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Look at this! Reps think they should be excluded from the monitoring.... We officially have Tyranny folks!
Quote:
Attorney General Eric Holder on Thursday refused to answer whether the federal government has monitored phones belonging to members of Congress.
Holder was asked to provide assurances that no phones inside the Capitol or belonging to lawmakers were monitored, one day after the bombshell revelation that the government secretly collected the phone records of millions of Verizon customers inside the U.S.
“With all due respect, senator, I don’t think this is an appropriate setting for me to discuss that issue,” Holder said in response to a question from Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) during a previously scheduled Senate hearing to discuss the Justice Department’s budget. “I’d be more than glad to come back in an appropriate setting to discuss the issues you have raised.”
Kirk interjected that “the correct answer would be no, we stayed within our lane, and I assure you we did not spy on members of Congress.”
If something happens every single year, how does it make it news ?
Actually, it appears it happens every three months. The difference is, we haven't seen the TOP SECRET court order before, and this court order suggests that the FISA judges are simply blanket-stamping the requests, not determining if they are Constitutional. Since the court orders are TOP SECRET and aren't available to the public, it's been impossible to challenge their Constitutionality. While the existence of the courts and the court orders were known, the courts have upheld the Constitutionality of their existence, but not of their actions.
The administration will be on the hunt now for whomever leaked this court order, and will try to make the case that no one can sue to block NSA from seizing these records. But the court order is a potential game-changer. And that's why it's news.
The National Security Administration is collecting telephone records of Verizon customers, according to a report by the U.K.-based The Guardian. The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing According to The Guardian, a court order "requires Verizon on an 'ongoing, daily basis' to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries." Click here to view the court order, as posted on The Guardian's website. The order does not specify whether the phone records are related to Verizon's landline or wireless businesses, or both.
Americans kill me with their fake outrage and freaking amnesia.
Americans by huge margins supported the War in Iraq, they supported the whole idea of pre-emptive wars, they supported the whole concept of a war on terror, they supported indefinite detention, and most importantly Americans supported the Patriot Act, which greatly expanded power of the government to spy on Americans in order to fight the perpetual war on terror.
Now much like the disastrous Iraqi war, nobody claims it.
ABC news Poll June 9. 2005
Percentages that Support ...
Democrats Republicans Independents
Extending Patriot Act? 43% 80% 54%
Suffolk University Poll May 17, 2011
In their telephone poll, 58 percent said the Patriot Act is necessary, even when the poll question noted that some "say that it gives the government too much power and invades privacy." Just 31 percent said it puts too much power in the hands of the federal government.
Currently, about as many Democrats say the law is a necessary tool as say it goes too far (35% vs. 40%). In January 2006, 25% said it was a necessary tool while about twice as many (53%) said it goes too far.
Over the same period, the proportion of Republicans who view the Patriot Act as a necessary tool that helps the government find terrorists has declined slightly, from 65% to 57%
This is the section of the Patriot that the federal government used with an explanation and support for the law from the Heritage Foundation.
2. Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act: Business Record Orders under FISA. Domestic prosecutors routinely rely on business records and other concrete evidence to prove a wide variety of criminal charges from simple theft to homicide. Law enforcement, working with local prosecutors, acquires this evidence throughout the course of an investigation, often through the use of a subpoena. However, national security agents did not have the same authority to acquire similar evidence prior to the passage of Section 215. They had to obtain a court order and were limited to those records held by a business that was a “common carrier, public accommodation facility, physical storage facility or vehicle rental facility.”
Section 215 eliminated those arbitrary, dangerously narrow and self-limiting provisions but required that the records sought are relevant to an authorized investigation. However, unlike a standard prosecutor-issued subpoena, or even a grand jury subpoena, an order issued under Section 215 requires FISA court approval. In other words, Congress inserted a federal judge between investigators and potential suspects. Furthermore, the law requires substantial congressional oversight.
This provision allows law enforcement, with approval from the FISA court, to require disclosure of documents and other records from businesses and other institutions without a suspect’s knowledge. Third-party recipients of Section 215 orders can appeal the order to the FISA court.
Section 215 further protects civil liberties by requiring additional approval for document requests that might have the slightest relation to freedom of speech and expression, such as library records.
As Wainstein testified, “There is no reason to return to the days when it is easier for prosecutors to secure records in a simple assault prosecution than for national security investigators to obtain records that may help prevent the next 9/11.”
This is a court order issued in April of this year, .
The sheep dont understand that.
Because the sheep don't know what's going on.
They just take what is told to them at face value.
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