Slashdot Mirror
NSA Still Funded To Spy On US Phone Records
Reader turp182 notes that the Amash Amendment (#100) to HR 2397 (DOD appropriations bill) failed to pass the House of Representatives, meaning it will not be added to the appropriations bill. turp182 writes "The amendment would have specifically defunded the bulk collection of American phone records." Americans can see how their representatives voted here.
Spy on everyone. Karma is a bitch, folks.
The problem with the house is all the Jury Maundering.
Because of the majority, they will work to keep a hold of their majority, so they keep districts, where their threat of power isn't the other side, but people in your power who will claim you are not far enough into their camp. And because your district with a shape to hold your parties interest, means you can't even once vote across party lines.
In the House democracy has failed, in the area that is normal people, most direct say.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
They're in a privileged position, and the vast majority will be lapping it up. It boosts their egos because they are legally above the law applied to everyone else. People in power very rarely want to give it up, they desire more.
Actually, them doing nothing is probably better, otherwise they will screw things up even more.
False dichotomy. There's a third option: Undoing things. They can be invaliding prior acts, which is what we really need. We don't need to "fix" the U SAP AT RIOT act, we need to eliminate it. Examples abound.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Now that we all know we're being surveilled, I can understand why others may not make similar posts, but I'm going to risk it and say it anyway. I read the previous slashdot article on the amendment. I immediately called my representative. He voted YES! Even if the ship sinks, I still feel very good about this moment. The system may be dysfunctional, but at least some of us are still doing the right thing. The worst thing we can do is succumb to despair. It may take some really tough times to happen, but we WILL eventually emerge on the other side with a better system. It's what life always manages to do, no matter how dark the times become.
AccountKiller
Perhaps it did for one - his name was Edward Snowden.
Slashdot - News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters, in ISO-8859-1 Has just realised that beta makes this signature redundant
*shrug* Doesn't matter, really. Unless I let my voice be heard, I may as well be a serf.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
There have been a total 13 bills make it into law so far this Congress... and the ones that have made it into law are about items such as "Freedom to Fish".
Clearly you and I have different opinions on what qualifies as "worst" Congress. Considering all the harm they've been causing, them being completely ineffective in getting anything done is a marked improvement over what we've seen in previous years.
Does the name COINTELPRO mean anything to you? Decades ago the government used illegal surveillance to attempt to quash the civil rights movement. What assurances do we have that they won't do this again? Why should we believe they have good intentions at all when they cannot comply with the 4th amendment?
Exactly -this is why it is a big deal arekin (GP). When the government pretty much knows everything about everyone - then there is no more ability to effectively and democratically reform society for the better, right injustices, fight to change the status quo etc. For example try and organize a rally, information drive, any form of community organization against or for [insert cause]. If it upsets those in power you will be picked up/harassed/fired/detained before any of your emails/chats/phone calls to organize democratically allowed protest even hit anyones inbox. This is not speculation, all these police state things have already happened. One recent example: if you care to look into the details of one particular movement called "Occupy" that threatened the heart of power and money by asking for those in wall street that broke laws to actually be punished for their crimes.
Allowing the surveillance state means any slippery sloped we are now on with just continue to get worse, no leaders in our community can take charge to organize others to resist/complain/pushback against [insert cause]. History has given us enough examples now to know that if we do not reject the surveillance state we now find ourselves living in, then we really do deserve everything that is coming...
The amendment vote was 205-217. That's not losing by too much.
In debates about Christianity, there are two groups: those looking for answers, and those looking to just ask questions.
Having acquired these powers over decades, no amount of voter insistence will be effective in removing them.
What needs to happen now is at the state level - the legislatures must be convinced to grant themselves greater oversight and control over federal activities.
Our representative democracy was designed in an era where (horse-drawn) transportation was problematic, and the decisions of a few were practical. These conditions no longer exist, and the few are now too easily swayed by money and power. More people need to participate in federal decisions if we wish to (re)establish the consent of the governed.
I see 217 people that need to lose their jobs in the next election.
People in the "defense" industry typically respond with "I sleep just fine on a giant pile of money" or a slight variation of it, I'd expect the same from NSA stooges.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I don't think, at least in their mind, there's any moral issue at all.
People in all law enforcement branches have the following two facts constantly being reinforced in their minds:
1. They're trying to catch bad guys.
2. No matter what they do, sometimes the bad guys get away.
Imagine working in such an environment. You're only human, so naturally you begin to think, "If only I had a little more power, I could do so much good with it."
So you make a grab for a little more power, and guess what? It does help to nab a few more bad guys. But it's still not enough. So you start to grab for a little more, then a little more, then a little more. There's nothing wrong with it, because you have the best intentions, right?
That's what's happened. The NSA has simply grabbed for more power, a little at a time, all in the name of trying to catch the bad guys. No one is telling them, "This steps over the line." The only results of their power grab, at least that they can see, is that they're more effective at doing a good thing.
So yes, it is possible that a decent, honest person could have no moral qualms about working at the NSA and recording all the communications of all Americans.
It doesn't mean they're right, of course. There are some lines they shouldn't cross. The problem is that all they can see are the reasons to cross those lines, never the reasons not to.
That's true, but you need to take the tally with a grain of salt. Everybody knows what the outcome will be before the vote is taken, so they each get to plan their votes according to what they think will get them re-elected. You could switch your vote when it's actually taken, but lying to the party whip is a good way to get yourself shut out of important meetings.
