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NSA Collected Americans' Phone Records Despite Law Change, Says Report (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The U.S. National Security Agency collected more than 151 million records of Americans' phone calls last year, even after Congress limited its ability to collect bulk phone records, according to an annual report issued on Tuesday by the top U.S. intelligence officer. The report from the office of Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats was the first measure of the effects of the 2015 USA Freedom Act, which limited the NSA to collecting phone records and contacts of people U.S. and allied intelligence agencies suspect may have ties to terrorism. It found that the NSA collected the 151 million records even though it had warrants from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court to spy on only 42 terrorism suspects in 2016, in addition to a handful identified the previous year. The report came as Congress faced a decision on whether to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which permits the NSA to collect foreign intelligence information on non-U.S. persons outside the United States, and is scheduled to expire at the end of this year.
Governments without credibility are prone to upheaval...
That would depend on how well-entrenched they are... look at the Vatican; they still exist.
Not that expect him to actually stand by what he says, because he's Donald Trump...
That's actually funny. Let me correct it for you:
Not that [anyone with a brain] would expect any president to stand by what they say... for myriad reasons; not the least of which is that they'd quickly catch a bullet in the brain, JFK-style.
Fair enough. But are you seriously arguing that Trump's complete and total inconsistency is just like any other President? Sure, other Presidents have changed direction, for various reasons. Hell, the Republicans were on Obama's nuts for years because he said, "If you like your health insurance, you can keep your health insurance". On the other hand, Trump says something in the evening that is the opposite of what he said in the morning.
In this case he accused the previous President of committing a crime by wiretapping him. When asked for his evidence of such a serious charge he was basically like, "I don't know, Congress should look into it." If you don't see why that's not a good thing, I don't know what to tell you.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Lets be honest here.
Yes, let's. Trump accused Obama, not the FBI, of wiretapping Trump Tower, not surveilling members of his campaign. It was a specific claim. There has been no evidence published that it is true.
Pretty cut and dry. Trump made a claim, there is a FISA warrant as proof that his claim is true. And here you are calling him a liar.
Again, it is not cut and dry, because the FBI getting a FISA warrant to investigate a member of the campaign is not the same thing as Obama illegally ordering a wiretap of Trump Tower, which is what Trump claimed. I'm not calling Trump a liar. He isn't lying, he simply has no idea what he is talking about.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)