For Immediate Release
Friday, May 29, 2015 - 10:30am
Fallacies of PATRIOT Act
'Compromises'
WASHINGTON - The Washington Times reported
earlier this week: “
Politico is reporting: “To meet
the midnight Sunday deadline, McConnell will either have to cut
a deal with Paul, who’s making demands that other lawmakers object to — or hope
that senators, when confronted by a deadline that’s hours instead of days away,
relent and agree to a temporary extension.”
Wheeler writes widely about the legal aspects of the “war on terror” and its effects on civil liberties. She is the “Right to Know” investigative journalist for ExposeFacts and blogs at emptywheel.net.
Wheeler will be taking part in Stand
Up for Truth events next week, a series of events to support
whistleblowing. She will be speaking with NSA whistleblower Bill Binney in
Chicago. NSA whistleblower Wiebe, quoted below, will participate in a webcast.
Pentagon Papers whistleblower Dan Ellsberg will be with a group of
whistleblowers speaking in London, Oslo, Stockholm and Berlin. IPA is a
co-organizer of these events. For a full schedule, see: standupfortruth.org/events.
Wiebe is a retired National Security Agency whistleblower who worked at the
agency for 36 years. He said today: “The tragedy surrounding the current
discussion of the USA Freedom Act lies in the fact that the government —
including the legislative and executive branches of government, aided and
abetted by an unchallenged FISA Court, is working in collusion to mislead the
American public about the ability of the legislation to truly do what most
Americans want — a constitutional process that a) actually catches bad guys,
and b) respects and enforces privacy rights under the Fourth Amendment. Both
are ‘do-able’ from a technology perspective and there is no balance — we can
have both.
“The truth is that USA Freedom does not cover all NSA
authorities to collect information. As long as NSA enjoys collection authorities
to do bulk collection under Executive Order 12333, together with no constraints
on Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, the USA Freedom Act results in few
net changes in the government’s ability to invade privacy as it deems
necessary, bulk or otherwise. In short, the USA Freedom Act alone does
fundamentally very little in terms of significantly constraining the ability of
the National Security Agency to perform bulk collection of data about anyone,
U.S. citizen or otherwise. We need comprehensive surveillance reform.
“There is one more important aspect of the discussion — USA
Freedom does absolutely nothing to enhance legislative or judicial oversight
over the executive branch’s use of NSA’s vast intelligence production
apparatus. Lots of ‘trust,’ but no ‘verify,’ which is what created the current
constitutional crisis beginning with the events of Sept. 11, 2001.”
###
A nationwide consortium, the Institute for Public
Accuracy (IPA) represents an unprecedented effort to bring other voices
to the mass-media table often dominated by a few major think tanks. IPA works
to broaden public discourse in mainstream media, while building communication
with alternative media outlets and grassroots activists.
Organization Links
Donations can be sent
to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD
21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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