What are some specific concrete changes you would like made to our Intel agencies?

[Recursion]

Now is the time to think about that. Whom do you them to be able to surveil, under what controls? How much do you want them to be able to keep secret?

Poking holes in existing systems is fun and important. But at the end of the day we do need to decide what we actually want our spooks to do.

[ProSense]

1. Not now.

People are busy breaking up with Obama, mocking stuff and declaring Snowden a hero/patriot.

Reform is not the curren goal.

[dkf]

4. That's just silly.

[ProSense]

11. No, it isn't

Look how little attention is being paid to these threads:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023439446

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023436039

[dkf]

14. That is so piddling compared to what he needs to do to comply with the constitution.

[ProSense]

17. Really? What are you proposing?

I don't think you know.

[dkf]

21. It's so easy. No mass data collection period.

[ProSense]

22. That's not a proposal. Meta data has been collected for decades.

Even before the implementation of the FISA court.

[daleanime]

27. And this makes it right?

I don't agree.

[ProSense]

29. Makes what "right," it not being a proposal?

I mean, let's deal with reality.

[daleanime]

39. "What is 'dodging the point'."

"I'll take 'Things Americans will not stand for' for 200, Alex."


I don't care if this has been going on since God was eavesdropping on Adam and Eve, it is wrong for a government to engage in this kind of behavior with out proper limitations. And no its not legal just because the government decides it is.

[ProSense]

24. Also, really?

Edward Snowden is a patriot
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023443201

[MannyGoldstein]

2. I would like them to adhere to the Constitution

And be run by competents.

Other than that, I don't know enough about that business to weigh in.

[Recursion]

9. What does the Constitution have to say about non law enforcement spying?

For that matter it's not clear to me that the original FISA is constitutional

[sabrina 1]

42. Read the 4th Amendment, it's very clear. Also, get rid of the privatization of Security.

The motive now is money, the conflict of interest people like Clapper, former CEO of Booz Allen, is simply glaring.

There should be no profits from anything that has to do with the people's rights. We elect Representatives to do the job of 'defending and protecting the US Constitution'. No one elected these hundreds of Private Security Corporations. They take no oath of office, their goal is the bottom line.

You then have people like Clapper, who will no doubt profit once again when he walks back through the swinging door between Corporations and Government. He is Director of Intelligence. He advises Congress on what is needed for our security. Naturally since we now pay firms like his to do the work, when he advises them on something and they accept it, it is going to have to be funded. That funding has enriched these Corporations by billions of dollars since Bush first began to push them after 9/11.

So, my number one solution is for Congress to take back the Responsibility they swore to undertake from Private Security Corps.

My next solution is that every member of Congress be aware of everything any 'select committee' decides regarding the business of their constituents. No selecting just eight or ten members who are privy to the info and are not permitted to share it with OUR representatives.

Once that is accomplished, there are probably a myriad of things that could be done to protect our rights while at the same time taking care of the country's security.

Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that Congress should pass its responsibility, made clear in the oath they take, on to Private Corporations.

[dkf]

3. NSA needs to go back to its mandate...ONLY FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE.

No domestic spying apparatus. Only specific named warrants based on probable cause.

Back to the old rules, that's all we need.

[Recursion]

5. Which old rules? Before 1978 the NSA had a blank check

The 4th amendment applies to law enforcement, which isn't the NSA's job.

[dkf]

8. Well back to its mandate then.

Frankly they've hidden what the NSA was up to for long we probably can't judge where they were. They need to be set with impenetrable boundaries.

[ProSense]

15. What does that mean? n/t

[dkf]

19. Spy on NSA agents and fire them if they overstep.

[leveymg]

20. Before FISA, there was Title III, the federal wiretap statute, that made it illegal to tap US

persons without a real probable cause warrant signed by a real Federal Judge. Most of what followed was just loopholes created to legalize warrantless spying inside the US. We should seriously consider doing away with FISA altogether.

[Fumesucker]

6. Since it's going to prove impossible to keep them out of domestic law enforcement

Then they should be charged specifically to go after white collar crime, crime that costs Americans far more than cancer grannies smoking reefers ever could.

Sic them on the banksters. I'd pay good money to watch Spooks vs Banksters on reality TV.

[Recursion]

7. I like it (nt)

[dkf]

12. OMG is that why you are so unoffended? You WANT them spying on us?

That is so wrong. How disappointing.

[dkf]

10. No it's not impossible to keep them out of domestic law enforcement.

That's so fatalistic. How sad.

[Fumesucker]

13. J Edgar Hoover terrorized Washington for decades with information

What we have now makes old J Edgar look like a bumbling amateur.

Do you *really* think there's not another J Edgar out there right now that we just don't know about?

[dkf]

16. Well we better identify this person and shut them down.

And nip it all in the bud. We really don't learn do we?

