{"bills":[{"photos":{"featured":"https://assets.countable.us/bill/photo/hr3989-115/featured_uniting-and-strengthening-american-liberty-act-of-2017-1509067478.jpg","featured_large":"https://assets.countable.us/bill/photo/hr3989-115/featured_large_uniting-and-strengthening-american-liberty-act-of-2017-1509067478.jpg","shareable":"https://n.countable.us/share-images/bills/hr3989-115.png"},"introduced_on":"2017-10-06","title_override":"USA Liberty Act: Reforming & Reauthorizing the NSA’s Collection of Communications Under Section 702","summary_override":"

This bill — known as the USA Liberty Act — would reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which permits intelligence agencies’ collection of electronic communications by non-U.S. persons outside of the U.S. for national security purposes, for six years through fiscal year 2023. The current authorization expires at the end of the year. The bill would look to reform the process by which metadata collected under Section 702 can be accessed, strengthen civil liberties protections for Americans whose communications are incidentally collected, prevent government abuse of the unmasking process, improve oversight, and protect national security. Details on those provisions of the bill can be found below.

The process for accessing results from Section 702 queries would be reformed and only permitted for national security or criminal investigations:

For criminal investigations, the government must obtain a court order based on probable cause to look at the content of communications unless lives or safety are threatened or a previous probable cause-based court order or warrant had previously been issued. As long as it’s relevant to an authorized investigation, the the database could be queried and an agent can immediately access metadata like phone numbers and time stamp information with supervisory approval.
For national security investigations the the government must have a legitimate national security purpose to query the 702 database for a U.S. person’s email or phone number.

When an American citizen’s information is collected by the National Security Agency as part of the Section 702 database, their personal information is supposed “masked” through minimization standards. Certain government officials have the power to unmask that information, and to prevent abuse all such requests but be logged to allow for congressional oversight.

Congress would get a report twice per year with the number of U.S. citizens whose communications are incidentally collected; the number of unmasking requests that involve U.S. persons; and the number of requests by the intelligence community that resulted in the dissemination of unmasked identities. A report would also be required for the number of Dept. of Justice (DOJ) queries that resulted in a “hit” in the 702 database.

The NSA’s internal prohibition on the collection of so-called “about” communications — meaning a foreign target of surveillance is referenced in a communication — would be codified into law for six years so Congress can revisit the issue. (NSA ended this because it couldn’t prevent Americans’ communications from being swept up in “about” communications.)

The Director of the National Security Agency and Attorney General would be required to jointly sign an affidavit certifying that communications collected under 702 that are determined not to contain foreign intelligence information would be purged.

The bill would also codify the current practice of allowing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to designate an amicus curiae to represent civil liberties concerns regarding the government’s annual 702 certification. If the FISC doesn’t designate an amicus curiae, it would have to document the reasons for its decision.

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) would be allowed to hire staff and work even in instances when not all five members of the board have been nominated and confirmed. The PCLOB serves as a watchdog over the federal government’s national security tools as they relate to Americans’ civil liberties.

Whistleblower protections afforded to government employees would be extended to private contractors hired by the intelligence community.

The penalty for the unauthorized removal and retention of classified information would be increased from up to one year to up to five years imprisonment.

Federal agencies would be directed to share national security and foreign intelligence information among the intelligence community in order to thwart terror plots.

The U.S. would be allowed to share information collected under section 702 with allies to combat terrorism.

The bill’s full title is the Uniting and Strengthening American Liberty Act of 2017.

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I am an American citizen fortunate enough to hold dual-citizenship with Canada. I spent most of my formative years in Canada, where I had access to free health care (by free I mean no out-of-pocket expenses). We did pay through it through taxes, but I promise you, Tucsonans are paying the same tax as in Ontario, and Tucson has appalling roads, poor schools, and no healthcare. Taxation is not a solid argument to use against Universal health care. \nI have a varied and liberal education. I have studied everything from History, English, Genetics, Philosophy, Computing and Economics. I studied for a B.A with a History Maj, and an English Minor at the University of Guelph. I have several Certificates (most earned in Canada) For Networking, Internet, Microsoft Systems Specialist through various institutions. \n\nThis election cycle (2018) will be the most active I have been in Politics since 1987. I have had a few interactions where my voice helped changed policies and laws. When I take action, I follow through. \nAn example of a time where I was instrumental in changing a city and provincial policy and law was in 1987. At issue was the province’s policy on allowing a Catholic Hospital to accept emergency care. Through a personal experience, I discovered that this particular Hospital was accepting emergency payments (through tax-payer funded dollars) and would allow the Catholic faith of the hospital to supersede over patient care. Taxpayers were funding the ER, and only patients with conditions that fell under the Catholic faith were treated. I could have lost my life. I marched; I rallied, protested, and wrote letters. The hospital in question after 7 months of fighting lost its funding to host an ER. That is not to say that it closed or anything. Its focus became palliative care for all ages. This hospital filled this niche beautifully in a community that needed it. Of course, there have been others, concerning University funding and more, but I think this is enough!\n\nTo conclude, I would just like to say I am not even remotely pleased with the direction this country is going. It is working: \n1.\t to appease the Ultra-Rich, \n2.\t penalizing the poor, \n3.\tsegregating people of color, \n4.\tmarginalizing women and children, \n5.\tactively working to destroy the environment, \n6.\tdeliberately under-educating its people, \n7.\tattempting to isolate Americans from the rest of the world by interfering with Net-Neutrality, \n8.\tposturing aggressively to other nations, \n9.\tBreaking international law by unilaterally and without justification slapping tariffs on other countries goods, to name a few. \nAll of these can and will be reversed in 4 years, but my greatest fear will be how many people will have lost lives, both here in the US and world-wide because of these reckless decisions.","twitter_id":null,"facebook_id":null,"youtube_id":null,"google_plus_id":null,"website":null,"slug":"savi","issue_count":4,"is_following":null,"influence_score":110,"influence_level":20,"follower_count":1,"following_count":0,"position_count":124,"id":"0Znxkq19","partner_id":null}],"bill_position":{"flagged":false,"id":"e4455be8-9055-4fde-8e1e-e25e33b3d71b","argument_for":null,"argument_against":"There are too many 'what ifs' in this. I do not approve of this bill as it stands. It needs to be with drawn and done over from scratch. Ans someone please tell the Rush Limbaugh, Brietbart, InfoWars maniac Michael on the YES side that BLM is not a terrorist group? Jeez","show_argument_for":false,"show_argument_against":true,"upvote_count":0,"upvotes_for_count":null,"upvotes_against_count":0,"has_upvoted":false,"endorsement_count":0,"links":{"self":"https://www.countable.us/positions/e4455be8-9055-4fde-8e1e-e25e33b3d71b"},"body":"There are too many 'what ifs' in this. I do not approve of this bill as it stands. It needs to be with drawn and done over from scratch. Ans someone please tell the Rush Limbaugh, Brietbart, InfoWars maniac Michael on the YES side that BLM is not a terrorist group? 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USA Liberty Act: Reforming & Reauthorizing the NSA’s Collection of Communications Under Section 702