The title's timely, paradoxical expression is brought to you courtesy of former FBI Special Agent, David Greene as part of a mostly unsung (IMHO) exposé written last month By Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Devereaux for the website: First Look @ The Intercept. It's a revealing article that serves as a precursor to the subject of this diary below, another gem from the good folks over at The Intercept.
Apple's recent announcement that it will no longer unlock most iPhones, iPads for police, even with search warrants on its new operating systems has ignited a firestorm in the intelligence community, leaving it reeling, scrambling to come up with a response. Well, that response may have been foretold.
The Obama Administration might have to start complying, letting people know when they’ve been flagged for terrorist connections based on information picked up from secret NSA spying programs.
That could potentially affect the tens of thousands of individuals on the government’s no fly list, as well as those people and groups that the Treasury Department designates as foreign terrorists, The New York Times reported yesterday.
According to the Times, administration lawyers are debating whether the NSA’s warrantless programs are covered by a provision in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that requires the government to disclose the use of electronic surveillance in any “proceeding” against someone.
Warning: spoilers ahead.
Considering the graph below, is anyone still questioning whether it's become an "us vs. them" kinda thing in America?
Authorities Think About Telling You If You’re Watchlisted from Warrantless Spying
NSA warrantless surveillance was brought under FISA in 2008, but the debate wangs kindled by Edward Snowden’s disclosures in 2013. The Justice Department, for example, recently started notifying criminal defendants when prosecutions involved warrantless spying. (The belated notification came up in the trial of Mohamed Mohamud, who was sentenced today to 30 years for an attempted bombing in Portland, Ore. He tried and failed to challenge the constitutionality of the NSA spying.)
The bad news is that the government may now be re-interpreting the notice requirement, and specifically what counts as a "proceeding" more narrowly to circumvent ramifications for casting a wider net for targets to surveil without a warrant.
(-- OR -- what i like to call: what's the sense in being the government if it can't take simple, self-explanatory language and put a cryptic, Orwellian spin on it?)
There's legislation to fix this in the U.S. Senate. The USA Freedom Act of 2014. It's not enough. But it's a start. We can make it better if we stop paying attention to the beltway blather about Democrats losing the U.S. Senate, and that Democrats have no chance of stealing the House of Representatives. I'm not convinced of either.
I say if we turnout the base -- if we GOTV like there's no tomorrow -- we can prove the "very serious people" wrong.
Then, the second half begins... (sorry, watching football on the tv machine)
P.S. Keep up with the fast-coming NSA surveillance "reveals" courtesy of The Intercept. You'll be the wiser for it.