Free Republic

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is aiming to vote on reauthorizing and potentially reforming deep state powers next week, according to a report. Politico reported compromise legislation is still being drafted between Republicans on the more privacy-minded Judiciary Committee, more intelligence-community-friendly members on the Intelligence Committee, and representatives from Republican leadership. The bill would largely mirror a bill drafted by Intelligence Committee Republicans, and Judiciary Committee members and other privacy “hawks” would then be allowed to offer amendments, including one that would require a warrant before searching Americans’ private information under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Section...

The disclosure comes amid congressional scrutiny and a Federal Trade Commission crackdown on commercial data brokers. ... The letter by the National Security Agency, obtained by The New York Times, is the latest disclosure to highlight a legal gray zone on privacy ... The National Security Agency buys certain logs related to Americans’ domestic internet activities from commercial data brokers ... Intelligence and law enforcement agencies sometimes purchase potentially sensitive and revealing domestic data from brokers that would require a court order to acquire directly. ... The U.S. government should not be funding and legitimizing a shady industry whose flagrant...

The director of the National Intelligence says an effort in the House to rein in the National Security Agency’s electronic surveillance program would dismantle a critical tool in the fight against terrorism. James Clapper issued the statement just hours ahead of a House vote on an amendment by Republican Rep. Justin Amash that would end the statutory authority under the USA PATRIOT Act for the NSA to collect hundreds of millions of phone records. …

And they should. CBS reoprts that NSA Director Keith Alexander made an “emergency visit” to Capitol Hill to head off a potentially embarrassing vote to defund his agency’s trawling of phone and Internet records. House Republican leaders allowed a vote on an amendment by Rep. Justin Amash to use the power of the purse to rein in the NSA, and the panic shows that the effort might well succeed in the Senate when the budget comes to the upper chamber: CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO With a high-stakes showdown vote looming in the House, White House press secretary Jay...