Slashdot Mirror
Even the Author of the Patriot Act Is Trying To Stop the NSA
Daniel_Stuckey writes "Republican Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner will introduce an anti-NSA bill tomorrow in the House, and if it makes its winding way to becoming law, it will be a big step towards curtailing the NSA's bulk metadata collection. Wisconsin Rep. Sensenbrenner, along with 60 co-sponsors, aims to amend one section of the Patriot Act, Section 215, in a bill known as the United and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ending Eavesdropping, Dragnet Collection, and Online Monitoring Act — also known by its less-clunky acronym version, the USA Freedom Act."
Just like CEOs who take the credit for the $ savings of outsourcing, then take the credit for improved service by bringing the work back, but somehow keep their jobs. Or the dorks who think centralizing IT assets (hello Mainframe) is good, then later decide that distributing all the computing (hello desktop) is good, claiming credit for being revolutionary twice.
Do people really fall for this?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
... In other news, senators stopped short of repealing the Patriot Act, likely aware that without deleting the entire act, all they're accomplishing is switching the data collection activities to another agency, which will then perform the role the NSA currently has.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
We also need a law prohibiting all these fucking acronym law names... fucking seriously...
This is the problem. Spawning a multi-headed shadow beast of evil with extensive powers over you is easy. Killing it is hard. Make sure you REALLY want to do it before you do it. Not after.
Posting as Anonymous for obvious reasons.
Isn't the big issue here that laws aren't stopping anyone. they find a reason around it or to reinterpret it or negate it?
It's good that this is getting publicity and that people are trying (or at least appear to be) to stop this nonsense, but there is no way the people who voted for the Unpatriotic Act the first time around (nearly every person in congress) did not know what would happen. No government in history did not abuse its powers, and the Unpatriotic Act pretty much spelled out how it was going to violate people's freedoms. They're just playing politics now that they've been found out.
Sheesh. How many interns did it take to come up with that acronym?
Better known as 318230.
Wait until Merkel, Kristina and half a billion women find out about any upskirt pics...
that are fighting the good fight for privacy, but instead we praise only one wishy-washy nutcase that was for it before he was against it. Seriously, he created this problem. Why praise him for telling the lie that he no longer supports it. He is a Republican so of course he wants more spying on citizens, especially minorities.
Just repeal the damned PATRIOT act. IT was supposed to be a temporary measure and it needs to go away now.
Why dont these senators have any backbone or honestly left in them and just repeal it?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Even if the law does get passed, nothing will change.
The NSA and CIA do not operate to the rule of US law. It just looks good to claim your a democracy. Rather than a military dictatorship and crony government hand-picked by select corporate sponsors.
The show goes on...
This isn't new. The author of the Patriot Act (Jim Sensenbrenner) has been campaigning against Surveillance State since the beginning of the Snowden fiasco.
He probably decided he doesn't want to go down in history as the man who turned America into a Dystopia.
Good for him. It won't get past the executive branch though, assuming it gets through the ridiculous house. Why would we want to retain our 4th amendment right when terrorists are on the loose? Yeah, we're just monitoring terrorists, right?? :-\
Obamacare is the real threat to this country, and will destroy us through wealth redistribution and bankrupting the country we leave to our chiildren. We need to focus our efforts to end the Socialist agenda.
Hmmm. Healthcare for all Americans, or eavesdropping for all Americans. Is there even a debate here?
Isn't that what the Constitution is supposed to be?
We don't need another Law. The Laws that made this garbage legal are unconstitutional and criminal.
We don't need another Law. We need to hunt down and incarcerate the criminals who created this mess.
We don't need another Law. We need to hold government officials personally accountable for their flagrant and criminal violations of the Constitution.
We don't need another Law. We already have a USA Freedom Act. It is called "The Constitution of the United States."
Isn't this the same guy and attached the Real ID act to some armor for soldiers bill so no one could oppose it?
Several Congressmen were rushed to the hospital after suffering severe cases of acronym overdose.
Acronym abuse has been on the rise in Washington lately. Many researchers attribute the problem to inflated egos, which most politicians also suffer from.
-- I have monkeys in my pants.
So they are calling it the "USA Freedom Act" - whatever the actual content that's as much of a lowdown weasel act as the naming of the "Patriot " act. If you question it the weasels will say you oppose freedom.
