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Gary Edwards

Rand Paul's Tea Party Response: Full Text - 0 views

www.newsmax.com/...490118

Rand-Paul Libertarian USA-Constitution

shared by Gary Edwards on 13 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • With my five-year budget, millions of jobs would be created by cutting the corporate income tax in half, by creating a flat personal income tax of 17%, and by cutting the regulations that are strangling American businesses.
  • America has much greatness left in her. We will begin to thrive again when we begin to believe in ourselves again, when we regain our respect for our founding documents, when we balance our budget, when we understand that capitalism and free markets and free individuals are what creates our nation’s prosperity.
  • Gary Edwards on 13 Feb 13
     
    Outstanding statement about what made America great, an dhow are government is destroying that greatness.  This is the full Text of Sen. Rand Paul's Tea Party Response to Obama's State of the Union Address: I speak to you tonight from Washington, D.C. The state of our economy is tenuous but our people remain the greatest example of freedom and prosperity the world has ever known. People say America is exceptional. I agree, but it's not the complexion of our skin or the twists in our DNA that make us unique. America is exceptional because we were founded upon the notion that everyone should be free to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. For the first time in history, men and women were guaranteed a chance to succeed based NOT on who your parents were but on your own initiative and desire to work. We are in danger, though, of forgetting what made us great. The President seems to think the country can continue to borrow $50,000 per second. The President believes that we should just squeeze more money out of those who are working. The path we are on is not sustainable, but few in Congress or in this Administration seem to recognize that their actions are endangering the prosperity of this great nation. Ronald Reagan said, government is not the answer to the problem, government is the problem. Tonight, the President told the nation he disagrees. President Obama believes government is the solution: More government, more taxes, more debt. What the President fails to grasp is that the American system that rewards hard work is what made America so prosperous. What America needs is not Robin Hood but Adam Smith. In the year we won our independence, Adam Smith described what creates the Wealth of Nations. He described a limited government that largely did not interfere with individuals and their pursuit of happiness. All that we are, all that we wish to be is now threatened by the notion that you can have something for nothing, that you can have your cake and ea
Paul Merrell

Justin Amash votes against his own bill, the USA Freedom Act | WashingtonExaminer.com - 0 views

washingtonexaminer.com/...2548767

surveillance state NSA NSA-reform legislation ambush-tactics Amash

shared by Paul Merrell on 23 May 14 - No Cached
  • Unhappy with last-minute changes made to a bill designed to end the National Security Agency's bulk collection of American's phone and Internet records, Rep. Justin Amash voted against the bill. The Michigan congressman, who was an original cosponsor of the USA Freedom Act, said he was “proud” of the work he and others did to promote the bill, but that he could not support the draft legislation as it is currently written.
Paul Merrell

Study: Surveillance will cost US tech sector more than $35B by 2016 | TheHill - 0 views

thehill.com/...s-tech-sector-over-35b-by-2016

surveillance state NSA-blowback U.S.-tech-cos

shared by Paul Merrell on 10 Jun 15 - No Cached
  • A new study says that the U.S. tech industry is likely to lose more than $35 billion from foreign customers by 2016 because of concerns over government surveillance.“In short, foreign customers are shunning U.S. companies,” the authors of a new study from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation write.ADVERTISEMENT“The U.S. government’s failure to reform many of the NSA’s surveillance programs has damaged the competitiveness of the U.S. tech sector and cost it a portion of the global market share,” they said.The think tank’s report found that the cost to the tech sector associated with ongoing concerns over surveillance programs run out of the U.S. was likely to “far exceed” $35 billion by 2016, an earlier estimate set by the group.
  • The group said that lawmakers must enact additional reforms to surveillance policy if they wish to help the tech sector regain the trust of foreign customers. That includes opposing “backdoors,” which allow law enforcement to access otherwise encrypted data, and signing off on trade agreements, including the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership, that “ban digital protectionism.”The study’s authors found that the revelations about broad U.S. surveillance programs acted as a justification for foreign policymakers to enact protectionist policies aimed at aiding their own domestic technology sectors.Foreign companies have also used the information about U.S. surveillance programs to their advantage.“Some European companies have begun to highlight where their digital services are hosted as an alternative to U.S. companies,” the authors write.
  • American companies, they found, have lost contracts to foreign competitors over fears about mass surveillance.Earlier this month, President Obama signed the USA Freedom Act, a bill that reformed the three Patriot Act provisions that authorized the bulk, warrantless collection of Americans’ phone records. The bill was widely supported by technology companies, including giants like Apple and Google.
Paul Merrell

With court approval, NSA resumes bulk collection of phone data - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...5-bf41-c23f5d3face1_story.html

surveillance state NSA phone-metadata bulk-collection resumption

shared by Paul Merrell on 01 Jul 15 - No Cached
  • The National Security Agency on Tuesday restarted its bulk collection of Americans’ phone records for a temporary period, following a federal court ruling this week that gave it the green light, U.S. officials said. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Monday ruled that the NSA could resume gathering millions of Americans’ phone metadata — call times, dates and durations — to scan for links to foreign terrorists. [Here’s the court’s opinion] But the resumption is good for only 180 days — or until Nov. 29, in compliance with the USA Freedom Act. That law, which President Obama signed June 2 after a contentious congressional debate, will end the government’s bulk collection of metadata. It provided, however, for a transition period to allow the NSA time to set up an alternative system in which the data is stored by the phone companies.
  • After the law took effect, the government immediately applied to the surveillance court to restart its collection. Because Congress passed the bill a day after the underlying statute authorizing the NSA program had expired, there was a question as to whether lawmakers had authorized the government’s temporary harvesting of phone records. “In passing the USA Freedom Act, Congress clearly intended to end bulk data collection of business records and other tangible things,” Judge Michael W. Mosman wrote in his opinion. “But what it took away with one hand, it gave back — for a limited time — with the other. . . . It chose to allow a 180-day transitional period during which such [bulk] collection could continue.”
  • Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said he saw no reason to resume collection, even on a temporary basis. “This illegal dragnet surveillance violated Americans’ rights for 14 years without making our country any safer,” he said. Mosman also ruled that FreedomWorks, a grass-roots libertarian organization, and its attorney, Ken Cuccinelli II, could submit “friend of the court” briefs that argue against the lawfulness of the metadata program. In May, a federal appeals court in New York held that the program was unlawful. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit ruled that the program stretched the meaning of the statute — Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act — to enable data collection in “staggering” volumes in the chance that “at some future point” there might be a need to search for terrorist links.
Paul Merrell

