Talk About Police States

National Security Agency Seal (Photo credit: DonkeyHotey)

William Boardman | Reader Supported News | August 3, 2013

With much of the country aware of the extent of government spying on and lying to American citizens, there is now a limited public discussion of what kind of country we want ours to be. The limits of that discussion are illustrated by recent public utterances of two Democratic senators, Diane Feinstein of California and Ron Wyden of Oregon.

For more than two years, Senator Wyden has been warning that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been operating outside the law for more than seven years. His warnings have been limited and cryptic because he was bound by secrecy law not to tell the truth he knew. That ended when Edward Snowden started sharing truthful information that confirmed everything Senator Wyden had implied and more.

On July 24, a near-majority of members of the House of Representatives supported an amendment to a military spending bill that was intended to put some limits on the NSA’s ability to spy on all Americans all the time. President Obama opposed any such limitation and, working with House Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, managed to defeat the amendment by a vote of 217-205. Each party split fairly evenly, with 111 Democrats and 94 Republicans voting for greater limits on NSA spying on Americans.

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Senator: FISA Court Is ‘Anachronistic’

U.S. Senator Richard Durbin, of Illinois. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ed Pilkington | Guardian UK | Reader Supported News | July 29, 2013

Dick Durbin joins growing outcry among senators to rein in power of secretive court meant to serve as a check on NSA.

Pressure is building within the US Senate for an overhaul of the secret court that is supposed to act as a check on the National Security Agency’s executive power, with one prominent senator describing the judicial panel as “anachronistic” and outdated.

Ron Wyden, a Democratic senator for Oregon, said discussions were under way about how to reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court, the body entrusted with providing oversight on the NSA and its metadata-collecting activities. He told C-Span’s Newsmaker programme on Sunday that the court, which was set up in 1978 under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa), was ill-equipped to deal with the massive digital dragnet of millions of Americans’ phone records developed by the NSA in recent years.

“In many particulars, the Fisa court is anachronistic – they are using processes that simply don’t fit the times,” Wyden said.

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Manning and Snowden Light Path for the US to Return to Its Better Self

Senator Ron Wyden (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yochai Benkler | Guardian UK | Reader Supported News | July 27, 2013

Since the 9/11 trauma, America has allowed the national security state to ride roughshod over vital liberties. This is a turning-point.

The closing arguments in the trial of Bradley Manning, where prosecutors are trying to persuade the judge that leaking to the press constitutes the treasonous act of aiding the enemy, came fast on the heels of the most significant bipartisan response to leak-based national security journalism that we have seen since the 1970s: Wednesday’s vote on the Amash amendment in the House. At no time since the Obama administration launched its war on national security journalism and its sources has the critical role of leaks and journalism been clearer. Without Edward Snowden‘s whistleblowing and Glenn Greenwald‘s reporting, NSA surveillance would still have been in the dark, protected by secrecy and bolstered by the “least untruthful” lies James Clapper delivered to Senator Ron Wyden.

Wednesday’s vote in the House may well yet turn out to be a turning-point on much more than just NSA surveillance – because dragnet surveillance of phone metadata is only one manifestation of our post-9/11 constitutional PTSD.

On Wednesday, Republicans such as Mike Rogers and Michele Bachmann joined House Democratic minority leader Nancy Pelosi and Republican Speaker John Boehner in voting with President Obama that we should be governed by our fears, rather than our values. But Jim Sensenbrenner, who introduced the original Patriot Act in 2001, joined 93 other Republicans and a majority of House Democrats, including Democratic leaders Clyburn and Becerra, to support Representative Amash’s proposed amendment to block NSA dragnet surveillance. And although this coalition lost the vote, its breadth and depth may mark the beginning of America’s awakening from a long panic – and anger-induced constitutional hiatus.

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Stop the NSA’s Intrusions

The seal of the U.S. National Security Agency. The first use was in September 1966, replacing an older seal which was used briefly. For more information, see here and here. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Mark Udal and Ron Wyden | The Washington Post | Reader Supported News | July 27, 2013

Mark Udall and Ron Wyden, both Democrats, represent Colorado and Oregon, respectively, in the Senate.

