
Yet with Section 215’s lifespan now stretching to a matter of weeks, supporters of broad surveillance powers have yet to put forth a bill for their preservation – evidence, opponents believe, that the votes for reauthorization do not exist, particularly not in the House of Representatives.
More likely, according to a multiple Hill sources, is a different option under consideration: making the major NSA reform bill of the last Congress the point of departure for reauthorizing 215 in the current one.
The bill would not abridge NSA collection of Americans’ international communications, nor prevent the NSA or the FBI from warrantlessly searching through its troves of them for Americans’ identifying information. Nor would it restrict a constellation of surveillance efforts authorized by a Reagan-era executive order. Even a recently disclosed bulk domestic phone records collection dragnet by the Drug Enforcement Agency would be untouched.
“We should be demanding more reforms than the intelligence agencies are gladly willing to offer us,” said David Segal of the activist group Demand Progress.
– From the Guardian article: NSA and FBI Fight to Retain Spy Powers as Surveillance Law Nears Expiration
June 1, 2015 is a very important day for American civil liberties and the Constitution. On that day, Section 215 of the Patriot Act, one of the most egregious pieces of legislation passed in U.S. history, will expire automatically without reauthorization from Congress. Naturally, this is causing a panic attack within the heart of the NSA, FBI and all the authoritarian lackey legislators in Washington D.C. With the chances of a clean reauthorization next to none, these crafty “representatives” and their puppeteers need to figure out a way to sneak it into another piece of legislation. What better way to do this than making it a part of something that ostensibly appears to be reining in surveillance powers. Enter the USA Freedom Act.
The USA Freedom Act is nothing new. A version of it passed the House last spring, before dying in the Senate. Rand Paul surprised many people by saying he would not support it because it didn’t go far enough. Additionally, one of its key cosponsors ultimately failed to support his own bill. I covered this in the post, Congress Guts Anti-NSA Spying Bill Beyond Recognition; Original Cosponsor Justin Amash Votes No. Here’s an excerpt:
Rep. Amash is 34 years old and was first elected to Congress in 2010. He has been on my radar screen for several years now as one of the few elected representatives who act more like statesmen than politicians. He has been on the right side of many civil liberties related issues, including his opposition to the NDAA’s provision that allows for the indefinite detention of American citizens without a trial. More recently, last summer he authored an anti-NSA amendment known as the “Amash Amendment,” which was defeated by establishment authoritarians in both political parties. I covered that story in my post: NSA Holds “Top Secret” Meeting to Stop Powerful Anti-Spying Amendment.
Being the fighter that he is, Amash regrouped and came back with an anti-NSA spying bill with some teeth to it: The USA Freedom Act. This bill concerned the establishment to such a degree that Senator Feinstein launched her own competing bill, which believe it or not, intended to codify the NSA’s unconstitutional practices into law.
In the end, what the status quo did was water down the once robust USA Freedom Act into oblivion.
Well the USA Freedom Act is back, and it appears to be the vehicle being used to reauthorize Section 215 of the Patriot Act. This story is extremely important, and serves as a great example of how tricky it can be to know what’s actually going on. I spend nearly 100% of my time trying to stay informed about the world around me, yet I’m constantly surprised by how little I know. For people who don’t have the time or energy to try to stay informed, forget about it. The media is generally worthless, and will more often than not mislead you, even if it’s unintentional.
To prove my point, I will highlight two separate articles on the latest version of the USA Freedom Act. Let’s start with the National Journal article titled, Congress to Introduce Last-Ditch Bill to Reform NSA Spying. The caption underneath the main title states: With the clock winding down, lawmakers in both chambers are staging one last attempt to rein in the government’s surveillance powers.
Come again? Is that really what’s happening here. First, let’s read a few excerpts from the piece:
April 17, 2015 Backed up against a rapidly approaching do-or-die deadline, bipartisan lawmakers are poised to introduce legislation next week that would roll back the National Security Agency’s expansive surveillance powers.
