Tell me what's goin' on
Who said the free? Not me? Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
Observationally I do imagine I would be given 5 years in jail in the UK for my thought crimes large and small. The USA does use it’s stupid social media censors now and then against me. Otherwise my crimes can always be swept up.
The Senate voted on Friday to approve the renewal of Section 702. Biden signs bill to reauthorize FISA warrantless surveillance program for two more years.
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/congress-should-not-reauthorize-warrantless-surveillance-americans
The law allows the federal government to acquire, without a warrant, the electronic communications of foreign intelligence targets overseas. But federal agencies have also been using it to access Americans’ private communications without warrants, snaring Americans in a web of scrutiny without their knowledge.
A recently declassified court opinion blasts the FBI for its “pattern of conducting broad, suspicionless queries” of information about Americans gathered under Section 702. Congress should not reauthorize the law without adding better protections for Americans who are caught up in this surveillance.
Section 702 has rightly become controversial, largely due to the practice of “backdoor searches.” The National Security Agency obtains communications without a warrant based on a pledge that it is targeting only foreigners outside the United States. But the surveillance inevitably sweeps in Americans’ communications as well.
And the FISA Court — a special court that oversees FISA surveillance and is typically highly deferential to the government — has approved rules that allow the FBI and other agencies to conduct searches of Section 702 data for the purpose of finding Americans’ communications (the FBI refers to these searches as “U.S. person queries”).
FBI agents can perform these searches any time they believe a search is reasonably likely to return foreign intelligence or evidence of a crime. The FBI takes full advantage of this low standard. Last year, it conducted 200,000 U.S. person queries — more than 500 warrantless searches for Americans’ communications every day.
Mass warrantless searches for the purpose of accessing Americans’ most personal information violate core American values and principles enshrined in the Constitution. Although the FISA Court has approved this practice, other judges to consider the issue are divided, with some raising concerns that the practice could violate Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.
I would tend to agree, "unwarranted search and seizure..." is not what the framers had in mind, nor Congress for that matter. A healthy democracy it does not represent. That said, I have personally been (and continue to be) victimized by a sophisticated gang of cybercriminals and cybercrime -- home network, pc, mobile phone hacked and surveilled -- sourced just across a so-called privacy fence of my former residence. These criminals deploy/ed subrosa tactics you'd read about having only occurred in third-world countries or those supremely authoritarian (hint, hint). No security protocol I attempted in efforts to stop their behavior worked. And besides reporting continuously to my feckless ISP (AT&T, who I believe enabled the behavior and were in the news recently concerning their egregious breach of customer data and use of a hacker network) my filing multiple reports to the FBI as well as local authorities for help also yielded no results. To date none of these agencies have ever gotten back to me. My life was turned upside down. I was ultimately forced to relocate to another state, where interestingly I allege the activity persists (once they get a hold of you, they won't let go). I would not wish what has happened to me on anyone. So, what are the agencies tasked with protecting private citizens left to do in situations like mine? when there are active threats to privacy, security, and therefore our democracy (if it happens to me, it's happening to other neighbors or neighboring targets around the nation), operating right next door to you targeting not the government, per se, but using such their sophistication on individuals? on their neighbors? Though, as stated, none of the agencies ever followed up with me directly re: my allegations. That is not to say there is no or has never been an investigation underway. I truly believe all available resources should be used for the sake of obtaining justice, how ever long it takes to dot the lines together across oceans. Big Brother is not the only one who's watching.
1968.