In April, House passed bill to make phone records off-limits w/o consent

DUer BurtWorm brought this to my attention last night, and I think this will/should have a lot of bearing on what happens with this investigation:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

House passed bill to make phone records off-limits to review w/o consent Updated at 1:24 AM

in APRIL! Unanimously!

http://tech.monstersandcritics.com/news/article_1159004 ...

WASHINGTON, DC, United States (UPI) -- In a unanimous vote Tuesday the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 4709, the Law Enforcement and Phone Privacy Protection Act of 2006.

The bill introduced by Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, back in February 2006 would amend Title 18 to provide criminal penalties for fraudulent sale or solicitation of unauthorized disclosure of phone records.

The bipartisan legislation was approved by a vote of 409-0.

'Few things are more personal and potentially more revealing than our phone records,' Smith said in a statement. 'A careful study of these records may reveal details of our medical or financial life. It may even disclose our physical location and occupation -- a serious concern for undercover police officers and victims of stalking or domestic violence.'

If passed in the Senate, the legislation would impose serious criminal penalties against those people who sell, transfer, purchase or receive confidential phone records of a telephony company without prior consent of the customer.

These persons could spend up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $500,000.

'We need to pass this bill to demonstrate that we take seriously the obligation to protect the confidentiality of consumer telephone records and to make clear to data thieves that their conduct will result in a felony conviction,' Smith added. 'This legislation supports crime victims, prosecutors, companies and individuals who have been the targets of this fraud.'

an' I has decided I must put a listening device up the ass of every Amurkan to prevent terror. Cause terrorism is terrible and causes terrible terror and I do too.

The manchurian candidate!

administration. How many times to they have to tell you that? PAY ATTENTION!

:sarcasm:

Whether Repug or Dem..
Remind them of this UNANIMOUS vote and ask them what they are doing about the issue today?

(on edit:nom)

but he didn't specify any particular law he followed.

He's relying on the same false authority he claims comes from the 9-11 authorization and his 'constitutional' authority as commander-in-chief. The same scheme he's using to interpret, disregard, and break whatever law he (alone) deems necessary to protect 'national security'.

Everytime Republicans do something genuinely conservative like protect the privacy of private citizens or mouth off about balancing the budget, it blows up in their neocon, Big Brother faces.