Congress must end mass NSA surveillance with next Patriot Act vote

[Suzanimal]

In less than 60 days, Congress - whether they like it or not - will be forced to decide if the NSA’s most notorious mass surveillance program lives or dies. And today, over 30 civil liberties organizations launched a nationwide call-in campaign urging them to kill it.

Despite doing almost everything in their power to avoid voting for substantive NSA reform, Congress now has no choice: On 1 June, one of the most controversial parts of the Patriot Act - known as Section 215 - will expire unless both houses of Congress affirmatively vote for it to be reauthorized.

Section 215 of the Patriot Act was the subject of the very first Snowden story, when the Guardian reported that the US government had reinterpreted the law in complete secrecy, allowing the NSA to vacuum up every single American’s telephone records - who they called, who called them, when, and for how long - regardless of whether they had been accused of a crime or not. (The NSA’s warped interpretation of Section 215 was also the subject of John Oliver’s entire show on Sunday night. It is a must-watch.)

The massive phone dragnet is not the only thing Section 215 is used for though. As independent journalist Marcy Wheeler has meticulously documented, Section 215 is likely being used for all sorts of surveillance that the public has no idea about. There are an estimated 180 orders from the secret Fisa court that involve Section 215, but we know only five of them are directed at telecom companies for the NSA phone program. To give you a sense of the scale: the one Fisa order published by the Guardian from the Snowden trove compelled Verizon to hand over every phone record that it had on all its millions of customers. Every single one.

While the government claims that its other uses of Section 215 are “critical” to national security, it’s extremely hard to take their word for it. After all, the government lied about collecting information on millions of Americans under Section 215 to begin with. Then they claimed the phone surveillance program was “critical” to national security after it was exposed. That wasn’t true either: they later had to admit it has never stopped a single terrorist attack.

We also just learned two weeks ago that the NSA knew the program was largely pointless before the Snowden leaks and debated shutting it down altogether. Suddenly, after the Snowden documents became public, NSA officials defended it as “critical” again when they had to go before an increasingly skeptical Congress.

Is Section 215 being used to collect massive amounts of other data on Americans? Well, the New York Times reported last year that there are multiple different bulk collection programs under different authorities that are still secret. And Ron Wyden, while not specifying which law was being used, indicated in an interview last month that there were several spying programs directly affecting Americans that were still secret. And there’s evidence to suggest they’re doing so for supposed “cyber” crime investigations.

...
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/08/congress-must-end-mass-nsa-surveillance-with-next-patriot-act-vote


http://i.imgur.com/lThrlLUm.png


Ending phone record surveillance is the first step to reining in surveillance abuses by the NSA. Please join us in making this the year we stand for privacy and liberty, not secrecy and fear.

Why you should care about phone record surveillance:

It violates the privacy of millions of innocent people. The NSA and FBI use Section 215 to collect the phone records of millions of people who have never even been suspected or accused of a crime.

It's unconstitutional and illegal. Section 215 of the Patriot Act was re-interpreted in complete secrecy to allow the surveillance of everyone without suspicion. One federal judge who ruled on the program’s legality after it was revealed to the public called it “beyond Orwellian” and “likely unconstitutional.”

It doesn’t make us any safer. The NSA has defended the phone metadata program by saying it has stopped terrorist attacks, but that claim has been repeatedly proven false. Even the White House’s own Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board has said, “We have not identified a single instance involving a threat to the United States in which [bulk collection under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act] made a concrete difference in the outcome of a counterterrorism investigation.”

For years, the United States government has been collecting every record of every phone call you make — when you call, whom you call, how long the call lasted, and how often you make those calls. This surveillance program affects hundreds of millions of regular people who have never done anything wrong, and it doesn’t matter if you’re calling your next-door neighbor or a family member halfway around the world.

But there’s good news: this mass surveillance program could end in the next few weeks.

Section 215 of the Patriot Act is set to expire on June 1, 2015. The Patriot Act and the reauthorizations that followed had myriad bad provisions. But it’s Section 215 of the original Patriot Act that the NSA re-interpreted in complete secrecy to allow them, with the help of the FBI, to collect millions of phone call records per day. The government could even try to use Section 215 for bulk collection of financial or other business records. With your help, we can stop Congress from simply rubber-stamping Patriot Act Section 215 — and stop this mass suspicionless surveillance program once and for all.

...

https://fight215.org/

[DamianTV]

How about #1 we abolish the NSA and Federal Reserve and repeal the Patriot Act altogether?

