-
22nd December 2017 15:37
Link to Post #1
The Fight Against The Deep State Continues
IT'S THE HOLIDAYS, I GUESS WE HAVE TO BE HAPPY WITH LITTLE VICTORIES.
FISA Reauthorization Delayed, But The Fight Against The Deep State Continues
21 Dec 2017 Posted by Derrick Broze
http://www.thelastamericanvagabond.c...reauthorizatio
n-delayed-fight-deep-state-continues/
On Wednesday the House Rules Committee decided to postpone a rushed vote on
extending the controversial section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act.
Civil liberties advocates won a battle on Wednesday after the House Rules
Committee announced they would postpone a vote to reauthorize section 702 of the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Activists feared the worst after
Politico published a report on Tuesday claiming that a small group of
“surveillance hawks” in the House of Representatives would attempt to force a
bill that would extend NSA surveillance by approving section 702. Congress
members have been attempting to wedge the controversial FISA vote within a
“must-pass” end of the year spending bill. Despite such efforts, the House Rules
Committee abandoned the rushed vote plan.
According the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Section 702 of FISA “allows the
NSA to collect emails, browser history and chat logs of Americans. Section 702
also allows other agencies, like the FBI, to search through that data without a
warrant. Those searches are called ‘backdoor searches.’”
The Trump administration has been supportive of the extension of section 702 of
FISA, which is scheduled to end on December 31st. The Anti Media previously
reported that Attorney General Jeff Sessions was also fighting to save FISA. On
September 7, Sessions and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats sent a
letter to the leaders of the House of Representatives and the Senate urging them
to permanently reauthorize the controversial Section 702 of the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act.
The EFF says the bill the surveillance hawks want to force through fails to
secure the privacy of Americans. “If this bill passes, we will miss the
opportunity to prevent the FBI from searching through NSA databases for American
communications without a warrant,” the EFF writes. “Worse, nothing will be done
to rein in the massive, unconstitutional surveillance of the NSA on Americans or
innocent technology users worldwide.”
Supporters of section 702 and FISA want a vote on an extension without any
debate on the possibility of weakening or limiting the secret program. They face
opposition from civil liberties advocates who want to vote on whether to end,
amend, or extend the program. “There isn’t any chance that a long-term FISA
reauthorization has the support of the overall conference,” Rep. Mark Meadows,
the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, told the Washington Post on Wednesday.
Although the Rules Committee has presently abandoned the vote, that does not
mean the fight against mass surveillance is over. Devin Nunes, Chairman of the
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and author of the bill (H.R.
4478), still has time to introduce the bill for a House vote. There is also the
possibility that another bill could be introduced with provisions to approve
section 702.
The attempt at reauthorization was also opposed by a small group of Senators,
including Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Patrick Leahy, Steve Daines, and Ron Wyden. The
senators gathered at a press conference with activists from the American Civil
Liberties Union and FreedomWorks to voice their opposition to quietly renewing
Section 702.
“I will actively oppose and filibuster any long term extension of warrantless
searches of American citizens,” Paul tweeted on Wednesday.
The FBI and NSA claim they need section 702 in order to prevent another 9/11
like attack. However, in 2013 whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that Section
702 also authorizes two Internet surveillance programs known as PRISM and
Upstream. PRISM gathers messaging data sent via Google, Facebook, Microsoft,
Apple, and other tech companies, while Upstream taps into the so-called backbone
of the Internet to gather data on targets.
While Congress debates several bills regarding the future of Section 702, the
Trump administration continues to support the dangerous, unconstitutional
measure. Instead of any meaningful reform, the Senate version of the bill to
“reform” Section 702 asks the FBI to submit a request to the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court if they end up in possession of an Americans
data. This is the very definition of the wolf guarding the hen house because the
FISA court is notoriously secretive with little oversight. Critics say a lack of
transparency has allowed various federal agencies to run mass surveillance
programs with no accountability.
The courts were originally created under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act of 1978 (FISA) in response to reports produced by the 1975 Church Committee.
The Senate panel was tasked with investigating the foreign and domestic
surveillance operations by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National
Security Agency (NSA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) during the
1970s. The Church Committee also released detailed reports on the governments
Counter Intelligence Programs (COINTELPRO) that were used against activists and
influential voices of opposition during the 1950s and ’60s.
Americans who care about privacy must stand against this obvious violation of
liberty and privacy.
-
The Following 10 Users Say Thank You to ramus For This Post:
BMJ (25th December 2017), Bruno (22nd December 2017), Foxie Loxie (22nd December 2017), Justplain (23rd December 2017), Mark (22nd December 2017), mojo (25th December 2017), Noelle (22nd December 2017), shaberon (22nd December 2017), Star Tsar (25th December 2017), Valerie Villars (23rd December 2017)
-
25th December 2017 14:02
Link to Post #2
Re: The Fight Against The Deep State Continues
HERE IS A SECOND ARTICLE ON, 702 ,AND WHERE IT STANDS AS IT GOES THRU THE SYSTEM.
Intelligence Community Says US Had Better Reauthorize Surveillance… Or Else
24 Dec 2017 Posted by Caitlin Johnstone
http://www.thelastamericanvagabond.c...eillance-else/
The editorial board of the Washington Post, whose sole owner is a CIA contractor, has published a predictably fact-challenged op-ed arguing that congress must reauthorize the Orwellian surveillance program known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is deliberately used to collect communications of US citizens.
