Bush broke the law. President Obama followed it. [View all]

[ProSense]

People should stop pretending that Obama hasn't implemented safeguards after the abuses under the Bush administration.

Bush came under attack because he bypassed the FISA court and went directly to intentionally spying on Americans. Bush broke the law (http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022973979).

The laws passed in light of that discovery did not make spying on Americans without a warrant legal. That is still illegal.

President Obama took the legal route and went through the FISA court.

People also need to stop pretending that the U.S. doesn't have a history of surveillance. Hell, the FISA court was implemented to safeguard against the very kinds of abuses being discussed.

The government has been collecting information for decades. The question has always been whether or not those activities violate the Constitution, even when they are in compliance with existing laws.

Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735 (1979) - No warrant required for call metadata
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022966764

Here is Congressional testimony on another program implemented in 1997.

Statement of The Electronic Frontier Foundation
Before the Subcommittee on the Constitution
of the Committee on the Judiciary
United States House of Representatives
The Fourth Amendment and Carnivore
July 28, 2000

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) would like to submit comments to be included for the record regarding the Fourth Amendment and the issues raised by the FBI's Carnivore system.

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The Carnivore system has received a lot of press recently, but the FBI has not been forthcoming about how the Carnivore system actually works. Civil liberties groups have often been quoted as noting that Carnivore is a "black box" leaving us to guess at its inner workings.

<...>

Second, analogizing pen register information from a traditional land-line phone system to the Internet is incorrect. The Carnivore system likely can capture content as well as numbers. Email addresses for example are personal to an individual rather than to a particular household. We don't know for sure, but it is possible that Carnivore has access to the subject line information of email messages. Subject lines are content. For example, "leaving work at 5pm today - meet me at the bus stop", contains a lot of information about travel plans of a target on a particular day. Carnivore can also track other content information such as the URLs of web sites visited. Seeing the URLs not only give routing information but content as well. For example, someone visiting www.eff.org could presumably be interested in civil liberties issues online.

<...>

Currently, there is little if any public oversight over the FBI's use of its Carnivore system. The FBI has not allowed the ISP to inspect the device, nor have any of the advocacy groups been allowed to examine it. In fact, the ACLU has had to resort to filing a FOIA request to try to get at the source code. Allowing the FBI to install and use a device such as this unchecked by any public oversight, threatens the openness we enjoy and expect in our society. Robert Corn-Revere, in his testimony, noted that his case is sealed. We can't even look to that for guidance.

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http://w2.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/Carnivore/20000728_eff_house_carnivore.html

FBI Still Hunting With Carnivore

By Margret Johnston, PCWorld
Oct 20, 2000 7:00 AM

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation is still developing its Carnivore Internet surveillance tool, according to FBI documents obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

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EPIC filed the FOIA lawsuit after the FBI earlier this year revealed the existence of Carnivore. The lawsuit seeks the public release of all FBI records concerning Carnivore, including the source code, other technical details, and legal analyses addressing the potential privacy implications of the technology. The source code of the Carnivore system was withheld in the first batch of documents (see "Does Carnivore Eat Privacy Rights?&quot .

Carnivore has outraged not only EPIC, but also the American Civil Liberties Union and some members of Congress. The FBI has used it in at least 25 criminal and national security investigations, according to the FBI, which maintains the system is legal.

The documents in EPIC's hands also confirm that Carnivore was conceived under the name Omnivore in February 1997. It was proposed originally for a Solaris X86 computer. Omnivore was replaced by Carnivore running on a Windows NT-based computer in June 1999. Other parts of the documents include reviews of tests for performance, and recovery from attacks and crashes for both Omnivore and Carnivore. Carnivore consists of a PC running Windows and proprietary software.

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http://www.pcworld.com/article/32664/article.html

After prolonged negative coverage in the press, the FBI changed the name of its system from "Carnivore" to the more benign-sounding "DCS1000." DCS is reported to stand for "Digital Collection System"; the system has the same functions as before. The Associated Press reported in mid-January 2005 that the FBI essentially abandoned the use of Carnivore in 2001, in favor of commercially available software, such as NarusInsight (a mass surveillance system).[7]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivore_(software)#Controversy

Abandoned in 2001, shortly before Bush launched his illegal wiretapping program.

For the Republican opportunists, Bush actually spied on people.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022959557

HELLO WORLD! George W. Bush illegally spied on American citizens. Read all about it.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022963663

Why The NSA’s Secret Online Surveillance Should Scare You
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/06/07/2120141/why-the-nsas-secret-online-surveillance-should-scare-you/

This whole NSA story is nothing more than recycled outrage. Glenn Greenwald didn't break shit.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022967844

What can we all agree on?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022969079

Edward Snowden broke the law.

"Most significant" leak in history, and likely one of the dumbest.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022987178

AP Editor: Do Not Describe Edward Snowden As A 'Whistleblower'
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022989251