Something about Tyranny finally coming to America, it will come in the guise of Patriotism. The Patriot Act is the exact opposite of Patriotic. It protects Govt from People, not People from the Real Terrorists.

[twomp]

I'm going to try and keep this post bumped until June 1st.

[Christopher A. Brown]

How about #1 we abolish the NSA and Federal Reserve and repeal the Patriot Act altogether?

Something about Tyranny finally coming to America, it will come in the guise of Patriotism. The Patriot Act is the exact opposite of Patriotic. It protects Govt from People, not People from the Real Terrorists.

Yes, but it will take unified masses focused on constitutional
Intent acting as " the rightful masters of the congress and the courts."

Can we agree that the ultimate purpose of free speech is to create unity adequate to alter or abolish government destructive to our vital rights?

[thoughtomator]

Hate to be a downer, but here's my baseline expectation: no restrictions on the NSA will pass because the agency has the ability to blackmail enough votes in its favor. Should a miracle occur and such restrictions do pass, the NSA will ignore it outright (like it does the 4th Amendment) and no one will be able to do a thing about it.

There is no such thing as peaceful relinquishing of power after a coup.

[NorthCarolinaLiberty]

Nobody cares about principle anymore, so this nonsense needs to be attacked on practical grounds. I conversed with state legislators in Oregon, Washington, Texas, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Utah regarding police roadblock (checkpoint) legislation. I emphasized how roadblocks are less effective than patrolling, and how roadblocks don't deter anyone. I cited police figures and academic research. Not sure if it did any good in the grand scheme of things, but there has been no new roadblock legislation where MADD tried to pass it in OR, WA, and TX. (The other states attempted to repeal roadblocks.) Police will still sidestep the law, but defeating MADD is better than nothing.

It's the same with NSA because it's all a basic principle regardless of who is doing it: randomness does not work. If they do happen to catch somebody in their sights, then it's because they got a tip or they paid an informant. They are spending their budget on James Bond gadgets that work in the movies but not real life. They are spending their budgets in Asian countries eating at 4 star restaurants and screwing 15 year old Asian girls.

Randomness does not work in any life endeavor. You organize and plan your day. You don't go about your day haphazardly, hoping to get good results.

[DevilsAdvocate]

Nobody cares anymore. I've talked to people about the NSA on forums and in comments, and all of them laugh about it. "I hope the perverts over there like looking at my dick", and "I wonder how they rate me naked compared to everyone else", and of course "they're welcome to look, if they have the stomach for it".

I try to explain to them that their sons and daughters are caught in this to. If your 14 year old girl has a laptop and a cellphone, the cameras and microphones can be surreptitiously activated, and recordings taken, even when the device is off. How would they feel if some guy in a large trench coat was taking photos of your kid at the playground with a telescopic lens?

But they don't hear me. They don't care at all. It's someone really far away who they will never meet. I don't know why this is the attitude, I'm sure it wasn't always this way. I think it's something culturally broken with the West.

[NorthCarolinaLiberty]

Nobody cares anymore.

I think part of it is that people don't make a personal connection. Even if people know about NSA, it's still not personal. What is needed IS a story about that teen girl who got violated. This is the stuff of journalism. It's just a matter of playing their vapid game. It goes beyond Dr Phil however, because there is principle behind it. Emotional stories that get people up in arms. Those afternoon women's talk shows and COPS make millions off this simple technique.

[otherone]

Something about Tyranny finally coming to America, it will come in the guise of Patriotism. The Patriot Act is the exact opposite of Patriotic. It protects Govt from People, not People from the Real Terrorists.

waitaminit....what about the Affordable Care Act? Are you insinuating that we are all being flim-flammed?

[Christopher A. Brown]

Hate to be a downer, but here's my baseline expectation: no restrictions on the NSA will pass because the agency has the ability to blackmail enough votes in its favor. Should a miracle occur and such restrictions do pass, the NSA will ignore it outright (like it does the 4th Amendment) and no one will be able to do a thing about it.

There is no such thing as peaceful relinquishing of power after a coup.

The critical thinking works!

Another way of stating that the American people need to unify in a lawful and peaceful revolution.

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?471555-A-lawful-and-peaceful-revolution

[Christopher A. Brown]

I think part of it is that people don't make a personal connection. Even if people know about NSA, it's still not personal. What is needed IS a story about that teen girl who got violated. This is the stuff of journalism. It's just a matter of playing their vapid game. It goes beyond Dr Phil however, because there is principle behind it. Emotional stories that get people up in arms. Those afternoon women's talk shows and COPS make millions off this simple technique.

