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US Senators Concerned With Surveillance Bill "Loophole"
zer0point writes "The law lets U.S. agencies monitor the communications of foreigners outside the U.S. But two senators are questioning whether a loophole allows the storage and search of messages from Americans that are picked up inadvertently while foreigners are being monitored. The intelligence community has repeatedly said it takes steps to minimize the data collected on Americans. Among the senators’ concerns: that the administration hasn’t been able to estimate how many people in the U.S. have had their information reviewed under the program."
I suspect the truth is "hasn't been willing to".
People have been willing to ignore these sorts of things since they can at least pretend it's probably doesn't involve their own information. If the truth came out, and the government admitted it was electronically sifting through virtually all internal US communications... I suspect people would start to get riled up over it.
#DeleteChrome
I really don't believe anyone would try to "minimize" the data collected and stored on Americans. I think this loophole was intentional, but what can I do about it?
When I clicked on the article I was wholly unsurprised to find Ron Wyden was one of the senators. Every time there's something in the news about a bit of sanity coming from a senator, it seems to have Ron Wyden's name. It's encouraging that there's a senator like that out there, but it's discouraging that it's only 1% of them. I wish we could get one or two of those for my state.
with the fact that they are not concerned with the rights of people outside the Holy Land of the United States of America. Typical.
But two senators are questioning whether a loophole allows the storage and search of messages from Americans that are picked up inadvertently while foreigners are being monitored. The intelligence community has repeatedly said it takes steps to minimize the data collected on Americans.
What does that 2nd sentence even mean and why was it included? Either they are allowed, which case no need to minimize the data on Americans or they are not allowed to. "Taking steps to minimize" means nothing quantifiable (up to 100% reduced!).
Even assuming I trust everyone here, that is still a totally meaningless and irrelevant statement included in the article.
We KNOW you spy on all of us...
Why do you keep pretending you don't? You're fucking around and wasting time.
Here... see... i'll do it.
WE SPY ON EVERYONE ALL THE TIME!
See how easy that was? Now get the fuck back to work.
What this article leaves out and the reader should know, is that it is illegal for the federal government to monitor domestic communications without a warrant. There is no such protection afforded non-citizens outside of the USA. At issue is when the CIA (or other foreign intelligence gathering organization of the Federal Government) is monitoring a foreign national outside of the USA who may be talking to someone inside the states. The "loophole" they are talking about basically is that as long as the collection target is not a domestic US citizen, any information gathered is legal to keep, even if it involves a domestic party. It must also be understood that such evidence would NOT be admissible in court for a criminal trial having not been obtained though a warrant. I wonder if it could legally be used as probable cause to obtain the warrant though.
I personally don't see the huge issue with this, unless we are seeing a rash of prosecutions based on such evidence. I have heard of no such cases. Further, unless the Fed is really not trying to filter the data at all, it is unlikely that they have much data that they have to purge. After all, this IS an investigative effort that targets non-US-citizens so it makes sense their filtering is pretty good, or this effort would be useless.
I'll guess that the guys with the tinfoil hats who are looking for the black helicopters won't like this, but I'd be much more worried about Google or Facebook collection efforts than this.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
California Democrat Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the committee, said she believes that existing provisions in the law are adequate to prevent Americansâ(TM) communications from being mishandled. ... But Sen. Feinstein said she agrees that the committee should know just how many Americans are having their communications monitored.
I am sure Senator Feinstein will see things differently if she was spied upon. And, even more interestingly, "Americans' communication ... being mishandled" really depends on her definition "mishandled". Maybe she believes that not spell-checking the permanent records is "mishandling", but spying itself is fine?
As always, it is great to see that the only meaningful debate (which may or may not result in any changes) is whether the senators should be kept in the loop. Nothing about protecting Americans from being monitored 24-7.
Spying on citizens not under your own authority illegal?
The US government seams to freak out when foreign citizens spy on it yet it seams to be ok when it does it to them.
Canada will monitor the American citizens and America will monitor thje Canadian citizens and the politicians can still claim that they don't monitor their own citizens so that's all right then.
Don't worry America, go back to sleep. God, we need Bill Hicks to point this stuff out...
