americans-for-liberty

It's cool large websites are ignoring gag requests on government subpoenas. However, we realize they only do so because not appearing to collude with government overreach happens to benefit their marketability (particularly overseas). Furthermore, this doesn't affect the most opaque of government requests: court-ordered FISA requests and executive NSLs. That's why we, private citizens, will continue pressing for Congress to remedy this.

We believe in the budding and coming revolution of the sharing economy. "This collaborative rather than capitalistic approach is about shared access rather than private ownership...Millions of people are using social media sites, redistribution networks, rentals and cooperatives to share not only cars but also homes, clothes, tools, toys and other items at low or near zero marginal cost."

We wholeheartedly support this day of action against NSA surveillance. https://thedaywefightback.org makes it very easy to express your dissatisfaction to your Congressional representatives. Only through the legislature can we rollback the laws that permit these egregious government acts!

Should we believe what the chairman of the House of Intelligence Committee is saying? Did Snowden actually end up in the "loving arms of an FSB agent in Moscow?" I don't think so. I smell diversion.

We welcome Obama's remarks but more must be done. His speech struck us, mainly throughout the first half, as cluttered with rhetoric, deflection, and rationalization. Eventually, he rattled off a slew of Presidential directives and orders (more internal oversight and restrictions, annual internal reviews to declassify information and address private and foreign interests, and time limits on NSL gag orders and storage of foreign citizen data). We give him some credit for these executive orders, but they're flimsy. They can be rescinded at any time, by Obama or successive Presidents. So we demand Congress resolve this permanently, and affirm a commitment to prevent similar crises in the future. Our trust in government rests largely on our ability to hold Congress accountable, so we take any action that inhibits accountability as a manipulative, abusive affront to democracy. We want oversight, because oversight motivates restraint. And as technology continues to amplify the effects of these transgressions, in questionable cases we prefer our government errs on the side of transparency rather than secrecy, as we accept that a free and open society fundamentally entails risks to our physical safety. So Obama's most important statements were in this very spirit. We look forward to the replacement metadata collection program he intends to take to Congress, and on his call for them to create an independent civilian panel to argue significant cases in FISC. We expect Congress to go further, not only to strengthen oversight and other checks on existing programs, but also to institute a general oversight framework for *any* secret powers granted now or in the future (we cannot know that all such secrecy has already been made public). An American once wisely said, "A democracy requires accountability, and accountability requires transparency." Today, five years later, he outlined a few steps his administration is taking to uphold that.

A great Christmas video from the ACLU. But we prefer the original version of the song, so let's do what we can to bring transparency and democratic controls to the NSA. (See attached link.)

I and other people of color (aka non white identifying) struggle with this daily. There is still a perception of a level of measure being applied to normative culture as it being set by white Americans. Even if hiphop and other powerful native cultures to the Americas like the various Latino cultures are increasingly influential. The images we see, that are advertised or the social norms we adopt are heavily influenced by the anglo-american. This largely has to do with who controls most of the wealth in this country, but also there is a psychology of all american people to normalize to this level of whiteness in order to avoid persecution or oppression by being outside of the larger society because of political, sexual, religious or vocational choices. "White America is desperately searching for its soul because it has for so long benefited from a belief that it is apart from the rest of us, blank of experience..."

I think it may be time to surf the internet in privacy mode. "Today, an FBI agent can open an intrusive investigation with no reason to suspect criminal activity, and any resulting information can be kept for 20-30 years, even if it has no relationship to the investigation. Similarly, the FBI keeps so-called "suspicious activity reports" that are determined to have no relevance to terrorism – but may reflect Americans' constitutionally protected speech or other activities – for 30 years in a widely-accessible database."

Rationally it doesn't make sense to do something like this. I'm wondering what the reasoning was. Are these recent cases all going to be explained away by psychosis or someone being chemically unstable ? When it happens in other countries it's considered revolutionary...or self-sacrafice to explain the human struggle.

Codenamed Marina. A year's worth of metadata is collected from internet users whether or not they are of interest to the NSA. Think that metadata is harmless information? Think again.

The British government (aka the US’s very own Mini-Me) has taken to intimidating the *friends and family* of disruptive journalists! This appalling, abusive violation of free speech resembles the very worst from repressive democracies like Russia! So, when's our first gulag opening?

Why wouldn't one comment on something that is open to the public for review? I'm not surprised that this codes implementation has happened, it's just the lack of transparency bothers me. 'Vines wouldn’t say whether the agency’s work on Android and other software is part of or helps with Prism. “The source code is publicly available for anyone to use, and that includes the ability to review the code line by line,” she said in her statement. '

We the >americans-for-liberty believe that the NSA wiretapping program should be much more limited in scope, and that Snowden should not be prosecuted. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfUi5C7WdrA