“After 9/11, Congress enacted the Patriot Act. This permitted federal agents to write their own search warrants, as if to mimic the British soldiers in the 1760s. It was amended to permit the feds to go to the FISA court and get a search warrant for the electronic records of any American who might communicate with a foreign person. In 30 years, from 1979 to 2009, the legal standard for searching and seizing private communications was lowered by Congress from probable cause of crime to probable cause of being an agent of a foreign power to probable cause of being a foreign person to probable cause of communicating with a foreign person.”
http://reason.com/archives/2013/06/13/the-nsa-scandal-violates-the-lessons-of
Related posts:
D.C.'s Walmart 'Super Minimum Wage' Is a Super Bad Idea
Bill Bonner: The Greatest Fraud Ever
Bill Bonner: The Fed Can’t Stop What’s Coming
It’s official. America’s Suez moment has arrived
Oil Goes Down, Bankruptcies Go Up
Rebalance To Buffer Crises?
Is it time to get rid of the DEA?
Will Canada’s hard line on Eritrea’s ‘diaspora’ tax apply to the U.S.?
NDAA: It Still Makes a Mockery Of American Values
Bitcoin: Hoping for the Best After Bernanke's Endorsement
Reality Check: The African Region that Western Elites have Subjected to War Is Now Larger than the E...
Will Grigg: What Holder Really Said
Alex Jones TYT Interview: Guns, Conspiracies, and Mental Health
Drones, Assassinations, and the Drug War
Bovard: Destroying, suppressing evidence is FBI standard procedure