The Surveillance Regime

[Echo In Light]

The Surveillance Regime
The Nation Editorial

The recent California federal district court ruling that the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping violated a 1978 surveillance law was the first significant judicial rebuke to post-9/11 government eavesdropping. For that reason alone, Judge Vaughn Walker's damages award to the Muslim charity Al-Haramain and its attorneys, targets of unlawful spying in 2004, is worthy of celebration. But the ruling won't change our current deeply troubling surveillance regime. In that sense, it is a timely reminder of unfinished business.

Ever since Barack Obama took office, accountability for rights violations during the "war on terror" has been thin. Victims of wrongful overseas detention, surveillance and torture have received no apology and no reparations. Despite an early commitment to close Guantánamo, 183 prisoners remain there. Indeed, Obama has released fewer detainees than Bush did during his last year in office. And despite an early promise to protect the First Amendment rights of Muslim charities, Obama has done nothing to change the onerous application of terrorism financing laws. Walker's decision is only the second to have ruled against the so-called Terrorist Surveillance Program. All other challenges--including one against the odious 2008 FISA Amendments Act (FAA), which The Nation has joined as a plaintiff--ultimately got booted at the courthouse door.

Even if Walker's opinion survives possible appeal, it will have no effect on the broad surveillance powers unleashed by the FAA, which passed with then-Senator Obama's support. Under that law, the government can dispense with individualized warrants, the cornerstone of Fourth Amendment privacy protections. Absent meaningful judicial review, we simply can't know how much surveillance the government is carrying out.

Continuity, not change, has characterized the conduct of Eric Holder's Justice Department. Walker documents, in his opinion, the government's persistent "refusal to cooperate with the court's orders," its improper use of procedural delays and even point-blank refusals to produce information. Yes, this was business as usual during the Bush era. But Walker was talking about events on Obama's watch.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/04/09-1

[ixion]

1. k/r. End the Surveillance State

and restore the Republic.

[Echo In Light]

2. +1000

[Echo In Light]

3. Bump

[Echo In Light]

4. "Hey you!"

[leftstreet]

5. K&R Excellent comments section on this one!

:thumbsup:

[Echo In Light]

6. Perhaps at CD, but certainly not here

[leftstreet]

7. hehe

true enough

[Echo In Light]

8. .

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9. .

[Echo In Light]

10. .

[Echo In Light]

11. .

[Echo In Light]

12. Glad to see so many give a shit!

[MadHound]

13. I don't think that it's that people don't give a shit,

I think that this is simply old news to most of us. We've been living under an ever increasing surveillance state for the past fifty years, and the general public, even the interested public, has become numb to it. After all, only so much outrage can be left after you're assaulted with everything from "safety" cameras to traffic cams, ECHELON to CARNIVORE, wiretaps to cellphone tracking, on and on, it all becomes numbing.

[Echo In Light]

14. one can routinely find threads that contradict your postulation

... ya know, like fucking golf star threads, Palin, tabloid stories, stupid shit like that, they'll receive endless replies & recs