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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.
That's unfair in this case since they're talking about renewing an existing law. That's much easier than making changes. You have to get those changes approved in both House and Senate committees then approved by both. I was a page for Ted Kennedy in 1977 when he wrote this bill. Blaming Trump for something Ted Kennedy wrote and Jimmy Carter signed is just ingenuous.
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 silly. Alright, I don't like where America is heading, but I grew up a couple miles from the Berlin Wall, and I can tell you that what I saw when I looked out over it looked nothing remotely like America. We do not know fear or hopelessness the way East Germans did. This kind of hysterical false equivalency does not help the cause because it makes pro-privacy look alarmist. We are on a bad trajectory, that's enough to argue from.
Blaming Twitler, or more likely, President Bannon, is not disingenuous. I almost don't care who wrote it originally, or who signed it. What matters is that it's being renewed now – just as it was about to sunset. The decision to renew it is his, not Kennedy's or Carter's. Do we need it now? Why exactly?
I don't know, but maybe if we remind the Conservitards that it was a Dem idea, they'll poo poo it solely on that basis.
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.
Welcome to the new boss, same as the old boss.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
It's unfortunate that they are going to just let this be renewed, it was bad enough under Bush, but at least we haven't found out that they're expanding it like Obama did.
FTFY
There are still 10 months left in the year for them to decide that Trump deserves even wider surveillance powers to prevent imaginary attacks like the Bowling Green massacre.