PATRIOT Act extension buried in funding bill

Why the Hell Did Democrats Just Extend the Patriot Act? | The New Republic - Sam Adler-Bell:

November 20, 2019 - "Tuesday ... the House of Representatives voted to fund the government through December 20 ... to prevent a government shutdown and forestall a debate about border-wall funding.... Democratic leaders had slipped something else into the bill: a three-month extension of the Patriot Act, the post-9/11 law that gave the federal government sweeping surveillance and search powers and circumvented traditional law-enforcement rules.  Key provisions of the Patriot Act were set to expire on December 15, including Section 215, the legal underpinning of the call detail records program exposed in the very first Edward Snowden leak.

"'It’s surreal,' Representative Justin Amash told me on Tuesday, just before the vote. Amash, an independent who left the Republican Party over his opposition to President Trump, pointed to the hypocrisy on both sides of the aisle. Republicans have 'decried FISA abuse' against the president and his aides, he said, referring to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, 'and Democrats have highlighted Trump’s abuse of his executive powers, yet they’re teaming up to extend the administration’s authority to warrantlessly gather data on Americans.'

"By tucking the measure into a must-pass bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi forced many members who oppose the Patriot Act to vote in favor of its extension.... Amash submitted an amendment to strip the Patriot Act language from the budget bill, but the amendment was blocked by Democrats on the Rules Committee.  Just 10 Democrats defied the leadership to vote against the resolution....

"There’s no other way to spin this,' a progressive staffer on the Hill told me. 'This was a major capitulation. The progressive caucus has touted itself as an organization that can wield power and leverage the votes of its 90 members. And they didn’t lift a finger. Democratic leadership rammed this down their throats.'"
Read more: https://newrepublic.com/article/155793/hell-democrats-just-extend-patriot-act

Trump signs temporary spending bill, punting government-shutdown risks to just before Christmas | Markets Insider - Gina Heeb:
November 21, 2019 - "President Donald Trump on Thursday approved a measure that would stave off the threat of a government shutdown until just days before Christmas.... The short-term spending bill, known as a continuing resolution, was signed into law just hours before a critical midnight deadline. Federal funding was scheduled to expire after that point, and several federal agencies would have been forced to shutter. But it will keep the government running only until December 20....

"Border-funding issues were avoided in [the] stopgap measure signed on Thursday, but other major provisions were tucked in. The legislation reauthorizes parts of the Patriot Act through March, raises the pay for members of the military by about 3%, and increases the Commerce Department budget ahead of the 2020 census.... The Senate passed the continuing resolution 74-20 earlier on Thursday."

Read more: https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/trump-punts-government-shutdown-threat-just-before-christmas-spending-bill-2019-11-1028709853

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Snowden protector comes to Canada as refugee

Canada grants refugee status to some asylum-seekers who hid Edward Snowden in Hong Kong | National Post:

March 25, 2019 - "Vanessa Rodel ... a Filipino national, and her seven-year-old daughter Keana ... stepped off a 15-hour flight to Toronto Monday, granted refugee status by Canada six tense years after they themselves provided refuge to American whistleblower Edward Snowden, a contractor for a U.S. spy-agency who in 2013 became the world’s most wanted man after leaking details of U.S. mass-surveillance programs.

"Their acceptance marks the first breakthrough for a Canadian team trying to help the three asylum-seeking families who hid Snowden, and who believe they have been harassed and targeted for deportation as a result.... The others who helped Snowden — a Sri Lankan couple with two young children and another single Sri Lankan man — are still awaiting word on whether Canada will accept them as refugees....

"Supun Kellapatha, father of the two children, was hospitalized Friday due to increasingly fragile mental health; only his last-ditch court challenge now stands in the way of his being forced back to Sri Lanka.

"Montreal lawyer Marc-André Séguin, who has spearheaded the effort to bring the families to Canada, believes Ottawa is needlessly dragging its feet on the cases, and blames in part the radioactive nature of the Snowden story.

"Meanwhile, the charity the lawyers set up to aid their clients, For the Refugees, is running short of money; the organizers hope a crowd-funding campaign can replenish the coffers. The lawyers themselves have been working for free, making regular trips to Hong Kong on their own time.

"The refugees’ story first came to light in 2016 when [Toronto lawyer Rob] Tibbo revealed that three years earlier he had persuaded them to open their doors to Snowden. The former National Security Agency contract worker was able to disappear for two weeks by staying in their homes, before surfacing and taking a flight to Russia.

"Tibbo, a Montrealer who had been practising in Hong Kong for years when Snowden retained him to assist as he fled from the U.S., said he decided to expose the refugees’ role after learning the episode would be featured in a Hollywood movie. But in the wake of the news reports, Hong Kong authorities began what appeared to be a wide-ranging campaign against the migrants and their lawyer, which included suddenly reactivating their long-dormant refugee applications — then denying all of them on the same day....

"Knowing their clients could be deported at any time, the lawyers have fought to have that process expedited. But the consulate in Hong Kong has seemingly gone out of its way to avoid speeding up their cases, Séguin said, which he believes is to avoid any suggestion Ottawa is eager to assist those who helped Snowden."