"Nothing to see here Senator Likes-to-be-spanked-by-nuns-while-wearing-diapers and Senator Visits-livegoatporn.com-every-fifteen-minutes. No personally-identifying information is being collected and certainly wouldn't get out unless completely by accident."
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I hate to do it, but someone has to.
How many people have been killed by international terrorists on US soil in all of history?
How much have we spend on counter-terrorism efforts in the past 10 years?
Do some math... and we're spending billions per civilian life to stop terrorist attacks.
Lets just stop for a while and see what happens.
Now you're going to jump up and yell "That's cold! It's horrible! How could you?!?!"
Well, yea... fine, I'll accept that. But what if we instead spent all those billions on cancer research?
Not only would we save far more lives, over a much longer term, but dieing from cancer is plain and simple a worse way to die that having your plane blown up or crashed.
Counter terrorism is an excuse to maintain our cold-war levels of military readiness that simply are not needed any longer. We need to stop, and think before we spend and bomb.
Secret court decides that its reason to exist is legal..... news at 11:00
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
One of the great things about the constitution is that it established a checks and balances scheme that allowed judiciary system to rule on a system of law fearlessly, effectively, and independently. Unfortunately, our judicial system is broken today because loopholes exist because judges are not taking the "essence of the law" into consideration. What is the purpose of a judge if they are merely ruling and not making judgements?
If any information is collected by real time surveillance of any sort without a judicial ruling pertaining to a particular person for particular stuff, AND NO ADVERSARY WAS AVAILABLE TO OBJECT, then it can never be used in evidence for any domestic civil, criminal, administrative case or any other legal proceeding with consequences to the subject at all. Zero tolerance. Cite precedent that the government itself uses zero tolerance in many legal actions.
Submitted for approval. GFL.
JJ
If you don't know the government isn't monitoring you, you must assume they are?
Oh no, god forbid "Americans" are subject to the same treatment as that which they mete out. The self perceived exceptionalism of the US is so jarring, created equal indeed.
There is a reason why despite my being single-mindedly pro-life, he's the only Democrat I'll vote for.
I am really pro-life too and I protest all wars, abortion, drone attacks, the death penalty, and any and all killing.
How do you cope? I'm constantly being harassed as being a "Liberal" and "Anti-American" and yet, I am a die hard Republican. .
What do you do?
I'm confused now. I thought that the loophole that they were trying to close with patriot2 was the inability to spy on people who might be Americans or might be foreign (e.g. anyone on a VoIP call) how can they call this a loophole when its pretty much the entire point of the current legislation.
It may be difficult for you to accept this, but many Americans are against a lot of what our government does in the name of our safety and interests. I know that foreign stereotypes of Americans are well-ingrained and constantly reinforced by the foreign media, but you could exercise your critical thinking organ a bit here.
There is a law in the US, that allows the imperialistic yankee government to eavesdrop on my communications, because I’m a citizen of another county and I live outside the boundaries of your aggressive, intrusive, dictatorial, arrogant regime? In my book that is called spying and worries me that you people talk about it with a straight face! Not that I expect much honesty and straight dealing from a country that start wars for profit and lies about non existing weapons of mass destruction, so they can invade another country to steal petrol!
Its the ONLY time congress 'cares' about our rights and wave their 'look at me flag'. As soon as the elections are over, it will be back to business as usual.
They don't care, they never have, never will.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
"that the administration hasnâ(TM)t been able to estimate how many people in the U.S. have had their information reviewed under the program." So unless I'm mistaken I pretty sure communications going through other countries don't have some kind of "this is a us comms" tag. Ya, you MIGHT be able to use an IP but with the nature of the Internet and routing it's pretty easy to get that mucked up. So that said, how do you count the number of communications collected on US persons if your not sure where they came from? That said, even if you are filtering on IP then all anyone would need to do is connect to a US based proxy and WOOOO it's bannananananana time. I have no idea what that means.
When they finally understand that:
a) "the law" is not enough to rule society... you gotta have Morals above the law;
b) a foreigner is also to be considered under the law to have similar rights to nationals, it's not possible to hold double standards and maintain sanity;
c) "American" are everyone who lives in all Americas, not just the ones from the US;
d) "United States of America" s too generic a name; e.g. "The Guianas" could one day form another "United States of America"... be creative and get a fscking name, it's harder than electing a national anthem or flag,
Meanwhile, we get to read deplorable summaries like the present one and witness "senators" worry about fellow countrymen instead of about human rights.
