Senate bows to Bush, approves surveillance bill

Then you're taking the word of people like General Hayden.

And you got this from General Hayden too?

Is that all? Is there something wrong with protecting your civil rights? Keep in mind this is still the USA. And the government of the USA was formed to protect civil liberties (rights) not to protect tel coms or the state from possible investigation and/or punishment or expensive lawsuits filed by citizens.

In other words corporatism. Government and business combined. And you're okay with it?

No the rules on that are pretty clear it all comes down to what the law considers a reasonable search and seizure.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

The Fourth Amendment specifies that any warrant must be judicially sanctioned for a search or an arrest, in order for such a warrant to be considered reasonable. Warrants must be supported by probable cause and be limited in scope according to specific information supplied by a person (usually a peace officer) who has sworn by it and is therefore accountable to the issuing court.

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Seems pretty cut and dried to me. Domestic warrantless searches are no no's.

 

I get it "trust us we're the government" is good enough for you.

Of course it can but is that what our government was meant to do? Is it right for the government to ask or more than likely coerce corporations to do it's bidding. I say coerce because that is what government does. It coerces and intimidates it doesn't ask.

On the other hand it also means that the state is using corporations to do what it isn't allowed to do. Search and seizure without probable cause.

Depends on how important liberty really is to you I guess.

They certainly believed in the redress of grievances.

Treating the symptoms in other words. Holding government and corporations accountable will put the country in grave danger. Isn't that what the state's argument really boils down too?

Does to me.

Fine. If you have probable cause then get a warrant don't ask business to do something you aren't allowed to do instead.

Warrantless ''National Security'' Electronic Surveillance .--In Katz v. United States, 151 Justice White sought to preserve for a future case the possibility that in ''national security cases'' electronic surveillance upon the authorization of the President or the Attorney General could be permissible without prior judicial approval. The Executive Branch then asserted the power to wiretap and to ''bug'' in two types of national security situations, against domestic subversion and against foreign intelligence operations, first basing its authority on a theory of ''inherent'' presidential power and then in the Supreme Court withdrawing to the argument that such surveillance was a ''reasonable'' search and seizure and therefore valid under the Fourth Amendment. Unanimously, the Court held that at least in cases of domestic subversive investigations, compliance with the warrant provisions of the Fourth Amendment was required. 152 Whether or not a search was reasonable, wrote Justice Powell for the Court, was a question which derived much of its answer from the warrant clause; except in a few narrowly circumscribed classes of situations, only those searches conducted pursuant to warrants were reasonable. The Government's duty to preserve the national security did not override the gurarantee that before government could invade the privacy of its citizens it must present to a neutral magistrate evidence sufficient to support issuance of a warrant authorizing that invasion of privacy. 153 This protection was even more needed in ''national security cases'' than in cases of ''ordinary'' crime, the Justice continued, inasmuch as the tendency of government so often is to regard opponents of its policies as a threat and hence to tread in areas protected by the First Amendment as well as by the Fourth. 154 Rejected also was the argument that courts could not appreciate the intricacies of investigations in the area of national security nor preserve the secrecy which is required. 155

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See above.

The state even tried to get around that with the "sneak and peek" provision in the mis named USA PATRIOT Act(s).

And you still take it's word?