'Shame': Bill Including Warrantless Spying Expansion Passes Senate, Becomes Law | Common Dreams
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"The Make Everyone A Spy provision will be abused, and history will know who to blame," one civil liberties advocate said.

“The Make Everyone A Spy provision will be abused, and history will know who to blame,” one civil liberties advocate said.“

        • TokenBoomer@lemmy.worldOPM
          131·
          2 months ago

          Under an amendment adopted as part of RISAA, the government could, in effect, require American businesses, including individuals such as journalists, with no role in providing communications services, to assist with National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance. source

          Under an amendment adopted as part of RISAA, the government could conscript into service a wide range of other types of service providers who merely have access to the equipment (e.g., a router) on which communications transit. Although the amendment exempts hotels, libraries, restaurants, and a handful of other types of establishments, an enormous range of businesses would still be fair game, including grocery stores, department stores, hardware stores, laundromats, barber shops, fitness centers, and — perhaps most disturbingly — commercial landlords that rent out the office space where tens of millions of Americans go to work every day, including news media headquarters, political campaign offices, advocacy and grassroots organizations, lobbying firms, and law offices. Because these businesses might lack the ability to segregate out particular communications, they could be forced to give the government access to entire communications streams, including vast volumes of purely domestic communications — trusting the NSA to extract and retain only communications to and from targets. source

        • Killing_Spark@feddit.de
          3·
          2 months ago

          Technically this enables the agencies to spy on anyone and you just have to trust they won’t spy on Americans. Also, as a non-american: I’d really like it if your agencies fucked off.

    • idiomaddict@feddit.de
      32·
      2 months ago

      I’m an American married to a German. The next time we visit my family, my father could be compelled to go through my husband’s things.

      How could it be at all acceptable to force you to ruin your relationship with your daughter because you’re a citizen?

            • idiomaddict@feddit.de
              1·
              2 months ago

              There’s an edit to your last comment, I see that now. You’re really worked up about this, but please don’t use the word schizophrenic like that.

              Would you like me to source an example of something happening in the past that hasn’t been legal until this past Thursday? I can’t, obviously.

              Now it is possible for the government to compel (not literally at gun point, rather with the threat of jail time, like how the government compels you to do anything) a citizen working in any of several types of roles (everyone in my family does, yay) to gather information from any non-citizen.

              In fact, I could be compelled to gather information on any of my German neighbors, coworkers, or customers.

              I don’t think it’s likely. But it’s a law on the books and it’s fucking insane. You’ve mentioned you dislike foreign interference. Please imagine how you would feel if any Chinese citizen could be compelled to gather information for the Chinese government at any time. Would you want to hire a Chinese person?

                • idiomaddict@feddit.de
                  21·
                  2 months ago

                  Yeah, I edited my comment to make it less polite.

                  That’s perplexingly crappy of you. Astounding that this conversation hasn’t been as effective as you’d like. If you had asked me for a source before the edit, when I read it or pinged me, you would have gotten one earlier, though it’s the same source as you received elsewhere.

                  You should read the law.

                  https://cpj.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Senate-RISAA-Letter-Sign-on-Letter-to-Senate-Opposing-RISAA_4.16.2024.pdf

                  This “Everyone Is A Spy” Provision fundamentally transforms the nature of surveillance in this country by requiring American businesses and individuals that have no role in providing communications services to assist with NSA surveillance. The measure is tailor-made for aggressive misuse, which is why Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) described it as “one of the most dramatic and terrifying expansions of government surveillance authority in history.” This dangerous approach is precisely what Congress rejected in 2008 when it replaced the highly fraught Protect America Act with Section 702.