It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
Jenna McLaughlin
May 26 2016, 3:31 p.m.
A provision snuck into the still-secret text of the Senate’s annual intelligence authorization would give the FBI the ability to demand individuals’ email data and possibly web-surfing history from their service providers without a warrant and in complete secrecy.
If passed, the change would expand the reach of the FBI’s already highly controversial national security letters. The FBI is currently allowed to get certain types of information with NSLs — most commonly, information about the name, address, and call data associated with a phone number or details about a bank account.
Since a 2008 Justice Department legal opinion, the FBI has not been allowed to use NSLs to demand “electronic communication transactional records,” such as email subject lines and other metadata, or URLs visited.
The spy bill passed the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, with the provision in it. The lone no vote came from Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who wrote in a statement that one of the bill’s provisions “would allow any FBI field office to demand email records without a court order, a major expansion of federal surveillance powers.”
...
A provision snuck into the still-secret text of the Senate’s annual intelligence authorization would give the FBI the ability to demand individuals’ email data and possibly web-surfing history from their service providers without a warrant and in complete secrecy.
originally posted by: Phage
Not so secret:
www.govtrack.us...
I couldn't find anything like what is claimed. Maybe someone else can?
...
Tuesday, May 24, 2016
Washington, D.C. –Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., today voted against the 2017 Intelligence Authorization Act in the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The bill includes provisions to expand warrantless government surveillance and takes aim at a valuable independent oversight board.
“This bill takes a hatchet to important protections for Americans’ liberty,” Wyden said following the vote. “This bill would mean more government surveillance of Americans, less due process and less independent oversight of U.S. intelligence agencies. Worse, neither the intelligence agencies, nor the bill’s sponsors have shown any evidence that these changes would do anything to make Americans more secure. I plan to work with colleagues in both chambers to reverse these dangerous provisions.”
Wyden opposes multiple provisions to the bill, including;
-Allowing the FBI to obtain Americans’ email records with only a National Security Letter. Currently, the FBI can obtain email records in national security investigations with an order from the FISA Court. The bill would allow any FBI field office to demand email records without a court order, a major expansion of federal surveillance powers. The FBI can currently obtain phone records with a National Security Letter, but not email records.
-Narrowing the jurisdiction of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB), for the second consecutive year. The bill would limit the PCLOB to examining only programs that impact the privacy rights of U.S. citizens. Wyden has supported the PCLOB’s focus on the rights of US persons. Wyden opposed this provision, however, since global telecommunications networks can make it difficult to determine who is an American citizen, and this provision could discourage oversight of programs when the impact on Americans’ rights is unclear. Furthermore, continually restricting a small, independent oversight board sends the message that the board shouldn’t do its job too well.
...
I said I can't find anything like what is claimed.
Are you saying the senator is lying?
Do you have a copy of the "currently amended bill"?
The text of the bill below is as of May 24, 2016 (Passed the House (Engrossed)).
Text of the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017
The text of the bill below is as of May 24, 2016 (Passed the House (Engrossed)).
This is not the latest text of this bill.
...
Text of the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017
The text of the bill below is as of May 25, 2016 (Referred to Senate Committee).
...
So i was right, it was amended again. Reading it at the moment.
The spy bill passed the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, with the provision in it.
...
Sec.307.
Information on activities of Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board
Section 1061(d) of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (42 U.S.C. 2000ee(d)) is further amended by adding at the end the following new paragraph:
(5)
Information
(A)
Activities
In addition to the reports submitted to Congress under subsection (e)(1)(B), the Board shall ensure that each official and congressional committee specified in subparagraph (B) is kept fully and currently informed of the activities of the Board, including any significant anticipated activities.
(B)
Officials and congressional committees specified
The officials and congressional committees specified in this subparagraph are the following:
(i)
The Director of National Intelligence.
(ii)
The head of any element of the intelligence community (as defined in section 3(4) of the National Security Act of 1947 (50 U.S.C. 3003(4)) the activities of which are, or are anticipated to be, the subject of the review or advice of the Board.
(iii)
The Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the House of Representatives and the Select Committee on Intelligence of the Senate.
...
Um. The director is to be notified of what the PCLOB is working on. It's called coordination of efforts. Makes sense to me.
Why would the Director of National Intelligence need to be informed on the "anticipated activities" dealing with privacy and civil liberties among other officials?.
2) To ensure that liberty concerns are appropriately considered in the development and implementation of laws, regulations, and policies related to efforts to protect the Nation against terrorism.
...
Sec.605.
Report on counter-messaging activities
(a)
Report
Not later than 60 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Intelligence and Analysis, consistent with the protection of sources and methods, shall submit to the appropriate congressional committees a report on the counter-messaging activities of the Department of Homeland Security with respect to the Islamic State and other extremist groups.
(b)
Elements
The report under subsection (a) shall include the following:
(1)
A description of whether, and to what extent, the Secretary of Homeland Security, in conducting counter-messaging activities with respect to the Islamic State and other extremist groups, consults or coordinates with the Secretary of State, regarding the counter-messaging activities undertaken by the Department of State with respect to the Islamic State and other extremist groups, including counter-messaging activities conducted by the Global Engagement Center of the Department of State.
(2)
Any criteria employed by the Secretary of Homeland Security for selecting, developing, promulgating, or changing the counter-messaging approach of the Department of Homeland Security, including any counter-messaging narratives, with respect to the Islamic State and other extremist groups.
(c)
Appropriate congressional committees defined
In this section, the term appropriate congressional committees means—
(1)
the congressional intelligence committees; and
(2)
the Committee on Homeland Security of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs of the Senate.
...
by Ryan Lenz
April 26, 2013
Ron Paul, the libertarian former Texas congressman whose hard-line views are widely admired on the radical right but who claims to reject racism, has started a new organization stacked with a hodgepodge of far-right extremists.
...
And just who are the far-right luminaries helping guide Paul’s new endeavor?
One is Lew Rockwell, Paul’s former congressional chief of staff who now heads the Ludwig von Mises Institute, an Auburn, Ala., think tank with deep ties to the neo-Confederate movement. There’s Judge Andrew Napolitano of Fox News and journalist Eric Margolis, both 9/11 “truthers” who suspect that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks may have been orchestrated by the government.
...
originally posted by: Phage
Um. The director is to be notified of what the PCLOB is working on. It's called coordination of efforts. Makes sense to me.
What is the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board?
The Board is an independent, bipartisan agency within the executive branch established by the Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act, Pub. L. 110-53, signed into law in August 2007. Comprised of four part-time members and a full-time chairman, the Board is vested with two fundamental authorities: (1) To review and analyze actions the executive branch takes to protect the Nation from terrorism, ensuring the need for such actions is balanced with the need to protect privacy and civil liberties and (2) To ensure that liberty concerns are appropriately considered in the development and implementation of laws, regulations, and policies related to efforts to protect the Nation against terrorism.
...
Where's the part about the FBI being able to bypass FISA?
They mention in that section of the bill counter-messaging activities against Islamic State and "other extremist groups". But they never specify what other extremist groups they are referring to.
Yes, I know. I posted that very link.
Let's take a look at what exactly the PCLOB does...
Why would he/she among other officials need to be notified of anticipated activities of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board?...
There is actually one thing Senator Wyden was wrong about.