This weekend, Obama signed into law a five year extension of the controversial FISA Act (Photo: Getty Images)
Dec 31, 2012
Under the cover of holiday weekend slumber, President Obama signed into law a five-year extension of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, successfully solidifying unchecked surveillance authority for the remainder of his presidency.
Known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the law extends powers of the National Security Agency to conduct surveillance of Americans' international emails and phone calls without obtaining a court order for each intercept.
The spying bill would have expired at the end of 2012 without the president's approval, the Associated Pressreports.
According to a statement (PDF) by the ACLU, "the law's effect--and indeed the law's main purpose--is to give the government nearly unfettered access to Americans' international communications."
On Friday, the Senate voted overwhelming (73-23) to pass a renewal of the bill (H.R. 5949), voting down four separate oversight amendments that would have gone "a long-way in curbing the law's worst abuses," writes the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Trevor Timm.
Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald remarked that passage of the law, ushered to the president's desk with broad Democratic support, represented one of the "defining attributes of the Obama legacy" in which a previously radical right-wing policy--in this case warrantless eavesdropping--is meekly accepted by empowered Democrats and then codified as law with "bipartisan consensus".
You can see a breakdown of how each Senator voted, here.
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Lauren McCauley
Lauren McCauley is a former senior editor for Common Dreams covering national and international politics and progressive news. She is now the Editor of Maine Morning Star. Lauren also helped produce a number of documentary films, including the award-winning Soundtrack for a Revolution and The Hollywood Complex, as well as one currently in production about civil rights icon James Meredith. Her writing has been featured on Newsweek, BillMoyers.com, TruthDig, Truthout, In These Times, and Extra! the newsletter of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. She currently lives in Kennebunk, Maine with her husband, two children, a dog, and several chickens.
Under the cover of holiday weekend slumber, President Obama signed into law a five-year extension of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, successfully solidifying unchecked surveillance authority for the remainder of his presidency.
Known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the law extends powers of the National Security Agency to conduct surveillance of Americans' international emails and phone calls without obtaining a court order for each intercept.
The spying bill would have expired at the end of 2012 without the president's approval, the Associated Pressreports.
According to a statement (PDF) by the ACLU, "the law's effect--and indeed the law's main purpose--is to give the government nearly unfettered access to Americans' international communications."
On Friday, the Senate voted overwhelming (73-23) to pass a renewal of the bill (H.R. 5949), voting down four separate oversight amendments that would have gone "a long-way in curbing the law's worst abuses," writes the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Trevor Timm.
Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald remarked that passage of the law, ushered to the president's desk with broad Democratic support, represented one of the "defining attributes of the Obama legacy" in which a previously radical right-wing policy--in this case warrantless eavesdropping--is meekly accepted by empowered Democrats and then codified as law with "bipartisan consensus".
You can see a breakdown of how each Senator voted, here.
Lauren McCauley
Lauren McCauley is a former senior editor for Common Dreams covering national and international politics and progressive news. She is now the Editor of Maine Morning Star. Lauren also helped produce a number of documentary films, including the award-winning Soundtrack for a Revolution and The Hollywood Complex, as well as one currently in production about civil rights icon James Meredith. Her writing has been featured on Newsweek, BillMoyers.com, TruthDig, Truthout, In These Times, and Extra! the newsletter of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. She currently lives in Kennebunk, Maine with her husband, two children, a dog, and several chickens.
Under the cover of holiday weekend slumber, President Obama signed into law a five-year extension of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, successfully solidifying unchecked surveillance authority for the remainder of his presidency.
Known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the law extends powers of the National Security Agency to conduct surveillance of Americans' international emails and phone calls without obtaining a court order for each intercept.
The spying bill would have expired at the end of 2012 without the president's approval, the Associated Pressreports.
According to a statement (PDF) by the ACLU, "the law's effect--and indeed the law's main purpose--is to give the government nearly unfettered access to Americans' international communications."
On Friday, the Senate voted overwhelming (73-23) to pass a renewal of the bill (H.R. 5949), voting down four separate oversight amendments that would have gone "a long-way in curbing the law's worst abuses," writes the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Trevor Timm.
Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald remarked that passage of the law, ushered to the president's desk with broad Democratic support, represented one of the "defining attributes of the Obama legacy" in which a previously radical right-wing policy--in this case warrantless eavesdropping--is meekly accepted by empowered Democrats and then codified as law with "bipartisan consensus".
You can see a breakdown of how each Senator voted, here.
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