Free Talk Live

Warrantless wiretaps intimidate several organizations and cast a chill over lawyers, journalists and human rights researchers - Are you, a US citizen, calling cousin Ivor in Budapest, or reaching out to your old pen pal Yasmeen in Sydney? The National Security Agency (NSA) can listen in on your personal cellphone or read what you might be emailing him or her from your personal computer without telling you. The Feds can listen in to you now, "whenever government deems it necessary for foreign intelligence reasons" Jaffer explained to me. The vagueness of a phrase such as "material support," and the chilling effect resulting from that vagueness, was at the heart of the successful National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) group challenge.