SMASH CISPA...AN UPDATE & CALL TO ACTION 27APR13

UPDATE! VIDEO FROM THE YOUNG TURKS, CISPA defeated in the US Senate!!! This issue is not dead, it keeps showing up in legislation, so it is important to click the link below and tell your Senators to continue to oppose CISPA...

http://youtu.be/ke-tk1q08uo

THE US House passed CISPA this week, but there are multiple groups fighting this legislation in the US Senate and Pres Obama has pledged to veto any legislation including CISPA that comes to his desk. From the ACLU followed by links to e mail your Senators to tell them to vote no on legislation including CISPA

Thanks to tens of thousands of ACLU supporters and donors like you, last week we published a full-page ad in Politico opposing CISPA, modeled after classic horror movie posters of the 1950s. 

It sent an unmistakable signal to Capitol Hill that CISPA is a dangerous threat to our freedom we refuse to tolerate. And President Obama swiftly agreed, issuing a veto threat against CISPA the very next day, just like we called for in our massive petition—an incredible victory! 

But the US House of Reps went rogue, passing the bill anyway—with virtually none of the amendments proposed to protect our privacy. It looks like the bill may be dead in the Senate, but some key senators are talking about measures that are even worse than CISPA. 

In response, we’re mailing posters of the CISPA ad to powerful players on the Senate Intelligence Committee in D.C. so they understand that CISPA, or anything like it, is unacceptable. And we need to keep spreading the word about the threat to our online privacy to the public, too
FROM Demand Progress...

Here we go again.

Last week, a majority of representatives in the House voted in favor of CISPA, and therefore in favor of allowing companies to share your personal data with other firms, the US government, and the NSA--all without a warrant and with legal impunity.

But now the fight moves to the Senate, where we have some of our staunchest allies and where we won this fight last year.

Click here to urge your Senators to oppose any cyber security legislation that doesn't protect our right to privacy. 

The Obama administration once again heard our voices and threatened to veto CISPA if the legislation did not more "carefully safeguard privacy and civil liberties."

But the fight is far from over. CISPA's corporate backers--IBM, Intel, Verizon, and AT&T--are spending millions lobbying in support of the bill precisely because it empowers them to share your private data with government agencies and the military while safeguarding themselves from legal action.

The big corporations are going to keep pushing for CISPA at the expense of their users' privacy and liberties. Tell your Senators to oppose anti-privacy cyber-security legislation now. 

Indeed, IBM's VP of government affairs admitted last week that his company intended to use CISPA to "work directly and share information directly" with the National Security Agency.

Now, as before, we cannot sacrifice our hard-won liberties and privacy rights in the pursuit of a misguided and overbroad conception of "cyber-security."

Click here to tell your Senators to oppose CISPA and any other "cyber-security" legislation that doesn't safeguard our privacy rights.

Please urge your friends to take action by forwarding this email or using these links:

	If you're already on Facebook, click here to share with your friends.
	If you're already on Twitter, click here to tweet about the campaign: Tweet

Thanks,

Demand Progress

Tell President Obama: Protect My Privacy, Veto CISPA 6MAR13

CISPA is back on the legislative agenda, Congress just refuses to believe the American people actually expect their rights to be protected. Please sign the petition from the ACLU telling Pres Obama to veto any legislation including cispa, click this link https://www.aclu.org/secure/tell-obama-veto-CISPA 

