person:jim sensenbrenner

EU-Logos » Blog Archive » Les géants du web pris en tenailles entre la directive européenne sur la protection des données (Directive 95 /46 /CE) et le Patriot Act Américain : certains rejettent toute responsabilité dans le scandale PRISM
▻http://eulogos.blogactiv.eu/2013/11/29/les-geants-du-web-pris-en-tenailles-entre-la-directive-europeenne-
Bon article sur les suites constitutionnelles à l’Affaire Snowden

Jim Sensenbrenner , président de la sous-commission sur la criminalité, le terrorisme, la sécurité intérieure et des enquêtes du Congrès américain, pourtant père du Patriot Act a également témoigné devant les députés « que les abus de la NSA avaient été menés en dehors de l’autorité du Congrès ; espérons que cela nous serve de leçon et que le contrôle sera désormais plus strict » a-t-il surenchéri. Les Etats-Unis sont ici clairement sortis des « rails de la légalité » et sont proches de mettre un terme à la liberté « per se ». Le déplacement de Sensenbrenner au Parlement européen constitue d’ailleurs une forte signification politique, confirmant la gravité de la crise générale de pouvoir à Washington.

Selon ses dires, la NSA a de fait abusé de la confiance du Congrès qui (et il insiste fortement là-dessus) « n’a jamais donné son accord pour la collecte aveugle de tous les appels entrant et sortant des Etats-Unis ». Le viol de la vie privée de millions d’américains innocents ne correspond ainsi nullement à l’autorisation donnée explicitement par la Congrès, précisant bien que ces captures d’informations ne présentent pas de rapport avec des enquêtes terroristes. C’est ici que tient toute la différence entre collecte proactive de la NSA et requêtes spécifiques. La vision du Congrès est qu’il ne faut autoriser une collecte que dans un cadre précis par le biais de facteurs de motivation spécifiques.

 Pour lutter efficacement contre ces infractions, Sensenbrenner et Patrick Leahy (sénateur du Vermont) sont à pied d ’œuvre et ont déclaré vouloir introduire une nouvelle législation qui mettrait fin à une collecte en vrac sans discernement par la NSA des enregistrements des communications se rapportant aux citoyens américains. Une loi symboliquement baptisée « USA freedom Act » ayant obtenu l’adhésion de républicains et de démocrates de la Chambre des représentants et du Sénat mais aussi de groupes importants tels que l’Union américaine des libertés civiles (ACLU) et la National Rifle Association (NRA). La Maison blanche, faucon de la Défense, a toutefois fait part de sa vive opposition, jugeant ces programmes de collecte nécessaires pour déjouer certaines tentatives d’attentat aux Etats-Unis comme en Europe.

 Nous espérons avec cette législation rendre obligatoire un mandat de justice pour toute recherche de communications d’Américains dans les données collectées à l’étranger, a déclaré le représentant républicain. Il reste néanmoins pour certains européens tout à fait fâcheux qu’une tel projet de loi ne réponde pas à la question clé de la protection des données privées de citoyens étrangers ne vivant pas sur le territoire des Etats-Unis et par conséquent ne relevant pas de sa législation. Si bien que cela se traduit par le besoin urgent d’ouvrir des possibilités de recours concrètes devant les tribunaux américains pour tout citoyen européen dont l’intimité aurait été violée.

 Il est parallèlement important de réserver bon accueil à la timide proposition initiée par Dianne Feinstein, présidente de la puissante commission du renseignement du Sénat américain et ardente partisan des pratiques de la NSA, partisan aussi de vouloir créer un poste d’avocat constitutionnel indépendant au sein du tribunal secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, une cour habilitée à approuver ou rejeter certains programmes de surveillance mais penchant le plus souvent en faveur de la sécurité ignorant pas mal les libertés. Elle voudrait de plus contraindre la NSA à fournir davantage de rapports sur la collecte des métadonnées ainsi qu’interdire l’enregistrement du contenu des appels téléphoniques.

 Encore un pas de plus vers une réforme du renseignement !Dianne Feinstein entend bien par un projet bipartite, limiter la surveillance et protéger la vie privée tout en préservant certaines prérogatives de la NSA, conformes selon elle, à la Constitution. Après ces cascades de révélations autour de PRISM, notre influente élue démocrate semblerait par la force des choses, prête à réformer le cadre opérationnel de l’agence de renseignement, reconnaissant « le malheureux et bien réel scepticisme »né auprès des citoyens américains et du Congrès.

