House Rejects NSA Spying Restrictions

Newsflash from your Hollywood Attorney:

The US House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to reject an attempt to reign in domestic spying by the National Security Agency following a storm of lobbying by the White House against the measure.

In a 205-217 vote the House defeated an amendment introduced by Rep. Justin Amash (R-Michigan) which would have prevented the NSA from collecting the phone data of individuals not currently under investigation.

Amash aimed to challenge the NSA’s program of widespread collection of phone records, specifically information known as 'metadata,' the details of which were revealed by The Guardian in June.

That newspaper was able to acquire and publish a copy of a top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court opinion which required the mobile carrier Verizon to provide the NSA with the phone numbers of both parties involved in calls, along with the time and duration of the calls as well as calling card numbers used, and the International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) number for mobile carriers.

Since that information was revealed, officials have both confirmed the authenticity of the leak and justified its actions, as well as suggested that many more telecom companies are involved.

Surveillance of phone communications was itself eclipsed by revelations then made by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who blew the whistle on an unimagined level of online surveillance being conducted by the intelligence agency in conjunction with a long list of major American companies, including Yahoo, Microsoft, Google and Facebook.

According to various experts on the matter, including analysis provided by Wired Magazine, the NSA’s indiscriminate collection of such data would thereby allow the government to build a massive database to map connections and relationships between callers.

The defeated amendment would have ended the statutory authority of the newly revealed spy program, as part of the $600 billion Department of Defense Appropriations Act of 2014.

“The government collects the phone records without suspicion of every single American of the United States,” said Amash during floor debate on the measure.

On Monday, both the White House and lawmakers who support the NSA’s domestic spying programs launched a major lobbying effort against Amash’s measure after it was granted a vote.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper released a statement on Wednesday against the amendment, saying it risked “dismantling an important intelligence tool.”

The day prior, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney had issued a statement announcing the White House’s opposition to the amendment.

“We oppose the current effort in the House to hastily dismantle one of our intelligence community’s counterterrorism tools,” Carney said.

Democratic Representatives John Conyers and Zoe Lofgren had sent a letter to colleagues Wednesday urging them to support Amash’s amendment.

“Congress did not intend for Section 215 of the Patriot Act to allow the bulk collection of information about all Americans,” wrote the two.“This amendment would not prohibit the government from spying on terrorists under Section 215, or from collecting information in bulk about American under other legal provisions.”

The authority for the NSA’s spying programs are based on a provision of the PATRIOT Act, known as section 215, which allows the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to authorize broad warrants for phone records deemed “relevant,” but not necessarily connected to terrorists.

Pete Ashdown, the founder and CEO of Xmission, an Internet service provider that has denied NSA surveillance requests, told RT that the only way to avoid government monitoring is for an Internet user to encrypt their activity and hope their provider complies.

“I want to hope something good is coming out of Washington,” he said. “There are many in Congress who are calling Edward Snowden a traitor and criminal when in fact I think it’s the people in the NSA who are criminals for not following the Constitution and have perjured themselves in front on Congress. These are people we cannot trust and its time we audit them or shut them down. I don’t envision the wholesale surveillance of Americans they’re doing as part of my America.”

Source.... http://worldtruth.tv/house-rejects-nsa-spying-restrictions-after-white-house-outcry/

http://lawofficesofjonathanfranklin.blogspot.com/

Law Offices of Jonathan Franklin
Open Evenings and Weekends this Summer
Call Us Now (310) 273-9600    
 http://www.jonathanfranklinlaw.com

NSA Holds Emergency Hearing to Fight off Anti-Surveillance Amendment in Congress

Newsflash from your Hollywood Attorney:

National Security Agency Director General Keith Alexander

The National Security Agency has invited certain members of Congress to a top secret, invitation only meeting to discuss a proposed amendment that could end the NSA’s ability to conduct dragnet surveillance on millions of Americans.

A letter circulated only to select lawmakers early Tuesday announced that NSA Director General Keith B. Alexander would host a question and answer session with members of Congress in preparation of a Thursday vote on Capitol Hill expected to involve an amendment introduced last month by Rep. Justin Amash (R-Michigan).

That amendment, a provision tacked along to a Department of Defense Appropriations Act along with nearly 100 others, aims to greatly diminish the NSA’s domestic spying powers in the wake of disclosures attributed to Edward Snowden, a 30-year-old former employee of Booz Allen Hamilton currently fighting extradition to the US where he faces charges of espionage for his role in leaking state secrets.

One of the leaked files released by Snowden to the UK’s Guardian newspaper details how the government’s interpretation of the PATRIOT Act’s Section 215 has allowed the NSA to collect call logs and other so-called “telephony metadata” pertaining to millions of Americans on a regular basis. If the Amash amendment is approved, it would end that authority.

The amendment, as it appears on the House of Representatives Committee on Rules website, “Bars the NSA and other agencies from using 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.”

“It’s not a partisan issue. It’s something that cuts across the entire political spectrum,” Amash told the Rules panel. “In order for funds to be used by the NSA, the court order would have to have a statement limiting the collection of records to those records that pertain to a person under investigation,” Amash said, according to Politico. “If the court order doesn’t have that statement, the NSA doesn’t receive the funding to collect those records.”

Amash’s suggestion isn't unheard of in the wake of a massive public backlash caused by Mr. Snowden’s disclosures, but it certainly isn't sitting pretty with the NSA. According to Huffington Post, a letter circulated on Tuesday only hours after the Amash amendment was confirmed to be in order and expected to go up for vote this Thursday.

"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," HuffPo quoted from the invitation.

