Senate Renews Patriot Act (Under A Different Name)

(This image of NSA spying is by Occupy, and was found at Daily Tech.)

For one whole day it was illegal for the American government to spy on its citizens, as the Patriot Act expired at the end of May -- but the United States Senate (in a bill already approved by the House of Representatives) decided constitutional rights weren't nearly as important as security (i.e., spying on Americans).

Yesterday, the Senate approved the new spying bill (with its name changed from the Patriot Act to the USA Freedom Act -- a misnomer if there ever was one) on a 67 to 32 vote. And the most embarrassing thing is that only two Democrats voted against the terrible bill -- Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin. Every other Democrat voted to allow the NSA to continue its spying.

I know they are assuring us that they have fixed the bill, and the government will no longer be collecting massive amounts of data on Americans. But didn't they tell us the same thing when they passed the original Patriot Act? And that didn't seem to matter, since the NSA used the bill to spy on Americans. Why would it be different this time?

They tell us that the government would no longer be keeping the massive amounts of data being collected. That job would be turned over to private companies. What is the difference? The government can still access that data by asking a secret court for it (and if you think that secret court would turn the government down, then I have some ocean-front property here in Amarillo that I'll sell you real cheap).

I was tempted to congratulate the 30 Republicans who voted against the bill, but it turns out only a few of them voted that way to protect citizens rights -- most of them voted against the bill because they want a stronger bill, with more spying.

Either those in Congress are complete fools (and don't understand what they've done), or they just don't care about the constitutional rights of American citizens -- maybe both. It's time to replace most of these idiots -- in both parties.

(This cartoon image is by Stuart Carlson at carlsontoons.com.)

Kerry Trashes His Liberal Persona By Attacking Snowden

Secretary of State John Kerry has a proud liberal past -- from his involvement with the anti-war movement as a decorated veteran to his service for years in the United States Senate. But his ridiculous response to Edward Snowden's TV appearance made him look more like a right-wing apologist.

After Snowden gave an interview to NBC News, Kerry felt it necessary to try and denigrate Snowden, instead of taking the high road and just letting the rather tepid interview fade away. Taking a person shot at Snowden, Kerry said:

"This is a man who has betrayed his country."

"He should man up and come back to the US."

"The fact is, he has damaged his country very significantly. I find it sad and disgraceful."

Frankly I had thought Kerry was better than that. I guess I was wrong. Snowden did not "betray his country". He was a whistleblower who exposed the massive and unconstitutional spying the United States government was doing on its own citizens. That spying was a clear abuse of the nefarious Patriot Act, and showed that both Presidents Bush and Obama had been lying when they said assured Americans that they were not being spied upon. Snowden is a hero who struck a blow for the constitutional rights of all Americans. I understand that Kerry was just trying to defend the government as its representative, but in saying Snowden "betrayed" his country, Kerry abandons his own progressive principles.

As for the statement that Snowden should "man up and come back", I consider that to be an unnecessary and rather cowardly statement. It's easy for a man in a powerful position like Kerry to make fun of someone else, but we all know that there's no way Snowden could get a fair trial from the United States government if he did come back. Snowden embarrassed some powerful people, and they want their revenge. They have poisoned the public view of Snowden, and there is no way any trial blow could be considered just.

I will go along with the "sad and disgraceful" part -- not for Snowden, but for Presidents Bush and Obama (both of whom owe the American people a big apology for spying on them). When the Patriot Act was passed, progressives warned that it would be abused by the government and used against American citizens. That has been proven to be true (and is probably still happening).

In attacking Snowden in this way, John Kerry is trashing his own proud liberal past. He should be embarrassed.

(The caricatures of Edward Snowden and John Kerry are by DonkeyHotey.)

Repeal The Patriot Act And Stop Spying On U.S. Citizens

(The cartoon image above is by Nate Beeler in The Columbus Dispatch.)

"Too many people have been spied upon by too many Government agencies and too much information has been collected. The Government has often undertaken the secret surveillance of citizens on the basis of their political beliefs, even when those beliefs posed no threat of violence or illegal acts on behalf of a hostile foreign power. . .

Governmental officials -- including those whose principal duty is to enforce the law --have violated or ignored the law over long periods of time and have advocated and defended their right to break the law.

