H.R.4681 - Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015
congress.gov
congress.gov
What it does: permits the acquisition, retention, and dissemination of non-public communications indefinitely, unless any parties are US persons and the communication is NOT encrypted, in which case they can only be retained for 5 years. (There are some other exemptions to this 5 year rule.)
Note that "incidentally acquired" appears only in the section title.
The main question here for me is what exactly this applies to. Is "any intelligence collection activity not otherwise authorized" blanket permission to collect anything?
Or does that actually require the AG to approve procedures which "shall permit the acquisition" of "[private] communication to or from a United States person" during "any intelligence collection activity not otherwise authorized"?
I am really tired of this country and its bullshit. We've slid toward totalitarianism every single year for quite a few years running now. Voting has been useless in the many elections I have participated in. When will people wake up and demand change?
If voting is "useless" it makes it impossible to demand change since voting is how we enact change in a democracy.
I don't think the situation is bad enough to warrant violent revolt (yet).
No. We have a second amendment to maintain a "well regulated militia" to protect the state - not to make it easier to overthrow it.
The American militia were part of the revolution to overthrow the British government and the recognition of that is codified in the Second Amendment.
"Security" meant repelling foreign invaders and stopping insurrections, not starting them. To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions[4]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_state
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_(polity)
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_One_of_the_United_Stat...
The founding fathers were terrified of the people. This is why they created the electoral college - they didn't trust the general population to decide such an important decision. [They thought they had designed the system such that the college would never (or at least rarely) produce a winner and Congress would select the President]. Only the House was intended to be based on popular vote, senators were selected by state legislatures up until the 17th amendment was ratified in 1913.
If the founders didn't trust the people to select their own President or senators do you really think they trusted them with the decision of overthrowing the government?
John Adams
Hell, just read the opinions from DC v Heller.
And what they wrote was:
* a House of Representatives selected by the people
* a Senate selected by state legislatures
* two executives selected by Congress (with the remaining members of the executive branch at most needing consent from the portion of Congress not selected by the people)
* a judicial branch selected by the executive (again, requiring consent only from the Senate, who were not selected by the people)
So out of the entire government they gave the people the ability to select half of one branch. And while that one branch would select the President (and VP) it would have no voice in selecting the rest of the executive branch or any of the judicial. The ability to remove members of either the executive or judicial branch also went to the branch not selected by the people.
Sorry, but when I read the Constitution I don't see much "ability of citizens to maintain power over the government."
As for District of Columbia v. Heller the question was if the 2nd Amendment grants the right to bear arms for lawful purposes - violently overthrowing the government is most assuredly not lawful, regardless of who you want to quote while doing it.
Ensuring that states would have the ability to defend themselves in the against insurrection and invasion before the federal government -- which was, after all, not expected to have large standing forces -- could mobilize a response.
You're either thinking of another country or have it wrong. The way change (legislation) gets enacted in the US is through lobbying.
The parent is likely echoing JFK: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
Here are some things that have made peaceful revolution seem impossible:
- No ballot items for surveillance disclosures
- Loss of Udall, one of the only people representing the people on this issue in any real way in the Senate Intelligence Panel and in the legislative body
- Candidate Obama's campaign promises significantly divergent from President Obama's actions on civil liberties (and he was a constitutional law scholar, exactly what you think we would have needed)
- Habeas Corpus still suspended in America. The Constitution is a peace time document, but America is in perpetual war - in fact it is in wars that have no clear ending conditions (Terrorism and the threat of Terrorism will never end; the same is true of drugs)
- Political movements and protest groups responding to the surveillance state disrupted by federal agents
- Word games played with 'Congress was briefed' regarding Executive Branch activity, FISA courts proven to be rubber stamps, CIA willing to hack legislatures auditing them - intelligence arms seem to have escaped checks and balances.
- Hot button protests are being corralled away from protest zones where they are highly visible, either by police cages or by 'free speech zones' which are miles away, off the map and require you to register your intent to express free speech and get confirmation from the state
- Fusion Centers merging federal anti-terror tools with local law enforcement - ending non-surveilled local grass roots efforts to organize actions to express non-condoned political ideas
- Journalists and media outlets under routine surveillance and tap-and-trace (like the AP scandal this administration) to chill confidential informants that may bring stories from Washington to the news (and thus the people)
- The US government cuts access to press releases and interviews for those media outlets that don't 'play nice' with USG narratives or delay/kill/censor select stories (meta point: there's a reason journalism is called the Fourth Estate of American Politics)
- Every modern administrations feel it is reasonable to use their access to power to harass and sabotage political rivals (as is commonly done with the IRS)
- Political debates purposefully exclude third party candidates, appearing in front of the public and challenging 'enshired parties'
- Gilens and Page study out of Princeton and Cornell show high correlation between passed legislature and the demands of rich elite interests but poor correlation with national consensus
- The approval ("I feel represented") rating of the Congress is around 7% and the president's approval rating is around 50%
- The American people made it explicitly and extremely clear they were not interested in many things (such as military engagement in Syria) but could only manage to delay military action with a >75% national consensus on the issue for a couple of months
- The government lied repeatedly about the contents of the Snowden documents and passed faux legislation and even proposed bills to expand NSA authority as a response to public outcry
It would be easy to continue adding to the list. There are many reasons why it is hard to feel that peaceful revolution is possible.
