agents, this was directed from the president himself. In addition, the actions of the government really have no bearing on the telecom companies' civil liability. They are being sued for illegally disclosing private information to a third party (in this case the government). The government could ask them pretty please with sugar on top, they could seduce the CEO with a spy in a red cocktail dress to steal his keys after he got drunk, it doesn't matter. It was their information, they improperly disclosed it, end of story.

The only thing that will possibly save them from an adverse judgement is the same stonewalling that the Bush administration has used in the past, ie. standing. They have admitted that they are spying on people, but they won't say who. Unless someone can prove that they are one of these people being spied upon, they don't have standing.

 

[GarfieldtheCat]

Originally posted by: Fern

Originally posted by: RightIsWrong
Seek and ye shall find:

Full story

In addition, the agency suggested that Qwest's foot-dragging might affect its ability to get future classified work with the government. Like other big telecommunications companies, Qwest already had classified contracts and hoped to get more.
Sounds to me that if this can be proven somebody in the government needs to get into trouble, not the telcos.


Unable to get comfortable with what NSA was proposing, Qwest's lawyers asked NSA to take its proposal to the FISA court. According to the sources, the agency refused.
I've heard this before. This kind of language make it sounds like the illegality of this stuff is not cut-n-dry as many here seemt o say

The NSA's explanation did little to satisfy Qwest's lawyers. "They told (Qwest) they didn't want to do that because FISA might not agree with them," one person recalled. For similar reasons, this person said, NSA rejected Qwest's suggestion of getting a letter of authorization from the U.S. attorney general's office. A second person confirmed this version of events.
I think that the NSA needs to do some explaining. Prior gov objections to using the FISA court often focused on the need to move quickly without delay.

Well, there was already a fricken delay what with all this negotiating etc.

And if they thought that the FISA court wouldn't agree with them, why the h3ll were they proceeding?

And if the AG (Gonzo then?) wouldn't agree either, these people sound like rogue gov agents.

If these allegations are true, sounds like the bad behavior is on the part of the government, not necessarily the telcos.

Fern

You got it part of it right. The gov't should be in a LOT of trouble. But that still doesn't excuse the telco's from doing it. They still knowingly committed a criminal act.

They have plenty of lawyers, just like QWest did. They knew what they were doing, and knew it was illegal. But they wanted the money.

EDIT: What's with the extra quoting going on? I had to fix my post

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken

I took a civics class that differentiated between "legal" and "law." How about you? The way you're going on with this stinker, I'm wondering.

Of course the DoJ doesn't make law. However, they do determine what is and what is not legal within the laws that exist. If the IRS comes up to me and says "We have determined this is legal for you to claim on your taxes.," and provide it in writing, I'm going to take the deduction. The same principle is in effect here. Claiming that the letters provided to the Telcos are nothing more than a piece of paper is patently ridiculous. Their actions were given the blessing of the government. If the government was wrong then the government should face the consequences, not the Telcos.

Wow, you're really really wrong. Did you pass that civics class?

The DoJ has literally nothing to do with determining if something is legal or not. They offer opinions to the executive branch and conduct federal prosecutions. You know how much legal weight those opinions actually carry? ZERO. The only branch that can determine the legality of something is the judiciary. Since I'm assuming that the lawyers who work for the telecoms did not in fact fail their civics classes, they were well aware of this fact.

The reason why you could safely take a deduction in the case of the IRS is that the IRS is the body that chooses if they are going to prosecute you for tax evasion or not. The telcos were safe from criminal prosecution because of the letter from the DoJ (the DoJ is not going to choose to prosecute someone after they gave them a pass), but they are in no way safe from civil liability. Why? Because the DoJ doesn't get to decide if something is legal or not. Getting a letter from the DoJ doesn't suddenly make something that was illegal legal. Whoops.

This is basic, now do you understand the role of the DoJ?

In addition, it appears you do not have an understanding of how FISA and other laws apply to this situation. FISA is a limit on government action, not corporate action. Different laws govern those, and that's what the telecoms are being sued for privacy violations under. If the government had gotten a legitimate warrant to do the spying it was doing, the telecoms would have been safe in revealing information on/spying on their customers. The government did not supply a warrant, and yet the telecoms furnished this information anyway. Thus the telecoms broke the law. True they broke a different law then the government broke, but they broke it all the same.

