We are too solicitous for government intervention, on the theory, first, that the people themselves are helpless, and second, that the Government has superior capacity for action. Often times both of these conclusions are wrong.
Calvin Coolidge
“If you want government to intervene domestically, you’re a liberal. If you want government to intervene overseas, you’re a conservative. If you want government to intervene everywhere, you’re a moderate.
If you don’t want government to intervene anywhere, you’re an extremist.”
~ Joseph Sobran
I’m a little embarrassed about how long it took me to see the folly of most government intervention. It was probably 15 years before I really woke up to the fact that almost everything government attempts to do, it makes worse.
John Stossel
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Stephen Hawking’s final warning to humanity: Legendary physicist believed we must leave Earth in the next 200 years or face EXTINCTION
Professor Hawking believed life on Earth could easily be wiped out
Dangers include asteroids, AI, over-population and climate change
Making contact with aliens and human aggression could also spell the end
Future generations must forge a new life in space if we want to survive, he said
PUBLISHED: 03:51 EDT, 14 March 2018 | UPDATED: 06:31 EDT, 14 March 2018
Humans must leave Earth in the next 200 years if we want to survive.
That was the stark warning issued by Professor Stephen Hawking in the months before his death today at the age of 76.
The legendary physicists believed that life on Earth could be wiped out by a disaster such as an asteroid strike, AI or an alien invasion.
He also warned over-population, human aggression and climate change could cause humanity to self-destruct.
He believed, if our species had any hope of survival, future generations would need to forge a new life in space.
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Humans must leave Earth within 200 years if we want to survive. That was the stark warning issued by Professor Stephen Hawking in the months before he death today at the age of 76
Climate change
One of Hawking’s main fears for the planet was global warming.
‘Our physical resources are being drained, at an alarming rate. We have given our planet the disastrous gift of climate change,’ Hawking warned in July.
‘Rising temperatures, reduction of the polar ice caps, deforestation, and decimation of animal species. We can be an ignorant, unthinking lot.’
Hawking said that Earth will one day look like the 460°C (860°F) planet Venus if we don’t cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Hawking said that Earth (stock image) will one day look like the 460°C (860°F) planet Venus if we don’t cut greenhouse gas emissions
‘Next time you meet a climate change denier, tell them to take a trip to Venus. I will pay the fare,’ Hawking quipped.
The physicist also believed President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement has doomed our planet.
He warned Trump’s decision would caused avoidable damage to our ‘beautiful planet’ for generations to come.
‘We are close to the tipping point where global warming becomes irreversible,’ the celebrated scientist told BBC last year.
Asteroid strikes
If global warming doesn’t wipe us out, Hawking believed Earth would be destroyed by an asteroid strike.
‘This is not science fiction. It is guaranteed by the laws of physics and probability,’ he said.
‘To stay risks being annihilated.
‘Spreading out into space will completely change the future of humanity. It may also determine whether we have any future at all.’
Hawking was working with Russian billionaire Yuri Milner’s Breakthrough Starshot project to send a fleet of tiny ‘nanocraft’ carrying light sails on a four light-year journey to Alpha Centauri, the nearest star system to Earth.
‘If we succeed we will send a probe to Alpha Centauri within the lifetime of some of you alive today,’ he said.
Astronomers estimate that there is a reasonable chance of an Earth-like planet existing in the ‘habitable zones’ of Alpha Centauri’s three-star system.
If global warming doesn’t wipe us out, Hawking believed Earth would be destroyed by an asteroid strike (stock image)
‘It is clear we are entering a new space age. We are standing at the threshold of a new era’, said Hawking.
‘Human colonisation and other planets is no longer science fiction, it can be science fact.’
Hawking believed that In the long run the human race should not have all its eggs in one basket, or on one planet.
‘I just hope we can avoid dropping the basket until then’, he said.
Hawking claimed that AI will soon reach a level where it will be a ‘new form of life that will outperform humans.’
He even went so far as to say that AI may replace humans altogether, although he didn’t specify a timeline for his predictions.
The chilling comments during a recent interview with Wired.
He said: ‘The genie is out of the bottle. I fear that AI may replace humans altogether.
Hawking even went so far as to say that AI may replace humans altogether, although he didn’t specify a timeline for his predictions (stock image)
The world pays tribute to the late Stephen Hawking on Twitter
‘If people design computer viruses, someone will design AI that improves and replicates itself.
‘This will be a new form of life that outperforms humans.’
He also he said the AI apocalypse was impending and ‘some form of government’ would be needed to control the technology.
During the interview, Hawking also urged more people to take an interest in science, claiming that there would be ‘serious consequences’ if this didn’t happen.
Stephen Hawking’s pearls of wisdom
– On the reason why the universe exists: ‘If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason – for then we would know the mind of God’ – A Brief History Of Time, published 1988.
– On being diagnosed with motor neurone disease: ‘My expectations were reduced to zero when I was 21. Everything since then has been a bonus’ – Interview in The New York Times, December 2004.
– On black holes: ‘Einstein was wrong when he said, ‘God does not play dice’. Consideration of black holes suggests, not only that God does play dice, but that he sometimes confuses us by throwing them where they can’t be seen’ – The Nature Of Space And Time, published 1996.
– On God: ‘It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going’ – The Grand Design, published 2010.
– On commercial success: ‘I want my books sold on airport bookstalls’ – Interview in The New York Times, December 2004.
– On fame: ‘The downside of my celebrity is that I cannot go anywhere in the world without being recognised. It is not enough for me to wear dark sunglasses and a wig. The wheelchair gives me away’ – Interview on Israeli TV, December 2006.
– On an imperfect world: ‘Without imperfection, you or I would not exist’ – In Into The Universe With Stephen Hawking, The Discovery Channel, 2010.
– On euthanasia: ‘The victim should have the right to end his life, if he wants. But I think it would be a great mistake. However bad life may seem, there is always something you can do, and succeed at. While there’s life, there is hope’ – Quoted in People’s Daily Online, June 2006.
– On intellectual showboating: ‘People who boast about their IQ are losers’ – Interview in The New York Times, December 2004.
– On the possibility of contact between humans and aliens: ‘I think it would be a disaster. The extraterrestrials would probably be far in advance of us. The history of advanced races meeting more primitive people on this planet is not very happy, and they were the same species. I think we should keep our heads low’ – In Naked Science: Alien Contact, The National Geographic Channel, 2004.
– On the importance of having a sense of humour: ‘Life would be tragic if it weren’t funny’ – Interview in The New York Times, December 2004.
– On death: ‘I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I’m not afraid of death, but I’m in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first’ – Interview in The Guardian, May 2011.’
Human aggression
Hawking has previously warned aggression is humanity’s biggest failing and could ‘destroy it all’.
The remark was made back in 2015 in response to a question about what human shortcomings he would change.
Talking to an audience in the Science Museum, the renowned scientist said ‘The human failing I would most like to correct is aggression’.
‘It may have had survival advantage in caveman days, to get more food, territory or a partner with whom to reproduce, but now it threatens to destroy us all’, writes the Independent.
He said he feared evolution has ‘inbuilt’ it into the human genome, commenting that there was no sign of conflict lessening.
What’s more, he said the development of militarised technology and weapons of mass destruction could make this instinct even more dangerous.
He said empathy was the best of human emotions and meant we could be brought together in a loving state.
Aliens
Hawking also warned that if we ever did find aliens they would probably wipe us out.
‘As I grow older I am more convinced than ever that we are not alone,’ he said in a video posted online called Stephen Hawking’s Favourite Places.
The clip showed him visiting different locations across the cosmos, writes the Independent.
One of the places he visits is Gliese 832c, a planet that people speculate could be home to alien life.
‘One day we might receive a signal from a planet like Gliese 832c, but we should be wary of answering back.
‘Meeting an advanced civilization could be like Native Americans encountering Columbus. That didn’t turn out so well’, he said.
Hawking became increasing convinced there was other life out there as he got older and he led a new project called the Breakthrough Listen project to find out.
He said that any alien civilisation would be ‘vastly more powerful and may not see us as any more valuable than we see bacteria.’
Overpopulation
The renowned scientist also warned that a man-made catastrophe could spell the end for our species.
The renowned physicist believed that life on Earth is at an ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as asteroid strikes, epidemics, over-population (stock image) and climate change
‘For me, the really concerning aspect of this is that now, more than at any time in our history, our species needs to work together,’ Hawking said in a Guardian opinion piece in 2016.
‘We face awesome environmental challenges: climate change, food production, overpopulation, the decimation of other species, epidemic disease, acidification of the oceans.
‘Together, they are a reminder that we are at the most dangerous moment in the development of humanity’, he said.
In November 2016, Hawking was more conservative in his estimates.
Jane and Stephen in the mis-1960s, shortly after his diagnosis with motor neurone disease and being given two years to live
He warned that humans could not survive another 1,000 years on ‘fragile’ Earth.
At a talk in Cambridge, Hawking gave a one-hour whirlwind history of man’s understanding of the origin of the universe from primordial creation myths to the most cutting edge predictions made by ‘M-theory’.
He said: ‘Perhaps one day we will be able to use gravitational waves to look back into the heart of the Big Bang.
‘Most recent advances in cosmology have been achieved from space where there are uninterrupted views of our Universe but we must also continue to go into space for the future of humanity.
Astrophysicist Hawking floats on a zero-gravity jet in April 2007. The modified jet carrying Hawking, physicians and nurses, and dozens of others first flew up to 24,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean off Florida
‘I don’t think we will survive another 1,000 years without escaping our fragile planet.’
Hawking, who has said he wanted to go into space on Virgin boss Richard Branson’s Ride Virgin Atlantic spaceship, continued: ‘I therefore want to encourage public interest in space, and I have been getting my training in early.’
Hawking added: ‘It has been a glorious time to be alive and doing research in theoretical physics.
‘Our picture of the universe has changed a great deal in the last 50 years and I am happy if I have made a small contribution.
‘The fact that we humans who are ourselves mere collections of fundamental particles of nature have been able to come so close to understanding the laws that are governing us and our universe is a great achievement.’
Hawking has previously described his views on the future of space travel, in the afterword of the book, ‘How to Make a Spaceship.’
He said: ‘I believe that life on Earth is at an ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as a sudden nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus, or other dangers,’ he said.
‘I think the human race has no future if it doesn’t go to space.’
Making a poignant plea to his young audience of students from the University of Oxford, where he himself did his undergraduate degree, he said: ‘Remember to look up to the stars and not down at your feet.
‘Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist.
‘Be curious and however life may seem there’s always something you can do and succeed at – it matters that you don’t just give up.’
‘Medical miracle’ Stephen Hawking defied the odds for 55 years
Stephen Hawking was one of the world’s most acclaimed cosmologists, a medical miracle, and probably the galaxy’s most unlikely superstar celebrity.
After being diagnosed with a rare form of motor neurone disease in 1964 at the age of 22, he was given just a few years to live.
Yet against all odds Professor Hawking celebrated his 70th birthday nearly half a century later as one of the most brilliant and famous scientists of the modern age.
Despite being wheelchair-bound, almost completely paralysed and unable to speak except through his trademark voice synthesiser, he wrote a plethora of scientific papers that earned him comparisons with Albert Einstein and Sir Isaac Newton.
At the same time he embraced popular culture with enthusiasm and humour, appearing in TV cartoon The Simpsons, starring in Star Trek and providing the voice-over for a British Telecom commercial that was later sampled on rock band Pink Floyd’s The Division Bell album.
His rise to fame and relationship with his first wife, Jane, was dramatised in a 2014 film, The Theory Of Everything, in which Eddie Redmayne put in an Oscar-winning performance as the physicist battling with a devastating illness.
He was best known for his work on black holes, the mysterious infinitely dense regions of compressed matter where the normal laws of physics break down, which dominated the whole of his academic life.
Hawking is pictured with his children Robert, Lucy & Tim and his first wife Jane
Prof Hawking’s crowning achievement was his prediction in the 1970s that black holes can emit energy, despite the classical view that nothing – not even light – can escape their gravity.
Hawking Radiation, based on mathematical concepts arising from quantum mechanics, the branch of science that deals with the weird world of sub-atomic particles, eventually causes black holes to ‘evaporate’ and vanish, according to the theory.
Had the existence of Hawking Radiation been proved by astronomers or physicists, it would almost certainly have earned Prof Hawking a Nobel Prize. As it turned out, the greatest scientific accolade eluded him until the time of this death.
Born in Oxford on January 8 1942 – 300 years after the death of astronomer Galileo Galilei – Prof Hawking grew up in St Albans.
He had a difficult time at the local public school and was persecuted as a ‘swot’ who was more interested in jazz, classical music and debating than sport and pop.
Although not top of the class, he was good at maths and ‘chaotically enthusiastic in chemistry’.
As an undergraduate at Oxford, the young Hawking was so good at physics that he got through with little effort.
He later calculated that his work there ‘amounted to an average of just an hour a day’ and commented: ‘I’m not proud of this lack of work, I’m just describing my attitude at the time, which I shared with most of my fellow students.
‘You were supposed to be brilliant without effort, or to accept your limitations and get a fourth-class degree.’
Hawking got a first and went to Cambridge to begin work on his PhD, but already he was beginning to experience early symptoms of his illness.
During his last year at Oxford he became clumsy, and twice fell over for no apparent reason. Shortly after his 21st birthday he went for tests, and at 22 he was diagnosed with motor neurone disease.
The news came as an enormous shock that for a time plunged the budding academic into deep despair. But he was rescued by an old friend, Jane Wilde, who went on to become his first wife, giving him a family with three children.
After a painful period coming to terms with his condition, Prof Hawking threw himself into his work.
At one Royal Society meeting, the still-unknown Hawking interrupted a lecture by renowned astrophysicist Sir Fred Hoyle, then at the pinnacle of his career, to inform him that he had made a mistake.
An irritated Sir Fred asked how Hawking presumed to know that his calculations were wrong. Hawking replied: ‘Because I’ve worked them out in my head.’
Eddie Redmayne won a Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Hawking in 2014
In the 1980s, Prof Hawking and Professor Jim Hartle, from the University of California at Santa Barbara, proposed a model of the universe which had no boundaries in space or time.
The concept was described in his best-selling popular science book A Brief History Of Time, published in 1988, which sold 25 million copies worldwide.
As well as razor sharp intellect, Prof Hawking also possessed an almost child-like sense of fun, which helped to endear him to members of the public.
He booked a seat on Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic sub-orbital space plane and rehearsed for the trip by floating inside a steep-diving Nasa aircraft – dubbed the ‘vomit comet’ – used to simulate weightlessness.
On one wall of his office at Cambridge University was a clock depicting Homer Simpson, whose theory of a ‘doughnut-shaped universe’ he threatened to steal in an episode of the cartoon show. He is said to have glared at the clock whenever a visitor was late.
From 1979 to 2009 he was Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the university – a post once held by Sir Isaac Newton. He went on to become director of research in the university’s Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics.
Upheaval in his personal life also hit the headlines, and in February 1990 he left Jane, his wife of 25 years, to set up home with one of his nurses, Elaine Mason. The couple married in September 1995 but divorced in 2006.
Throughout his career Prof Hawking was showered with honorary degrees, medals, awards and prizes, and in 1982 he was made a CBE.
But he also ruffled a few feathers within the scientific establishment with far-fetched statements about the existence of extraterrestrials, time travel, and the creation of humans through genetic engineering.
He has also predicted the end of humanity, due to global warming, a new killer virus, or the impact of a large comet.
In 2015 he teamed up with Russian billionaire Yuri Milner who has launched a series of projects aimed at finding evidence of alien life.
Hawking and his new bride Elaine Mason pose for pictures after the blessing of their wedding at St. Barnabus Church September 16, 1995
The decade-long Breakthrough Listen initiative aims to step up the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Seti) by listening out for alien signals with more sensitivity than ever before.
The even bolder Starshot Initiative, announced in 2016, envisages sending tiny light-propelled robot space craft on a 20-year voyage to the Alpha Centauri star system.
Meanwhile Prof Hawking’s ‘serious’ work continued, focusing on the thorny question of what happens to all the information that disappears into a black hole. One of the fundamental tenets of physics is that information data can never be completely erased from the universe.
A paper co-authored by Prof Hawking and published online in Physical Review Letters in June 2016 suggests that even after a black hole has evaporated, the information it consumed during its life remains in a fuzzy ‘halo’ – but not necessarily in the proper order.
Prof Hawking outlined his theories about black holes in a series of Reith Lectures broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January and February 2016.
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Published on Jul 8, 2013
The NSA warrantless surveillance controversy (AKA “Warrantless Wiretapping”) concerns surveillance of persons within the United States during the collection of foreign intelligence by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) as part of the war on terror. Under this program, referred to by the Bush administration as the “terrorist surveillance program”, part of the broader President’s Surveillance Program, the NSA was authorized by executive order to monitor, without search warrants, the phone calls, Internet activity (Web, e-mail, etc.), text messaging, and other communication involving any party believed by the NSA to be outside the U.S., even if the other end of the communication lies within the U.S. Critics, however, claimed that it was in an effort to attempt to silence critics of the Bush Administration and their handling of several hot button issues during its tenure. Under public pressure, the Bush administration ceased the warrantless wiretapping program in January 2007 and returned review of surveillance to the FISA court. Subsequently, in 2008 Congress passed the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which relaxed some of the original FISA court requirements.
During the Obama Administration, the NSA has officially continued operating under the new FISA guidelines. However, in April 2009 officials at the United States Department of Justice acknowledged that the NSA had engaged in “overcollection” of domestic communications in excess of the FISA court’s authority, but claimed that the acts were unintentional and had since been rectified.
All wiretapping of American citizens by the National Security Agency requires a warrant from a three-judge court set up under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. After the 9/11 attacks, Congress passed the Patriot Act, which granted the President broad powers to fight a war against terrorism. The George W. Bush administration used these powers to bypass the FISA court and directed the NSA to spy directly on al Qaeda in a new NSA electronic surveillance program. Reports at the time indicate that an “apparently accidental” “glitch” resulted in the interception of communications that were purely domestic in nature.[5] This action was challenged by a number of groups, including Congress, as unconstitutional.
The exact scope of the program is not known, but the NSA is or was provided total, unsupervised access to all fiber-optic communications going between some of the nation’s largest telecommunication companies’ major interconnected locations, including phone conversations, email, web browsing, and corporate private network traffic.[6] Critics said that such “domestic” intercepts required FISC authorization under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.[7] The Bush administration maintained that the authorized intercepts are not domestic but rather foreign intelligence integral to the conduct of war and that the warrant requirements of FISA were implicitly superseded by the subsequent passage of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists (AUMF).[8] FISA makes it illegal to intentionally engage in electronic surveillance under appearance of an official act or to disclose or use information obtained by electronic surveillance under appearance of an official act knowing that it was not authorized by statute; this is punishable with a fine of up to $10,000 or up to five years in prison, or both.[9] In addition, the Wiretap Act prohibits any person from illegally intercepting, disclosing, using or divulging phone calls or electronic communications; this is punishable with a fine or up to five years in prison, or both.[10]
After an article about the program, (which had been code-named Stellar Wind), was published in The New York Times on December 16, 2005, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales confirmed its existence.[11][12][13] The Times had posted the exclusive story on their website the night before, after learning that the Bush administration was considering seeking a Pentagon-Papers-style court injunction to block its publication.[14] Critics of The Times have alleged that executive editor Bill Keller had withheld the story from publication since before the 2004 Presidential election, and that the story that was ultimately published by The Times was essentially the same as reporters James Risen and Eric Lichtblau had submitted in 2004.[15] In a December 2008 interview with Newsweek, former Justice Department employee Thomas Tamm revealed himself to be the initial whistle-blower to The Times. The FBI began investigating leaks about the program in 2005, with 25 agents and 5 prosecutors on the case.
FBI’s Patriot Act Abuse of National Security Letters and illegal NSA spying
If you think you can handle the truth, well here it is folks
The National Security Agency (NSA) is an intelligence organization of the United States federal government responsible for global monitoring, collection, and processing of information and data for foreign intelligence and counterintelligence purposes, a discipline known as signals intelligence (SIGINT). NSA is concurrently charged with protection of U.S. government communications and information systems against penetration and network warfare.[8][9] Although many of NSA’s programs rely on “passive” electronic collection, the agency is authorized to accomplish its mission through active clandestine means,[10] among which are physically bugging electronic systems[11] and allegedly engaging in sabotage through subversive software.[12][13] Moreover, NSA maintains physical presence in a large number of countries across the globe, where its Special Collection Service (SCS) inserts eavesdropping devices in difficult-to-reach places. SCS collection tactics allegedly encompass “close surveillance, burglary, wiretapping, breaking and entering”.[14][15]
Unlike the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), both of which specialize primarily in foreign human espionage, NSA does not unilaterally conduct human-source intelligence gathering, despite often being portrayed so in popular culture. Instead, NSA is entrusted with assistance to and coordination of SIGINT elements at other government organizations, which are prevented by law from engaging in such activities without the approval of the NSA via the Defense Secretary.[16] As part of these streamlining responsibilities, the agency has a co-located organization called the Central Security Service (CSS), which was created to facilitate cooperation between NSA and other U.S. military cryptanalysis components. Additionally, the NSA Director simultaneously serves as the Commander of the United States Cyber Command and as Chief of the Central Security Service.
NSA surveillance has been a matter of political controversy on several occasions, such as its spying on anti-Vietnam-war leaders or economic espionage. In 2013, the extent of some of the NSA’s secret surveillance programs was revealed to the public by Edward Snowden. According to the leaked documents, the NSA intercepts the communications of over a billion people worldwide, many of whom are United States citizens, and tracks the movement of hundreds of millions of people using cellphones. Internationally, research has pointed to the NSA’s ability to surveil the domestic Internet traffic of foreign countries through “boomerang routing”.[18]
Contents
[show]
History
Army predecessor
The origins of the National Security Agency can be traced back to April 28, 1917, three weeks after the U.S. Congress declared war on Germany in World War I. A code and cipher decryption unit was established as the Cable and Telegraph Section which was also known as the Cipher Bureau. It was headquartered in Washington, D.C. and was part of the war effort under the executive branch without direct Congressional authorization. During the course of the war it was relocated in the army’s organizational chart several times. On July 5, 1917, Herbert O. Yardley was assigned to head the unit. At that point, the unit consisted of Yardley and two civilian clerks. It absorbed the navy’s cryptoanalysis functions in July 1918. World War I ended on November 11, 1918, and MI-8 moved to New York City on May 20, 1919, where it continued intelligence activities as the Code Compilation Company under the direction of Yardley.[19][20]
Black Chamber
Western Union allowed MI-8 to monitor telegraphic communications passing through the company’s wires until 1929.[21]
MI-8 also operated the so-called “Black Chamber“.[22] The Black Chamber was located on East 37th Street in Manhattan. Its purpose was to crack the communications codes of foreign governments. Jointly supported by the State Department and the War Department, the chamber persuaded Western Union, the largest U.S. telegram company, to allow government officials to monitor private communications passing through the company’s wires.[23]
Other “Black Chambers” were also found in Europe. They were established by the French and British governments to read the letters of targeted individuals, employing a variety of techniques to surreptitiously open, copy, and reseal correspondence before forwarding it to unsuspecting recipients.[24]
Despite the American Black Chamber’s initial successes, it was shut down in 1929 by U.S. Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson, who defended his decision by stating: “Gentlemen do not read each other’s mail”.[21]
World War II and its aftermath
During World War II, the Signal Security Agency (SSA) was created to intercept and decipher the communications of the Axis powers.[25] When the war ended, the SSA was reorganized as the Army Security Agency (ASA), and it was placed under the leadership of the Director of Military Intelligence.[25]
On May 20, 1949, all cryptologic activities were centralized under a national organization called the Armed Forces Security Agency (AFSA).[25]This organization was originally established within the U.S. Department of Defense under the command of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.[26] The AFSA was tasked to direct Department of Defense communications and electronic intelligence activities, except those of U.S. military intelligence units.[26] However, the AFSA was unable to centralize communications intelligence and failed to coordinate with civilian agencies that shared its interests such as the Department of State, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).[26] In December 1951, President Harry S. Truman ordered a panel to investigate how AFSA had failed to achieve its goals. The results of the investigation led to improvements and its redesignation as the National Security Agency.[27]
The agency was formally established by Truman in a memorandum of October 24, 1952, that revised National Security Council Intelligence Directive (NSCID) 9.[28] Since President Truman’s memo was a classified document,[28] the existence of the NSA was not known to the public at that time. Due to its ultra-secrecy the U.S. intelligence community referred to the NSA as “No Such Agency”.[29]
A secret operation, code-named “MINARET“, was set up by the NSA to monitor the phone communications of Senators Frank Church and Howard Baker, as well as major civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King, Jr., and prominent U.S. journalists and athletes who criticized the Vietnam War.[31] However, the project turned out to be controversial, and an internal review by the NSA concluded that its Minaret program was “disreputable if not outright illegal”.[31]
The NSA mounted a major effort to secure tactical communications among U.S. forces during the war with mixed success. The NESTOR family of compatible secure voice systems it developed was widely deployed during the Vietnam War, with about 30,000 NESTOR sets produced. However a variety of technical and operational problems limited their use, allowing the North Vietnamese to exploit intercepted U.S. communications.[32]:Vol I, p.79
In the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, a congressional hearing in 1975 led by Sen. Frank Church[33] revealed that the NSA, in collaboration with Britain’s SIGINT intelligence agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), had routinely intercepted the international communications of prominent anti-Vietnam war leaders such as Jane Fonda and Dr. Benjamin Spock.[34] Following the resignation of President Richard Nixon, there were several investigations of suspected misuse of FBI, CIA and NSA facilities.[35] Senator Frank Church uncovered previously unknown activity,[35]such as a CIA plot (ordered by the administration of President John F. Kennedy) to assassinate Fidel Castro.[36] The investigation also uncovered NSA’s wiretaps on targeted American citizens.[37]
In 1986, the NSA intercepted the communications of the Libyan government during the immediate aftermath of the Berlin discotheque bombing. The White House asserted that the NSA interception had provided “irrefutable” evidence that Libya was behind the bombing, which U.S. President Ronald Reagan cited as a justification for the 1986 United States bombing of Libya.[38][39]
In 1999, a multi-year investigation by the European Parliament highlighted the NSA’s role in economic espionage in a report entitled ‘Development of Surveillance Technology and Risk of Abuse of Economic Information’.[40] That year, the NSA founded the NSA Hall of Honor, a memorial at the National Cryptologic Museum in Fort Meade, Maryland.[41] The memorial is a, “tribute to the pioneers and heroes who have made significant and long-lasting contributions to American cryptology”.[41] NSA employees must be retired for more than fifteen years to qualify for the memorial.[41]
NSA’s infrastructure deteriorated in the 1990s as defense budget cuts resulted in maintenance deferrals. On January 24, 2000, NSA headquarters suffered a total network outage for three days caused by an overloaded network. Incoming traffic was successfully stored on agency servers, but it could not be directed and processed. The agency carried out emergency repairs at a cost of $3 million to get the system running again. (Some incoming traffic was also directed instead to Britain’s GCHQ for the time being.) Director Michael Hayden called the outage a “wake-up call” for the need to invest in the agency’s infrastructure.[42]
War on Terror
After Osama bin Laden moved to Afghanistan in the 1980s, the NSA recorded all of his phone calls via satellite, logging over 2,000 minutes of conversation[43]
In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the NSA created new IT systems to deal with the flood of information from new technologies like the Internet and cellphones. ThinThread contained advanced data mining capabilities. It also had a “privacy mechanism”; surveillance was stored encrypted; decryption required a warrant. The research done under this program may have contributed to the technology used in later systems. ThinThread was cancelled when Michael Hayden chose Trailblazer, which did not include ThinThread’s privacy system.[44]
Trailblazer Project ramped up in 2002. SAIC, Boeing, CSC, IBM, and Litton worked on it. Some NSA whistleblowers complained internally about major problems surrounding Trailblazer. This led to investigations by Congress and the NSA and DoD Inspectors General. The project was cancelled in early 2004. Several whistleblowers were later arrested and charged with violating federal espionage laws.
Turbulence started in 2005. It was developed in small, inexpensive “test” pieces, rather than one grand plan like Trailblazer. It also included offensive cyber-warfare capabilities, like injecting malware into remote computers. Congress criticized Turbulence in 2007 for having similar bureaucratic problems as Trailblazer.[45] It was to be a realization of information processing at higher speeds in cyberspace.[46]
The massive extent of the NSA’s spying, both foreign and domestic, was revealed to the public in a series of detailed disclosures of internal NSA documents beginning in June 2013. Most of the disclosures were leaked by former NSA contractor, Edward Snowden.
Scope of surveillance
It was revealed that the NSA intercepts telephone and Internet communications of over a billion people worldwide, seeking information on terrorism as well as foreign politics, economics[47] and “commercial secrets”.[48] In a declassified document it was revealed that 17,835 phone lines were on an improperly permitted “alert list” from 2006 to 2009 in breach of compliance, which tagged these phone lines for daily monitoring.[49][50][51] Eleven percent of these monitored phone lines met the agency’s legal standard for “reasonably articulable suspicion” (RAS).[49][52]
A dedicated unit of the NSA locates targets for the CIA for extrajudicial assassination in the Middle East.[53] The NSA has also spied extensively on the European Union, the United Nations and numerous governments including allies and trading partners in Europe, South America and Asia.[54][55]
The NSA tracks the locations of hundreds of millions of cellphones per day, allowing it to map people’s movements and relationships in detail.[56]It reportedly has access to all communications made via Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, YouTube, AOL, Skype, Apple and Paltalk,[57] and collects hundreds of millions of contact lists from personal email and instant messaging accounts each year.[58] It has also managed to weaken much of the encryption used on the Internet (by collaborating with, coercing or otherwise infiltrating numerous technology companies), so that the majority of Internet privacy is now vulnerable to the NSA and other attackers.[59][60]
Domestically, the NSA collects and stores metadata records of phone calls,[61] including over 120 million US Verizon subscribers,[62] as well as Internet communications,[57] relying on a secret interpretation of the Patriot Act whereby the entirety of US communications may be considered “relevant” to a terrorism investigation if it is expected that even a tiny minority may relate to terrorism.[63] The NSA supplies foreign intercepts to the DEA, IRS and other law enforcement agencies, who use these to initiate criminal investigations. Federal agents are then instructed to “recreate” the investigative trail via parallel construction.[64]
The NSA also spies on influential Muslims to obtain information that could be used to discredit them, such as their use of pornography. The targets, both domestic and abroad, are not suspected of any crime but hold religious or political views deemed “radical” by the NSA.[65]
Although NSA’s surveillance activities are controversial, government agencies and private enterprises have common needs, and sometimes cooperate at subtle and complex technical levels. Big data is becoming more advantageous, justifying the cost of required computer hardware, and social media lead the trend. The interests of NSA and Silicon Valley began to converge as advances in computer storage technology drastically reduced the costs of storing enormous amounts of data and at the same time the value of the data for use in consumer marketing began to rise. On the other hand, social media sites are growing as voluntary data mining operations on a scale that rivals or exceeds anything the government could attempt on its own.[66]
According to a report in The Washington Post in July 2014, relying on information provided by Snowden, 90% of those placed under surveillance in the U.S. are ordinary Americans, and are not the intended targets. The newspaper said it had examined documents including emails, text messages, and online accounts that support the claim.[67]
Legal accountability
Despite President Obama’s claims that these programs have congressional oversight, members of Congress were unaware of the existence of these NSA programs or the secret interpretation of the Patriot Act, and have consistently been denied access to basic information about them.[68] Obama has also claimed that there are legal checks in place to prevent inappropriate access of data and that there have been no examples of abuse;[69] however, the secret FISC court charged with regulating the NSA’s activities is, according to its chief judge, incapable of investigating or verifying how often the NSA breaks even its own secret rules.[70] It has since been reported that the NSA violated its own rules on data access thousands of times a year, many of these violations involving large-scale data interceptions;[71] and that NSA officers have even used data intercepts to spy on love interests.[72] The NSA has “generally disregarded the special rules for disseminating United States person information” by illegally sharing its intercepts with other law enforcement agencies.[73] A March 2009 opinion of the FISC court, released by court order, states that protocols restricting data queries had been “so frequently and systemically violated that it can be fairly said that this critical element of the overall … regime has never functioned effectively.”[74][75] In 2011 the same court noted that the “volume and nature” of the NSA’s bulk foreign Internet intercepts was “fundamentally different from what the court had been led to believe”.[73] Email contact lists (including those of US citizens) are collected at numerous foreign locations to work around the illegality of doing so on US soil.[58]
Legal opinions on the NSA’s bulk collection program have differed. In mid-December 2013, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon ruled that the “almost-Orwellian” program likely violates the Constitution, and wrote, “I cannot imagine a more ‘indiscriminate’ and ‘arbitrary invasion’ than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying and analyzing it without prior judicial approval. Surely, such a program infringes on ‘that degree of privacy’ that the Founders enshrined in the Fourth Amendment. Indeed, I have little doubt that the author of our Constitution, James Madison, who cautioned us to beware ‘the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power,’ would be aghast.”[76]
Later that month, U.S. District Judge William Pauley ruled that the NSA’s collection of telephone records is legal and valuable in the fight against terrorism. In his opinion, he wrote, “a bulk telephony metadata collection program [is] a wide net that could find and isolate gossamer contacts among suspected terrorists in an ocean of seemingly disconnected data” and noted that a similar collection of data prior to 9/11 might have prevented the attack.[77]
An October 2014 United Nations report condemned mass surveillance by the United States and other countries as violating multiple international treaties and conventions that guarantee core privacy rights.[78]
Official responses
On March 20, 2013 the Director of National Intelligence, Lieutenant General James Clapper, testified before Congress that the NSA does not wittingly collect any kind of data on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans, but he retracted this in June after details of the PRISM program were published, and stated instead that meta-data of phone and Internet traffic are collected, but no actual message contents.[79] This was corroborated by the NSA Director, General Keith Alexander, before it was revealed that the XKeyscore program collects the contents of millions of emails from US citizens without warrant, as well as “nearly everything a user does on the Internet”. Alexander later admitted that “content” is collected, but stated that it is simply stored and never analyzed or searched unless there is “a nexus to al-Qaida or other terrorist groups”.[69]
Regarding the necessity of these NSA programs, Alexander stated on June 27 that the NSA’s bulk phone and Internet intercepts had been instrumental in preventing 54 terrorist “events”, including 13 in the US, and in all but one of these cases had provided the initial tip to “unravel the threat stream”.[80] On July 31 NSA Deputy Director John Inglis conceded to the Senate that these intercepts had not been vital in stopping any terrorist attacks, but were “close” to vital in identifying and convicting four San Diego men for sending US$8,930 to Al-Shabaab, a militia that conducts terrorism in Somalia.[81][82][83]
The U.S. government has aggressively sought to dismiss and challenge Fourth Amendment cases raised against it, and has granted retroactive immunity to ISPs and telecoms participating in domestic surveillance.[84][85] The U.S. military has acknowledged blocking access to parts of The Guardian website for thousands of defense personnel across the country,[86][87] and blocking the entire Guardian website for personnel stationed throughout Afghanistan, the Middle East, and South Asia.[88]
NSA also has an Inspector General, head of the Office of the Inspector General (OIG), a General Counsel, head of the Office of the General Counsel (OGC) and a Director of Compliance, who is head of the Office of the Director of Compliance (ODOC).[89]
Unlike other intelligence organizations such as CIA or DIA, NSA has always been particularly reticent concerning its internal organizational structure.
As of the mid-1990s, the National Security Agency was organized into five Directorates:
The Operations Directorate, which was responsible for SIGINT collection and processing.
The Technology and Systems Directorate, which develops new technologies for SIGINT collection and processing.
The Information Systems Security Directorate, which was responsible for NSA’s communications and information security missions.
The Plans, Policy and Programs Directorate, which provided staff support and general direction for the Agency.
The Support Services Directorate, which provided logistical and administrative support activities.[90]
Each of these directorates consisted of several groups or elements, designated by a letter. There were for example the A Group, which was responsible for all SIGINT operations against the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and G Group, which was responsible for SIGINT related to all non-communist countries. These groups were divided in units designated by an additional number, like unit A5 for breaking Soviet codes, and G6, being the office for the Middle East, North Africa, Cuba, Central and South America.[91][92]
Structure
As of 2013, NSA has about a dozen directorates, which are designated by a letter, although not all of them are publicly known. The directorates are divided in divisions and units starting with the letter of the parent directorate, followed by a number for the division, the sub-unit or a sub-sub-unit.
The main elements of the organizational structure of the NSA are:[93]
F – Directorate only known from unit F6, the Special Collection Service (SCS), which is a joint program created by CIA and NSA in 1978 to facilitate clandestine activities such as bugging computers throughout the world, using the expertise of both agencies.[94]
G – Directorate only known from unit G112, the office that manages the Senior Span platform, attached to the U2 spy planes.[95]
I – Information Assurance Directorate (IAD), which ensures availability, integrity, authentication, confidentiality, and non-repudiation of national security and telecommunications and information systems (national security systems).
J – Directorate only known from unit J2, the Cryptologic Intelligence Unit
L – Installation and Logistics
M – Human Resources
Q – Security and Counterintelligence
R – Research Directorate, which conducts research on signals intelligence and on information assurance for the U.S. Government.[96]
S – Signals Intelligence Directorate (SID), which is responsible for the collection, analysis, production and dissemination of signals intelligence. This directorate is led by a director and a deputy director. The SID consists of the following divisions:
S1 – Customer Relations
S2 – Analysis and Production Centers, with the following so-called Product Lines:
S2A: South Asia, S2B: China and Korea, S2C: International Security, S2E: Middle East/Asia, S2F: International Crime, S2G: Counter-proliferation, S2H: Russia, S2I: Counter-terrorism, S2J: Weapons and Space, S2T: Current Threats
S3 – Data Acquisition, with these divisions for the main collection programs:
S31 – Cryptanalysis and Exploitation Services (CES)
S32 – Tailored Access Operations (TAO), which hacks into foreign computers to conduct cyber-espionage and reportedly is “the largest and arguably the most important component of the NSA’s huge Signal Intelligence (SIGINT) Directorate, consisting of over 1,000 military and civilian computer hackers, intelligence analysts, targeting specialists, computer hardware and software designers, and electrical engineers.”[97]
S33 – Global Access Operations (GAO), which is responsible for intercepts from satellites and other international SIGINT platforms.[98] A tool which details and maps the information collected by this unit is code-named Boundless Informant.
S34 – Collections Strategies and Requirements Center
S35 – Special Source Operations (SSO), which is responsible for domestic and compartmented collection programs, like for example the PRISM program.[98] Special Source Operations is also mentioned in connection to the FAIRVIEW collection program.[99]
T – Technical Directorate (TD)
Directorate for Education and Training
Directorate for Corporate Leadership
Foreign Affairs Directorate, which acts as liaison with foreign intelligence services, counter-intelligence centers and the UKUSA-partners.
Acquisitions and Procurement Directorate
Information Sharing Services (ISS), led by a chief and a deputy chief.[100]
In the year 2000, a leadership team was formed, consisting of the Director, the Deputy Director and the Directors of the Signals Intelligence (SID), the Information Assurance (IAD) and the Technical Directorate (TD). The chiefs of other main NSA divisions became associate directors of the senior leadership team.[101]
After president George W. Bush initiated the President’s Surveillance Program (PSP) in 2001, the NSA created a 24-hour Metadata Analysis Center (MAC), followed in 2004 by the Advanced Analysis Division (AAD), with the mission of analyzing content, Internet metadata and telephone metadata. Both units were part of the Signals Intelligence Directorate.[102]
A 2016 proposal would combine the Signals Intelligence Directorate with the Information Assurance Directorate into a Directorate of Operations.[103]
Watch centers
The NSA maintains at least two watch centers:
National Security Operations Center (NSOC), which is the NSA’s current operations center and focal point for time-sensitive SIGINT reporting for the United States SIGINT System (USSS). This center was established in 1968 as the National SIGINT Watch Center (NSWC) and renamed into National SIGINT Operations Center (NSOC) in 1973. This “nerve center of the NSA” got its current name in 1996.[104]
NSA/CSS Threat Operations Center (NTOC), which is the primary NSA/CSS partner for Department of Homeland Security response to cyber incidents. The NTOC establishes real-time network awareness and threat characterization capabilities to forecast, alert, and attribute malicious activity and enable the coordination of Computer Network Operations. The NTOC was established in 2004 as a joint Information Assurance and Signals Intelligence project.[105]
Employees
The number of NSA employees is officially classified[4] but there are several sources providing estimates. In 1961, NSA had 59,000 military and civilian employees, which grew to 93,067 in 1969, of which 19,300 worked at the headquarters at Fort Meade. In the early 1980s NSA had roughly 50,000 military and civilian personnel. By 1989 this number had grown again to 75,000, of which 25,000 worked at the NSA headquarters. Between 1990 and 1995 the NSA’s budget and workforce were cut by one third, which led to a substantial loss of experience.[106]
In 2012, the NSA said more than 30,000 employees worked at Fort Meade and other facilities.[2] In 2012, John C. Inglis, the deputy director, said that the total number of NSA employees is “somewhere between 37,000 and one billion” as a joke,[4] and stated that the agency is “probably the biggest employer of introverts.”[4] In 2013 Der Spiegel stated that the NSA had 40,000 employees.[5] More widely, it has been described as the world’s largest single employer of mathematicians.[107] Some NSA employees form part of the workforce of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), the agency that provides the NSA with satellite signals intelligence.
The NSA received criticism early on in 1960 after two agents had defected to the Soviet Union. Investigations by the House Un-American Activities Committee and a special subcommittee of the United States House Committee on Armed Services revealed severe cases of ignorance in personnel security regulations, prompting the former personnel director and the director of security to step down and leading to the adoption of stricter security practices.[109] Nonetheless, security breaches reoccurred only a year later when in an issue of Izvestia of July 23, 1963, a former NSA employee published several cryptologic secrets.
The very same day, an NSA clerk-messenger committed suicide as ongoing investigations disclosed that he had sold secret information to the Soviets on a regular basis. The reluctance of Congressional houses to look into these affairs had prompted a journalist to write, “If a similar series of tragic blunders occurred in any ordinary agency of Government an aroused public would insist that those responsible be officially censured, demoted, or fired.” David Kahn criticized the NSA’s tactics of concealing its doings as smug and the Congress’ blind faith in the agency’s right-doing as shortsighted, and pointed out the necessity of surveillance by the Congress to prevent abuse of power.[109]
Edward Snowden‘s leaking of the existence of PRISM in 2013 caused the NSA to institute a “two-man rule“, where two system administrators are required to be present when one accesses certain sensitive information.[108] Snowden claims he suggested such a rule in 2009.[110]
The NSA conducts polygraph tests of employees. For new employees, the tests are meant to discover enemy spies who are applying to the NSA and to uncover any information that could make an applicant pliant to coercion.[111] As part of the latter, historically EPQs or “embarrassing personal questions” about sexual behavior had been included in the NSA polygraph.[111] The NSA also conducts five-year periodic reinvestigation polygraphs of employees, focusing on counterintelligence programs. In addition the NSA conducts periodic polygraph investigations in order to find spies and leakers; those who refuse to take them may receive “termination of employment”, according to a 1982 memorandum from the director of the NSA.[112]
NSA-produced video on the polygraph process
There are also “special access examination” polygraphs for employees who wish to work in highly sensitive areas, and those polygraphs cover counterintelligence questions and some questions about behavior.[112] NSA’s brochure states that the average test length is between two and four hours.[113] A 1983 report of the Office of Technology Assessment stated that “It appears that the NSA [National Security Agency] (and possibly CIA) use the polygraph not to determine deception or truthfulness per se, but as a technique of interrogation to encourage admissions.”[114]Sometimes applicants in the polygraph process confess to committing felonies such as murder, rape, and selling of illegal drugs. Between 1974 and 1979, of the 20,511 job applicants who took polygraph tests, 695 (3.4%) confessed to previous felony crimes; almost all of those crimes had been undetected.[111]
In 2010 the NSA produced a video explaining its polygraph process.[115] The video, ten minutes long, is titled “The Truth About the Polygraph” and was posted to the Web site of the Defense Security Service. Jeff Stein of The Washington Post said that the video portrays “various applicants, or actors playing them — it’s not clear — describing everything bad they had heard about the test, the implication being that none of it is true.”[116] AntiPolygraph.org argues that the NSA-produced video omits some information about the polygraph process; it produced a video responding to the NSA video.[115] George Maschke, the founder of the Web site, accused the NSA polygraph video of being “Orwellian“.[116]
After Edward Snowden revealed his identity in 2013, the NSA began requiring polygraphing of employees once per quarter.[117]
Arbitrary firing
The number of exemptions from legal requirements has been criticized. When in 1964 the Congress was hearing a bill giving the director of the NSA the power to fire at will any employee,The Washington Post wrote: “This is the very definition of arbitrariness. It means that an employee could be discharged and disgraced on the basis of anonymous allegations without the slightest opportunity to defend himself.” Yet, the bill was accepted by an overwhelming majority.[109]
Insignia and memorials
The heraldic insignia of NSA consists of an eagle inside a circle, grasping a key in its talons.[118] The eagle represents the agency’s national mission.[118] Its breast features a shield with bands of red and white, taken from the Great Seal of the United States and representing Congress.[118] The key is taken from the emblem of Saint Peter and represents security.[118]
When the NSA was created, the agency had no emblem and used that of the Department of Defense.[119] The agency adopted its first of two emblems in 1963.[119] The current NSA insignia has been in use since 1965, when then-Director, LTG Marshall S. Carter (USA) ordered the creation of a device to represent the agency.[120]
The NSA’s flag consists of the agency’s seal on a light blue background.
