Section 309 of H. R. 4681 just solidified NSA data collection and no one noticed.

[joshcryer]

SEC. 309. PROCEDURES FOR THE RETENTION OF INCIDENTALLY
ACQUIRED COMMUNICATIONS.
(a) DEFINITIONS.—In this section:
(1) COVERED COMMUNICATION.—The term ‘‘covered communication’’
means any nonpublic telephone or electronic communication
acquired without the consent of a person who is a
party to the communication, including communications in electronic
storage.
(2) HEAD OF AN ELEMENT OF THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY.—
The term ‘‘head of an element of the intelligence community’’
means, as appropriate—
(A) the head of an element of the intelligence community;
or
(B) the head of the department or agency containing
such element.
(3) UNITED STATES PERSON.—The term ‘‘United States person’’
has the meaning given that term in section 101 of the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1801).
(b) PROCEDURES FOR COVERED COMMUNICATIONS.—
(1) REQUIREMENT TO ADOPT.—Not later than 2 years after
the date of the enactment of this Act each head of an element
of the intelligence community shall adopt procedures approved
by the Attorney General for such element that ensure compliance
with the requirements of paragraph (3).
(2) COORDINATION AND APPROVAL.—The procedures
required by paragraph (1) shall be—
(A) prepared in coordination with the Director of
National Intelligence; and
(B) approved by the Attorney General prior to issuance.
(3) PROCEDURES.—
(A) APPLICATION.—The procedures required by paragraph
(1) shall apply to any intelligence collection activity
not otherwise authorized by court order (including an order
or certification issued by a court established under subsection
(a) or (b) of section 103 of the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1803)), subpoena, or
similar legal process that is reasonably anticipated to result
in the acquisition of a covered communication to or from
H. R. 4681—10
a United States person and shall permit the acquisition,
retention, and dissemination of covered communications
subject to the limitation in subparagraph (B).
(B) LIMITATION ON RETENTION.—A covered communication
shall not be retained in excess of 5 years, unless—
(i) the communication has been affirmatively determined,
in whole or in part, to constitute foreign intelligence
or counterintelligence or is necessary to understand
or assess foreign intelligence or counterintelligence;
(ii) the communication is reasonably believed to
constitute evidence of a crime and is retained by a
law enforcement agency;
(iii) the communication is enciphered or reasonably
believed to have a secret meaning;
(iv) all parties to the communication are reasonably
believed to be non-United States persons;
(v) retention is necessary to protect against an
imminent threat to human life, in which case both
the nature of the threat and the information to be
retained shall be reported to the congressional intelligence
committees not later than 30 days after the
date such retention is extended under this clause;
(vi) retention is necessary for technical assurance
or compliance purposes, including a court order or
discovery obligation, in which case access to information
retained for technical assurance or compliance
purposes shall be reported to the congressional intelligence
committees on an annual basis; or
(vii) retention for a period in excess of 5 years
is approved by the head of the element of the intelligence
community responsible for such retention,
based on a determination that retention is necessary
to protect the national security of the United States,
in which case the head of such element shall provide
to the congressional intelligence committees a written
certification describing—
(I) the reasons extended retention is necessary
to protect the national security of the United
States;
(II) the duration for which the head of the
element is authorizing retention;
(III) the particular information to be retained;
and
(IV) the measures the element of the intelligence
community is taking to protect the privacy
interests of United States persons or persons
located inside the United States.

https://www.congress.gov/113/bills/hr4681/BILLS-113hr4681enr.pdf

So much for the NSA being weakened by certain revelations that made some people rich. The worst part is that any encrypted message can be retained forever. Any. That is so absurd as to be preposterous in its scope.

[SamKnause]

1. I watched C-SPAN for the majority of the day yesterday.

I watched until they recessed at around 11 or 12 p.m. EST.

Before that I watched the Washington Journal on C-SPAN for 3 hours.

We are getting fucked from every direction.

It is difficult to keep up.

That is the purpose of writing these long drawn out bills and allowing everyone to insert anything they want at will.

I guess if we want to know what is happening we should call Jamie Dimon.

He seems to have a lot of clout with the president.

I called my Senators and told them to SHUT IT DOWN.

I am sick of the lies, the scams, the corruption, and the dog and pony shows.

If any place on earth needs an enema, it is DC.

[joshcryer]

2. Can't disagree with you there.

Unfortunately we've become so complacent as a peoples I don't know if it will ever get fixed.

[SamKnause]

3. I don't have a clue even where to start.

It seems greed and corruption have infested every nook and cranny in the U.S. government.

It has over run Wall Street.

It has infested the military brass and the Pentagon.

It has infested American corporations and corporations around the globe.

We are forced to continue the tightening of our belts as our tax dollars are being squandered or outright stolen from us.

I am just so disgusted.

