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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.
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.
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?? :-\
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.
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.
"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.
"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?
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.
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.
You know you're in trouble when that guy opposes.
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.
http://politics.slashdot.org/story/13/10/11/2154259/patriot-act-author-introduces-bill-to-limit-use-of-patriot-act
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..
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.
But the campaign contributions were all gone ...
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.
"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.
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.
... 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
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.
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)
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.
...what DID they think the politics of panic would invite?
All the world's an analog stage, and digital circuits play only bit parts.
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."
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.
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.
...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.
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.