A very good point about mass media that is our greatest competition as people trying to be free. It is the hook on the catch 22 relating to the creation of unity adequate to altering or abolishing the government destructive to our rights.

We do not have the unity needed to overcome the influence which prevents the unity needed to control freedom of speech and the press constitutionally.

However, there is the possibility that by understanding, a deeper emotional basis for action that is translated as personal motivation, effectively, can be inspired by the intellectual capacity of a few to understand that the agreement and acceptance of the ultimate purpose of free speech IS to create unity adequate to alter or abolish, then they impress enough to create a snowball of awareness that moves through the people bringing them together in action.

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?471555-A-lawful-and-peaceful-revolution

[twomp]

shameless bump!


With about 45 days remaining before a major post-9/11 surveillance authorization expires, representatives of the National Security Agency and the FBI are taking to Capitol Hill to convince legislators to preserve their sweeping spy powers.

That effort effectively re-inaugurates a surveillance debate in Congress that has spent much of 2015 behind closed doors. Within days, congressional sources tell the Guardian, the premiere NSA reform bill of the last Congress, known as the USA Freedom Act, is set for reintroduction – and this time, some former supporters fear the latest version of the bill will squander an opportunity for even broader surveillance reform.

Republican leaders of the House intelligence committee arranged for NSA and FBI representatives to hold secret briefings for members of Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday. Staff did not name the officials addressing legislators.

The classified briefings come amid an unsettled surveillance debate in Congress that rushes up against an unforgiving deadline. On 1 June, Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which permits US law enforcement and surveillance agencies to collect business records, expires.

Section 215 is the authority claimed by the NSA since 2006 for its ongoing daily bulk collection of US phone records revealed by the Guardian in 2013 thanks to leaks from whistleblower Edward Snowden. While the Obama administration and US intelligence agencies last year supported divesting the NSA of its domestic phone metadata collection, a bill to do so failed in November.

But the FBI and its supporters fear that the expiration of Section 215 will cut deeper than the loss of bulk collection. The FBI is warning that it will lose access to investigative leads for domestic terrorism and espionage, such as credit card information, hotel records and more, outside normal warrant or subpoena channels.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/15/nsa-fbi-surveillance-patriot-action-section-215-expiration

[Ronin Truth]

Would retro-active to the last PA vote screw up the whole damned agenda? :p :mad:

[twomp]

bump..

[Mach]

http://www.nationofchange.org/sites/default/files/PatriotActisBack061913.jpeg

[DamianTV]

I'm going to try and keep this post bumped until June 1st.

Yeah, well, bump!

[Root]

http://static.omglog.com/uploads/2010/06/will-varner-surveillance-2010-window-blinds-camera-cctv-usa-flag-555x389.png

[twomp]

The White House said it was “encouraged” by the return of a last-ditch bill to jettison the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of US phone records, even as the bill’s reauthorization of expiring surveillance powers under the Patriot Act is costing the bill civil libertarian support.

The 2015 version of the USA Freedom Act was released on Tuesday, following nearly 10 weeks of closed-door negotiations in Congress. Advocates of the bill, which passed the House in May before narrowly failing in the Senate in November, are leveraging the imminent expiration of a surveillance authority in the 2001 Patriot Act to push the USA Freedom Act to passage.

But the bill must compete with an alternative effort in the Senate, backed by the majority leader, Mitch McConnell, and intelligence committee chairman, Richard Burr, that would preserve both Section 215 of the Patriot Act and the controversial mass domestic surveillance disclosed by the Guardian thanks to leaks from whistleblower Edward Snowden. By law, section 215 expires on 1 June.

Further imperiling the bill are civil libertarian groups that prefer a straight expiration of Section 215 – which authorizes the FBI to collect business records outside normal warrant or subpoena channels, and which the Justice Department has held since 2006 as the basis for domestic NSA bulk phone-records collection – to a bill they consider to insufficiently protect privacy.

The USA Freedom Act, as reported by the Guardian last week, contains several concessions to pro-surveillance legislators meant to facilitate its passage. Among them are expansions of temporary spying authorities to account for surveillance targets transiting into and out of the US, and an unrelated expansion of penalties for people convicted of lending “material support” to terrorism.

More directly related to the Section 215 debate, the USA Freedom Act will extend the Patriot Act powers until 2019.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/28/house-nsa-reform-bill-senate-usa-freedom-act

[Anti Federalist]

USA Freedom Act

Well, hell if it's called that, I guess I'm all for it.

[Noob]

Please contact the following members of the House Judiciary Committee who are expected to take up renewing Section 215 of the “PATRIOT Act” as early as Thursday.

http://nagr.org/2015/patriotact215-dn.aspx?pid=1b

[twomp]

bump

[twomp]

16 days away...

