Friday, December 12, 2014

Congress Quietly Authorizes Surveillance Of All Americans

From this source:
Congress this week quietly passed a bill that may give unprecedented legal authority to the government's warrantless surveillance powers, despite a last-minute effort by Rep. Justin Amash to kill the bill.

[...]

The provision in question is "one of the most egregious sections of law I've encountered during my time as a representative," Amash wrote on his Facebook page. The tea-party libertarian, who teamed up with Rep. John Conyers in an almost-successful bid to defund the National Security Agency in the wake of the Snowden revelations, warned that the provision "grants the executive branch virtually unlimited access to the communications of every American."

The measure already passed the Senate by unanimous consent on Tuesday, and it is now on its way to the White House, where President Obama is expected to sign it.


The objections from Amash and others arose from language in the bill's Section 309, which includes a phrase to allow for "the acquisition, retention, and dissemination" of U.S. phone and Internet data. That passage will give unprecedented statutory authority to allow for the surveillance of private communications that currently exists only under a decades-old presidential decree, known as Executive Order 12333....

3 comments:

tammy swofford said...

The greatest concern is how it destroys freedom of the press and strengthens the governmental capability to churn out script for public consumption.

How can a journalist maintain source confidentiality? It is a near impossibility, of course. To get a person to divulge an inconvenient truth will be increasingly difficult.

The "truths" we receive from government "confidential sources" should also be suspect - something run as a false flag operation.

Pastorius said...

Great point, Tammy.

Always On Watch said...

Congress critters are waving goodbye to the First Amendment rights of WE THE PEOPLE. Everything is going to be controlled so that we will not step out of the government's lockstep.