Is Verizon the only phone company ordered by Judge Vinson to hand over logs of phone calls to the National Security Agency (NSA)? We don't know, but we do know, at least, was ordered to turn over millions of phone calls made by U.S. citizens from inside the U.S. as well as calls from abroad. This report says the calls of ALL VERIZON CUSTOMERS since at April 25, 2013 have been handed over to the NSA. Why only Verizon? At the bottom find links to other rulings by Judge Roger Vinson. He ruled that ObamaCare is unconstitutional and seems to have a record of following the Rule of Law.
Judge Roger Vinson
Senator Lindsey Graham appeared on Fox and Friends moments ago and assured Doocy, Carlson and Kilmeade that we "should be doing this" as the administration is only tracking calls to and from terrorists - to and from millions of Americans...but a source is saying ALL Verizon customers have had their privacy co-opted. If Graham thinks it proper, we should be very, very concerned. Another source says this is a routine order that is reissued every 90 days. Don't miss below how Michelle Malkin says this is different from what G.W. Bush did.
The order, signed by Judge Roger Vinson of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in April, directs aVerizon Communications subsidiary, Verizon Business Network Services, to turn over “on an ongoing daily basis” to the National Security Agency all call logs “between the United States and abroad” or “wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls.”...
The order was sought by the Federal Bureau of Investigation under a section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the 1978 law that regulates domestic surveillance for national security purposes, including “tangible things” like a business’s customer records. The provision was expanded by Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which Congress enacted after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Source: The Guardian
According to The Guardian (linked in the paragraph above), the White House has not denied the report:
For several years, two Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon and Senator Mark Udall of Colorado, have been cryptically warning that the government was interpreting its surveillance powers under that section of the Patriot Act in a way that would be alarming to the public if it knew about it.
“We believe most Americans would be stunned to learn the details of how these secret court opinions have interpreted Section 215 of the Patriot Act,” they wrote last year in a letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.
Michelle Malkin writes that she will not engage in NSA bashing...yet, and has some great background on her site this morning about the differences between the Bush and Obama privacy invations. Here's a snippet:
The differences between then and now are glaring.
The new Obama order covers not only phone calls overseas with the specific goal of counterterrorism surveillance, but all domestic calls by Verizon customers over at least a three-month period...
Bush was fully engaged and committed to the war on terror when the NSA programs were first exposed in 2005, four short years after the bloody 9/11 attacks.
Obama, by contrast, immediately rejected the war on terror for “workplace violence”/”overseas contingency operations” euphemisms and officially declared last week that America’s war on terror is over.
Which makes you wonder:
What exactly prompted the Obama FBI to seek the sweeping FISA order on April 25? And why does it extend through July 19?
Malkin's article is thoughtful and insightful. Read it all here.
The order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) expires on July 19, 2013.
Here's something stunning from the Washington Post, assuming it is true:
An expert in this aspect of the law said Wednesday night that the order appears to be a routine renewal of a similar order first issued by the same court in 2006. The expert, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive issues, said that the order is reissued routinely every 90 days and that it is not related to any particular investigation by the FBI or any other agency.
We are told the content of the calls have not been given to the NSA, but phone numbers, dates, and times were handed over. Again, why only Verizon? Again, why every customer (if true)? What happens to the information. How is it destroyed? Is it destroyed or handed over to the DNC? How did The Guardian in the U.K. get this information? I'm guessing via a whistleblower. Weren't we told the War on Terror is over?
Other articles about Judge Roger Vinson:
Vinson Orders DOJ to Expedite ObamaCare Legislation to 11th Circuit or Supreme Court in 7 Days
Judge Roger Vinson Ruled ObamaCare is Unconstitutional
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