Tag: ek Politics

The first thing that you need to realize is that no bad zombie idea in D.C. is dead no matter how many stakes you put through its heart and how much garlic and sunlight you expose it to if the Very Serious People have endorsed it.

But in a bit of encourging news time marches on and in this case to the benefit of normal folks like you and I.

Clearly there are not the votes to pass TPP (very bad zombie idea) and so they have done what they always do and extended the deadline.  The problem with that strategy in this case is that the other 12 nations are not dopes and they realize that if debate is extended through August (as seems entirely likely at this point) it will be consumed by the 2016 election cycle which would normally be the occasion for a Friday news dump distraction but under the current conditions will probably result in awkward, populist questions for the candidates.

Delay is defeat.  At least we hope so.

But the price of liberty is eternal vigilance and remember what I said about bad zombie ideas.  Next up, entitlement “reform” (that seems such a good thing, why didn’t we do that?).

GOP On Trade Deal: ‘No One Will Be Negotiating With Leader Pelosi On A Path Forward’

Ryan Grim and Jennifer Bendery, Huffington Post

Posted: 06/16/2015

For now, House Republican leaders simply don’t have the votes to pass the trade package and need more time to find them. They plan to take a procedural vote on Tuesday to give themselves until July 30 to come up with a way forward.

…

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters on Tuesday that the vote was punted because the support isn’t there.

“Most of the discussion that occurred in the last few days had to do with cobbling together enough votes for TAA. I never thought that was going to be a very successful effort, and I think it proved not to be. So … it has now been abandoned, essentially,” he said, according to a transcript of his remarks that was provided to HuffPost.

“The thought was if we could cobble together the votes to get enough [for] TAA that they would vote for it, and then send TAA and TPA to the president,” Hoyer continued. “But, I mean, that clearly ‑‑ I never thought that was going to work. And I think clearly they have concluded it wasn’t going to work because they couldn’t get sufficient votes from the Republicans. I don’t think they are going to get a lot of Democrats to change on TAA. There were 40 of us that voted for TAA, which meant the Republicans would have needed 100 and what, 78? And I don’t think there are 178 votes on the Republican side, as we saw, to vote for TAA.”

“It gives the Republicans time to figure out what they’re going to do,” Hoyer said of extending the vote deadline to July 30.

Great minds and so do ours.

C’mon, you remember this one.

Hmmm…

Liar.

You stop voting for oligarchy and I’ll stop talking about it.

Yeah, looking at you Democrats.

House Democrats just derailed Obama’s trade agenda

by Timothy B. Lee, Vox

June 12, 2015, 2:06 p.m. ET

he House of Representatives just voted down a crucial piece of President Obama’s trade agenda in a 302-126 vote. The vote is bad news for the Trans Pacific-Partnership, the controversial trade deal Obama is currently negotiating.

The House rejected a bill that would have extended funding for trade adjustment assistance programs, which help workers who have lost their jobs due to foreign competition find new work. The program is traditionally supported by Democrats, but Democrats voted no because they knew passing it would advance the TPP, which most Democrats opposed.

Another piece of Obama’s trade agenda passed in a second vote, 219-211, with mostly Republican support. But the lack of TAA makes the House trade package different from the one in the Senate. The house is expected to hold another vote on TAA next week, but after today’s lopsided vote it won’t be easy for President Obama and Republican leaders to round up the support they need.

The result signals a damaging vote of no confidence in Obama’s trade agenda from members of his own party. It will weaken the president’s bargaining position overseas as he wraps up negotiation over the TPP.

…

President Obama and his Republican allies aren’t giving up. They held a vote on TPA right after the failure of TAA, passing it by a vote of 219-211. And the House is expected to hold another vote on TAA next week. If that fails, then Obama might try to pass the House bill – without TAA – through the Senate.

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Obama’s trade struggles in Congress will weaken his bargaining position abroad. The leaders of other TPP countries such as Japan, Australia, and Chile will have to make politically costly concessions in order to conclude the TPP negotiations. They’re only going to be willing to do that if they think there’s a good chance the deal will actually be ratified.

Today’s failed TAA vote is a clear signal that congressional Democrats are staunchly opposed to the TPP, and that Congress as a whole is skeptical of Obama’s trade agenda. That means the negotiations are more likely to break down, as countries become less willing to make politically costly concessions for a deal that might never take effect anyway.

