Secret Court strikes again!

As you know, the Federal Government has been getting raked over the coals as Edward Snowden’s release of documents has progressed. The information has shown just he deeply in bed the telecom and major Internet service companies, (Such as Google and Facebook), are with the NSA.

One of the major things that came out was just how much of a rubber stamp the FISA court has become. As I recently posted, the judges on the court are rather upset that they are being questioned regarding their secret decisions. This judicial whine went over like a lead balloon of course.

Now this whole mess started when one of the documents released showed that the FISA courts had granted permission to the NSA and FBI to have Verizon hand over the metadata for all their cellphone customers. There has been a lot of back and forth about this, and I did my bit to explain why collecting this data was a clear violation of the 4^th Amendment. (In my opinion of course)

After all this, you would think that the FISA court, (aka Kangaroo court ((Kangaroo Court)), Star Chamber ((Star Chamber)), Drum head Tribunal ((Drumhead court-martial))), would have pulled back a bit and reflect on how people are seeing their rulings. Think again. These idiots just rubber stamped an order for ANOTHER THREE MONTHS of surveillance on the American People. Here are some of the details from Fox News:

The secret intelligence court that signs off on giving the U.S. government the authority to monitor hundreds of millions of telephone records has renewed the government’s request to do so for another three months.

Clearly these jugheads have utterly forgotten what the 4^th Amendment says. We aren’t talking about spying on foreign governments and their citizens, no, this is spying on United States citizens INSIDE the United States.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence announced Friday its authority to maintain the program expired on July 19 and that the government had sought and received a renewal from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court.

Now refresh my memory, who is the Director of National Intelligence again?

National Intelligence Director James Clapper announced the new order.

Oh yes, James Clapper. A man who perjured ((Intelligence Chief Clapper Likely to Escape Punishment for Perjury)) himself to congress and got away with it.

Clapper “has decided to declassify and disclose publicly that the government filed an application with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court seeking renewal of the authority to collect telephony metadata in bulk, and that the court renewed that authority,” the statement said.

In other words, “Hey! American People! Up Yours!! HAHA!”

Other major U.S. telephone carriers are similarly ordered to give records of their customers’ calls to the NSA, which also is able to reach into the data streams of U.S. companies such as Yahoo, Facebook Inc., Microsoft Corp., Google Inc. and others, and grab emails, video chats, pictures and more. The technology companies say they turn over information only if required by court order.

First, does anyone believe these companies fought tooth and nail against this? I don’t. And who honestly believes that this information won’t be misused by the Obama Administration, much the same way they didn’t misuse the IRS in dealing with people and groups they didn’t like?

At a discussion earlier Friday touching on privacy and security, DNI counsel Robert Litt maintained that “these programs are legal” because they are authorized by Congress, the courts and the White House. He said their exposure could curb the government’s ability to detect threats against the U.S.

Actually, the FISA court is constitutionally questionable. There is generally no chance for the subject of their ruling to appeal the decision, or even find out about it. The Congress? A large number of members are saying they weren’t told the extent of what the NSA was doing, and the few who did know, lied to the other members. (Diane Feinstein)

Now there is a move to strip the funding for these programs from the NSA budget. The call for this is coming from across the political spectrum. The one garnering the most interest and outright attacks is the Amash ((Rep. Justin Amash)) amendment ((NSA Surveillance: Amash, Conyers Introduce Major Bill)). This has caused a blind panic at the NSA. Keith Alexander ((Keith Brian Alexander)), called for a top secret meeting with members of congress to lobby against these cuts. Here are a few details from the Huffington Post:

NSA head Gen. Keith Alexander scheduled a last-minute, members-only briefing in response to the amendment, according to an invitation distributed to members of Congress this morning and forwarded to HuffPost. “In advance of anticipated action on amendments to the DoD Appropriations bill, Ranking Member C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger of the House Intelligence Committee invites your Member to attend a question and answer session with General Keith B. Alexander of the National Security Agency,” reads the invitation.

This request alone makes me want to start looking at deep cuts within the NSA. I’m of the opinion that they should be stripped of any privilege to gather data within the United States except in certain, very clearly defined, circumstances. I, like most Americans, have no trouble with them snarfing up signals intelligence from outside the United States. (Which was their original mandate I believe)

Considering how communications works these days, it would be stupid to think that they won’t hit Americans data. There needs to be a carefully developed set of guidelines, PUBLICLY debated and voted on in Congress. For instance, if they get some sort of intercepted signal, from a cell phone or internet traffic originating outside the United States, but ending inside with a specific person, then a legal procedure needs to be in place that is within the Constitution so that the NSA can hand this off to the FBI.

Another thing that needs to be ended is the FISA court. It has shown that it can’t be trusted to protect the rights of the American people. This business of granting a warrant to wiretap someone and then not telling them needs to end. Yes, I can understand the need for some level of secrecy, but once the investigation is concluded, either with the arrest of a suspect or the clearing of someone, they need to be told that a warrant to search had been granted and why. If it was unjustified, then a means to seek redress must be available. Otherwise, people might decide to do something to the watchers, like track them down.

This who mess was created by the Patriot Act ((USA PATRIOT Act of 2001)). This was passed in a matter of weeks after the 9/11 attack and has proven to be an almost complete failure. There are a few parts that were needed and are constitutional, but most of it is crap and should have been tossed out. Now, we are seeing just how abused the act is. It has created a virtual police state. This is just what the terrorists wanted, and Congress, Bush and Obama gave it to them, on a platter. Now people are waking up and they are starting to anger.

When Americans get angry, really angry, bad things will happen to those that have angered them. Just ask the Japanese and the Germans. It’s time to have a careful, thoughtful discussion on National Security and Individual rights. Those that oppose this discussion, be they Republican or Democrat, need to be shown the door as soon as possible.

Thatisall

~The Angry Webmaster~

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