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NSA probably now has access to the direct streams telecoms use to consolidate their billing and geolocatioon data, from taps on the underlying circuits. If it's encrypted then nudge nudge wink wink here's the key. So telecoms no longer need suffer the indignity and PR risk of transmitting the data.

NSA Warrantless Wiretapping is not just an invasion of privacy. They have actually claimed to Congress that they do NOT consider information intercepted and stored indefinitely... to be unlawful at all! Until or unless someone reads it. This subverts Freedom of Association too, since any future tyrant would have access to this cradle-to-grave data of our families and friends and (now! with super-cells!) movements.

To get up to speed quickly this whitepaper by Andrew Clement seems to cover all the bases. Look past the straw man 'Metadata Collection' within it for 'NSA splitter'. Or you might start as I did years ago with James Bamford's fascinating 1982 book Puzzle Palace. While most of it dwells on what is now history and goes on at length about NSA's Charter which explicitly forbid domestic intercepts, there was a single passage in this book that revealed something else. I will quote it because I believe Bamford intended it as a dire warning: "Another indication of NSA's "broadband sweeping of multi-circuited domestic telecommunications trunk lines," David L. Watters told the Senate Intelligence Committee [in 1978!] lies in the Agency's request for an amendment to the wiretap law that would permit NSA to engage in warrantless wiretapping "for the sole purpose of determining the capability of equipment" when such "test period shall be limited... to... ninety days." Continuing, he warned: "Let there be no misunderstanding here. There is only one category of wiretapping equipment or system which requires up to ninety days for test and adjustment, and that system is broadband electronic eavesdropping equipment, the vacuum-cleaner approach to intelligence gathering, the general search of microwave trunk lines. I make this assertion on the strength of actual experience in the electronic intelligence trade and on the strength of over twenty-five years' experience in the telecommunications profession. An ordinary, single-line wire tap requires only five minutes to adjust and test."

Sure this pre-Internet quote discusses microwave, which was the long-line 'broadband' of choice in those days... but NSA's intentions to dig in at places where American citizens speak with each other is clear. Since then, Thomas Drake, Bill Binney and Mark Klein have all come forward alleging domestic surveillance far exceeding 'telephone records'. Klein is of special note, for it is he who revealed the existence of secret Room 641A in the lawsuit Heptig vs AT&T that the Electronic Frontier Foundation took almost to the Supreme Court... who actually declined to hear the case on grounds that the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 protected AT&T from liability for involvement with any illegal activities. Sound normal? This was a law passed after the lawsuit was filed. In response to it, even. Oh.

That should make you a bit angry. We're not talking about telephone records here. We're talking about fiber splitting with drop-in access to the whole slurp. Which also contains voice these days. Any real despot who comes to power will discover that the United States is prepared to deliver real-time private communications and databases of activity for its citizens, cradle to grave, that had been collected with no 'probable cause' whatsoever.

Why the fuck would anyone want to build this thing

He brought the Green New Deal up for a vote.... and the vote to limit the national emergency powers of the President.

They never supported a 2,000 mile wall that would cost billions to build much less maintain. But keep on with your strawmanning.

According to Wikipedia,

Congress put aside $1.4 billion for the fence, but the whole cost, including maintenance, was pegged at $50 billion over 25 years, according to analyses at the time.

Why wasn't the fence built? According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch,

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security canceled Boeing's border fence program Friday [January 14, 2011], putting an end to a five-year-long project long plagued by delays and technical problems.
. . .
It was originally envisioned to stretch the 1,969-mile border between the U.S. and Mexico but initial phases of the $1 billion project took longer than anticipated to complete and covered just a small portion, 53 miles, since the project began.

This web page lists everyone who voted for the "Secure Fence Act of 2006. Notice that the "Yea" votes include "Biden, Joseph", "Clinton, Hillary", "Obama, Barack", and "Schumer, Chuck".

Worker pay and benefits climbing at fastest pace in 10 years, ECI finds

Does anyone have any idea what could have happened 10 years ago that caused worker pay and benefits to stagnate for a whole damn decade?

Anyone?

Bueller?

I'll bite, but the problem started about 20 years ago... With the creation of the "subprime mortgage" which was needed to loan money to unqualified borrowers, backed by two Federally backed mortgage companies. A pile of money got loaned to people who couldn't pay it back and real estate prices shot though the roof as the market was awash in cheap money loaned by banks, converted into questionable securities backed by the fed. Why did banks do this in the first place? Anybody have a clue how this could take place, banks loaning money that would never get paid back?

Bueller?

Bueller?

Here's a hint.... WHO demanded that subprime borrowers be given loans and why?

Here's a statement: What happened at the end of Bush's administration is the house of cards finally fell, but the building of that structure took YEARS so the cause of the problem wasn't the economy and wasn't really Bush's fault (except in that he didn't see and avoid it). The REAL reason happened years before when banks started loaning money to unqualified people and why do you suppose they did that?

DEMOCRATS

Barney Frank stating Fannie Mae isn't going to fail:

'These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis,'' said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ''The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing."