National Cryptologic Memorial
Crews associated with NSA missions have been involved in a number of dangerous and deadly situations.[121] The USS Liberty incident in 1967 and USS Pueblo incident in 1968 are examples of the losses endured during the Cold War.[121]
The National Security Agency/Central Security Service Cryptologic Memorial honors and remembers the fallen personnel, both military and civilian, of these intelligence missions.[122] It is made of black granite, and has 171 names carved into it, as of 2013 .[122] It is located at NSA headquarters. A tradition of declassifying the stories of the fallen was begun in 2001.[122]
NSANet (NSA’s intranet)
Behind the Green Door – Secure communications room with separate computer terminals for access to SIPRNET, GWAN, NSANET, and JWICS
NSANet stands for National Security Agency Network and is the official NSA intranet.[123] It is a classified network,[124] for information up to the level of TS/SCI[125] to support the use and sharing of intelligence data between NSA and the signals intelligence agencies of the four other nations of the Five Eyes partnership. The management of NSANet has been delegated to the Central Security Service Texas (CSSTEXAS).[126]
NSANet is a highly secured computer network consisting of fiber-optic and satellite communication channels which are almost completely separated from the public Internet. The network allows NSA personnel and civilian and military intelligence analysts anywhere in the world to have access to the agency’s systems and databases. This access is tightly controlled and monitored. For example, every keystroke is logged, activities are audited at random and downloading and printing of documents from NSANet are recorded.[127]
In 1998, NSANet, along with NIPRNET and SIPRNET, had “significant problems with poor search capabilities, unorganized data and old information”.[128] In 2004, the network was reported to have used over twenty commercial off-the-shelf operating systems.[129] Some universities that do highly sensitive research are allowed to connect to it.[130]
The thousands of Top Secret internal NSA documents that were taken by Edward Snowden in 2013 were stored in “a file-sharing location on the NSA’s intranet site” so they could easily be read online by NSA personnel. Everyone with a TS/SCI-clearance had access to these documents and as a system administrator, Snowden was responsible for moving accidentally misplaced highly sensitive documents to more secure storage locations.[131]
National Computer Security Center
The DoD Computer Security Center was founded in 1981 and renamed the National Computer Security Center (NCSC) in 1985. NCSC was responsible for computer security throughout the federal government.[132] NCSC was part of NSA,[133] and during the late 1980s and the 1990s, NSA and NCSC published Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria in a six-foot high Rainbow Series of books that detailed trusted computing and network platform specifications.[134] The Rainbow books were replaced by the Common Criteria, however, in the early 2000s.[134]
Facilities
Headquarters
National Security Agency headquarters in Fort Meade, 2013
Headquarters for the National Security Agency is located at 39°6′32″N76°46′17″W in Fort George G. Meade, Maryland, although it is separate from other compounds and agencies that are based within this same military installation. Ft. Meade is about 20 mi (32 km) southwest of Baltimore,[135] and 25 mi (40 km) northeast of Washington, DC.[136] The NSA has its own exit off Maryland Route 295 South labeled “NSA Employees Only”.[137][138] The exit may only be used by people with the proper clearances, and security vehicles parked along the road guard the entrance.[139]
NSA is the largest employer in the U.S. state of Maryland, and two-thirds of its personnel work at Ft. Meade.[140] Built on 350 acres (140 ha; 0.55 sq mi)[141] of Ft. Meade’s 5,000 acres (2,000 ha; 7.8 sq mi),[142] the site has 1,300 buildings and an estimated 18,000 parking spaces.[136][143]
NSA headquarters building in Fort Meade (left), NSOC (right)
The main NSA headquarters and operations building is what James Bamford, author of Body of Secrets, describes as “a modern boxy structure” that appears similar to “any stylish office building.”[144] The building is covered with one-way dark glass, which is lined with copper shielding in order to prevent espionage by trapping in signals and sounds.[144] It contains 3,000,000 square feet (280,000 m2), or more than 68 acres (28 ha), of floor space; Bamford said that the U.S. Capitol “could easily fit inside it four times over.”[144]
The facility has over 100 watchposts,[145] one of them being the visitor control center, a two-story area that serves as the entrance.[144] At the entrance, a white pentagonal structure,[146] visitor badges are issued to visitors and security clearances of employees are checked.[147] The visitor center includes a painting of the NSA seal.[146]
The OPS2A building, the tallest building in the NSA complex and the location of much of the agency’s operations directorate, is accessible from the visitor center. Bamford described it as a “dark glass Rubik’s Cube“.[148] The facility’s “red corridor” houses non-security operations such as concessions and the drug store. The name refers to the “red badge” which is worn by someone without a security clearance. The NSA headquarters includes a cafeteria, a credit union, ticket counters for airlines and entertainment, a barbershop, and a bank.[146] NSA headquarters has its own post office, fire department, and police force.[149][150][151]
Due to massive amounts of data processing, NSA is the largest electricity consumer in Maryland.[140]
Following a major power outage in 2000, in 2003 and in follow-ups through 2007, The Baltimore Sun reported that the NSA was at risk of electrical overload because of insufficient internal electrical infrastructure at Fort Meade to support the amount of equipment being installed. This problem was apparently recognized in the 1990s but not made a priority, and “now the agency’s ability to keep its operations going is threatened.”[153]
Baltimore Gas & Electric (BGE, now Constellation Energy) provided NSA with 65 to 75 megawatts at Ft. Meade in 2007, and expected that an increase of 10 to 15 megawatts would be needed later that year.[154] In 2011, NSA at Ft. Meade was Maryland’s largest consumer of power.[140] In 2007, as BGE’s largest customer, NSA bought as much electricity as Annapolis, the capital city of Maryland.[153]
One estimate put the potential for power consumption by the new Utah Data Center at US$40 million per year.[155]
When the agency was established, its headquarters and cryptographic center were in the Naval Security Station in Washington, D.C. The COMINT functions were located in Arlington Hall in Northern Virginia, which served as the headquarters of the U.S. Army‘s cryptographic operations.[156]Because the Soviet Union had detonated a nuclear bomb and because the facilities were crowded, the federal government wanted to move several agencies, including the AFSA/NSA. A planning committee considered Fort Knox, but Fort Meade, Maryland, was ultimately chosen as NSA headquarters because it was far enough away from Washington, D.C. in case of a nuclear strike and was close enough so its employees would not have to move their families.[157]
Construction of additional buildings began after the agency occupied buildings at Ft. Meade in the late 1950s, which they soon outgrew.[157] In 1963 the new headquarters building, nine stories tall, opened. NSA workers referred to the building as the “Headquarters Building” and since the NSA management occupied the top floor, workers used “Ninth Floor” to refer to their leaders.[158] COMSEC remained in Washington, D.C., until its new building was completed in 1968.[157] In September 1986, the Operations 2A and 2B buildings, both copper-shielded to prevent eavesdropping, opened with a dedication by President Ronald Reagan.[159] The four NSA buildings became known as the “Big Four.”[159] The NSA director moved to 2B when it opened.[159]
On March 30, 2015, shortly before 9 am, a stolen sports utility vehicle approached an NSA police vehicle blocking the road near the gate of Fort Meade, after it was told to leave the area. NSA officers fired on the SUV, killing the 27-year-old driver, Ricky Hall (a transgender person also known as Mya), and seriously injuring his 20-year-old male passenger. An NSA officer’s arm was injured when Hall subsequently crashed into his vehicle.[160][161]
The two, dressed in women’s clothing after a night of partying at a motel with the man they’d stolen the SUV from that morning, “attempted to drive a vehicle into the National Security Agency portion of the installation without authorization”, according to an NSA statement.[162] FBI spokeswoman Amy Thoreson said the incident is not believed to be related to terrorism.[163]In June 2015 the FBI closed its investigation into the incident and federal prosecutors have declined to bring charges against anyone involved.[164]
An anonymous police official told The Washington Post, “This was not a deliberate attempt to breach the security of NSA. This was not a planned attack.” The two are believed to have made a wrong turn off the highway, while fleeing from the motel after stealing the vehicle. A small amount of cocaine was found in the SUV. A local CBS reporter initially said a gun was found,[165]but her later revision does not.[166] Dozens of journalists were corralled into a parking lot blocks away from the scene, and were barred from photographing the area.[167]
NSA held a groundbreaking ceremony at Ft. Meade in May 2013 for its High Performance Computing Center 2, expected to open in 2016.[169] Called Site M, the center has a 150 megawatt power substation, 14 administrative buildings and 10 parking garages.[149] It cost $3.2 billion and covers 227 acres (92 ha; 0.355 sq mi).[149] The center is 1,800,000 square feet (17 ha; 0.065 sq mi)[149] and initially uses 60 megawatts of electricity.[170]
Increments II and III are expected to be completed by 2030, and would quadruple the space, covering 5,800,000 square feet (54 ha; 0.21 sq mi) with 60 buildings and 40 parking garages.[149]Defense contractors are also establishing or expanding cybersecurity facilities near the NSA and around the Washington metropolitan area.[149]
On January 6, 2011 a groundbreaking ceremony was held to begin construction on NSA’s first Comprehensive National Cyber-security Initiative (CNCI) Data Center, known as the “Utah Data Center” for short. The $1.5B data center is being built at Camp Williams, Utah, located 25 miles (40 km) south of Salt Lake City, and will help support the agency’s National Cyber-security Initiative.[172] It is expected to be operational by September 2013.[155]
In 2009, to protect its assets and to access more electricity, NSA sought to decentralize and expand its existing facilities in Ft. Meade and Menwith Hill,[173] the latter expansion expected to be completed by 2015.[174]
NSA operates RAF Menwith Hill in North Yorkshire, United Kingdom, which was, according to BBC News in 2007, the largest electronic monitoring station in the world.[182] Planned in 1954, and opened in 1960, the base covered 562 acres (227 ha; 0.878 sq mi) in 1999.[183]
The agency’s European Cryptologic Center (ECC), with 240 employees in 2011, is headquartered at a US military compound in Griesheim, near Frankfurt in Germany. A 2011 NSA report indicates that the ECC is responsible for the “largest analysis and productivity in Europe” and focusses on various priorities, including Africa, Europe, the Middle East and counterterrorism operations.[184]
In 2013, a new Consolidated Intelligence Center, also to be used by NSA, is being built at the headquarters of the United States Army Europe in Wiesbaden, Germany.[185] NSA’s partnership with Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), the German foreign intelligence service, was confirmed by BND president Gerhard Schindler.[185]
Thailand
Thailand is a “3rd party partner” of the NSA along with nine other nations.[186] These are non-English-speaking countries that have made security agreements for the exchange of SIGINT raw material and end product reports.
Thailand is the site of at least two US SIGINT collection stations. One is at the US Embassy in Bangkok, a joint NSA-CIA Special Collection Service (SCS) unit. It presumably eavesdrops on foreign embassies, governmental communications, and other targets of opportunity.[187]
The second installation is a FORNSAT (foreign satellite interception) station in the Thai city of Khon Kaen. It is codenamed INDRA, but has also been referred to as LEMONWOOD.[187] The station is approximately 40 ha (100 acres) in size and consists of a large 3,700–4,600 m2 (40,000–50,000 ft2) operations building on the west side of the ops compound and four radome-enclosed parabolic antennas. Possibly two of the radome-enclosed antennas are used for SATCOM intercept and two antennas used for relaying the intercepted material back to NSA. There is also a PUSHER-type circularly-disposed antenna array (CDAA) array just north of the ops compound.[188][189]
NSA activated Khon Kaen in October 1979. Its mission was to eavesdrop on the radio traffic of Chinese army and air force units in southern China, especially in and around the city of Kunming in Yunnan Province. Back in the late 1970s the base consisted only of a small CDAA antenna array that was remote-controlled via satellite from the NSA listening post at Kunia, Hawaii, and a small force of civilian contractors from Bendix Field Engineering Corp. whose job it was to keep the antenna array and satellite relay facilities up and running 24/7.[188]
According to the papers of the late General William Odom, the INDRA facility was upgraded in 1986 with a new British-made PUSHER CDAA antenna as part of an overall upgrade of NSA and Thai SIGINT facilities whose objective was to spy on the neighboring communist nations of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.[188]
The base apparently fell into disrepair in the 1990s as China and Vietnam became more friendly towards the US, and by 2002 archived satellite imagery showed that the PUSHER CDAA antenna had been torn down, perhaps indicating that the base had been closed. At some point in the period since 9/11, the Khon Kaen base was reactivated and expanded to include a sizeable SATCOM intercept mission. It is likely that the NSA presence at Khon Kaen is relatively small, and that most of the work is done by civilian contractors.[188]
Mission
NSA’s eavesdropping mission includes radio broadcasting, both from various organizations and individuals, the Internet, telephone calls, and other intercepted forms of communication. Its secure communications mission includes military, diplomatic, and all other sensitive, confidential or secret government communications.[190]
According to the Washington Post, “[e]very day, collection systems at the National Security Agency intercept and store 1.7 billion e-mails, phone calls and other types of communications. The NSA sorts a fraction of those into 70 separate databases.”[191]
Because of its listening task, NSA/CSS has been heavily involved in cryptanalytic research, continuing the work of predecessor agencies which had broken many World War II codes and ciphers (see, for instance, Purple, Venona project, and JN-25).
As part of the National Security Presidential Directive 54/Homeland Security Presidential Directive 23 (NSPD 54), signed on January 8, 2008 by President Bush, the NSA became the lead agency to monitor and protect all of the federal government’s computer networks from cyber-terrorism.[9]
Operations
Operations by the National Security Agency can be divided in three types:
Collection overseas, which falls under the responsibility of the Global Access Operations (GAO) division.
Domestic collection, which falls under the responsibility of the Special Source Operations (SSO) division.
Hacking operations, which falls under the responsibility of the Tailored Access Operations (TAO) division.
During the early 1970s, the first of what became more than eight large satellite communications dishes were installed at Menwith Hill.[196] Investigative journalist Duncan Campbell reported in 1988 on the ECHELON surveillance program, an extension of the UKUSA Agreement on global signals intelligence SIGINT, and detailed how the eavesdropping operations worked.[197] In November 3, 1999 the BBC reported that they had confirmation from the Australian Government of the existence of a powerful “global spying network” code-named Echelon, that could “eavesdrop on every single phone call, fax or e-mail, anywhere on the planet” with Britain and the United States as the chief protagonists. They confirmed that Menwith Hill was “linked directly to the headquarters of the US National Security Agency (NSA) at Fort Meade in Maryland”.[198]
NSA’s United States Signals Intelligence Directive 18 (USSID 18) strictly prohibited the interception or collection of information about “… U.S. persons, entities, corporations or organizations….” without explicit written legal permission from the United States Attorney General when the subject is located abroad, or the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court when within U.S. borders. Alleged Echelon-related activities, including its use for motives other than national security, including political and industrial espionage, received criticism from countries outside the UKUSA alliance.[199][200]
The NSA is also involved in planning to blackmail people with “SEXINT“, intelligence gained about a potential target’s sexual activity and preferences. Those targeted had not committed any apparent crime nor were charged with one.[201]
In order to support its facial recognition program, the NSA is intercepting “millions of images per day”.[202]
The Real Time Regional Gateway is a data collection program introduced in 2005 in Iraq by NSA during the Iraq War that consisted of gathering all electronic communication, storing it, then searching and otherwise analyzing it. It was effective in providing information about Iraqi insurgents who had eluded less comprehensive techniques.[203] This “collect it all” strategy introduced by NSA director, Keith B. Alexander, is believed by Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian to be the model for the comprehensive worldwide mass archiving of communications which NSA is engaged in as of 2013.[204]
BoundlessInformant
Edward Snowden revealed in June 2013 that between February 8 and March 8, 2013, the NSA collected about 124.8 billion telephone data items and 97.1 billion computer data items throughout the world, as was displayed in charts from an internal NSA tool codenamed Boundless Informant. It was reported that some of these data reflected eavesdropping on citizens in countries like Germany, Spain and France.[205]
In 2013, reporters uncovered a secret memo that claims the NSA created and pushed for the adoption of the Dual_EC_DRBG encryption standard that contained built-in vulnerabilities in 2006 to the United States National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the International Organization for Standardization (aka ISO).[207][208] This memo appears to give credence to previous speculation by cryptographers at Microsoft Research.[209]Edward Snowden claims that the NSA often bypasses encryption altogether by lifting information before it is encrypted or after it is decrypted.[208]
XKeyscore rules (as specified in a file xkeyscorerules100.txt, sourced by German TV stations NDR and WDR, who claim to have excerpts from its source code) reveal that the NSA tracks users of privacy-enhancing software tools, including Tor; an anonymous email service provided by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) in Cambridge, Massachusetts; and readers of the Linux Journal.[210][211]
NSA’s mission, as set forth in Executive Order 12333 in 1981, is to collect information that constitutes “foreign intelligence or counterintelligence” while not “acquiring information concerning the domestic activities of United States persons”. NSA has declared that it relies on the FBI to collect information on foreign intelligence activities within the borders of the United States, while confining its own activities within the United States to the embassies and missions of foreign nations.[212] The appearance of a ‘Domestic Surveillance Directorate’ of the NSA was soon exposed as a hoax in 2013.[213][214]
NSA’s domestic surveillance activities are limited by the requirements imposed by the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for example held in October 2011, citing multiple Supreme Court precedents, that the Fourth Amendment prohibitions against unreasonable searches and seizures applies to the contents of all communications, whatever the means, because “a person’s private communications are akin to personal papers.”[215] However, these protections do not apply to non-U.S. persons located outside of U.S. borders, so the NSA’s foreign surveillance efforts are subject to far fewer limitations under U.S. law.[216] The specific requirements for domestic surveillance operations are contained in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA), which does not extend protection to non-U.S. citizens located outside of U.S. territory.[216]
George W. Bush administration
George W. Bush, president during the 9/11 terrorist attacks, approved the Patriot Act shortly after the attacks to take anti-terrorist security measures. Title 1, 2, and 9 specifically authorized measures that would be taken by the NSA. These titles granted enhanced domestic security against terrorism, surveillance procedures, and improved intelligence, respectively. On March 10, 2004, there was a debate between President Bush and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, Attorney General John Ashcroft, and Acting Attorney General James Comey. The Attorney Generals were unsure if the NSA’s programs could be considered constitutional. They threatened to resign over the matter, but ultimately the NSA’s programs continued.[217] On March 11, 2004, President Bush signed a new authorization for mass surveillance of Internet records, in addition to the surveillance of phone records.This allowed the president to be able to override laws such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which protected civilians from mass surveillance. In addition to this, President Bush also signed that the measures of mass surveillance were also retroactively in place.[218]
One such surveillance program, authorized by the U.S. Signals Intelligence Directive 18 of President George Bush, was the Highlander Project undertaken for the National Security Agency by the U.S. Army 513th Military Intelligence Brigade. NSA relayed telephone (including cell phone) conversations obtained from ground, airborne, and satellite monitoring stations to various U.S. Army Signal Intelligence Officers, including the 201st Military Intelligence Battalion. Conversations of citizens of the U.S. were intercepted, along with those of other nations.[220]
Proponents of the surveillance program claim that the President has executive authority to order such action, arguing that laws such as FISA are overridden by the President’s Constitutional powers. In addition, some argued that FISA was implicitly overridden by a subsequent statute, the Authorization for Use of Military Force, although the Supreme Court’s ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld deprecates this view. In the August 2006 case ACLU v. NSA, U.S. District Court Judge Anna Diggs Taylor concluded that NSA’s warrantless surveillance program was both illegal and unconstitutional. On July 6, 2007 the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the decision on the grounds that the ACLU lacked standing to bring the suit.[221]
On January 17, 2006, the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a lawsuit, CCR v. Bush, against the George W. Bush Presidency. The lawsuit challenged the National Security Agency’s (NSA’s) surveillance of people within the U.S., including the interception of CCR emails without securing a warrant first.[222][223]
As a result of the USA Freedom Act passed by Congress in June 2015, the NSA had to shut down its bulk phone surveillance program on November 29 of the same year. The USA Freedom Act forbids the NSA to collect metadata and content of phone calls unless it has a warrant for terrorism investigation. In that case the agency has to ask the telecom companies for the record, which will only be kept for six months.
In May 2006, Mark Klein, a former AT&T employee, alleged that his company had cooperated with NSA in installing Narus hardware to replace the FBI Carnivore program, to monitor network communications including traffic between American citizens.[227]
Data mining
NSA was reported in 2008 to use its computing capability to analyze “transactional” data that it regularly acquires from other government agencies, which gather it under their own jurisdictional authorities. As part of this effort, NSA now monitors huge volumes of records of domestic email data, web addresses from Internet searches, bank transfers, credit-card transactions, travel records, and telephone data, according to current and former intelligence officials interviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The sender, recipient, and subject line of emails can be included, but the content of the messages or of phone calls are not.[228]
A 2013 advisory group for the Obama administration, seeking to reform NSA spying programs following the revelations of documents released by Edward J. Snowden.[229] mentioned in ‘Recommendation 30’ on page 37, “…that the National Security Council staff should manage an interagency process to review on a regular basis the activities of the US Government regarding attacks that exploit a previously unknown vulnerability in a computer application.” Retired cyber security expert Richard A. Clarke was a group member and stated on April 11 that NSA had no advance knowledge of Heartbleed.[230]
In August 2013 it was revealed that a 2005 IRS training document showed that NSA intelligence intercepts and wiretaps, both foreign and domestic, were being supplied to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and were illegally used to launch criminal investigations of US citizens. Law enforcement agents were directed to conceal how the investigations began and recreate an apparently legal investigative trail by re-obtaining the same evidence by other means.[231][232]
Barack Obama administration
In the months leading to April 2009, the NSA intercepted the communications of American citizens, including a Congressman, although the Justice Department believed that the interception was unintentional. The Justice Department then took action to correct the issues and bring the program into compliance with existing laws.[233] United States Attorney General Eric Holder resumed the program according to his understanding of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act amendment of 2008, without explaining what had occurred.[234]
Polls conducted in June 2013 found divided results among Americans regarding NSA’s secret data collection.[235]Rasmussen Reports found that 59% of Americans disapprove,[236]Gallup found that 53% disapprove,[237] and Pew found that 56% are in favor of NSA data collection.[238]
Section 215 metadata collection
On April 25, 2013, the NSA obtained a court order requiring Verizon‘s Business Network Services to provide metadata on all calls in its system to the NSA “on an ongoing daily basis” for a three-month period, as reported by The Guardian on June 6, 2013. This information includes “the numbers of both parties on a call … location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls” but not “[t]he contents of the conversation itself”. The order relies on the so-called “business records” provision of the Patriot Act.[239][240]
In August 2013, following the Snowden leaks, new details about the NSA’s data mining activity were revealed. Reportedly, the majority of emails into or out of the United States are captured at “selected communications links” and automatically analyzed for keywords or other “selectors”. Emails that do not match are deleted.[241]
The utility of such a massive metadata collection in preventing terrorist attacks is disputed. Many studies reveal the dragnet like system to be ineffective. One such report, released by the New America Foundation concluded that after an analysis of 225 terrorism cases, the NSA “had no discernible impact on preventing acts of terrorism.”[242]
Defenders of the program say that while metadata alone can’t provide all the information necessary to prevent an attack, it assures the ability to “connect the dots”[243] between suspect foreign numbers and domestic numbers with a speed only the NSA’s software is capable of. One benefit of this is quickly being able to determine the difference between suspicious activity and real threats.[citation needed] As an example, NSA director General Keith Alexander mentioned at the annual Cybersecurity Summit in 2013, that metadata analysis of domestic phone call records after the Boston Marathon bombing helped determine that[clarification needed] another attack in New York was baseless.[243]
In addition to doubts about its effectiveness, many people argue that the collection of metadata is an unconstitutional invasion of privacy. As of 2015, the collection process remains legal and grounded in the ruling from Smith v. Maryland (1979). A prominent opponent of the data collection and its legality is U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon, who issued a report in 2013[244] in which he stated: “I cannot imagine a more ‘indiscriminate’ and ‘arbitrary invasion’ than this systematic and high tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying and analyzing it without prior judicial approval…Surely, such a program infringes on ‘that degree of privacy’ that the founders enshrined in the Fourth Amendment”.
Under the PRISM program, which started in 2007,[245][246] NSA gathers Internet communications from foreign targets from nine major U.S. Internet-based communication service providers: Microsoft,[247]Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube and Apple. Data gathered include email, video and voice chat, videos, photos, VoIP chats such as Skype, and file transfers.
In June 2015, Wikileaks published documents, which showed that NSA spied on French companies.[248]
July 2015 – WikiLeaks: Espionage against German federal ministries[edit]
In July 2015, WikiLeaks published documents, which showed that NSA spied on federal German ministries since 1990s.[249][250] Even Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel‘s cellphones and phone of her predecessors had been intercepted.[251]
Claims of prevented terrorist attacks
Former NSA director General Keith Alexander claimed that in September 2009 the NSA prevented Najibullah Zazi and his friends from carrying out a terrorist attack.[252] However, this claim has been debunked and no evidence has been presented demonstrating that the NSA has ever been instrumental in preventing a terrorist attack.[253][254][255][256]
Besides the more traditional ways of eavesdropping in order to collect signals intelligence, NSA is also engaged in hacking computers, smartphones and their networks. These operations are conducted by the Tailored Access Operations (TAO) division.
NSA’s China hacking group
According to the Foreign Policy magazine, “… the Office of Tailored Access Operations, or TAO, has successfully penetrated Chinese computer and telecommunications systems for almost 15 years, generating some of the best and most reliable intelligence information about what is going on inside the People’s Republic of China.”[257][258]
Syrian internet blackout
In an interview with Wired magazine, Edward Snowden said the Tailored Access Operations division accidentally caused Syria‘s internet blackout in 2012.[259]
Suspected responsibility for hacking operations by the Equation Group[edit]
The espionage group named the Equation Group, described by discoverers Kaspersky Labs as one of the most advanced (if not the most advanced) in the world as of 2015,[260]:31 and connected to over 500 malware infections in at least 42 countries over many years, is suspected of being a part of NSA.[261][262] The group’s known espionage methods have been documented to include interdiction (interception of legitimate CDs sent by a scientific conference organizer by mail),[260]:15 and the “unprecedented” ability to infect and be transmitted through the hard drivefirmware of several of the major hard drive manufacturers, and create and use hidden disk areas and virtual disk systems for its purposes, a feat demanding access to the manufacturer’s source code of each to achieve.[260]:16–18 The methods used to deploy the tools demonstrated “surgical precision”, going so far as to exclude specific countries by IP and allow targeting of specific usernames on discussion forums.[260]:23–26 The techniques and knowledge used by the Equation Group are considered in summary to be “out of the reach of most advanced threat groups in the world except [this group].[260]:31
When my oldest son [Linus Torvalds] was asked the same question: “Has he been approached by the NSA about backdoors?” he said “No”, but at the same time he nodded. Then he was sort of in the legal free. He had given the right answer, [but] everybody understood that the NSA had approached him.
— Nils Torvalds, LIBE Committee Inquiry on Electronic Mass Surveillance of EU Citizens – 11th Hearing, 11 November 2013[265]
IBM Notes was the first widely adopted software product to use public key cryptography for client–server and server–server authentication and for encryption of data. Until US laws regulating encryption were changed in 2000, IBM and Lotus were prohibited from exporting versions of Notes that supported symmetric encryption keys that were longer than 40 bits. In 1997, Lotus negotiated an agreement with the NSA that allowed export of a version that supported stronger keys with 64 bits, but 24 of the bits were encrypted with a special key and included in the message to provide a “workload reduction factor” for the NSA. This strengthened the protection for users of Notes outside the US against private-sector industrial espionage, but not against spying by the US government.[266][267]
Boomerang routing
While it is assumed that foreign transmissions terminating in the U.S. (such as a non-U.S. citizen accessing a U.S. website) subject non-U.S. citizens to NSA surveillance, recent research into boomerang routing has raised new concerns about the NSA’s ability to surveil the domestic Internet traffic of foreign countries.[18] Boomerang routing occurs when an Internet transmission that originates and terminates in a single country transits another. Research at the University of Toronto has suggested that approximately 25% of Canadian domestic traffic may be subject to NSA surveillance activities as a result of the boomerang routing of Canadian Internet service providers.[18]
Hardware implanting
Intercepted packages are opened carefully by NSA employees
A “load station” implanting a beacon
A document included in NSA files released with Glenn Greenwald‘s book No Place to Hide details how the agency’s Tailored Access Operations (TAO) and other NSA units gain access to hardware. They intercept routers, servers and other network hardware being shipped to organizations targeted for surveillance and install covert implant firmware onto them before they are delivered. This was described by an NSA manager as “some of the most productive operations in TAO because they preposition access points into hard target networks around the world.”[268]
Computers seized by the NSA due to interdiction are often modified with a physical device known as Cottonmouth.[269]Cottonmouth is a device that can be inserted in the USB port of a computer in order to establish remote access to the targeted machine. According to NSA’s Tailored Access Operations (TAO) group implant catalog, after implanting Cottonmouth, the NSA can establish Bridging (networking) “that allows the NSA to load exploit software onto modified computers as well as allowing the NSA to relay commands and data between hardware and software implants.”[270]
Role in scientific research and development[
NSA has been involved in debates about public policy, both indirectly as a behind-the-scenes adviser to other departments, and directly during and after Vice Admiral Bobby Ray Inman‘s directorship. NSA was a major player in the debates of the 1990s regarding the export of cryptography in the United States. Restrictions on export were reduced but not eliminated in 1996.
Its secure government communications work has involved the NSA in numerous technology areas, including the design of specialized communications hardware and software, production of dedicated semiconductors (at the Ft. Meade chip fabrication plant), and advanced cryptography research. For 50 years, NSA designed and built most of its computer equipment in-house, but from the 1990s until about 2003 (when the U.S. Congress curtailed the practice), the agency contracted with the private sector in the fields of research and equipment.[271]
NSA was embroiled in some minor controversy concerning its involvement in the creation of the Data Encryption Standard (DES), a standard and public block cipheralgorithm used by the U.S. government and banking community. During the development of DES by IBM in the 1970s, NSA recommended changes to some details of the design. There was suspicion that these changes had weakened the algorithm sufficiently to enable the agency to eavesdrop if required, including speculation that a critical component—the so-called S-boxes—had been altered to insert a “backdoor” and that the reduction in key length might have made it feasible for NSA to discover DES keys using massive computing power. It has since been observed that the S-boxes in DES are particularly resilient against differential cryptanalysis, a technique which was not publicly discovered until the late 1980s, but which was known to the IBM DES team.
The United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence reviewed NSA’s involvement, and concluded that while the agency had provided some assistance, it had not tampered with the design.[272][273] In late 2009 NSA declassified information stating that “NSA worked closely with IBM to strengthen the algorithm against all except brute force attacks and to strengthen substitution tables, called S-boxes. Conversely, NSA tried to convince IBM to reduce the length of the key from 64 to 48 bits. Ultimately they compromised on a 56-bit key.”[274][275]
The involvement of NSA in the selection of a successor to Data Encryption Standard (DES), the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), was limited to hardware performance testing (see AES competition).[276] NSA has subsequently certified AES for protection of classified information (for at most two levels, e.g. SECRET information in an unclassified environment[clarification needed]) when used in NSA-approved systems.[277]
The NSA has specified Suite A and Suite B cryptographic algorithm suites to be used in U.S. government systems; the Suite B algorithms are a subset of those previously specified by NIST and are expected to serve for most information protection purposes, while the Suite A algorithms are secret and are intended for especially high levels of protection.[277]
SHA
The widely used SHA-1 and SHA-2 hash functions were designed by NSA. SHA-1 is a slight modification of the weaker SHA-0 algorithm, also designed by NSA in 1993. This small modification was suggested by NSA two years later, with no justification other than the fact that it provides additional security. An attack for SHA-0 that does not apply to the revised algorithm was indeed found between 1998 and 2005 by academic cryptographers. Because of weaknesses and key length restrictions in SHA-1, NIST deprecates its use for digital signatures, and approves only the newer SHA-2 algorithms for such applications from 2013 on.[287]
A new hash standard, SHA-3, has recently been selected through the competition concluded October 2, 2012 with the selection of Keccak as the algorithm. The process to select SHA-3 was similar to the one held in choosing the AES, but some doubts have been cast over it,[288][289] since fundamental modifications have been made to Keccak in order to turn it into a standard.[290] These changes potentially undermine the cryptanalysis performed during the competition and reduce the security levels of the algorithm.[288]
NSA promoted the inclusion of a random number generator called Dual_EC_DRBG in the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology‘s 2007 guidelines. This led to speculation of a backdoor which would allow NSA access to data encrypted by systems using that pseudo random number generator.[291]
This is now deemed to be plausible based on the fact that the output of the next iterations of the PRNG can provably be determined if the relation between two internal elliptic curve points is known.[292][293] Both NIST and RSA are now officially recommending against the use of this PRNG.[294][295]
Because of concerns that widespread use of strong cryptography would hamper government use of wiretaps, NSA proposed the concept of key escrow in 1993 and introduced the Clipper chip that would offer stronger protection than DES but would allow access to encrypted data by authorized law enforcement officials.[296] The proposal was strongly opposed and key escrow requirements ultimately went nowhere.[297] However, NSA’s Fortezza hardware-based encryption cards, created for the Clipper project, are still used within government, and NSA ultimately declassified and published the design of the Skipjack cipher used on the cards.[298][299]
Perfect Citizen is a program to perform vulnerability assessment by the NSA on U.S. critical infrastructure.[300][301] It was originally reported to be a program to develop a system of sensors to detect cyber attacks on critical infrastructure computer networks in both the private and public sector through a network monitoring system named Einstein.[302][303] It is funded by the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative and thus far Raytheon has received a contract for up to $100 million for the initial stage.
Academic research
NSA has invested many millions of dollars in academic research under grant code prefix MDA904, resulting in over 3,000 papers (as of 2007-10-11). NSA/CSS has, at times, attempted to restrict the publication of academic research into cryptography; for example, the Khufu and Khafre block ciphers were voluntarily withheld in response to an NSA request to do so. In response to a FOIA lawsuit, in 2013 the NSA released the 643-page research paper titled, “Untangling the Web: A Guide to Internet Research,[304] ” written and compiled by NSA employees to assist other NSA workers in searching for information of interest to the agency on the public Internet.[305]
Patents
NSA has the ability to file for a patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office under gag order. Unlike normal patents, these are not revealed to the public and do not expire. However, if the Patent Office receives an application for an identical patent from a third party, they will reveal NSA’s patent and officially grant it to NSA for the full term on that date.[306]
One of NSA’s published patents describes a method of geographically locating an individual computer site in an Internet-like network, based on the latency of multiple network connections.[307] Although no public patent exists, NSA is reported to have used a similar locating technology called trilateralization that allows real-time tracking of an individual’s location, including altitude from ground level, using data obtained from cellphone towers.[308]
Excerpt of James Clapper‘s false testimony to Congress on NSA surveillance programs
In the United States, at least since 2001,[309] there has been legal controversy over what signal intelligence can be used for and how much freedom the National Security Agency has to use signal intelligence.[310] The government has made, in 2015, slight changes in how it uses and collects certain types of data,[311] specifically phone records. President Barack Obama has asked lawyers and his national security team to look at the tactics that are being used by the NSA. President Obama made a speech on January 17, 2014 where he defended the national security measures, including the NSA, and their intentions for keeping the country safe through surveillance. He said that it is difficult to determine where the line should be drawn between what is too much surveillance and how much is needed for national security because technology is ever changing and evolving. Therefore, the laws cannot keep up with the rapid advancements.
President Obama did make some changes to national security regulations and how much data can be collected and surveyed.[citation needed] The first thing he added, was more presidential directive and oversight so that privacy and basic rights are not violated. The president would look over requests on behalf of American citizens to make sure that their personal privacy is not violated by the data that is being requested. Secondly, surveillance tactics and procedures are becoming more public, including over 40 rulings of the FISC that have been declassified.[citation needed] Thirdly, further protections are being placed on activities that are justified under Section 702, such as the ability to retain, search and use data collected in investigations, which allows the NSA to monitor and intercept interaction of targets overseas. Finally, national security letters, which are secret requests for information that the FBI uses in their investigations, are becoming less secretive. The secrecy of the information requested will not be indefinite and will terminate after a set time if future secrecy is not required.[citation needed] Concerning the bulk surveillance of American’s phone records, President Obama also ordered a transition from bulk surveillance under Section 215 to a new policy that will eliminate unnecessary bulk collection of metadata.
As of May 7, 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that the interpretation of Section 215 of the Patriot Act was wrong and that the NSA program that has been collecting Americans’ phone records in bulk is illegal.[312] It stated that Section 215 cannot be clearly interpreted to allow government to collect national phone data and, as a result, expired on June 1, 2015. This ruling “is the first time a higher-level court in the regular judicial system has reviewed the N.S.A. phone records program.” [313] The new bill getting passed later in May taking its place is known as the U.S.A. Freedom Act, which will enable the NSA to continue hunting for terrorists by analyzing telephone links between callers but “keep the bulk phone records in the hands of phone companies.”[313] This would give phone companies the freedom to dispose the records in an 18-month period. The White House argued that this new ruling validated President Obama’s support of the government being extracted from bulk data collection and giving power to the telecommunications companies.
Previously, the NSA paid billions of dollars to telecommunications companies in order to collect data from them.[314] While companies such as Google and Yahoo! claim that they do not provide “direct access” from their servers to the NSA unless under a court order,[315] the NSA had access to emails, phone calls and cellular data users.[316] With this new ruling, telecommunications companies would not provide the NSA with bulk information. The companies would allow the disposal of data in every 18 months,[313] which is arguably putting the telecommunications companies at a higher advantage.
This ruling made the collecting of phone records illegal, but it did not rule on Section 215’s constitutionality. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has already put forth a new bill to re-authorize the Patriot Act.[317] Defenders of this surveillance program are claiming that judges who sit on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) had ruled 37 times that this kind of collection of data is, in fact, lawful.[317] The FISC is the court specifically mandated to grant surveillance orders in the name of foreign intelligence. The new ruling made by the Second District Court of Appeals now retroactively dismisses the findings of the FISC on this program.
Story 1: Gay Hollywood Mafia Money and Propaganda Succeeds — Supreme Court Ignores States Rights, Will of American People, United States Constitution And Bill of Rights and Rules in Favor of Same Sex Gay Marriage — Betrayal of Oath of Office — End The Two Party Tyranny — Videos
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Section 2.
Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state.
Section 3.
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Section 4.
The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Section 5.
The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
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The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the Constitution requires that same-sex couples be allowed to marry no matter where they live and that states may no longer reserve the right only for heterosexual couples. Supreme Court rules gay couples nationwide have a right to marry
From Miller Lite to Maytag, here’s how popular brands reacted to the SCOTUS ruling this morning.
Elizabeth Nolan Brown|
Not very long ago, even the token gay television character could cause an uproar, and while popular brands may have voiced unequivocal support for some sort of nebulous gay “pride,” many avoided staking a position on the controversial political question of same-sex marriage. Today, with the U.S. Supreme Court declaring “the right of same-sex couples to marry” throughout the country, brands from Miller Lite to Maytag were quick to react in support the decision on social media. It all may be a bit hokey and opportunistic, but the extent to which iconicly American brands aren’t worried about alienating customers with pro-gay-marriage messages perhaps shows us more than anything that America is ready for marriage equality to be the law of the land. Here’s a sampling of brand tweets this morning about the SCOTUS marriage decision:
@MillerLite: As long as you are you, #ItsMillerTime. #LoveWins
@MillerLite/Twitter
@TheMaytagMan: Here’s to finding the one who completes you. #SCOTUSMarriage
@TheMaytagMan/Twitter
@Cheerios: And now, no one can tell you otherwise. #LoveWins
Supreme Court rules gay couples nationwide have a right to marry
By Robert Barnes
The Supreme Court on Friday delivered a historic victory for gay rights, ruling 5 to 4 that the Constitution requires that same-sex couples be allowed to marry no matter where they live and that states may no longer reserve the right only for heterosexual couples.
The court’s action marks the culmination of an unprecedented upheaval in public opinion and the nation’s jurisprudence. Advocates called it the most pressing civil rights issue of modern times, while critics said the courts had sent the country into uncharted territory by changing the traditional definition of marriage.
“Under the Constitution, same-sex couples seek in marriage the same legal treatment as opposite-sex couples, and it would disparage their choices and diminish their personhood to deny them this right,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion. He was joined in the ruling by the court’s liberal justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
All four of the court’s most conservative members — Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. — dissented and each wrote a separate opinion, saying the court had usurped a power that belongs to the people.
How same-sex marriage became legal across the country VIEW GRAPHIC
Reading a dissent from the bench for the first time in his tenure, Roberts said, “Just who do we think we are? I have no choice but to dissent.”
In his opinion, Roberts wrote: “Many people will rejoice at this decision, and I begrudge none their celebration. But for those who believe in a government of laws, not of men, the majority’s approach is deeply disheartening.”
[It’s the first time Roberts has had such a bold statement from the bench]
Scalia called the decision a “threat to American democracy,” saying it was “constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine.”
In a statement in the White House Rose Garden, President Obama hailed the decision: “This ruling is a victory for America. This decision affirms what millions of Americans already believe in their hearts. When all Americans are truly treated as equal, we are more free.”
Obama said change on social issues can seem slow sometimes, but “sometimes there are days like this when that slow and steady effort is rewarded with justice that arrives like a thunderbolt. This morning the Supreme Court recognized that the Constitution guarantees marriage equality. In doing so they’ve reaffirmed that all Americans are entitled to equal protection under the law. . . . Today we can say in no uncertain terms that we have made our union a little more perfect.”
How people outside the court reacted to the gay marriage ruling
View Photos A sea of cheering, rainbow flag-waving people filled the sidewalk in front of the Supreme Court to celebrate the decision.
There were wild scenes of celebrations on the sidewalk outside the Supreme Court, as same-sex marriage supporters had arrived early, armed with signs and rainbow flags. They celebrated the announcement of a constitutional right to something that did not legally exist anywhere in the world until the turn of the new century.
Jim Obergefell, who became the face of the case, Obergefell v. Hodges, when he sought to put his name on his husband’s death certificate as the surviving spouse, said: “Today’s ruling from the Supreme Court affirms what millions across the country already know to be true in our hearts: that our love is equal.”
“It is my hope that the term gay marriage will soon be a thing of the past, that from this day forward it will be simply, marriage,” he said. “All Americans deserve equal dignity, respect and treatment when it comes to the recognition of our relationships and families.’’
But Austin R. Nimocks, senior counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, a pro-traditional marriage group, said: “Today, five lawyers took away the voices of more than 300 million Americans to continue to debate the most important social institution in the history of the world. That decision is truly unfortunate. . . . Nobody has the right to say that a mom or a woman or a dad or a man is irrelevant. There are differences that should be celebrated. Millions of Americans still believe that.’’
[Opponents of gay marriage are divided on whether to resist the ruling]
This country’s first legally recognized same-sex marriages took place just 11 years ago, the result of a Massachusetts state supreme court decision. Now, more than 70 percent of Americans live in states where same-sex couples are allowed to marry, according to estimates.
The Supreme Court used cases from Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee, where restrictions about same-sex marriage were upheld by an appeals court last year, to find that the Constitution does not allow such prohibitions.
Kennedy has written the Supreme Court’s most important gay rights cases: overturning criminal laws on homosexual conduct, protecting gays from discrimination and declaring that the federal government could not refuse to recognize same-sex marriages performed where they were legal.
He often employs a lofty, writing-for-history tone, and Friday’s decision was no different.
Referring to the couples who brought the cases before the court, Kennedy wrote: “It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions.”
Kennedy did not respond directly to the court’s dissenters, but he addressed the argument that the court was creating a new constitutional right. The right to marriage is fundamental, he said. The difference is society’s way of thinking who may marry, he said.
“The limitation of marriage to opposite-sex couples may long have seemed natural and just, but its inconsistency with the central meaning of the fundamental right to marry is now manifest,” he wrote. “With that knowledge must come the recognition that laws excluding same-sex couples from the marriage right impose stigma and injury of the kind prohibited by our basic charter.”
Scalia declared that Kennedy’s writing style was “as pretentious as its content is egotistic.”
And Roberts, in a biting dissent far more harsh than his usual style, said the decision was “an act of will, not legal judgment” with “no basis in the Constitution or this court’s precedent.”
“The court invalidates the marriage laws of more than half the states and orders the transformation of a social institution that has formed the basis of human society for millennia, for the Kalahari Bushmen and the Han Chinese, the Carthaginians and the Aztecs,” Roberts wrote. “Just who do we think we are?”
The questions raised in the cases decided Friday were left unanswered in 2013, when the justices last confronted the issue of same-sex marriage. A slim majority of the court said at the time that a key portion of the Defense of Marriage Act — withholding the federal government’s recognition of same-sex marriages — was unconstitutional. In a separate case, the court said procedural issues kept it from answering the constitutional question in a case from California, but that move allowed same-sex marriages to resume in that state.
Since then, courts across the nation — with the notable exception of the Cincinnati-based federal appeals court that left intact the restrictions in the four states at issue — have struck down a string of state prohibitions on same-sex marriage, many of them passed by voters in referendums.
When the Supreme Court declined to review a clutch of those court decisions in October, same-sex marriage proliferated across the country.
Public attitudes toward such unions have undergone a remarkable change as well. A recent Washington Post-ABC poll showed a record 61 percent of Americans say they support same-sex marriage. The acceptance is driven by higher margins among the young.
[Interactive: See how gay rights have spread around the world over 224 years]
When the justices declined in October to review the string of victories same-sex marriage proponents had won in other parts of the country, it meant the number of states required to allow gay marriages grew dramatically, offering the kind of cultural shift the court often likes to see before approving a fundamental change.