Read more: https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/canada-grants-refugee-status-to-some-asylum-seekers-who-hid-edward-snowden-in-hong-kong
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Brett Kavanaugh and due process

The Constitutional Reasons to Oppose Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court - Foundation for Economic Education - Brittany Hunter:

October 1, 2018 - "After two days of political theater, the Senate Judiciary Committee agreed to delay the vote to confirm Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court for a week. In that time, the FBI will conduct an investigation surrounding the allegations made against him.... And the real losers, unfortunately, are the American people, who are being diligently distracted from Kavanaugh’s actual policy record.

"To be sure, claims of sexual misconduct should certainly be brought to the public’s attention, especially when they involve a nominee for a position as powerful as a Supreme Court Justice. And in the #metoo era, failing to take these allegations seriously would be most unwise. But losing ourselves in this political circus and the subsequent media frenzy surrounding Kavanaugh’s sexual past glosses over another aspect of his professional career that should concern every single individual: his promotion of the national security state....

"The years of 2001-2003 were ... the years that Brett Kavanaugh served as associate White House Counsel for then-President George W. Bush.... One of the most egregious acts perpetrated against the American people at this time was the PATRIOT Act. And one of its greatest supporters was Brett Kavanaugh [who] referred to the PATRIOT Act as a 'measured, careful, responsible, and constitutional approach' in an email sent to a colleague....

"The PATRIOT Act obliterated the Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights to privacy and due process by giving the federal government sweeping new powers to conduct surveillance on the American people.... But [Kavanaugh's] support of the legislation that signaled the downfall of American rule of law does not simply end with his favorable comments. Kavanaugh was also one of the individuals tasked with its drafting....

"The 2013 Edward Snowden leaks were arguably one of the most significant events to occur over the last decade.... In many ways, the Snowden situation drew a line in the political sand. Those who stood for freedom believed in the people’s inherent right to privacy and in upholding the Fourth and Fifth Amendments.... However, in a ruling in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Kavanaugh ruled that 'the Government’s metadata collection program is entirely consistent with the Fourth Amendment.' He also later stated that 'that critical national security need outweighs the impact on privacy occasioned by this program'....

"Due process is a staple of our American legal system. And ... there is more to due process than allowing Judge Kavanaugh to have his day in court. If the government would like to gain access to the private communications of American citizens, it must do so by going to a judge and obtaining a warrant. This warrant must specifically state what property is being searched and what is being searched for, as is specified by the Fourth Amendment.

"Requiring law enforcement to go through the proper channels to secure a warrant before violating the privacy of American citizens is part of due process..... [D]ue process is not meant for one class of people; it is meant for every American citizen whether they are nominated for the Supreme Court like Kavanaugh, or happen to have a radicalized parent like sixteen-year-old Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, who was targeted and killed by the U.S. Military without any semblance of due process."

Read more: https://fee.org/articles/the-constitutional-reasons-to-oppose-kavanaugh-for-the-supreme-court/
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See also : Libertarian makes SCOTUS case for Kavanagh

NSA deleting millions of unwarranted call records

NSA Purging Millions of Improperly Collected Call Records Is Important (and Not About Trump) - Hit & Run : Reason.com - Scott Shackford:

July 3, 2018 - "The National Security Agency (NSA) has announced that it is deleting millions of phone and text records it has gathered since 2015, because it is holding a bunch of records it was not supposed to have....

"In this case, Congress passed the USA Freedom Act in 2015 to better control (and potentially limit) the NSA's access to the metadata (that is, everything but the conversations' actual content) of Americans' communications. This reform was part of a backlash against the mass surveillance exposed by Edward Snowden, and the bill was passed after some privacy-minded lawmakers, such as Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), forced a part of the Patriot Act to expire that was being used to justify mass amounts of domestic snooping.

"Under the USA Freedom Act, the NSA no longer collects and combs through our communications metadata itself. Instead it now has to request records from telecommunications companies using strictly defined search terms....

"The problem, as Charlie Savage of The New York Times uncovered, is that the telecom companies were accidentally sending too many records in response to NSA requests. And so the agency was receiving private personal information about Americans' communications data that it neither asked for nor had the right to examine:

"As a result, when the agency then fed those phone numbers back to the telecoms to get the communications logs of all of the people who had been in contact with its targets, the agency also gathered some data of people unconnected to the targets. And so the agency was receiving private personal information about Americans' communications data that it neither asked for nor had the right to examine.... 'If the first information was incorrect, even though on its face it looked like any other number, then when we fed that back out, by definition we'd get records back on the second hop that we did not have authority to collect,' [an NSA spokesman] said....

"The NSA requested more than 500 million telecom records just last year. It is unable to determine which records it has the authorization to collect, so it is purging all of them....

"Many of the same privacy-minded lawmakers who managed to force some of the surveillance authorities of the Patriot Act to expire also opposed the USA Freedom Act. Congressmen like Justin Amash (R-Mich.), Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), and Jared Polis (D-Colo.) voted against the bill because they believed it still gave the government too much power to collect our records without warrants. Sen. Paul rejected the USA Freedom Act for the same reason....

"Unfortunately, Trump has shown that he's perfectly fine with snooping on Americans  ... [as he] happily signed a bill in January renewing and expanding the government's authority to secretly spy on Americans under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments."

