With No Debate, US Senate Extends Warrantless Surveillance To 2023

[Lucian Armasu]

The U.S. Senate extended warrantless surveillance for another six years with no debate and no reforms. The EFF promised to redouble its efforts to fight the NSA in the future.

With No Debate, US Senate Extends Warrantless Surveillance To 2023 : Read more

 

[jdog2pt0]

Wow what a surprise. Mike Lee is on there. Cannot stand that man.

 

[berezini]

no one cares

 

[Onus]

This might be a good time to remember that, when push comes to shove, oathbreaker lives don't matter.

 

[shrapnel_indie]

Feinstein cares little of anybody's rights but her own and her "superior" friends. I certainly hope someone's efforts for a "New California" come to fruition.

How the heck did they (and who are the responsible people) for killing any reforms to this invasion of privacy and unconstitutional legislation? My vote will show my displeasure if it was one of my representatives and/or senators. Also where can I find the list of how they voted?

 

[toadhammer]

Votes:
https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=115&session=2&vote=00011#position

 

[secretxax]

The founding fathers would have endless discussions on all the freedoms being broken today in the USA. What a country...

 

[kyotokid]

...keep spying on citizens, kill the neutral Net to stifle the flow of information and free expression based on ability to pay, purge data that supports facts from government scientific databases, refer to all news sources that criticise the current administration as being "fake" and yeah, the pattern for totalitarianism is set.

 

[Davil]

Tom's you guys really need to stop trying to be political because you are just spreading misinformation like crazy. Since about no one here seems to know what is actually in the FISA bill, which has been around since 1974 by the way, allow me to educate you all just a little.

"The President may authorize, through the Attorney General, electronic surveillance without a court order for the period of one year, provided that it is only to acquire foreign intelligence information, that it is solely directed at communications or property controlled exclusively by foreign powers, that there is no substantial likelihood that it will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party, and that it be conducted only in accordance with defined minimization procedures."

So in short, it requires the president to get authorization with concurrence from the Attorney General in order to wire tap someone that is not a US Citizen in an extreme situation. So if you are a US citizen it still requires a warrant. So take off the tin-foil hats and stop thinking that the government actually cares about what you do on a daily basis.

 

[randomizer]

I wish I could take a vote on whether I should do my job.

 

[toadhammer]

Tom's you guys really need to stop trying to be political because you are just spreading misinformation like crazy. Since about no one here seems to know what is actually in the FISA bill, which has been around since 1974 by the way, allow me to educate you all just a little.

"The President may authorize, through the Attorney General, electronic surveillance without a court order for the period of one year, provided that it is only to acquire foreign intelligence information, that it is solely directed at communications or property controlled exclusively by foreign powers, that there is no substantial likelihood that it will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party, and that it be conducted only in accordance with defined minimization procedures."

So in short, it requires the president to get authorization with concurrence from the Attorney General in order to wire tap someone that is not a US Citizen in an extreme situation. So if you are a US citizen it still requires a warrant. So take off the tin-foil hats and stop thinking that the government actually cares about what you do on a daily basis.

I'm going to (poorly) interpret the below excerpts from the text of the bill, and some others I didn't include. The FBI doesn't need an order from the Court if they claim terrorism, and the Attorney General can use anything in legal proceedings against you if they claim terrorism. If they don't contact the court, they don't need to restrict it to a year or a non-citizen. Worst case they need to annually report the quantity of citizens they target (rounded to the nearest 500). And all this only "limits" the FBI. If they get info direct from NSA it is a (questionable? illegal?) end-run around even this bit of "protection" of your rights. Oh, and beyond all this there's also a big old explicit exception for National Security, but it's not clear what the results of that are.

“(E) EXCEPTION.—The requirement for an order of the Court under subparagraph (A) to access the contents of communications described in such subparagraph shall not apply with respect to a query if the Federal Bureau of Investigation determines there is a reasonable belief that such contents could assist in mitigating or eliminating a threat to life or serious bodily harm.

“(A) IN GENERAL.—Any information concerning a United States person acquired under section 702 shall not be used in evidence against that United States person pursuant to paragraph (1) in any criminal proceeding unless
... or
“(ii) the Attorney General determines that—
“(I) the criminal proceeding affects, involves, or is related to the national security of the United States;