[LINK] US Senate passes FISA bill

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

The US PBS NewsHour (SBS TV) this evening certainly expressed issues
regarding the FISA bill, now passed & before the President for signing.
For example .. every Internet etc communication which passes through the 
U.S. and that means phone/email/whatever will be recorded. So, before any
Intelligence, they're simply going to record it all. Will Australia follow?

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(US) Senate passes FISA bill

Written by Iain Thomson in San Francisco 09 Jul 2008 (full quote)
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2221204/senate-passes-fisa-bill

The US Senate has passed the revised Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act 
by 69 votes to 28, which expands the role of US surveillance on domestic 
and foreign telephone and internet traffic.

The bill, which has taken nearly a year to push through, has granted 
retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies like Verizon and 
AT&T, who allowed the government to set up listening stations within their 
networks, despite such actions being illegal.

"This bill will help our intelligence professionals learn who the 
terrorists are talking to, what they're saying and what they're planning," 
said President Bush, after the vote.

Bush had previously said he would veto any bill which did not give 
immunity to telecos who had helped with the spying program, which was 
revealed by the New York Times.

"This president broke the law," declared Wisconsin senator Russell 
Feingold. 

The original FISA law was brought in 30 years ago after the reign of 
President Nixon and the surveillance program he instituted. The new law 
will allow for much more surveillance of Americans at home and abroad, as 
well as the monitoring of all internet traffic that passes through the 
United States, as much as 35 per cent of the total.

"It is an immeasurable tragedy that just after its return from the Fourth 
of July holiday, the Senate has chosen to pass a bill that betrays the 
spirit of 1776 by radically expanding the president's spying powers and 
granting immunity to the companies that colluded in his illegal 
surveillance program," said senior staff attorney Kevin Bankston of the 
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

"This so-called compromise bill represents a shameful capitulation to the 
overreaching demands of an imperial president. As Senator Leahy put it in 
yes terday's debate, the retroactive immunity provision of the bill upends 
the scales of justice and makes Congress and the courts handmaidens to the 
White House's cover-up of its illegal surveillance program."

Presidential hopeful Barak Obama supported a compromise bill that would 
have stripped telecommunications companies of retroactive immunity, and 
allowed the current 46 lawsuits against them to go ahead. The Republican 
presidential candidate John McCain missed the vote.
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Regards all ..
Stephen Loosley
Victoria Australia