[Christopher A. Brown]

How about #1 we abolish the NSA and Federal Reserve and repeal the Patriot Act altogether?

Something about Tyranny finally coming to America, it will come in the guise of Patriotism. The Patriot Act is the exact opposite of Patriotic. It protects Govt from People, not People from the Real Terrorists.

Uh, where is your plan to get that done?

I'm very much for it and even have a plan. It is a plan that escapes the box of partisan politics that has been so dysfunctional, that it literally created, by default, all of the problems that were used to justify the NSA, patriot act and a host of "solutions" to the self generated problems of our infiltrated federal government.

The plan.

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?471555-A-lawful-and-peaceful-revolution

[enhanced_deficit]

Obama is not going to let that happen. Obama was orginal supporter of PA according this shock claim by then Attorney General.

FF to 0:06 mark but stop watching at 0:31 :
https://youtu.be/ID91mi5c0OQ

[Christopher A. Brown]

Obama is not going to let that happen. Obama was orginal supporter of PA according this shock claim by then Attorney General.

FF to 0:06 mark but stop watching at 0:31 :
https://youtu.be/ID91mi5c0OQ

Do you realize that if Americans get their state legislatures uniformly constitutional to prepare for a general Article V convention with "preparatory amendment" that the president, the congress and the court have NO SAY over amendments that 3/4 of the states are ratifying?

Here is a real plan, but it requires Americans to agree that free speech has a purpose. DUH, think you can manage that?

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?471555-A-lawful-and-peaceful-revolution

[enhanced_deficit]

I'll need to educate myself bit more on A V convention to offer a proper answer to your question but I'm a fan of free speech. But there were rumors that ddg's puppet masters had assassinated US Americans including under-age children for exercising free speech, so this seems like a complicated issue that requires more than cursory examination.

[twomp]

“Our movement is the biggest threat to the Washington Machine’s grip on power,” Paul said on Twitter. “Nowhere is that more clear than the fight over the so-called ‘PATRIOT Act’s’ warrantless spying provisions.”

http://blogs.rollcall.com/wgdb/pauls-anti-nsa-push-is-at-odds-with-mcconnells-agenda/


oh yeah, bump

[twomp]

Rand Paul is FILIBUSTERING right now!

See this thread:

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?475002-Rand-Paul-on-senate-floor-now-filibustering-Patriot-Act-renewal-live-on-CSPAN2

Oh, bump!

[JustinTime]

Rand Paul is FILIBUSTERING right now!

See this thread:

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?475002-Rand-Paul-on-senate-floor-now-filibustering-Patriot-Act-renewal-live-on-CSPAN2

Oh, bump!

This is a litmus test for politicians me. If you side with Rand on this you may or may not be decent, but if you oppose him you definitely aren't worth a shit. Im interested in seeing what every 2016 Republican candidate has to say.

[twomp]

10 days left. Something big is happening tomorrow though:

Senate to Vote on NSA Surveillance Extension Saturday


The USA Freedom Act, which got its start as an NSA reform bill and has turned into a watered-down extension of the NSA surveillance program in general, is passed in the House, and Senate leaders have announced a Saturday vote on their version.

The Senate is facing strong opposition on both sides, from those opposed to surveillance and those wanting an even more straightforward approval. Sen. Rand Paul (R – KY) is already filibustering, and some amendments are seemingly going to be needed to pass the bill.

But if the USA Freedom Act needs to be reconciled with the House version, it may be too late, as the House has already gone into recess for the holiday.

The Senate’s alternate plan, also set for a Saturday vote, would be to try to extend the NSA surveillance two months, giving them more time to sell a permanent extension. There too, however, there is no House approval, and Rep. Justin Amash (R – MI) claims assurances from House leaders that they won’t try to push through a short-term extension bill with virtually everyone gone on recess.

http://news.antiwar.com/2015/05/21/senate-to-vote-on-nsa-surveillance-extension-saturday/



bump

[twomp]

7 days left...

[twomp]

2 more days.

[paulbot24]

Bump for the ADD/ADHD

[Mach]

Bump for the ADD/ADHD

What does DHDA/DDA mean?

:rolleyes:

[twomp]

Less than 24 hours left. Let the countdown begin! Visit the official thread here:

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?475773-*LIVE-STREAM*-Rand-Paul-to-end-Patriot-Act-Sunday-4pm-EST

Live streaming begins at 4 pm EST!

[morfeeis]

https://youtu.be/2LGVflk4Pww