Its been nearly seven years since Edward Snowden shook the world by orchestrating the largest security leak in world history. Still today, little question remains as to how profoundly Snowdens courageous actions impacted the conversation on mass surveillance not just within the U.S., but around the world.

"Of course I would like to return to the United States," said Snowden in a September 2019 interview with CBS. "But if I'm going to spend the rest of my life in prison, then one bottom line demand that we all have to agree to is at least I get a fair trial The government wants to have a different kind of trial They want to be able to close the courtroom. They want the public not to be able to know what's going on.

As Congress argues over whether to renew the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) before the approaching expiration date of March 15 (an act that would allow federal officials to continue seizing business records by extending Section 215 of the Patriot Act), the time is now to understand why Snowden should be afforded a fair shot in the courtroom.

In June 1917, Congress passed the Espionage Act in an attempt to prevent insubordination within the U.S. military and silence critics of Americas involvement in World War I. In his 1915 State of the Union address, President Woodrow Wilson begged Congress to pass the law, declaring, Such creatures of passion, disloyalty, and anarchy must be crushed out they are infinitely malignant, and the hand of our power should close over them at once.

After the bills passage, antiwar activist Charles Schenck was arrested for distributing flyers encouraging men to resist Wilsons draft. That same year, socialist Eugene V. Debs was sentenced to 10 years in prison, stripped of his citizenship, and disenfranchised for life over a speech he made criticizing the war. In January 1919, the Supreme Court heard the cases Schenck v. United States and Debs v. United States, concluding that neither mans arrest constituted a violation of the First Amendment.

Then, in 1973, the law was unsuccessfully used against economist Daniel Ellsberg, the man behind the release of the Pentagon Papers in 1971. Following repeated attempts on part of intelligence officials to intimidate The New York Times into ceasing publication of the documents, an appellate court finally succeeded in temporarily ordering the newspaper to discontinue publication. While the courts eventually restored publication rights to the press, other victims of the Espionage Act throughout history have not been as fortunate, including journalist Victor L. Berger, activists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, former U.S. Army soldier Chelsea Manning, and former Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) employee Henry Kyle Frese.

In reviewing the advances that have been made in recent decades towards the construction of an Orwellian national security state, its not overstating it to say what once seemed possible only on the ink-lettered pages of dystopian science fiction novels has entered the realm of reality.

A 2016 study from Georgetown University, for example, estimates that at least one in four state or local police departments in the U.S. now have access to facial recognition software. Coupled with the steady increase in surveillance cameras, its not difficult to see where the current trends are headed. In 2019, the estimated number of surveillance cameras in the U.S. stood at 70 million; experts now estimate this number to reach 85 million by 2021.

And when it comes to the data, the only country with a surveillance apparatus worthy of comparison to the U.S. is communist China, where police officers regularly sport facial recognition glasses and artificial intelligence to hunt down suspects and political enemies. Tragically, Beijing recently began weaponizing these technologies against the countrys Muslim and minority populations (particularly in the Xinjiang region).

Even considering the fact that China has more than four times the population of the U.S., however, the two countries stand neck-and-neck in terms of the number of cameras per individual; while China holds an average of one camera for every 4.1 people, the U.S. trails closely behind at 4.6. By a similar metric, the U.S. surpasses China with more closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras per person. To no surprise, this has predominantly impacted Americas major cities; Chicago, for instance, now has 30,000 surveillance cameras, equipped with night vision, facial recognition, and license plate-reading technology.

Roughly 66 percent of Americans agree that the potential risks outweigh the benefits regarding government collection of data, according to polls released by the Pew Research Center in November 2019. Out of the same pool of respondents, 84 percent answered that they feel very little or no control over the data collected about them by the government.

A similar poll released by Morning Consult in December 2019 found that 79 percent of Americans believe Congress should make crafting a bill to better protect consumers online data a priority, while 65 percent answered that data privacy is one of the biggest issues our society faces and legislation is needed to stop data breaches.

