domestic spying

Progressives in Congress worked with the GOP Tuesday to torpedo an authoritarian domestic spying bill-- already passed by the Senate-- that Pelosi, Hoyer and Schiff were trying to push through the House.

Senator Rand Paul says he will offer an amendment to the law within two months to exempt Americans from being targeted by the FISA court and their warrants. However, within the government, the political will to restrict the power of spying on Americans is weak.

There were two important bills Congress passed on Wednesday-- a bad one and a good one. The bad one was a reauthorization of the USA Freedom Act (FISA). It passed 278-136. 75 Democrats and 60 Republicans voted against it. The Blue Dogs, New Dems and the corrupt Military Industrial Complex supporters led the way. Which Democrats voted against it? You know...

Kimberley Strassel of The Wall Street Journal tweeted, "It's great that the FISA court slammed the FBI and acknowledged the obvious--that deceiving a surveillance court is a grave thing. But the follow-on order is pathetic, as it is essentially: Please tell us how you intend to do better. Really?"

Cops can do anything they want in modern America. This is from a 2015 Washington Post piece entitled "Cops took more stuff from people than burglars did last year." Notice the jump in seizures near the end of Obama's first term.by Thomas NeuburgerAs you listen to the panicked fear that the U.S.

A new federal program profiles and surveils ordinary US citizen travelers who otherwise have no legitimate reason for being profiled.  The biggest irony, as several Air Marshals observed, is that that potentially illegal program which infringes on the privacy and constitutional rights of US citizens, is also being paid for by those very same US citizens. Just like with the NSA. [...]

Judge Napolitano accused the 22 House Intel members of delaying the release of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) memo to keep 500 Congressmen in the dark about domestic spying abuses. He contends that Congress would not have voted to expand the FISA program, as it did seven days earlier, if the memo had been released prior to the vote. He concludes that the intelligence community, which is supposed to be regulated by Congress, actually is controlling Congress.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate has quietly voted to give intelligence agencies the permission to conduct warrantless surveillance on U.S. citizens for an additional five years.
Senators took a vote on Tuesday of this week to end debate on a bill, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), that allows the National Security Agency (NSA) to collect texts and emails of foreigners abroad without a warrant — even if those texts and emails are communicating with, and thereby exposing, American citizens in the U.S.

Do you remember what these 15 congresscritters have in common?

As you watch the Matrix, the Matrix watches you. Image © Kacper Pempel / Reuters (source)by Gaius PubliusI want to offer three pieces of CIA news, all thanks to WikiLeaks, either directly or indirectly.