And, umm, yeah, Bush et al did see it coming:

2003:

New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae

The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

And another attempt in 2005:

S. 190 (109th): Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005

I sympathize with your complaints about deregulation, but you're terribly misinformed.

Glass–Steagall was repealed in 1999 by the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, an overwhelmingly bipartisan piece of legislation. The Senate voted 90-8, the House 362-57, and finally signed by Bill Clinton. The Reagan bashing is utterly anachronistic, as he was out of office a decade prior. Karl Rove was a minor player in Texas politics, and wouldn't become a national figure until Dubya was elected in 2000. You need to be looking at the banks, they're the ones calling the shots.

I sympathize with your complaints about deregulation, but you're terribly misinformed.

Glass–Steagall was repealed in 1999 by the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, an overwhelmingly bipartisan piece of legislation. The Senate voted 90-8, the House 362-57, and finally signed by Bill Clinton. The Reagan bashing is utterly anachronistic, as he was out of office a decade prior. Karl Rove was a minor player in Texas politics, and wouldn't become a national figure until Dubya was elected in 2000. You need to be looking at the banks, they're the ones calling the shots.

Maybe if the Republicans who controlled congress hadn't started with "make Obama a 1-term president" as their primary stated goal

That's every parties goal. Do you honestly think the democrats are trying to not assist Trump?

and pretty much refused anything he put forward whether or not they or their constituents agreed with it or it was good for the country.

On the high publicity stuff there were fundamental differences of opinion on what was good for the country. Overall, during Obama's tenure congress passed almost 2 thousand new laws, over 3500 resolutions, and almost 50 thousand other pieces of legislation. https://www.govtrack.us/congre...

When you compare Trumps first year to Obama's you see who Obama was very successful. Heck, if you compare Trumps first year to when the republicans took over the house under Obama, you see that Republicans are much less likely to vote on party lines than democrats.

There is no requirement to fund for 75 years out. Go read the law https://www.govtrack.us/congre...
The only people who keep repeating that are people ignorant on the topic and the paid personnel who are attempt to cut benefits to the employees and then make the Congress pay money to the postal union.

Yes, after being told by everyone in the freaking world--police, investigators, sex trafficking experts--that it will actually cause more harm to victims of sex trafficking and make it harder for police to find them and intervene.

There are a ton of proposals out there that actually do things like put more funding up for investigation resources. FOSTA covers up the problem so we don't have to look at it, and causes it to fester even worse. People will die for this. 15-year-old hookers will be pimped and beaten with no hope of rescue.

I intend to engage as many experts as I can find to craft something actually useful, and repeal and replace this stupid and broken piece of legislation. Notice that Ron Wyden is again the only sane man in the room. I like Elizabeth Warren, but this is facepalm.

My State senator is Barbara Robinson. She is fucking phenomenal. When criminal-justice-related stuff hits the Senate, she always votes the right way. Ron Wyden looks to be that in the US Senate, but for Internet- and technology-related things. The man actually blew up on an FBI director for claiming that encryption backdoors would be absolutely safe and viable.

>Apparently it is a somewhat common practice that bills get swapped out in this fashion. It threw me at first also.

I dunno how common it is, but it sure seems shady.

Consider that S.139, the Rapid DNA Act of 2017, was introduced in the Senate in Jan. 2017. https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/s139 and passed the Senate in May 2017.

Meanwhile in the House there was an identical bill named Rapid DNA Act of 2017 (H.510) that was also introduced in Jan 2017 and passed the House also in May 2017. H.510 then went on to the Senate for a vote and was passed in Aug of 2017 and subsequently signed into law by President Obama a little over two weeks later.

So the Rapid DNA Act of 2017 is already a law!

The Senate version, S.139, sent to the House and was in limbo until it was put on the House calendar on Jan 5, 2018.

Why consider a bill that was already made into law?

Why not just put H.4478, the FISA reauthorization of section 702 amendment on the calendar and vote on it instead?

Why engage in this seeming trickery to obscure what it is the House is really voting on?

Plausible deniability?

>Apparently it is a somewhat common practice that bills get swapped out in this fashion. It threw me at first also.

I dunno how common it is, but it sure seems shady.

Consider that S.139, the Rapid DNA Act of 2017, was introduced in the Senate in Jan. 2017. https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/s139 and passed the Senate in May 2017.

Meanwhile in the House there was an identical bill named Rapid DNA Act of 2017 (H.510) that was also introduced in Jan 2017 and passed the House also in May 2017. H.510 then went on to the Senate for a vote and was passed in Aug of 2017 and subsequently signed into law by President Obama a little over two weeks later.

So the Rapid DNA Act of 2017 is already a law!

The Senate version, S.139, sent to the House and was in limbo until it was put on the House calendar on Jan 5, 2018.

Why consider a bill that was already made into law?

Why not just put H.4478, the FISA reauthorization of section 702 amendment on the calendar and vote on it instead?

Why engage in this seeming trickery to obscure what it is the House is really voting on?

> that they pre-fund their retirement account fully within five years.

False. The five-year requirement is that every five years they have to calculate how far in the hole they are. (How much they owe to workers who have already worked, or are working on today, and whom they've promised decades of retirement pay to, without funding that promise.)

