Allow the lawsuit to continue

This is all interesting from

This is all interesting from a legal perspective, but I do doubt it is going to go very far since ATT and all the other phone companies involved deny having given the government such records (phone records for data mining).

The little wiretapping that has been done is apparently covered by other laws as well, and we may well have a conflict of laws happening here, one law allows and the other takes away while nothing is present to negate either one. Ahh, the wisdom of our elected representatives. Then, again, it could be that the laws cover different circumstances and one may not apply here, which is what both sides seem to be claiming.

The real item of concern here is does one want facts that are truly "state secrets" dragged out in public for all to see?

Let's look at something entirely different here. We are trying to develop a new missle defense system. A system that was tested just the other day. All over the news tonight the whole world was told the system is only 50% effective right now and is totally ineffective against certain types of missles. Ask yourself is this something you would like our enemies to know, or would yourather keep them guessing as to the effectiveness of suc a system?

Not much different than telling everyone how we are looking for them and attempting to break thier organizations, is it?

Maybe you would rather look at it this way. You are looking for a new job. Do you want your boss to know about this? Have someone broadcast it all over the company? How much of a chance of keeping your present job do you think you may have once it became known you were looking?

Secrets cut all ways. Think about it.

Rod, Your missing the main

Rod,

Your missing the main point of my argument: I'm not arguing for or against wiretapping or the NSA spying on American citizens. My argument is with doing so without judicial oversight. Wiretapping itself is not illegal or unconstitional if done with a subpeona (and the FISA courts can grant a subpeona up to 72 hours after the act). Wiretapping without a subpeona is a bastardazation of our legal process and is clearly against the law.

Martin McKeay
martin_cw@mckeay.net
http://www.mckeay.net/
Voicemail: 916.231.9479

The erosion has already

The erosion has already begun. Now local police departments are now collecting the same types of data and are justifying it by stating that if the N.S.A. can do it, it must be legal to not require court approval.

I have yet to see any real

I have yet to see any real evidence of domestic spying by the NSA. As I understand it,all the intercepted phone coversations were either to or from suspected or actual overseas terrorists and their associates in the US. Sounds like international spying. Do any of you "black helicopter" crowd really think the government is interested in your phone conversation with Aunt Tilly?
Furthermore, to opine that listening in to suspected terrorists is of little or no value is totally absurd. Do a little research and find out how many terrorist plots were foiled, and how many terrorist cells were discovered world-wide by using wire tap intelligence along with other means before making blanket statements unsupported by fact.

With reguard to the post by

With reguard to the post by anonymous, he brought up some good food for thought, but he like Kelly and many other American citizens are missing the point, probably through fears instilled by the current administration. MARTIN is hitting the nail squarly on the head with his detailed 2 comments. I still say a good Amen to both of those. Also Andres is right in both of his comments as is Onanymous. We are not just looking at a situation where amount of calls billed when, to what number and how long are requested. We are looking at fiber optic parallel divider circuits that AT&T has installed at main access points across the U.S. for pairing in on ALL communications, using high technology software and super computers to monitor not only voice on phone conversations but all digital data traversing the internet, not only e-mails, but image, video, websites visited etc;. Read the Computer World May16, 2006 article- Why NSA spying puts the U.S. in danger by a former NSA analyst to see how you would choke up an already heavily laden FBI, CIA and National security agencies that would farther endanger us with the real terrorists that laughingly hopes our government continues the course its on.

