Warrantless Wiretapping Supporter Sam Brownback Now Outraged Over Chinese Govt’s Domestic Spying

[marmar]

from ThinkProgress:



Warrantless Wiretapping Supporter Sam Brownback Now Outraged Over Chinese Government’s Domestic Spying»

Yesterday, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) expressed fear that “foreign-owned hotels in China face the prospect of ’severe retaliation’ if they refuse to install government software that can spy on Internet use by hotel guests coming to watch the summer Olympic games.” Brownback, who is pushing the Senate to urge China to reverse course, said China’s action is “not right” and “not in the Olympic spirit.”

This morning on CNN, asked by host John Roberts if China’s action amounts to “spying,” Brownback continued his outrage:

BROWNBACK: This is the public security bureau in China requiring the installation of hardware that they can listen to anybody and everybody’s and their communications and their recordings that are sent over the internet in a real-time purpose or over long-term. That’s spying, John. (…) Your internet communications can all be monitored in a real time basis by the public security bureau of the Chinese government. I think they’re clearly intent upon spying. they’re going to be spying.

Watch it: http://thinkprogress.org/2008/07/30/brownback-china-spying/


Brownback seems more concerned about the Chinese government’s spying practices than the eavesdropping being conducted right here in the U.S.

In early 2006, Brownback questioned the legal basis for the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program. Nevertheless, as Glenn Greenwald notes, Brownback voted last year in favor of the Protect America Act which allowed the government to monitor international communications without warrants and without “meaningful oversight by either Congress or the courts.”

Brownback also recently voted for the FISA reform legislation which gave the government greater powers “to tap directly into the U.S. telecommunications systems in order to monitor international emails and telephone calls with no individual warrant required.”

When asked about the difference between the Chinese and American spying practices, Brownback said, “We don’t put the hardware and software on hotels.” He added that the Chinese program can be used “on journalists,” “on athletes,” “on their families,” “democracy advocates,” and “human rights advocates ” — seemingly oblivious that all these groups could be spied on here as well.


http://thinkprogress.org/2008/07/30/brownback-china-spying/

[cal04]

1. Matthew Yglesias :Privacy for Me, But Not for Thee

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/07/privacy_for_me_but_not_for_the.php

US Senator Sam Brownback is outraged that China may monitor the internet use of hotel guests in Beijing for the Olympics. I mean, what kind of a country would engage in electronic surveillance without any kind of warrant or due process? Only an authoritarian nightmare like China. Or, well, the United States of America. Brownback explains the difference thusly:

We don't put the hardware and software on hotels. If there is a targeted individual that seems to be a likely prospect of terrorists, they must go through the FISA court and ask for a court to determine that there is probable cause to be able to listen in on that information.

That's great. That really is the difference between a bad policy and a good one. In a country with meaningful privacy rights, the government would need to go to a court and get someone to agree that there's probably cause before they're allowed to listen in. But that's exactly what the Bush administration didn't do and what the new legal framework will let them get away with not doing. Maybe Brownback wasn't briefed?

[Solly Mack]

2. he's got his hypocrisy up

[Benhurst]

3. I'm shocked, shocked. Whoever would have thought the Chinese

Communist government would share the same contempt for privacy rights as the American government?

[DCKit]

4. I'm watching C-SPAN and not believing it....

Republicons (and now, Nancy Pants) calling on the Chinese to end their human rights abuses, release prisoners and treat their workers better.

Projection much? Shameless. But bi-partisan hypocrisy, at least.

[marmar]

5. Sadly, Dems are often all too willing to join in the hypocrisy parade...

n/t

[Ichingcarpenter]

6. Its a Orwellian Comedy of Fascist's Rights

Oceania is pissed at Eastasia

[lonestarnot]

7. Is crawling out of a sack of bullshit now a new profession?

[thecrow]

8. “We don’t put the hardware and software on hotels.”

Oh good. So the terrorists can go to hotels to do their evil things they do.
Thanks for telling us that, MR. Brownshirt... er... Brownback.