The House Intelligence Subcommittee Added an Amendment to the FISA Reauthorization Bill Drafting All Citizens Into the Business of Spying on Other Americans

It's being called the "Everybody's a Spy" act.

If you own a small business, and someone hops on to your wifi, the government can demand you become its unpaid spy and turn over all data it demands.

The US House of Representatives agreed to reauthorize a controversial spying law known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act last Friday without any meaningful reforms, dashing hopes that Congress might finally put a stop to intelligence agencies' warrantless surveillance of Americans' emails, text messages and phone calls.

The vote not only reauthorized the act, though; it also vastly expanded the surveillance law enforcement can conduct. In a move that Senator Ron Wyden condemned as "terrifying", the House also doubled down on a surveillance authority that has been used against American protesters, journalists and political donors in a chilling assault on free speech.

Section 702 in its current form allows the government to compel communications giants like Google and Verizon to turn over information. An amendment to the bill approved by the House vastly increases the law's scope. The Turner-Himes amendment -- so named for its champions Representatives Mike Turner and Jim Himes -- would permit federal law enforcement to also force "any other service provider" with access to communications equipment to hand over data. That means anyone with access to a wifi router, server or even phone -- anyone from a landlord to a laundromat -- could be required to help the government spy.

The Senate is expected to vote on the House bill as soon as this week, and if it passes there, Joe Biden is likely to sign it. All Americans should be terrified by that prospect.

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While the Turner-Himes amendment lists some business types that are excepted from the requirement to help spy -- like dwellings and restaurants -- an almost limitless number of entities that provide wifi or just have access to Americans' devices could be roped into the government's surveillance operations. Using the wifi in your dentist office, hiring a cleaner who has access to your laptop, or even storing communications equipment in an office you rent could all expose you to increased risk of surveillance.

Bob Goodlatte and Mark Udall urge the Senate to block passage of the Everybody's a Spy Act:

As RISAA comes to the Senate, attention is now being cast on another amendment -- one from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) that many have come to call the "Everyone's a Spy" provision. This measure was portrayed as a "narrow" definitional change to the law concerning electronic communications service providers -- big telecom and Internet companies -- which obligated them to cooperate with NSA surveillance. These big companies can be compelled to spy for the government, and then be subject to gag orders, forbidding them from telling customers they have been surveilled.

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The HPSCI amendment achieves this by including any service provider who has access to equipment that transmits communications. After critics complained that digital loungers in hotel lobbies and coffeehouses would have their data hoovered up by the government, the authors of this amendment provided carve-outs for hotels, restaurants, dwellings, and community centers. This was a good PR move. But this measure still applies to most everyone -- owners and operators of any facilities (other than the exempted categories) that house equipment used to store or carry data.

If this became law, millions of American small business owners would have a legal obligation to hand over data that runs through their equipment. These small businesses could be forced to give the NSA direct access to their equipment, or else they might just copy messages en masse and turn them over. And when they're done with doing their part in mass surveillance, these small businesses would then be placed under a gag order to hide their activities from their customers.

Senators, including Rand Paul (of course), are vowing they'll block a vote on this sell-out.

Senators in both parties are warning the expanded surveillance authority under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) could lapse after Friday because of a battle over amending the House bill, which has become a target of conservative Republicans and some Democrats.

Opponents of the bill could drag the Senate debate past the 11:59 p.m. Friday deadline, which threatens to cause a lapse in warrantless surveillance authority that some lawmakers warn could leave the nation exposed to an attack at a dangerous time.

"It would be a very big problem. FISA's incredibly important to alerting us of terrorist plots, for example. And I believe the threat of a terrorist attack is much higher than is being discussed," warned Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), a senior member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

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[I]t would take more than a week to process the bill on the Senate floor, and opponents of the legislation are threatening to push the debate past the Friday deadline unless they get time to debate and vote on changes to the bill.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), an outspoken critic of the FISA program, said he's willing to let it lapse over the weekend if he doesn't get changes to the bill considered on the Senate floor.

"We need to debate -- we've had five years [to reauthorize the program] -- I would think we've got time to debate whether or not it's appropriate for our government to spy on its own citizens without a warrant," he said.

Paul said he would agree to speed up the process depending on "how much debate the Democrats are willing to allow."

But he said he would have no problem with letting the program lapse, arguing that the country and its intelligence agencies functioned well enough before Congress passed FISA in 1978.

Johnson has shown himself to be a sell-out as bad as Kevin McCarthy was.

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 03:36 PM

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