WaPo, which to this day continues to violate universal journalistic protocol by refusing to disclose its $600 million conflict of interest when reporting on the US intelligence community, just so happens to once again find itself in full agreement with that same US intelligence community. In a new joint statement by the Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats, CIA Director Mike Pompeo, FBI Director Christopher Wray, NSA Director Michael Rogers, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the US intelligence community warns that should congress fail to reauthorize Section 702, something very, very bad may happen to America.
“There is no substitute for Section 702,” the statement claims. “If Congress fails to reauthorize this authority, the Intelligence Community will lose valuable foreign intelligence information, and the resulting intelligence gaps will make it easier for terrorists, weapons proliferators, malicious cyber actors, and other foreign adversaries to plan attacks against our citizens and allies without detection.”
Congress is planning to push through the “702” Bush-Obama mass spying bill under the cover of Christmas. https://t.co/cnjCoDgwYU
— Julian Assange 🔹 (@JulianAssange) December 19, 2017
Am I the only one who’s creeped out by this kind of language? This is after all the same US intelligence community that was seen in CIA documents casually discussing the option of the “real or simulated” sinking of a boatload of Cuban civilians as though they were discussing whether to buy two percent or whole milk at the supermarket. The same US intelligence community which lied about the Gulf of Tonkin incident to manufacture support for the Vietnam War, resulting in the needless deaths of millions of people including 58,220 Americans. The same US intelligence community which posed as a black civil rights advocate and tried to blackmail Martin Luther King Jr into committing suicide. The same US intelligence community which infiltrated American civil rights movements and dissident groups in order to disrupt and discredit them and frame them for acts of violence. The same US intelligence community which compiled a list of American dissidents to be thrown in concentration camps in the event of a “national emergency.”
“But Caitlin,” you may be saying. “Despite all the countless unfathomably evil things that the US intelligence community is known to have done in the past, there’s no reason to believe they’re still that vicious and depraved. Just because the language of the joint statement makes it abundantly clear that they really, really want their 702 surveillance reauthorization doesn’t mean they’d do something unspeakable to get it!”
Well that’s an interesting theory, convenient hypothetical objection person, but one of the statement’s signatories, Mike Pompeo, recently said he’s actually helping the lying, torturing, drug-running, warmongering, government-toppling CIA to “become a much more vicious agency.” There is every reason to believe that the US intelligence community is at least as psychopathic as it has ever been.
So excuse the hell out of me if I can’t help but read the intelligence community’s joint statement in the voice of a cartoonish mafia thug threatening to arrange a little “accident” if his extortion victim doesn’t pay up. When a depraved, violent organization with a history of using false flags and psyops to advance its agendas says it urgently needs to be given unchecked surveillance powers in order to prevent acts of terror, I get a little nervous.
With the rare glimpses we’ve been given behind the curtain of USIC opacity, we’ve seen that US intelligence agencies don’t actually use their surveillance capabilities for fighting terrorism nearly as much as they pretend to. With WikiLeaks’ massive leak drop earlier this year on the CIA’s sprawling surveillance system, there was no reference in any of the documents to terrorists or extremists. WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange said in a press conference at the time that there was a “conspicuous” absence of any such references, adding the following:
“What is not there is any reference to terrorists, any reference to extremists. And that actually shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone; no one no one who studies the intelligence world that’s a surprise to. Because even if you just look at the budgets that came out in 2013 to the US intelligence black-budget, you don’t see anything like the majority of the budget going towards extremism, even though there are very strong political reasons to try and couch any operation in countering terrorism and countering extremism to get more money.
Despite that political pressure, something like a third of the entire US intelligence budget is described as countering various forms of extremism. And the overwhelming majority is not, but particularly for the CIA, the vast majority of the expenditure and attack types are geopolitical. They’re about, you know similar to the information revealed about the CIA attacking of the French election cycle — understanding who could be pals with the CIA, who could help out the institution in one way or another. So for example, you spy on Airbus. That information you then pass to the US Chamber of Commerce amongst others, which is listed in the material, and US Chamber of Commerce can then adjust what is doing in order to assist Boeing, and these companies are closely connected to each other.”
So going by what we ordinary people can actually put our eyes on, surveillance is not even really about fighting terrorism at all; it’s about having access to as much information as possible which can be used for geopolitical manipulation and leverage for America’s unelected power establishment. And yet these intelligence agencies, which appear to spend far less energy fighting terrorism than they pretend to, are warning of terrorist attacks should the American people’s elected representatives fail to grant them the reauthorization they demand.
In all probability, congress will bow to these demands. Hell, if they’re seeing what I’m seeing I can’t even say I blame them. To put it lightly, these are scary mofos. As Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said earlier this year, “Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.”
Either way, we need to talk about this. We need to talk about the fact that there is a violent, unelected power establishment with zero accountability or transparency which cannot be trusted not to false flag Americans into consenting to an expansion of the Orwellian surveillance state. The only way to pretend that this is not a very real threat is to live in denial and shove this reality as far away from one’s consciousness as possible.
So let’s bring it into consciousness. This is a real thing. This is happening. America is ruled by a band of unelected, unaccountable thugs who will kill and terrorize in order to shore up power and advance agendas. These thugs rule America, and therefore much of the world. Pay attention to these things, everyone. This affects you personally.
Last edited by ramus; 25th December 2017 at 14:06.
-
The Following 6 Users Say Thank You to ramus For This Post:
BMJ (25th December 2017), Charles Harris (25th December 2017), Franny (27th December 2017), mojo (25th December 2017), Star Tsar (25th December 2017), Valerie Villars (25th December 2017)
-
25th December 2017 19:52
Link to Post #3