[Libs-Or] Two pieces from District Dispatch about NSA surveillance

[Diedre Conkling]

http://www.districtdispatch.org/2013/06/only-we-can-demand-more-accountability/

*Only we can demand more accountability*

Posted on June 6, 2013 by Lynne Bradley

As news breaks that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has been
renewing (every three months for seven years) a Section 215 order to obtain
phone records of all Verizon customers, the American Library Association is
calling on Congress to provide more accountability and transparency about
how the government is obtaining and using vast amounts of information about
innocent people.

In a public hearing on Thursday morning, Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA)
indicated that the order is just a "regular" renewal of an order that
started seven years ago. We are gravely concerned, but unfortunately not
surprised, at this week's revelations.

"The library community welcomes a renewed public debate on how to balance
the need to fight terrorism and the need to protect personal privacy and
civil liberties," said ALA President Maureen Sullivan. "Millions of
innocent customers, at least Verizon's, have had their personal phone
records released to the government without their knowledge and without
allegations of specific facts supporting the relevance of their records to
a federal terrorism investigation.

"We must demand more accountability and transparency in all of these
surveillance issues," she added. "Our nation's libraries are a tremendous
information resource for those who want to better understand the issues and
a place to begin debates about these issues"

Barbara Jones, Director of ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom, said,
"The lack of transparency is symptomatic of the growing trend in our secret
laws and we must correct the flaws. Are these new revelations just the tip
of the iceberg? Did other companies received such subpoenas and what other
records has the government been obtaining on such a broad scale? What about
library records and those of our users? The public needs to know."

"Our community calls for public dialogue about how to open up FISA and
other surveillance laws so that there can be true accountability and an
improved balance between individual privacy and the need of government to
investigate terrorism and other crimes, said Lynne Bradley, Director of
ALA's Office of Government Relations. "We need to make changes to our
surveillance laws."

http://www.districtdispatch.org/2013/06/only-we-can-demand-more-accountability/

-----------------------------------

http://www.districtdispatch.org/2013/06/reforming-national-surveillance-laws/


Reforming National Surveillance Laws
Posted on June 10,
2013<http://www.districtdispatch.org/2013/06/reforming-national-surveillance-laws/>
by Lynne Bradley
<http://www.districtdispatch.org/author/lynne-bradley/> | Leave
a comment<http://www.districtdispatch.org/2013/06/reforming-national-surveillance-laws/#respond>

Last week, reports appeared regarding the U.S. government's program
PRISM<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324299104578533802289432458.html>that
obtains the internet records from nine U.S. companies: Microsoft,
Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, and Apple. This
followed the earlier disturbing revelation on June 5th that the FISA Court
had ordered Verizon to turn over the phone records of all customers over
the last seven years.

It appears that emails, photos, online and social networking activities as
well as the phone records have been obtained by the FBI and NSA. These two
revelations about the amount of personal information received by the
government, if true as reported, is very troubling.

We are, frankly, saddened that two major revelations about our country's
surveillance practices confirm our gravest worries: the government has
obtained vast amounts of personal information about the activities,
especially electronic communications of all kinds, of essentially everyone
in the United States, including millions of innocent people.

We repeat the call for a true public dialogue on our nation's surveillance
laws and procedures and how to fix the flaws in laws such as FISA (the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) and the USA PATRIOT Act. The public
needs a way to become engaged to determine what degree of public
accountability is needed and how to improve the balance between individual
rights and the need of government to investigate terrorism and other
harmful acts.

There needs to be effective legal review, judicial oversight permitting
transparency and public accountability - not wholesale fishing expeditions
- to get personal information on millions of innocent people! Our country
needs to find the right balance.

http://www.districtdispatch.org/2013/06/reforming-national-surveillance-laws/




-- 
*Diedre Conkling**
Lincoln County Library District
P.O. Box 2027
Newport, OR 97365
Phone & Fax: 541-265-3066
Work email**: **diedre at lincolncolibrarydist.org*<diedre at lincolncolibrarydist.org>
*
Home email: **diedre08 at gmail.com* <diedre08 at gmail.com>

 "If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change
your attitude."--Maya Angelou
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://omls.oregon.gov/pipermail/libs-or/attachments/20130610/872af22a/attachment.html>