Also, President Obama is running out of time. Even under the “fast-track” process, it takes several months after a deal is ratified for Congress to approve it. With only 19 months left in Obama’s presidency, that doesn’t give the administration much margin for error. And if Congress doesn’t approve trade legislation this year, the political pressures of an election year will make it even more difficult to get Congress to act in 2016.

House Rejects Trade Bill, Rebuffing Obama’s Dramatic Appeal

By JONATHAN WEISMAN, The New York Times

JUNE 12, 2015

House Democrats rebuffed a dramatic personal appeal from President Obama on Friday, torpedoing his ambitious push to expand his trade negotiating power – and, quite likely, his chance to secure a legacy-defining trade accord spanning the Pacific Ocean.

In a remarkable rejection of a president they have resolutely backed, House Democrats voted to kill assistance to workers displaced by global trade, a program their party created and has stood by for four decades. By doing so, they brought down legislation granting the president trade promotion authority – the power to negotiate trade deals that cannot be amended or filibustered by Congress – before it could even come to a final vote.

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Republican leaders now have two legislative days, beginning Monday night, to bring back the trade adjustment legislation for another vote.

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But the sheer number of lawmakers who would have to change their votes make passage a second time doubtful, Republican leadership aides conceded.

The vote was an extraordinary blow to Mr. Obama, who went to the Capitol on Friday morning to plead personally with Democrats to “play it straight” – to oppose trade promotion if they must, but not to kill trade assistance, a move he cast as cynical. On Thursday night, he had made an unscheduled trip to the annual congressional baseball game to try to persuade Ms. Pelosi.

But a president who has long kept Congress at arm’s length may have paid a price. Representative Henry Cuellar, Democrat of Texas, said Mr. Obama mustered rousing applause Friday morning as he went through the battles he had fought with fellow Democrats – on labor organizing, health care access and environmental protection. But he could not change minds.

Defeat for Obama on trade as Democrats vote against him

by Ben Jacobs, The Guardian

Friday 12 June 2015 13.50 EDT

With the Democratic minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, speaking in opposition to the bill and going directly against Obama less than three hours after the president begged his party’s caucus to support it, the vote on trade adjustment assistance (TAA) – which would have provided government aid to workers who had lost their jobs because of free trade agreements – marks not just a major setback for future trade agreements but for Obama’s influence in his own caucus.

The failed vote came as part of an effort by liberals to torpedo attempts by the Obama administration to pass the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade deal.

That deal has a much greater chance if Congress grants the president fast-track trade authority – which would mean future trade deals, such as the TPP and the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with the EU, could not be amended by Congress and would simply receive an up and down vote, making it easier for the president to push them through.

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Both the House and the Senate have now approved fast-track in different forms, but there needs to be a conference to reconcile the two bills before the president is given the authority.

Which it does not survive.  This is why Congress is seeking to avoid a conference at all costs.

The federation of labor associations, the AFL-CIO, was actively lobbying against assistance to displaced workers and joined by conservative groups like the Club for Growth in the effort, which opposes TAA as a “wasteful welfare program”.

And this strange alliance proved enough to lead to TAA failing to achieve enough support, losing by 302 to 126, as only a small minority of Democrats backed a program that their party unanimously supported in 2011. On the Republican side, 86 representatives voted for TAA. Only 40 Democrats did so.

Some Democrats justified their opposition to TAA by raging against the TPP, with Brad Sherman of California saying: “Every lobbyist here in Washington whose job it is to increase profits is for this.”

In contrast, others, like Gregory Meeks of New York, were less than pleased with the opposition of fellow party members to TAA. “It’s not for substance,” he told the Guardian. “You can’t argue substantively to be against TAA but for the politics.”

…

The deal has drawn an unprecedented lobbying effort from the Obama administration. The president made a surprise appearance at the Congressional Baseball Game on Thursday night to ask for support and spoke to a special meeting of the Democratic caucus on Friday morning to plead for support. Representative Judy Chu of California told the Guardian “I think each of one us has been called” either by member of cabinet or high-ranking White House official.

Meeks thought Obama’s speech to the caucus, where he did not take questions, helped. “I think he made a positive impact,” said Meeks. “I think it was a passionate plea, I don’t think anyone on either side can’t say that he was not sincere and gave a lot of individuals something to think about, especially those feeling pressure

on the politics.”