> If every employee retired now (even if they were just hired and thus are not eligible for retirement benefits...) the full amount of their retirement pension is covered.

Laughably false. They owe over $120 billion to workers who have already done the work and been promised retirement payments, but that the USPS has no way to pay for. In other words, they are $120 billion in the hole, to pay workers who have already done the work.

> that they pre-fund their retirement account fully within five years

The five-year requirement in the act is that every five years they have to figure out how much debt they have (retirement payments earned by workers) and compare it to how much they have set aside to make those payments. That's it - they just have to figure out how bad it is and issue report every five years.

What the postal service was doing, and is supposed to stop doing, is the kind of accounting that sent Enron executives to prison. If anyone but the postal service was hiding a $120 billion liability, it would be called "fraud".

What they were doing is saying to employees "work for us today, and we'll not only pay you today, we'll keep paying you after you retire, until you die." Someone can retire from USPS at the age of 56, so their retirement payments may be almost as much as their salary, or even more. Over the course of 30 years of retirement, the worker might be owed $840,000. So they had workers doing the work in say 1995, promised to pay them hundreds of thousands of dollars "later", but never set aside any money to be able to make good on those promises.

They owe about $120 billion - for work already done, and hadn't set anything aside to pay it. Most "every other business in the country" funds your 401K or other retirement by sending their contribution to a third-party investment bank every time you get a paycheck. You work this month, they pay for it this month, including the retirement part. State retirement plans work the same way, at least where I'm from in Texas - whichever agency you work for, when they pay for this year's work, they also pay whatever retirement they'll owe for this year's work. They don't have you work today and say "we'll worry about how to pay for it 20 years from now".

In 2006 they were given fifteen years to get caught up on the retirement they owed. They haven't come come close, because they are losing money. Any "profit" has to go toward funding the retirement promises they've made, but the "profit" hasn't been nearly enough and the number of letters they carry has fallen 30% over the last ten years, so it's unlikely they'll ever be able to pay for the retirement they are promising today's employees. They'll need the taxpayers to bail them out.

https://www.cnbc.com/id/450184...

https://www.govtrack.us/congre...

What the postal service was doing, and is supposed to stop doing, is the kind of accounting that sent Enron executives to prison. If anyone but the postal service was hiding a $120 billion liability, it would be called "fraud".

What they were doing is saying to employees "work for us today, and we'll not only pay you today, we'll keep paying you after you retire, until you die." Someone can retire from USPS at the age of 56, so their retirement payments may be almost as much as their salary, or even more. Over the course of 30 years of retirement, the worker might be owed $840,000. So they had workers doing the work in say 1995, promised to pay them hundreds of thousands of dollars "later", but never set aside any money to be able to make good on those promises.

They owe about $120 billion - for work already done, and hadn't set anything aside to pay it. Most "every other business in the country" funds your 401K or other retirement by sending their contribution to a third-party investment bank every time you get a paycheck. You work this month, they pay for it this month, including the retirement part. State retirement plans work the same way, at least where I'm from in Texas - whichever agency you work for, when they pay for this year's work, they also pay whatever retirement they'll owe for this year's work. They don't have you work today and say "we'll worry about how to pay for it 20 years from now".

In 2006 they were given fifteen years to get caught up on the retirement they owed. They haven't come come close, because they are losing money. Any "profit" has to go toward funding the retirement promises they've made, but the "profit" hasn't been nearly enough and the number of letters they carry has fallen 30% over the last ten years, so it's unlikely they'll ever be able to pay for the retirement they are promising today's employees. They'll need the taxpayers to bail them out.

https://www.cnbc.com/id/450184...

https://www.govtrack.us/congre...

Where is that in the law https://www.govtrack.us/congre... there is full text, show us where the 75 years is.

For those waiting, we will never hear a reply because that claim of 75 years for funding retirements is a false and a well known lie spread by a bunch of people who hate the post office employees and are trying to prevent the post office from having the money they need to pay the pensions that the employees agreed to.
The people spreading this lie like mixing some truth with their sick lies. The 75 years is the standard number of years that government agencies are required to forecast for accounting purposes, you can find it all over the GAO web site.
For retirement they are required to use the same expected life that is used all over the government, I believe it is a little over 84 years. So if the post office expect people to retire at age 60 they are required under the federal law to have funded that person for the 24 years and because of a 1970s law at a higher rate than other government employees get, which is what this sick person wants make sure there is no money for.

The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 was passed in 2006 under Nancy Pelosi's leadership in the house. The bill passed on a voice vote in the House and unanimous consent in the Senate. Bipartisan, it wasn't a GW Bush thing - but a sane move to keep the unfunded pension liabilities to only a few tens of billions of dollars, rather than hundreds of billions of dollars.

https://www.senate.gov/legisla...

McCaskill (D-MO), Yea
Manchin (D-WV), Yea
Peters (D-MI), Yea
Tester (D-MT), Yea

So called "moderate Democrats".
Two of whom are a part of something called "The ModSquad", one is "ranked exactly 50th on its scale of the 100 senators, from most-liberal to most-conservative" and one is just a tad more to the left of her.

