LA Port Drivers Sign With Teamsers

Crazy Dreamers? Port Truckers Battle "Sweatshops on Trucks"

Wednesday, 20 November 2013 13:57 By Jane Slaughter, LaborNotes | Report

Drivers who move Asian goods from southern California docks pulled a 36-hour strike ending today, charging three employers with unfair labor practices including retaliation for organizing.
Port truckers in the huge L.A.-Long Beach ports are largely immigrants. Most lease their vehicles from the companies that employ them, with payments deducted from their paychecks. Also deducted are charges for parking, diesel fuel, and insurance, including insurance on the cargo.
"Last Friday I only got less than $200," striker Daniel Linares said, "for working six days a week, from early in the morning to 4 or 5 in the afternoon."

Sometimes he makes $400-$500, he said, but even so, "this job is a sweatshop on trucks. It's a miserable wage, not even close to a living wage. The company is making millions of dollars and giving us crumbles."

One of the companies, Pac 9 Transportation, was also charged with falsely claiming that its employees are independent contractors. Standing in front of the Pac 9 entrance an hour before his shift would have begun, Linares explained there's nothing independent about his relationship with management.

"We are under dispatch," he said. "They give us a load, we go to the port and get the load. We have to take that to a destination [a warehouse or rail yard]. They give us another load to take from that destination to the Port. They keep us back and forth.
"When we are stuck inside the Port, they don't let us leave the Port."

Pac 9 drivers have filed claims with the California Labor Commission charging the company with essentially stealing more than $7 million that should have been wages. They are striking to demand the company recognize them as employees, so they can unionize with the Teamsters.

Strikers at Green Fleet Systems and American Logistics, who are employees, are already organizing with the Teamsters. They say management has retaliated with harassment, which is illegal. Workers at all three companies have filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board.

A Minority
As in the Walmart and fast food strikes that have captured the attention of labor activists this year, today's port trucking strikers are a small minority of the workforce. Linares, who is from El Salvador, estimated that 15 of the about 150 drivers at his company would strike. "The rest say we are dreamers," he said. "They say we are crazy fighting for our rights." The Teamsters said about 100 drivers were striking altogether.

He said strikers planned to picket at the company entrance yesterday to delay fellow drivers from entering but not actually block them. Today, strikers planned to escalate by following trucks as they left the port and to throw up picket lines when the trucks stopped—reviving the "ambulatory picketing" used by the Teamsters in their decisive 1934 general strike in Minneapolis.

Because he's paid by the load, Linares says, Pac 9 dispatchers are indifferent when he's stuck inside the Port for five or six hours, waiting for containers to be moved from ship to truck, making no money: "I call the company and say I'm stuck, two hours passed and I haven't been served. They tell me to stay."

And why is service sometimes slow inside the Ports? In Linares's view, it's because the union members there have control over their work. "They're hourly," he explained. "They have unions and good benefits and everything."

Apparently "being your own boss" is not the American dream these immigrants came seeking. Strikers are just looking for a chance to join the proletariat.

Walmart Sued by NLRB

NLRB Decides to Prosecute Nationwide Violations at Walmart, AFL-CIO Commits to Backing Workers

Jackie Tortora

Making Change at Walmart, a coalition of Walmart associates, small business owners, religious leaders and other members of the community that are fighting to make change at the nation's largest employer, announced today the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) will prosecute Walmart for its "widespread violations of its workers’ rights." 

The decision will provide additional protection for Walmart’s 1.3 million employees when they are speaking out for better jobs and working conditions. 

The coalition was advised Monday that the NLRB ‘s General Counsel  is prepared to prosecute a complaint against Walmart for illegal firings and disciplinary actions involving more than 117 workers, including those who went on strike last June.

The decision addresses allegations of threats by managers and the company’s national spokesperson discouraging workers from striking and illegal disciplinary actions against workers who were on legally protected strikes. Workers could win back pay, reinstatement and the reversal of disciplinary actions as a result of the decision; and Walmart could be required to inform and educate all employees of their legally protected rights.    

 

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“The Board’s decision confirms what Walmart workers have long known: the company is illegally trying to silence employees who speak out for better jobs,” said Sarita Gupta, executive director of Jobs With Justice and American Rights at Work. “Americans believe that we have the responsibility – and the right – to speak out against corporate abuses of workers, and this proves we’re finally being heard, and making kinks in Walmart’s armor. Customers, clergy and community members from across the country are standing with Walmart workers bravely calling for better jobs and a stronger economy for all of us.”

