The New CISPA, the “Freedom” Act, Failed in Senate… for Now (archive)

(archived from November 19, 2014)

by Scott Creighton

 

UPDATE: Justin Raimondo has a good breakdown of the fraud of the USA Freedom Act and argues many of the same points I do.

 

Rather than fundamentally changing the way the NSA scoops up data, the bill merely outsources collection to immunized telecoms, compelling them to do the NSA’s dirty work…

 

The so-called “transparency” provisions in the bill contain numerous loopholes..

Some civil liberties groups, like the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, argue that the present bill is “a first step,” and is better than nothing. This is nonsense: this bill is worse than nothing.

——

“The bill will retain the essential operational capabilities of the existing bulk telephone metadata program while eliminating bulk collection.” James Clapper on his support of the USA Freedom Act.

 

Last night the USA “Freedom” Act, written by the same man who brought us the USA “Patriot” Act, Jim Sensenbrenner , failed to clear a key procedural hurdle in the Senate which would have allowed it’s supporters to bring it to the floor of the Senate for a simple majority vote, which it would win easily with the lame duck democratic Senate. The vote was 58 to 42, mainly down partisan lines with the dems supporting it by a wide majority. The pro-Business corporatist White House “strongly” supports the bill.

 

I have written on multiple occasions that the entire Edward Snowden psyop was designed in order to pass a new version of CISPA which 800 major US corporations sent advocates to D.C. to push for just a few months prior to the launch of the Snowden psyop.

 

 

 

April 15th, 2013… right before this whole thing kicked off and Glenn Greenwald was contacted by Edward Snowden, 200 senior IBM executives hit D.C. like a plague of locusts to push them to pass the new CISPA bill. American Everyman

 

“CISPA had garnered favor from corporations and lobbying groups such as Microsoft, Facebook, AT&T, IBM, Apple Inc. , Intel, Oracle Corporation, Symantec, and Verizon and the United States Chamber of Commerce, which look on it as a simple and effective means of sharing important cyber threat information with the government. Google has not taken a public position on the bill but has shown previous support for it…” List of companies who have sent letters of support for CISPA since 2012  American Everyman

 

Also read:

• The Curious Timing of the Snowden “Leak” and Obama’s Formation of the PCLOB – Laying the Groundwork for CISPA

• The Missing Motive of the Snowden Psyop: CISPA (yes… CISPA)

• Manufactured Hero Edward Snowden: Greenwald and Gibson Parrot Obama on REDDIT While New CISPA in Announced

• CISPA is Big Brother’s Friend

The whole point of CISPA, aside from effectively controlling the entire internet, is to privatize the NSA by putting private corporations in charge of the massive bulk data collection being conducted right now. That’s pretty much the definition of fascism folks.

 

Many people are writing about what happened yesterday in the senate, but few are telling you what the real sticking point was with those who voted against this bill. And remember, it was written by the same traitor who penned the Patriot Act.

 

Over at the Huffington Post, they claim the big problem most had with the bill is that it would allow “ISIS” to attack, which is ridiculous.

 

In reality, many senators who were opposed to the bill said the same thing I did whenever I write about it: that the bill effectively privatizes the bulk-data collection process and puts control and even ownership of that data, YOUR DATA, in the hands of Big Business… with little to no oversight as to what they can do with it.

 

So, this evening the USA Freedom Act failed to get the 60 votes it needed for cloture to “advance” to a full floor vote. It ended up at 58 to 42. There was a short debate prior to the vote, and the debate was… stupid. Yes, there are some legitimate concerns with the USA Freedom Act, mostly in that it doesn’t go far enough. But that’s not what the debate was about at all. You had a bunch of bizarrely clueless Senators, many of whom insisted they were against the act because it would take the bulk collection out of the hands of the NSA and put it into the hands of the telcos — with the claim being that the NSA could keep that data safer. Senators Susan Collins and Saxby Chambliss kept harping on that point. But it’s flat out wrong. Because the whole point of this is that the telcos already have this data. The debate is between “telcos have the data” and “telcos and NSA have the data.” Arguing that telcos-only is inherently more likely to lead to a privacy violation makes no sense at all. TechDirt

 

So clearly, TechDirt approves of the new CISPA. That’s good to know for the future. Their issue apparently isn’t that these “clueless Senators” are wrong about what the legislation does, but that it’s just peachy keen to hand over ownership and control of all of your personal data and communications records to some of the most hated corporations in this country.

• #1 Time Warner

• #2 Comcast

Now if you agree with TechDirt, that handing over control and ownership of your personal private data to Big Business sounds like a great idea, then you should probably stop reading right now.

 

You know who supports this bill aside from President Peace Prize, the guy who wrote the Patriot Act, all the Vichy Dems in the senate and that guy from TechDirt?

 

The same Big Business interests that backed CISPA.

 

In an open letter to the U.S. Senate, nine tech heavyweights are imploring the body to pass the USA Freedom Act, which would curb much of the massive data collection by the NSA and other agencies. The activities were originally brought to light by Edward Snowden.