« Le Congrès a besoin de savoir exactement ce que notre communauté du renseignement fait », tambourine Feinstein. Malheureusement, la loi adoptée par la commission du Renseignement du Sénat ne va pas assez loin pour s’en prendre à des programmes clairement excessifs de surveillance tels que ceux mis en place par la NSA, déplore Jim Sensenbrenner. L’homme du Wisconsin n’a pas hésité a qualifié ce projet de « feuille de vigne » car c’est derrière ces mots apaisants, que se cache-t-il au fond ? Ne pourrait-on pas penser qu’il s’agisse d’une simple manœuvre de la présidente du Comité sénatorial pour briser une attaque qui risquerait d’anéantir totalement les services de la NSA ? Quoiqu’il en soit, elle est, dans cet effort pour limiter la NSA, « un lourd frappeur ».

#surveillance
#gouvernance
#Prism

Busting Eight Common Excuses for NSA Mass Surveillance | Electronic Frontier Foundation
▻https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/busting-eight-common-excuses-nsa-surveillance

.... here’s a cheat sheet to help you talk about the NSA spying when you’re with family and friends.

I have nothing to hide from the government, so why should I worry?

There are a few ways to respond to this, depending on what you think will work best for the person raising the question.

Point out how mass surveillance leaves you at the mercy of not only the NSA, but also to the DEA, the FBI and even the IRS. We know that the government claims that any evidence of a “crime” can be sent to the appropriate law enforcement agencies.
 
Tell them that, even if you don’t think you have something to hide, it’s possible the government thinks you do, or can create some concern about you (or your friends or loved ones). There are so many laws and regulations on the books, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner said the Congressional Research Service did not have the resources to count them all. One legal expert has argued that the average person likely commits three felonies a day without ever realizing. So, you may be technically breaking a law you have no idea about.

We all benefit from a system that allows privacy. For example, when journalists can speak to sources without the specter of surveillance, helping fuel investigative journalism and the free flow of information. And this is not just a hypothetical—the Department of Justice subpoenaed the phone records of Associated Press journalists in an effort to track down government whistleblowers. And it’s not just journalists. Activists, political organizers, lawyers, individuals conducting sensitive research, businesses that want to keep their strategies confidential, and many others rely on secure, private, surveillance-free communication.

Isn’t the NSA using the mass spying to stop terrorists?

Even the NSA cannot point to a single terrorist attack they’ve stopped using the Patriot Act phone surveillance program that sweeps up virtually every phone record in the United States. They’ve thrown out many numbers claiming that the information was helpful in some capacity, including repeatedly claiming that it thwarted some 54 attacks, but those numbers have been thoroughly debunked.

The only remaining example the NSA points to is known as the “Zazi case.” However, in that case, the Associated Press reported that the government could have easily stopped the plot without the NSA program, under authorities that comply with the Constitution. Sens. Ron Wyden and Mark Udall have been saying this for a long time.

That’s the point here: we can stop terrorists with law enforcement authorities that this country has been using for decades. We don’t need to upend the Constitution to keep the nation safe.

The government will not abuse its power.

Some people believe that the government will never abuse its power, especially when the party they support is in office. You should remind these people that the government has a long history of overstretching its surveillance powers and using that information to try to blackmail people. Example of this include the NSA spying on Martin Luther King Jr., Muhammad Ali, and even some sitting senators in the 1960s. Imagine how Sen. Joe McCarthy’s investigations might have gone if he had access to this kind of spying.

We already have evidence of abuse of power. We know that the NSA analysts were using their surveillance powers to track their ex-wives and husbands, and other love interests. They even had a name for it, LOVEINT. The FISA court has also cited the NSA for violating or ignoring court orders for years at a time. And those are just self-reported abuses. An independent investigation might reveal even more.

Allowing mass spying is patriotic.

Stopping untargeted seizure of information is one of the key reasons we fought the War of Independence and drafted the Fourth Amendment. During colonial times, the “crime” was tax evasion—remember the Boston Tea Party? The British crown issued Writs of Assistance, which were general warrants that allowed the British authorities to search through anyone’s papers in order to find those who were skirting the taxes. American patriot James Otis Jr. argued against the “hated writs” but lost his case in the British courts. John Adams noted that from that case, “the child independence was born.” 

