How Congress unknowingly legalized PRISM in 2007

[Ichingcarpenter]

On Sept. 11, 2007, the National Security Agency signed up Microsoft as its first partner for PRISM, a massive domestic surveillance program whose existence was reported by the Washington Post today. That’s barely a month after Congress passed, and President George W. Bush signed, the Protect America Act.


The Bush Administration portrayed the PAA as a technical fix designed to close a gap in America’s surveillance capabilities that had been opened by a then-recent ruling of the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). It proved to be much more than that.
While the details are still classified, reports suggested that the FISC had ruled that it was illegal for the government to intercept communications between two foreign endpoints if the communications happened to pass through the United States. Warning that the U.S. would suddenly lose the ability to continue its surveillance of terrorists, the administration pushed the PAA through Congress in a matter of days.


In reality, the PAA represented a sweeping change to American surveillance law. Before conducting surveillance, the PAA only required executive branch officials to “certify” that there were “reasonable procedures” in place for ensuring that surveillance “concerns” persons located outside the United States and that the foreign intelligence is a “significant purpose” of the program. A single certification could cover a broad program intercepting the communications of numerous individuals. And there was no requirement for judicial review of individual surveillance targets within a “certified” program.
Civil liberties groups warned that the PAA’s vague requirements and lack of oversight would give the government a green light to seek indiscriminate access to the private communications of Americans. They predicted that the government would claim that they needed unfettered access to domestic communications to be sure they had gotten all relevant information about suspected terrorists.
It now appears that this is exactly what the government did.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/06/how-congress-unknowingly-legalized-prism-in-2007/?tid=rssfeed

[xchrom]

1. du rec.

[malaise]

2. Bushco got away with murder

and it was sanctioned by both parties

[SnakeEyes]

6. To make things worse...

We elected a president that continued it! Ugh

[GeorgeGist]

3. Unknowingly?

Kiss my ass.

[grahamhgreen]

8. +1

[Art_from_Ark]

10. +2

[woo me with science]

21. +1 We need wading boots

for the BULLSHIT today, don't we?

[AnnieK401]

4. Not shocked.

To be honest this really doesn't shock me. It brings out in the open what we all should have suspected with the Patriot Act. Am I happy about it, no. Do I think we can be safe without it? Not sure. We will say it is not worth our "freedom" until another attack, then what will we say? Will it change my vote, again to be honest probably not. Certainly not to vote for any Republican you could name.

[Ichingcarpenter]

5. Boston Bombers

Ricin letters

yeah without the prism system in place those events would have..... oh never mind

[Spitfire of ATJ]

11. It's like when Bush was pressured on examples of "prevented attacks" and,...

....he gave out a long list of stuff that was exaggerated.

I guess we could do what Bush did.

Make a big show out of busting in on some people and hauling them out in chains for the cameras and then quietly release them.

[AnnieK401]

12. Point taken

Although if Obama had stopped the data mining and those events happened he would have been toast for stopping it. Can't win. But I get what you're saying. This is a tough issue as far as I'm concerned.

[EC]

7. They had a compliant Congress that

just did as they were told and never read any of the bills they were passing. They still do it. Especially the repubs...it's obvious they never read anything they are voting on. It's also obvious they couldn't even write bills without ALEC doing it for them.

[Solly Mack]

9. Either fools or liars. Which is it?

"But few members of Congress realized the breadth of the surveillance powers they were effectively approving."

[woo me with science]

20. They're focus group testing it

and will get back to you.

[Solly Mack]

23. LMAO

[KansDem]

13. This is plausible...

...considering that Congress now merely rubber-stamps bills written by the likes of ALEC without even reading the legislation they're voting on.

[brett_jv]

14. Wasn't it 'our' Senate on 9/11/2007

If memory serves, Dems at least held the Senate ... maybe only by one vote, but it was 'ours' I'm almost positive.

Lame.

[karynnj]

15. We had both the House and the Senate

The House only needs 50% to defeat something. The Senate can DEFEAT something with 41% - we had 51 Senators. Either House could have stopped it if every single Democrat agreed. The problem was many did not see the program for what it was. (Note - I am still surprised that there never was anything in that period rejected by the Republican libertarian/conservatives and the Democrats working together. ie Not one libertarian joined the Alito filibuster. )

Here is the record of the vote. It got 60 votes with 28 against. There were 12 not voting - many because this vote was forced before the Congress left in August. Congress had planned an earlier departure so many people had conflicts between state or international commitments. Once it was known that there were over 60 votes (add some not voting), many Democrats opted not to vote. http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=1&vote=00309

[JDPriestly]

18. Obama and Clinton voted nay. That's reassuring.

Obama should vote nay with his pen.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022968735

[blkmusclmachine]

16. Unknowingly?!

[midnight]

17. Any legal minds here that want to explain what reasonable means?

[JDPriestly]

19. Here you go:

A standard for what is fair and appropriate under usual and ordinary circumstances; that which is according to reason; the way a rational and just person would have acted.

http://law.yourdictionary.com/reasonable

reasonable doubt:

Beyond reasonable doubt is the standard of evidence required to validate a criminal conviction in most adversarial legal systems.[citation needed]

Generally the prosecution bears the burden of proof and is required to prove their version of events to this standard. This means that the proposition being presented by the prosecution must be proven to the extent that there could be no "reasonable doubt" in the mind of a "reasonable person" that the defendant is guilty. There can still be a doubt, but only to the extent that it would not affect a reasonable person's belief regarding whether or not the defendant is guilty. "The shadow of a doubt" is sometimes used interchangeably with reasonable doubt, but this extends beyond the latter, to the extent that it may be considered an impossible standard. The term "reasonable doubt" is therefore used.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_doubt

reasonable person

A phrase frequently used in tort and Criminal Law to denote a hypothetical person in society who exercises average care, skill, and judgment in conduct and who serves as a comparative standard for determining liability.

The decision whether an accused is guilty of a given offense might involve the application of an objective test in which the conduct of the accused is compared to that of a reasonable person under similar circumstances. In most cases, persons with greater than average skills, or with special duties to society, are held to a higher standard of care. For example, a physician who aids a person in distress is held to a higher standard of care than is an ordinary person.

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Reasonable+person+standard

Ain't Google grand?

[midnight]

22. Thank you...

[Agnosticsherbet]

24. Congress is part of the government, and they knew what they were doing.

They've been doing it this way for decades. Check out the War Powers Act sometime.