Hamlet
I’m not offended or a wilting flower, but frankly, the insults don’t add anything to your points, and they take a lot away from it, and they make you look small stupid (though I don’t think you’re either,) and they make me not really care to take you or your points seriously.
I’m sorry I missed the points in earlier posts that you wanted me to respond to, so, I’ll go and look tomorrow, and respond. Okay?
This cite goes on to give the exact wording of the law. I understand it to say that either a court order (warrant?) or direction from the Attorney General (the “or other” part) is required. I’m not clear though, on whether they are talking about specific orders, as required, from the AG pertaining to a specific case - for example ordering the surveilance of one guy for something, or if it authorizes the AG to make a blanket order for “anything that turns up anywhere” - such as fishing expeditions that surveill everyone. It really doesn’t say what scope such an order covers (or I missed it). It seems that blanket large scale data mining could be looked at as violating the “the public’s right to privacy”.
The exact quote that I could find, requires “a telecommunications carrier shall ensure that its equipment, facilities, or services that provide a customer or subscriber with the ability to originate, terminate, or direct communications are capable of (1) expeditiously isolating and enabling the government, pursuant to a court order or other lawful authorization …” I could find nothing in CALEA that authorizes the government to obtain telephone records, pen registers, or much of anything else, without a court order. It was, in general, a law made to force the telecommunications industry to make it easy to comply with the requirements of law enforcement, but it said (again from what I could find) absolutely nothing about those requirements. It’s my distinct impression that, since it has nothing to do with the authorization of law enforcement actions, it’s a complete red herring that is thrown out as a defense because it has nice language.
Again, I don’t believe CALEA says much of anything about what is required by law enforcement to obtain wiretaps, pen registers, or telephone records. It would be better to look at what law enforcement is required to do (A brief introduction by the DOJ to get information and what Congress has said in the Stored Communications Act.
Works for me.
Thank you. So, then, my original assessment was pretty well in the ball park then? When I said I couldn’t find anything that actually or clearly says when this authorization applies. It talked about courts, and the AG, but said nothing about the important and specific stuff -when, where, why, who and how. In other words, a very badly written law (?).
It’s not a badly written law, it just was never meant to do what it is purported to do. If my reading is correct, it was never intended to set the standards for the government obtaining telephone records, wiretaps, or pen registers.
The best part of watching the nearly-but-not-quite-yet-complete self-destruction of Bricker over the last few months came to me in a startling moment of clarity a few days ago while I read one his posts ( on pedophelia ). He will lose his Clearance as soon as he loses his temper just far enough to post something he shouldn’t.
That day can’t come soon enough for me. Splitting hairs in a pathetic frothing attempt to defend President Bush’s spin on domestic spying is lame at best and toadying to the Intelligence community at worst.
One suspects you will have to find another place to peddle your wares once you’re no longer welcome in McLean. 
Now, to the OP. The fuss over EZ Pass, or Cellular telephones or anything else that can be routinely and easily used to track our movements and communications always surprises me. GPS locating means that I can be tracked as I speak on my cellular phone to within 10 feet ( give or take ). Why should this worry me? I’m not guilty of anything, and am a free citizen of the U.S.A. I go where I please, travel by air when I please, sleep where I please. Where is the Facist constriction on my personal freedoms that should be outraging me? It isn’t an existing fact. The issue of mining for data shouldn’t worry anyone who doesn’t have something significant to hide.
The Gummint doesn’t care if you are fucking you’re partner’s husband. They only care if you are trying to lay waste to the Republic. I’m a big fan of Free Speech and my Rights, but I don’t see that I have a right to ultimate privacy when using a mode of communication or free movement that by it’s very design permits real-time tracking of movements.
Cartooniverse
You can be tracked pretty well whenever you have your phone with you too.
yes, technology has made advances- so the fuck what? while it was always capable of searching my house, the law was not allowed to w/o a judge’s ok, probable cause. collectively and individually, we are allowed to live our lives w/o undue intrusion into our personal lives. you may be ok w/giving it up, I’m not.
http://www.askcalea.net/faqs.html#19
So, in the Q and A section, it says this law was meant only to describe what the various carriers were expected to do, when directed to allow surveillance on their services. Period. As I said before, legal authorization is still required. I noticed in this Q and A section also, that it refers to FISA for the rules defining just what may be surveilled - foreign agents and foreign government activity, and gives a date of 1978 for FISA.
