is total BULLSHIT!!!!

great explanation Alter

So, what he is saying is: (paraphrase) "the only way we can get the 4th amendment back is to give telecom companies immunity". That's blackmail.

Bullshit - don't buy it Randi! You have a brain - think about it.

I concur with you guys...what he is saying is pure

Yeah, the problem with Alter's theory is that it makes a central presumption: That we'll win the next election, and then everything will be fine, because we can fix this then.

Well yeah, we WILL win (just like we won the last 3 elections), but whether it gets stolen from us is a whole other ball of wax.

And when BushCo can basically tap the phones of everyone in the country, AND (this part is important) not EVER have to go back to the FISA court and prove that the initial sneak was warranted (the period for justifying a tap is supposedly 7 days extended from 3 under this law, but in the strictest terms they don't HAVE to go back for review EVER) what's to stop them from say, tapping the phone of local elections officials, or Obama campaign headquarters, or media outlets, or ANYBODY to help them steal the election?

I mean, what people need to understand from a technological standpoint is, this isn't the old days of alligator clips where you've got to send a guy out to stealthily snoop on one person's calls. This is a huge setup. And once the Big Brother machine is installed, you're all PERMA-wiretapped.

It's essentially just a matter of picking up the headphones. (Actually, it's even less than that - the NARUS server picks up the headphones FOR you, and auto sorts like a good little robot. Or an evil, evil robot....)

Buying off on Alter's argument is, in my opinion, pandering to the "pundits" that are on nightly cable news.

Normally, I think that Alter is pretty reasonable. He's off the reservation on this one. Please keep in mind that Time and Newsweek are not too far removed from the MSM - if not the MSM.

Who could buy this story?

1. Congress screwed up and lost the 4th amendment.
2. Rather than simply restoring it unconditionally, they pay off the telecom companies who will then let us restore it.

This is a classic case of blackmail!!!!!!!!!!!! (Maybe implicit, but I say explicit)

Also, the civil vs criminal argument doesn't fly here. The fact is, there are no criminal charges against the telecoms, and not likely to be. There ARE dozens of civil suits.

BULLSHIT ALERT

Here's the thing, the bill EXPLICITLY permits the government to continue entire surveillance programs even if the Court finds that the application does not pass constitutional muster.

In fact, the gov't may even continue its spying for up to 60 days during the appellate process, and there is NO STANDARD requiring that the administration returns to the court to justify an individualized surveillance.

So all they have to do is start broad, scoop up everything, and when they find something they like, they can zero in on that one persona and not have to go back to the court to justify it AT ALL.

So say they snoop on the zip code that contains Barack's headquarters, and they find conversations discussing an upcoming speech, they can then target the speechwriter's phone/email, and snoop on it to get a jump on campaign strategy, and no one's the wiser.

And if you think that's beyond the pale for all these people who got their starts in the Nixon Administration, you're kidding yourself....