Showing posts with label US citizens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label US citizens. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 9, 2019

FBI violated Americans’ privacy by abusing access to NSA surveillance data, court rules; October 8, 2019

Nick Statt, The Verge; FBI violated Americans’ privacy by abusing access to NSA surveillance data, court rules

"The Federal Bureau of Investigation made tens of thousands of unauthorized searches related to US citizens between 2017 and 2018, a court ruled. The agency violated both the law that authorized the surveillance program they used and the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution.

The ruling was made in October 2018 by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), a secret government court responsible for reviewing and authorizing searches of foreign individuals inside and outside the US. It was just made public today."

Thursday, January 19, 2017

Elizabeth Warren: Trump’s nominees are putting us all at risk by ignoring ethics laws; Washington Post, 1/19/17

Elizabeth Warren, Washington Post; Elizabeth Warren: Trump’s nominees are putting us all at risk by ignoring ethics laws

"Congress must take these ethical requirements seriously. No Cabinet member should receive a hearing before his or her background checks, financial disclosures and ethics agreements are finished and senators have had time to review them. Nominees should be forthcoming and transparent. If those hearings have occurred, nominees who have not completed their ethics reviews should return for another round of questions after that information is made available. Senators should be thorough in their assessment and questioning of nominees. And financial conflicts with official duties must be eliminated.

I recently introduced legislation that would protect the president and vice president from financial conflicts and constitutional violations by requiring them to fully disclose and divest themselves of all personal financial interests. No such law is necessary for Cabinet officials because the laws on the books are perfectly clear.
If Congress ignores these basic ethics requirements today, the American people and the nominees themselves likely will pay the price tomorrow."