When Will the NSA Stop Spying on Innocent Americans?

[damnedifIknow]

The law cited as the justification for the phone dragnet will expire on June 1 unless Congress acts to extend it. "




Unless Congress acts, Americans will soon benefit from one of the Patriot Act's most important safeguards against abuse: Language in Section 215 of the law is scheduled to expire in June, depriving the FBI and NSA of a provision they've used to justify monitoring the phone calls of tens of millions of innocents (though a primary author of the law insists that it grants no such authority). If you've used a landline to call an abortion clinic, a gun store, a suicide hotline, a therapist, an oncologist, a phone sex operator, an investigative journalist, or a union organizer, odds are the government has logged a record of the call. If your Congressional representative has a spouse or child who has made an embarrassing phone call, the executive branch may well possess the ability to document it, though government apologists insist that they'd never do so and are strangely confident that future governments composed of unknown people won't either."

*But after an independent review of the program, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, a bipartisan agency within the executive branch, concluded that "the operation of the NSA’s bulk telephone records program bears almost no resemblance" to the statutory language that supposedly justifies it. In addition to declaring the program illegal and Constitutionally suspect, their report noted that "the Section 215 program has shown minimal value in safeguarding the nation from terrorism. Based on the information provided to the Board, including classified briefings and documentation, we have not identified a single instance involving a threat to the United States in which the program made a concrete difference in the outcome of a counterterrorism investigation."

Put simply, the phone dragnet risks the possibility of significant abuses yet offers scant benefits. It's the sort of excess in the War on Terror that ought to be easy to end."

n fact, even some within the spy community urged that course, according to AP. "The National Security Agency considered abandoning its secret program to collect and store American calling records in the months before leaker Edward Snowden revealed the practice, current and former intelligence officials say, because some officials believed the costs outweighed the meager counterterrorism benefits," the news organization reported. "

www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/when-will-the-nsa-stop-spying-on-the-communications-of-innocent-americans/389375/

[marym625]

1. Never. it will only get worse

[sabrina 1]

2. It was a crime, as it should, when the Cheney/Bush gang began doing it secretly. Then Dems helped

de-criminalize it. It is one of the most dangerous threats to this democracy:

If you've used a landline to call an abortion clinic, a gun store, a suicide hotline, a therapist, an oncologist, a phone sex operator, an investigative journalist, or a union organizer, odds are the government has logged a record of the call. If your Congressional representative has a spouse or child who has made an embarrassing phone call, the executive branch may well possess the ability to document it, though government apologists insist that they'd never do so and are strangely confident that future governments composed of unknown people won't either."

As explained in the excellent documentary on Snowden, they may not be listening to every call, but they ARE 'collecting and storing' every single communication the people engage in.

What can be done with that should not need to be explained, especially to our 'law makers'.

Someone dares to exercise their 1st Amendment rights, all they have to do is check their 'file' and can then use anything, a curious call to a porn number when someone was a teenager, eg, to try to discredit them.

Not to mention how it can be used against elected Reps.

What kind of minds would engage in this kind of criminal activity?

I certainly hope that not only does it end, but all records they have already are destroyed.

I wonder if the people could file a huge Class Action suit against the Government for invasion of their 4th and 5th Amendment rights?

Personally I was hoping to see those who initiated and participated in this creepy, fascist behavior would end up in jail.

What a shock to see our own government help get them off the hook.

Thanks to all the Whistle Blowers from Snowden all the way back to Drake and Tice et al who tried to warn us.

Yet those who exposed the crimes end up being persecuted.

Something is very wrong in this country.

[TheNutcracker]

3. When we make sure the Patriot Act is not extended after it sunsets, like NOW in 2015!

[GummyBearz]

5. What a joke

Patriot act expiration dates dont matter when the NSA can operate at will under the guise of "sorry, thats classified" excuses. The patriot can expire, but their spying on everyone never will.

[Vattel]

4. Maybe it will happen if the next president respects the law.

The Section 215 justification for the program is ridiculous but why should the powerful care? They are above the law.

Section 215 requires that "the records concerned are sought for an authorized investigation conducted in accordance with subsection (a)(2) to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities." The idea that all the phone metadata collected by the NSA satisfies this requirement is absurd on its face. One might as well say that all information satisfies the requirement.

[Rex]

6. When we finally get rid of the unconstitutional Patriot Act.

Of course, I won't expect Congress to do the right thing. They haven't since 2001.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. When "...the home of the brave" stop being askeert of bogeymen.

[wildbilln864]

8. never! n/t