Obama signs bill remaking NSA phone records program

[webfact]

Obama signs bill remaking NSA phone records program
ERICA WERNER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress approved sweeping changes Tuesday to surveillance laws enacted after the Sept. 11,2001 attacks, eliminating the National Security Agency's disputed bulk phone-records collection program affecting millions of Americans and replacing it with a more restrictive measure to keep the records in phone companies' hands.

Two days after Congress let the phone-records and several other anti-terror programs expire, the Senate's 67-32 vote sent the legislation to President Barack Obama, who signed it Tuesday night.

"This legislation will strengthen civil liberty safeguards and provide greater public confidence in these programs," Obama said in a statement. Officials said it could take at least several days to restart the collection.

The legislation will revive most of the programs the Senate had allowed to lapse in a dizzying collision of presidential politics and national security policy. But the authorization will undergo major changes, the legacy of agency contractor Edward Snowden's explosive revelations two years ago about domestic spying by the government.

Senators on the intelligence committee had been issuing veiled and vague warnings about the phone records program for years. But it was Snowden who revealed the details. He's now living in Moscow,

Snowden, reviled by lawmakers of both parties, addressed the vote via video link during an event hosted by Amnesty International. He said the legislation was historic because Americans are questioning long-held assumptions that intelligence officials always act in their best interest.

"For the first time in recent history, we found that despite the claims of government, the public made the final decision and that is a radical change we should seize on, we should value and we should push forward," he said.

In an unusual shifting of alliances, the legislation passed with the support of Obama and House Republican Speaker John Boehner but over the strong opposition of Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. McConnell failed to persuade the Senate to extend the current law unchanged, and came up short in a last-ditch effort Tuesday to amend the House version, as nearly a dozen of his own Republicans abandoned him in a series of votes.

"This is a step in the wrong direction," a frustrated McConnell said on the Senate floor ahead of the Senate's final vote to approve the House version, dubbed the USA Freedom Act. He said the legislation "does not enhance the privacy protections of American citizens. And it surely undermines American security by taking one more tool form our warfighters at exactly the wrong time."

The legislation remakes the most controversial aspect of the USA Patriot Act — the once-secret bulk collection program that allows the National Security Agency to sweep up Americans' phone records and comb through them for ties to international terrorists. Over six months the NSA would lose the power to collect and store those records, but the government still could gain court orders to obtain data connected to specific numbers from the phone companies, which typically store them for 18 months.

It would also continue other post-9/11 surveillance provisions that lapsed Sunday night, and which are considered more effective than the phone-data collection program. These include the FBI's authority to gather business records in terrorism and espionage investigations and to more easily eavesdrop on suspects who are discarding cellphones to avoid surveillance.

"This legislation is critical to keeping Americans safe from terrorism and protecting their civil liberties," said Boehner. The outcome capped a dramatic series of events on Capitol Hill that saw a presidential candidate, Sen. Rand Paul, defy fellow Republicans and singlehandedly force the existing law to lapse Sunday at midnight, leading to dire warnings of threats to America.

The suspense continued Tuesday as McConnell tried to get the Senate to go along with three amendments he said would make the House bill more palatable. But House leaders warned that if presented with the changes the House might not be able to approve them. The Senate denied McConnell's attempts, an embarrassment for the leader six months after Republicans retook Senate control.

The changes sought by McConnell included lengthening the phase-out period of the bulk records program from six months to a year, requiring the director of national intelligence to certify that the NSA can effectively search records held by the phone companies and making phone companies notify the government if they change their policy on how long they hold the records. Most controversially, McConnell would have weakened the power of a new panel of outside experts created to advise the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

The final vote divided Senate Republicans, with 23 voting "yes" and 30 voting "no," and senators seeking re-election in 2016 split on the issue.
___

Associated Press writers Anne Flaherty and Jim Kuhnhenn contributed to this report.


-- (c) Associated Press 2015-06-03

[Neurath]

Well, well, well. The US now leading the world in reigning back in the surveillance activities made public by Snowden. Not to worry though, as at least 2 of the 5 eyes have been ratcheting things up. Pity they 'can't' collect the data on US citizens that the US cannot now collect.

So is this a vindication of Snowden's actions? Seems so.

[MockingJay]

Thanks, big brother, for the snow job!

[razer]

NSA still has GCHQ. It is good PR and will make the people happy ... but covert surveillance will continue.