UFCW International President Joseph Hansen agreed with Gupta:

Today, the government confirmed it will prosecute Walmart for illegally firing and disciplining workers who just exercised their rights.  Quite frankly, enough is enough. Walmart workers are sick and tired of empty statements and unenforced policies and it is time for Walmart to obey the law.

The decision was a response to charges filed last year against Walmart managers who threatened and discouraged workers from going on legally-protected strikes as well as illegal firings and disciplinary actions stemming from a protest at the company's June shareholder meeting in Bentonville, Arkansas.

Tiffany Beroid, a Walmart worker from Laurel, Md., explained why the workers are standing up:

Working at the largest employer in the country should mean making a decent living. Those days are long gone. Walmart continues to show that it’s afraid to have real conversations about creating better jobs, but would rather scare us into silence. But change at Walmart is too important to our economy and for our families for us to stop speaking out.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said he was proud that AFL-CIO is committed to supporting the brave Walmart workers who are standing up for their rights:

Walmart and the Walton family will have a choice: they can choose to stand with the American people and strengthen our economy or continue a race-to-the-bottom business model that hurts workers and our economy.  They can choose to honor their workers' rights; to ask Walmart to publicly commit to improving working conditions or continue their pattern unlawful retaliation against those who speak out.

Meanwhile in L.A., truck drivers went on strike against Walmart and other companies for similarly denying rights to their employees, including misclassifying workers and firing union activists, in the latest wave of actions against the retail giant.

Don't forget to check out  www.BlackFridayProtests.org.

CNA Robin Hood Financial Tax in Europe

European Progress Toward a Financial Transactions Tax

Monday, 18 November 2013 09:16 By Salvatore Babones, Truthout | News Analysis

The Europeans for financial reform, a coalition of progressive forces, support a Financial Transaction Tax. Picture taken during the first seminar of the Europeans for Financial Reform initiative, Brussels, 15 March 2010. (Photo: Thomas Delsoi / PES PSE )Germany's major political parties have agreed on the need to impose a financial transactions tax (FTT) as part of a broad package of economic reforms to be undertaken by a coalition government.

The German federal elections in September 2013 gave the conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel 311 seats in the German Parliament, just short of a majority. As a result, Merkel is negotiating with other parties to form a governing coalition.

The FTT is very popular in Germany. Eighty-two percent of Germans support an FTT, according to the latest Eurobarometer poll, compared with 64 percent of Europeans as a whole.   If Europeans could vote on financial regulation, they would vote for an FTT.   For details on the implications of financial transactions taxes and how they work, see the answers to these Frequently Asked Questions on FTTs.

For good or for bad, Germany is the economic and political heart of the European Union. Europe's largest country and largest economy has an even larger influence on European politics. In many ways, as goes Germany so goes Europe.

In recent years, this has sometimes been a problem, as when Germany demanded harsh austerity measures in response to the Eurozone banking crises of 2008-12.

At other times, German leadership has been a blessing. Germany has consistently used its influence to promote peace and good governance. And since the NSA was caught tapping Merkel's phone, Germany has come out strongly in favor of Internet privacy.

Now, Germany is leading the way toward a European FTT. Until the German coalition negotiations, the FTT had faded from the European agenda in the face of determined opposition from big banks and other business interests.

The popularity of the FTT in Germany made it one of the first planks to be agreed upon in the ongoing coalition negotiations. It may take several weeks or months for Germany's political parties to reach a final agreement. When the new German government takes office, a European FTT likely will be one of its top priorities.

The European Union began moving toward an FTT at the June 2013 Eurozone summit. At that event, European leaders agreed in principle to impose a tax on financial transactions. Their stated goal was to raise money to support European financial institutions.

The main opposition to a European FTT comes from the United Kingdom. The UK government is closely aligned with London's banks and financial firms. These businesses would bear the brunt of any FTT, because it would make them pay tax every time they traded financial instruments like stocks, bonds and derivatives.

