Patriot Act News

Following a lively congressional hearing on the far-reaching surveillance and data-gathering of the U.S. intelligence apparatus, House lawmakers launched a bipartisan push to reign in the out-of-control spy agencies.

Federal spy agencies would have to demonstrate a connection between Americans and terrorism before gathering data on those Americans' electronic communications, under legislation introduced Tuesday by U.S. Sen Mark Udall, D-Colo.

The pressure on the Obama administration's top intelligence official, James Clapper, increased Tuesday when a popular libertarian US senator said he had lied to Congress and suggested he consider his postion.

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In the months following the October 2001, passage of the Patriot Act, there was a heated public debate about the very provision of the law that we now know the government is using to vacuum up phone records of American citizens on a massive scale.

From Feb. 28, 2010, that's Isaiah 's The World Today Just Nuts " Barack Renews The Patriot Act ."

US army general Keith Alexander, director of the NSA, testifies before a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing in Washington.

So what's going on here? What's the effect on the Internet services you and your organization use every day? And what can you -- a presumably innocent citizen -- do to protect your communications? Equivocations recently doled out by NSA leadership and various members of Congress aim to assure the American public that the content of their phone ... (more)

If that's true, then the reverence President Barack Obama and his aides hold for Americans' civil liberties knows no bounds.

Several years ago, I had lunch with a US government official who told me about a trip that I had taken, that almost nobody knew about.

It's been two weeks since the Washington Post and Guardian newspapers began to publish their stories based on leaks and interviews with former NSA contractor, Edward Snowden.

In the months following the October 2001, passage of the Patriot Act, there was a heated public debate about the very provision of the law that we now know the government is using to vacuum up phone records of American citizens on a massive scale.

Why isn't the liberal media defending our rights to be free of Barack's authoritarian regime's never-ending intrusions? In 2002, Time Magazine's cover touted Whistleblowers as its " Persons of the Year " The magazine applauded these individuals for courage to do what's right, especially when the government was overstepping its bounds and infringing ... (more)

BOB: It is remarkable that Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old consultant to the National Security Agency, was able to reveal two secret programs of the agency and expose the inner workings of one of America's most secretive institutions.

Sen. Mark Udall said Sunday that the balance between guarding Americans' Constitutional privacy rights and shielding the country from another terrorist attack "doesn't have to be all or nothing."

Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced the Restore Our Privacy Act to put strict limits on sweeping powers used by the National Security Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation to secretly track telephone calls by millions of innocent Americans who are not suspected of any wrongdoing.

Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., a former chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is hopping mad.

In a letter sent to Congress on Saturday the US Intelligence Community officially confirmed the existence of the two far-reaching surveillance programs revealed to the public this month by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

"I think there has to be some middle ground in terms of transparency." Greg Meagher of Tewksbury Sun staff photos can be ordered by visiting our MyCapture site.

There has been a lot of shock about the NSA's access to and use of our communications data.