Republican Party Calls For End To NSA Domestic Phone Records Program | TIME.com - 0 views

swampland.time.com/...nvestigation-into-nsa-snooping

surveillance state NSA NSA-blowback RNC-resolution

shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • In the latest indication of a growing libertarian wing of the GOP, the Republican National Committee passed a resolution Friday calling for an investigation into the “gross infringement” of Americans’ rights by National Security Agency programs that were revealed by Edward Snowden. The resolution also calls on on Republican members of Congress to enact amendments to the Section 215 law that currently allows the spy agency to collect records of almost every domestic telephone call. The amendment should make clear that “blanket surveillance of the Internet activity, phone records and correspondence — electronic, physical, and otherwise — of any person residing in the U.S. is prohibited by law and that violations can be reviewed in adversarial proceedings before a public court,” the resolution reads.
  • The measure, the “Resolution to Renounce the National Security Agency’s Surveillance Program,” passed by an “overwhelming majority” by voice vote, along with resolutions calling for the repeal of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act and reaffirming the party’s pro-life stance, according to Reince Priebus, the RNC chairman. Among other points, the resolution declares “the mass collection and retention of personal data is in itself contrary to the right of privacy protected by the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution,” a claim embraced by civil libertarians of both parties. The revelation of the NSA programs has caused deepened a rift within the Republican Party between national security hawks and libertarians, but at the meeting, no RNC member rose to speak against the resolution.
  • WHEREAS, the mass collection and retention of personal data is in itself contrary to the right of privacy protected by the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution, which guarantees the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, that warrants shall issue only upon probable cause, and generally prevents the American government from issuing modern-day writs of assistance; WHEREAS, unwarranted government surveillance is an intrusion on basic human rights that threatens the very foundations of a democratic society and this program represents a gross infringement of the freedom of association and the right to privacy and goes far beyond even the permissive limits set by the Patriot Act; and WHEREAS, Republican House Representative Jim Sensenbrenner, an author of the Patriot Act and Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee at the time of Section 215′s passage, called the Section 215 surveillance program “an abuse of that law,” writing that, “based on the scope of the released order, both the administration and the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) court are relying on an unbounded interpretation of the act that Congress never intended,” therefore be it
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  • The full text of the resolution as given to TIME follows below: Resolution to Renounce the National Security Agency’s Surveillance Program WHEREAS, the secret surveillance program called PRISM targets, among other things, the surveillance of U.S. citizens on a vast scale and monitors searching habits of virtually every American on the internet; WHEREAS, this dragnet program is, as far as we know, the largest surveillance effort ever launched by a democratic government against its own citizens, consisting of the mass acquisition of Americans’ call details encompassing all wireless and landline subscribers of the country’s three largest phone companies; WHEREAS, every time an American citizen makes a phone call, the NSA gets a record of the location, the number called, the time of the call and the length of the conversation, all of which are an invasion into the personal lives of American citizens that violates the right of free speech and association afforded by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution;
  • RESOLVED, the Republican National Committee encourages Republican lawmakers to enact legislation to amend Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, the state secrets privilege, and the FISA Amendments Act to make it clear that blanket surveillance of the Internet activity, phone records and correspondence — electronic, physical, and otherwise — of any person residing in the U.S. is prohibited by law and that violations can be reviewed in adversarial proceedings before a public court; RESOLVED, the Republican National Committee encourages Republican lawmakers to call for a special committee to investigate, report, and reveal to the public the extent of this domestic spying and the committee should create specific recommendations for legal and regulatory reform ot end unconstitutional surveillance as well as hold accountable those public officials who are found to be responsible for this unconstitutional surveillance; and
  • RESOLVED, the Republican National Committee encourages Republican lawmakers to immediately take action to halt current unconstitutional surveillance programs and provide a full public accounting of the NSA’s data collection programs.
  • Paul Merrell on 26 Jan 14
     
    That's more like it! Notice that the call is for a "special committee to investigate," etc., not the House Intelligence Committee chaired by Mike Rogers.  Note also the call for heads to roll.
  • Paul Merrell on 26 Jan 14
     
    Something messed up in the quoting of the resolution. Please go to the linked web site for the resolution's full text.
Paul Merrell

The Fundamentals of US Surveillance: What Edward Snowden Never Told Us? | Global Resear... - 0 views