Despite its fierce resistance to a European FTT, the UK has had a tax on stock market transactions since 1808. All industrialized countries have or used to have some form of tax on financial transactions. The difference is that a European FTT would be explicitly designed to slow trading in some of the most profitable - but riskiest - areas of finance.

The UK is a member of the European Union but is not a member of the Euro currency group, the so-called Eurozone. Germany is the most important member of the Eurozone, and the European Central Bank is based in Germany's financial capital, Frankfurt. If the new German government pushes for an FTT, the Eurozone is likely to follow.

A European FTT would have an important demonstration effect for the rest of the world, including the United States. To date, global financial regulation has been very weak. Pundits who are opposed to financial regulation claim that globalization makes it impossible to tax and regulate banks across borders.

If Europe successfully implements an FTT, it will demonstrate that it is possible to make banks pay for the privilege of trading financial instruments like stocks, bonds and derivatives. This could be an important first step toward creating a more stable global financial system that better serves the interests of the peoples of the world.

States Resist Illegal NSA, FBI, DEA Spying

How Can the States Provide Fourth Amendment Protection Against the NSA?

Friday, 15 November 2013 11:03 By Michael Boldin, Truthout | Op-Ed

(Photo: EFF Photos / Flickr)In her 2004 Brooklyn Law Review article, Ann Althouse offered some powerful suggestions on how to resist "anti-terrorism" powers, such as the Patriot Act, and should be seen as a guide to resisting NSA spying:

The fight against terrorism has raised concerns that the federal government has overreached its legitimate power. Concerns about racial profiling, invasions of privacy, unreasonable searches, and infringement on free speech have fueled a political movement, led by groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC), urging state and local government to adopt resolutions directing their officials not to participate in at least some aspects of the antiterrorism effort.

More on applying this to the NSA in a moment. First, is this legal?

The Doctrine
The ACLU and BORDC resolutions against the Patriot Act (and subsequent ACLU-backed state laws refusing to comply with the 2005 REAL ID Act) were based on a widely accepted legal principle known as the "anticommandeering doctrine."
This means the federal government cannot require a state to carry out federal acts. The federal government can pass a law and try to enforce it, but your state isn't required to help them.

The US Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed anticommandeering, relevant court cases being:
* 1842 Prigg: The court held that states weren't required to enforce federal slavery laws.
* 1992 New York: The court held that Congress couldn't require states to enact specified waste disposal regulations.
* 1997 Printz: The court held that "the federal government may not compel the states to enact or administer a federal regulatory program."

Under this doctrine, Althouse noted that "state and local government officials, if they have the nerve, will be able to decline to carry out the anti-terrorism tasks Congress or the president attempts to assign to them."

Applied to NSA
This can have a significant impact on the NSA's ability to continue its mass-spying programs.
In 2006, the Baltimore Sun reported that the NSA had maxed out the capacity of the Baltimore-area power grid:

The NSA is already unable to install some costly and sophisticated new equipment. At minimum, the problem could produce disruptions leading to outages and power surges. At worst, it could force a virtual shutdown of the agency.

To get around the physical limitation of the amount of power required to monitor virtually every piece of communication around the globe, the NSA started searching for new locations with independent resources.

A location was chosen in San Antonio because of the independent power grid in Texas. The new Utah Data Center was chosen for access to cheap utilities, primarily water. The water-cooled supercomputers there require 1.7 million gallons of water per day to function.

That water is being supplied by a political subdivision of the State of Utah. Under the anticommandeering doctrine, Utah isn't required to provide that water.
No water = No NSA data center.

But it's not just Utah, and it's not just water. The war on drugs, for example, is a major benefactor of NSA data collection. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the DEA's Special Operations Division works closely with the NSA, passing "tips" along to local law enforcement and instructing them to cover their tracks so the public doesn't learn where the information came from.
EFF calls this "intelligence laundering," which flat-out "bypasses the Constitution."

The Act
Following the lead of the ACLU and BORDC, model legislation to refuse cooperation with the NSA is now available for introduction in your state. The 4th Amendment Protection Act would ban states like Utah from providing water, or Texas from providing electricity, to NSA data centers. It would also ban law enforcement from receiving "tips" from the DEA's special operations division.
In addition, the Act prevents state-run universities from partnering with the NSA. Currently there are 166 so-called "Centers of Academic Excellence" around the country. These schools are major research and recruiting centers for the agency.

