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Invoking Orlando, Senate Republicans Set Up Vote To Expand FBI Spying (reuters.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the digital-spying dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell set up a vote late on Monday to expand the FBI's authority to use a secretive surveillance order without a warrant to include email metadata and some browsing history information. The move, made via an amendment to a criminal justice appropriations bill, is an effort by Senate Republicans to respond to last week's mass shooting in an Orlando nightclub after a series of measures to restrict guns offered by both parties failed on Monday. Privacy advocates denounced the effort, saying it seeks to exploit a mass shooting in order to expand the government's digital spying powers. The amendment would broaden the FBI's authority to use so-called National Security Letters to include electronic communications transaction records such as time stamps of emails and the emails' senders and recipients. NSLs do not require a warrant and are almost always accompanied by a gag order preventing the service provider from sharing the request with a targeted user. The amendment filed Monday would also make permanent a provision of the USA Patriot Act that allows the intelligence community to conduct surveillance on "lone wolf" suspects who do not have confirmed ties to a foreign terrorist group. A vote is expected no later than Wednesday, McConnell's office said. Last week, FBI Director James Comey said he is "highly confident that [the Orlando shooter] was radicalized at least in part through the internet."

2 of 660 comments (clear)

  1. Orlando Shooter was a rent-a-cop by SkyLeach · · Score: 5, Informative

    CNN article: http://money.cnn.com/2016/06/1...

    For what it's worth, this has been down-played in media (haven't seen it blasting twitter and stuff much)

    So basically NONE OF THE PROPOSALS would have prevented him from getting a gun.

    As a voter, I'm sick of intelligent and informed voters being sidelined by media and legal cowboy politicians.

    --
    My $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so :-p
  2. Re:expanded by Richard_at_work · · Score: 5, Informative

    Federal law, specifically the Posse Comitatus Act, restricts the use of the United States Army and the United States Air Force in enforcing US Federal Government domestic policy in the US - it does not cover the US Navy, nor the US Marine Corp, and it does not apply to the National Guard (Army or Air) when invited to act in a law enforcement capacity by a state governor.

    The Insurrection Act can be used to deploy US military capability within US borders against US citizens without violating the Posse Comitatus Act.