Law Enforcement Looks to Video Surveillance Networks

2008 may have been The Year of the Large-Scale Wireless Video Surveillance System, as several cities and their police departments joined the growing market, while others expanded existing systems.

These systems stream high-resolution video to monitoring stations and police squad cars from cameras strategically located throughout downtown areas or other high-priority, high-crime districts. The cameras can prove valuable to police and prosecutors for capturing and convicting criminals and as a crime deterrent.

Influential Democrat asks Obama to keep spy chiefs

The comments in Wednesday's Congress Daily by U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, a Texas Democrat, run counter to the views of his likely Senate counterpart, who has called for a new team.

Reyes said he had recommended to Obama's transition team that CIA Director Michael Hayden and Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell be kept in place for at least six months.

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Obama vows to cut wasteful spending, doesn't rule out tax cuts or new programs

CHICAGO -- Facing a first-year deficit that could approach a staggering $2 trillion, President-elect Barack Obama vowed Tuesday to cut out wasteful spending wherever he finds it but insisted that the scope of the economic crisis demands an extraordinary - and expensive - response.

I will just repeat something I have said before, FISA abuse costs us 8 BILLION dollars a year. We could save a lot of money if we would just honor the constitution.

All this talk about how Obama will have to give up doing anything for ordinary people because of the budget crisis got me to thinking, what should we cut? Then I remembered this old post:

Broader FBI powers now set in stone

Among the powers agents now have for an assessment:

• Conduct surveillance without an otherwise required court order

• Obtain grand jury subpoenas for personal telephone and e-mail accounts

• Recruit informants for feeding information about a group or person to the bureau

• Examine records maintained by federal, state and local government agencies, which are typically not accessible to the public, like police databases profiling past criminal suspects.

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It is not encouraging.

FISA: A Time To Sit In At Obama's Campaign Offices?

Many activists involved with the struggle to preserve our 4th Amendment rights and oppose the latest revisions to FISA were deeply disappointed by the substance of Obama's response, which contained a whole series of misleading arguments, as Glenn Greenwald documented here.

While some were ecstatic that Obama listened at all, others had a higher standard, and found the disingenuous arguments to be insulting to their intelligence, particularly given how fundamental the issues are, and how clearly Senator Obama had previously stated his intention to filibuster if telco immunity was part of the deal.

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Spy Bill 'Compromise' Still Gives Amnesty to Telcoms, But Adds Trappings of Justice

House and Senate leaders are still bargaining over how far to expand the government's domestic spying powers and whether to grant retroactive legal amnesty to companies that violated federal privacy laws by helping the government spy on Americans.

But if a proposal from the top Republican from the Senate Intelligence committee is any indicator, telecom amnesty would be all but assured in any final bill.

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I was thinking about that article in The Hill, Dems hedge on healthcare:

“We all know there is not enough money to do all this stuff,” said Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), a Finance Committee member and an Obama supporter, referring to the presidential candidates’ healthcare plans. “What they are doing is … laying out their ambitions.” ...

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ACLU of WV at West VA Blue

After boldly standing up to The Bush administrations' fear mongering in February, word comes that House leadership may now be working with Senator Jay Rockefeller to possibly rush a pro-telecom amnesty bill through Congress in the next few days.

Civil libertarians in the Mountain State, say no to back room deals.

The FireDogLake community is trying to do something about this.

In Every Voter, A 'Microtarget'

Congress is taking another swing at amending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. A proposed bill by the Democrats in Congress, H.R. 3773 entitled “Responsible Electronic Surveillance That is Overseen, and Effective Act of 2007” or the “RESTORE Act of 2007” (how witty) passed both the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees on Wednesday.

Naming this act “RESTORE” is more than a stretch. It doesn’t even pass the laugh test. In their proposed legislation, Congressional Democrats (a.k.a. parliamentary invertebrates) have done next to nothing to “restore” the protections of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution.   Read more…

Unfortunately, we probably won't get an actual review of the merits of "Mayfield v. United States due to a lack of standing. But just for kicks, and on the off chance that someday a plaintiff might be able to get to the merits, an analysis of Judge Ann Aiken's decision regarding FISA is worth while.

In the Plaintiffs' (Mayfields') Amended Complaint, attorney Gerry Spence seeks the following on behalf of his clients:

Plaintiffs seek a declaratory judgment that 50 U.S.C. §§ 1804 and 1823, as amended by the Patriot Act, violate the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution, on their face, because they:

a. permit the federal government to perform covert physical searches and electronic surveillance and wiretaps of the home, office and vehicles of a person without first requiring the government to demonstrate to a court the existence of probable cause that the person has committed a crime;

b. permit the federal government to perform covert physical searches and electronic surveillance and wiretaps of a person without first requiring the government to demonstrate to a court that the primary purpose of the searches and surveillance is to obtain foreign intelligence information; and

c. permit the federal government to covertly collect, disseminate and retain information collected through covert physical searches and electronic surveillance without first requiring the government to demonstrate to a court the existence of probable cause that the person who is the target of physical searches and electronic surveillance has committed a crime, or, alternatively, that the primary purpose of the searches and surveillance are to obtain foreign intelligence information.

Based on Judge Aiken's decision I say, Gerry Spence for next Justice of Supreme Court rather than Judge Aiken!   Read more…

Please, Dems. Don't capitulate on this one, too! WaPo:

"[Bush's proposed rewrite of FISA is] the president's surveillance program on steroids," said Jim Dempsey, policy director at the Center for Democracy and Technology. Dempsey said that under the new law the government would no longer have to allege that one party to the call was a member of al-Qaeda or another terrorist group. An unstated facet of the program is that anyone the foreigner is calling inside the United States, as long as that person is not the primary target, would also be wiretapped.

"They're hiding the ball here," said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU's Washington legislative office. "What the administration is really going after is the Americans. Even if the primary target is overseas, they want to be able to wiretap Americans without a warrant."

Of... course.... they ... do....

Will the zombie-like Beltway Dems march over the cliff toward which Bush is directing them? James Risen (who broke the warrantless surveillance program after the Times suppressed it until Bush was safely elected:

If it wasn't so filty, despicable, illegal and subversive of everything the Constitution is supposed to defend us against, you'd have to applaud the slick way the US and Mexican governments are collaborating in spying on each other's citizens. Pesky civil libertarians demanding you at least get a bought-and-appointed judge to okay warrants to surveil people? Ship your spying equipment to MEXICO, that Switzerland of the Americas, reknown for good government, honesty, and devotion to civil liberties. They say they want this gear, and those powers, to combat "drug gangs." Oooh, drugs. Bad. There's no right or liberty we can't throw away fast enough if the cause is the druuuug. Our beloved tyrants government wants these powers and this equipment to combat "terrorists." See previous rule re: drugs. And of course once they have not just the ability but the legal right to spy on your every waking (and sleeping) action and communication, they'll only use these powers for Good. Right? History proves this.

As an added bonus the whole program has to be done with (1) secrecy in both countries (hmm, don't governments usually like to boast and brag loudly about Good Things they are doing for their people?) (2) via a Mexican company that's a state-controlled monopoly (Telmex) and a US one that nobody's ever heard of