The legislation could land as soon as Tuesday in the House, congressional aides and privacy advocates said, who would only speak on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the negotiations.
The bill, known as the USA Freedom Act, would effectively end the NSA’s bulk collection of U.S. phone metadata—the numbers, time stamps, and duration of a call but not its actual content—by instead relying on phone companies to retain that data. The program is the first and one of the most controversial spying programs exposed by the Edward Snowden leaks that began nearly two years ago.
Whatever the strategy, lawmakers in both chambers need to move quickly, since the bill’s introduction arrives as the window of opportunity for reforming the nation’s surveillance activities is rapidly closing. Core provisions of the post-9/11 Patriot Act are due to sunset on June 1, including the controversial Section 215, which the NSA uses to authorize its dragnet surveillance of Americans’ call data. The Freedom Act would reauthorize these authorities, preserving expiring capabilities the intelligence community has said are vital to national security while ushering in more strident privacy protections and transparency requirements.
The above paragraph is very misleading. The deadline in play here is to ensure that the Patriot Act provisions are reauthorized, not for reforming surveillance. What a bizarre way to frame this.
Despite the obstacles, aides close to negotiations believe they have enough momentum to push the legislation through Congress fast enough for the president to sign it by June 1. The White House said last year it was supportive of the reform package.
This is the first hint something might be up. If Obama likes it, it’s bound to be either useless or tyrannical.
A version of the Freedom Act passed the House last spring 303-121 before a more comprehensive package died in the lame-duck Senate, falling just two vote shorts of the filibuster-proof 60 needed to advance. All but four Republicans rallied to block the measure due to fears it could bolster terrorist activity, despite wide-ranging support from tech companies, privacy advocates, the White House, and even senior members of the intelligence community.
Once again, this is very misleading, if not downright false. Yes a few Republicans blocked it for those reasons, but Rand Paul refused to support it because it didn’t go far enough. The fact that this isn’t mentioned is extremely irresponsible.
The defeat was seen as a crushing blow to the post-Snowden movement to overhaul the nation’s sweeping surveillance apparatus—a sting made worse by the GOP takeover of the Senate.
This is 100% not true. Many civil liberties advocates thought the final bill was so watered down as to become worthless. Recall that earlier I noted how one of the original cosponsors, Justin Amash, couldn’t support the final bill because it was so weak.
But instead of giving up, lawmakers began a new process earlier this year, believing they had one last shot at enacting strong reforms before the Patriot Act sunset.
Sources said the new language is closer to last year’s Senate version than one that passed the House, which suffered a loss of support from privacy and tech interests due to amendments made by House leadership in the 11th hour.
One privacy advocate used a scale of 1 to 100 to indicate how strong the bill is on civil liberties. “If the House-passed version was a 60, and the Senate cloture was 80, this is a 73 or 74,” the advocate said.
Still, the measure faces several significant hurdles in both chambers before it can get to the president’s desk. House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy said in a memorandum to members earlier this month that the chamber “may” consider the Patriot Act reauthorization this month, without providing more specifics. But earlier this year, House Speaker John Boehner went out of his way to defend the surveillance program, saying it helped thwart a recent plot to blow up the U.S. Capitol.
Yes, John Boehner claimed it thwarted a terrorist attack. What he failed to mention was that this terrorist attack was actually an attack dreamed up by the FBI itself. They didn’t stop anything from happening that they didn’t manufacture in the first place. See: Manufactured Terrorism – U.S. Officials Claim Credit for Stopping Another Terror Attack Created by the FBI.
If the only article you read on the latest version of the USA Freedom Act was this National Journal article, I couldn’t blame you for thinking that it was a valiant piece of legislation put forth by civil liberties activists fighting to rein in the NSA. Unfortunately, the truth seems to be closer to the USA Freedom Act being used as a vehicle by which to reauthorize Section 215 of the Patriot Act. Considering the fact that the NSA, FBI and White House all seem to be lobbying for it, it’s probably a very bad piece of legislation.
