Thursday, November 28, 2013

NSA continues to violate our constitutional rights - with the blessing of Congress

Wyden, Udall, Heinrich blast intelligence committee NSA 'reform' bill (Click on this headline to read more)

Sens. Wyden and Mark Udall introduce the Intelligence Oversight and Surveillance Reform Act

Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR), Mark Udall (D-CO) and Martin Heinrich (D-NM) are not happy with the NSA "reform" bill that passed the Senate Intelligence Committee earlier this month. They detail their principle objection in this op-ed in The New York Times.
The usefulness of the bulk collection program has been greatly exaggerated. We have yet to see any proof that it provides real, unique value in protecting national security. In spite of our repeated requests, the N.S.A. has not provided evidence of any instance when the agency used this program to review phone records that could not have been obtained using a regular court order or emergency authorization.
Despite this, the surveillance reform bill recently ratified by the Senate Intelligence Committee would explicitly permit the government to engage in dragnet collection as long as there were rules about when officials could look at these phone records. It would also give intelligence agencies wide latitude to conduct warrantless searches for Americans’ phone calls and emails. [...]

Congress has a crucial opportunity to reassert constitutionally guaranteed liberties by reforming the N.S.A.’s overbroad collection of Americans’ personal data. But the Intelligence Committee bill squanders this chance. It would enable some of the most constitutionally questionable surveillance activities now exposed to the public eye. The Senate should be reining in these programs, not giving them a stamp of approval.

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