I Can't Believe It's Not Freedom
by Tom Sullivan
Privacy advocates on the left and right find common cause in Congress these days as provisions of the PATRIOT Act expire. Politico reports this morning on a bipartisan lunch meeting held last week:
With key provisions of the controversial post-9/11 law set to expire at the end of the month, including authority for the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of Americans’ phone records, critics in both parties are preparing to strike. Among those on hand for the meeting were Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan, a card-carrying ACLU member from the liberal mecca of Madison, Wisconsin, and GOP Rep. Thomas Massie, a tea party adherent from Kentucky.
“The collection of data is still way too wide and can still be too easily abused,” Pocan said of the NSA program exposed by Edward Snowden two years ago.
Along with Pocan and Massie, the Thursday gathering drew Reps. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) and Jared Polis (D-Colo.). The lawmakers, many of them privacy zealots with libertarian leanings, discussed the USA Freedom Act, bipartisan legislation that would rein in the bulk collection of telephone records and reauthorize expiring anti-terror surveillance provisions in the PATRIOT Act.
Last week the House Judiciary Committee overwhelmingly passed the bill that that would curtail bulk collection of data by government spies: the USA Freedom Act. (Can we please have an "I Can't Believe It's Not Freedom" bill next?)
In the Senate, Republican Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky faces a similar bill poised to pass over his objections with support from his own caucus. McConnell and Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) want "a blanket five-year extension of the Patriot Act." As the New York Times reported last week, "The push for reform is the strongest demonstration yet of a decade-long shift from a singular focus on national security at the expense of civil liberties to a new balance in the post-Snowden era."
Edward Snowden again. That freedom-hating scamp.
Politico continues:
The civil liberties-minded members want several changes. Pocan said lawmakers are concerned that privacy language in the current legislation is tailored to fit current technologies — potentially putting data at risk of bulk collection if new technologies emerge. Pocan and Massie back a long-shot effort to repeal the PATRIOT Act entirely, while other lawmakers at the meeting have proposed cutting funding for the so-called backdoor searches by the NSA that don’t require warrants.
Other lawmakers who attended the meeting have proposed aggressive reforms to other surveillance authorities, including ones that allow for warrantless online surveillance of U.S. citizens. Members of the group have also called for an end to government-required “backdoors” in companies’ hardware and software products to give intelligence agencies easy access to data.
Outside the Beltway, left and right are also finding common cause in opposing opening the skies to Predators and Reapers, concerned they might be used for warrantless domestic surveillance. Surveillance is a wonky issue not easily explained to people busy just struggling to pay their bills. Perhaps John Oliver got it right in asking Edward Snowden:
"This is the most visible line in the sand for people: Can they see my dick?" Oliver said.
"Well, the good news is there's no program named the 'Dick Pic' program," Snowden explained. "The bad news is that they are still collecting everybody's information—including your dick pics."
Which is why I ask T-partiers whether, when the FAA allows the weapons to fly friendly skies, government drones will be able to look down into people's gun safes and count their AR-15s.