The Obama administration had urged the court to find that the Constitution requires such restrictions be struck down, and Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. made the case on behalf of the administration at the court’s oral arguments in April.
“In a world in which gay and lesbian couples live openly as our neighbors, they raise their children side by side with the rest of us, they contribute fully as members of the community . . . it is simply untenable — untenable — to suggest that they can be denied the right of equal participation in an institution of marriage, or that they can be required to wait until the majority decides that it is ready to treat gay and lesbian people as equals,” he said.
The Supreme Court’s ruling followed a swell of courts striking down state bans on same-sex marriage and a surge in public support for such marriages. Still, the high court’s 5 to 4 ruling was a historic and narrow victory for gay rights.
The court’s four most conservative members dissented, and each of them wrote a separate opinion decrying the decision. Justice Antonin Scalia, unsurprisingly, wrote the fieriest dissent, needing just two sentences to say that the majority’s decision is a “threat to American democracy.”
He the decision a “judicial Putsch,” says it is delivered in a style “as pretentious as its content is egotistic” and — at one point — follows a quote from the majority opinion with “Really?” and another with “Huh?” In a footnote, Scalia says that if he ever joined an opinion that opens the way the majority opinion does, “I would hide my head in a bag.” He then adds: “The Supreme Court of the United States has descended from the disciplined legal reasoning of John Marshall and Joseph Story to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie.” Scalia was not a fan.
For more on how Scalia explained his decision and how the other justices explained theirs, head to Post Nation.
The paragraph gay marriage supporters will never forget
Kennedy is responding to opponents of gay marriage who argue that it undermines the traditional sanctity of an ancient institution by redefining it. The point of same-sex unions is not to weaken marriage, he argues, but to expand it in the nation as a whole and honor it more fully in their own lives.
These lines echo the final paragraph of Loving v. Virginia, the case in which the Supreme Court threw out laws banning interracial marriage in 1967.
“Marriage is one of the ‘basic civil rights of man,’ fundamental to our very existence and survival,”Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote then.
And the passage is also reminiscent of the conclusion of Griswold v. Connecticut, an important case from 1965 on contraception among married couples.
“Marriage is a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to the degree of being sacred,” Justice William O. Douglas argued. “It is an association that promotes a way of life, not causes; a harmony in living, not political faiths; a bilateral loyalty, not commercial or social projects. Yet it is an association for as noble a purpose as any involved in our prior decisions.”
One issue receiving considerable attention in the popular press is same-sex marriage and the current loosening of social constraints against gay marriage. Same-Sex Marriage , defined as marriage between two people of the same biological sex and/or gender identity, is a new social phenomenon, “leading to a new type of family formation. In modern times same-sex marriage did not exist until the twenty-first century when an increasing number of countries began permitting same-sex couples to marry legally. In addition, beginning in the late twentieth century there has been a growing global movement to regard marriage as a fundamental human right to be extended to same-sex couples. These events are extraordinary given that even during most of the twentieth century, homosexuals were closeted and the concept of same-sex marriage was inconceivable, perceived by nearly all as an oxymoron.” (Chamie, Joshph, and Barry, M. 2011. “Same-Sex Marriage: A New Social Phenomenon.” Pppulation Council37(3): 529-551)
Marriage equality has made significant gains with public opinion and within state legislature, since Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage within its borders in 2004. A result of the change in legal status in same-sex marriage is the growth in the marriage industry for gay men and lesbians. “Currently, as of 15 October 2014, 29 states and the District of Columbia, and ten Native American tribal jurisdictions allow and fully recognize same-sex marriages: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin. There are 21 states, and 2 territories (Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin islands), that explicitly prohibit same-sex marriages in their constitutions and/or by statute, including: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming. Of these states banning same-sex marriage, the following states have been declared that same-sex marriage bans unconstitutional, but the rulings have been stayed: Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Michigan and Texas.” (“Same-Sex Marriage Fast Facts.” 2014. CNN U.S. October 14. (http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/28/us/same-sex-marrage-fast-facts/))
“As a result of successful legal challenges and related social and policy developments, same-sex marriage is generating a combination of elation, controversy, and opposition in many countries around the world, notably in the United States. Indeed, the legal recognition of same-sex marriage has emerged as one of the most socially, politically, and legally divisive issues of the day. While most reactions to this new form of marriage and family formation have been intense and vocal, many commentators as well as the general public have little factual knowledge about same-sex marriage. All too often, public opinion and attitudes concerning same-sex marriage are based on apprehension, misconception, and hearsay.” (Chamie, Joshph, and Barry, M. 2011. “Same-Sex Marriage: A New Social Phenomenon.” Pppulation Council37(3): 529-551)
Attitudes Towards Same-Sex Marriage
During the 21st century, public support for same-sex marriage has grown considerably, and national polls conducted since 2011 show that a majority of Americans support legalizing it.
“On May 9, 2012, Barack Obama became the first sitting U.S. president legalize same-sex marriage through popular vote.” ( Stein, Sam. 2012. ” Obama Backs Gay Marriage.” Huff Post Politics, May 5. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/09/obama-gay-marriage_n_1503245.html))
“Support for same-sex marriage jumped 21 percent points from 2003, when Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage, to 2014. Currently, a majority (55%) of Americans favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to legally marry, compared to 41% who oppose. In 2003, less than one-third (32%) of Americans supported allowing same-sex couples to legally marry, compared to nearly 6 in 10 (59%) who opposed.” (“Survey A shifting Landscape: A decade of Change in American Attitudes about Same-Sex Marriage and LGBT Issues.” 2014. Public Religion Research Institute, January 26. (http://publicreligion.org/research/2014/02/2014-lgbt-survey/))
Prevalence of Same-Sex Households
“According to the Census Bureau, the same-sex couples households in the US in 2010 were 646,464.” (Amy Roberts and Caitlin Stark. 2014. “By the numbers: Same-sex marriage.” CNN Politics, October 6. (http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/11/politics/btn-same-sex-marriage/) One study demonstrated how using linked micromaps can improve mapping of same-sex couples household data. This study found that “an estimated 1 percent of US couple households, from 2006 through 2010, were same-sex couples households, and the percentage of same-sex couples household is much higher in metropolitan areas than in non-metropolitan areas. It found that the reason that Washington D.C. has the highest percentage of same-sex households because Washington D.C. itself is a central city.” (Mast, Brent, D. 2013. “Visualizing Same-Sex Couple Household Data With Linked Micromaps.” US Department of Housing and Urban Development15(2):267-271.)
Same-Sex Marriage Experience
Aine Marie Humble examined married older same-sex couples’ experiences of transitioning into marriage in order to explore how and why these couples in mid-to later life decided to marry and the characteristics of their weddings and wedding planning. She found that getting married for many older same-sex couples is even harder than for younger same-sex couples, because older cohorts of same-sex couples could not easily dispel the internalized beliefs “such as same-sex couples could never marry and marriage was not for them due to the fact that they have lived most of their lives through years of homophobia and heterosexism, which has affected their worldviews. Moreover, some older same-sex couples, particularly those in long-term relationships, may already view themselves as married and thus do not initially see the need for the legal marriage.” (Humble, Aine, M., 2013. “Moving from Ambivalence to Certainty: Older Same-Sex Couples Marry in Canada.” Canadian Journal on Aging 32(2): 131-144)
Pamela J. Lannutti examined the ways in which legally recognized same-sex marriage has affected the lives of same-sex couples in order to see how same-sex marriage is benefiting and challenging these couples on the individual and interpersonal levels. She found that “all of the couples that she had interviewed with expressed some way in which same-sex marriage improved or strengthened their romantic relationship, and others expressed that it contributed to a closer emotional bond between them. However, some participants expressed that they were stressed out during their marriage decision process or planning their weddings, because they lacked support from their families-of-origin.” (Lannutti, Pamela, J. 2007. “”This is Not a Lesbian Wedding”: Examining Same-Sex Marriage and Bisexual-Lesbian Couples.” Co-published simultaneosly in Journal of Bisexuality 7(3/4): 237-260; and: Bisexuality and Same-Sex Marriage 7(3/4): 237-260.)
Pamela J. Lannutti’s another study examined same-sex couples’ attractions to marriage and obstacles that challenged them when considering marriage. She found that the primary reason why same-sex couples decide to marry is because it would offer greater legal protections and civil benefits for their committed relationship. Another reason is that it would make it easier to bring children into their lives or protect their relationships with the children they already had. In terms of obstacles of same-sex marriage, the majority of these couples (41%) expressed that family disapproval, usually parental disapproval, was an obstacle to their marriage.
Reference Page
Chamie, Joshph, and Barry, M. 2011. “Same-Sex Marriage: A New Social Phenomenon.” Population Council 37(3): 529-551.
Mast, Brent, D. 2013. “Visualizing Same-Sex Couple Household Data with Linked Micromaps.” US Department of housing and Urban Development 15(2): 267-271.
Humble, Aine, M., 2013. “Moving from Ambivalence to Certainty: Older Same-Sex Couples Marry in Canada.” Canadian Journal on Aging 32(2): 131-144
Lannutti, Pamela, J. 2007. “”This is Not a Lesbian Wedding”: Examining Same-Sex Marriage and Bisexual-Lesbian Couples.” Co-published simultaneously in Journal of Bisexuality 7(3/4): 237-260; and:Bisexuality and Same-Sex Marriage 7(3/4): 237-260.)
President Barack Obama’s public support for gay marriage could be a boon to his campaign war chest.
Supporters of gay marriage predicted the president’s announcement Wednesday that he thinks same-sex couples should be able to marry would energize the gay community.
Democratic donor Steve Elmendorf said he believes Obama’s announcement will “energize people for Obama at all levels. It’s not just about the LGBT community…everybody all the way up to the maximum [donors] will be excited.”
“It’s going to create some real energy for the campaign, not just for the donor community, but among people who care about this issue,” he added.
Obama already had significant financial support from LGBT donors. About one in six of Obama’s top campaign “bundlers” are gay, according to a Washington Post analysis. But the president’s reluctance to publicly come out in favor of gay marriage was a sticking point for some potential donors.
“It’ll be a big boost for donors,” one gay lobbyist said of the Wednesday announcement. “It’s been very frustrating to the gay community that he’s done so much that there is just this one issue. It’s the civil rights issue of our generation.” The lobbyist added that independents are the most likely donors to be swayed by Obama’s new stance, since many gay donors have already been supportive of Obama.
One gay bundler told Capital City New York that it will be “immeasurably easier” for him to raise money for Obama in the LGBT community and among progressives more broadly.
“Whether it’s for shoe leather or whether it’s for financial contributions, I think it will engage people,” said Chuck Wolfe, president of the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, noting that much of the community’s support and financial donations already go to Obama. Obama has helped usher in a new era of gay rights at the federal level, helping pass the controversial repeal of the military “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal.
A heightened enthusiasm for the president in the LGBT community following this announcement could spur donors to shell out big bucks for his campaign, especially given conservative Republicans push on this issue in other states like Minnesota and GOP presumptive nominee Mitt Romney’s opposition to gay marriage.
Obama’s public announcement came just a day after North Carolina, a swing state for the presidential election in November, voted on a state ballot measure that prohibits marriage or rights to same-sex couples.
Elmendorf dismissed critics of Obama’s timing.
“We’re in a presidential campaign so everyone is going to say it’s politically motivated,” Elmendorf said. “I take him at his word. It’s not unusual for people of his age and demographic.”
The vast majority of money from gay and lesbian rights groups goes to Democratic candidates, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. In the 2010 election cycle, 96 percent of the $1.3 million given to federal candidates by LGBT organizations’ PACs and employees went to Democrats.
Still, some LGBT advocates say there’s been a lull in enthusiasm since last year’s repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy for gays in the military.
“There’s been a drop off in participation and enthusiasm and even knowledge that we’re not done,” said Denny Meyer, a spokesman for American Veterans for Equal Rights.
But the shift on gay marriage could energize voters as well as donors who have burned out, he said. “The president making a policy change like that could result in people realizing … you have to make this happen by voting for people who will pass this.”
Obama’s decision to publicly support gay marriage didn’t appease all gay activists, and Republicans accused the White House of trying to have it both ways on the contentious issue.
Clarke Cooper, head of Log Cabin Republicans, wrote in an email that “LGBT Americans are right to be angry that this calculated announcement comes too late to be of any use to the people of North Carolina, or any of the other states that have addressed this issue on his watch.”
Futher, Cooper said that the administration has, “manipulated LGBT families for political gain as much as anybody, and after his campaign’s ridiculous contortions to deny support for marriage equality this week Obama does not deserve praise for an announcement that comes a day late and a dollar short.
Story 1: Stand With Rand Against Renewal of Patriot Act and National Security Agency’s Turnkey Tyranny And Repeal of Fourth Amendment of U.S. Constitution — Videos
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
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AFTER OVER 10 HOURS, RAND PAUL ENDS HIS NSA ‘FILIBUSTER’
The Kentucky Republican spoke on the Senate floor until he could no longer stand. Here’s everything that happened.
BY DUSTIN VOLZ AND KAVEH WADDELL
en. Rand Paul has just wrapped a ten-and-a-half hour long speech on the Senate floor in what his office called a filibuster against the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs, as part of an apparent stand against efforts by some of his Republican colleagues to extend the Patriot Act’s expiring spy powers.
“There comes to a time in the history of nations when fear and complacency allow power to accumulate and liberty and privacy to suffer,” Paul started. “That time is now. And I will not let the Patriot Act, the most un-patriotic of acts, go unchallenged.”
“There comes to a time in the history of nations when fear and complacency allow power to accumulate and liberty and privacy to suffer,” Paul started. “That time is now. And I will not let the Patriot Act, the most un-patriotic of acts, go unchallenged.”
Paul took the podium at 1:18 p.m. and left the floor at 11:49 p.m. Here’s what happened, and what’s coming next.
12:26 a.m.: A very tired Rand Paul, off the floor, opens up.
After he walked off the Senate floor, the Kentucky senator told reporters he was “tired, voice is worn out, ready to go home.”
But Paul didn’t feel like his time and energy were for nothing. Business shoes in hand, a weary Paul said “we accomplished something by having, you know, it was kind of nice to have bipartisan support.”
Paul said that even though he didn’t last until midnight, he still believed he had slowed down the clock by a day on procedural advancement on any Patriot Act reauthorization. But an aide to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell suggested the theatrics matter little. “Cloture on trade would be tomorrow either way. Patriot Act is after that,” the aide said.
Because McConnell did not file for cloture by Tuesday evening, it was already unlikely the Senate could act on the Patriot Act before the House goes on recess tomorrow, given the drawn-out parliamentary process of the upper chamber. Unless the Senate is willing to stay in town over the weekend and approve the House-passed Freedom Act, it appears increasingly likely that we are headed for a full expiration of the law’s three surveillance authorities, which sunset on June 1.
Paul, while talking to reporters, took a jab at President Obama for not ending the NSA’s bulk phone-records program unilaterally. Obama “needs to step up and be a little more of a leader in getting us out of this mess,” he said.
Noting support from Sens. Mike Lee and Ted Cruz, his presidential rival, Paul said “We’re not exactly [on] the same page but I think we’re all opponents of the bulk collection.” Both Lee and Cruz support the USA Freedom Act, while Paul says it does not go far enough.
11:49 p.m.: It’s over. Thanking his staff, Sen. Rand Paul has relinquished the floor after 10 hours and 30 minutes.
(C-SPAN)
Since Paul didn’t speak past midnight, the week’s schedule appears to remain unchanged. Earlier in the night, an aide to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that if Paul talked into Thursday, it would hold up possible consideration of a Patriot Act extension and throw off the Senate’s calendar before breaking for recess.
11:45 p.m.: We’re winding down. After Sen. Ted Cruz’s fiery speech, a tired Paul took the podium for a final hurrah. “My voice is rapidly leaving, and my bedtime has long since past,” he said, before launching into a summary of what he’s been saying for almost 10 and a half hours. “Bulk collection must end, and I think we have the votes to end it now,” Paul said.
11:29 p.m.: At last, Ted Cruz stands with Rand. Sen. Ted Cruz joined Paul to rail against the Patriot Act late Wednesday evening, just before 11:30 p.m. Cruz is the third Republican to join Paul on the floor.
The Texas Republican praised Paul for having “altered this debate” over NSA surveillance.
Cruz presided over the Senate for a bit earlier in the evening but stepped down to the floor to join Paul’s efforts.
Cruz is running for the GOP nomination for president, as is Paul. Sen. Marco Rubio is currently presiding, meaning three Republican White House contenders are currently in the chamber. A Paul-sanctioned super PAC that is backing his presidential bid earlier mocked Cruz on Twitter for not #StandingWithRand.
Cruz began talking up the virtues of the House-passed USA Freedom Act. Though Cruz supports the bill, he is only one of five GOP co-sponsors in the Senate. Paul believes the bill does not enough, while Rubio wants to preserve the Patriot Act’s spying authorities and the NSA’s bulk data regime.
Cruz emphasized that a straight extension of the Patriot Act provisions that the NSA uses to justify its surveillance program would not be acceptable.
“It is abundantly, abundantly clear that a clean reauthorization of the Patriot Act ain’t passing this body, and it certainly ain’t passing the House of Representatives.”
Cruz spent much of his speech focusing on the personal, saying that standing on the floor with Paul and Sen. Mike Lee reminded him of The Blues Brothers and getting the band back together.
“I said many times I will go to my grave in debt to Sen. Rand Paul that the first opportunity I had to speak on the Senate floor was in support of his epic filibuster,” Cruz said.
11:25 p.m.: Rand Paul is now selling a “filibuster starter pack.” This talk-a-thon is about more than just national security, the power of government, and privacy rights. It’s also about Rand Paul and his presidential ambitions. The latest example: you can now buy yourself a “filibuster starter pack” at Paul’s online campaign store, as the senator’s Twitter account alerted followers to.
The kit is $30 and includes, per the site, a t-shirt that reads “The NSA knows I bought this Rand Paul tshirt,” a bumper sticker that says the same, just about buying a sticker, and a “Spy blocker” for your computer camara.
11:16 p.m.: Patriot Act defender Marco Rubio is now presiding over Paul’s Patriot Act takedown. Another GOP presidential candidate is now presiding over Paul’s “filibuster.” Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida took over the duties to run the floor from Sen. Ted Cruz.
Rubio has vociferously defended the NSA’s surveillance powers, once penning an op-ed calling for the permanent extension of the Patriot Act’s spy provisions.
Rubio was spotted intently reading a magazine—using a pen to go line by line—as Sen. Lee spoke from the floor. Cruz, meanwhile, took a seat to Lee’s right, indicating he may end up joining the talk-a-thon after all.
11:10 p.m.: Rand Paul’s biggest House fans join him on Senate floor. A handful of House members gathered behind Paul on the Senate floor late Wednesday to cheer him on. The gaggle included Republican Rep. Tom Massie and Democratic Rep. Earl Blumenauer, both of whom voted against the House-passed USA Freedom Act last week on grounds it does not do enough to curb NSA surveillance. Massie has long been a big political ally of Paul’s.
Paul tonight has repeatedly said he is concerned the Freedom Act needs to do more before it can earn his support.
10:43 p.m.: Mike Lee returns. The tea-party Republican from Utah has reemerged to keep the Patriot Act talk-a-thon going. Lee is one of two Republicans to speak on the floor for Paul’s “filibuster,” along with Sen. Steve Daines of Montana.
Lee is a lead sponsor of the House-passed USA Freedom Act, alongside Sen. Patrick Leahy, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. Though seven Democrats have supported Paul on the floor today, Leahy is not one them.
10:25 p.m.: Cruz’s office says he was scheduled to be presiding officer. In a strange twist of fate, Sen. Ted Cruz was already on the books to preside over the Senate tonight, his office says. Many expected Cruz to support Paul during his speech.
10:15 p.m.: As promised, Wyden is back. The Oregon Democrat has returned to speak on the floor, giving Paul a much-needed break.
10:10 p.m.: Sen. Ted Cruz arrives, but not to help. After nearly nine hours, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz arrived on the floor. But he wasn’t there to stand with the long-suffering Kentucky senator—he is presiding over the nearly-empty senate.
Cruz, who, like Paul, is running for the GOP presidential nomination, is a co-sponsor of the USA Freedom Act, which would rein in parts of the NSA and effectively end its bulk collection of U.S. call data. He is one of five Republicans to cosponsor the measure. Paul has said the bill does not go far enough.
9:50 p.m.: Another Democrat arrives to stand with Rand. Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut appeared to give Paul another breather. This is the seventh Democrat to come to Paul’s assistance.
Blumenthal talked about the secrecy of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and pressed for more transparency and oversight of the judicial body, which some privacy advocates have derided as a “rubber stamp” for the NSA’s surveillance orders. Blumenthal called for an adversarial body to argue against the government before the FISA Court.
9:48 p.m.: Ron Paul is standing with his son. The Campaign for Liberty, the organization led by former Rep. Ron Paul, tweeted out a picture of Paul and his wife standing by a TV tuned to C-SPAN 2. “C4L Chairman @RonPaul and his wife Carol stand with their son Rand to end NSA spying. Do you? #StandWithRand”
9:43 p.m. Rand Paul is slowing down. Over the last twenty minutes, Paul has paused for prolonged moments, swaying back and forth as he shuffles through the papers on his desk. His voice sounds hoarse, and he has fallen silent to pop a candy into his mouth a few times. If you were wondering if talking for so long with few breaks can get physically taxing, he’s your proof.
9:03 p.m.: Wyden returns. Sen. Ron Wyden, who was the first senator to join Paul several hours ago, is now back on the floor. The Oregon Democrat discussed his concerns about so-called “backdoor search loopholes” that can be used by the intelligence community to pry into the digital communications of Americans who correspond with foreigners.
Wyden then praised Paul’s stamina and determination before pledging to return later in the evening. “I intend to rejoin my colleague before long,” Wyden said.
8:57 p.m.: After listening for hours, Sen. Cantwell speaks. Washington Democrat Maria Cantwell, who has been sitting at a desk for much of the evening—certainly longer than any other senator—stood to ask Paul about encryption technology. She follows Sens. Wyden, Heinrich, Manchin, Coons, and Tester as the sixth Democrat to speak with Paul.
8:51 p.m.: McConnell aide: If Paul talks past midnight, he will delay NSA consideration. An aide for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said late Wednesday that if Paul continues his talk-a-thon past midnight, he will succeed in delaying the Senate’s possible consideration of any Patriot Act extension, possibly into the weekend or later.
This is significant because the House is due to pack its bags and leave town tomorrow. Because the Patriot Act’s spy authorities expire on June 1, the Senate may not be able to pass any surveillance legislation in time before the lower chamber recesses until next month.
If Paul makes it past midnight, the McConnell aide said, he will delay when the Senate—which still needs to address pending trade legislation—can file cloture on any Patriot Act legislation.
Earlier Wednesday, the Obama administration said the NSA would start shutting down its phone-records dragnet this Friday in order to have it turned off completely by June 1 unless Congress figured out a way forward before then.
It is unclear if McConnell would have filed cloture today had he been given the opportunity, however. And this all may be a moot point, as it is unclear if either the Freedom Act or a short-term “clean” reauthorization has the 60 votes necessary to advance through the Senate.
8:12 p.m.: Paul: Freedom Act allows for continued spying. Paul has said he’s unhappy with the House-passed USA Freedom Act because it doesn’t go far enough to stop NSA surveillance. He outlined his gripes with the bill on the floor, saying that the liability protection it offers telephone companies is proof that it doesn’t limit the spying programs enough.
“One question I would ask, if there was anybody that would actually tell you the answer, would be: If we already gave them liability protection under the Patriot Act, why are they getting it again under the USA Freedom Act unless we’re asking them to do something new that they didn’t have permission for?” Paul asked.
“The other problem with the USA Freedom Act is: If you think bulk collection is wrong, why do they need new authorities? Why are we giving them some new authorities?” he continued.
7:55 p.m.: Paul: This is just the tip of the iceberg. Paul is under no illusions that letting portions of the Patriot Act expire would end what he calls illegal spying. While the NSA’s bulk surveillance is a high-profile target, Paul says he thinks there are many similar programs that haven’t been revealed.
“If we decide to fix bulk records and try to do something about this, I think, injustice, the main thing is we should be aware that this isn’t the only program. There’s probably a dozen programs. There’s probably another dozen we haven’t even heard of that they won’t tell any of us about,” Paul said.
“And realize that they’re not asking Congress for permission. They are doing whatever they want,” he continued. “We did not give them permission under the Patriot Act to do bulk collection of phone records. They are doing it with no authority, or inherent authority, or some other authority, because the courts have already told them that there is no authority under the Patriot Act.”
7:47 p.m.: Paul goes off on EPA overreach. To illustrate the problems that come with big government, Paul turned away from the NSA and toward the EPA, an agency much reviled among conservatives unhappy with government overinvolvement.
Paul brought up a case that saw a man and his daughter sentenced to 10 years in prison for “putting clean dirt on his own land.”
“That’s what’s happening in America. So you wonder why some of us worry about our records being snatched up? We’re worried about our own government’s run amok, that our own government’s out of control and that our own government’s not really paying attention to us,” Paul said. “To put a 70-year-old man in prison for ten years for putting clean dirt on his own land, the person that did that ought to go to jail, in fact they ought to be put in a stockade and publicly flogged and then made to pay penance for a decade for doing something so stupid.”
Paul appeared to be referring to this 2005 case. According to an EPA administrator, “the defendants destroyed valuable wetlands and victimized the residents of Big Hill Acres, who ended up with polluted homes and yards with leaking sewage.”
7:13 p.m.: Rand’s getting a lot of help, but where is Ted Cruz? Two Republicans and five Democrats have joined Paul’s extended oratorical demonstration against the Patriot Act, but one senator is so far notably absent: Ted Cruz.
Cruz, who, like Paul, is running for president, has frequently lambasted the NSA for violating Americans’ privacy rights with its sweeping surveillance programs. Cruz is also one of five GOP cosponsors of the USA Freedom Act, the reform bill that passed the House and would effectively end the NSA’s domestic phone-records dragnet.
But Cruz, who was spotted in the Capitol earlier Wednesday, has so far not appeared on the floor to lend support to Paul. Cruz’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment asking whether the Texas senator had plans to join the “filibuster.”
6:50 p.m.: Sen. Jon Tester is here. The Montana Democrat and chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is the fifth Democrat to join Paul on the Senate floor.
6:45 p.m.: Rand Paul takes on “people who believe that the inherent authorities of the president are unlimited.” Paul said the bulk collection program’s beginnings, during which it was not sanctioned by law, fell outside the bounds of a president’s authority.
“For the first several years we did bulk collection, they just did it,” Paul said. “They just said it was under the inherent authorities of the president. This should scare us because there are people who believe that the inherent authorities of the president are unlimited. That would not be a president. There would be another name for that.”
6:44: Sen. Chris Coons comes to the floor. The Delaware senator is the fourth Democrat to come to the floor.
It’s relatively rare for my colleague from Kentucky and I to come to the floor in agreement on an issue,” Coons said. “But it has happened before on exactly this issue.”
6:35 p.m.: Standing with Rand outside the Capitol. About 25 “grassroots” supporters of Rand Paul gathered outside the Capitol Wednesday to show solidarity for his stand against the Patriot Act and support his presidential campaign. Chanting “stand with Rand” and “President Paul,” the group was nearly matched by the number of journalists snapping photos of the demonstration.
Cliff Maloney, 24, organized the event on Facebook. Maloney, who works for Young Americans for Liberty, said he supports Paul because of his stances on privacy issues and ability to reach out to younger voters.
“Look at today,” Maloney said. “He’s on the Senate floor filibustering [for digital privacy rights]. And that’s something young voters care about.”
6:20 p.m.: Sen. Joe Manchin Spars with Paul over USA Freedom Act. The Democrat from West Virginia joined Paul on the floor just after 6 p.m. “My good friend, I don’t always agree with you on every issue, but when it comes to this nation’s intelligence gathering and security, we agree more than we don’t,” Manchin said.
Manchin went on to express his support for the NSA reform bill that the House passed last week. “I believe this bill, USA Freedom 2015, moves us in a positive direction, ends the bulk data collection program, and ensures that the collection of data is related to a relevant, particular terrorist investigation,” Manchin said.
When Paul took the podium again, he laid out his concerns with the act that Manchin was touting. “I want to like it, and I want to because it ends bulk collection,” Paul said. But he said the fact that the bill allows the government to search for a person’s records leaves a loophole.
“See, the big thing for me is a warrant should be individualized and I’m worried when you use the word “person” if it can be replaced with the word verizon and still collect all the records,” Paul said. The problem stems from the legal practice of treating corporations as people.
“I don’t know if they’re insurmountable, but those are a couple concerns,” Paul said.
6:02 p.m.: Sen. Steve Daines joins the fray. Montana Republican Steve Daines joined Paul’s stand against the Patriot Act shortly before 6 p.m.
“I spent more than 12 years in the technology sector before being elected to Congress,” Daines said. “I know firsthand the power that big data holds. I also know the great risks that arise when this power is abused. There is a clear and a direct threat to American civil liberties that comes from the mass collection of our personal information and our phone records.”
Daines is one of five GOP cosponsors of the reform-minded USA Freedom Act, which passed the House easily last week. Paul is not a cosponsor of the measure, which he says does not go far enough to limit the Patriot Act’s spying provisions.
It is expected nearly all Senate Democrats would vote for the Freedom Act, with Sen. Bill Nelson being the lone holdout. But it remains unclear if the bill has enough Republican support to reach a filibuster-proof 60-vote threshold, especially with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell whipping against it.
5:53 p.m.: What Rand Paul wants. Paul began going into detail over the last twenty minutes about the amendments he and Sen. Ron Wyden are “most likely” to offer on legislation seeking to reauthorize the expiring provisions of the Patriot Act. Many of the amendments would push for privacy safeguards that the two civil-liberties advocates have long championed.
The first amendment, Paul said, would prohibit the government from mandating that tech firms create so-called surveillance “backdoors” in their products, which the NSA could access. “I know facebook has objected to this and fought them on this, but our amendment would say that the government just can’t do this,” Paul said.
A second amendment would “end bulk collection and replace it with nothing,” Paul said. It would close a loophole that allows back-door searches, he said, referring to the NSA’s practice of using a rule that allows it to search the foreigners’ data to capture information on U.S. citizens. The amendment would also require a “constitutional advocate” to be present in order to argue against the government in intelligence courts.
That amendment, Paul said, would also enact certain privacy protections for Americans whose digital records are held by third-party companies.
Another amendment Paul wants to introduce would make warrantless spying on Americans illegal “in non-terror” cases. He said the amendment would protect Americans against the government using a warrant intended for foreign terrorists that’s easier to obtain.
A fourth amendment would require courts to approve national security letters to “make them more like warrants,” Paul said. So-called NSLs compel companies to hand over communications data or financial records of certain users for the purposes of a national security investigation. The decades-old investigative tool that has grown in importance and frequency of use since the Patriot Act’s passage. Hundreds of thousands of letters have been used by the Justice Department since Sept. 11, 2001, and are often accompanied by gag orders.
Paul continued to tick off several other amendment ideas, including additional protections for whistleblowers, allowing for U.S. citizens to appeal surveillance orders handed down by Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and implementing limitations to the Reagan-era Executive Order 12333, which some privacy advocates say allows the NSA the majority of its spying power.
5:50 p.m.: Supports of Rand to Rally in Capitol. A group of “grassroots supporters” for Paul’s efforts to block the Patriot Act will gather at 6 p.m. outside the U.S. Capitol, according to a Facebook event page. The event calls for supporters to gather on the Senate steps “on the west front side” that face the White House. Eighty-nine people have currently RSVP’d for the Stand with Rand party.
5:01 p.m.: Martin Heinrich arrives. Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich became the second Democrat to join Paul on the floor to criticize the NSA’s mass surveillance programs.
The New Mexico senator took the opportunity to cite a recent federal appeals court decision deeming the NSA’s phone-records dragnet illegal as proof the Patriot Act’s spying provisions cannot be renewed without substantial changes akin to what the USA Freedom Act offers.
“Why on Earth, I would ask you, why on Earth would we extend a law that this court has found to be illegal?” Heinrich asked. “Now, given the overwhelming evidence that the current bulk collection program is not only unnecessary but also illegal, i think we’ve reached a critical turning point
Heinrich serves on the intelligence committee along with Sen. Ron Wyden, who spoke on the floor earlier. The two have frequently teamed up to question the intelligence community’s broad surveillance powers.
4:46 p.m.: Lee makes his case for a vote on USA Freedom. Sen. Mike Lee said he was open to amendments to his NSA reform package, the USA Freedom Act, but that it would be irresponsible for the Senate to not take up consideration with sufficient time for discussion.
“If there are those who have concerns with the legislation passed by the House of Representatives last week by a vote of 338-88, I welcome their input, I welcome any amendments they may have, I welcome the opportunity to make the bill better to make it more compatible with this or that interest,” Lee said. “We cannot continue to function by cliff. Government by cliff is a recipe for disaster.”
4:27 p.m.: Wyden out, Lee in. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, joined Paul on the Senate floor to give the Kentucky senator’s vocal cords a rest. Lee has been an outspoken supporter of reforming the NSA’s surveillance programs, and is one of the co-sponsors of the USA Freedom Act. Lee acknowledged that his position is not as extreme as Paul’s—he does not support allowing the Patriot Act to expire, as Paul does—but he offered his support on the floor.
“Let me be clear at the outset that while the senator from Kentucky and I come to different conclusions with regard to the specific question as to whether we should allow section 215 of the Patriot Act to expire, I absolutely stand with the junior senator from Kentucky,” Lee said when he took the podium.
On Tuesday. Lee asked the Senate to table discussion of the trade bill to begin debating the USA Freedom Act. The move was blocked by an objection from Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark.
4: 17 p.m.: What do other Republican senators think of Paul’s “filibuster”? Some of Paul’s Republican colleagues attempted to downplay the significance of Paul taking over the Senate floor on Wednesday. “Oh that’ll be, you know, 12 hours, and he’ll get a lot of publicity for a day or so, but it won’t affect the process,” Sen. John McCain said Tuesday, when asked about Paul’s expected filibuster.
Republican leadership seemed relieved Paul chose to take the floor during dead time Wednesday, a move they anticipate may mean he won’t get in the way later this week when the chamber actually considers a Patriot Act extension. “I guess if he’s going to, doing it now as opposed to doing it on the weekend is maybe preferable,” Sen. John Thune told an AP reporter.
“I don’t think those inside Washington are listening very well,” Paul said during his speech, in apparent recognition of his colleagues’ unwillingness to let the NSA’s bulk call-records program lapse.
4:12 p.m.: “No Senators.” One headline that Sen. Paul wasn’t necessarily hoping for: a little bit into his speech, C-SPAN2 aired this chyron while the senator spoke:
3:46 p.m.: Backup is here, and it’s a Democrat. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., took the podium to relieve Paul more than two hours into Paul’s floor speech. Wyden is Paul’s partner in opposing a straight reauthorization of the Patriot Act, and he is the only other senator who has also promised to filibuster an extension of the NSA’s spying programs. “This will not be the last time we are back on the floor,” Wyden said as he took over for Paul.
Paul and Wyden are somewhat strange bedfellows, as Wyden has indicated he would vote for the reform package the House passed last week, known as the USA Freedom Act. Paul contends it does not go far enough. But the bipartisan pair is co-sponsoring a number of amendments they say will make the USA Freedom Act go farther in limiting the NSA’s surveillance powers.
“A number of us—myself specifically—have been concerned that the majority leader and other supporters of business as usual on bulk collection of all of these phone records would somehow try to take advantage of our current discussions and try to, in effect, sneak through a motion to extend section 215 of the USA Patriot Act,” Wyden said. “As long as the senator from Kentucky has the floor, that cannot happen.”
“My colleague from Kentucky has been an invaluable ally on this particular cause since he arrived in the Senate,” the Oregon Democrat continued.
3:41 p.m.: Hitler appears. It took a little over two hours for the first mention of Hitler during Paul’s speech. “Any time you make an analogy to horrific people in history, a Mussolini or a Hitler, people say, ‘Oh, you’re exaggerating, you’re talking about—it’s hyperbole. And maybe it is. And particularly to accuse anybody of that is a horrific analogy, and I’m not doing that,” Paul said. “But what I would say is that if you are not concerned that democracy could produce bad people, I don’t think you’re really thinking this through too much.”
3:20 p.m.: Paul goes after Graham. Paul attacked fellow Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., for his characteristically hawkish views on surveillance and due process. Paul seized on Graham’s comment earlier this week about how he would deal with anyone who’s thinking about joining the Islamic State terrorist group.
“One senator said recently—i find this really hard to believe—he said, well, when they ask you for a judge, just drone them,” Paul said. “Ha ha. Same guy said when they ask you for a lawyer, tell them to shut up.”
The Background
Paul, who is a Republican candidate for president, has for weeks threatened that he would filibuster any attempt to reauthorize the Patriot Act authorities due to sunset on June 1. Although the Senate was not taking up votes Wednesday afternoon, a Paul spokesman called the speech a “filibuster” and said the Kentucky Republican “will speak until he can no longer speak.”
The timing of Paul’s speech took some observers by surprise, as the Senate has not yet moved to consider the Patriot Act and is still trudging through an ongoing fight over an international trade deal. Because Paul was not actually objecting to any specific vote, his speech does not appear to qualify as a formal filibuster.
Procedural votes could still come up later this week on the Freedom Act and McConnell’s short-term extension. But the Senate would likely need to stay through the weekend to get through the full process of voting on the opposing measures, as McConnell had not filed for cloture on either option by Tuesday.
Paul could further stall each vote and force the Senate to stay in town through the weekend. But his decision to eat up time on Wednesday likely indicates he does not want to cause party leaders that headache. Either way, the Senate almost certainly won’t resolve the matter before the House leaves town on Thursday, and an expiration of the Patriot Act’s spy provisions looks increasingly likely.
Paul opposes both McConnell’s push and the Freedom Act, which he says does not go far enough in ushering in surveillance reforms.
Paul’s stand against government surveillance comes as three provisions of the Patriot Act are due to expire on June 1, including Section 215, which the NSA uses to justify its bulk collection of U.S. call records.
(RELATED: Where the 2016 Republicans Stand on NSA Spying)
Congress has reauthorized the authorities in the past, but the current expiration is the first to occur after the Edward Snowden revelations, which began two years ago and publicly exposed for the first time the NSA’s phone dragnet.
Last week the House overwhelmingly passed a reform package called the USA Freedom Act, which would effectively end the NSA’s domestic phone records program. Instead, telephone companies would be relied on to keep the records and hand them over to the government on an as-needed basis after judicial approval is obtained from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
But that measure has run hard into a wall in the upper chamber, where Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and a number of GOP defense hawks have said it could jeopardize national security. McConnell and his flock prefer a “clean” reauthorization to the Patriot Act’s spying authorities, and have most recently pushed for a two-month extension to allow more time for debate.
Paul said his stand will force the Senate to debate the surveillance programs, which he says did not happen when the Patriot Act was first introduced in the weeks following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
“The Patriot Act—I’m not sure unless we insert ourselves a at this moment that we’ll have any debate over it. It’s been set to expire for three years. We’ve known it was coming. And the question is, do we not have enough time because we just don’t care enough?”
In 2013, Paul famously spoke for 13 hours on the Senate floor on John Brennan’s nomination to run the CIA, attacking the nominee and the Obama administration for its drone policy.
Within twenty minutes of the beginning of Paul’s speech, his campaign sent an email to supporters asking for donations. “I will not rest. I will not back down. I will not yield one inch in this fight so long as my legs can stand,” the email, which was signed by Paul, read.
The campaign took a dig at senators eager to leave town for the long weekend. “It seems many of my colleagues here in the Senate care more about getting out of town for the Memorial Day break than protecting the Constitution so many American patriots have fought and died for,” the email said. “I have news for them. They are going NOWHERE.”
Quoting founding fathers and waxing philosophical on the importance of privacy, Paul called for President Obama to immediately issue an executive order to end the NSA’s surveillance programs.
(RELATED: On NSA Spying, Bernie Sanders, Not Elizabeth Warren, Is Pushing Hillary Clinton Let)
“For over a year now, he has said the program is illegal and yet he does nothing,” Paul said on the Senate floor. “He says, well, Congress can get rid of the Patriot Act. Congress can get rid of the bulk collection. And yet he has the power to do it at his fingertips.”
“He began this illegal program,” Paul continued. “The court has informed him that the program is illegal. He has every power to stop it and yet the president does nothing.”
Paul has said he would end the NSA’s surveillance programs were he elected president.
A panel appointed by President Obama to review the government’s surveillance activities has recommended significant new limits on the nation’s intelligence apparatus that include ending the National Security Agency’s collection of virtually all Americans’ phone records.
It urged that phone companies or a private third party maintain the data instead, with access granted only by a court order.
The President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies also recommended in a wide-ranging report issued Wednesday that decisions to spy on foreign leaders be subjected to greater scrutiny, including weighing the diplomatic and economic fallout if operations are revealed. Allied foreign leaders or those with whom the United States shares a cooperative relationship should be accorded “a high degree of respect and deference,” it said.
The panel also urged legislation that would require the FBI to obtain judicial approval before it can use a national security letter or administrative subpoena to obtain Americans’ financial, phone and other records. That would eliminate one of the tool’s main attractions: that it can be employed quickly without court approval.
The review group also would impose a ban on warantless NSA searches for Americans’ phone calls and e-mails held within large caches of communications collected legally because the program targeted foreigners overseas.
A report from the five-member Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies contains 40-plus recommendations on the NSA. Read it.
Taken together, the five-
member panel’s recommendations take aim at some of the most controversial practices of the intelligence community, in particular the 35,000-employee NSA, headquartered at Fort Meade, Md. The signals intelligence agency has been in the news constantly since June, when reports based on documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden began appearing in The Washington Post and the Guardian.
The White House released the 300-plus-page report as part of a larger effort to restore public confidence in the intelligence community, which has been shaken by the Snowden revelations.
The panel said that the NSA’s storage of phone data “creates potential risks to public trust, personal privacy, and civil liberty” and that as a general rule, “the government should not be permitted to collect and store mass, undigested, non-public personal information” about Americans to be mined for foreign intelligence purposes.
Despite the proposed constraints, panel member Michael Morell, a former deputy director of the CIA, said, “We are not in any way recommending the disarming of the intelligence community.”
The panel made 46 recommendations in all, which included moving the NSA’s information assurance directorate — its computer defense arm — outside the agency and under the Defense Department’s cyber-policy office.
“The review committee has reaffirmed that national security neither requires nor permits the government to help itself to Americans’ personal information at will,” said Elizabeth Goitein, co-
director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program. “The recommendations would extend significant privacy protections to Americans.”
Some intelligence professionals were dismayed. “If adopted in bulk, the panel’s recommendations would put us back before 9/11 again,” said Joel F. Brenner, a former NSA inspector general.
Former NSA and CIA director Michael V. Hayden urged senior intelligence officials to lay out the operational costs of adopting the recommendations. “The responsibility is now in the intelligence community to be ruthlessly candid with the policy leadership,” Hayden said.
Obama met Wednesday morning with the panel, whose suggestions are advisory only, and some intelligence officials predicted that the most far-reaching recommendations, including ending the government collection and storage of bulk phone data, would not be adopted. The White House has said it will announce in January which ideas it has embraced, as it concludes its internal review of surveillance activities.
The NSA’s phone-records program has prompted debate about whether the government has overreached in the effort to prevent terrorist attacks. The review panel is urging that Congress pass legislation to end the NSA’s storage of phone records — estimated by some former officials to number more than 1 trillion — “as soon as reasonably practicable.”
If the data were held by phone companies or a private third party, access to them would be permitted only with an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, based on reasonable suspicion that the information sought is relevant to an authorized terrorism investigation. Each phone number would require a court order.
Currently, the NSA holds for five years the phone records it gathers daily from U.S. phone companies. These “metadata” include the numbers dialed and call times and durations, but not call content or subscriber names.
The review panel is not recommending that the phone companies maintaining the data store it any longer than they do now — periods that vary from as little as six months to 10 years.
In a ruling Monday on the collection program, U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon described the technology used to search the NSA database as “almost Orwellian.” The judge said the collection was “almost certainly” unconstitutional.
“The combination of this report plus the judge’s decision Monday makes this a big week for the cause of intelligence reform,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).
Moving custodianship of the records outside the NSA would diminish the agency’s agility in detecting terrorist plots, supporters of the current arrangement say. With companies holding data for different periods and in different formats, searching across them would become complicated, they argue.
But the panel said the collection program had not proved its utility. “Our review suggests that the information contributed to terrorist investigations by the use of . . . telephony metadata was not essential to preventing attacks and could readily have been obtained in a timely manner using conventional [court] orders,” it said.
The review group urged that the public have a legal advocate before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the recommendation to end NSA’s bulk collection “goes to the very heart of NSA dragnet surveillance.” He called it “the most necessary recommendation of the review group.”
The NSA’s information assurance directorate, which would be shifted out of the agency, protects classified government computer systems and works with industry to help them better safeguard their systems. That mission differs from the NSA’s job of breaking into systems overseas to gain intelligence, the panel said.
The suggested move, said Gregory T. Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology, would “end NSA’s dual personality as a code-breaker and cybersecurity-enhancer. It’s good.”
But Tony Sager, a former NSA information assurance executive, said moving the defensive mission out of NSA was unwise. “The defensive mission benefits a lot from the technology and the skills of people who work on the offensive side of the house and vice versa,” he said. “They get better insight into the model of what real adversaries do.”
