By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 12:37pm
The NSA is refusing to tell two U.S. Senators how many Americans the agency has eavesdropped upon. According to a letter obtained by Wired, the NSA claims that “dedicating sufficient additional resources” to gather that information “would likely impede the NSA’s mission.” (For all the billions that the NSA spends, they cannot spare the money to answer a key civil liberties oversight question posed by elected civilian officials? Shameful.)
By Alexander Abdo, Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project at 2:27pm
Google's transparency report reveals that the U.S. government asked Google for data on its users 6,321 times during the second half of 2011—a 75% increase from two years ago.
By Michelle Richardson, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 2:44pm
This past Friday, the Senate Intelligence Committee publicly released its report on S. 3276, a five year extension of the FISA Amendments Act (FAA). The Committee voted 13-2 to extend the FAA-the law that legalized President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program and more --without amendment, and without conducting any public oversight. The Committee also rejected crucial amendments by Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Mark Udall (D-CO) that would have increased transparency and privacy protections for Americans.
By Michelle Richardson, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 10:21am
Yesterday, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security held a hearing on the government’s warrantless wiretapping program (watch here). The law authorizing the program, the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, expires at the end of this year.
By Michelle Richardson, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 10:28am
Remember the George W. Bush warrantless wiretapping program? The one that was so illegal that Congress had to pass a special law to ensure that no one was prosecuted for it or sued by their customers for facilitating it? And was found by independent reviewers to be pretty pointless anyway? And was then brilliantly codified and written into stone by Congress? And which almost immediately went off the rails, being used to collect all sorts of stuff it wasn’t supposed to? It’s back!
The Supreme Court has just agreed to consider whether plaintiffs represented by the ACLU have the right to challenge the constitutionality of a controversial law that authorizes the National Security Agency to conduct dragnet surveillance of Americans’ international emails and phone calls.
At issue is an appeals court ruling that allowed the ACLU’s challenge to the law – called the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 – to move forward. Responding to today’s news, ACLU Deputy Legal Director Jameel Jaffer said:
This week the House will debate the NDAA for fiscal year 2013. We'll be monitoring the debate and pulling for an amendment that fixes the terrible detention provisions in last year's bill.
By Jameel Jaffer, Deputy Legal Director, ACLU at 1:15pm
In 2008, Congress enacted a statute that authorized the National Security Agency to carry out dragnet surveillance of Americans' international communications. Almost four years later, the statute — called the FISA Amendments Act — has yet to be reviewed by the courts, and, if the Obama administration has its way, the courts are unlikely ever to review it. In February, the administration asked the Supreme Court to overturn a court of appeals decision that would allow an ACLU challenge to the statute to go forward. Today we filed our brief in opposition, which asks the Supreme Court to let the appeals court's decision stand.
In a very significant development, yesterday a federal appeals court ruled that our lawsuit challenging warrantless wiretapping can proceed. The law that we’re challenging, the FISA Amendments Act (FAA) of 2008, is the most far-reaching surveillance law ever enacted by Congress. It gives the National Security Agency (NSA) virtually limitless power to spy on Americans' international phone calls and emails. It allows the NSA to collect those communications en masse, without a warrant, without suspicion of any kind, and with only very limited judicial oversight. Needless to say, the law has dramatic implications for Americans' privacy rights.
