Mass Surveillance. What a concept; it conjures up an Orwellian image of government control extending everywhere, reaching into all affairs, personal and otherwise. The argument can and has been made that there really are no actual secrets and there never were, but what about warrantless grabs of information government agencies against an innocent, but targeted citizen? The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution prevents warrantless searches and seizures of our property in person, but where does it fit in electronic communiques?
Right now, there are two important pieces of proposed legislation that need attention from our representatives. First is the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) Improvements Act, written by Dianne Feinstein. Her idea of updating and reform would simply legalize all the illegal data mining already done by NSA. It would also allow legitimate spying tactics on actual espionage suspects overseas, the original purpose of FISA, to be utilized here, in America. Because of the obvious conflicts with the Fourth Amendment, this is not a good idea. On February 11, we are asking everyone to call or write their representatives to state opposition to Feinstein's FISA Improvements Act.
The second proposed piece of important legislation is the USA Freedom Act. This act would amend section 215 of the Patriot Act, which is used to mine and store phone records of Americans. Limits would be placed on the data that is collected, the amount of data that can be stored, and the length of time it can be saved. The bill would also amend the FISA Amendments Act, (FAA, 2008) which allows warrantless wiretapping of American citizens. Our representatives need to know that we support this.
To anyone who still thinks that the NSA and that government agencies actually have the best interests of American citizens at heart, think about the fact that despite so much metadata and other information that there is barely room to store it, America still has unsolved missing persons cases.
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