Enact reform this Congress to Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act

[sky otter]

..so you can find this on it's own without sifting thru pages

yours to consider


https://optin.stopwatching.us/

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
Benjamin Franklin


[The National Security Agency's] capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn't matter. There would be no place to hide.
Senator Frank Church, 1975


Stop Watching Us.
The revelations about the National Security Agency's surveillance apparatus, if true, represent a stunning abuse of our basic rights. We demand the U.S. Congress reveal the full extent of the NSA's spying programs.
Read the full letter to US Congress


Dear Members of Congress,

We write to express our concern about recent reports published in the Guardian and the Washington Post, and acknowledged by the Obama Administration, which reveal secret spying by the National Security Agency (NSA) on phone records and Internet activity of people in the United States.

The Washington Post and the Guardian recently published reports based on information provided by an intelligence contractor showing how the NSA and the FBI are gaining broad access to data collected by nine of the leading U.S. Internet companies and sharing this information with foreign governments. As reported, the U.S. government is extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person's movements and contacts over time. As a result, the contents of communications of people both abroad and in the U.S. can be swept in without any suspicion of crime or association with a terrorist organization.

Leaked reports also published by the Guardian and confirmed by the Administration reveal that the NSA is also abusing a controversial section of the PATRIOT Act to collect the call records of millions of Verizon customers. The data collected by the NSA includes every call made, the time of the call, the duration of the call, and other "identifying information" for millions of Verizon customers, including entirely domestic calls, regardless of whether those customers have ever been suspected of a crime. The Wall Street Journal has reported that other major carriers, including AT&T and Sprint, are subject to similar secret orders.

This type of blanket data collection by the government strikes at bedrock American values of freedom and privacy. This dragnet surveillance violates the First and Fourth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, which protect citizens' right to speak and associate anonymously, guard against unreasonable searches and seizures, and protect their right to privacy.

We are calling on Congress to take immediate action to halt this surveillance and provide a full public accounting of the NSA's and the FBI's data collection programs. We call on Congress to immediately and publicly:

Enact reform this Congress to Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act,

the state secrets privilege, and the FISA Amendments Act to make clear that blanket surveillance of the Internet activity and phone records of any person residing in the U.S. is prohibited by law and that violations can be reviewed in adversarial proceedings before a public court;
Create a special committee to investigate, report, and reveal to the public the extent of this domestic spying. This committee should create specific recommendations for legal and regulatory reform to end unconstitutional surveillance;

Hold accountable those public officials who are found to be responsible for this unconstitutional surveillance.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Sincerely,


   
* I agree to Mozilla's privacy policy and to having my information presented to US Congress in the form of a letter to be delivered by Fight for the Future (see its privacy policy).   I would like to receive e-mails from OpenMediaabout this and related issues. The OpenMediaprivacy policy is available here.

[sky otter]

AUMF Repeal Bill Would End Extraordinary War Powers Granted After 9/11
Posted: 06/10/2013 3:12 pm EDT  |  Updated: 06/10/2013 7:39 pm EDT

WASHINGTON -- The sweeping law that allows the president to wage an unlimited global war on terror would be repealed under a bill set to be offered this week.

The repeal measure, crafted by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), would end the 2001 Authorization to Use MIlitary Force, or AUMF, in 2015, as the U.S. finally exits the war in Afghanistan.

Two administrations have relied upon the AUMF to use military force in Afghanistan and around the world. They have also used the law to justify practices that lately have become more controversial, including drone strikes that have killed at least four Americans and the indefinite detention of terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where more than 100 detainees are currently on a hunger strike.

President Barack Obama recently called for the repeal of the authorization, saying it promotes perpetual war and grants presidents too much power. Leaders in the Senate have also called for its repeal or revision, noting that while the AUMF is supposed to target al Qaeda, the Taliban and allies who helped carry out the Sept. 11 attacks, it has been interpreted to be used far more broadly.

"The nature of the threat we face is different now," said Schiff. "The authorities that we're using are straining at their legal edges to authorize force against groups that didn't exist on 9/11 or that may be only loosely affiliated with al Qaeda."

"I think the timing is right, particularly given the president's speech 10 days ago," he added, arguing that Congress can no longer afford to "kick the can" down the road on such a vital piece of national security law, one that is now 12 years removed from the event that sparked it.

"Congress has a long history over the last decade of abdicating these tough questions because they're difficult," he said.

The questions around the AUMF are indeed difficult. In addition to being used to answer for indefinite detention and the targeted killings of Americans overseas, Congress has used the measure as a basis to pass laws expressly permitting the military to detain Americans without trial. The Obama administration has declared it will not hold U.S. citizens under that authority, but reserves the right to detain the 166 captives at Guantanamo.

But without the AUMF in force, Congress and the administration would have to decide how to deal with prisoners of war in the absence of a specific war. While dozens of captives at Guantanamo are cleared to be released, many are deemed threats to the United States who cannot be tried or let go.

"That is the most difficult kernel to pop," said Schiff. "There is still a remaining group of people for whom the evidence is either highly classified or highly problematic because it was a product of torture. And that problem remains to be solved."

Simply freeing those Guantanamo detainees is not an option, he said. "There will be a need for continued detention, even after the expiration of the AUMF," Schiff said, citing a World War II precedent for handling prisoners of war.