 

According to the letter:

 

“The legislation prevents the bulk collection of internet metadata under various authorities. The bill also allows for transparency about government demands for user information from technology companies and assures that the appropriate oversight and accountability mechanisms are in place.”

The letter was signed by Apple, AOL, Dropbox, Evernote, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter and Yahoo  gigaom

 

Compare that list to my previous quote about CISPA. Oh to heck with it. I will repeat myself:

 

“CISPA had garnered favor from corporations and lobbying groups such as Microsoft, Facebook, AT&T, IBM, Apple Inc. , Intel, Oracle Corporation, Symantec, and Verizon and the United States Chamber of Commerce, which look on it as a simple and effective means of sharing important cyber threat information with the government. Google has not taken a public position on the bill but has shown previous support for it…” List of companies who have sent letters of support for CISPA since 2012  American Everyman

 

What a shock. The same companies the backed CISPA, Big Brother’s Friend, also back the USA Freedom Act, brought to you by the Snowden psyop.

 

“Industry group Technet, which lists Microsoft, Salesforce, Visa, Cisco, Craigslist, Apple, eBay (owned at the time by Pierre Omidyar), Google and Yahoo among its members, sent a letter to leaders of the House Intelligence panel in which it makes it clear that it supports CISPA. Inquirer April 18, 2013

 

Over at globalist CISPA-backing Pierre Omidyar‘s The Intercept, Glenn Greenwald has already penned an article lamenting the failure of this latest CISPA legislation. He also claims the biggest hurdle blocking this bill was ridiculous senators “screeching” about ISIS. He never mentions what TechDirt mentioned… for some reason.

 

There were some mildly positive provisions in the USA Freedom Act: the placement of “public advocates” at the FISA court so that someone contests the claims of the US Government; the prohibition on the NSA holding Americans’ phone records, requiring instead that they obtain FISA court approval before seeking specific records from the telecoms…

 

When pro-privacy members of Congress first unveiled the bill many months ago, it was actually a good bill: real reform…

 

All of that illustrates what is, to me, the most important point from all of this: the last place one should look to impose limits on the powers of the U.S. Government is . . . the U.S. Government. Governments don’t walk around trying to figure out how to limit their own power, and that’s particularly true of empires. Glenn Greenwald

 

Does anyone here think the man who wrote the USA Patriot Act could possibly have penned a “good bill” with our privacy first and foremost on his mind?

 

You’ll notice that when Glenn writes about the Senate debate he lived blogged back in 2006 (in order to try to garner some credibility) he linked to the transcript of that debate to further his point. Yet today, he fails to do so.

 

I on the other hand, will provide you with TWO links. ONE, to the video of the debate and TWO, to a transcript of it.

 

Do you wish to know someone else who supports the bill, I mean aside from Obama and the CISPA backing Big Business? James Clapper:

 

“The bill will retain the essential operational capabilities of the existing bulk telephone metadata program while eliminating bulk collection.” James Clapper on his support of the USA Freedom Act.

 

While Mr. Greenwald apparently forgot all about the privatization of the intel issues brought up last night at that debate he failed to provide you with a link to, I will now use the transcript to show you what WAS actually a big issue with those who voted “no” and some who even voted “yes”

 

MS. Collins: … Let me address to my colleagues the privacy issue that has been raised–an issue that all of us care about. These data are far more safe, far more subject to privacy protections if they are held by the Federal Government where only 22 vetted and trained government employees have access to them instead of nearly 150 telecommunications companies that employ thousands of workers, and the government is going to have to go to those companies and ask for the data. That greatly exposes the privacy of individual Americans far more than the current system….So for both of those reasons, I urge my colleagues to oppose the bill of the distinguished Senator from Vermont

MRS. Feinstein : I recently talked with Members of the House, and here is what they told me: If we didn’t pass the House bill, there were Members who wanted to end the whole metadata program. I do not want to end the program. I am prepared to make this compromise, which is that the metadata will be kept by the telecom companies... personal testament from officials with the two other companies that they will hold the data for at least 2 years.

Mr. Chambliss: Now, with respect to our privacy, folks, gosh, we need to be really protective of privacy issues in this country. We live under a Constitution that has survived for in excess of 200 years. It has lots of privacy protections in it, and all of us want to see that happen. But let me tell my colleagues what is going to happen if this amendment comes to the floor and should happen to pass today. The metadata that is collected by the NSA can be accessed by 22 individuals–22. That means there is an opportunity for leaks to occur or for individual privacy rights to be breached by 22 people. If this amendment ever became law, all of a sudden, all of the telecoms are going to be holding this metadata information as opposed to the NSA holding it. All of those telecoms have thousands of employees, lots of whom have access–will have access to this metadata. So instead of having the potential for 22 people to breach the privacy rights of American citizens, all of a sudden we are going to have thousands of opportunities for the privacy rights of Americans to be breached

 

How do you think it is that in that short 30 minute debate, Glenn Greenwald missed all of that?

 

Oh yeah, that’s right, he’s a globalist billionaire’s bitch who served up the Snowden psyop in the first place. Got it. Almost forgot there for a minute.