Sign the petition: Reject mass surveillance.

Never has it been more urgent for people around the country to take action to end the government’s mass surveillance against the people. 

Click to sign the petition:
https://secure2.onvio.net/pepcj/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=121

Obama administration claims they shouldn't be forced to reveal how they're illegally spying on Americans:

The Obama administration is informing a federal judge that if it’s forced to disclose a secret court opinion about the government illegally spying on Americans, the likely result could be “exceptionally grave and serious damage to the national security.”

The statement came in response to a lawsuit demanding the administration disclose a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court opinion issued as early as last year. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) was briefed on the opinion as a member of the Intelligence Committee and was authorized last year to reveal that the surveillance had “circumvented the spirit of the law” and was “unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment.”

The Electronic Frontier Foundation of San Francisco sought the ruling as part of a Freedom of Information Act request. The government rejected the request. The digital rights group sued in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

In response, the government said that disclosure of the secret opinion should be barred because it “implicates classified intelligence sources and methods.” (.pdf)

Jacqueline Coleman Snead, a senior Justice Department counsel, added Monday that the EFF “cannot contend otherwise.”

Specifically, the EFF wants the government to make public a secret court ruling that found the feds had broken a 2008 wiretapping law, known as the FISA Amendments Act, that had legalized President George W. Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program that was implemented immediately after the 2001 terror attacks.

The public learned of the ruling only because of Wyden’s authorized statements about it last year.

The FISA Amendments Act allows the government to conduct widespread e-mail and phone surveillance inside the United States, without probable-cause warrants, targeting people or groups “reasonably believed to be located outside the United States to acquire foreign intelligence information.” In other words, the government can collect e-mails and phone calls in the United States so long as the target is a suspected terrorist group overseas. If the government collects e-mails that are sent by people believed to be American, the person’s identity is supposed to be given a pseudonym or “minimized.”

If this information was released, it could shed light on the entire current surveillance program under the 2008 FISA Amendments Act that legalized the Bush-era warrantless wiretapping program which began soon after September 11, 2001.

Currently, the FISA Amendments Act gives the government the ability to conduct e-mail and telephone surveillance on a massive scale within the United States without probable cause warrants.
All the government has to do is claim that the people or groups targeted are “reasonably believed to be located outside the United States to acquire foreign intelligence information.”

“In other words, the government can collect e-mails and phone calls in the United States so long as the target is a suspected terrorist group overseas,” explains David Kravets. “If the government collects e-mails that are sent by people believed to be American, the person’s identity is supposed to be given a pseudonym or ‘minimized.’”

The glaring problem is that since the rulings are secret, it’s impossible to know just how restricted this type of surveillance is and given what Wyden said last year, we can safely assume it’s not carried out in the manner we might hope for.
 http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/04/secret-surveillance-court/
 http://endthelie.com/2013/04/04/obama-admin-says-disclosing-secret-court-opinion-on-illegal-spying-could-damage-national-security/#axzz2PV0Kghpr

Lawmakers to amend cybersecurity bill behind closed doors:

Members of the media and the public will not be able to watch the House Intelligence Committee's markup next week of a controversial cybersecurity bill, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA).

Lawmakers will be allowed to discuss what happened in the meeting afterward, and the committee plans to release information about what amendments were offered and how lawmakers voted. But the public will not be allowed in the room, and the meeting will not be streamed online.
http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/291743-house-intel-panel-plans-closed-door-mark-up-of-cybersecurity-bill