ACLU Warns Of Pending Intelligence Bill

[Purveyor]

Source: United Press International

WASHINGTON, Nov. 28 (UPI) -- The American Civil Liberties Union said it dislikes a U.S. Senate bill that would give immunity to communications firms for sharing private customer data.

At issue is whether a new intelligence law will grant telecommunications companies immunity from prosecution retroactively to the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, as well as future immunity for cooperating with federal intelligence agencies, USA Today reported.

There are two versions of the bill awaiting the Senate's return next Monday. One measure grants past immunity and the other doesn't.

ACLU Washington spokeswoman Liz Rose told the newspaper retroactive immunity is worrisome.

"The immunity isn't just for (warrantless) wiretapping," Rose said. "It's for databases and who knows what else? The blanket immunity may cover (surveillance) programs we don't even know about yet."



Read more: http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2007/11/28/aclu_w... /

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. and hillary was in favor of it. Wonder what her focus group tells her now.

This bill is a danger to each and every one of us. I hope some of the Dem candidates recognize it and take a stance.


Hell, I'd even love for the GOP to take a similar stance. That might shake up a few in congress (pelosi, reid, Hoyer) and shock them into realizing the GOPers care more for the constitution than they.

[Up2Late]

2. Please don't post UPI or UPI "NewsTrack" stories here, they are reprocessed "news" that is edited...

...down to turn a longer, usually fairly written (without a RW-bias) stories and turn them into easily digestible RW-Garbage "news."

And, as you will see if you Google the keywords from the story, they almost always are Old by LBN standards (this one is 14 hours old), yet all the RW websites pick these up and run them as "news."

UPI Newstrack is one of the major problems contributing to the destruction of actual News in the U.S.

Sorry, that's just what they do.

Here's the original story. Notice that it has the authors "By line" which is your second clue:

<http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-11-27-FISA... >

Intelligence bill may hinge on immunity for telecoms

Updated 14h 42m ago

By Richard Willing, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — An intelligence bill the Senate is scheduled to take up after it returns Dec. 3 would block Americans from learning details of any warrantless surveillance program the federal government conducted after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the American Civil Liberties Union says.

An intelligence bill the Senate is scheduled to take up after it returns Dec. 3 would block Americans from learning details of any warrantless surveillance program the federal government conducted after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the American Civil Liberties Union says.

The bill would grant immunity from lawsuits to communications companies for any "intelligence activity involving communications" that was "designed to detect or prevent a terrorist attack" or attack preparations. Telecoms would need to show they received a "written request or directive" from the administration vouching that the programs were "lawful" to stop lawsuits.

Liz Rose, spokeswoman for the Washington office of the ACLU, says the language is a "blank check" that would cover not only a warrantless wiretapping program the Bush administration has acknowledged but any unconfirmed or previously unknown program. Last year, USA TODAY and other media reported that some U.S. telecoms also shared customer calling information with the National Security Agency as part of an anti-terrorism program that the administration has not confirmed.

"The immunity isn't just for (warrantless) wiretapping," Rose said. "It's for databases and who knows what else? The blanket immunity may cover (surveillance) programs we don't even know about yet."

(more at link)
<http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-11-27-FISA... >

[alfredo]

10. UPI is a Moonie organization. Don't trust them.

[HuffleClaw]

3. erm, retroactive ?

is that even legal ?

[Up2Late]

4. legal? Bush and his ReThuglican stooges don't "get" legal.

That's just a technicality to them.

But to answer your question, No, it's not legal, but Bush doesn't care, he thinks he can just change the law now and it will all be O.K.

[Zorra]

5. "..sharing private customer data." "It's for databases..." Fucking communist

unites with fascist authoritarian dictatorship bullshit is what this bill is.

Corporate Government Databases

That's what these are, folks. How long before we see a return of debtor prisons, and corporations using the criminal justice system to collect debts for them.

[aggiesal]

6. I thought that Sen. DiFi voted to keep the language of ...

non-immunity in the senate's bill coming out of the Judiciary Committee?
Why is there a bill with immunity language making the rounds of the Senate?

One good point, Sen. Dodd has already stated that he will filibuster any
bill that contains immunity language.

But with the Judiciary Committee voting to not have immunity language put
in their bill, was a good sign, because it would be harder to get 60 votes to
insert an amendment containing immunity language, then it would be to get
40 votes to sustain a filibuster on a bill that already contained immunity language.

How accurate is this story?

[DCKit]

7. Only as far back as 9/11?

From what I've heard, we'd have an even better case against them for the spying conducted PRIOR to 9/11. Only Qwest denied access and the retaliation against them was vindictive and ILLEGAL.

[underpants]

9. Exactly there ARE pre9/11 instances here

Oh and if it was done in the "previous administration" that should be exposed and prosecuted as well

[Javaman]

8. Weeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

who's that knocking at my door? who's that knocking at my door? who's that knocking at my door?

who's that listening in on my calls? who's that listening in on my calls? who's that listening in on my calls?

who's that tracking my websites? who's that tracking my websites? who's that tracking my websites?

We have computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that's not allowed.