There were probably some who would have switched votes each direction if the tally were taken entirely in secret. I can't really say whether it would have gotten closer or further from passing, though I suspect the whips could take a stab at it.
When you're getting paid well to perform a task, you naturally begin to view that task in a more positive light. This applies from the bottom of the power pyramid (where the pay is direct and official) all the way to the top (where the pay is indirect and unofficial).
Indeed -- and in a technical arena such as this, where you have access to all sorts of information that the "other side" doesn't have, you also can brush a lot off as "they just don't understand -- if they had the information I had, they'd behave the same way." This of course causes problems when the "other side" can't have access to the information for privacy reasons. The disconnect here is much easier to jump for the human mind than logic dictates.
Does the name COINTELPRO mean anything to you? Decades ago the government used illegal surveillance to attempt to quash the civil rights movement. What assurances do we have that they won't do this again? Why should we believe they have good intentions at all when they cannot comply with the 4th amendment?
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/national_world/2013/07/07/tea-party-only-one-of-irs-targets.html
http://www.hannity.com/article/irs-targets-political-candidates/17710
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/irs-targets-conservative-groups/
Seems they already started.
Be seeing you...
I think many want to look at people in these situations in a very black-and-white way. If they're working for NSA then they must know how the information they are handling is being used. And since "we" consider it a bad thing, it must rest heavily on their conscience.
However, I would imagine more people are like myself than not. We come to work, make our widgets, and go home to our families. We don't spend any time worrying about the work itself as long as everything is functioning the way we are being paid to make it function. Using myself as an example, I get paid well with benefits and retirement packages to manage a small network. What the company does is irrelevant. I make my widgets and go home to my family. I'll leave the conscience decision-making for the armchair quarterbacks.
It's not privilege. It's not super pay scales. It's not patriotism. It's a job.
Indeed... if we expand the "How can they sleep at night" a bit, think about the following:
How can we sleep at night knowing that our "convenience" possessions are produced with the blood of impoverished nations?
How can we sleep at night knowing that our food choices are causing animal suffering, massive deforestation and health problems for the poor?
How can we sleep at night after playing the stock market and making a profit at the expense of someone who now has to default on their mortgage?
How can we sleep at night knowing that our clothing is made with forced child labor?
How can we sleep at night knowing that by wasting a large portion of the natural resources we have access to, we're really gumming things up for future generations?
How can we sleep at night when there are people in our area with no social security, no home, no friends, and no help?
And yet we seem to sleep at night just fine. Compared to these issues, some government employees supporting other government employees who have access to metadata about our daily communications seems a bit bland, and easy to sleep on.
Someone calls you out as wrong, the first instinct isnt "AM i wrong?", but "how can I refute him".
How else do you determine whether you are right or wrong except by attempting refutation? If someone publishes a mathematical proof, doesn't everyone immediately search for mistakes? If I can't refute your argument, then I'll happily admit I'm wrong. If I can refute your argument, what reason do I have to believe that I'm wrong?
The important part is that you base your refutation in facts and logic, and not character assassination or misdirection.
Im currently in a Poli Sci class, and there was a video on "realism" where the speaker described it as basically what you said-- a cynical worldview that everyone is NOT intrinsically good, but intrinsically self-interested and self-justifying. This idea seems to be foreign to a lot of folks I know that I assume to be more to the left-- certainly a number of students in the class appear to never have even thought of the world in those terms.
Socialism is necessary not because everyone is good, but because everyone *is* self interested and self justifying. Without some sort of correcting mechanism(e.g. redistribution of wealth by the government), self-interest compounds upon self-interest, amplifying inequality and leading to atrocities that no one will admit are atrocities because of their self justifying nature.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
As a Canadian I don't enjoy any protection from the spying because I'm not a Canadian citizen.
So let me be amongst the many who say "Fuck the United States."
This is precisely the kind of behaviour that leads to hatred of and terrorism against the US.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
>. How else do you determine whether you are right or wrong except by attempting refutation? If someone publishes a mathematical proof, doesn't everyone immediately search for mistakes? If I can't refute your argument, then I'll happily admit I'm wrong. If I can refute your argument, what reason do I have to believe that I'm wrong?
That works for math, some extent, because you can have objective, irrefutable proof. When someone says to me "you're being selfish", I can ALWAYS refute that and come up with some justification, no matter how right they are. The wise thing for me to do is to pause and ask "do they perhaps have a valid point?". "Am I indeed being selfish in some way?" Most of the time, they are at least half right, and my excuses don't change that fact.
The second half of your post is a great example. No matter how many times socialism fails, you can ignore the facts and "refute" the conclusion by reasoning abstractly within your own world of ideas, by mental masturbation. By the same token, no matter what success socialist regimes may have, I can refute your conclusion by pointing to their many failures. If I were wiser, I'd instead look to see what I can learn from your point of view. I might say "though your method of achieving the goal has always failed, perhaps the goal itself is worth pursuing". Indeed, that's often the case - leftists have lofty goals, worthy goals, but little to no knowledge of what actually works and what doesn't, what can actually be accomplished and how. Conservatives look at what actually works and end up with "let's stick with doing what has always worked". Better that they look at where each other have a good point they are making. Putting their viewpoints together, you get "let's dream big dreams, then figure out how to actually accomplish some of them".
Rather than refuting each other all day, how about I look for the nuggets of gold in your ideas, and you look for where what I am saying makes sense. Then we can learn from each other and work together to implement your dreamy ideals in a way that actually works in the real world.