Woodall and Collins Approved Spying on You
Does the government need to spy on you, to protect you? Are you a threat to yourself? To your neighbors? Are you a threat to the security of the American people? Your 7th and 9th District US Representatives, Rob Woodall and Doug Collins, believe that you are. I say that because both voted for HR 4861, the Intelligence Authorization Act for 2015. Although the IAA is reauthorized each year, certain requirements from previous years remain in effect, essentially forever, unless repealed or modified.
One such set of requirements, still in effect today, can be found in Section 309 of that bill, one entitled, “Procedures for the Retention of Incidentally Acquired Communications.” Those procedures are now carved permanently into the “Intelligence Community Legal Reference Book,” a handbook of guidelines for the intelligence community to spy on people.
The law for which Representatives Woodall and Collins voted, and which remains in effect, anticipates a dragnet of intercepted personal communications from American citizens. How do we know it is a dragnet? Because these are communications collected “incidentally.”
The Woodall/Collins-supported law required that within two years of its passing the intelligence community should adopt procedures, subject only to the approval of US Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, and Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper. Those procedures would apply to “any intelligence collection activity that is reasonably anticipated to result in the acquisition of nonpublic telephone or electronic communications acquired without the consent of a person who is a party to the communication.” The law permits, “the acquisition, retention, and dissemination of communications to or from a United States person.” Thus Woodall and Collins gave the government permission to collect and keep electronic communications from you and anyone in the United States. Ever since, based upon their approval and others, your emails, texts, Internet searches, online backup, phone calls, in fact any electronic online data you generate, are subject to collection by the US Government, without your consent.
Subsequent to the passing of Section 309 into law, Representatives Woodall and Collins ignored your 4th Amendment privacy protections again, voting in 2015 for CISA, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act. CISA allows private corporations, such as your cell phone company or ISP, to hand over information collected from your use of their services, to the federal government, again, without your consent. CISA was so unpopular with privacy safeguard groups that once it passed the Senate, House leadership was forced to table it only to later insert it in the now famous 2015 Omnibus spending package, for which Woodall and Collins both voted.
That brings us to the present matter of FISA, FISA orders, and the use of government agencies in the investigation of then presidential candidate Donald Trump, along with who knows who. FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, authorizes the collection of electronic communications from foreigners on foreign soil. Importantly, however, Section 702, as voted into law in 2012 by Rob Woodall, allowed the intelligence community to target foreign intelligence in ways that intentionally sweep up American’s communications protected by the 4th Amendment. Once those communications were collected, IAA Section 309 above allowed them to be stored for five years, without anyone the wiser.
Until recently, Woodall’s Section 702 allowed the US Attorney General, together with the Director of National Intelligence, to issue mere certifications to a FISA judge, a very low bar to achieve, who would exchange them for orders to surveil. Once a surveillance order would be received, the AG and DNI could authorize collection of electronic data on foreign targets, including an American dragnet, for up to one year before seeking a new order. Under FISA no warrant issued on the basis of probable cause was ever necessary to authorize that dragnet of private American communications, only a certification by those two high-ranking, Obama appointees. The 4th Amendment requires that before the government may seize your personal effects, papers, etc., a warrant, based on hard evidence and probable cause, supported by an Oath or affirmation, and describing the place to be searched, and the specific persons or things to be seized, must be considered. Thus, Section 702, as approved by Rob Woodall in 2012, who steadfastly insists you have no right to privacy, circumvented the US Constitution he swore an oath to uphold.
Fortunately, before signing the recent FISA renewal, President Trump insisted Woodall’s Section 702 be revised such that seizures of electronic communications of Americans could no longer be triggered by mere certifications from the AG and DNI. Now, only upon satisfactorily scrutinizing a sworn statement of probable cause might a FISA judge issue a warrant for records to be collected. That warrant must detail what information is to be collected, thus bringing the process to within the prescribed limitations of the 4th Amendment.
Now did any thinking American seriously doubt that the unconstitutional legislation I address in this article, passed with the approval of Georgia’s 7th and 9th District US Representatives, would be stretched and abused by the likes of, say, Loretta Lynch, James Clapper and other members of Obama’s government? Did anyone seriously doubt that 4th Amendment safeguards would be ignored, and that information collected under them would be used for political purposes? Many of us declared concerns at the time these bills were considered. But our US Representatives, both Woodall and Collins, ignored calls for a truly Constitutional government and simply did what leadership expected them to do.
