I'm wondering if i can sue the government for spying.
 

This is way out of hand. First, when this whole thing went down, Bush says it's only involving international calls. Now, it's an "all calls database".The man is a liar like no other. can i sue this fuckin government?

yours,
chex

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washing...5-10-nsa_x.htm

You prob. could but then everyone would do it, then the country would go bankrupt. plus do you have any proof they listened to YOUR calls?

you would be called a terrorist. then the government would probably kill you, chop you into little peices and bury you in the desert.

I think a class action lawsuit could probobly be filed, but you better have proof that what they did was "unlawful". If you're just one person and the complaint isn't deemed valid, your case will be thrown out before it even gets anywhere.

If this is what our gov is going to do to us....why have a fuckin democracy....sure as hell doesn't look like one...

Bush's inept ability, arrogance, and use of bogus logic continues to grow every day. Hey, but what can you say? If people want to be fucktards and vote in a guy like this because of their narrowminded religious/moral views are in conjunction with his and from a fear that "the other guy" won't protect the country from being attacked then that's their fault. It's obvious a buttload of people realize that they made a mistake for voting for this idiot (or should we say God's roll dog:rolleyes:) in to office because approval ratings are now in the 20s. Like my dad says about it, "You get what you deserve." We did our part (those who didn't vote for him). Shenanigans.

Telcos Could Be Liable For Tens of Billions of Dollars For Illegally Turning Over Phone Records


This morning, USA Today reported that three telecommunications companies – AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth – provided “phone call records of tens of millions of Americans” to the National Security Agency. Such conduct appears to be illegal and could make the telco firms liable for tens of billions of dollars. Here’s why:

1. It violates the Stored Communications Act. The Stored Communications Act, Section 2703(c), provides exactly five exceptions that would permit a phone company to disclose to the government the list of calls to or from a subscriber: (i) a warrant; (ii) a court order; (iii) the customer’s consent; (iv) for telemarketing enforcement; or (v) by “administrative subpoena.” The first four clearly don’t apply. As for administrative subpoenas, where a government agency asks for records without court approval, there is a simple answer – the NSA has no administrative subpoena authority, and it is the NSA that reportedly got the phone records.
2. The penalty for violating the Stored Communications Act is $1000 per individual violation. Section 2707 of the Stored Communications Act gives a private right of action to any telephone customer “aggrieved by any violation.” If the phone company acted with a “knowing or intentional state of mind,” then the customer wins actual harm, attorney’s fees, and “in no case shall a person entitled to recover receive less than the sum of $1,000.”
(The phone companies might say they didn’t “know” they were violating the law. But USA Today reports that Qwest’s lawyers knew about the legal risks, which are bright and clear in the statute book.)
3. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act doesn’t get the telcos off the hook. According to USA Today, the NSA did not go to the FISA court to get a court order. And Qwest is quoted as saying that the Attorney General would not certify that the request was lawful under FISA. So FISA provides no defense for the phone companies, either.

In other words, for every 1 million Americans whose records were turned over to NSA, the telcos could be liable for $1 billion in penalties, plus attorneys fees. You do the math.

http://www.thinkprogress.org

Sounds like a horrible idea. Good luck.

Looks like there may be more culpibility on the telco end. step on up and collect yr damages...

Questions and Answers on Potential Telco Liability

A previous post laid out the reasons why the telcos appear to face enormous liability for handing stored phone records to the NSA. In sum, the Stored Communications Act (SCA) prohibits handing over the records, and it provides at least $1,000 in damages per customer for violations. For 50 million or more customers, that leads to big damages indeed.

This post responds to the legal questions and comments that we’ve seen so far. We still don’t see any decent legal defense against liability, and that may be why Qwest refused to go along with the NSA demands:

1. Isn’t the conduct covered under another part of the SCA? Maybe. If the phone companies “voluntarily” gave the records to the NSA, then 18 U.S.C. 2702(c) applies. If the phone companies were required to turn over the records, such as through a court order, then Section 2703(c) applies. The bottom line is the same - none of the exceptions apply, and liability exists.
2. What about the emergency exception? Section 2702 has an exception for “an emergency involving immediate danger of death or serious physical injury.” Other emergency exceptions in the wiretap laws have time frames such as 72 hours, giving time for the government to get a court order. This exception won’t cover the NSA program, which is now going on five years.
3. Does the SCA apply to phone records? Yes. The rules apply to an “electronic communications service,” which includes both phone and e-mail communications.
4. Does it matter that the telcos took out customer names and addresses? No. Phone numbers themselves are treated as personally identifiable information in American law, such as under the federal Privacy Act. The reason is that the NSA can instantly match the phone numbers back to subscribers using widely available services. It won’t work for the telcos to say: “We temporarily took out customer names, knowing that the NSA could put them back in moments later.”
5. Did the government use National Security Letters instead? Not according to the facts in the USA Today story, which says that the NSA asked for the data. The FBI does have the power to ask for phone calling records using NSLs, which are secret subpoenas issued without a court order. The NSA doesn’t have authority to issue NSLs, though. Even if the FBI issued an NSL on behalf of NSA, it would likely be unlawful. An NSL can ask only for records relevant to “an authorized investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities.” An “investigation” is ordinarily a narrowly-defined specific investigation, generally of one or a few suspects. It stretches the statute beyond the limit to say one “investigation” can be for all the phone calls made by all Americans. The telcos get off the hook only if they turned over the records “in good faith” that it was legal - using one NSL to get all the calls in the country is not a “good faith” read of the statute.

