-Published: Tuesday, December 3, 2019-




By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

With hardly any public notice, the U.S. Congress and the president have extended for three more years key provisions of the USA Patriot Act, the measure that ramped up the government's surveillance powers.

The extension of what is known as Section 215 was tucked inside the continuing legislation to extend the U.S. government's power to pay bills. It sailed though the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate quickly approved it in a bipartisan vote. President Donald Trump signed it less than two weeks ago.

Only now are organizations that oppose broadening the warrantless surveillance of residents and citizens are taking notice.

“While Americans have been fixated on the carefully orchestrated impeachment drama that continues to monopolize headlines, Congress passed and President Trump signed into law legislation extending three key provisions of the USA Patriot Act, which had been set to expire on Dec. 15, 2019,” said John W. Whitehead, whose organization frequently is in court fighting expanded government.

“While Congress subjects the nation to its impeachment-flavored brand of bread-and-circus politics, our civil liberties continue to die a slow, painful death by a thousand cuts,” said Whitehead.

A Kentucky Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie opposed the measure but had predicted its quick passage. “The scam here is that Democrats are alleging abuse of presidential power while simultaneously reauthorizing warrantless power to spy on citizens that no president should have . . . ,” the lawmaker said in advance of the House vote.

The law went into force shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington by Muslim terrorists. The act is responsible for many of the gripes by expats in Costa Rica. For example, the law was the cause of the new banking rules directed against U.S. citizens and beefed up airport security everywhere.

The American Civil Liberties Association has pointed out that Section 215 expands the U.S. government's ability to look at records on an individual's activity being held by a third parties. The measure also gives the government the right to search private property without notice or even without the knowledge of the owner.

The renewed authority also allows the government to gain access to business records and conduct roving wiretaps of people trying to duck surveillance and counterterrorism investigations, as Whitehead noted in a recent internet report.

Expats always have been vulnerable to electronic snooping because any email messages that move from or to the U.S. and a foreign land are fair game for government snoops. Despite pledges to the contrary, the U.S. National Security Agency always has been suspected of collecting and searching every message that is posted to social media or sent as an email.

Technology has increased the options open to government snoops. The  Electronic Frontier Alliance says it is trying to end government use of  face surveillance in local communities. Such technology is believed to be in wide use by some government agencies, particularly at airports and border crossings.

Recent concern has been about the private collection of personal information by firms such as Google, Facebook and Amazon. The government, too, is looking closely at this data, and the Department of Homeland Security wants to access social media postings for those foreigners seeking U.S. visas and immigration.

Thanks to Section 215, the government will continue to have the right to access all that data the social media giants hold.





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Do you think the U.S. government is justified in it information collecting? We would like to know your thoughts on this story. Send your comments to news@amcostarica.com