Read more: https://reason.com/blog/2018/07/03/nsa-purging-millions-of-improperly-colle
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Let FISA surveillance law expire, says Sarwark

US Libertarian Party Wants Key Surveillance Law to Elapse Without Renewal - Sputnik International:

September 13, 2017 - "The US Libertarian Party (LP) does not want the controversial US surveillance law empowering authorities to carry out warrantless surveillance of foreign targets, to be reauthorized and instead suggests that it simply end ... by the start of 2018, the chairman of the party's executive body, the Libertarian National Committee, told Sputnik on Wednesday.

"In a letter dated September 7, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions and National Intelligence Director Dan Coats called on US Congressmen to permanently reauthorize Section 702 of a 2008 package of amendments to the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which is set to expire at the end of the year....

"'We would like the bill to elapse completely and sunset and not to be renewed at all — not permanently, not for five years, not for even one year,' Nicholas Sarwark said, stressing that the US National Security Agency (NSA) and the country's law enforcement agencies had abused powers granted to them....

"'The US government has shown that it is unwilling to abide by rules laid out in legislation, while Congressmen have demonstrated that they are unwilling to exercise meaningful oversight, Sarwark continued. Therefore, the only sensible solution to the situation at this point is "to let the law elapse and start over if there are in fact legitimate intelligence gathering tools that can be done in a constitutional manner....

"'Law enforcement would always like to have more tools and the Constitution does not make law enforcement easier, it makes it harder. That is the point of our Constitution and it is exactly backward to say "well, can we make law enforcement’s job easier at the costs of individuals’ privacy,"' the politician suggested....

"Mass surveillance by US authorities in the United States and other countries was revealed in classified US documents published by former NSA employee turned whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013, prompting criticism from governments, as well as human right advocates and activist groups across the globe."

Read more: https://sputniknews.com/us/201709131057355378-us-libertarians-surveillance-laws-end/
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New documentary on web outlaw Kim Dotcom

The martyrdom of Kim Dotcom | Stuff.co.nz - Philip Mathews:

July 23, 2017 - " Controversial internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom is interviewed in his Auckland waterfront apartment in 2016. There is tasteful decor, natural light, sea views and directly behind the man himself, an upside down US flag on a cushion.

"Given that the US was into its fifth long year of trying to extradite Dotcom to face trial on copyright and other charges, that shot seems like one of Dotcom's famous provocations – in your face, Uncle Sam.... Annie Goldson​, director of the documentary Kim Dotcom: Caught in the Web, can't remember who art-directed the two-day interview, but thinks it was Dotcom himself....

"Detailed, neutral and at times sympathetic, Goldson's documentary started to take shape in 2014 when Dotcom, already a folk hero and political martyr in New Zealand after the raid on his Coatesville mansion in 2012, made the ill-judged decision to enter politics. Does anyone remember Internet Mana? The shaky alliance between the techno-radicals of Dotcom's Internet Party and Mana's old school socialists crashed into the 2014 election campaign like a runaway train.

"It climaxed at a political circus called the Moment of Truth. Dotcom flew investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald ​to Auckland and crossed live to free-speech heroes in hiding Julian Assange and Edward Snowden. Five days before the election, the Auckland Town Hall was packed with activists and journalists who expected this stunt to topple the Government....

"On election night in 2014, when it was clear Internet Mana had failed, Dotcom blamed himself and his toxic brand, and largely disappeared from public life. Now he is reclusive in his luxury pad, separated from his wife Mona (their story is a charming romantic interlude in the film). After two years of negotiations, Dotcom agreed to an interview and offered access to his archives, including home movies of family life in Coatesville before everything soured....

"[T]he biography that Goldson constructs suggests someone who always yearned to be famous. He played up the Dr. Evil role but long before he was even called Dotcom, the 20-year-old Kim Schmitz​ was turning up to a Munich nightclub in a flash white suit, posing as though he had already made it.... It was the classic Jay Gatsby​ myth, the self-invented phony. Even arrests were good for business – the notorious hacker could rebrand as a security consultant. In the background there was a tough childhood with a violent alcoholic father....

"There are good interviews in the film, shedding light on complex areas of freedom and copyright. Greenwald is there. The musician Moby is there. Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales is there. US technology journalist Greg Sandoval calls Dotcom 'a PR genius". Movie producer turned scholar Jonathan Taplin argues that 'he's a criminal ... he should be in jail'. 

"No one can agree on Dotcom and the film won't change that. It is not just his personal style that provokes strong opinions. Instead, as Goldson notes, there is something about these internet guys, 'these individuals' we have created.... Think of Dotcom and Assange and, more recently, Peter Thiel​. What do they have in common? They are transnational, mostly apolitical, loosely libertarian. They represent a different, more confusing world to come."

Read more: https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/94791949/the-martyrdom-of-kim-dotcom
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Gary Johnson would pardon Edward Snowden

Gary Johnson: I Would Pardon Edward Snowden | The Texas Tribune - Patrick Svitek:

September 24, 2016 - "Amid a renewed debate about Edward Snowden, Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson said Saturday he would pardon the whistleblower based on his knowledge of the case.

"In an interview at The Texas Tribune Festival, Johnson, the former New Mexico governor, was deeply skeptical of how the United States is using the kind of intelligence capabilities brought to light by Snowden. Snowden, a former government contractor, faces charges under the Espionage Act for leaking classified information about the National Security Agency to reporters in 2013.