President Obama recently welcomed a public debate about how to protect both national security and privacy rights in the context of the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance activities. Congress should not squander this opportunity to have an open, transparent discussion about the limits of executive power and the surveillance of Americans. We believe that, when presented with all the facts, most Americans would agree with us that the White House should end the bulk collection of Americans’ phone records and instead obtain this information directly from phone companies, using regular court orders based on individual suspicion.

We have had concerns about domestic surveillance authorities for several years. Through our oversight work on the Senate intelligence committee, we have become convinced that the government needs to scale back overly intrusive surveillance activities to better protect Americans’ constitutional privacy rights and that this can be done while protecting U.S. national security. We have not been able to fully engage the public on these issues because the executive branch insisted on keeping its interpretation of the law secret. Although we would have preferred that this discussion had been sparked by a more transparent executive branch, rather than by unauthorized leaks, we welcome an open debate about the federal government’s dragnet collection of Americans’ phone records under Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act.

Our view of this program is shaped by our experience with the NSA’s bulk e-mail records collection program. Concerned about this program’s impact on Americans’ civil liberties and privacy rights, we spent a significant portion of 2011 pressing intelligence officials to provide evidence of its usefulness. They were not able to do so, and it was shut down that year. This experience demonstrated to us that intelligence agencies’ assessments of the effectiveness of particular collection programs are not always accurate, and it led us to be skeptical of claims about the value of collecting bulk phone records.

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James Clapper, EU Play-Acting and Political Priorities

Glenn Greenwald | Guardian UK | Reader Supported News | July 3, 2013

The NSA revelations continue to expose far more than just the ongoing operations of that sprawling and unaccountable spying agency. Let’s examine what we have learned this week about the US political and media class and then certain EU leaders.

The first NSA story to be reported was our June 6 article which exposed the bulk, indiscriminate collection by the US Government of the telephone records of tens of millions of Americans. Ever since then, it has been undeniably clear that James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, outright lied to the US Senate – specifically to the Intelligence Committee, the body charged with oversight over surveillance programs – when he said “no, sir” in response to this question from Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden: “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?”

That Clapper fundamentally misled Congress is beyond dispute. The DNI himself has now been forced by our stories to admit that his statement was, in his words, “clearly erroneous” and to apologize. But he did this only once our front-page revelations forced him to do so: in other words, what he’s sorry about is that he got caught lying to the Senate. And as Salon’s David Sirota adeptly documented on Friday, Clapper is still spouting falsehoods as he apologizes and attempts to explain why he did it.

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The NSA’s Intelligence Industrial Complex

Valerie Plame Wilson, Joe Wilson | Guardian UK | Reader Supported News | June 24, 2013

Where oversight and accountability have failed, Snowden’s leaks have opened up a vital public debate on our rights and privacy.

Let’s be absolutely clear about the news that the NSA collects massive amounts of information on US citizens – from emails, to telephone calls, to videos, under the Prism program and other Fisa court orders: this story has nothing to do with Edward Snowden. As interesting as his flight to Hong Kong might be, the pole-dancing girlfriend, and interviews from undisclosed locations, his fate is just a sideshow to the essential issues of national security versus constitutional guarantees of privacy, which his disclosures have surfaced in sharp relief.

Snowden will be hunted relentlessly and, when finally found, with glee, brought back to the US in handcuffs and severely punished. (If Private Bradley Manning’s obscene conditions while incarcerated are any indication, it won’t be pleasant for Snowden either, even while awaiting trial.) Snowden has already been the object of scorn and derision from the Washington establishment and mainstream media, but, once again, the focus is misplaced on the transiently shiny object. The relevant issue should be: what exactly is the US government doing in the people’s name to “keep us safe” from terrorists?

