SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Caving to Post-Orlando Fear, House Betrays Civil Liberties
Massie-Lofgren amendment fails 198-222 in turnaround for House
Jun 17, 2016
Late Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives blocked an amendment that would have prohibited warrantless surveillance of Americans' electronic communications and banned the government from forcing technology companies to install backdoors to encrypted devices.
The amendment to the House's annual military spending bill, introduced by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), failed by a vote of 198-222. The roll call is here.
The vote signals a notable turnaround for the House, which has previously passed the measure in a landslide--twice--with bipartisan support, before progress was stymied by U.S. Senate leadership.
It was a painful loss for privacy advocates ranging from members of Congress to civil liberties groups like the ACLU, the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).
Massie and Lofgren noted that under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), Americans' private electronic communications are swept up without warrants or probable cause by law enforcement agencies investigating terrorist links overseas--violating their Constitutional rights.
"I think our citizens are fed up with being spied on by the government," Massie said.
Lofgren added, "This amendment is the most meaningful step Congress can take to end warrantless bulk collection of U.S. persons' communications data, as well as protect that data from malicious hackers and bad actors."
On Thursday, lawmakers who voted against the bill tied their opposition to Sunday's nightclub massacre in Orlando, claiming that the measure would prevent intelligence agencies from searching through the communications of shooter Omar Mateen, who was an American citizen. Republicans on the Intelligence Committee sent an open letter to colleagues in the days before the vote petitioning them to "give our Intelligence Community all of the authorities it needs to detect and stop terrorist attacks."
But supporters countered that the amendment would not hamper law enforcement investigations. Massie warned that "Congress should not abandon the Constitution in the face of terrorism."
"This doesn't take any tools away from those that want to investigate what happened in Orlando, none whatsoever," he said. "You obviously can get a warrant on the perpetrator of this crime."
Lofgren said, "With threats to America, we should not endanger the security of our digital environment by weakening encryption that protects everything from the power grid to air traffic control."
Kevin Bankston, digital rights attorney and director of the Open Technology Institute at New America, responded to the vote, "With Orlando fresh in everyone's minds, members of Congress appear to be voting based on fear rather than on reason."
Thursday's arguments cover similar ground as the debate after the San Bernardino attacks, as anti-privacy lawmakers and the intelligence community called for impeding civil liberties in the name of national security--notably, by attempting to force Apple to unlock the encrypted iPhone of suspected San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook.
But as Bankston explained Thursday, "There's no reason to think that mandating backdoors into American companies' encrypted products, or allowing warrantless searches of Americans' private data, would've prevented this weekend's horrible tragedy. But that hasn't stopped security hawks from exploiting the Orlando shooting to defeat this amendment."
Elected representatives have once again been scared away from "standing up for Americans' civil liberties," Bankston said.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Nadia Prupis
Nadia Prupis is a former Common Dreams staff writer. She wrote on media policy for Truthout.org and has been published in New America Media and AlterNet. She graduated from UC Santa Barbara with a BA in English in 2008.
Late Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives blocked an amendment that would have prohibited warrantless surveillance of Americans' electronic communications and banned the government from forcing technology companies to install backdoors to encrypted devices.
The amendment to the House's annual military spending bill, introduced by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), failed by a vote of 198-222. The roll call is here.
The vote signals a notable turnaround for the House, which has previously passed the measure in a landslide--twice--with bipartisan support, before progress was stymied by U.S. Senate leadership.
It was a painful loss for privacy advocates ranging from members of Congress to civil liberties groups like the ACLU, the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).
Massie and Lofgren noted that under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), Americans' private electronic communications are swept up without warrants or probable cause by law enforcement agencies investigating terrorist links overseas--violating their Constitutional rights.
"I think our citizens are fed up with being spied on by the government," Massie said.
Lofgren added, "This amendment is the most meaningful step Congress can take to end warrantless bulk collection of U.S. persons' communications data, as well as protect that data from malicious hackers and bad actors."
On Thursday, lawmakers who voted against the bill tied their opposition to Sunday's nightclub massacre in Orlando, claiming that the measure would prevent intelligence agencies from searching through the communications of shooter Omar Mateen, who was an American citizen. Republicans on the Intelligence Committee sent an open letter to colleagues in the days before the vote petitioning them to "give our Intelligence Community all of the authorities it needs to detect and stop terrorist attacks."
