Originally posted by _Johnny_Utah_
The phone companies only did what a reasonable person would do.
Under federal law, any person or company who helps someone "intercept any wire, oral, or electronic communication"--unless specifically authorized by law--could face criminal charges. Even if cooperation is found to be legal, however, it could be embarrassing to acknowledge opening up customers' communications to a spy agency.Source | c|net News.com | Some companies helped the NSA, but which?
Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), who cosponsored the unsuccessful amendment with Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.), said it's dangerous to "grant that retroactive immunity without insisting the courts, as they're designed to do, determine the legality or illegality of this program."Source | c|net News.com | Senate shields phone companies from spy lawsuits
But Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.), ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, argued the immunity is an "essential" part of the bill. "If we permit the carriers who may or may not have participated in this to be sued in court, then the most important partners the government has, the private sector, will be discouraged from assisting us in the future," he said just before the vote.Source | c|net News.com | Senate shields phone companies from spy lawsuits
Washington, DC – The Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives stared down the White House today (2/14/2008) and decided to stick with their version of revisions to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The House voted to adjourn without letting the phone companies off the hook for breaking the law by helping the government spy on Americas. The House is leaving town and allowing the unconstitutional Protect America Act to expire this weekend.Source | ACLU | House Stands Up to Threats from the White House on Domestic Surveillance
Fredrickson said that although the Protect America Act is set to expire this weekend, it doesn’t mean the new mass, untargeted surveillance programs authorized under that act will expire. Certain provisions of the Protect America Act will live beyond the law’s expiration date, including:Source | ACLU | House Stands Up to Threats from the White House on Domestic Surveillance
· Orders under the Protect America Act can last for up to a year. Orders issued in the past six months will continue through their internal expiration date. So, for example, if the attorney general and director of national intelligence issue year-long orders on 2/15/08, they will run uninhibited until 2/15/09. (See PAA Section 6: Authorizations in Effect - Authorizations for the acquisition of foreign intelligence information pursuant to the amendments made by this Act, and directives issued pursuant to such authorizations, shall remain in effect until their expiration.)
· Orders are not specific to individuals and can pick up new targets in the future. Although the orders are secret, we know the authority granted to the executive branch allowed them to create whole programs of surveillance that are not confined to any specific individual or facility – in fact, that breadth is precisely what the PAA is about. So, as programs continue, it stands to reason agents can pick up new suspects, phone lines, email accounts, etc., without the need to return to court.
Originally posted by ProfEmeritus
reply to post by goosdawg
Maybe that is why Congress adjourned without any further action. That knew that it wouldn't make much difference anyway.
Besides, do you really think that just because they are not ALLOWED to continue, that they WON'T continue all the surveillance that they want. They'll just be very quite about it, and who will know. Why let a little thing like Congress or the Courts to stop them?
The point in fact is, the Constitution is what all our laws are governed around.
Public law. That branch or department of law which is concerned with the state in its political or sovereign capacity, including constitutional and administrative law, and with the definition, regulation, and enforcement of rights where the state is regarded as the subject of the right or object of the duty, . . . That portion of law which is concerned with political conditions; that is to say, with the powers, rights, duties, capacities, and incapacities which are peculiar to political superiors, supreme and subordinate.
Public policy doctrine. Doctrine whereby a court may refuse to enforce contracts that violate law or public policy.
Public policy. Community common sense and common conscience, extended and applied throughout the state to matters of public morals, health, safety, welfare, and the like; it is that general and well-settled public opinion relating to man's plain, palpable duty to his fellow men, having due regard to all circumstances of each particular relation and situation.
Presidents would not be impeached, laws would not be ruled “unconstitutional,” and the President would not serve in terms stated in law…if the Constitution was not valid or was no longer the law of the land.
Do you honestly think Bill Clinton, and the monstrous ego he has, of all people would serve only 8 years? You don’t think he would have stayed in office? You think he would have gone through the embarrassment of impeachment if he was a man not governed by the Constitution?