The Constitutional system of checks and balances has not adequately controlled intelligence activities. Until recently the Executive branch has neither delineated the scope of permissible activities nor established procedures for supervising intelligence agencies. Congress has failed to exercise sufficient oversight, seldom questioning the use to which its appropriations were being put. Most domestic intelligence issues have not reached the courts, and in those cases when they have reached the courts, the judiciary has been reluctant to grapple with them."

Those words could be describing the massive government spying on its own citizens that the U.S. government is doing today, but they're actually from a report by the Church Committee in 1976 (U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities). The idea of the U.S. government illegally and unconstitutionally spying on American citizens is not new. The government has been doing that for decades now. The COINTELPRO program by the FBI back in the 60's and early 70's gathered information on over a million citizens -- and it was just one of many spying programs the government was engaging in.

But as egregious and unconstitutional as these programs were, they look like a drop in the bucket when compared to the massive spying on U.S. citizens that is currently happening. The federal intelligence and policing agencies saw a golden opportunity after the 9/11 tragedy in 2001, and they used that tragedy to con Congress and the American people into thinking more spying was needed to protect this country from "terrorism". Congress responded by passing the Patriot Act and the public accepted it -- both out of fear, and without realizing the awesome and unconstitutional power they were granting the government.

The government promised that they would not use these new powers to spy on American citizens, but just to gather information on foreign nationals who posed a danger to the United States. They lied. No government power ever goes unused, and they had been given the power to spy on (gather data on) hundreds of millions of people -- both citizens and non-citizens. And that's just what they did. They collected and stored data on untold millions of American citizens -- and they did it in secret and without getting a search warrant (as required by the Constitution). And most people were blissfully ignorant of this until it was exposed by Edward Snowden.

Now that the massive spying on citizens has been exposed, the government is trying to do a little public relations to repair their image. The president (and some members of Congress) recently revealed a plan to introduce legislation that would stop the government storage of this "meta-data", and would leave that storage to the various telecommunications companies (who supposedly could destroy it after some undetermined period of time). The idea is to convince American citizens that the massive spying is going to stop, but the truth is that the government will still have access (secretly) to all of the same information.

This proposed bill is akin to putting a band-aid on a bullet wound -- it might do a tiny bit of good, but it falls far short of fixing the problem and the patient (democracy) will probably still die. Much more needs to be done, and nothing less than a full repeal of the Patriot Act . Some will say that the law is needed to protect this country -- but you don't protect a democracy by turning it into a police state (where the government can spy on its citizens at will).

Time For Patriot Act To Go

I agree with Bernie again. Free speech is too important for any American to be afraid to say what he thinks (no matter how stupid or offensive it may be). Without free speech, there is no freedom. The Patriot Act must be repealed.

Most Americans Believe Snowden Is A Whistle-Blower And Not A Traitor

Controversy has followed Edward Snowden since he released "secret" U.S. government documents showing just how massive and pervasive the NSA's spying on American citizens really is. The government wants to arrest him and toss him in prison, and have been searching for him since he left Hong Kong. He is now believed to be in a Russian airport, waiting to go to a country that will grant him asylum (probably Venezuela).

Some (including me) have said he should not be arrested, or tried for any crime. He simply let the American people know what the government was doing. No harmful secrets were revealed, and the government should have been upfront with citizens on their massive spying apparatus in the first place. Secrets, especially unnecessary secrets, should not be kept by a democratic government -- since the people need to know what their government is doing so they can be informed voters.

What do the American people think about Snowden? Do they agree with the government and see him as a traitor who should be put in prison? Or do they think he is just a whistle-blower, who did a good thing by exposing the spying on Americans by their government? A new Quinnipiac University Poll (conducted between June 28th and July 8th of 2,014 registered voters nationwide -- with a margin of error of 2.2 points) answers that question. And it looks like a significantly large majority of Americans disagree with the government.

