Saturday, November 02, 2019

Kill this zombie spy program for real

From Restore The Fourth:

Nothing is as spooky as mass surveillance.
We need your help today to petition Congress to end collection of Americans' call detail records under section 215 of the horrifying PATRIOT Act.
Back in 2013, Edward Snowden revealed proof of an illegal surveillance program, fraudulently authorized under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, that was seizing and searching the call detail records of every single American. Eventually, the White House grudgingly conceded that nothing gathered under that program had ever helped to thwart a terrorist attack in the United States, and in 2015, Congress passed some very mild reforms to it.
From then till now, NSA has struggled to operate the program legally under these new constraints. Eventually, they were forced to delete millions of records they had illegally collected, and decided that it would be more convenient to gather Americans' call data indirectly, under other, looser legal authorities, leaving the 215 program in a kind of zombie state.
But now, the Trump administration and Sen. Lindsay Graham are insisting that NSA should retain the legal power to restart collection of call detail records under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act. They want Congress, before December 15 when this provision expires, to pass a law preserving this power of the NSA to spy on Americans.
Don't let this zombie program eat your privacy.
Take action now; and happy Hallowe'en from all of us at Restore The Fourth!
Petition sponsored by: Demand Progress, Watchdog.net, Win Without War, Daily Kos, RootsAction.org, Restore The Fourth, Free Press Action Fund, Defending Rights & Dissent (DRAD), MPower Change, Fight for the Future, New York Communities for Change (NYCC), Progress America, The Other 98%, MediaJustice, Color of Change, Just Foreign Policy, Media Mobilizing Project, and Common Dreams.