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White House Pressures Legislators Into Gutting USA FREEDOM Act
The U.S. House of Representatives has substantially reduced the effectiveness of the USA FREEDOM Act, a surveillance reform bill that sought to end mass collection of U.S. citizens' data. House Leadership was pressured by the Obama Administration to weaken many of the bill's provisions. The EFF and the Center for Democracy & Technology had both given their backing to the bill earlier this month, but they've now withdrawn their support. CDT Senior Counsel Harley Geiger said, "The Leadership of the House is demonstrating that it wants to end the debate about surveillance, rather than end bulk collection. As amended, the bill may not prevent collection of data on a very large scale in a manner that infringes upon the privacy of Americans with no connection to a crime or terrorism. This is quite disappointing given the consensus by the public, Congress, the President, and two independent review groups that ending bulk collection is necessary."
Robyn Greene of the Open Technology Institute added, "We are especially disappointed by the weakening of the language intended to prohibit bulk collection of innocent Americans’ records. Although we are still hopeful that the bill’s language will end the bulk collection of telephone records and prevent indiscriminate collection of other types of records, it may still allow data collection on a dangerously massive scale. Put another way, it may ban ‘bulk’ collection of all records of a particular kind, but still allow for ‘bulky’ collection impacting the privacy of millions of people. Before this bill becomes law, Congress must make clear—either through amendments to the bill, through statements in the legislative record, or both—that mass collection of innocent people’s records isn’t allowed."
Robyn Greene of the Open Technology Institute added, "We are especially disappointed by the weakening of the language intended to prohibit bulk collection of innocent Americans’ records. Although we are still hopeful that the bill’s language will end the bulk collection of telephone records and prevent indiscriminate collection of other types of records, it may still allow data collection on a dangerously massive scale. Put another way, it may ban ‘bulk’ collection of all records of a particular kind, but still allow for ‘bulky’ collection impacting the privacy of millions of people. Before this bill becomes law, Congress must make clear—either through amendments to the bill, through statements in the legislative record, or both—that mass collection of innocent people’s records isn’t allowed."
Only the RIGHT is evil! OBAMA is our Lord and Savior! This must be a ploy by the right to make him look bad!
There is an apparent and obvious change between pre-Presidential Obama's and Presidential Obama's actions and opinions on surveillance. What's the cause? Is it:
1. Lobbying money from parties that gain from the intelligence industry?
2. Access to top secret data that still hasn't been released showing a compelling need for this information gathering?
3. Some sort of extortion/blackmail information on Obama possessed by someone in intelligence?
4. A realization that most Americans don't actually care about the scope of surveillance, so he wants to appear "tough on terror"?
5. Something else (fill in your own blank)
Recall that he stated strongly that he thought AT&T should pay a legal penalty for the NSA/San Francisco wiretapping mess, then reversed his position and supported immunity for AT&T almost immediately after taking office. That suggests he either learned whatever it was very quickly, or was deceiving us as a candidate.
-Ryan
AUWYHSTOT (Acronyms are Useless When You Have to Spell Them Out Too)
Recall that he stated strongly
Recall that he states everything strongly, often against something he stated strongly before. Therefore only pay attention to what he does and you'll see the true picture.
Extensive surveillance is not just great for catching terrorists, but finding out who is a conservative and what they are doing you can use the keep them quiet.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I understand your assumption, usually a bill with a name like the USA FREEDOM act is about taking away freedom.
Reading through his recent comments, it does look like he's conservative, but you're presenting a false dichotomy. Saying "The Obama administration is doing this" doesn't mean "You should have voted for McCain and Romney."
It's worth pointing out that McCain seems to be more critical of the NSA than Obama does. I don't doubt that if McCain got elected president, the roles would be reversed, but Obama IS standing up more for the NSA spying program than McCain is, that much is clear.
I agree with you that both parties are to blame, but I think "fuck them both" isn't the only way out of this situation. I personally think that if we all bothered to vote in the primaries, in EITHER primary, many political problems attributed to the two party system would vanish quickly. SEVENTEEN PERCENT of eligible voters nominated the candidates last time. For some reason, it's only the whackos that bother voting in the primaries. The tea partiers are the only ones participating, and then the rest of us can't figure out why they're being taken seriously by washington. It's certainly not because they have such good ideas, it's because they vote in the primaries. The anti-NSA crowd could and should do the same thing. Vote in the primaries, nominate candidates to both parties who oppose the NSA. It's not genetically encoded into either party to be in favor of big brother.