Supreme Court Dismisses Eavesdropping Lawsuit
The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear a case against the nation's telecommunications companies for cooperating with a once-secret wiretap program enacted by the Bush administration to monitor suspected terrorists.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to hear a case against the nation’s telecommunications companies for cooperating with a once-secret wiretap program enacted by the Bush administration to monitor suspected terrorists. Under the 2008 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, telecom companies are given immunity in exchange for helping the government monitor private phone conversations. The program is supported by President Obama.
San Francisco Chronicle:
Tuesday’s order involved 30 suits against telecom companies around the nation that were consolidated in San Francisco.
The law that derailed those suits authorized the U.S. attorney general to immunize a company from liability by submitting a secret declaration to a judge containing one of two findings: either that the company had cooperated in surveillance that the president considered necessary to prevent a terrorist attack, or that the company had not participated.
Privacy-rights groups protested that the law eliminated public accountability and empowered the attorney general, rather than the courts, to decide whether a company was immune.
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For a company whose governing motto has been "Don’t be evil," this move seems to confirm some of the worst fears of privacy and Internet rights activists.
In a scathing editorial, the Gray Lady says Barack Obama's presidency, which once promised unprecedented transparency, is instead "proving the truism that the executive will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it."
In cities across the country, the government is installing sophisticated audio surveillance equipment on public transit to listen in on passengers.
You know a legislative compromise is one-sided when the AP headline announcing its passage reads "Senate Bows to Bush." Democratic advocates of the new FISA bill, passed by the Senate on Wednesday, are still trying to explain what they got in exchange for rolling back a few civil liberties and burying some of the president's abuses. When they figure it out, someone, somewhere, will surely be listening.
At the request of House Republicans, Congress on Thursday held a closed-door session to debate the FISA warrantless eavesdropping bill. The last time a closed-door session occurred was in 1983, when lawmakers convened in secret to discuss clandestine U.S. support of Contra paramilitaries in Nicaragua.
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