What’s a warrant between, um, “friends”?
The folks on Capitol Hill are doing their best to eat away at the fringes of that *silly* Bill of Rights stuff. They expressed annoyance over the existence
of the concept of due process in the gun control debate. We’re being told — with straight faces — that violence would just STOP if we all handed over our weapons to government agents.
Now, the GOP-controlled US Senate is dangerously close to seriously damaging our Fourth Amendment rights:
The Senate rejected legislation Wednesday that would allow the FBI to search Americans’ Internet browsing histories and email records without a warrant.
Supporters invoked the Orlando massacre to push for the measure, saying it would help federal agents identify terrorist suspects and thwart future attacks. But privacy rights advocates said the bill’s sponsors were using the mass shooting as a way to expand government surveillance and get around constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.
Senators voted 58-38 to advance the legislation, falling two votes short of the 60 votes needed. The amendment by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Richard Burr, R-N.C., would have been added to a federal spending bill that included funding for the FBI. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., switched his vote from “yes” to “no” — a procedural move that will allow him to bring the legislation up again later.
So, it’s coming back. *Nice.* MORE:
[…] It was the second time in two weeks that security hawks and privacy rights advocates have clashed in the wake of the Orlando shootings,
in which a lone gunman killed 49 people and wounded 53 others at a gay nightclub. The House last week defeated a measure to ban warrantless surveillance of Americans’ electronic communications.
The McCain-Burr legislation would not allow FBI agents to read the actual content of emails. Instead, agents would be able to see email subject lines and the addresses that someone sends email to or receives email from, as well as when the communication took place. The FBI also would be able to see the website addresses that someone entered on their Internet browsers and look at how much time the person spent on a particular website.[…]
(*Two hours on The Daily Haymaker?????? They must be subversives. Send in the SWAT team!*) MORE:
[…] Agents would be able to access the information using national security letters — a kind of administrative subpoena that does not require a court order and would likely bar an Internet provider from telling its customers that their communication was searched. Currently, the FBI must get a warrant to obtain the data.
The legislation, which was supported by the FBI and other law enforcement groups, also would make permanent a provision of the USA Patriot Act anti-terrorism law that allows federal agents to conduct surveillance of “lone wolf” terrorist suspects in the U.S. who do not have ties to a foreign terrorist group. The provision is set to expire at the end of 2019.[…]
This legislation is backed mostly by the GOP caucus in the Senate. Burr sponsored it. Thilli$$$$ voted FOR it.
Look alive, folks. The Rs will apparently snatch your freedom away as quickly as the Ds will — IF YOU LET THEM.
Burr, Tillis, and McConnell are downright Stalinists with a police state mentality. They do not belong in the Senate. Just as bad, they are letting the terrorists win when we give up our own Constitutional liberties in response to terrorism.
The FBI is clearly riddled with ”political correctness” due to their blunders on the Orlando terrorist shooter. The FBI is also likely to politically give Hillary a free pass on her felonious email activities. This is simply NOT a trustworthy agency for conservatives, even as it is, and if gets as political as the IRS, it will be worse.
Richard Burr is a clear and present danger to our liberties.
Making it easy to get guns is “letting the terrorist win”. The FBI interviewed the Orlando shooter but the FBI’s hands were tied from doing anything that would have prevented him from getting a weapon of mass killing – thanks for that NRA.
Well, no. The Obama regime tied their hands with ”political correctness”. When a gun store owner called the FBI about suspicious activity by the shooter in an earlier attempted purchase, the FBI did not even respond to investigate due to fear of Islamophobia. If they had, they would have been on to this guy.
Terrorists can always get guns. That was no problem for them in France or Belgium, countries with strict gun laws. This law is designed to keep law abiding Americans from getting guns to defend ourselves, which is much more necessary due to an incompetent ”politically correct” FBI, and an Obama regime intent on bringing in more and more Muslims.
This regime needs to understand that Muslim jihadists want to kill us, and the regime refuses to acknowledge that. Loretta Lynch’s statement that the most effective response to them ”is love” was just absurd.
Thanks for the ”political correctness” that is killing people, liberals! We need Muslim control, not gun control. The problem is the people pulling the trigger, not the inanimate object. Muslims use lots of other things for terrorism – pressure cooker bombs, suicide vests, knives, etc. You are not going to keep everything lethal out of their hands.
“…due to fear of Islamophobia”. WHERE do you get that as the reason the FBI did not look into this guy again?
The Washington Times had a good article on the subject.
I just searched that site (+islamophobia +fbi +orlando) and no entries showed up. Please provide a link to that information.
There were actually two or three, but this one sums it up and is the first one I ran across:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/17/has-fbis-work-been-tainted-political-correctness/
Maybe you ought to hone your search skills. I do not intend to be your errand boy to find things for you.
Thanks for the link. It was just as I suspected from your original post on this. The story is an OPINION piece that poses the FBI’s “fear of Islamophobia” as a question, a hypothetical.
Absolutely NO evidence of that scenario being fact.
Opinion pieces are based on facts such as those in this one. That other gun store reported highly suspicious activity to the FBI, which did NOT investigate. The FBI has not admitted why, but there are only two real options, either Political Correctness, or gross incompetence. We should be concerned about the Obama FBI either way.
Another big item coming up that will show how polititicized the FBI is will be the Hillary email investigation. If they go light on her, the whole agency will stink to high heaven.
The FBI has not admitted why. EXACTLY.
There are only two reasons in your mind but, not talking with the FBI, we don’t know all of them. One is that they already looked into the guy and had no actionable information (old or new) that they could go with, especially considering our weak gun laws.
The issue here is TERRORISM laws, not gun laws, and more so the interpretation of those terrorism laws. This was new information that should have been followed up on by competent and non PC investigators.
BTW, these days the establishment media no longer distinguishes between opinion and news. Their ”news” stories are full of their left wing opinions, particularly the Clinton News Network (CNN).
agree not for Citizens Freedom!
Sen. Cruz also voted in favor of this amendment – disappointing. Link below to his rationale for doing so.
https://www.cruz.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=2692
“In this age of jihad, the federal government has an obligation to do everything possible to keep us safe from terrorism and, at the same time, to protect the constitutional liberties of law-abiding Americans. We should protect good guys, and target bad guys,” Sen. Cruz said.
“Last year, I joined with Sen. Lee to pass the USA Freedom Act, which ended the federal government’s bulk collection of phone meta-data–protecting the privacy of millions of Americans.
“Today, I joined with Sen. McCain in voting to allow the FBI to obtain Internet search data of specifically-identified suspected terrorists as part of an ‘authorized investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities.’ The government still will not be able to collect this information on Americans in bulk, but we will have the tools to investigate specific jihadists and–with an Administration willing to confront the enemy–hopefully prevent future terrorists attacks.
“Both measures are positive steps to protect the rights of innocent Americans and enhance the ability of law enforcement to defeat radical Islamic terrorism.”
Senator Cruz – the Great Conservative.
Republican lawmakers have no idea what they are doing. We have an immigration problem that they refuse to solve. Take care of immigration and domestic terrorism goes away.
Since Barry Soetoro is a Muslim, member of the Muslim Brotherhood, non-citizen (Indonesian) and a subversive, Saudi Arabian plant what do you think is going to happen?
Washington DC is totally lawless! Remove Soetoro and a lot of problems go away!
Your tin-foil hat is showing.