Just a week after Congress caved in and voted to expand the federal government’s ability to monitor ordinary Americans’ emails and phone calls, the Massachusetts legislature has voted to do something very similar.
Carol Rose, Executive Director of the ACLU of Massachusetts, has an op-ed in today’s Globe called They Could Be Eavesdropping. It’s about the so-called Act to Further Protect Children. The bill is moving forward in the name of fighting sexual predators in a variety of ways, but one of its provisions (the amendment to section 17B of Chapter 271 of the General Laws) gives unchecked power to district attorneys and the attorney general to request records of anyone’s Internet use simply by asking for them, with no warrant, and with no notification to the person whose records are being requested.
As Rose points out, it’s shocking that the Legislature would do this, given the unanimous vote last week by the Massachusetts Congressional delegation to oppose the collapse on FISA.
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p>I am curious, though, as to how much this extends current law, which already seems quite broad:
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p>I’d appreciate further clarification.
The current law should be junked, not restated or expanded.
I can’t imagine that anyone trying to knock off an incumbent DA would see their Internet vagaries leaked into the media, can you?
This does look like local FISA to be sure, but the actual bill # would be helpful.
…the actual bill, votes, or legislative history – got it today.
Blogs such as http://www.badgewars.com or even this one spell trouble for the powers that be. Snitches are publishing anonymously and causing leaks or just plain embarrassment. Some of these snitches might attract DJ notice.
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p>The idea is to identify these people and silence them. Then the problem goes away.
This has as much to do with protecting children as the Patriot Act has to do with Patriotism. We should fear more that it has to do with government extortion, bribery, power advantage. Since the only arrests in more years than I remember that take place on local and state police are done by the feds, I have to wonder how compromised the AG’s and DAs’ offices are.
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p>Maybe it will be just used as a fear tactic. Would you be surprised to see it used against the very legislators that voted for it?
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p>If the Commonwealth’s Legislature wishes to protect the population, let them repeal of 272, Sec. 99 that outlaws the recording of police as they beat, murder, steal and commit other crimes against the citizens. Otherwise, I’ll continue to consider them tools of corruption.
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I would be curious to see some statistics…from what I read the DA in our region is pathetic when it comes to “investigating and prosecuting” law enforcement officers.
I have wondered many times why Marvelous Martha has not commented, not even publicly sighed about the casino issue and the potential for crime and corruption. Would one not expect the top law enforcement officer in the Commonwealth to weigh in on such a topic? Expediency? Denial? AG’s in other states have been vociferous voices on these issues as seen in the work of former Maryland AG J. Joseph Curran.
Under the cover of ‘sensitivity’ and using the ‘sex-offenders’ as an excuse, the A-G and DAs are making a stab at re-creating the dangerous state of affairs already in place at the national level. With this sex-offender mania, the government found that it can subvert the Constitution from the Left even more easily than from the Right (which had been the historic direction from which such threats came). There’s a longer Post exploring this at at the ChezOdysseus site on Blogspot.com.
The whole sex offender registration process is a dress rehearsal for tracking dissidents and political enemies. All of the procedures are being put in place. They have picked the one group that no one dares to defend – not even the ACLU, really. The Nazis actually started with sexual deviants before they moved on to Romas and Jews.
All of you good citizens who are standing by and letting this happen should be very very afraid. They will be coming for you eventually.
Just whom in the MA legislature is the head Fascist? You could not find a more liberal leaning group of ass kissing politicians and you think they are suddenly George Bush’s prodigies.
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p>Here we go again with worries about them listening to us have phone sex or whispering sweet nothings. I’ll be glad to live in a world with big brother listening, as long as they keep protecting us.
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p>Maybe it would help if you get on the Commonwealth’s Healthcare system and get some good meds to treat your paranoia.
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p>I am saddened to know that this represents a feelings of all too many of our citizens, who no longer have any respect for the freedoms and democratic principles on which this country was founded and for which true patriots (not flag waving know-nothings) fought and died. One of those freedoms was freedom from undue government surveillance.
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p>Benjamin Franklin said it well in his famous quote about those who would give up liberty for security.
Big Brother just wants to protect himself. For instance, Bush’s usage of “executive privilege” and “CLASSIFIED” merely to hide criminal conduct and/or embarassing incompetence. This goes on every single day, it seems, and the fools in Congress keep swallowing it. If you think any of it is about protecting you, I think you must have read a version of 1984 with whole chapters “REDACTED”.
Seriously, John,
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p>This:
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p>sounds like a total dismissal of what’s a very dangerous precedent that’s being set by Big Brother, who really doesn’t give a rat’s ass about protecting you, me, or most anybody else. Big Brother’s out for himself. Frankly, John, I don’t feel secure knowing that my phone calls could be listened in on, my emails intercepted, or that my records could be gotten hold of without my knowing it.
Moreover, the fact that Obama, our Democratic Presidential nominee did like most of Congress and capitulated to the FISA Bill nationwide is not only irresponsible but very hypocritical, to boot, considering what this man claims to stand for (i. e. Hope, change, unity, etc.) It’s shameful that Massachusetts planning to possibly follow suit. I sure as hell hope not, because it means that our leaders are screwing us on the state and local level as well, if that’s that case.
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p>These things start farthur away and get closer. One can never, ever take for granted that “it can’t happen to them”.
Why is it politics reduces the most Satanic of memes to the most useless paradigms. A consortium of corporations with the enhanced blessings under the banner of Homeboy Security has engaged in the most totalitarian Orwellian surveillance grid ever and nobody even gets it. Let us hope oil gets too expensive for them to keep this shit up or Americans are going to have the very same civil rights as those Chinese guys in front of the tanks at Tienamen Square.
I have read the CLUM memo and other info on this. Slippery slope time here in MA. Can someone post the roll call on this?
Sen. Creem was the only one in the Senate to vote against it. Here’s the House roll call.
I see from my paper there were 8 votes against. i want to see if my Senator was one to thank them.
The Attorney-General’s pooh-poohing of this attempt to get essentially Patriot Act powers into Mass. statutes belies her air of well-intentioned and professional public service and good-will.
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p>If this were really up-front, she’d file her own “Massachusetts Patriot Act Bill’ or some such, ,and thereby give us all a chance to see what she wants to do. Instead, this Patriot-Act power-grab is stashed aboard a child-sex-offense bill; this is pretty much like hiding dangerous stuff in ’emergency vehicles’ like ambulances in orde4r to sneak them across protected borders. And isn’t that what only the bad-guys do?
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p>We can no longer assume that law-enforcement has our best interests at heart, nor that legislators actually read and think about bills before they vote on them – recall that a lot of them on Capitol Hill now admit they didn’t sorta actually read the Patriot Act before voting for it.
All around the country “law enforcement” personnel are doing what they can to silence bloggers that are reporting on the police. Police don’t like a snitch.
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p>This law will silence them. Back to business as usual. All in the name of child safety. Priceless…
The Attorney-General’s pooh-poohing of this attempt to get essentially Patriot Act powers into Mass. statutes belies her air of well-intentioned and professional public service and good-will.
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p>If this were really up-front, she’d file her own “Massachusetts Patriot Act Bill’ or some such, ,and thereby give us all a chance to see what she wants to do. Instead, this Patriot-Act power-grab is stashed aboard a child-sex-offense bill; this is pretty much like hiding dangerous stuff in ’emergency vehicles’ like ambulances in orde4r to sneak them across protected borders. And isn’t that what only the bad-guys do?
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p>We can no longer assume that law-enforcement has our best interests at heart, nor that legislators actually read and think about bills before they vote on them – recall that a lot of them on Capitol Hill now admit they didn’t sorta actually read the Patriot Act before voting for it.
The ‘Herald’ for Friday, 7/25, contains two ominous snippets.
The first reports that the Governor has signed into law ‘Jessica’s Law’ with those Patriot-Act provisions. Let’s recall that this is a Democratic governor and a Democratic legislature. Obviously, the roadmaps we learned a long time ago are no longer accurate: you cannot see ‘Democratic’ preceding the Executive or the Legislative branch of government and simply assume that the Constitution is alive and safe. And on top of that, the ‘Herald’ does not report at all on those Patriot-Act-type provisions. It does mention A-G Coakley, but only as supporting the ‘weaker’ version of the law in the matter of mandatory sentencing. Not a word about letting the vampire in; just about how nice it is to have the front door working.
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p>The second is an op-ed that comments upon efforts to reform non-police use of the Cori-database. In an effort to make the thing pass the ‘take-a-bite-outta-crime’ crowd, the pols seek to ‘balance’ reduction of the time before one can petition to have one’s record sealed by pushing for mandatory ‘supervision’ upon full completion of sentence. I’m no attorney but it strikes me that if you’ve finished the sentence, then that’s it. How can the State enforce more restrictions? But of course, we already let that vampire in with the sex-offense stuff about registries and civil-confinement, didn’t we?
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p>In fact neither of the two gambits seems at all constitutional to me. I wonder: do these pols actually get legal advice before they stitch these bills together? Or do they just figure they’ll put the law into the books for their own short-term political purposes and then let the courts figure out if it’s constitutional or not – they take no responsibility, they run no risk. And some poor shmuck who’s caught in the law’s toils can pay to test the thing in court.