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The Congress of the United States approved a slightly modified spying program:

June 2, 2015

CAPITOL HILL—The U.S. Congress has approved a bill to reform and restart the bulk collection of Americans’ telephone records, along with other anti-terrorism tools that expired earlier this week.

After days of intense and heartfelt debate about protecting national security and safeguarding civil liberties, the Senate voted 67-32 Tuesday to approve the USA Freedom Act, which now goes to the White House for President Barack Obama’s signature.

Obama said on Twitter that he would sign the bill “as soon as I get it.”

By contrast, Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky warned of a less secure America, calling the vote “a resounding victory for those who currently plot against our homeland.”

“It surely undermines Americans’ security by taking one more tool from our war-fighters, in my view, at exactly the wrong time,” McConnell added.

Industry to hold data

The legislation mandates that private telecommunications companies rather than the National Security Agency will collect and retain phone records nationwide. Federal authorities will need a court order to review those records and look for points of contact with known or suspected terrorists abroad.

“It is a step forward, because ultimately we protect the privacy of individuals,” said Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, who helped write the bill.

“This bill recognizes that our privacy is not — and ought not ever be — deemed to be in conflict with our security. Our privacy is, in fact, part of our security,” said Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah, a co-author of the legislation.

The bill enjoyed strong Democratic support but divided majority Republicans, some of whom wanted to resurrect the once-secret government program exposed by fugitive former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

“I am truly perplexed that anyone would argue that telephone data are better protected in the hands of 1,400 telecom companies and 160 wireless carriers than in a secure NSA database that only 34 carefully vetted and trained federal employees are allowed to query under the supervision of a federal judge,” said Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican.

“The [new] system is going to be less effective, because there is absolutely no guarantee that this data will be retained by the telecom companies and the wireless carriers,” Collins added.

The nation’s telecommunications industry has been publicly silent on the bill. Contacted by VOA, America’s third-largest phone company, Sprint, declined to comment on the legislation.

Former U.S. intelligence officials say data collection constitutes an important arrow in America’s national security quiver — one that will be affected by the USA Freedom Act.

“The fact that it would take place in a telephone company, rather than at NSA, means that the government effectively has no control,” former CIA Director James Woolsey said in a VOA interview. “That in turn means that if the telephone company decides it is too much trouble and only decides to keep track of the metadata for one month, two months, but after that they’re going to throw it away, then the government loses the ability to use that metadata as a way of finding patterns and being able to get a warrant and then be able to look into the inside of the communication.”

Voting by conscience

To get to a final vote, the Senate had to overcome a procedural blocking maneuver by Republican Rand Paul of Kentucky, who objected to bulk collection of phone records by any entity — corporate or governmental — as an unconstitutional violation of Americans’ privacy.  http://www.voanews.com/content/us-senate-approves-reform-lapsed-surveillance-program/2805383.html

I intentionally did not cover the ‘lapse’ of the spying program because I did not believe that the US government could resist espionage on its residents.

The Bible warns that sometimes matters done in secret can have bad consequences:

1 Hear my voice, O God, in my meditation;
Preserve my life from fear of the enemy.
2 Hide me from the secret plots of the wicked,
From the rebellion of the workers of iniquity,
3 Who sharpen their tongue like a sword,
And bend their bows to shoot their arrows — bitter words,
4 That they may shoot in secret at the blameless;
Suddenly they shoot at him and do not fear.

5 They encourage themselves in an evil matter;
They talk of laying snares secretly;
They say, “Who will see them?”
6 They devise iniquities:
“We have perfected a shrewd scheme.”
Both the inward thought and the heart of man are deep. (Psalms 64:1-6)

And while you might think that if you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear from surveillance, consider that many in the government of the USA consider that not supporting homosexual marriages, etc. are extremist. I also saw someone once on a documentary that stated that people who believed in the millennium could not be trusted and should be considered as potential terrorists. The fact that we in the Continuing Church of God would be considered pacifists, does not change the fact that since we hold to millennial and other biblical views that we will not be improperly classified by government employees with various agendas.

Having biblical views are becoming more problematic in the USA.

Notice also the following prophecy:

13 Therefore the prudent keep silent at that time, For it is an evil time. (Amos 5:13)

The above indicates that even those that are doing nothing wrong will need to be silent at the coming evil time.

We are getting closer to it.

Some items of possibly related interest may include:

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 2nd, 2015 at 4:18 pm and is filed under Prophecy.

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