President Bush signed into law on Sunday legislation that broadly expanded the government's authority to eavesdrop on the international telephone calls and e-mail messages of American citizens without warrants.
Congressional aides and others familiar with the details of the law said that its impact went far beyond the small fixes that administration officials had said were needed to gather information about foreign terrorists. They said seemingly subtle changes in legislative language would sharply alter the legal limits on the government's ability to monitor millions of phone calls and e-mail messages going in and out of the United States.
They also said that the new law for the first time provided a legal framework for much of the surveillance without warrants that was being conducted in secret by the National Security Agency and outside the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the 1978 law that is supposed to regulate the way the government can listen to the private communications of American citizens.
"This more or less legalizes the N.S.A. program," said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies in Washington, who has studied the new legislation.
Previously, the government needed search warrants approved by a special intelligence court to eavesdrop on telephone conversations, e-mail messages and other electronic communications between individuals inside the United States and people overseas, if the government conducted the surveillance inside the United States.
Today, most international telephone conversations to and from the United States are conducted over fiber-optic cables, and the most efficient way for the government to eavesdrop on them is to latch on to giant telecommunications switches located in the United States.
By changing the legal definition of what is considered "electronic surveillance," the new law allows the government to eavesdrop on those conversations without warrants — latching on to those giant switches — as long as the target of the government's surveillance is "reasonably believed" to be overseas.
The catch with that last bit is that people make mistakes (sometimes on purpose) and the only way to call out such mistakes would be in a court of law. You wouldn't see one of those until you've already spent some time in jail and spoken with a lawyer. Wouldn't it be better if the responsibility was placed on the government to prove that you were a threat before being able to tap your calls and arrest you?
The right to not have the government listen in on a conversation you are having is a reasonable right to expect, but thanks to this new law you can now assume that everything you say or do that is termed "communication" (like emailing, web surfing and voice conversations) is being listened to by the government. It may not be a government agent listening--it could easily be a government algorithm--a sort of computer program that is, probably right now, sifting through the mounds of data the USG is [http://thepete.com/more-on-email-big-brothery-by-usg/|definitely collecting].
The question is, are their algorithms perfect? Or might they target you as a terrorist?
Orignal From: Did I Mention that Bush is Legally Lawless?
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