The House
just passed an amendment to the Senate Amendment to the Protect America Act that strips out immunity for telecommunications providers. Instead, the new provision allows a secure court to review evidence explaining why telecoms provided wiretaps for the government without proper authorization.
The Republicans pulled out the stops, procedural and rhetorical, to pass this bill with immunity intact. Today, the House had a secret session for the first time in 25 years, where Republicans tried to explain why retroactive immunity is necessary. Last month, they
walked out of the chamber in protest. Back then, Randy Kuhl
posted a blog entry which warned that the expiration of the PAA would have dire consequences for the nation, yet he voted against an extension. Today, President Bush
said that the PAA is needed for "our children to be safe from terror." Bush maintains this line even after repeated audits have shown that the current surveillance powers have been
consistently abused by the FBI.
The Senate could still try to strip out immunity, but it sounds like the House has come to a compromise that might work. Of course, Kuhl voted against it, along with every other Republican in Congress, even though his position a month ago was that we are in dire peril if the PAA isn't passed. He hasn't posted anything on his blog yet, but I'm eager to hear how this vote kept us safer.
Comments
"The study said that in 2006, FBI agents reported 84 possible intelligence violations involving the letters, and 34 of those were deemed serious enough to report to an intelligence oversight board."
So, out of a population of over 300,000,000 34 serious problems were found. To put that in perspective, if there were 10,000 times as many serious problems, it would amount to about one tenth of one percent of the population. I'll try not to loose any sleep over this one.
I thought you said you were a libertarian, Elmer.
For future reference, libertarians don't make excuses for unwarranted government intrusion. That's what Bush cultists do.
I can't agree at all, Elmer, and here's why:
First, those national security letters are pretty scary, because they demand information and the person receiving the letter has no appeal, and the letter has no judicial oversight. It's like a search warrant, which isn't issued by a judge and you can't tell anyone but your lawyer that you got one (not even your wife). And all your lawyer can say is "you must comply". NSLs are something that has a huge possible impact on the life and liberty of innocent people.
More reading here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter
Since the only oversight is the FBI's own, the 84/34 number is a self-report. Who knows what the number would be if a more skeptical and less self-interested body did the investigation. The FBI's use of these powerful letters has risen from 8,500 in 2000 to 47,000 in 2005. I can't believe that only 34 of those were a serious misuse when a program grows over 20X in 5 years. I got that stat from a WSJ overview which shows how the NSA and FBI have become intertwined since 9/11:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120511973377523845.html
Finally, the scale of what we won't know if telcom immunity is passed is potentially huge. An AT&T technician who noticed some of the surveillance hardware has said that it would enable the NSA to look at all AT&T Internet traffic. That's huge:
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/04/70621
The reason that the pressure for telcom immunity is so high is that what was done was so far-reaching that full revelation would cause lawsuits that might bankrupt a couple of telcos, and perhaps cause some leaders in the NSA and FBI to be brought up on criminal charges.
The libertarian is tempered in part by the time I spent working for Naval Intelligence. Good can come from these types of operations. Mistakes will be made for sure, as long as humans are running the show.