Really? I find that very hard to believe. Per the US government's own website: "Puerto Rico is a territory of the United States. Because it is not a state, it has no senators and its representative in the House of Representatives is a delegate, called the Resident Commissioner, with limited voting privileges. Delegates have a marginalized role in Congress and their constituents are not represented in Congress in the same manner as most citizens."

So you personally know Jenniffer González-Colón (who is a Republican, not a Democrat) and is NOT a "representative" but the Resident Commissioner, aka their official delegate? And the way you say "one", are you implying that there is more than one, like some secret cabal that only you know about? Or do you "personally know" Pedro Pierluisi, the previous Resident Commissioner, who is Democrat?

Now, I'm not contesting the idea of "a corrupt banana republic run by a handful of thieving families". I could counter that the USA itself is becoming "a corrupt intellectual property rights republic run by a handful of thieving corporations"

What happened here is a symptom of what our forefathers rebelled against in the first place..."taxation without representation". PR has no "real" power in the Federal government, and is perceived by the current POTUS as an "an island surrounded by water. Big water. Ocean water." He can't even speak in complete sentences, so PR is probably SOOL.

You need some citations that contain actual statistics for your "facts". The green jobs lie was just that, a lie. Coal jobs were lost because Obama essentially banned coal fired power plants via regulations making them cost negative to operate. Not even gassfied coal plants could operate at a profit.

Well let's see, the price of natural gas plummetted in 2008 which is a direct result of Bush's 2005 energy policy which exempted natural gas from just about all regulation. However, feel free to point out which executive order he made to make this happen before he came into office.

CO2 is produced by every living organism, and plants need it to live.

Interesting fact, plants absorb and expel it. Until recently, animal life has been living in the margins of what could be absorbed.

It has historically been at higher levels pre industrial revolution, http://drtimball.com/2012/pre-... [drtimball.com] it already blocks all the IR bands at 100%, and adding more will not change that (don't try to feed me that speculative BS about upper vs lower atmospheric diffraction, that is pure speculative BS with zero science to back it up), but somehow we are teetering on the apocalypse, never mind the science and historical evidence.

Adding more will make it more difficult to extract CO2 from the atmosphere which is something that must be done lest we become the next Venus. So if in if fact the we are blocking 100% of the IR, it will make it that much more difficult to undo the damage done. Secondly, the increased level of CO2 in the atmosphere is causing the oceans to become increasingly acidic. This in itself is causing rapid ecological changes.

As far as the ACA goes, the Repubicans only got 90% consensus in their own party, while not a single democrat voted for the repeal/replace,

Well, i suppose you'd be surprised to learn how the ACA actually got passed in the first place. https://www.govtrack.us/congre...

so Republicans have decided to let the ACA explode (which it is)

According to who? The mago-in-chief? Please link a CBO document.

and let the Dims ride that sinking ship into oblivion in the next election.

Reforming it is a much better idea than repealing it. If you want to replace it, it has to be a better for the people involved, which i recall Trump promising (“insurance for everybody.” comes to mind). Needless to say, the ACA isn't perfect. Frankly, it seems like a single unified national health care system would be a better and cheaper solution.

You might want to learn some actual facts before you spout off.

Take your own advice.

For example, the state of California spends ~42% of all funds on education, yet private schools produce better results with less than half the funding that public schools get. Clearly room for improvement and reform. We could get far better results cutting the budget in half, privatizing all schools and giving parents a portable voucher every year

LOL! Well, you obviously haven't taken a close look because it's hit-or-miss on both sides of public/private schools. I do not deny that education needs to be reformed but full privatization is exceptionally problematic.

7% of the entire state budget is spent on corrections and rehabilitation of criminals. In the past it was much lower because they used to execute those on death ro

And CBS poll is of course a trusted source for that information..

I would prefer:
https://projects.fivethirtyeig...
53.7% disapprove and 41.3% approve as of writing this... Of Course, those number are also really bad..

Sure he sounds like that crazy person on the bus, but looking at what he is for:
https://projects.fivethirtyeig...
he's not too crazy.. But still crazy enough that it surprised me that he got elected... On the other hand, Clinton was not really a choice either.

Or what other people is voting for:
https://projects.fivethirtyeig...

Next time, please think and look at who you are voting for... Look at their track-record of what they have voted for in the past and do not only listen to what they say they will do.
https://www.govtrack.us/congre... or look it up elsewhere for someone that's new to congress.

Two days ago: congress strips internet privacy protections against ISPs
Yesterday: Crowdfunding and cards against humanity announce they'll buy the internet histories of the congresspeople who voted for it
Today: ISPs announce they won't be selling individual histories

I guess with the psychopath in the white house, there's really no need to be subtle anymore.

Sidenote: every congress person who voted for it was republican. House vote and Senate vote. The protections rolled back were from Obama. Tell me both sides are equally bad.

Two days ago: congress strips internet privacy protections against ISPs
Yesterday: Crowdfunding and cards against humanity announce they'll buy the internet histories of the congresspeople who voted for it
Today: ISPs announce they won't be selling individual histories

I guess with the psychopath in the white house, there's really no need to be subtle anymore.

