It's About Goddamn Time
Verizon stock takes hit on $50 billion lawsuit - May. 15, 2006
Two New Jersey lawyers on behalf of all Verizon subscribers sued Verizon for disclosing billions of phone records to the government and are asking $1,000 for each of the company's 50 million customers.
If the Democrats aren't willing to stand up to this obvious unconstitutional violation, then we'll have to sue. I keep hearing NSA apologists saying, "Oh, as long as they're not listening to us and using the records to only track down the terrorists, then it's fine." First of all, they can wiretap now without a warrant. Second, how do we know they're just using the information to track down the terrorists? There's no proof. We're just taking the government's word. There's absolutely no oversight.
Two New Jersey lawyers on behalf of all Verizon subscribers sued Verizon for disclosing billions of phone records to the government and are asking $1,000 for each of the company's 50 million customers.
If the Democrats aren't willing to stand up to this obvious unconstitutional violation, then we'll have to sue. I keep hearing NSA apologists saying, "Oh, as long as they're not listening to us and using the records to only track down the terrorists, then it's fine." First of all, they can wiretap now without a warrant. Second, how do we know they're just using the information to track down the terrorists? There's no proof. We're just taking the government's word. There's absolutely no oversight.
12 Comments:
Wasn't there a poll that showed that a significant majority of the Americans were OK with the spying? Sigh.
By
Ron, at 5/15/2006 2:05 PM
Something like this does change the meaning of crime. You're supposed to go through a process in order to be able to track somebody's calls, but this way the government has bypassed all that under the Patriot Act. It's not a very big thing yet but if they can make this legal and people get used to it and then somewhere down the line they'll go for it again, which was a point of 1984.
What I found funny is that conservatives usually are for smaller governments, so when David said "If the Democrats aren't willing..." that popped into my head. Republicans are the ones that are supposed to be telling the government to butt out of their lives (their taxes, their businesses, their environmental regulations, etc.)
By
Tony, at 5/15/2006 6:20 PM
And where are the lawyers suing AT&T for their share of some said $billion?
By
Tony, at 5/15/2006 6:22 PM
So when do I get my money? What do you mean I use T-Mobile!
By
napehtrap, at 5/15/2006 9:39 PM
AT&T as far as I know was shielded by an executive order courtesy of Bush.
"Once we lose our voice we are screwed." Yeah, that's obvious. Except getting there isn't a light-switch process. That would never happen without some extraordinary end-of-the-world-is-nigh scenario. Like you said, it'll take a lot of moves, but why does that mean it's ok to move towards it.
If every some n generation uses that rationale, we will be there.
Oh yeah, and if you're already at the point where it's "Oh, shit" it's probably too late. "My point is that as long as there are people to cry out against unjust use of such power we are ok." Tiananmen Square.
As far as allowing mass snooping giving the government an advantage, it doesn't, in general. That doesn't mean it's void of abuse. The government's a big entity; it only takes a small subset of it to wreak havoc on a small subset of the population. And I'm not even talking about the criminals.
Because, after all, railroading some poor sap will probably fly right under the radar of the general populus, and it won't ever matter to the public. There are so many legal proceedings going on, it's impossible to hear about everything, unless the news picks it up (assuming the sap doesn't cave in to pressure tactics or blackmail, because now the gov has access to all sorts of socially damaging phone conversations or phrases that can be misinterpreted, etc, use your imagination, not that hard). If it doesn't, you're probably screwed, unless you can afford a hefty defense, which you probably can't. There's all sorts of ways you can abuse this. Saying that this will only hurt criminals is a bit naive in my opinion.
I'm curious as to how any proponent of this could competently argue for stopping at audio if audio-bugging is ok. Soon (soon in nation-terms), we can upgrade to mics in every room, because after all, the law-abiding have nothing to fear. Then we can have live-video feeds, because after all, the law-abiding have nothing to fear. Or is it somehow an arbitrary function of how much skin is revealed, something that wouldn't be an issue with audio?
This is as "quis custodiet ipsos custodes" as it gets.
By
Ron, at 5/16/2006 12:25 AM
Anyone remember that blogger chick that was visited by the Secret Service because some douche didn't like her comments about Bush? That shut her up fast. She was so scared, and now she has a permanent record (which apparently didn't require an actual crime to be done). But it's ok, what me worry, right?
By
Ron, at 5/16/2006 12:27 AM
They did change the definition of a crime. It is a crime to retrieve phone records, which is why they're suing for $1000 for each Verizon subscriber.
By
Tony, at 5/16/2006 5:55 PM
Personally, I don't have a problem with government snooping; so long as they go through the proper channels and get their warrants to snoop (i.e. follow FISA [1]). I agree w/what Chris said, they are just redefining the definition of a legal search; however, they have no legislation or case precedent to back them up (at least, nothing comes to mind at the moment). You only change the definition of the crime if you have some kind of legal backing that says, "this is now not a crime." In this case, again, they merely broke the law. I'm only surprised that it took this long for someone to cry, "FOUL!"
I don't care if you trust the government or not. The NSA broke the law by completely bypassing FISA. That's the bottom line and they should pay to the full extent that the law (and reality) will allow. If there is enough political will to change the legislation, then there's something to really worry about. So far, all I'm seeing is a bunch of opinion polls and congress disagreeing with itself about the issue. Barring any major crisis that could have been averted by this all-encompassing snooping, it doesn't seem like any major legislation will back this program.
I mean, this is "teh bad," but the Gears of Democracy are turning and the government will be held accountable.
[1] FISA
By
Robert, at 5/16/2006 7:05 PM
Actually, the more I think about it, the NSA might just get off the hook and Verizon just might be fucked. Why? Because they merely asked Verizon for the information. Verizon could have said, "Let's see that warrant first." Its like a police officer asking you if he could search your residence w/out a warrant. You are within your legal limits to say, "No. Show me a warrant first."
By
Robert, at 5/16/2006 7:19 PM
So did I win yet?
By
napehtrap, at 5/16/2006 11:12 PM
We had some inspectors in Beijing show up this afternoon. Everyone on campus, including the 4,000 kids, had spent the day making the place spotless. They even came into our apartments. I had some Asian porn DVDs on my desk and my boss had this look of horror on his face. I told him, "Hey man, it's Chinese, your country, not mine."
By
napehtrap, at 5/17/2006 6:57 AM
Thank you for your contribution. You definitely win.
By
Ron, at 5/17/2006 11:03 AM
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