www.globalresearch.ca/...5477125

surveillance state NSA GCHQ reciprocal-surveillance civil-liberties

shared by Paul Merrell on 21 Sep 15 - No Cached
  • Former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden’s revelations rocked the world.  According to his detailed reports, the US had launched massive spying programs and was scrutinizing the communications of American citizens in a manner which could only be described as extreme and intense. The US’s reaction was swift and to the point. “”Nobody is listening to your telephone calls,” President Obama said when asked about the NSA. As quoted in The Guardian,  Obama went on to say that surveillance programs were “fully overseen not just by Congress but by the Fisa court, a court specially put together to evaluate classified programs to make sure that the executive branch, or government generally, is not abusing them”. However, it appears that Snowden may have missed a pivotal part of the US surveillance program. And in stating that the “nobody” is not listening to our calls, President Obama may have been fudging quite a bit.
  • In fact, Great Britain maintains a “listening post” at NSA HQ. The laws restricting live wiretaps do not apply to foreign countries  and thus this listening post  is not subject to  US law.  In other words, the restrictions upon wiretaps, etc. do not apply to the British listening post.  So when Great Britain hands over the recordings to the NSA, technically speaking, a law is not being broken and technically speaking, the US is not eavesdropping on our each and every call. It is Great Britain which is doing the eavesdropping and turning over these records to US intelligence. According to John Loftus, formerly an attorney with  the Department of Justice and author of a number of books concerning US intelligence activities, back in the late seventies  the USDOJ issued a memorandum proposing an amendment to FISA. Loftus, who recalls seeing  the memo, stated in conversation this week that the DOJ proposed inserting the words “by the NSA” into the FISA law  so the scope of the law would only restrict surveillance by the NSA, not by the British.  Any subsequent sharing of the data culled through the listening posts was strictly outside the arena of FISA. Obama was less than forthcoming when he insisted that “What I can say unequivocally is that if you are a US person, the NSA cannot listen to your telephone calls, and the NSA cannot target your emails … and have not.”
  • According to Loftus, the NSA is indeed listening as Great Britain is turning over the surveillance records en masse to that agency. Loftus states that the arrangement is reciprocal, with the US maintaining a parallel listening post in Great Britain. In an interview this past week, Loftus told this reporter that  he believes that Snowden simply did not know about the arrangement between Britain and the US. As a contractor, said Loftus, Snowden would not have had access to this information and thus his detailed reports on the extent of US spying, including such programs as XKeyscore, which analyzes internet data based on global demographics, and PRISM, under which the telecommunications companies, such as Google, Facebook, et al, are mandated to collect our communications, missed the critical issue of the FISA loophole.
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  • U.S. government officials have defended the program by asserting it cannot be used on domestic targets without a warrant. But once again, the FISA courts and their super-secret warrants  do not apply to foreign government surveillance of US citizens. So all this sturm and drang about whether or not the US is eavesdropping on our communications is, in fact, irrelevant and diversionary.
  • In fact, the USA Freedom Act reinstituted a number of the surveillance protocols of Section 215, including  authorization for  roving wiretaps  and tracking “lone wolf terrorists.”  While mainstream media heralded the passage of the bill as restoring privacy rights which were shredded under 215, privacy advocates have maintained that the bill will do little, if anything, to reverse the  surveillance situation in the US. The NSA went on the record as supporting the Freedom Act, stating it would end bulk collection of telephone metadata. However, in light of the reciprocal agreement between the US and Great Britain, the entire hoopla over NSA surveillance, Section 215, FISA courts and the USA Freedom Act could be seen as a giant smokescreen. If Great Britain is collecting our real time phone conversations and turning them over to the NSA, outside the realm or reach of the above stated laws, then all this posturing over the privacy rights of US citizens and surveillance laws expiring and being resurrected doesn’t amount to a hill of CDs.
Paul Merrell

Bulk Collection Under Section 215 Has Ended… What's Next? | Just Security - 0 views

www.justsecurity.org/...lk-collection-ended-whats-next

surveillance state NSA-reform 215 bulk-collection EO-12333

shared by Paul Merrell on 01 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • The first (and thus far only) roll-back of post-9/11 surveillance authorities was implemented over the weekend: The National Security Agency shuttered its program for collecting and holding the metadata of Americans’ phone calls under Section 215 of the Patriot Act. While bulk collection under Section 215 has ended, the government can obtain access to this information under the procedures specified in the USA Freedom Act. Indeed, some experts have argued that the Agency likely has access to more metadata because its earlier dragnet didn’t cover cell phones or Internet calling. In addition, the metadata of calls made by an individual in the United States to someone overseas and vice versa can still be collected in bulk — this takes place abroad under Executive Order 12333. No doubt the NSA wishes that this was the end of the surveillance reform story and the Paris attacks initially gave them an opening. John Brennan, the Director of the CIA, implied that the attacks were somehow related to “hand wringing” about spying and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) introduced a bill to delay the shut down of the 215 program. Opponents of encryption were quick to say: “I told you so.”
  • But the facts that have emerged thus far tell a different story. It appears that much of the planning took place IRL (that’s “in real life” for those of you who don’t have teenagers). The attackers, several of whom were on law enforcement’s radar, communicated openly over the Internet. If France ever has a 9/11 Commission-type inquiry, it could well conclude that the Paris attacks were a failure of the intelligence agencies rather than a failure of intelligence authorities. Despite the passage of the USA Freedom Act, US surveillance authorities have remained largely intact. Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act — which is the basis of programs like PRISM and the NSA’s Upstream collection of information from Internet cables — sunsets in the summer of 2017. While it’s difficult to predict the political environment that far out, meaningful reform of Section 702 faces significant obstacles. Unlike the Section 215 program, which was clearly aimed at Americans, Section 702 is supposedly targeted at foreigners and only picks up information about Americans “incidentally.” The NSA has refused to provide an estimate of how many Americans’ information it collects under Section 702, despite repeated requests from lawmakers and most recently a large cohort of advocates. The Section 215 program was held illegal by two federal courts (here and here), but civil attempts to challenge Section 702 have run into standing barriers. Finally, while two review panels concluded that the Section 215 program provided little counterterrorism benefit (here and here), they found that the Section 702 program had been useful.
  • There is, nonetheless, some pressure to narrow the reach of Section 702. The recent decision by the European Court of Justice in the safe harbor case suggests that data flows between Europe and the US may be restricted unless the PRISM program is modified to protect the information of Europeans (see here, here, and here for discussion of the decision and reform options). Pressure from Internet companies whose business is suffering — estimates run to the tune of $35 to 180 billion — as a result of disclosures about NSA spying may also nudge lawmakers towards reform. One of the courts currently considering criminal cases which rely on evidence derived from Section 702 surveillance may hold the program unconstitutional either on the basis of the Fourth Amendment or Article III for the reasons set out in this Brennan Center report. A federal district court in Colorado recently rejected such a challenge, although as explained in Steve’s post, the decision did not seriously explore the issues. Further litigation in the European courts too could have an impact on the debate.
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  • The US intelligence community’s broadest surveillance authorities are enshrined in Executive Order 12333, which primarily covers the interception of electronic communications overseas. The Order authorizes the collection, retention, and dissemination of “foreign intelligence” information, which includes information “relating to the capabilities, intentions or activities of foreign powers, organizations or persons.” In other words, so long as they are operating outside the US, intelligence agencies are authorized to collect information about any foreign person — and, of course, any Americans with whom they communicate. The NSA has conceded that EO 12333 is the basis of most of its surveillance. While public information about these programs is limited, a few highlights give a sense of the breadth of EO 12333 operations: The NSA gathers information about every cell phone call made to, from, and within the Bahamas, Mexico, Kenya, the Philippines, and Afghanistan, and possibly other countries. A joint US-UK program tapped into the cables connecting internal Yahoo and Google networks to gather e-mail address books and contact lists from their customers. Another US-UK collaboration collected images from video chats among Yahoo users and possibly other webcam services. The NSA collects both the content and metadata of hundreds of millions of text messages from around the world. By tapping into the cables that connect global networks, the NSA has created a database of the location of hundreds of millions of mobile phones outside the US.
  • Given its scope, EO 12333 is clearly critical to those seeking serious surveillance reform. The path to reform is, however, less clear. There is no sunset provision that requires action by Congress and creates an opportunity for exposing privacy risks. Even in the unlikely event that Congress was inclined to intervene, it would have to address questions about the extent of its constitutional authority to regulate overseas surveillance. To the best of my knowledge, there is no litigation challenging EO 12333 and the government doesn’t give notice to criminal defendants when it uses evidence derived from surveillance under the order, so the likelihood of a court ruling is slim. The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board is currently reviewing two programs under EO 12333, but it is anticipated that much of its report will be classified (although it has promised a less detailed unclassified version as well). While the short-term outlook for additional surveillance reform is challenging, from a longer-term perspective, the distinctions that our law makes between Americans and non-Americans and between domestic and foreign collection cannot stand indefinitely. If the Fourth Amendment is to meaningfully protect Americans’ privacy, the courts and Congress must come to grips with this reality.
Paul Merrell