Ironically enough, it seems as though the American surveillance state wants everything monitored and scrutinized except itself. Shielding the so-called intelligence community from the public eye is a towering wall of government agencies, unaccountably bureaucratic review processes, and strict nondisclosure agreements designed to muzzle dissenters. One day after the release of Snowdens memoir Permanent Record in September 2019, the Justice Department filed a civil lawsuit against him for alleged breaches in previous nondisclosure agreements.

Regardless of what people think of Snowden, it is irrefutable that, without others like him, a tremendous amount of our governments failures and atrocities would go unseen (as untold scores likely already do). Without Daniel Ellsberg, the world would be oblivious to the true extent of Lyndon B. Johnson lies surrounding Vietnam. Without Mark Felt, Richard Nixon might have finished a second term as president. And without Edward Snowden, the realization that the American government is spying on its own citizens would have never occurred.

Politicians pay lip service to the Constitution. Snowden put his life on the line to defend the Fourth Amendment and the right to privacy for every American. The least we can do is offer him a fair trial.

Cliff Maloney is the president of Young Americans for Liberty (YAL).

*DISCLAIMER: For the record, Cliff Maloney is not the Cliff Snowden references in Permanent Record.

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The top 4 reasons Edward Snowden deserves a fair trial | TheHill - The Hill

US Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) introduced a bill that threatens the digital security and freedom of speech in the United Nations. The proposed bill EARN IT forces providers of the private messaging services to serious legal risk, potentially forcing them to undermine their tools security. Edward Snowden warned about the proposed bill.

The former NSA agent and the well-known whistleblower Edward Snowden tweeted that the government is attempting to exploit anger at tech companies to pass a law that intentionally undermines digital security and censors speech. He added that such a law is even being considered by Congress is a national disgrace. Online privacy advocate Edward Snowden, the author of Permanent Record, revealed how the National Security Agency had tools of mass surveillance and used them to spy on the USA and foreign citizens.

The proposed bill undermines section 320 that permits the online platform to allow its users to share their thoughts on their platforms without any fear. EARN IT act weakens section 320, forcing platforms to kick innocent people off of the Internet entirely. The bill aims to protect child exploitation on the Internet and forces online platforms to adhere to best practices.

This is not the first time US lawmakers have blamed end-to-end encryption for weakening national security and child exploitation, earlier Attorney General William Barr, blamed encryption for sexual crimes against children

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Edward Snowden warns about an upcoming bill that threatens digital security and freedom of speech. - Coinnounce

It took all of a day after the text was released for the House of Representatives to vote for a surveillance reform and reauthorization bill that privacy groups (and some members of Congress) say doesn't go nearly far enough.

On Tuesday evening, Reps. Jerry Nadler (DN.Y.) and Adam Schiff (DCalif.) released the text of the USA Freedom Reauthorization Act. On Wednesday evening, it sailed through the House by a vote of 278136.

The bill renews but revises the USA Freedom Act, which was passed in 2015 after Edward Snowden revealed that the National Security Agency (NSA) had secretly been collecting and storing massive amounts of Americans' phone and internet records. The USA Freedom Act was a compromise between those who pointed out these acts violated Americans' privacy and Fourth Amendment rights and those who insisted the United States needed the info to fight terrorism. The law allowed the NSA and FBI to access these collected records under more strict guidelines and authorized the use of roving wiretaps to keep track of "lone wolf" terrorists.

The USA Freedom Act sunsets this weekend, and privacy activists on both the left and the right have used the opportunity to push for stronger protections from secret surveillance and unwarranted data collection.

Last night's vote suggests we will not see tougher reforms. The bill does include some milder (but nevertheless welcome) changes. It ends the records retention program entirelynot as big a deal as it might sound, since the NSA has already abandoned it. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendment (FISA) Court will have modestly expanded powers to bring in outside advisers when the feds want a warrant and to review decisions.And the attorney general will have to sign off on any secret surveillance warrant applications that target federal officials or federal candidates for office. But the bill does not grant civil libertarians' demands for limits on how business records can be secretly collected and used, for stronger protections against secret surveillance of First Amendmentprotected activities, and for a stronger role for those outside advisers.