In response to the overly simplified minded context, that IF YOU DON'T HAVE ANYTHING TO HIDE, WHY WORRY.
#1. Who is going to pay for all of this overly humongus amount of data to be sifted through, checked out, verified, wild goose chase leads and few acted on? US taxpayers that have already been put into a severe budget deficet.
#2. The amount of resources it will require and be wasted on checking on non-criminal people looking for a few terrorist. People that may just be talking about some of the terrorist to a friend or relative over the phone, or in an e-mail, or teacher or student doing a research paper on terrorist looking for info on websites. Even if you never done any of these things you could still be associated with an investigation because someone who innocently did contacted you.
#3 Due to fantacies and fears you slowly give away and loose forever our civil liberties that our forefathers set forth in a newly founded country in escape of high taxes, cruel leadership, no freedoms to express anything, let alone opinon without fear of being imprisoned. Things that we have fought so hard and so proudly for the past many, many years and shed so much of our own blood to keep.
#4 You don't think this could happen to us here in the U.S., that we could be headed bit by bit toward Police State ruling government. Look again, at how some of this information gathering and spying has revealed undercover reporters that have uncovered information of wrong doing in our government and some of our political leaders. They are beginning to punish the people that try to keep a watch for these underhanded conspiracies that crop up and blow the whistle on them. Our checks and balances system seems to be slowly erroding, because many of our public representatives and lawmakers and legislators are afraid to stand up and speakout on whats going on and fight against it.
#5 The people of this great country seem to be changing as time goes on. Most seem to be sticking their head in the sand so they want have to except whats going on. They now worship the president, senators, congressmen, and others in our political system as gods and demigods and celeberties to be held in awe. Come on, wakeup people. WE THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IN ORDER TO FORM A MORE PERFECT UNION are the United States of America and our thoughts, ideas, blood, sweat and tears. Our Governmental institution is what WE put there, the people that make up our governing body are our public servants not gods. They are there to represent to the rest of the world what WE want, how WE chose to live, OUR ideas, values, wants and desires. That includes how we handle matters with other countries. We used to be looked up to and regarded with respect and admired to the point that many come from many other contries to help us build this great country because of what it stood for and represented with all its freedoms, THE LAND of THE FREE they called us.

And we now have people that are so afraid, they want to give up all those hard fought for civil liberties and freedoms. They are afraid to standup and tell our congress, senate and representatives that enough is enough, get your act together and do the job we put you up there to do. They have tried to strangle us with the ELECTORAL vote as has been demonstrated in past previous elections. But PEOPLE, we have ALL got to do our part. We have to once more become WE THE PEOPLE of THE UNITED STATES of AMERICA and the people we elect to represent us to other countries have got to represent US not themselves. For those of you that call yourself christians and GOD fearing, look at how you let government take GOD out of everything. Just how many things have been accomplished the past few years that represent JESUS' teachings, the greatest of these being LOVE and CHARITY. Don't forget the admonishment to be aware of the wolf in sheeps clothing.

If you are still to afraid to stand up for all these rights and liberties for yourself, think of where you are letting our government and country head that your grandchildren and future seed will have to live under. I know you've seen things about China, Iran and others, is that the legacy you want your greatgrands to live under?

A devious plan: - any

A devious plan:
- any exchange of personally identifiable information between any entities (.com, .gov, whatever) involving USA residents (not just citizens) should be oversighted by an independent non-profit organization;
- manual review of these exchanges are mandatory;
- the empliyees of aforementioned organization should be protected from legal, semilegal and quasi-legal threats the same way as it's done on witness protection program;
- the organization should be funded by businesses involved in these information exchanges. If a couple of ChoicePoints will die in the process - even better;
- personally identifiable information brokering should be legally treated as drug trafficking if quantity of records are from 1 to 10. If the aforementioned quantity is more then 11 - as voluntary manslaughter.

correction: I meant to say

correction: I meant to say the seizure of records from someone who does not pay his bills IS reasonable.
I typed that it's not by mistake.

And another thing: the

And another thing:
the seizure of phone records from someone who doesn't pay its bill is not reasonable.
ever heard of reasonable/unreasonable seizures and searches?
If you don't pay your bills, you are stealing from a company.
But what's reasonable about collection data from millions of Americans without suspicion of wrongdoing?

ACLU will win this battle much like it did in the abu ghraib picture lawsuit.

Your right: Ever heard of

Your right: Ever heard of FISA?
and ever heard of the Telecommunications Act?

What the NSA did is illegal.