It’s Time to End Orwellian Surveillance of Every American

U.S. senator Bernie Sanders speaks at a town hall meeting at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local Union 26 office, May 5, 2015, in Lanham, Maryland. (photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

I voted against the Patriot Act every time, and it still needs major reform.

 

welcome a federal appeals court ruling that the National Security Agency does not have the legal authority to collect and store data on all U.S. telephone calls. Now Congress should rewrite the expiring eavesdropping provision in the so-called USA Patriot Act and include strong new limits to protect the privacy and civil liberties of the American people.

Let me be clear: We must do everything we can to protect our country from the serious potential of another terrorist attack. We can and must do so, however, in a way that also protects the constitutional rights of the American people and maintains our free society.

Do we really want to live in a country where the NSA gathers data on virtually every single phone call in the United States—including as many as 5 billion cellphone records per day? I don’t. Do we really want our government to collect our emails, see our text messages, know everyone’s Internet browsing history, monitor bank and credit card transactions, keep tabs on people’s social networks? I don’t.

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NSA Metadata Collection: Fourth Amendment Violation

Marjorie Cohn | Jurist | Truthout | January 16, 2014

Edward Snowden, who worked for the National Security Agency (NSA), revealed a secret order of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), that requires Verizon to produce on an “ongoing daily basis … all call detail records or ‘telephony metadata’ created by Verizon for communications (i) between the United States and abroad; or (ii) wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls.”

The government has admitted it collects metadata for all of our telephone communications, but says the data collected does not include the content of the calls.

In response to lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the program, two federal judges issued dueling opinions about whether it violates the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures.

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FBI Taps Hacker Tactics to Spy on Suspects

English: The Seal of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation. For more information, see here. Español: El escudo del Buró Federal de Investigaciones (FBI). Para obtener más información, vease aquí (Inglés). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Jennifer Valentino-Devries, Danny Yadron | The Wall Street Journal | Reader Supported News | August 2, 2013

Law-Enforcement Officials Expand Use of Tools Such as Spyware as People Under Investigation ‘Go Dark,’ Evading Wiretaps

Law-enforcement officials in the U.S. are expanding the use of tools routinely used by computer hackers to gather information on suspects, bringing the criminal wiretap into the cyber age.

Federal agencies have largely kept quiet about these capabilities, but court documents and interviews with people involved in the programs provide new details about the hacking tools, including spyware delivered to computers and phones through email or Web links – techniques more commonly associated with attacks by criminals.

People familiar with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s programs say that the use of hacking tools under court orders has grown as agents seek to keep up with suspects who use new communications technology, including some types of online chat and encryption tools. The use of such communications, which can’t be wiretapped like a phone, is called “going dark” among law enforcement.

A spokeswoman for the FBI declined to comment.

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Eavesdropping on Internet Communications

THE EDITORIAL BOARD | New York Times | May 19, 2013

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has a new plan to intercept Internet messages, calls and video chats. Instead of requiring companies like Skype and Google to build surveillance capabilities into their services as it suggested in 2010, the F.B.I. now proposes fining companies that fail to comply with court-ordered wiretaps.

The new approach has met less opposition from other agencies, like the Commerce Department, than the earlier plan, which went nowhere because some officials worried that it would hurt innovation by imposing expensive and technically difficult requirements on start-up Internet-based communication services.

Fines, some officials believe, would be less of a burden on new businesses because they might not have to worry about developing the ability to conduct wiretaps right away. The White House is evaluating the plan for submission to Congress.

The F.B.I. has long complained that it is becoming ever harder to carry out court-approved, real-time eavesdropping on criminal suspects since people are communicating without picking up a phone. The agency argues that the monitoring of Internet-based services does not expand government surveillance, but merely updates the current wiretap law. Judges would still have to authorize wiretaps, and would impose the fines if the services did not comply.

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