U.S. House Vote Narrowly Allows Rampant Abuses of Warrantless Spying Authority to Continue (US focused)
U.S. House Vote Narrowly Allows Rampant Abuses of Warrantless Spying Authority to Continue (US focused)
(WASHINGTON) — Today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a two-year extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (“FISA 702”), a controversial warrantless spying authority, and in an extremely narrow tie vote, rejected critical reforms to stop rampant abuse of the law ...
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/15271710
Not a good result. The good amendment to add a warrant requirement failed on a tie vote; bad amendments to expand the scope of warrantless wiretapping passed. Next step: a Senate vote.
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The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act establishes procedures for the surveillance and collection of foreign intelligence on domestic soil. If foreign agents are using communications signals to communicate with someone in the US, the government must go to the FISA court and obtain a warrant for surveillance. This is how we found out about Trump Jr. Contact with Russian agents. Catches a lot of spies. On the whole, better to have than not
The FBI routinely uses its authority under FISA Section 702 to get information on Americans without a warrant, ignoring the processes that are supposed to be put in place to protect people. This has nothing to do with the FISA Title III authority that was used to get information about Carter Page, no matter what you and Trump think. If you warrantless surveillance of Americans is good, then by all means you should indeed be cheering this vote -- because they extended the scope of what information they can get at without a warrant.
If on the other hand you think civil liberties are worth protecting, then you might take a moment to stop to think that there was bipartisan support, including progressive Democrats, for introducing reforms like a warrant requirement while still keeping the ability to surveil foreign agents in place. But opinions differ, there are plenty of people in both parties who don't think civil liberties are worth protecting, so if you're one of them you've got a lot of company.
The FISA court provides warrants, it's what they do. If I was a legal compliance officer at a Telcom, I wouldn't move my ass for anything but a warrant. A tap without a warrant is illegal and puts the operating company in jeopardy.
From the article:
FISA 702 warrantless surveillance purports to target only foreign subjects, but in practice sweeps in a huge amount of Americans’ communications. This allows intelligence agencies to exploit a backdoor search loophole: the FBI, CIA, and NSA conduct “U.S. person queries” of FISA 702 records to deliberately pull up Americans’ private messages, all without a warrant or any court approval. This loophole has led to systemic abuse, involving thousands of improper queries each year, including those directed at protesters, campaign donors, journalists, lawmakers, and — in one case — the online dating matches of an analyst.
OK. There are no laws against the NSA picking up.foreign communications. In fact, that's the reason they exist. So they monitor a phone call originating from Moscow, say, of a person they find of interest. All of a sudden, that guy makes a call to someone in the US. Should the NSA simply hang up and not find out what it's all about due to a lack of warrant? Also, the technology doesn't make that immediately possible.
The courts have decided that text messages, as well as mobile tracking, do not need lawful warrants. Usually you don't apply for a warrant when you don't need one.
BTW, phone records are actually operating company business records. You don't own them.
Should the NSA simply hang up and not find out what it’s all about due to a lack of warrant?
Yes.
There, that was easy.
First of all, it's a computer take and no hangups can be done. Nobody is listening real time.
Secondly, what you miss could kill you. But, I guess you know better.
I'm sure as I type this there are men beating their wives and children, maybe to death.
Should the government put cameras in every house to prevent this?
If not, why do you hate women and children and want them to die?
What if they never wrote "bin Laden Determined to Strike US" because they didn't know? Would you still think they were doing their jobs as you sipped your morning coffee atop the WTC?
The Patriot Act* didn't exist before 9/11. Your argument is invalid.
Also, the NSA can get the FBI to get a warrant for the person in the US. We already have mechanisms for monitoring communications in the US.
* It's actually called the USA PATRIOT Act, which is an acronym for "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism." I prefer the acronym U SAP AT RIOT/
Lotta people just don't understand this.