NSA spying on Americans must cease

Finally, our inept Congress has done a little something to reign-in the outrageous spying on Americans by the NSA. Granted, it wasn’t much, but at least it was a start. We need to insure that it continues.

Last Thursday night, the US House of Representatives voted 293 – 123 to

pass an amendment to a Department of Defense appropriations bill that would cut off all funds for two of the agency’s most insidious activities: Firstly, using the myriad provisions of the Foreign Service Intelligence Surveillance Act to perform searches of the mass communications data that is collected from all Americans, and secondly, asking hardware manufacturers and software developers to install backdoors into their products designed to give the agency access to their users’ communications. On that second item, the amendment specifically forbids funding for any agency attempt “to mandate or request that a person or company redesign its product or service to facilitate electronic surveillance.”

This amendment represents a response against the nefarious behavior revealed from the leaks of Edward Snowden, which have shown that the NSA subverted cryptography standards, redirected hardware shipments to plant NSA bugs in products, and created other ways to gather raw, bulk communication data from companies like Google, Facebook, AT&T, Microsoft, Apple, ad nauseam. These companies, unfortunately, are not our friends. They knowingly cooperate with the NSA.

Of course, this amendment and bill must pass the senate (home of our Texas Senator from Canada, eh) if anything is to be done. Hopefully, the House vote sends a message that there is now the political will to do something about the abusive spying on Americans by the NSA. The point is that these spying programs need money in order to survive, and we can cut off that funding if they continue their dastardly ways.

The bill also represents a remarkable shift from the useless Freedom bill, intended to curb NSA mass surveillance, which passed the House last month in a paltry effort that disappointed privacy adherents. The members of the house only paid lip service to the American people, and passed a Freedom bill that was an absolute joke. Actually, the contrast between the Freedom bill and this bill is a result of political procedure: Most of the weakening of the original Freedom bill occurred in the Judiciary and Intelligence committees. However, as an amendment to an appropriations bill, last week’s defunding legislation was able to escape the intense lobbying that was present in the aforementioned committees. It did not have to go through the Intelligence Committee, which is basically a puppet of the intelligence community.

Actually, that powerless surveillance reform bill may have inspired Thursday night’s vote by not going far enough to please House members seeking to curtail the NSA’s spying on Americans. Due to the diluting of that bill’s anti-spying provisions in committee, many House members never had the opportunity to show their wish to drastically limit the NSA’s overzealous spying activities.

So, what does this all really mean? Even if the amendment actually becomes law, which is iffy at best, it still wouldn’t end all federally mandated backdoors in hardware and software. For example, it will have no effect of the FBI, which drastically limits its effectiveness.

However, the passage of the amendment still signals a welcome shift in the political landscape, thanks primarily to Snowden’s spying disclosures. Last year, for example, a similar amendment was put to the vote and it fell seven votes short of passing. The lopsided vote this year illustrates that reigning in the NSA has become a popular political cause that crosses party lines. There is now a sense, at least in the House, that if you’re not doing something about this issue, it could result in unpleasant political repercussions, like losing your seat.

Now, it is up to the Senate to pass similar legislation. If they don’t act satisfactorily on this legislation, then we need to hold them accountable by voting them out of office. In the immortal words of Ben Franklin, “Those who are willing to sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither.” I’m not willing to benignly accept a situation in which the federal government is allowed to listen to all my phone conversations, read my emails, or view my other internet communications, whatever the form they may take.

Who knows, perhaps someday I may have a brilliant thought. If so, I would like to keep ownership of it. Or, perhaps an ex-wife or two decides to mistakenly take me to task for some obviously exaggerated transgression that I may have committed in the past. If so, I don’t want the government or anyone else to shed undue light on it. In short, I want my personal life kept personal. Perhaps even more importantly, I want the personal lives of others to also be kept personal.

Meanwhile, we all owe Edward Snowden a healthy portion of gratitude. His revealing the reality of the spying on Americans by our own government can only make our democracy stronger. After all, over the years, many Americans have given their lives defending our liberty and freedom. Let’s do all we can to make sure their sacrifices were not in vain.