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And not one of those limits prohibits the NSA from copying all electronic communications that enter or leave the United States and reading through them all. Ac

And not one of those limits prohibits the NSA from copying all electronic communications that enter or leave the United States and reading through them all. Actually none of them prohibit the NSA from even reading wholly domestic communications. Nor do the limits themselves have any effect whatsoever, since there is no oversight whatsoever to verify they are being followed and Congress has vowed to immunize from liability everyone who violates them. Americans: your government is reading your email. There are no qualifications on that statement. Most especially if you are a dissident of any sort. Just as a reminder, FISA was passed because in the early 1970's, a Senatorial investigation showed that the FBI and NSA were illegally wiretapping the fuck out of law-abiding peace groups and civil rights organizations. It is certain that this is occurring today, again.

AndrewKemendo 14y ago
>Nor do the limits themselves have any effect whatsoever, since there is no oversight whatsoever What kind of specific oversight would you be satisfied with? There are after all FISA Courts explicitly for the oversight purpose: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intellige...
samstave 14y ago
Just out of curiosity, assume one were to "wiretap" communications of any US government agency, what laws would be used against this? If they can do warrantless wiretaps, what differentiates their actions from anothers? If they have no legal foundation for their actions, why should another's actions be illegal for the same exact thing?
- jellicle 14y ago
  There are plenty of laws. The problem here is that "law" doesn't mean anything if there's no one to enforce it. Will wiretapping laws be enforced against you? Yes. If you wiretap the government they're going to do a Bradley Manning on you - solitary naked confinement. Will wiretapping laws be enforced against the President, the NSA, the FBI, the CIA, Verizon executives, Level3 executives, and so on? No. There's consensus among the Congress and Judiciary and President on those two things. And that's the problem. The words of the law are meaningless if enforcement depends on who the violator is.

AndrewKemendo 14y ago

>Nor do the limits themselves have any effect whatsoever, since there is no oversight whatsoever What kind of specific oversight would you be satisfied with? There are after all FISA Courts explicitly for the oversight purpose: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intellige...

samstave 14y ago

Just out of curiosity, assume one were to "wiretap" communications of any US government agency, what laws would be used against this? If they can do warrantless wiretaps, what differentiates their actions from anothers? If they have no legal foundation for their actions, why should another's actions be illegal for the same exact thing?

jellicle 14y ago
There are plenty of laws. The problem here is that "law" doesn't mean anything if there's no one to enforce it. Will wiretapping laws be enforced against you? Yes. If you wiretap the government they're going to do a Bradley Manning on you - solitary naked confinement. Will wiretapping laws be enforced against the President, the NSA, the FBI, the CIA, Verizon executives, Level3 executives, and so on? No. There's consensus among the Congress and Judiciary and President on those two things. And that's the problem. The words of the law are meaningless if enforcement depends on who the violator is.