Since that time, warrants have had to specify the persons and places searched. Mass surveillance by the NSA does neither. In short, one of our countries’ founding principles is the prohibition on mass searches and seizures.

Kids today (or my friends) post everything they do on Facebook or Twitter, why should we care if the government can see too?

What people choose to put on Facebook or Twitter (or Instagram or Tumblr or some other service) is almost always curated. People put the best or sometimes the worst things that happen to them online, but studies show they still keep things private, and restrict the audience for other information. A new poll shows young people may even be more privacy conscious than older adults.

We all know someone whose Facebook feed continued to show happy pictures even as they went through a terrible breakup or divorce. The point of privacy is control over the information that is available about you. Some people choose to share more, some choose to share less, but nearly everyone wants the power to pick and choose what information is available about them to their friends and to strangers, like future employers or NSA agents.

Google and Facebook have my information, so why shouldn’t the NSA?

There are many privacy problems with how the giant Internet companies gather and use so much of your personal data. However, Google and Facebook do not have the power to arrest you and, unlike government surveillance, there are other choices for communication tools. For example, you can use DuckDuckGo instead of Google search.

Remember: while we may not like how companies collect a lot of our information, they are not under the same requirement to follow the Fourth Amendment. We need to protect the private information held by companies too, but the Constitution provides a foundation that always protects our communications from the prying eyes of government.

It’s just metadata, so why should I care?

For the mass phone record collection program, the NSA has said it is not “listening in” to telephone calls. Instead they are collecting a record of everyone you call, who calls you, when you’re on the phone, the length of your phone call, and at times, even your location.

This “metadata” can be as invasive as the content of your conversations. It can reveal your religious and political views, who you are dating (and when you break up), who your spouse and children are, your movements, and even information your closest friends and family don’t know, such as medical conditions.

Additionally, the government is getting more than just metadata. We also know the government has obtained online content, including email, under separate programs, and used the data based on a guess that you are 51 percent likely to be foreign, by scanning large a portion of the total number of emails entering and exiting the United States. Metadata is only a part of the government spying programs.

This sucks, but there’s nothing I can do!

Actually there is plenty you can do! First, join the over half-million others and sign our petition at stopwatching.us. Then call your representative in Congress—there are bills going through Congress right now that could curtail some of this spying and bring real transparency and accountability to the NSA. There are also some that need to be opposed so we don’t end up legalizing much of this illegal surveillance.

There’s lots you can do to fight NSA surveillance. But one of the most important things you can do is explain why this issue is important to friends and family. So please share this guide widely.

NSA has no direct access to customers’ data, IT firms tell MEPs
▻http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/fr/news-room/content/20131111IPR24355/html/NSA-has-no-direct-access-to-customers'-data-IT-firms-tell-MEPs

Microsoft, Google and Facebook managers denied giving the NSA or any government in the world direct or unfettered access to their servers, at the ninth NSA inquiry hearing on the mass surveillance of EU citizens held at Parliament on Monday. US Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner told MEPs that abuses by the NSA were carried out outside congressional authority. “I hope that we have learned our lesson and that oversight will be a lot more vigorous,” he said.

Parmi les déclarations, pour l’instant dans le fil Twitter, ▻https://twitter.com/EP_Justice

J. Sensenbrenner, représentant (R.) du Wisconsin
Chairman of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security

• US Congress has little authority to stop the administration from spying

• Question : How is it possible that nobody had the idea during the last 12 years to check what the NSA was doing?

• NSA violated its own rules thousands of times. Time has come to clip their wings,

Dorothee Belz, Microsoft

• When asked, Microsoft only provides exact data specified in secret service order. There are no back doors, no encryption keys.

• We don’t know PRISM as a programme and we don’t give direct access to our servers.

• Question : If NSA had ordered you to install back doors – would you be allowed to tell us that now?

• There was no NSA request for a back door. But hypothetically, if there was one, I guess I wouldn’t be able to talk.

Nicklas Ludblad, Google

• We have not given US government access to Google servers. Not directly and not indirectly.

Richard Allan, Facebook

• Facebook has never received a request for in blanco access to our data. If we did, we would fight it aggressively.

• Facebook will publish as much info on requests as we can.