A T & T, BellSouth & Verizon Guilty…
Of following the law. After all the huffing and puffing over USA Today’s article, you’d think that these phone companies had broken the law. That isn’t the case.
In fact, according to Paul Butler, a former terrorism prosecutor, the Supreme Court has ruled that the government collecting phone numbers alone doesn’t violate a person’s Fourth Amendment rights because there isn’t an expectation of privacy. PERIOD.
Further, Patrick Leahy’s rant notwithstanding, there’s a law on the books from 1994, called the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act that says in its opening its purpose:
to make clear a telecommunications carrier’s duty to cooperate in the interception of communications for law enforcement purposes, and for other purposes.
That Leahy would go off on such a rant today is inexplicable since he surely voted on this legislation. What’s the likelihood he’ll use the excuse that he wasn’t paying attention that day?
According to a host of TV reports today, no calls are being listened in on and the peoples’ names and addresses aren’t given to the government.
In the end, this shows USA Today’s ignorance of the laws on the books. It also shows that Patrick Leahy is a blowhard who shouldn’t be taken seriously.
Technorati Tags: NSA, FISA, Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act
Cross-post at LetFreedomRingBlog
May 11th, 2006 at 3:51 pm
From media blogger Ron Franscell at http://underthenews.blogspot.com …
The White House says “the intelligence activities undertaken by the United States government are lawful, necessary and required to protect Americans from terrorist attacks.” Don’t get me wrong: I want to be protected from terrorist attacks and I think the government should do that. But I’m also old enough to remember the Vietnam logic that “we must destroy this village to save it,” so I don’t necessarily trust these guys to be great thinkers.
What happens when our “leaky” White House is looking at Hillary’s phone records and, oops, accidentally “leaks” that every Wednesday night she’s been calling an escort service in North Tonawonda? These guys don’t seem to be above using such information for the “greater good” of re-electing Republicans to protect Americans from terrorists.
If the NSA studies my phone records for the past year, they’ll find what I found in an exhaustive analysis: 1,845 calls to my son and daughter, in which I generally ask “how’s the weather?”; 1,045 phone calls to Allstate Insurance Co. to complain about the service after Hurricane Rita; 516 calls to my cell phone company to ask how to operate my cell phone; 511 to old friends in Colorado, in which I generally ask “how’s the weather?”; 435 to tech support at America Online; 20 to the pizza parlor up the street, always on an NFL game day; and six to my parents, in which I generally ask “how’s the weather?”
No bookies, no hookers, no sex lines, no fun. Really, my main concern is that somebody will check my phone calls and find that my life is terribly boring and I’m not really worth protecting from terrorists.
May 11th, 2006 at 5:55 pm
Well, this administration lies so much of the time, we really don’t know what they’re up to. There might be weapons of mass destruction… in my phone! Who knows?!
And that’s the problem. Maybe if they had an ounce of credibility, this wouldn’t be such an issue. But when you’re caught in lie after lie, when something comes up that we’re asked to just take it on belief (”the privacy of ordinary Americans is fiercely protected in all our activities”), it’s just plain hard to believe what the liar-in-chief says.
We don’t know what the administration is doing. This is the most corrupt, dishonest and malevolent administration in the history of the country. They have sold off and sold out everything we hold dear. From the energy policy of which we’re only now beginning to feel the impact, to spending our grandchildrens’ legacy through tax cuts to the wealthy, to a morally questionable war, to the biggest defecit in the history of the nation, and now, we don’t have a right to privacy… when will it end? I ask again: just how bad do things have to get?
May 11th, 2006 at 6:22 pm
[...] Cross-posted at California Conservative Categories: Homeland Security, SCOTUS, Terrorism, President Bush | [...]
May 11th, 2006 at 6:55 pm
The ACLU has a database of its own
Jay at Stop The ACLU has done some digging and low and behold, the same institution who slammed the admin for the latest NSA ’scandal’ - regarding datamining of ‘millions of phone calls’ - has (or at one point had) a data collec…
May 12th, 2006 at 4:41 am
The NSA Phone Flap
I am shocked - shocked! The sudden phony shock and alarm about NSA phone data-mining is a nice bit of acting, but congress has known about it for years, and the whole story was reported earlier by the NYT, as seen here. Is it constitutional to data-m…
May 12th, 2006 at 11:26 am
Three words: presumption of innocence.
In my opinion, you shouldn’t be looking at my phone records at all unless you have a reasonable suspicion for doing so. It’s like stopping people randomly in the street and asking for a DNA sample and hoping that it matches some evidence froma crime. I happen to disagree strongly with people who say “If you aren’t guilty of anything you have nothing to worry about”. Any time government is intruding into any aspect of my life, I have something to worry about.
May 17th, 2006 at 2:42 pm
Dems and Left continue to politicize National Security
The Press and the Dems as well as a few Republicans are tryint to score political points or possibly undermine Gen Hayden's nomination as director of the CIA over a story in USA Today. Here is the most important portion of that story:
This pro…
May 23rd, 2009 at 11:06 pm
Amoxicillin….
Amoxicillin. Amoxicillin 875mg. Colonoscopy preparation and amoxicillin….