Patriot Act author is "shocked" spying is going on

Bullshit Alert

• The author of the Patriot Act claims he is "shocked" that unconstitutional spying has been going on for years and says his new bill will fix it.
• The 118-page bill would limit collection of business records to foreigners or those suspected of working with foreign agents. . . . hmmm, isn't that what they supposed to be doing in the first place?
• Bottom line, the only reason these bastards are now for "reform" is because Edward Snowden exposed the entire corrupt spy system to the world.

 

 

Put on your hip boots.  The Congressional bullshit is starting to flow deep and heavy.

 

I am sick of these Congressmen and Senators who claim they knew nothing about the unconstitutional spying going on.  Hell, I have been reading stories about it for years.  One can only conclude that these guys are fucking idiots or liars  -  pick one.

The Republican author of the Patriot Act in the House and the senior Democrat in the Senate teamed together Tuesday to write a bill that they claimed would stop the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of phone records and require a court order if the government wants to search through Americans’ communications.

BS.  Yeah, a court order.  But will it be a phony rubber stamp court order? (See story below.)

“Somewhere along the way, the balance between security and privacy was lost. It’s now time for the judiciary committees to again come together in a bipartisan fashion to ensure the law is properly interpreted, past abuses are not repeated and American liberties are protected,” said Rep. James Sensenbrenner with a straight face.

The Wisconsin Republican was the sponsor of the Patriot Act in 2001, and has written the new bill along with Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee reports the Washington Times.

“Modest transparency and oversight provisions are not enough. We need real reform,”  Leahy said.

The new bill earned words of encouragement from House Judiciary Committee Chairman Robert Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican who called it an important part of the debate but signaled that any final legislation will look different.

Yeah, it will look real different . . . as in any change will be phony window dressing with tons of loopholes for Big Brother to use.

“With each revelation of the scope of NSA’s intelligence gathering programs, it’s increasingly clear that we need to take legislative action with regard to these programs to ensure that they adequately protect Americans’ civil liberties and operate in a prudent manner,”  Goodlatte said.

Known as the Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ending Eavesdropping, Dragnet-collection, and Online Monitoring Act, or USA FREEDOM Act, the bill also takes steps to make sure the administration doesn’t just shift the legal justification for bulk records collection to another part of the law.

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Secret court never says no to NSA spying
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Several civil liberties groups have long flayed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act because it allows warrantless wiretapping and revolves around a secret court that renders decisions not disclosed to the general public.

Consider this information from a U.S. Attorney General's Office report presented to Congress: Of the 1,789 applications seeking electronic surveillance submitted to the court in 2012 by the federal government, all but one was granted — 1,788. The one not granted was withdrawn by the NSA.

Andrew McCullough, a Salt Lake attorney who specializes in civil liberties law, said he is not surprised at the court's record of "blanket" decisions.

"I was at a seminar and able to talk to a judge who was on the FISA court. He told me he was unaware of orders that were denied," he said. "He told me, 'We don't deny them. That bothers you doesn't it, Andy?' It does."

McCullough, too, said he can't fathom the amount of information the Verizon cellphone records would represent — and wondered aloud if they would join the other "secret" records to be stored at the NSA's Utah Data Center when it opens this fall.
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See more at:  Deseret News.

Big Brother Spying
Edward Snowden touched a nerve with liberty loving people all over the world.  But to this day you see Statist whores in both the GOP and Democrat parties defending unconstitutional spying, secret courts hearing secret evidence, that issue secret search warrants for the secret police to watch and record your every move, email, phone call, text, photo or private message.