Not that my country wouldn't d the same... oh, wait, we wouldn't, because some great guy made some brilliant law, and Congress approved, saying that people shouldn't be treated differently because of their nationality.
Maybe that's what makes this situation look worse to me...
google-warning-gmail-users-about-state-sponsored-attacks
The law lets U.S. agencies monitor the communications of foreigners outside the U.S.
It appears that the "state" Google is warning about is the United States.
If it is not legal for citizens of your country, then why would citizens of other countries think it is ok for you to do it to them?
It may be difficult to you to accept this, but:
1) The parent comment specifically spelled "Americans" instead of Americans. You people from the United States consistently refer to yourselves as Americans, like there were no Americans outside of the USA. This is disrespectful against the whole continent, and you know what? there are way WAY more non-USA Americans than USA ones.
2) Don't blame the foreign stereotipes for what can be easily seen even here. This news has 89 comments, most of them from "Americans". There is not a single one of those that tries to say something on the lines of: "actually, we should NOT be monitoring foreign communications either! These guys outside of our borders are also people, and they deserve the same rights we do!"
3) Even though I am sure that there is a (different) subset of "Americans" that are against every USA government policy, "majority" is what counts in a democracy. Further, the parent was even as graceful as judging you for the actions chosen by (the representatives of) a majority of "Americans". When you decide that "guys outside of our borders are bad and want to kill us", you are judging billions of people for the actions of a very thin minority. Hence, don't be surprised if you get bad reactions.
How many of those "foreigners" may actuallly be US citizens?
You are both wise and brave, and your choice of responding as AC proves this.
Yeah. It's racism.
While you play word games.
I'll fucking straighten the whole thing out.
American government isn't the same as Americans (it was true, but is no longer true), in fact Americans no longer control their government, the globalist banksters do. So there is a big problem blaming the people of the land. I don't blame the Japaneese people about Fukushima, I blame TEPCO and the Japaneese Government. I don't blame the North Korean people I blame their insane government. See the difference now? Great. So let's quit this fucking bullshit about the people. Foreign stereotypes can also be proxy propaganda. There's a lot of shit going on. Sometimes a broadcaster or magazine editor just doesn't give a crap enough to make the distinction. How often do people bitching about Fukushima differentiate between their people and their government?
Americans don't want these wars, spying, and the destruction of the US Constitution the oath breakers in government do.
You speak of "democracy" well if what's going on in Libya and Syria is spreading democracy, I don't want it. I agree with veterans (who are also Americans), who support a Constitutional Republic. But to get back to that, the DHS has to be de-activated and all these oath breakers cleansed from the system.
You want to fight someone, fight Agenda 21, Fight GMO's, Fight the banksters, Fight those who shit on the Constitution.
These are the only fights that Americans can fight. Americans don't decide where that drone goes to kill someone, The President does.
Now that this shit has been explained, the only possible way you can still be confused, is to be purposefully confused because you want to. I also don't like the way you explain shit because it divides people. Nobody has a right to fuck other people over. Get the story straight. Many Americans do not CONSENT to all this shit going on. But the press is controlled by government--you'll never hear it from the press because they are presstitutes. (or in english fucking whores)
It's not OK to spy on Americans, but not a problem to spy on foreigners?
Sigh..
Insert
Vos eres Argentine?
The vote in May for ending the 'Forever War' warrantless wiretapping of US citizens was 2 to 13. Just two of fifteen US Senators believe the Rule of Law is a concept still worth defending.
If it wasn't clear already, this was confirmation the conversion of the US into police state continues unabated. A point the leadership of both parties are in agreement.
I stand against any agency that wants to do their own oversight.
Every agency that has been granted authority have proven to abuse that authority. Give them an inch and they take a mile.
NO MORE!
Chill.
The government of ANY country can legally spy on foreign nationals if they choose to do so.
Whether any particular government can spy on its own citizens (with or without a warrant) is that government's (and those citizens') business.
So, we'll worry about our government spying on us, and you can worry about your government spying on you....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"