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Hard to disagree. Those parties claim to represent the people, but are against the people.Democrats and Republicans are cooperating to grow the power of government and trample on our rights.
Granted, it's the LP. Personally, I believe that no matter who the politicians are that inhabit the White House and the Congress, the ins utional inertia towards an expanding, intrusive federal state is too powerful to overcome. In many respects the presidency has become the office of a monarch, which is precisely what concerned Jefferson and Madison the most.
http://www.lp.org/blogs/staff/lp-mon...orse-than-bush
Hard to disagree. Those parties claim to represent the people, but are against the people.Democrats and Republicans are cooperating to grow the power of government and trample on our rights.
White House Seeks to Clarify F.B.I. Powers vis-à-vis E-Mail
By CHARLIE SAVAGE
Published: July 29, 2010
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has asked Congress to give clear authority to the Federal Bureau of Investigation to obtain records related to the context of e-mails and other Internet-based communications without first obtaining a warrant from a judge.
Some advocates of electronic privacy have raised alarms about the proposal, saying it could expand government eavesdropping on computer activity without court oversight. Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Thursday that the proposal raised “serious privacy and civil liberties concerns.”
The administration portrays its proposal, first reported by The Washington Post, as a mere technical fix to clarify a confusingly written statute and says it would not grant the F.B.I. any new powers. It says that F.B.I. agents have been requesting such information for years and that most Internet service providers routinely provide it.
“The statute as written causes confusion and the potential for unnecessary litigation,” said Dean Boyd, a Justice Department spokesman. “This clarification will not allow the government to obtain or collect new categories of information, but it seeks to clarify what Congress intended when the statute was amended in 1993.”
Specifically, administration officials have asked Congress to include a provision in the 2011 intelligence authorization bill modifying the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which forbids companies that handle electronic communications — including Internet service providers and Web-based companies like Google — to reveal customer information without a court warrant.
The act makes exceptions for information relevant to national-security investigations, when speed can be essential. For example, it allows F.B.I. agents to issue a “national-security letter” requiring a company to turn over records listing the phone numbers someone has called, although a warrant is still required to eavesdrop on the content of calls.
more....
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/30/us/30fbi.html?src=mv
I think this has been among the more disappointing aspects of the Obama presidency (whether you think all of his choices have been bad ones or most of his choices have been good). There was a belief, during the 2008 campaign, that an Obama presidency would see a rollback of post 9/11 legislation that enhanced the power of government vis-a-vis the people and that the primacy of the 4th and 5th Amendment's protective power would re-emerge. Not so much.
The Obama administration is seeking to make it easier for the FBI to compel companies to turn over records of an individual's Internet activity without a court order if agents deem the information relevant to a terrorism or intelligence investigation.
The administration wants to add just four words -- "electronic communication transactional records" -- to a list of items that the law says the FBI may demand without a judge's approval. Government lawyers say this category of information includes the addresses to which an Internet user sends e-mail; the times and dates e-mail was sent and received; and possibly a user's browser history. It does not include, the lawyers hasten to point out, the "content" of e-mail or other Internet communication.
But what officials portray as a technical clarification designed to remedy a legal ambiguity strikes industry lawyers and privacy advocates as an expansion of the power the government wields through so-called national security letters. These missives, which can be issued by an FBI field office on its own authority, require the recipient to provide the requested information and to keep the request secret. They are the mechanism the government would use to obtain the electronic records.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...072806141.html
We don't live in Madison or Jefferson's agrarian and undeveloped world. For all the dangers of big government, the benefits far outweigh the disadvantages.
How does 'progress' require untrammeled executive power?
That's an over generalization. Loosening the warrant requirement does not equal untrammeled executive power. You can still challenge the cons utionality of the search in court so there's still a check.
Great. And we've seen that the courts will stick it to the government. Also, how are these continual expansions of executive authority prerequisites for materialist progress?
In the case of email surveillance, how would one know one has been searched in the first place?
I wasn't aware that the 4th amendments requirement of probable cause was abolished. And progress is new technology like the Internet that gives people new avenues to commit crimes. Where there's innovation, government has to adapt to properly regulate it. Would you rather the government do nothing?
When one is hauled into court for a crime. Since when is there an expectation of privacy on the Internet?
So how does that render the concerns of absolute power claimed by the executive in the 18th century any less today? Lest we forget when the 4th amendment was authored. Progress through technology does not render the concerns that led to the 4th amendment obsolete, as you have pointed out. I see nothing that requires technological progress to come at the expense of individual liberty.
Either the 4th amendment protects us against unreasonable searches, or it does not apply to email. Please pick a lane.
That's an abstraction. The point is that we shouldn't expect the same protections for individual rights that existed in the 18th century because we don't live in the 18th century anymore. It's not zero sum either; the law allows a warrantless search of email address information, something I'm not so sure one has an expectation of privacy in the first place. How does the law result in a totalitarian regime? Would you rather the government be unable to regulate the Internet in any way?
Why have a written cons ution at all then?
That's incorrect. The fourth amendment protects those areas where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy. You tell me: is it reasonable to expect my gmail account is private?
I thought the FBI was asking for a change to the law to allow it. If the law already allows it, why are we having this conversation?It's not zero sum either; the law allows a warrantless search of email address information...
For rhetorical flourish? I dunno. That's not what this thread is about, but there are arguments on both sides
I dunno, haven't read the law. The article said there was ambiguity in the statute as written...
Clearly you don't.
You suggested there was no ambiguity at all.
Enlighten us
Why would it be any less reasonable than expecting regular mail to be private?
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