You and others often make the claim that if the telecoms are given immunity we will never be able to find out what was being done because the lawsuits will be closed off. So, let me ask a naive question: Why can't the next president just reveal what happened?

Does anyone think that BushCo will leave enough evidence behind for the next administration to do anything about it? We already know that destroying evidence is an everyday thing for this administration. Missing tapes. Missing e-mails. Missing people. I'm guessing there isn't much around even now.

The whole point of this exercise is that we should not have to depend on the good will of the executive branch for the information necessary to fulfill our role as the citizens of a democracy.

Exactly. That's part of how I arrived at the conclusion in my long letter. There was a lot I left out (even so, it was over the 1000 words initially), for instance, if a fan of a rock star collects memorabilia on the internet, it could well be that in the hands of a data miner, the collection is an invasion of privacy. But you wouldn't want to preclude that activity, so in that case it is at the point of use. If, on the other hand, I am listening to every word you say, its effect is chilling on you even if I never use it, so it's at the point of collection. One can ramble in that space and questions of IP, of ownership, of Goog-411, and all other types of things come up, so that can't be where the problem lies in the laws, but that is where we are in the laws for FISA, CALEA, and all the rest, because they were written when the listening itself produced the data, not some transformation or cumulative learning algorithm. They were needed because when the 4th amendment was written, collecting and using the data were nearly simultaneous -- you had to read the documents to know what to seize, and you had to show the warrant to get into the house to seize it without getting your head blown off.

The final version of the problem, the one McConnell worries about, the one retrieval people like me worry about, is one where the data is laid out like a huge fabric and surveillance means looking at a piece of the fabric. I don't think it's solvable: If you don't allow any collection of data, you don't allow innocent applications that might even be protected by free speech. If you don't ever worry about collection and only about use, everyone is under watchful eyes all the time.

The only solution is to know what is happening, because distinctions need to be made, and the word 'unreasonable' needs to be in the algorithm. Then it becomes crystal clear that the problem wasn't there, it was in the secrecy. If a secrecy order can be challenged or nullified, without condition, without executive, or any other branch privilege, without depending on how 'existential' the threat is, then the problem becomes mundane again, and we go back to providing justification and getting warrants. But none of this is in the current package, and (corrections welcome on this) none of it is really, really in the nation's laws. Constitutional Amendment?

Proposed Amendment:

a) The right of the people to challenge government secrets, or the secrets of any organization acting on behalf of the government, through their representatives or through their courts, shall not be abridged under any circumstances.

b) Under such challenge, the Congress or the court shall review the secret information quickly and promptly, and there shall be no information so secret as to be beyond challenge.

c) If, after such challenge and review, the secret information is deemed to represent evidence of wrongdoing, or if the secret information is deemed vital to the public interest, the the information shall be disclosed to the public within 30 days.

A "background" interview was recently given by apparently a high maladministration official, on FISA/PAA.

I wrote a bit about it here (or click the sig):

http://tinyurl.com/2v5xmb

but there's many pages more.

Cheers,

Woah.

Check out what the head of the FCC under Bill Clinton is saying about telecom immunity:

"Why doesn't the president just pardon [the telecom carriers] the way he did Scooter Libby and forget about Congress? I think what’s really going on is the people in the government don’t want to admit what happened."

There's more here:

http://telephonyonline.com/broadband/news/reed-hundt-auction-0228/

Glenn's moderate usage of the capitalization trope highlights transparent Talking Point Language (TPL), which does everyone a great service.

I heard rumour that TPL was going to supplant HTML and even XML as the new standard. It is capable of rendering black as white, an invaluable tool for displays that render colours in too faithful a manner for common tastes.

Cheers,

http://mondoglobo.wftk.org/wiki/Chronicle_of_Lost_Liberties_%28A_Bush-Era_Timeline%29

Then it has to be a markup and it has to be extensible. If you don't create XTPML out of TPL someone else will.

Bush will issue the first ever "class action pardon."

Perhaps. That may shield gummint agents and individual telco employees from 50 USC § 1809 prosecution, but the preznit has no power to "pardon" defendants in civil cases under 50 USC § 1810, which is what the cases now pending are.

So, yes, Dubya may be forced to pardon the criminal lawbreaking, but that at some political cost, acknowledging that in fact his minions were breaking the law and under his orders....

He'd prefer to avoid that by covering up all evidence of such (and by not having his Justice Department look into possible criminal violations).

Cheers,

Enough!

Dear Glenn,

Will you please stop the Capitalization of any Word or Phrase You Mean to Impugn? We get it.

Love,

Everybody

-- Ramesees

I also hope Glenn ignores this lower case complainant, who is named after some pagan monarch - or a prophylactic - I can't decide which. Capitalism Is A Capital Idea! Bully for Glenn and Bully for Capitalism! What do you expect from a rogue who proudly proclaims he's a Democrat in his first letter at Salon? From Texas?

Ramesees...I am a Democrat in Texas, one of the most disenfranchised blocs in the country...

I thought we deported them all. They must be coming in from south of the border. I hope he's not one of my constituents.

I HOPE GLENN CAPITALIZES EVERY LETTER IN HIS NEXT POST!