Big Brother’s Loyal Sister: How Dianne Feinstein Is Betraying Civil Liberties
Ever since the first big revelations about the National Security Agency five months ago, Dianne Feinstein has been in overdrive to defend the surveillance state. As chair of the Senate Intelligence...
View ArticleCartoon: Obama Translated
I can't say that I had very high hopes for Obama's NSA reforms. (Hello, Gitmo?) The man can still give a good speech, though, and make me feel like everything is going to be alright. Unfortunately,...
View ArticleThe NSA Is An Existential Problem. Police Brutality Is A Real Problem.
At this point, no one needs any refreshers on what's happening in Ferguson, Missouri. But how about what happened to Eric Garner or John Crawford or Ezell Ford or Kajieme Powell?These are just police...
View ArticleCan John Oliver do for mass surveillance what he did for net neutrality?
On Sunday, John Oliver had what is easily the most educational and fun half hour of journalism on the surveillance state that you're ever likely to see, including an interview with Edward Snowden....
View ArticleCongress nearing agreement on Patriot Act reauthorization legislation
Some provisions of the Patriot Act, including Section 215 which the FISA court has interpreted to allow the government to collect the phone records of virtually every person in the United States, are...
View ArticleMitch McConnell maneuvers to extend Patriot Act, NSA powers outside of...
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wants to reauthorize the Patriot Act, and specifically Section 215 of it (which the FISA court has interpreted to say that the NSA can collect all of our phone...
View ArticleBipartisan Senate, House members introduce bill to end mass surveillance
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is trying to do an end-run around the legislative process when it comes to reauthorizing the Patriot Act, and with it the bulk collection of Americans' phone...
View ArticleHouse committee passes bill to curtail mass surveillance
The House Judiciary Committee struck a blow against Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell this week. McConnell is trying to force a five-year extension of the Patriot Act, without any revision of the...
View ArticleBipartisan group of House members plot to strengthen NSA reforms
Congress has a little under a month to reauthorize expiring provisions of the Patriot Act—including Section 215, the provision that is being used to allow bulk collection of cell phone data. But...
View ArticleMcConnell pushes for Patriot Act extension with no NSA reforms
There's real momentum in Congress to actually end some of the NSA's surveillance powers with a reform bill that would replace the provisions of the Patriot Act that expire at the end of May. But while...
View ArticleAppeals court rules NSA bulk collection not authorized by PATRIOT Act
A very large monkey wrench has just been thrown into Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's plan to extend the Patriot Act, including Section 215 which the government argues allows bulk collection...
View ArticleMitch McConnell doubles down on preserving NSA bulk collection, despite court...
Sen. Tom Cotton, McConnell's new cheerleader for unlawful surveillance. Within a couple of hours of the ruling from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals that the bulk collection of American's cell phone...
View ArticleNSA ruling raises specter of Supreme Court challenge on privacy
The decision handed down by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals Thursday that the Patriot Act did not authorize the NSA's practice of bulk collection of Americans' cell phone data was a statutory...
View ArticleCongress has 10 days to pass NSA bill while McConnell stalls
Congress has essentially 10 working days to deal with the pending expiration of three provisions of the Patriot Act, including Section 215 which has been used by the Bush and Obama administrations to...
View ArticleWhite House backs NSA reform, McConnell still resists
The White House is urging Congress to pass the USA Freedom Act, the NSA reform bill the House is expected to vote on this week. The bill would replace three expiring provisions of the PATRIOT Act,...
View ArticleWhat happened in this briefing to convince Bob Corker the NSA needs more data...
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman dropped a bombshell Wednesday.Sen. Bob Corker suggested Wednesday that a controversial National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance program should be...
View ArticleSen. Richard Burr apparently doesn't understand how the law works
Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr (R-NC) has rejected the House USA Freedom Act which passed on Wednesday, imposing some limits on the NSA's bulk collection of all of our cellphone metadata....
View ArticleSenate slides into NSA reform impasse
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's bid to to pass an unchanged PATRIOT Act, bolstered by Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr, doesn't seem to be working. McConnell has refused to take up the USA...
View ArticleHouse, Senate Republicans fracturing over NSA reform
The impasse at which Republicans found themselves last week over reform in the bulk collection of cellphone metadata program in the Patriot Act bleeds into this week, with just a few workdays left...
View ArticleRepublicans in disarray over NSA reform
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell still insists that the PATRIOT Act provision that the NSA has used to illegally collect cell phone metadata from every American with a cell phone must be...
