Blog Posts

After "Reform".....

6/17/2015

NSA Fight Isn't Over Yet; House Votes To Defund 'Backdoor' Spying
NSA Backdoor Searches Would End If House Amendment Survives
If the FBI has a backdoor to Facebook or Apple Encryption, we are less safe.
Spy critics eye next targets
If the Supreme Court tackles the NSA in 2015, it'll be one of these five cases
Hayden Mocks Extent of Post-Snowden Reform: “And This Is It After Two Years? Cool!”
The NSA's Technotyranny: One Nation Under Surveillance
Lies The Government Is Telling You
NSA secretly expanded Internet spying
The National Security State Lives.
Back from the dead: US officials as secret court to revive NSA surveillance
Justice Dept: US to Resume NSA Bulk Surveillance
Patriot Act Curbed NSA; Cybersecurity Bill Would Empower It.
Union: Hackers have personnel data on every federal employee

More on Snowden
Sunday Times Snowden Story Is Journalism At Its Worst - And Filled With Falsehoods
Let Me Be Clear - Snowden Is A Hero

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Thumbing my way through the news stories that have posted since the formal expiration of The Patriot Act and its reconstitution in The USA Freedom Act (albeit shorn of its phone data collection permissions) its clear that a number of thoughtful people are collecting there wits and in so many words saying “Wow! That was something! So where do we stand now and what's next?”

Of the active links in the text of my last Orwell Report posting of June 4th, the embedded ref to “The EFF” (The Electronic Frontier Foundation) seems to be especially useful in this regard, itself carrying in its text a number of links essential for the reader to begin to educate themselves on the answers to this question.

And though I've not gone through these nearly thoroughly enough nor through a number of other worthy stories posted at The AntiWar.Com aggregate news site, as a warm up I can present some worthwhile material on the entire "Snowden Affair" celebrating as it does a second anniversary in the wake of all this activity

Poetically following closely upon the court finding on the illegality of The Patriot Act, the Acts' expiration on June 1st and the passage of the “reform” legislation on June 2nd, is the second anniversary of Edward Snowden's self-disclosure to the world as the source of the NSA revelations then being published by The Guardian. The occasion has led to a renewal of the calls for Snowden's pardon including one from Lincoln Chafee who recentlly announced his bid to win the Democratic party nomination for the next presidential election. Bizarrely it's also renewed calls for his prosecution from the "responsible journalist" establishment - go figure. (See The LA Times and the forever execrable neocon Max Boot.) Of interest too are the reflections on the risks Snowden took to initiate the social, political and legislative consequences that we're only beginning to see by fellow whistleblowers such as Daniel Ellsberg and Thomas Drake.
Not escaping due notice is the abysmal hypocrisy of much of the political class grand standing in their support of the “reformed” legislation just passed while continuing to call for Snowdens prosecution under the Espionage act.

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june 4th, 2015

6/4/2015

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Well by and large things turned out for the NSA and The United Surveillance States of America much as anticipated by the overall speculations of the articles as posted last week. Senator Paul of Kentucky came through on running the clock out for the straight up renewal of the Patriot Act at midnight on Sunday and after 36 or so hours of (faux?) contentiousness the Senate passed the House bill, The USA Freedom Act, as is without amendments.
According to who you listen to this was either an appalling defeat for the safty and security of the US, a great victory for Constitutional liberty and civil rights, or a piece of empty window dressing that leaves the noxious content of the entirety of The Patriot Act relatively in place.
Dismissing the "Henny Penny" position as the boiler plate bombast of the maniacal control freaks of "The War Party," there DOES seem to be some encouragement to be taken away from recent events while maintaining an analytic realism that doesn't turn a blind eye to what remains to be done. Apparently both Snowden and The EFF are embracing the case for guarded celebration. Representing the spirit of a "nobodies-fool" radicalism stand the folks at AntiWar.Com and at the Ron Paul Institute.
(Oh and there is of course the squishy Democrat/Obama/Feinstein narrative of how great it is that the FREEDOM Act BOTH fulfills an urgent need for reform AND keeps our country safe from terrorist infiltration. Ho hum.)

P.S. Despite my poke at Obama, if he continues to keep us from being dragged into a war with Iran, that's "legacy" enough for me. Recall that the neocons and the War Party have been beating that drum since the final days of the Bush II presidency.

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