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Senate Passes USA Freedom Act
schwit1 points out that the U.S. Senate has passed the USA Freedom Act by a vote of 67-32, sending it on to President Obama, who is expected to sign it into law. The bill removes mass metadata collection powers from the NSA, but also grants a new set of surveillance powers to replace them. Telecoms now hang on to that data, and the government can access it if they suspect the target is part of a terrorism investigation and one of the call's participants is overseas. "The second provision revived Tuesday concerns roving wiretaps. Spies may tap a terror suspect's communications without getting a renewed FISA Court warrant, even as a suspect jumps from one device to the next. The FISA Court need not be told who is being targeted when issuing a warrant. The third spy tool renewed is called "lone wolf" in spy jargon. It allows for roving wiretaps. However, the target of wiretaps does not have to be linked to a foreign power or terrorism."
Same as the Old Act.
I wanna get fooled again!
Watch the Law Closely as i cover it and mix the shells up....
Because most of the public's concern could have been ended with some tight language that said that under no circumstances can the NSA intelligence products or systems be used to support an ordinary criminal investigation and any such use by law enforcement constitutes a severe felony offense. Right or wrong, most of the public wouldn't care if the target was literally in the law, only those accused of espionage or terrorism. The public really lost its shit when it came out that ordinary drug dealers were being busted with NSA resources and the cops were lying their asses off to the courts.
"The FISA Court need not be told who is being targeted when issuing a warrant."
why the fuck not!
... it's the goddam Freedom Act.
It's like calling it the "Save The Little Kitty Cats Act."
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
If our Congressmen had been in the Bundestag in the 1930s, they would have passed something like the "Freedom for Jews Act".
"The bill removes mass metadata collection powers from the NSA"
Unanimous 2nd circuit decision says no, original authors of the patriot act say no. Yet media completely ignores the issue and assumes without question patriot act authorized any such thing to begin with.
Third party doctrine predates the patriot act and Hayden goes around publically gloating Article II powers stemming from Bush era AUMF is the source of his authority.
Even if patriot act were left to expire wholesale without "USA Freedom Act" resurrection those against this FUD powered insanity were never even in the game.
He single-handedly blocked continuation of authorization of mass metadata collection. That's what he did. A whole hell of a lot more than any of those other pukes did. You don't see mass metadata collection being re-authorized by this new act, do you? That's right. It's not.
Yeah, this new act sucks. And guess what? It passed on the strength of democrats being in the tank by an absurd 43-1 margin. Republicans opposed it by 30-23.
In the words of Futurama: "My fellow Earthicans, we enjoy so much freedom it's almost sickening. We're free to choose which hand our sex-monitoring chip is implanted in. And if we don't want to pay our taxes, why, we're free to spend a weekend with the Pain Monster". That is really the only freedom you have.
God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board -- Mark Twain Look for http://Thebar.steelbeachca
Actually, it's classic doublespeak, designed to shut down any debate or dissension. To oppose The USA Freedom act is to publicly come out against the USA and Freedom. Just like opposition to the PATRIOT act branded you an unpatriotic apple-pie-hating flag-burning radical.
It also speaks volumes about how brazen our so-called representatives have become. They don't even try hide it - It's right there in your face, and if you don't like it, too bad. There's nothing you can do about it.