This is serious stuff...

Senate bill rewrite lets feds read your e-mail without warrants

Proposed law scheduled for a vote next week originally increased Americans' e-mail privacy. Then law enforcement complained. Now it increases government access to e-mail and other digital files.

A Senate proposal touted as protecting Americans' e-mail privacy has been quietly rewritten, giving government agencies more surveillance power than they possess under current law.

CNET has learned that Patrick Leahy, the influential Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee, has dramatically reshaped his legislation in response to law enforcement concerns. A vote on his bill, which now authorizes warrantless access to Americans' e-mail, is scheduled for next week.
Revised bill highlights

Leahy's rewritten bill would allow more than 22 agencies -- including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Communications Commission -- to access Americans' e-mail, Google Docs files, Facebook wall posts, and Twitter direct messages without a search warrant. It also would give the FBI and Homeland Security more authority, in some circumstances, to gain full access to Internet accounts without notifying either the owner or a judge. (CNET obtained the revised draft from a source involved in the negotiations with Leahy.)

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-575522....=news&tag=title



My 2 cents:

This will not conjure up anywhere near the outrage and groundswell of opposition that it should.

If there is one thing that the left has become extremely adept at, it's opposing this kind of violation of our rights and liberties... Unfortunately, the left has shown us, over the last 4 years, that they won't stand fast against these violations, so long as the buck stops with someone with a (D) behind their name.

The right will attempt to protest this, but they are so damn zealous when it comes to religion, that they cannot be taken seriously after a very short amount of time... Look at the tea party... A really great attempt by people to the right of center, to espouse their discontent... But eventually, the religious views crept too close to the surface, and made them seem like whack-jobs.

It's a scary time we're living in... I just hope a good leader, with the courage of his convictions, will step up and help us to right some of these wrongs.

Duh? Warrantless wiretaps from the Bushwhackers? The Patriot Act? ATT, Verizon, et al, participating in the spying on American citizens? If you didn't know this was going on before, well, good that you woke up...WTF dude - this is not only old news, it gets a big attaboy from the right-wing nutcases who want to spend the rest of their lives in a bunker. You idiots needed to be paying attention YEARS ago

I don't get it - just because Bush sucked so bad you give Obama a pass for crapping on the constitution just as fast he can?

From signing statements to the NDAA and aggressive crackdown whistleblowers - he is right there with Bush every step of the way.

I don't like it at all, I fight it every step of the way, but with no results.

I don't like it either...but what can I really do about it? Write a strongly worded letter and get put on some watch list?

www.votesmart.org - totally bi-partisan all volunteer site you put in your address and it will tell you who represents you and it keeps track of who is passing what and so you can decide who is or isn't a douchebag and what degree of douchebaggery they are operating with. I don't know what else to do. I'm definitely tired of the government fucking with my life.