But not all members felt that way. Representative Peter DeFazio of Oregon told reporters “basically, the president tried to both guilt people and then impugn their integrity” while Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota tweeted bitterly on Friday morning: “Now President Obama wants to talk?”

But, all of Obama’s efforts proved for naught after Pelosi took the floor and spoke out against the deal. She said: “While I’m a big supporter of TAA, if TAA slows down the fast track I am prepared to vote against TAA.” This marked a rare break between the House Democratic leadership and the White House.

…

White House press secretary Josh Earnest brushed off the vote as “a procedural snafu” on Friday. He urged House Democrats to support TAA now that “they have registered their objections” to fast-track trade authority.

However, despite repeated questions from reporters, Earnest did not rule out Obama approving fast-track without TAA if that combination somehow made it through procedural hurdles in the Senate.

So the gloves come off.  Obama is no Democrat and never was one.

But for Obama, this was an unmitigated defeat as one of the key priorities of his second term was overwhelmingly rejected by his own party.

Good.

We can only hope.

(note- I am quoting only the most inside the Beltway sources, they are impeccably attributed, and I have more than one.- ek)

Could liberals bring down Obama’s big trade agenda?

By Greg Sargent, Washington Post

June 11 at 1:24 PM

The latest: Dem Rep. Sander Levin – the ranking Democrat on the powerful Ways and Means Committee, and a well-respected lawmaker on trade and labor issues – plans to vote No on a key measure related to trade, a spokesperson for Levin confirms to me. That could prove to be a serious blow.

Levin will vote No on so-called Trade Adjustment Assistance, a measure that would give aid to workers displaced by trade, his spokesman, Caroline Behringer, tells me. “Mr. Levin plans to vote No on TAA,” she emails.

This suggests that the strategy that liberal Democrats and labor unions have employed to kill Fast Track may be working. As I reported the other day, a bloc of liberal House Dems, allied with unions, have been working to turn House Democrats against TAA, as a back-door way to bring down Fast Track, and with it, the whole deal. The administration says it needs Fast Track to seal the final agreement.

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To pass Fast Track – which has already passed the Senate – House GOP leaders would need around 20, and possibly more, pro-TPP House Dems to vote Yes, depending on how many Republicans vote No. If TAA doesn’t pass first, those Dems might find it too politically difficult to vote for Fast Track, killing it that way. Or, for complex procedural reasons, if TAA fails, House GOP leaders might not end up moving Fast Track at all.

Only arond 50-100 Republicans are expected to vote for TAA – it is assistance for workers – so it would have to pass with overwhelming Democratic support. That’s why liberals opposed to Fast Track and TPP are urging House Dems to oppose it.

And so, liberal Dems had initially argued that TAA – which they would generally support, since it helps workers – must be opposed because it is funded with Medicaid cuts. But Nancy Pelosi – who is trying to salvage TAA – negotiated a new, uncontroversial pay-for for TAA with the GOP leadership.

…

Just today, several labor unions – the AFL-CIO and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters – circulated letters to House Democrats, urging a No vote on TAA, on the grounds that it doesn’t extend assistance to public employees.

Dems threaten to sink Obama trade agenda

By Jake Sherman, John Bresnahan and Lauren French, Politico

6/11/15 2:29 PM EDT

The uncertainty surrounding the TAA and fast track votes are becoming a serious problem for Obama. If TAA fails, the House will not take up Trade Promotion Authority, the key legislation that would give Obama fast-track authority to negotiate the sweeping Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement. Under that scenario both sides would have to regroup and figure out a way forward – or else the 12-nation trade deal could fall apart.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), normally a close ally of Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), has been a vocal opponent of TAA, while raising other objections about the package. DeLauro and the Congressional Progressive Caucus are using the TAA issue as a wedge to sink fast track. And these progressives, who have been in favor of TAA for years, may end up killing the program, along with the rest of Obama’s trade agenda.

It’s not only Democrats who have issues. The conservative House Freedom Caucus, led by Ohio GOP Rep. Jim Jordan, is exploring whether they have the votes to block a procedural “rule” vote Thursday afternoon. The conservatives are upset that GOP leaders are “bending over backward to appease 20 Democrats but refusing to work with 40 Republicans,” one Freedom Caucus member said, referring to a list of demands from the right. If the group succeeds – it’s unclear whether it has the votes to stop the rule vote – it would stop the process in its tracks.