[grasswire]

4. BASTARDS

This is too much.

[snappyturtle]

5. Big thanks to you for posting this. I ran across it about 24 hrs. ago

and was so outraged I thought it had to be wrong. Sadly, it was true.

I read an article containing the letter Rep. Justin Amash wrote to fellow representatives urging them to vote "No" on H.R. 4681....which was triggered when he became suspicious of the unanimous consent vote in the Senate. He put his staffers to work to comb through the bill and they found the substituted Sec. 309.....I say substituted because SA 3955* was introduced to the Senate by Sen. Dianne Feinstein! IMHO the Senate was duped as was the House as this was a last minute addition to the bill. I traced the history of the bill through thomas.gov. VERY interesting. Sly. No wonder TPTB wanted unanimous consent with no discussion, as I read elsewhere! If my memory serves correctly, the passage in the Senate was on the same day the news grabber announcement of the release of the torture report by Sen. Feinstein!

I think the whole matter looks fishy. Pass the bill in the Senate and rush it to the House while the news media is all aflush with torture.


* the original subject matter of Sec. 309 was scrubbed and replaced with the above verbage in the OP.

[joshcryer]

9. NSA spying keeps over 400k people in jobs.

So that's why they justify it to themselves, it's a jobs program as much as it's a spying program. It's why MIC is so entrenched in our society.

[snappyturtle]

30. KICK! nt

[DeSwiss]

6. How could it get anything but worse?

Those of us CTers whom everyone barely tolerated -- until now -- have been crying in the wilderness for years. This didn't start yesterday.

- Some just began to notice yesterday........

K&R

[font size=3]The Game Is Rigged: Why Americans Keep Losing To The Police State [/font]

12/10/2014 21:10

Submitted by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute

“The truth is that the State is a conspiracy designed not only to exploit, but above all to corrupt its citizens.” —Leo Tolstoy

My 7-year-old granddaughter has suddenly developed a keen interest in card games: Go Fish, Crazy Eights, Old Maid, Blackjack, and War. We’ve fallen into a set pattern now: every time we play, she deals the cards, and I pretend not to see her stacking the deck in her favor. And of course, I always lose.

I don’t mind losing to my granddaughter at Old Maid, knowing full well the game is rigged. For now, it’s fun and games, and she’s winning. Where the rub comes in is in knowing that someday she’ll be old enough to realize that being a citizen in the American police state is much like playing against a stacked deck: you’re always going to lose.

The game is rigged, and “we the people” keep getting dealt the same losing hand. Even so, we stay in the game, against all odds, trusting that our luck will change.

The problem, of course, is that luck will not save us. The people dealing the cards—the politicians, the corporations, the judges, the prosecutors, the police, the bureaucrats, the military, the media, etc.—have only one prevailing concern, and that is to maintain their power and control over the country and us.

It really doesn’t matter what you call them—the 1%, the elite, the controllers, the masterminds, the shadow government, the police state, the surveillance state, the military industrial complex—so long as you understand that while they are dealing the cards, the deck will always be stacked in their favor.

Incredibly, no matter how many times we see this played out, Americans continue to naively buy into the idea that it’s our politics that divide us as a nation. As if there were really a difference between the Democrats and Republicans. As if the policies of George W. Bush were any different from those of Barack Obama. As if we weren’t a nation of sheep being fattened for the kill by a ravenous government of wolves.

We’re in trouble, folks, and changing the dealer won’t save us: it’s time to get out of the game.

We have relinquished control of our government to overlords who care nothing for our rights, our dignity or our humanity, and now we’re saddled with an authoritarian regime that is deaf to our cries, dumb to our troubles, blind to our needs, and accountable to no one.

More

[JDPriestly]

8. What kind of grandmother lets her grandson cheat like that?

Does she want to spare him the sadness of losing?

Hey! Why not teach him how to win and lose.

We are teaching my four-year-old grandson that you don't cheat; you play by the rules.

The first board game he played successfully without "cheating" was Chutes and Ladders. He won playing by the rules, and when he finished the game and realized he had won, he said to his Dad who was playing with him, "You can share my winning."

Why should a child, even at four, be allowed to cheat?

Horrors!

[Trillo]

16. Please don't take this the wrong way, you are certainly free to raise your child in any manner

you believe is best.

When you raise a child to be honest in a world run by the crooked, you set them up to fail and be parasitized at every opportunity. The honest people end up getting the shaft at every possible moment. The successful people, not all of them perhaps, but most, lie, cheat, and steal, and lack empathy at every critical moment in their dealings with others, for whom they seem to only hold contempt.

To make a metaphor, if you raise your child to be a sheep in a world run by wolves, you prepare them to be the wolves' meal. Better to teach your child to be a wolf, so he or she can occasionally eat a meal themselves.

