Only days after a NSA whistleblower has sounded the alarm about the government's massive spying campaign on American citizens, the U.S. Congress who swore an oath to uphold the Constitution are set to legalize warrantless wiretaps with the reauthorization of the secretive FISA Amendments Act.
This legislation is the perfect example of why there is no difference between the political parties. Their rhetoric may differ when it's politically expedient, but when push comes to shove they always vote for tyranny.
Obama said he was against the Patriot Act to get elected because the majority of Americans opposed it, but then he supported its extension not for one year, but for four years. Obama repeatedly attacked Bush's warrantless wiretaps as unconstitutional, but now he's expected to sign this 5-year reauthorization once the unprincipled legislators rubber stamp it today.
It seems the only time Congress acts in a bipartisan way is when they're trampling the Constitutional rights of Americans.
It permits the government to get year-long orders from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court to conduct dragnet surveillance of Americans’ international communications—including phone calls, emails, and internet records—for the purpose of collecting foreign intelligence. The orders need not specify who is going to be spied on or even allege that the targets did anything wrong. The only guarantees that the FAA gives are that no specific American will be targeted for wiretapping and that some (classified) rules about the use of intercepted information will be followed.
After four years, you’d hope that some basic information or parameters of such a massive spying program would be divulged to the public, or at least your rank-and-file member of Congress, but they haven’t...
Can you believe that 435 members of Congress who have sworn to uphold the Constitution are about to vote on a sweeping intelligence gathering law without this basic information?If you hear politicians say that FISA actually provides meaningful oversight, they can't possibly know that due to the secrecy of the approval process. But you may remind them that every single secret surveillance request was approved in 2011 indicating a rubber stamp approval.
Don't be a person of good conscience who remains silent. Call your Congressperson and tell them to vote NO.
US House Switchboard operator: (202) 224-3121
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