As Spencer Ackerman at the Guardian informs us in the more appropriately titled, NSA and FBI Fight to Retain Spy Powers as Surveillance Law Nears Expiration, we learn that:
With about 45 days remaining before a major post-9/11 surveillance authorization expires, representatives of the National Security Agency and the FBI are taking to Capitol Hill to convince legislators to preserve their sweeping spy powers.
That effort effectively re-inaugurates a surveillance debate in Congress that has spent much of 2015 behind closed doors. Within days, congressional sources tell the Guardian, the premiere NSA reform bill of the last Congress, known as the USA Freedom Act, is set for reintroduction – and this time, some former supporters fear the latest version of the bill will squander an opportunity for even broader surveillance reform.
The classified briefings come amid an unsettled surveillance debate in Congress that rushes up against an unforgiving deadline. On 1 June, Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which permits US law enforcement and surveillance agencies to collect business records, expires.
Section 215 is the authority claimed by the NSA since 2006 for its ongoing daily bulk collection of US phone records revealed by the Guardian in 2013 thanks to leaks from whistleblower Edward Snowden. While the Obama administration and US intelligence agencies last year supported divesting the NSA of its domestic phone metadata collection, a bill to do so failed in November.
Again, any bill supported by Obama and the intelligence agencies is guaranteed to be worthless. It would be more appropriately named the NSA Freedom Act.
While the briefings were not described as a platform for defending the controversial Section 215, they “offer an important opportunity to hear directly from analysts and operators who use Section 215 as part of their daily mission to protect the Nation from terrorist attacks,” according to an announcement for legislators sent by intelligence committee chairman Devin Nunes and Georgia Republican Lynn Westmoreland and obtained by the Guardian.
Civil-libertarian members who attended left unsatisfied.
“Our questions about constitutionality and legality were answered with statements of efficacy. We said, ‘How can this possibly be legal?’ and they would say, ‘this program works great, here’s how it’s helping us catch terrorists,’” Representative Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, told the Guardian.
Yet with Section 215’s lifespan now stretching to a matter of weeks, supporters of broad surveillance powers have yet to put forth a bill for their preservation – evidence, opponents believe, that the votes for reauthorization do not exist, particularly not in the House of Representatives.
More likely, according to a multiple Hill sources, is a different option under consideration: making the major NSA reform bill of the last Congress the point of departure for reauthorizing 215 in the current one.
They don’t know how to pass reauthorization, so they are trying to sneak it in.
Advocates of the bill in both congressional chambers, including its original architects, have been laboring for eight weeks in marathon negotiations to revive the USA Freedom Act. The revived bill would extend the expiring provisions of the Patriot Act for a still-undetermined number of years – essentially staking out the center of the 2015-era surveillance debate for a bill that would take NSA out of the domestic bulk-collection business.
The bill would not abridge NSA collection of Americans’ international communications, nor prevent the NSA or the FBI from warrantlessly searching through its troves of them for Americans’ identifying information. Nor would it restrict a constellation of surveillance efforts authorized by a Reagan-era executive order. Even a recently disclosed bulk domestic phone records collection dragnet by the Drug Enforcement Agency would be untouched.
“We should be demanding more reforms than the intelligence agencies are gladly willing to offer us,” said David Segal of the activist group Demand Progress.
On the other hand, a real NSA reform bill has been introduced into Congress, see: Meet the “Surveillance State Repeal Act” – A Bipartisan Bill to Fully Repeal the Patriot Act.
Yet, this one has almost no chance of passing. Why? Because it’s the real deal.


Freedom is NOT Free Bitches!!!!!
WTF?...
NSA, FBI, DHS, etc don't need no stinkin' law...
They'll continue to do whatever they want as they always have...
ILLEGALLY!
Yes We SCAM!
info about electronic voting was provided to all senators and congress folks, nothing happened. That tells you all you need to know about the tyranny.