So the parent feels, maybe, and maybe he said it a bit flippantly, that violent revolution is inevitable.
I don't think that violent revolution is inevitable, though-- too many American minds have been killed by patriotism or passive-ism for such a thing to happen.
I do think that there is substantial unrest and instability in our near future-- unrest and instability that could be avoided, but it would require concessions from a government content to try to fight its people before the people even show up.
On one hand, I'm OK with law makers ignoring public outcry. It is after all a republic, not a democracy. It's all of the lies, deceit, and outright criminal behavior that bothers me.
We need a new political party - The Guillotine Party. The slogan should be "Heads will roll". The party can bring an 'artistic display' of a real working guillotine to political rallies and chop watermelons, etc for demonstration.
The idea is to bring politicians, angry mobs, and guillotines together.
The final ingredient that must be added to the above witch's brew is large scale deprivation. We've still got more than enough bread and circuses to prevent mass unrest. But we sure are setting ourselves up for a bad time if and when the bread runs a little short. I'm not sure that the America of today could weather the rationing that took place during WWII or even the oil embargo of the 70s without a nation-wide Ferguson event.
"COINTELPRO never ended"
This is not Reddit. I don't think we should sink to posts with grossly inaccurate titles that link to a JPG instead of to the actual bill text itself, or at least a piece of writing covering or analyzing it.
Leave now, while you still can, don't debate the wording of acts, especially when the regime starts to pass legislation increasing barriers to entry for leaving. Last year it was $400 to get out, now it's $2400, eventually when everyone smart wants to leave they'll put up a wall.
Get another passport before everyone else wants one and you have to wait in line.
I already have a passport, but if that cost is going up at such a ridiculous rate, it's really unacceptable.
It's funny how people tell Mexicans "stand and fight for your country, dammit" and yet others are so ready to cut and run when the going gets a little rough at home. Get out in the streets. Start educating people. We can make this country something worth believing in.
aka. the people who cut bait on their country to join a better one?
The US is literally founded on the idea of cutting bait and running to another country (that's better).
Personally, I have an issue with paragraph 3 section B as follows:
(ii) the communication is reasonably believed to constitute evidence of a crime and is retained by a law enforcement agency; (iii) the communication is enciphered or reasonably believed to have a secret meaning;
I don't know enough about this, so will someone more educated in this field tell me: am I wrong, or does the exception in ii apply to the way law enforcement currently uses State intelligence services to get around warrants? Does this change anything?
Congress 'Endorses' Warrantless Collection, Storage of U.S. Communications
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/12/11/congress-endo...
Yes, while my usual excuse has long been, and apparently been confirmed, that the US Federal Government is too incompetent to do much to me, or really even know about me (if they only knew what I really think of them!), this thread got me worried again.
So, I just followed the link to the bill. There I got the text version, in some small, light font tough to read in Firefox on my screen and with the warning that actually it was not accurate.
So I took the HTML version. Soon, much of the text was off the right side my screen with no horizontal scroll bars. Gee, is there some CSS keyword to suppress the scroll bars? My Web pages have both horizontal and vertical scroll bars, and I entered nothing about scroll bars and just took defaults.
So, I told Firefox to reduce screen magnification until all the text characters fit my screen, and then all I had were characters about the size of two pixels each with each line of text just some broken horizontal line totally impossible to read. Great work Congress: You found yet another way to implement the now famous Pelosi "we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it"!
So, third try, I took the PDF version. Okay, magnifying to 185%, I got something readable.
Looking at the table of contents for the really deep, down, fascist dirty stuff, right away (Adobe Acrobat has a search feature!), I found:
"H. R. 4681—5
SEC. 302. RESTRICTION ON CONDUCT OF INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES.
The authorization of appropriations by this Act shall not be deemed to constitute authority for the conduct of any intelligence activity which is not otherwise authorized by the Constitution or the laws of the United States."
Okay, sounds not so bad. Maybe they just put that in there so that it could be removed in a conference committee with all that really deep, dirty, fascist stuff elsewhere now enabled? They are really smart enough to be that tricky? Naaaaw ...! Congress? The US Congress I have long watched? Naaaaw.
