charrob
06-03-2015, 05:03 PM
Are we: better off, the same, or worse off with the passage of the USA Freedom Act (rather than if Congress had simply extended the Patriot Act as it was with no changes at all)? And why?
Just curious how others feel about this. The EFF, ACLU, and civil liberties organizations seemed to stay rather neutral. From what i can understand so far about the argument:
The USA Freedom Act actually contains within it a re-authorization of the Patriot Act that i assume will now have to abide by the updated changes written into the Freedom Act (which would include number 3 below).
Nothing has changed at all with respect to NSA bulk collection of our internet data, ie. emails, googles, skype calls, etc. – which I think are the authorities NSA has under section 702 of the FISA law as well as Bush’s executive order 12333 which has never been rescinded. I think there were parts of Section 215 not related to bulk phone record capture that also haven't changed. Also i think National Security Letters completely override a need for warrants anyhow, but i may be wrong.
There’s a new civil liberties panel to oversee the FISA Court. (Before only the government saw the cases/warrants that were before the FISA Court. And before the FISA Court was simply a rubber stamp for the government: 34,000 cases came before it since 9/11 and only 12 had been refused by the FISA Court.)
So this new civil liberties panel creates an extra check against the Government. However:
Once again, the warrants before the FISA Court are for reasonable suspicion rather than probable cause. So to weigh net gains versus losses, these warrants would be divided into 2 sets:
Warrants unrelated to phone records: Since virtually there was no oversight before for these warrants, it seems to be a net gain for freedom.
Warrants for phone records: Since the appellate court ruled the NSA's bulk collection of phone records under Section 215 illegal, that would mean agencies would have had to obtain regular probable cause type warrants for phone company records. Since the Freedom Act lowers the bar from probable cause to reasonable suspicion that seems to be a net loss for freedom from what we would have had.
Unlike before, the new Freedom Act allows for “emergency powers” where no warrant at all is needed up front as long as agencies eventually get a warrant through the FISA Court in these ‘special’ situations. This seems to be a net loss: even though this could have been achieved before through the rubber stamp known as the FISA Court, at least it was assumed that warrants were granted by the court before records were given over to agencies.
So a simplistic overview from above: net gain + net loss + net loss == net loss. Just wondering if there's other issues in these laws anyone is aware of to be considered that is not covered above that could weigh the issue in another way?
Just curious how others feel about this. The EFF, ACLU, and civil liberties organizations seemed to stay rather neutral. From what i can understand so far about the argument:
The USA Freedom Act actually contains within it a re-authorization of the Patriot Act that i assume will now have to abide by the updated changes written into the Freedom Act (which would include number 3 below).
Nothing has changed at all with respect to NSA bulk collection of our internet data, ie. emails, googles, skype calls, etc. – which I think are the authorities NSA has under section 702 of the FISA law as well as Bush’s executive order 12333 which has never been rescinded. I think there were parts of Section 215 not related to bulk phone record capture that also haven't changed. Also i think National Security Letters completely override a need for warrants anyhow, but i may be wrong.
There’s a new civil liberties panel to oversee the FISA Court. (Before only the government saw the cases/warrants that were before the FISA Court. And before the FISA Court was simply a rubber stamp for the government: 34,000 cases came before it since 9/11 and only 12 had been refused by the FISA Court.)
So this new civil liberties panel creates an extra check against the Government. However:
Once again, the warrants before the FISA Court are for reasonable suspicion rather than probable cause. So to weigh net gains versus losses, these warrants would be divided into 2 sets:
Warrants unrelated to phone records: Since virtually there was no oversight before for these warrants, it seems to be a net gain for freedom.
Warrants for phone records: Since the appellate court ruled the NSA's bulk collection of phone records under Section 215 illegal, that would mean agencies would have had to obtain regular probable cause type warrants for phone company records. Since the Freedom Act lowers the bar from probable cause to reasonable suspicion that seems to be a net loss for freedom from what we would have had.
Unlike before, the new Freedom Act allows for “emergency powers” where no warrant at all is needed up front as long as agencies eventually get a warrant through the FISA Court in these ‘special’ situations. This seems to be a net loss: even though this could have been achieved before through the rubber stamp known as the FISA Court, at least it was assumed that warrants were granted by the court before records were given over to agencies.
So a simplistic overview from above: net gain + net loss + net loss == net loss. Just wondering if there's other issues in these laws anyone is aware of to be considered that is not covered above that could weigh the issue in another way?