Posted on 05/19/2006 10:11:40 AM PDT by Dog
In 1994 Sen. Pat "Leaky" Leahy co-wrote a law that forced telecommunications carriers to build convenient wiretap features into their networks enabling the kind of telephone records collection now at the heart of the controversy over the National Security Agency's terrorist surveillance operation.
In recent days Leahy has called the NSA's actions troubling and potentially illegal - saying they show that the Bush administration is treating Americans like terrorists.
"'The secret collection of phone call records of tens of millions of Americans?" he exclaimed after USA Today blew the lid off the program last week. "Are you telling me that tens of millions of Americans are involved with al-Qaeda?"
But according to the Rutland Herald, Leahy was singing a different tune 12 years ago, when he was pushing the Senate to pass his bill, the Communication Assistance for Law Enforcement Act [CALEA].
Civil libertarians are also troubled by Leahy's law. "The secret search and wiretap provisions could lead to an age of Big Brother-like surveillance," the American Civil Liberties Union complained in the same Law Journal report. "Americans who oppose U.S. policies and who are believed to have ties to foreign powers could find their homes broken into and their telephones tapped."
"I suggest to senators if anybody does want to hold [CALEA] up, I hope that at this time next year, neither they nor their constituents, nor anybody they know, is a kidnap victim or victim of a terrorist, and have somebody ask why nothing can be done, and be told because a law that had probably 99 percent support in the House and the Senate did not pass." Contacted by the Herald earlier this week, Leahy said there was an important difference between what his law authorized and the actions taken by the Bush administration.
"That law talks of the technology of the interception and what technology can be used to intercept and it assumes very clearly that it can only be done with a warrant," the Vermont Democrat insisted.
Some legal experts say, however, said that assumption is not as clear as Leahy claims. Analyzing CALEA in 2003, the Rutgers Computer & Technology Law Journal explained:
"CALEA requires a telecommunications provider to make 'its equipment, facilities, or services ... capable of ... enabling the government ... [without a warrant] to intercept ... all wire and electronic communications carried by the carrier.'"
Isn't the internet fantastic.
We use the internet time machine to go back in time to find that Leahy during the Clintoon raping and pilaging of Americans should be impeached and sent to jail for what he did according to he and his peers today.
I'm confused. Did the NSA really capture the records? Or was the USA Today article wrong?
Well, that was then, this is now. bwahahahahaha. And Clinton was President, and....yada yada. Point is these people flip flop all the time. Most major Democrats were in favor of going into Iraq, but come 2004 those same people were against it. Whatever suits them at the time, or whatever their push polls are telling them. There is no consistency, no pattern, no way of knowing which way these people will turn as moods change. One thing can be said about GW, once he sets a course he sticks with it. And consistency is important on the world politic.
ROFLMFAO.
FILTHY, HYPOCRITICAL, TREASONOUS DEMS.
A ball peen hammer applied to his lower mandible might stop his disclosing of classified comm security methods that protect us from the "bad guys"!
A little enjoyment for your day!
Poor Leaky. He just can't get a break now can he? To bad, so sad!
Before the internet....these DC crooks could tell the public anything and we'd believe them. NO LONGER...Thank The Lord for the internet. These crooks get caught everytime....LOL
Ping-a-ling
Great. Pleases add the Sssssssss, golum, golum.
Wow, can you find the names of the $inators who signed this bill. This is amazing:
SEC. 103. ASSISTANCE CAPABILITY REQUIREMENTS.
(a) CAPABILITY REQUIREMENTS- Except as provided in subsections (b), (c), and (d) of this section and sections 108(a) and 109(b) and (d), 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, to intercept, to the exclusion of any other communications, all wire and electronic communications carried by the carrier within a service area to or from equipment, facilities, or services of a subscriber of such carrier concurrently with their transmission to or from the subscriber's equipment, facility, or service, or at such later time as may be acceptable to the government;
(2) expeditiously isolating and enabling the government, pursuant to a court order or other lawful authorization, to access call-identifying information that is reasonably available to the carrier--
(A) before, during, or immediately after the transmission of a wire or electronic communication (or at such later time as may be acceptable to the government); and
(B) in a manner that allows it to be associated with the communication to which it pertains, except that, with regard to information acquired solely pursuant to the authority for pen registers and trap and trace devices (as defined in section 3127 of title 18, United States Code), such call-identifying information shall not include any information that may disclose the physical location of the subscriber (except to the extent that the location may be determined from the telephone number);
(3) delivering intercepted communications and call-identifying information to the government, pursuant to a court order or other lawful authorization, in a format such that they may be transmitted by means of equipment, facilities, or services procured by the government to a location other than the premises of the carrier; and
(4) facilitating authorized communications interceptions and access to call-identifying information unobtrusively and with a minimum of interference with any subscriber's telecommunications service and in a manner that protects--
(A) the privacy and security of communications and call-identifying information not authorized to be intercepted; and
(B) information regarding the government's interception of communications and access to call-identifying information.
bttt
Be nice to Gollum (Smeagol), he is not as bad the Democrats!
Sometimes a story shows up on FR that just makes all the bad ones worth wading through...
LOVE IT...first, Leahy "leaked"...and now he is being shown for the buffoon, lying sleazeball that he really is.
REMEMBER FOLKS: I we don't vote in Nov...or vote 3rd Party...LEAHY would be the Chairman of the MOST POWERFUL Judiciary Committee...think SCOTUS judges, if nothing else.
I often wonder how many of these "outraged" Sneators were either complicit in the enabling legislation as Leaky appears to be, or were in the notification loop and are playing dumb. I wish we'd hear specifics, not just that "leadership" was notified but, "hey, we told Senators A, B, C, and D."
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