The feds know exactly what you bought last night—or they could very soon, thanks to a proposed law that encourages companies to share data with government agencies like the CIA or NSA for cybersecurity purposes. So get ready for powerful people in secret places to access your personal details on anything from the websites you browsed last night to that Christmas present you bought two years ago. But luckily, there's a way to stop CISPA (the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act) dead in its tracks—by ensuring that President Obama would veto the bill if it ever got to his desk.		Tell President Obama to protect our privacy and veto CISPA.
CISPA was recently reintroduced in the House, but a veto threat would kill the bill before it gets traction, and send a powerful message to Congress that any legislation that indiscriminately violates our online privacy is dead in the water. Just last year, thousands of us joined together in opposition to CISPA, and we WON. Obama threatened to veto the bill last year, but in order to protect our privacy online, we have to get him to do it again. Urge President Obama to tell Congress now that he'll veto CISPA if it lands on his desk.  CISPA would give companies unprecedented power to obtain your information, including from private communications, and hand it over to the government without a warrant if they believe it is relevant to cybersecurity. But it also allows the use of your personal data for reasons completely unrelated to cybersecurity, even granting immunity to companies who share your data with other companies. CISPA supporters are using the specter of cybersecurity threats to execute a naked power grab for companies and the government, but we're not actually safer if it comes at the expense of our fundamental rights. With so many pressing fights coming up, Congress won't waste time pushing a bill they know Obama will veto. We stopped this bill before, and with tens of thousands of us coming together, we can do it again. Join fellow ACLU supporters in calling on President Obama to veto CISPA.  Thanks for standing together, Anthony for the ACLU Action team

Urgent: Say NO to Big Brother. STOP CISPA, THE ONLINE SPYING BILL from CREDO ACTION 26APR12

THE vote on cispa will happen tomorrow, 27APR12, so we need as many people as possible to call Congress and demand they vote against this law and to protect our civil liberties. Click the link from Credo to participate.....

Click below for a sample script and the number to call: We need to send a clear message to everyone in Congress that we shouldn't sacrifice our civil liberties in the name of national security. With a vote scheduled for Friday, we need you to make a call today. TAKE ACTION NOW Urgent: Stop the online spying bill. We need to speak out today to stop a bill that would greatly expand the power of the federal government and big corporations to spy on us as we use the Internet. The legislation is official named the "Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act," but more commonly called by the acronym "CISPA." Supporters of CISPA are cynically using the legitimate need to protect our vital national interests from cyber attacks as an excuse to give the government and private companies the authority to read, watch and listen to everything we do on the Internet. A vote on CISPA will happen tomorrow. So speakout today. Pick up the phone and tell your member of Congressto stop the online spying bill. Click here for a sample script and the number to call. The folks behind CISPA claim that national security interests make this surveillance necessary. But the bill's language is so vague and overreaching that it opens the door for rampant abuse of our online rights: CISPA would allow companies and the government to bypass privacy protections and spy on your email traffic, comb through your text messages, filter your online content and even block access to popular websites. CISPA would permit companies to give the government your Facebook data, Twitter history and cellphone contacts. It would also allow the government to search your email using the vaguest of justifications — and without any real legal oversight. CISPA contains sweeping language that could be used as a blunt weapon to silence whistleblower websites like WikiLeaks and the news organizations that publish their revelations. CISPA would create a culture in which we refrain from speaking freely online for fear that the National Security Agency could come knocking. Make a call and tell your member of Congressto stop the online spying bill. Click here for a sample script and the number to call. This week, in response to concerns from civil liberty and consumer advocates, members of Congress proposed five amendments they said would allay those concerns. But even with these changes, CISPA would still give the NSA — the domestic spying agency — additional power to snoop on our texts, our emails, our web history and everything else we do online. The White House agrees that this is a problem. Yesterday, it made the surprising move to publicly oppose CISPA. While the White House's opposition to CISPA is welcome, CISPA is just the latest in a series of ill-conceived attacks on our online civil liberties. So we need to send a clear message to everyone in Congress that we shouldn't sacrifice our civil liberties in the name of national security. That is why we need you to make a call regardless of where your member of Congress stands on this issue. Members of Congress who are with us, need to know their constituents support them. And members of Congress who aren't with us, need to be put on notice that their constituents don't want them to sell us out. With a vote expected tomorrow, we need you to make a call today. Tell your member of Congress to stop the online spying bill. Click the link below for a sample script and the number to call: http://act.credoaction.com/call/report/signup.html?cp_id=221 Thank you for standing up for our civil liberties. Matt Lockshin, Campaign Manager CREDO Action from Working Assets

CISPA & Facebook Spies from SAVE THE INTERNET / FREE PRESS 20APR12

MORE than one million e mails to Congress opposing cispa, that is impressive. The vote is next week, click the link to sign up for alerts so you can call your Representative once the vote schedule is announced.

