wiretaps?

First, if you don't think this is a good idea, follow this link and help make some noise. I'm gonna go and do that.

https://secure.eff.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=337

Maybe a phone call or two is a good idea too. The more the merrier.

Second, if you are not sure where you stand on this, let's have a thread!

We've got one telco that stepped up and did the right thing and that's Qwest. They are in court right now for it too. Bizzare really.

The rest, just went ahead and took the money, perks, etc... and broke the law. They did this prior to 9/11, and are doing it right freaking now. No warrants, no post tap record, almost no oversight period.

That's pretty dangerous stuff, don't you think?

I'm concerned (pretty deeply concerned) over the precedent being established too. If we let this stand, essentially don't follow through on the accountability, then we are really saying that the law does not apply to everyone equally, and that more or less violates the core idea of self governance for the people and by the people.

That's no longer America as we all knew it. Think really hard about that and what it means.

I think it means terrorists won, for one thing. Sure, this stuff was going on prior to 9/11, and had 9/11 not happened, perhaps it might have come out and been handled differently.

Perhaps not too. That's all very dangerous as what we value, what we don't, what we enforce, what we don't, at a national / government level, then becomes highly arbitrary! In that case, we the people generally lose as there is little to no incentive for our interests to be upheld, given the greater speech and economic power both corporations and political blocs present.

Lots of divisive politics don't help this much. In fact, they've been a primary enabler. I've been somewhat vocal about that and this kind of thing is why.

Divisive politics presents us with false choices. Save the unborn, or fix the wire tapping. Stop the gays from getting married, or deal with the blatent unethical use of the judicary. It goes on and on and on.

Not good.

I submit to you all here, we are all Americans first. This is core stuff people. This is one of the money plays. It's not just about seeing ones pet values and or morality get legislated any more. The costs are higher --much higher.

This is about the rule of law, period end of story. If we surrender it now, for whatever reason, be it political, moral, financial, we surrender it for a really long time, if forever.

Do we really want that, as citizens here? Are those issues really worth erasing what our founders fought so hard to win for us?

If you are not gonna make a call on this, let's talk about why.

Done. ...even though I suspect "America as we know it" has been over and done with for some time.

Yeah, about 7+ years.

"...even though I suspect 'America as we know it' has been over and done with for some time."

I think "America as we know it" would be a lot less like it used to be if our security, and economy were in shambles due to repeated terror attacks. The article mentions that we may not ever know the full extent of what the phone companies revealed. We may also never know how much good was done from this. It may have prevented terror attacks.

I'd rather have terror attacks than have my government spying on me.

Vitology,
Thank you for just coming out and saying what you believe. I could not disagree with you more, and I happen to think your opinion is dangerous. What good is liberty without life? It just makes no sense to me. But I respect your candor.

What good is life without liberty? The chances of you being affected by government corruption are much higher than being affected by a terrorist attack. In fact, you'd have better odds of winning Powerball two times in a row, than being killed in a terrorist attack.

I believe the government can properly protect us without spying on it's citizens, therefore, I choose to preserve my privacy and constitutional rights rather than sell them out for a smidgen more protection.

Interesting.

Well, if one carries the liberty without life idea out some distance, one arrives at the idea our system of government does not work.

Has anyone demonstrated we cannot deal with terror without violating equality of law? That's really what we are talking about here, at the core.

There is a case for the law being flawed some how, unable to cope with terror. Honestly, I would go there. We've got some stuff in law that's probably not the best overall.

Shouldn't we then embrace our system, debate the changes, make them, then continue to address terror?

Unless I missed something, that just was not done. Until it is, I don't think anybody can meet their burden for violating equality of law, and that strikes right to the core of what is liberty without life?

For me personally, this is a major equality issue. If we stand on that, and apply the law in that fashion, we end up with the classic American balance between freedom and regulation.

If we surrender that, then we also surrender equality and a lot of important stuff goes as well. That's a pretty high price to pay for the perception of security.

Sorry to be long, but that has to be said too. Read this closely, then read it again:

There is no absolute security. None, nada. If others are willing to die to accomplish some goal, they are gonna be able to accomplish it.

We are being asked to accept the idea that we cannot apply our system of government and deal with terror. Had anyone demonstrated we won't see another attack if we allow these things to continue?

Can anyone even demonstrate that's even possible?

Given that, why bother paying the price then?

Better to not pay it, refuse to live a lie, be who we are, and stand on that, rather than fear and self-interest.

I've not seen the case made for a good return otherwise, and that's really what it all comes down to, isn't it?

Done. Thanks, Missing, for bringing this up.

Let's ask Brandon Mayfield how he feels about being spied upon by his own government. How this can turn neighbor against neighbor.

Blind trust in the government's "the end justifies the means" philosophy is what scares me. It's the same as "guilty until proven innocent" IMHO.

I am tired of fear running things.

BTW: Security is all about risk / reward.

So, we've got terrorists willing to die, in order to get some things done. At the core, terrorists want change. That manifests as releasing prisoners, impacting markets, all sorts of things. The core however is change.

Going back then to the topic at hand, our core American ideals of equality and self-governance for the people and by the people, changed the world! What kind of statement are we making when we allow something like 9/11 to surrender that?

Doesn't that mean, at the core, we were flat out wrong?

Really willing to go there? If so, why?

"Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death."

-Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775

That's so completely and totally American. Remember hearing that quote in grade school. Thought about it all week long!

Standing for something, and I mean really just drinking the kool-aid, is powerful. It's also kind of scary too. That kind of conviction can't come lightly. If it does, one puts themselves at considerable risk! Maybe risk with no real return.

To be able to say that, mean it, live it, means that one has fear under control, is rational, and of character. Love it.

"The chances of you being affected by government corruption are much higher than being affected by a terrorist attack".

So in your view, the only consideration is how YOU are affected? I'm weighing the risk of terrorism killing SOMEONE, versus the risk of me being inconvenienced. BTW- I don't agree that monitoring phone calls is likely to threaten me. I don't participate in any legal activity, nor am I suspected of it by anyone. Let the government listen in to phone calls. What's the worst that can happen? We catch a few more criminals?

I wish people would realize that their lives are generally not interesting enough to arouse the suspicions of the federal government. IN the words of Bill Maher, "if you want your phone calls to be private, stop making them in line at Starbucks!"

**I don't participate in any ILLEGAL activities, that is.**

Shane, I have a client who is from Russia who recently told me that "this is why they left Russia". Pretty powerful stuff to hear that from a guy with a thick Russian accent.

"I don't agree that monitoring phone calls is likely to threaten me."

So you think. I'm sure Brandon Mayfield probably thought the same thing.

If the government must listen to my conversations, they should do so with oversight (warrant). Otherwise you're asking for an abuse of power by someone who's not accountable to anyone.

"I don't agree that monitoring phone calls is likely to threaten me. I don't participate in any legal activity, nor am I suspected of it by anyone."

This is usually the way that discussions about privacy are framed- but it is completely wrong.

First of all, it assumes you are guilty before proven innocent. From your perspective, government has the right to search your stuff, or listen to your phone calls, with the presumption that we are all potentially guilty. And, that the only way to disprove the guilt is to let the government see and listen to everything about you - in essence, you have to prove your innocence after they have decided you are guilty.

And, why should I feel the only information about myself that I have a right to keep private are things that might make me look guilty of a crime? What about that phone discussion I had with my wife about our sexual preferences in bed? That profanity-laden conference call I had with my friends after a night of debauchery in St. Louis? That phone call to my co-worker at home saying what I really feel about my boss? Nothing criminal in any of this stuff, but I damned well should be able to keep them private.

Don't start letting government set the terms of what personal information you can and cannot keep private. Otherwise, you run counter to the basic tenants of American liberty.

There is another element in play here too.

If, we are monitored at any time --or the idea that we could be monitored at any time is out there and accepted, then expression, in particular, political expression then is chilled for no solid reason.

Speech then cannot act as an effective check on government as it is supposed to. That's a flat out violation of the first amendment. We simply do not regulate speech, without their being a known harm attached to the regulation.

Allowing government access to our communications, without some level of oversight, is essentially regulating political speech.

Taken a bit farther then, who is to say those private entities performing the service, being exempt from the law, won't then leverage that access for their own benefit, at our expense?

These kinds of things then pose a fairly high threat to any one of us personally. Maybe our minor conversations don't matter, but the changes to how the nation runs most likely will have more than a passing impact.

If those changes do not serve our best interests, that's a threat. Our history is filled with oppressive governments dominating and exploiting the people. Here in the present day, I don't see people having changed in that regard. That means if we allow the same conditions to arise, they will manifest themselves in the same fashion they always have, and that's not ever good for the ordinary, "I'm not a criminal" citizen.

Dealing with this whole dynamic is exactly why we have the first amendment in the first place!

Again, has anyone demonstrated we cannot deal with terror without surrendering these core things?

Without that, anybody willing to give these things up, is getting essentially nothing in return. Why do that, when it's not demonstrated it's necessary?

Well I think there should be "some level of oversight", as MissingKSKD put it. I don't want the government to have unfettered access to our phone calls. However, I want a process for quick judicial approval of wire tapping when necessary. I mean a phone call, a quick description of the evidence, and it's approved.

Hey, that's common ground then!

I feel the same way. Honestly, I really don't care if they get a post-tap warrant. That's nice and quick, if needed to take advantage of the moment and intelligence. So long as some enduring record is there for post analysis, I think the requirement for oversight is met. With that comes our first amendment protections too.

But there has just gotta be something.

I think that a lot of places are less free today than they were in the 1990s; this is not just an American problem. According to a discussion that I ran across on one of the SDF.ORG bulletin boards, some Western European countries have enacted legislation that makes it very easy for governmental agencies to eavesdrop on telephone conversations and e-mail. The person who talked about this legislation said that this was the reason why having an e-mail account, accessed through a VPN (Virtual Private Network) with SDF was so important to him. For the non-technical, what this means is that this guy sends and receives his e-mails using a server that is geographically outside of the jurisdiction of the country he lives in, and he accesses the server with an encrypted connection.

I do have a limited amount of sympathy for the politicians with regards to the terrorism issue: after 9/11 happened, most people wanted to see that the police, airport security, the government, etc. were doing something. Although one could easily cite statistics showing that one is much more likely to get killed or have one's property damaged by a meth-head or a drunk driver than a terrorist, it would have been political suicide for a person in office to say this back in 2001. Even today, the "court of public opinion" might not look favorably on a comment like this.

No immunity for now.

http://chrisdodd.com/blog/constitution-protected...-now