Well Done America: Privacy Owned.

Normally I try to stay away from the politics and such. I don’t have much interest in dealing with people who understand very little about technology. In fact, I have very little patience for those who make decisions related to how I use my technology when they understand nothing about it. Today I read a post at Tech Crunch about an amendment to the FISA Act of 1978 that Barack Obama voted for today.

Now, I understand that bills will contain more information than just a specific topic but as Dan Kimerling points out:

Given that each day tens of millions of people have their data go across the networks of some of the larger telcos, the risk that these companies faced by working with the government on extra-judicial wiretaps was extreme. In giving companies that work with the government immunity from these penalties, H.R. 6304, and Barack Obama who voted for it, just took away the only reason stopping AT&T, Verizon, and others from helping the government use extra-judicial wiretaps.

This is a huge problem. How does allowing wiretapping and surveillance of my information help anyone? How is this really in the interest of the general public? I do often wonder what goes through these politicians minds when they are voting on some of these topics. Is it purely about votes? Do they genuinely feel that something as haneous as wiretapping is “good for us”?

Not only does this give the teleco’s free reign on our data, but it protects them from anything in the past! Also, this has given the government more insight into our data. This paranoia has gone too far and on for too long. We as a people need to stand up for what is right. We need to do more than just “believe” or “hope” that things will be O.K. and that our “leaders” will do right by us. We can’t wait for them to make more decisions such as the one Obama and many others did today. Is this the “red scare” all over again? Has it come to that?
Because of this I’ve decided to do some searching around. I realize that I am a bit out of the political loop and so I need to really do some research, but I can’t seem to find anything that would support such a thing. For instance, I saw a video clip over at The Bivouac showing a number of points from the CSPAN report.

What I fail to understand here is that the points made in support of this amendment seem to be things like “fear mongering” and “rhetoric”. How can this sway the judgment of the majority? There has to be something that I am missing here. Can someone clue me into what would make this many people support such bull?

So, as part of my travels across cyber-space I found the text of the amendment. In reading part of this amendment I found a bunch of it appalling. It is to the point where I feel I _have_ to be reading it wrong. For example, how else am I supposed to interpret the following passage:

Now, our proponents will argue that the plaintiffs in the lawsuits against the companies can participate in briefing to the court, and this is true. But they are not allowed any access to any classified information. Talk about fighting with both hands tied behind your back. The administration has restricted information about this illegal wiretapping program so much that roughly 70 Members of this Chamber don’t even have access to the basic facts about what happened. Do you believe that? So let’s not pretend that the plaintiffs will be able to participate in any meaningful way in these proceedings in which Congress has made sure their claims will be dismissed.

The way I read it is that we have people making a decision on the issue when they don’t even have access to the information. Am I wrong? I can’t believe that 70 people don’t even have a classification high enough to see the material being discussed! How can decisions be made this way? Maybe it is my ignorance in the ways of big brother, but can we honestly have a system that supports this kind of behavior? We have to hold our government accountable for their actions. This provides a “get out of jail free card” to those that feel like I could somehow be a terrorist. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if after writing this I’m thrown on the list.

So, I guess I will end with this. If I am missing something please inform my ignorant self because this just seems too far fetched. Yet everything I find seems to support the conclusions I’ve come to in this post. Why do away with our freedom. Why remove our privacy? As the amendment text says:

This framework, which has been in place for 30 years, protects companies that comply with legitimate Government requests while also protecting the privacy of Americans’ communications from illegitimate snooping.”

We have a responsibility to protect our freedom. If the government seeks to take that away then something should be done. We live in one of the greatest nations because many of our laws protect the citizens. Lets keep it that way.

For those interested, here is a list of articles I found while researching this topic:

• Crooks and Liars: FISA Bill
• ProgressiveDem: Caving on FISA Bill
• The Washington Monthly
• The Raw Story: House Intelligence Committee
• Cryptome: H.R.6304
• Tech Crunch: Barack Obama Breaks Promise…Supports Telcos
• Barack Obama Pic’s

* UPDATE *

There appears to be a decent amount of traffic related to this topic on these here tubes which is good. This issue shouldn’t be taken lightly. I’ve seen a bit more information and so I thought I’d share the links with you all.

• Huffington Post
• Salon.com: Betrayed by Obama
• Slashdot: Obama Losing Voters
• Digg: FISA Fight, Epic Failure
• Digg: Congress Supports Spying
• Digg: US Senate Annihilates Constitution
• Analysis - Obama’s Arguments on FISA
• Telecom’s Allowed to Spy
• Intelligence Abuses and FISA Amendment Act
• ACLU FISA Form
• Ars Technica: FISA compromise passes
• Ask Pelosi: FISA, telecom immunity and oath of office