politics Archives - Page 62 of 136 - Stable Genius Liberal

NSA Surveillance Leaks Prompt Legislation

One of the most controversial provisions of the Patriot Act — Section 215 — allows the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to authorize broad warrants for most any type of records, including those held by banks, doctors and phone companies. Lawmakers have repeatedly voted to prevent the act from expiring. The government only needs to show that the information pertains to an “authorized investigation.” No connection to a terrorist or spy is required. Under today’s proposal, the act would be amended to require “the government to show relevance to an authorized investigation and a link to one of three categories of a foreign agent, power, or group.” Another provision would demand the government “to provide a statement of the facts and circumstances” to the court to justify the surveillance, lawmakers said.

This is an trivial reduction in FISA court power and yet it is far from certain to pass. Undoing the damage of the patriot act will take a generation.

EFF: Multiple New Polls Show Americans Reject Wholesale NSA Domestic Spying

Two-thirds of Americans think the NSA’s role should be reviewed. The poll also showed Americans demanding accountability and more information from public officials

The story is getting out despite of the media rather than because of it.

Edward Snowden tells South China Morning Post he took Booz Allen job to collect NSA information

That qualifies as espionage.

Glenn Greenwald Takes Apart David Gregory for Trying to Criminalize Journalism

GREENWALD: I think it’s pretty extraordinary that anybody who would call themselves a journalist would publicly muse about whether or not other journalist should be charged with felonies.

Worth watching. David Gregory, are you serious?

Senators say NSA phone records played little role in stopping terror plots

“saying ‘these programs’ have disrupted ‘dozens of terrorist plots’ is misleading if the bulk phone-records collection is actually providing little or no unique value.”

Worth a read.

Revealed: the top secret rules that allow NSA to use US data without a warrant

Newest Greenwald scoop.

Evidence that the NSA Is Storing Voice Content, Not Just Metadata

I thought that voice was too costly to store, but it just might be that a large set of phone calls are stored to be collected later by court order.

Untitled

shipwrecktrain: Yeah, pretty much.

Why ‘I Have Nothing to Hide’ Is the Wrong Way to Think About Surveillance

The programs of the past can be characterized as “proximate surveillance,” in which the government attempted to use technology to directly monitor communication themselves. The programs of this decade mark the transition to “oblique surveillance,” in which the government more often just goes to the places where information has been accumulating on its own, such as email providers, search engines, social networks, and telecoms.

Worth a read. The defender of the NSA policy seem to think this is a simple matter of privacy. It isn’t.

Lindsey Graham: ‘If I thought censoring the mail was necessary, I would suggest it’

Censoring the mail is ok, but restricting gun purchases for people on the terror watch list is not?