Mike Lee: Americans deserve better than Congress' 'governing from a cliff'

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, addresses the 42nd annual Conservative Political Action Conference on Feb. 26, 2015 in National Harbor, Md. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Sen. Mike Lee criticized his fellow lawmakers for waiting until the last moment to act on the expiring Patriot Act.

"I do believe we have the votes … the question is not whether we will get this passed, but when," the Utah Republican said Sunday on CNN.

"It'll happen tonight or on Wednesday," he said, before criticizing how Congress continues to "govern from a cliff."

Congress knew the Patriot Act was set to expire June 1 four years ago, but failed to act on it, Lee, who sits on the Judiciary Committee, said.

"American people deserve better than this … governing from a cliff," Lee said, adding, "This sort of thing has become all too common."

It's a "bad habit" adopted by both parties, Lee said.

According to Lee, the USA Freedom Act — which has been passed by the House but remains stalled in the Senate — solves the underlying problem of bulk collection of Americans' phone records and keeping the American people safe.

Senators are to adjourn Sunday in Washington to decide what to with expiring provisions of the Patriot Act, which expire June 1.

Via: Washington Examiner

Continue Reading....

Rand Paul Will ‘Force The Expiration’ of the PATRIOT Act

Despite his not being included in a recent 2016 candidates poll on Fox & Friends, Rand Paul (R-KY) still has a strong following among Tea Party and Libertarian-leaning conservative voters. He’s even got a Super PAC pulling for him.

A lot of this has to do with Paul’s stance against the renewal of the PATRIOT Act and the approval of the USA Freedom Act, and he recently performed an unofficial filibuster against NSA surveillance.

In a statement to POLITICO, Paul lays out a simple plan for Sunday’s special session:

So tomorrow, I will force the expiration of the NSA illegal spy program.

What special session, you ask? As POLITICO points out, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) wants to facilitate a rather quick debate on the surveillance bill that’s got Paul and others so worked up.

Paul explains his stance further, saying:

I am ready and willing to start the debate on how we fight terrorism without giving up our liberty.

Sometimes when the problem is big enough, you just have to start over. The tax code and our regulatory burdens are two good examples.

Fighting against unconditional, illegal powers that take away our rights, taken by previous Congresses and administrations is just as important.

I do not do this to obstruct. I do it to build something better, more effective, more lasting, and more cognizant of who we are as Americans.

Via: Mediaite

Continue Reading..... 

The Un-Scary Truth About NSA 'Spying'

If the National Security Agency’s bulk­ data program expires, the coroner should conclude that it was “Death by Bumper Sticker.”

Rarely has a controversial government program been so fiercely debated and so poorly understood. Authorized by soon-to-­expire Section 215 of the Patriot Act, it has been brought to the edge of extinction by a couple of simple but inaccurate phrases, including “listening to your phone calls” and “domestic spying.”

You can listen to orations on the NSA program for hours and be outraged by its violation of our liberties, inspired by the glories of the Fourth Amendment and prepared to mount the barricades to stop the NSA in its tracks — and still have no idea what the program actually does.

That’s what the opponents leave out or distort, since their case against the program becomes so much less compelling upon fleeting contact with reality.

The program involves so-­called metadata, information about phone calls, but not the content of the calls — things like the numbers called, the time of the call, the duration of the call. The phone companies have all this information, which the NSA acquires from them.

What happens next probably won’t shock you, and it shouldn’t. As Rachel Brand of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board writes, “It is stored in a database that may be searched only by a handful of trained employees, and even they may search it only after a judge has determined that there is evidence connecting a specific phone number to terrorism.”

Via: New York Post

Continue Reading.....

NSA winds down once-secret phone-records collection program

WASHINGTON (AP) — The National Security Agency has begun winding down its collection and storage of American phone records after the Senate failed to agree on a path forward to change or extend the once-secret program ahead of its expiration at the end of the month.

Barring an 11th hour compromise when the Senate returns to session May 31, a much-debated provision of the Patriot Act — and some other lesser known surveillance tools — will sunset at midnight that day. The change also would have a major impact on the FBI, which uses the Patriot Act and the other provisions to gather records in investigations of suspected spies and terrorists.

In a chaotic scene during the wee hours of Saturday, Senate Republicans blocked a bill known as the USA Freedom Act, which would have ended the NSA's bulk collection but preserved its ability to search the records held by the phone companies on a case-by-case basis. The bill was backed by President Barack Obama, House Republicans and the nation's top law enforcement and intelligence officials.