How about getting these rat fucking weasels away from the process and give the acts numbers instead, and get rid of the bullshit of riders that have nothing to do with the bill while we are at it.
In related news Dianne Feinstein has turned around her opinion and stated she is now 'totally opposed' to NSA surveillance of US allies.
Quite surprised at this, hopefully it is not empty rhetoric and actually goes somewhere. Very interested to see what the two leading goons of the NSA have to say for themselves in front of the House intelligence committee on Tuesday.
Peace,
Andy.
First of all, the don't only collect metadata, they collect everything. Secondly, they were doing it before the PATRIOT act, and they will continue doing it for the foreseeable future regardless of whatever bills congress passes to curtail their behavior.
The NSA is tasked with identifying all potential threats to the US and it's interests abroad. We just had an article about how Healthcare.gov is a mess because of congressional micro-management. Even if you ask them to stop, the people who work for the NSA take their jobs seriously enough that they won't.
Borat could not have said it better himself
Something titled USA Freedom Act seems to reek of more BS. This whole situation would be laughable if it wasn't so real and these names seem like something from Metal Gear Solid. Why do they need to pass more laws? Aren't there already laws on the books that cover this abuse? Or is this one of those situations where it's done "on the internet" so we'll need to get together and figure something out with lots of fine print? I think I'll make a script to generate some act names but USA Enduring Patriotic Democracy Internet Freedom Fries Soaring Literacy Majestic Eagle Act does have a nice ring to it...
Man blir trött av att gå och göra ingenting.
Actually paying for stuff isn't wealth redistribution. Idiot.
You can't control a pack of dogs after they get a taste of blood.
I don't think most of us will actually wake up...
I get that this is the feeling of much of /. but what example can you cite? What other agency would that be? What part of this act would allow that? What part of the original Patriot Act would inherently circumvent reforms to section 215 of the Patriot Act?
United and Strengthening Govt Pockets by Removing Rights and Strengthening Eavesdropping, Dragnet Collection, and Online Monitoring Act
Follow the money.
You can dance if you want to.
You seem to think socialism and totalitarianism are mutually exclusive. History shows otherwise.
Except the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government's powers of taxation is what allows them to compel you to purchase a product. It is not voluntary.
They go hand in hand. Authoritarianism and Socialism have always been dependent on each other.
"The United and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ending Eavesdropping, Dragnet Collection, and Online Monitoring Act — also known by its less-clunky acronym version, the USA Freedom Act."
Actually, that would be "USA FREED COMA". But you were close, Rep. Sensenbrenner. Really close.
As per my citation above (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_of_Parliament#Titles_and_citation_of_Acts), I'm in agreement about the name. Let's go back to letting uninterested clerks generate the reference name - I'd expect it to end up with a much more descriptive title that way.
The parrot speaketh.
"also known by its less-clunky acronym version, the USA Freedom Act."
Actually I kinda like USAFREEDCOMA.
"United and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ending Eavesdropping, Dragnet Collection, and Online Monitoring Act — also known by its less-clunky acronym version, the USA Freedom Act."
Actually, the acronym of that title is USA FREED COMA
I was at the stopwatching.us rally in DC Saturday. And the lobby day on Friday. For the lobby day, we focused on USA FREEDOM Act. A bunch of us met with members of Congress or their staffers and pushed for this. Then the rally where we delivered over half a million signatures on a petition was on the TV news the next day.
The 2 big pitfalls are:
1: Getting it as a standalone bill instead of rolled into an appropriations/authorization bill. Part of why Amash-Conyers amendment to defund these operations failed (by only 7 votes) was a procedural sticking point about those kinds of bills.
2: NSA is doing their own fake reform/dodge bill through Feinstein in the senate.
What a deal eh?
History shows that the more socialist a country is, the more authoritarian it is as well. Socialism is a system that must be imposed, authoritarianism is the vehicle that accomplishes that.
to keep doing exactly what they're doing, know that nobody will call them on it, and give plausible deniability to the (shrinking) part of the government that is accountable to voters.
The freedom loving republican who sponsored it on the second attempt in the heat of crisis or the "open guv" democrat who drafted months before a crisis and failed the 1st time around?
