Now they can listen to domestic communication, and you can't sue the company who provides the information!! Isn't that awesome? http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/washington/10fisa.html?hp
And the Constitution is no longer in effect, in the US ? Personally, I distinguish between "my country" and "a couple of large telcom corporations plus a Homeland Security official or two". As any cop knows, taking care of the petty stuff cuts way down on the felonies. The "broken windows" theory does work, in some contexts.
Besides, think of all the phone calls made in U.S ever second of every hour. The government's of all our nation can know everything about us at any time. They can know what kind of toilet paper we use, where we go. They can tap your phone on the fly with cellular technology and they can sit in front of your house or around the corner with a laptop and hack into your connection.
I would not rely on it. It is much worse in the third world jungles. But there people are too afraid to speak up.
Only now are they getting a handle on it in the third world- i look at Columbia as the bastian for change but my heart aches for her neighbours.
1. You can still sue the government for giving an illegal order to the phone company. 2. This bill confirms that the government needs to get a warrant from the FISA court.
That was already confirmed, in the earlier FISA law. The failure to enforce the requirement is the main result.