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FISA/US FREEDOM ACT BILL IN CONGRESS
This is in regards to the bill HR6172 which was the label that the House of Representatives used for this. Now that this bill was voted on it now goes to the US Senate and has a new label and that is S3501. This bill will be voted on sometime in the near future but I am uncertain what day that will be. In the Senate there will be no debate or hearing regarding this bill.
The actual name of the bill is .H.R.6172 - USA FREEDOM Reauthorization Act of 2020 This bill came to the House for reauthorization and when it did they did modify it in a number of ways. I can provide some insight over these modifications but with this document I lack the space to do this for the purpose of inclusion in PACT?s newsletter so this document will have to be continued into future newsletters.
This document will touch on a few key points and this study by myself is not as of yet exhaustive but later this matter will be complete and with it the complete picture of the effects of this bill will be illustrated to those that are targeted and to those that for their own interests read and look into this matter.
Now a look at the bill is in my view has two parts and that is the FISA courts and the matter of obtaining surveillance warrants to conduct surveillance of foreign individuals that in one way or another were suspect of involvement in terrorism. It seems that individuals somehow got on the radar of investigative aspects of the government and that they choose to do a more complete study of these individuals and their activities. Therefore the investigators take this before the FISA court and attempt to get this surveillance warrant that legally gives the government the legal right to subject that individual to surveillance and obtain evidence that could lead to a future warrant to search and seize evidence that could be used for prosecution under our laws for violations of our laws.
In the case of Carter Paige he was suspected of being part of being a foreign agent. Therefore this matter came before the FISA court. The investigators however provided misleading and false information to the court. Later a investigation revealed that nearly every FISA case was riddled with misleading and false information and one judge really stood against this and it got out to the press. Feel free to look into this.
Now this leaves the matter of domestic surveillance and this matter of targeting of US citizens. In my opinion is that there is no court proceedings and a total absence of surveillance warrants concerning the thousands of US citizens who are placed on watchlists/blacklists by the government. People are placed on these lists without any form of accepted due process and are not just subject to surveillance alone but actions against them in multiple ways that our laws would consider criminal to the level of felonies. The individuals have never been informed of the placing of their names on these lists and once placed on these lists are terrorize in a number of ways for the rest of their lives.
The actual details of this Bill will be provided in the next section of this study and I am certain that this can be continued in PACT?s newsletters. I do however want to present some thoughts on this because the Senate voting on this bill could be any day now.
We as targets and concerned individuals should be contacting your Senators about concerns concerning this bill. Where this re-authorization of this bill has been modified somewhat it seems clear to me that this bill continues to step on the legal rights of the citizens. There is no guarantee that the surveillance of citizens fully falls within constitutional rights afforded to all Americans. I am not a lawyer but understand the law and can explain just how certain things can have an impact on our lives but a lawyer can do and should be able to discuss this more thoroughly. I personally am not satisfied that this bill as it stands will provide guarantees that the rights of citizens will not be violated.
There have been hearings in the House of Representatives regarding elements of this bill but the people were not represented and only governmental officials were allowed to testify in front of House committees. They also did not at all mention that there was legal violations of the law in regards to the activities of agencies that were in involved with counter-terrorism. I will provide links here and upon review you can draw your own conclusions regarding our representation of the facts in any of these two hearings. In the next section of this report I will take it from the hearings and other aspects of the proceedings and critique it.
The bill itself can be reviewed in the link below for your information along with the hearings that were conducted by the House prior to voting on the bill. I can state that this bill has two parts and that this bill should be fully and completely separated and made into two distinct bills. Therefore this bill as it stands is not acceptable for re-authorization.
The bill itself for your review.
H.R.6172 - USA FREEDOM Re-authorization Act of 2020
https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/6172/texts/house-bill/6172
Oversight of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Qa5hFh_hLMhttps://
Hearing in the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fNYT6HWwHk
Richard Heil
richardheil@hotmail.com
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