The panel also recommended a prohibition on the government “in any way”subverting or weakening commercial software in order to get around encryption and urged that it not undermine efforts to create encryption standards. The panel also said the government should add oversight to the use and production of “zero day” hacking tools that can be used to penetrate computer systems and, in some cases, damage or destroy them.
The security community has long been concerned that the NSA is building and buying hacking tools, but a Pentagon cyber-official, Eric Rosenbach, has said that the government discloses vulnerabilities it finds to software companies.
Matthew Blaze, a University of Pennsylvania cryptology expert, said disclosure “doesn’t mean that the government can’t or wouldn’t be able to make use of cyberattack techniques that involve exploiting computers.
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is filibustering the Patriot Act on the Senate floor, and it doesn’t look like he’s going to stop anytime soon.
The Republican presidential candidate took control of the floor Wednesday afternoon at 1:18 p.m., simultaneously explaining on Twitter that he is filibustering the renewal of the Patriot Act because of the National Security Agency’s program that collects bulk phone record data of American citizens.
“The government shouldn’t have the ability to get that information unless they have suspicion,” Paul said on the floor Wednesday. “Unless they have probable cause you committed a crime.”
In an campaign email to supporters, posted online by a reporter from Time magazine, Paul said: “I will not rest. I will not back down. I will not yield one inch in this fight so long as my legs can stand.”
Here’s how a Paul campaign aide described the marathon speech: “Senator Rand Paul has taken the floor of the U.S. Senate to filibuster the reauthorization of the Patriot Act. Senator Paul is a staunch defender of liberty and believes Americans have a right to privacy. The U.S. government has no place conducting these warrantless searches and should focus on gathering intelligence on suspected terrorists and foreign actors.”
On Monday, Paul previewed the filibuster, holding a press conference in Philadelphia and calling on Obama to end the NSA’s program.
“Here in front of Independence Hall, I call for the president to obey the law,” he said Monday. “The court said last week that it is illegal to collect all of your phone records, all of the time, without a warrant with your name on it. I call on the president today to immediately end the bulk collection of our phone records.”
Asked on Monday whether he would filibuster the upcoming vote on the extension of the Patriot Act, which the NSA uses to carry out the bulk collection program, Paul told reporters: “I will do everything possible. The rules are tricky in the Senate, so I don’t know what I can promise. But we will do everything possible, including filibustering the Patriot Act, to stop that.”
This isn’t Paul’s first filibuster: in 2013, he filibustered the nomination of John Brennan as director of the CIA for 13 hours, talking about drones and the Bill of Rights.
The USA PATRIOT Act is an Act of Congress that was signed into law by PresidentGeorge W. Bush on October 26, 2001. Its title is a ten-letter backronym (USA PATRIOT) that stands for “Uniting andStrengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001″.[1]
On May 26, 2011, President Barack Obama signed the PATRIOT Sunsets Extension Act of 2011, a four-year extension of three key provisions in the USA PATRIOT Act:[2]roving wiretaps, searches of business records (the “library records provision“), and conducting surveillance of “lone wolves”—individuals suspected of terrorist-related activities not linked to terrorist groups.[3]
Details
From broad concern felt among Americans from both the September 11 attacks and the 2001 anthrax attacks, Congress rushed to pass legislation to strengthen security controls. On October 23, 2001, Republican Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner introduced H.R. 3162 incorporating provisions from a previously sponsored House bill and a Senate bill also introduced earlier in the month.[4] The next day on October 24, 2001, the Act passed the House 357 to 66,[5] with Democrats comprising the overwhelming portion of dissent. The following day, on October 25, 2001, the Act passed the Senate by 98 to 1.[6]
Opponents of the law have criticized its authorization of indefinite detentions of immigrants; the permission given law enforcement officers to search a home or business without the owner’s or the occupant’s consent or knowledge; the expanded use of National Security Letters, which allows the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to search telephone, e-mail, and financial records without a court order; and the expanded access of law enforcement agencies to business records, including library and financial records. Since its passage, several legal challenges have been brought against the act, and Federal courts have ruled that a number of provisions are unconstitutional.
Many provisions of the act were to sunset beginning December 31, 2005, approximately 4 years after its passage. In the months preceding the sunset date, supporters of the act pushed to make its sunsetting provisions permanent, while critics sought to revise various sections to enhance civil liberty protections. In July 2005, the U.S. Senate passed a reauthorization bill with substantial changes to several sections of the act, while the House reauthorization bill kept most of the act’s original language. The two bills were then reconciled in a conference committee that was criticized by Senators from both the Republican and Democratic parties for ignoring civil liberty concerns.[7]
The bill, which removed most of the changes from the Senate version, passed Congress on March 2, 2006, and was signed into law by President George W. Bush on March 9 and 10, 2006.
The PATRIOT Act[8] made a number of changes to U.S. law. Key acts changed were the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA), the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA), the Money Laundering Control Act of 1986 and Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), as well as the Immigration and Nationality Act. The Act itself came about after the September 11th attacks on New York City and the Pentagon. After these attacks, Congress immediately started work on several proposed antiterrorist bills, before the Justice Department finally drafted a bill called the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001, introduced to Congress on September 19, 2001. This was introduced to the House as the Provide Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (PATRIOT) Act of 2001, and was later passed by the House as the Uniting and Strengthening America (USA) Act (H.R. 2975) on October 12.[9] It was then introduced into the Senate as the USA Act (S. 1510)[10] where a number of amendments were proposed by SenatorRuss Feingold,[11][12][13][13] all of which were passed. The final bill, the USA PATRIOT Act was introduced into the House on October 23 and incorporated H.R. 2975, S. 1510 and many of the provisions of H.R. 3004 (the Financial Anti-Terrorism Act).[14] It was vehemently opposed by only one Senator, Russ Feingold, who was the only Senator to vote against the bill. Senator Patrick Leahy also expressed some concerns.[15]However, many parts were seen as necessary by both detractors and supporters.[16][17][18] The final Act included a number of sunsets which were to expire on December 15, 2005.
Due to its controversial nature, a number of bills – none of which were passed – were proposed to amend the USA PATRIOT Act. These included the Protecting the Rights of Individuals Act,[19] the Benjamin Franklin True Patriot Act,[20] and the Security and Freedom Ensured Act (SAFE).[21] In late January 2003, the founder of the Center for Public Integrity, Charles Lewis, published a leaked draft copy of an Administration proposal titled the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003.[22] This highly controversial document was quickly dubbed “PATRIOT II” or “Son of PATRIOT” by the media and organizations such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation.[23] The draft, which was circulated to 10 divisions of the Department of Justice,[24]proposed to make further extensive modifications to extend the USA PATRIOT Act.[25] It was widely condemned, although the Department of Justice claimed that it was only a draft and contained no further proposals.[26]
Titles
Title I: Enhancing domestic security against terrorism
Title I authorizes measures to enhance the ability of domestic security services to prevent terrorism. The title established a fund for counter-terrorist activities and increased funding for the Terrorist Screening Center which is administered by the FBI. The military was authorized to provide assistance in some situations that involve weapons of mass destruction when so requested by the Attorney General. The National Electronic Crime Task Force was expanded, along with thePresident‘s authority and abilities in cases of terrorism. The title also condemned the discrimination against Arab and Muslim Americans that happened soon after the September 11 terrorist attacks. The impetus for many of the provisions came from earlier bills, for instance the condemnation of discrimination was originally proposed by Senator Tom Harkin (D–IA) in an amendment to the Combatting Terrorism Act of 2001, though in a different form. It originally included “the prayer ofCardinalTheodore McCarrick, the Archbishop of Washington in a Mass on September 12, 2001 for our Nation and the victims in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist hijackings and attacks in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania reminds all Americans that ‘We must seek the guilty and not strike out against the innocent or we become like them who are without moral guidance or proper direction.'”[27] Further condemnation of racial vilification and violence is also spelled out in Title X, where there was condemnation of such activities against Sikh Americans, who were mistaken for Muslims after the September 11th terrorist attack.[28]
Title II is titled “Enhanced Surveillance Procedures”, and covers all aspects of the surveillance of suspected terrorists, those suspected of engaging in computer fraud or abuse, and agents of a foreign power who are engaged in clandestine activities. It primarily made amendments to FISA, and the ECPA, and many of the most controversial aspects of the USA PATRIOT Act reside in this title. In particular, the title allows government agencies to gather “foreign intelligence information” from both U.S. and non-U.S. citizens, and changed FISA to make gaining foreign intelligence information the significant purpose of FISA-based surveillance, where previously it had been the primary purpose.[29] The change in definition was meant to remove a legal “wall” between criminal investigations and surveillance for the purposes of gathering foreign intelligence, which hampered investigations when criminal and foreign surveillance overlapped.[30] However, that this wall even existed was found by the Federal Surveillance Court of Review to have actually been a long-held misinterpretation by government agencies. Also removed was the statutory requirement that the government prove a surveillance target under FISA is a non-U.S. citizen and agent of a foreign power, though it did require that any investigations must not be undertaken on citizens who are carrying out activities protected by the First Amendment.[31] The title also expanded the duration of FISA physical search and surveillance orders,[32] and gave authorities the ability to share information gathered before a federal grand jury with other agencies.[33]
The scope and availability of wiretapping and surveillance orders were expanded under Title II. Wiretaps were expanded to include addressing and routing information to allow surveillance of packet switched networks[34]—the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) objected to this, arguing that it does not take into account email or web addresses, which often contain content in the address information.[35] The Act allowed any district court judge in the United States to issue such surveillance orders[34] and search warrants for terrorism investigations.[36] Search warrants were also expanded, with the Act amending Title III of the Stored Communications Access Act to allow the FBI to gain access to stored voicemail through a search warrant, rather than through the more stringent wiretap laws.[37]
Various provisions allowed for the disclosure of electronic communications to law enforcement agencies. Those who operate or own a “protected computer” can give permission for authorities to intercept communications carried out on the machine, thus bypassing the requirements of the Wiretap statute.[38] The definition of a “protected computer” is defined in 18 U.S.C.§ 1030(e)(2) and broadly encompasses those computers used in interstate or foreign commerce or communication, including ones located outside the United States. The law governing obligatory and voluntary disclosure of customer communications by cablecompanies was altered to allow agencies to demand such communications under U.S.C. Title 18 provisions relating to the disclosure of electronic communications (chapter 119), pen registers and trap and trace devices (chapter 206) and stored communications (121), though it excluded the disclosure of cable subscriber viewing habits.[39]Subpoenas issued to Internet Service Providers were expanded to include not only “the name, address, local and long distance telephone toll billing records, telephone number or other subscriber number or identity, and length of service of a subscriber” but also session times and durations, types of services used, communication device address information (e.g. IP addresses), payment method and bank account and credit card numbers.[40] Communication providers are also allowed to disclose customer records or communications if they suspect there is a danger to “life and limb”.[41]
Title II established three very controversial provisions: “sneak and peek” warrants, roving wiretaps and the ability of the FBI to gain access to documents that reveal the patterns of U.S. citizens. The so-called “sneak and peek” law allowed for delayed notification of the execution of search warrants. The period before which the FBI must notify the recipients of the order was unspecified in the Act—the FBI field manual says that it is a “flexible standard”[42]—and it may be extended at the court’s discretion.[43] These sneak and peek provisions were struck down by judge Ann Aiken on September 26, 2007 after a Portland attorney, Brandon Mayfield, was wrongly jailed because of the searches. The court found the searches to violate the provision that prohibits unreasonable searches in the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.[44][45]
Roving wiretaps are wiretap orders that do not need to specify all common carriers and third parties in a surveillance court order. These are seen as important by the Department of Justice because they believe that terrorists can exploit wiretap orders by rapidly changing locations and communication devices such as cell phones,[46] while opponents see it as violating the particularity clause of the Fourth Amendment.[47][48] Another highly controversial provision is one that allows the FBI to make an order “requiring the production of any tangible things (including books, records, papers, documents, and other items) for an investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities, provided that such investigation of a United States person is not conducted solely upon the basis of activities protected by the first amendment to the Constitution.”[49] Though it was not targeted directly at libraries, the American Library Association (ALA), in particular, opposed this provision.[50] In a resolution passed on June 29, 2005, they stated that “Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act allows the government to secretly request and obtain library records for large numbers of individuals without any reason to believe they are involved in illegal activity.”[51] However, the ALA’s stance did not go without criticism. One prominent critic of the ALA’s stance was the Manhattan Institute‘s Heather Mac Donald, who argued in an article for the New York City Journal that “[t]he furor over section 215 is a case study in Patriot Act fear-mongering.”[52]
The title also covers a number of other miscellaneous provisions, including the expansion of the number of FISC judges from seven to eleven (three of which must reside within 20 miles (32 km) of the District of Columbia),[53] trade sanctions against North Korea and Taliban-controlled Afghanistan[54] and the employment oftranslators by the FBI.[55]
At the insistence of Republican Representative Richard Armey,[56] the Act had a number of sunset provisions built in, which were originally set to expire on December 31, 2005. The sunset provision of the Act also took into account any ongoing foreign intelligence investigations and allowed them to continue once the sections had expired.[57] The provisions that were to expire are below.
Title II sections that were to originally expire on December 31, 2005
Section
Section title
201
Authority to intercept wire, oral, and electronic communications relating to terrorism
202
Authority to intercept wire, oral, and electronic communications relating to computer fraud and abuse offenses
203(b)
Authority to share electronic, wire and oral interception information
204
Clarification of intelligence exceptions from limitations on interception and disclosure of wire, oral, and electronic communications
206
Roving surveillance authority under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.
207
Duration of FISA surveillance of non-United States persons who are agents of a foreign power
209
Seizure of voice-mail messages pursuant to warrants
212
Emergency disclosure of electronic communications to protect life and limb
214
Pen register and trap and trace authority under FISA
215
Access to records and other items under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
217
Interception of computer trespasser communications
218
Foreign intelligence information
220
Nationwide service of search warrants for electronic evidence
223
Civil liability for certain unauthorized disclosures
225
Immunity for compliance with FISA wiretap
Title III: Anti-money-laundering to prevent terrorism
Title III of the Act, titled “International Money Laundering Abatement and Financial Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001,” is intended to facilitate the prevention, detection and prosecution of international money laundering and the financing of terrorism. It primarily amends portions of the Money Laundering Control Act of 1986 (MLCA) and the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970 (BSA). It was divided into three subtitles, with the first dealing primarily with strengthening banking rules against money laundering, especially on the international stage. The second attempts to improve communication between law enforcement agencies and financial institutions, as well as expanding record keeping and reporting requirements. The third subtitle deals with currency smuggling and counterfeiting, including quadrupling the maximum penalty for counterfeiting foreign currency.
The first subtitle tightened the record keeping requirements for financial institutions, making them record the aggregate amounts of transactions processed from areas of the world where money laundering is a concern to the U.S. government. It also made institutions put into place reasonable steps to identify beneficial owners of bank accounts and those who are authorized to use or route funds through payable-through accounts.[58] The U.S. Treasury was charged with formulating regulations intended to foster information sharing between financial institutions to prevent money-laundering.[59] Along with expanding record keeping requirements it put new regulations into place to make it easier for authorities to identify money laundering activities and to make it harder for money launderers to mask their identities.[60] If money laundering was uncovered, the subtitle legislated for the forfeiture of assets of those suspected of doing the money laundering.[61]In an effort to encourage institutions to take steps that would reduce money laundering, the Treasury was given authority to block mergers of bank holding companies and banks with other banks and bank holding companies that had a bad history of preventing money laundering. Similarly, mergers between insured depository institutions and non-insured depository institutions that have a bad track record in combating money-laundering could be blocked.[62]
Restrictions were placed on accounts and foreign banks. It prohibited shell banks that are not an affiliate of a bank that has a physical presence in the U.S. or that are not subject to supervision by a banking authority in a non-U.S. country. It also prohibits or restricts the use of certain accounts held at financial institutions.[63]Financial institutions must now undertake steps to identify the owners of any privately owned bank outside the U.S. who have a correspondent account with them, along with the interests of each of the owners in the bank. It is expected that additional scrutiny will be applied by the U.S. institution to such banks to make sure they are not engaging in money laundering. Banks must identify all the nominal and beneficial owners of any private bank account opened and maintained in the U.S. by non-U.S. citizens. There is also an expectation that they must undertake enhanced scrutiny of the account if it is owned by, or is being maintained on behalf of, any senior political figure where there is reasonable suspicion of corruption.[64] Any deposits made from within the U.S. into foreign banks are now deemed to have been deposited into any interbank account the foreign bank may have in the U.S. Thus any restraining order, seizure warrant or arrest warrant may be made against the funds in the interbank account held at a U.S. financial institution, up to the amount deposited in the account at the foreign bank.[65] Restrictions were placed on the use of internal bank concentration accounts because such accounts do not provide an effective audit trail for transactions, and this may be used to facilitate money laundering. Financial institutions are prohibited from allowing clients to specifically direct them to move funds into, out of, or through a concentration account, and they are also prohibited from informing their clients about the existence of such accounts. Financial institutions are not allowed to provide any information to clients that may identify such internal accounts.[66] Financial institutions are required to document and follow methods of identifying where the funds are for each customer in a concentration account that co-mingles funds belonging to one or more customers.
The definition of money laundering was expanded to include making a financial transaction in the U.S. in order to commit a violent crime;[67] the bribery of public officials and fraudulent dealing with public funds; the smuggling or illegal export of controlled munition[68] and the importation or bringing in of any firearm or ammunition not authorized by the U.S. Attorney General[69] and the smuggling of any item controlled under the Export Administration Regulations.[70][71] It also includes any offense where the U.S. would be obligated under a mutual treaty with a foreign nation to extradite a person, or where the U.S. would need to submit a case against a person for prosecution because of the treaty; the import of falsely classified goods;[72]computer crime;[73] and any felony violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938.[71] It also allows the forfeiture of any property within the jurisdiction of the United States that was gained as the result of an offense against a foreign nation that involves the manufacture, importation, sale, or distribution of a controlled substance.[74] Foreign nations may now seek to have a forfeiture or judgment notification enforced by a district court of the United States.[75] This is done through new legislation that specifies how the U.S. government may apply for a restraining order[76] to preserve the availability of property which is subject to a foreign forfeiture or confiscation judgement.[77] In taking into consideration such an application, emphasis is placed on the ability of a foreign court to follow due process.[75] The Act also requires the Secretary of Treasury to take all reasonable steps to encourage foreign governments make it a requirement to include the name of the originator in wire transfer instructions sent to the United States and other countries, with the information to remain with the transfer from its origination until the point of disbursement.[78] The Secretary was also ordered to encourage international cooperation in investigations of money laundering, financial crimes, and the finances of terrorist groups.[79]
The Act also introduced criminal penalties for corrupt officialdom. An official or employee of the government who acts corruptly—as well as the person who induces the corrupt act—in the carrying out of their official duties will be fined by an amount that is not more than three times the monetary equivalent of the bribe in question. Alternatively they may be imprisoned for not more than 15 years, or they may be fined and imprisoned. Penalties apply to financial institutions who do not comply with an order to terminate any corresponding accounts within 10 days of being so ordered by the Attorney General or the Secretary of Treasury. The financial institution can be fined $US10,000 for each day the account remains open after the 10 day limit has expired.[65]
The second annotation made a number of modifications to the BSA in an attempt to make it harder for money launderers to operate and easier for law enforcement and regulatory agencies to police money laundering operations. One amendment made to the BSA was to allow the designated officer or agency who receivessuspicious activity reports to notify U.S. intelligence agencies.[80] A number of amendments were made to address issues related to record keeping and financial reporting. One measure was a new requirement that anyone who does business file a report for any coin and foreign currency receipts that are over US$10,000 and made it illegal to structure transactions in a manner that evades the BSA’s reporting requirements.[81] To make it easier for authorities to regulate and investigate anti-money laundering operations Money Services Businesses (MSBs)—those who operate informal value transfer systems outside of the mainstream financial system—were included in the definition of a financial institution.[82] The BSA was amended to make it mandatory to report suspicious transactions and an attempt was made to make such reporting easier for financial institutions.[83]FinCEN was made a bureau of the United States Department of Treasury[84] and the creation of a secure network to be used by financial institutions to report suspicious transactions and to provide alerts of relevant suspicious activities was ordered.[85] Along with these reporting requirements, a considerable number of provisions relate to the prevention and prosecution of money-laundering.[86]Financial institutions were ordered to establish anti-money laundering programs and the BSA was amended to better define anti-money laundering strategy.[87] Also increased were civil and criminal penalties for money laundering and the introduction of penalties for violations of geographic targeting orders and certain record-keeping requirements.[88] A number of other amendments to the BSA were made through subtitle B, including granting the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System power to authorize personnel to act as law enforcement officers to protect the premises, grounds, property and personnel of any U.S. National reserve bank and allowing the Board to delegate this authority to U.S. Federal reserve bank.[89] Another measure instructed United States Executive Directors of international financial institutions to use their voice and vote to support any country that has taken action to support the U.S.’s War on Terrorism. Executive Directors are now required to provide ongoing auditing of disbursements made from their institutions to ensure that no funds are paid to persons who commit, threaten to commit, or support terrorism.[90]
The third subtitle deals with currency crimes. Largely because of the effectiveness of the BSA, money launders had been avoiding traditional financial institutions to launder money and were using cash-based businesses to avoid them. A new effort was made to stop the laundering of money through bulk currency movements, mainly focusing on the confiscation of criminal proceeds and the increase in penalties for money laundering. Congress found that a criminal offense of merely evading the reporting of money transfers was insufficient and decided that it would be better if the smuggling of the bulk currency itself was the offense. Therefore, the BSA was amended to make it a criminal offense to evade currency reporting by concealing more than US$10,000 on any person or through any luggage, merchandise or other container that moves into or out of the U.S. The penalty for such an offense is up to 5 years imprisonment and the forfeiture of any property up to the amount that was being smuggled.[91] It also made the civil and criminal penalty violations of currency reporting cases[92] be the forfeiture of all a defendant’s property that was involved in the offense, and any property traceable to the defendant.[93] The Act prohibits and penalizes those who run unlicensed money transmitting businesses.[94] In 2005, this provision of the USA PATRIOT Act was used to prosecute Yehuda Abraham for helping to arrange money transfers for British arms dealer Hermant Lakhani, who was arrested in August 2003 after being caught in a government sting. Lakhani had tried to sell a missile to an FBI agent posing as a Somali militant.[95] The definition of counterfeiting was expanded to encompass analog, digital or electronic image reproductions, and it was made an offense to own such a reproduction device. Penalties were increased to 20 years imprisonment.[96] Money laundering “unlawful activities” was expanded to include the provision of material support or resources to designated foreign terrorist organizations.[97] The Act specifies that anyone who commits or conspires to undertake a fraudulent activity outside the jurisdiction of the United States, and which would be an offense in the U.S., will be prosecuted under 18 U.S.C.§ 1029, which deals with fraud and related activity in connection with access devices.[98]
Title IV amends the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 to give more law enforcement and investigative power to the United States Attorney General and to theImmigration and Naturalization Service (INS). The Attorney General was authorized to waive any cap on the number of full-time employees (FTEs) assigned to the INS on the Northern border of the United States.[99] Enough funds were set aside to triple the maximum number of Border Patrol personnel, Customs Service personnel and INS inspectors along with an additional US$50,000,000 funding for the INS and the U.S. Customs Service to improve technology for monitoring the Northern Border and acquiring additional equipment at the Canadian northern border.[100] The INS was also given the authority to authorize overtime payments of up to an extra US$30,000 a year to INS employees.[101] Access was given to the Department of State and the INS to criminal background information contained in the National Crime Information Center’s Interstate Identification Index (NCIC-III), Wanted Persons File and any other files maintained by the National Crime Information Center to determine whether visa applicants and applicants could be admitted to the U.S.[102] The Department of State was required to form final regulations governing the procedures for taking fingerprints and the conditions with which the department was allowed to use this information.[103] Additionally, theNational Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) was ordered to develop a technology standard to verify the identity of persons applying for a United States visa.[103] The reason was to make the standard the technology basis for a cross-agency, cross-platform electronic system used for conducting background checks, confirming identities and ensuring that people have not received visas under different names.[104] This report was released on November 13, 2002,[105] however, according to NIST, this was later “determined that the fingerprint system used was not as accurate as current state-of-the-art fingerprint systems and is approximately equivalent to commercial fingerprint systems available in 1998.”[106] This report was later superseded by section 303(a) of the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of 2002.
Under subtitle C, various definitions relating to terrorism were altered and expanded. The INA was retroactively amended to disallow aliens who are part of or representatives of a foreign organization or any group who endorses acts of terrorism from entering the U.S. This restriction also included the family of such aliens.[107] The definition of “terrorist activity” was strengthened to include actions involving the use of any dangerous device (and not just explosives and firearms).[107] To “engage in terrorist activity” is defined as committing, inciting to commit or planning and preparing to undertake an act of terrorism. Included in this definition is the gathering of intelligence information on potential terrorist targets, the solicitation of funds for a terrorist organization or the solicitation of others to undertake acts of terrorism. Those who provide knowing assistance to a person who is planning to perform such activities are defined as undertaking terrorist activities. Such assistance includes affording material support, including a safe house, transportation, communications, funds, transfer of funds or other material financial benefit, false documentation or identification, weapons (including chemical, biological, or radiological weapons), explosives, or training to perform the terrorist act.[107] The INA criteria for making a decision to designate an organization as a terrorist organization was amended to include the definition of a terrorist act.[108] Though the amendments to these definitions are retroactive, it does not mean that it can be applied to members who joined an organization, but since left, before it was designated to be a terrorist organization under 8 U.S.C.§ 1189 by the Secretary of State.[107]
The Act amended the INA to add new provisions enforcing mandatory detention laws. These apply to any alien who is engaged in terrorism, or who is engaged in an activity that endangers U.S. national security. It also applies to those who are inadmissible or who must be deported because it is certified they are attempting to enter to undertake illegal espionage; are exporting goods, technology, or sensitive information illegally; or are attempting to control or overthrow the government; or have, or will have, engaged in terrorist activities.[109] The Attorney General or the Attorney General’s deputy may maintain custody of such aliens until they are removed from the U.S., unless it is no longer deemed they should be removed, in which case they are released. The alien can be detained for up to 90 days but can be held up to six months after it is deemed that they are a national security threat. However, the alien must be charged with a crime or removal proceedings start no longer than seven days after the alien’s detention, otherwise the alien will be released. However, such detentions must be reviewed every six months by the Attorney General, who can then decide to revoke it, unless prevented from doing so by law. Every six months the alien may apply, in writing, for the certification to be reconsidered.[109]Judicial review of any action or decision relating to this section, including judicial review of the merits of a certification, can be held underhabeas corpus proceedings. Such proceedings can be initiated by an application filed with the United States Supreme Court, by any justice of the Supreme Court, by any circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, or by any district court otherwise having jurisdiction to entertain the application. The final order is subject to appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.[109] Provisions were also made for a report to be required every six months of such decisions from the U.S. Attorney General to the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives and theCommittee on the Judiciary of the Senate.[109]
A sense of Congress was given that the U.S. Secretary of State should expedite the full implementation of the integrated entry and exit data system for airports, seaports, and land border ports of entry specified in the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA). They also found that the U.S. Attorney General should immediately start the Integrated Entry and Exit Data System Task Force specified in section 3 of the Immigration and Naturalization Service Data Management Improvement Act of 2000. Congress wanted the primary focus of development of the entry-exit data system was to be on the utilization of biometric technology and the development of tamper-resistant documents readable at ports of entry. They also wanted the system to be able to interface with existing law enforcement databases.[110] The Attorney General was ordered to implement and expand the foreign student monitoring program that was established under section 641(a) of the IIRIRA.[111] which records the date and port of entry of each foreign student. The program was expanded to include other approved educational institutions, including air flight schools, language training schools or vocational schools that are approved by the Attorney General, in consultation with the Secretary of Education and the Secretary of State. US$36,800,000 was appropriated for the Department of Justice to spend on implementing the program.[112]
The Secretary of State was ordered to audit and report back to Congress on the Visa waiver program specified under 8 U.S.C.§ 1187 for each fiscal year until September 30, 2007. The Secretary was also ordered to check for the implementation of precautionary measures to prevent the counterfeiting and theft of passports as well as ascertain that countries designated under the visa waiver program have established a program to develop tamper-resistant passports.[113] The Secretary was also ordered to report back to Congress on whether consulate shopping was a problem.[114]
The last subtitle, which was introduced by Senators John Conyers and Patrick Leahy, allows for the preservation of immigration benefits for victims of terrorism, and the families of victims of terrorism.[115] They recognized that some families, through no fault of their own, would either be ineligible for permanent residence in the United States because of being unable to make important deadlines because of the September 11 terrorist attacks, or had become ineligible to apply for special immigration status because their loved one died in the attacks.[116]
Title V: Removing obstacles to investigating terrorism
It allows the U.S. Attorney General to pay rewards pursuant of advertisements for assistance to the Department of Justice to combat terrorism and prevent terrorist acts, though amounts over $US250,000 may not be made or offered without the personal approval of the Attorney General or President, and once the award is approved the Attorney General must give written notice to the Chairman and ranking minority members of the Committee on Appropriations and the Judiciary of the Senate and of the House of Representatives.[117] The State Department Basic Authorities Act of 1956 was amended to allow the Department of State to offer rewards, in consultation with the Attorney General, for the full or significant dismantling of any terrorist organization[118] and to identify any key leaders of terrorist organizations.[119] The Secretary of State was given authority to pay greater than $US5 million if he so determines it would prevent terrorist actions against the United States and Canada.[120] The DNA Analysis Backlog Elimination Act was amended to include terrorism or crimes of violence in the list of qualifying Federal offenses.[121] Another perceived obstacle was to allow Federal agencies to share information with Federal law enforcement agencies. Thus, the act now allows Federal officers who acquire information through electronic surveillance or physical searches to consult with Federal law enforcement officers to coordinate efforts to investigate or protect against potential or actual attacks, sabotage or international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities by an intelligence service or network of a foreign power.[122]
Secret Service jurisdiction was extended to investigate computer fraud, access device frauds, false identification documents or devices, or any fraudulent activities against U.S. financial institutions.[123] The General Education Provisions Act was amended to allow the U.S. Attorney General or Assistant Attorney General to collect and retain educational records relevant to an authorized investigation or prosecution of an offense that is defined as a Federal crime of terrorism and which an educational agency or institution possesses. The Attorney General or Assistant Attorney General must “certify that there are specific and articulable facts giving reason to believe that the education records are likely to contain information [that a Federal crime of terrorism may be being committed].” An education institution that produces education records in response to such a request is given legal immunity from any liability that rises from such a production of records.[124]
One of the most controversial aspects of the USA PATRIOT Act is in title V, and relates to National Security Letters (NSLs). An NSL is a form of administrative subpoena used by the FBI, and reportedly by other U.S. government agencies including the CIA and the Department of Defense (DoD). It is a demand letter issued to a particular entity or organization to turn over various records and data pertaining to individuals. They require no probable cause or judicial oversight and also contain a gag order, preventing the recipient of the letter from disclosing that the letter was ever issued. Title V allowed the use of NSLs to be made by a Special Agent in charge of a Bureau field office, where previously only the Director or the Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI were able to certify such requests.[125] This provision of the Act was challenged by the ACLU on behalf of an unknown party against the U.S. government on the grounds that NSLs violate the First and Fourth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution because there is no way to legally oppose an NSL subpoena in court, and that it was unconstitutional not to allow a client to inform their Attorney as to the order because of the gag provision of the letters. The court’s judgement found in favour of the ACLU’s case, and they declared the law unconstitutional.[126] Later, the USA PATRIOT Act was reauthorized and amendments were made to specify a process of judicial review of NSLs and to allow the recipient of an NSL to disclose receipt of the letter to an attorney or others necessary to comply with or challenge the order.[127] However, in 2007 the U.S. District Court struck down even the reauthorized NSLs because the gag power was unconstitutional as courts could still not engage in meaningful judicial review of these gags.
Title VI: Victims and families of victims of terrorism
Title VI made amendments to the Victims of Crime Act of 1984 (VOCA) in order to make changes to how the U.S. Victims of Crime Fund was managed and funded. Changes were made to VOCA to improve the speedy provision of aid to families of public safety officers by expedited payments to officers or the families of officers. Under the changes, payments must be made no later than 30 days after the officer is injured or killed in the line of duty.[128] The Assistant Attorney General was given expanded authority under section 614 of the USA PATRIOT Act to make grants to any organization that administers any Office of Justice Programs, which includes the Public Safety Officers Benefits Program.[129] Further changes to the Victims of Crime Fund increased the amount of money in the Fund, and changed the way that funds were distributed.[130] The amount available for grants made through the Crime Victim Fund to eligible crime victim compensation programs were increased from 40 percent to 60 percent of the total in the Fund. A program can provide compensation to U.S. citizens who were adversely affected overseas.Means testing was also waived for those who apply for compensation.[131] Under VOCA, the Director may make an annual grant from the Crime Victims Fund to support crime victim assistance programs. An amendment was made to VOCA to include offers of assistance to crime victims in the District of Columbia, theCommonwealth of Puerto Rico, the United States Virgin Islands, and any other U.S. territory.[132] VOCA also provides for compensation and assistance to victims of terrorism or mass violence.[133] This was amended to allow the Director to make supplemental grants to States for eligible crime victim compensation and assistance programs, and to victim service organizations, public agencies (including Federal, State, or local governments) and non-governmental organizations that provide assistance to victims of crime. The funds could be used to provide emergency relief, including crisis response efforts, assistance, compensation, training and technical assistance for investigations and prosecutions of terrorism.[134]
Title VII: Increased information sharing for critical infrastructure protection
Title VII has one section. The purpose of this title is to increase the ability of U.S. law enforcement to counter terrorist activity that crosses jurisdictional boundaries. It does this by amending the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 to include terrorism as a criminal activity.
Title VIII alters the definitions of terrorism, and establishes or re-defines rules with which to deal with it. It redefined the term “domestic terrorism” to broadly include mass destruction as well as assassination or kidnapping as a terrorist activity. The definition also encompasses activities that are “dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State” and are intended to “intimidate or coerce a civilian population,” “influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion,” or are undertaken “to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping” while in the jurisdiction of the United States.[135] Terrorism is also included in the definition of racketeering.[136] Terms relating to cyber-terrorism are also redefined, including the term “protected computer,” “damage,” “conviction,” “person,” and “loss.”[137]
New penalties were created to convict those who attack mass transportation systems. If the offender committed such an attack while no passenger was on board, they are fined and imprisoned for a maximum of 20 years. However, if the activity was undertaken while the mass transportation vehicle or ferry was carrying a passenger at the time of the offense, or the offense resulted in the death of any person, then the punishment is a fine and life imprisonment.[138] The title amends the biological weapons statute to define the use of a biological agent, toxin, or delivery system as a weapon, other than when it is used for “prophylactic, protective,bona fide research, or other peaceful purposes.” Penalties for anyone who cannot prove reasonably that they are using a biological agent, toxin or delivery system for these purposes are 10 years imprisonment, a fine or both.[139]
A number of measures were introduced in an attempt to prevent and penalize activities that are deemed to support terrorism. It was made a crime to harbor or conceal terrorists, and those who do are subject to a fine or imprisonment of up to 10 years, or both.[140] U.S. forfeiture law was also amended to allow authorities to seize all foreign and domestic assets from any group or individual that is caught planning to commit acts of terrorism against the U.S. or U.S. citizens. Assets may also be seized if they have been acquired or maintained by an individual or organization for the purposes of further terrorist activities.[141] One section of the Act (section 805) prohibited “material support” for terrorists, and in particular included “expert advice or assistance.”[142] This was struck down as unconstitutional by aU.S. Federal Court after the Humanitarian Law Project filed a civil action against the U.S. government. The court found that it violated the First and Fifth Amendments to the United States Constitution and the provision was so vague it would cause a person of average intelligence to have to guess whether they were breaking the law, thus leading to a potential situation where a person was charged for an offense that they had no way of knowing was illegal. The court found that this could potentially have the effect of allowing arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement of the law, as well as possible chilling effects on First Amendment rights.[143][144] Congress later improved the law by defining the definitions of the “material support or resources,” “training,” and “expert advise or resources.”[145]
Cyberterrorism was dealt with in various ways. Penalties apply to those who either damage or gain unauthorized access to a protected computer and then commit a number of offenses. These offenses include causing a person to lose an aggregate amount greater than US$5,000, as well as adversely affecting someone’s medical examination, diagnosis or treatment. It also encompasses actions that cause a person to be injured, a threat to public health or safety, or damage to a governmental computer that is used as a tool to administer justice, national defense or national security. Also prohibited was extortion undertaken via a protected computer. The penalty for attempting to damage protected computers through the use of viruses or other software mechanism was set to imprisonment for up to 10 years, while the penalty for unauthorized access and subsequent damage to a protected computer was increased to more than five years imprisonment. However, should the offense occur a second time, the penalty increases up to 20 years imprisonment.[146] The act also specified the development and support of cybersecurity forensic capabilities. It directs the Attorney General to establish regional computer forensic laboratories that have the capability of performing forensic examinations of intercepted computer evidence relating to criminal activity and cyberterrorism, and that have the capability of training and educating Federal, State, and local law enforcement personnel and prosecutors in computer crime, and to “facilitate and promote the sharing of Federal law enforcement expertise and information about the investigation, analysis, and prosecution of computer-related crime with State and local law enforcement personnel and prosecutors, including the use of multijurisdictional task forces.” The sum of $50,000,000 was authorized for establishing such labs.[147]
Title IX amends the National Security Act of 1947 to require the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) to establish requirements and priorities for foreign intelligence collected under FISA and to provide assistance to the United States Attorney General to ensure that information derived from electronic surveillance or physical searches is disseminated for efficient and effective foreign intelligence purposes.[148] With the exception of information that might jeopardize an ongoing law enforcement investigation, it was made a requirement that the Attorney General, or the head of any other department or agency of the Federal Government with law enforcement responsibilities, disclose to the Director any foreign intelligence acquired by the U.S. Department of Justice. The Attorney General and Director of Central Intelligence were directed to develop procedures for the Attorney General to follow in order to inform the Director, in a timely manner, of any intention of investigating criminal activity of a foreign intelligence source or potential foreign intelligence source based on the intelligence tip-off of a member of the intelligence community. The Attorney General was also directed to develop procedures on how to best administer these matters.[149] International terrorist activities were made to fall within the scope of foreign intelligence under the National Security Act.[150]
A number of reports were commissioned relating to various intelligence-related government centers. One was commissioned into the best way of setting up theNational Virtual Translation Center, with the goal of developing automated translation facilities to assist with the timely and accurate translation of foreign intelligence information for elements of the U.S. intelligence community.[151] The USA PATRIOT Act required this to be provided on February 1, 2002, however the report, entitled “Director of Central Intelligence Report on the National Virtual Translation Center: A Concept Plan to Enhance the Intelligence Community’s Foreign Language Capabilities, April 29, 2002” was received more than two months late, which the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence reported was “a delay which, in addition to contravening the explicit words of the statute, deprived the Committee of timely and valuable input into its efforts to craft this legislation.”[152] Another report was commissioned on the feasibility and desirability of reconfiguring the Foreign Terrorist Asset Tracking Center and the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the Department of the Treasury.[153] It was due by February 1, 2002 however, it was never written. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence later complained that “[t]he Director of Central Intelligence and the Secretary of the Treasury failed to provide a report, this time in direct contravention of a section of the USA PATRIOT Act” and they further directed “that the statutorily-directed report be completed immediately, and that it should include a section describing the circumstances which led to the Director’s failure to comply with lawful reporting requirements.”[154]
Other measures allowed certain reports on intelligence and intelligence-related matters to be deferred until either February 1, 2002 or a date after February 1, 2002 if the official involved certified that preparation and submission on February 1, 2002, would impede the work of officers or employees engaged in counterterrorism activities. Any such deferral required congressional notification before it was authorized.[155] The Attorney General was charged with training officials in identifying and utilizing foreign intelligence information properly in the course of their duties. The government officials include those in the Federal Government who do not normally encounter or disseminate foreign intelligence in the performance of their duties, and State and local government officials who encounter, or potentially may encounter in the course of a terrorist event, foreign intelligence in the performance of their duties.[156] A sense of Congress was expressed that officers and employees of the intelligence community should be encouraged to make every effort to establish and maintain intelligence relationships with any person, entity, or group while they conduct lawful intelligence activities.[150]
Title X created or altered a number of miscellaneous laws that did not really fit into the any other section of the USA PATRIOT Act. Hazmat licenses were limited to drivers who pass background checks and who can demonstrate they can handle the materials.[157] The Inspector General of the Department of Justice was directed to appoint an official to monitor, review and report back to Congress all allegations of civil rights abuses against the DoJ.[158] It amended the definition of “electronic surveillance” to exclude the interception of communications done through or from a protected computer where the owner allows the interception, or is lawfully involved in an investigation.[159] Money laundering cases may now be brought in the district the money laundering was committed or where a money laundering transfer started from.[160] Aliens who committed money laundering were also prohibited from entering the U.S.[161] Grants were provided to first responders to assist them with responding to and preventing terrorism.[162] US$5,000,000 was authorized to be provided to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to train police inSouth and East Asia.[163] The Attorney General was directed to commission a study on the feasibility of using biometric identifiers to identify people as they attempt to enter the United States, and which would be connected to the FBI’s database to flag suspected criminals.[164] Another study was also commissioned to determine the feasibility of providing airlines names of suspected terrorists before they boarded flights.[165] The Department of Defense was given temporary authority to use their funding for private contracts for security purposes.[166] The last title also created a new Act called the Crimes Against Charitable Americans Act[167] which amended the Telemarketing and Consumer Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act to require telemarketers who call on behalf of charities to disclose the purpose and other information, including the name and mailing address of the charity the telemarketer is representing.[168] It also increased the penalties from one year imprisonment to five years imprisonment for those committing fraud by impersonating a Red Cross member.[169]
Reauthorizations
The USA PATRIOT Act was reauthorized by three bills. The first, the USA PATRIOT and Terrorism Prevention Reauthorization Act of 2005, was passed by both houses of Congress in July 2005. This bill reauthorized provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act and the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. It created new provisions relating to the death penalty for terrorists,[170] enhancing security at seaports,[171] new measures to combat the financing of terrorism,[172]new powers for the Secret Service,[173] anti-methamphetamine initiatives[174] and a number of other miscellaneous provisions. The second reauthorization act, theUSA PATRIOT Act Additional Reauthorizing Amendments Act of 2006, amended the first and was passed in February 2006.
The first act reauthorized all but two of the provisions of Title II that would have expired. Two sections were changed to sunset on December 31, 2009: section 206—the roving wiretap provision—and section 215, which allowed access to business records under FISA. Section 215 was amended further regardless so as to give greater judicial oversight and review. Such orders were also restricted to be authorized by only the FBI Director, the FBI Deputy Director, or the Executive Assistant Director for National Security, and minimization procedures were specified to limit the dissemination and collection of such information. Section 215 also had a “gag” provision, which was changed to allow the defendant to contact their Attorney.[175] However, the change also meant that the defendant was also made to tell the FBI who he (or she) was disclosing the order to—this requirement was removed by the USA PATRIOT Act Additional Reauthorizing Amendments Act.[176]
On Saturday, February 27, 2010, President Barack Obama signed into law legislation that would temporarily extend for one year three controversial provisions of the Patriot Act that had been set to expire:[177][178][179]
Authorize court-approved roving wiretaps that permit surveillance on multiple phones.
Allow court-approved seizure of records and property in anti-terrorism operations.
Permit surveillance against a so-called lone wolf, a non-U.S. citizen engaged in terrorism who may not be part of a recognized terrorist group.[180]
In a vote on February 8, 2011, the House of Representatives considered a further extension of the Act through the end of 2011.[181] House leadership moved the extension bill under suspension of the rules, which is intended for noncontroversial legislation and requires two-thirds majority to pass.[181] After the vote, the extension bill did not pass; 277 members voted in favor, which was less than the 290 votes needed to pass the bill under suspension of the rules.[181] Without an extension, the Act was set to expire on February 28, 2011. However, it eventually passed, 275-144.[182] The FISA Sunsets Extension Act of 2011 was signed into law February 25, 2011.