Since Scylla was willing to give me the benefit of the doubt, I owe him the same. We can always fight another day.
Semantic nitpick: It’s not that we are allowed to life without interference; it’s that we are entitled to it. A subtle but significant distinction.
agree - ‘let the record reflect the wording change suggested’
all in favor?(chorus of ‘ayes’)
opposed? (crickets)
motion carries.
next item on the agenda…
Pat Roberts, republican chairman of the senate intelligence committe, is no cricket:
A fuckin traitor to the principles of our founding fathers perhaps, but not a cricket.
assholes like Roberts aren’t allowed at my meetings. 
Roberts is a coward, a traitor and a general scumbag. People like him are a big problem in this country. We used to think the Commies were the big threat. They were the villains who wanted to destroy freedom (better DEAD than red). We’ve turned into a country of pansies, who want Nanny Government to protect us from the bogeyman at all costs. We surrender our freedoms, so the monster in the closet won’t get us.
Give me liberty or give me death. - Patrick Henry
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen. -Samuel Adams
“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.” - James Madison
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. --William Pitt
If you’re not ready to die for it, put the word ‘‘freedom’’ out of your vocabulary. - Malcolm X
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? - Who watches the watchmen?" - Juvenal, Satires
"We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home. " - Edward R. Murrow
The CBS show 60 Minutes asked eleven hundred Americans how they felt about pieces of the Bill of Rights — without telling them where the questions came from.
A majority in 1970 believed the government should be allowed to suppress news stories it doesn’t like and to ban even peaceful demonstrations. So much for the First Amendment. A majority thought prosecutors should be able to try an acquitted suspect a second time for the same crime. So much for the Fifth. And most people told CBS that police should be allowed to hold a suspect until enough evidence is gathered for a conviction. So much for the Eighth, which bars excessive bail.
As John Mitchell put it in a speech soon after the 60 Minutes show, ‘Americans don’t like the Constitution.’
–Dan Baum, Smoke and Mirrors
The right to privacy is protected under the Constitution in various ways - John Roberts
On civil rights and the war on terror: “Many think it not only inevitable but entirely proper that liberty give way to security in times of national crisis–that, at the extremes of military exigency, inter arma silent leges. Whatever the general merits of the view that war silences law or modulates its voice, that view has no place in the interpretation and application of a Constitution designed precisely to confront war and, in a manner that accords with democratic principles, to accommodate it.” Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (2004) – Antonin Scalia
Statutes authorizing unreasonable searches were the core concern of the framers of the 4th Amendment. – Sandra Day O’Connor
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060521/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/prosecuting_reporters
So. There were reports and rumbles that this datamining would be used against the press. now we see that it is. So far, we’ve cancelled the first, fifth, eighth and what other amendments?
We are at WAR dam it, none of the amendments will be allowed to inhibit our glorious president’s ability to provide for the safety of our great nation.
War is Peace.
Black is white.
Good is bad.
Why do you hate America?
Hamlet:
I looked at the two posts you made subsequent to my posts 135-137 wherein you provided good information about Echelon and Bush’s program.
I did thank you for the good information, and I did respond. I honestly don’t know what it is you’re upset about my not responding to.
If you’ll tell me specifically, I’ll respond.
I guess the main question Hamlet and Steve and I have been poking around is the substance of the “by a warrant or other lawful means” part of the act.
If the Pres, asks requisitions the info by claiming it’s in the interests of National Security, is that enough?
If it is enough, should it be?
Do you agree that, if true, the NSA’s obtaining telephone records violated the law? If you don’t, why not?
Do you agree think tat obtaining telephone records and the wiretapping are different facets of the same general program? Do you agree that actual wiretapping telephone lines is illegal also?