Government Likens Ending Bulk Surveillance to Opening Prison Gates - 0 views

theintercept.com/...llance-to-opening-prison-gates

surveillance state NSA-reform Klayman litigation

shared by Paul Merrell on 10 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • A Justice Department prosecutor said Thursday that ordering the immediate end of bulk surveillance of millions of Americans’ phone records would be as hasty as suddenly letting criminals out of prison. “Public safety should be taken into consideration,” argued DOJ attorney Julia Berman, noting that in a 2011 Supreme Court ruling on prison overcrowding, the state of California was given two years to find a solution and relocate prisoners. By comparison, she suggested, the six months Congress granted to the National Security Agency to stop indiscriminately collecting data on American phone calls was minimal. Ending the bulk collection program even a few weeks before the current November 29 deadline would be an imminent risk to national security because it would create a dangerous “intelligence gap” during a period rife with fears of homegrown terrorism, she said.
  • The argument came during a hearing before U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon on plaintiff Larry Klayman’s request for a preliminary injunction that would immediately halt the NSA program that tracks who in the United States is calling who, when, and for how long. The bulk telephony metadata program, which the NSA said was authorized under section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, was closed down by Congress in June with the passage of new legislation—the USA Freedom Act. However, the new bill allowed for a grace period of six months in which the government could set up a less all-inclusive alternative..
  • The Second Circuit Court of Appeals in May ruled that the bulk telephony program was illegal. Judge Leon ruled in Klayman’s favor in 2013, calling the government’s spying “almost Orwellian.” When Berman made her analogy to releasing prisoners en masse, Leon responded: “That’s really a very different kind of situation, don’t you think?”. And Berman was unable to cite any evidence that the bulk collection prevented any sort of terrorist attack, or that ending it now would be a serious threat. “That’s a problem I had before—wonderful high lofty expressions, general vague terms…but [the government] did not share a single example,” Leon said. Klayman, whose arguments consisted mostly of accusing the government of lying and violating the law, decided by the end of the hearing that he actually wanted the entire USA Freedom Act stricken from the books—because he insisted that Congress, in allowing an unconstitutional program to proceed, had violated the Constitution itself. Judge Leon promised a ruling “as soon as possible.”
Paul Merrell

Court asked to kill off NSA's 'zombie dragnet' of Americans' bulk phone data | US news ... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...-dragnet-bulk-phone-data-court

surveillance state NSA bulk bulk-collection telephone-metadata litigation 2nd-Circuit

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Jul 15 - No Cached
  • The leading civil liberties group in the United States has requested a federal court to stop the National Security Agency from collecting Americans’ phone data in bulk through the end of the year.
  • While the surveillance dragnet was phased out by Congress and Barack Obama last month, an American Civil Liberties Union suit seeks to end a twilight, zombie period of the same US phone records collection, slated under the new law to last six months. “Today the government is continuing – after a brief suspension – to collect Americans’ call records in bulk on the purported authority of precisely the same statutory language this court has already concluded does not permit it,” the ACLU writes in a motion filed on Tuesday before the second circuit court of appeals.
  • The venue is significant. On 7 May, as Congress debated ending the domestic phone-records collection, the second circuit ruled the collection was illegal. Yet it did not order Obama’s administration to cease the bulk collection, writing that a preferable option would be to stay out of the unfolding legislative battle over the future scope of US surveillance. That debate ended on 2 June with the passage of the USA Freedom Act, which reinstated expired provisions of the Patriot Act that the government had since 2006 relied upon – erroneously, in the second circuit’s view – for the bulk collection. Yet it ended the NSA’s bulk US phone records collection and created a new mechanism for the NSA to gather “call data records” from telecoms pursuant to a court order.
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  • Within hours of signing the bill, Obama requested that the secret surveillance panel known as the Fisa court reinstate the dragnet, relying on a provision permitting a six-month “transition” period. Judge Michael Mosman granted the request on 29 June. The ACLU, which was the plaintiff in the case the second circuit decided, has indicated since the Fisa court began considering resumption of the dragnet that it would seek an injunction. Its major contention in support of the requested injunction is that despite the Freedom Act’s provision for a transition period, the underlying law authorizing the bulk surveillance remains the same Patriot Act provisions that the second circuit held do not justify the NSA phone-records collection. “There is no sound reason to accord this language a different meaning now than the court accorded it in May. [The Patriot Act] did not authorize bulk collection in May, and it does not authorize it now,” reads the ACLU brief.
Gary Edwards