Agreed. .these days (and as far as we know..all days) tptb dont need laws passed or bills or voting..all that shit is for show. You know (well i hope you know..but i have my doubts lately) that they can do ..and have done whatever the fuck they want to whomever the fuck they want..and have to answer to nobody. This reminds me of the article from the other day that said 'oh..youve been spied on since BEFORE 911'. No Shit sherlock. And people comment here like this is news. Wtf?
Thanks for comin in today kids.
Jesus.
They mean Freedom like they mean affordable in the Affordable Care Act
Freedom to choose your death panel...
"Affordable" has nothing do do with "Care" because the Act has noting to do with Health 'Care". The only thing it addresses is "Insurance"
And insurance company profits...and free markets...and choice...and liberty.
But I always get carried away when speaking of that Obamanation ;-)
...and government control, and redistribution, and ass-holery.
"Affordable" because the insurance is subsidized by others. A pretty way to tell the producers to bend over one more time.
Every time I see how much we paid in taxes this year I want strangle the lot of them. The AMT fried us. Time for them to bleed out the ass.
Miffed
...aand ~ IT's GONE!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nVk25ZvTkU
exactly...pathetic how they always choose wording which turns out to be the exact 180 opposite. So it really means the USA Enslavement Act.
How about we pass the Congress Can Fuck Itself Act by referendum?
Or "Constitutional Law Breakers Meet Firing Squad Act" ?
All of the documented law breaking members of congress and the obombya regime need the Harry Reid facial treatment first, then arrest, prosecution and death by firing squad. Bankers next.
The blowback against progressive oppression is going to be a tsunami of epic proportions.
Grimaldus
"USA Effyou Act"
There, fixed it.
"I spend nearly 100% of my time trying to stay informed about the world around me, yet I’m constantly surprised by how little I know. For people who don’t have the time or energy to try to stay informed, forget about it. The media is generally worthless, and will more often than not mislead you, even if it’s unintentional"
Spot on and why these assclowns will unfortunatley sneak it through
The system is complex for a reason.
Peak complexity will take down the system.
I think, I can never earn over which I paid by my precedent employer, but I was wrong, world is so large to try their fate.but now I am making $92/hr even more, can easily minimum $1700/week, on the experience everyone must try to do work online, easy way to earn, here's an example what I do... www.globe-report.com
How much does ZH make from allowing this globe-report spammer through?
Anthrax via USPS in 3...2....
Well, as long as it's in the USA Freedom Act is must be good - 'what, you opposed to freedom? Commie bastard, we got places for creeps like you...'
It's always named like something that will make everyone's lives better. The word "removal" is missing between 'freedom' and 'act.'
At this point, I put mental sarcastic quotes around the title of anything congress proposes.
Language is of particular importance to the propagandist.
Casuistry, Sophistry, also known as Eristic or Specious arguments; involve the use of subtle, sophisticated, deceptive argument and reasoning, and sometimes labeling, especially on moral or legal issues, in order to justify something or to mislead.
Socrates considered the debate in such settings unedifying, pointless and unworthy—in a word, “eristic”. Eris was the Greek goddess of strife (the Roman Discordia). It was Eris who cunningly dropped a golden apple with the inscription “to the fairest” into a feast, inciting three goddesses—Hera, Athena and Aphrodite—to bicker over who deserved it and thus launching the ten-year Trojan War.
The USA Freedom Act is nothing but another apple dropped into the political feast so that the elite's minions may bicker while the status quo is allowed to be continued.
Once more I learn something---again. Thank you Milestones
The people proposing this shit are the commies within the US (neocons and progressives). Don't confuse your enemy.
Yeah, I think I need a cigar and some good whiskey. I need to work on my happy nihlist vibe...so i don't develop hypertension...
Yeah, like the White House.
Every good hustle requires a distraction, maybe that's what all this nonsense about ISIS troops massing on the border is over..
look, a *Giant* squirrel.
