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Brian Schatz on Homeland Security
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Feds stretched too far in snooping on everyday Americans
Schatz confronted Hanabusa about several issues, including support for a veterans hospital in Guam he says takes focus away from Hawaii and her stances on Social Security. He also said he differed with
Hanabusa on their approach to widespread federal surveillance programs, saying he thinks the government has stretched too far in its snooping of everyday Americans.
"This is a difference between Colleen and myself," he said.
Hanabusa responded by saying Schatz was misstating votes and skipping over key details. "Brian,
you have to start to read the bills to really understand what you're talking about," she said.
Source: Associated Press in The Republic: 2014 Hawaii Senate debate
, Jul 8, 2014
Reform FISA to protect our Fourth Amendment rights
Hanabusa said Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor in Hawaii who publicly released documents on government surveillance, should return to the United
States and stand trial. "Yes, we learned a lot through what he did," she said. "But was he truly a whistleblower? Those are decisions that the court system has to determine."Schatz said "I don't think he's a hero.
But I think the main issue here is not so much what we think of Edward Snowden, but how we need to reform the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to protect our Fourth Amendment rights under the Constitution."
Source: Honolulu Star Advertiser on 2014 Hawaii Senate race
, Jul 8, 2014
Non-proliferation includes disposing of nuclear materials.
Schatz signed Letter from Congress on nuclear material security
Press Release from Sen. Merkley's officeCiting the dangers to US national security posed by terrorists and rogue states seeking nuclear weapons, a bipartisan group of 26 senators sent a letter last week to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), calling on the President to support increased funding in the FY2016 budget to more rapidly secure and permanently dispose of nuclear and radiological materials. The letter comes in response to the President's proposals in recent years to decrease funding for nuclear material security and nonproliferation programs.
The senators indicated that unsecured nuclear material poses unacceptably high risks to the safety of Americans and argued that the rate at which nuclear and radiological materials are secured and permanently disposed of must be accelerated. The senators expressed concern that cutting funds would slow what has been a successful process of elimination and reduction of highly enriched uranium
(HEU) and separated plutonium in the international community. In just the last five years, nuclear security and non-proliferation programs have proven successful in eliminating HEU and separated plutonium from 13 countries, including Ukraine.
"Reducing budgets for agencies and programs that help keep nuclear and radiological materials out of the hands of terrorists is out of sync with the high priority that the President has rightly placed on nuclear and radiological material security and signals a major retreat in the effort to lock down these materials at an accelerated rate," the senators wrote. "The recent spate of terrorism in Iraq, Pakistan, and Kenya is a harrowing reminder of the importance of ensuring that terrorist groups and rogue states cannot get their hands on the world's most dangerous weapons and materials."
In the past two fiscal years, Congress has enacted $280 million additional dollars to the President's proposed funding for core non-proliferation activities.
Source: Merkley/Feinstein letter to OMB 14_Lt_HS on Aug 18, 2014
End bulk data collection under USA PATRIOT Act.
Schatz co-sponsored USA FREEDOM Act
Congressional summary:: Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ending Eavesdropping, Dragnet-collection, and Online Monitoring Act or the USA FREEDOM Act:
- Amends the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to require that the records sought pertain to an individual in contact with a foreign power.
- Amends the USA PATRIOT Act to minimize the acquisition and retention of information and to prohibit its unauthorized dissemination.
- Imposes additional requirements on the authorized use of pen registers and trap and trace devices (devices for recording incoming and outgoing telephone numbers).
- Prohibits the searching of collections of communications of US persons.
Opponent's argument against (Electronic Frontier Foundation): The bill only addresses a small portion of the problems created by NSA spying. It does not touch problems like NSA programs to sabotage encryption standards; it does not effectively tackle
the issue of collecting information on people outside of the US; and it doesn't address the authority that the government is supposedly using to tap the data links between service provider data centers, such as those owned by Google and Yahoo. The bill also does not address excessive secrecy; it won't deal with the major over-classification issues or the state secrets privilege.
Opponent's argument against (J. Kirk Wiebe, former NSA Senior Intelligence Analyst interview with TheRealNews.com): It's window dressing. Stopping bulk collection is a good step, but the only thing that's going to fix this is direct access into NSA's databases by an independent group of hackers, techie types, people like Snowden who know how to get into a network and look at things and verify that the data they're collecting and what they're doing with it complies with the Constitution. The NSA has essentially operated illegally--unconstitutionally--for 60% of its existence.
Source: HR3361 & S1599 14-S1599 on Oct 29, 2013
Exempt Veterans Affairs from federal hiring freeze.
Schatz signed exempting Veterans Affairs from federal hiring freeze
Excerpts from Letter from 53 Senators to President Trump We are deeply troubled that your freeze on the hiring of federal civilian employees will have a negative and disproportionate impact on our nation's veterans. As such, we urge you to take stock of this hiring freeze's effect on our nation's veterans and exempt the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) from your Hiring Freeze.
- Have you considered how this hiring freeze will affect VA's ability to provide veterans with access to health care?
- How it will affect VA's ability to decide on appeals for disability compensation?
- How it will impact those veterans who apply to federal jobs?
We urge you to classify VA's delivery of health care as a national security and public safety responsibility, and exempt it from this hiring freeze. To do otherwise is to jeopardize the national security and public safety of our nation.Opposing argument: (Heritage Foundation, "Eliminate Redundant
Government Hiring," May 9, 2017): It's not hard to find federal programs that are duplicative or ineffective. The president's executive order requires all agency heads to submit plans for reorganizing their operations. Their proposals are to "include recommendations to eliminate unnecessary agencies and programs." That all sounds great, but what does it actually mean?
Well, for starters, it means the previous federal hiring freeze is no more. But it doesn't mean programs and departments are free to hire willy-nilly. Instead, they've been instructed to follow a smart-hiring plan, consistent with the President's America First Budget Blueprint.
A few agencies, like the Defense Department and Veterans Affairs, will beef up staff. Most, however, will have to pare down employment. All federal employees can expect to see resources shift to higher-priority ones. Many may be asked to do something new or different with the goal of optimizing employees' skills and time.
Source: Letter on DVA 17LTR-DVA on Jan 26, 2017
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