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pier Fleurieu Peninsula, Australia by Chris Potter

I'm not sure what the thing is that is framed by the wooden fish, but it adds a whimsical touch to a great photo by Mr. Potter.

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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.

Yet Bush has said that the program is limited and only target terrorists. Which either means that there are millions of Americans in leaque with the terrorists or that Mr. B is being less then truthful. Over 70 percent of the American public has caught on, this is not honest up standing guy currently occupying 1600 Penn. Ave.

Responding to Media Matters item, CBS' Axelrod still misrepresents debate over warrantless eavesdropping

Contrary to Axelrod's claim, the debate over the NSA program is not over the "electronic eavesdropping of terrorists." There are few — if any — who contend that the United States should not engage in lawful surveillance of terrorists. The debate over the NSA program centers on the Bush administration's claim to have the legal authority to conduct such surveillance without going through the mechanisms set up by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which states that the government must obtain a warrant from a special court in order to conduct domestic electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes.