Thread: Privacy Alert! Big Brother is watching and listening, UPDATED

House forces vote on amendment that would limit NSA bulk surveillance

Opposition to bulk surveillance swells with vote that would 'end authority for blanket collection of records under the Patriot Act'
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• Spencer Ackerman in Washington
• guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 23 July 2013 15.26 EDT
• Jump to comments (360)

US senator Ron Wyden said: 'It is another step, as I've outlined, in the march to a real debate [on surveillance].' Photograph: Joshua Roberts/Reuters

Congressional opposition to the NSA's bulk surveillance on Americans swelled on Tuesday as the US House prepared to vote on restricting the collection of US phone records and a leading Senate critic blasted a "culture of misinformation" around government surveillance.Republican congressman Justin Amash prevailed in securing a vote for his amendment to a crucial funding bill for the Department of Defense that "ends authority for the blanket collection of records under the Patriot Act." The vote could take place as early as Wednesday evening.

"The people have spoken through their representatives," Amash told the Guardian on Tuesday. "This is an opportunity to vote on something that will substantially limit the ability of the NSA to collect their phone records without suspicion." It will be the first such vote held by Congress on restricting NSA surveillance after the revelations from ex-contractor Edward Snowden, published in the Guardian and the Washington Post, that detailed a fuller picture of the surveillance authorities than officials had publicly disclosed – something blasted in a fiery Tuesday speech by Senator Ron Wyden, a prominent Democratic critic of the surveillance programs.
In a sign of how crucial the NSA considers its bulk phone records collection, which a secret surveillance court reapproved on Friday, its director, General Keith Alexander, held a four-hour classified briefing with members of Congress. Alexander's meeting was listed as "top-secret" and divided into two two-hour sessions, the first for Republicans and the second for Democrats. Staffers for the legislators were not permitted to attend.
Amash, who attended the briefing, described it as cordial but declined to give specifics about what was discussed. "I don't believe anyone's mind was changed one way or the other," he said.

Representatives for Alexander did not respond to a request for comment.
Amash's amendment, supported by a Michigan Democrat, John Conyers, unexpectedly made it through the House rules committee late on Monday night, a feat for which the second-term legislator credited House speaker John Boehner.

The amendment would prevent the NSA, the FBI and other agencies from relying on Section 215 of the Patriot Act "to collect records, including telephone call records, that pertain to persons who are not subject to an investigation under Section 215."
Debate over Amash's amendment is expected for late Wednesday, with a vote coming either Wednesday night or early Thursday.

Its outcome is difficult to predict. The vote by itself will not restrict the surveillance, it would simply include Amash's amendment in the annual Defense appropriations bill, which the House is considering this week; the Senate must also approve the bill before it goes to President Obama's desk. There is deep, bipartisan support for the domestic phone-records collection in the House intelligence committee and deep, bipartisan opposition for it in the House judiciary committee.

Yet Wyden, one of the leading Senate critics of the NSA's bulk domestic surveillance, called it "unquestionably good" that Congress was openly debating the extent of the collection of Americans' phone records.
"It is another step, as I've outlined, in the march to a real debate," Wyden said during a speech at the Center for American Progress, a thinktank aligned with the Obama administration. "We wouldn't have had that seven, eight weeks ago."

Wyden described the bulk surveillance of Americans' phone records as a "human relationship database," and described a "culture of misinformation" around it from government officials as a threat to American democracy, warning that "unless we seize this unique moment" to weaken both, "we will all live to regret it."
"The combination of increasingly advanced technology with a breakdown in the checks and balances that limit government action could lead us to a surveillance state that cannot be reversed," Wyden said.

Wyden, in a wide-ranging speech, reiterated a warning that the authorities government officials believe themselves to have under Section 215 of the Patriot Act might also allow the NSA or FBI to retain bulk medical records, gun purchase records, financial transactions, credit card data and more. "Intelligence officials have told the press that they currently have the legal authority to collect Americans' location information in bulk," he noted

Wyden assailed administration and intelligence officials for describing their surveillance as limited in public remarks while secretly briefing legislators about their broad scope.
"The public was not just kept in the dark about the Patriot Act and other secret authorities," Wyden said. "The public was actively misled."On July 2, James Clapper, the US director of national intelligence, apologized to Wyden for erroneously saying the NSA did "not wittingly" collect data on millions of Americans. While not naming names, Wyden alluded to a comment made by Alexander last year in which the director of the NSA said publicly: "We don't hold data on US citizens."

"When did it become all right for government officials' public statements and private statements to differ so fundamentally?" Wyden said in his speech."The answer is that it is not all right, and it is indicative of a much larger culture of misinformation that goes beyond the congressional hearing room and into the public conversation writ large."That culture faces one of its first major legislative challenges as early as Wednesday with the vote on Amash's amendment. There are others: a Senate bill introduced in June and co-signed by Wyden would compel declassification of the rulings of the secret Fisa court that sets broad rules for the NSA and FBI's collection and analysis of phone records and online communications.
Additionally, the NSA itself has indicated its willingness to consider abandoning the phone-records collection provided the telecommunications companies it partners with retains the data. And a former judge on the Fisa court wrote an op-ed for the New York Times advocating the secret surveillance court adopt an adversarial process, with a lawyer appointed to "to challenge the government when an application for a FISA order raises new legal issues."

"The side of transparency and openness," Wyden said, "is starting to put some points on the board."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013...k-surveillance

The big question: Why didn't NSA spying stop the Boston bombing?

Like this article41
By Ralph Lopez
Jun 27, 2013 in World

The Obama administration and the NSA have gone into full spin mode trumpeting its victories in the plots that didn't happen while conveniently ignoring the one that did.

See: "NSA Spying Data 'Stopped Plots In 20 Countries"

Not only did the "don't worry if you've done nothing wrong" Big Brother government not stop the Boston Marathon suspects, it knew who they were. It knew where they lived (190 Norfolk Street, Cambridge.) If they didn't know, they could have asked me, and I'd have looked it up for them in public court records from Tamerlan's 2009 domestic violence charge.

Oh yes, they were on the welfare records too. They weren't exactly leading a desperado life underground.

If we are to believe the FBI's own words, Dzhokhar, the younger brother, said they downloaded the plans for the bombs from the Internet.

FBI public website

Publicly released surveillance photo of Dzhokhar (left) and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, at Boston Marathon, at FBI.gov.

Long before that, no less than the full apparatus of Russian intelligence made the determination that the US should be warned about Boston suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, and it did. Many times.

Yet the NSA now heralds that it has stopped plots in as many as 20 countries. But that's not what they get paid to do. They get paid to stop them right here. Right there, in front of the Boston Public Library. I've been there many times. Right where dozens of people lost limbs, some of them double amputations.

Yea, that's it guys. Don't give me that dumb look. Right there.

Does this get any worse? Yes it does. Even after the bombing, Frick and Frack at the NSA, Justice Department, and the Department of Homeland Security couldn't figure out who the suspects were from close-up pictures, and had to ask the public for help in identifying them. Some people even say that the FBI was putting on a show, because they must have known who the suspects were. You know, law enforcement and public working together, culminating with the Big Lockdown, and then the people once again safe thanks to total submission to authority (horay!)

Collier Family

MIT officer Sean Collier, killed by the Boston Marathon bombing suspects

Except that big show might have cost a good man his life, by tipping off the suspects that they were wanted men. If we are to believe the FBI's own words that the Boston suspects were behind the murder of MIT officer Sean Collier, would it not have been better to not put their faces on TV, and instead try to surround the house and take them by surprise?

Then they wouldn't have had time to panic and allegedly run across town killing police officers.

Which proves one thing: the NSA surveillance has nothing to do with our safety. If Boston doesn't prove the point, how about this: sweeping NSA surveillance started seven months before 9/11.

This is according to the CEO of Qwest, one of the telecommunications companies approached by the Bush administration to solicit cooperation in its new surveillance scheme. That's right, i said seven months before 9/11.

So if it was seven months before 9/11, what does all this have to do with national security? Does anyone else see something fraudulent about the NSA's claims that this is all about our safety? Or is it just me?

Jeff Baumer (remember him?) is just learning how to live his life all over again, minus his legs. The FBI said that Dzhokhar told them that they downloaded the bomb plans from the website "Inspire." He allegedly had it on his computer.

As long as you are reading our emails and texts for signs that we might be thinking of doing wrong, NSA guys, and that includes you General Alexander (I know you are listening,) as long as you are titillating over our lovers quarrels with our wives and girlfriends, then why the hell didn't you read that?

We have seen seen this before. Prior to the American Revolution, a man named James Otis Jr., one of the Founding Fathers, took on one of the King's most hated prerogatives, that of searching through a man's home, letters, or personal effects for any reason, or no reason at all. The British General Warrant was the exact equivalent of the unfettered license now claimed by the NSA and the Executive Branch to listen in on conversations presumed private, and otherwise read one's communications and track one's activities .

Otis thundered in his speeches that "a man's house is his castle," and that giving government bureaucrats this power without the oversight of the courts amounted to "tyranny, " for then every man with this power "may be a tyrant...a tyrant in a legal manner." Otis argued that every such man would be "accountable to no person for his doings," and would "reign secure in his petty tyranny, and spread terror and desolation around him."

Wkimedia Commons

James Otis Jr.

Otis railed that this power would be abused by the underlings of higher-ranking bureaucrats, putting us at the mercy of "menial servants."

"What is this but to have the curse of Canaan with a witness on us: to be the servants of servants, the most despicable of God's creation?" - Otis raged.

(Otis had taken to calling the British House of Commons - the equivalent of Congress - "pimps and whore-masters.")

Otis predicted that this power, run rampant, would have little to do with legitimate law enforcement, just as the Boston Marathon and the implementation of NSA spying seven months before 9/11 bear out. Moreover, though it would still be years before the first shots of the American Revolution were fired, it was after Otis' fiery "a man's house is his castle" speech, in February 1761, that john Adams wrote: "the child independence was then and there born."

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/353215

America No Longer Has a Functioning Judicial System

Posted on July 22, 2013 by WashingtonsBlog

The Separation of Powers Which Define Our Democracy Have Been Destroyed

The Department of Justice told a federal court this week that the NSA’s spying “cannot be challenged in a court of law”.
(This is especially dramatic given that numerous federal judges and legal scholars – including a former FISA judge – say that the FISA spying “court” is nothing but a kangaroo court.)
Also this week, the Department of Justice told a federal court that the courts cannot review the legality of the government’s assassination by drone of Americans abroad:

“‘Are you saying that a US citizen targeted by the United States in a foreign country has no constitutional rights?’ [the judge] asked Brian Hauck, a deputy assistant attorney general. ‘How broadly are you asserting the right of the United States to target an American citizen? Where is the limit to this?’
“She provided her own answer: ‘The limit is the courthouse door’ . . . .
“‘Mr. Hauck acknowledged that Americans targeted overseas do have rights, but he said they could not be enforced in court either before or after the Americans were killed.’”

(Indeed, the Obama administration has previously claimed the power to be judge, jury and executioner in both drone and cyber-attacks. This violates Anglo-Saxon laws which have been on the books in England and America for 800 years.)
The Executive Branch also presents “secret evidence” in many court cases … sometimes even hiding the evidence from the judge who is deciding the case.
Bush destroyed much of the separation of powers which made our country great. But under Obama, it’s gotten worse.
For example, the agency which decides who should be killed by drone is the same agency which spies on all Americans.
Daniel Ellsberg notes that even the Founding Fathers didn’t have to deal with a government claiming that it could indefinitely detain Americans … even on American soil.
After Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges, journalist Naomi Wolf, Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and others sued the government to enjoin the NDAA’s allowance of the indefinite detention of Americans – the judge asked the government attorneys 5 times whether journalists like Hedges could be indefinitely detained simply for interviewing and then writing about bad guys. The government refused to promise that journalists like Hedges won’t be thrown in a dungeon for the rest of their lives without any right to talk to a judge
The Department of Justice has also tapped Congressional phones, and a high-level NSA whistleblower says that the NSA is spying on – and blackmailing – top government officials and military officers including all 9 Supreme Court justices.
It’s not just the Executive Branch which has attacked the courts. For example, Congress passed a bill stripping courts of the power to review issues related to genetically modified foods.
The Constitution is mortally mounded. While the “war on terror” is commonly cited as the excuse, most of the attacks on our rights started before 9/11. Indeed, the Founding Fathers warned 200 years ago that open-ended wars give the Executive an excuse to take away our liberties.
Two former U.S. Supreme Court Justices have warned that America is sliding into tyranny. A former U.S. President, and many other high-level American officials agree.
In addition to attacks on the judiciary by the White House and Congress, judges are voluntarily gutting the justice system … and laying down in lapdog-obeisance to D.C.
For example, the Supreme Court ruled that if judges don’t like plaintiffs’ allegations of bad government actions, the judge can simply pre-judge and throw out the lawsuit before even allowing the party to conduct any discovery to prove their claims. This guts 220 years of Constitutional law, and makes it extremely difficult to challenge harmful government action in court.
America has a “dual justice system … one for ordinary people and then one for people with money and enormous wealth and power”.
Indeed, most Americans have less access to justice than Botswanans … and are more abused by police than Kazakhstanis.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/...judiciary.html

These Are The 217 People Who Voted To Preserve NSA Surveillance

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-0...a-surveillance

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The NSA Surveillance Revelations Are Changing How Americans Use The Internet
By The Associated Press | July 22, 2013




In this Thursday, July 18, 2013, photo, Kyle Maxwell, center, talks shares a laugh with others during a monthly Cryptoparty in Dallas. Across the Internet, users are talking about changes small and large, from using more encryption and stronger passwords to much more extreme measures such as ditching cellphones and using cash over credit cards. The conversations play out daily on Reddit, Twitter and other networks, and have spread to offline life with so-called “Cryptoparty” gatherings in cities including Dallas, Atlanta and Oakland, Calif. (AP/LM Otero)

In Louisiana, the wife of a former soldier is scaling back on Facebook posts and considering unfriending old acquaintances, worried an innocuous joke or long-lost associate might one day land her in a government probe. In California, a college student encrypts chats and emails, saying he’s not planning anything sinister but shouldn’t have to sweat snoopers. And in Canada, a lawyer is rethinking the data products he uses to ensure his clients’ privacy.
As the attorney, Chris Bushong, put it: “Who wants to feel like they’re being watched?”
News of the U.S. government’s secret surveillance programs that targeted phone records but also information transmitted on the Internet has done more than spark a debate about privacy. Some are reviewing and changing their online habits as they reconsider some basic questions about today’s interconnected world. Among them: How much should I share and how should I share it?
Some say they want to take preventative measures in case such programs are expanded. Others are looking to send a message — not just to the U.S. government but to the Internet companies that collect so much personal information.
“We all think that nobody’s interested in us, we’re all simple folk,” said Doan Moran of Alexandria, La. “But you start looking at the numbers and the phone records … it makes you really hesitate.”
Last month former government contractor Edward Snowden leaked documents revealing that the National Security Agency, as part of its anti-terrorism efforts, had collected the phone records of millions of Americans. A second NSA program called PRISM forces major Internet firms to turn over the detailed contents of communications such as emails, video chats, pictures and more.
Moran’s husband, an ex-Army man, already was guarded about using social media. Now she is looking through her Facebook “friends” to consider whom to delete, because she can’t know what someone in her network might do in the future. Moran said she’s uneasy because she feels unclear about what the NSA is keeping and how deep the agency’s interests might go.
In Toronto, attorney Bushong let a free trial of Google’s business applications expire after learning about PRISM, under which the NSA seized data from Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook and AOL. Bushong is moving to San Diego in August to launch a tax planning firm and said he wants to be able to promise confidentiality and respond sufficiently should clients question his firm’s data security. He switched to a Canadian Internet service provider for email and is considering installing his own document servers.
“I’d like to be able to say that I’ve taken all reasonable steps to ensure that they’re not giving up any freedoms unnecessarily,” he said.
Across the Internet, computer users are talking about changes small and large — from strengthening passwords and considering encryption to ditching cellphones and using cash over credit cards. The conversations play out daily on Reddit, Twitter and other networks, and have spread to offline life with so-called “Cryptoparty” gatherings in cities including Dallas, Atlanta and Oakland, Calif.
Information technology professional Josh Scott hosts a monthly Cryptoparty in Dallas to show people how to operate online more privately.
“You have to decide how extreme you want to be,” Scott said.
Christopher Shoup, a college student from Victorville, Calif., has been encouraging friends to converse on Cryptocat, a private messaging program that promises users they can chat “without revealing messages to a third party.” Shoup isn’t worried that his own behavior could draw scrutiny, but said the mere idea that the government could retrieve his personal communications “bothers me as an American.”
“I don’t think I should have to worry,” he said.
Cryptocat said it nearly doubled its number of users in two days after Snowden revealed himself as the source of leaks about the NSA’s programs. Two search engine companies billed as alternatives to Google, Bing and Yahoo are also reporting significant surges in use.
DuckDuckGo and Ixquick both promise they don’t collect data from users or filter results based on previous history. DuckDuckGo went from 1.8 million searches per day to more than 3 million per day the week after the NSA revelations came to light. Ixquick and sister site Startpage have gone from 2.8 million searches per day to more than 4 million.
Gabriel Weinberg, chief executive of DuckDuckGo, said the NSA programs reminded people to consider privacy but that government snooping may the least of an everyday computer user’s concerns. DuckDuckGo’s website warns of the pitfalls of Internet search engines, including third-party advertisements built around a user’s searches or the potential for a hacker or rogue employee to gain access to personal information.
Potential harm is “becoming more tangible over time,” said Weinberg, who is posting fewer family photos, dropping a popular cloud service that stores files and checking his settings on devices at home to ensure they are as private as possible.
At Ixquick, more than 45,000 people have asked to be beta testers for a new email service featuring accounts that not even the company can get into without user codes, spokeswoman Katherine Albrecht said. The company will levy a small charge for the accounts, betting that people are willing to pay for privacy. As computer users grow more savvy, they better understand that Internet companies build their businesses around data collection, Albrecht said.
“These companies are not search engines,” she said. “They are brilliant market research companies. … And you are the product.”
Representatives for Google, Yahoo and PalTalk, companies named in a classified PowerPoint presentation leaked by Snowden, declined comment. Microsoft, Apple and AOL officials did not return messages. Previously, the companies issued statements emphasizing that they aren’t voluntarily handing over user data to the government. They also rejected newspaper reports indicating that PRISM had opened a door for the agency to tap directly into companies’ data centers whenever the government pleases.
“Press reports that suggest that Google is providing open-ended access to our users’ data are false, period,” Google CEO Larry Page said in a blog post.
It’s not clear whether big Internet companies have seen changes in how their products are used. An analysis released this month by comScore Inc. said Google sites accounted for two-thirds of Internet searches in June — about 427 million queries per day.
In Tokyo, American expat Peng Zhong responded to the spying news by swapping everything from his default search engine and web browser to his computer’s operating system. Zhong, an interface designer, then built a website to help others switch, too. Called prism-break.org, the site got more than 200,000 hits in less than a week after Zhong announced it on social networks.
Since then, Zhong said he’s seen numerous people talking online about their own experiences in changing their computing habits.
“It’s a start,” he said.

Author Brad Thor: My Contacts Tell Me Government Is Recording &...

Posted by Jim Hoft on Thursday, July 25, 2013, 8:17 PM
Best selling suspense author Brad Thor joined Bill O’Reilly tonight on The Factor. Thor told Bill,

“That’s the metadata. They are collecting the metadata. I believe from the people I’ve talked to that the actual calls are being stored as well… The people I’ve talked to told me everything, all of your digital exhaust is being recorded which is why they outgrew the facility in Fort Meade.”

