NSA surveillance under Section 215 has long been considered one of the most flagrant abuses of spying against US citizens. The programs were, officially, shut down in March because of technical difficulties, and the provisions are set to expire in December.
But just because they aren’t even using the program, and have openly conceded it was both of “limited” value and ripe for abuse, outgoing Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats has issued a letter to Congress urging them to not only reauthorize the surveillance, but to do so on a permanent basis.
Coats concedes all the knocks against the program in his letter, but argued that it is conceivable that at some undefined point in the future technology might make it cheaper and simpler to wholesale surveil the public, and argues that they might as well get the authorization now rather than worry about it at that later date.
Which is all but admitting that the plan is to abuse this authority somewhere down the road, and that they are using the program’s current non-use as a way to argue that it isn’t a current threat. By the time it becomes a threat again, the argument will likely be tat it’s an “old” law.
The repeated abuse of the program has long been treated as very much beside the point, and even Coats’s argument was that the program costs too much and doesn’t work very well.
Who believes they ever really stopped?
Just like the stopped Cointelpro.
Trump just fired Coats. So how is this the administration pushing this? This headline is nonsense.
No it isn’t. Trump problems with Coates are unrelated to the NSA. Trump once said we should execute Edward Snowden and pardons war criminals. Stop defending him.
“I tend to err on the side of security, I must tell you,” Trump told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt when asked about the metadata program.
“When you have the world looking at us and would like to destroy us as quickly as possible, I err on the side of security,” Trump added.
This is one dumb country.
The USA is a prime example of how a nation with even the best of intentions to insure the freedom and privacy of the individual, and limited and divided Governing, can, over time, be usurped, a little at a time, into a Tyranny and a Despotic regime. To the Traitor Dan Coats, all I have to say is,, Suck this!!
It was “a little at a time” until 9/11 and then it was large chunks at a time.
Let me guess, more evidence that Trump is secretly working on draining the swamp and restoring freedom for the sake of all Americans?
Seems to me Trump is here just buying the whole of Swampland to serve as extension to the existing collections.
He is no good. I almost wonder is the whole Russiagate nonsense is a distraction to let Israel run amok and take the focus off the failed wars. Meaning he might even be in on the joke.
You got that right “Trump is no good” , not only was Russiagate a distraction he could have released the FISA request last September but that may have ended it. Then there are his Twitter fights when there is an important story that needs to be buried and last but not least is the rally for the people which happen when he is about to betray another promise. As we speak Ivanka is going around to congress to see the best way to take away more gun rights.
We’re not even pretending to pay attention to the Fourth Ammendment any more?
LOL. Where have you been the last 48 years?
You mean there are more than the first and second?
The whole constitution has been eviscerated right before our eyes, slowly and methodically but extremely effectively, to the point of not realizing it, like poor lobsters in a pot, the boiling point has been reached but we are so medicated we don’t even know it.
The French invented a great device to address just this kind of widespread abuse of power by government. Just saying.
It was the best of times,
it was the worst of timesSince 9/11 and the passage of the USA Patriot Act and National Defense Authorization Act, the rule of law no longer protects the rights of citizens in the USA. Martial law by the Deep State rather than the U.S. Constitution is the map by which we navigate life. These laws will continue to be enforced no matter what Congress or the POTUS have to say about it. The sooner we realize that, the better.
Not a rhetorical question, but seriously, why would they need to publicly ask Congress to reauthorize the NSA snooping? Trump has shown he holds Congress in pretty low regard and has no problem declaring fake emergencies to redirect public funding and sell arms to a genocidal intolerant monarchy because they do personal business with him, so why go through Congress now, if they can fund it surreptitiously?
All for show, Mork. The Deep State has to go through the motions that we are still a constitutional republic.
As the empire starts it necessary disintegration the lies get bigger and BIGGER, even while we are unravelling the ones initiated by the CIA decades ago. Back to sleep everyone, your government loves you and THEY will dispense your truths.