I recall carnivore, and I keep hearing evidence of other detailed monitoring programs. The difference between this and that is that they were/are sniffing and storage devices.
The thought around carnivore specifically was to drop a unit in all major ISPs and datacenters in the us, and let these things eat all relevant data. At some later point if an investigation found it was worthwhile to dig in a judge still had to issue a warrant before anybody could legally look at what it had on file.
This act will require no warrants, and no devices. Just the ability to pressure governments, businesses, and organizations to give up everything they have on somebody. With no notification necessary or legal recourse available to the individual(s) they give up.
As bad as the carnivore programs were, they at least tried to line up with our current laws and procedures, and were of benefit only to high government law enforcement arms. This is far worse both in scope (the amount of orgs eligible to share, and the detail of data that can be shared) and in practice (no due process, warrants, or even notification required).
I agree...what was it....04 or 05...that ATT and telecoms in general got in trouble for sharing data with the government WITHOUT a search warrant? After it all became public THEN telecoms companies suddenly started backing away. The government will do what is in its OWN interest. I think the only government that truly had the people best interest at heart were the founding fathers. They had lived under an oppressive government and didn't want to live that way anymore, and so set the guidelines in place that we wouldn't have to either. If you really stop and think about it, we are trusting a NAMELESS, FACELESS bureaucrat to do what is in me and my families best interest. Unfortunately I believe that if by chance a "good" law is passed, it isn't to actually help people, it is to BUY votes, and so people wont question what is going on in the background. Project paperclip and MKUltra come to mind, and this was at a time that people believed their government to be decent and to care for its citizenry.
Ask ANY Vietnam vet how well the government takes care of its people...I dont think its gotten any better.
"People should not fear their government, Government should fear its people" ~V for Vendetta~