"'I would like to see ... these satellites turned away from 110 million Verizon users,' Johnson said. 'I'd like to see the satellites turned away from you and I as U.S. citizens, recognizing that there is due process out there for anyone that's suspected of crime or harm against the rest of us.'

"A new campaign is underway to persuade President Barack Obama to pardon Snowden, the subject of a biographical movie released last week. Former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders recently added his name to the list of those pushing for a pardon.

"Johnson has previously said he would be inclined to pardon Snowden but appeared to go further Saturday.

"'Based on what I know about Edward Snowden, I would pardon Edward Snowden,' Johnson said.

"The Libertarian nominee is considered a long-shot candidate for the White House, especially after missing the cut to make the first debate ... held Monday. Acknowledging the importance of qualifying — 'The only way to have a chance at winning is to be in the presidential debates' — Johnson noted that he has only failed to make the first debate and that there are three in total.

"He also voiced doubt that voters would have their minds made up following Monday night's debate between the two polarizing major-party nominees, Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump."

Read more: https://www.texastribune.org/2016/09/24/gary-johnson-i-would-pardon-edward-snowden/
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Oliver Stone's Snowden a 'gripping docudrama' (video)

Hacker or hero? Oliver Stone sides with Snowden: review | Toronto Star - Peter Howell:

September 15, 2016 - "With his gripping new docudrama Snowden, which just had its world premiere at TIFF, Stone is totally on the side of Edward Snowden, painting the fugitive ex-CIA and National Security Agency whistleblower as an American patriot, not the evil 'hacker' that U.S. President Obama dismissed Snowden as when it all blew open in 2013.

"Yet Stone does so with a good measure of restraint, a quality rare for him. Joseph Gordon-Levitt sympathetically portrays the bespectacled title cipher, a Rubik’s Cube champ with an IBM brain. He breathes life into the complicated motivations behind a former soldier’s decision to air his country’s dirty laundry to the world, turning himself into a wanted man in the process, his U.S. passport revoked by Washington.

"Dubbed 'Snow White' by a cynical co-worker soon after he arrives with noble intentions at the CIA, Snowden discovers to his dismay that politics, economic advantage and good old-fashioned ambition are the main driving forces behind his new employer — which also routinely tramples on civil liberties by liberally spying on anyone and everyone, even in their bedrooms, publicly denying it all the while....

"Scripted by writer/director Stone with co-writer Kieran Fitzgerald, the movie also gives a fair hearing to the 'war on terror' counter-argument, with Snowden’s boss and mentor Corbin O’Brian (Rhys Ifans, superb) emerging as an intelligent pragmatist who sincerely believes — as do many Americans — that preserving safety and security requires the necessary evil of invading personal privacy.

"Snowden would make a great double bill with Citizenfour, the Oscar-winning 2014 doc by Laura Poitras, which featured the real Edward Snowden as he prepared to reveal his identity to the world."

Read more: https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/movies/2016/09/15/hacker-or-hero-oliver-stone-sides-with-snowden-review.html
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Snowden keynote speaker at NH Liberty Forum

Edward Snowden To Appear At New Hampshire Convention: NSA Whistleblower To Be Keynote Speaker Via Video Link - Aaron Homer, Inquisitr:

December 21, 2015 - "Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower who exposed the government’s bulk phone data collection and other surveillance practices, will be the keynote speaker at a New Hampshire convention of libertarians, The Valley News is reporting.

"Snowden will speak to the New Hampshire Liberty Forum via a video conference from Russia, where he’s been granted political asylum while he faces federal charges here in the United States. The New Hampshire Liberty Forum is an annual conference held in Manchester, New Hampshire (population: 109,000). The 2016 Liberty Forum will take place February 18-21."

"The Liberty Forum is sponsored by the Free State Project, a political advocacy group with the stated goal of moving 20,000 libertarians – or, as the Free State Project describes their audience, 'liberty lovers' – to New Hampshire. Once there, the 'liberty lovers' can affect change through local activism and, if they chose, through voting. The movement is not officially associated with the Libertarian Party, although the Free State Project is founded on libertarian ideals, such as smaller government and individual rights....

"[T]he Free State Project has been courting Snowden for a convention appearance for some time, but wasn’t able to make it happen until this year. They got help from other privacy activists, including Thomas Drake, another NSA whistleblower.

"Edward Snowden became a household name in June 2013, when the self-described “computer wizard,” at the time working for National Security Agency (NSA) subcontractor Booz Hamilton, illegally copied and then released tens of thousands of pages of classified information to journalist Glenn Greenwald, who then released them to the public.

"Snowden’s files revealed surveillance systems within both the United States (via the NSA) and Europe (via the British government’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ)) that, among other activities, collected bulk so-called “metadata” on Americans’ telephone communications records, as well as some of their internet activities. Those data collection programs were carried out without warrants, in violation of the Fourth Amendment.

"After releasing his files, Snowden was charged with espionage, theft of government property, and similar charges, He fled the country, eventually making his way to Moscow, where he was granted asylum and where he remains to this day....

"Snowden will host a 30-minute presentation and Q & A session at the Liberty Forum convention."