About 55% of Americans say Snowden is just a whistle-blower (while only 34% say he is a traitor). And that belief cuts across political lines -- with 55% of Republicans, 49% of Democrats, and 58% of Independents calling him a whistle-blower. Only 38% of Republicans, 39% of Democrats, and 30% of Independents say he is a traitor. The numbers remain much the same when other demographic groups are considered. Here are those numbers (with the first number being those who say "whistle-blower", and the number in parentheses those who say "traitor"):

Men...............57% (34%)
Women...............52% (35%)

Whites...............56% (33%)
Blacks...............42% (43%)
Hispanics...............57% (37%)

Military households...............49% (39%)

College degree...............52% (38%)
No college degree...............56% (32%)

Under $50k...............58% (31%)
$50k-$100k...............55% (33%)
Over $100k...............52% (42%)

18 to 29...............68% (23%)
30 to 44...............60% (29%)
45 to 64...............51% (38%)
65 & over...............48% (39%)

The Obama administration is on the wrong side of this issue, and so is Congress. Both need to get together and repeal the Patriot Act -- the ridiculous law that allowed this massive surveillance of American citizens. And they need to leave Snowden alone. He did the American people a favor, and should not be punished for it.

Government Is Abusing The Patriot Act

Right after the 9/11 attacks on this country, Americans were terrified of terrorists. And the Bush administration used that fear to gain far-reaching new powers for the federal government by passing the Patriot Act. Bush, and the supporters of that bill in Congress (of both parties), assured Americans that the government needed the new powers to curb terrorism -- and that the government would never abuse those new powers.

There were many of us, especially those of us who had seen the government abuses against the anti-war and pro-civil rights movements, who didn't believe those assurances. We warned that the government would abuse the new law to violate the privacy rights of American citizens, and urged that the new law be repealed because it was a violation of constitutional rights -- but we were ignored. The new bogeyman (terrorism) was just too scary.

Now (and I say this with no joy) it turns out we were right. The government, under both the Bush and Obama administrations has been engaging in a massive abuse of the Patriot Act. We now know that the government has not just been receiving information of phone calls of terrorist suspects, or even just those calls being made to people outside of this country. Evidence has been verified that shows the government, by using a secret order, has been receiving ALL of the phone calls made by American citizens through Verizon. And you know, if they are doing this with Verizon, they are doing it with all of the other telecommunications companies also.

The sad fact is that the government doesn't understand the concept of "limited use" of any law or power. If you give them a new power, they will stretch that power to the point of abuse every time -- and it doesn't matter if a Republican or Democrat is in power. Americans today don't seem to understand what our Founding Fathers knew beyond doubt -- that government simply cannot be trusted. That's why they included a "Bill of Rights" in the Constitution. They wanted the powers of government to be limited -- so that it served the people, and not vice versa.

Unfortunately, fear allowed the government to abridge many of those constitutional rights by passing, and then abusing, the Patriot Act. The government does not need, and should not have, this kind of unbridled power -- and the Patriot Act should be repealed in its entirety as soon as possible. Giving our government this kind of unconstitutional power is far more dangerous to our freedoms than any terrorist ever could be.

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) has spoken out on this newly revealed abuse of the Patriot Act, and he makes a lot of sense. Here is what he says:

“As one of the few members of Congress who consistently voted against the Patriot Act, I expressed concern at the time of passage that it gave the government far too much power to spy on innocent United State citizens and provided for very little oversight or disclosure.  Unfortunately, what I said turned out to be exactly true.

“The United States should not be accumulating phone records on tens of millions of innocent Americans. That is not what democracy is about. That is not what freedom is about. Congress must address this issue and protect the constitutional rights of the American people.” 

“While we must aggressively pursue international terrorists and all of those who would do us harm, we must do it in a way that protects the Constitution and the civil liberties which make us proud to be Americans.” 

Google Tries To Do Right, But Court Says No

Google is one of the largest and most powerful internet companies, and because of that they get a lot of criticism from many people -- and some of that criticism is undoubtably deserved. But in a recent court fight, they were definitely on the right side. Believe it or not, they were trying to protect the privacy and constitutional rights of their customers.

Back during the Bush administration, the United States Congress made one of its worst decisions ever. They passed the Patriot Act. One of the many odious provisions of that law allows the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to get any information they want on any person (American citizen or not) by simply issuing a "national security letter" to any telecommunications company. They issue these letters in-house, and it does not require the signature of any judge. In short, as long as the FBI claims it is a matter of "national security" they can get access to any information without any kind of warrant (and without any showing of probable cause).

