The morning after final passage of the USA Freedom Act, while some foes of mass surveillance were celebrating, Thomas Drake sounded decidedly glum. The new law, he told me, is “a new spy program.” It restarts some of the worst aspects of the Patriot Act and further codifies systematic violations of Fourth Amendment rights.
Later on Wednesday, here in Oslo as part of a “Stand Up For Truth” tour, Drake warned at a public forum that “national security” has become “the new state religion.” Meanwhile, his Twitter messages were calling the USA Freedom Act an “itty-bitty step” – and a “stop/restart kabuki shell game” that “starts w/ restarting bulk collection of phone records.”
That downbeat appraisal of the USA Freedom Act should give pause to its celebrants. Drake is a former senior executive of the National Security Agency – and a whistleblower who endured prosecution and faced decades in prison for daring to speak truthfully about NSA activities. He ran afoul of vindictive authorities because he refused to go along with the NSA’s massive surveillance program after 9/11.
Drake understands how the NSA operates from the highest strategic levels. He notes a telling fact that has gone virtually unacknowledged by anti-surveillance boosters of the USA Freedom Act: “NSA approved.” So, of course, did the top purveyor of mendacious claims about the U.S. government’s surveillance programs – President Obama – who eagerly signed the “USA Freedom” bill into law just hours after the Senate passed it.
A comparable guardian of our rights, House Speaker John Boehner, crowed: “This legislation is critical to keeping Americans safe from terrorism and protecting their civil liberties.”
While some organizations with civil-liberties credentials have responded to the USA Freedom Act by popping open champagne bottles at various decibels, more sober assessments have also been heard. Just after senators approved the bill and sent it to the president, Demand Progress issued a statement pointing out: “The Senate just voted to reinstitute certain lapsed surveillance authorities – and that means that USA Freedom actually made Americans less free.”
Another astute assessment came from CREDO, saying that Congress had just created “sweeping new authorities for the government to conduct unconstitutional mass surveillance of Americans.”
As it happened, the president signed the USA Freedom Act into law while four U.S. “national security” whistleblowers – Drake as well as Coleen Rowley (FBI), Jesselyn Radack (Justice Department) and Daniel Ellsberg (Pentagon Papers) – were partway through a “Stand Up For Truth” speaking tour from London to Oslo to Stockholm to Berlin. Traveling as part of the tour, I’ve been struck by the intensity of interest from audiences in the countries we’ve already visited – Great Britain and Norway – where governments have moved to worsen repressive policies for mass surveillance.
Right now, many people in Europe and elsewhere who care about civil liberties and want true press freedom are looking at the United States: to understand what an aroused citizenry might be able to accomplish, seeking to roll back a dangerous accumulation of power by an ostensibly democratic government. Let’s not unwittingly deceive them – or ourselves – about how much ground the U.S. surveillance state has lost so far.
Norman Solomon is co-founder of RootsAction.org and founding director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His books includeWar Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.
Reprinted with permission from ExposeFacts.
Thank you. I was starting to think I was the only one who saw that stuff.
Indeed. The media spin claiming the USA Freedom Act ended mass NSA spying is tiresome, and transparently dishonest. Section 215 expiring was what ended some of the mass spying. The USA Freedom Act reinstated it, and is possibly even more dangerous since it gives legal sanction to surveillance which a court recently declared was illegal even under Section 215.
The entire Patriot Act must be repealed along with the Homeland Security Act, REAL ID, and just about every other major “anti-crime”, “anti-terror”, and “anti-drug” legislation passed since the late 1980s. Preferably repealed all in one fell swoop. Anything less is just playing a BS shell game.
True to form, Solomon, ever the faithful "progressive" Democrat partisan, fails to say one word about libertarian GOP Senator Ron Paul's principled role in fighting both the PATRIOT Act and the USA FREEDOM ACT.
Nor does he mention that every "progressive" Democrat Senator, including Wyden, voted repeatedly and loyallly for the USA FREEDOM ACT!!!
Finally Solomon and his ilk "forget" that Obama was the candidate that they backed even though it was clear from the first that he was another hack that would do the bidding of the imperial elite. Now with Obama late in his second term and safely re-elected twice,Solomon and other progressive issue their all too mild criticisms. Solomon and the rest of the detritus at PDA are as much a part of our problem as McCain, Romney, Graham et al.
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Great post. I share with it.It is not abnormal a Misleading Moment of Celebration for a New Surveillance Program.Impliment a new law is not easy for nation. Of course, we should collaborate government Surveillance Program. BS/MD programs
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