100th Anniversary of the Beginning of the End? (Part 1) - The Patriot Post - 1 views

patriotpost.us/17878

progressive-socialism Woodrow-Wilson Globalist

shared by Gary Edwards on 30 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • I take the Oath of John Galt and put action to it: "I swear by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another person, nor ask another to live their life for me."
  • In this dark day of the former republic, I stand in Resistance to the premier means of acquisition by the State, the Income Tax.
  • "They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." (Ben Franklin)
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  • "A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever." (John Adams)
  • "Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!" (George Washington)
  • Gary Edwards on 30 Apr 13
     
    Excellent history of how America lost it's Constitutional Republic.  The author tags the first progressive (marxist/socialist) President, Woodrow Wilson, as the culprit.  In 1913 Wilson shoved through the 16th and 17th Amendments.  He also pushed through the midnight express known as the Federal Reserve.  And as if that was not enough damage, he pushed for the "League of Nations" - a precursor to the present day United Nations Globalist New World Order. Oh yeah, the first progressive president also jacked us into humanities first World War. Wilson was a Manchurian stooge for the Globalist Rothschild Banksters, and the USA Bankster contingent led by Rockefeller, Morgan and Carnegie.   Note that in the election of 1896, the Banksters banked the corporatist McKinley against the GOLD standard populist, William Jennings Bryan.  McKinley was assassinated in 1901, and his VP, Teddy Roosevelt, became President.  Roosevelt successfully went after the Robber Bankster Barons; Rockefeller, Carnegie and Morgan, passing the Sherman Anti Trust laws and bringing the criminal corporations to trial.  This set the stage for the Bankster coup in 1913, where, with the election of Wilson the Banksters ended the great Consttitutional Republic and ushered in a century of ever encroaching socialist tyranny. ........................... excerpt: "One hundred years ago, our federal government, under control of the progressive Woodrow Wilson, took actions that have since become a disaster for these United States. Looking back, these actions were the beginning of what could be the end of our Constitutional Republic. With progressives in control in 2013, similar actions are underway that could complete a sinister view by progressives then and now to "transform" us into something our Founders never intended, and most Americans through the years never wanted and still don't. In 1913 our Constitution was amended by the ratification of two amendments, the Sixteenth and Seventeenth, an
Paul Merrell

M of A - Nusra On The Run - Trump Induces First Major Policy Change On Syria - 0 views

www.moonofalabama.org/...or-policy-change-on-syria.html

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Syria Al-Nusrah Russia target-shift Trump Obama Israel

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • The first significant step of the new administration comes while Trump is not even in offices. Obama, selfishly concerned with his historic legacy, suddenly makes a 180 degree turn and starts to implement Trump polices. Lets consider the initial position: Asked about Aleppo in an October debate with Clinton, Trump said it was a humanitarian disaster but the city had "basically" fallen. Clinton, he said, was talking in favor of rebels without knowing who they were. The rebels fighting Assad in western Syria include nationalists fighting under the Free Syrian Army banner, some of them trained in a CIA-backed program, and jihadists such as the group formerly known as the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front. The Obama administration, through the CIA led by Saudi asset John Brennan, fed weapons, training and billions of dollars to "moderate rebels". These then turned around (vid) and either gave the CIA gifts to al-Qaeda in Syria (aka Jabhat al Nusra) or joined it themselves. The scheme was no secret at all and Russia as well as Syria pointed this out several times. The Russian foreign Minister Lavrov negotiated with the U.S. Secretary of State Kerry who promised to separate the "moderate rebels" from al-Qaeda. But Kerry never delivered. Instead he falsely accuse Russia of committing atrocities that never happened. The CIA kept the upper hand within the Obama administration and continued its nefarious plans. That changed the day the president-elect Trump set foot into the White House. While Obama met Trump in the oval office, new policies, prepared beforehand, were launched. The policies were held back until after the election and would likely not have been revealed or implemented if Clinton had won.
  • The U.S. declared that from now on it will fight against al-Qaeda in Syria: President Obama has ordered the Pentagon to find and kill the leaders of an al-Qaeda-linked group in Syria that the administration had largely ignored until now and that has been at the vanguard of the fight against the Syrian government, U.S. officials said. That shift is likely to accelerate once President-elect Donald Trump takes office. ... possibly in direct cooperation with Moscow. ...U.S. officials who opposed the decision to go after al-Nusra’s wider leadership warned that the United States would effectively be doing the Assad government's bidding by weakening a group on the front line of the counter-Assad fight. ... Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter and other Pentagon leaders initially resisted the idea of devoting more Pentagon surveillance aircraft and armed drones against al-Nusra.
  • Ash Carter is, together with John Brennan, the major anti-Russian force in the Obama administration. He is a U.S. weapon industry promoter and the anti-Russia campaign, which helps to sell U.S. weapons to NATO allies in Europe, is largely of his doing. He saw al-Qaeda in Syria as a welcome proxy force against Russia. But Obama has now shut down that policy. We are not yet sure that this is for good but the above Washington Post account is not the only signal: The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) took action today to disrupt al-Nusrah Front’s military, recruitment, and financing operations. Specifically, OFAC designated four key al-Nusrah Front leaders – Abdallah Muhammad Bin-Sulayman al-Muhaysini, Jamal Husayn Zayniyah, Abdul Jashari, and Ashraf Ahmad Fari al-Allak – pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13224, which targets terrorists and those providing support to terrorists or acts of terrorism. ... These designations were taken in coordination with the U.S. Department of State, which today named Jabhat Fath al Sham as an alias of al-Nusrah Front – al-Qa’ida’s affiliate in Syria. ... Abdallah Muhammad Bin-Sulayman al-Muhaysini was designated for acting for or on behalf of, and providing support and services to or in support of, al-Nusrah Front. This is a major change in U.S. policy. Nusra will from now on be on the run not only from Russian and Syrian attacks but also from the intelligence and military capabilities of the United States. The newly designated Al-Muhaysini, a Saudi cleric, is Nusra's chief ideologue in Syria. Some considered him the new Osama Bin-Laden.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Hadi Abdullah, friend of the designated al-Qaeda terrorist Muhaysini, just received the 2016 Press Freedom Price from the CIA/Soros financed "regime change" influence operation Reporters Without Borders. Might this mean that Hadi Abdullah is himself a CIA assets? He would not be the first such "journalist" in Syria. Obama, obviously as a direct consequence of the Trump election, now ordered the Pentagon to wage war on al-Qaeda in Syria just as the Russians do. This after five years of nearly unlimited U.S. support for al-Qaeda and its "moderate" Syrian affiliates. It is not yet know what new orders, if any, Obama gave to the CIA. Will the CIA follow these policies or will it (again) try to counter the Pentagon policies in Syria? It is unusual that the WaPo report above about this new direction includes no commenting voice from the CIA. Why is such missing? Russia and Syria will welcome the new Obama policies should they come to fruit on the ground. Hillary Clinton had planned and announced to widen the conflict in Syria and with Russia and Iran. Obama would surely not have acted against such policies if she had been elected. But with Trump winning and thereby a new policy on the horizon he now changed course to a direction that will provide "continuity" when Trump takes over. Not only is Trump kicking a black family out of its longtime limewashed home, he also ends U.S. government support for the disenfranchised Jihadis in Syria and elsewhere. This even months before taking office. He really is the menace we have all been warned about.
  • UPDATE: This interview in today's WSJ confirms that Trump is still in the pro-Syrian/anti-Jihadist camp that is opposed to Obama's original policy: Donald Trump, in Exclusive Interview, Tells WSJ He Is Willing to Keep Parts of Obama Health Law He said he got a “beautiful” letter from Russian President Vladimir Putin, adding that a phone call between them is scheduled shortly. ... Although he wasn’t specific, Mr. Trump suggested a shift away from what he said was the current Obama administration policy of attempting to find moderate Syrian opposition groups to support in the civil war there. “I’ve had an opposite view of many people regarding Syria,” he said. He suggested a sharper focus on fighting Islamic State, or ISIS, in Syria, rather than on ousting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. “My attitude was you’re fighting Syria, Syria is fighting ISIS, and you have to get rid of ISIS. Russia is now totally aligned with Syria, and now you have Iran, which is becoming powerful, because of us, is aligned with Syria. … Now we’re backing rebels against Syria, and we have no idea who these people are.” If the U.S. attacks Mr. Assad, Mr. Trump said, “we end up fighting Russia, fighting Syria.”
  • Paul Merrell on 12 Nov 16
     
