Barack Obama calls for the Senate to pass the USA Freedom Act

 With the Congress having failed to act on the PATRIOT Act there is only a few short hours left before some provisions are set to expire and now Barack Obama is pressing the Senate to pass the USA Freedom Act in order to assure we do not “go dark.” The USA Freedom Act is a piece of legislation which is supposed to amend the NSA data-mining program in order to protect the Constitutional rights of American citizens but somebody still has to explain to me how ANY bulk collection of data is not a violation of the Fourth Amendment unless a warrant is issued with probable cause naming those who records are going to be collected.

  Here is what Barack Obama had to say:

“I don’t want us to be in a situation in which, for a certain period of time, those authorities go away, and suddenly we’re dark, and heaven forbid we’ve got a problem where we could’ve prevented a terrorist attack or could’ve apprehended someone who was engaged in dangerous activity but we didn’t do so simply because of inaction of the Senate,” the president said. [emphasis mine]

  What is this “dangerous activity” the president is talking about? What else is the government using the PATRIOT Act for besides fighting terrorism? Barack Obama clearly stated this legislation needs to be passed in order to prevent terrorism OR other “dangerous activity.” This comment certainly makes it sound as if the PATRIOT Act is being used for more than fighting terrorism, does it not?

  The FBI has already admitted the PATRIOT Act has not helped to crack any major potential terrorist attacks and while making this admission Inspector General Michael Horowitz also stated there has been an extension into other areas.

Increasingly, that meant scooping up information on those who weren’t targets of a terrorism investigation, Mr. Horowitz said. He said that while Section 215 authority allows the government to do that, the FBI needed more checks to make sure it was using the power properly.

“While the expanded scope of these requests can be important uses of Section 215 authority, we believe these expanded uses require continued significant oversight,” he concluded.

  When Barack Obama ran for President in 2008 he claimed to be against domestic spying and warrantless wiretaps but it seems as if under his regime not only does he approve of the NSA data-mining program but he has used it for expanded purposes and we really do not know what those uses are, do we?

Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium