Call it Treason?
Glenn Greenwald sums it up better than anyone else I’ve seen:
Section 222 of the Communications Act of 1934 provides that “[e]very telecommunications carrier has a duty to protect the confidentiality of proprietary information of . . . customers.” 18 U.S.C. 2511 makes warrantless eavesdropping a felony; 18 U.S.C. 2702 requires that any “entity providing an electronic communication service to the public shall not knowingly divulge to any person or entity the contents of a communication” without a court order; 47 U.S.C. 605 states that “no person receiving, assisting in receiving, transmitting, or assisting in transmitting, any interstate or foreign communication by wire or radio shall divulge or publish the existence, contents, substance, purport, effect, or meaning thereof, except through authorized channels of transmission or reception”; and 18 U.S.C. 2520 provides for civil damages for any violations.
Like all statutes, those are all laws democratically enacted by the American people through their Congress and signed into law by the President. They were enacted precisely in order to make it illegal for telecoms to allow government spying on our calls and written communications without court orders
The principle those laws are supposed to uphold is foundational to the Constitution.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
The United States Senate has passed a bill, S.2248, and sent it to the House of Representatives which retroactively legalizes violations of the law by both the government and the telecoms and protects the telecoms from law suites specifically allowed by statute.
The are sixty-eight men and women who swore the following oath
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same…
| Baucus | D | MT | Webb | D | VA | Cornyn | R | TX | Martinez | R | FL |
| Bayh | D | IN | Whitehouse | D | RI | Craig | R | ID | McCain | R | AZ |
| Carper | D | DE | Lieberman | ID | CT | Crapo | R | ID | McConnell | R | KY |
| Casey | D | PA | Alexander | R | TN | DeMint | R | SC | Murkowski | R | AK |
| Conrad | D | ND | Allard | R | CO | Dole | R | NC | Roberts | R | KS |
| Inouye | D | HI | Barrasso | R | WY | Domenici | R | NM | Sessions | R | AL |
| Johnson | D | SD | Bennett | R | UT | Ensign | R | NV | Shelby | R | AL |
| Kohl | D | WI | Bond | R | MO | Enzi | R | WY | Smith | R | OR |
| Landrieu | D | LA | Brownback | R | KS | Grassley | R | IA | Snowe | R | ME |
| Lincoln | D | AR | Bunning | R | KY | Gregg | R | NH | Specter | R | PA |
| McCaskill | D | MO | Burr | R | NC | Hagel | R | NE | Stevens | R | AK |
| Mikulski | D | MD | Chambliss | R | GA | Hatch | R | UT | Sununu | R | NH |
| Nelson | D | FL | Coburn | R | OK | Hutchison | R | TX | Thune | R | SD |
| Nelson | D | NE | Cochran | R | MS | Inhofe | R | OK | Vitter | R | LA |
| Pryor | D | AR | Coleman | R | MN | Isakson | R | GA | Voinovich | R | OH |
| Rockefeller | D | WV | Collins | R | ME | Kyl | R | AZ | Warner | R | VA |
| Salazar | D | CO | Corker | R | TN | Lugar | R | IN | Wicker | R | MS |
These sixty-eight Senators violated their oath when they passed that bill. It cannot be reconciled with the Fourth Amendment. I sent a message to Barbara Mikulski, my Senator, and told her I was ashamed of the way she represented me asking her how she slept at night knowing she was undermining the foundations of or republic. Yours should hear from you, too.