So, from that paragraph, apparently this bill doesn't authorize even more microphones in the walls of my bedroom, more keystroke captures, more grabbing of my PGP private key (once I start using PGP), my software to find some 50,000 or so (don't want to be too exact here!) decimal digit prime numbers, assuming I don't encounter a prime gap, etc.!
Ah, I should not have said that and, instead, should have let the NSA know that, really, I've long been doing my super hush-hush communications via the subspace radio flip phone I got from Captain Kirk! Once he was parked on my front lawn for three weeks, but no one but me noticed because he was using a Romulan cloaking device.
Maybe I'm too easily fooled, but, lazy me, I'm back down off my hind legs now no longer afraid of being subject to "rectal feeding", etc.
I mean, were my thoughts that former NSA head Michael Hayden looked too much like Elmer Fudd a reason for me to have 1 trillion exabytes of data kept on me in some flat building covering 25% of, what is it, Arizona, Nevada, Montana, Utah, somewhere out there? So, was that the reason HP worked out how to store one bit per oxygen ion, just so that the NSA could store what I really thought of them? Naaaaw!
Joking aside, the section I quoted does seem to say that the bill doesn't make things worse.
When I learned that the Intelligence Authorization Act for FY 2015 was being rushed to the floor for a vote—with little debate and only a voice vote expected (i.e., simply declared “passed” with almost nobody in the room)—I asked my legislative staff to quickly review the bill for unusual language. What they discovered is one of the most egregious sections of law I’ve encountered during my time as a representative: It grants the executive branch virtually unlimited access to the communications of every American.
On Wednesday afternoon, I went to the House floor to demand a roll call vote on the bill so that everyone’s vote would have to be recorded. I also sent the letter below to every representative.
With more time to spread the word, we would have stopped this bill, which passed 325-100. Thanks to the 99 other representatives—44 Republicans and 55 Democrats—who voted to protect our rights and uphold the Constitution. And thanks to my incredibly talented staff.
###
Block New Spying on U.S. Citizens: Vote “NO” on H.R. 4681
Dear Colleague:
The intelligence reauthorization bill, which the House will vote on today, contains a troubling new provision that for the first time statutorily authorizes spying on U.S. citizens without legal process.
Last night, the Senate passed an amended version of the intelligence reauthorization bill with a new Sec. 309—one the House never has considered. Sec. 309 authorizes “the acquisition, retention, and dissemination” of nonpublic communications, including those to and from U.S. persons. The section contemplates that those private communications of Americans, obtained without a court order, may be transferred to domestic law enforcement for criminal investigations.
To be clear, Sec. 309 provides the first statutory authority for the acquisition, retention, and dissemination of U.S. persons’ private communications obtained without legal process such as a court order or a subpoena. The administration currently may conduct such surveillance under a claim of executive authority, such as E.O. 12333. However, Congress never has approved of using executive authority in that way to capture and use Americans’ private telephone records, electronic communications, or cloud data.
Supporters of Sec. 309 claim that the provision actually reins in the executive branch’s power to retain Americans’ private communications. It is true that Sec. 309 includes exceedingly weak limits on the executive’s retention of Americans’ communications. With many exceptions, the provision requires the executive to dispose of Americans’ communications within five years of acquiring them—although, as HPSCI admits, the executive branch already follows procedures along these lines.
In exchange for the data retention requirements that the executive already follows, Sec. 309 provides a novel statutory basis for the executive branch’s capture and use of Americans’ private communications. The Senate inserted the provision into the intelligence reauthorization bill late last night. That is no way for Congress to address the sensitive, private information of our constituents—especially when we are asked to expand our government’s surveillance powers.
I urge you to join me in voting “no” on H.R. 4681, the intelligence reauthorization bill, when it comes before the House today.
Justin Amash Member of Congress
[1]: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=812569822115759&...
> Supporters of Sec. 309 claim that the provision actually reins in the executive branch’s power to retain Americans’ private communications. It is true that Sec. 309 includes exceedingly weak limits on the executive’s retention of Americans’ communications. With many exceptions, the provision requires the executive to dispose of Americans’ communications within five years of acquiring them—although, as HPSCI admits, the executive branch already follows procedures along these lines.
> In exchange for the data retention requirements that the executive already follows, Sec. 309 provides a novel statutory basis for the executive branch’s capture and use of Americans’ private communications. The Senate inserted the provision into the intelligence reauthorization bill late last night. That is no way for Congress to address the sensitive, private information of our constituents—especially when we are asked to expand our government’s surveillance powers.
Reddit is one of the most manipulated, banal social platforms on the internet. Need I remind you that JTRIG is tasked with manipulating public discourse in a professional capacity?