Related… Feds tell Web firms to turn over user account passwords.

House Kills Effort to Halt NSA Program

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By DONNA CASSATA
Associated Press
WASHINGTON
The House narrowly rejected a challenge to the National Security Agency's secret collection of hundreds of millions of Americans' phone records Wednesday night after a fierce debate pitting privacy rights against the government's efforts to thwart terrorism.

The vote was 217-205 on an issue that created unusual political coalitions in Washington, with libertarian-leaning conservatives and liberal Democrats pressing for the change against the Obama administration, the Republican establishment and Congress' national security experts.

The showdown vote marked the first chance for lawmakers to take a stand on the secret surveillance program since former NSA systems analyst Edward Snowden leaked classified documents last month that spelled out the monumental scope of the government's activities.

Backing the NSA program were 134 Republicans and 83 Democrats, including House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, who typically does not vote, and Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi. Rejecting the administration's last-minute pleas to spare the surveillance operation were 94 Republicans and 111 Democrats.

It is unlikely to be the final word on government intrusion to defend the nation and Americans' civil liberties.

"Have 12 years gone by and our memories faded so badly that we forgot what happened on Sept. 11?" Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., chairman of the Intelligence Committee, said in pleading with his colleagues to back the program during House debate.

Republican Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan, chief sponsor of the repeal effort, said his aim was to end the indiscriminate collection of Americans' phone records.

His measure, offered as an addition to a $598.3 billion defense spending bill for 2014, would have canceled the statutory authority for the NSA program, ending the agency's ability to collect phone records and metadata under the USA Patriot Act unless it identified an individual under investigation.

The House later voted to pass the overall defense bill, 315-109.

Amash told the House that his effort was to defend the Constitution and "defend the privacy of every American."

"Opponents of this amendment will use the same tactic that every government throughout history has used to justify its violation of rights: Fear," he said. "They'll tell you that the government must violate the rights of the American people to protect us against those who hate our freedom."

The unlikely political coalitions were on full display during a spirited but brief House debate.

"Let us not deal in false narratives. Let's deal in facts that will keep Americans safe," said Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., a member of the Intelligence committee who implored her colleagues to back a program that she argued was vital in combatting terrorism.

But Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., a senior member of the Judiciary Committee who helped write the Patriot Act, insisted "the time has come" to stop the collection of phone records that goes far beyond what he envisioned.

Several Republicans acknowledged the difficulty in balancing civil liberties against national security, but expressed suspicion about the Obama administration's implementation of the NSA programs _ and anger at Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.

"Right now the balancing is being done by people we do not know. People who lied to this body," said Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C.

He was referring to Clapper who admitted he gave misleading statements to Congress on how much the U.S. spies on Americans. Clapper apologized to lawmakers earlier this month after saying in March that the U.S. does not gather data on citizens _ something that Snowden revealed as false by releasing documents showing the NSA collects millions of phone records.

With a flurry of letters, statements and tweets, both sides lobbied furiously in the hours prior to the vote in the Republican-controlled House. In a last-minute statement, Clapper warned against dismantling a critical intelligence tool.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Congress has authorized _ and a Republican and a Democratic president have signed _ extensions of the powers to search records and conduct roving wiretaps in pursuit of terrorists.

Two years ago, in a strong bipartisan statement, the Senate voted 72-23 to renew the Patriot Act and the House backed the extension 250-153.

Since the disclosures this year, however, lawmakers have said they were shocked by the scope of the two programs _ one to collect records of hundreds of millions of calls and the other allowing the NSA to sweep up Internet usage data from around the world that goes through nine major U.S.-based providers.

Although Republican leaders agreed to a vote on the Amash amendment, one of 100 to the defense spending bill, time for debate was limited to 15 minutes out of the two days the House dedicated to the overall legislation.