[sgtsabai]

It is all just smoke and mirrors. The sheeple in Congress did absolutly nothing to reign in the illegal, un-Constitutional spying. How can this possibly be any kind of victory when the so-called USA Freedom Act continues to give the NSA and other "initials" essentially the same powers they already had under Sec. 215. In fact the entire misnamed so-called Patriot Act needs to be abolished and it's companions Military Commissions Act, etc. never to see the light of day again. Also the other secret excuses the government uses to spy on it's citizens. Not one single case of terrorism has been prevented by all the illegal, un-Constitutional spying, not one. Executive Order 12333 and the 2008 FISA Amendments Act allow the government to collect our phone conversations, emails, search engines etc.

This new so-called Freedom Act allows the illegal, un-Constitutional, un-American spying to continue. America has become a police/surveillance state like I read about in Nazi Germany, Communist Russia, Communist China as a young boy.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2015/06/01/the-nsas-domestic-phone-records-program-is-dead-for-now-but-the-government-has-many-ways-to-get-phone-data/

http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/06/01/section-215-patriot-act-expires-surveillance-continues-fisa-court-metadata/

http://elink.thedailybeast.com/4e5568b3e018bee76c353db32o3zl.4i5q/VWynBEmOQNc8oU-pC3eff

[sgtsabai]

Oops, left this out. http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/06/01/section-215-patriot-act-expires-surveillance-continues-fisa-court-metadata/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=%2AEditors%20Picks&utm_campaign=2014_EditorsPicksRS6%2F1 http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/31/zombie-patriot-act-will-keep-u-s-spying-even-if-the-original-dies.html?via=newsletter&source=DDAfternoon . Like I said, all smoke and mirrors.

[arjunadawn]

Notwithstanding anything the government says, the USA has become despotic. There are only a few ways to define the changes that have taken place- within the past handful of years. Vote? Don't vote? Executive Authority (which presumably can act only on existing laws for administration)? It does not matter. Unless its a constitutional amendment even congress and the executive do not have the authority to abrogate the underlying constitution by fiat or creeping tyranny. The current scope of US spying is so egregious and debilitating that the constitution is effectively eviscerated in fact.

This soft coup that has taken place in the USA is entrenched, cannot now be removed or stuffed back into Pandora's Box. It is a fait accompli. When the lights go fully out in the US the rest of the world will slowly become very dark as well. Americans, those fed on the golden spoon of past industry, luck, and bold initiative, have squandered in a generation what previously took great empires epochs to lose. America is a cautionary tale that the universal imperatives of Rightness, Conscientious Action, Behavior, Laws, inalienable and Natural Rights were only a bold experiment in the human condition, not a natural evolution. Under the facade that nothing meaningful has changed America has become a country where rights devolve from the state, the state is insidiously present from cradle to grave, and increasingly, contrary views are suppressed.

Give to this Leviathan the Stasi Powers of a Modern East Germany and you have tyranny, irrespective of the nonsense of "same ole, same ole."

Good thing for the Statists that they have Emmanuel Goldstein in the disguise of islamic jihad so they can continue spinning tales of American Pie and Huddled Masses; how remarkably convenient that the entrenchment of the Modern Stasi Super State escalated secondary to the abrupt grievous threats from men in caves. There is a name for horrible events that trigger prepared remedies.

Note: The slippery slope Point of No Return has long since passed. All that could potentially go wrong already has. The FBI patrols the skies and routinely sweeps all data, the Pentagon analyzes US populations and social dispatches and associates via Big Data and Degrees of Separation; NSA never had a mandate on US soil and now runs a cradle to grave operation that is so significant that giant cooling towers are created to cool the massive data; municipal and local authorities routinely bypass courts and use Stingrays and other devices to clone cell towers and sweep innocent people's data (they are also beholden more to nondisclosure agreements by the producers of the Stingray not to disclose information rather than the people they serve); license plate readers and city CCTV grids are networked into a national access framework, etc, etc, ad infinitum. Remember it is already proven that the big spy data long ago turned to routine policing and agents are required to fabricate other probable cause rather than give away big data access info to defendents. In fact, on more than one occasion cases had to be thrown out because confronted by a solid defense attorney the government refused to concede the source of their probable cause- spying. The US is lost. The only thing that suggests the appearance of normalcy is that people are not hanging from light-posts or executed in stadiums, but the entire infrastructure for despotism is present. Watch next as biology is integrated into the system.

