Senate bill rewrite lets feds read your e-mail without warrants

CNET ^ | November 20, 2012 | Declan McCullagh

[yoe]

A Senate proposal (touted) as protecting Americans' e-mail privacy has been quietly rewritten, giving government agencies more surveillance power than they possess under current law.

CNET has learned that Patrick Leahy, the influential Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee, has dramatically reshaped his legislation in response to law enforcement concerns. A vote on his bill, which now authorizes warrantless access to Americans' e-mail, is scheduled for next week.

Leahy's rewritten bill would allow more than 22 agencies -- including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Communications Commission -- to access Americans' e-mail, Google Docs files, Facebook wall posts, and Twitter direct messages without a search warrant. It also would give the FBI and Homeland Security more authority, in some circumstances, to gain full access to Internet accounts without notifying either the owner or a judge.

[BwanaNdege]

“Just use code words.”

Navajo code words, of course!

http://www.navajocodetalkers.org/

(Actually, I’d go for a more obscure language.

“It is estimated that 6,809 “living” languages exist in the world today, but 90% of them are spoken by fewer than 100,000 people.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_language

I’d also pick a decoy language and send, from an autonomous, very remote server, messages in that language sprinkled with words & phrases designed to trip the NSA alarms.

Just to yank someone’s chain, of course. Mix in a few Arabic or Farsi phrases as Red Herrings.

;-)

(oooooh, I’m getting WAY too much enjoyment out of devious planning!)

[USAF80]

LOL, that is a good one. You may get a knock on your door from the guys with the dark sunglasses and black suits though.

[gdani]

(Cross-posted from similar thread)

The Government already captures & stores all of our emails, texts, phone calls & electronic purchases with plans to increase their capabilities --

The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say)

Most conservatives gave Bush a free pass on this. Now, most liberals are doing the same.

[CitizenUSA]

Completely unconstitutional under the 4th Amendment:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

If a government agency wants to read my private email, search my house, attach tracking devices to my car, etc., get a warrant! It’s really that simple, and I have no problem whatsoever submitting to legal (constitutional) searches.

You’d think liberals would be up in arms over this, too!

[paratrooper82]

Is there really a single American who does NOT believe law enforcement is already reading Americans private emails?

Remember when he FBI was unlawfully obtaining and then reading the list of library books Americans had taken out and were reading? It was not long afterward that the US congress made it legal to obtain this and much more private information about Americans!

If you break into this Country, are here illegally, law enforcement are NOT allowed to ask or acquire any private information about you, that would be profiling and it is prohibited.

If you are an American, white, male, you have no constitutional protections, just ask Eric Holder, he proclaimed that he would not prosecute any blacks for hate crimes against whites, sine those laws do not protect whites, only minorities, e.g. blacks!

Welcome to Amerika! Fascist States of America

[DBrow]

I think it goes back to the Antiterrorism Act of 1993, the bill that patriot is based on. Many of the problems with teh Republican-passed Patriot Act were in the Democrat-passed AT Act 93, but you know how things get reported.

[gdani]

You’d think liberals would be up in arms over this, too!

Liberals and conservatives both have given the Feds unlimited power to do this for years.

There is ZERO difference between the two parties on issues such as these.

[Carry_Okie]

Passing laws to restrict the ability of third parties from reading email makes as much sense as passing laws to keep the rest of the neighborhood from listening in while you the guy next door yell at each other from your respective back porches.

While you are correct in your cognizance of the electronic facts, there is a BIG difference between "third parties" and the police reading your communications for purposes of surveillance or arrest.

Your penance is to READ the Fourth Amendment twenty times. Here you go:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

[moovova]

What’s the big deal? If you’re not doing anything wrong, what are you afraid of? /s