Ugh, it makes me sick to see these schemes as they are constructed and yet feel helpless to stop them from organizing. Remember which media outlets push the PR campaigns of the U.S. Govt. (1) CNN drives Dept of State; (2) Washington Post drives CIA; and (3) NYT/Politico advance the interests of the domestic intelligence apparatus.
With that in mind, here comes the Intelligence Community laying the groundwork for reauthorization of the FISA-702 surveillance system on American citizens.
They are so damned transparent in their agenda, the stenographers have even dropped “FISA,” the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, as the term within the construct. Now they are just calling it “702 reauthorization.”
(VIA POLITICO) – The intelligence community has a critical congressional ally in its bid to reauthorize a sweeping warrantless surveillance program. However, even he thinks its officials aren’t making a convincing enough case.
“One of the things the community’s got to do a better job of is explaining, in practical non-classified terms, how valuable this tool is,” Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner (D-Va.) said in a recent brief interview. “And they’ve not done that as well as they should.”
Warner sits at the heart of what will be a months-long, knockout debate about whether to reauthorize the warrantless surveillance program, known as Section 702, by the end-of-year deadline. The program is designed to gather the electronic communications of foreigners abroad, but has the potential to sweep up those of Americans.
The Virginian, who argues continuing the program in some form is essential but is open to changes, will have his work cut out for him. Influential and newly emboldened House Republicans have made it clear they won’t let Section 702 stay alive without significant changes — if they support reauthorization at all — amid an all-time-low relationship with the Justice Department and the FBI.
And the intelligence community can also count Section 702 critics among House Democrats and senators in both parties, many of whom believe this is their best chance to force more limits on the program. (read more)
As most people are now aware, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) sits at the epicenter of how the surveillance state is weaponized against American citizens. It is the SSCI who helped create the surveillance network, and it is the SSCI who now seek to defend the unconstitutional system they have created.
Pretenses are being dropped, and you will note how in this reauthorization schedule they are dropping “foreign” communication with American citizens, as a limitation on the authority they have already usurped. Yes, it is factually true the ‘foreign’ aspect was always a ruse, a false premise, that granted the Dept of Justice, National Security Division (DOJ-NSD), and FBI legal authority to conduct intrusive Title-1 surveillance on any American citizen.
Well beyond the “cell phone metadata,” in the era of your portable transponder having internet and social media connection, just about everyone has metadata connected to a foreign person or entity. Use the Twitter app on your phone, you are connected to foreign entities. Use Instagram or Facebook, WhatsApp or Telegram, same/same/same/same.
TicTok? Fughetaboudit. The auspices of only looking at U.S. persons engaged in foreign contacts is totally moot.
The “702 authorities,” which is an innocuous term for a “U.S. Person“, permit DHS, DOJ, FBI and any national security apparatchik to open up your data and check you out. This is the reality of the modern era. This total surveillance reauthorization is what the SSCI wants to permit. It must be stopped completely. It cannot be “reformed.”
4th Amendment – “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.”
Either you are secure from federal search of your “private papers,” as outlined in the United States Constitution, or you are not.
There is no aspect of this “702” nonsense, where a secret court grants a secret authorization, to engage in secret surveillance, by some secret entity of government – which might be a contractor, just to “see if” you might be doing something suspicious, or against the interests of the federal government. The premise behind “702” reauthorization is unconstitutional.
How strongly do I feel about this?
I will openly campaign against any politician or candidate who does not fully endorse the elimination of FISA 702 Authorization in sum and total. I don’t care who the candidate is, or what his/her political affiliation might be.
I am sick and tired of having to construct communication systems, to engage in ordinary conversation and/or communication, knowing the biggest challenge is to construct the system to defend ordinary people against unconstitutional searches and seizures. Ironically, this includes the very commenting system you are using to share any opinion of this outline. This domestic surveillance system just needs to be stopped.
Steps off soapbox.
Love to all, but sheesh this is frustrating….
