Slashdot Mirror
Invoking Orlando, Senate Republicans Set Up Vote To Expand FBI Spying (reuters.com)
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."
Did I miss the explanation of how you're blaming the most deadly mass shooting in American history perpetrated by an Islamic terrorist and registered Democrat, on legal gun ownership?
Do you honestly believe that more gun-free zones and laws would've stopped him? Would banning pressure cookers have stopped the Boston bombers? Should we have banned planes to prevent 9/11?
When are you bleeding hearts going to wake up and realize that the root cause of terrorism is the inherently murderous death cult of Islam, and not any specific type of tool?
I find myself in a bad situation where deadly force is required,
What kind of fucked up life do you have where that's ever a concern?