Major New Anti-NSA Bill Dropping Next Week With Powerful Support
from the this-could-get-interesting dept
We already knew that Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner was getting ready to release a major new anti-NSA spying bill called the USA Freedom Act, and Derek Khanna has just revealed many of the details of the bill, scheduled to be introduced in both houses of Congress this coming Tuesday. It will be backed by Sensenbrenner in the House and Pat Leahy in the Senate, and will have plenty of co-sponsors (already about 50 have signed up) including some who had initially voted against the Amash Amendment back in July. In other words, this bill has a very high likelihood of actually passing, though I imagine that the intelligence community, and potentially the White House, will push back on it. For Congress, gathering up a veto-proof majority may be a more difficult task.The bill appears to do a number of good things, focusing on limiting the NSA's ability to do dragnet collections, rather than specific and targeted data collection, while also significantly increasing transparency of the activities of the NSA as well as the FISA court when it comes to rulings that interpret the law.
- End bulk data collection under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act. This is the program that collects metadata on every phone call based on a twisted interpretation of the law and a thorough revisionist dictionary for words like "targeted," "relevance," "search" and "surveillance." Sensenbrenner, who crafted much of the original PATRIOT Act insists that when he wrote it, it was intended to already ban this kind of dragnet. The new bill will make that explicit. Similarly, it appears that the bill will require the intelligence community to be much more proactive in filtering out unnecessary information and deleting information collected incidentally.
- Fixing the FISC: As many have recommended, the law would make sure that a public advocate can be present to be an adversarial presence, arguing in favor of protecting Americans' privacy. There will be a special Office of the Special Advocate (OSA) created for this role. Somewhat surprisingly, the OSA will even be allowed to appeal decisions that the FISA court makes if it believes they stray from the law or the Constitution. That could be a very big deal.
Separately, the DOJ will be required to declassify all FISC decisions from the past decade that involve "a significant construction or interpretation of the law." That is, no more secret law-making by the FISC.
- Greater transparency for companies on the receiving end of demands for information. This would make it so companies that get orders to hand over information can reveal numbers of requests, effectively stopping the existing gag orders which prevent us from knowing how often the NSA is demanding info from internet companies.
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Filed Under: fisa court, fisc, jim sensenbrenner, nsa, nsa surveillance, patrick leahy, section 215, transparency, usa freedom act
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Or that we would get a veto proof majority in the house?
Great ideas but me thinks they aren't going anywhere anytime soon.
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He could sign this bill and make a big show of it, then turn around and tell Eric Holder not to enforce it. SOP.
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When is the last time you saw him going after perjury? Probably not since he examined and patted himself after getting a forbidden taste of the executive power in the Fast and Furious debacle. And it's not like there hasn't been a lot of open lying under oath to congress since then.
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No, the FUD that will be raised to try and stop or weaken this bill isn't what should be worried about, the 'goodies' the NSA will pull out of their databases to 'persuade' senators/congresscritters, that is likely to be their main counter-attack.
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About time
I must remember to call my Senators and Rep up on Monday about this.
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Well we have to start somewhere.
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after everything has changed as far as laws etc are concerned, all that will happen is the agencies will be a bit more careful not to get caught but they will carry on, as before, as if nothing has happened! the one major change that will come into effect is the e ensuring that no one gets to carry off data about happenings ever again.
when you consider that Obama hasn't even tried to get or managed to get things changed, and he's supposed to be the numero uno, what hope is there of them taking notice of anyone else?
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Do that means we will be able to see the FISC metadata to see if they are really doing what they are saying they are doing?
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So, with clearly Unconstitutional "Patriot Act" now accepted as "normal", time for a little PR.
Don't believe any aspect of this "leak" until you see people actually in jail for the known crimes. It's just theater. -- And WHY does Mike continue to run these items that can only serve to distract?
Indict, try, and JAIL.
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Re: So, with clearly Unconstitutional "Patriot Act" now accepted as "normal", time for a little PR.
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Re: Re: So, with clearly Unconstitutional "Patriot Act" now accepted as "normal", time for a little PR.
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Re: Re: So, with clearly Unconstitutional "Patriot Act" now accepted as "normal", time for a little PR.
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Re: So, with clearly Unconstitutional "Patriot Act" now accepted as "normal", time for a little PR.
See there blue?
You can do it too, go there open a repository and drop all the laws you think America needs :)
Can you draft a law?
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http://government.github.com/
Has somebody uploaded that draft to Github?
Do anybody here have any suggestions to put into that law?
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Techdirt on Github.
Crazy right?
Gets better.
Techdirt produces a draft, puts it on Github and we see how many times it gets adopted or forked.
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You know? I've been thinking..
Or am I dreaming?
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reaction change internet structure or governance
solution stricter copyright enforcement
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Sure enough we'll be hearing claims .. I'd be surprised if there's not another attack of sorts sometime soon.
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But... terrorism!
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What real reform legislation looks like
Conyers-Sensenbrenner would leave the Surveillance State intact. It would NOT restore the probable cause-based warrant standard required by the Fourth Amendment.
Conyers-Sensenbrenner does not end the PATRIOT Act's "sneak and peak" search provision, the expansive use of "national security letters", or abolish the radical "material support" provision that was used to prosecute staff of the Humanitarian Law Project in California.
Conyers-Sensenbrenner does not even address the NSA encryption subversion scheme.
Conyers-Sensenbrenner provides no protections for national security whistleblowers like Snowden or Drake--and this debate would not even be happening without the disclosures those men have made.
Conyers-Sensenbrenner does nothing to strengthen oversight mechanisms to actually provide the public with some assurance that the bulk collection schemes really will end.
And it's chances of actually getting to the House floor? Right now, zero. Boehner, Cantor and Goodlatte (House Judiciary chairman) are all apostles of the Surveillance State. So is the leadership of HPSCI (which would have to clear the bill as well since it clearly falls within HPSCI's purview).
So a lot of time and energy is going to be expended promoting a bill that 1) leaves the Surveillance State intact, 2) does not address other critical abuses revealed by Snowden, et. al., and 3) has no prayer of making it out of the Judiciary Committee, much less to the House floor.
If you want to see what a real reform bill looks like, check out the Surveillance State Repeal Act (HR 2818).
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NSA Bill Dropping Next Week With Powerful Support
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Never say never
That's IT! Period! End of subject! Do anything less, and you've done nothing. ...and please criminally process those who HAVE taken it upon themselves to reinvent the wording of the law. We really need to make sure that government by way of fear applies to those who would challenge our civil rights, not us. Better yet! Give them to those terrorists out there as a gift from Uncle Sam, but not before exterminating their entire family and their means of procreating, just to make it perfectly clear that you don't go against your own community without paying the price.
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