On May 26, 2011, President Barack Obama used an Autopen to sign the PATRIOT Sunsets Extension Act of 2011, a four-year extension of three key provisions in the USA PATRIOT Act while he was in France:[2]roving wiretaps, searches of business records (the “library records provision“), and conducting surveillance of “lone wolves”—individuals suspected of terrorist-related activities not linked to terrorist groups.[3] Republican leaders[183] questioned if the use of the Autopen met the constitutional requirements for signing a bill into law.[184]
As NSL provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act had been struck by the courts[126] the reauthorization Act amended the law in an attempt to make them lawful. It provided for judicial review and the legal right of a recipient to challenge the validity of the letter. The reauthorization act still allowed NSLs to be closed and all evidence to be presented in camera and ex parte.[185] Gag provisions were maintained, but were not automatic. They only occurred when the Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI or a Special Agent in Charge in a Bureau field office certified that disclosure would result in “a danger to the national security of the United States, interference with a criminal, counterterrorism, or counterintelligence investigation, interference with diplomatic relations, or danger to the life or physical safety of any person”.[186] However, should there be no non-disclosure order, the defendant can disclose the fact of the NSL to anyone who can render them assistance in carrying out the letter, or to an attorney for legal advice. Again, however, the recipient was ordered to inform the FBI of such a disclosure.[186] Because of the concern over the chilling effects of such a requirement, the Additional Reauthorization Amendments Act removed the requirement to inform the FBI that the recipient spoke about the NSL to their Attorney.[187] Later, the Additional Reauthorization Amendments Act excluded libraries from receiving NSLs, except where they provide electronic communications services.[188] The reauthorization Act also ordered the Attorney General submit a report semi-annually to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, the House and Senate Intelligence Committees and the House Committee on Financial Services and the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs on all NSL request made under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.[189]
Changes were made to the roving wiretap provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act. Applications and orders for such wiretaps must describe the specific target of the electronic surveillance if the identity of the target is not known. If the nature and location of each of the facilities or places targeted for surveillance is not known, then after 10 days the agency must provide notice to the court. The notice must include the nature and location of each new facility or place at which the electronic surveillance was directed. It must also describe the facts and circumstances relied upon by the applicant to justify the applicant’s belief that each new surveillance place or facility under surveillance is or was being used by the target of the surveillance. The applicant must also provide a statement detailing any proposed minimization procedures that differ from those contained in the original application or order, that may be necessitated by a change in the facility or place at which the electronic surveillance is directed. Applicants must detail the total number of electronic surveillances that have been or are being conducted under the authority of the order.[190]
Section 213 of the USA PATRIOT Act was modified. Previously it stated that delayed notifications would be made to recipients of “sneak and peek” searches in a “reasonable period”. This was seen as unreasonable, as it was undefined and could potentially be used indefinitely. Thus, the reauthorization act changed this to a period not exceeding 30 days after the date of the execution of the search warrant. Courts were given the opportunity to extend this period if they were provided good cause to do so. Section 213 states that delayed notifications could be issued if there is “reasonable cause to believe that providing immediate notification of the execution of the warrant may have an adverse result”. This was criticized, particularly by the ACLU, for allowing potential abuse by law enforcement agencies[191] and was later amended to prevent a delayed notification “if the adverse results consist only of unduly delaying a trial.”.[192] On September 26, 2007 the Sneak and Peak provisions of the USA PATRIOT ACT were struck down, however, by an Oregon US District Court in an opinion indicating the provisions gave too much power to the Executive in the face of the 4th Amendment.[193]
The reauthorization act also legislates increased congressional oversight for emergency disclosures by communication providers undertaken under section 212 of the USA PATRIOT Act.[194] The duration of FISA surveillance and physical search orders were increased. Surveillance performed against “lone wolf terrorists” under section 207 of the USA PATRIOT Act were increased to 120 days for an initial order, while pen registers and trap and trace device extensions under FISA were increased from 90 days to a year. The reauthorization act also increased congressional oversight, requiring a semi-annual report into physical searches and the use of pen registers and trap and trace devices under FISA.[195] The “lone wolf terrorist” provision (Section 207) was a sunset provision that also was to have expired, however this was enhanced by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. The reauthorization act extended the expiration date to December 31, 2009.[196] The amendment to material support law done in the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act[145] was also made permanent.[197] The definition of terrorism was further expanded to include receiving military-type training from a foreign terrorist organization and narcoterrorism.[198] Other provisions of the reauthorization act was to merge the law outlawing train wrecking (18 U.S.C.§ 992) and the law outlawing attacks on mass transportation systems (18 U.S.C.§ 1993) into a new section of Title 18 of the U.S. Code (18 U.S.C.§ 1992) and also to criminalize the act of planning a terrorist attack against a mass transport system.[199][200]Forfeiture law was further changed and now assets within U.S. jurisdiction will be seized for illegally trafficking in nuclear, chemical, biological or radiological weapons technology or material, if such offense is punishable under foreign law by death or imprisonment for a term exceeding one year. Alternatively, this applies if similar punishment would be so punishable if committed within the U.S.[201] A sense of Congress was further expressed that victims of terrorism should be entitled to the forfeited assets of terrorists.[202]
The USA PATRIOT Act has generated a great deal of controversy since its enactment.
Opponents of the Act have been quite vocal in asserting that it was passed opportunistically after the September 11 attacks, believing that there would have been little debate. They view the Act as one that was hurried through the Senate with little change before it was passed. (Senators Patrick Leahy and Russell Feingoldproposed amendments to modify the final revision.)[15][203][204]
The sheer magnitude of the Act itself was noted by Michael Moore in his controversial film Fahrenheit 9/11. In one of the scenes of the movie, he records Congressman Jim McDermott alleging that no Senator had read the bill[205] and John Conyers, Jr. as saying, “We don’t read most of the bills. Do you really know what that would entail if we read every bill that we passed?” Congressman Conyers then answers his own rhetorical question, asserting that if they did it would “slow down the legislative process”.[206] As a dramatic device, Moore then hired an ice-cream van and drove around Washington, D.C. with a loud speaker, reading out the Act to puzzled passers-by, which included a few Senators.[207]
However, Moore was not the only commentator to notice that not many people had read the Act. When Dahlia Lithwick and Julia Turne for Slate asked, “How bad is PATRIOT, anyway?”, they decided that it was “hard to tell” and stated:
The ACLU, in a new fact sheet challenging the DOJ Web site, wants you to believe that the act threatens our most basic civil liberties. Ashcroft and his roadies call the changes in law “modest and incremental.” Since almost nobody has read the legislation, much of what we think we know about it comes third-hand and spun. Both advocates and opponents are guilty of fear-mongering and distortion in some instances.[208]
One prime example of a controversy of the Patriot Act is shown in the case of Susan Lindauer.
Another is the recent court case United States v. Antoine Jones. A nightclub owner was linked to a drug trafficking stash house via a law enforcement GPS tracking device attached to his car. It was placed there without a warrant, which caused a serious conviction obstacle for federal prosecutors in court. Through the years the case rose all the way to the United States Supreme Court where the conviction was overturned in favor of the defendant. The court found that increased monitoring of suspects caused by such legislation like the Patriot Act directly put the suspects’ Constitutional rights in jeopardy.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has criticized the law as unconstitutional, especially when “the private communications of law-abiding American citizens might be intercepted incidentally”,[209] while the Electronic Frontier Foundation held that the lower standard applied to wiretaps “gives the FBI a ‘blank check’ to violate the communications privacy of countless innocent Americans”.[48] Others do not find the roving wiretap legislation to be as concerning. Professor David D. Cole of the Georgetown University Law Center, a critic of many of the provisions of the Act, found that though they come at a cost to privacy are a sensible measure[210] while Paul Rosenzweig, a Senior Legal Research Fellow in the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation, argues that roving wiretaps are just a response to rapidly changing communication technology that is not necessarily fixed to a specific location or device.[211]
The Act also allows access to voicemail through a search warrant rather than through a title III wiretap order.[212] James Dempsey, of the CDT, believes that it unnecessarily overlooks the importance of notice under the Fourth Amendment and under a Title III wiretap,[213] and the EFF criticizes the provision’s lack of notice. However, the EFF’s criticism is more extensive—they believe that the amendment “is in possible violation of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution” because previously if the FBI listened to voicemail illegally, it could not use the messages in evidence against the defendant.[214] Others disagree with these assessments. Professor Orin Kerr, of the George Washington University school of law, believes that the ECPA “adopted a rather strange rule to regulate voicemail stored with service providers” because “under ECPA, if the government knew that there was one copy of an unopened private message in a person’s bedroom and another copy on their remotely stored voicemail, it was illegal for the FBI to simply obtain the voicemail; the law actually compelled the police to invade the home and rifle through peoples’ bedrooms so as not to disturb the more private voicemail.” In Professor Kerr’s opinion, this made little sense and the amendment that was made by the USA PATRIOT Act was reasonable and sensible.[215][216]
The USA PATRIOT Act’s expansion of court jurisdiction to allow the nationwide service of search warrants proved controversial for the EFF.[217] They believe that agencies will be able to “‘shop’ for judges that have demonstrated a strong bias toward law enforcement with regard to search warrants, using only those judges least likely to say no—even if the warrant doesn’t satisfy the strict requirements of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution”,[218] and that it reduces the likelihood that smaller ISPs or phone companies will try to protect the privacy of their clients by challenging the warrant in court—their reasoning is that “a small San Francisco ISP served with such a warrant is unlikely to have the resources to appear before the New York court that issued it.”[218] They believe that this is bad because only the communications provider will be able to challenge the warrant as only they will know about it—many warrants are issued ex parte, which means that the target of the order is not present when the order is issued.[218]
For a time, the USA PATRIOT Act allowed for agents to undertake “sneak and peek” searches.[43] Critics such as EPIC and the ACLU strongly criticized the law for violating the Fourth Amendment,[219] with the ACLU going so far as to release an advertisement condemning it and calling for it to be repealed.[220][221]
However supporters of the amendment, such as Heather Mac Donald, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and contributing editor to the New York City Journal, expressed the belief that it was necessary because the temporary delay in notification of a search order stops terrorists from tipping off counterparts who are being investigated.[222]
In 2004, FBI agents used this provision to search and secretly examine the home of Brandon Mayfield, who was wrongfully jailed for two weeks on suspicion of involvement in the Madrid train bombings. While the U.S. Government did publicly apologize to Mayfield and his family,[223] Mayfield took it further through the courts. On September 26, 2007, Judge Ann Aiken found the law was, in fact, unconstitutional as the search was an unreasonable imposition on Mayfield and thus violated the Fourth Amendment.[44][45]
Laws governing the material support of terrorism proved contentious. It was criticized by the EFF for infringement of freedom of association. The EFF argues that had this law been enacted during Apartheid, U.S. citizens would not have been able to support the African National Congress (ANC) as the EFF believe the ANC would have been classed as a terrorist organization. They also used the example of a humanitarian social worker being unable to train Hamas members how to care for civilian children orphaned in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, a lawyer being unable to teach IRA members about international law, and peace workers being unable to offer training in effective peace negotiations or how to petition the United Nations regarding human rights abuses.[224]
Another group, the Humanitarian Law Project, also objected to the provision prohibiting “expert advise and assistance” to terrorists and filed a suit against the U.S. government to have it declared unconstitutional. They succeeded, and a Federal Court found that the law was vague enough to cause a reasonable person to guess whether they were breaking the law or not. Thus they found it violated the First Amendment rights of U.S. citizens, and struck it down.[143][144]
Perhaps one of the biggest controversies involved the use of NSLs by the FBI. Because they allow the FBI to search telephone, email, and financial records without a court order, they were criticized by many parties.[225][226][227][228] In November 2005, BusinessWeek reported that the FBI had issued tens of thousands of NSLs and had obtained one million financial, credit, employment, and in some cases, health records from the customers of targeted Las Vegas businesses. Selected businesses included casinos, storage warehouses and car rental agencies. An anonymous Justice official claimed that such requests were permitted under section 505 of the USA PATRIOT Act and despite the volume of requests insisted “We are not inclined to ask courts to endorse fishing expeditions”.[229] Before this was revealed, however, the ACLU challenged the constitutionality of NSLs in court. In April 2004, they filed suit against the government on behalf of an unknown Internet Service Provider who had been issued an NSL, for reasons unknown. In ACLU v. DoJ, the ACLU argued that the NSL violated the First and Fourth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution because the USA PATRIOT Act failed to spell out any legal process whereby a telephone or Internet company could try to oppose an NSL subpoena in court. The court agreed, and found that because the recipient of the subpoena could not challenge it in court it was unconstitutional.[126] Congress later tried to remedy this in a reauthorization Act, but because they did not remove the non-disclosure provision a Federal court again found NSLs to be unconstitutional because they prevented courts from engaging in meaningful judicial review.[230][231][232]
Another provision of the USA PATRIOT Act has caused a great deal of consternation amongst librarians. Section 215 allows the FBI to apply for an order to produce materials that assist in an investigation undertaken to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities. Among the “tangible things” that could be targeted, it includes “books, records, papers, documents, and other items”.[49]
Supporters of the provision point out that these records are held by third parties, and therefore are exempt from a citizen’s reasonable expectations of privacy and also maintain that the FBI has not abused the provision.[233] As proof, then Attorney General John Ashcroft released information in 2003 that showed that section 215 orders had never been used.[234]
However, despite protestations to the contrary, the American Library Association strongly objected to the provision, believing that library records are fundamentally different from ordinary business records, and that the provision would have a chilling effect on free speech. The association became so concerned that they formed a resolution condemning the USA PATRIOT Act, and which urged members to defend free speech and protect patrons’ privacy.[235]
They urged librarians to seek legal advice before complying with a search order and advised their members to only keeping records for as long as was legally needed.[236]
Consequently, reports started filtering in that librarians were shredding records to avoid having to comply with such orders.[237][238][239]
In 2005, Library Connection, a nonprofit consortium of 27 libraries in Connecticut, known as the Connecticut Four worked with the ACLU to lift a gag order for library records, challenging the government’s power under Section 505 to silence four citizens who wished to contribute to public debate on the PATRIOT Act. This case became known as Doe v. Gonzales. In May 2006, the government finally gave up its legal battle to maintain the gag order. In a summary of the actions of the Connecticut Four and their challenge to the USA PATRIOT Act, Jones (2009: 223) notes: “Librarians need to understand their country’s legal balance between the protection of freedom of expression and the protection of national security. Many librarians believe that the interests of national security, important as they are, have become an excuse for chilling the freedom to read.”[240]
Another controversial aspect of the USA PATRIOT Act is the immigration provisions that allow for the indefinite detention of any alien who the Attorney General believes may cause a terrorist act.[109] Before the USA PATRIOT Act was passed, Anita Ramasastry, an associate professor of law and a director of the Shidler Center for Law, Commerce, & Technology at the University of Washington School of Law in Seattle, Washington, accused the Act of depriving basic rights for immigrants to America, including legal permanent residents. She warned that “Indefinite detention upon secret evidence—which the USA PATRIOT Act allows—sounds more like Taliban justice than ours. Our claim that we are attempting to build an international coalition against terrorism will be severely undermined if we pass legislation allowing even citizens of our allies to be incarcerated without basic U.S. guarantees of fairness and justice.”[241] Many other parties have also been strongly critical of the provision. Russell Feingold, in a Senate floor statement, claimed that the provision “falls short of meeting even basic constitutional standards of due process and fairness [as it] continues to allow the Attorney General to detain persons based on mere suspicion”.[242] The University of California passed a resolution condemning (amongst other things) the indefinite detention provisions of the Act,[243] while the ACLU has accused the Act of giving the Attorney General “unprecedented new power to determine the fate of immigrants … Worse, if the foreigner does not have a country that will accept them, they can be detained indefinitely without trial.”[244]
Another controversial aspect of the USA PATRIOT Act is its effect on the privacy of Canadians living in the province of British Columbia (B.C.). British Columbia’s privacy commissioner raises concerns that the USA PATRIOT Act will allow the United States government to access Canadians’ private information, such as personal medical records, that are outsourced to American companies. Although the government of B.C. has taken measures to prevent United States authorities from obtaining information, the widespread powers of the USA PATRIOT Act could overcome legislation that is passed in Canada.[245] B.C. Privacy Commissioner David Loukidelis stated in a report on the consequences of the USA PATRIOT Act, “once information is sent across borders, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to control”.[246]
In an effort to maintain their privacy, British Columbia placed amendments on the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIPPA), which was enacted as law on October 21, 2004. These amendments aim to place more firm limitations on “storing, accessing, and disclosing of B.C. public sector data by service providers.”[247] These laws only pertain to public sector data and do not cover trans-border or private sector data in Canada. The public sector establishments include an estimated 2,000 “government ministries, hospitals, boards of health, universities and colleges, school boards, municipal governments and certain Crown corporations and agencies.”[247] In response to these laws, many companies are now specifically opting to host their sensitive data outside the United States.[248]
Legal action has been taken in Nova Scotia to protect the province from the USA PATRIOT Act’s data collecting methods. On November 15, 2007 the government of Nova Scotia passed a legislation aimed to protect Nova Scotians’ personal information from being brought forward by the USA PATRIOT Act. The act was entitled “The new Personal Information International Disclosure Protection Act”. The goal of the act is to establish requirements to protect personal information from being revealed, as well as punishments for failing to do so. Justice Minister Murray Scott stated, “This legislation will help ensure that Nova Scotians’ personal information will be protected. The act outlines the responsibilities of public bodies, municipalities and service providers and the consequences if these responsibilities are not fulfilled.”[216][249] In the 1980s, the Bank of Nova Scotia was the center of an early, pre-Internet data-access case that led to the disclosure of banking records.[citation needed]
After suspected abuses of the USA PATRIOT Act were brought to light in June 2013 with articles about collection of American call records by the NSA and thePRISM program (see 2013 mass surveillance disclosures), Representative Jim Sensenbrenner, Republican of Wisconsin, who introduced the Patriot Act in 2001, said that the National Security Agency overstepped its bounds.[250] He released a statement saying “While I believe the Patriot Act appropriately balanced national security concerns and civil rights, I have always worried about potential abuses.” He added: “Seizing phone records of millions of innocent people is excessive and un-American.”[250][251]
The ultimate goal of this provision is to protect people’s right to privacy and freedom from arbitrary governmental intrusions. Private intrusions not acting in the color of governmental authority are exempted from the Fourth Amendment.
A seizure of a person, within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, occurs when the police’s conduct would communicate to a reasonable person, taking into account the circumstances surrounding the encounter, that the person is not free to ignore the police presence and leave at his will.
Two elements must be present to constitute a seizure of a person. First, there must be a show of authority by the police officer. Presence of handcuffs or weapons, the use of forceful language, and physical contact are each strong indicators of authority. Second, the person being seized must submit to the authority. An individual who ignores the officer’s request and walks away has not been seized for Fourth Amendmentpurposes.
An arrest warrant is preferred but not required to make a lawful arrest under the Fourth Amendment. Awarrantlessarrest may be justified where probable cause and urgent need are present prior to the arrest. Probable cause is present when the police officer has a reasonable belief in the guilt of the suspect based on the facts and information prior to the arrest. For instance, a warrantlessarrest may be legitimate in situations where a police officer has a probable belief that a suspect has either committed a crime or is a threat to the public security. Also, a police officer might arrest a suspect to prevent the suspect’s escape or to preserve evidence. A warrantlessarrest may be invalidated if the police officer fails to demonstrate exigent circumstances.
There are investigatory stops that fall short of arrests, but nonetheless, they fall within Fourth Amendment protection. For instance, police officers can perform a terry stop or a traffic stop. Usually, these stops provide officers with less dominion and controlling power and impose less of an infringement of personal liberty for individual stopped. Investigatory stops must be temporary questioning for limited purposes and conducted in a manner necessary to fulfill the purpose.
An officer’s reasonable suspicion is sufficient to justify brief stops and detentions. To determine if the officer has met the standard to justify the seizure, the court takes into account the totality of the circumstances and examines whether the officer has a particularized and reasonable belief for suspecting the wrongdoing. Probable cause gained during stops or detentions might effectuate a subsequent warrantlessarrest.
The warrant requirement may be excused in exigent circumstances if an officer has probable cause and obtaining a warrant is impractical. For instance, in State v. Helmbright 990 N.E.2d 154, Ohio court held that a warrantlesssearch of probationer’s person or place of residence complies with the Fourth Amendment if the officer who conducts the search possesses “reasonable grounds” to believe that the probationer has failed to comply with the terms of his probation.
There is no general exception to the Fourth Amendmentwarrant requirement in national security cases. Warrantlesssearches are generally not permitted in exclusively domestic security cases. In foreign security cases, court opinions might differ on whether to accept the foreign security exception to warrant requirement generally and, if accepted, whether the exception should include both physical searches and electronic surveillance.
In cases of warrantlesssearches and seizures, the court will try to balance the degree of intrusion on the individual’s right to privacy and the need to promote government interests and special needs. The court will examine the totality of the circumstances to determine if the search or seizure was justified. When analyzing the reasonableness standard, the court uses an objective assessment and considers factors including the degree of intrusion by the search or seizure and the manner in which the search or seizure is conducted. V. EXCLUSIONARY RULE
Under the exclusionary rule, any evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment will be excluded from criminal proceedings. There are a few exceptions to this rule.
VI. ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE
In recent years, the Fourth Amendment‘s applicability in electronic searches and seizures has received much attention from the courts. With the advent of the internet and increased popularity of computers, there has been an increasing amount of crime occurring electronically. Consequently, evidence of such crime can often be found on computers, hard drives, or other electronic devices. The Fourth Amendment applies to the search and seizure of electronic devices.
Many electronic search cases involve whether law enforcement can search a company-owned computer that an employee uses to conduct business. Although the case law is split, the majority holds that employees do not have a legitimate expectation of privacy with regard to information stored on a company-owned computer. In the 2010 case of City of Ontario v. Quon (08-1332), the Supreme Court extended this lack of an expectation of privacy to text messages sent and received on an employer-owned pager.
Following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Congress and the President enacted legislation to strengthen the intelligence gathering community’s ability to combat domestic terrorism. Entitled the USA Patriot Act, the legislation’s provisions aimed to increase the ability of law enforcement to search email and telephonic communications in addition to medical, financial, and library records.
One provision permits law enforcement to obtain access to stored voicemails by obtaining a basic search warrant rather than a surveillance warrant. Obtaining a basic search warrant requires a much lower evidentiary showing. A highly controversial provision of the Act includes permission for law enforcement to use sneak-and-peak warrants. A sneak-and-peak warrant is a warrant in which law enforcement can delay notifying the property owner about the warrant’s issuance. In an Oregon federal district court case that drew national attention, Judge Ann Aiken struck down the use of sneak-and-peak warrants as unconstitutional and in violation of the Fourth Amendment. See 504 F.Supp.2d 1023 (D. Or. 2007).
The Patriot Act also expanded the practice of using National Security Letters (NSL). An NSL is an administrative subpoena that requires certain persons, groups, organizations, or companies to provide documents about certain persons. These documents typically involve telephone, email, and financial records. NSLs also carry a gag order, meaning the person or persons responsible for complying cannot mention the existence of the NSL. Under the Patriot Act provisions, law enforcement can use NSLs when investigating U.S. citizens, even when law enforcement does not think the individual under investigation has committed a crime. The Department of Homeland Security has used NSLs frequently since its inception. By using an NSL, an agency has no responsibility to first obtain a warrant or court order before conducting its search of records.
NSA Whistle-blower William Binney: The Future of FREEDOM
A 36-year veteran of America’s Intelligence Community, William Binney resigned from his position as Director for Global Communications Intelligence (COMINT) at the National Security Agency (NSA) and blew the whistle, after discovering that his efforts to protect the privacy and security of Americans were being undermined by those above him in the chain of command.
The NSA data-monitoring program which Binney and his team had developed — codenamed ThinThread — was being aimed not at foreign targets as intended, but at Americans (codenamed as Stellar Wind); destroying privacy here and around the world. Binney voices his call to action for the billions of individuals whose rights are currently being violated.
William Binney speaks out in this feature-length interview with Tragedy and Hope’s Richard Grove, focused on the topic of the ever-growing Surveillance State in America.
On January 22, 2015: (Berlin, Germany) – The Government Accountability Project (GAP) is proud to announce that retired NSA Technical Director and GAP client, William “Bill” Binney, will accept the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence Award today in Berlin, Germany. The award is presented annually by the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence (SAAII) to a professional who has taken a strong stand for ethics and integrity. http://whistleblower.org/press/nsa-wh…
NSA Whistle-blower: Everyone in US under virtual surveillance, all info stored, no matter the post
Former NSA Head Exposes Agency’s Real Crimes
Edward Snowden, v 1.0: NSA Whistleblower William Binney Tells All
“Where I see it going is toward a totalitarian state,” says William Binney. “You’ve got the NSA doing all this collecting of material on all of its citizens – that’s what the SS, the Gestapo, the Stasi, the KGB, and the NKVD did.”
Binney is talking about the collection of various forms of personal data on American citizens by the National Security Agency (NSA), where he worked for 30 years before quitting in 2001 from his high-placed post as technical leader for intelligence. A registered Republican for most of his life, Binney volunteered for military service during the Vietnam War, which led to his being hired by the NSA in the early ’70s.
In 2002 – long before the revelations of Edward Snowden rocked the world – Binney and several former colleagues went to Congress and the Department of Defense, asking that the NSA be investigated. Not only was the super-secretive agency wasting taxpayer dollars on ineffective programs, they argued, it was broadly violating constitutional guarantees to privacy and due process.
The government didn’t just turn a blind eye to the agency’s activities; it later accused the whistleblowers of leaking state secrets. A federal investigation of Binney – including an FBI search and seizure of his home and office computers that destroyed his consulting business – exonerated him on all charges.
“We are a clear example that [going through] the proper channels doesn’t work,” says Binney, who approves of Edward Snowden’s strategy of going straight to the media. At the same time, Binney criticizes Snowden’s leaking of documents not directly related to the NSA’s surveillance of American citizens and violation of constitutional rights. Binney believes that the NSA is vital to national security but has been become unmoored due to technological advances that vastly extend its capabilities and leadership that has no use for limits on government power. “They took that program designed [to prevent terrorist attacks] and used it to spy on American citizens and everyone else in the world,” flatly declares Binney (33:30).
Binney sat down with Reason TV’s Nick Gillespie to discuss “Trailblazer”, a data-collection program which was used on American citizens (1:00), why he thinks the NSA had the capability to stop the 9/11 attacks (7:00), his experience being raided by the FBI in 2007 (12:50), and why former President Gerald Ford, usually regarded as a hapless time-server, is one of his personal villians (41:25).
NSA Whistle-Blower Tells All: The Program | Op-Docs | The New York Times
William Binney: NSA had 9/11 foreknowledge
NSA Whistleblower Supports 9/11 Truth – William Binney and Richard Gage on GRTV
“The NSA Is Lying”: U.S. Government Has Copies of Most of Your Emails Says NSA Whistleblower
William Edward Binney[2] is a former highly placed intelligence official with the United States National Security Agency (NSA)[3] turned whistleblower who resigned on October 31, 2001, after more than 30 years with the agency. He was a high-profile critic of his former employers during the George W. Bush administration.
Binney continues to speak out during Barack Obama‘s presidency about the NSA’s data collection policies, and continues interviews in the media regarding his experiences and his views on communication intercepts by governmental agencies of American citizens. In a legal case, Binney has testified in an affidavit that the NSA is in deliberate violation of the U.S. Constitution.
Biography
Binney grew up in rural Pennsylvania and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from the Pennsylvania State University in 1970. He said that he volunteered for the Army during the Vietnam era in order to select work that would interest him rather than be drafted and have no input. He was found to have strong aptitudes for mathematics, analysis, and code-breaking,[4] and served four years from 1965–1969 at the Army Security Agency before going to the NSA in 1970. Binney was a Russia specialist and worked in the operations side of intelligence, starting as an analyst and ending as Technical Director prior to becoming a geopolitical world Technical Director. In the 1990s, he co-founded a unit on automating signals intelligence with NSA research chief Dr. John Taggart.[5] Binney’s NSA career culminated as Technical Leader for intelligence in 2001. Having expertise in intelligence analysis, traffic analysis, systems analysis, knowledge management, and mathematics (including set theory, number theory, and probability),[6] Binney has been described as one of the best analysts in the NSA’s history.[7] After retiring from the NSA he founded “Entity Mapping, LLC”, a private intelligence agency together with fellow NSA whistleblower J. Kirk Wiebe to market their analysis program to government agencies. NSA continued to retaliate against them, ultimately preventing them from getting work, or causing contracts they had secured to be terminated abruptly.[8]
Whistleblowing
Binney sitting in the offices ofDemocracy Now! in New York City, prior to appearing with hosts Amy Goodman, Juan Gonzalez, and guest Jacob Appelbaum. Photo taken byJacob Appelbaum.
In September 2002, he, along with J. Kirk Wiebe and Edward Loomis, asked the U.S. Defense Department to investigate the NSA for allegedly wasting “millions and millions of dollars” on Trailblazer, a system intended to analyze data carried on communications networks such as the Internet. Binney had been one of the inventors of an alternative system, ThinThread, which was shelved when Trailblazer was chosen instead. Binney has also been publicly critical of the NSA for spying on U.S. citizens, saying of its expanded surveillance after the September 11, 2001 attacks that “it’s better than anything that the KGB, the Stasi, or the Gestapo and SS ever had”[9] as well as noting Trailblazer’s ineffectiveness and unjustified high cost compared to the far less intrusive ThinThread.[10] He was furious that the NSA hadn’t uncovered the 9/11 plot and stated that intercepts it had collected but not analyzed likely would have garnered timely attention with his leaner more focused system.[7]
After he left the NSA in 2001, Binney was one of several people investigated as part of an inquiry into the 2005 New York Times exposé[11][12] on the agency’s warrantless eavesdropping program. Binney was cleared of wrongdoing after three interviews with FBI agents beginning in March 2007, but one morning in July 2007, a dozen agents armed with rifles appeared at his house, one of whom entered the bathroom and pointed his gun at Binney, still towelling off from a shower. In that raid, the FBI confiscated a desktop computer, disks, and personal and business records. The NSA revoked his security clearance, forcing him to close a business he ran with former colleagues at a loss of a reported $300,000 in annual income. In 2012, Binney and his co-plaintiffs went to federal court to get the items back. Binney spent more than $7,000 on legal fees.[13]
During interviews on Democracy Now! in April and May 2012[14] with elaboration in July 2012 at 2600’s hacker conference HOPE[4] and at DEF CON a couple weeks later,[15]Binney repeated estimates that the NSA (particularly its Stellar Wind project[16]) had intercepted 20 trillion communications “transactions” of Americans such as phone calls, emails, and other forms of data (but not including financial data). This includes most of the emails of US citizens. Binney disclosed in an affidavit for Jewel v. NSA[17] that the agency was “purposefully violating the Constitution”.[6] Binney also notes that he found out after retiring that the NSA was pursuing collect-it-all vs. targeted surveillance even before the 9/11 attacks.
Binney was invited as a witness by the NSA commission of the German Bundestag. On July 3, 2014 the Spiegel wrote, he said that the NSA wanted to have information about everything. In Binney’s view this is a totalitarian approach, which had previously been seen only in dictatorships.[18] Binney stated the goal was also to control people. Meanwhile, he said it is possible in principle to survey the whole population, abroad and in the US, which in his view contradicts the United States Constitution. In October 2001, shortly after the 9/11 attacks, the NSA began with its mass surveillance, he said. Therefore, he left the secret service shortly afterwards, after more than 30 years of employment. Binney mentioned that there were about 6000 analysts in the surveillance at NSA already during his tenure. According to him, everything changed after 9/11. The NSA used the attacks as a justification to start indiscriminate data collection. “This was a mistake. But they still do it”, he said. The secret service was saving the data as long as possible: “They do not discard anything. If they have anything they keep it.” Since then, the NSA has been saving collected data indefinitely. Binney said he deplored the NSA’s development of the past few years, to collect data not only on groups who are suspicious for criminal or terrorist activities. “We have moved away from the collection of these data to the collection of data of the 7 billion people on our planet.” Binney said he argued even then, to only pull relevant data from the cables. Access to the data was granted to departments of the government or the IRS.[18]
In August 2014 Binney was among the signatories of an open letter by the group Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity to German chancellor Angela Merkel in which they urged the Chancellor to be suspicious of U.S. intelligence regarding the alleged invasion of Russia in Eastern Ukraine.[19][20]
“An especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”[1]
Status
Active
Statistics
Established
1960
First awarded
1960
Distinct
recipients
unknown; an average of fewer than 11 per year since 1993 [2]
Service ribbon of the Presidential Medal of Freedom
(left: Medal with Distinction)
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is an award bestowed by the President of the United States and is—along with the comparable Congressional Gold Medal, bestowed by an act of U.S. Congress—the highest civilian award of the United States. It recognizes those individuals who have made “an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors”.[3] The award is not limited to U.S. citizens and, while it is a civilian award, it can also be awarded to military personnel and worn on the uniform.
It was established in 1963 and replaced the earlier Medal of Freedom that was established by President Harry S. Truman in 1945 to honor civilian service duringWorld War II.
History of the award
Similar in name to the Medal of Freedom,[3] but much closer in meaning and precedence to the Medal for Merit: the Presidential Medal of Freedom is currently the supreme civilian decoration in precedence, whereas the Medal of Freedom was inferior in precedence to the Medal for Merit; the Medal of Freedom was awarded by any of three Cabinet secretaries, whereas the Medal for Merit was awarded by the president, as is the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Another measure of the difference between these two similarly named but very distinct awards is their per-capita frequency of award: from 1946 to 1961 the average annual incidence of award of the Medal of Freedom was approximately 1 per every 86,500 adult U.S. citizens; from 1996 to 2011 the average annual incidence of award of the Presidential Medal of Freedom was approximately 1 per every 20,500,000 adult U.S. citizens (so on an annualized per capita basis, 240 Medals of Freedom have been awarded per one Presidential Medal of Freedom).[2][4]
President John F. Kennedy established the current decoration in 1963 through Executive Order11085, with unique and distinctive insignia, vastly expanded purpose, and far higher prestige.[1] It was the first U.S. civilian neck decoration and, in the grade of Awarded With Distinction, is the only U.S. sash and star decoration (the Chief Commander degree of the Legion of Merit – which may only be awarded to foreign heads of state – is a star decoration, but without a sash). The Executive Order calls for the medal to be awarded annually on or around July 4, and at other convenient times as chosen by the president,[5] but it has not been awarded every year (e.g., 2001, 2010). Recipients are selected by the president, either on his own initiative or based on recommendations. The order establishing the medal also expanded the size and the responsibilities of the Distinguished Civilian Service Awards Board so it could serve as a major source of such recommendations.
Medal andaccoutrementsincluding undress ribbon, miniature, and lapel badge.
Graphical representation of the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction
The badge of the Presidential Medal of Freedom is in the form of a golden star with white enamel, with a red enamel pentagon behind it; the central disc bears thirteen gold stars on a blue enamel background (taken from the Great Seal of the United States) within a golden ring. Golden American bald eagles with spread wings stand between the points of the star. It is worn around the neck on a blue ribbon with white edge stripes.
A special grade of the medal, known as the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction,[6] has a larger execution of the same medal design worn as a star on the left chest along with a sash over the right shoulder (similar to how the insignia of a Grand Cross is worn), with its rosette (blue with white edge, bearing the central disc of the medal at its center) resting on the left hip. When the medal With Distinction is awarded, the star may be presented depending from a neck ribbon and can be identified by its larger size than the standard medal (compare size of medals in pictures below; President Reagan’s was awarded With Distinction).
Both medals may also be worn in miniature form on a ribbon on the left chest, with a silver American bald eagle with spread wings on the ribbon, or a golden American bald eagle for a medal awarded With Distinction. In addition, the medal is accompanied by a service ribbon for wear on military service uniform, a miniature medal pendant for wear on mess dress or civilian formal wear, and a lapel badge for wear on civilian clothes (all shown in the accompanying photograph of the full presentation set).
Gordon B. Hinckleyreceiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from George W. Bush in 2004
Chita Rivera with President Barack Obamaprior to receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom, August 2009
President Barack Obama talks with Stephen Hawking in the Blue Room of the White House before a ceremony presenting him and 15 others the Presidential Medal of Freedom, August 12, 2009.
Through a PRISM, Darkly – Everything we know about NSA spying [30c3]
Published on Dec 30, 2013
Through a PRISM, Darkly
Everything we know about NSA spying
From Stellar Wind to PRISM, Boundless Informant to EvilOlive, the NSA spying programs are shrouded in secrecy and rubber-stamped by secret opinions from a court that meets in a faraday cage. The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Kurt Opsahl explains the known facts about how the programs operate and the laws and regulations the U.S. government asserts allows the NSA to spy on you.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit civil society organization, has been litigating against the NSA spying program for the better part of a decade. EFF has collected and reviewed dozens of documents, from the original NY Times stories in 2005 and the first AT&T whistleblower in 2006, through the latest documents released in the Guardian or obtained through EFF’s Freedom of Information (government transparency) litigation. EFF attorney Kurt Opsahl’s lecture will describe how the NSA spying program works, the underlying technologies, the targeting procedures (how they decide who to focus on), the minimization procedures (how they decide which information to discard), and help you makes sense of the many code names and acronyms in the news. He will also discuss the legal and policy ramifications that have become part of the public debate following the recent disclosures, and what you can do about it. After summarizing the programs, technologies, and legal/policy framework in the lecture, the audience can ask questions.
Speaker: Kurt Opsahl
EventID: 5255
Event: 30th Chaos Communication Congress [30c3] by the Chaos Computer Club [CCC]
Location: Congress Centrum Hamburg (CCH); Am Dammtor; Marseiller Straße; 20355 Hamburg; Germany
Language: english
Glenn Becks “SURVEILLANCE STATE”
Inside the NSA
Ed Snowden, NSA, and Fairy Tales
AT&T Spying On Internet Traffic
For years the National Securities Agency, has been spying on each & every keystroke. The national headquarters of AT&T is in Missouri, where ex-employees describe a secret room. The program is called “Splitter Cut-In & Test Procedure.”
NSA Whistle-Blower Tells All – Op-Docs: The Program
The filmmaker Laura Poitras profiles William Binney, a 32-year veteran of the National Security Agency who helped design a top-secret program he says is broadly collecting Americans’ personal data.
NSA Whistleblower: Everyone in US under virtual surveillance, all info stored, no matter the post
He told you so: Bill Binney talks NSA leaks
William Benny – The Government is Profiling You (The NSA is Spying on You)
‘After 9/11 NSA had secret deal with White House’
The story of Whistleblower Thomas Drake
Whistleblowers, Part Two: Thomas Drake
NSA Whistleblower Thomas Drake speaks at National Press Club – March 15, 2013
Meet Edward Snowden: NSA PRISM Whistleblower
The Truth About Edward Snowden
N.S.A. Spying: Why Does It Matter?
Inside The NSA~Americas Cyber Secrets
NSA Whistleblower Exposes Obama’s Dragnet
AT&T whistleblower against immunity for Bush spy program-1/2
AT&T Whistleblower Urges Against Immunity for Telecoms in Bush Spy Program
The Senate is expected to vote on a controversial measure to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act tomorrow. The legislation would rewrite the nation’s surveillance laws and authorize the National Security Agency’s secret program of warrantless wiretapping. We speak with Mark Klein, a technician with AT&T for over twenty-two years. In 2006 Klein leaked internal AT&T documents that revealed the company had set up a secret room in its San Francisco office to give the National Security Agency access to its fiber optic internet cables.
AT&T whistleblower against immunity for Bush spy program-2/2
Enemy Of The State 1998 (1080p) (Full movie)
Background Articles and Videos
Stellar Wind
Stellar Wind was the open secret code name for four surveillance programs by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) during the presidency of George W. Bush and revealed by Thomas Tamm to The New York Times reporters James Risen and Eric Lichtblau.[1] The operation was approved by President George W. Bush shortly after the September 11 attacks in 2001.[2] Stellar Wind was succeeded during the presidency of Barack Obama by four major lines of intelligence collection in the territorial United States, together capable of spanning the full range of modern telecommunications.[3]
The program’s activities involved data mining of a large database of the communications of American citizens, including e-mail communications, phone conversations, financial transactions, and Internet activity.[1] William Binney, a retired Technical Leader with the NSA, discussed some of the architectural and operational elements of the program at the 2012 Chaos Communication Congress.[4]
There were internal disputes within the Justice Department about the legality of the program, because data are collected for large numbers of people, not just the subjects of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants.[4]
During the Bush Administration, the Stellar Wind cases were referred to by FBI agents as “pizza cases” because many seemingly suspicious cases turned out to be food takeout orders. According to Mueller, approximately 99 percent of the cases led nowhere, but “it’s that other 1% that we’ve got to be concerned about”.[2] One of the known uses of these data were the creation of suspicious activity reports, or “SARS”, about people suspected of terrorist activities. It was one of these reports that revealed former New York governor Eliot Spitzer’s use of prostitutes, even though he was not suspected of terrorist activities.[1]
In March 2012 Wired magazine published “The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say)” talking about a vast new NSA facility in Utah and says “For the first time, a former NSA official has gone on the record to describe the program, codenamed Stellar Wind, in detail,” naming the official William Binney, a former NSA code breaker. Binney went on to say that the NSA had highly secured rooms that tap into major switches, and satellite communications at both AT&T and Verizon.[5] The article suggested that the otherwise dispatched Stellar Wind is actually an active program.
PRISM is a clandestine national security electronic surveillance program operated by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) since 2007.[1][2][3][Notes 1]PRISM is a government codename for a data collection effort known officially as US-984XN.[8][9] It is operated under the supervision of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).[10] The existence of the program was leaked by NSA contractor Edward Snowden and published by The Guardian and The Washington Post on June 6, 2013.
A document included in the leak indicated that the PRISM SIGAD was “the number one source of raw intelligence used for NSA analytic reports.”[11] The President’s Daily Brief, an all-source intelligence product, cited PRISM data as a source in 1,477 items in 2012.[12] The leaked information came to light one day after the revelation that the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court had been requiring the telecommunications company Verizon to turn over to the NSA logs tracking all of its customers’ telephone calls on an ongoing daily basis.[13][14]
According to the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, PRISM cannot be used to intentionally target any Americans or anyone in the United States. Clapper said a special court, Congress, and the executive branch oversee the program and extensive procedures ensure the acquisition, retention, and dissemination of data accidentally collected about Americans is kept to a minimum.[15] Clapper issued a statement and “fact sheet”[16] to correct what he characterized as “significant misimpressions” in articles by The Washington Post and The Guardian newspapers.[17]
History
Slide showing that much of the world’s communications flow through the US
Details of information collected via PRISM
PRISM is a “Special Source Operation” in the tradition of NSA’s intelligence alliances with as many as 100 trusted U.S. companies since the 1970s.[1] A prior program, the Terrorist Surveillance Program, was implemented in the wake of the September 11 attacks under the George W. Bush Administration but was widely criticized and had its legality questioned, because it was conducted without approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).[18][19][20][21] PRISM was authorized by an order of the FISC.[11] Its creation was enabled by the Protect America Act of 2007 under President Bush and the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which legally immunized private companies that cooperated voluntarily with US intelligence collection and was renewed by Congress under President Obama in 2012 for five years until December 2017.[2][22] According to The Register, the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 “specifically authorizes intelligence agencies to monitor the phone, email, and other communications of U.S. citizens for up to a week without obtaining a warrant” when one of the parties is outside the U.S.[22]
PRISM was first publicly revealed on June 6, 2013, after classified documents about the program were leaked to The Washington Post and The Guardian by American Edward Snowden.[2][1] The leaked documents included 41 PowerPoint slides, four of which were published in news articles.[1][2] The documents identified several technology companies as participants in the PRISM program, including (date of joining PRISM in parentheses) Microsoft (2007), Yahoo! (2008), Google (2009), Facebook (2009), Paltalk (2009), YouTube (2010), AOL (2011), Skype (2011), and Apple (2012).[23] The speaker’s notes in the briefing document reviewed by The Washington Post indicated that “98 percent of PRISM production is based on Yahoo, Google and Microsoft.”[1]
The slide presentation stated that much of the world’s electronic communications pass through the United States, because electronic communications data tend to follow the least expensive route rather than the most physically direct route, and the bulk of the world’s internet infrastructure is based in the United States.[11] The presentation noted that these facts provide United States intelligence analysts with opportunities for intercepting the communications of foreign targets as their electronic data pass into or through the United States.[2][11]
According to The Washington Post, the intelligence analysts search PRISM data using terms intended to identify suspicious communications of targets whom the analysts suspect with at least 51 percent confidence to not be United States citizens, but in the process, communication data of some United States citizens are also collected unintentionally.[1] Training materials for analysts tell them that while they should periodically report such accidental collection of non-foreign United States data, “it’s nothing to worry about.”[1]
Response from companies
The original Washington Post and Guardian articles reporting on PRISM noted that one of the leaked briefing documents said PRISM involves collection of data “directly from the servers” of several major internet services providers.[2][1]
Initial Public Statements
Corporate executives of several companies identified in the leaked documents told The Guardian that they had no knowledge of the PRISM program in particular and also denied making information available to the government on the scale alleged by news reports.[2][24] Statements of several of the companies named in the leaked documents were reported by TechCrunch and The Washington Post as follows:[25][26]
Slide listing companies and the date that PRISM collection began
Microsoft: “We provide customer data only when we receive a legally binding order or subpoena to do so, and never on a voluntary basis. In addition we only ever comply with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers. If the government has a broader voluntary national security program to gather customer data we don’t participate in it.”[25]
Yahoo!: “Yahoo! takes users’ privacy very seriously. We do not provide the government with direct access to our servers, systems, or network.”[25] “Of the hundreds of millions of users we serve, an infinitesimal percentage will ever be the subject of a government data collection directive.”[26]
Facebook: “We do not provide any government organization with direct access to Facebook servers. When Facebook is asked for data or information about specific individuals, we carefully scrutinize any such request for compliance with all applicable laws, and provide information only to the extent required by law.”[25]
Google: “Google cares deeply about the security of our users’ data. We disclose user data to government in accordance with the law, and we review all such requests carefully. From time to time, people allege that we have created a government ‘back door’ into our systems, but Google does not have a backdoor for the government to access private user data.”[25] “[A]ny suggestion that Google is disclosing information about our users’ Internet activity on such a scale is completely false.”[26]
Apple: “We have never heard of PRISM. We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers, and any government agency requesting customer data must get a court order.”[27]
Dropbox: “We’ve seen reports that Dropbox might be asked to participate in a government program called PRISM. We are not part of any such program and remain committed to protecting our users’ privacy.”[25]
In response to the technology companies’ denials of the NSA being able to directly access the companies’ servers, The New York Times reported that sources had stated the NSA was gathering the surveillance data from the companies using other technical means in response to court orders for specific sets of data.[13]The Washington Post suggested, “It is possible that the conflict between the PRISM slides and the company spokesmen is the result of imprecision on the part of the NSA author. In another classified report obtained by The Post, the arrangement is described as allowing ‘collection managers [to send] content tasking instructions directly to equipment installed at company-controlled locations,’ rather than directly to company servers.”[1] “[I]n context, ‘direct’ is more likely to mean that the NSA is receiving data sent to them deliberately by the tech companies, as opposed to intercepting communications as they’re transmitted to some other destination.[26]
“If these companies received an order under the FISA amendments act, they are forbidden by law from disclosing having received the order and disclosing any information about the order at all,” Mark Rumold, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told ABC News.[28]
Slide showing two different sources of NSA data collection. The first source the fiber optic cables of the internet handled by the Upstream program and the second source the servers of major internet companies handled by PRISM.[29]
On May 28, 2013, Google was ordered by United States District Court Judge Susan Illston to comply with a National Security Letter issued by the FBI to provide user data without a warrant.[30] Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, in an interview with VentureBeat said, “I certainly appreciate that Google put out a transparency report, but it appears that the transparency didn’t include this. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were subject to a gag order.”[31]
The New York Times reported on June 7, 2013, that “Twitter declined to make it easier for the government. But other companies were more compliant, according to people briefed on the negotiations.”[32] The other companies held discussions with national security personnel on how to make data available more efficiently and securely.[32] In some cases, these companies made modifications to their systems in support of the intelligence collection effort.[32] The dialogues have continued in recent months, as General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has met with executives including those at Facebook, Microsoft, Google and Intel.[32] These details on the discussions provide insight into the disparity between initial descriptions of the government program including a training slide which states “Collection directly from the servers”[29] and the companies’ denials.[32]
While providing data in response to a legitimate FISA request approved by FISC is a legal requirement, modifying systems to make it easier for the government to collect the data is not. This is why Twitter could legally decline to provide an enhanced mechanism for data transmission.[32] Other than Twitter, the companies were effectively asked to construct a locked mailbox and provide the key to the government, people briefed on the negotiations said.[32] Facebook, for instance, built such a system for requesting and sharing the information.[32] Google does not provide a lockbox system, but instead transmits required data by hand delivery or secure FTP.[33]
Post-PRISM Transparency Reports
In response to the publicity surrounding media reports of data-sharing, several companies requested permission to reveal more public information about the nature and scope of information provided in response to National Security requests.
