The Senate just rejected 4th Amendment protections for your e-mails and texts.

http://paul.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=670

  Quote

Dec 27, 2012

WASHINGTON, D.C. - This evening, the U.S. Senate voted on amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments Act Reauthorization Act of 2012, H.R.5949, including one introduced by Sens. Rand Paul and Mike Lee (R-Utah). The amendment, known as the Fourth Amendment Protection Act extends Fourth Amendment guarantees to electronic communications and requires specific warrants granted through FISA courts in order to obtain this information.
Prior to the vote, Sen. Paul spoke on the floor, urging his colleagues to support his amendment. Below is a transcript and video of his remarks.
The amendment failed, 79-12.

Rand Paul defending Fourth Amendment:

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In describing the purpose of his proposal, Paul said, “This amendment would restore the Fourth Amendment protection to third party records. This amendment would simply apply the Fourth Amendment to modern means of communications. E-mailing and text messaging would be given the same protections we currently give to telephone conversations.”

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/congress/item/14043-fisa-renewal-vote-coming-this-week-rand-paul-defends-4th-amendment

Huffington Post Article:

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The program, which the Bush administration started without congressional authorization shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, collects intelligence on Americans who are communicating abroad with foreign "targets" designated by spy agencies like the CIA and National Security Agency. Critics, including NSA whistle-blowers, have raised fears that law-abiding Americans' communications are getting caught up in a vast, electronic dragnet of phone calls and emails.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/27/fisa-senate-vote_n_2372720.html

Call your reps and spread the word. The new form of communication in the 21st century needs to be protected and our elected officials should know better.

This sentence caught my eye in the huffpo article:

President Barack Obama has said he will sign the bill when it reaches his desk.

I kind of read it like he would sign ANY bill which would reach his desk. If any will reach his desk, that is.

But the thing is, how can you say you will sign a bill, when the bill is still being developed? (Assuming that it is still being developed) that's giving a carte blanche to whoever will write it. Me no comprende.

Some quotes:

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"It is never okay, never okay for government officials to use a general warrant to deliberately invade the privacy of a law-abiding American," Wyden said. "It wasn’t okay for constables and customs officials to do it in colonial days, and it’s not okay for the National Security Agency to do it today."

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While conceding that the bill could use some oversight improvements, Sen. Dianne Feinsten (D-Calif.), the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, urged passage of the bill without alteration to avoid prompting both a fight with the House of Representatives, which has already passed a "clean," unamended version of the bill, and also the program's expiration.

Without renewal, she said, "the program comes down. The program is interrupted."

She and other senators who favor an unamended bill cited procedures meant to minimize when Americans' intelligence is collected and used, as well as a secret court that oversees the program, as evidence that it is being used appropriately.

Feinstein did not elaborate on how the program, which authorizes year-long searches, would be interrupted by expiration. But pointing to a long list of interrupted terror plots since 9/11, she added that "There is a view of some that this country no longer needs to fear attack. I don't share that view."

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The details of that and other rulings about how FISA laws are actually being interpreted remain secret. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) offered an amendment to the surveillance bill that would have forced the government to declassify the rulings or at least summaries of them.

"If you have a phrase in the law, and it's been interpreted by a secret court and the interpretation is secret, then you really don't know what the law means," Merkley said. "We are certainly constrained form having the type of debate that our nation was founded upon -- an open discussion of issues."

But Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) responded that even a seemingly innocuous disclosure about how the court ruled on setting the parameters of the wiretapping program could provide ammunition for America's enemies.

Even in redacted form, he said, the rulings "would give our enemies a roadmap into our collection priorities and capabilities."

Disclosing limited information to the public would be "the beginning of opening up other things down the road. And I think that in this world that we operate, this cloak and dagger world of the intelligence community ... then I think there is a real danger in beginning to open up any of those opinions."

Merkley's amendment failed, with 37 in favor and 54 against.

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Another amendment from Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), designed to shorten the period that the reauthorized version of the surveillance bill is in effect and to strengthen inspector general oversight, went down with only 38 yes votes. A separate amendment offered by Sen. Rand Paul, a libertarian Republican from Kentucky, would have added a statement to the bill meant to protect Americans from Fourth Amendment violations caused by third party data collectors. Paul's amendment went down 79 to 12.

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Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the Senate majority whip, compared some of the arguments against amending the spy bill to the rhetoric about terrorism used by Vice President Dick Cheney at the same time when the wiretapping program was first revealed in a New York Times article in 2005.

"The concept of secret law is anathema to a democracy," Durbin said. By allowing the government to work backward from searches on foreign targets, he argued, "the reality is this legislation permits targeting an innocent American in the United States."

Compson, I'm not going to read any of these quotes unless you are going to make some point.

/bitch

Uhh... Keep all reps of our government in check with protecting our rights?

Would think the article, my comment of disapproval and the quote I bolded would get this point across.

I'm flattered you're interested in my opinion though. It seems like people find my perspective irrational so you'd think they'd rather I just post links/articles..

