We suspect that chilling laws that violates citizen rights came from just one source. This was evolved because everyone is preparing for the worse – World War III.
The irony, however, is that spy laws in America had lapsed. The expiration of several government-surveillance programs triggered a congressional scramble to restore spy powers but political divisions hardened as US lawmakers warred over privacy measures.
The National Security Agency stopped sweeping up bulk telephone records at 7:44 p.m. Sunday, a senior intelligence official said, several hours before the midnight deadline under which the program lapsed, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The program had secretly warehoused the phone records of millions of Americans since at least 2006. In tandem, counterterrorism officials lost the power to use roving wire taps on terrorism suspects. Both programs used the USA Patriot Act of 2001 as their legal underpinnings.
The changes mark a contraction of the sprawling and secret spy architecture built up after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and Congress’s split reflects a sharp public and political shift following disclosures made by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
In a startling admission that American seas will no longer protect America, CIA director John Brennan, the inventor of the drone war that also killed children and Americans, expressed alarm over the lack of legal tools that American spymasters can rely on to carry out renditions and torture.
The United States, Canada, Australia, Britain and New Zealand’s intelligence services belongs to the so-called Five Eyes, a spy conglomerate with worldwide reach.
In Australia, Ben Grubbs of the New Sydney Herald wrote: Despite concerns raised by dozens of academics, lawyers, rights groups, the dumped national security legislation monitor Bret Walker, SC, and human rights commissioner Tim Wilson; the new national security legislation will jail journalists and whistleblowers if they reveal information about covert “special” operations passed the House of Representatives.
The legislation cleared the Senate last week with bipartisan support.
No amendments were accepted, other than those introduced in the Senate by the Palmer United Party, which imposed even tougher penalties on leakers than originally drafted.
Anyone – including journalists, whistleblowers and bloggers – who “recklessly” discloses “information … [that]relates to a special intelligence operation” faces up to 10 years’ jail.
Any operation can be declared “special” by the attorney-general of the day after ASIO makes an application.
The legislation, which also enables the entire Australian internet to be monitored with just a single computer warrant, is a disgrace
Britain also has harsh spy and police laws but is utterly helpless as jihadists call it Londondistan.
Welcome, World War III.
