Leahy Amendment Allows Gov Warrantless Access To Your Digital Communications

Susanne Posel, Contributing Writer | White Owl Conspiracy

Senator Patrick Leahy, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, drafted the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) substitution which was meant to be an update to a piece of legislation written in the 1980’s.

Alan Butler, advisory counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) remarked: “Technology [today] is fundamentally different than anything thought of in the 80s. The standard amount of storage was much smaller when the bill was originally written.”

Leahy meant to replace the 180 – day rule within the ECPA that gives law enforcement agencies the freedom to simply subpoena (i.e. request) a warrant to gain lawful access to private citizen’s emails older than 6 months. The subpoena would be sufficed in lieu of obtaining an actual warrant. As of now, a police department can claim – without being subject to proof – that a particular email is an imperative to an investigation and can gain access to that information without having to seek judicial means.

The change to the ECPA was never made. Instead, Leahy rewrote the bill to say that law enforcement no longer needed a warrant at all and could access any electronic information required to conduct their investigation by simply claiming its relevance.

In this newly altered bill HR 2471, federal and local law enforcement agencies including Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Reserve, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Maritime Commission, the Federal Postal Regulatory Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, the Mine Enforcement Safety and Health Review Commission and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will be empowered to obtain any US citizens:

• Private email
• Google Docs
• Facebook posts
• Twitter posts

Facebook comments were recently cited as evidence in a court case concerning cyber bullying where comments on a personal page were ruled by a US Federal court as information that can be lawfully obtained by the police to be used against a defendant.

William Pauley, US District Court Judge, stated that because the defendant made violent threats in his posts which are deemed public information that they are allowable as evidence against him by prosecutors.

On April 24th, District Judge Raymond Jackson ruled that by clicking a “like” button on Facebook, that this affiliation is public domain and not protected by the 1st Amendment. Jackson wrote: “Simply liking a Facebook page is insufficient. It is not the kind of substantive statement that has previously warranted constitutional protection,” and continues to say that, “Facebook posts can be a matter of public concern; however the Court does not believe Plaintiffs Carter and McCoy have alleged sufficient speech to garner First Amendment protection.”

Facebook uses the Abine DNT+ diagnostic tool to track its user’s online activity by defining “a request that a webpage tries to make your browser perform that will share information intended to record, profile, or share your online activity.”
Combining Javascript and cookies, all apparent anonymous searches on the internet are recorded and catalogued.

Justification for this spying is explained as marketing research. Sarah Downey, Abine privacy analyst explains how Facebook users should “pay more attention” to pop-up trackers and block them. Downey said: “In addition to invading your privacy, these tracking requests can consume large amounts of data. And transferring lots of data takes time. Generally, the more tracking requests on a website, the slower that website loads. That’s why DNT+ gets you surfing at 125% of the normal speed and with 90% of the bandwidth, compared to a browser without DNT+ running.”

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, is proud to combine his website with the National Security Agency (NSA) wherein he participates in the intrusion of his users by the US government for unwarranted surveillance purposes.

Google was involved in a violation of wire-tapping laws by stealing private citizen’s personal data through their unmanned vehicles called “street view” cars. During the investigation in the violation, Google obstructed information from reaching investigators, says the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).

Marc Rotenberg, director of EPIC, stated: “Much of the information uncovered by the FCC’s investigation was redacted, and Google’s obstruction prevented the agency from determining the merits of the underlying substantive issues: whether Google’s interception of Wi-Fi communications violated the Wiretap Act,” Rotenberg argued. “Finally, the FCC ignored legal precedent holding that the contents of unencrypted Wi-Fi networks were protected by the Wiretap Act.”

Google’s Android has the ability to use ambient background noise of an individual’s environment to spy on them. Their activities will be targeted to more efficiently advertise to them through their technological devices.

Google will use your private conversations, music preferences, favorite shows and radio stations – anything in your immediate environment to build a profile on you. Thanks to Google’s Android and similar smartphones the patent for this surveillance technology will allow our phones to become spies.

One of Leahy’s aides tweeted to try to save face for the negative backlash from this legislative allowance of more Big Brother controls over digital communications. This aide said: “Sen. Leahy does NOT support an #ECPA exception to search warrant requirement [for] civil enforcement [for agencies] like FTC, SEC.”

However, Leahy himself commented that the 1st Amendment “cannot be used as a shield for certain illegal activity. For instance, our courts have held that it is illegal to engage in fraud and the First Amendment cannot be used to justify it.”

Leahy’s amendment to the ECPA is slated for vote next week.

{Author Bio}

Susanne Posel is the Chief Editor of Occupy Corporatism Our alternative news site is dedicated to reporting the news as it actually happens; not as it is spun by the corporate-funded mainstream media. You can find us on our Facebook page.  

2012-11-27 03:37:36

Source: http://www.whiteowlconspiracy.com/2012/11/leahy-amendment-allows-gov-warrantless.html