That said, my solution to this dilemma was not to have children. I loved them, even though I didn't have them yet, and did not wish them to be the wolves' continual feast.

[JDPriestly]

7. Don't worry. This fight has just begun.

The data collection will become an embarrassment. Sooner or later there will be a huge scandal. If there isn't then the collection will prove ineffective and harmless.

We all know that we are being snooped upon. So far as we know, thus far, the information has not been used for wrongful purposes -- with the exception of the CIAs snooping on Congress during the preparation of the torture report (if that counts).

But sooner or later, the snoopers will way overstep. It's just the nature of things. This kind of power corrupts.

The practice will be sharply curtailed sooner or later. It's a boondoggle and won't serve the purpose it is intended officially to serve. It will degenerate into a sort of political blackmail device. That is when its true nature will be understood by many people and there will be an outcry for change.

It will happen. It's the way these things go in America.

The government cannot keep that many records on ordinary people secret for very long -- especially if they act on the information within the records. It's not going to work.

[joshcryer]

10. Obviously they don't intend for it to go awry.

The problem is that it opens up a slippery slope for more and more intrusions into our lives. It's not all that difficult to discredit someone who claims they're being blackmailed. Just fill their computer with child porn, done. They go to jail, do not pass go, they're done for.

[snappyturtle]

31. You have really bought up a good point. What a backroom method for tptb

to rid themselves of the pesky internet goings on.

[Recursion]

11. So, basically, we're back to the pre-FISA days before 1978, legally

Well, that was an interesting 36 years...

[joshcryer]

13. FISA has been a kangaroo rubber stamp court since the PATRIOT Act.

IMO.

[UglyGreed]

12. Well if you have

nothing to hide don't worry

[jakeXT]

14. Congress Quietly Bolsters NSA Spying in Intelligence Bill

December 11, 2014 Congress this week quietly passed a bill that may give unprecedented legal authority to the government's warrantless surveillance powers, despite a last-minute effort by Rep. Justin Amash to kill the bill.

Amash staged an aggressive eleventh-hour rally Wednesday night to block passage of the Intelligence Authorization Act, which will fund intelligence agencies for the next fiscal year. The Michigan Republican sounded alarms over recently amended language in the package that he said will for the first time give congressional backing to a controversial Reagan-era decree granting broad surveillance authority to the president.

The 47-page intelligence bill was headed toward a voice vote when Amash rose to the House floor to ask for a roll call. Despite his efforts—which included a "Dear Colleague" letter sent to all members of the House urging a no vote—the bill passed 325-100, with 55 Democrats and 45 Republicans opposing.

The provision in question is "one of the most egregious sections of law I've encountered during my time as a representative," Amash wrote on his Facebook page. The tea-party libertarian, who teamed up with Rep. John Conyers in an almost-successful bid to defund the National Security Agency in the wake of the Snowden revelations, warned that the provision "grants the executive branch virtually unlimited access to the communications of every American."

The measure already passed the Senate by unanimous consent on Tuesday, and it is now on its way to the White House, where President Obama is expected to sign it.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/tech/congress-quietly-bolsters-nsa-spying-in-intelligence-bill-20141211

[ReRe]

15. I always wonder what is going on...

... behind the scenes when some issue overtakes the media. It never fails. This was definitely the perfect storm cover for some smooth slight-of-hand, behind-the-scenes shell game. Thanks for your powerful post, josh. There are some very informative replies. Hope we can keep it kicked so more will be able to see it.

K&R

[newfie11]

17. I remember the stories of Big Bad Russia

Where everyone was spied on. Maybe true maybe propaganda but now it's come home to America.

Land of the free

[Trillo]

18. I was trying to find that section, it seemed to be mis-titled and mis-summarized.

Who ever said the folks running this world were honest. Every possible game of deception is played.

I kept wondering what was being slid under the rug after the release of the torture report. That report was the distraction.

[snappyturtle]

32. Bingo! Sen. Feinstein was one busy lady. Add SA 3955 to the Senate side of

the bill AND annouce the release of the torture report...well, the parts they care to share anyway.

[TheKentuckian]

19. Evil motherfuckers seldom comes the day without some outrage. I wonder what is snuck over the plate

that we don't know about. The hits keep coming and coming from every direction.

Revelations aren't magic pixie dust, if idiots circle their wagons to protect corrupted power and the corrupt close ranks, are protecting each other, and they relentlessly keep going for another bite of the apple with enough useful idiots from both parties undermining and supporting the destruction of our rights because of cowardice and standing by their man then it is not going to go well with reining in said corruption.

You snarky little editorial is not a part of the solution, revealers whether they got rich or not or locked up while vile torturers and spooks walk free aren't putting these provisions in over and over to undercut the constitution.