Corporations could find themselves in trouble, too, under the proposed Act:

Any corporation or person that provides services to or on behalf of this state and violates the prohibitions of Section 2 of this act shall be forever ineligible to act on behalf of, or provide services to, this state or any political subdivision of this state.

As a result, corporations like Georgia Power, Rocky Mountain Power, Big-D Construction or Intercontinental Hotels just might give pause before signing a new contract to provide services to the NSA.

Can It Work?
This same process was used effectively by northern abolitionists in resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Today, states like Washington and Colorado are helping end the war on cannabis by refusing to comply with federal prohibition.
We should follow their courageous path against the NSA as well.

Calling your state representative and senator today and encouraging them to introduce and pass the 4th Amendment Protection Act would be a good first step. It's not going to be easy, but sooner or later, we're going to have to stop putting up with it.
Rosa Parks may have put it best:

People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.

Progressive Mayor Wins in NYC

Tom Hayden on Bill de Blasio's Win: A Harbinger of a New Populist Left in America?

Bold stances on inequality and overzealous policing propelled a progressive victory. If he holds true, can De Blasio shift the national debate?

November 6, 2013  |  

The overwhelming support of  New York City voters for  Bill de Blasio is the latest sign of the shift towards a new populist left in America. De Blasio owes his unexpected tailwind to campaigning on issues considered by insiders to be too polarizing for winning politics.

One is De Blasio's promise to redress the " tale of two cities" inequalities among New Yorkers, an issue forced into mainstream discourse by the 2011  Occupy Wall Street movement – not by New York  Democratsaligned with Wall Street. The other is De Blasio's pledge to sharply curb police stop-and-frisk policies directed against young people of color – aggressive tactics  favored by a majority of white voters and overwhelmingly criticized by African Americans, Latinos and Asian-American voters.

Despite its Democratic voter majority, New York in recent decades has been the political stronghold of the plutocratic Mayor  Michael Bloombergand, before him, the abrasive law-and-order Mayor Rudolph Giuliani – both  Republicans with national, even global, reach. Democrats have lacked a progressive voice on the national stage of American politics often provided by the New York mayor's office – until now.

De Blasio will have a mandate for economic and social reform backed by a newly-elected 51-member city council, the most progressive in years. As  Juan Gonzáles of Pacifica's DemocracyNow! put it:

I can't think of a time like this when so many progressives have been elected at once.

With American politics polarized between the Obama center and the thriving Tea Party, the only opening for the left is through state and local federalism serving as "laboratories of reform", to  paraphrase former Justice Louis Brandeis. After the Gilded Age and the Great Crash of the 1920s, New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia (1934-47) and legislators like Robert Wagner created the first pillars of the New Deal before it become the national platform of the Democrats. They successfully fought not only Wall Street bankers, but a virulent and racist American right.

De Blasio is positioned to similarly shift the nation's dialogue, policies and priorities in a progressive direction – assuming he delivers on his campaign pledges. Since the financial crisis of 2008, the federal government has passed a  loophole-ridden Dodd-Frank reform law, which failed even to regulate the trillions floating in the derivatives industry. Wall Street investors have been richly rewarded since then, while  middle-class incomes stagnate and the numbers of poor Americans reach the highest in 50 years. A report last week from the respected  American Community Survey noted:

No other major American city has such income inequality when it comes to rich and poor when it comes to New York.

Among De Blasio's first challenges will be prodding Governor Andrew Cuomo and the state legislature in Albany to permit local tax increases to fund universal pre-kindergarten in New York City. Cuomo and most pundits say the De Blasio proposal is going nowhere, but seasoned reporters like Gonzales are not so sure. "It's hard but doable. I'm not sure that Albany will resist the home rule message from a new mayor with a large mandate."

De Blasio has direct power over New York City's $70bn budget and re-zoning policies, which, under Bloomberg, showered favors on a real estate industry bent on  competing with London and Hong Kong at the expense of residential neighborhoods. An early test for De Blasio will be the  Midtown East re-zoning project left unfinished by Bloomberg, which would erect Empire State Building skyscrapers from the East River to downtown. De Blasio wants to "fix" the proposal, while community groups are 100% opposed, saying they would be left in permanent shadows.

