McCain: I'd Spy on Americans Secretly, Too

[Anti Federalist]

So, an endless "War on Terror" means plenipotentiary presidential powers, forever, apparently...

McCain: I'd Spy on Americans Secretly, Too

If elected president, Senator John McCain would reserve the right to run his own warrantless wiretapping program against Americans, based on the theory that the president's wartime powers trump federal criminal statutes and court oversight, according to a statement released by his campaign Monday.

McCain's new tack towards the Bush administration's theory of executive power comes some 10 days after a McCain surrogate stated, incorrectly it seems, that the senator wanted hearings into telecom companies' cooperation with President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program, before he'd support giving those companies retroactive legal immunity.

As first reported by Threat Level, Chuck Fish, a full-time lawyer for the McCain campaign, also said McCain wanted stricter rules on how the nation's telecoms work with U.S. spy agencies, and expected those companies to apologize for any lawbreaking before winning amnesty.

But Monday, McCain adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin, speaking for the campaign, disavowed those statements, and for the first time cast McCain's views on warrantless wiretapping as identical to Bush's.

[N]either the Administration nor the telecoms need apologize for actions that most people, except for the ACLU and the trial lawyers, understand were Constitutional and appropriate in the wake of the attacks on September 11, 2001. [...]

We do not know what lies ahead in our nation’s fight against radical Islamic extremists, but John McCain will do everything he can to protect Americans from such threats, including asking the telecoms for appropriate assistance to collect intelligence against foreign threats to the United States as authorized by Article II of the Constitution.

The Article II citation is key, since it refers to President Bush's longstanding arguments that the president has nearly unlimited powers during a time of war. The administration's analysis went so far as to say the Fourth Amendment did not apply inside the United States in the fight against terrorism, in one legal opinion from 2001.

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/06/mccain-id-spy-o.html

[Mini-Me]

Definitely unsurprising. :-/ Why would the government relinquish its unconstitutional powers, considering nobody's stopping it? Why would the executive branch bring itself back in line of its own accord? ...and why would we expect someone as disgusting as McCain to actually follow the oath of office?

As far as McCain's "I'd spy on Americans," I'd spy on that asshole if his face wasn't so fugly.

[HOLLYWOOD]

They all will SPY on Americans...

Did you know, your Tax Dollars go to having numerous agencies to SPY on Americans and Foreign Corporations whose collected information is provided to Asset controllers and respective American Corporations?

Enjoy the reading... it's true, speaking from experience

http://fly.hiwaay.net/~pspoole/echelon.html (http://fly.hiwaay.net/~pspoole/echelon.html)

[IPSecure]

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080604-secret-acta-treaty-may-include-filtering-provisions.html

ISP filtering of "pirated" material is a controversial measure that would be tough to push through a national legislature in the US, EU, Japan, Korea, or Canada, what with all those pesky "voters" with their concerns about privacy, fair use, and false positives. But sneaking the provision into a trade agreement? Much easier.

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has been negotiated in secret by trade negotiators from rich countries around the globe. Despite the recent leak of a four-page memo on possible ACTA provisions, no draft text (or details of any kind, really) have emerged from the process. Google's William Patry, a top US copyright lawyer, now says that anonymous sources close to the ACTA process have slipped him more details on the plan, and they don't sound good.
Bring on the filters

Writing on his blog yesterday, Patry noted that two separate sources talked about filtering. "The rumors of what is in the draft are pretty much all bad and the scope is growing, not shrinking," said one. "It is even said that the latest version has filtering language in it."The second report was similar.

ACTA negotiators are meeting in Geneva this week to hash out more details of the proposed deal, but their work is already generating furious online opposition from people like Patry, who thunders, "The attitude of USTR [United States Trade Representative] toward copyright is a blinkered, one-sided view that copyright is good and therefore as much of it as possible is even better."
A shroud of secrecy

US Trade Representative Susan Schwab

Critics are blasting the secret nature of the proceedings, which they see as a way to negotiate and sign a "trade" deal which will then be presented to national legislatures as something already done.

"This 'patriot act' for intellectual property 'crimes' may be one of the late legacies of the Bush Administration," writes James Love of the Consumer Project on Technology. "It would be nice to have more transparency about such a far-reaching and important global trade agreement."

Patry agrees that "we do not want our trade representatives to negotiate on their own agreements that require changes in domestic copyright laws and then present the agreement after signature to the legislature as a fait d'accompli."

Alan Story, a Senior Lecturer in Intellectual Property Law at the UK's University of Kent, objects not just to the secret process behind ACTA but also to the idea that stronger copyright is better copyright.

"Where do we read about how copyright blocks access to books or leads to ever greater commodification and sameness in our culture?" he asks. "Instead, we are regularly carpet-bombed by the latest revelation, accompanied by statistically unreliable surveys, as to how piracy is, one week, killing the music industry, and the next week, the film industry. Lock ‘em up, cut off their Internet access forever, piracy funds terrorist cells: the articles never cease in this steady drip after drip."

Because of the secrecy, though, it's hard even to criticize ACTA; no one yet knows what it might say. But if Patry's sources are correct, the agreement may go far beyond "fighting fakes" (as the USTR said last year) and could attempt to force new, tougher IP provisions on everyone who signs up.

Such a policy, negotiated at institutions like the World Trade Organization (WTO), would require more transparency and would be certain to raise more objections from countries and civil society groups. By forming its own club and including only select countries in the draft, ACTA can remain both secret and totally pro-copyright. That's a bad combination.

[zombieapokalypse]

Hooray for everyone on this forum who wants to vote for McCain over Obama. Way to go, guys. Here's to peace and liberty.

[Mini-Me]

Hooray for everyone on this forum who wants to vote for McCain over Obama. Way to go, guys. Here's to peace and liberty.

Errr...sorry to burst your bubble, but Obama's exactly the same, except he's better at smooth-talking. The police state and the empire will both grow under either of them (at the expense of freedom and the economy), I guarandamntee it.

Send a message: Vote for neither.

[bill50]

Why is this just about McCain if we know Hilary and Obama will both do the same?

[Anti Federalist]

Hooray for everyone on this forum who wants to vote for McCain over Obama. Way to go, guys. Here's to peace and liberty.

If you think anything is going to "change" with Obama you are sadly mistaken.

In foreign policy there will be no change (see AIPAC comments).

In spending there will be no change.

In loss of liberty there will be no change.

There will be no repealing of the PATRIOT Act.

Just to name a few.

This is nothing more than a "choice" between red state fascism and blue state communism.

[Matt Collins]

This is nothing more than a "choice" between red state fascism and blue state communism.And both are authoritarian. Truer words were never spoken!

[qh4dotcom]

Can the government spy when you're talking over the Internet like in GTalk/Google Talk?

I don't see how that is possible

[Kade]

Hooray for everyone on this forum who wants to vote for McCain over Obama. Way to go, guys. Here's to peace and liberty.

Post more.

[Truth Warrior]

Post more.http://rexcurry.net/fascism=socialism.html

[Kade]

^ post less.

[Truth Warrior]

^ post less. http://rexcurry.net/fascism=socialism.html

[freelance]

Can the government spy when you're talking over the Internet like in GTalk/Google Talk?

I don't see how that is possible

Well, then you had better get acquainted with search engines.