November 27, 2017
Do Nothing Congress Jumps to Reauthorize Spying on Americans
Timothy Birdnow
Congress has failed to do anything in the last legislative session, but they are all set to reauthorize FISA so the government can continue to spy on Americans and maybe bug Donald Trump's hotel room.
According to the article in The Hill:
"The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has marked up the FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act, S. 2010. The bill, sponsored by Chairman Richard BurrRichard Mauze BurrCongress must vote for public health protection and reject the nomination of Dourson to EPA post Overnight Energy: Chemical safety regulator's nomination at risk | Watchdog scolds Zinke on travel records | Keystone pipeline spills 210,000 gallons of oil Overnight Regulation: Senators unveil bipartisan gun background check bill | FCC rolls back media regs | Family leave credit added to tax bill | Senate confirms banking watchdog MORE (R-N.C.) is actually worse than existing law. It explicitly allows the attorney general to use information collected under Section 702 for domestic crimes that have nothing to do with national security and forbids judicial review of that decision.
Meanwhile, the House Judiciary Committee has marked up the USA Liberty Act, which, despite or because of painstaking deliberations, does not sufficiently protect innocent Americans from surveillance. The House version of the USA Liberty Act, for instance, has a weak warrant requirement, which would allow the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to conduct backdoor searches of electronic communications collected by the NSA for domestic, non-terrorism investigations. Additionally, the proposed end of "about†collection, in which the government collects information that is neither to nor from a target, would sunset after six years.
The FISA Court forced the end of "about†collection earlier this year, finding the practice to be "a very serious Fourth Amendment issue.†The court also concluded that the NSA’s failure to disclose information represented "an institutional ‘lack of candor.’†These are just two of many red flags the secret judicial body has raised over intelligence agencies’ collection practices."
End excerpt.
When Donald trump was running for President he claimed Obama was spying on him and it turned out there were in fact FISA warrants allowing the Obama Administration to do just that. Furthermore, there is evidence that the "metadata" tapping is in reality far more intrusive than we know.
In fact, the whole "War on Terrotr" has been ridiculous in that the government collects monumental amounts of data on everyone, and cannot possibly use it for predicting terrorism. It serves other purposes, in my opinioin. Reauthorizing FISA does not make us safer, only supervised.
America is supposed to be free, not supervised.
Why is the GOP unwilling to act on Obamacare, on the wall, on tax cuts, but is johnnie on the spot with this?
Congress has failed to do anything in the last legislative session, but they are all set to reauthorize FISA so the government can continue to spy on Americans and maybe bug Donald Trump's hotel room.
According to the article in The Hill:
"The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has marked up the FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act, S. 2010. The bill, sponsored by Chairman Richard BurrRichard Mauze BurrCongress must vote for public health protection and reject the nomination of Dourson to EPA post Overnight Energy: Chemical safety regulator's nomination at risk | Watchdog scolds Zinke on travel records | Keystone pipeline spills 210,000 gallons of oil Overnight Regulation: Senators unveil bipartisan gun background check bill | FCC rolls back media regs | Family leave credit added to tax bill | Senate confirms banking watchdog MORE (R-N.C.) is actually worse than existing law. It explicitly allows the attorney general to use information collected under Section 702 for domestic crimes that have nothing to do with national security and forbids judicial review of that decision.
Meanwhile, the House Judiciary Committee has marked up the USA Liberty Act, which, despite or because of painstaking deliberations, does not sufficiently protect innocent Americans from surveillance. The House version of the USA Liberty Act, for instance, has a weak warrant requirement, which would allow the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to conduct backdoor searches of electronic communications collected by the NSA for domestic, non-terrorism investigations. Additionally, the proposed end of "about†collection, in which the government collects information that is neither to nor from a target, would sunset after six years.
The FISA Court forced the end of "about†collection earlier this year, finding the practice to be "a very serious Fourth Amendment issue.†The court also concluded that the NSA’s failure to disclose information represented "an institutional ‘lack of candor.’†These are just two of many red flags the secret judicial body has raised over intelligence agencies’ collection practices."
End excerpt.
When Donald trump was running for President he claimed Obama was spying on him and it turned out there were in fact FISA warrants allowing the Obama Administration to do just that. Furthermore, there is evidence that the "metadata" tapping is in reality far more intrusive than we know.
In fact, the whole "War on Terrotr" has been ridiculous in that the government collects monumental amounts of data on everyone, and cannot possibly use it for predicting terrorism. It serves other purposes, in my opinioin. Reauthorizing FISA does not make us safer, only supervised.
America is supposed to be free, not supervised.
Why is the GOP unwilling to act on Obamacare, on the wall, on tax cuts, but is johnnie on the spot with this?
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
12:19 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 461 words, total size 3 kb.
24kb generated in CPU 0.1333, elapsed 0.2516 seconds.
35 queries taking 0.2395 seconds, 186 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
35 queries taking 0.2395 seconds, 186 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
