House Extends Surveillance Law, Rejecting New Privacy Safeguards
January 12, 2018 by admin
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Effectively, the vote was almost certainly the end of a debate over 21st-century surveillance and privacy rights that broke out in 2013 after the leaks by the former N.S.A. contractor Edward J. Snowden.
The Senate began considering the newly approved House bill on Thursday afternoon; Senators Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, and Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, are expected to oppose the measure in the coming days. But Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, moved to essentially ensure that no amendments to the House legislation would be considered, and it appeared to be on a path to final approval when senators return to Washington next week.
Mr. Snowden’s disclosures in 2013 ushered in a period of intense interest in surveillance. Civil libertarians and conservative skeptics of government power worked together to push for new limits, while intelligence and law enforcement agencies and their backers in Congress from across party lines — and in both the Obama and Trump administrations — tried to hold the line.
The post-Snowden privacy movement secured its largest victory in 2015 when Congress voted to end and replace one of the programs that Mr. Snowden exposed, under which the N.S.A. had been secretly collecting logs of Americans’ domestic phone calls in bulk. But lawmakers who hoped to add significant privacy constraints to the warrantless surveillance program, too, fell short on Thursday.
Before voting to extend the law, known as Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, the House rejected an amendment that would have imposed a series of new safeguards. That proposal included a requirement that officials obtain warrants in most cases before hunting for, and reading, emails and other messages of Americans that were swept up under the surveillance.
Supporters of those changes contended that the overhaul was needed to preserve Fourth Amendment privacy rights in the internet era. But intelligence and law enforcement officials argued that it was unnecessary, and dangerous, to limit security officials from being able to freely gain access to information the government already possessed.
Representative Devin Nunes, the Republican of California who leads the House Intelligence Committee, celebrated the outcome. “The House of Representatives has taken a big step to ensure the continuation of one of the intelligence community’s most vital tools for tracking foreign terrorists,” he said.
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The program’s surveillance can be used for all foreign intelligence purposes. The sharpest points of the debate centered on when information about Americans that is gathered by the program can be used for criminal investigations unrelated to terrorism.
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Tom Brenner/The New York Times
Representative Justin Amash, the Republican of Michigan who sponsored the privacy measures, expressed disappointment but vowed to keep fighting.
“We had a bipartisan coalition who worked very hard to protect people’s rights, and we will continue to fight and continue to educate our colleagues about it,” Mr. Amash said.
The House bill that was approved on Thursday does contain a gesture toward requiring officials to obtain a warrant to read Americans’ emails that are collected under the program. But it is written so narrowly that it will not protect the overwhelming majority of citizens’ information that is queried in the warrantless surveillance repository.
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Specifically, a warrant would be required only if an F.B.I. agent wants to look at emails about a subject of an open criminal investigation for which there is no national security angle. It would not apply to security-related queries by any intelligence or law-enforcement agency, nor to requests from F.B.I. agents who are following up on criminal tips but have not yet opened formal investigations.
Matthew Olsen, a former general counsel of the National Security Agency and the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said that while he had concerns about how the F.B.I. would distinguish between criminal and national security cases, the overall thrust of the bill was a positive step.
“Congress has made clear that it is lawful to search using U.S. person identifiers for information that could help stop terror attacks and catch spies without a warrant,” he said. “That is the way the intelligence community has been operating under 702, and that is the way it will continue to operate if this bill becomes law.”
But Mr. Amash expressed hope that Mr. Trump might yet intervene to push for more changes to the legislation in the Senate.
Just before debate began on Thursday, the president posted a statement on Twitter that suggested skepticism about the surveillance bill.
“House votes on controversial FISA ACT today.” This is the act that may have been used, with the help of the discredited and phony Dossier, to so badly surveil and abuse the Trump Campaign by the previous administration and others?
—
Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
Jan. 11, 2018
Mr. Trump wrote the message shortly after a libertarian legal analyst on “Fox Friends,” Andrew Napolitano, appealed directly to him to go another route. Mr. Napolitano added that Mr. Trump’s “woes” began with surveillance.
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The president’s tweet enraged Republican leaders who have been trying to renew the 702 law more or less intact. Speaker Paul D. Ryan and Mr. Trump spoke by phone until he posted his next message, a senior Republican congressional aide said.
Fewer than two hours later, the president appeared to reverse himself on the issue in another statement on Twitter.
With that being said, I have personally directed the fix to the unmasking process since taking office and today’s vote is about foreign surveillance of foreign bad guys on foreign land. We need it! Get smart!
—
Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
Jan. 11, 2018
Despite the confusion, Republican leaders pushed forward, counting on moderate Democrats and Republicans to reject the proposed overhaul and pass the extension bill. John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff, lobbied members in a House cloakroom before the vote.
Some of the most conservative Republicans in the House joined with some of the most liberal Democrats in the failed bid for more privacy protections. Ultimately, 58 Republicans joined 125 Democrats in voting for the overhaul amendment, while 55 Democrats joined 178 Republicans in rejecting it. On Twitter, Mr. Snowden observed that it would have passed had fewer Democrats broken ranks.