On June 14, 2013, Facebook reported that the U.S. Government had authorized the communication of “about these numbers in aggregate, and as a range.” In a press release posted to their web site, Facebook reported, “For the six months ending December 31, 2012, the total number of user-data requests Facebook received from any and all government entities in the U.S. (including local, state, and federal, and including criminal and national security-related requests) – was between 9,000 and 10,000.” Facebook further reported that the requests impacted “between 18,000 and 19,000” user accounts, a “tiny fraction of one percent” of more than 1.1 billion active user accounts.[34]
Microsoft reported that for the same period, it received “between 6,000 and 7,000 criminal and national security warrants, subpoenas and orders affecting between 31,000 and 32,000 consumer accounts from U.S. governmental entities (including local, state and federal)” which impacted “a tiny fraction of Microsoft’s global customer base”.[35]
Google issued a statement criticizing the requirement that data be reported in aggregated form, stating that lumping national security requests with criminal request data would be “a step backwards” from its previous, more detailed practices on its site transparency report. The company said that it would continue to seek government permission to publish the number and extent of FISA requests.[36]
Response from United States government
Executive branch
Shortly after publication of the reports by The Guardian and The Washington Post, the United States Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, on June 7 released a statement confirming that for nearly six years the government of the United States had been using large internet services companies such as Google and Facebook to collect information on foreigners outside the United States as a defense against national security threats.[13] The statement read in part, “The Guardian and The Washington Post articles refer to collection of communications pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. They contain numerous inaccuracies.”[37] He went on to say, “Section 702 is a provision of FISA that is designed to facilitate the acquisition of foreign intelligence information concerning non-U.S. persons located outside the United States. It cannot be used to intentionally target any U.S. citizen, any other U.S. person, or anyone located within the United States.”[37] Clapper concluded his statement by stating “The unauthorized disclosure of information about this important and entirely legal program is reprehensible and risks important protections for the security of Americans.”[37] On March 12, 2013, Clapper had told the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that the NSA does “not wittingly” collect any type of data on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans.[38] In an NBC News interview, Clapper said he answered Senator Wyden’s question in the “least untruthful manner by saying no”.[39]
Clapper also stated that “the NSA collects the phone data in broad swaths, because collecting it (in) a narrow fashion would make it harder to identify terrorism-related communications. The information collected lets the government, over time, make connections about terrorist activities. The program doesn’t let the U.S. listen to people’s calls, but only includes information like call length and telephone numbers dialed.”[15]
On June 8, 2013, Clapper said “the surveillance activities published in The Guardian and The Washington Post are lawful and conducted under authorities widely known and discussed, and fully debated and authorized by Congress.”[40][10] The fact sheet described PRISM as “an internal government computer system used to facilitate the government’s statutorily authorized collection of foreign intelligence information from electronic communication service providers under court supervision, as authorized by Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) (50 U.S.C. § 1881a).”[10]
The National Intelligence fact sheet further stated that “the United States Government does not unilaterally obtain information from the servers of U.S. electronic communication service providers. All such information is obtained with FISA Court approval and with the knowledge of the provider based upon a written directive from the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence.” It said that the Attorney General provides FISA Court rulings and semi-annual reports about PRISM activities to Congress, “provid[ing] an unprecedented degree of accountability and transparency.”[10]
The President of the United States, Barack Obama, said on June 7 “What you’ve got is two programs that were originally authorized by Congress, have been repeatedly authorized by Congress. Bipartisan majorities have approved them. Congress is continually briefed on how these are conducted. There are a whole range of safeguards involved. And federal judges are overseeing the entire program throughout.”[41] He also said, “You can’t have 100 percent security and then also have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience. You know, we’re going to have to make some choices as a society.”[41]
In separate statements, senior (not mentioned by name in source) Obama administration officials said that Congress had been briefed 13 times on the programs since 2009.[42]
Legislative branch
In contrast to their swift and forceful reactions the previous day to allegations that the government had been conducting surveillance of United States citizens’ telephone records, Congressional leaders initially had little to say about the PRISM program the day after leaked information about the program was published. Several lawmakers declined to discuss PRISM, citing its top-secret classification,[43] and others said that they had not been aware of the program.[44] After statements had been released by the President and the Director of National Intelligence, some lawmakers began to comment:
Senator John McCain (R-AZ)
June 9 “We passed the Patriot Act. We passed specific provisions of the act that allowed for this program to take place, to be enacted in operation,”[45]
Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee
June 9 “These programs are within the law”, “part of our obligation is keeping Americans safe”, “Human intelligence isn’t going to do it”.[46]
June 9 “Here’s the rub: the instances where this has produced good — has disrupted plots, prevented terrorist attacks, is all classified, that’s what’s so hard about this.”[47]
June 11 “It went fine…we asked him[ Keith Alexander ] to declassify things because it would be helpful (for people and lawmakers to better understand the intelligence programs).” “I’ve just got to see if the information gets declassified. I’m sure people will find it very interesting.”[48]
Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), member of Senate Intelligence Committee and past member of Homeland Security Committee
June 11 “I had, along with Joe Lieberman, a monthly threat briefing, but I did not have access to this highly compartmentalized information” and “How can you ask when you don’t know the program exists?”[49]
Representative John Boehner (R-OH), Speaker of the House of Representatives
June 11 “He’s a traitor”[50] (referring to Edward Snowden)
Representative Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), principal sponsor of the Patriot Act
June 9, “This is well beyond what the Patriot Act allows.”[51] “President Obama’s claim that ‘this is the most transparent administration in history’ has once again proven false. In fact, it appears that no administration has ever peered more closely or intimately into the lives of innocent Americans.”[51]
Representative Mike Rogers (R-MI), a Chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
June 9 “One of the things that we’re charged with is keeping America safe and keeping our civil liberties and privacy intact. I think we have done both in this particular case,”[46]
June 9 “Within the last few years this program was used to stop a program, excuse me, to stop a terrorist attack in the United States we know that. It’s, it’s, it’s important, it fills in a little seam that we have and it’s used to make sure that there is not an international nexus to any terrorism event that they may believe is ongoing in the United States. So in that regard it is a very valuable thing,”[52]
Senator Mark Udall (D-CO)
June 9 “I don’t think the American public knows the extent or knew the extent to which they were being surveilled and their data was being collected.” “I think we ought to reopen the Patriot Act and put some limits on the amount of data that the National Security (Agency) is collecting,” “It ought to remain sacred, and there’s got to be a balance here. That is what I’m aiming for. Let’s have the debate, let’s be transparent, let’s open this up”.[46]
Representative Todd Rokita (R-IN)
June 10 “We have no idea when they [ FISA ] meet, we have no idea what their judgments are”,[53]
Senator Rand Paul (R-KY)
June 6 “When the Senate rushed through a last-minute extension of the FISA Amendments Act late last year, I insisted on a vote on my amendment (SA 3436) to require stronger protections on business records and prohibiting the kind of data-mining this case has revealed. Just last month, I introduced S.1037, the Fourth Amendment Preservation and Protection Act,”[54]
June 9 “I’m going to be seeing if I can challenge this at the Supreme Court level. I’m going to be asking the Internet providers and all of the phone companies: ask your customers to join me in a class-action lawsuit.”[45]
Representative Luis Gutierrez (D-IL)
June 9 “We will be receiving secret briefings and we will be asking, I know I’m going to be asking to get more information. I want to make sure that what they’re doing is harvesting information that is necessary to keep us safe and not simply going into everybody’s private telephone conversations and Facebook and communications. I mean one of the, you know the terrorists win when you debilitate freedom of expression and privacy.”[52]
Judicial branch
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) has not acknowledged, denied or confirmed any involvement in the PRISM program at this time. It has not issued any press statement or release relating to the current situation and uncertainty.
Applicable law and practice
On June 8, 2013, the Director of National Intelligence issued a fact sheet stating that PRISM “is not an undisclosed collection or data mining program”, but rather computer software used to facilitate the collection of foreign intelligence information “under court supervision, as authorized by Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) (50 U.S.C. § 1881a).”[10] Section 702 provides that “the Attorney General [A.G.] and the Director of National Intelligence [DNI] may authorize jointly, for a period of up to 1 year from the effective date of the authorization, the targeting of persons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States to acquire foreign intelligence information.”[55] In order to authorize the targeting, the A.G. and DNI need to get an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) pursuant to Section 702 or certify that “intelligence important to the national security of the United States may be lost or not timely acquired and time does not permit the issuance of an order.”[55] When asking for an order, the A.G. and DNI must certify to FISC that “a significant purpose of the acquisition is to obtain foreign intelligence information.”[55] They do not need to specify which facilities or property that the targeting will be directed at.[55]
After getting a FISC order or determining that there are emergency circumstances, the A.G. and DNI can direct an electronic communication service provider to give them access to information or facilities to carry out the targeting and keep the targeting secret.[55] The provider then has the option to: (1) comply with the directive; (2) reject it; or (3) challenge it to FISC.
If the provider complies with the directive, it is released from liability to its users for providing the information and reimbursed for the cost of providing it.[55]
If the provider rejects the directive, the A.G. may request an order from FISC to enforce it.[55] A provider that fails to comply with FISC’s order can be punished with contempt of court.[55]
Finally, a provider can petition FISC to reject the directive.[55] In case FISC denies the petition and orders the provider to comply with the directive, the provider risks contempt of court if it refuses to comply with FISC’s order.[55] The provider can appeal FISC’s denial to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review and then appeal the Court of Review’s decision to the Supreme Court by a writ of certiorari for review under seal.[55]
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the FISA Courts had been put in place to oversee intelligence operations in the period after the death of J. Edgar Hoover. Beverly Gage of Slate said, “When they were created, these new mechanisms were supposed to stop the kinds of abuses that men like Hoover had engineered. Instead, it now looks as if they have come to function as rubber stamps for the expansive ambitions of the intelligence community. J. Edgar Hoover no longer rules Washington, but it turns out we didn’t need him anyway.”[56]
Involvement of other countries
Australia
The Australian government has said it will investigate the impact of the PRISM program and the use of the Pine Gap surveillance facility on the privacy of Australian citizens.[57]
Canada
Canada’s national cryptologic agency, the Communications Security Establishment, said that commenting on PRISM “would undermine CSE’s ability to carry out its mandate”. Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart lamented Canada’s standards when it comes to protecting personal online privacy stating “We have fallen too far behind,” Stoddart wrote in her report. “While other nations’ data protection authorities have the legal power to make binding orders, levy hefty fines and take meaningful action in the event of serious data breaches, we are restricted to a ‘soft’ approach: persuasion, encouragement and, at the most, the potential to publish the names of transgressors in the public interest.” And, “when push comes to shove,” Stoddart wrote, “short of a costly and time-consuming court battle, we have no power to enforce our recommendations.”[58]
Germany
Germany did not receive any raw PRISM data, according to a Reuters report.[59]
Israel
Israeli newspaper Calcalist discussed[60] the Business Insider article[61] about the possible involvement of technologies from two secretive Israeli companies in the PRISM program – Verint Systems and Narus.
New Zealand
In New Zealand, University of Otago information science Associate Professor Hank Wolfe said that “under what was unofficially known as the Five Eyes Alliance, New Zealand and other governments, including the United States, Australia, Canada, and Britain, dealt with internal spying by saying they didn’t do it. But they have all the partners doing it for them and then they share all the information.”[62]
United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom, Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) has had access to the PRISM program on or before June 2010 and wrote 197 reports with it in 2012 alone. PRISM may have allowed GCHQ to circumvent the formal legal process required to seek personal material.[63][64]
Domestic response
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The New York Times editorial board charged that the Obama administration “has now lost all credibility on this issue,”[65] and lamented that “for years, members of Congress ignored evidence that domestic intelligence-gathering had grown beyond their control, and, even now, few seem disturbed to learn that every detail about the public’s calling and texting habits now reside in a N.S.A. database.”[66]
Republican and former member of Congress Ron Paul said, “We should be thankful for individuals like Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald who see injustice being carried out by their own government and speak out, despite the risk…. They have done a great service to the American people by exposing the truth about what our government is doing in secret.”[67] Paul denounced the government’s secret surveillance program: “The government does not need to know more about what we are doing…. We need to know more about what the government is doing.”[67] He called Congress “derelict in giving that much power to the government,” and said that had he been elected president, he would have ordered searches only when there was probable cause of a crime having been committed, which he said was not how the PRISM program was being operated.[68]
In response to Obama administration arguments that it could stop terrorism in the cases of Najibullah Zazi and David Headley, Ed Pilkington and Nicholas Watt of The Guardian said in regards to the role of PRISM and Boundless Informant interviews with parties involved in the Zazi scheme and court documents lodged in the United States and the United Kingdom indicated that “conventional” surveillance methods such as “old-fashioned tip-offs” of the British intelligence services initiated the investigation into the Zazi case.[69] An anonymous former CIA agent said that in regards to the Headley case, “That’s nonsense. It played no role at all in the Headley case. That’s not the way it happened at all.”[69] Pilkington and Watt concluded that the data-mining programs “played a relatively minor role in the interception of the two plots.”[69] Michael Daly of The Daily Beast stated that even though Tamerlan Tsarnaev had visited Inspire and even though Russian intelligence officials alerted U.S. intelligence officials about Tsarnaev, PRISM did not prevent him from carrying out the Boston bombings, and that the initial evidence implicating him came from his brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and not from federal intelligence. In addition Daly pointed to the fact that Faisal Shahzad visited Inspire but that federal authorities did not stop his attempted terrorist plot. Daly concluded “The problem is not just what the National Security Agency is gathering at the risk of our privacy but what it is apparently unable to monitor at the risk of our safety.”[70] In addition, political commentator Bill O’Reilly criticized the government, saying that PRISM did not stop the Boston bombings.[71]
In a blog post, David Simon, the creator of The Wire, compared the NSA’s programs, including PRISM, to a 1980s effort by the City of Baltimore to add dialed number recorders to all pay phones to know which individuals were being called by the callers;[72] the city believed that drug traffickers were using pay phones and pagers, and a municipal judge allowed the city to place the recorders. The placement of the dialers formed the basis of the show’s first season. Simon argued that the media attention regarding the NSA programs is a “faux scandal.”[72][73] George Takei, an actor who had experienced Japanese American internment, said that due to his memories of the internment, he felt concern towards the NSA surveillance programs that had been revealed.[74]
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), an international non-profit digital-rights group based in the U.S., is hosting a tool, by which an American resident can write to their government representatives regarding their opposition to mass spying.[75]
On June 11, 2013, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against the NSA citing that PRISM “violates Americans’ constitutional rights of free speech, association, and privacy”.[76]
International response
Reactions of Internet users in China were mixed between viewing a loss of freedom worldwide and seeing state surveillance coming out of secrecy. The story broke just before US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in California.[77][78] When asked about NSA hacking China, the spokeswoman of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China said “China strongly advocates cybersecurity”.[79] The party-owned newspaper Liberation Daily described this surveillance like Nineteen Eighty-Four-style.[80] Hong Kong legislators Gary Fan and Claudia Mo wrote a letter to Obama, stating “the revelations of blanket surveillance of global communications by the world’s leading democracy have damaged the image of the U.S. among freedom-loving peoples around the world.”[81]
Sophie in ‘t Veld, a Dutch Member of the European Parliament, called PRISM “a violation of EU laws”.[82]
Protests at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin
The German Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information, Peter Schaar, condemned the program as “monstrous”.[83] He further added that White House claims do “not reassure me at all” and that “given the large number of German users of Google, Facebook, Apple or Microsoft services, I expect the German government […] is committed to clarification and limitation of surveillance.” Steffen Seibert, press secretary of the Chancellor’s office, announced that Angela Merkel will put these issues on the agenda of the talks with Barack Obama during his pending visit in Berlin.[84]
The Italian president of the Guarantor for the protection of personal data, Antonello Soro, said that the surveillance dragnet “would not be legal in Italy” and would be “contrary to the principles of our legislation and would represent a very serious violation”.[85]
William Hague, the foreign secretary of the United Kingdom, dismissed accusations that British security agencies had been circumventing British law by using information gathered on British citizens by Prism[86] saying, “Any data obtained by us from the United States involving UK nationals is subject to proper UK statutory controls and safeguards.”[86] David Cameron said Britain’s spy agencies that received data collected from PRISM acted within the law: “I’m satisfied that we have intelligence agencies that do a fantastically important job for this country to keep us safe, and they operate within the law.”[86][87] Malcolm Rifkind, the chairman of parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee, said that if the British intelligence agencies were seeking to know the content of emails about people living in the UK, then they actually have to get lawful authority.[87] The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office was more cautious, saying it would investigate PRISM alongside other European data agencies: “There are real issues about the extent to which U.S. law agencies can access personal data of UK and other European citizens. Aspects of U.S. law under which companies can be compelled to provide information to U.S. agencies potentially conflict with European data protection law, including the UK’s own Data Protection Act. The ICO has raised this with its European counterparts, and the issue is being considered by the European Commission, who are in discussions with the U.S. Government.”[82]
Ai Weiwei, a Chinese dissident, said “Even though we know governments do all kinds of things I was shocked by the information about the US surveillance operation, Prism. To me, it’s abusively using government powers to interfere in individuals’ privacy. This is an important moment for international society to reconsider and protect individual rights.”[88]
Kim Dotcom, a German-Finnish Internet entrepreneur who owned Megaupload, which was closed by the U.S. federal government, said “We should heed warnings from Snowden because the prospect of an Orwellian society outweighs whatever security benefits we derive from Prism or Five Eyes.”[89] The Hong Kong law firm representing Dotcom expressed a fear that the communication between Dotcom and the firm had been compromised by U.S. intelligence programs.[90]
Russia has offered to consider an asylum request from Edward Snowden.[91]
Taliban spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid said “We knew about their past efforts to trace our system. We have used our technical resources to foil their efforts and have been able to stop them from succeeding so far.”[92][93]
A parallel program, code-named BLARNEY, gathers up metadata as it streams past choke points along the backbone of the Internet. BLARNEY’s summary, set down in the slides alongside a cartoon insignia of a shamrock and a leprechaun hat, describes it as “an ongoing collection program that leverages IC [intelligence community] and commercial partnerships to gain access and exploit foreign intelligence obtained from global networks.”[94]
A related program, a big data visualization system based on cloud computing and free and open-source software (FOSS) technology known as “Boundless Informant”, was disclosed in documents leaked to The Guardian and reported on June 8, 2013. A leaked, top secret map allegedly produced by Boundless Informant revealed the extent of NSA surveillance in the U.S.[95]
ThinThread is the name of a project that the United States National Security Agency (NSA) pursued during the 1990s, according to a May 17, 2006 article in The Baltimore Sun.[1] The program involved wiretapping and sophisticated analysis of the resulting data, but according to the article, the program was discontinued three weeks before the September 11, 2001 attacks due to the changes in priorities and the consolidation of U.S. intelligence authority.[2] The “change in priority” consisted of the decision made by the director of NSA General Michael V. Hayden to go with a concept called Trailblazer, despite the fact that ThinThread was a working prototype that protected the privacy of U.S. citizens.
ThinThread was dismissed and replaced by the Trailblazer Project, which lacked the privacy protections.[3] A consortium led by Science Applications International Corporation was awarded a $280 million contract to develop Trailblazer in 2002.[4]
Trailblazer was a United States National Security Agency (NSA) program intended to develop a capability to analyze data carried on communications networks like the Internet. It was intended to track entities using communication methods such as cell phones and e-mail.[1][2] It ran over budget, failed to accomplish critical goals, and was cancelled.
NSA whistleblowers J. Kirk Wiebe, William Binney, Ed Loomis, and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence staffer Diane Roark complained to the Department of Defense’s Inspector General (IG) about waste, fraud, and abuse in the program, and the fact that a successful operating prototype existed, but was ignored when the Trailblazer program was launched. The complaint was accepted by the IG and an investigation began that lasted until mid-2005 when the final results were issued. The results were largely hidden, as the report given to the public was heavily (90%) redacted, while the original report was heavily classified, thus restricting the ability of most people to see it.
The people who filed the IG complaint were later raided by armed Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents. While the Government threatened to prosecute all who signed the IG report, it ultimately chose to pursue an NSA Senior Executive — Thomas Andrews Drake — who helped with the report internally to NSA and who had spoken with a reporter about the project. Drake was later charged under the Espionage Act of 1917. His defenders claimed this was retaliation.[3][4] The charges against him were later dropped, and he agreed to plead guilty to having committed a misdemeanor under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, something that Jesselyn Radack of the Government Accountability Project (which helped represent him) called an “act of civil disobedience”.[5]
Background
Trailblazer was chosen over a similar program named ThinThread, a less costly project which had been designed with built-in privacy protections for United States citizens.[4][3] Trailblazer was later linked to the NSA electronic surveillance program and the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy.[3]
In 2002 a consortium led by Science Applications International Corporation was chosen by the NSA to produce a technology demonstration platform in a contract worth $280 million. Project participants included Boeing, Computer Sciences Corporation, and Booz Allen Hamilton. The project was overseen by NSA Deputy Director William B. Black, Jr., an NSA worker who had gone to SAIC, and then been re-hired back to NSA by NSA director Michael Hayden in 2000.[6][7][8] SAIC had also hired a former NSA director to its management; Bobby Inman.[9] SAIC also participated in the concept definition phase of Trailblazer.[10][11]
Redacted version of the DoD Inspector General audit, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by the Project on Government Oversight and others. [12][5]
The NSA Inspector General issued a report on Trailblazer that “discussed improperly based contract cost increases, non-conformance in the management of the Statement of Work, and excessive labor rates for contractor personnel.” [13]
In 2004 the DoD IG report criticized the program (see the Whistleblowing section below). It said that the “NSA ‘disregarded solutions to urgent national security needs'” and “that TRAILBLAZER was poorly executed and overly expensive …” Several contractors for the project were worried about cooperating with DoD’s audit for fear of “management reprisal.”[5] The Director of NSA “nonconcurred” with several statements in the IG audit, and the report contains a discussion of those disagreements.[14]
In 2005, NSA director Michael Hayden told a Senate hearing that the Trailblazer program was several hundred million dollars over budget and years behind schedule.[15] In 2006 the program was shut down,[3] after having cost billions of US Dollars.[16] Several anonymous NSA sources told Hosenball of Newsweek later on that the project was a “wasteful failure”.[17]
The new project replacing Trailblazer is called Turbulence.[3]
Whistleblowing
According to a 2011 New Yorker article, in the early days of the project several NSA employees met with Diane S Roark, an NSA budget expert on the House Intelligence Committee. They aired their grievances about Trailblazer. In response, NSA director Michael Hayden sent out a memo saying that “individuals, in a session with our congressional overseers, took a position in direct opposition to one that we had corporately decided to follow … Actions contrary to our decisions will have a serious adverse effect on our efforts to transform N.S.A., and I cannot tolerate them.”[3]
In September 2002, several people filed a complaint with the Department of Defense IG’s office regarding problems with Trailblazer: they included Roark (aforementioned), ex-NSA senior analysts Bill Binney, Kirk Wiebe, and Senior Computer Systems Analyst Ed Loomis, who had quit the agency over concerns about its mismanagement of acquisition and allegedly illegal domestic spying.[3][18][19] A major source for the report was NSA senior officer Thomas Andrews Drake. Drake had been complaining to his superiors for some time about problems at the agency, and about the superiority of ThinThread over Trailblazer, for example, at protecting privacy.[19] Drake gave info to DoD during its investigation of the matter.[19] Roark also went to her boss at the House committee, Porter Goss, about problems, but was rebuffed.[20] She also attempted to contact William Renquist, the Supreme Court Chief Justice at the time.[19]
Drake’s own boss, Maureen Baginski, the third-highest officer at NSA, quit partly over concerns about the legality of its behavior.[3]
In 2003, the NSA IG (not the DoD IG)[19] had declared Trailblazer an expensive failure.[21] It had cost more than $1 billion.[8][22][23]
In 2005, the DoD IG produced a report on the result of its investigation of the complaint of Roark and the others in 2002. This report was not released to the public, but it has been described as very negative.[18] Mayer writes that it hastened the closure of Trailblazer, which was at the time in trouble from congress for being over budget.[3]
In November 2005, Drake contacted Siobhan Gorman, a reporter of The Baltimore Sun.[24][17][25] Gorman wrote several articles about problems at the NSA, including articles on Trailblazer. This series got her an award from the Society of Professional Journalists.[17]
In 2005, President George W. Bush ordered the FBI to find whoever had disclosed information about the NSA electronic surveillance program and its disclosure in the New York Times. Eventually, this investigation led to the people who had filed the 2002 DoD IG request, even though they had nothing to do with the New York Times disclosure. In 2007, the houses of Roark, Binney, and Wiebe were raided by armed FBI agents. According to Mayer, Binney claims the FBI pointed guns at his head and that of his wife. Wiebe said it reminded him of the Soviet Union.[3][18] None of these people were ever charged with any crime. Four months later, Drake was raided in November 2007 and his computers and documents were confiscated.
In 2010 Drake was indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice on charges of obstructing justice, providing false information, and violating the Espionage Act of 1917,[17][26][27] part of President Barack Obama’s crackdown on whistleblowers and “leakers”.[24][17][28][18] The government tried to get Roark to testify to a conspiracy, and made similar requests to Drake, offering him a plea bargain. They both refused.[3]
In June 2011, the ten original charges against Drake were dropped, instead he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor.[5]
Boundless Informant is a big data analysis and data visualization system used by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) to give NSA managers summaries of NSA’s world wide data collection activities.[1] It is described in an unclassified, For Official Use Only Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) memo published by The Guardian.[2] According to a Top Secret heat map display also published by The Guardian and allegedly produced by the Boundless Informant program, almost 3 billion data elements from inside the United States were captured by NSA over a 30-day period ending in March 2013.
Data analyzed by Boundless Informant includes electronic surveillance program records (DNI) and telephone call metadata records (DNR) stored in an NSA data archive called GM-PLACE. It does not include FISA data, according to the FAQ memo. PRISM, a government codename for a collection effort known officially as US-984XN, which was revealed at the same time as Boundless Informant, is one source of DNR data. According to the map, Boundless Informant summarizes data records from 504 separate DNR and DNI collection sources (SIGADs). In the map, countries that are under surveillance are assigned a color from green, representing least coverage to red, most intensive.[3][4]
History
Slide showing that much of the world’s communications flow through the US.
Intelligence gathered by the United States government inside the United States or specifically targeting US citizens is legally required to be gathered in compliance with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) and under the authority of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA court).[5][6][7]
NSA global data mining projects have existed for decades, but recent programs of intelligence gathering and analysis that include data gathered from inside the United States such as PRISM were enabled by changes to US surveillance law introduced under President Bush and renewed under President Obama in December 2012.[8]
Boundless Informant was first publicly revealed on June 8, 2013, after classified documents about the program were leaked to The Guardian.[1][9] The newspaper identified its informant, at his request, as Edward Snowden, who worked at the NSA for the defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton.[10]
Technology
According to published slides, Boundless Informant leverages Free and Open Source Software—and is therefore “available to all NSA developers”—and corporate services hosted in the cloud. The tool uses HDFS, MapReduce, and Cloudbase for data processing.[11]
Legality and FISA Amendments Act of 2008
The FISA Amendments Act (FAA) Section 702 is referenced in PRISM documents detailing the electronic interception, capture and analysis of metadata. Many reports and letters of concern written by members of Congress suggest that this section of FAA in particular is legally and constitutionally problematic, such as by targeting U.S. persons, insofar as “Collections occur in U.S.” as published documents indicate.[12][13][14][15]
The ACLU has asserted the following regarding the FAA: “Regardless of abuses, the problem with the FAA is more fundamental: the statute itself is unconstitutional.”[16]
Senator Rand Paul is introducing new legislation called the Fourth Amendment Restoration Act of 2013 to stop the NSA or other agencies of the United States government from violating the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution using technology and big data information systems like PRISM and Boundless Informant.[17][18]
ECHELON is a name used in global media and in popular culture to describe a signals intelligence (SIGINT) collection and analysis network operated on behalf of the five signatory states to the UKUSA Security Agreement[1] (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States, referred to by a number of abbreviations, including AUSCANNZUKUS[1] and Five Eyes).[2][3] It has also been described as the only software system which controls the download and dissemination of the intercept of commercial satellite trunk communications.[4]
ECHELON, according to information in the European Parliament document, “On the existence of a global system for the interception of private and commercial communications (ECHELON interception system)” was created to monitor the military and diplomatic communications of the Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc allies during the Cold War in the early 1960s.[5]
The system has been reported in a number of public sources.[6] Its capabilities and political implications were investigated by a committee of the European Parliament during 2000 and 2001 with a report published in 2001,[5] and by author James Bamford in his books on the National Security Agency of the United States.[4] The European Parliament stated in its report that the term ECHELON is used in a number of contexts, but that the evidence presented indicates that it was the name for a signals intelligence collection system. The report concludes that, on the basis of information presented, ECHELON was capable of interception and content inspection of telephone calls, fax, e-mail and other data traffic globally through the interception of communication bearers including satellite transmission, public switched telephone networks (which once carried most Internet traffic) and microwave links.[5]
Bamford describes the system as the software controlling the collection and distribution of civilian telecommunications traffic conveyed using communication satellites, with the collection being undertaken by ground stations located in the footprint of the downlink leg.
The UKUSA intelligence community was assessed by the European Parliament (EP) in 2000 to include the signals intelligence agencies of each of the member states:
the Government Communications Headquarters of the United Kingdom,
the National Security Agency of the United States,
the Communications Security Establishment of Canada,
the Defence Signals Directorate of Australia, and
the Government Communications Security Bureau of New Zealand.
the National SIGINT Organisation (NSO) of The Netherlands
The EP report concluded that it seemed likely that ECHELON is a method of sorting captured signal traffic, rather than a comprehensive analysis tool.[5]
Capabilities
The ability to intercept communications depends on the medium used, be it radio, satellite, microwave, cellular or fiber-optic.[5] During World War II and through the 1950s, high frequency (“short wave”) radio was widely used for military and diplomatic communication,[7] and could be intercepted at great distances.[5] The rise of geostationary communications satellites in the 1960s presented new possibilities for intercepting international communications. The report to the European Parliament of 2001 states: “If UKUSA states operate listening stations in the relevant regions of the earth, in principle they can intercept all telephone, fax and data traffic transmitted via such satellites.”[5]
The role of satellites in point-to-point voice and data communications has largely been supplanted by fiber optics; in 2006, 99% of the world’s long-distance voice and data traffic was carried over optical-fiber.[8] The proportion of international communications accounted for by satellite links is said to have decreased substantially over the past few years[when?] in Central Europe to an amount between 0.4% and 5%.[5] Even in less-developed parts of the world, communications satellites are used largely for point-to-multipoint applications, such as video.[9] Thus, the majority of communications can no longer be intercepted by earth stations; they can only be collected by tapping cables and intercepting line-of-sight microwave signals, which is possible only to a limited extent.[5]
One method of interception is to place equipment at locations where fiber optic communications are switched. For the Internet, much of the switching occurs at relatively few sites. There have been reports of one such intercept site, Room 641A, in the United States. In the past[when?] much Internet traffic was routed through the U.S. and the UK, but this has changed; for example, in 2000, 95% of intra-German Internet communications was routed via the DE-CIX Internet exchange point in Frankfurt.[5] A comprehensive worldwide surveillance network is possible only if clandestine intercept sites are installed in the territory of friendly nations, and/or if local authorities cooperate. The report to the European Parliament points out that interception of private communications by foreign intelligence services is not necessarily limited to the U.S. or British foreign intelligence services.[5]
Most reports on ECHELON focus on satellite interception; testimony before the European Parliament indicated that separate but similar UK-US systems are in place to monitor communication through undersea cables, microwave transmissions and other lines.[10]
Controversy
See also: Industrial espionage
Intelligence monitoring of citizens, and their communications, in the area covered by the AUSCANNZUKUS security agreement has caused concern. British journalist Duncan Campbell and New Zealand journalist Nicky Hager asserted in the 1990s that the United States was exploiting ECHELON traffic for industrial espionage, rather than military and diplomatic purposes.[10] Examples alleged by the journalists include the gear-less wind turbine technology designed by the German firm Enercon[5][11] and the speech technology developed by the Belgian firm Lernout & Hauspie.[12] An article in the US newspaper Baltimore Sun reported in 1995 that European aerospace company Airbus lost a $6 billion contract with Saudi Arabia in 1994 after the US National Security Agency reported that Airbus officials had been bribing Saudi officials to secure the contract.[13][14]
In 2001, the Temporary Committee on the ECHELON Interception System recommended to the European Parliament that citizens of member states routinely use cryptography in their communications to protect their privacy, because economic espionage with ECHELON has been conducted by the US intelligence agencies.[5]
Bamford provides an alternative view, highlighting that legislation prohibits the use of intercepted communications for commercial purposes, although he does not elaborate on how intercepted communications are used as part of an all-source intelligence process.
Hardware
According to its website, the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) is “a high technology organization … on the frontiers of communications and data processing”. In 1999 the Australian Senate Joint Standing Committee on Treaties was told by Professor Desmond Ball that the Pine Gap facility was used as a ground station for a satellite-based interception network. The satellites were said to be large radio dishes between 20 and 100 meters in diameter in geostationary orbits.[citation needed] The original purpose of the network was to monitor the telemetry from 1970s Soviet weapons, air defence radar, communications satellites and ground based microwave communications.[15]
Name
The European Parliament’s Temporary Committee on the ECHELON Interception System stated: “It seems likely, in view of the evidence and the consistent pattern of statements from a very wide range of individuals and organisations, including American sources, that its name is in fact ECHELON, although this is a relatively minor detail.”[5] The U.S. intelligence community uses many code names (see, for example, CIA cryptonym).
Former NSA employee Margaret Newsham claims that she worked on the configuration and installation of software that makes up the ECHELON system while employed at Lockheed Martin, for whom she worked from 1974 to 1984 in Sunnyvale, California, US, and in Menwith Hill, England, UK.[16] At that time, according to Newsham, the code name ECHELON was NSA’s term for the computer network itself. Lockheed called it P415. The software programs were called SILKWORTH and SIRE. A satellite named VORTEX intercepted communications. An image available on the internet of a fragment apparently torn from a job description shows Echelon listed along with several other code names.[17]
Ground stations
The 2001 European Parliamentary (EP) report[5] lists several ground stations as possibly belonging to, or participating in, the ECHELON network. These include:
Likely satellite intercept stations
The following stations are listed in the EP report (p. 54 ff) as likely to have, or to have had, a role in intercepting transmissions from telecommunications satellites:
Hong Kong (since closed)
Australian Defence Satellite Communications Station (Geraldton, Western Australia)
Menwith Hill (Yorkshire, U.K.) Map (reportedly the largest Echelon facility)[18]
Misawa Air Base (Japan) Map
GCHQ Bude, formerly known as GCHQ CSO Morwenstow, (Cornwall, U.K.) Map
Pine Gap (Northern Territory, Australia – close to Alice Springs) Map
Sugar Grove (West Virginia, U.S.) Map
Yakima Training Center (Washington, U.S.) Map
GCSB Waihopai (New Zealand)
GCSB Tangimoana (New Zealand)
CFS Leitrim (Ontario, Canada)
Teufelsberg (Berlin, Germany) (closed 1992)
Other potentially related stations
The following stations are listed in the EP report (p. 57 ff) as ones whose roles “cannot be clearly established”:
Ayios Nikolaos (Cyprus – U.K.)
BadAibling Station (BadAibling, Germany – U.S.)
relocated to Griesheim in 2004[19]
deactivated in 2008[20]
Buckley Air Force Base (Aurora, Colorado)
Fort Gordon (Georgia, U.S.)
Gander (Newfoundland & Labrador, Canada)
Guam (Pacific Ocean, U.S.)
Kunia Regional SIGINT Operations Center (Hawaii, U.S.)
Lackland Air Force Base, Medina Annex (San Antonio, Texas)
Room 641A is a telecommunication interception facility operated by AT&T for the U.S. National Security Agency that commenced operations in 2003 and was exposed in 2006.[1][2]
Description
Room 641A is located in the SBC Communications building at 611 Folsom Street, San Francisco, three floors of which were occupied by AT&T before SBC purchased AT&T.[1] The room was referred to in internal AT&T documents as the SG3 [Study Group 3] Secure Room. It is fed by fiber optic lines from beam splitters installed in fiber optic trunks carrying Internet backbone traffic[3] and, as analyzed by J. Scott Marcus, a former CTO for GTE and a former adviser to the FCC, who has access to all Internet traffic that passes through the building, and therefore “the capability to enable surveillance and analysis of internet content on a massive scale, including both overseas and purely domestic traffic.”[4] Former director of the NSA’s World Geopolitical and Military Analysis Reporting Group, William Binney, has estimated that 10 to 20 such facilities have been installed throughout the United States.[2]
The room measures about 24 by 48 feet (7.3 by 15 m) and contains several racks of equipment, including a Narus STA 6400, a device designed to intercept and analyze Internet communications at very high speeds.[1]
The very existence of the room was revealed by a former AT&T technician, Mark Klein, and was the subject of a 2006 class action lawsuit by the Electronic Frontier Foundation against AT&T.[5] Klein claims he was told that similar black rooms are operated at other facilities around the country.
Room 641A and the controversies surrounding it were subjects of an episode of Frontline, the current affairs documentary program on PBS. It was originally broadcast on May 15, 2007. It was also featured on PBS’s NOW on March 14, 2008. The room was also covered in the PBS Nova episode “The Spy Factory”.
Lawsuit
Basic diagram of how the alleged wiretapping was accomplished. From EFF court filings[4]
More complicated diagram of how it allegedly worked. From EFF court filings.[3] See bottom of the file page for enlarged and rotated version.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a class-action lawsuit against AT&T on January 31, 2006, accusing the telecommunication company of violating the law and the privacy of its customers by collaborating with the National Security Agency (NSA) in a massive, illegal program to wiretap and data-mine Americans’ communications. On July 20, 2006, a federal judge denied the government’s and AT&T’s motions to dismiss the case, chiefly on the ground of the States Secrets Privilege, allowing the lawsuit to go forward. On August 15, 2007, the case was heard by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and was dismissed on December 29, 2011 based on a retroactive grant of immunity by Congress for telecommunications companies that cooperated with the government. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case.[6] A different case by the EFF was filed on September 18, 2008, titled Jewel v. NSA.
PRISM: A clandestine national security electronic surveillance program operated by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) which can target customers of participating corporations outside or inside the United States
Main Core: A personal and financial database storing information of millions of U.S. citizens believed to be threats to national security.[7] The data mostly comes from the NSA, FBI, CIA, as well as other government sources.[7]
Carnivore: A system implemented by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that was designed to monitor email and electronic communications. Apparently replaced by commercial software such as NarusInsight
Intelligence Community (IC): A cooperative federation of 16 government agencies working together, but also separately, to gather intelligence and conduct espionage
Story 1: Indiana and 19 States and Federal Government Have Religious Freedom Restoration Laws — Nothing New Here — Crackup of Lying Lunatic Left Democratic Party — Attacks People of Faith — Bullies — Christians and Jews — Demonizes Businesses — Supports Sin (“homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered”) — No Wonder Americans Are Going Independent and Abandoning Democratic Party — Please Take Your Business Elsewhere and Switch Channels — “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” — Seeking happiness is seeking God. — Videos
“Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”
John, Chapter 8
Catechism of The Catholic Church
Chastity and homosexuality
2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,141 tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.”142 They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.
2358The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.
2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.
America’s Forum | Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, Religious Liberty Is Out First Freedom
Bake or Else! Wedding Vendors Face Threats to Liberty
Crumbling Freedom: Cake Artist Sent to ‘Reeducation’
Days of Lot : Colorado Judge orders Christian Baker to bake cake for Same Sex Wedding (Jun 06, 2014)
A Colorado Judge Orders Baker To Bake Cake for an Event ~ Illiberal Egalitarianism
‘gay wedding cake’ | Baker To Stop Making Wedding Cakes Altogether After Losing Discrimination Case
DISCRIMINATION – Oregon Bakery, ‘Sweet Cakes Bakery’ Refuses To Make Cake for Lesbian Wedding
Homophobic Bakery Goes Bankrupt
Joey Heatherton – “I’ve Got Your Number”
Joey Heatherton ‘Someone To Watch Over Me”
Joey Heatherton on the Dean Martin Show
Nice People | Bishop Fulton J.Sheen
Youth and Sex – Venerable Fulton Sheen
Marriage & Incompatibility – Archbishop Fulton Sheen
How to Psychoanayze Yourself | Bishop Fulton J.Sheen
His Last Words ~ Ven Fulton J Sheen
Pence signs Religious Freedom bill into law
“Straights Only”? Indiana Faces Boycotts, Protests over Anti-LGBT “Religious Freedom” Law
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence Says Controversial ‘Religious Freedom’ Law Won’t Change
Pence signs Religious Freedom bill into law
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence on FOX News Sunday
Joey Heatherton Look What They’ve Done To My Song
Joey Heatherton A Tribute
What’s My Line? Joey Heatherton (1965)
Joey Heatherton for Serta mattresses
In Defense of Indiana
by RICH LOWRY
The anti-RFRA backlash is a perfect storm of hysteria and legal ignorance.
Indiana is experiencing its two minutes of hate. It is doubtful that since its admittance into the union in 1816, the heretofore inoffensive Midwestern state has ever been showered with so much elite obloquy.
Indiana’s sin is that its legislature passed and Governor Mike Pence signed into law a Religious Freedom Restoration Act, setting out a legal standard for cases involving a clash between a person’s exercise of religion and the state’s laws. To listen to the critics, you’d think the law was drafted by a joint committee of attorneys from the Ku Klux Klan and Westboro Baptist Church. The enlightened are stumbling over themselves in their rush to boycott Indiana. Seattle and San Francisco are banning official travel there, and Connecticut is following suit. In a Washington Post op-ed, Apple CEO Tim Cook pronounced the Indiana law part of a “very dangerous” trend that allows “people to discriminate against their neighbors” (never mind that his company is happy to do business in Communist China). The anti-Indiana backlash is a perfect storm of hysteria and legal ignorance, supercharged by the particularly censorious self-righteousness of the Left.
All the Indiana law says is that the state can’t substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion, unless there is a compelling governmental interest at stake and it is pursued by the least restrictive means. The law doesn’t mandate any particular outcome; it simply provides a test for the courts in those rare instances when a person’s exercise of religion clashes with a law.
Nineteen other states have similar protections, and they are all modeled on a federal version of the law that passed Congress with near unanimity in 1993 (Indiana’s law is arguably a little more robust than the federal version, because it also applies to private suits). If these Religious Freedom Restoration Acts were the enablers of discrimination they are portrayed as, much of the country would already have sunk into a dystopian pit of hatred.
Legal historians a century from now may be mystified by how a measure that was uncontroversial for so long suddenly became a mark of shame. They will find their answer in the Left’s drive to crush any dissent from its cultural agenda, especially on gay marriage.
The religious-freedom laws once were associated with minorities that progressives could embrace or tolerate — Native Americans who smoke peyote as part of religious ceremonies, Amish who drive their buggies on the roads, and the like. That was fine. It is the specter of Christian small-business people — say, a baker or a florist — using the laws to protect themselves from punishment for opting out of gay-wedding ceremonies that drives progressives mad.
Why? It’s a large, diverse country, with many people of differing faiths and different points of view. More specifically, the country has an enormous wedding industry not known for its hostility to gays. The burgeoning institution of gay marriage will surely survive the occasional florist who doesn’t want to provide flowers for a same-sex wedding for religious reasons.