Perhaps they're being sarcastic. I mean no-one falls for this doublespeak, lies are truth, slavery is freedom, bullshit anymore do they? How dumb do they think the American public is?
Amash has marbles
The Amish are terrorist because they don't have cell phones and pcs. Also as someone said here " quite sure the amish are fed up I know I am"
They are a secretive cult like group, they shun materialism and are pacifists to boot, how anti-american is that????
The Amish...
Fed up with modern technology since 1830.
Ahem.
As always thanks must go to the muslimkenyangaysocialistgungrabbing obama for taking care of us peons.
HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAA LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!! they really are calling it the "Freedom Act"?!?!?!?! wow... i wasn't even serious when i said they would do it
Freedom Act - the name tells you it will not have anything to do with Freedom. As support for that argument - I give you The Patriot Act and the Freedom of Information Act. If you have freedom you don't need an act to achieve it. If you have freedom of information, you don't need an act to gain the info. As the old adage goes, you don't need a law against goat fuking if there is no goat fuking going on. (special note to Knuckles on that:))
Old Marines never die; they just get tired of being screwed by the Navy :)
White shoes - need I say more?
You mean golfers, gays or pimps?
Freedoms read like the IRS taxcodes. Complicate things for the serfs, so they're managable.
I would highly encourage anyone starting a new business, to do it like a person did in post WWII. Go for it, and let the regulatory bodies find you.
The bodies that inhabit most U.S. bureaucracies are 'Brain Dead'. Been to the DMV in the last 10 years? Chances are the .Gov scum bags are stealing from you.
The United States is nothing more than a thin veneer " Banana Republic". Bitchez
"Freedom Act"
I've just returned from another séance featuring George Orwell, and when I mentioned the name of this Act, he told me, after the laughter subsided, to "Quit pissing down my leg and calling it rain!".
the greatest bubble of all time is not the bond
bubble, it is the legislative bubble, tulipesk.
what do you call 100 lawyers at the bottom of the
ocean? ......
i love the smell of desperation and vapors in the morning.
.
and it is not like the scam would not continue
by other means, in the shadow areas, if the law
was actually consistent with the ideas represented
in the constitution. private means would find a
way to capture all and any information and then
market it and profit from it. is there a chance
the "government" could justify its debts by selling
the desired information? does this market need that
legitimacy?
Technology
'Eternal' camera can take pictures forever
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32353655
Until I smash it with a baseball bat.
Technology is a very fragile thing.
A "Louisville Slugger Moment"
Label up.
@"Technology is a very fragile thing."
true, but so are you and your baseball
bat. in the end, the question and answer
revolve around the sentient, not necessarily
size or motivation of bats.
.
you must calibrate the effective capacity
and usefulness of your own baseball bat.
no?
"what do you call 100 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?"
If they have banskters tied round their necks to weigh them down, then it would be called a good start
You know the shit is going to hit the fan when they bring out "The USA Freedom, salute to the flag and mom's apple pie" bill.
.."the last refuge of the scoundral is to wrap up in the flag" or something to that order.
Don't forget Rand Paul's Statue of Liberty with the cross...
They should have a "Stop the F_kers" act, preventing congress or the pres or government agencies from passing any laws or regulations for five years and forcing them to go into existing ones, reading them and repealing those laws and regs which are unconstitutional, won't happen though as that sounds like actual "work".
Patriot Act.. Freedom Act.. seriously, Congress, go fuck yourselves as hard as you can. Goddamned puppet charlatans.
As long as the title has patriot or freedom in it the ameritards will never notice and the corporate ziomedia will never tell them.
Goebbels would be proud of this congress.
All I want to know is, who is the corporate sponsor? McDonalds or WalMart?
All I want to know is, who is the corporate sponsor? McDonalds or WalMart?
"Freedom is Slavery" = George Orwell and U.S. Congress, but one of them only wrote it as the position of the antagonist in a novel. The other is saying it like they want you to believe it.