The White House and the director of the NSA, Army Gen. Keith Alexander, made last-minute appeals to lawmakers, urging them to oppose the amendment. Rogers and Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., leaders of the House Intelligence Committee, implored their colleagues to back the NSA program.

Eight former attorneys general, CIA directors and national security experts wrote in a letter to lawmakers that the two programs are fully authorized by law and "conducted in a manner that appropriately respects the privacy and civil liberties interests of Americans."

White House press secretary Jay Carney issued an unusual, nighttime statement on the eve of Wednesday's vote, arguing that the change would "hastily dismantle one of our intelligence community's counterterrorism tools."

Proponents of the NSA programs argue that the surveillance operations have been successful in thwarting at least 50 terror plots across 20 countries, including 10 to 12 directed at the United States. Among them was a 2009 plot to strike at the New York Stock Exchange.

Rogers joined six GOP chairmen in a letter urging lawmakers to reject the Amash amendment.

"While many members have legitimate questions about the NSA metadata program, including whether there are sufficient protections for Americans' civil liberties," the chairman wrote, "eliminating this program altogether without careful deliberation would not reflect our duty, under Article I of the Constitution, to provide for the common defense."

The overall defense spending bill would provide the Pentagon with $512.5 billion for weapons, personnel, aircraft and ships plus $85.8 billion for the war in Afghanistan for the next budget year.

The total, which is $5.1 billion below current spending, has drawn a veto threat from the White House, which argues that it would force the administration to cut education, health research and other domestic programs in order to boost spending for the Pentagon.

In a leap of faith, the bill assumes that Congress and the administration will resolve the automatic, across-the-board spending cuts that have led the Pentagon to furlough workers and cut back on training. The bill projects spending in the next fiscal year at $28.1 billion above the so-called sequester level.

By voice vote, the House backed an amendment that would require the president to seek congressional approval before sending U.S. military forces into the 2-year-old civil war in Syria.

Rep. Trey Radel, R-Fla., sponsor of the measure, said Obama has a "cloudy foreign policy" and noted the nation's war weariness after more than 10 years of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The administration is moving ahead with sending weapons to vetted rebels, but Obama and members of Congress have rejected the notion of U.S. ground forces.

The House also adopted, by voice vote, an amendment barring funds for military or paramilitary operations in Egypt. Several lawmakers, including Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas, who heads the panel overseeing foreign aid, expressed concerns about the measure jeopardizing the United States' longstanding relationship with the Egyptian military.

The sponsor of the measure, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., insisted that his amendment would not affect that relationship.

The overall bill must be reconciled with whatever measure the Democratic-controlled Senate produces.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/07/24/House-narrowly-r...

NSA Can't Check Its Own Emails

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by William Bigelow 24 Jul 2013, 12:43 AM PDT 8 post a comment
The National Security Agency (NSA), which monitors communications all over the world, has a very interesting weakness: the agency claims that it cannot even search its own employees’ email.

You read that correctly: NSA Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) officer Cindy Blacker told Justin Elliot of ProPublica, "There's no central method to search an email at this time with the way our records are set up, unfortunately.” She added that the NSA system is “a little antiquated and archaic."Elliot had filed a request for emails that had passed between the NSA and National Geographic Channel employees because he was studying the National Geographic Channel’s marketing strategies. Blacker responded a few days later telling Elliot to make his request more specific because the FOIA could not search emails en masse, only “person by person.” This would take a fair amount of time; the NSA has 30,000 employees.

Eliiot persisted by contacting the NSA press office but there was no response.
Mark Caramanica of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press was befuddled, saying, “It’s just baffling. This is an agency that’s charged with monitoring millions of communications globally and they can’t even track their own internal communications in response to a FOIA request.”Although Lucy Dalglish, dean of the journalism school at University of Maryland and an expert on the FOIA, asserted that federal agencies’ public records offices are quite often short of cash, she admitted, “If anybody is going to have the money to engage in evaluation of digital information, it’s the NSA, for heaven’s sake.”

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/07/23/NSA-Can-t-Check-...

http://www.alipac.us/f19/putin-contr...rouble-284416/