Sidenote: every congress person who voted for it was republican. House vote and Senate vote. The protections rolled back were from Obama. Tell me both sides are equally bad.

A compromise with the GOP? That's why a grand total of ZERO Republicans voted in favor, and there were no votes from Democrats as well? Just to refresh your memory, here's the vote tally in the house and here's the tally from the Senate.

Yeah, looks like quite the compromise, as it had all of a 1 vote margin of victory in the House, and exactly the votes needed in the senate to end debate. Just so you know, the hallmark of a compromise bill, is that both parties have at least one person vote for it.

A compromise with the GOP? That's why a grand total of ZERO Republicans voted in favor, and there were no votes from Democrats as well? Just to refresh your memory, here's the vote tally in the house and here's the tally from the Senate.

Yeah, looks like quite the compromise, as it had all of a 1 vote margin of victory in the House, and exactly the votes needed in the senate to end debate. Just so you know, the hallmark of a compromise bill, is that both parties have at least one person vote for it.

https://www.govtrack.us/congre...

AC must be talking about Hillary, she after all actually voted for increasing the border fence.

Anytime is fine to change it for future elections. Obviously what is being said is that you shouldn't change it for this election, given those were the rules being followed which will have greatly effected the popular vote in the first place.

Consitutional amendments are too uncommon after all, though it has been 45 years since the last successful one was submitted. It's not like this one hasn't been being tried over and over: https://www.govtrack.us/congre...

I agree that the GOP has had piss poor leadership for decades. The latest batch of in-breds in particular seem to be so far out of touch with today's society it's almost like they've been living in a GOP bio-dome fed propaganda for 20 years before they are allowed to step up to a podium.

However, they most certainly don't "just go with the opposition". Congress has managed to do far less since 2011 due to all of the infighting. Have you not seen the headlines about the Republican house trying to cut funding to the Democratic majority FCC? What about the Republican house trying their damnedest to pass laws that have side-notes to cut funding to Obamacare?

"If it's something Obama supports, we must stop it!" has been the GOP mantra for 8 years now.

Yes, Hillary and Obama voted for the "Secure Fence Act of 2006". See this list of who voted for it. Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton all voted for it.

Also, Mrs. Clinton gave a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations on October 31, 2016. A transcript of the speech, and Q&A after the speech, are here. (You can do a search on that web page for the word "Mexico".)

A video of part of the speech is here. From 2:17 to 2:29: "What we need to simultaneously - you know, secure our borders with technology, personnel, physical barriers if necessary in some places - and we need to have tougher employer sanctions ..."

They have contracts with the US gov, mil to worry about. Just reading a site with a codeword that gets stored on their computer is an issue. They know their work and home internet is been logged as part of work "security".
They know that for the next promotion their internet logs might be looked into for the term "polygraph" over years. Other terms might be of interest to a gov or mil trying to find staff who can still think for themselves and "read" about events.
They get told not to read sites. All part of working for and protecting "freedom".
"The most vocal" is usually just faith based or virtue signalling or need to push a political tech narrative to gain as a contractor.
The sale of more security products, services due to super "hackers" from other nations got pushed a lot over the past weeks.
The idea that leaks got "faked" vs actual staff having to quit. Staff don't quit over fake news.
"Will reading WikiLeaks cost students jobs with the federal government?" (December 9, 2010)
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/CR...
"Don’t Look, Don’t Read: Government Warns Its Workers Away From WikiLeaks Documents" (Dec 4 2010)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12...
US blocks access to WikiLeaks for federal workers (4 dec 2010)
https://www.theguardian.com/wo...
The other aspect is just domestic US gov/mil propaganda been allowed in with the relaxing of the Smith–Mundt Act. A lot of sock puppet accounts.
The next step will be a flood of US gov workers pushing a "story" under ideas like 'H.R. 5181: Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act of 2016"
https://www.govtrack.us/congre...
So wait for a new big US bureaucracy with a fun name like "Information Analysis and Response" to really get vocal and create prolific posters :)

The Congressional Black Caucus was a heavy supporter of the "war on drugs" in the 1980s. The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 passed a Democratic House with 205 Democratic co-sponsors to 96 Republicans.

Here's the full list. Note that 4 didn't vote, so they may try again later - this thing isn't dead by any means. Also, McConnell switched his vote at the last minute so he can bring it up again, so the actual tally is 59.

https://www.govtrack.us/congre...

Party breakdown:
For: 46 R, 11D, 1I
Against: 7R, 30D, 1I
Not Voting: 1R, 3D

Draft text
https://www.govtrack.us/congre...

If you want to pass a law for its instrumental value, then you need make a case that it's actually going to work.

If this law works as intended, what would success look like? Maybe one of these things:
- Actually intercepting terrorists' communications before an attack?
- Actually intercepting terrorists' communications during an attack?
- Making it so terrorists can only communicate by ways other than cell phone during a terrorist attack?
- Making it so we can easily identify terrorists who used a cell phone during a terrorist attack after the attack is done?
Or something else I haven't thought of?

Are we already achieving any of those things by other means in some cases? If so, when aren't we, and would the law help us with that?

