Free Republic

The queries targeted people involved in Jan. 6 and George Floyd protests, and donors to a failed congressional candidate ... The FBI improperly used warrantless search powers against U.S. citizens more than 278,000 times in the year ending November 2021, according to an unsealed Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) filing. U.S. citizens covered in that improper effort included people involved in the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021; George Floyd protesters during the summer of 2020; and donors to a failed congressional candidate, the filing said. ... The court filing, which spanned 127 pages, was unsealed Friday by the FISC,...

Over a MILLION of which were in error.Link to video of today's exchange between DOJ Inspector General Horowitz and Rep. Matt Gaetz.

Texas secretly gives its citizens’ incomes to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Documents show this has led to at least one person being monitored by the feds without a warrant through the federal gun background check system. The Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) told The Epoch Times that it has written contracts with ATF for “sharing income information” for criminal investigations. The revelation may lead to oversight by the legislature. Texas state Rep. Briscoe Cain, a Republican, is “deeply troubled” about this coordination with the state’s unemployment agency and federal government. “My office will be looking into...

The FBI more than doubled the number of warrantless searches it conducted of Americans' communications data from 2020 to 2021, according to a report released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.The report released on Thursday explains how U.S. intelligence agencies use Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which allows for surveillance without a warrant of electronic communications data stored by U.S. internet service providers. ODNI pointed out that this year's report is the first to track the FBI's use of "unminimized Section 702 collection," which is raw data that the National Security Agency collects.The...

The Department of Justice has been dismissing child pornography cases in order to not reveal information about the software programs used as the basis for the charges. An array of cases suggest serious problems with the tech tools used by federal authorities. But the private entities who developed these tools won't submit them for independent inspection or hand over hardly any information about how they work, their error rates, or other critical information. As a result, potentially innocent people are being smeared as pedophiles and prosecuted as child porn collectors, while potentially guilty people are going free so these companies...

President Donald Trump must provide the American people, not just the Senate Intelligence Committee, with proof of his claims that former President Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower, and if he doesn't have the proof, he needs to retract his statements, Sen. John McCain said Sunday. "If his predecessor violated the law, President Obama violated the law, we've got a serious issue here, to say the least," McCain told CNN's "State of the Union" program, while pointing out that he himself has no reason to believe the allegations are true.

President Barack Obama signed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act bill into law yesterday after the U.S. Senate voted for an extension of the President George W. Bush-era spy bill 73-23. The FISA bill gives the government clearance to tap into American citizens’ communications with people outside of the U.S. without a warrant, so long as it is done in the name of collecting foreign intelligence. Obama has previously stated his approval of the bill, saying that the U.S. needs such measures when dealing with national security. More specifically, it means that government entities such as the National Security Agency are...

Ron Wyden Discusses Encryption, Data Privacy and Security http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/10/10/technology/ron-wyden-discusses-encryption-data-privacy-and-security.html?referer= Q. What is the state of encryption and other security debates on Capitol Hill? A. This is going to be a big, big two months. First, obviously, there are those who want to weaken encryption. They are still at it. Then, the F.B.I. wants authority to circumvent court oversight to obtain Americans’ browsing histories. Third, there is what’s known as Rule 41, where the F.B.I. wants the authority to hack thousands or millions of hacking victims with one warrant from a single judge. "Q: What else is coming up for consideration...

A majority of Americans say they support warrantless government surveillance of the Internet communications of U.S. citizens, according to a new poll by The Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. It's at least somewhat important for the government to sacrifice freedoms to ensure safety, most say in the survey. ...

Dakota County Sheriff Tim Leslie will soon have his deputies obtaining DNA from people arrested and charged for certain violent crimes. This DNA collection will take place before they are convicted – a departure from current Minnesota law. In 2006, the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled the practice of gathering DNA, without a warrant, from people charged but not convicted, was illegal. Two years ago, in 2013, the United States Supreme Court ruled the practice was okay – at least in Maryland. In light of that ruling, Dakota County is betting that if their new procedure is challenged in court,...