Also we need term limits.

If people say your perspective is irrational, theirs is irrational as well.

Could be me, but I'm more interested in perspectives than some quotes. Fuck the haters.

  On 12/28/2012 at 8:48 AM, goDel said:

If people say your perspective is irrational, theirs is irrational as well.

 

Could be me, but I'm more interested in perspectives than some quotes. Fuck the haters.

The quotes are perspectives and relevant. But I understand what you mean. I just don't have a lot more to add about this. Point is to spread the information.

For example on another forum I posted this at, a good point was made which I quote:

  Quote

Not surprising this went through while the public discussion of politics is the handwringing over the idiotic FISCAL CLIFF.

If i use the key i get 'lol'.

pretty unfortunate that we still use the false premise of outsides threats to continue to strip away privacy rights in this country. Oh well i guess i shouldn't complain, as ben affleck says 'they're just going to touch your dick a little bit' and i have no problem explaining to my future children that doctors and tsa employees are allowed to touch their dick but no one else is *barfs*

  On 12/28/2012 at 9:55 AM, Awepittance said:

pretty unfortunate that we still use the false premise of outsides threats to continue to strip away privacy rights in this country. Oh well i guess i shouldn't complain, as ben affleck says 'they're just going to touch your dick a little bit' and i have no problem explaining to my future children that doctors and tsa employees are allowed to touch their dick but no one else is *barfs*

This...made a lot more sense than I thought it would when I stopped to actually think about it.

Why don't they write a new constitution to fit the times, eh? Kind of stupid that people stil follow a 200+ years document.

No more poltics talk wattum... go to bed, you're drunk.

Next: Your guns!

  On 12/28/2012 at 12:38 PM, xxx said:

  On 12/28/2012 at 12:07 PM, YO303 said:

Why don't they write a new constitution to fit the times, eh? Kind of stupid that people stil follow a 200+ years document.

Why do people keep saying we follow the Constitution? Its only been followed when politically expedient. Shit, presidents started to challenge it from Adams onward. War Powers act anyone?

The OP's title is a bit misleading too...its not like this is a new rejection..we lost those rights a decade ago.

so right re:the fiscal cliff, compson. present the public with some non-issue and quietly erode their privacy away. what i want to know is what the government really wants with our data because they sure as shit are not using it just to catch "terrorists." are they aggregating the data for some purpose?

apparently JR is already taking full advantage of this by scanning our PMs for copyrighted material, lol

lol

  On 12/28/2012 at 4:36 PM, Hoodie said:

so right re:the fiscal cliff, compson. present the public with some non-issue and quietly erode their privacy away. what i want to know is what the government really wants with our data because they sure as shit are not using it just to catch "terrorists." are they aggregating the data for some purpose?

when income taxes go up along with unemployment (our heavy industry sector is dying out at this point), everyone will potentially be a terrorist.

time to get back on ham radios everyone

  On 12/28/2012 at 5:06 PM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

  On 12/28/2012 at 4:36 PM, Hoodie said:

so right re:the fiscal cliff, compson. present the public with some non-issue and quietly erode their privacy away. what i want to know is what the government really wants with our data because they sure as shit are not using it just to catch "terrorists." are they aggregating the data for some purpose?

 

 

when income taxes go up along with unemployment (our heavy industry sector is dying out at this point), everyone will potentially be a terrorist.

This. In order for big business/gov't (one in the same) to maintain their positions of power and wealth, they need the ability to identify individuals and groups that are a potential threat to the status quo.

The fiscal cliff is a dog 'n pony charade of colossal proportions, both parties are merely jockeying to win the PR battle for the next election cycles, while in reality it's just a fine tuning of the ass-pounding the working/middle/lower classes are going to get regardless of the outcome. What flavor lube do you like? Republicans want to cut entitlements and loopholes - buried in the fine print is that the mortgage interest deduction on your income tax return is a "loophole;" thus for a huge portion of the population real tax will increase (meanwhile, the # of fucks given by the wealthy approaches zero). OTOH, the Asses want to raise taxes on the wealthy, which is a fantastic populist stratagem except that corporations and wealthy have become exceptionally adept at hiding wealth and avoiding taxes, and tinkering with the formula is hardly going to get any more revenue out of them.

  On 12/28/2012 at 7:19 AM, compson said:

 

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When did Marty Funkhouser became a senator?

"Larry"

well said. (Bob Dobalina)

the conspiracy theorist in me would surmise that the Tea Party was allowed to usurp control of the Rep. Party for exactly this reason, shuffle in some "new, radical blood" to keep the factions that are deeply unhappy with mismanagement of taxation....remember the Tea Party in its infancy was not born out of irrational racist hatred, but unmitigated spending and fiscal responsibility. The Rep. made a deal with the devil to remain relevant, and in doing so appeased those original protestors into supporting what they were sternly against before.

The uber-wealthy have a ridiculous amount of power in this country, and its getting stronger on the backs of people fooled into believing it would change. We are in desperate need of a real, true-to-life new Progressivist movement.