As background for figuring out if we will achieve our goal(s), let's get some more info about the world.
Currently terrorists purchase prepaid phones without ID and use them before and during terrorist attacks. If the proposed law was in effect, what would they do instead?
- Would they still be able to acquire a cellphone from a retailer without actually identifying themselves?
- Also, are there any other ways that a terrorist could obtain cellphones without identifying themselves?
If you want people to think up ideas about that you've probably come to the right place.
* Giving fake info to an online retailer
* Giving another person's info to an online retailer
* Paying an unrelated third party (e.g. a homeless person) to buy a phone and give it to them
* Stealing phones

Supposing that none of that worked and the terrorists lost access to anonymous phones, and they changed their practices, would they change them in a way that would achieve the goal?

Trespassing (yes, the venue was private property and the protesters/goons were there under false pretences and refused to leave when told), and then rioting to prevent Trump from being heard is not "free speech", it's depriving someone else of their free-speech and in this case, a federal crime (section C-1B, Trump is protected by Secret Service)

How would you react if people came to an event you were hosting and started shouting you down and rioting and then claimed it was all under their "free speech".

Besides, I thought you Trumpophobes didn't believe in free speech anyway. Or is that only when it's someone else's speech that you don't like?

I... can't imagine that's what the GP is suggesting. I don't know the details of all of these, but the ones that I recognize are all "bi-partisan" - meaning that they had significant support from both parties - however, if you look at the actual votes it's pretty clear that these are really Republican bills with support from Democrats. The Patriot Act, for example, while receiving bipartisan support was/is more Republican than not. Passed by a Republican controlled Congress and President and defended by Republicans when it came time for renewal.

Gramm-Leach-Bliley was Republican (in addition to the vote, all of the bill's sponsors were Republican), NAFTA was Republican.

The exception that I can spot is TARP, which was mostly Democratic. So... I don't know where the GP is going with this.

I... can't imagine that's what the GP is suggesting. I don't know the details of all of these, but the ones that I recognize are all "bi-partisan" - meaning that they had significant support from both parties - however, if you look at the actual votes it's pretty clear that these are really Republican bills with support from Democrats. The Patriot Act, for example, while receiving bipartisan support was/is more Republican than not. Passed by a Republican controlled Congress and President and defended by Republicans when it came time for renewal.

Gramm-Leach-Bliley was Republican (in addition to the vote, all of the bill's sponsors were Republican), NAFTA was Republican.

The exception that I can spot is TARP, which was mostly Democratic. So... I don't know where the GP is going with this.

I... can't imagine that's what the GP is suggesting. I don't know the details of all of these, but the ones that I recognize are all "bi-partisan" - meaning that they had significant support from both parties - however, if you look at the actual votes it's pretty clear that these are really Republican bills with support from Democrats. The Patriot Act, for example, while receiving bipartisan support was/is more Republican than not. Passed by a Republican controlled Congress and President and defended by Republicans when it came time for renewal.

Gramm-Leach-Bliley was Republican (in addition to the vote, all of the bill's sponsors were Republican), NAFTA was Republican.

The exception that I can spot is TARP, which was mostly Democratic. So... I don't know where the GP is going with this.

There was no big public discussion on McCain's eligibility because Congress settled the question BEFORE the election. https://www.govtrack.us/congre...

This is in contrast to the question of Mr. Obama who insisted that he was eligible not just because he was born a US Citizen. It remains a question as to if that is adequate, given the above resolution named McCain specifically and mentioned military families. Obama claimed eligibility based on his being born within the United States. Being born within the United States being the narrowest interpretation of what the Constitution says on the matter. It got really bizarre when rather than being reasonable and just producing his birth certificate to prove he was born where he said he was; he stonewalled for years. He did this incidentally while supporting things like Real ID and various TSA rule making. Only in Obama's world ( and that of those who were prepared to do anything protect his presidency) is it unreasonable to let you board a plane for a domestic flight with a document that does not contain your middle initial, but its totally cool to vote, or be elected president for that matter, with no proof of eligibility of any kind.

Quite honestly I accept the interpretation that natural born us citizen means, that you were a citizen when you were born. If the framers wanted to write "citizen born within the United States" they would have. So I don't think the whole Obama controversy matters much because he would have been a citizen at birth either way. I DO WONDER why it took so long to produce a birth certificate, which had he simply done immediately would have made the conspiracy people go away. I sorta doubt the validity of that birth certificate at this point, it just does not matter because he should still be eligible for the office as I understand plain language and the Constitution.

Which brings us to my currently favored (among those with the potential to get elected) candidate Mr. Cruz. Trump's attack on his eligibility is reasonably IMHO. While if I were a jurist making the call I would rule he is eligible, because he was a US Citizen when he was born; that does not mean the SCOTUS would reach the same conclusion. Trump is right he should seek a declaratory judgement, or similar congressional resolution on the matter lest it become a potential issue later.

Is privacy such an enemy of the state now that they have to push it through in the budget bill? Why is ramming this through such a high priority for the Senate? Privacy used to be a second class issue. It hurts to watch our interests be so blatantly ignored by our governing body.

