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Snipped from Wired.com.
Do you remember all the commotion earlier this year about Congress giving the White House the go on wiretapping America, ILLEGALLY? Well, Congress (Democratic of course, spineless weasels!) not only extended it back in August by granting the NSA “emergency” temporary power, but they are now introducing the RESTORE Act (the Responsible Electronic Surveillance That is Overseen Reviewed and Effective Act of 2007). ” [RESTORE Act] allows the nation’s spies to maintain permanent eavesdropping stations inside United States switching centers. Telecom and internet experts interviewed by Wired News say the bill will give the NSA legal access to a torrent of foreign phone calls and internet traffic that travels through American soil on its way someplace else.” says Wired.com.
So, the first thought that runs through my head is, “I thought the democrats were trying to protect my privacy, and the republicans were the one’s that didn’t give a shit about it?” I guess no one, but me, gives a good, god damn about the wonderful gift that is lovingly referred to as MY civil liberties.
Bottom line, while America is mentally weak and struggling with fearing imaginary, ideological evils and enemies domestically and abroad, the whole world is suffering in nearly every way imaginable. America is destroying the world physically with illegal wars, fueling terrorism through our xenophobia and an illegal occupation, mentally with our illiterate President’s pathetic command of English, but now digitally/virtually through stealing everyone’s privacy and other countries civil liberties with listening in on internet and telecommunications around the globe. Now, no one is safe from our putrid political idiocy! Is there anyone out there that is completely and utterly fed up like me?! I guess there is, but I just don’t see or here enough.
Here is a small portion of the article:
The United States’ role as an international communications hub came at a convenient time for the National Security Agency, which in the 1990s began confronting a world moving away from easily-intercepted microwave and satellite communications, and toward fiber optics, which are difficult and expensive to tap.
Press leaks in recent months have revealed that the NSA began tapping the U.S. communications hubs for purely international traffic shortly after 9/11, at the same time that it began monitoring communications between U.S. citizens and foreigners as part of the Terrorist Surveillance Program.
After the Democrats took over Congress in 2007, the administration put the NSA surveillance programs under the supervision of a secretive spying court, which ruled shortly thereafter that wiretapping U.S.-based facilities without a warrant was illegal, even for the purpose of harvesting foreign communications.
In August, Congress granted the NSA “emergency” temporary powers to continue the surveillance, which are set to expire in February. The RESTORE Act (the Responsible Electronic Surveillance That is Overseen Reviewed and Effective Act of 2007) is the Democrat’s effort to extend that power indefinitely, while including some safeguards against abuse. It would legalize both the foreign-to-foreign intercepts, and the domestic-to-foreign surveillance associated with the Terrorist Surveillance Program.
The bill enjoys wide support in the House, but on Wednesday President Bush vowed to veto any surveillance legislation that doesn’t extend retroactive legal immunity to telephone companies who cooperated in the NSA’s domestic surveillance before it was legalized — a provision absent from the RESTORE Act. AT&T, which is facing a class-action lawsuit for allegedly wiretapping the internet on behalf of the NSA, is reportedly among the companies lobbying hard for immunity.
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