Read more: http://www.inquisitr.com/2649633/edward-snowden-to-appear-at-new-hampshire-convention-nsa-whistleblower-to-be-keynote-speaker-via-video-link/
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Blaming Snowden for Paris massacre: "How dumb do they think people are?"

Exploiting Emotions About Paris to Blame Snowden, Distract from Actual Culprits Who Empowered ISIS - The Intercept, Glenn Greenwald:

"Whistleblowers are always accused of helping America’s enemies... So it’s of course unsurprising that ever since Edward Snowden’s whistleblowing enabled newspapers around the world to report on secretly implemented programs of mass surveillance, he has been accused by 'officials' and their various media allies of Helping The Terrorists™....

"I was a bit surprised just by how quickly and blatantly — how shamelessly — some of them jumped to exploit the emotions prompted by the carnage in France to blame Snowden: doing so literally as the bodies still lay on the streets of Paris.... But now ... credible news sites are regurgitating the claim that the Paris Terrorists were enabled by Snowden leaks — based on no evidence or specific proof of any kind, needless to say, but just the unverified, obviously self-serving assertions of government officials....

"The implicit premise of this accusation is that The Terrorists didn’t know to avoid telephones or how to use effective encryption until Snowden came along and told them. Yet we’ve been warned for years and years before Snowden that The Terrorists are so diabolical and sophisticated that they engage in all sorts of complex techniques to evade electronic surveillance....

"Any terrorist capable of tying his own shoe — let alone carrying out a significant attack — has known for decades that speaking on open telephone and internet lines was to be avoided due to U.S. surveillance.... The Snowden revelations weren’t significant because they told The Terrorists their communications were being monitored; everyone — especially The Terrorists — has known that forever. The revelations were significant because they told the world that the NSA and its allies were collecting everyone else’s internet communications and activities.

""As but one of countless examples, here’s a USA Today article from February 2001 — more than 12 years before anyone knew the name 'Edward Snowden' — warning that al Qaeda was able to 'outfox law enforcement' by hiding its communications behind sophisticated internet encryption... The Christian Science Monitor similarly reported on February 1, 2001, that 'the head of the U.S. National Security Agency has publicly complained that al Qaeda’s sophisticated use of the internet and encryption techniques have defied Western eavesdropping attempts'.... All the way back in the mid-1990s, the Clinton administration exploited the fears prompted by Timothy McVeigh’s Oklahoma City attack to demand backdoor access to all internet communications.

"How dumb do they think people are to count on them forgetting all of this, and to believe now that The Terrorists only learned to avoid telephones and use encryption once Snowden came along? Ironically, the Snowden archive itself is full of documents from NSA and its British counterpart, GCHQ, expressing deep concern that they cannot penetrate the communications of Terrorists because of how sophisticated their surveillance-avoidance methods are (obviously, those documents pre-date Snowden’s public disclosures)....

"U.S officials are eager here to demonize far more than just Snowden. They want to demonize encryption generally as well as any companies that offer it. Indeed, as these media accounts show, they’ve been trying for two decades to equate the use of encryption — anything that keeps them out of people’s private online communications — with aiding and abetting The Terrorists. It’s not just Snowden but also their own long-time Surveillance State partners — particular Apple and Google — who are now being depicted as Terrorist Lovers for enabling people to have privacy on the internet through encryption products.

"Then there’s the blame-shifting benefit. For most major terror attacks, the perpetrators were either known to Western security agencies or they had ample reason to watch them. All three perpetrators of the Charlie Hebdo massacre 'were known to French authorities,' as was the thwarted train attacker in July and at least one of the Paris attackers. These agencies receive billions and billions of dollars every year and radical powers, all in the name of surveilling Bad People and stopping attacks.

"So when they fail in their ostensible duty, and people die because of that failure, it’s a natural instinct to blame others: Don’t look to us; it’s Snowden’s fault, or the fault of Apple, or the fault of journalists, or the fault of encryption designers, or anyone’s fault other than ours. If you’re a security agency after a successful Terror attack, you want everyone looking elsewhere, finding all sorts of culprits other than those responsible for stopping such attacks."

Read more: https://theintercept.com/2015/11/15/exploiting-emotions-about-paris-to-blame-snowden-distract-from-actual-culprits-who-empowered-isis/
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USA FREEDOM Act: Meet the new law, same as the old law

USA FREEDOM Act: Small step for post-Snowden reform, giant leap for Congress - Dan Froomkin, The Intercept:

June 2, 2015 - "Exactly two years after journalists Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras traveled to Hong Kong to meet an NSA [National Security Agency] whistleblower named Edward Snowden, Congress has finally brought itself to reform one surveillance program out of the multitude he revealed — a program so blatantly out of line that its end was a foregone conclusion as soon as it was exposed.

"The USA Freedom Act passed the House in an overwhelming, bipartisan vote three weeks ago. After hardliner Republicans lost a prolonged game of legislative chicken, the Senate gave its approval Tuesday afternoon as well, by a 67 to 32 margin. The bill officially ends 14 years of unprecedented bulk collection of domestic phone records by the NSA, replacing it with a program that requires the government to make specific requests to the phone companies....