Dear Craig, This week, more than a million people sent letters urging Congress to say "NO" to CISPA — the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (HR 3523) — which could give the government unchecked power to spy on us online. Another 100,000 people tweeted this message to their member of Congress. The sponsors of the bill are feeling the pressure, but our work is far from over. Next week the House of Representatives will vote on CISPA. Once we find out the timing of the vote, we'll need to quickly generate thousands of calls to Congress to stop CISPA in its tracks. Can we count on you when the moment arrives? Here’s how you can help: Take the CISPA pledge. Click here to pledge to call your representative when the time comes. We’ll follow up as soon as we know more about the vote. Forward this email to 5 friends. Get them to take the CISPA pledge, too. Please take the pledge to make the call. We’ll be back in touch when it’s time to light up the phones. Thanks for helping to protect our right to communicate online. —Josh, Tessa, Tim and the Free Press Action Fund team. P.S. CISPA is the latest threat to Internet freedom, but it's far from the last. Donate $10 today to help the Free Press Action Fund fight for our online rights for the long haul.

Free Press is a national, nonpartisan organization working to reform the media. Learn more at www.freepress.net. Join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

Stop the Online Spying Bill 12APR12 & New counterterrorism guidelines permit data on U.S. citizens to be held longer 22MAR12

THAT'S OK, I WASN'T USING MY CIVIL LIBERTIES ANYWAY...NOT!!!!!!! Isn't it amazing that this legislation is backed by the repiglicans and tea-baggers in Congress, the same people who rant and rave about government interference in our lives? Why the hypocrisy? Because they support laws that deny the people the power to challenge their corporate masters. This spying law will intimidate some to just accept their decrees, much like in a Third World dictatorship. Join FreePress and Save The Internet in demanding Congress defeat CISPA, tell the government to keep out of our lives. And check out this piece from the Washington Post......

Want to give the federal government and big companies new powers to spy on you? You’re in luck: There's a bill for that. It's called CISPA — the "Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act" — and it's a frightening piece of legislation. It could allow for a new online spying regime, letting Big Brother read, watch and listen to everything we do on the Internet.  The bill could be up for a vote in the House in a matter of weeks. We've shown that a mass outcry can help kill bad Internet bills. It's time to do it again: Tell Congress: Kill the Spying Bill. CISPA would allow companies and the government to bypass privacy protections and share all sorts of information about what Americans do online. The legislation makes it far easier for authorities to spy on your email traffic, comb through your mobile texts, filter your online content and even block access to popular websites. It would have a chilling effect on free speech — creating an environment in which we refrain from posting on Facebook, conducting Web searches, sending emails, writing blog posts or communicating online for fear that the National Security Agency — the same agency that’s been conducting "warrantless wiretapping" online for years — could come knocking. If this bill passes, authorities won't have to worry about pesky privacy laws getting in the way the next time they want to grab your Facebook history or search through your email. All they'll need is the vague sense that the information relates to a "cyber threat" — a poorly defined concept in the bill. And you'll never know they shared that information. CISPA’s broad language could lead all too easily to governmental and corporate attacks on our right to speak freely online. And while there is a real need to protect vital national interests from cyber attacks, we can’t do it at the expense of our basic civil rights. Opposition to CISPA is growing by the second. Take action now. Tell Congress to stop CISPA. The Free Press Action Fund fights every day to protect our freedom to access information and connect with others. CISPA would chill free speech and pose an enormous threat to those essential freedoms. Together we can stop it. Thanks, Josh, Tim, Matt, Kate and the rest of the Free Press Action Fund team P.S. Like our work? The Free Press Action Fund is powered by donations from people like you. We don’t take a single cent from business, government or political parties. Please keep us going strong with a gift of $10 — or more — today. Thank you!

Free Press is a national, nonpartisan organization working to reform the media. Learn more at www.freepress.net. Join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

By Sari Horwitz and Ellen Nakashima The Obama administration has approved guidelines that allow counterterrorism officials to lengthen the period of time they retain information about U.S. residents, even if they have no known connection to terrorism.