In short, we still don’t see any legal defense to this enormous liability of the telcos.
– Peter Swire http://www.thinkprogreess.org

newsflash for the Sheriff:

the USA is currently over 8 trillion in debt.

that's mega super duper uber bankruptcy. glad you're so concerned to keep up with the basic facts.

Read:
http://zfacts.com/p/318.html

In 1981, the national debt reached its lowest point since 1931. To celebrate, Reagan/Bush put us over 3 trillion in debt. Bush/Cheney pulled an even bigger stunt. How much is three trillion? Three trillion dollar bills laid end-to-end will reach to the Sun & back.

there's no way that all the calls can be listened to or anything. the word is that the system checks for terrorist-related codewords, but in actuality the system is probably just used to store the calls & use them at some future date against anyone that is perceived to be a dangerous enemy to the state.

yeah, ricechex the new info that USA Today broke the story on a couple of days ago about the NSA having every call on record since 9/12/01 makes J. Edgar Hoover's efforts pale in comparison. but of course, all of this was part of the Leo Strauss/Paul Wolfowitz plan from the beginning.

Internet activity will be next if it isn't already.

i didnt vote for bush in 2004 for moral or religious reasons.....i did it to spite people like ricechex and atari...and im sure i wasnt alone

put that in you pipe and smoke it!

Militarised borders, secret police eavesdropping on it's citizens, invading Middle Eastern countries, running detention camps where people have no recourse to legal representation, torture of prisoners - Does that sound like the 'American Way'?

Sounds more like Soviet Russia to me.

You can't possibly think you could sue the gov't and win?


I thought you had a POLITICAL SCIENCE DEGREE???

To be honest, I don't really care. If it escalates to releasing calls to the public I'll be pissed, but the government can eavesdrop on me all it wants. Even if I got something to hide, they aren't gonna do anything about it. I agree that it's ridiculous and paranoid - I just don't care.

I do understand that it's a principle thing, though. Soon they could be arresting people for clicking the Columbine link in the other thread out of curiousity. I'm just saying, it's nothing to freak out over right now.

khchris, as posted above, the liability with regards to a lawsuit appears to be turning towards the telcos more than the federal gov't. Things are still developing of course, and word has it that a 3rd party to the telcos may have been more directly involved with releasing the american public's call info. Here is some more helpful info for u:

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/05/19/...defends-story/

and here:

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/05/17/...ecutive-order/
including:


"Ordinarily, a company that conceals their transactions and activities from the public would violate securities law. But an presidential memorandum signed by the President on May 5 allows the Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, to authorize a company to conceal activities related to national security". (See 15 U.S.C. 78m(b)(3)(A))

Just trying to be helpful..:)

That's just so sinister...

I was talking Depression poor.

Strange but true, you actually need the government's permission to sue the government.

The government gets sued all the time (i.e. Freedom of Information Act lawsuits, etc.) But you do need their permission (i.e. no frivolous lawsuits and no lawsuits against government employees who carry out their duties without breaking the law). That's why you don't see frivolous Wrongful Death suits against Bush or any other wartime president.

As for the rest of ya, get a life. Quit your whining. You sound like a bunch of Democrats the day after an election. Whaaaa!!!! Whaaaaa!! Whaaaaaa!!

...and next after that is the truth :p

Government secrecy is an oxymoron in itself

Via http://www.fms.treas.gov/fr/05frusg/05frusg.pdf:

"The federal government’s gross debt in the consolidated financial statements was about $8 trillion as of September 30, 2005. This number excludes such items as the gap between the present value of future promised and funded Social Security and Medicare benefits, veterans’ health care, and a range of other liabilities (e.g., federal employee and veteran benefits payable), commitments, and contingencies that the federal government has pledged to support. Including these items, the federal government’s fiscal exposures now total more than $46 trillion, up from about $20 trillion in 2000. This translates into a burden of about $156,000 per American or approximately $375,000 per full-time worker, up from $72,000 and $165,000 respectively, in 2000. These amounts do not include future costs resulting from Hurricane Katrina or the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Continuing on this unsustainable path will gradually erode, if not suddenly damage, our economy, our standard of living, and ultimately our national security."