Tag Archives: FISA

Democrats and Republicans Just Teamed Up to Pass a Bill — You Know What That Means, by Jake Anderson

Posted on January 19, 2018 | Leave a comment

This rare example of Democrat-Republican “teamwork” is particularly pernicious. From Jake Anderson at theantimedia.org:

Both mainstream political parties introduce their fair share draconian legislation, but in the current bipartisan climate they rarely agree on large issues. Whenever there is agreement between the two parties, you can take it to the bank that it’s something particularly nefarious. Remarkably or not, the two issues Democrats and Republicans have consistently agreed on so far in the 21st century is military intervention and surveillance.

Last week, the House pushed through a six-year extension of the controversial Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act; this week, the Senate followed suit. This provision ensures that under the direction of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and President Donald Trump, federal law enforcement agencies can arguably eavesdrop on virtually any American with impunity.

While Republicans control both branches of Congress — and the White House — the extension would not have been possible without a sizeable faction of the Democratic Party, led by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Representative Adam Schiff, voting to hand over dangerously autocratic surveillance powers to Trump. Without this group of House Democrats siding with the Bush/Cheney era law, it would not have passed by a vote of 256-164.

The vote followed the defeat of an amendment that would have introduced safeguards on the government’s ability to conduct warrantless wiretapping on foreign nationals while on foreign soil, which some have argued allows agencies like the FBI and NSA a carte blanche for collecting surveillance on domestic communications. Pelosi and Schiff, who have spent the last year insisting Trump is a dangerous tyrant whose very existence threatens the fabric of our democracy, helped defeat the amendment, which would have restricted his power and paved the way for a Section 702 extension.

Major power brokers of the so-called Resistance entrusted Trump with the legal authority to spy on women, minorities, immigrants, journalists, activists, political enemies — whoever he wants. It was a rare moment of chipper cordiality between bitter political enemies, with Majority Leader Paul Ryan even personally thanking Pelosi for her magnanimous support.

To continue reading: Democrats and Republicans Just Teamed Up to Pass a Bill — You Know What That Means

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Congress poised to jam through reauthorization of mass surveillance, by Jason Pye and Sean Vitka

Posted on November 27, 2017 | Leave a comment

Congress must reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by year’s end or it will expire. That would certainly not be the end of the world, since most of the proposed reauthorizations make it still easier for the government to spy on Americans. From Jason Pye and Sean Vitka at thehill.com:

Congress doesn’t have much time left on the legislative calendar for the year, but there’s still a lot on the agenda to get across the finish line. In the few remaining days, Republicans hope to pass a tax reform bill and either another short-term continuing resolution or an omnibus to fund the government.

Another item on the agenda is the reauthorization of Title VII of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), including the controversial Section 702.

The current authorization for Section 702 expires on December 31, and it’s the first time Congress has faced this reauthorization since Edward Snowden’s earth-shattering disclosures about the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance apparatus. Committees in the Senate and House have competing proposals to reauthorize the program. But with the clock running out, Congress once again appears to be poised to jam through reauthorization.

Passed in 1978, FISA allows federal intelligence agencies to collect the electronic communications of foreign persons to surveil for certain illicit activities, including terrorism. But not all of the electronic communications collected by the National Security Agency (NSA) are those of foreign persons.

According to a 2014 Washington Post report, 90 percent of account holders whose communications were collected were not the intended targets. “Many of them were Americans,” the Post explained. “Nearly half of the surveillance files, a strikingly high proportion, contained names, e-mail addresses or other details that the NSA marked as belonging to U.S. citizens or residents.”

Civil libertarians have urged Congress to take this reauthorization as an opportunity to implement meaningful reforms to shield innocent Americans from mass surveillance while ensuring that federal intelligence agencies have the tools they need to protect the United States from foreign threats. Some in Congress, however, seem committed to running roughshod over the Fourth Amendment.

To continue reading: Congress poised to jam through reauthorization of mass surveillance

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The Surveillance State and Big Brother Trump, by Kurt Nimmo

Posted on June 11, 2017 | 1 comment

President Trump embraces the surveillance state just as avidly as his predecessors. From Kurt Nimmo at theburningplatform.com:

Despite his opposition to surveillance during the campaign, Trump has flip-flopped once again and now supports the surveillance state.

His Homeland Security advisor, Tom Bossert, who worked with the Bush administration, penned an editorial for The New York Times this week calling for a reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Section 702 allows for vacuuming up emails, instant messages, Facebook messages, web browsing history, and more in direct violation of the Fourth Amendment.

“Cabinet officials and security professionals from different agencies will testify on this matter on Wednesday,” writes Bossert. “President Trump stands with them 100 percent on the need for permanent reauthorization of Section 702. Officials from the past two administrations also agree that we cannot have a blind spot in our defenses simply because a foreign terrorist on foreign land chooses an American email provider.”

Former NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander and Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Rogers have repeatedly claimed NSA snooping has thwarted 54 terrorist attacks. This claim has been completely debunked. Like the baseless and politically motivated claim Russia hacked the election, the 54 terrorists claim is little more than fiction. It’s propaganda to justify a surveillance state.

Jenna McLaughlin writes “the reason there haven’t been any large-scale terror attacks by ISIS in the US is not because they were averted by the intelligence community, but because — with the possible exception of one that was foiled by local police — none were actually planned.”

The NSA and the government insist they only conduct surveillance overseas but this was dispelled after a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union showed the NSA intentionally violated the law and spied on American citizens.

The surveillance state was created not to protect Americans from terrorists. It was created to spy on political targets in the United States. Evidence of this arose in 2014.

To continue reading: The Surveillance State and Big Brother Trump

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Did the Government Spy on Trump? Of Course. It Spies on All of Us! by Ron Paul

Posted on March 27, 2017 | 2 comments

It’s disturbing if the government spied on Trump. It’s far more disturbing that the government spies on the rest of us. From Ron Paul at ronpaulinstitute.com:

There was high drama last week when Rep. Devin Nunes announced at the White House that he had seen evidence that the communications of the Donald Trump campaign people, and perhaps even Trump himself, had been “incidentally collected” by the US government.

If true, this means that someone authorized the monitoring of Trump campaign communications using Section 702 of the FISA Act. Could it have been then-President Obama? We don’t know. Could it have been other political enemies looking for something to harm the Trump campaign or presidency? It is possible.

There is much we do not yet know about what happened and there is probably quite a bit we will never know. But we do know several very important things about the government spying on Americans.

First there is Section 702 itself. The provision was passed in 2008 as part of a package of amendments to the 1978 FISA bill. As with the PATRIOT Act, we were told that we had to give the government more power to spy on us so that it could catch terrorists. We had to give up some of our liberty for promises of more security, we were told. We were also told that the government would only spy on the bad guys, and that if we had nothing to hide we should have nothing to fear.

We found out five years later from Edward Snowden that the US government viewed Section 702 as a green light for the mass surveillance of Americans. Through programs he revealed, like PRISM, the NSA is able to collect and store our Internet search history, the content of our emails, what files we have shared, who we have chatted with electronically, and more.

That’s why people like NSA whistleblower William Binney said that we know the NSA was spying on Trump because it spies on all of us!

To continue reading: Did the Government Spy on Trump? Of Course. It Spies on All of Us! 

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