Biden signs bill criticized as “major expansion of warrantless surveillance”
arstechnica.com
FISA renewal requires more service providers to cooperate with government.

Congress passed and President Biden signed a reauthorization of Title VII of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), approving a bill that opponents say includes a “major expansion of warrantless surveillance” under Section 702 of FISA.

Over the weekend, the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act was approved by the Senate in a 60-34 vote. The yes votes included 30 Republicans, 28 Democrats, and two independents who caucus with Democrats. The bill, which was previously passed by the House and reauthorizes Section 702 of FISA for two years, was signed by President Biden on Saturday.

“Thousands and thousands of Americans could be forced into spying for the government by this new bill and with no warrant or direct court oversight whatsoever,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said on Friday. “Forcing ordinary Americans and small businesses to conduct secret, warrantless spying is what authoritarian countries do, not democracies.”

Wyden and Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) led a bipartisan group of eight senators who submitted an amendment to reverse what Wyden’s office called “a major expansion of warrantless surveillance under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that was included in the House-passed bill.” After the bill was approved by the Senate without the amendment, Wyden said it seemed “that senators were unwilling to send this bill back to the House, no matter how common-sense the amendment before them.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said he voted against the reauthorization “because it failed to include the most important requirement to protect Americans’ civil rights: that law enforcement get a warrant before targeting a US citizen.”

      • star_wraith [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        36·
        8 months ago

        grossly mismanaged the pandemic (killing a lot of people), did horrible stuff for the environment, passed a bunch of shit laws, including repealing net neutrality, deported a bunch of ppl for no reason, and he supports isreal

        All that is literally and precisely what Biden has done, too (except net neutrality I guess, but you’re also leaving out Biden signing off on the biggest expansion of the surveillance state since the Patriot Act).

        He fucked over queer people in the us

        Lots of queer people on Hexbear, ask them if the barest crumbs Democrats throw to queer people (i.e. doing nothing to stop anti-queer actions, but not being the ones to propose the laws) is worth supporting genocide.

        increased the federal debt by 7 trillion

        Imaginary number doesn’t matter.

        You seem well-meaning, so let me put my cards on the table: I don’t believe in validating the invalid dictatorship of the bourgeoisie by voting for anything beyond the local school board and various propositions, so it’s not like I’d be voting for Biden anyway. But what I don’t get about when libs push leftists to vote for Biden is… at what point does someone committing heinous acts mean that not voting for them is the only moral action? If Joe Biden murdered my daughter, would I not be in the right to say I wouldn’t vote for him? Even if in this weird scenario Trump also would have murdered my daughter… at what point do we measure someone by what they do and not what the other person would have done? And it doesn’t matter if my kid isn’t actually involved, I have seen enough death and sadness from parents and children in Gaza that the fact that it’s not my kid is totally and completely immaterial to me.

      • macabrett[they/them]English
        35·
        8 months ago

        A really funny thing you should do is look up what Biden’s done on these subjects.

        For instance, did you know more people have died of covid under his tenure, despite vaccines existing?

        Did you know he’s approved more at home oil drilling than Trump did?

        But also genocide is still worse than everything on that list other than the pandemic, but that’s not a point in Biden’s favor! He had the same plan!

      • SacredExcrement [any, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        35·
        8 months ago

        He fucked over queer people in the us

        Biden is just letting states pass transphobic legislation and has so far done nothing about it.

        he increased the federal debt by 7 trillion

        Oh no not the debt ceiling that keeps getting pushed higher

        grossly mismanaged the pandemic (killing a lot of people)

        Biden said he had a strategy, did fuck all about it after throwing out a handful of cheap test kits per household, and then told states to use any residual COVID aid to hire more pigs. His admin has also slowly been rolling back any reporting.

        did horrible stuff for the environment

        Biden is currently having the US drill for oil at all time high levels.

        passed a bunch of shit laws, including repealing net neutrality

        Biden plans on ‘partially’ bringing it back, but he’s still gonna let ISPs gatekeep and gouge on things like ‘fast lanes’, so…

        deported a bunch of ppl for no reason

        Biden’s AG argued that immigrants in the United States are not entitled to a bond hearing and got that wish. He’s also still deporting people so…

        You need to disabuse yourself of this liberal notion that blue team is better because they’re blue. No one here will ever defend Trump, but you need to understand that this binary thinking is how you stay trapped in this endless cycle of supporting things slowly getting shittier.