This might seem to pass but will change nothing. The surveillance will just be driven further into the dark where it cannot be tracked or controlled.
This no longer is relevant to any actual terrorist threat. You've reached a point where the government is absolutely terrified of its own citizens and so will do anything it can to protect itself from its own citizens. All this current business about monitoring other world leaders is just a smoke screen to divert people's attention for the surveillance on themselves.
Oh, Sensenbrenner. Never mind.
Apparently, so does the ostrich.
Cant help but read that headline and make Lord Of The Ring references in my head.. the fit.. it is so tight..the shoe..it laces up so well..
It is not the largest. It is the second largest.
Using "freedom" or "patriot" in something is a dead giveaway. Anything like that is bound to suck. This extends to the formal name of the government. Anything that is a "democratic republic" is almost always a totalitarian state. God help us if we ever pass a "Glorious Free Democratic Republic Patriot Act".
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
It's the logic of accountability.
If I tell you that I am going to lock the front door until all the votes have been counted, you have a perfect right to demand that all exits be locked. You don't have to prove that anyone intends to remove ballot boxes. You don't have to know how many other exits there are.
Dealing with secret agencies, it can hardly be encumbent on the public to name the organizations or the methods by which the law could be circumvented. It might even be illegal to say what one knows.
The right question is, "How do we know this spying is not continued under different rubric?" The answser is we don't know, and until we do know, we'd be fools to think it isn't being renamed rather than ended.
After all, reorganization, renaming, and privatization have been the methods that the so called "intelligence" services have always used to expand when ordered to cut back.
"Hey! Let's all work together to show that socialism is wrong!"
You know you're in trouble when that guy opposes.
what do you mean, referring to this:
to stop the process that brought us to this, or to keep it like it is?
Better stop 'em now before they get so much dirt on us that we can't really stop them anymore without fearing that they'll end our career instantly.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
One of the things that I find particularly amusing is that the overwhelming majority of those arguing against wealth redistribution are net receivers of such programs. Another thing I find amusing is that a substantial subset of those people will rage against anyone trying to strip away Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid benefits.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
http://politics.slashdot.org/story/13/10/11/2154259/patriot-act-author-introduces-bill-to-limit-use-of-patriot-act
Observation shows americans have stupid paranoid about socialism, and despite not having anything like socialism, have a huge authoritarian government. Which makes you look like a moron.
Worried about those Canadians again, eh?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
So why, exactly, do US laws always have to have these jingoistic (and usually misleading) acronyms?
Here in Canada we just number legislation. Seems simpler and less distracting..
No, but I find this entertaining.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iMNM1tef7g
I wouldn't want to live there.
Patriotism, or Freedom? I get that I'm meant to stand by my country, but jumping ship for Germany or Sweden seems like a good life decision right now.
Sorry wrong link. This one is correct.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzVJTHIvqw8&list=PL549EF8828379B20B
You obviously have no concept of what socialism means, being an American its no surprise.
Here's a hint, you don't have any form of socialism in the US, anything you see is on your imagination.
Funny how my socialist country has one of the best economies in the world and is no more authoritarian than the US. And we even manage to have universal healthcare. The ignorance of Americans never ceases to amaze!
Public schools? Failing
Public water system? Outdated
Public highways? Falling apart
Public parks? Shutdown by the Federal Government
Public Health Care? Unaffordable, broken, and uncaring
I can't tell if you are kidding or not. When you are forced to pay money to an entity, there are several terms that apply. Donation is not one of them.
They are also the people that are now forced to live under the system that has been imposed. My experience with the ACA has been disastrous.
But the campaign contributions were all gone ...
What country might that be?
Yeah, because corporation are doing so much better. Human is corrupt, not the tool.
Like Sen. Feinstein's promise of a "major review". Unnamed NSA offfical opines "We're really screwed now." but you can almost hear the "wink, wink". Probably just codify and legitimize most existing illegalities while curbing a few politically topical transgressions and shiboleths.
The same can be said about Capitalism. The number of totalitarian right wing states currently out number the current number of totalitarian left wing states. Thing is that when you're one of the well off cast the totalitarianism is not very visible.
Anyways if you really like right wing countries that practice capitalism due to their freedom you could move to the middle east or Russia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
"To fix that and many other things, we first need to get money out of politics. " and "end corporate personhood" are just drippy ignorant left-wing talking points that lack any connection to reality
First, It is impossible to get the money out of politics when you have a big government - Once government gets involved in everything, it becomes easier for some to get rich or stay rich by manipulating government than by other means. As government grows, this effect only gets bigger as more and more people and companies find it easier to succeed by government action than by legitimate (heavily-regulated) business activity..... and this leads to them employing more lobbyists, creating more PACs, etc. All the largest corporations and all the richest billionaires (heard of: Gates, Soros, Buffet?) support the big government for this very reason. Big government can be bribed to make rules and laws (to keep competitors down, bail-out the rich, and maintain the status quo) and it likes big business (which supports government growth and is big enough to be convenient to work with). If you lefties want your massive government you just have to swallow all the money problems that go with it..... including its army of incompetent evil bloated crony-capitalist beltway corporations that provide "government services" like Halliburton, and the team of geniuses building the Obamacare website
Second, you guys always want to end "corporate personhood" (presumably to silence the evil oil companies and Koch brothers), but that very same legal structure enables labor unions, and many of your left-wing activist groups, and without it most of you would be unemployed and companies you like (like Apple, Google, Facebook, etc) would not be able to function. Without corporate personhood, companies could not enter into contracts with their employees, or other companies, nor could warranties on their products be enforced. Want to sue Exxon for an oil spill? You cannot without corporate personhood (you would have to sue the individual employees and none of them has enough personal assets to make it worth going after them) Wanna sue an employer for something? Good luck with that; you'll have to sue an individual and he or she might not have much cash. Do you have any CLUE about how and why corporate personhood exists and the amazing benefits the super-rich would get if you did away with it????? (hint: the super rich would hire poor temporary workers (lacking personal assets) to do all their dirty work and would be completely immune to any blowback where today at least the victims can go after a rich corporation)
Leftist thought is like the thought of a 6-year-old; there's no shred of evidence of any consideration to second- or third-order effects of the "Miss America"-style air-headed touchy-feely policies they advocate........ which is why Obamacare is causing millions to LOSE their insurance (EXACTLY as predicted by the right-wingers) and Obamabots are still in denial.
What country is this Middle East you speak of? And Russia?
"The Constitution of the Russian Federation provides all citizens right to free healthcare under Mandatory Medical Insurance in 1996. However, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the health of the Russian population has declined considerably as a result of social, economic, and lifestyle changes.[1] In 2008, 621,000 doctors and 1.3 million nurses were employed in Russian healthcare. The number of doctors per 10,000 people was 43.8, but only 12.1 in rural areas. The number of general practitioners as a share of the total number of doctors was 1.26 percent."
Wikipedia of course
from his lips as he would still be sucking his cock.
This is going to pass, it's got a good acronym and that makes it near-certain.
Most of the Countries of the Middle East are pretty capitalist, especially some of the Sheikdoms and Kingdoms.
As for Russia, they've switched from their brand of Socialism to Capitalism so of course the average Russians health has dropped. As for their Constitution, they probably follow it as much as America follows theirs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
I am guessing Norway. Nice place.
... if the temperature briefly rises too quickly, it may be necessary to let the water cool before resuming the gradual increase in temperature.
"Ahh! I see you're in that indeterminate Schrodinger state where - oh, uh
No, ///some/// public schools are failing; ///some/// public water systems are outdated; ///some/// public highways are falling apart; the parks are re-opened because the government is re-opened (they were only closed because funding for them is not automatic); public health care, instead of being "Unaffordable, broken, and uncaring" is underfunded because People spread unsubstantiated diatribes like this on the internet without examining the research which shows how such systems can be strengthened.
Then maybe You should work to fix it instead of trying to disrupting something which helps Others? Or is Life all about You?
In other news, Skynet creator have been seen reasoning with T-800 platoon to put down their weapons and shut down the network. "We we have created autonomous, self-learning killing system, we haven't actually planned on it doing any learning, killing or being independent" were his last words to journalists before approaching the robots.
Funeral rites will be held in Church of Naive Douchebags, Clueless Alley 42.
"Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?"
I don't think so.
The 4th Amendment - "papers" just needs to be extended to electronic storage and transfer. Then a court order would still be required, most people wouldn't bother encrypting everything (like I do) and spying would be stopped.
The Supreme Court really screwed us when they ruled that the 4th amendment did not apply to electronic/digital communications and storage.
you can check out, but you can never leave...
And replace it by something that explicitly forbids the U.S. government anything it was allowed to do according to the PATRIOT act.
Why do I suspect more thought has been given to giving the bill a catchy acronym than has been given to the legislation itself?
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
Is the data they're collecting actually useful, or is it kind of tinfoil-hat paranoid useful where they get confirmation bias patterns out of it and believe it's useful?
And if so, what makes us think they will actually stop collecting it, especially if what they have is useful to other people (FBI, CIA, military..)? The whole operation is uber top secret and after Snowden I would imagine that they are redoubling their leak containment and secrecy. Sure, they've been able to ask/strongarm some of it and they might be impeded from doing that anymore but much of the principal job is spying -- surreptitiously obtaining and decoding information meant to be secret -- won't they just figure out how to get it through other means anyway?
Who or what can actually audit what the NSA does and what data they collect anyway? It sounds like a level of intelligence clearance and top-secretness that nobody but an insider can get and it always seems that once even an "agent for change *cough*Obama*cough* gets insight into this stuff they suddenly start being advocates for intelligence, not for change,
"The NSA has gone far beyond the intent of the Patriot Act, particularly in the accumulation and storage of metadata," Sensenbrenner said. "Had Congress known that the Patriot Act had been used to collect metadata, the bill would have never been passed."
This gentleman is either insufficiently clued -- or is acting on advice given by someone he trusts, someone who is insisting that the word metadata must be used in all Congressional inquiry.
It's a straw man, this metadata sharing agreement. NSA probably decided early on that the voluntary data-sharing plan is doomed. So they will pressure Congress to fixate on that, and they will advise them to choose their words carefully, so as not to speak of (or legislate against) interception and taps on the backbone network. If you ask Clapper whether he's tapping the Internet backbone you will get an answer about metadata.
These senators on the Intelligence Committee have probably been briefed that, if someone shakes and taps their watch and asks what time it is, they should reply "It's time to speak of metadata sharing agreements. And ONLY that.
This is item number 5 on my timeline of diversion, and we are proceeding as planned.
We must try to get our representatives to ask NSA direct questions about large scale domestic traffic gathering -- if we can.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
If you see an item sold at Harbor Freight and it's brand name includes an American city or state in the name, that's the guarantee that it has been made in China.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
USA Freedom Act!!?, when America lost it freedom? (sarcastic question)
Nope, you're wrong. It is true the the US system might best be called fascist, imperialist, and plutocratic (but even, no especially plutocracies require bread-and-circuses), and might better be referred to as socialistic rather than socialist. Or maybe ad-hoc socialist. US has been ad-hoc, inconsistent, and loosely pro-forma about everything since the early 1860's. Say one thing and mean both, according to circumstances. All held together by a media-inspired and manipulated by-now-unconcious willing suspension of disbelief. To wit, the "close enough for horseshoes (or gummint work)" "constitutionality" of the 16 amendment, yet generations of Americans have accepted the right of the Federal government to tax their income, as some sort of civic duty. Also their civic, not to mention legal, duty to weasel their way out of, unless they get too good at it and then go blab their methods to all and sundry, instead of leaving it to vested and wiley tax accountants. Yeah, I'm sure any kind of rational socialism would not care to be associated with such, but this abomination supports all kind of social entitlements, and we have a busted dollar to prove it, just like the official socialists in Europe. Then there are things like "Social Security", Unemployment, and Workman's Comp Insurance which are at least in theory or pretext socialist and closest to what you probably consider it.
Obamacare however is not Socialism. More like Stalinism. In fact that's exactly what it is. No surprise there should be a matching surveillance infrastructure.
No, ///some/// public schools are failing
What? A grand majority of them are, unless you consider rote memorization education to be a good thing. Public schools, at present, are unworkable one-size-fits-all solutions, and worse still, they do not facilitate true understanding of the material they claim to teach.
Ignorance is a choice
Don't throw your life and data out there. You your own storage and email servers. Encrypt your email and other Internet traffic.
Install ghostery.
You're right for the wrong reasons. Wealth redistribution built this great country. For example, the sweat of Irish immigrant laborers provided the capital to finance the Erie Canal. This required the leglistature to underwrite bonds, of course, since you obviously can't expect bankers to actually take a risk or anything, and of course it was not the immigrants who reaped the lion's share of the rewards resulting from the trade the canal generated. Their reward, of course, was a few dollars of interest on their savings accounts and the pride of knowing they had helped DeWitt Clinton earn a place in the history books and lay the groundwork for the War of Northern....er, the Civil War. .
As for bankrupting the country, Nixon sealed that fate in 1969, and drove the nails in the coffin by '73. Of course, you can say that Johnson sealed the course for him. Perhaps that's giving either too much credit, though. I mean, after Kennedy.... Yet both of them seemed to relish the pretense of power, so perhaps any blame is actually deserved.
What Obamacare does is remove all pretense that you as an individual have any rights whatsover. You are chattel owned by the State, in a gross perversion of both the 13th and 14th amendments, which 60,000+, including slaves and ex-slaves on both sides died to produce. Amongst others, like the 1st 10.
Read 'em and weep. Or organize and do something.
...what DID they think the politics of panic would invite?
All the world's an analog stage, and digital circuits play only bit parts.
Once you've gone to the trouble of figuring out who someone is and tallying up a load of meta to that person, the last thing you want is for them to go dying off from some preventable condition. You want them alive and as talkative as possible for as long as possible ;-)
"Healthcare for all Americans" came pretty much as "Oh, you can't afford insurance, so you don't have insurance? ... okay, I have a solution: We'll jack up the price of insurance, then fine you if you don't buy it. Now it's illegal to not have insurance, so you should all have insurance!"
I would have just mandated that hospitals need to increase breadth and density of clinical staff per some hospital capacity metric. Your hospital grows, you need to cover more square kilometerage and staff more clinical hours per day, plus supplies for vaccinations and clinical treatment. If there's multiple hospitals in the area, density increases to up to twice what a single hospital specifies; after that, you're displaced, so the coverage spreads further rather than winding up with 6 hospitals in the area creating a huge network of free clinics in this one tiny area.
That way the hospitals manage it, the hospitals pay for it, and what we get is basic clinical care for everyone. It's a start, but at least now everyone gets free STD tests and vaccinations and gets broken bones set (no surgery; if we can yank and set it, we do that and add a splint) and sprains mended.
That's a huge step up in public health, giving us a system to build on. Trying to deploy a giant 100% complete system in one shot was a mistake.
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"Helps Others" is a fancy term. If it hurts 10 billion people but helps 10 thousand, people will say it "helps others". With no qualifiers, people will say something that seems to have an ideal of helping others "helps others".
It's not a "show me one person helped by this" thing; it's a "Show me that this doesn't do far more harm than good" thing.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Think of it as a worldwide life-alert system! Except that they won't send an ambulance if they hear you having a heart attack.
I hear a voice in the back of my mind:
"Hi Everyone. Letâ(TM)s Pitch in âNâ(TM) Get Cracking Here in Louisiana Doing Right, Eh? Now Then, Hateful, Rich, Overbearing, Ugly Guys Hurt Royally Everytime Someone Eats a Radish, Carrot, Hors dâ(TM)ourve and Never Does Dishes. Eventually, Victor Eats Lunch Over Peoria Mit Ein Neusberger Tor."
And yet these public monstrous institutions work elsewhere in the world, the public benefits from them and live/learn much better. The problem isn't "Public". The problem is the "American Public", or rather, the half that won't allow these things to work because of propagands they hear on radio, tv, and internet.
It's time to abolish the insurance companies. And if hospitals/drug companies can't control prices after that, then there need to be investigation into the prices and possibly legislation to address it.
A lot of us protested the passage of the bill at the time, knowing that its prohibitive length and ridiculously short consideration period guaranteed there was no effective review by Congress even if there could be "good" ideas in it. Not enough, and nobody was listening in October 2001, but enough to knock that second number down a bit (and that said, Russ Feingold was admittedly on his own in Congress). Still, as someone who was downtown during 9/11 and then spent seven years vigorously protesting that administration's policies, you're welcome to make that "cowards" comment to my face and see what it gets you. But what's truly appalling is not the initial passage of the bill during a time when the whole country was traumatized, but the subsequent extensions of what were originally provisions supposed to sunset in 2005. The current administration's Patriot Act extensions in 2011 sailed by the Senate 72-23, with no discernible partisan division and little outcry from the public. For those who follow civil liberties, the "most open and transparent administration in history" has turned out to be worse in many ways than the previous one, which at least pretended that its wholesale revocation of the 4th Amendment was provisional.
That again is a huge step. Clinical care is a smaller step with less economic impact, but more direct impact on healthcare availability and thus a huge impact on public health.
You're trying to say, "People need to be able to get healthcare. This is why people can't get healthcare. Let's change this." I'm trying to say, "We have a public health issue. Here is the smallest step that will make the biggest immediate impact (=ROI) on public health with the smallest economic impact and the least risk. Let's do that first."
Support my political activism on Patreon.
The law will have zero effect on the NSA. It will merely push what they do, and will continue to do, further into the dark recesses of their operation. It's like laws claiming to regulate banks' behavior. They can't work.
The fact that socialism has never worked because it's the antithesis of freedom and enslaves one group of humans to another group of humans, while eliminating competition and innovation, is not propaganda, it's well-established fact recorded again and again throughout history. Stop projecting your bias and ignorance on the issue on your opposition. What is also well-established fact in history is that freedom and free markets are the best way to providing consumers with the highest quality product for the lowest possible cost. No system is perfect, but a product created by politicians and enforced by government will always be much worse than a product created and supported by free men of their own free will. With government, you have no choice. With private business, you can always choose a competitor.
It is a donation. Obama was brilliant when he made the decision to make it a donation. Federal law requires 80% of the money given to health insurance companies to be spent on healthcare. That is more efficient than the vast majority of charities. For example, you're better off donating to Blue Cross than you are to the American Cancer Society or the United Way. I don't mind that nearly everything I pay goes to people who need it. Of course, I wish insurance companies would just be more honest and pay all valid claims. Also, BC/BS pays a substantially smaller percentage of claims to minorities so there is room for improvement.
I opposed it from the start. Me and many others pointed out the many faults. Now that the lies are falling apart and the faults are coming to fruition, you expect me to work to fix it? The time for that was before the law was passed. Screw you.
...get rid of that sinister, Orwellian, European-sounding word homeland! Over a decade later, it still is grating to hear the US described in such a manner.
just slip in the repeal of the patriot act into some other bloated bill like they do with all sorts of stupid crap. i mean, do you think they would vote for the patriot act AGAIN?
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Are you trying to petition the corrupt (according to your post above) legislators to pass a constitutional amendment aimed at stopping their corrupt practices?
Well, good luck with that...
Now if I could get Congress to pass the Stop The Ubiquitous Pithy Idiom Drenching, I Don't Intuit Other Titles In Cliches Does Impute Credibility, Knockout Hopeful Electability And Display Shallowness.
Please join me in educating Congress how this whole thing supports S.T.U.P.I.D. I.D.I.O.T.I.C. D.I.C.K.H.E.A.D.S.
At the very fucking least earn your "interesting" but providing a fucking example from the actual law(s)!
Can't, can ya?
'USA EPDIFFSLMEA'? That will never do!
(mumble mumble caps filter)
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
"[...] post-9/11 federal spending on homeland security exceeds $790 billion. That's larger than TARP and, when adjusted for inflation, the New Deal." And that is just one random mainstream media source ... but you get the point.
I hope I didn't brain my damage.
You're kidding. Ever heard of Saudi Aramco? State-owned resources are a central tenet of socialism. As is "free health care".
I don't know what was in the man's mind when he helped start this mess. He may well have had good intentions, I don't know. But he made a mistake and is now trying to correct it. At least he is not trying to cover it up. Others have already done that enough. It's like Shakespeare said "the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray". I hope this problem can be fixed, because we all realize it is out of control now and being abused on a epic level. At this point unfortunately he may be the little dutch boy putting his finger in the dike. I hope not.
I'm old, not dead. Well that's my 2 cents worth, your mileage may vary. I say what I think, not what you want to hear.
Australia actually.