    I think b has it right here; this is Trump impact on U.S. foreign policy. And the fact the Trump is going full bore on al Nurah and ISIL suggests that Trump is not so strongly pro-Israel as he's been made out to be. (Israel's right-wing leadership has been very strongly anti-Assad.)
Gary Edwards

Natural Rights and the un-Constitutional Patriot Act: Judge Andrew Napolitano youtube - 2 views

www.youtube.com/watch_popup

Judge-Andrew-Napolitano Natural-Rights Patriot-Act Campaign-for-Liberty

shared by Gary Edwards on 21 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 21 Jun 12
     
    Judge Napalatano The Campaign for Liberty Tea Party Group is holding patriotic meetings throughout the USA. Libertarian icon Judge Andrew Napolitano is a frequent and much requested speaker at these meetings. In this speech, the third part of a three part series, the Judge calls out to this generation of patriots to stand up for freedom; to defend liberty. Excellent speech. A fitting conclusion to parts one and two. Many thanks to Frank for this find!
  • Paul Merrell on 21 Jun 12
     
    My experience with Napolitano, as a retired lawyer, is that his present role is as a propagandist, willing to lie to make his central point. I've often caught him saying things about the law that he either knows are false or knows that he lacks sufficient knowledge to claim that one of his legal conclusions is true. (He is, however, a very effective orator.) This speech is no different. His premise is false, that there is no language in the Constitution authorizing a host of general welfare laws. First, we find in the Constitution's Preamble it's statement of purpose: "We the People of the United States, *in Order to* form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, *promote the general Welfare,* and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." Note the distinction made between "promote the general Welfare" and the securing of Liberties. So the Constitution has a purpose beyond securing liberties that falls in the category of promoting the general welfare. Next we move on to Article 1 section 8, which itemizes the Powers of the Congress. In that section's first clause we find: "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and *provide for the* common Defence and *general Welfare* of the United States;" But Napolitano's speech mistakenly brands a host of general welfare laws as abuses of the Commerce Clause, which only supplements the General Welfare Clause in relevant regard. His discussion of the meaning of "regulate" at the time of the Constitution's adoption is irrelevant. The far more pertinent question is what was meant at that time by the term "general Welfare." Napolitano simply ducks that question by ignoring the General Welfare Clause and pretending that it does not exist. That is not principled argument, in my humble opinion. Moral o
Paul Merrell

Apple, Facebook and Google call for 'substantial' reform of NSA surveillance | Technolo... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...google-nsa-surveillance-reform

surveillance state NSA NSA-blowback cloud-services legilsation cloud computing

shared by Paul Merrell on 01 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • Tech giants including Apple, Facebook and Google called for substantial reforms to the US government's surveillance programmes Thursday in a letter to the Senate judiciary committee.In the wake of more revelations about the lengths to which the National Security Agency has gone to intercept data, the companies have called for more transparency and "substantial enhancements to privacy protections and appropriate oversight and accountability mechanisms for those programs."The letter, also signed by AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo, follows the release of more documents obtained by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden that reveal the US authorities were secretly tapping in to the tech firm's main communications links.The letter "applauds" the USA Freedom Act, a bill sponsored by Democrat senator Patrick Leahy and Republican congressman James Sensenbrenner that would end the bulk collection of data from millions of Americans and set up a privacy advocate to monitor the Fisa court, which oversees the NSA's US activities.
  • In a recent report the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) said the US tech firms could end up losing out on tens of billions of dollars in the cloud-based computing space in the wake of Snowden's revelations. Cloud computing is a rapidly growing area and revelations that the US authorities have been scooping up the personal data of millions of users, particularly outside the US, could cost them business."On the low end, US cloud computing providers might lose $21.5bn over the next three years," ITIF concluded. On the high end the report put the figure at $35bn.
Paul Merrell