Edited June 3, 2015 by arjunadawn

[Neurath]

Say what you will my angry brethren, but there has been a small winding back of mass surveillance by exercise of democratic mandate. Not all and everything one could have wished certainly, but it is a little green seedling poking from the black cindered earth of the last 14 years. Would this have been possible without Snowden? Doubtful I would guess.

When starving, don't turn up your nose at a hot dog because it isn't a hamburger and fries. Eat up and as for more.

[IAMHERE]

When you have the most sensitive secrets of Representative and Senators in your files, you have their vote in your pocket. J Edger Hoover knew this too. Mass surviellance is to gain secrets on the powerful in society, not the secrets of the lower economical classes.

[arjunadawn]

I once heard a speech at a Virgina straw-poll where the politician stated "Why are we always given a choice between the lesser of two evils? If we are going to choose evil, why choose the lesser?"

This stuck with me all these years because he is correct; he is correct that in a world where there are agreed upon universal moral imperatives you cannot be nearly pregnant. You are either moral/pregnant, or you are not. If one knowingly chooses evil it makes little difference is this is rationalized as a lesser or greater evil- it is evil! Treating all Americans as if they are or may be criminals is in direct contravention of multiple- not laws- but constitutional safeguards. You cannot get more anathema to our governing principles than that.

Reading the above post by Neurath it is apparent (to me) that he and I agree. I certainly think Snowden is a hero. But I disagree that salvaging scraps of leftovers from the table of my masters is a partial victory. American has been driven shamelessly down the road of socialism by this type of incremental two steps forward one step backward discourse/exchange in our polity. To note this betrayal and outright treason does not constitute anger, an ad hominen... a pejorative woven into rebuttal. Furthermore, the idea that somehow a "democratic mandate" exists is dubious at best.

There has absolutely not been a winding back of surveillance. Positively not. Because the mechanism has changed does not mean the machine has. (Moreover, the most disagreeable part of the Patriot Act that was ostensibly rolled back is otherwise covered anyway under Executive Order. Because data will now be stored with the carriers only informs of a fascist slide to state control of private business, like healthcare and others- more government intrusion! Having a company hold the data suggests further hybrid greying between State and the economy. These actions, in total, or piecemeal, are antithetical to a free people, the expressly stated purpose of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution that profoundly sought to limit federal power and keep in shackled in constitutional chains. I am correct, this is horrible.

If, instead of destroying the fabric of what makes America America by collectively injuring that which defines us, we choose instead to actually address the palpable threats, destroy the threats, even name the threats, and have an America First policy, there would be no argument to base this deceitful spying upon, which is no more than a stalking horse in any event.

Edited June 3, 2015 by arjunadawn

[Neurath]

There are agreed upon universal moral imperatives - and everyone interprets them differently.

Because of this the world is not made up of Good and Evil but of better and worse - loosely defined as grades of more good and more bad (where good and bad are also loosely defined).

Never make the best the enemy of the better, I reckon.

[arjunadawn]

There are agreed upon universal moral imperatives - and everyone interprets them differently.

Because of this the world is not made up of Good and Evil but of better and worse - loosely defined as grades of more good and more bad (where good and bad are also loosely defined).

Never make the best the enemy of the better, I reckon.

Well, both mine and your post reveal exactly the difficulties in perceiving threats, or imagining more than there is. The way you deliver your post is actually not incorrect, and this does show the graduations in right and wrong, or imperatives-but only to a point. I am unsure about your first sentence though because universal constructs are generally held to be this or that by most all people in all times, and everyone does not interpret them differently; ie, murder, child abuse, etc. (Personally I do not see the world in terms of good or evil either but for limitations of language these terms still describe well the presence of absence of a maleficent government).

Swinging this full circle IMO the changes wrought in America spell a death blow to any semblance of freedom of speech, association, right to be secure in the home and possessions, right not to self incriminate, and likely more. There is little graduation in this. A human either has these inalienable rights or they are violated, no grey. No mostly. No slightly. You are free, or you are not.

[micmichd]

"You are free, or you are not" Not so easy sometimes.

Am I free to kill human beings? Am I free to (mentally) dehumanize them, so killing comes easier for me?

Had a conversation with this Thai lady the other day. A really freewheeling woman, but even she asked "Freedom for what?" - and she supplied the answer: "Freedom for life - for our childrens' future"

Guess that's the big difference between the West and the East.

Don't sacrifice life for freedom which in most cases turns out to be meant as "freedom to make money"