Sunday, June 28, 2009



Free speech vs. surveillance in the digital age

A good post from a Leftist site:
"Tools of mass communication that were once the province of governments and corporations now fit in your pocket. Cell phones can capture video and send it wirelessly to the Internet. People can send eyewitness accounts, photos and videos, with a few keystrokes, to thousands or even millions via social networking sites. As these technologies have developed, so too has the ability to monitor, filter, censor and block them....

Josh Silver, executive director of Free Press, a media policy group, says the actions of Iran and China should alert us to domestic surveillance issues in the U.S. He told me: “This technology that monitors everything that goes through the Internet is something that works, it’s readily available, and there’s no legislation in the United States that prevents the U.S. government from employing it. ... It’s widely known that the major carriers, particularly AT&T and Verizon, were being asked by the NSA [National Security Agency], by the Bush administration ... to deploy off-the-shelf technology made by some of these companies like Cisco.” The equipment formed the backbone of the “warrantless wiretapping” program.

Thomas Tamm was the Justice Department lawyer who blew the whistle on that program. In 2004, he called The New York Times from a subway pay phone and told reporter Eric Lichtblau about the existence of a secret domestic surveillance program. In 2007, the FBI raided his home and seized three computers and personal files. He still faces possible prosecution. Tamm told me: “I think I put my country first ... our government is still violating the law. I’m convinced ... that a lot more Americans have been illegally wiretapped than we know.”

The warrantless wiretapping program was widely considered illegal. After abruptly switching his position in midcampaign, then-Sen. Barack Obama voted along with most in Congress to grant telecom companies like AT&T and Verizon retroactive immunity from prosecution. The New York Times recently reported that the NSA maintains a database called Pinwale, with millions of intercepted e-mail, including some from former President Bill Clinton.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was recently asked by Sen. Russ Feingold if he felt that the original warrantless wiretap program was illegal:

Feingold: “[I]s there any doubt in your mind that the warrantless wiretapping program was illegal?”

Holder: “Well, I think that the warrantless wiretapping program, as it existed at that point, was certainly unwise, in that it was put together without the approval of Congress.”

Feingold: “But I asked you, Mr. Attorney General, not whether it was unwise, but whether you consider it to have been illegal.”

Holder: “The policy was an unwise one.”

Source

So Holder is leaving the way open to do just what the Left condemned GWB for doing. So if Obama wants to eavesdrop on the conversations of HIS version of "terrorists" -- such as ordinary American gun owners -- he can do so. Rather chilling to free speech!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

The hypocrites of the Left are always whining about "alleged" invasions of privacy, unless of course, they're the ones doing the invading. They certainly have no qualms about invading the privacy of their political enemies.

Personally, i am a law abiding American citizen with nothing to hide. If the govt. wants to waste their time looking at my emails, or keeping my cell number in some database, fine. I don't care, especially since private companies compile far more information about me than the govt. does, or cares to.. The current Leftist govt.'s quest to erase most of my freedoms is "far more" worrisome to me.

Anonymous said...

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss ... We won't get fooled again.

Anonymous said...

It's simple. In the American System of Govt., if the Executive is given a power, explicitly or implicitly, each Chief Executive (President), assumes that they may use that power until explicitly told otherwise. Of course, this assumes a great deal, because many powers assumed by presidents have been unconstitutional, i.e. Abraham Lincoln's suspension of the writ of habeas corpus for U.S. citizens during the Civil War.

Anonymous said...

I'm pretty sure we warned you guys about this. But oh no, it was fine when bush was doing it.

We tried to tell you that it doesn't matter if you trust the guy who you give that power to not to abuse it. We told you that thinking that you were forward thinking enough to realize that you wouldn't know who would be using that power AFTER him. But would you listen? Would you hell.

Well congratulations. You reap what you sow.

Anonymous said...

My understanding of the wiretapping program in question was that they were intercepting international phone calls that connected individuals in the US to others around the world in some not so friendly places. This to me is more of a grey area. Foreign intelligence organizations can also obtain the same thing from the telcom industry and provide it to the US.

mcnasty56 said...

"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss ... We won't get fooled again."

"We" already have been.

Robert said...

That's the problem with creating police-state powers - all it takes is for one corrupt politician to get elected to the office that wields those powers and abuse them. A lesson that I doubt will be lost on too many now.