The Associated Press broke this story yesterday and it was on the cover of the New York Times this morning (Wednesday):
The Senate has "handed the White House a major victory" by voting yesterday to broaden the government's unwarranted and controversial wiretapping program, and the President is urging the House to follow suit. The legislation, passed 68 to 29, extends the time frame that the government can eavesdrop without warrants on private citizens, as well as providing retroactive protection to the phone companies that complied with the illegal surveillance. You can read the full AP article here: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/T/TERRORIST_SURVEILLANCE?SITE=FLTAM...
AT&T, Verizon, and apparently any other companies dealing with their customers' private information are now effectively immune from criticism or litigation in any form when subverting the expectation of privacy from their customer base. Dozens of individuals have tried to bring lawsuits against their phone companies who willingingly cooperated with the government's wiretapping programs by spying on them, and this legislation retroactively guarantees immunity to the cooperating companies, as well as ensuring them that they can continue to cooperate with the program without fear of suits against them from customers. By willingly cooperating with the government by handing over their customers' phone records and allowing wiretapping without warrants, these companies are not only violating their own privacy policies but are also becoming puppets for civil liberties violations at the hand of our government, a dangerous precedent for corporations in this country.
The legislation is supposedly used to track foreign correspondance, not local communication (as if it matters; the elimination of the need for a warrant given probable cause is despicable enough). Who is ensuring that the government is only tracking suspected terrorist communication to different countries? Who is the watchdog for abuse of this policy? When government spies come across anything illegal - yet unrelated to terrorist activity - is that evidence permissible in a case against the individual? Previously a warrant was needed to wiretap or otherwise eavesdrop on private conversations. Now no such permission is needed; carte blanche for Big Brother to look in on you, at any time, without your knowledge or consent, and without any reasonable suspicion that you'd done anything wrong. The Constitution is being repeatedly eroded before our very eyes. What do we plan to do about this? What CAN we do?
Recall the original Patriot Act, passed shortly after 9/11 in 2001 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act). Provisions of the original act, including the roving wiretaps, were struck down in court for violating the Fourth Amendment. Revised versions of the Act have been passed in 2005 and 2006, extending the time period for spying and trying to circumnavigate the court's decisions in challeges to its Constitutionality. Time will tell for this newest revision, if it gets through the House. Sad to say, it will remain until someone is screwed over by it and stands up to fight it.
If you can, call your Representatives and tell them to reject this bill!
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