{"id":16008,"date":"2012-08-07T06:06:31","date_gmt":"2012-08-07T14:06:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=16008"},"modified":"2012-08-07T06:07:20","modified_gmt":"2012-08-07T14:07:20","slug":"congress-blocks-successive-efforts-to-reduce-government-secrecy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2012\/08\/07\/congress-blocks-successive-efforts-to-reduce-government-secrecy\/","title":{"rendered":"Congress Blocks Successive Efforts to Reduce Government Secrecy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Steven Aftergood on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fas.org\/blog\/secrecy\/2012\/08\/congress_resists.html\">the stubborn secrecy of Congress<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>It is a simple fact that under the FISA Amendments Act \u201cthe government can and does intercept the communications of U.S. citizens, even in the absence of any particularized warrant or showing of probable cause,\u201d stated the dissenting members of the Committee in\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.fas.org\/irp\/congress\/2012_rpt\/hrpt112-645pt1.html\">the new report<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/antiwar.com\/blog\/2012\/08\/07\/congress-blocks-successive-efforts-to-reduce-government-secrecy\/top-secret-folder\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-16015\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-16015\" title=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/top-secret-folder.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"211\" height=\"139\" \/><\/a>\u201cThe public has a right to know, at least in general terms, how often [this authority] is invoked, what kind of information the government collects using this authority, and how the government limits the impact of these programs on American citizens,\u201d the minority members\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.fas.org\/irp\/congress\/2012_rpt\/hrpt112-645pt1.html\">wrote<\/a>.\u00a0 But an amendment to require unclassified public reporting on these topics, offered by Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), was defeated 10-19.<\/p>\n<p>Another amendment\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.fas.org\/irp\/congress\/2012_rpt\/hrpt112-645pt1.html\">introduced<\/a>\u00a0by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) would have required publication of unclassified summaries of decisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that have interpreted the law in significant ways.\u00a0 \u201cThis amendment aimed only to make the legal reasoning of the FISA Court available to the public.\u00a0 It also sought to ensure that the United States should not have a secret body of law.\u201d\u00a0 It was rejected by a vote of 13-17.<\/p>\n<p>A third amendment would have required the Inspectors General of the intelligence community and the Justice Department to produce a public estimate of how many Americans have already had their communications collected under this law.\u00a0 The amendment, by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), failed by a vote of 11-20.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>See also the recent <a href=\"http:\/\/news.antiwar.com\/2012\/08\/06\/senators-waffle-on-harsh-anti-leak-bill\/\">waffling on harsh anti-leak, pro-secrecy legislation<\/a> from the Senate Intelligence Committee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Steven Aftergood on the stubborn secrecy of Congress: It is a simple fact that under the FISA Amendments Act \u201cthe government can and does intercept the communications of U.S. citizens, even in the absence of any particularized warrant or showing of probable cause,\u201d stated the dissenting members of the Committee in\u00a0the new report. \u201cThe public [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-16008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/86"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16008"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16018,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16008\/revisions\/16018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16008"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=16008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}