Defend our 21st century liberties by exercising our 18th century rights – Orange County Registry

There is no right to privacy enshrined in the text of the US Constitution, but it may be time to start thinking about an additional amendment to privacy.

This week, the Wall Street Journal reported on a newly declassified letter from two US senators to the Central Intelligence Agency, urging the CIA to notify the public of a secret program involving the collection of data from an undisclosed source and collects records of Americans.

The April 2021 letter from Senators Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, and Senator Martin Heinrich, D-New Mexico, was released on Thursday. Although heavily redacted, the letter made it clear that the senators thought it was “urgent” for the CIA to declassify and release information about the secret program, including records that the agency is collecting, volume of records kept, frequency of searches by the agency. U.S. data, its relationship with intelligence sources, and the legal framework in which the program operates.

A CIA spokesman said surveillance was authorized under Reagan-era Executive Order 12333 and the attorney general’s instructions, but the senators described the CIA program as “totally outside the scope of the law.” regulations that Congress and the public believe govern this collection.”

Abuse of surveillance by the intelligence community is nothing new. In the 1970s, revelations of outrageous actions by the nation’s intelligence and law enforcement agencies led to hearings on Capitol Hill, chaired by Senator Frank Church, D-Idaho . That led to the enactment of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978. The act created the FISA court to review applications for secret orders, part of an effort to “place intelligence operations” into the constitutional scheme.”

But the FISA court process is no longer an effective defense against abuse. A series of reports by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz documented common problems with FBI requests for FISA warrants, including failure to comply with the so-called Woods Process, introduced to ensure that all information in the FISA application is supported by documentation. However, no one seems to be held accountable for these abuses. Even the former FBI attorney, who pleaded guilty to altering emails, effectively fabricating key facts used to obtain a warrant to spy on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, left no behind. serious consequences for his actions. Kevin Clinesmith was sentenced to one year of probation and 400 hours of community service. For the crime of submitting false documents to a US agency, his license to practice law was suspended for a short time.

Surveillance by US intelligence and law enforcement agencies has been completely disrupted.

The threat to freedom of covert surveillance and data collection reached a dangerous new level this week with the release of the Department of Homeland Security’s “National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin.” The site warned that the United States “remains in a high-threat environment driven by a number of factors, including an online environment filled with false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories as well as as other forms of misinformation and malice (MDM) introduced and/or amplified by threat actors at home and abroad.”

The bulletin was titled, “A Brief Terrorism Threat to the United States of America.” These government officials are labeling the speech as terrorist.

Let me explain something. Is not.

Americans must repel this horrifying horror. Did you see what the IRS was just trying to do?

The Internal Revenue Service said that starting this summer, it will require Americans who want online access to their tax accounts or other IRS services to submit a “selfie video” to a private company that has name ID.me. The video and other personal data will then be used to set up face scanning for identity verification. Last summer, the Biden administration signed a two-year, $86 million deal with ID.me to manage the security and facial recognition data of American taxpayers.

In the midst of a storm of controversy, IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig has just announced that the agency will “switch” from the plan. However, ID.me executives told the Washington Post that its client list includes 10 federal agencies, including the Social Security Administration, and 30 states, including California. .

Covered by secrecy, the government can use its various surveillance methods and databases to track the communications, financial transactions, and movements of any American, save keep records indefinitely and regularly enter data on innocent Americans into law enforcement databases. The government can secretly flag suspected Americans as “conspirators” based on nothing more than their political views expressed online. Now that the Biden administration’s Department of Homeland Security has used the word “terrorist” to describe those making claims of “misinformation and malicious disinformation,” we are one short step away. US law enforcement agencies open investigations that destroy people’s lives. for wrong thinking.

Some will say we were there.