Civil & Human Rights

Federal Gov’t Spying on Citizens: Big Brother Really Is Watching

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Keyboard-578-adj-crop-sig-sm72by Pamela Powers Hannley

Several weeks ago, after the US intelligence agencies found the Boston Marathon bombers in a matter of days, I posted this story: Who Is Homeland Security Watching? Off-the-grid Fertilizer Plant vs On-the-Grid Citizenry.

When I said that the federal government was watching “real people, not corporate people,” I had no idea how prophetic that statement was. In the few short weeks since that story, there has been one revelation about government spying on American citizens and news organizations after another.

Gov’t Obtains Wide AP Phone Records in Probe
First we learned that the feds obtained months worth of telephone records from Associated Press (AP) reporters. AP called this “a ‘massive and unprecedented intrusion’ into how news organizations gather the news.”

US gov’t collecting huge number of phone records
Although there was a huge media uproar over the AP story when it broke, it pales in comparison to what we learned this week. Senator Diane Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, confirmed that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been collecting cell phone records for millions of Americans on a regular basis for years. This ongoing surveillance of American citizens began during the warrantless wiretapping program initiated under President George Bush’s reign. Verizon, Sprint, and At&T have complied with court orders to provide customer data. Verizon alone has 121 million customers. More details and links after the jump.

Update: The surveillance society that Americans chose to live in

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

There has been quite a bit of discussion today about a New York Times editorial in which the editors declare "The administration has now lost all credibility" as a result of the NSA data mining program(s). President Obama’s Dragnet.

I would point out that the New York Times lost all credibility on this subject years ago when it withheld publication of a report on the Bush-Cheney administration's unconstitutional and illegal Terrorist Surveillance Program for over a year until 2005 — after the presidential election had passed — when this report might have affected the outcome of the 2004 election.

And Judith Miller, the Times reporter who peddled the bogus weapons of mass destruction to justify the unnecessary and illegal war in Iraq, and who went to jail for her role in the outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA covert operative.

That's pretty much "hello pot, meet kettle." The Times is in no position to judge anyone's credibility.

Action Alert: House Appropriations Committee takes up Medicaid (AHCCCS) restoration/expansion on Monday – and a poison pill from CAP

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

TalibanThe House Appropriations Committee is scheduled to meet on Monday, June 10 at 10:00 a.m. in Room HHR 1 to take up the appropriations bill which includes Governor Jan Brewer's Medicaid (AHCCCS) restoration/expansion plan, SB 1492.

The Committee Chairman, John Kavanaugh, R-Fountain Hills, the man who sponsored the "show me your papers before you pee" bill, has also agreed to take up a "strike everything amendment" to SB 1069 (CPS; psychological assessments and services) as a vehicle for Mullah Cathi Herrod and her Christian Taliban at the Center for Arizona Policy (CAP) to insert a poison pill amendment to limit abortion providers’ ability to participate in Gov. Jan Brewer’s Medicaid expansion plan that Governor Brewer earlier rejected as unnecessary.

Your presence at this critical committee hearing is requested. It is time for a show of force against the opponents of Medicaid (AHCCCS) restoration/expansion who dare to call themselves "Christians." WWJD? (Matthew 25:31-46).

The Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required) reports Medicaid
anti-abortion language returns in House Approps:

A pro-life forced birth bill scheduled for a hearing in the House Appropriations Committee includes language that is nearly identical to a proposal from a leading evangelical Christian group that sought to limit abortion providers’ ability to participate in Gov. Jan Brewer’s Medicaid expansion plan.

The strike-everything amendment to SB1069 would prohibit funds from the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System from being used to “directly or indirectly” subsidize abortions, including the use of Medicaid money on administrative expenses such as building rent, employee salaries and utility costs by abortion providers. House Appropriations Chairman Rep. John Kavanagh, who sponsored the amendment, said the language was requested by the Center for Arizona Policy.

Action Alert: Kill This Bill – HB 2305 Voter Suppression

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Kill-bill-vol-1Yesterday the Arizona legislature took up the so-called election "reform" bills designed to restrict your constitutional rights as an Arizona citizen to citizen initiatives and referendums and to make it more difficult to submit petitions, and to make it more difficult for some people to vote (aka voter suppression). The conference committee approved it in five minutes without any public testimony.

Once again, these so-called election "reform" bills have now been grouped together under HB 2305 pertaining to "Initiatives; filings; circulators," House Engrossed Version and Senate Engrossed Version (the conference committee bill is not yet available).

The Arizona Republic reports, Arizona lawmakers forward bill on election changes:

Lawmakers broke a stalemate over wide-ranging changes to Arizona
election procedures Thursday, bundling several hotly disputed proposals
into one bill and triggering warnings of potential lawsuits over voter
suppression.

The changes, if approved by the House and Senate, would tighten
procedures for citizen initiatives and referenda, limit who can return a
voter’s ballot to the polls, and drop people from the permanent
early-voting list if they fail to vote by mail in consecutive elections.

“The one commonality in the bill is inhibiting people’s ability to
exercise the right to vote,” said state Sen. Steve Gallardo, D-Phoenix.

Gallardo attended the brief conference committee on House Bill 2305,
which ran less than five minutes, did not provide any explanation of the
proposed changes to the public in attendance, and passed without any
comment from the four Republicans and two Democrats on the committee.

The surveillance society that Americans chose to live in

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

So everyone is having a freak-out today over Glenn Greenwald and Spencer Ackerman’s big scoop in The Guardian on the secret court order compelling Verizon to turn over to the NSA basically all of its call record data (as do other communications networks).  NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily.

I don't know what everyone is so excited about. Congress overwhelmingly approved the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001, and Americans terrified of terrorist attacks after 9-11 overwhelmingly approved surrendering their liberty for a false sense of security. Have you all forgotten that?

I fought the USA Patriot Act, and I have fought every extension of the Act — which the American people and Congress also overwhelmingly supported. You all got what you wanted. There is no surprise here. The government has been doing exactly what you asked for since 2001.

As the Senate Intelligence Committee co-chairs said today, ‘It’s Called Protecting America’: Senators Defend NSA On Phone Records:

The top two senators on the Intelligence Committee on Thursday
defended the National Security Agency’s collection of Americans’ phone
records after it was reported in The Guardian.

“It is lawful. It has been briefed to Congress,” Senate Intelligence
Chair Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) told reporters at an impromptu news
conference in the Capitol. “This is just meta data. There is no content
involved. In other words, no content of a communication. … The records
can only be accessed under heightened standards.”

“I read intelligence carefully. And I know that people are trying
to get to us,” Feinstein said. “This is the reason we keep TSA doing
what it’s doing. This the reason the FBI now has 10,000 people doing
intelligence on counter-terrorism. This is the reason for the national
counter-terrorism center that’s been set up in the time we’ve been
active.”

“And it’s to ferret this out before it happens,” she said. “It’s called protecting America.”