It fell just three votes short of the 60 needed for passage. All the "no" votes but one were cast by Republicans, some of whom said they thought the USA Freedom Act didn't go far enough to help the NSA maintain its capabilities.

If Senate Republican leaders were counting on extending current law and continuing the negotiations, they miscalculated. Democrats and libertarian-minded Republicans refused to go along. A bill to grant a two-month extension of the law failed, and senators objected to each attempt by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky offer up a short term extension.

The failure to act means the NSA will immediately begin curtailing its searches of domestic phone records for connections to international terrorists. The Justice Department said in a statement that it will take time to taper off the collection process from the phone companies. That process began Friday, said an administration official who would not be identified because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

Via: My Way

Continue Reading....

Rand Paul Begins Filibuster Of Patriot Act

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is filibustering the Patriot Act on the Senate floor, and it doesn’t look like he’s going to stop anytime soon.

The Republican presidential candidate took control of the floor Wednesday afternoon at 1:18 p.m., simultaneously explaining on Twitter that he is filibustering the renewal of the Patriot Act because of the National Security Agency’s program that collects bulk phone record data of American citizens.

“The government shouldn’t have the ability to get that information unless they have suspicion,” Paul said on the floor Wednesday. “Unless they have probable cause you committed a crime.”

In an campaign email to supporters, posted online by a reporter from Time magazine, Paul said: “I will not rest. I will not back down. I will not yield one inch in this fight so long as my legs can stand.”

Here’s how a Paul campaign aide described the marathon speech: “Senator Rand Paul has taken the floor of the U.S. Senate to filibuster the reauthorization of the Patriot Act. Senator Paul is a staunch defender of liberty and believes Americans have a right to privacy. The U.S. government has no place conducting these warrantless searches and should focus on gathering intelligence on suspected terrorists and foreign actors.”

Via: Daily Caller

Continue Reading....

Senate fight looms as law allowing NSA to collect Americans’ phone data set to expire

A major supporter of the National Security Agency’s anti-terrorism surveillance program, which allows the bulk collection of Americans’ phone records, is pushing for an extension of the program, setting up a battle with critics who argue that Congress must fix the current law or let it expire.

"This has been a very important part of our effort to defend the homeland since 9/11," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday while defending the program in an interview on ABC's “This Week.” "We know that the terrorists overseas are trying to recruit people in our country to commit atrocities in our country."

McConnell, R-Ky., introduced a bill Thursday night that would temporarily renew the expiring provisions of the Patriot Act for two months.

The renewal would buy time for the Senate to debate, specifically, Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which authorizes the government to collect personal records without a warrant and has been the target of controversy since NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed in 2013 that it was being used by the NSA to capture and retain millions of Americans’ personal phone records.  

The provisions are currently scheduled to sunset on June 1.

Meanwhile, the House on Wednesday passed the USA Freedom Act, a bipartisan bill lawmakers said would end the NSA’s ability to use Section 215 for that type of data collection. Instead, it would allow private telecom companies to keep the records. Federal law enforcement would have to get a court order proving a link to a specific criminal investigation to collect such phone record data, and must use specific search terms to get permission to pore through the information.

Via: Fox News

Continue Reading....

Top senator calls for scrapping key snooping Patriot Act section

The Senate’s senior lawmaker said Tuesday that its time to end the Patriot Act power that the intelligence community has relied on to collect all Americans’ phone records, saying it isn’t making the country safer.

“In my view, and I’ve discussed this with the White House, the Section 215 collection of Americans’ phone records must end,” said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat and chairman of the SenateJudiciary Committee. “It is not making America safer and the government has not made its case this is an effective counterterrorism tool.”

Speaking at Georgetown Law Center, Mr. Leahy said he would hold a classified briefing this week and call an open hearing next week to try to look at the issues at stake.

The intelligence snooping has come under scrutiny since leaks earlier this year exposed that the U.S. government was collecting the time and phone numbers of calls made in the U.S., as well as combing through other electronic communications.

Since then, the intelligence community has admitted it has repeatedly broken its own rules — though officials say they have caught themselves and have generally not found any intentional efforts to abuse the programs.

Mr. Leahy, though, said there aren’t enough checks built into the program to let it continue, particularly with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has grown from a panel that approves wiretaps into a major legal power that decides weighty constitutional issues — all outside the view of the public.

“They are conducting oversight of highly technical programs that even the agency running them apparently did not understand and certainly did not accurately explain to the court. And they are doing all of this entirely in secret and without the benefits of an adversarial process,” Mr. Leahy said.

Via: Washington Times

Continue Reading....