The changes allow the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), the intelligence community’s clearinghouse for terrorism data, to keep information for up to five years. Previously, the center was required to promptly destroy — generally within 180 days — any information about U.S. citizens or residents unless a connection to terrorism was evident.
The new guidelines, which were approved Thursday by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., have been in the works for more than a year, officials said.
The guidelines have prompted concern from civil liberties advocates.
Those advocates have repeatedly clashed with the administration over a host of national security issues, including its military detention without trial of individuals in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay, its authorization of the killing of U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in a drone strike in Yemen, and its prosecution of an unprecedented number of suspects in the leaking of classified information.
Officials said the guidelines are aimed at making sure relevant terrorism information is readily accessible to analysts, while guarding against privacy intrusions. Among other provisions, agencies that share data with the NCTC may negotiate to have the data held for shorter periods. That information can pertain to noncitizens as well as to “U.S. persons” — American citizens and legal permanent residents.
The director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., has signed off on the changes.
“A number of different agencies looked at these to try to make sure that everyone was comfortable that we had the correct balance here between the information-sharing that was needed to protect the country and protections for people’s privacy and civil liberties,” said Robert S. Litt, the general counsel in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees the NCTC.
Although the guidelines cover a variety of issues, the retention of data was the primary focus of negotiations with federal agencies. Those agencies provide the center with information such as visa and travel records and data from the FBI.
The old guidelines were“very limiting,” Litt said. “On Day One, you may look at something and think that it has nothing to do with terrorism. Then six months later, all of a sudden, it becomes relevant.”
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the government has taken steps to break down barriers in information-sharing between law enforcement and the intelligence community, but policy hurdles remain.
The NCTC, created by the 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, collects information from numerous agencies and maintains access to about 30 data sets across the government. But privacy safeguards differ from agency to agency, in some cases hindering timely and effective analysis, senior intelligence officials said.
“We have been pushing for this because NCTC’s success depends on having full access to all of the data that the U.S. has lawfully collected,” said Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the House intelligence committee. “I don’t want to leave any possibility of another catastrophic attack that was not prevented because an important piece of information was hidden in some filing cabinet.”
The shootings at Fort Hood, Tex., and the attempted downing of a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day 2009 gave new impetus to efforts to aggregate and analyze terrorism-related data more effectively.
In the case of Fort Hood, Maj. Nidal M. Hasan had had contact with Awlaki but that information had not been shared across the government. The name of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the suspect in the 2009 airliner plot, had been placed in a master list housed at the NCTC but not on a terrorist watch list that would have prevented him from boarding the plane.
Officials said the privacy safeguards in the new guidelines include limits on the NCTC’s ability to redistribute information to other agencies.
“Within the intelligence community, there’s one set of controls for terrorism purposes, a stricter set of controls for non-terrorism purposes, and an even stricter set of controls for dissemination outside the intelligence community,” an official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. An entire database cannot be shared; only specific information within that data set can be shared, and it must be with the approval of the agency that provided the data, the official said.
Privacy advocates said they were concerned by the new guidelines, despite the safeguards.
The purpose of the safeguards is to ensure that the “robust tools that we give the military and intelligence community to protect Americans from foreign threats aren’t directed back against Americans,” said the American Civil Liberties Union’s national security policy counsel, Michael German. “Watering down those rules raises significant concerns that U.S. persons are being targeted or swept up in these collection programs and can be harmed by continuing investigations for as long as these agencies hold the data.”
Other homeland security experts said the guidelines give officials more flexibility without compromising individual privacy.
“Five years is a reasonable time frame,” said Paul Rosenzweig, a former senior Department of Homeland Security policy official. “I certainly think 180 days was way too short. That’s just not a realistic understanding” of how long it takes analysts to search large data sets for relevant information, he said.
 http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/new-counterterrorism-guidelines-would-permit-data-on-us-citizens-to-be-held-longer/2012/03/21/gIQAFLm7TS_print.html