Prism and other NSA data-mining programs might indeed be very effective in hunting and capturing actual terrorists, but we don’t have enough information as a society to make that decision. Despite laudable efforts led by Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall to bring this to the public’s attention that were continually thwarted by the administration because everything about this program was deemed “too secret”, Congress could not even exercise its oversight responsibilities. The intelligence community and their friends on the Hill do not have a right to interpret our rights absent such a discussion.

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Aaron’s Law: Desperately Needed Reform of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act

Zoe Lofgren and Ron Wyden | Wired || Reader Supported News | June 22, 2013

The Internet is up for grabs.

Foreign countries want to control it. Military regimes use it to spy, to oppress, and to attack public and private institutions. ‘Big Content’ sought to censor it and dismantle its architecture. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies want to mine and monitor it. Powerful incumbent business interests seek to shape it in ways that benefit their bottom line but undermine the national interest and the interests of individuals worldwide.

In each of these areas, there is debate in Congress about how to respond. We need an informed public debate to ensure lawmakers make the right choices that fully preserve the vital openness of the Internet and the privacy and civil liberties of its users. Reforming the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) should be a part of that debate.

The CFAA is a sweeping Internet regulation that criminalizes many forms of common Internet use. It allows breathtaking levels of prosecutorial discretion that invites serious abuse. As Congress considers policies to preserve an open Internet as a platform for ideas and commerce, reforming the CFAA must be included.

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If It’s All Kosher, NSA, Why Lie?

William Boardman | Reader Supported News | June 22, 2013

Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon: “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?” 

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper: “No, sir.”

 

In March 12, 2013, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) apparently committed perjury in his sworn testimony to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. There is little likelihood of his being criminally charged, but we’ll get back to that.

If it doesn’t matter to you (1) that your government can maintain a massive data bank on your life and the lives of everyone you know, and (2) that there is no effective control on how the government uses its data, and (3) that your government lies about its capabilities, then there’s no point in reading further.

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Senators Challenge NSA’s Claim to Have Foiled ‘Dozens’ of Terror Attacks

Spencer Ackerman | Guardian UK | Reader Supported News | June 14, 2013

Mark Udall and Ron Wyden – critics of NSA’s surveillance – say they want proof that programs have disrupted plots against US

Two prominent Senate critics of the NSA’s dragnet surveillance have challenged the agency’s assertion that the spy efforts helped stop “dozens” of terror attacks.

Mark Udall and Ron Wyden, both members of the Senate intelligence committee, said they were not convinced by the testimony of the NSA director, General Keith Alexander, on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, who claimed that evidence gleaned from surveillance helped thwart attacks in the US.

“We have not yet seen any evidence showing that the NSA’s dragnet collection of Americans’ phone records has produced any uniquely valuable intelligence,” they said in a statement released on Thursday ahead of a widely anticipated briefing for US senators about the National Security Agency’s activities.

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Lawmakers to Vote on Hemp Amendment to Farm Bill

NORML | June 5, 2013

It is possible that, for the first time ever, the United States Senate will vote to approve industrial hemp cultivation in the coming days. Please take a moment of your time to encourage your Senator to support this measure. You can easily do so by clicking here.

Senator Ron Wyden has introduced an amendment to Senate Bill 3240, the Senate version of this year’s federal farm bill, that requires the federal government to respect state laws allowing the cultivation of industrial hemp. Hemp is a distinct variety of the plant species cannabis sativa that contains only trace (less than one percent) amounts of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the primary psychoactive compound in cannabis.

The amendment language mimics the “Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2013,” which remains pending as stand-alone legislation in both the House and Senate but has yet to receive a legislative hearing. Senator Wyden’s provision to the Senate’s Farm Bill amends the Controlled Substances Act to exclude industrial hemp from the definition of marijuana. The measure grants state legislatures the authority to license and regulate the commercial production of hemp as an industrial and agricultural commodity.

“For me, what’s important is that people see, particularly in our state, there’s someone buying it at Costco in Oregon,” Senator Wyden previously stated in support of this Act, “I adopted what I think is a modest position, which is if you can buy it at a store in Oregon, our farmers ought to be able to make some money growing it.”

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