[TriLUG] WTF?? The Senate has ALREADY passed new civil liberty violating laws, in response to the attack!!!

[Jonathan Magid]

I've been looking into this issue today. I wrote the following message
earlier this evening regarding it. I emphasize it's very difficult to
understand the congressional record without sitting down with the original
laws being ammended, so my interpretation may be mistaken. Still, I'll
include it:

>From jem at metalab.unc.edu Fri Sep 14 21:59:32 2001
Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 17:24:34 -0400 (EDT)
From: Jonathan Magid <jem at metalab.unc.edu>
Subject: New powers


Last night I heard Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) on NPR warning of
significant civil liberties curtailment coming up. He said the senate has
passed or is considering (I missed the detail) new powers of wiretap and
search and seizure by the government.


I've done some research on the question of what Patrick Leahy was
talking about, and although I wasn't able to find anything about search
and seizure I did find some stuff regarding new wiretap powers.

I think that they've passed it but I'm not sure. The
congressional record is kind of hard to read. They're ammendments to
HR2500 which passed
(http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/aces/digest001.shtml).

To get the debate go to
http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/aces/aces150.html and search in the
senate section for "wiretap" on the date of 09/13/2001 (you can't get a
url to point to any section of the record- you have to redo the search).
choose the "DEPARTMENTS OF COMMERCE, JUSTICE, AND STATE, THE JUDICIARY,
AND RELATED" document.

Search for the word "wiretap" to see what they're talking about.

It's hard to reconstruct the actual changes to the law that they're
considering. The ammendments  are all written as legal "diffs" from the
existing law. Look at ammendments 1562-1569.

They seem to be saying that there are three big changes:

1. Crimes of terrorism would be included under the list of things we can
wiretap for.
2. Prosecutors would have "one stop shopping" for federal warrants for
eavesdropping on internet and other computer connections.
3. The big one: Ammendment 1565 says that a court must issue a wiretap
order if a "State law enforcement or  investigative officer has certified
to the court that the information likely to be obtained by such installation
and use is relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation"

So, probable cause would no longer be the test, but rather just a
"certification" that information "is relevant". Leahy points out, in
debate, that "investigative officer" is vague and might include private
investigators.




-- 
Global Village Idiot
Email: jem at sunsite^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hmetalab^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hibiblio.org