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NSA Surveillance Reform Bill Passes House 303 Votes To 121
First time accepted submitter strangeintp (892348) writes "The first legislation aimed specifically at curbing US surveillance abuses revealed by Edward Snowden passed the House of Representatives on Thursday, with a majority of both Republicans and Democrats. But last-minute efforts by intelligence community loyalists to weaken key language in the USA Freedom Act led to a larger-than-expected rebellion by members of Congress, with the measure passing by 303 votes to 121. The bill's authors concede it was watered down significantly in recent days but insist it will still outlaw the practice of bulk collection of US telephone metadata by the NSA first revealed by Snowden."
Didn't you read the part about how watered down it became? There's nothing to clap about, unless someone gave you a reach around as you were being cornholed. Oh, and let's find out who the 121 douches were that voted against this.
last-minute efforts by intelligence community loyalists to weaken key language in the USA Freedom Act
Instead of the NewSpeak "intelligence community loyalists" how about we call them what they really are: Enemies of the People.
Another case of the fox guarding the hen house.
They aren't, this is all for appearance sake for elections, so that they can say "I voted in favor of privacy reform to protect you" in their political ads, while having done nothing in reality. It is BS.
Everybody wins here, a bunch of people get to say they did something in the fight against the NSA. The Executive branch and those in the house who support invasive domestic spying get to keep the majority of their surveillance programs, and most importantly there isn't much more meaningful oversight so who actually knows if the NSA is following the rules. The Executive still gets to hide themselves behind national security letters, "state secrets", and special secret courts.
However I do not feel like this caused any meaningful change. Hopefully the nation remains outraged at the NSA and this is just the first step in fixing our domestic spying programs, but I feel like we get a few meaningless bills passed and then this issue goes away until the next Snowden.
They know everything about you; all it takes is a "gentle reminder" and this bill is turned into a termite-eaten stack of drivel.
I didn't expect any different, It just means they had enough on enough people to effectively gut it before it was passed. We really knew that already...
If it really meant anything, this bill would have contained a passage giving Snowden immunity, as long as he testifies against everyone else inside the Govt that violated the constitution with respect to their illegal activities.
"It's not illegal when the President does it!" didn't work for Nixon, it should not have worked for Bush or Obama. Everyone should be in Jail, at this point, lol.
WTF has our country become?
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Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
Your friend got shitty grades in those pre-renaissance Europe classes. The defining characteristic of the serf class was that people born serfs would live their entire lives as serfs and their children would too. There was no pathway to move up classes.
It's difficult to move up in classes in modern America, but it's possible. Two of our last three Presidents were raised by poor single mothers. Dr. Dre grew up in Compton and just made a billion dollars.
Actual serfs would have given anything for the rights, representation, and social mobility that we bitch about.
From what I've heard of what passed, not only does it NOT have any teeth to it, but it is written so broadly that with secret judges giving secret interpretations (even the secret judges don't consult with each other I"m led to believe), this could likely give the NSA and other TLA agencies *more* leeway to get creative in the work of crushing the US citizens' rights.
C'mon folks, no matter who is currently in office, D or R, please this time around vote for anyone other than the incumbent, and let's sweep the house and senate clean over the next couple years and start from scratch.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
We need to fire everyone in Washington DC and reform the crap out of everything. Both sides are wrong here - why vote for a flawed by design bill? It only exists for political posturing for elections.
Remember, term limits and "voting out the bastards" doesn't really mean much if lobbying (aka Bribery) is still funding their replacements. We need to fire everyone, and then keep moneyed interests from simply installing newly-bought idiots.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
How did our Congress become such a bunch of administration brown-noses? Seriously. What is wrong with them?
You mean if you were in Congress, you wouldn't be afraid of the NSA? I'm afraid of them, and I'm just a regular guy with no power.
Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
Agreed. Since King of NY and Rogers of MI - who have the NSA's hand so far up their backsides - voted YEA I'm inclined to say the NAYS are close to being Patriots.
Some of them were thinking that the bill was so watered down that it actually authorizes spying, and weren't fooled into approving it.
And you were suckered into thinking that they were the bad guys. The establishment wins again.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
No, they did not. The nobility could and did take whatever they wanted and there was no recourse. What you're spouting is a pipe dream concocted by academia to belittle today.
You mean if you were in Congress, you wouldn't be afraid of the NSA? I'm afraid of them, and I'm just a regular guy with no power.
If you are afraid of the NSA, you have no job being in congress, and/or your primary goal should be to shut it the fuck down, because if an arm of the executive has the legislative so afraid that it can control them, then you're not living in a democracy anymore. For a free country. You're living in a military dictatorship.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Pointing out that a few people have experienced very lucrative social mobility is not evidence of the system as a whole being conducive to it.
I specifically said it was difficult. But it is clearly possible. It was impossible for a serf.