House votes 256-164 to expand Trump’s warrantless surveillance powers for the next six years. The vote to reform warrantless searches of Americans’ phone calls and e-mails failed, needing the support of 26 more. Dems could have swung it, but 55 of them voted with the Trump camp.
—
Edward Snowden (@Snowden)
Jan. 11, 2018
But Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said afterward that by rejecting the overhaul amendment, the House had avoided imposing “a crippling requirement in national security and terrorism cases.”
“We were certainly thrown into plenty of turmoil with the president’s tweets this morning and that made everything look quite speculative,” Mr. Schiff said. “I do think the underlying bill makes a sensible compromise.”
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Arrested Louisiana teacher says First Amendment rights were violated, city marshal ‘needs training’
January 12, 2018 by admin
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Waving signs heralding free speech and chanting “Stand by Deyshia,” about 100 people gathered in a light rain Thursday to rally to support Deyshia Hargrave — the Louisiana teacher ejected from a school board meeting and roughly handcuffed in a video-recorded arrest after she questioned her superintendent’s pay raise.
Hargrave, near tears at times, thanked supporters who stood by her after the arrest and emphasized the need to speak out on important issues.
“I hope and pray my experience will empower you — my students, young women everywhere — to know that you have a voice,” Hargrave told the crowd. “Use it. Many, many women suffered tremendously and sacrificed greatly for us to have this voice. … And this is for the boys, too. You matter.”
She was backed by fellow teachers wearing black T-shirts that read: “#standbydeyshia.” Signs held by members of the crowd included one reading, “We will not be silenced.”
Earlier, Hargrave told The Associated Press she believes Vermilion Parish School Board President Anthony Fontana should resign. She declined to suggest any discipline for Reggie Hilts, the deputy city marshal who handcuffed her on the hallway floor after she left the meeting and marched her out of the building.
“He needs training,” the middle school English teacher said. “Whether he needs to lose his job, I don’t know.”
She declined, at first, to say with certainty whether she would file a lawsuit in the matter. “We’ll see how it goes,” she said when asked again. “But I clearly feel my First Amendment rights were violated, and I feel like, yeah, there will be a lawsuit filed for that.”
The American Civil Liberties Union and her teachers union are investigating the case.
The turmoil followed the board’s 5-3 vote Monday night approving a new three-year contract raising Vermilion Schools Superintendent Jerome Puyau’s salary by roughly $30,000, to about $140,000 annually, with incentive targets that could add 3 percent a year.
Video of the meeting shows that Hargrave addressed the superintendent directly after raising her hand to speak and being recognized.
She questioned Puyau’s raise, given that teachers haven’t received an increase in 10 years, despite growing class sizes and other demands.
Fontana then declared that her comment wasn’t “germane” to the vote on the contract, and banged his gavel in an attempt to silence her. According to school board member Kibbie Pillette, Fontana then beckoned off-camera to the officer, who interrupted Hargrave while she was speaking and ordered her out.
“I’m going,” she said, making her way out. The officer followed her into the hallway, where moments later, a camera recorded her on the floor with her hands behind her back, being handcuffed and complaining that the officer had pushed her down.
Asked by the AP on Thursday who’s directly to blame for the incident, Hargrave said “Anthony Fontana.”
Fontana has not returned calls for an interview with the AP, but has defended his actions and that of the officer.
Hilts was accused along with another officer of slamming an ailing 62-year-old man’s head onto a concrete slab in 2011. He left the city of Scott’s police force later that year, for unrelated reasons the police chief said. Scott denied using excessive force, and the man’s federal suit was settled in 2016.
Now a local pastor and a resource officer at J.H. Williams Middle School in Vermilion Parish, Hilts hasn’t spoken publicly about Hargrave’s arrest.
“He’s a very good guy, he’s a pastor, respectable citizen here, and is well-respected in the community,” Puyau told the AP. “Students and teachers love him.”
A teacher who attended Thursday’s rally agreed.
Alicia LaSalle is a second-year teacher at the school where Hilts works as a resource officer. LaSalle said Hilts is on hand to stop altercations or other problems among students in. She adds that Hilts has a good relationship with students and teachers. “Honestly, he is very well liked at our school,” she said.
“I agree she should not have been arrested,” LaSalle said. “Personally, I don’t think he would have arrested her if it was up to him.”
Puyau, who said he began receiving hate mail and threatening phone calls as the video spread on the internet, wouldn’t comment on who ordered the teacher’s removal, but said he’s not happy with how things played out.
“It was not good in any way,” he said. “We are a good community. It took everybody by surprise. I’m having a hard time with this, but we care about our teachers and our support staff.”
Associated Press reporter Kevin McGill contributed to this story from New Orleans.
This story has been corrected to show that Fontana’s first name is Anthony and that he is the Vermilion Parish School Board president.