Much of the discontent is from the president’s party. The anger stems from an earlier bipartisan decision to use Medicare savings to fund TAA. Boehner abandoned that plan – at Pelosi’s behest – but she then asked for changes to the procedure by which the bill comes to the floor. Boehner agreed to that, as well.

But liberals like DeLauro are still opposed, and the president’s top emissaries have been unable to assuage concerns.

Because they can’t.  TPP is a treasonous (with more than two witnesses) sellout of the basic foundations of United States democracy and must.  be.  stopped.  Contact your so-called “Representatives”.

U.S. Shifts Stance on Drug Pricing in Pacific Trade Pact Talks, Document Reveals

By JONATHAN WEISMAN, Izvestia

JUNE 10, 2015

Facing resistance from its Pacific trading partners, the Obama administration is no longer demanding protection for pharmaceutical prices under the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership, according to a newly leaked “transparency” annex of the proposed trade accord.

Oh.  Really?

Public health professionals say pharmaceutical industry lobbying is meant to diminish the power of government health programs that trim reimbursement rates to the global pharmaceutical giants. The newly leaked annex, dated Dec. 17, 2014, explicitly lists Medicare and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services as falling under its strictures.

That may embolden critics.

“The leak is just the latest glaring example of why fast-tracking the T.P.P. would undermine the health of Americans and the other countries and cost our government more, all to the benefit of pharma’s profits,” said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch and one of the most prominent voices in the coalition working to scuttle trade promotion authority.

…

By explicitly listing the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the annex makes it clear the United States is not immune to Trans-Pacific Partnership rules. Japan, Australia and New Zealand may not have pharmaceutical companies as powerful as the United States’ but under the accord, United States subsidiaries located in Pacific trade partners could use the accord’s dispute resolution process to tackle perceived violations by Medicare officials.

The annex makes clear that disputes over pharmaceutical listing procedures would not be subject to government-to-government dispute resolution, the World Trade Organization and retaliatory tariffs.

Instead, disputes would be resolved through the Investor-State Dispute Settlement process, which involves three-lawyer extrajudicial tribunals organized under rules set by the United Nations or World Bank.

That could be significant, both for current Medicare practices and future efforts to lower cost, said Peter Maybarduk of Public Citizen’s Global Access to Medicines project. Drug makers have limited access to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services policy makers as they decide which drugs to list and how much to reimburse. The Trans-Pacific Partnership could change that.

It could also hinder efforts by many Democrats to change federal law precluding the government from negotiating drug prices directly with pharmaceutical makers. To make that work, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services would need a “national formulary” – a government list of accepted medications. But each decision is subject to review and appeal, which would make it far more difficult, Mr. Maybarduk said.

So, no, not at all.  A complete fabrication.  In short- a lie.

Supporting NAFTA Was the Kiss of Death for Democrats –Why Dems Should Think Twice About Voting for TPP

By Sarah Anderson, AlterNet

June 8, 2015                

(L)et’s take a look at what individual members got by helping to ram the pact through Congress. Did their support for the big business lobby’s dream deal ensure a glittering political career?

Starting at the top: Democratic House Speaker Tom Foley sided with the White House and against most of the House Democrats, including Majority Leader Richard Gephardt. In his 30-year political career, that controversial move stood out enough for the New York Times to mention it in Foley’s obituary. A year after the NAFTA vote, the obit noted, “Mr. Foley became the first speaker since the Civil War to be defeated for re-election in his own district.”

…

Foley was not the only Democrat to flame out within a year of casting a vote for NAFTA. In fact, of the 34 Democratic incumbents who were defeated in the Republican sweep of 1994, 16 had voted for NAFTA. Several of these losers had been among the fence-sitters who received goodies from the administration.

Public Citizen has meticulously documented many of these trade vote deals over the past two decades and is planning to release a new report this week on the lessons from all this horse-trading. (Look for the report soon here.) What it found over the years is that most of these promises were never fulfilled. In a detailed 2001 report following up on the NAFTA deals, Public Citizen concluded that “systematically, the White House promises of special safeguards for U.S. farm commodities, bridges and more remained unfulfilled. Exceptions were several meaningless promises, such as photographs with the president, and one campaign fund-raising event.”

…

Rep. Clete Donald Johnson, Jr. was one of the targets of that empty promise. After voting for NAFTA, the Georgia Democrat got demolished in 1994, losing by a margin of more than 30 percent. A few years later, Clinton offered Johnson a consolation prize: a post as chief U.S. trade negotiator for textiles, a sector in rapid decline due to low-wage foreign competition.

