Four Stories Today That Show the Right to Privacy No Longer Exists-gctid29457

[moorbey]

   
U.S. military to patrol Internet 30 Jun 2008 The U.S. military is looking for a contractor to patrol cyberspace, watching for warning signs of forthcoming terrorist attacks or other hostile activity on the Web. In a solicitation posted on the Web last week, the U.S. Army's Fifth Signal Command said it was looking for a contractor to provide "Internet awareness services" to support "force protection" -- the term of art for the security of U.S. military installations and personnel. "The purpose of the services will be to identify and assess stated and implied threat,  antipathy, unrest and other contextual data relating to selected Internet domains," says the solicitation. The solicitation says the successful contractor will "analyze various Web pages, chat rooms, blogs and other Internet domains to aggregate and assess data of interest."

Senate Passes Unconstitutional Spying Bill And Grants Sweeping Immunity to Phone Companies --ACLU Announces Legal Challenge to Follow President's Signature 09 Jul 2008 Today, in a blatant assault upon civil liberties and the right to privacy, the Senate passed an unconstitutional domestic spying bill that violates the Fourth Amendment and eliminates any meaningful role for judicial oversight of government surveillance. The FISA Amendments Act of 2008 was approved by a vote of 69 to 28 and is expected to be signed into law by President [sic] Bush shortly. This bill essentially legalizes the president's unlawful warrantless wiretapping program revealed in December 2005 by the New York Times.

Senate Approves Telecom Amnesty, Expands Domestic Spying Powers 09 Jul 2008 The U.S. Senate overwhelmingly voted Wednesday to grant retroactive amnesty to the telecoms that aided the President [sic] 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.

Attorney General Threatened with Contempt of Congress over CIA Leak Documents --Waxman Calling for a July 16 Resolution if Mukasey Does Not Turn Over Docs 08 Jul 2008 Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., the Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee, has threatened to hold Attorney General Michael Mukasey in contempt of Congress if he does not provide documents that have been subpoenaed by his committee relating to the CIA leak investigation. Waxman is attempting to obtain documents detailing what President [sic] George W. Bush and Vice President [sic] Dick Cheney told investigators.

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