Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D – VT) is introducing a new bill aimed at reforming certain portions of the Patriot Act and the most recent FISA Amendments Act, sunsetting the massive digital surveillance authorization in the summer of 2015, meaning there could be an actual debate on the matter then.
Leahy’s bill would also alter the Patriot Act in a significant way by requiring the government to actual prove that any data scooped up under its provisions is actually relevant to a real investigation, and linked to a foreign target.
The most recent FISA act set surveillance authorization until the end of 2017, and most of the Senate leadership seems reluctant to reconsider that, but Leahy’s role as a committee chairman will ensure that the measure gets at least some consideration.
Leahy argues that June 2015 makes the most sense because there are other surveillance provisions set to expire then too, and Congress can debate them all in the context of one another at the same time. Of course, most of Congress seems to support the idea of a huge surveillance state, so stopping them even in 2015 is an uphill battle.
A debate about it…, the program is illegal.., is unconstitutional, what debate, debate on legalizing the illegal acts by us government and its national security agency/s…, and then in 2015.., why not now.., the highest level of hitler paranoia was when he started thinking that everyone in Germany needed to be under surveillance…, this is one of those moment.
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
The only government that can govern the people is the people governing the people.., these people in white house or senate have no respect for human beings nor human life's so for them the question of people is secondary if not third.
Better to purge Congress in 2014.
Please stop voting for these people. There are always other names on the ballots. Someone can always run a write-in campaign. Just please stop voting for these interchangeable Dems and Repubs who all want rule by corporations and a police state that spies on anyone who investigates, reports or even objects. Please vote for someone else next time.
And start NOW to organize the grassroots campaigns we need to defeat these corrupt people.
Seems risky congress needs to act decisively or US IT business will suffer. No one will be willing to send information / data to the United States. Cloud business may take a huge hit in the US etc etc. it was our privacy laws that made these businesses viable. http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/0…
Guarantee: It will not pass as Leahy writes it – and the final version, post-amendments will be so toothless as to prove worthless in the end. The surveillance state minions will never abridge their powers. They have no intention of debating these policies…wouldn't be surprised if something happens before then to allow them to dispense with any possible changes…you know, a tragic event, completely unexpected, you know.
Nah that would actually sense. No way in hell they'll pass it.
Yeah, we'll turn if off, someday, far off in the future, unless we change our minds before then.
Be careful of Leahy, he's the guy who recently started with a bill that was supposed to protect against email searches, but who then changed it quietly to a bill that would allow unlimted email searches without a warrant by many federal agencies, and who only then changed it back again when there was an uproar about his dirty trick of changing a bill that was supposed to do one thing into a bill that did just the opposite.