Bold stances on inequality and overzealous policing propelled a progressive victory. If he holds true, can De Blasio shift the national debate?

De Blasio also can tackle income inequality by signing the living wage ordinance on city contracts, or by preventing Wall Street developers getting special city abatements – measures that Bloomberg vetoed. De Blasio didn't flinch on the issue when confronted in closed meetings with developers during the campaign.

When De Blasio first  raised his opposition to the police stop-and-frisk policies, according to  Vincent Warren of the Center for Constitutional Rights, the candidate began rising in the polls against other contenders in the Democratic primary. The stop-and-frisk policy, a variation of racial profiling against black and brown young people, is generally supported by white and worried New Yorkers and overwhelmingly opposed by communities of color.

De Blasio and his African-American wife have a teenager, named Dante, whose  Afro style even caught the attention of President Obama. As Dante leafleted with his father at subway turnstiles, emotional memories of the murdered Florida teenager Trayvon Martin were palpable, if rarely mentioned.

New York under Mayor Giuliani fanned then popular American policies of mass incarceration towards youngsters who resembled Dante de Blasio. From 2008 to 2012, the  NYPD stopped nearly 2.9 million New Yorkers, a majority of them young, about 85% black or brown. On average, 88% of those stopped were  completely innocent of any crime or misdemeanor.

When a federal appeals court  halted a judicial order ordering detailed changes in the NYPD last week, De Blasio expressed "extreme disappointment" and pledged to move forward on police reform from day one. How he will do so is procedurally muddled for the moment, but there is little doubt that another staple of the Bloomberg era is ready for the dustbin.

Will De Blasio adhere to his promises? He is, after all, a mainstream Democratic party operative and policy wonk who once managed Hillary Clinton's centrist campaign for the US Senate. Decades ago, he was deeply involved in the Nicaragua Solidarity Movement against Ronald Reagan's illegal contra war. De Blasio seemed nervous when this past association surfaced earlier in the campaign. But the Republicans could gain no traction on the issue.

It is reassuring that De Blasio has roots in past social movements instead of the usual pedigrees for a political career. If he has veered back to his lefty roots, it is enabled by a popular anger among voters. This anger was fanned by the growing gap between the haves and have-nots, reinforced by heavy-handed policing, in a city whose power brokers are addicted to opulence.

The media widely acknowledges that Occupy Wall Street " changed the conversation" in America. De Blasio won't represent the 99%, but a healthy majority will do. From Wednesday, Bill de Blasio will have the largest megaphone of any conversation-changer on the national scene.

 

Tom Hayden was a leader of the student, civil rights, peace and environmental movements of the 1960s. He served 18 years in the California legislature, where he chaired labor, higher education and natural resources committees. He is the author of ten books, including "Street Wars" (New Press, 2004). He is a professor at Occidental College, Los Angeles, and was a visiting fellow at Harvard's Institute of Politics last fall.

GOP Cuts Food Stamps, Loves Corp Welfare

Food Stamps Are Affordable; Corporate Welfare Is Not

Tuesday, 05 November 2013 15:07 By The Daily Take, The Thom Hartmann Program | Op-Ed

(Image: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: SqueakyMarmot, teresia )

Republicans are outraged for all the wrong reasons.
This past Friday, $5 billion was automatically slashed from the federal food stamps program, affecting the lives of 47 million Americans.

The USDA estimates that because of these cuts, a family of four who receives food stamps benefits will lose about 20 meals per month.

But these enormous cuts to food stamps aren't enough for Republicans.
They still want to slash an additional $40 billion from the program in the name of reducing spending and federal debt.

Republicans love to argue that programs like SNAP - the federal food stamps program – and other social safety net programs put an unfair burden on American taxpayers, but if they just took a minute to crunch the numbers, they'd realize that's flat out wrong.

In 2012, the average American taxpayer making $50,000 per year paid just $36 towards the food stamps program.

That's just ten cents a day!
That's less than the cost of a gumball.
But Republicans think that's still too high a price to pay to help the neediest and most vulnerable Americans.
 And when it comes to funding the rest of America's social safety net programs, the average American taxpayer making $50,000 a year pays just over six dollars a year.
Simply put, the American taxpayer isn't paying much for social safety net programs like food stamps and Medicare.

But we are paying a lot for the billions of dollars the U.S. government gives to corporate America each year.