Rep. Bill Sarpalius, of Texas, was another NAFTA sellout whose political career was cut short. According to Public Citizen, he pocketed a bevy of promises, including a new federally funded nuclear research lab that was to be located in his district. After Sarpalius lost his seat in 1994, the lab deal fell through.

Rep. David Price also lost his re-election bid after casting his NAFTA vote. According to Multinational Monitor, the North Carolina Democrat came out in support of the deal after the Clinton administration conceded to his long-sought demands to award American Airlines two lucrative international air routes that would benefit his district. Price later regained a seat in Congress and is now once again sitting on the fence in the fast track debate.

Don’t be afraid, Carlo.  Come on, you think I’d make my sister a widow?  I’m Godfather to your son.

WikiLeaks Launches Campaign to Offer $100,000 “Bounty” for Leaked Drafts of Secret TPP Chapters

Wanted Dead or Alive: $100,000 for Full Text of Trans-Pacific Partnership

by Jon Queally, Common Dreams

Tuesday, June 02, 2015

“The transparency clock has run out on the TPP,” said WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. “No more secrecy. No more excuses. Let’s open the TPP once and for all.”

Despite unprecedented efforts by negotiating governments to keep it under wraps, WikiLeaks has been able to obtain and publish three leaked chapters of this super-secret global deal over the last two years. However, there are believed to be 26 other chapters of the deal to which only appointed negotiators, trade officials, and chosen representatives from big corporations have been given access.

“Today, WikiLeaks is taking steps to bring about the public’s rightful access to the missing chapters of this monster trade pact,” the group said in a statement. “The TPP is the largest agreement of its kind in history: a multi-trillion dollar international treaty being negotiated in secret by the US, Japan, Mexico, Canada, Australia and 7 other countries. The treaty aims to create a new international legal regime that will allow transnational corporations to bypass domestic courts, evade environmental protections, police the internet on behalf of the content industry, limit the availability of affordable generic medicines, and drastically curtail each country’s legislative sovereignty.”

All Hands On Deck: House Fast Track Vote Expected This Week

by Dave Johnson, Common Dreams

Monday, June 01, 2015

The vote in the House of Representatives on fast track trade authority, preapproving the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) before the public finds out what is in it, is coming up very soon. It is even possible it could happen later this week. The Senate has already passed fast track; if the House passes this it goes to President Obama and he will sign it. That will make TPP a done deal.

…

We don’t know much about the contents of TPP – a secret investor/corporate rights agreement negotiated by corporate representatives with labor, environment and other “stakeholders” kept away from the negotiations – but we do know Nike wants it because it will lower tariffs on the shoes they import from Vietnam. We also know that the lowered tariff will mean New Balance may stop making shoes inside the U.S. We know that it opens up Vietnam, which pays workers less than a dollar an hour, for even more “outsourcing” of American jobs. We know that it lets corporations sue governments in “corporate courts” if they think laws and regulations might hurt their profits. (It even lets tobacco companies sue governments for trying to help citizens quit smoking, because that lowers tobacco company profits.)

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Starting this week people should call and show up at the local offices of their member of Congress. Bring a sign if you show up. Get others to come with you. (Use our click-to-call tool to contact your member of Congress. Or you can click here to find the office of your representative.)

Ask your representative if she or he has read TPP. Get them on record whether they have read it.

…

Then ask them why you can’t see the text of TPP, especially if they are about to vote to preapprove it with fast track? Why is it being kept secret? (Why are the already-completed parts secret?)

Black America is getting screwed: Shocking new study highlights the depths of economic disparities

by David Dayen, Salon

Tuesday, Jun 2, 2015 05:59 AM EST

Before being assassinated, Martin Luther King envisioned a Poor People’s Campaign descending on Washington to demand better education, jobs and social insurance. He saw it as an extension of his work on civil rights, equal in importance and scope. In “a nation gorged on money while millions of its citizens are denied a good education, adequate health services, meaningful employment, and even respect,” King wrote in announcing the Poor People’s Campaign, “all of us can almost feel the presence of a kind of social insanity which could lead to national ruin.”

…

The report, released today by the think tank Demos and the NAACP, focuses on African-American and Latino workers in the retail industry. While we’re supposed to believe that e-commerce and Amazon’s dominance has destroyed retail, the industry is actually the fastest growing in America, representing one out of every six new jobs in the economy last year. And while low wages and occupational hazards define retail work generally, that experience is even worse for people of color.

