Real World

It's kinda sad how little news this gets. They can't even pass a window dressing like amendmet that provides the most limited amount of oversight. Nothing from our national press either. BTW, this got 70+ votes in the senate, and is an extension of Bush era policy, so zip the partisanism. When it comes to citizen liberty, privacy, and rights neither party cares.



Activists voice dismay as Senate renews government surveillance measure


Tom McCarthy

guardian.co.uk, Friday 28 December 2012 13.35 EST

An amendment by Ron Wyden (above) would have required the government to estimate the number of US citizens it had spied on. Photo: Joshua Roberts/Reuters


Civil rights campaigners voiced dismay on Friday over the US Senate's re-authorization of the government's warrantless surveillance program, and the defeat of two amendments that would have provided for basic oversight of the eavesdropping.

The Senate voted 73-23 to extend the law, called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments Act, for five years. The House of Representatives has already passed the measure, which President Obama has said he will sign.


Activists voice dismay as Senate renews government surveillance measure | World news | guardian.co.uk


The amended FISA Act was passed in 2008 to retroactively cover Bush-era domestic surveillance. The law permits the National Security Agency to track communication between foreign targets and people inside the United States without obtaining a warrant. Critics say it violates fourth amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. NSA whistleblower Bill Binney has estimated that the agency, under protection of the law, has "assembled" 20 trillion transactions between US citizens.

__________________

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.


"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him."
Leo Tolstoy, 1897

Real World

__________________

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.


"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him."
Leo Tolstoy, 1897

PatriotsReign

Well, I hope I'm being spied upon this very moment so those doing the spying can read that I'm flipping them a giant middle finger and telling them "Fugg You!"

Fugg em all because I'm their boss, they're not mine. And it will be that way til the day I die. There is nothing, absolutely nothing "they" can do about it.