The meeting, added journalist Ryan Grim, was scheduled to be held at a security level of top secret/SCI and was only open to certain lawmakers, echoing the secrecy involved in the very programs Amash aims to shut down.

In preparation for Amash’s amendment going up for vote, the activism group Demand Progress has http://act.demandprogress.org/letter/nsa_amash/a campaign in hopes it will encourage Americans to ask their representatives to vote in favor of the bill.

“As the NSA spying revelations continue to unfold, we increasingly find ourselves facing the reality that -- at any moment -- the federal government could be listening to our phone calls, watching our email traffic, keeping tabs on our Internet browsing, or worse,” the website reads. “But now we have our first real chance to fight back.”

Speaking to Huffington Post, Demand Progress executive director David Segal said, “To invoke that expert on surveillance George W. Bush: After this vote we'll finally know who is with us in the cause to protect civil rights -- and who is against us."

A spokesperson for Rep. Amash told TIME Magazine on Tuesday afternoon that debate over the amendment is scheduled for Wednesday evening, with lawmakers expected to move for a vote the following morning. The amendment is being cosponsored by Rep. John Conyers, a Democrat from Amash’s home state of Michigan.

Source..... http://worldtruth.tv/nsa-holds-emergency-hearing-to-fight-off-anti-surveillance-amendment-in-congress/

http://lawofficesofjonathanfranklin.blogspot.com/

Law Offices of Jonathan Franklin
Open Evenings and Weekends this Summer
Call Us Now (310) 273-9600   
 http://www.jonathanfranklinlaw.com

Supreme Court Ruling on Voting Rights Opens Door to Wave of Minority Voter Suppression

Court Rejects Congress' Determination of Where the Voting Rights Act Should Apply, Leaving Voters Unprotected.

Statement by Sherrilyn Ifill, President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which defended the Voting Rights Act before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court's decision today to strike down a key part of the Voting Rights Act is an act of extraordinary judicial overreach. The Supreme Court ruling takes the most powerful tool our nation has to defend minority voting rights out of commission. By second-guessing Congress' judgment about which places should be covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the Court has left millions of minority voters without the mechanism that has allowed them to stop voting discrimination before it occurs. This is like letting you keep your car, but taking away the keys. To say that I am disappointed is an understatement. Congress must step in.

In 2006, Congress amassed a 15,000 page record supporting its judgment that minority voters in certain places needed specific protections to be able to participate equally in the political process. The Supreme Court today held that Congress must now return to the drawing board to reconsider which jurisdictions in the country should be covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

The Supreme Court declined the request by Shelby County, Alabama to strike down Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Section 5 requires some states and localities to illustrate that proposed changes to the voting process don't suppress minority voters before those changes can take effect. The Court did not rule on the constitutionality of Section 5 itself, which has been upheld in four previous challenges.

Today's ruling conflicts with our deeply held value in America that every individual has the sacred right to vote. Our country is stronger when more—not fewer—people participate in the political process.

When the Supreme Court held oral argument in Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder, LDF defended Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, as it did the last time Section 5's constitutionality was challenged before the Court.  LDF's clients in Shelby include local ministers from Shelby County, as well as the Councilman whose district was illegally changed, radically reducing the proportion of African-American voters in his district. LDF has been involved in nearly all of the precedent-setting litigation relating to the voting rights of people of color. LDF litigated to protect against disruptions of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, shortly after the notorious "Bloody Sunday" on March 7, 1965.

LDF also is involved in five other cases currently before the U.S. Supreme Court: cases concerning college diversity, the National Voter Registration Act, and marriage equality.

Source.... http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/supreme-court-ruling-on-voting-rights-opens-door-to-wave-of-minority-voter-suppression-212963091.html

Law Offices of Jonathan Franklin
Open Evenings and Weekends this Summer
Call Us Now (310) 273-9600   
 http://www.jonathanfranklinlaw.com

Congressman Ed Markey to Disney: Kid-Tracking Bracelet Raises Privacy Questions

Congressman Asks for Details on Data Collection, Targeting Advertisements to Children at Disney Theme Parks

WASHINGTON (January 24, 2013) – Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) raised questions today about the privacy implications for children visiting Disney theme parks resulting from the company's plan to offer a new bracelet at its parks that will serve as a payment source, room key, and gateway to other services during visits to some Disney parks. In a letter sent to the Disney corporation Chairman and CEO Robert Iger, Rep. Markey asks the company how it will track, collect information about, and target its guests with advertisements, especially the children and teenagers who frequent the parks. Disney’s plan to roll out a new “MagicBand” system was reported in a New York Times article earlier this month.

“Collecting information about how guests use Disney amusement parks could improve the company’s ability to target advertisements at its guests, including children,” writes Rep. Markey, who is a Co-Chairman of the Congressional Bi-partisan Privacy Caucus. “Although kids should have the chance to meet Mickey Mouse, this memorable meeting should not be manipulated through surreptitious use of a child’s personal information.”

In the letter addressed to Disney’s chairman and CEO, Rep. Markey asks whether guests will be required to use the “MagicBand” system; how data will be collected, stored, and shared; and whether children will be targeted with ads or other marketing pitches. The full letter is available HERE.

In May of 2011, Rep. Markey introduced the Do Not Track Kids Act, legislation that amends the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 to extend, enhance and update the provisions relating to the collection, use and disclosure of children’s personal information and establishes new protections for personal information of children and teens. More information on that legislation is available HERE, and Rep. Markey will re-introduce this legislation in the coming months.

Source... http://markey.house.gov/press-release/markey-disney-kid-tracking-bracelet-raises-privacy-questions