I agree, which is why I strongly suggest that everyone interested in this take a minute to look at the omnibus vote records from the House and the one for the Senate. If your representatives voted different than you want, take a few minutes to reach out to them. A phone call, email, or even (gasp) a physical letter will let them know what you think.

Is privacy such an enemy of the state now that they have to push it through in the budget bill? Why is ramming this through such a high priority for the Senate? Privacy used to be a second class issue. It hurts to watch our interests be so blatantly ignored by our governing body.

I agree, which is why I strongly suggest that everyone interested in this take a minute to look at the omnibus vote records from the House and the one for the Senate. If your representatives voted different than you want, take a few minutes to reach out to them. A phone call, email, or even (gasp) a physical letter will let them know what you think.

The article doesn't mention any actual bill, but Feinstein just introduced S. 2372: A bill to require reporting of terrorist. There is no text for the bill yet, but according to Feinstein's office, which I called after reading this article, is meant to just require companies to report to police if they come across terrorist or explosives information.

I am no fan of Feinstein, but I haven't seen anything questionable or about encryption backdoors in the bill. It seems that reporters are just making stiff up these days.

For those of you who think that voting Democratic is the lesser of two evils, note that the bill had strong bipartisan support in both the house and senate:

Yea 303: 179(R) 124(D)

[The USA Freedom Act] would make only incremental improvements, and at least one provision-the material-support provision-would represent a significant step backwards," ACLU deputy legal director Jameel Jaffer said in a statement.

Next up: the Trans Pacific Partnership. Let's all get together and vote for the party that does the least amount of damage to the American People! Yeah! That'll fix it!!!

One reasonable way to get good government to vote against all incumbents. Whether it's a red or blue congress critter, they'll fall in line once they realize that they only get 1 term if they screw over the people.

Another reasonable solution is to vote for non-insiders. Not Hillary, or Jeb or Chris or Marco.

This year the choices seem to be between "experience" and "change". Which of those would be the best for Americans?

Investigating "a loophole for debt collection robocalls had found its way into the budget bill":

I can narrow this down to having been introduced by the House. Commit 2015-10-28 pushed by House shows:

https://www.govtrack.us/congre...

Previous 2015-05-22 revision committed by Senate

https://www.govtrack.us/congre...

Diff places blame on house.

Perhaps an improvement would be

"The United States House of Representatives added a loophole for debt collection robocalls into the budget bill":

This is the limit of my journalism abilities here, but just hoping to make some improvement.

I would glad pay money for Slashdot if somehow the journalism could be improved.

Investigating "a loophole for debt collection robocalls had found its way into the budget bill":

I can narrow this down to having been introduced by the House. Commit 2015-10-28 pushed by House shows:

https://www.govtrack.us/congre...

Previous 2015-05-22 revision committed by Senate

https://www.govtrack.us/congre...

Diff places blame on house.

Perhaps an improvement would be

"The United States House of Representatives added a loophole for debt collection robocalls into the budget bill":

This is the limit of my journalism abilities here, but just hoping to make some improvement.

I would glad pay money for Slashdot if somehow the journalism could be improved.

You mean the deal which is illegal? Which violates existing Federal statutes and laws regarding dealing with Iran. Specifically the Iran Threat Reduction Act which President Obama signed into law. But hey, breaking laws and ignoring what he pushed for is par-for-the-course for President Obama and his Administration.

The actual vote tally shows that both Democrats and Republicans voted for the bill (74 for, 21 against, 5 abstain).

If anyone believes that voting for R (or D) is worse than the other side, or how it's the "lessor of two evils", feel free to explain this.

There are a finite number of votes in any term. When our representatives vote against the interests of the people in all votes, there is no more damage that they can do. There can be no "lesser" evil - they're both at "maximum evil".

I took a look at the text of the recent Iowa poll, the one that puts Carson ahead of Trump that everyone is talking about. I couldn't see any obvious bias (a good thing), but this question stood out:

Which do you think is the bigger risk for the future of the country?

74 To elect a president who has not held office so does not know the processes and procedures of governing

101 To elect the same sort of person who has served as president for many decades who will likely continue to do things the way they have been done with the same effect

25 Not sure

The numbers are total Dem+Rep respondents in the poll.

This is interesting because it shows that Americans (in Iowa, at least) are waking up to the realization that electing career politicians is not in their best interests.

With respect to Democrat readers, your only viable candidate on that side (Hillary Clinton) is a weak contender, while the Republican side appears to have both Trump and Carson as strong candidates.

With respect to the Republican readers, neither of your strong candidates is a career politican. One doesn't need to sell his influence to moneyed interests.

This may be the beginning of the end for career politicians and national parties.

He might have been Republican in name but seemed to vote more like a democrat.

If you're not with us you're against us, eh? If you look at a graph, he's moderate. "More like a Democrat"? You can be moderate, you know. For a site that rails against the two party system, the comments seem to want to reinforce it.

So let me get this straight, this kid is being arrested and Trump is leading the polls?

The endless abuse, stupidity, waste, and misery is why Trump is leading the polls.

We've got the Republican debates tonight. See if any of the politicians will take a clear stance on fixing anything.

Oh, and check the voting records - it's the only way to make sure.