Fuck Congress. They work for the NWO. Contractors for the enemy. Arrest Lloyd Blankfein.
I possibly could be convinced to support a 'Freedom and Fluffy Unicorns Act', but not this shit.......
"On the other hand, a real NSA reform bill has been introduced into Congress, see: Meet the “Surveillance State Repeal Act” – A Bipartisan Bill to Fully Repeal the Patriot Act.
Yet, this one has almost no chance of passing. Why? Because it’s the real deal."
Everyone is $bought & paid for, with 'encouragements' not to stray off the reservation... A thought construct that was once supposed to 'keep us safe', has devolved completely into a mad desire for power and control. Still amazing though, is the rate of speed at which the Republic is devolving into a full-blown Authoritarian State right now. Just goes to show that once something reaches critical mass, it becomes nearly impossible to stop. I would say that within (5) years - if a site like this is even still around or allowed to exist, we will marvel at what we 'had' just a short time ago.
"Surveillance State Repeal Act” – A Bipartisan Bill to Fully Repeal the Patriot Act."
My bets are on snowmen and ice skating in hell.
Seriously though, the Patriot Act is not law, as it is Unconstitutional. They may say that it is legal, but legal starts and ends with the Constitution. Sorry, treasonous Charlies.
The banksters need to repay us.
My legal team of AK, AR, and Glock approved of this message.
The USA Freedom Act? Sweet, I say let's pass this bad boy and then we can find out everything that is in it. Yeeeehaaa!
And I'm proud to be an American where at least I know I'm free.
And I won't forget the men who died, who gave that right to me.
And I'd gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today.
‘Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land God bless the U.S.A.!!
~Lee Greenwood
We have your names and addresses ZH ers.
(EDIT: for a small fee we can recover your lost passwords for you)
We've known that since William Benny
The Freedom Act.
Because some folks thought "The Fat One In Your Shitlocker Act" gave too much info away.
"Patriot Act." "Freedom Act."
Orwell lives!
The banksters need to repay us.
The "patriot" in the Patriot Act is an agent of, and defender of, the DC US nation that is criminally occupying the American country, and oppressing the American people.
Robert Bates is a patriot. Michael Slager is a patriot. Holder is a patriot. Lon Horiuchi is a patriot. Bush Jr. is a patriot. Paul Bremer is a patriot. Gen. Tommy Franks is a patriot. CIA-Obama is a patriot. Hillary is a patriot.
we the people should have every year on April Fools day "VOTE them the FUCK OUT" election.
The USA Freedom Act was the ratification of the Constitution and the Bill of RIghts. Nearly everything passed by elected psychopaths since then is the ANTITHESIS of Freedom.
Insert Jefferson Arborial quote here.
ZH re-posts a lot of good content, but this article is one of the best I've read here in a while... I'd love to see more of this sort of investigative, fact-based reporting - recounting & dissecting the players and timeline of these larger issues...
Thank you, Mike Krieger.
I don't think the Patriot Acts matter any more. Our fascist state is entrenched. We have our Stasi and our Gulag Archipelago. We have our drones and our contractors. The failure to renew provisions of a few pieces of paper which are top secret anyway are no hindrance to our thug overlords at the NSA, CIA, DHS, NI, AI, FBI, etc.
At best we will get Presidential Findings authorizing all the provisions of the Acts. At worst we get new, open-ended legislation that makes spying and torture legal forever and ever. If neither of those happen, then the criminals running the country will simply shrug and keep doing what they are doing. It's only illegal if you get caught...and then only if you get arrested...and then only if the people arresting you aren't snatched from their homes at four in the morning and whisked off to Jordan to be tortured.
America. It's certainly not what it once thought it was, but was it ever?
So you see the solution is to privatize the NSA with junk bond financing. This Altegrity company which was spun out of the government by al gore got its gov contract cancelled after a big outside hack job. Never fear, they've been rescued by private equity -- see http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-09/altegrity-files-for-ba...
Can't we startjoin politicians now please.