"At the same time, the Freedom Act explicitly reauthorizes — or, rather, reinstates, since they technically expired at midnight May 31 — other programs involving the collection of business records that the Bush and Obama administrations claimed were authorized by Section 215 of the Patriot Act. In fact, even the bulk collection of phone records, which was abruptly wound down last week in anticipation of a possible expiration, may wind up again, because the Freedom Act allows it to continue for a six-month transition period.

"And while the Freedom Act contains a few other modest reform provisions‚ such as more disclosure and a public advocate for the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, it does absolutely nothing to restrain the vast majority of the intrusive surveillance revealed by Snowden.

"It leaves untouched formerly secret programs the NSA says are authorized under section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, and that while ostensibly targeted at foreigners nonetheless collect vast amounts of American communications. It won’t in any way limit the agency’s mass surveillance of non-American communications."

Read more: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/06/02/one-small-step-toward-post-snowden-surveillance-reform-one-giant-step-congress/

Controversial PATRIOT Act sections expire, for now

A Gap in Surveillance, but Ways Around It - NYTimes.com - Charlie Savage:

May 31, 2015 - "For the first time since the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Americans are again free to place phone calls ... without having logs of those contacts vacuumed up in bulk by the National Security Agency. And ... government agents ... will have to subpoena phone companies for associated calling records and wait for the response to see if anyone in the United States has been in contact with that number. The N.S.A. can no longer simply query its database for the information.

"This unusual situation may last only a few days, until Congress can reach an accommodation over three counterterrorism laws that expired at 12:01 a.m. Monday....

"One of the expired laws permitted wiretap orders of 'lone wolf' terrorism suspects who are not part of a foreign group, a provision that has apparently never been used. A second permitted 'roving' wiretap orders that follow suspects who change phones, a provision that apparently has been used only rarely.

"The third permitted court orders requiring businesses to turn over records that are relevant to a national security investigation, the provision known as Section 215 of the Patriot Act. In addition to the bulk phone records program, the F.B.I. used Section 215 about 160 times last year to obtain particular business records, like suspects’ Internet activity logs.

"All three of the expired laws contained a so-called grandfather clause that permits their authority to continue indefinitely for any investigation that had begun before June 1.... A senior intelligence official recently told The New York Times that the administration was open to invoking the grandfather clause to get the records if a need arose during any lapse.

"In theory, the Obama administration could also invoke the grandfather clause to ask the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to reauthorize the bulk phone records program as well. However, the administration has vowed not to do that.... A federal appeals court recently rejected the theory that Section 215 could be used to authorize the bulk calling logs program...

"But the apparent loss of the program for now does not mean the government has no way to analyze calling records linked to a new suspect. The F.B.I. can still issue subpoenas called national-security letters to phone companies to obtain the records....

"The Bush administration started the program in October 2001, and persuaded the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to start blessing it as legal under Section 215 in 2006. Since it came to light in 2013, via leaks by the former intelligence contractor Edward J. Snowden, two independent panels studied classified files and concluded that it had not been abused, but also that it had provided scant concrete benefits."

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/01/us/a-gap-in-surveillance-but-ways-around-it.html?_r=0
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NSA's bulk collection of phone records is illegal, U.S. appeals court rules

US appeals court rules NSA's bulk collection of phone records is illegal, asks Congress to act - News1130 - Larry Neumeister & Ken Dilanian, Associated Press:

May 7, 2015 - "The unprecedented and unwarranted bulk collection of Americans’ phone records by the government is illegal because it wasn’t authorized by Congress, a federal appeals court said Thursday as it asked legislators to decide how to balance national security and privacy interests.

"The National Security Agency’s collection and storage of U.S. landline calling records — times, dates and numbers but not content of the calls — was the most controversial program among many disclosed in 2013 by former NSA systems administrator Edward Snowden. Some NSA officials opposed the program, and independent evaluations have found it of limited value as a counterterrorism tool. Snowden remains exiled in Russia.

"On Thursday, a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan permitted the NSA to continue temporarily as it exists, but all but pleaded for Congress to better define where boundaries exist....

"'The statutes to which the government points have never been interpreted to authorize anything approaching the breadth of the sweeping surveillance at issue here,' the court said. 'The sheer volume of information sought is staggering.'

"A lower court judge in December tossed out an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit, saying the program was a necessary extension to security measures taken after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. The appeals court said the lower court had erred....

"Opponents of the program say the information can enable the government to learn, for instance, whether someone has called a domestic violence, rape or suicide hotline or whether someone has reported a crime. They say it can also reveal civil, political or religious affiliations, an individual’s social status and whether the person is involved in an intimate relationship.

Read more: http://www.news1130.com/2015/05/07/us-appeals-court-nsas-bulk-collection-of-americans-phone-records-exceeds-what-is-allowed-2/
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Tech groups want NSA data collection curbed

Tech Groups Pressure Congress To End NSA Bulk Data Collection - BuzzFeed News - Hamza Shaban:

April 16, 2015 - "A host of technology trade groups are lobbying Congress to end the government’s controversial metadata collection program that was brought to public prominence by Edward Snowden almost two years ago. In a letter sent to intelligence and judiciary leadership yesterday, groups representing a vast array of tech firms, including Google, IBM, Facebook, and Apple, expressed support for fundamental surveillance reform.

