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Congress Bows to Big Content, Scapegoats Higher Ed - Via EFF.org Updates:
Last week, after months of intensive wrangling, the House and the Senate finally agreed on a final version of the Higher Education Act (HEA). Buried in this massive bill, which touches on virtually every aspect of education, is a little provision requiring campuses to develop “plans to effectively combat the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material, including through the use of a variety of technology-based deterrents.” Those deterrent include bandwidth shaping and traffic monitoring, but also use of filtering technologies such as Audible Magic. “To the extent practicable,” colleges and universities must also offer legal alternatives for file-sharing, such as music services like Ruckus.
There are at least three major problems with this. read more »
Senators Announce New Intellectual Property Enforcement Bill - Via EFF.org Updates:
Last week, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee introduced the "Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008," a bill that proposes a number of alarming changes to copyright law. The bill is the Senate's gift to big content owners, creating new and powerful tools -- many of which will be paid for by your tax dollars -- for the entertainment industry to go after infringers. But it doesn’t offer a lick of protection for legitimate innovators and technology users that may be buried by the copyright juggernaut.
One of the bill's most disturbing changes would give the Attorney General new powers to sue individuals on behalf of rightsholders like the MPAA and the RIAA. Bill proponents claim that these new powers, which would allow the AG to bring "milder" civil as well as criminal actions, are necessary because some offenses don’t rise to the level of criminal conduct. This justification just doesn’t make sense. If it’s a low-level offense, why should our top cops pursue it? read more »
Net Neutrality Gains Traction In 2008 Senate Races - Via Threat Level:
The architect of John McCain's forthcoming technology agenda may dismiss the concept of 'net neutrality' as inside baseball, but every single major Democratic candidate running for a senate seat in 2008 has recognized it as a fundamentally important issue that underlies the future of ideas and the economy.
Progressive activist and OpenLeft editor Matt Stoller has collected the position statements of the 16 Democratic candidates running for senate seats, and every single one of them says that they support the concept. read more »
Accountability Now and Strange Bedfellows: The strategy and rationale - Via Salon: Glenn Greenwald:
In the 2006 mid-term elections, Americans handed The Democratic Party a sweeping, staggering, and historic victory -- as the GOP was removed from power and Democrats given control over both the House and Senate. It marked only the third time in the last 60 years that there was a change in control of the Congress. The Democrats defeated six GOP Senators, and picked up 31 House seats. Six Governorships switched from the GOP to the Democrats. Not one single Democratic incumbent in Congress and not one Democratic Governor lost -- only the second time in U.S. history in which one of the major parties failed to defeat even a single Congressional incumbent from the other party.
Since that overwhelming Democratic victory, this is what the Democratic-led Congress has done: read more »
Interview with ACLU re: constitutional challenge to new FISA law - Via Salon: Glenn Greenwald:
(Updated below - Update II - Update III - Update IV)
This afternoon, I spoke with Jameel Jaffer, the Director of the ACLU's National Security Project, regarding the two legal proceedings commenced today by the ACLU challenging the constitutionality of the new FISA law. The roughly 20-minute discussion can be heard here.
The ACLU filed one action in the FISA court, requesting that -- contrary to how the FISA court normally works -- all proceedings regarding the constitutionality of the FISA law be open to the public and transparent, and that the proceedings be adversarial (i.e., that the ACLU -- rather than just the Government -- can participate). The other action was filed in a federal court in the Southern District of New York, alleging that the provisions which vest vast new warrantless eavesdropping powers in the President are, for multiple reasons, violative of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The ACLU's lawsuits do not challenge the constitutionality of the telecom immunity provisions of the new FISA law because those sections will be challenged by EFF and local/affiliate ACLU groups in separate actions. The legal documents filed today by the ACLU are here.
In the podcast, Jaffer details exactly what warrantless surveillance powers the new FISA bill vests in the President, along with the reasons they are so pernicious. read more »
ACLU Thanks Senators Who Stood for the Constitution - Via American Civil Liberties Union:
Washington, DC – After a brutal loss on the FISA Amendments Act today in the Senate, the American Civil Liberties Union expressed gratitude to the senators who cast their vote against the bill.
The following can be attributed to Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office:
“There are a few senators who deserve praise for defending the Constitution today. We applaud Senators Feingold, Leahy, Dodd, and Cardin for their tireless efforts to improve this dismal legislation. We especially missed the presence of the recovering Senator Kennedy today; his speech in February was a high point in this legislative battle. read more »
Senate Approves Wiretapping Measure With Telecom Immunity - Via NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Podcast | PBS:
The Senate voted Wednesday to keep retroactive immunity for phone companies that help with monitoring in a federal warrantless surveillance program bill. The decision defeated Democrats against it. Ray Suarez reports.
(Read Original Article - Via NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Podcast | PBS.)
Senate Backs Wiretap Bill to Shield Phone Companies - NYTimes.com - Via NYTimes.com :
WASHINGTON — More than two and a half years after the disclosure of President’s Bush’s domestic eavesdropping program set off a furious national debate, the Senate gave final approval on Wednesday afternoon to broadening the government’s spy powers and providing legal immunity for the phone companies that took part in the wiretapping program.
The plan, approved by a vote of 69 to 28, marked one of Mr. Bush’s most hard-won legislative victories in a Democratic-led Congress where he has had little success of late. Both houses, controlled by Democrats, approved what amounted to the biggest restructuring of federal surveillance law in 30 years, giving the government more latitude to eavesdrop on targets abroad and at home who are suspected of links to terrorism.