As a practical matter, such a dissenting florist doesn’t make a difference; the affected couple might be offended but can take its business elsewhere. But for the Left, it’s the principle of the thing. For all its talk of diversity, it demands unanimity on this question — individual conscience be damned. So it isn’t bothered when religious wedding vendors are sued or harassed under anti-discrimination laws for their nonparticipation in ceremonies they morally oppose.
It’s not clear that Religious Freedom Restoration Acts will shield these kinds of business people (they haven’t, to this point). It might be that more specific exemptions are necessary. But the mere possibility that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act might protect a baker opposed to gay marriage is enough to create a furious, unhinged reaction.
Yes, there is intolerance afoot in the debate over Indiana, but it’s not on the part of Indianans.
CISPA’s return? Obama seeks access to civilian communication info
Politician Uses Sony Hack Hysteria to Reintroduce CISPA – The Know
CISPA IS BACK (AGAIN) 2015
Published on Jan 15, 2015
Despite numerous defeats, CISPA is making the comeback already in 2015. This bill has been introduced as bill H.R.234 — 114th Congress (2015-2016). While experts think it is unlikely the bill will pass into the law, that is no reason not to voice your concerns. One major difference now is that the White House is no longer threatening to veto CISPA and instead is backing it. This is very troublesome and we must act now before it is too late.
For those unfamiliar with CISPA, it essentially allows all companies to share your private data with the government, other private companies, and essentially anyone they want. Companies are given financial incentives to do so and they are exempt from all prosecution for violating both your rights and privacy. This essentially makes every Privacy Policy for any private company null and void. Touted as a weapon to secure our nation from cyber threats, CISPA does nothing to protect against them and serves only to further the reach of the surveillance state we live in. It is for this reason we must remain ever vigilant and strike down every SOPA, CISPA, ACTA, or any other incarnations that threaten our civil liberties and our free and open internet.
Glenn Greenwald Slams NSA Backer Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger Over ABC Interview, Defense Industry Ties
Rep. Ruppersberger Opens Floor Debate on the Rogers/Ruppersberger Cyber Bill – CISPA
Obama Will Veto CISPA
Anonymous new message CISPA it’s back Ops shut down engage
CISPA SOPA 2.0
ALEX JONES – CISPA Another Fascist Takeover of the Internet. EMERGENCY ALERT
CISPA, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, is picking up sponsors and it looks like the legislation will make it to the House floor for a vote next week. CISPA emerged from the House Intelligence Committee with an overwhelming vote of 17-1.
The bill, authored by Rep. Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican, is supported by Google, the technology company in bed with the CIA and responsible for building the Great Firewall of China. Google is not alone in supporting CISPA. Corporate sponsors include Facebook, Microsoft, Intel, IBM, Verizon, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and others, according to the House’s Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, long a champion of rights online, has signed on to two coalition letters urging legislators to drop their support for HR 3523. The coalition behind the privacy letter includes dozens of groups, including the ACLU, the American Library Association, the American Policy Center, the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, and many others, according to the EFF website.
The letter warns: CISPA creates an exception to all privacy laws to permit companies to share our information with each other and with the government in the name of cybersecurity…. CISPA’s ‘information sharing’ regime allows the transfer of vast amounts of data, including sensitive information like internet use history or the content of emails, to any agency in the government including military and intelligence agencies like the National Security Agency or the Department of Defense Cyber Command. Once in government hands, this information can be used for any non-regulatory purpose so long as one significant purpose is for cybersecurity or to protect national security.
CISPA was pushed through following public outrage over SOPA and PIPA, two sneaky attempts to undermine internet freedom earlier this year under the guise of protecting the copyrights of Hollywood and its transnational “entertainment” corporations.
CISPA is far worse than its forerunners. It would amend the the National Security Act of 1947 — legislation that created the national security state and the CIA — and centralize “information sharing” between government agencies, intelligence agencies, and the Pentagon.
Time Techland admits that, according to the Center for Democracy & Technology, CISPA threatens privacy because it “has a very broad, almost unlimited definition of the information that can be shared with government agencies and it supersedes all other privacy laws,” “is likely to lead to expansion of the government’s role in the monitoring of private communications” and “is likely to shift control of government cybersecurity efforts from civilian agencies to the military.”
In short, it is a dream bill designed specifically for the national security surveillance state. CISPA will put a legal facade on behavior the CIA and NSA have engaged in for decades. It is the culmination of years of cyber psyops and attendant propaganda designed convince the public that they must surrender their privacy.
The transfer of “cybersecurity efforts from civilian agencies to the military” is especially alarming considering the Pentagon’s aggressive response to supposed cyber attacks. In early 2011, the Pentagon said that cyber attacks constitute acts of war and will be responded to with military action.
It is imperative that you contact your representatives immediately and tell them that you strongly oppose this dangerous legislation and demand they vote against it. If CISPA is allowed to pass next week, it will be a victory for the global elite and their ongoing effort to turn the internet into the largest and most comprehensive surveillance and control mechanism in human history
Rep Mike Rogers Claims that Opponents to CISPA are 14 Year Olds
Gov’t Spying on US Citizens; Big Brother watching you-CISPA-NSA
Ruppersberger began his career as a Baltimore County Assistant State’s Attorney. He was soon promoted to the Chief of the State’s Attorney Office Investigative Division, pursuing organized crime, political corruption, and drug trafficking. He was elected to the Baltimore County Council in 1985 and again in 1989, chosen twice as council chairman. In December 1994 and again in 1998, Ruppersberger was elected Baltimore County Executive.
U.S. House of Representatives
Congressman Ruppersberger calls on Congress to create a cabinet level intelligence director on August 3, 2004.
Ruppersberger was the first Democratic freshman ever to be appointed to the House Intelligence Committee. He was named to this committee because his district is home to the National Security Agency. Since 2011, he has been this committee’s ranking Democrat. The position places Ruppersberger on the elite “Gang of Eight,” which refers to the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees along with the Senate majority leader, Senate minority leader, House speaker and House minority leader. By law, the president must keep the Gang of Eight informed of the country’s most secret intelligence activities to maintain proper oversight.
Shock Trauma
Congressman Ruppersberger decided to run for office after a near-fatal car accident while investigating a drug trafficking case. Thanks to the dedication of doctors at the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center, Congressman Ruppersberger survived and began campaigning for office to assist Shock Trauma after they saved his life. He remains an active supporter of the hospital, serving as vice chairman of its board of visitors. He also serves on the United States Naval Academy Board of Visitors.
Operation Hero Miles
In one of his first acts in Washington in 2003, Congressman Ruppersberger created the national “Hero Miles” program to enable patriotic Americans to donate their frequent flyer miles to wounded warriors recovering at military or Veterans Administration (VA) medical centers as well as to friends and family visiting them. In 2012, he authored legislation expanding the program to enable Americans to also donate their hotel reward points to military families. Both the “Hero Miles” and “Hotels for Heroes” programs are administered by Fisher House, a nonprofit organization that opens its homes to military families visiting their injured loved ones at hospitals across the country .[2] He won a Charles Dick Medal of Merit in 2004 for this initiative, thus becoming the last Marylander to win this award, which was previously awarded to U.S. Rep. Beverly Byron (1992), State Senator John Astle (1993), U.S. Senator Barbara Mikulski (1994), U.S. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (1998) and State Del (now State Comptroller) Peter Franchot (1999).
CISPA
Congressman Ruppersberger, along with Michigan Republican Mike Rogers, co-sponsored the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, designed to increase intelligence sharing between private cyber security firms and government agencies.[3] More than 60 businesses and trade organizations submitted letters of support including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Time Warner, Verizon and AT&T, IBM and Intel.[4] Despite several amendments to address privacy concerns, some groups, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, have criticized the act for a lack of civil liberties protections, claiming that it authorizes government surveillance of private communications and allows companies to hand over large amounts of personal information on their clients without a warrant or judicial oversight, and thereby creates a cybersecurity loophole in existing privacy laws, such as the Wiretap Act and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.[5] CISPA passed the House of Representatives on April 26, 2012.[6] It was reintroduced into the House on February 13, 2013, and passed on April 18, 2013, by a bipartisan vote of 288-127. Ninety-two Democrats supported the bill, many citing significant privacy improvements over the 2012 version. [7]
Political campaigns
Barred from a third term as County Executive, Ruppersberger opted to run for Congress in 2002 after 2nd District Congressman Bob Ehrlich made what turned out to be a successful run forgovernor. The Maryland General Assembly significantly altered the 2nd by shifting most of its share of Harford County to the 1st and 6th Districts. In its place, the legislature added a heavily Democratic portion of Baltimore City that had previously been in the 1st District. This turned the 2nd from a swing district into a strongly Democratic district. It was an open secret that the district was drawn for Ruppersberger; local media called the new district “the Dutch district.” An August 2011 editorial by The Washington Post describes the 2nd district as “curlicue territories strung together by impossibly delicate tendrils of land” and “a crazy-quilt confection drawn for the express purpose of ousting the incumbent at the time, Rep. (and later Gov.) Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., a Republican, and installing C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, a Democrat who still holds the job.”[8] He defeated Republican opponent Helen Delich Bentley, who had represented the 2nd district from 1985 to 1995, with 55 percent of the vote. Ruppersberger has never faced another contest even that close and has been reelected five times. On April 10, 2013, the Baltimore Sun reported that Ruppersberger was considering a run for governor of Maryland in 2014.[9] In January of 2014, Ruppersberger announced that he would not run for Governor, but instead would seek reelection to the House of Representatives.[10]
This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia’s quality standards. The specific problem is: Need to organize old information by date and add to recent developments on 2015 bill.. Please help improve this article if you can.(January 2015)
To provide for the sharing of certain cyber threat intelligence and cyber threat information between the intelligence community and cybersecurity entities, and for other purposes.
The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPAH.R. 3523 (112th Congress), H.R. 624 (113th Congress), H.R. 234 (114th Congress)) is a proposed law in the United States which would allow for the sharing of Internet traffic information between the U.S. government and technology and manufacturing companies. The stated aim of the bill is to help the U.S. government investigate cyber threats and ensure the security of networks against cyberattacks.[1]
The legislation was introduced on November 30, 2011, by Representative Michael Rogers (R–MI) and 111 co-sponsors.[2][3] It was passed in the House of Representatives on April 26, 2012, but was not passed by the U.S. Senate.[4] President Barack Obama‘s advisers have argued that the bill lacks confidentiality and civil liberties safeguards, and the White House said he would veto it.[5]
In January 2015 the House reintroduced the bill again.[10] The bill currently has been Referred to the Committee on Intelligence to see if it will come to the House for a vote.
Some critics saw wording included in CISPA as a second attempt to protect intellectual property after the Stop Online Piracy Act was taken off the table by Congress after it met opposition.[14]Intellectual property theft was initially listed in the bill as a possible cause for sharing Web traffic information with the government, though it was removed in subsequent drafts.[15]
CISPA is an amendment to the National Security Act of 1947, which does not currently contain provisions pertaining to cybercrime. It adds provisions to the Act describing cyber threat intelligence as “information in the possession of an element of the intelligence community directly pertaining to a vulnerability of, or threat to, a system or network of a government or private entity, including information pertaining to the protection of a system or network from either “efforts to degrade, disrupt, or destroy such system or network”.[16] In addition, CISPA requires the Director of National Intelligence to establish procedures to allow intelligence community elements to share cyber threat intelligence with private-sector entities and encourage the sharing of such intelligence.[17]
In an April 16, 2012, press release, the House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence announced the approval of several amendments to CISPA, including the addition of a new provision “to permit federal lawsuits against the government for any violation of restrictions placed on the government’s use of voluntarily shared information, including the important privacy and civil liberties protections contained in the bill,” the inclusion of an anti-tasking provision to “explicitly prohibit the government from conditioning its sharing of cyber threat intelligence on the sharing of private sector information with the government”, and the prevention of the government from using the information for “any other lawful purpose unless the government already has a significant cybersecurity or national security purpose in using the information”. Relevant provisions were also clarified to “focus on the fact that the bill is designed to protect against unauthorized access to networks or systems, including unauthorized access aimed at stealing private or government information”.[18] In addition, already collected cyberthreat data can also be used to investigate “the imminent threat of bodily harm to an individual” or “the exploitation of a minor,” bringing the bill into line with existing law codified by thePatriot Act and the PROTECT Our Children Act[19] in which these two conditions already allow for protected entities to share data voluntarily with the United States government, law enforcement agencies, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Recent developments
Bill sponsors Mike Rogers and Dutch Ruppersberger, the chairman and ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, respectively, said on April 25, 2012, that the Obama administration’s opposition is mostly based on the lack of critical infrastructure regulation, something outside of the jurisdiction of the Intelligence committee; they have also since introduced a package of amendments to the legislation that, “address nearly every single one of the criticisms leveled by the Administration, particularly those regarding privacy and civil liberties of Americans”.[20]
Due to the opposition the bill has experienced, the co-sponsors are planning to amend the bill to address many of the concerns of its opponents—including limiting its scope to a narrower definition of cyber-threats, and stating that the “theft of intellectual property” refers to the theft of research and development. In addition, there will now be penalties if private companies or the government uses data from CISPA for purposes “unrelated to cyberthreats”.[21][22]
However, Sharan Bradford Franklin, of the Constitution Project states, “Although we appreciate the Intelligence Committee’s efforts to improve the bill and willingness to engage in a dialogue with privacy advocates, the changes in its most current draft do not come close to addressing the civil liberties threats posed by the bill, and some of the proposals would actually make CISPA worse. Therefore, Congress should not pass CISPA”.[23]
Rainey Reitman, of the Electronic Frontier Foundation states, “To date, the authors of the bill have been unresponsive to these criticisms, offering amendments that are largely cosmetic. Dismissing the grave concerns about how this bill could undermine the core privacy rights of everyday Internet users, Rep. Mike Rogers characterized the growing protests against CISPA as ‘turbulence’ and vowed to push for a floor vote without radical changes.”[24]
Kendall Burman of the Center for Democracy and Technology states, “The authors of CISPA have made some positive changes recently. Unfortunately, none of the changes gets to the heart of the privacy concerns that Internet users and advocacy groups have expressed.”[25]
In April 2012, the Office of Management and Budget of the Executive Office of the President of the United States released a statement strongly opposing the current bill and recommending to veto it.[26]
On April 26, 2012, the House of Representatives passed CISPA.
On February 13, 2013, United States Representative Mike Rogers reintroduced the CISPA bill in the 113th Congress as H.R. 624.[6]
On April 18, 2013, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 624.[7] The Senate has reportedly refused to vote on the measure and is drafting competing legislation.[27]
Former Representative Ron Paul (R–TX) has publicly opposed the bill calling it “Big Brother writ large.”[36][37][38][39]
36 groups currently oppose CISPA[40] with an addition of 6 groups as of April 21.[41] The Electronic Frontier Foundation lists a growing list of opposition[42] as well as a list of security experts, academics, and engineers in opposition of the bill.[43] They also published the statement Don’t Let Congress Use “Cybersecurity” Fears to Erode Digital Rights.[44]
Opposition to CISPA includes more than 840,000 online petitioners who have signed global civic organization Avaaz.org’s petition to members of the US Congress entitled “Save the Internet from the US”.[45] Avaaz also has a petition to Facebook, Microsoft, and IBM entitled “The end of Internet privacy”, signed by more than 840,000 people.[46]
The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) published a statement titled “Cybersecurity’s 7-Step Plan for Internet Freedom”.[47] The CDT openly opposes the Mike Rogers bill based on these 7-step criteria.[48] The CDT has also openly supported a competing bill in the house sponsored by Representative Dan Lungren (R–CA)[49] that has yet to be reported by the committee.[50]
The Constitution Project (TCP) “believes cybersecurity legislation currently pending before Congress possess major risks to civil liberties that must be addressed before any bill is enacted into law.”[51]
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has also issued a statement opposing the bill stating, “The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act would create a cybersecurity exception to all privacy laws and allow companies to share the private and personal data they hold on their American customers with the government for cybersecurity purposes.” As the statement continues, “Beyond the potential for massive data collection authorization, the bill would provide no meaningful oversight of, or accountability for, the use of these new information-sharing authorities.”[52]
The Sunlight Foundation states, “The new cybersecurity bill, CISPA, or HR 3523, is terrible on transparency. The bill proposes broad new information collection and sharing powers (which many other organizations are covering at length). Even as the bill proposes those powers, it proposes to limit public oversight of this work.”[53]
Cenk Uygur, from Current TV, opposed the bill highlighted one of Mike Rogers’ speech about the bill to the business community. He also attempted to summarize the bill to his audience.[54]
Demand Progress opposes CISPA, stating “The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA, would obliterate any semblance of online privacy in the United States.”[55]
Reporters Without Borders states, “Reporters Without Borders is deeply concerned with the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2011 (CISPA), the cyber security bill now before the US Congress. In the name of the war on cyber crime, it would allow the government and private companies to deploy draconian measures to monitor, even censor, the Web. It might even be used to close down sites that publish classified files or information.”[57]
testPAC opposes CISPA stating “CISPA would effectively take the door off the hinge of every household in America, but lacks the tools necessary to distinguish whether there is a criminal hiding in the attic. Why surrender the core of our privacy for the sake of corporate and governmental convenience?”[58]
Mozilla, the makers of the Firefox Web-Browser, opposes CISPA stating, “While we wholeheartedly support a more secure Internet, CISPA has a broad and alarming reach that goes far beyond Internet security.”[59]
The Association for Computing Machinery believes that “More effective information sharing in support of cybersecurity is a laudable goal, but CISPA is seriously flawed in its approach to PII. Better approaches to information sharing are certainly possible if privacy goals are also considered.”[60]
IGDA, the International Game Developers Association is against this bill, urging Congress and the President to reject it saying, in part, “The version of CISPA which just emerged from the House Intelligence Committee does not address the privacy failings in the previous version, which the White House wisely rejected. The bill still retains its dangerously over-broad language, still lacks civilian control, still lacks judicial oversight, and still lacks clear limits on government monitoring of our Internet browsing information. The House should vote against it.”[61]
The Libertarian Party protested it by blacking out much of their Facebook, and encouraged others to follow suit.[62]
Anonymous, a hacktivist group, has criticized the bill and called for an “Internet blackout day” to protest the bill. The date of the blackout was April 22, 2013.[68]
Prior attempts for U.S. cybersecurity bills
Since legislation must pass the House and the Senate within the same Congress, anything introduced during the 112th or earlier Congresses has to pass both chambers again.
S. 2105 (Cybersecurity Act), reported by committee on February 15, 2012. Sponsored by SenatorJoseph Lieberman (I–CT).[70] Failing to gain enough support for passage, the bill, entitled “Cybersecurity Act of 2012”, was reintroduced on July 19, 2012 in a revised form which omitted federal imposition of security standards on IP providers, as well as including stronger privacy and civil liberties protections.[71]
House of Representatives
H.R. 3674 (Precise Act), reported by committee April 18, 2012 by Representative Dan Lungren (R–CA).[72] The bill changed as “Lungren dropped many of the critical infrastructure and DHS provisions” due to the house.[73]
Story 1: Breaking News City of Peshawar, Pakistan, Army Run School Attacked, Resulted in Killing of 141 (132 Students) and 200 Wounded or Injured By 7 Taliban Terrorist Wearing Suicide Vests — Videos
Pakistan Army school Terrorist Attack on Army School in Peshawar Video | Taliban attack school
army school ATTACK Pakistan: Peshawar army school ATTACK kills 21, 500 held hostage Video of attack Terrorist Attack on Army School in Peshawar Pakistan Video | Taliban attack school Pakistan
At least 126 people have been killed, including 84 children, after Taliban gunmen stormed a military school in the north-western Pakistani city of Peshawar, in the worst ever militant attack to hit the troubled region.
It was reported that one suicide bomber blew himself up in a room containing 60 children and a teacher was set on fire in front of pupils, with the children forced to watch.
The attack started with the gunmen entering the 500-pupil school – which has students aged 10 to 18 – in the early hours.
The jihadists shot their way into the building and went from classroom to classroom, shooting at random.
Army commandos quickly arrived at the scene and exchanged fire with the gunmen. Eye-witnesses described how students cowered under desks as dead bodies were strewn along corridors.
Around 160 children, aged 13 and 14, are being held hostage, with four gunmen still inside. A police inspector said they had trapped the terrorists in the principal’s office. Many of the soldiers involved in the rescue operation are trying to save their own children.
During the last hour there were seven blasts. Two of them are said to be suicide blasts, a police superintendent said, the rest were grenade blasts.
‘We selected the army’s school for the attack because the government is targeting our families and females,’ said Taliban spokesman Muhammad Umar Khorasani. ‘We want them to feel the pain.’
Pakistan school attack: more than 130 dead in Taliban attack, most of them children – TALIBAN
Taliban School Attack Peshawar Pakistan School Attack 126 killed Take Hostages
World leaders condemn Pakistan school attack
Nobel prize winner Malala ‘heartbroken’ by Pakistan school attack
145+ children, killed in Pakistani Punjabi ISI proxies,Taliban high school attack
Peshawar school attack: Pakistani Taliban kills at least 135 people, most of them young children
Taliban School Attack Peshawar (VIDEO) Pakistan Children Shot Dead in Army School
Raw: Militants Attack Pakistan School
Pakistani officials say siege at school over
By RIAZ KHAN and REBECCA SANTANA
In the deadliest slaughter of innocents in Pakistan in years, Taliban gunmen attacked a military-run school Tuesday and killed 141 people — almost all of them students — before government troops ended the siege.
The massacre of innocent children horrified a country already weary of unending terrorist attacks. Pakistan’s teenage Nobel Peace laureate Malala Yousafzai — herself a survivor of a Taliban shooting — said she was “heartbroken” by the bloodshed.
Even Taliban militants in neighboring Afghanistan decried the killing spree, calling it “un-Islamic.”
If the Pakistani Taliban extremists had hoped the attack would cause the government to ease off its military offensive that began in June in the country’s tribal region, it appeared to have the opposite effect. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif pledged to step up the campaign that — along with U.S. drone strikes — has targeted the militants.
“The fight will continue. No one should have any doubt about it,” Sharif said. “We will take account of each and every drop of our children’s blood.”
Taliban fighters have struggled to maintain their potency in the face of the military operation. They vowed a wave of violence in response to the operation, but until Tuesday, there has only been one major attack by a splinter group near the Pakistan-India border in November. Analysts said the school siege showed that even diminished, the militant group still could inflict horrific carnage.
View gallery
Pakistani civil society members take part in a candle light vigil for the victims of a school attack …
The rampage at the Army Public School and College began in the morning when seven militants scaled a back wall using a ladder, said Maj. Gen. Asim Bajwa, a military spokesman. When they reached an auditorium where students had gathered for an event, they opened fire.
A 14-year-old, Mehran Khan, said about 400 students were in the hall when the gunmen broke through the doors and started shooting. They shot one of the teachers in the head and then set her on fire and shouted “God is great!” as she screamed, added Khan, who survived by playing dead.
From there, they went to classrooms and other parts of the school.
“Their sole purpose, it seems, was to kill those innocent kids. That’s what they did,” Bajwa said. Of the 141 people slain before government troops ended the assault eight hours later, 132 were children and nine were staff members. Another 121 students and three staff members were wounded.
The seven attackers, wearing vests of explosives, all died in the eight-hour assault. It was not immediately clear if they were all killed by the soldiers or whether they blew themselves up, he said.
White House Calls Taliban Attack In Pakistan ‘ …Play video
The wounded — some still wearing their green school blazers — flooded into hospitals as terrified parents searched for their children. By evening, funeral services were already being held for many of the victims as clerics announced the deaths over mosque loudspeakers.
The government declared three days of mourning for what appeared to be Pakistan’s deadliest since a 2007 suicide bombing in the port city of Karachi killed 150 people.
“My son was in uniform in the morning. He is in a casket now,” wailed one parent, Tahir Ali, as he came to the hospital to collect the body of his 14-year-old son, Abdullah. “My son was my dream. My dream has been killed.”
One of the wounded students, Abdullah Jamal, said he was with a group of eighth, ninth and 10th graders who were getting first-aid instructions and training with a team of army medics when the violence became real. Panic broke out when the shooting began.
“I saw children falling down who were crying and screaming. I also fell down. I learned later that I have got a bullet,” he said, speaking from his hospital bed.
Malala Yousafzai on deadly Pakistan school attack: …Play video
Another student, Amir Mateen, said they locked the door from the inside when they heard the shooting, but gunmen blasted through anyway and opened fire.
Responding to the attack, armored personnel carriers were deployed around the school, and a military helicopter circled overhead.
A little more than 1,000 students and staff were registered at the school, which is part of a network run by the military, although the surrounding area is not heavily fortified. The student body is made up of both children of military personnel as well as civilians.
Most of the students appeared to be civilians rather than children of army staff, said Javed Khan, a government official. Analysts said the militants likely targeted the school because of its military connections.
“It’s a kind of a message that ‘we can also kill your children,'” said Pakistani analyst Zahid Hussain.
In a statement to reporters, Taliban spokesman Mohammed Khurasani claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was retribution for the military’s operation in nearby North Waziristan, the northwestern tribal region where the group’s fighters largely have been based.
“We targeted their kids so that they could know how it feels when they hit our kids,” Khurasani said. He said the attackers were advised not to target “underage” children but did not elaborate on what that meant.
In its offensive, the military said it would go after all militant groups operating in the region. Security officials and civilians feared retribution by militants, but Pakistan has been relatively calm.
The attack raised the issue of whether this was the last gasp of a militant group crippled by a government offensive or whether the militants could regroup.
Hussain, the Pakistani analyst, called the attack an “act of desperation.”
The violence will throw public support behind the campaign in North Waziristan, he said. It also shows that the Pakistani Taliban still maintains a strong intelligence network and remains a threat.
The attack drew swift condemnation from around the world. U.S. President Barack Obama said the “terrorists have once again showed their depravity.”
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry added: “The images are absolutely gut-wrenching: young children carried away in ambulances, a teacher burned alive in front of the students, a house of learning turned into a house of unspeakable horror.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, Pakistan’s longtime regional rival, called it “a senseless act of unspeakable brutality.”
“My heart goes out to everyone who lost their loved ones today. We share their pain & offer our deepest condolences,” Modi said in a series of tweeted statements.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said it was a “an act of horror and rank cowardice to attack defenseless children while they learn.”
The violence recalled the attack on Malala Yousafzai, who was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman outside her school in the Swat Valley for daring to speak up about girls’ rights. She survived to become a global advocate for girls’ education and received her Nobel Peace Prize last week, but has not returned to Pakistan in the two years since the shooting out of security concerns.
“Innocent children in their school have no place in horror such as this,” the 17-year-old said. “I condemn these atrocious and cowardly acts.”
Death ‘All Around Me’: Victims Relive Pakistan School Massacre
BY MUSHTAQ YUSUFZAI, WAJAHAT S. KHAN, F. BRINLEY BRUTON AND ALASTAIR JAMIESON
SHAWAR, Pakistan — Pakistan was plunged into mourning Tuesday after Taliban militants in suicide vests laid siege to a school, massacring more than 130 children during eight hours of sheer terror. In total, 145 people were killed, officials said.
Those who survived emerged with stories of horror — of gunmen shooting indiscriminately into crowds or killing youngsters one by one.
“One of my teachers was crying, she was shot in the hand and she was crying in pain,” Shahrukh Khan, 15, who was shot in both legs but survived, told Reuters. “One terrorist then walked up to her and started shooting her until she stopped making any sound.
“All around me my friends were lying injured and dead.”
A military source told NBC News that the attackers were wearing police uniforms and suicide vests.
“They burnt a teacher in front of the students in a classroom,” he said. “They literally set the teacher on fire with gasoline and made the kids watch.”
The government of Pakistan declared three days of mourning for the lives lost.
Peshawar Father: ‘They Can’t Find my Son, Dead or Alive’
Maj. Gen. Asim Bajwa, a military spokesman, told NBC News that at least 132 children were killed in the attack, along with 10 staff from the school — including the principal. Seven militants were killed and seven special forces soldiers were injured.
“They didn’t take any hostages initially and started firing in the hall,” Bajwa also told a press conference. He told NBC News that they had enough ammunition and rations to have kept up the siege for days.
At a hospital near the school, blood stained the floors. Crying relatives roamed the wards and searched operating rooms, desperately searching for their sons and daughters.
One room at at the Central Military hospital was filled with teenagers who had bullet wounds, shrapnel embedded in their flesh and burns.
A doctor, Brig. Muhammad Waqar, said his son attends the school and he watched with dread as victim after victim was brought in
“I was waiting for him to turn up dead in an ambulance,” he said. “I wanted to grab a gun and go to the school.”
The Pakistani Taliban have claimed responsibility for the attack, which Pakistani officials said appeared to be aimed at the children of senior military personnel.
Uniformed militants struck shortly before 11 a.m. local time (1 a.m. ET) when about 1,000 students — in grades one through 10 — and teachers were believed to be inside.
“We were standing outside the school and firing suddenly started and there was chaos everywhere and the screams of children and teachers,” said Jamshed Khan, a school bus driver.
“The gunmen entered class by class and shot some kids one by one,” one student who was in the Army Public School in Peshawar at the time told local media.
As the siege continued and Pakistani security forces battled to stop the assault, five “heavy” explosions were heard from the school at around 5 a.m. ET. Bombs planted by the attackers slowed rescue efforts, a military official said, and the massacre was not declared over until after 9 a.m. ET.
Dozens of Children Killed as Taliban Gunmen Storm Peshawar School
Wounded student Abdullah Jamal told The Associated Press he was getting first-aid instructions and training with a team of Pakistani army medics when the violence began for real. When the shooting started, Jamal said nobody knew what was going on in the first few seconds.
“Then I saw children falling down who were crying and screaming. I also fell down. I learned later that I have got a bullet,” he said, speaking from his hospital bed. He had been shot in the leg.
Hours after all the children had been removed from the school, soldiers angrily roamed the campus.
“It’s interesting that they came through this graveyard,” said one officer, pointing to a cemetery adjacent to the school. “It’s sad. They stepped over the graves of the dead to create more death.”
President Barack Obama slammed the attack and said America stands with the people of Pakistan and its government’s efforts to fight terrorism.
“By targeting students and teachers in this heinous attack, terrorists have once again shown their depravity,” he said in a statement.
As the carnage played out in Peshawar, Pakistan’s military carried out 10 airstrikes in the Khyber region, between Peshawar and the Afghanistan border, based on “actionable intelligence” according to a spokesman.
Taliban spokesman Muhammad Umar Khorasani told Reuters his group was responsible for the attack. “Our suicide bombers have entered the school, they have instructions not to harm the children, but to target the army personnel,” he said.
Suzanna Gratia Hupp explains meaning of 2nd Amendment!
“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed….”- Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, 1787
On October 16, 1991, Hennard drove his 1987 Ford Ranger pickup truck through the front window of a Luby’s Cafeteria at 1705 East Central Texas Expressway in Killeen, yelled “This is what Bell County has done to me!”, then opened fire on the restaurant’s patrons and staff with a Glock 17 pistol and later a Ruger P89. About 80 people were in the restaurant at the time. He stalked, shot, and killed 23 people and wounded another 20 before committing suicide. During the shooting, he approached Suzanna Gratia Hupp and her parents. Hupp had actually brought a handgun to the Luby’s Cafeteria that day, but had left it in her vehicle due to the laws in force at the time, forbidding citizens from carrying firearms. According to her later testimony in favor of Missouri’s HB-1720 bill[1] and in general, after she realized that her firearm was not in her purse, but “a hundred feet away in [her] car”, her father charged at Hennard in an attempt to subdue him, only to be gunned down; a short time later, her mother was also shot and killed. (Hupp later expressed regret for abiding by the law in question by leaving her firearm in her car, rather than keeping it on her person. One patron, Tommy Vaughn, threw himself through a plate-glass window to allow others to escape. Hennard allowed a mother and her four-year-old child to leave. He reloaded several times and still had ammunition remaining when he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head after being cornered and wounded by police.
Reacting to the massacre, in 1995 the Texas Legislature passed a shall-issue gun law allowing Texas citizens with the required permit to carry concealed weapons. The law had been campaigned for by Suzanna Hupp, who was present at the Luby’s massacre and both of whose parents were shot and killed. Hupp testified across the country in support of concealed-handgun laws, and was elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 1996. The law was signed by then-Governor George W. Bush and became part of a broad movement to allow U.S. citizens to easily obtain permits to carry concealed weapons.
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ENEMY OF THE STATE… (1998) MUST WATCH..TAKE SERIOUSLY..
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Enemy of the State
Enemy of the State is a 1998 American action-thriller about a group of rogue NSA agents who kill a US Congressman and try to cover up the murder. It was written by David Marconi, directed by Tony Scott, and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. It stars Will Smith and Gene Hackman, with Jon Voight, Lisa Bonet, and Regina King in supporting roles.
The film grossed over $250,000,000 worldwide ($111,549,836 within the US).
Plot
As the U.S. Congress moves to pass new legislation that dramatically expands the surveillance powers of intelligence agencies, Congressman Phil Hammersley (Robards) remains firmly opposed to its passage. To ensure the bill’s passage, National Security Agency official Thomas Reynolds (Voight) kills Hammersley, but he is unaware of a video camera set up by wildlife researcher Daniel Zavitz (Lee) that has captured the entire incident. Zavitz discovers the murder, and alerts an underground journalist, at the same time transferring the video to an innocuous computer disc. Reynolds learns of Zavitz’s footage, and sends a team to recover the video. While fleeing, Zavitz runs into an old college friend, labor lawyer Robert Clayton Dean (Smith). Zavitz secretly passes the computer disc into Dean’s shopping bag without his knowledge. Zavitz flees and is killed when hit by a fire truck. Reynolds soon has the underground journalist killed.
When the NSA discovers that Dean may have the video, a team raids his house and plants surveillance devices. Unable to find the video, the NSA proceeds to falsely incriminate Dean of passing classified information to Rachel Banks (Bonet), a former girlfriend. The subterfuge destroys Dean’s life: he is fired from his job, his bank accounts are frozen, and his wife (King) throws him out of the house. Dean, trailed by the NSA, meets with Banks, who sets up a meeting with “Brill”, one of her secret contacts. After meeting an NSA agent posing as Brill (Byrne), Dean realizes his error, only to have the real Brill, retired NSA agent Edward Lyle (Hackman), ferry him to temporary safety and help rid Dean of most of the tracking devices he is unwittingly carrying. Dean ultimately rids himself of the final device and, fleeing his pursuers, escapes.
With Dean and Lyle in hiding, the NSA agents kill Banks and frame Dean for the murder. Lyle is able to find evidence that the NSA executed Hammersley’s murder, but it is destroyed during an escape from an NSA raid.
It is then revealed that Lyle was an expert in communications for the NSA; he was stationed in Iran before the Iranian Revolution. When the revolution occurred, Lyle made it out of the country, but his partner, Rachel’s father, was killed. Since then he has been in hiding. Lyle tries to coax Dean into trying to run away, but Dean is adamant about clearing his name.
Dean and Lyle blackmail another supporter of the surveillance bill, Congressman Sam Albert (Wilson), by videotaping him having an affair with his aide. Dean and Lyle “hide” bugs that Reynolds had used on Dean in Albert’s room so Albert will find them and have the NSA start an investigation. Lyle also deposits $140,000 into Reynolds’ bank account to make it appear that he is taking bribes.
Lyle contacts Reynolds to tell him he has the video of the Hammersley murder and asks to meet. Dean tells them that the Hammersley murder footage is in the hands of Mafia boss Joey Pintero (Sizemore), whose office is under FBI surveillance. Dean, Reynolds, and the NSA team head into Pintero’s restaurant, precipitating a gunfight that kills the mobsters, Reynolds, and several of his NSA team.
Dean and Lyle escape, with Lyle quickly disappearing from the authorities. The FBI discovers the plot behind the legislation, causing it to fail, though they cover up the NSA’s involvement. Dean is cleared of all charges and is reunited with his wife. Lyle escapes to a tropical location, but sends a “goodbye” message to Dean.
Cast
Will Smith as Robert Clayton Dean
Gene Hackman as Edward “Brill” Lyle
Jon Voight as Thomas Brian Reynolds
Barry Pepper as David Pratt
Regina King as Carla Dean
Ian Hart as John Bingham
Lisa Bonet as Rachel F. Banks
Jascha Washington as Eric Dean
James LeGros as Jerry Miller
Jake Busey as Krug
Scott Caan as Jones
Jamie Kennedy as Jamie Williams
Jason Lee as Daniel Leon Zavitz
Gabriel Byrne as Fake Brill
Stuart Wilson as Congressman Sam Albert
Jack Black as Fiedler
Anna Gunn as Emily Reynolds
Laura Cayouette as Christa Hawkins
Loren Dean as Loren Hicks
Bodhi Elfman as Van
Dan Butler as NSA Director Admiral Shaffer
Seth Green as Selby (uncredited)
Tom Sizemore as Boss Paulie Pintero (uncredited)
Jason Robards as Congressman Phil Hammersley (uncredited)
Philip Baker Hall as Attorney Mark Silverberg (uncredited)
Brian Markinson as Attorney Brian Blake (uncredited)
Larry King as Himself (uncredited)
Ivana Miličević as Ruby’s Sales Clerk
Production
Although the story is set in both Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, most of the filming was done in Baltimore. Location shooting began on a ferry in Fells Point. In mid-January, the company moved to Los Angeles to complete production in April 1998.[3]
Mel Gibson and Tom Cruise were considered for the part that went to Will Smith, who took the role largely because he wanted to work with Gene Hackman and had previously enjoyed working with producer Jerry Bruckheimer on Bad Boys. George Clooney was also considered for a role in the film. Sean Connery was considered for the role that went to Hackman. The film’s crew included a technical surveillance counter-measures consultant who also had a minor role as a spy shop merchant. Hackman had previously acted in a similar thriller about spying and surveillance film, The Conversation (1974).
Reception
Enemy of the State was moderately well received by critics. Rotten Tomatoes presented a 71% “Fresh” rating for the movie, with 57 critics approving of the movie and 24 noting the film as “Rotten;”[4] similar results could be found at the website Metacritic, which displayed a normalized ranking of 67 out of 100 on the basis of the views of 22 critics.[5] Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times expressed enjoyment in the movie, noting how its “pizazz [overcame] occasional lapses in moment-to-moment plausibility;”[6] Janet Maslin of the New York Times approved of the film’s action-packed sequences, but cited how it was similar in manner to the rest of the members of “Simpson’s and Bruckheimer’s school of empty but sensation-packed filming.”[7] In a combination of the two’s views, Edvins Beitiks of the San Francisco Examiner praised many of the movie’s development aspects, but criticized the overall concept that drove the film from the beginning — the efficiency of government intelligence — as unrealistic.[8]
According to film critic Kim Newman, Enemy of the State could be construed as a “continuation of The Conversation,” the 1974 psychological thriller that starred Hackman as a paranoid, isolated surveillance expert.[9]
Box office
The film opened at #2, behind The Rugrats Movie, grossing $20,038,573 over its first weekend in 2,393 theatres and averaging about $8,374 per venue.[10][11]
Real life
An episode of PBS’ Nova titled “Spy Factory” reports that the film’s portrayal of the NSA’s capabilities are fiction: although the agency can intercept transmissions, connecting the dots is difficult.[12] However, in 2001, then-NSA director Gen. Michael Hayden, who was appointed to the position during the release of the film, told CNN’s Kyra Philipps that “I made the judgment that we couldn’t survive with the popular impression of this agency being formed by the last Will Smith movie.[13]” James Risen wrote in his 2006 book State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration that Hayden “was appalled” by the film’s depiction of the NSA, and sought to counter it with a PR campaign on behalf of the agency.[14]
In June 2013 the NSA’s PRISM and Boundless Informant programs for domestic and international surveillance were uncovered by the Guardian and Washington Post as the result of information provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden. This information revealed much more extensive capabilities than those represented by the film, such as collection of internet browsing, email and telephone data of not only every American, but citizens of other nations as well. The Guardian’s John Patterson opined that Hollywood depictions of NSA surveillance, including Enemy of the State and Echelon Conspiracy, had “softened” up the American public to “the notion that our spending habits, our location, our every movement and conversation, are visible to others whose motives we cannot know.[15]”
“I can only say that while I have considered the preservation of the constitutional power of the General Government to be the foundation of our peace and safety at home and abroad, I yet believe that the maintenance of the rights and authority reserved to the states and to the people, not only essential to the adjustment and balance of the general system, but the safeguard to the continuance of a free government. I consider it as the chief source of stability to our political system, whereas the consolidation of the states into one vast republic, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of that ruin which has overwhelmed all those that have preceded it.”
~General Robert E. Lee
“Every step which leads from capitalism toward planning is necessarily a step nearer to absolutism and dictatorship.”
“What vitiates entirely the socialists economic critique of capitalism is their failure to grasp the sovereignty of the consumers in the market economy.”
Florida Judge Rules Health Care Law Is Unconstitutional
Obamacare Declared Unconstitutional by Federal Judge
Why Obamacare Was Ruled Unconstitutional
Ron Paul Exposes Obamacare on Freedom Watch
A big fail.
President Obama can kiss his legacy good-bye and his second term in office.
How sweet it is!
Judge uses Obama’s words against him
By Stephen Dinan
The Washington Times
“…Judge Vinson, a federal judge in the northern district of Florida, struck down the entire health care law as unconstitutional on Monday, though he is allowing the Obama administration to continue to implement and enforce it while the government appeals his ruling.
The footnote was attached to the most critical part of Judge Vinson‘s ruling, in which he said the “principal dispute” in the case was not whether Congress has the power to tackle health care, but whether it has the power to compel the purchase of insurance.
Judge Vinson used Mr. Obama‘s campaign words from an interview with CNN to show that there are other options that could fall within the Constitution — including then-candidate Obama‘s plan.
During the presidential campaign, one key difference between Mr. Obama and his chief opponent, then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, was Mrs. Clinton‘s plan required all Americans to purchase insurance, and Mr. Obama‘s did not.
In the heat of the primaries in 2008, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman predicted Mr. Obama‘s opposition to an individual mandate could come back to haunt him: “If Mr. Obama gets to the White House and tries to achieve universal coverage, he’ll find that it can’t be done without mandates — but if he tries to institute mandates, the enemies of reform will use his own words against him.”
Mr. Obama has since defended the constitutionality of the individual mandate, arguing it’s the linchpin of the program to bring in more customers, which is key to expanding the availability and affordability of insurance. …”
BREAKING: Federal judge rules Obamacare unconstitutional
“…The full text of the decision from Federal Judge Roger Vinson is not available yet, but according to reporters who’ve seen the decision, he’s ruled the entire Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act unconstitutional. The ruling favors of the 26 state attorney generals challenging the law. The judge ruled the individual mandate that requires all Americans to purchase health insurance invalid and, according to the decision, “because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire Act must be declared void.”
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Japanese Relocation – U.S. Gov’t Explanation 1942 (Japanese Internment Camps)
Future Fright: Losing the Bill of Rights part 1
Future Fright: Losing the Bill of Rights Part 2
Future Fright: Losing the Bill of Rights Part 3
Future Fright: Losing the Bill of Rights Part 4
Future Fright: Losing the Bill of Rights Part 5
Future Fright: Losing the Bill of Rights Part 6
Future Fright: Losing the Bill of Rights Part 7
Background Aticles and Videos
FDR Fireside Chat. 2nd Bill of Rights
Bill of Rights
“..bill of rights is a list of the rights that are considered important and essential by a nation. The purpose of these bills is to protect those rights against infringement by the government. The term “bill of rights” originates from Britain, where it referred to a bill that was passed by Parliament in 1689.
An entrenched bill of rights exists as a separate instrument that falls outside of the normal jurisdiction of a country’s legislative body. In many governments, an official legal bill of rights recognized in principle holds more authority than the legislative bodies alone. A bill of rights, on the other hand, may be weakened by subsequent acts passed by government, and they do not need an approval by vote to alter it.
An unentrenched bill of rights exists as a separate act that is presented by a legislative body. As such it can be changed or repealed by the body that created it. It is not as permanent as a constitutional bill of rights. A constitutional bill cannot be changed except with the approval of that country’s voting public.
In other jurisdictions, the definition of rights may be statutory. In other words, it may be repealed just like any other law, and does not necessarily have greater weight than other laws. Not every jurisdiction enforces the protection of the rights articulated in its bill of rights.
Australia is the only Western country with neither a constitutional nor legislative bill of rights, although there is ongoing debate in many of Australia’s states. Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) are the only regions of the nation’s states to have a human rights bill. …”
United States Bill of Rights
“…In the United States, the Bill of Rights is the name by which the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution are known.[1] They were introduced by James Madison to the First United States Congress in 1789 as a series of articles, and came into effect on December 15, 1791, when they had been ratified by three-fourths of the States. Thomas Jefferson was a proponent of the Bill of Rights.[2]
The Bill of Rights prohibits Congress from making any law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, forbids infringement of “…the right of the people to keep and bear Arms…”, and prohibits the federal government from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. In federal criminal cases, it requires indictment by grand jury for any capital or “infamous crime”, guarantees a speedy public trial with an impartial jury composed of members of the state or judicial district in which the crime occurred, and prohibits double jeopardy. In addition, the Bill of Rights states that “the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people,”[3] and reserves all powers not granted to the federal government to the citizenry or States. Most of these restrictions were later applied to the states by a series of decisions applying the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was ratified in 1868, after the American Civil War.