"The groups take specific issue with Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which federal agencies claim gives authority to collect American phone records without a warrant. The six groups that sent the letter, including TechNet, the Information Technology Industry Council, and the Information Industry Association, also appealed for increased government transparency. Their primary concern was that the current state of affairs is leading to a worldwide erosion of trust.

"'U.S. technology providers continue to face concerns from global customers regarding the safety and security of their offerings,' the groups wrote. 'In fact, foreign competitors and foreign governments regularly seize on this opportunity to challenge U.S. technological leadership by raising questions about our nation’s surveillance regime'....

"Key spying provisions of the Patriot Act, Section 215 among them, are set to expire on June 1.... While the provision has been reauthorized in the past, this will be the first time it’s been voted on since Snowden revealed the NSA’s phone-monitoring program of U.S. citizens."

Read more: http://www.buzzfeed.com/hamzashaban/tech-groups-pressure-congress-to-end-nsa-bulk-data-collectio
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Massie co-sponsors bill to repeal PATRIOT Act

House effort would completely dismantle Patriot Act | TheHill - Julian Hatten:

March 24, 2015 - "Reps. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) on Tuesday unveiled their Surveillance State Repeal Act, which would overhaul American spying powers unlike any other effort to reform the National Security Agency....

"The bill would completely repeal the Patriot Act, the sweeping national security law passed in the days after Sept. 11, 2001, as well as the 2008 FISA Amendments Act, another spying law that the NSA has used to justify collecting vast swaths of people's communications through the Internet.

"It would also reform the secretive court that oversees the nation’s spying powers, prevent the government from forcing tech companies to create 'backdoors' into their devices and create additional protections for whistleblowers.

"'Really, what we need are new whistleblower protections so that the next Edward Snowden doesn’t have to go to Russia or Hong Kong or whatever the case may be just for disclosing this,' Massie said.

"The bill is likely to be a nonstarter for leaders in Congress, who have been worried that even much milder reforms to the nation’s spying laws would tragically handicap the nation’s ability to fight terrorists. A similar bill was introduced in 2013 but failed to gain any movement in the House.

"Yet advocates might be hoping that their firm opposition to government spying will seem more attractive in coming weeks, as lawmakers race to beat a June 1 deadline for reauthorizing portions of the Patriot Act."

Read more: http://thehill.com/policy/technology/236769-house-effort-would-completely-dismantle-patriot-act
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Snowden and Ron Paul kick off ISFL conference

Edward Snowden and Ron Paul Kick Off Libertarian Student Conference With a Little Kerfuffle About Russia - Bloomberg Politics - David Wiegel:

February 12, 2015 - "'You're going to make me blush,' said Edward Snowden.

"It was a little after 6 p.m., and the NSA [National Security Agency] whistleblower's face and shoulders were gazing out, billboard-sized, at hundreds of cheering young libertarians. Snowden was beamed in to talk to the largest-ever International Students for Liberty conference, newly relocated to Washington's largest hotel. Snowden, whose highest degree was a GED, was honored as an honorary alumnus of the eight-year old organization. For 15 minutes he restated a case against the surveillance state that had no rebuttal in the room....

"As he honed in on his argument, Snowden tailored it to young libertarians – most of them college students. 'I think many of the people in this room take a more pro-liberty pro-rights perspective than others in the U.S. political agreement,' said Snowden. 'There’s an argument to be made that perfect enforcement of the law is not a good thing. In fact, it’s a very serious threat ... law is a lot like medicine. When you have too much it can be fatal.'

"In a small moment of irony, the Moscow-bound Snowden remembered how he'd talked to colleagues at the NSA, and found them quietly agreeing with his worries, but unready to expose the agency. 'We had more on Americans than we had on Russians, for example,' he said. 'Should we be focusing on ourselves more than we focus on our adversaries?'....

"After Snowden wrapped, a slightly smaller audience remained in chairs to hear former Texas Congressman Ron Paul chat with Fox News commentator Andrew Napolitano and Reason.com editor Nick Gillespie. 

"'You know, my name was connected to Edward Snowden,' said Paul. 'They really wanted to blackball him, to destroy him, so they said: "He donated to the Ron Paul campaign!"'

"Paul called Snowden a truth-teller, and asked why whistleblowers like him were demonized.

 "'They end up being called the evil people, they're evil,' he said. 'Edward Snowden can't even come back to this country. They say he's treasonous, because he's telling the truth. This is why organizations like this are successful.'"

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-02-14/edward-snowden-and-ron-paul-kick-off-libertarian-student-conference-with-a-little-kerfuffle-about-russia
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Snowden: U.S. had info needed to detect 9/11 plot

NBC Censors Snowden’s Critical 9/11 Comments From Prime Time Audience | Global Research - Mikael Thalen, Centre for Research on Globalization:

May 30, 2014 - "Statements made by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden regarding the 9/11 terror attacks were edited out of his NBC Nightly News interview with Brian Williams Wednesday in what appears to be an attempt to bolster legitimacy for the agency’s controversial surveillance programs....

"'You know this is a key question that the 9/11 commission considered, and what they found in the postmortem when they looked at all the classified intelligence from all the different intelligence agencies, they found that we had all of the information we needed as an intelligence community, as a classified sector, as the national defense of the United States, to detect this plot,' Snowden said.