But supporters countered that the amendment would not hamper law enforcement investigations. Massie warned that "Congress should not abandon the Constitution in the face of terrorism."
"This doesn't take any tools away from those that want to investigate what happened in Orlando, none whatsoever," he said. "You obviously can get a warrant on the perpetrator of this crime."
Lofgren said, "With threats to America, we should not endanger the security of our digital environment by weakening encryption that protects everything from the power grid to air traffic control."
Kevin Bankston, digital rights attorney and director of the Open Technology Institute at New America, responded to the vote, "With Orlando fresh in everyone's minds, members of Congress appear to be voting based on fear rather than on reason."
Thursday's arguments cover similar ground as the debate after the San Bernardino attacks, as anti-privacy lawmakers and the intelligence community called for impeding civil liberties in the name of national security--notably, by attempting to force Apple to unlock the encrypted iPhone of suspected San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook.
But as Bankston explained Thursday, "There's no reason to think that mandating backdoors into American companies' encrypted products, or allowing warrantless searches of Americans' private data, would've prevented this weekend's horrible tragedy. But that hasn't stopped security hawks from exploiting the Orlando shooting to defeat this amendment."
Elected representatives have once again been scared away from "standing up for Americans' civil liberties," Bankston said.
Nadia Prupis
Nadia Prupis is a former Common Dreams staff writer. She wrote on media policy for Truthout.org and has been published in New America Media and AlterNet. She graduated from UC Santa Barbara with a BA in English in 2008.
Late Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives blocked an amendment that would have prohibited warrantless surveillance of Americans' electronic communications and banned the government from forcing technology companies to install backdoors to encrypted devices.
The amendment to the House's annual military spending bill, introduced by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), failed by a vote of 198-222. The roll call is here.
The vote signals a notable turnaround for the House, which has previously passed the measure in a landslide--twice--with bipartisan support, before progress was stymied by U.S. Senate leadership.
It was a painful loss for privacy advocates ranging from members of Congress to civil liberties groups like the ACLU, the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).
Massie and Lofgren noted that under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), Americans' private electronic communications are swept up without warrants or probable cause by law enforcement agencies investigating terrorist links overseas--violating their Constitutional rights.
"I think our citizens are fed up with being spied on by the government," Massie said.
Lofgren added, "This amendment is the most meaningful step Congress can take to end warrantless bulk collection of U.S. persons' communications data, as well as protect that data from malicious hackers and bad actors."
On Thursday, lawmakers who voted against the bill tied their opposition to Sunday's nightclub massacre in Orlando, claiming that the measure would prevent intelligence agencies from searching through the communications of shooter Omar Mateen, who was an American citizen. Republicans on the Intelligence Committee sent an open letter to colleagues in the days before the vote petitioning them to "give our Intelligence Community all of the authorities it needs to detect and stop terrorist attacks."
But supporters countered that the amendment would not hamper law enforcement investigations. Massie warned that "Congress should not abandon the Constitution in the face of terrorism."
"This doesn't take any tools away from those that want to investigate what happened in Orlando, none whatsoever," he said. "You obviously can get a warrant on the perpetrator of this crime."
Lofgren said, "With threats to America, we should not endanger the security of our digital environment by weakening encryption that protects everything from the power grid to air traffic control."
Kevin Bankston, digital rights attorney and director of the Open Technology Institute at New America, responded to the vote, "With Orlando fresh in everyone's minds, members of Congress appear to be voting based on fear rather than on reason."
Thursday's arguments cover similar ground as the debate after the San Bernardino attacks, as anti-privacy lawmakers and the intelligence community called for impeding civil liberties in the name of national security--notably, by attempting to force Apple to unlock the encrypted iPhone of suspected San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook.
But as Bankston explained Thursday, "There's no reason to think that mandating backdoors into American companies' encrypted products, or allowing warrantless searches of Americans' private data, would've prevented this weekend's horrible tragedy. But that hasn't stopped security hawks from exploiting the Orlando shooting to defeat this amendment."
Elected representatives have once again been scared away from "standing up for Americans' civil liberties," Bankston said.
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.