The average American family pays a staggering $6,000 a year in subsidies to Republican-friendly big business.

And that's just the average family. A family making more than $50,000 a year - say $70,000 a year - pays even more to pad the wallets of corporate America.
So where does some of that $6,000 that you and I are paying every year actually go?
For starters, $870 of it goes to direct subsidies and grants for corporations.
This includes money for subsidies to Big Oil companies that are polluting our skies and fueling climate change and global warming. Compare that to the $36 you and I pay for food stamps a year.

An additional $870 goes to corporate tax subsidies.
The Tax Foundation has found that the "special tax provisions" of corporations cost taxpayers over $100 billion per year, or roughly $870 per family.
But in reality, that number is much higher.

Citizens for Tax Justice found that the U.S. Treasury lost $181 billion in corporate tax subsidies, which means the average American family could be out as much as $1,600 per year.
 
Finally, of the $6,000 in corporate subsidies that the average American family pays each year,
$1,231 of it goes to making up for revenue losses from corporate tax havens.

This money goes to recouping losses from giant transnational corporations like Apple and GE that hide their money overseas to boost profits and avoid paying taxes to help the American economy.

The bottom-line here is that American families are paying $6,000 or more per year to subsidize giant transnational corporations that are already making billions and billions of dollars in profit each year. In the past decade alone, corporations have doubled their profits.

Republicans on Capitol Hill keep suggesting that we can't afford to help the poor in this country, and they're wrong.

What we really can't afford is doling out $100 billion each year to corporations that don't need it.   That's where the real outrage and the real news coverage should be.

It's time to bring an end to corporate welfare, and to use those dollars to help those Americans who need it the most.

   
This article was first published on Truthout and any reprint or reproduction on any other website must acknowledge Truthout as the original site of publication. 

Progressives & Tea Party Rein in NSA Spying

Congressmen Write Landmark Surveillance Reform

Amash, Bipartisan Coalition Introduce Comprehensive Bill to Rein in NSA Snooping

Oct 29, 2013 Issues: Defense and National Security

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                       

October 29, 2013                                                                               

 

Congressmen Write Landmark Surveillance Reform

Amash, Bipartisan Coalition Introduce Comprehensive Bill to Rein in NSA Snooping

Washington, D.C. – Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) and a bipartisan coalition of congressmen this morning introduced comprehensive legislation to rein in the federal government’s unconstitutional surveillance of Americans.

The USA FREEDOM Act, H.R. 3361, reforms parts of the USA PATRIOT Act that have been used to surveil Americans’ telephone records and Internet activity, according to recent leaks.  Amash joined Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), and more than 70 cosponsors in the House. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) introduced the companion bill in the Senate.

“The days of unfettered spying on the American people are numbered. This is the bill the public has been waiting for. We now have legislation that ceases the government’s unconstitutional surveillance. I am confident that Americans and their representatives will rally behind it,” said Amash.  Amash continued, “I am thrilled to join senior colleagues on the Judiciary Committee such as Subcommittee Chairman Sensenbrenner and Ranking Member Conyers in introducing the bill.  Leading members on the committee of jurisdiction and a diverse group of more than 70 congressmen have signed on as original cosponsors. We have strong momentum.”

The comprehensive bill reforms several provisions in the Patriot Act that reportedly have been used to commit privacy abuses. First, the bill ends the government’s blanket collection of Americans’ records. Second, it increases the transparency of government surveillance. It ends the era of secret law by requiring FISA court opinions to be made available to all congressmen and summaries of the opinions to be made publicly available. Gag orders on telecommunications companies are modified so that the companies can make more information about government surveillance available to customers. Third, the bill increases privacy protections. It installs a Special Advocate to argue on behalf of Americans’ privacy before the FISA court, and the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board receives subpoena power to perform its duties.

Introduction of the Freedom Act marks a major acceleration in the movement to reform government surveillance. The Amash-Conyers amendment, which was substantively incorporated into the Freedom Act, failed narrowly on a 205-217 vote in July. Eight of the Freedom Act’s original cosponsors voted against Amash-Conyers. Sensenbrenner and Leahy are the primary authors of the Patriot Act, which the Freedom Act reforms.

 

CONTACT

Will Adams

(202) 225-3849

will.adams@mail.house.gov