The vote did not follow party lines. There is a consistent group of Democrats and Republicans who support strong privacy and Fourth Amendment protections, even if they don't see eye to eye on most other issues. Among the 60 Republicans who voted against the limper reforms were Louis Gohmert of Texas, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Jeff Duncan of South Carolina, and Tom McClintock of California. Among the 75 Democrats who voted no were Zoe Lofgren of California, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ted Lieu of California, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, and Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii. Independent Justin Amash of Michigan also voted against the bill.

But they're the minority. The larger, more establishment-minded leadership of Congress seems fine with kicking the can down the road yet again (the law will sunset once more in 2023) and reforming as little as they can get away with.

One of the more notable "yea" votes comes from Rep. Devin Nunes (RCalif.). A vocal defender of the president, Nunes has long insisted that the feds and the FISA Court abused their powers when they snooped on Trump aide Carter Page. (Subsequent investigation shows he was right to be concerned.) Nunes has even gone so far as to call for the entire FISA Court to be dismantled. Yet when it came time to vote, he, like he has done historically, voted to preserve the wider surveillance authorities.

This bill wouldn't have done anything to stop the FBI from wiretapping Page. He was neither a candidate for office nor a federal official at the time. But it will make it harder for the feds to wiretap Nunes.

The legislation heads over to the Senate now, where Rand Paul (RKy.) is trying to use his influence over Trump to stop the bill and demand stronger reforms. A tweet from Trump suggests Paul has the president's ear:

We went through this once before. That time, Trump wound up approving legislation that actually expanded the feds' authority to secretly spy on American citizens. Let's hope this isn't yet another case where the people in power care only about whether they are the ones being surveilled.

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Over Objections From Privacy Advocates, Tame Surveillance Bill Sails Through the House - Reason

This was originally published by Just Security.

Something quite unusual happened last fall. After an internal Justice Department watchdog reported that the government had submitted flawed documents to get court approval for surveillance of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page, Republicans who had long supported broad surveillance powers began calling for greater civil liberties protections. A rare window opened for reform of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)the law that governs surveillance of suspected terrorists, spies, and other foreign agents. That window coincides with an upcoming deadline to reauthorize three expiring FISA authorities, providing a perfect opportunity for Congress to make much-needed changes.

Something much more ordinary is happening now: Members of Congress are poised to let this opportunity pass them by. Senators Ron Wyden (D-Or.) and Steve Daines (R-Mont.) have introduced astrong, bipartisan reform bill, but the administration and intelligence hawks in Congress are seeking straight reauthorization without reform. The House Judiciary Committee decided to split the baby, and on Monday unveiledmodest reform legislationthat is missing key safeguards against surveillance abuse. Committee members should insist on strengthening the bill when it goes to markup on Wednesday.

What weve learned since the last reauthorization of Section 215

The main authority at issue is Section 215 of the 2001 USA Patriot Act, which amended FISAs business records provision. It allows the government to get an order from the secret FISA Court compelling a third party, such as a bank or telephone company, to turn over any tangible thing in their possession. The government need only show that the item is relevant to an ongoing counterterrorism or foreign intelligence investigation.

This is one of the lowest legal standards availableso low, in fact, that the FISA Courtinterpreted itto justify the National Security Agencys (NSA) indiscriminate or bulk collection of Americans telephone records, based on the theory that some relevant information must surely buried within them. Whats more, while the government cannot obtain thecontentof phone calls or emails under Section 215, it can obtain information that is often every bit as personal, such as medical records, book sales, library records, and tax returns.