According to the Demos/NAACP study, black retail workers are nearly twice as likely to be living below the poverty line as the overall workforce. African-Americans and Latinos have fewer supervisory roles in retail relative to white counterparts, and more low-paid cashier positions. Among retail workers of color, there are more involuntary part-time employees, who want more hours but cannot receive them. And Black and Latino workers make less than their similarly situated colleagues – 75 percent of the average wage of a retail salesperson, and 90 percent of the average wage of a cashier, for example.

This isn’t all that different from the broader labor force, and it suggests a racial gap that resembles the gender gap on wages and opportunity – and is far worse when it comes to unemployment. Men and women are unemployed at the same rate, but African-Americans are twice as likely to be unemployed. It’s happening despite statutes like Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, intended to make racial discrimination on the job illegal. Yet despite recent high-profile racial discrimination settlements with major retailers like Walgreen, Walmart and Wet Seal, economic results for people of color remain weak. Median black family income is actually less than it was relative to white families 50 years ago, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

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The report’s authors chalk this up partially to issues with the retail industry overall, which does not deliver its workers the financial benefits of their productivity. But black and Latino workers find themselves even more squeezed. They are occupationally segregated into the lowest-wage positions in retail: cashiers and salespersons. These jobs are often not full-time (the average retail employee works only 31 hours a week), and involve unpredictable “just-in-time scheduling,” where a worker can be sent home from their shift if business lags, or told not to come in on a moment’s notice. Erratic week-to-week work schedules make it nearly impossible to manage a personal budget or secure childcare.

In addition, the high degree of unemployment in communities of color gives them less power to bargain for better wages. As a result, Black and Latino retail workers are paid less for the same work, translating to $1,850 a year in lost earnings for a full-time cashier, or $7,500 for a full-time salesperson. Seventy percent of retail workers of color make under $15 an hour, the threshold that the Fight for 15 movement considers a living wage.

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Workers also need reliable hours and the ability to collectively bargain, and should be able to receive full-time work if they want it, the report adds. These changes would almost entirely close the retail wage gap between white workers and workers of color, bringing millions of families out of poverty.

…

The racial wage, employment and opportunity gap erodes the basic respect for black and Latino families. It’s as much a problem on the job as it is in the streets, even if it’s carried out in a less violent manner. The nation doesn’t talk about this enough; there’s no “Equal Pay Day” for African-Americans and Latinos. But there’s a civil rights movement that can insist that earning enough money to support a family represents a basic fight for justice. The more that’s denied, the more it will be delayed.

3 Ways USA Freedom Act Fails to Stop FBI Spying on Americans

Vast Majority of Spying Will Continue Despite Expiration of Patriot Act Provisions

As revealed today by The Associated Press and CNN, the FBI has been operationg a secret fleet of planes and drones, kept off the offical books by a system of fake front companies.

While this was previously acknowledged in a DoJ IG report in 2012, the report was heavily redacted.  These planes are equipped with both visual survielance tools and cell phone tower spoofers which, while the FBI claims are only used against specific investigations, but the very nature of how they operate (sucking down all cell phone communications in a specific tower area) means they are bulk collection tools.

Additionally these flights are much more numerous than previously indicated, with the AP reporting as many as 30 in 30 days over 11 states.

These flights are routinely conducted without a warrant and under a supposed system of internal review that the DoJ claims is a “state secret”, meaning of course without any regulation at all at the whim of whoever.

Does the FBI have a secret surveillance air force?

By Pamela Brown, CNN

2:17 PM ET, Tue June 2, 2015

The FBI uses a fleet of planes registered under fictitious companies in order to conduct warrantless surveillance during federal, state and local investigations. The surveillance is conducted without a court order, but with oversight from within the Department of Justice, according to a senior law enforcement official.

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The agency flew above more than 30 cities in 11 states over a 30 day period, according to the AP review, and their report also said planes was masked by the existence of at least 13 fictitious companies.

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The senior law enforcement official confirmed the existence of the fleet of planes to the CNN and said they are registered under fictitious companies because the FBI wants to be as discreet as possible.

“Anytime you mask your activity for operational or safety reasons you use a front company,” said the official. “You don’t want to put people on to what you’re doing – we know we’re going to need air aviation support for cases.”

