WAR: White House pushes for access to ISP records

A legal brief filed by the White House is asking the 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in New York to return its ability to force ISP to turn over subscriber information. Overturned last year by the same court, the power allows the government access to the records without a court order. Both the FBI and the White House maintain that such searches are needed to combat terrorism. This latest court filing comes against the backdrop of the Patriot Act renewal.



Debating privacy concerns in the face of terrorism is a tough one. Where is the line drawn here? Access to library records? Files containing your reading habits, or the fact that you frequent sites like ATS that maintain alternate viewpoints. While everybody recognizes the danger in the wake of 911, at some point the eroding of civil liberties has to stop. The ability to spy on anybody without justification is a power that is to easily abused. Despite all of the assurances to the contrary. Add to that the assault on the judiciary by "Activist Politicians" promoting thier religious agenda, and any check and balances go out the window.

Lame attempt at thought control and wanton destruction of privacy. Any advanced programmer interested in anonymity on the internet can easily have it, without any chance of being traced, ISP data, traffic analysis, magic cryptography backdoors, nsa supercomputers, or not.


[edit on 27-5-2005 by Moretti]

I for one am against this one unless I knew the 'reasons' . Is there a good reason to see where someone is going online? Do they have a national security consern to see who I am chating with?


I would like to state that if that were the case, I believe that they already can.

I say we let 'em have our records.

After we have well and thoroughly wiped our behinds with them...

"Anyone who trades liberty for security deserves neither liberty nor security."

~BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

State Superpowers

Getting a court order to conduct searches is admittedly a pain.

That's why it's required.

Omnipotence is not supposed to be easy to achieve in the United States.

Those seeking it would know better if they were omniscient.

Well, they don't call us Yahoos for nothing you know. Somebody has to make sure they know how to get in touch with you if you get out of line. and it's the line that is starting to creep me out more than anything. I saw a guy on "Cops" get hauled off the other day for having a can of gas with a rag stuffed down in it, the charge? Terrorism.

The guy may have had a rag in the gas can to keep the gas from leaking out. I think my dad has done this before.

When does this stop, is this stuff really about terrorism or is it about controll? Contrary to what is pushed by the media, there aren't terrorists on every corner, waiting to kill you. There may indeed be some terrorists out there, but they simply aren't everywhere, and if we keep seeing law after law erected, we may not even be able to speak here at ATS without being hauled in as a "terrorist" for disagreeing on policies.

We need to have policies that allow us to disagree when we need to. What if a suppressive government takes over, that doesn't allow us to impeach or disagree, so we would be stuck with this supressive government. Then we might have to overthrow the government just to restore a sane government.

troy

Originally posted by cybertroy
We need to have policies that allow us to disagree when we need to. What if a suppressive government takes over, that doesn't allow us to impeach or disagree, so we would be stuck with this supressive government. Then we might have to overthrow the government just to restore a sane government.

troy

Unfortunately, it seems as if we already have some sort of government that doesn't allow us to impeach. I bet that asking people at random on the streets, in restaurants and all over the place, that the majority would be all for impeaching Bush. But, why doesn't it happen?

Well, on second thought, who wants to end up with Cheney?

//ed for spelling and grammar//

[edit on 5/28/2005 by CyberKat]

Think Locally, Act Globally

Originally posted by CyberKat
I bet that asking people at random on the streets, in restaurants and all over the place, that the majority would be all for impeaching Bush. But, why doesn't it happen?

My theory: Because the United States consists of more than just Berkeley, California.

According to the map, my theory checks out.

Clinton was impeached for lying about getting a blow job.

Bush is NOT impeached for using false intelligence to justify invading Iraq.

BOT though, the goal of stamping out terrorism is inarguable. Bypassing age old judicial protections from abuse of power in the name of convenience is not.

If the government wants to speed up the process of getting search warrants for ISP records they should
a) make sure their case clearly warrants the warrant
b) get more judges so that more warrants can be checked over in less time

There is no need to bypass your legal system unless the aims are il-legal. Period.

[edit on 28/5/05 by subz]

I understand why the agent that's actually doing all the leg on these cases would get upset. I mean think about it, you could have a possible psycho at large and the only stopping the agent from making an arrest or stopping a violent act is a court order. Must be frustateing for him.

But on the other hand there are many more people who will use this for other reasons than what it is "intended" for, stopping terrorism. While there may be many people who will use this for good and to fight the forces of evil, I believe there are is a far greater number of people that will use this for other reasons that directly violate our rights and privacy.

So I am NOT in favor of the them having access to ISP records without special approval.

If the government thinks someone is a threat they should have no problem convincing a judge that a warrant is required to gather more evidence.

Saying they don't have time is a red herring, if its that pressing wake the judge up and state the case.

All this warrantless searching in the name of national security is definitely eroding/violating the constitution and is setting a dangerous precedent ripe for abuse.

The Patriot Act should sunset as intended, the government has had plenty of time to institute more conventional investigative methods in the aftermath of 9/11.

Faulty Intelligence

Originally posted by subz
Clinton was impeached for lying about getting a blow job.

Bush is NOT impeached for using false intelligence to justify invading Iraq.

Unless I am very much mistaken, the CIA never told Clinton he should get a blow job from an intern.

Apples and oranges.

I'm a critic of Bush, but I'm a mush more strident critic of false analogies.

And the CIA was not leant on to give the decidedly advantageous "faulty" intel to justify his war? There is ample evidence in the Straw comments in the leaked Downing Street memo to back this up.

A lie is a lie, so I stand by analogy thank you.

The patriot act opened up library records.

If the internet (basically a huge library) is open, whats the implications of researching things "we shouldnt be"?

Websites like this one will be targeted.

Originally posted by QuietSoul

Websites like this one will be targeted.

Already is no doubt. However, this again comes down to power being exersized without a checks and balances system.

In the past the FBI et al had to make a case before a judge about why they wanted to take a look at someone. Bogus or not they had to justify why. If time is an issue why not have a special court or set aside or give priority to these requests within the existing system?

Originally posted by FredT
If time is an issue why not have a special court or set aside or give priority to these requests within the existing system?

Great Idea!! Why not? And to ensure the people who head that do not become corrupt they could have ckecks and balances in place. Or maybe rotations of personal assigned to that duty to ensure that no few people are in that postition for a long period.

This angers me.

Somebody isn't a terrorist until after they have committed a terrorist act (whatever THAT is) and until they do that, they are a normal person, guilty of nothing, EVEN if they surf killamericans.com and send emails all day long about how much they hate America.

Damn it, it is time that the people put a stop to this "terrorism" based legislation! It's hard for the FBI to get search warrants? GOOD. It's SUPPOSED to be hard, that way they have to have CAUSE to search.

Zip

Conspiracy to commit murder should be their charge though. I think they should be charged and put through a court of law. None of this shady, secret business with no charges or chance of legal representation or oversight.

[edit on 29/5/05 by subz]