NSA Reform Bill Dies As Republicans Hype Threats From Islamic State - The Intercept - 0 views

firstlook.org/...reform-bill-lives-dies-tonight

surveillance state NSA legislation phone-metadata

shared by Paul Merrell on 20 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • Senate Republicans, ratcheting up their rhetoric about the threat posed by the Islamic State, on Tuesday night sank the only significant legislative attempt to rein in the National Security Agency in the nearly year and a half since  American citizens first learned they were being spied on by their own government. The procedural vote to move forward on the USA Freedom Act required 60 votes. It received 58. All but one Democrat and four libertarian-leaning Republicans voted in favor of the bill. The rest of the Republicans — including libertarian firebrand Rand Paul (R-Ky.) —  voted against, along with Florida Democrat Bill Nelson. (Here’s the rollcall of the vote.)
  • During a brief debate before the vote, Georgia Republican Saxby Chambliss warned that members of the Islamic State “want people to walk the streets of New York… and start killing people.”  And, displaying either a real or feigned ignorance of the extraordinary latitude the NSA will continue to enjoy when it comes to spying on international communications, he suggested that the bulk collection of domestic phone records was necessary to ferret out such plans. (Watch video of the debate.)
  • Paul Merrell on 20 Nov 14
     
    Two federal courts of appeals should be issuing opinions soon on the constitutionality of the NSA program at issue. I put the odds at about 99-1 that the government loses both cases. 
Paul Merrell

Section 215 and "Fruitless" (?!?) Constitutional Adjudication | Just Security - 0 views

www.justsecurity.org/...ss-constitutional-adjudication

surveillance state 215 ACLU Clapper litigation 2nd-Circuit constitutional law

shared by Paul Merrell on 02 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • This morning, the Second Circuit issued a follow-on ruling to its May decision in ACLU v. Clapper (which had held that the NSA’s bulk telephone records program was unlawful insofar as it had not properly been authorized by Congress). In a nutshell, today’s ruling rejects the ACLU’s request for an injunction against the continued operation of the program for the duration of the 180-day transitional period (which ends on November 29) from the old program to the quite different collection regime authorized by the USA Freedom Act. As the Second Circuit (in my view, quite correctly) concluded, “Regardless of whether the bulk telephone metadata program was illegal prior to May, as we have held, and whether it would be illegal after November 29, as Congress has now explicitly provided, it is clear that Congress intended to authorize it during the transitionary period.” So far, so good. But remember that the ACLU’s challenge to bulk collection was mounted on both statutory and constitutional grounds, the latter of which the Second Circuit was able to avoid in its earlier ruling because of its conclusion that, prior to the enactment of the USA Freedom Act, bulk collection was unauthorized by Congress. Now that it has held that it is authorized during the transitional period, that therefore tees up, quite unavoidably, whether bulk collection violates the Fourth Amendment. But rather than decide that (momentous) question, the Second Circuit ducked:
  • We agree with the government that we ought not meddle with Congress’s considered decision regarding the transition away from bulk telephone metadata collection, and also find that addressing these issues at this time would not be a prudent use of judicial authority. We need not, and should not, decide such momentous constitutional issues based on a request for such narrow and temporary relief. To do so would take more time than the brief transition period remaining for the telephone metadata program, at which point, any ruling on the constitutionality of the demised program would be fruitless. In other words, because any constitutional violation is short-lived, and because it results from the “considered decision” of Congress, it would be fruitless to actually resolve the constitutionality of bulk collection during the transitional period.
  • Hopefully, it won’t take a lot of convincing for folks to understand just how wrong-headed this is. For starters, if the plaintiffs are correct, they are currently being subjected to unconstitutional government surveillance for which they are entitled to a remedy. The fact that this surveillance has a limited shelf-life (and/or that Congress was complicit in it) doesn’t in any way ameliorate the constitutional violation — which is exactly why the Supreme Court has, for generations, recognized an exception to mootness doctrine for constitutional violations that, owing to their short duration, are “capable of repetition, yet evading review.” Indeed, in this very same opinion, the Second Circuit first held that the ACLU’s challenge isn’t moot, only to then invokes mootness-like principles to justify not resolving the constitutional claim. It can’t be both; either the constitutional challenge is moot, or it isn’t. But more generally, the notion that constitutional adjudication of a claim with a short shelf-life is “fruitless” utterly misses the significance of the establishment of forward-looking judicial precedent, especially in a day and age in which courts are allowed to (and routinely do) avoid resolving the merits of constitutional claims in cases in which the relevant precedent is not “clearly established.” Maybe, if this were the kind of constitutional question that was unlikely to recur, there’d be more to the Second Circuit’s avoidance of the issue in this case. But whether and to what extent the Fourth Amendment applies to information we voluntarily provide to third parties is hardly that kind of question, and the Second Circuit’s unconvincing refusal to answer that question in a context in which it is quite squarely presented is nothing short of feckless.
Paul Merrell

NSA spied on millions of US communications in 2016 | News | Al Jazeera - 0 views

www.aljazeera.com/...ions-2016-170503080336520.html

surveillance state NSA domestic-surveillance stats

shared by Paul Merrell on 04 May 17 - No Cached
  • The US National Security Agency (NSA) collected more than 151 million records of Americans' phone calls last year, even after Congress limited its ability to collect bulk call records.  A report from the office of Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats presented the first measure of the effects of the 2015 USA Freedom Act, which limited the NSA to collecting the phone records and contacts of people that the US and allied intelligence agencies suspect may have ties to "terrorism". NSA collected the 151 million records even though it had warrants from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to spy on only 42 suspects in 2016, in addition to a handful identified the previous year, the report said.
Paul Merrell