"'The CIA knew who these guys were. The problem was not that we weren’t collecting information, it wasn’t that we didn’t have enough dots, it wasn’t that we didn’t have a haystack, it was that we did not understand the haystack that we had.'

"NBC’s decision to bury Snowden’s comments are unsurprising given the fact that the 9/11 attacks are exhaustively used by the federal government as the prime justification for surveilling millions of innocent Americans.

"Snowden remarked on the government’s prior knowledge of the accused Boston bombers as well, also cut from the prime time interview. ''If we’re missing things like the Boston Marathon bombings where all of these mass-surveillance systems, every domestic dragnet in the world, didn’t reveal guys that the Russian intelligence service told us about by name, is that really the best way to protect our country or are we trying to throw money at a magic solution that’s actually not just costing us our safety, but our rights and our way of life,' Snowden said."

Read more: http://www.globalresearch.ca/nbc-censors-snowdens-critical-911-comments-from-prime-time-audience/5384576
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Guardian and Post win Pulitzer for NSA revelations

Guardian and Washington Post win Pulitzer prize for NSA revelations | Media | The Guardian - Ed Pilkington:

April 14, 2014 - "The Guardian and the Washington Post have been awarded the highest accolade in US journalism, winning the Pulitzer prize for public service for their groundbreaking articles on the National Security Agency’s surveillance activities based on the leaks of Edward Snowden.

"The award, announced in New York on Monday, comes 10 months after the Guardian published the first report based on the leaks from Snowden, revealing the agency’s bulk collection of US citizens’ phone records....

"The Pulitzer committee praised the Guardian for its 'revelation of widespread secret surveillance by the National Security Agency, helping through aggressive reporting to spark a debate about the relationship between the government and the public over issues of security and privacy'.

"Snowden, in a statement, said: 'Today's decision is a vindication for everyone who believes that the public has a role in government. We owe it to the efforts of the brave reporters and their colleagues who kept working in the face of extraordinary intimidation, including the forced destruction of journalistic materials, the inappropriate use of terrorism laws, and so many other means of pressure to get them to stop what the world now recognises was work of vital public importance'."

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/apr/14/guardian-washington-post-pulitzer-nsa-revelations
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Libertarianism "is suddenly a political force to be reckoned with" - The Observer

Rand Paul and Berkeley: libertarian and leftwing hotbed find common cause | World news | The Observer
- Paul Lewis:

"The rise of Paul and his libertarian brand of politics, one of the few intellectual movements with appeal across the spectrum, is turning old political assumptions on their head. Paul, the son of libertarian guru and former congressman Ron Paul, was the star of last week's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) – an annual litmus test for the Republican base. For the second year running, Paul won the straw poll of likely Republican 2016 presidential contenders, trouncing fellow senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz as well as scandal-hit New Jersey governor Chris Christie.

"For decades, libertarianism has hovered on the fringe of the Republican party, associated with Ayn Rand novels, anarchists and tax refuseniks. Now it is suddenly a political force to be reckoned with, disrupting the political establishment by sparking unusual alliances between Republicans and Democrats."

"Nowhere has that dynamic been more evident than in the fallout over Edward Snowden's disclosures about widespread surveillance by the National Security Agency. Reform of the NSA is the issue Paul has claimed as his own, even to the extent of filing a lawsuit, naming himself as co-plaintiff, to challenge the agency's mass surveillance of domestic phone records....

"It used to be centrists who crossed the aisle to reach compromise. Today, it is those on the libertarian right, like Paul...

"The election is more than two years away, and already the Bush and Clinton dynasties have an air of inevitability about them. But there is something zeitgeist-like about the Paul brand: a sense that its moment may have arrived."

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/15/rand-paul-berkeley-libertarian-leftwing-alliance
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NSA impersonated Facebook to hack, infect computers

Leaked Documents show NSA Impersonated Facebook to Infect Millions of Computers | Ben Swann Truth In Media:- Joshua Cook:

March 14, 2014 - "With the intention to infect millions of computers with malware, the National Security Agency impersonated popular social networking site Facebook.

"According to documents leaked by Edward Snowden, the clandestine initiative enabled the NSA to break into targeted computers and to siphon out data from foreign Internet and phone networks.

"Journalists Glenn Greenwald and Ryan Gallagher reported in The Intercept: 'In some cases the NSA has masqueraded as a fake Facebook server, using the social media site as a launching pad to infect a target’s computer and exfiltrate files from a hard drive. In others, it has sent out spam emails laced with the malware, which can be tailored to covertly record audio from a computer’s microphone and take snapshots with its webcam. The hacking systems have also enabled the NSA to launch cyberattacks by corrupting and disrupting file downloads or denying access to websites.'"

"The Facebook exploit was called QUANTUMHAND and was first used on a few hundred hard-to-reach targets, whose communications could not be monitored through traditional wiretaps.

"After that, the NSA planned to spread it to millions of computers around the globe using an automated system known internally as TURBINE. TURBINE gave members of the NSA’s Tailored Access Operations (TAO) unit the ability to tap into, or destroy, computers on a massive scale, documents show."

Read more: http://benswann.com/leaked-documents-show-nsa-impersonated-facebook-to-infect-millions-of-computers/
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