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| Woodall and Collins OK Spying on Americans |
One such set of requirements, still in effect today, can be found in Section 309 of that bill, one entitled, “Procedures for the Retention of Incidentally Acquired Communications.” Those procedures are now carved permanently into the “Intelligence Community Legal Reference Book,” a handbook of guidelines for the intelligence community to spy on people.
The law for which Representatives Woodall and Collins voted, and which remains in effect, anticipates a dragnet of intercepted personal communications from American citizens. How do we know it is a dragnet? Because these are communications collected “incidentally.”
The Woodall/Collins-supported law required that within two years of its passing the intelligence community should adopt procedures, subject only to the approval of US Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, and Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper. Those procedures would apply to “any intelligence collection activity that is reasonably anticipated to result in the acquisition of nonpublic telephone or electronic communications acquired without the consent of a person who is a party to the communication.” The law permits, “the acquisition, retention, and dissemination of communications to or from a United States person.” Thus Woodall and Collins gave the government permission to collect and keep electronic communications from you and anyone in the United States. Ever since, based upon their approval and others, your emails, texts, Internet searches, online backup, phone calls, in fact any electronic online data you generate, are subject to collection by the US Government, without your consent.
Subsequent to the passing of Section 309 into law, Representatives Woodall and Collins ignored your 4th Amendment privacy protections again, voting in 2015 for CISA, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act. CISA allows private corporations, such as your cell phone company or ISP, to hand over information collected from your use of their services, to the federal government, again, without your consent. CISA was so unpopular with privacy safeguard groups that once it passed the Senate, House leadership was forced to table it only to later insert it in the now famous 2015 Omnibus spending package, for which Woodall and Collins both voted.
That brings us to the present matter of FISA, FISA orders, and the use of government agencies in the investigation of then presidential candidate Donald Trump, along with who knows who. FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, authorizes the collection of electronic communications from foreigners on foreign soil. Importantly, however, Section 702, as voted into law in 2012 by Rob Woodall, allowed the intelligence community to target foreign intelligence in ways that intentionally sweep up American’s communications protected by the 4th Amendment. Once those communications were collected, IAA Section 309 above allowed them to be stored for five years, without anyone the wiser.
Until recently, Woodall’s Section 702 allowed the US Attorney General, together with the Director of National Intelligence, to issue mere certifications to a FISA judge, a very low bar to achieve, who would exchange them for orders to surveil. Once a surveillance order would be received, the AG and DNI could authorize collection of electronic data on foreign targets, including an American dragnet, for up to one year before seeking a new order. Under FISA no warrant issued on the basis of probable cause was ever necessary to authorize that dragnet of private American communications, only a certification by those two high-ranking, Obama appointees. The 4th Amendment requires that before the government may seize your personal effects, papers, etc., a warrant, based on hard evidence and probable cause, supported by an Oath or affirmation, and describing the place to be searched, and the specific persons or things to be seized, must be considered. Thus, Section 702, as approved by Rob Woodall in 2012, who steadfastly insists you have no right to privacy, circumvented the US Constitution he swore an oath to uphold.
Fortunately, before signing the recent FISA renewal, President Trump insisted Woodall’s Section 702 be revised such that seizures of electronic communications of Americans could no longer be triggered by mere certifications from the AG and DNI. Now, only upon satisfactorily scrutinizing a sworn statement of probable cause might a FISA judge issue a warrant for records to be collected. That warrant must detail what information is to be collected, thus bringing the process to within the prescribed limitations of the 4th Amendment.
Now did any thinking American seriously doubt that the unconstitutional legislation I address in this article, passed with the approval of Georgia’s 7th and 9th District US Representatives, would be stretched and abused by the likes of, say, Loretta Lynch, James Clapper and other members of Obama’s government? Did anyone seriously doubt that 4th Amendment safeguards would be ignored, and that information collected under them would be used for political purposes? Many of us declared concerns at the time these bills were considered. But our US Representatives, both Woodall and Collins, ignored calls for a truly Constitutional government and simply did what leadership expected them to do.
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