"I don't know that the authority to detain enemy combatants would end with AUMF. But I do think that Guantanamo ought to come to an end, ideally to match up with the expiration o the AUMF in about 18 months," he said.

Schiff's effort comes amid the recent revelations of the breadth of the National Security Agency's ability to spy on Americans -- an authority that stems from a separate law also inspired by the 2001 terror attacks, the PATRIOT Act. It also comes as observers on both the left and right have expressed greater suspicion of the executive branch's use of power in targeting reporters, whistleblowers and conservative groups.

Schiff, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said the broader debate provides "context" for his measure, but evaluating the AUMF and the type of force Congress allows the president to use in the war on terror is a separate, if equally difficult, matter.

"There's probably a more substantial consensus that the existing AUMF is outdated and probably should be replaced," he said. "There's a lot less consensus about what should come after."

Ending the AUMF, he said, would either force Congress to grapple with that question -- and confront the defacto policy of perpetual war -- or allow the president to grow even more powerful.

"If we authorize a new and more limited AUMF, we are nonetheless continuing a war footing," Schiff said. "On the other hand, if we don't and the president takes these actions under his Article II power [of the Constitution], then we're broadening the power of the presidency to act unilaterally."

Schiff may offer his bill as an amendment to this year's National Defense Authorization Act when it's up for debate in the House this week, or as a standalone measure. He plans to introduce the bill Tuesday.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/10/aumf-repeal-bill-war-powers_n_3416689.html?ref=topbar

.......................................................................




and just in case you don't know who to e-mail, phone or write to to make this happen
check this out




http://whoismyrepresentative.com/

Who represents You in the U.S. Congress
Welcome to whoismyrepresentative.com. Here you can find out who represents you in Congress by searching our database by your zipcode or state. To get started, simply enter your zip code or select a state below. You will be presented with your representative's contact information as well as links to various other information regarding your politician.

The underlying data for this site is exposed via a public API which returns either XML or JSON formatted data. More information can be found on the API page.

[petrus4]

We demand the U.S. Congress reveal the full extent of the NSA's spying programs.

Congress is corrupt.  It is bought and paid for, and it has no interest in the public's wellbeing.  Stop appealing to it, and recognise that.  The legislative branch is the primary weak link in the American system; and as long as people refuse to see that, nothing is going to change.

If the public are concerned about the actions of the NSA, they need to find a way to expose its' abuses themselves.  Some possible avenues:-

a}  Use the Freedom of Information Act to obtain information about the NSA's procedures here, if it is applicable.

b}  Organise boycotts against any and all telecommunications corporations who are willing to co-operate with the NSA.  This is likely to be the single most effective line of attack.  The recent global March Against Monsanto, and Monsanto's consequent retreat in Europe, has proven that activism can be effective.

Verizon, Comcast etc are for-profit corporations.  They only agree to collude with the intelligence community, because they are threatened with an inability to do business otherwise.  The people need to use their own economic leverage, to make the telecommunications industry an offer it can't refuse, of their own.  It needs to be made very clear to the telecommunications industry that any corporation which willingly co-operates with rogue, fascist government agencies such as the NSA, DHS, or ICE, will no longer receive the public's money.

This can be successfully accomplished.  Witness the overwhelming push towards organic, non-GM food.

c}  Generate wide petitions calling for the unconditional abolition of the National Security Agency, and generate as much negative publicity for said Agency as possible.  It has been consistently demonstrated that this institution is a fundamentally criminal and immoral organisation, with no legitimate reason to exist, relative to genuine public wellbeing.  It is simply another concentration point for psychopaths; and this fact needs to become publically known.

If Americans really want to strike hard and meaningfully against the intelligence community, then again, it needs to be widely and thoroughly demonstrated that for the most part, said intelligence community has no truly legitimate moral right to exist.

Stop making appeals to Congress, so that after you have done so, you can sit back and give yourselves the hollow re-assurance that your grandparents now have the situation well in hand, and you can return to your vital pastime of watching cat videos.  If anything is going to change, the people must do it themselves.

[sky otter]

Organise boycotts against any and all telecommunications corporations who are willing to co-operate with the NSA.  This is likely to be the single most effective line of attack.  The recent global March Against Monsanto, and Monsanto's consequent retreat in Europe, has proven that activism can be effective.

yes but the majority are still lazy and not afraid of what they could lose
they can still buy stuff and bitch about stuff..the majority don't see a problem YET

i feel that it has to start with a general outcry and then move to non violent confrontation
using the system that is  in place and if that doesn't work
go from there depending on who is left with what



it's easy to give advice from a comfy chair in a different country
but
what would you do    or     what are you doing to make a change in the world
cause it truly is a small world now and we are all very much connected


folks mostly don't move until they have nothing left to lose....

i work that these words are not to be repeated in the years to come

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.




Origin:The statement was published in a 1955 book by Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free, based on interviews he had conducted in Germany several years earlier. The quotation was circulated by civil rights activists and educators in the United States in the late 1950s. Some research traces the text to several speeches given by Niemöller in 1946.[1]

[robomont]

all the cell towers are going to fiber optic.they piss me off.then i will be cutting fiber.simple as that.there is always a way out of the spider web.
the major fiber trunk lones run along the railroad tracks and the would be next.
if i was really pissed.i could shut this country down in three days.