Is it like a compulsion to kill the messengers? You know the implications and know it is wrong here yet the attack is not for those who write, insert, support, and vote for the provisions but for whistleblowers? Why? It just seems insane when the people with the power are beyond compromised and work relentlessly to undo that which they swear to uphold and defend.

We aren't stupid virtually every communication is encrypted nor do we know what all laws are because some fuckwits believe there can be such a thing as secret laws and secret courts in a democratic republic and we see that the red line of "terror" is ever blurred until now we are at "reasonable suspicion of any crime" which leaves little functional room for the 4th and one can reasonably assume the 1st right along with it.

These efforts are treason, revealing them and increasing awareness of them is real patriotism so I think you for your service even as I condemn your strange snark while going about it. Strange to find a way to be part of the problem and the solution to the same problem at once.

[joshcryer]

20. You know what the solution is?

Electing guys like Mark Udall who was on top of this whole NSA thing until he got the boot. Udall and Wyden got Clapper to put his foot in his mouth. All before anyone dumped anything.

But what happened? Well, the dumps were a big huge PR campaign, allowed a whole new media corporation to be created (which led to Matt Tabbi and a whole bunch of other writers leaving that same corporation due to its messaging efforts), all the while Udall gets shit on continually and loses his job due to lackluster elections (worst turnout since the Great Depression).

The people just don't give a shit anymore. They really don't. Making a big media spectacle and making book and movie deals over very fucking important issues isn't going to help anyone. Because it becomes a joke, it becomes entertainment, as opposed to civil policy.

I predicted nothing good would come of it, even while people were championing NSA funding being taken away.

The internet is going to go fully encrypted due to these actions, it'll be the software coders, not the editorialists for profit, who will achieve the solution.

[TheKentuckian]

21. That is not a solution but treatment of a symptom as the disease grows worse in worse

try to keep up and get ahead of coders, that is a part of this effort. If they can't break the encryption then they will just keep everything until they can and see what's what.

The solutions are political and legal. They involve strict prohibitions with the harshest punishments for perpetrators and lavish rewards for whistleblowers. They dictate the absolute end to secret courts and secret laws. They require simplification and clarity of bills. They require the end of unanimous consent and voice votes. They require a Congress deadly serious about oversight and an Executive just as serious about being overseen. They dictate a media willing and capable of telling the truth and working tirelessly to find the truth they report.
The tough part is a public engaged, aware, and unwilling to meekly tolerate such perversions due to cowering fear and/or absurd team loyalty.

[joshcryer]

22. This legislation shows that the political solution is far away.

No where on any reasonable horizon. Because issues are made into entertainment consumption as opposed to real substantial civic policy. The media doesn't care about the truth, all it cares about is profit, above all else. It's why clickbait journalism rules the day, it's why OP after OP is posted to elicit outrage.

I could've made a much more outrageous post. All night long my post lingered with only a couple of replies. It kept sinking. I didn't even feel like kicking it. But had I wrote a more "entertaining" headline, I'm sure it would've elicited a whole lot of responses. I even started to edit it to pull in replies, but decided against it.

The public will not be engaged as long as this media narrative exists, trickling out articles in order to maximize profit, assuring that the story stays in the noise, as other events take place which are deemed more important by the media.

[TheKentuckian]

34. I guess I'd be closer to agreement except the opposite doesn't hold. Issues with minimal interest

seem even more likely to be breeding grounds of corruption and retrograde policy.

I'm unclear on exactly what you are calling for in the present media environment or that would change that environment.

Sensationalism seems preferable to complete ignorance and a government free to work in the shadows because the products of the shadow allows the toxic to flourish.

[msanthrope]

23. Section 215 of the Patriot Act is up this Spring. nt

[RiverLover]

24. Our govt is really screwing us over, from every direction

Good thing we're a "democracy"

"For The People, By The People"

[HereSince1628]

25. More of the fruits of brinksmanship.

All things are possible for the oligarchy so long as they keep the nation focused on the notion of falling over the edge of the cliff.

[truebrit71]

26. ".... and the land of the freeeeeeeeeee...."

Right?

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

27. Any encrypted message? Try any message.

the communication is enciphered or reasonably
believed to have a secret meaning;

They get to define what is 'reasonable', so they can suggest that any message by anyone they suspect of anything has 'hidden encryption'. As soon as you hit their radar in any possible way, that's their loophole to keep every single thing you do online.

[joshcryer]

29. I think "technical assurance or compliance purposes" is much looser.

"We have to keep everything because who knows who is a sleeper. We have to do analysis on everything ever written and make sure that they aren't slipping through the cracks."

[historylovr]

28. K & R

[PowerToThePeople]

33. i no longer care

We need a revolt that permanently removes domestic spys, torturers, wall street thieves, on-the-take politicians, and olligarchs from our society. Permanently.

[riderinthestorm]

35. K&R and K&R and K&R..nt