The planes, which are equipped for electronic surveillance, are used both for FBI investigations and also at the request of state and local officials, according to the FBI. During recent Baltimore riots, for instance, the FBI used the surveillance aircraft at the request of the Baltimore Police Department.

…

According to the senior law enforcement official, the FBI does not need a court issued warrant to fly these surveillance planes because of rules established by the Department of Justice.

Report: FBI behind spy planes flying over US cities

Associated Press

June 2, 2015 10:39AM ET

The FBI is operating a small air force with scores of low-flying planes across the country carrying video and, at times, cellphone surveillance technology – all hidden behind fictitious companies that are fronts for the government, The Associated Press has learned.

The planes’ surveillance equipment is generally used without a judge’s approval, and the FBI said the flights are used for specific ongoing investigations.

…

U.S. law enforcement officials confirmed for the first time the wide-scale use of the aircraft, which the AP traced to at least 13 fake companies, such as FVX Research, KQM Aviation, NBR Aviation and PXW Services.

Even basic aspects of the program are withheld from the public in censored versions of official reports from the Justice Department’s inspector general.

The FBI has been careful not to reveal its surveillance flights in court documents.

…

(T)he planes can capture video of unrelated criminal activity on the ground that could be handed over for prosecutions.

Some of the aircraft can also be equipped with technology that can identify thousands of people below through the cellphones they carry, even if they are not making a call or are not in public.

…

“These are not your grandparents’ surveillance aircraft,” said Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union, calling the flights significant “if the federal government is maintaining a fleet of aircraft whose purpose is to circle over American cities, especially with the technology we know can be attached to those aircraft.”

During the past few weeks, the AP tracked planes from the FBI’s fleet on more than 100 flights over at least 11 states plus the District of Columbia, most with Cessna 182T Skylane aircraft. These included parts of Houston, Phoenix, Seattle, Chicago, Boston, Minneapolis and Southern California.

Evolving technology can record higher-quality video from long distances, even at night, and can capture certain identifying information from cellphones using a device known as a cell-site simulator – or StingRay, to use one of the product’s brand names. These can trick cellphones into revealing identification numbers of subscribers, including those not suspected of a crime.

Officials say cellphone surveillance is rare, although the AP found in recent weeks FBI flights circling large buildings for extended periods where aerial photography would be less effective than electronic signal collection. Those sites included Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota.

It galls me to write anything approving of a Republican let alone one named after Ayn Rand who is buckets full of crazy but sometimes, even in D.C., reality creeps in.

Folks, we live in a spy state culture that equals anything Orwell imagined and the Stasi implemented.  They spy on us not because we are terrorists or terrorist sympathizers, but so they can blackmail us into snitches on our friends, neighbors, and family.

I have fought for several years now to end the illegal spying of the NSA on ordinary Americans.  The callous use of general warrants and the disregard for the Bill of Rights must end.  Forcing us to choose between our rights and our safety is a false choice and we are better than that as a nation and as a people.  That’s why two years ago, I sued the NSA.  It’s why I proposed the Fourth Amendment Protection Act. It’s why I have been seeking for months to have a full, open and honest debate on this issue- a debate that never came.

So last week, seeing proponents of this illegal spying rushing toward a deadline to wholesale renew this unconstitutional power, I filibustered the bill.  I spoke for over 10 hours to call attention to the vast expansion of the spy state and the corresponding erosion of our liberties.

Then, last week, I further blocked the extension of these powers and the Senate adjourned for recess rather than stay and debate them.

Tomorrow, we will come back with just hours left before the NSA illegal spying powers expire.  Let me be clear: I acknowledge the need for a robust intelligence agency and for a vigilant national security.

I believe we must fight terrorism, and I believe we must stand strong against our enemies.  But we do not need to give up who we are to defeat them. In fact, we must not.  There has to be another way.  We must find it together.

So tomorrow, I will force the expiration of the NSA illegal spy program.

I am ready and willing to start the debate on how we fight terrorism without giving up our liberty.

Sometimes when the problem is big enough, you just have to start over. The tax code and our regulatory burdens are two good examples.

Fighting against unconditional, illegal powers that take away our rights, taken by previous Congresses and administrations is just as important.

I do not do this to obstruct. I do it to build something better, more effective, more lasting, and more cognizant of who we are as Americans.

Ugh.  I stand with Rand.  I am now taking a very long shower, maybe two.

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