Why Today's Landmark Court Victory Against Mass Surveillance Matters | American Civil L... - 0 views

www.aclu.org/...inst-mass-surveillance-matters

surveillance state NSA litigation Patriot-Act ACLU 2nd-Circuit

shared by Paul Merrell on 08 May 15 - No Cached
  • In a landmark victory for privacy, a federal appeals court ruled unanimously today that the mass phone-records program exposed two years ago by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is illegal because it goes far beyond what Congress ever intended to permit when it passed Section 215 of the Patriot Act. The ruling in ACLU v. Clapper is enormously significant, and not only because the program in question — the first to be revealed by Edward Snowden — is at the heart of a legislative reform effort playing out right now, or because it sparked the most significant debate about government surveillance in decades. The decision could also affect many other laws the government has stretched to the breaking point in order to justify dragnet collection of Americans’ sensitive information. Under the program, revealed in the Guardian on June 5, 2013, telecommunications companies hand over to the NSA, on a daily basis, records relating to the calls of all of their customers. Those records include information about who called whom, when, and for how long. The ACLU sued the NSA over the program just days after it was revealed, and we took the case to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals after it was dismissed by a district court.
  • A few points on what makes the decision so important. 1. It recognizes that Section 215 of the Patriot Act does not authorize the government to collect information on such a massive scale.
  • 2. The decision’s significance extends far beyond the phone records program alone. It implicates other mass spying programs that we have learned about in the past two years and — almost certainly ­— others that the government continues to conceal from the public. For example, we know that the Drug Enforcement Administration, for decades, employed a similar definition of “relevance” to amass logs of every call made from the United States to as many as 116 different countries. The same theory was also used to justify the collection of email metadata. Both those programs have been discontinued, but the legal reasoning hasn’t, and it could very well be the basis for programs the government has never acknowledged to the public, including the CIA’s bulk collection of Americans’ financial records.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • 4. The importance of adversarial review. The court recognized that public, adversarial litigation concerning the lawfulness of this spying program was vitally important to its decision — and it drew a direct contrast to the secret, one-sided proceedings that occur in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
  • 3. Metadata is incredibly sensitive and revealing. The government has long argued that the phone records program doesn’t reveal the contents of calls, and as such, it is not an invasion of privacy. But metadata, especially in aggregate, can be just as revealing as content, painting a detailed picture of a person’s life. 
  • 5. The congressional reforms under consideration just don’t cut it. Ahead of Section 215’s sunset on June 1, Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is trying to push through a straight reauthorization of the provision, extending its life by another five years. After today’s decision came down, he took to the floor to defend the program — a position altogether at odds with the appeals court decision, with the conclusions of multiple executive-branch review groups who found the program hasn’t been effective in stopping terrorism, and with the clear consensus that supports far-reaching surveillance reform. Another bill in play (which the ACLU neither supports nor opposes), the USA Freedom Act of 2015, doesn’t go nearly far enough, most notably in ensuring that the government cannot engage in broad collection of innocent Americans’ private information.
Paul Merrell

McConnell bill would extend NSA surveillance - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...4-aae1-d642717d8afa_story.html

surveillance state NSA 215 legislation

shared by Paul Merrell on 23 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell introduced a bill Tuesday night to extend through 2020 a controversial surveillance authority under the Patriot Act. The move comes as a bipartisan group of lawmakers in both chambers is preparing legislation to scale back the government’s spying powers under Section 215 of the Patriot Act. It puts McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.), the bill’s co-sponsor, squarely on the side of advocates of the National Security Agency’s continued ability to collect millions of Americans’ phone records each day in the hunt for clues of terrorist activity.
  • In filing the bill, McConnell and Burr invoked a Senate rule that enabled them to bypass the traditional committee vetting process and take the bill straight to the floor. No date has been set for such consideration. The move provoked a swift response from Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, who has been working with other panel members on legislation to end the government’s mass collection of phone and other records for national security purposes. “Despite overwhelming consensus that the bulk collection of Americans’ phone records under Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act must end, Senate Republican leaders are proposing to extend that authority without change,” he said in a statement Tuesday night. “This tone deaf attempt to pave the way for five and a half more years of unchecked surveillance will not succeed. I will oppose any reauthorization of Section 215 that does not contain meaningful reforms.” A bipartisan group of lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee has been working with Leahy and his colleagues to craft a new version of the Freedom Act, legislation to end bulk record collection that failed to pass the Senate last year.
Paul Merrell

NSA Doesn't Want Court That Found Phone Dragnet Illegal to Actually Do Anything About It - 0 views

firstlook.org/...t-keep-vacuuming-data-180-days

surveillance state NSA metadata litigation ACLUl

shared by Paul Merrell on 04 Aug 15 - No Cached
  • The National Security Agency doesn’t think it’s relevant that its dragnet of American telephone data — information on who’s calling who, when, and for how long — was ruled illegal back in May. An American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit is asking the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which reached that conclusion, to immediately enjoin the program. But the U.S. government responded on Monday evening, saying that Congressional passage of the USA Freedom Act trumped the earlier ruling. The Freedom Act ordered an end to the program — but with a six-month wind-down period.
  • The ACLU still maintains that even temporary revival is a blatant infringement on American’s legal rights. “We strongly disagree with the government’s claim that recent reform legislation was meant to give the NSA’s phone-records dragnet a new lease on life,” said Jameel Jaffer, the ACLU’s deputy legal director in a statement. “The appeals court should order the NSA to end this surveillance now.  It’s unlawful and it’s an entirely unnecessary intrusion into the privacy of millions of people.” On Monday, the Obama administration announced that at the same time the National Security Agency ends the dragnet, it will also stop perusing the vast archive of data collected by the program. Read the U.S. government brief responding to the ACLU below:
  • Paul Merrell on 04 Aug 15
     
    Go ACLU!
Paul Merrell

With hours of sunshine left, passage of FOIA reform in the U.S. House hangs in the bala... - 0 views

e-pluribusunum.com/...u-s-house-hangs-in-the-balance

Congress FOIA-reform legislation 2014

shared by Paul Merrell on 13 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • Update: The House Majority Leader didn’t put S.2520 on Thursday’s legislative calendar (PDF). Per Congress.gov, it was “held at the desk.” We can’t pronounce it dead until 3:30 PM, as the Speaker of the House could bring the bill up by unanimous consent, but FOIA reform in this Congress likely just expired at midnight. Imagine if an important reform to public access to government information hung in the balance in the United States Congress and the editorial boards of the country’s major newspapers ignored it. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what has happened. Only a few weeks ago, it looked this ‘do nothing Congress’ was actually set to do something: pass much-needed reforms to the Freedom of Information Act. Over the weekend, an unexpected hold in the Senate by Senator Jay Rockefeller put months of bipartisan collaboration in jeopardy. If the U.S. House of Representatives doesn’t schedule a vote tomorrow on the Freedom of Information Improvement Act that passed the Senate on Monday, however, FOIA reform will quietly expire.
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