NSA Surveillance Backlash Yields Another Summer Of Crazy Eileen?

Update: Senator Coons cosponsors two bills to protect Americans’ privacy

Bills would limit access to Americans’ private information under FISA; add transparency and accountability measures to FISA courts

WILMINGTON, Del. – U.S. Senator Chris Coons, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has cosponsored two bills to protect Americans’ privacy by reining-in the government’s use of the wide-reaching Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

 

“Delawareans deserve a full and informed debate about our nation’s intelligence-gathering procedures and their intrusion on our privacy rights,” Senator Coons said. “These procedures certainly have a role to play in keeping our nation safe, but Congress has failed to be an effective check of whether they respect our most cherished privacy protections. In December, I voted against the reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act explicitly because of its lack of safeguards for Americans’ privacy. Instead of making modest and reasonable changes to the law to increase public accountability, Congress abdicated its responsibility and reauthorized the law without changes. These two bills represent a second chance to put in place a better system for oversight and the prevention of abuse of the government’s surveillance authorities.”

 

The FISA Accountability and Privacy Protection Act of 2013 would require the government to be more transparent in how it publicly reports on its surveillance activities, demanding an unclassified report on their impact on Americans’ privacy. Introduced by Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the bill would implement measures adopted by the Committee last fall during its consideration of the reauthorization of the FISA Amendments Act. Rather than taking up the Committee-passed bill, the full Senate instead reauthorized the FISA Amendments Act without these important modifications.

 

Specifically, the bill would:

 

• Shorten the sunset for the FISA Amendments Act from December 2017 to June 2015, aligning with expiring USA PATRIOT Act provisions, and enabling Congress to address these FISA provisions all at once, instead of in a piecemeal fashion.
• Expand public reporting on the use of National Security Letters and authorities under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, including an unclassified report on the impact of these authorities on the privacy of United States citizens.

 

The FISA Court Reform Act of 2013 would ensure that FISA courts asked by the government to expand surveillance authority under the national security laws have the benefit of both sides of the argument. Over the last three decades, the FISA courts’ case law (i.e. decisions, precedents) has evolved through a non-adversarial, “ex-parte” process in which the government’s interpretation of the facts and law, including its statutory powers, is the only view heard on national security issues brought before the FISA courts. Although in ordinary criminal proceedings surveillance authorizations or search warrants are issued after a similar ex parte process, the open and public nature of traditional civil proceedings allow for judicial review and the development of the law. The process of the FISA courts is not guided by such principles. In fact, the FISA courts can drastically expand government surveillance without any party other than the government having an opportunity to know or weigh in. The bill would change this. Specifically, the bill would:

• Create an Office of the Special Advocate (OSA) tasked with advocating in the FISA courts’ closed proceedings for legal interpretations that minimize the scope of intrusion into our privacy. The OSA will have the authority to appeal decisions of the FISA courts, and would be staffed by attorneys who are properly cleared to view the classified information considered by the FISA courts and bound by the same confidentiality requirements as the courts’ staff and government officials.
• Allow interested parties to participate as amici, in cases involving significant or novel issues of law, most of which will be considered before the Foreign Surveillance Court of Review. Proceedings of the FISA courts would remain secret to protect national security, but the FISA courts would have the advantage of the insights and advocacy of outside experts and organizations.
• Require the Attorney General to disclose past and future significant legal interpretations of the FISA courts and empower the OSA to petition the FISA courts for expanded or modified disclosures that are consistent with valid national security concerns.

 

“Although we know that the FISA courts are interpreting the law on matters of domestic surveillance, there is presently no legal obligation to tell Congress and all Americans how they are interpreting the law,” Senator Coons said. “This dearth of information makes it difficult to perform responsible oversight and to keep these measures in check. The opacity with which FISA courts operate does not respect the high degree of trust and responsibility that Americans have placed in them.”

 

Both bills have been referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee for consideration.

 

Ahead of his vote against the reauthorization of the FISA Amendments Act in December, Senator Coons spoke on the Senate floor in support of the legislative predecessors to both of these bills. His speech can be viewed and read here: http://1.usa.gov/ZEli97

(HuffPo) Nick Wing reports ~ WATCH: GOP Congressman Receives Verbal Beatdown From Constituent

Rep. James Lankford (R-Okla.) felt the fury of one constituent at a town hall on Tuesday, when a man arose to grill the congressman over concerns about NSA surveillance programs.
In the video above, Dax Ewbank of Oklahoma City accuses Lankford of misleading people in a recent letter in which he attempted to tamp down fears that NSA programs were being used to target normal U.S. citizens.
Ewbank begins by pointing to a bombshell Reuters report earlier this month, which found that a Drug Enforcement Administration special operations unit that had partnered with the NSA was funneling key surveillance information to authorities to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans. A document cited in the report also found that operatives had been instructed to alter the investigative trail to cover up where the relevant information had originated. Days after the Reuters story broke, reporters found that details of the program had been published in a manual used by IRS agents for the past two years.
(Watch Ewbank give Lankford a tongue-lashing above.)
"I do not accept this idea that we need to wait for two years while you guys figure out what to do," Ewbanks yelled, as the crowd began clapping in agreement. “It needs to end now.”

Redo: Mike Castle And Crazy Eileen?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNjLpWDWCaE

Meanwhile, Gallup reports ~ Congress' Approval Rating Remains Near Historical Lows

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