One of the NSA’s most important surveillance authorizations is set to expire on December 31st, and all year, reformers have been looking at the reauthorization as a way to pare back the agency’s powers. But after months of negotiating terms, Congress is now preparing a bill with none of the proposed limits, and a number of troubling new measures that say could greatly expand the agency’s power.
Submitted by Rep. Nunes on Tuesday afternoon, the FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act of 2017 is based on a previous bill submitted by Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), generally seen as the most NSA-friendly of the proposals. The current bill is narrower than Burr’s proposal in some areas, but makes a significant expansion to “about” collection, which allows the NSA to search communications that mention a given target but was not sent or received by the target. In practical terms, that could mean searching a message simply because it contains an email address, phone number, or other string of characters associated with a target.
[...] The bill would also codify the backdoor search loophole, which allows for intelligence agencies to search communications to and from US citizens without obtaining a warrant, as long as those communications were intercepted overseas. While that loophole is most associated with the NSA, it also includes domestic agencies like the FBI, which the current bill says “has the discretion to seek a warrant” if the bureau deems it necessary.
A vote is expected this week.
Congress is sneaking through a major expansion of NSA surveillance powers
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 21 2017, @03:25PM (2 children)
It wasn't a bloody mess. The subsequent attack on US-manned Fort Sumter was the bloody mess. South Carolina had seceded from the US without consequence in December, 1860 and attacked Fort Sumter in April, 1861.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday December 21 2017, @04:43PM (1 child)
That was back in the days when there wasn't really a standing army. Even by World War I it still took countries like 2-3 weeks to mobilize in event of surprise invasion.
And you might recall the Union had a lot of trouble with finding competent commanders for like the first half of the war, too.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 22 2017, @01:55AM