[Fumesucker]

23. I think it's probably true that power is most attractive to those most easily corrupted

Yeah, there's some few who would like to have power to do good with it just for the sake of doing good but those with the burning drive for power mostly are in it for their own aggrandizement in one form or another.

[dkf]

26. Forget it. There is no one with enough integrity that I would trust them. No one.

[Fumesucker]

31. I don't trust them either but it's inevitable at this juncture

The next time we get a Republican as POTUS it's going to be interesting to watch how DU reacts.

By then it will be too late.

[dkf]

36. That's why it kills me that what we should be fighting we are defending, or some are.

[Th1onein]

25. Repeal the Patriot Act.

[Californeeway]

28. 7 points

1) Fisa court judges should be appointed by the President and approved by the Senate in public hearings, not by the Chief Justice.

2) Fisa court judges should have their terms limited to 4-6 years.

3) Obama's suggestion that Fisa court hearings should include input from civil liberties advocates.

4) All surveillance programs should be subject to re-approval by Congress every 4-6 years.

5) No element of the surveillance programs should be out-sourced to third parties.

6) Fisa courts should be limited in the size and scope of warrants they are allowed to issue.

7) Criminal penalties for any abuse of the programs should be increased. For example, life sentences for illegally searching some one's info without a warrant.

I am sure there is more. But these ideas are the first to occur to me.

[OnyxCollie]

35. Nice list. nt

[Californeeway]

38. In our heart of hearts

we all want rid of the Patriot Act.

Getting rid of it in one swoop seems a stretch at best.

Killing it by slowly picking it apart here and there over time may be the answer.

[moondust]

30. Deprivatize.

No more profiteers exaggerating threats so they can bleed the taxpayer, or mercenaries with divided loyalties: country vs. money.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

32. THe FISA court needs to be revised

Congress is responsible for changing it. Congress needs to do its job and make agencies accountable and not operate autonomously.

[Warren DeMontague]

33. The NSA & DEA are disregarding the Constitution to spy on & prosecute domestic drug users

and then they're creating "parallel narratives" to phony up the court cases--- otherwise colloquially known as 'perjury'--- denying the accused the full rights of defense as accorded by law.


Can we at least agree that maybe that shit needs to stop, that maybe the pressing national security threat of millions of otherwise law-abiding pot smokers is not enough, in and of itself, to crap on the Constitution?

[Tom Ripley]

34. As a great man said,"I want to splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the wind"

[jmowreader]

37. Get rid of the fucking contractors

If they can't do a mission using people who've been through that agency's government-conducted background checks and through that agency's training, then the mission probably doesn't need to be done.

[KarKar]

40. Does not matter

CIA has always been in Wall Street's pocket.

[KarKar]

41. Do you not know American history?

"But at the end of the day we do need to decide what we actually want our spooks to do."

The public doesn't need to decide if the US government should secretly disrupt democratically elected foreign governments through subterfuge, assassinations and coups? I've seen supporters of the police state before and then I have seen this and THIS is a disturbing opinion about the affairs of our government.

[KittyWampus]

43. Blumenthal Unveils Plan To Change FISA Courts

1. FISA judges chosen from federal circuits
2. Civil Rights advocate to argue for citizens during warrant requests


http://www.blumenthal.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/blumenthal-unveils-major-legislation-to-reform-fisa-courts

[backscatter712]

44. Oversight from real courts. Not FISA.

None of this special-uber-double-secret FISA court bullshit.

If a person can work hard, pass a bar exam, build enough of a career in the Federal Justice system, move up the ladder to become a judge, surely he can be trusted with a security clearance. Don't tell me that the thugs hired by Booz Allen can be trusted with a clearance, but federal judges can't. Surely, district attorneys and even defense attorneys can also get clearances. (In fact, yes, defense attorneys SHOULD be able to get security clearances, so they can peek at the secret stuff and be able to argue a coherent case.)

Which means that cases about secret programs need to go to the regular District, Circuit and Supreme Court hierarchy instead of being exempted from justice. If something's genuinely sensitive information, the judge can issue a gag order, or have discussions about the matter in his chambers. Yes, Virginia. Our court system knows how to keep secrets.

I would also give judges the power to decide whether something's to be kept secret - in other words, if the secrecy laws are used to mark evidence of criminal activity as classified in order to keep evidence out of trial, tough luck - the judge can unclassify stuff if it's not genuinely protecting our security interests. If a judge fucks up, involved parties can always appeal, place a hold on the declassification order, while it gets argued in the appeals process.

Checks and balances. That's why the Founding Fathers created three co-equal branches of government. I say it's time to get the judicial branch overseeing the executive branch's secret stuff.

[PETRUS]

45. For starters...

...they could reassign all their paid internet forum shills/propagandists/disinformation-specialists to toilet scrubbing duty.