Madison proposed the Bill of Rights while ideological conflict between Federalists and anti-Federalists, dating from the 1787 Philadelphia Convention, threatened the overall ratification of the new national Constitution. It largely responded to the Constitution’s influential opponents, including prominent Founding Fathers, who argued that the Constitution should not be ratified because it failed to protect the basic principles of human liberty. The Bill was influenced by George Mason’s 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights, the 1689 English Bill of Rights, works of the Age of Enlightenment pertaining to natural rights, and earlier English political documents such as Magna Carta (1215).
Two additional articles were proposed to the States; only the final ten articles were ratified quickly and correspond to the First through Tenth Amendments to the Constitution. The first Article, dealing with the number and apportionment of U.S. Representatives, never became part of the Constitution. The second Article, limiting the ability of Congress to increase the salaries of its members, was ratified two centuries later as the 27th Amendment. Though they are incorporated into the document known as the “Bill of Rights”, neither article establishes a right as that term is used today. For that reason, and also because the term had been applied to the first ten amendments long before the 27th Amendment was ratified, the term “Bill of Rights” in modern U.S. usage means only the ten amendments ratified in 1791.
The Bill of Rights plays a central role in American law and government, and remains a fundamental symbol of the freedoms and culture of the nation. One of the original fourteen copies of the Bill of Rights is on public display at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.
Second Bill of Rights
“…The Second Bill of Rights was a proposal made by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt during his State of the Union Address on January 11, 1944 to suggest that the nation had come to recognize, and should now implement, a second bill of rights. Roosevelt did not argue for any change to the United States Constitution; he argued that the second bill of rights was to be implemented politically, not by federal judges. Roosevelt’s stated justification was that the “political rights” guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights had “proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.” Roosevelt’s remedy was to create an “economic bill of rights” which would guarantee:
A job with a living wage
Freedom from unfair competition and monopolies
A home
Medical care
Education
Recreation
Roosevelt stated that having these rights would guarantee American security, and that America’s place in the world depended upon how far these and similar rights had been carried into practice. …”
Second Bill of Rights
“…Excerpt from President Roosevelt’s January 11, 1944 message to the Congress of the United States on the State of the Union[1]:
It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.
This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.
As our nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.
We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.” People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.
In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.
Among these are:
The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
The right to a good education.
All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.
America’s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for our citizens. …”
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
-U. S. Constitution, “Amendment II”
“The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”
~Thomas Jefferson
Death Wish
Do Americans Have A Right To Personal Self-Defense? pt.3 Senator Coburn Judge Sotomayor Hearing
Suzanna Gratia Hupp explains meaning of 2nd Amendment!
“…On October 16, 1991, Hennard drove his 1987 Ford Ranger pickup truck through the front window of a Luby’s Cafeteria at 1705 East Central Texas Expressway in Killeen, yelled “This is what Bell County has done to me!”, then opened fire on the restaurant’s patrons and staff with a Glock 17 pistol and later a Ruger P89. About 80 people were in the restaurant at the time. He stalked, shot, and killed 23 people and wounded another 20 before committing suicide. During the shooting, he approached Suzanna Gratia Hupp and her parents. Hupp had actually brought a handgun to the Luby’s Cafeteria that day, but had left it in her vehicle due to the laws in force at the time, forbidding citizens from carrying firearms. According to her later testimony in favor of Missouri’s HB-1720 bill[1] and in general, after she realized that her firearm was not in her purse, but “a hundred feet away in [her] car”, her father charged at Hennard in an attempt to subdue him, only to be gunned down; a short time later, her mother was also shot and killed. (Hupp later expressed regret for abiding by the law in question by leaving her firearm in her car, rather than keeping it on her person. One patron, Tommy Vaughn, threw himself through a plate-glass window to allow others to escape. Hennard allowed a mother and her four-year-old child to leave. He reloaded several times and still had ammunition remaining when he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head after being cornered and wounded by police.
Reacting to the massacre, in 1995 the Texas Legislature passed a shall-issue gun law allowing Texas citizens with the required permit to carry concealed weapons. The law had been campaigned for by Suzanna Hupp, who was present at the Luby’s massacre and both of whose parents were shot and killed. Hupp testified across the country in support of concealed-handgun laws, and was elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 1996. The law was signed by then-Governor George W. Bush and became part of a broad movement to allow U.S. citizens to easily obtain permits to carry concealed weapons. …”
Why We Have Our 2nd Amendment Rights In The USA.mov
cnn lou dobbs – sotomayor on the second amendment
Sonia Sotomayor’s Second Amendment Stance is Slippery and Evasive; No gun rights allowed?
Sessions: Concerns about Sotomayor and the Second Amendment
Senator Tom Coburn With AG Nominee Holder on 2nd Amendment
Eric Holder Attacking The Second Amendment To Help Mexico?
Obama Pushes Anti-Gun Treaty
I Love Lucy- Wicked City Women
Background Articles and Videos
Sotomajor on Whether Citizens Have A Right to Self Defense- “I don’t know”
By Brian Darling
“…Coburn asked if the right to gun ownership was fundamental and Sotomayor answered with a dodge. Sotomayor redefined the term fundamental right to mean, “but it doesn’t have the same meaning that common people understand that word to mean. To most people, the word by its dictionary term is critically important, central, fundamental. It’s sort of a rock basis. These meanings are not how the law uses that term when it comes to what the states can do or not do.”
Sotomayor redefined “fundamental” to mean “that Amendment (the 2nd Amendment) of the Constitution incorporated against the states.” Therefore, one does not have a fundamental right to self defense with a firearm, according to Sotomayor, because the Supreme Court has yet to incorporate that explicit recognition in the Constitution of a natural right of all men and women. Agreed, that one could argue that the Sotomayor definition of “fundamental” is arguable, yet it was non responsive to Senator Coburn’s direct question. A wise nominee can contort and justify prior decisions, yet why can’t this nominee say if she believes that the 2nd Amendment is arguably a fundamental right for all Americans. Most Americans believe that their right to self defense and the right to own a firearm is fundamental, as did the Supreme Court in the landmark Heller case which held that the 2nd Amendment is an individual right.
questions and answers tell the story better than I can. Please read and draw your own conclusions:
Coburn: Let me follow up with one other question. As a citizen oThe actual f this country, do you believe innately in my ability to have self-defense of myself — personal self-defense? Do I have a right to personal self- defense?
Sotomayor: I’m trying to think if I remember a case where the Supreme Court has addressed that particular question. Is there a Constitutional right to self-defense? And I can’t think of one. I could be wrong, but I can’t think of one.
Generally, as I understand, most criminal law statutes are passed by states. And I’m also trying to think if there’s any federal law that includes a self-defense provision or not. I just can’t.
What I was attempting to explain is that the issue of self- defense is usually defined in criminal statutes by the state’s laws. And I would think, although I haven’t studied the — all of the state’s laws, I’m intimately familiar with New York.
Coburn: But do you have an opinion, or can you give me your opinion, of whether or not in this country I personally, as an individual citizen, have a right to self-defense?
If you are a conservative, libertarian, veteran, Catholic, pro-life and anti-abortion Christian or Jew, illegal immigration opponent, unemployed, gun and rifle owner and user, and believer and supporter of the United States Constitution, President Obama has warned your local police and sheriff departments that you may be a recruit for rightwing extremists such as white supremacist and violent anti-government groups.
Looks like I am prime candidate on all counts.
There are just three problems, I am not a racist, I support limited government and I oppose the violent overthrow of the government.
Well President Obama knows left-wing extremists and radical socialists–he has been one since his college years at Columbia University and Harvard Law School, if not earlier.
President Obama attended Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s racist black liberation theology church for over twenty years and was friends and worked closely with a revolutionary socialist bomber for over ten years, Bill Ayers and his wife and fellow terrorist bomber, Bernadine Dohrn.
EMERGENCY; Warning to All U.S.A. Citizens – Obama and Ayers
Obama’s terrorist connections – William Ayers
Part 1: Rev. Jeremiah Wright In His Own Words
Part 2: Rev. Jeremiah Wright In His Own Words
Part 3: Rev. Jeremiah Wright In His Own Words
The reason President Obama never left the church for over twenty-years and remains friends with Bill Ayers to this day is simple.
President Obama is a left-wing extremist–a radical socialist.
President Obama has now set the groundwork or predicate for going after his political opponents.
Instead of rescinding the report and demanding the firing of those responsible for its writing and publication, the press was given limited access and very limited questioning about the report to the Secretary of Homeland Security.
The person responsible for the writing and publication of the report–President Barack Obama!
President Obama said he was not aware of the tea parties.
Sound familiar. Candidate Obama was also unaware of the extreme views of Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers.
May be the Secretary of Homeland Security should give him a “heads-up” to improve his situational awareness!
Never mind.
President Obama lies.
The ends justify the means for all radical socialists.
Do not believe a word the President Obama says–he is conning you.
Confirmed: The Obama DHS hit job on conservatives is real
By Michelle Malkin • April 14, 2009 12:01 AM
“…Yesterday, Roger Hedgecock and the Liberty Papers posted an unclassified DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis report titled:
Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.
The “report” (PDF file here) was one of the most embarrassingly shoddy pieces of propaganda I’d ever read out of DHS. I couldn’t believe it was real. …”
“…Nanny state is a term that refers to state protectionism, economic interventionism, or regulatory policies (of economic, social or other nature), and the perception that these policies are becoming institutionalized as common practice. Opponents of such policies use the term in their advocacy against what they consider as uninvited and damaging state meddling. It has been referred to as a form of political correctness. …”
“…Its usage varies by political context, but in general it is used in reference to policies where the state is characterized as being excessive in its desire to protect (“nanny”), govern or control particular aspects of society. Which particular aspects are considered to be excessively protected depends on usage. The term can refer to:
public health interventions such as disease surveillance, quarantines, mandatory or government-subsidized vaccination, food labeling regulations, school lunch programs, and water fluoridation[1]
consumer protectionism that removes or controls otherwise free choices such as helmet laws, anti-smoking laws and other laws regarding personal choices (some of which include a social cost, as in disease in non-smokers cause by second hand smoke)
national economic and social policies (regulation and intervention) that affect large and state-favored businesses
international trade policies that favor native corporate industries (protectionism).
For example, politically conservative or libertarian groups in the United States (especially paleoconservatives that support the free market and capitalism) object to excessive state action to protect people from the consequences of their actions by restricting citizen options.
Liberals on the other hand have used the term to describe the state as being excessive in its protections of businesses and the business class —protections ostensibly made against the public good, and the good of consumers. This usage applies to the international context as well, where the “public good” is used to refer to people in general, and where the state is viewed as being excessive in its protection of native business over foreign (rival) businesses.
The term “Nanny State” was probably coined by the Conservative British MP Iain Macleod who wrote “what I like to call the nanny state . . .” in his column “Quoodle” in the December 3, 1965 edition of The Spectator.[citation needed]
American foreign policy critic Noam Chomsky regularly uses the term “nanny state” to refer to U.S. protectionist policy. …”
The Constitution Is A Subversive Manifesto Per DHS
By William A. Jacobson
“…One thing that is not clear from the news reports, to begin with, is that the Report specifically states that there is no current real threat, even from the most extreme White Supremacist groups: “Threats from white supremacist and violent anti-government groups during 2009 have been mostly rhetorical and have not indicated plans to carry out violent acts.” From the news accounts, you would think there was an actual threat, but that is not so.
But the even bigger vice is how a “rightwing extremist” is defined. I don’t disagree that the few remaining White Supremacist groups should be in any definition, but DHS puts a distinctly political spin on the definition (emphasis mine):
Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.
This definition is so broad as to include anyone who seeks to preserve the foundation of our federal-state constitutional distinction, under the 10th Amendment (“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people”), because such a person could be deemed to “reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority.” So Texas Governor Rick Perry, who has come out in support of preserving the constitutional integrity of Texas now should be on the DHS‘ extremist and radical watch-list.
Similarly, the reference to “abortion or immigration” is purely political. Why pick those two subjects? If someone is planning violence, that is one thing. But vocalizing one’s view on a subject and seeking to influence the government are protected by the 1st Amendment (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances …”
Janet Napolitano’s Extremist Makeover tour
By Michelle Malkin
“…Janet Napolitano made the media rounds this morning to face the public firestorm over DHS’s hit job on conservatives.
I’m calling it the Extremist Makeover tour.
She offered an apology to veterans, saying it wasn’t her intention to offend. It may not have been the intention of the report authors or Napolitano to offend or overreach, but that was certainly the effect. And it remains a mystery why Napolitano felt it necessary to distribute a shoddy nine-page report that was supposedly in the works under the Bush administration for a year, as Napolitano claims, containing zero data backing up the claim of a “resurgence” of rightwing extremist violence — and was padded with analysis from the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center to stir fear of “disgruntled military veterans.”
On Fox and Friends this morning, Napolitano admitted that she would have changed the definition included in the report. …”
You might be a radicalized rightwing extremist if…
By Michelle Malkin
“…if you are heading out to a Tea Party today!
Here’s my syndicated column on the DHS hit job. A few may be inclined to give DHS the benefit of the doubt. Andrew McCarthy reminds you of the many reasons why you should not.
“… is here, courtesy of Jake Tapper. This is the report heralded by counter-critics of the DHS report on “right-wing extremism” that supposedly disproves political bias in the substance-free attack on conservative critics. Except that the report on extremism of the Left is much different than the other DHS report, starting with specifics. While the DHS report focusing on the Right expansively and generally indicted groups opposing abortion, illegal immigration, and federalism, this report instead focuses on actual and specific extremist groups — groups who have a long history of domestic terrorism and violence (page 9):
(U//FOUO) DHS/Office of Intelligence and Analysis defines leftwing extremists as groups or individuals who embrace radical elements of the anarchist, animal rights, or environmental movements and are often willing to violate the law to achieve their objectives. Many leftwing extremist groups are not hierarchically ordered with defined members, leaders, or chain of command structures but operate as loosely-connected underground movements composed of “lone wolves,” small cells, and splinter groups.
— (U//LES) Animal rights and environmental extremists seek to end the perceived abuse and suffering of animals and the degradation of the natural environment perpetrated by humans. They use non-violent and violent tactics that, at times, violate criminal law. Many of these extremists claim they are conducting these activities on behalf of two of the most active groups, the Animal Liberation Front and its sister organization, the Earth Liberation Front. Other prominent groups include Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty; and chapters within the Animal Defense League, and Earth First!.
— (U//FOUO) Anarchist extremists generally embrace a number of radical philosophical components of anticapitalist, antiglobalization, communist, socialist, and other movements. Anarchist groups seek abolition of social, political, and economic hierarchies, including Western-style governments and large business enterprises, and frequently advocate criminal actions of varying scale and scope to accomplish their goals. Anarchist extremist groups include entities within Crimethinc, the Ruckus Society, and Recreate 68.
In other words, it does not treat all animal-rights criticisms as indications of terrorist thought. It fails to paint all opponents of free trade as potential national-security threats. Global warming activism does not get treated in this instance as federalism does in the execrable DHS report on conservatives and libertarians. In other words, in this report, the DHS actually focuses on threats, not becoming the Thought Police. …”
“…The Department of Homeland Security is warning law enforcement officials about a rise in “rightwing extremist activity,” saying the economic recession, the election of America’s first black president and the return of a few disgruntled war veterans could swell the ranks of white-power militias.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Federal agency warns of radicals on right
A footnote attached to the report by the Homeland Security Office of Intelligence and Analysis defines “rightwing extremism in the United States” as including not just racist or hate groups, but also groups that reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority.
“It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single-issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration,” the warning says. …”
The White House has distanced itself from the analysis. When asked for comment on its contents, White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said, “The President is focused not on politics but rather taking the steps necessary to protect all Americans from the threat of violence and terrorism regardless of its origins. He also believes those who serve represent the best of this country, and he will continue to ensure that our veterans receive the respect and benefits they have earned.” …”
Gay Hollywood Mafia Money and Propaganda Succeeds — Supreme Court Ignores States Rights, Will of American People, United States Constitution And Bill of Rights and Rules in Favor of Same Sex Gay Marriage — Betrayal of Oath of Office — End The Two Party Tyranny — Videos
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The Pronk Pops Show Podcasts
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Pronk Pops Show 456: April 29, 2015
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Pronk Pops Show 433: March 24, 2015
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Pronk Pops Show 431: March 20, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 430: March 19, 2015
Pronk Pops Show 429: March 18, 2015
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Story 1: Gay Hollywood Mafia Money and Propaganda Succeeds — Supreme Court Ignores States Rights, Will of American People, United States Constitution And Bill of Rights and Rules in Favor of Same Sex Gay Marriage — Betrayal of Oath of Office — End The Two Party Tyranny — Videos
First Amendment
The First Amendment guarantees freedoms concerning religion, expression, assembly, and the right to petition. It forbids Congress from both promoting one religion over others and also restricting an individual’s religious practices. It guarantees freedom of expression by prohibiting Congress from restricting the press or the rights of individuals to speak freely. It also guarantees the right of citizens to assemble peaceably and to petition their government.
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment
14th Amendment
The Fourteenth Amendment addresses many aspects of citizenship and the rights of citizens. The most commonly used — and frequently litigated — phrase in the amendment is “equal protection of the laws“, which figures prominently in a wide variety of landmark cases, including Brown v. Board of Education (racial discrimination),Roe v. Wade (reproductive rights), Bush v. Gore (election recounts), Reed v. Reed (gender discrimination), and University of California v. Bakke (racial quotas in education). See more…
Amendment XIV
Section 1.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Section 2.
Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state.
Section 3.
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Section 4.
The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Section 5.
The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxiv
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From the Vault • Barack Obama • SEP 1995
22-CityView presents Barack Obama speaking at the Cambridge Public Library. Recorded on September 20,1995, this originally aired on Channel 37 Cambridge Municipal Television as an episode of the show “The Author Series.” In this episode Obama discusses his book “Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance,” which at the time had just been released a few months previously.
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CULTURAL MARXISM: The Corruption of America
The Historic Ruling On Same-Sex Marriage
Gay Marriage Backers Win Supreme Court Victory
By ADAM LIPTAK
In a long-sought victory for the gay rights movement, the Supreme Courtruled by a 5-to-4 vote on Friday that the Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority in the historic decision, said gay and lesbian couples had a fundamental right to marry.
“No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice and family,” he wrote. “In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were.”
The decision, which was the culmination of decades of litigation and activism, set off celebrations across the country and the first same-sex marriages in several states. It came against the backdrop of fast-moving changes in public opinion, with polls indicating that most Americans now approve of the unions.
The court’s four more liberal justices joined Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion. Each member of the court’s conservative wing filed a separate dissent, in tones ranging from resigned dismay to bitter scorn.
In dissent, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said the Constitution had nothing to say on the subject of same-sex marriage.
“If you are among the many Americans — of whatever sexual orientation — who favor expanding same-sex marriage, by all means celebrate today’s decision,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote. “Celebrate the achievement of a desired goal. Celebrate the opportunity for a new expression of commitment to a partner. Celebrate the availability of new benefits. But do not celebrate the Constitution. It had nothing to do with it.”
In a second dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia mocked the soaring language of Justice Kennedy, who has become the nation’s most important judicial champion of gay rights.
“The opinion is couched in a style that is as pretentious as its content is egotistic,” Justice Scalia wrote of his colleague’s work. “Of course the opinion’s showy profundities are often profoundly incoherent.”
As Justice Kennedy finished announcing his opinion from the bench on Friday, several lawyers seated in the bar section of the court’s gallery wiped away tears, while others grinned and exchanged embraces.
Justice John Paul Stevens, who retired in 2010, was on hand for the decision, and many of the justices’ clerks took seats in the chamber, which was nearly full as the ruling was announced. The decision made same-sex marriage a reality in the 13 states that had continued to ban it.
Outside the Supreme Court, the police allowed hundreds of people waving rainbow flags and holding signs to advance onto the court plaza as those present for the decision streamed down the steps. “Love has won,” the crowd chanted as courtroom witnesses threw up their arms in victory.
In remarks in the Rose Garden, President Obama welcomed the decision, saying it “affirms what millions of Americans already believe in their hearts.”
Justice Kennedy was the author of all three of the Supreme Court’s previous gay rights landmarks. The latest decision came exactly two years after his majority opinion in United States v. Windsor, which struck down a federal law denying benefits to married same-sex couples, and exactly 10 years after his majority opinion in Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down laws making gay sex a crime.
In all of those decisions, Justice Kennedy embraced a vision of a living Constitution, one that evolves with societal changes.
“The nature of injustice is that we may not always see it in our own times,” he wrote on Friday. “The generations that wrote and ratified the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment did not presume to know the extent of freedom in all of its dimensions, and so they entrusted to future generations a charter protecting the right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning.”
This drew a withering response from Justice Scalia, a proponent of reading the Constitution according to the original understanding of those who adopted it.
“They have discovered in the Fourteenth Amendment,” Justice Scalia wrote of the majority, “a ‘fundamental right’ overlooked by every person alive at the time of ratification, and almost everyone else in the time since.”
“These justices know,” Justice Scalia said, “that limiting marriage to one man and one woman is contrary to reason; they know that an institution as old as government itself, and accepted by every nation in history until 15 years ago, cannot possibly be supported by anything other than ignorance or bigotry.”
Justice Kennedy rooted the ruling in a fundamental right to marriage. Marriage is a “keystone of our social order,” he said, and of special importance to couples raising children.
“Without the recognition, stability, and predictability marriage offers,” he wrote, “their children suffer the stigma of knowing their families are somehow lesser. They also suffer the significant material costs of being raised by unmarried parents, relegated through no fault of their own to a more difficult and uncertain family life. The marriage laws at issue here thus harm and humiliate the children of same-sex couples.”
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan joined Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion.
In dissent, Chief Justice Roberts said the majority opinion was “an act of will, not legal judgment.”
“The court invalidates the marriage laws of more than half the states and orders the transformation of a social institution that has formed the basis of human society for millennia, for the Kalahari Bushmen and the Han Chinese, the Carthaginians and the Aztecs,” he wrote. “Just who do we think we are?”
In his own dissent, Justice Scalia said the majority opinion represented a “threat to American democracy.”
The majority and dissenting opinions took differing views about whether the decision would harm religious liberty. Justice Kennedy said the First Amendment “ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths.” He said both sides should engage in “an open and searching debate.”
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Chief Justice Roberts responded that “people of faith can take no comfort in the treatment they receive from the majority today.”
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., in his dissent, saw a broader threat from the majority opinion. “It will be used to vilify Americans who are unwilling to assent to the new orthodoxy,” Justice Alito wrote. “In the course of its opinion, the majority compares traditional marriage laws to laws that denied equal treatment for African-Americans and women. The implications of this analogy will be exploited by those who are determined to stamp out every vestige of dissent.”
Gay rights advocates had constructed a careful litigation and public relations strategy to build momentum and bring the issue to the Supreme Court when it appeared ready to rule in their favor. As in earlier civil rights cases, the court had responded cautiously and methodically, laying careful judicial groundwork for a transformative decision.
It waited for scores of lower courts to strike down bans on same-sex marriages before addressing the issue, and Justice Kennedy took the unusual step of listing those decisions in an appendix to his opinion.
Chief Justice Roberts said that only 11 states and the District of Columbia had embraced the right to same-sex marriage democratically, at voting booths and in state legislatures. The rest of the 37 states that allow such unions did so because of court rulings. Gay rights advocates, the chief justice wrote, would have been better off with a victory achieved through the political process, particularly “when the winds of change were freshening at their backs.”
Justice Kennedy rejected that idea.
“It is of no moment whether advocates of same-sex marriage now enjoy or lack momentum in the democratic process,” he wrote. “The issue before the court here is the legal question whether the Constitution protects the right of same-sex couples to marry.”
Later in the opinion, Justice Kennedy answered the question. “The Constitution,” he wrote, “grants them that right.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/27/us/supreme-court-same-sex-marriage.html?_r=0
Supreme Court opinion on same sex marriage
The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the Constitution requires that same-sex couples be allowed to marry no matter where they live and that states may no longer reserve the right only for heterosexual couples. Supreme Court rules gay couples nationwide have a right to marry
The Supreme Court’s Same-Sex Marriage Decision Is Already Being Used to Sell You Washing Machines
From Miller Lite to Maytag, here’s how popular brands reacted to the SCOTUS ruling this morning.
Elizabeth Nolan Brown|
Not very long ago, even the token gay television character could cause an uproar, and while popular brands may have voiced unequivocal support for some sort of nebulous gay “pride,” many avoided staking a position on the controversial political question of same-sex marriage. Today, with the U.S. Supreme Court declaring “the right of same-sex couples to marry” throughout the country, brands from Miller Lite to Maytag were quick to react in support the decision on social media. It all may be a bit hokey and opportunistic, but the extent to which iconicly American brands aren’t worried about alienating customers with pro-gay-marriage messages perhaps shows us more than anything that America is ready for marriage equality to be the law of the land. Here’s a sampling of brand tweets this morning about the SCOTUS marriage decision:
@MillerLite: As long as you are you, #ItsMillerTime. #LoveWins
@MillerLite/Twitter
@TheMaytagMan: Here’s to finding the one who completes you. #SCOTUSMarriage
@TheMaytagMan/Twitter
@Cheerios: And now, no one can tell you otherwise. #LoveWins
@Cheerios/Twitter
@ChipotleTweets: Homo Estas? Very well, thank you. #LoveWins
@ChipotleTweets/Twitter
@VogueMagazine: LoveWins today: http://vogue.cm/1Ja0KIU
@voguemagazine/Twitter
@Staples: MAKE equality HAPPEN #LoveWins
@Staples/Twitter
@CocaCola: It’s now official. Love is love is love. #LoveWins
@CocaCola/Twitter
@SubPop: It’s a great day in the USA. #lovewins
@subpop/Twitter
@Macys: From this day forward… #loveislove
@Macys/Twitter
@Uber_Ohio: Destination: Love #SCOTUSmarriage #LoveWins
@Uber_Ohio
@Motorola: Today #LoveWins and we couldn’t be happier – Now everyone can #ChooseLove
@Motorola/Twitter
http://reason.com/blog/2015/06/26/brand-tweets-about-gay-marriage-decision
Supreme Court rules gay couples nationwide have a right to marry
By Robert Barnes
The Supreme Court on Friday delivered a historic victory for gay rights, ruling 5 to 4 that the Constitution requires that same-sex couples be allowed to marry no matter where they live and that states may no longer reserve the right only for heterosexual couples.
The court’s action marks the culmination of an unprecedented upheaval in public opinion and the nation’s jurisprudence. Advocates called it the most pressing civil rights issue of modern times, while critics said the courts had sent the country into uncharted territory by changing the traditional definition of marriage.
“Under the Constitution, same-sex couples seek in marriage the same legal treatment as opposite-sex couples, and it would disparage their choices and diminish their personhood to deny them this right,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion. He was joined in the ruling by the court’s liberal justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
All four of the court’s most conservative members — Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. — dissented and each wrote a separate opinion, saying the court had usurped a power that belongs to the people.
How same-sex marriage became legal across the country VIEW GRAPHIC
Reading a dissent from the bench for the first time in his tenure, Roberts said, “Just who do we think we are? I have no choice but to dissent.”
In his opinion, Roberts wrote: “Many people will rejoice at this decision, and I begrudge none their celebration. But for those who believe in a government of laws, not of men, the majority’s approach is deeply disheartening.”
[It’s the first time Roberts has had such a bold statement from the bench]
Scalia called the decision a “threat to American democracy,” saying it was “constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine.”
In a statement in the White House Rose Garden, President Obama hailed the decision: “This ruling is a victory for America. This decision affirms what millions of Americans already believe in their hearts. When all Americans are truly treated as equal, we are more free.”
Obama said change on social issues can seem slow sometimes, but “sometimes there are days like this when that slow and steady effort is rewarded with justice that arrives like a thunderbolt. This morning the Supreme Court recognized that the Constitution guarantees marriage equality. In doing so they’ve reaffirmed that all Americans are entitled to equal protection under the law. . . . Today we can say in no uncertain terms that we have made our union a little more perfect.”
How people outside the court reacted to the gay marriage ruling
View Photos A sea of cheering, rainbow flag-waving people filled the sidewalk in front of the Supreme Court to celebrate the decision.
There were wild scenes of celebrations on the sidewalk outside the Supreme Court, as same-sex marriage supporters had arrived early, armed with signs and rainbow flags. They celebrated the announcement of a constitutional right to something that did not legally exist anywhere in the world until the turn of the new century.
Jim Obergefell, who became the face of the case, Obergefell v. Hodges, when he sought to put his name on his husband’s death certificate as the surviving spouse, said: “Today’s ruling from the Supreme Court affirms what millions across the country already know to be true in our hearts: that our love is equal.”
“It is my hope that the term gay marriage will soon be a thing of the past, that from this day forward it will be simply, marriage,” he said. “All Americans deserve equal dignity, respect and treatment when it comes to the recognition of our relationships and families.’’
But Austin R. Nimocks, senior counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, a pro-traditional marriage group, said: “Today, five lawyers took away the voices of more than 300 million Americans to continue to debate the most important social institution in the history of the world. That decision is truly unfortunate. . . . Nobody has the right to say that a mom or a woman or a dad or a man is irrelevant. There are differences that should be celebrated. Millions of Americans still believe that.’’
[Opponents of gay marriage are divided on whether to resist the ruling]
This country’s first legally recognized same-sex marriages took place just 11 years ago, the result of a Massachusetts state supreme court decision. Now, more than 70 percent of Americans live in states where same-sex couples are allowed to marry, according to estimates.
The Supreme Court used cases from Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee, where restrictions about same-sex marriage were upheld by an appeals court last year, to find that the Constitution does not allow such prohibitions.
Kennedy has written the Supreme Court’s most important gay rights cases: overturning criminal laws on homosexual conduct, protecting gays from discrimination and declaring that the federal government could not refuse to recognize same-sex marriages performed where they were legal.
He often employs a lofty, writing-for-history tone, and Friday’s decision was no different.
Referring to the couples who brought the cases before the court, Kennedy wrote: “It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions.”
Kennedy did not respond directly to the court’s dissenters, but he addressed the argument that the court was creating a new constitutional right. The right to marriage is fundamental, he said. The difference is society’s way of thinking who may marry, he said.
“The limitation of marriage to opposite-sex couples may long have seemed natural and just, but its inconsistency with the central meaning of the fundamental right to marry is now manifest,” he wrote. “With that knowledge must come the recognition that laws excluding same-sex couples from the marriage right impose stigma and injury of the kind prohibited by our basic charter.”
Scalia declared that Kennedy’s writing style was “as pretentious as its content is egotistic.”
And Roberts, in a biting dissent far more harsh than his usual style, said the decision was “an act of will, not legal judgment” with “no basis in the Constitution or this court’s precedent.”
“The court invalidates the marriage laws of more than half the states and orders the transformation of a social institution that has formed the basis of human society for millennia, for the Kalahari Bushmen and the Han Chinese, the Carthaginians and the Aztecs,” Roberts wrote. “Just who do we think we are?”
The questions raised in the cases decided Friday were left unanswered in 2013, when the justices last confronted the issue of same-sex marriage. A slim majority of the court said at the time that a key portion of the Defense of Marriage Act — withholding the federal government’s recognition of same-sex marriages — was unconstitutional. In a separate case, the court said procedural issues kept it from answering the constitutional question in a case from California, but that move allowed same-sex marriages to resume in that state.
Since then, courts across the nation — with the notable exception of the Cincinnati-based federal appeals court that left intact the restrictions in the four states at issue — have struck down a string of state prohibitions on same-sex marriage, many of them passed by voters in referendums.
When the Supreme Court declined to review a clutch of those court decisions in October, same-sex marriage proliferated across the country.
Public attitudes toward such unions have undergone a remarkable change as well. A recent Washington Post-ABC poll showed a record 61 percent of Americans say they support same-sex marriage. The acceptance is driven by higher margins among the young.
[Interactive: See how gay rights have spread around the world over 224 years]
When the justices declined in October to review the string of victories same-sex marriage proponents had won in other parts of the country, it meant the number of states required to allow gay marriages grew dramatically, offering the kind of cultural shift the court often likes to see before approving a fundamental change.
The Obama administration had urged the court to find that the Constitution requires such restrictions be struck down, and Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. made the case on behalf of the administration at the court’s oral arguments in April.
“In a world in which gay and lesbian couples live openly as our neighbors, they raise their children side by side with the rest of us, they contribute fully as members of the community . . . it is simply untenable — untenable — to suggest that they can be denied the right of equal participation in an institution of marriage, or that they can be required to wait until the majority decides that it is ready to treat gay and lesbian people as equals,” he said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gay-marriage-and-other-major-rulings-at-the-supreme-court/2015/06/25/ef75a120-1b6d-11e5-bd7f-4611a60dd8e5_story.html
How each justice came down on same-sex marriage
The Supreme Court’s ruling followed a swell of courts striking down state bans on same-sex marriage and a surge in public support for such marriages. Still, the high court’s 5 to 4 ruling was a historic and narrow victory for gay rights.
The court’s four most conservative members dissented, and each of them wrote a separate opinion decrying the decision. Justice Antonin Scalia, unsurprisingly, wrote the fieriest dissent, needing just two sentences to say that the majority’s decision is a “threat to American democracy.”
He the decision a “judicial Putsch,” says it is delivered in a style “as pretentious as its content is egotistic” and — at one point — follows a quote from the majority opinion with “Really?” and another with “Huh?” In a footnote, Scalia says that if he ever joined an opinion that opens the way the majority opinion does, “I would hide my head in a bag.” He then adds: “The Supreme Court of the United States has descended from the disciplined legal reasoning of John Marshall and Joseph Story to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie.” Scalia was not a fan.
For more on how Scalia explained his decision and how the other justices explained theirs, head to Post Nation.
The paragraph gay marriage supporters will never forget
The final paragraph of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s opinion holding that couples of the same sex havea constitutional right to wed is a cogent statement of what marriage means.
Kennedy is responding to opponents of gay marriage who argue that it undermines the traditional sanctity of an ancient institution by redefining it. The point of same-sex unions is not to weaken marriage, he argues, but to expand it in the nation as a whole and honor it more fully in their own lives.
These lines echo the final paragraph of Loving v. Virginia, the case in which the Supreme Court threw out laws banning interracial marriage in 1967.
“Marriage is one of the ‘basic civil rights of man,’ fundamental to our very existence and survival,”Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote then.
And the passage is also reminiscent of the conclusion of Griswold v. Connecticut, an important case from 1965 on contraception among married couples.
“Marriage is a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to the degree of being sacred,” Justice William O. Douglas argued. “It is an association that promotes a way of life, not causes; a harmony in living, not political faiths; a bilateral loyalty, not commercial or social projects. Yet it is an association for as noble a purpose as any involved in our prior decisions.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-nation-live/liveblog/live-updates-supreme-court-rules-gay-couples-nationwide-have-a-right-to-marry/
SAME SEX MARRIAGE
Kayoun Kim
One issue receiving considerable attention in the popular press is same-sex marriage and the current loosening of social constraints against gay marriage. Same-Sex Marriage , defined as marriage between two people of the same biological sex and/or gender identity, is a new social phenomenon, “leading to a new type of family formation. In modern times same-sex marriage did not exist until the twenty-first century when an increasing number of countries began permitting same-sex couples to marry legally. In addition, beginning in the late twentieth century there has been a growing global movement to regard marriage as a fundamental human right to be extended to same-sex couples. These events are extraordinary given that even during most of the twentieth century, homosexuals were closeted and the concept of same-sex marriage was inconceivable, perceived by nearly all as an oxymoron.” (Chamie, Joshph, and Barry, M. 2011. “Same-Sex Marriage: A New Social Phenomenon.” Pppulation Council37(3): 529-551)
Marriage equality has made significant gains with public opinion and within state legislature, since Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage within its borders in 2004. A result of the change in legal status in same-sex marriage is the growth in the marriage industry for gay men and lesbians. “Currently, as of 15 October 2014, 29 states and the District of Columbia, and ten Native American tribal jurisdictions allow and fully recognize same-sex marriages: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin. There are 21 states, and 2 territories (Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin islands), that explicitly prohibit same-sex marriages in their constitutions and/or by statute, including: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming. Of these states banning same-sex marriage, the following states have been declared that same-sex marriage bans unconstitutional, but the rulings have been stayed: Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Michigan and Texas.” (“Same-Sex Marriage Fast Facts.” 2014. CNN U.S. October 14. (http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/28/us/same-sex-marrage-fast-facts/))
“As a result of successful legal challenges and related social and policy developments, same-sex marriage is generating a combination of elation, controversy, and opposition in many countries around the world, notably in the United States. Indeed, the legal recognition of same-sex marriage has emerged as one of the most socially, politically, and legally divisive issues of the day. While most reactions to this new form of marriage and family formation have been intense and vocal, many commentators as well as the general public have little factual knowledge about same-sex marriage. All too often, public opinion and attitudes concerning same-sex marriage are based on apprehension, misconception, and hearsay.” (Chamie, Joshph, and Barry, M. 2011. “Same-Sex Marriage: A New Social Phenomenon.” Pppulation Council37(3): 529-551)
Attitudes Towards Same-Sex Marriage
During the 21st century, public support for same-sex marriage has grown considerably, and national polls conducted since 2011 show that a majority of Americans support legalizing it.
“On May 9, 2012, Barack Obama became the first sitting U.S. president legalize same-sex marriage through popular vote.” ( Stein, Sam. 2012. ” Obama Backs Gay Marriage.” Huff Post Politics, May 5. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/09/obama-gay-marriage_n_1503245.html))
“Support for same-sex marriage jumped 21 percent points from 2003, when Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage, to 2014. Currently, a majority (55%) of Americans favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to legally marry, compared to 41% who oppose. In 2003, less than one-third (32%) of Americans supported allowing same-sex couples to legally marry, compared to nearly 6 in 10 (59%) who opposed.” (“Survey A shifting Landscape: A decade of Change in American Attitudes about Same-Sex Marriage and LGBT Issues.” 2014. Public Religion Research Institute, January 26. (http://publicreligion.org/research/2014/02/2014-lgbt-survey/))
Prevalence of Same-Sex Households
“According to the Census Bureau, the same-sex couples households in the US in 2010 were 646,464.” (Amy Roberts and Caitlin Stark. 2014. “By the numbers: Same-sex marriage.” CNN Politics, October 6. (http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/11/politics/btn-same-sex-marriage/) One study demonstrated how using linked micromaps can improve mapping of same-sex couples household data. This study found that “an estimated 1 percent of US couple households, from 2006 through 2010, were same-sex couples households, and the percentage of same-sex couples household is much higher in metropolitan areas than in non-metropolitan areas. It found that the reason that Washington D.C. has the highest percentage of same-sex households because Washington D.C. itself is a central city.” (Mast, Brent, D. 2013. “Visualizing Same-Sex Couple Household Data With Linked Micromaps.” US Department of Housing and Urban Development15(2):267-271.)
Same-Sex Marriage Experience
Aine Marie Humble examined married older same-sex couples’ experiences of transitioning into marriage in order to explore how and why these couples in mid-to later life decided to marry and the characteristics of their weddings and wedding planning. She found that getting married for many older same-sex couples is even harder than for younger same-sex couples, because older cohorts of same-sex couples could not easily dispel the internalized beliefs “such as same-sex couples could never marry and marriage was not for them due to the fact that they have lived most of their lives through years of homophobia and heterosexism, which has affected their worldviews. Moreover, some older same-sex couples, particularly those in long-term relationships, may already view themselves as married and thus do not initially see the need for the legal marriage.” (Humble, Aine, M., 2013. “Moving from Ambivalence to Certainty: Older Same-Sex Couples Marry in Canada.” Canadian Journal on Aging 32(2): 131-144)
Pamela J. Lannutti examined the ways in which legally recognized same-sex marriage has affected the lives of same-sex couples in order to see how same-sex marriage is benefiting and challenging these couples on the individual and interpersonal levels. She found that “all of the couples that she had interviewed with expressed some way in which same-sex marriage improved or strengthened their romantic relationship, and others expressed that it contributed to a closer emotional bond between them. However, some participants expressed that they were stressed out during their marriage decision process or planning their weddings, because they lacked support from their families-of-origin.” (Lannutti, Pamela, J. 2007. “”This is Not a Lesbian Wedding”: Examining Same-Sex Marriage and Bisexual-Lesbian Couples.” Co-published simultaneosly in Journal of Bisexuality 7(3/4): 237-260; and: Bisexuality and Same-Sex Marriage 7(3/4): 237-260.)
Pamela J. Lannutti’s another study examined same-sex couples’ attractions to marriage and obstacles that challenged them when considering marriage. She found that the primary reason why same-sex couples decide to marry is because it would offer greater legal protections and civil benefits for their committed relationship. Another reason is that it would make it easier to bring children into their lives or protect their relationships with the children they already had. In terms of obstacles of same-sex marriage, the majority of these couples (41%) expressed that family disapproval, usually parental disapproval, was an obstacle to their marriage.
Reference Page
Chamie, Joshph, and Barry, M. 2011. “Same-Sex Marriage: A New Social Phenomenon.” Population Council 37(3): 529-551.
“Same-Sex Marriage Fast Facts.” 2014. CNN U.S. October 14. (http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/28/us/same-sex-marriage-fast-facts/)
Stein, Sam. 2012. “Obama Backs Gay Marriage.” Huff Post Politics, May 5. (http:222.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/09/obama-gay-marriage_n_1503245.html)
“Survey A shifting Landscape: A decade of Change in American Attitudes about Same-Sex Marriage and LGBT Issues.” 2014. Public Religion Research Institute, January 26. (http://publicreligion.org/research/2014/02/2014-lgbt-survey/)
Amy Roberts and Caitlin Stark. 2014. “By the numbers: Same-sex marriage.” CNN Politics, October 6. (http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/11/politics/btn-same-sex-marriage/)
Mast, Brent, D. 2013. “Visualizing Same-Sex Couple Household Data with Linked Micromaps.” US Department of housing and Urban Development 15(2): 267-271.
Humble, Aine, M., 2013. “Moving from Ambivalence to Certainty: Older Same-Sex Couples Marry in Canada.” Canadian Journal on Aging 32(2): 131-144
Lannutti, Pamela, J. 2007. “”This is Not a Lesbian Wedding”: Examining Same-Sex Marriage and Bisexual-Lesbian Couples.” Co-published simultaneously in Journal of Bisexuality 7(3/4): 237-260; and:Bisexuality and Same-Sex Marriage 7(3/4): 237-260.)
http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/k/v/kvk5348/essay%20and%20image.html
Obama marriage shift ‘boost’ for donors
President Barack Obama’s public support for gay marriage could be a boon to his campaign war chest.
Supporters of gay marriage predicted the president’s announcement Wednesday that he thinks same-sex couples should be able to marry would energize the gay community.
C
Democratic donor Steve Elmendorf said he believes Obama’s announcement will “energize people for Obama at all levels. It’s not just about the LGBT community…everybody all the way up to the maximum [donors] will be excited.”
“It’s going to create some real energy for the campaign, not just for the donor community, but among people who care about this issue,” he added.
Obama already had significant financial support from LGBT donors. About one in six of Obama’s top campaign “bundlers” are gay, according to a Washington Post analysis. But the president’s reluctance to publicly come out in favor of gay marriage was a sticking point for some potential donors.
“It’ll be a big boost for donors,” one gay lobbyist said of the Wednesday announcement. “It’s been very frustrating to the gay community that he’s done so much that there is just this one issue. It’s the civil rights issue of our generation.” The lobbyist added that independents are the most likely donors to be swayed by Obama’s new stance, since many gay donors have already been supportive of Obama.
One gay bundler told Capital City New York that it will be “immeasurably easier” for him to raise money for Obama in the LGBT community and among progressives more broadly.
“Whether it’s for shoe leather or whether it’s for financial contributions, I think it will engage people,” said Chuck Wolfe, president of the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, noting that much of the community’s support and financial donations already go to Obama. Obama has helped usher in a new era of gay rights at the federal level, helping pass the controversial repeal of the military “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal.
A heightened enthusiasm for the president in the LGBT community following this announcement could spur donors to shell out big bucks for his campaign, especially given conservative Republicans push on this issue in other states like Minnesota and GOP presumptive nominee Mitt Romney’s opposition to gay marriage.
Obama’s public announcement came just a day after North Carolina, a swing state for the presidential election in November, voted on a state ballot measure that prohibits marriage or rights to same-sex couples.
Elmendorf dismissed critics of Obama’s timing.
“We’re in a presidential campaign so everyone is going to say it’s politically motivated,” Elmendorf said. “I take him at his word. It’s not unusual for people of his age and demographic.”
The vast majority of money from gay and lesbian rights groups goes to Democratic candidates, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. In the 2010 election cycle, 96 percent of the $1.3 million given to federal candidates by LGBT organizations’ PACs and employees went to Democrats.
Still, some LGBT advocates say there’s been a lull in enthusiasm since last year’s repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy for gays in the military.
“There’s been a drop off in participation and enthusiasm and even knowledge that we’re not done,” said Denny Meyer, a spokesman for American Veterans for Equal Rights.
But the shift on gay marriage could energize voters as well as donors who have burned out, he said. “The president making a policy change like that could result in people realizing … you have to make this happen by voting for people who will pass this.”
Obama’s decision to publicly support gay marriage didn’t appease all gay activists, and Republicans accused the White House of trying to have it both ways on the contentious issue.
Clarke Cooper, head of Log Cabin Republicans, wrote in an email that “LGBT Americans are right to be angry that this calculated announcement comes too late to be of any use to the people of North Carolina, or any of the other states that have addressed this issue on his watch.”
Futher, Cooper said that the administration has, “manipulated LGBT families for political gain as much as anybody, and after his campaign’s ridiculous contortions to deny support for marriage equality this week Obama does not deserve praise for an announcement that comes a day late and a dollar short.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0512/76128.html#ixzz3eE1voM5P
See also[edit]
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