This is clearly unconstitutional, since that document requires the government to show probable cause and get a warrant from a judge before it can seize any private or personal information from or about a citizen. But Congress was stupid enough to pass the Patriot Act, and the FBI (under both Bush and Obama) has used the law many times for warrantless searches. Back in 2007, the Justice Department's Inspector General said the FBI had committed widespread violations in their use of the "national security letters", and the FBI promised to tighten oversight of the system. But it is unknown whether they have stopped those violations (since the letters are issued in secret). I suspect they haven't though.

Recently they issued 19 of those letters for Google. But Google refused to cooperate. Unfortunately, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston sided with the FBI. She has ruled that Google must comply and turn over the information requested to the FBI, in spite of the fact that the FBI did not request or receive a warrant. This is very disappointing. Google was acting appropriately in trying to keep their customer's information secret. I hope they appeal this decision.

There is no reason why the FBI, and any other policing organization, cannot get a legal warrant if they have probable cause to believe a crime is being, or has been, committed. If they don't have probable cause, then they should not be able to get the information -- because they are just on a "fishing expedition", which is exactly the sort of thing the men who approved the Constitution were trying to prevent.

The Patriot Act is the biggest invasion of rights we have ever seen in this country. That odious law needs to be overturned -- either by the courts or by Congress.

Constitutional Rights Take Another Beating

After the attack on the Twin Towers on 9/11/01, President Bush used the event to push through the Patriot Act. This infamous law further restricted the already severely eroded rights of Americans to privacy from government snooping. It allowed federal and other policing agencies to snoop on Americans and gather their records, many times without even a search warrant -- a law that would have made our Founding Fathers howl in outrage.

Of course, the Congress used the excuse of stopping another 9/11 incident. They scared Americans into giving up more of their freedoms, completely ignoring the fact that the Patriot Act simply was not needed. The Bush administration was warned that an incident like 9/11 could and probably would happen, but they ignored their own intelligence. If the Patriot Act had been in effect before 9/11, it would have given the Bush administration only information they already had and ignored.

But it was a perfect excuse for government to grab some more power and further limit the rights of all Americans, and they jumped on it -- and sadly, both parties participated in the travesty. I would love to blame Republicans for that, but the fact is that many Democrats voted for it also. And after the Obama administration assumed power, they have done all they can to keep the Patriot Act in full effect. When government grabs some power, they just don't give it up without a fight -- regardless of whether Republicans or Democrats are in power.

A part of the Patriot Act, actually three provisions of it, were due to expire at the end of this month. The sane and freedom-loving thing to do would be to let it expire (and then work toward repealing the rest of the Patriot Act), but as I said, the government never willingly gives up any power it has assumed. A few days ago, the House of Representatives extended the Patriot Act provisions through December 8th.

Yesterday, the Senate also extended the provisions -- but only through May 27th. They said this would give them time to discuss the provisions and make sure rights were protected. You notice they didn't say they would let the provisions die in May -- only that they would study them. I wouldn't bet against them being extended again in May, only for a much longer period of time.

In the end, only 12 senators voted for the constitutional rights of all Americans. These 12 senators voted to let the provisions expire and stated their desire to repeal the whole Patriot Act. They should be applauded for standing up for their fellow citizens, even though it was in a losing cause. Here are those 12 brave senators:

Baucus (D-Montana)
Begich (D-Alaska)
Brown (D-Ohio)
Harkin (D-Iowa)
Lautenberg (D-New Jersey)
Lee (R-Utah)
Merkley (D-Oregon)
Murray (D-Washington)
Paul (R-Kentucky)
Sanders (I-Vermont)
Tester (D-Montana)
Udall (D-New Mexico)

Democrats Wimp Out Again !

I am getting so tired of the spineless wimps the Democratic Party has sent to the United States Senate. Instead of showing some political courage and acting in the best interests of the citizens of the United States, they continue to act like they are terrified that the Republicans might talk bad about them. Yesterday, they had another chance to do the right thing, and once again they wussed out.

Several provisions of Bush's Patriot Act (a vile and unconstitutional law) were set to expire at the end of the month. Here are those provisions as described by MSNBC:

One authorizes court-approved roving wiretaps that permit surveillance on multiple phones. A second allows court-approved seizure of records and property in anti-terrorism operations. A third permits surveillance against a so-called lone wolf, a non-U.S. citizen suspected of engaging in terrorism who may not be part of a recognized terrorist group.

