US Congress moves to legalize unconstitutional surveillance programs
Eric London: US Congress moves to legalize unconstitutional surveillance programs ■ In the wake of damning revelations about the Obama administration’s illegal surveillance operations, Democrats and Republicans in Congress are moving forward competing bills that would both secure the indefinite use of the spying programs. The proposal with the widest Congressional support, a bill sponsored by California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Georgia Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss, would entrench and expand many of the most sinister features of the National Security Agency (NSA) programs. The bill would “legalize” backdoor warrantless content searches of government-collected metadata, authorize bulk record collection of phone and Internet data under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, allow for bulk data to be kept by the government for five years, and maintain non-adversarial, ex-parte judicial proceedings in the secret FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] Court [FISC]. Section 6 of the Feinstein-Chambliss bill states explicitly that the proposal “does not limit the authority of law enforcement agencies to conduct [content] queries of data acquired pursuant to Section 702 of FISA [the bulk-collection provision] for law enforcement purposes.”