View ArticleNSA fight in Senate bleeds into weekend
The administration has sent dire warnings about NSA having to shut down its dragnet surveillance system of phone metadata which will expire in 10 days unless Congress acts."After May 22, 2015, the...
View ArticleMcConnell's NSA ploy fails, Senate blocks Patriot Act extension
The Senate provided a scene of remarkable drama in the early hours of Saturday morning, as Mitch McConnell's ploy to force his colleagues into a panic-inspired and last minute vote to extend the...
View ArticleAfter a massive NSA spanking, McConnell tries to regroup
The Senate did something remarkable in the early hours of Saturday morning; they defeated the politics of fear and defeated Mitch McConnell by refusing to go along with his plan to renew the Patriot...
View ArticleAdministration puts pressure on Senate to save some form of NSA collection...
The White House is increasing pressure on the Senate to figure out how to save the Patriot Act before major provisions expire on Monday. That includes President Obama telling reporters that Congress...
View ArticleCartoon: Mitch McConnell and Snuggly the Security Bear Beg to Spy
Is this the end of our domestic spying pal, Snuggly the Security Bear? Most likely not. Snuggly will probably still be in business and up to his usual tricks, he just may have to work with a huge...
View ArticleMitch McConnell's Patriot Act strategy leaves colleagues scratching their heads
The wheels fell of Mitch McConnell's claims of a new, effective Senate in the early hours of Saturday morning when a majority of senators refused to be bullied into supporting his plan for a simple...
View ArticleSunday Senate showdown over Patriot Act might kill it forever
Feel the love. Three provisions of the Patriot Act will expire at midnight, Sunday, including Section 215 which the government has been using to illegally justify dragnet collection of Americans' phone...
View ArticleMcConnell caves on NSA, Patriot Act provisions expire
In a rare Sunday session, the Senate voted 77-17 to begin debate on the USA Freedom Act, the House-passed reform bill ending the NSA's dragnet surveillance program, a major capitulation by Senate...
View ArticlePatriot Act provisions expire as Rand Paul fundraises, rewrites history
Three provisions of the Patriot Act expired at midnight, thanks largely to the obstinance of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his Kentucky colleague, Sen. Rand Paul. McConnell's refusal to...
View ArticleMcConnell blocks Rand Paul amendments to NSA reform bill
We'll see how this works out for him. After completely bungling a strategy to avoid reforms to the Patriot Act, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell decided to finally allow the USA Freedom Act, a...
View ArticleSurveillance bill in Senate tests Mitch McConnell's leadership
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, having badly bungled his strategy to keep the Patriot Act unchanged despite opposition among fellow congressional Republicans, Democrats, and a federal court,...
View ArticleMcConnell loses big on NSA amendments, USA Freedom Act goes to the president
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was an asshole starting the series of votes in the Senate in what was to become his NSA surveillance reform debacle.McConnell on Hse ldrs begging Senate not to...
View ArticleWhat the new NSA reforms mean
Dragnet surveillance of American's phone records is over, sort of. Somewhat lost in the Mitch McConnell-manufactured drama of the eventual passage of the USA Freedom Act is the actual substance of the...
View ArticleMitch McConnell's NSA antics won him very few friends
The most remarkable aspect of the last three weeks of Patriot Act/USA Freedom Act wrangling in Congress is how phenomenally bad Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell played his hand. From the outset,...
View ArticleMitch McConnell's NSA disaster just got even worse
On Wednesday, I wrote about what the USA Freedom Act does and made a mistake that most analysts have made, saying that the new law amends the Patriot Act provisions that were expiring at the end of...
View ArticleIntelligence failures
This explains a lot of the previous eight years of no oversight of the NSA from the Senate Intelligence Committee. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who chaired it while Democrats were in the majority, says...
View ArticleFederal courts at odds over allowing NSA metadata collection for next three...
Congress gave the NSA until the end of November to keep up its bulk collection of U.S. cellphone metadata records in the USA Freedom Act, passed earlier this year, but one of two legal challenges to...
View ArticleNSA Head Rogers: “Right now bulk collection gives us the ability - to...
The Obama Administration continues to be largely captive to the national security deep state. Spying on all citizens continues in the form of bulk collection.NSA head: We need bulk collectionBy Julian...
View ArticleMarco Rubio calls for more surveillance, using a big bushel of lies from the AP
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), the self-proclaimed "serious" foreign policy guy in the Republican presidential primary race, appears to be taking a page from Dick Cheney and planting misinformation with the...
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