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White House Supports Renewal of Spy Law Without Reforms (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The Trump administration does not want to reform an internet surveillance law to address privacy concerns, a White House official told Reuters on Wednesday, saying it is needed to protect national security. The announcement could put President Donald Trump on a collision course with Congress, where some Republicans and Democrats have advocated curtailing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, parts of which are due to expire at the end of the year. The FISA law has been criticized by privacy and civil liberties advocates as allowing broad, intrusive spying. It gained renewed attention following the 2013 disclosures by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden that the agency carried out widespread monitoring of emails and other electronic communications. Portions of the law, including a provision known as Section 702, will expire on Dec. 31 unless Congress reauthorizes them. Section 702 enables two internet surveillance programs called Prism and Upstream, classified details of which were revealed by Snowden. Democratic and Republican lawmakers have said reforms to Section 702 are needed, in part to ensure the privacy protections on Americans are not violated. The U.S. House of Representatives' Judiciary Committee met Wednesday to discuss possible changes to the law.
so Congress should just give him anything he wants!
People didn't stand up strong enough last time, now this is the new normal. It's always harder to get back rights after they have been taken. Push hard to undo this, but don't expect anything to change. (Remember, they were also doing this before it was legalized).
-]Phreak Out[-
Pres. Obama did not seek changes for FISA and allowed its renewal. He also oversaw renewal of PATRIOT Act, twice. Well, he signed the a last-minute 4-year extension and then 4 years later signed the USA Freedom Act, which renewed the PATRIOT Act, which had finally expired.
The administration seems ready to rubber stamp anything the intelligence creeps want.
Maybe the next step can be for them will be to introduce an internet curfew. It can be a cost saving measure so that data only need be collected between 8am and 4pm monday through thursday. Friday through sunday, we'll be expected to take our agression inhibitors. Close the universities, public schools, and public libraries and then burn the books because those spawn ideas of dissent.
SURPRISE!
But seriously, President Obama was in love with the various spy laws as well...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
That's pretty much a universal truth lately, isn't it?
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Given that most Americans favor the surveillance, including both Republicans and Democrats, it would be rather foolish politically to try to change them. Something bad is going to happen that's bigger than LOVEINT or even spying on politicians, because the NSA has done both of those things.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Trump is a slimy politician just like all the Career politicians.
Not one of them give a flying fuck about the constitution.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
...and at what cost?
Follow the money.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
Welcome to the new boss, same as the old boss.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
I'd point out that our current president is not an example of majority rule, but that's just a technicality, and yes yes yes, HRC would have been no different.
I'd more seriously point out that majority rule at least seems to take longer to get to tyranny than minority rule.
We're living in bizarre times. We have the best communication technology available in the history of humankind, and yet it's politically foolish to be a political leader rather than an elected follower.
Frankly, if anyone could have ended our security state, it's Trump. He was only sorta joking when he said he could shoot someone and his voters wouldn't care. He says "we don't need big brother spying on us" and BAM, a good chunk of america decides we don't need security theater. Which makes it all the more frustrating to see what he chooses to do instead.
Yeah, it seems like it's something he doesn't care about either. He probably thinks, "it's a reasonable way to stop terrorists" and it hasn't caused him any problem personally, so what's the big deal?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Given that most Americans favor the surveillance, including both Republicans and Democrats...
This is why majority rule has hit the brick wall. It always ends in tyranny...
Which is why we are a Republic, and not a pure Democracy. The founders knew that Democracy always fails, there were plenty of historical examples for them to study.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
You'd think he'd have SOME reservations about continuing to expand the powers of our three-letter-agencies after they use them to undermine his own cabinet members, but whatever floats his boat, I guess.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
>What are the chances he will ask the NSA to investigate journalists he thinks are creating "fake news"?
About as likely as the Obama administration's prosecution of journalists doing their jobs...
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/30/opinion/sunday/if-donald-trump-targets-journalists-thank-obama.html?_r=0
Mr. Trump made his animus toward the news media clear during the presidential campaign, often expressing his disgust with coverage through Twitter or in diatribes at rallies. So if his campaign is any guide, Mr. Trump seems likely to enthusiastically embrace the aggressive crackdown on journalists and whistle-blowers that is an important yet little understood component of Mr. Obama’s presidential legacy.
uh-oh
UK political leaders are pushing for diversity in the security services.
"Why GCHQ needs to fix its diversity problem" (22 November 2016)
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-379...
The GCHQ will have to become culturally enriched with lots of new staff.
Questions of security, merit and skill will no longer hold any applicant back from getting a job in or been rapidly promoted within the UK security services.
Once staff who are loyal to a cult or only their faith advance up in the UK security services the US will have to rethink any and all sharing with the UK.
If Canada, Australia and NZ keep on sharing US material with the UK questions about the role of Canada, Australia and NZ will have to be considered by the USA. NATO could see the same staffing issues as the UK. Translators, experts hired with few questions in the EU would rise up the EU ranks, reporting on any US material they find.
The UK/NATO/EU security services will be as useful and trust worthy to the USA as the UK was in the 1940-60's.
The only way around this politically motivated hiring policy by the UK security services is for the US to look inward and expand the domestic role of the FBI and NSA. Digital collection will be expanded as it is the only method generations of US officials understand.
Expect ever more internet tracking as the security services in the US have to protect their own gov staff from the UK gov and its lack of security due to changes in UK staffing policy.
The staff issues can be seen in the UK for the need to collect everything. The UK cannot trust its own staff so it has to collect on the entire UK population by default to try and find any self/radicalization.
Such hiring issues might not have reached the more secure parts of the US mil/gov but the US gov had relaxed the legal conditions to apply for entry into the US bureaucracy.
Issues surrounding criminal records, a criminal past, security issues might not always remove an applicant from consideration for working in some enter level role in the US gov.
People with no past, no papers, just been made US citizens for some reason, might also be be granted access to some US gov work.
More cult members, people loyal to their own faith and not the USA will attempt to enter and move up in the US gov over the decades.
Ever more domestic raw material will have to be gathered in the USA for domestic court use as more people trying to infiltrate the US gov and mil are discovered.
The lack of any background information been considered normal will allow a lot of interesting people to enter the US gov, UK security services.
The only reaction to that by the US security services will be more digital collection. The methods perfected by the Soviet Union to place human spies in the UK, and US mil/gov over decades is now been attempted by faith groups and cults.
Unlike Soviet spies the need to meet a Soviet diplomat or easy to track hander is not an issue.
Their faith or local community is the only contact needed. A full generational support network within the US or UK. Digital methods will not uncover any issues due to human contacts been used.
The long term role of the FBI, CIA will have to be expanded to track a lot of new gov workers in the US and UK.
That might take funding, political access away from the now expanded role of the NSA. Expect more leaking as party political operatives talk to the political motivated press. Operatives from one US agency enter another US agency to leak information to the press to ensure political access is reduced or funding removed.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Your republic has failed spectacularly, in electing a lying bufoon, frankly, rigging the election so as unrepresentative swill like the electoral college get to overrule the peoples will, is a failure of epic proportion, and a fine example of the US ongoing slide to irrelevance in the modern world.
Youre just a sad, deluded old man, enjoy the last gasp of the inbred right, it wont last long.