First FISC Phone Records Ruling Post-USA FREEDOM Exposes Shortcomings of Reforms
The secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) had its first opportunity to review a government request for telephone call records since the enactment in June 2015 of the USA FREEDOM Act, which placed some restrictions and oversight on the NSA’s surveillance powers. Unfortunately the results of this first post-USA FREEDOM FISC review are not pretty, and remind us all that there is still much work to be done.
In approving a request for “call detail records” by the FBI, Judge Thomas Hogan allowed the FBI to get people’s call records even in the absence of any belief that those records will be relevant to an investigation, and let the bureau keep records with no foreign intelligence value for 6 months or longer even though USA FREEDOM requires “prompt” destruction of such records. He also declined to take advantage of the new provisions that allow him to appoint an amicus to help sort through the new statute. The opinion, issued on December 31, 2015, was made public April 19, 2016.
Showing posts with label USA Freedom Act. Show all posts
Showing posts with label USA Freedom Act. Show all posts
Friday, April 29, 2016
Friday, May 15, 2015
You live, so you’re obviously guilty, according to Congress
You live, so you’re obviously guilty, according to Congress
There’s more Orwellian double-speak in action in Congress.
On Wednesday, the House passed the USA Freedom Act 338-88. As is always the case in the District of Corruption, the new law does exactly the opposite of what its name purports.
The bill overturns the recent ruling by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that National Security Agency bulk telephone metadata collection exceeded what was authorized in the so-called USA Patriot Act. The misnamed Freedom Act actually expands the statutory basis for the large-scale collection of most data.
Now phone companies have to hold, search and analyze the data at government’s request. The Freedom Act authorizes the government to order phone companies to turn over records based upon a “specific selection term.” Think of it as using a search term in a search engine.
A non-specific term can turn up a vast amount of unrelated data that will find its way into the NSA’s computers. In short, it casts an even wider net than the one the NSA was using without authorization, but now it’s an “authorized” net.
There’s more Orwellian double-speak in action in Congress.
On Wednesday, the House passed the USA Freedom Act 338-88. As is always the case in the District of Corruption, the new law does exactly the opposite of what its name purports.
The bill overturns the recent ruling by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that National Security Agency bulk telephone metadata collection exceeded what was authorized in the so-called USA Patriot Act. The misnamed Freedom Act actually expands the statutory basis for the large-scale collection of most data.
Now phone companies have to hold, search and analyze the data at government’s request. The Freedom Act authorizes the government to order phone companies to turn over records based upon a “specific selection term.” Think of it as using a search term in a search engine.
A non-specific term can turn up a vast amount of unrelated data that will find its way into the NSA’s computers. In short, it casts an even wider net than the one the NSA was using without authorization, but now it’s an “authorized” net.
Why did so many libertarians vote against a bill that’s supposed to rein in the NSA?
Why did so many libertarians vote against a bill that’s supposed to rein in the NSA?
If the USA Freedom Act, which passed the House overwhelmingly Wednesday, really reins in the National Security Agency’s bulk telephone metadata collection program, why did so many Republican critics of mass data collection vote against it?
This not only included Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., who spearheaded a bipartisan push to end blanket surveillance in 2013, but a virtual who’s who of libertarian-leaning Republican members of the House and their conservative fellow travelers: Thomas Massie, Raul Labrador, Dave Brat, Tim Huelskamp, Jim Jordan, Tom McClintock, Mark Meadows, Mick Mulvaney, Walter Jones, Mark Sanford and Jimmy Duncan. Duncan is the only Republican still in Congress who voted against the Iraq War.
Amash, who explains all his votes on Facebook, argues that the bill in its current form erodes a recent U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruling that the mass data collection isn’t legal under Section 215 of the Patriot Act.
The third-term congressman writes, “It’s true that the bill ends the phone dragnet as we currently know it — by having the phone companies themselves hold, search, and analyze certain data at the request of the government, which is worse in many ways given the broader set of data the companies hold — but H.R. 2048 actually expands the statutory basis for the large-scale collection of most data.”
In other words, a federal court ruled that there was no statutory basis for the blanket data collection being carried out by the NSA. The USA Freedom Act as now written, Amash contends, provides one.
If the USA Freedom Act, which passed the House overwhelmingly Wednesday, really reins in the National Security Agency’s bulk telephone metadata collection program, why did so many Republican critics of mass data collection vote against it?
This not only included Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., who spearheaded a bipartisan push to end blanket surveillance in 2013, but a virtual who’s who of libertarian-leaning Republican members of the House and their conservative fellow travelers: Thomas Massie, Raul Labrador, Dave Brat, Tim Huelskamp, Jim Jordan, Tom McClintock, Mark Meadows, Mick Mulvaney, Walter Jones, Mark Sanford and Jimmy Duncan. Duncan is the only Republican still in Congress who voted against the Iraq War.
Amash, who explains all his votes on Facebook, argues that the bill in its current form erodes a recent U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruling that the mass data collection isn’t legal under Section 215 of the Patriot Act.
The third-term congressman writes, “It’s true that the bill ends the phone dragnet as we currently know it — by having the phone companies themselves hold, search, and analyze certain data at the request of the government, which is worse in many ways given the broader set of data the companies hold — but H.R. 2048 actually expands the statutory basis for the large-scale collection of most data.”
In other words, a federal court ruled that there was no statutory basis for the blanket data collection being carried out by the NSA. The USA Freedom Act as now written, Amash contends, provides one.
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