The issue put Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, the presumptive Democratic nominee, in a particularly precarious spot. After long opposing the idea of immunity for the phone companies in the wiretapping operation, he voted for the plan on Wednesday. His reversal last month angered many of his most ardent supporters, who organized an unsuccessful drive to get him to reverse his position once again. And it came to symbolize what civil liberties advocates saw as “capitulation” by Democratic leaders to political pressure from the White House in an election year.
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, who was Mr. Obama’s rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, voted against the bill. read more »
Senate Approves Bill to Broaden Wiretap Powers - NYTimes.com - Via NYTimes.com :
WASHINGTON — The Senate gave final approval on Wednesday to a major expansion of the government’s surveillance powers, handing President Bush one more victory in a series of hard-fought clashes with Democrats over national security issues.
The measure, approved by a vote of 69 to 28, is the biggest revamping of federal surveillance law in 30 years. It includes a divisive element that Mr. Bush had deemed essential: legal immunity for the phone companies that cooperated in the National Security Agency wiretapping program he approved after the Sept. 11 attacks.
The vote came two and a half years after public disclosure of the wiretapping program set off a fierce national debate over the balance between protecting the country from another terrorist strike and ensuring civil liberties. The final outcome in Congress, which opponents of the surveillance measure had conceded for weeks, seemed almost anticlimactic in contrast. read more »
U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 110th Congress - 2nd Session
as compiled through Senate LIS by the Senate Bill Clerk under the direction of the Secretary of the Senate
Vote Summary
Question: On Passage of the Bill (H.R. 6304 )
Vote Number: 168 Vote Date: July 9, 2008, 02:47 PM
Required For Majority: 1/2 Vote Result: Bill Passed
Measure Number: H.R. 6304 (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 )
Measure Title: A bill to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to establish a procedure for authorizing certain acquisitions of foreign intelligence, and for other purposes.
Senate Approves Telecom Amnesty, Expands Domestic Spying Powers - Via Threat Level:
The U.S. Senate overwhelmingly voted Wednesday to grant retroactive amnesty to the telecoms that aided the President Bush's five-year secret, warrantless wiretapping of Americans, and to expand the government's authority to sift through U.S. communications, handing a key victory to the Bush administration.
The Democrats' presumptive presidential nominee Barack Obama (D-Illinois) voted for the final bill, despite intense lobbying by supporters who used Obama's own online organizing technology to try to hold him to his promise to fight any bill that included amnesty. New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, Obama's former rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, voted against the bill.
The 68 to 29 vote puts an end to more than a year of debate over whether the government should be able to collect millions of e-mails and phone calls daily from U.S.-based communication switches without any probable cause. It also answers whether Congress believes the nation's telecoms and president had a duty to follow the rules set out in 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was passed after the abuses of the 1950s and 60s.
If the FISA Amendments Act survives constitutional challenge, it dooms the dozens of anti-wiretapping lawsuits filed against the nation's telecoms, by ordering the judge in charge of the cases to dismiss them if the telecoms can prove the government asked them to help out. read more »
Senate Rejects Amendments That Would Have Stripped Telecom Amnesty From Spy Bill - Via Threat Level:
The U.S. Senate voted against removing retroactive immunity for lawbreaking telephone companies from the pending domestic spying bill Wednesday morning, and is expected to approve the legislation within hours.
An amendment sponsored by Senator Chris Dodd (D-Connecticut) that would have stripped immunity from the bill failed by a vote of 32 to 66, a tally nearly identical to a vote on a similar amendment in February that failed 31 to 67. The Senate also voted down an amendment that would have paused pending lawsuits and the amnesty provisions until after an Inspector General investigation into Bush's warrantless wiretapping program.
"This may be a historical embarrassment," senator Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania) protested Wednesday morning on the Senate floor. "Everyone knows we don't know what the program did, but here we are giving immunity to the telephone companies."
Specter noted that Congress was violating the constitutional principal of separation of powers by interfering with the courts. read more »
Senate Joins House in Caving to White House Immunity Demands - Via EFF.org Updates:
Washington, D.C. - The U.S. Senate this afternoon passed the FISA Amendments Act, broadly expanding the president's warrantless surveillance authority and unconstitutionally granting retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that participated in the president's illegal domestic wiretapping program. The House of Representatives passed the same bill last month, and President Bush is expected to sign the legislation into law shortly.
"It is an immeasurable tragedy that just after its return from the Fourth of July holiday, the Senate has chosen to pass a bill that betrays the spirit of 1776 by radically expanding the president's spying powers and granting immunity to the companies that colluded in his illegal surveillance program," said Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). "This so-called compromise bill represents a shameful capitulation to the overreaching demands of an imperial president. As Senator Leahy put it in yesterday's debate, the retroactive immunity provision of the bill upends the scales of justice and makes Congress and the courts handmaidens to the White House's cover-up of its illegal surveillance program." read more »
Senate Sends FISA Legislation to President for Signature - Via Center for Democracy and Technology:
After beating back three amendments, the Senate voted 69-28 to pass the FISA Amendments Act and send it to the President to be signed into law. The rejected amendments would have stripped out or limited provisions in the bill granting immunity to telecommunications carriers that assisted with illegal warrantless surveillance for more than five years after September 11. CDT opposed the legislation because it grants immunity and fails to give the FISA court adequate authority to ensure that Americans are protected against unjustified surveillance of their communications. CDT calls on Congress to vigorously exercise its authority to oversee the government's implementation of the new authority.
# CDT Statement on FISA Amendments Act June 19, 2008
(Read Original Article - Via Center for Democracy and Technology.)
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