SECRECY & THE SECURITY STATE - page 40

Some of the NSA’s most reliable defenders in the Senate are working to undermine and reverse a White House-backed reform bill, with the expiration of key surveillance authorities imminent. Vocal and powerful Republicans and Democrats who resist even the slightest of changes to dragnet domestic surveillance are pushing back on that tepid legislation, and seeking to grant the NSA a shock victory and additional authorities. Even before the reform bill, the USA Freedom Act, was narrowly defeated in the early morning hours last Saturday, the…

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Amid the first release of emails sent to and from a private email network used for official business by then-department head Hillary Clinton, the State Department said that electronic communications are routinely given “upgraded” security classification “several times every month” in response to public records requests. Acting department spokesperson Marie Harf said that backward-looking reviews led to an increase in pre-publication classification of “less than two sentences” in the 296-page Friday dump. The phrases, part of a 2012 email sent to Clinton, were upgraded to…

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A Department of Justice watchdog report shows that the FBI’s bulk collection of personal information goes far beyond Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court-approved telephone metadata record-keeping, and includes “gigabytes” of internet communication data and other business records associated with individuals, including Americans, who are not the subject of criminal investigations. The bureau is using the soon-to-be expiring Section 215 of the Patriot Act to collect material ranging from “hard copy productions of business ledgers and receipts to gigabytes of metadata and other electronic information,” according to…

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UPDATE: The headline of this article was changed on Thursday, following news that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) filed cloture on both the USA Freedom Act and a short-term “clean” reauthorization of expiring Patriot Act surveillance authorities (despite Sen. Paul’s “filibuster”). That sets up a Saturday vote on both measures. Original story continues below…   With the expiration of key surveillance authorities imminent, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) burned up crucial legislative time on Wednesday after he promised to speak from the floor of the Senate “until he can no longer…

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Although they have been hailed as a crucial salve needed to heal wounded relations between police and their communities, rules that would force cops to wear body cameras could open up a host of new privacy concerns. Especially, one senator warned on Tuesday, considering that a major media mogul appears to have allegedly gotten away with overseeing a major conspiracy to illegally access sensitive personal information. During a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing Tuesday on the issue, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse spoke to the “hackability” of the…

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Legislation that would expand the authority of inspectors general to conduct investigations advanced through the House on Tuesday. The bill, HR 2395, passed the chamber’s Committee on Oversight and Government Reform by a voice vote, with no audible dissent. Both the active chair, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and ranking member Elijah Cummings described the measure,which was only just introduced on Monday, as long-needed. They singled it out as praiseworthy for seeking to enable IGs to compel testimony from contractors and former officials. “Congress is long…

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One of the authors of a key piece of NSA reform sympathized with certain critics of the legislation on Tuesday, and admitted that the bill doesn’t address key areas of surveillance abuse. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) pledged, however, that that reformers would try to fix some of the bill’s shortcomings next month using the power of the purse. “There’s some criticisms of the USA Freedom Act that it doesn’t go far enough—criticisms that’s I’d agree with,” Rep. Nadler (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday morning, on CSPAN’s Washington…

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In a bid to foster trust between communities and local police departments, the White House said Monday that it is restricting the flow of certain types of military hardware from the Pentagon to state and local governments. The administration announced that tracked armored vehicles, weaponized aircraft, greater-than .50-caliber ammunition, grenade launchers, bayonets, and camouflaged uniforms will stop being granted, from federal department to cops around the country. Equipment transfer programs run out of the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and Defense were put under review…

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An Iraqi-American who fought in the Syrian civil war was arrested in Texas on Thursday–not for any crimes related to his past militancy, but for actions related to his posting online of what federal agents described as “an oath to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIL.” The feds are alleging that Bilal Abood lied to investigators when he told them that he had never swore fealty to the head of the Islamic State. While Abood acknowledged to agents that he knew it was a crime to lie…

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