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FISA Court Extends Section 215 Bulk Surveillance For 90 Days
Trailrunner7 notes that the bulk telephone collection program was just extended another 90 days. "The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has authorized a 90-day extension to the Section 215 bulk telephone collection program used by the National Security Agency, giving the agency through the end of February to run the program in the absence of legislation establishing a new authority.
On Monday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence revealed that the administration had applied for a 90-day extension to the existing Section 215 authority, and that the FISC had approved the request, extending the authority through Feb. 27.
'The Administration welcomes the opportunity to work with the new Congress to implement the changes the President has called for. Given that legislation has not yet been enacted, and given the importance of maintaining the capabilities of the telephony metadata program, the government has sought a 90-day reauthorization of the existing program, as modified by the changes the President directed in January,' a statement from the Office of the DNI and the Office of the Attorney General said."
On Monday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence revealed that the administration had applied for a 90-day extension to the existing Section 215 authority, and that the FISC had approved the request, extending the authority through Feb. 27.
'The Administration welcomes the opportunity to work with the new Congress to implement the changes the President has called for. Given that legislation has not yet been enacted, and given the importance of maintaining the capabilities of the telephony metadata program, the government has sought a 90-day reauthorization of the existing program, as modified by the changes the President directed in January,' a statement from the Office of the DNI and the Office of the Attorney General said."
Isn't a court supposed to rule on the current law, rather than extending laws that have gone away?
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Isn't this grossly illegal?
Congress must change the legislation or the expiration date
stands.
What happened to the horror of 'legislating from the bench'?!
Which means they can just go forever, without telling anybody. Of course, they could do that anyway, but this *admits* that they can do that anyway.
And realize they now live in a police state?
Let me clarify, as the two current posts indicate a misunderstanding. Currently, the law authorizing the snooping is set to expire in June 2015. Under that law, NSA must get court approval or any wiretaps, and those approvals can't last longer than 90 days. The court has been approving "spy on everyone" each 90 days.
Obama asked Congress to renew the law rather than letting it expire in June, but change it in a couple of ways:
Make the authorization permanent rather than requiring re-approval every 90 days
Add some smokescreen language to say the dragnet isn't allowed under section 215, it has to be done under a different section.
The Senate voted 58-42 to not extend the law as Obama asked, so currently the snooping must stop by June, when the law authorizing it expires.
Only the current 90-day "warrant" expired, renewing that is standard operating procedure. The big deadline is June, when the whole program will have to stop if Congress doesn't re-authorize it.
Democrats in Congress want to move the program around, so they can say they got rid of the section 215 authorization. Republicans have refused to do that, some like Paul want to let the whole thing expire. Others say the Democrat smokescreen plan only makes it harder to perform legitimate national security activities, without actually doing anything good for privacy.
Can't wait when comrad Putin arrives and two great nations become One.
I announce: The Great Sovietico USA_RUSSIA State. Envy of all dictators.
God Bless Soviet USA
Once one start using, one needs to continue doing.
The same thing with those kangaroo courts. They will stick to whatever "their legal opinions" are, because the moment you stop all predecessors will be questioned. They have to remember that Nurnberg defense, "we just followed orders" does not work all the times. They KNOW what they are doing and, rest assured, they do not have clean conscience and do sleep well even if they say they do.
Expect this to be election issue. Rand Paul's maximalistic approach will earn a lot of political capital, and Hillary Clinton will look like a big sister from 1984 Apple commercial. Perhaps this thing along will win former Obama's voters.
One would be a fool to believe that anything in substance will change even when Rand Paul will stop renewal, but at least there will be a debate.
> Democrats in Congress want to move the program around, so they can say they got rid of the section 215
> authorization. Republicans have refused to do that, some like Paul want to let the whole thing expire. Others say
> the Democrat smokescreen plan only makes it harder to perform legitimate national security activities, without
> actually doing anything good for privacy.
This is what I have come to expect on matters of personal privacy. Republicans hate your privacy and don't know why you think you should have it... Democrats hate that you might suspect they are the same as the republicans, and really want to implement the same policy while looking like they care about your privacy.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
and neither of them have any knowledge or clue as to what is actually happening and if it is actually worth keeping the program.
Does anyone actually think it matters whether this bill passed or not?
If they want to keep doing it, they're going to keep doing it. What the law says is irrelevant.
As long as they can OK this for themselves, in Secret Courts, We, the People are Seriously Fucked.
I saw a major article today about how all the successful Supreme Court Cases are handled by an inner circle of DC Lawyers, who are personal friends of some of the Justices.
It's All Insiders at this point in the government in the parts that matter; the rest are Country Hicks that will do whatever the Fuck they're told. Yes, I mean Congress.
We are headed down a dark road my friends.
It's already Ugly, why do you think so much was left out of the CIA Torture Report, and they're Still Worried it will lead to uprisings?! :)
Note: they haven't said where they expect those to occur...
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
The patriot act was passed under Bush's watch, and is partially what has enabled this mess in the first place. I'm not defending Obama, he officially became a scum bag in my book after he campaigned on the premise that he would get rid the Patriot Act, but renewed it shortly after taking office. My point is, they are both equally responsible, and equally douchey.
Recipient and contents of application:
(1) shall be made toâ"
(A) a judge of the court established by section 1803 (a) of this title; or
(B) a United States Magistrate Judge under chapter 43 of title 28, who is publicly designated by the Chief Justice of the United States to have the power to hear applications and grant orders for the production of tangible things under this section on behalf of a judge of that court; and
(2) shall includeâ" ...
(A) a statement of facts showing that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the tangible things sought are relevant to an authorized investigation
What "authorized investigation" can possibly necessitate COLLECTION of EVERYONES phone records?
If you can't answer the question then don't spew bullshit about section 215 red herrings.
Not sure what you're getting at there. But, I will say that I own a hand gun and have a concealed carry permit, so no I don't think it only applies to militias. That said, if it ever came down to it; a million citizens revolting against their government with hand guns and rifles isn't even going to make a dent in armor of a fleet of tanks, jets, drones, long range missiles, lasers, rail guns, and whatever else they have cooking up at DARPA. I have no illusions about it... I'm glad to have the right to do so, but don't pretend that it makes any difference in regards to what was probably the original intent of the second amendment.
That's essentially the position of Republican Senator from Kentucky Rand Paul.
I mostly agree, except I'd nitpick one bit of wording. "It never did any good". I'm sure it did some good, but no way it was worth it. The cost (in freedom) is too damn high.
Of course it's worth keeping the program. It's much better to capture everything and later realize that you don't need any of it. Or better yet you don't need it for the reason that you thought you would but found another use that is equally beneficial to them. Can you imagine if the Government didn't have it AND they needed it? They might not get re-elected and they just can't have that.
In a court of law, decisions are handed down in issues that are contended by TWO SIDES. When fourth amendment violators ask the FISA shysters for a rubber stamp of impunity for their crimes, there's nobody to stand up and argue for the constitution.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
a million citizens revolting against their government with hand guns and rifles isn't even going to make a dent
Don't forget the great lesson of the Soviet debacle: all governments ultimately depend on the consent of the people. When that consent is withdrawn, the government collapses.
The great lesson of Romania is that a government shouldn't count on its armed forces to violently suppress their own people.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
a million citizens revolting against their government with hand guns and rifles isn't even going to make a dent
Don't forget the great lesson of the Soviet debacle: all governments ultimately depend on the consent of the people. When that consent is withdrawn, the government collapses.
The great lesson of Romania is that a government shouldn't count on its armed forces to violently suppress their own people.
-jcr
Quite so. And in both cases the possession of small arms was utterly irrelevant. They played no role at all in the collapse of tyranny. Why do Americans suppose that they are less capable of peaceful overthrow than Russians or Romanians?
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
I mentioned that for one specific reason.
We are frequently told that government program X helped half a million people. We see something like "this program provided Driver's Ed for half a million high school students. Rarely is that statement measure paired with the cost, say $4 billion, and it replaced history class at school. The cost is reported separately, if at all. Looking at the benefit and the cost together, we can say that $8000 per student is far too high (commercial providers charge $200 per student, and occur after school. )
It's OBVIOUS that this NSA program isn't worth its cost. What's less obvious, perhaps, is that many other programs have a vastly negative net effect. In other words, just because NextNewIdea might do some good doesn't mean it's not a really, really bad idea.
Program Y will get 10,000 more women hired in IT! Sounds great, right? Of course it's not creating new jobs - it's forcing companies to hire women INSTEAD OF hiring 10,000 men - and the $12 billion program cost represents another 2000 people not hired because the money went to this program rather than paying salaries for new positions. Such a program would do something good, and be a very bad idea.
"warrant"
I believe you mean "writ of assistance".
Ce n'est pas une signature automatique.
As you examine larger and larger groups of people, no matter the type of group, their similarity to the the average population approaches 1.0. A small group is brought together for some specific reason that may differentiate the group. At the other end, a sufficiently large group of people would is the entire population.
National armies and other armed forces will usually be some of the larger groups. So they will have a lot of similarities with the average population... including most of the political argguments. If the army was given such exteme orders,, I suspect they would end up just as divided as the rest ofg the country.
Ce n'est pas une signature automatique.
I believe this refers to "metadata", i.e. who is calling who, rather than the strawman you just constructed to knock down.
There are plenty of reasonable arguments against this. But you should work harder at actually making them
Yes, it's there (let's say it remains there) to lure the populace into a false sense of security and enable tyranny. And, based on the current tyranny and lack of any real popular uprising, it is obviously serving it's purpose.
The army is likely to be happy enough to put down a rebellion if the rebels are shooting at them. Much harder to convince a military to gun down an unarmed populace.
...all governments ultimately depend on the consent of the people. When that consent is withdrawn, the government collapses.
I've always believed that if something like this did happen, the majority of the folks in the armed forces would defect and join the people, because they would otherwise be fighting their family and friends. I am hoping we never have to find out. That said, when the armed forces is a fleet of drones only the consent of the few that control them is needed.
Then I guess it is a good thing that tanks, jets, drones, long range missiles, lasers, and rail guns cannot be elected to office.