Now the correct and politically courageous thing to do would be to repeal the whole Patriot Act. It doesn't really protect us, but it does give "Big Brother" a vastly expanded right to spy on civilians (both U.S. citizens and others) -- not something that can be tolerated in a truly free country. But I've seen enough of this group of Senate Democrats to not expect that kind of courage.

But they could at least have included some more protections for individual rights if they were going to extend this stupid law. Some progressives tried to do that. They wanted to amend the law and did so in the Judiciary Committee. These new amendments would have:

The Judiciary Committee bill would have restricted FBI information demands known as national security letters and made it easier to challenge gag orders imposed on Americans whose records are seized. Library records would have received extra protections. Congress would have closely scrutinized FBI use of the law to prevent abuses. Dissemination of surveillance results would have been restricted and after a time, unneeded records would have been destroyed.

But even that minor move was too much for the blue dogs and spineless members of the party as it turns out. The amendments were stripped out of the bill, and then the bill was passed on a voice vote without even the pretense of a debate. Good grief! They didn't even have the balls to debate improving the bad bill!

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) said, "I would have preferred to add oversight and judicial review improvements to any extension of expiring provisions in the USA Patriot Act. But I understand some Republican senators objected."

I really don't understand why the Democrats care what Republicans object to. Let them object to whatever they want, but that is no reason to fail to do what is in the best interests of American citizens. The Republicans sure didn't care about Democratic objections when they were in power.

(Senator Leahy is pictured above.)

Obama Would Continue "Patriot Act"

A few years ago, the Bush administration used America's fear of terrorism to push through Congress the Patriot Act. This misnamed law had nothing to do with patriotism, but was instead one of the most far-reaching destruction of individual rights this country has ever seen. It gave the federal government the right to eavesdrop on Americans and seize records without ever having to apply for and justify a search warrant.

When the law was passed, I thought it was unconstitutional, and I still believe that. Our Founding Fathers knew how oppressive and intrusive government could be. That's why they made search warrants a constitutional requirement before government could snoop into the correspondence or records of private citizens.

I had hoped that one of the things President Obama would do upon coming into office would be to restore the individual rights taken from Americans through the Patriot Act. It looks like that hope will soon be dashed. Three provisions of the Patriot Act will soon expire, and the Obama administration has said it will ask that those provisions be extended.

One of the provisions gives the government the right to seize "business records" without a warrant. This is slightly misnamed, since it really applies to all of a person's records right down to the library books they read. There is no reason for this provision to exist. The government should have to apply for and justify issuance of a search warrant before seizing any kind of records from an individual citizen or organization.

The other two provisions regard the governments ability to use wiretaps without getting a search warrant first. These provisions can even be used when the individual has no known connections to terrorists or foreign governments or groups (in other words, it can apply to any American the government singles out -- without any probable cause and regardless of how innocent they may be).

It was wrong for the Bush administration to pass these laws, and it is just as wrong for the Obama administration to try to extend them into the future. This is not a Republican or Democratic issue. It is an issue of restoring the individual rights guaranteed by the Constitution to every American.

Not a single provision of this bad law should be extended. In fact, every single provision of the Patriot Act should be extinguished as soon as possible.

Judge Says Patriot Act Violates The Constitution

Supporters of the Constitution have been saying the Patriot Act was unconstitutional for years. Finally, a federal judge agrees. On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken threw out two provisions of the Patriot Act, ruling they allowed search warrants to be issued without probable cause.

Judge Aiken said Patriot Act amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act "now permits the executive branch of government to conduct surveillance and searches of American citizens without satisfying the probable cause requirements of the Fourth Amendment."

She went on to say, "For over 200 years, this Nation has adhered to the rule of law -- with unparalleled success. A shift to a Nation based on extra-constitutional authority is prohibited, as well as ill-advised."

Thank goodness for this ruling, and this judge. The Fourth Amendment, as well as the rest of our Constitution, has served this country well since its inception. It makes no sense to destroy the constitution because of a terrorist act. Our Constitution is the only thing that guarantees our freedom.

The greatness of this country lies in the fact that its citizens have rights that even the government cannot trod upon. George Bush tried to destroy those rights by frightening the people. If he is allowed to succeed, then we are just a tiny step away from a true police state.

With her ruling, this judge has helped our country to step back from that awful precipice. Now we must wait and hope the higher courts will also have the courage and wisdom to uphold our Constitution.

Government must have limits if freedom is to exist.