USA Freedom Act (Senate) (source)

YEAs: 67 (D = 43, R = 23, I = 1)
NAYs: 32 (D = 1, R = 30, I = 1)
Not voting: 1 (R)

There will be a vigorous discussion here on Thursday about what went on during the Republican debates (Wednesday, tomorrow).

Trump is completely against this outsourcing thing. He sees quite clearly the damage it does to our workforce, and how it's turning the country into a 3rd world nation.

Unlike the other candidates, he doesn't have to promise anything to super PACs just to get campaign donations. We're starting to see the fallout from this, as at least one supar-PAC has declared war on Donald Trump.

And for comparison, note that about 6 months before becoming president, [then] Senator Obama voted *for* telecom immunity. After he had promised to vote against it. And the measure didn't need his vote to pass - it already had enough support for that.

As a result several telecoms donated to his campaign and he ultimately won.

Keep this job-loss article in mind as you listen to the candidates on Wednesday. Most of them are career politicians, and we know how they actually voted on some of these issues.

If you want to compete with 30,000 new job hunters because your company outsourced to another country, feel free to vote for a politician.

Of course, your company will offer you 3 months of extra employment if you agree to train your replacement, so it's not all bad!

Increase H1B Visas (Senate) (source)

YEAs: 67 (D = 52, R = 14, I = 2)
NAYs: 32 (D = 0, R = 32, I = 0)

We could do worse than Trump... But.... We could do a LOT better too. I sure hope Trump get's tired of spending his money on this side show pretty soon...

The summary nature of voting on legislature (yea, nay, abstain) puts an upper bound on the amount of damage a bad congressman can do.

Essentially, there are a finite number of times any congressman can vote on an issue. If they vote against the interests of the people every time, they've reached maximum damage.

The same can be said of presidents (pass, veto, pocket-veto, &c.).

Few issues are black-and-white: most laws are some percent good for the people and some percent bad. The two issues I can find that are closest to 100% bad for the people are H1B Visas and the Patriot and USA Freedom acts.

H1B visas take jobs away from Americans and allow corporations to impose misery on the imported workers, and the Patriot act and related violates our rights and makes us less safe (by diverting resources away from effective strategies like intelligence gathering).

The relevant votes are shown below. The government doesn't care about our rights, and it doesn't care whether we have jobs. It has reached maximum damage.

Trump might be the worst president we've ever had, but at this point in time, he's not *guaranteed* to be the worst.

USA Freedom Act (Senate)

YEAs: 67 (D = 43, R = 23, I = 1)
NAYs: 32 (D = 1, R = 30, I = 1)
Not voting: 1 (R)

USA Freedom Act (House)
https://www.govtrack.us/congre...

YEAs: 67 (D = 124, R = 179, I = 1)
NAYs: 32 (D = 70, R = 51, I = 1)
Not voting: 2 (R) 5(D)

Increase H1B Visas (Senate)
https://www.govtrack.us/congre...

YEAs: 67 (D = 52, R = 14, I = 2)
NAYs: 32 (D = 0, R = 32, I = 0)

We could do worse than Trump... But.... We could do a LOT better too. I sure hope Trump get's tired of spending his money on this side show pretty soon...

The summary nature of voting on legislature (yea, nay, abstain) puts an upper bound on the amount of damage a bad congressman can do.

Essentially, there are a finite number of times any congressman can vote on an issue. If they vote against the interests of the people every time, they've reached maximum damage.

The same can be said of presidents (pass, veto, pocket-veto, &c.).

Few issues are black-and-white: most laws are some percent good for the people and some percent bad. The two issues I can find that are closest to 100% bad for the people are H1B Visas and the Patriot and USA Freedom acts.

H1B visas take jobs away from Americans and allow corporations to impose misery on the imported workers, and the Patriot act and related violates our rights and makes us less safe (by diverting resources away from effective strategies like intelligence gathering).

The relevant votes are shown below. The government doesn't care about our rights, and it doesn't care whether we have jobs. It has reached maximum damage.

Trump might be the worst president we've ever had, but at this point in time, he's not *guaranteed* to be the worst.

USA Freedom Act (Senate)

YEAs: 67 (D = 43, R = 23, I = 1)
NAYs: 32 (D = 1, R = 30, I = 1)
Not voting: 1 (R)

USA Freedom Act (House)
https://www.govtrack.us/congre...

YEAs: 67 (D = 124, R = 179, I = 1)
NAYs: 32 (D = 70, R = 51, I = 1)
Not voting: 2 (R) 5(D)

Increase H1B Visas (Senate)
https://www.govtrack.us/congre...

YEAs: 67 (D = 52, R = 14, I = 2)
NAYs: 32 (D = 0, R = 32, I = 0)

But there are NO Republicans in the Congress that even remotely care about people.

See? Now you're being blindly partisan again. Democrats say that Republicans don't care about people because Republicans don't like welfare. Republicans say that Democrats don't care about people because Democrats try to trap people in an inter-generational dependency scheme (Democrats just want to rule over you, etc).

Here's an example of a Republican view on how to tackle poverty, for example.

btw, I read this summary of the bill you linked to, and I can't find anything about the FDIC bailing out banks. Are you sure you linked to the right bill?