Do you agree the Echelon program, or accusations about Clinton, have nothing to do with this administrations actions?
Do you think Frank is cute? Do you want to take him to the big dance?
How do you picture the database being used by the NSA?
Do you have a different reading of the statute you cited to (CALEA) than either I or SteveG do?
How could CALEA, which does nothing to redefine the requirements of law enforcement to obtain telephone records, have any legal relevance to your argument?
Can we agree to dismiss the following arguements: 1) Anyone can get telephone records on the open market, so it’s not a problem. 2) It’s somehow OK because a majority of people polled don’t seem to mind. 3) That because Kennedy, Pelosi, or Hillary are complaining about the president’s actions, it’s all just political grandstanding.
No long answers are necessary, we’ll see where we can go from here.
Based on some of the co’s like Bellsouths (iirc) denials, I have know idea if it even occurred. If it did happen, I don’t know under what circumstances or rationale, and I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t know it was legal or not.
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Do you agree think tat obtaining telephone records and the wiretapping are different facets of the same general program?
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Right now, I think not. I’m guessing the international wiretapping is something that Bush authorized seperate to what had been previously going on with Echelon, and that the telephone record database from the records allegedly given over to the NSA is more a part of Echelon, just taken to the next stage.
Again, I’m not married to that, just my best guess.
No. You paint to broadly. There’s all kinds of legal ways to do it: get a warrant first, get a warrant later, the nebulous “other legal means,” and I do think the President does have the authority to wiretap by executive order in the service of National Security.
Well, no. Quite the opposite. To a certain extent Bush must work with legacy of programs that Clinton and previous Presidents created. He can’t recreate government from scratch. What Echelon does or doesn’t do, and the legal reaction that ensues (or doesn’t) creates a precedent for better or worse. Furthermore, I’d suggest that outcries from Democrats who helped set up these programs under their watch, are suspect to charges of hypocrisy and political expediency which may undermine the arguments they make.
Only if you weren’t planning on asking him.
I see it being used perfectly with restraint and caution in the pure service of National Security in the best of intentions. For a while. Inevitably though, I see the restraint caution and controls becoming more lax as time goes by. I see upper and midlevel politicians and bureaucrats taking shortcuts, and I see them at first sneaking data for personal or political use, or getting it under false pretenses. Eventually, like the rest of government it becomes a sieve in terms of security. Not only does it become a tool of political and bureacratic muckraking, it becomes true domestic spying as any pretense may garner access.
Why don’t you help me out here and let me know where you stand, succinctly, if you would, to be sure I don’t misinterpret what I’m disagreeing or agreeing with.
I think it’s a problem that anyone can get these records. I think the argument can be made if these records are so obtainable that they are already in the public provenance than there really is no further loss of privacy if the government also looks at them. How does that sound?
I dunno. We are a representative Democracy. And, there’s a big question as to what people don’t mind. If I could ask you if you would object to a computerized cross-referencing of phone records that occured securely and automatically with strict controls that would be implemented solely to prevent terrorist attacks, and for nothing else, I would think that would be ok. Probably, you would to. Probably the majority of Americans would. Likely, in the polling, this is what they are thinking when they say it’s ok?
If we are to ask if it was ok for the government to garner phone records to conduct investigations at will, for whatever purpose or expediency, it desired, without respect to anybody’s privacy, I imagine the polling numbers would be different. The question is, what specifically, are the majority in favor of, is it necessary, and can it be done legally? If not, should the law be changed to make it so.
I never said it was all political grandstanding (at least I think I didn’t,) but I think their grandstanding insomuch as it fuels the scandal and politicization of this issue both among partisand and in the media makes it necessary for us to be very careful about the truth of what we are being told.
I sincerely beleive the administration is understating this program and it’s opponents are overstating it. Because of this we really don’t have anybody who’s simply telling us the whole truth without service to a secondary consideration. So, I think we need to examine and arguments in this light, and we cannot simply dismiss it.
Good questions. I tried to give them the thought and sincerity they deserved. I hope you’ll do the same in your reply.