In 2015, after Edward Snowden revealed the NSAs phone records program, Congress passed the USA Freedom Act to prohibit bulk collection under Section 215 and other FISA authorities. But there were two flaws in Congresss approach. First, instead of requiring the government to focus on individual suspects, Congress allowed the government to collect information about entire companies, organizations, and IP addresses, which can encompass thousands of people. Civil liberties advocates thus feared that bulk collection might simply be replaced with bulky collectioni.e., collection that is tied to a particular target but still sweeps in the information of large numbers of innocent Americans.

A second problem was that Congress created a new program within Section 215 for collecting Americans phone records. Under the so-called CDR Program (for call detail records), the government can collect the phone records of suspected terroristsandanyone who has ever been in contact with them. Withtwoindependentexecutive branch commissions having concluded that the NSAs bulk collection program provided little to no counterterrorism value, it was unclear why a scaled-down version was deemed necessary.

Five years later, we can see how these flaws have played out. The law requires the government toreportboth the number of targets of Section 215 orders, and a number that indicates how many peoples information is actually collected. There were 56 targets of Section 215 orders in 2018, but 214,860 people had their information collected under those orders. If that isnt bulky collection, its hard to think what is.

As for the CDR program, it has been, without exaggeration, a disaster. Although intended to replace bulk collection, itswept inmore than a billion phone records between 2015-2018. Moreover, in 2018, the NSAdisclosedthat it had been collecting data it was not legally authorized to collect, due to technical problems it was unable to fix. NSA officials bluntlyadmittedthat the program wasnt generating sufficient benefit to justify its continuance, and the agencydecidedto pause collection in early 2019. A government study declassified and released todayconfirmsthat the program provided scant value while costing $100 million to operate.

The opportunity now

As a starting point, any legislation to reauthorize Section 215 must revoke authorization for the CDR program. Even the leaders of the Senate intelligence committeewhich is notoriously pro-surveillance and anti-reformhaveacknowledgedthis necessity.

Thebilloffered by Senators Wyden and Daines, with a companion bill offered by Representatives Lofgren (D-Ca.), Jayapal (D-Wash.), and Davidson (R-Ohio), would go much further. It would tackle the problem of bulky collection by limiting the targets of Section 215 collection to foreign powers, agents of foreign powers, or people in contact with thembasically, people who could themselves be legitimate focuses of a counterterrorism or foreign intelligence investigation.

Their proposal would also take on a host of other problems with FISA. For instance, the governments default practice is to keep the records it collects for at least five years, even if the information is highly personal and contains no evidence of wrongdoing. This exposes Americans private data to theft, negligent mishandling, or abuse. The Wyden-Daines bill would require the government to delete data within three years unless it is determined to constitute foreign intelligence. It also specifies certain categories of data, such as geolocation information and web browsing history, which the government must obtain a warrant to access. And it includes several provisions that would enhance transparency and oversight of the FISA process.

The billoffered by the House Judiciary Committee, by contrast, is much less ambitious. It would end the CDR program, as it must. But it would do nothing to address the problem of continuing bulky collection under Section 215. It allows the government to continue hoarding the data of innocent Americans. It prohibits the use of Section 215 to collect items that would otherwise require a warrant, but it does not specify what any of those items are, leaving the government with far too much wiggle room to rely on its own cramped legal interpretations of the Fourth Amendment. And its transparency and oversight provisions, while important, are less far-reaching than those in the Wyden-Daines bill.

Committee members should insist on amendments to fill these gaps during Wednesdays markup. Opportunities to build meaningful civil liberties protections into our sprawling surveillance laws are few and far between. The politics of fear that underlie most national security debates generally create a one-way ratchet, in which government authorities grow ever broader while protections for Americans privacy are eroded. We are in that rarest of moments in which Democrats and Republicans alike are calling for civil liberties enhancements. The House Judiciary Committee should not allow this moment to pass with a business-as-usual compromise between the reform seekers and the defenders of the status quo.

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Congress Is Ready for Surveillance Reform Will the House Rise to the Occasion? - brennancenter.org