The government agents who violated FISA or ordered it to be done should be prosecuted under this (felony!) criminal law, and the companies who illegally turned over customers' information without being given a warrant should be held liable for violation of privacy statutes. It's simple really...they committed crimes, they should be held accountable. That is if you believe in the rule of law of course.

Are you done with this yet?

The DoJ has literally nothing to do with determining whether something is legal or not? So when it says that the Attorney General is "to give his advice and opinion upon questions of law when required by the President of the United States" that advice or opinion carries no weight? It has nothing to do with determining whether an action is legal or not?

And the DoJ's mission statement:

To enforce the law and defend the interests of the United States according to the law; to ensure public safety against threats foreign and domestic; to provide federal leadership in preventing and controlling crime; to seek just punishment for those guilty of unlawful behavior; and to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans.

btw, which agency is the head of our civil courts in the US? Could it be the Department of Justice?

So I think my analogy about the IRS stands pretty well. Since the DoJ is the ultimate controlling authority it seems that if the Telcos should feel pretty confident when they get a letter that tells them an action is OK.

So, no, I'm not done and I'm curious to see what your next response will be.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day; TLC, maybe once, but he's not entirely wrong here in disagreeing with EskimoSpy.

The confusion is between *determining* whether something is legal, and *advising* whether something is likely illegal. A third area is granting protection from prosecution.

The DoJ can and does often say what they think the law means, and those opinions can have relevance in court in protecting people who follow them, regarding intent.

What they can't do is actually determine whether something is legal; that's up to the court system, not DoJ, and that's what I think EskimoSpy meant to refer to.

There are times immunity can be granted for lawbreaking; "the president wants you to break the law, and we'll promise you immunity from prosecution" isn't one of them.

You won't find almost anyone outside of message board right-wingers trying to say the companies are immune for their actions; not the companies, not the DoJ.

Common sense would tell you that there's a reason for their wanting Congress to pass retroactive immunity beyond just the 'inconvenience of defending themselves'. If they had immunity, charges wouldn't even be brought. Common sense, however, is missing from the righties' posts.

The apologists here are despicable in their willingness to let the law be ignored in order for the practices they prefer to get carried out, careless about the precedent for lawbreaking.

It's one thing to ignore the law because the law is immoral, and quite another because you simply could care less about the rule of law and our democracy's right to make laws.

 

[Fern]

Some of you people are confusing civil & criminal law.

The DoJ has got noththing whatsoever to do with civil law - being sued.

"Bringing charges" has to do with criminal law, not civil law - being sued.

If they did get a letter from the DoJ they could only be afforded protection against criminal charges (Apparently they didn't get one though which would seem to leave open the possibility of criminal prosecution).

The DoJ does, in a sense, get to determine if something is legal or not. As a pratical matter if they determine that you did not violate a criminal statute, charges will not be brought. Accordingly, they will have ruled the activity legal in a very real/practical sense. We citizens cannot bring criminal charges, we can make allegations. We can initiate lawsuits under civil law (tort law).

The article seems to say that the law was being re-written, or modified, to change it in such a retroactive way that the cooperating telcos would not be in violation of criminal statutes.

But if this bill attempts to permit unconstitutional behavior, I don't see why it couldn't be challenged in the courts.

The other aspects seems to be immunity from civil suits. I don't have a problem with that.

The government obviously wants to have the telcos cooperate, thus passage by the House and Senate. If the gov oversteps and infringes on the Constitution that problem should be addressed first

We can't have the gov running around thinking that they are in the right, muscling private companies, that are then sued in civil court.

The civil suits are gonna attempt to find someone suffering a "tort", then sue the telcos for money.

We'll just end up with a bunch of class action lawsuits where the lawyers make a bazillion $s and we get some fscking coupon. Then we'll end up paying the telcos for whatever they got sued for.

Look, if we've been screwed once in this process, let's not turn around and screw ourselves again for the second time by paying for this crap.

The Constitutional issues and criminal laws need to be resolved first before we go running off to some BS lower court in Alabama where legal awards are ridiculously high. All that process would be is nothing more than a huge subsidy for trial lawyers.

It sounds like the government may need to get wacked up side the head with a big stick. Let's not swing and miss, hitting ourselves instead.

Fern