(TNS) -- Pick another issue -- maybe any other issue -- and they'd be at each other's throats. But on Monday, the Minnesota Tea Party Alliance shared a stage with Occupy Minnesota, with the American Civil Liberties Union and an anti-Affordable Care Act advocacy group, with liberal DFLers and conservative Republicans. These unnatural allies agreed on one thing: limiting the ability of government to access electronic data. "There won't be many opportunities for you to see a group this ideologically diverse and bipartisan," said state Sen. Branden Petersen, R-Andover. Petersen, a Republican with libertarian leanings, wants to amend Minnesota's constitution...

Despite national court decisions limiting police in obtaining a blood-alcohol sample without a warrant, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that doing so doesn’t violate the state and U.S. Constitutions. As a result, in Minnesota, a suspected drunken driver can still be charged with refusing a breath or blood test if arresting officers believe there’s enough evidence to get a search warrant to require the test — even if they don’t obtain the warrant. Only a few states have a similar implied-consent law. The issue, which reached the state Supreme Court in a case involving William Bernard Jr., has been...

The information leaked by Edward Snowden last year raised the public consciousness quite a bit about user privacy and security in using certain services (not to mention the hope that companies won’t be that willing to acquiesce to government requests for user information). In recent weeks, Apple CEO Tim Cook has been emphasizing a new focus on user security and encryption. Both Apple and Google have implemented stronger data encryption so it’s harder to compromise user data. The problem is, however, that it would be harder for law enforcement to access that data too. And FBI Director James Comey isn’t...

In a move that, if adopted, would almost certainly be brought into the courts, a northern New Jersey town is contemplating an ordinance that would grant local police access — without a search warrant — into private residences in order to check up on allegations of underage drinking. Officials in the town of Montville, on the western edge of the New York metropolitan area’s sprawl, are discussing the new ordinance — perhaps counterintuitively — in terms of keeping underage drinking in check while helping young people avoid establishing criminal records that can follow them throughout their lives. “While teens caught...

Pennsylvania police officers no longer need a warrant to search a citizen’s vehicle, the state’s Supreme Court ruled Tuesday. Drivers in the state used to be able to refuse a warrantless search, but now their vehicles can be subject to search when a police officer determines there is “reasonable probable cause” to do so, the Intelligencer Journal reported. The high court’s ruling, passed on a 4-2 vote, is being called a drastic change in citizens’ rights and police authority, the paper said. “This is a significant change in long-standing Pennsylvania criminal law, and it is a good one,” said Lancaster...

Pennsylvania police officers no longer need a warrant to search a citizen’s vehicle, according to a recent state Supreme Court opinion. The high court’s opinion, released Tuesday, is being called a drastic change in citizens’ rights and police powers.

The National Security Agency has searched the communications of American citizens without obtaining warrants, the administration's top intelligence official confirmed this week. James Clapper, director of National Intelligence, confirmed the practice in a letter to Congress Tuesday. He didn't say when or how often the searches took place. The NSA gathers the communications of ordinary Americans, but it had not been clear if those records had been searched. "Senior officials have sometimes suggested that government agencies do not deliberately read Americans' emails, monitor their online activity or listen to their phone calls without a warrant," Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and...

When a hypertotalitarian banana republic takes another turn for the gigasurreal, even Elon Musk is speechless. In the most glaring example of how farcical idiocy has become the new normal, we will remind readers (especially those who do not follow us on twitter), of the following blurb from last night:

WASHINGTON — As America's road planners struggle to find the cash to mend a crumbling highway system, many are beginning to see a solution in a little black box that fits neatly by the dashboard of your car. The devices, which track every mile a motorist drives and transmit that information to bureaucrats, are at the center of a controversial attempt in Washington and state planning offices to overhaul the outdated system for funding America's major roads.

Apparently not satisfied with just setting fire to the 4th Amendment, NSA boss Keith Alexander's next target is the 1st Amendment. In an interview with the Defense Department's "Armed With Science" blog , it appears that Alexander felt he'd have a friendly audience, so he let loose with some insane claims, including suggesting that the government needs to find a way to "stop" journalists from reporting on the Snowden leaks . As noted by Politco, General Alexander isn't a fan of journalists doing anything about these documents: "I think it’s wrong that that newspaper reporters have all these documents,...