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US House of Representatives Votes To Cut Funding To NSA
An anonymous reader writes: The U.S. House of Representatives voted late Thursday night, 293 to 123, to approve an amendment to the NSA's appropriations bill that cuts all funding for warrantless surveillance and for programs that force companies to create backdoors in their products. The success of this vote in the House is attributed to the fact that the amendment did not have to go through the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees and also to the increasingly apparent unpopularity of NSA activities among voters. Although privacy advocates laud the vote, there are those who note that the amendment specifically applies to the NSA and CIA while remaining silent on other agencies such as the FBI. The appropriations bill in its entirety will now proceed to the Senate for approval."
Female body imspectors should not have their funding cut!
Well, NSA's bust! Let's failover to NSB (N.S.Bureau) and continue without any problems. But - hey, sssh - noone needs to know, right?!
Ok, so now toilets will cost $100k each instead of only $20k.
Clearly people want to be monitored at all times, they just haven't been convinced properly yet. And as a result of the monitoring that NSA done up to now, they already have a list of all the people who don't want to be monitored. They could just pay those people a visit. You know? Convince them properly. Or make them go away.
I suspect that should this actually happen the NSA will just pull money from something else to fund their protection of honest, hard working Americans. Money is fungible, it moves easily.
From the news:
"he amendment would block the NSA from using any of its funding from this Defense Appropriations Bill to conduct such warrantless searches."
It only covers THIS appropriations bill. They'll just sneak funding into another one to make it up.
You have to pay careful attention to the language these people use.
" In addition, the amendment would prohibit the NSA from using its budget to mandate or request that private companies and organizations add backdoors to the encryption standards that are meant to keep you safe on the web."
So, money that is NOT budgeted, as in part of planned spending, as in slush fund money, is fair game.
Any time an amendment talks about what they cannot use particular money for, as opposed to simply prohibiting the action, it will be full of loopholes.
When there is an amendment that prohibits the ACTION, then we'll have something to be happy about. Nothing in this amendment prohibits the spying.
This is good. We should not pay to have our products secretly weakened.
It has been known for decades that the CIA has developed sources of income that are automated and unstoppable. Various agents were charged with setting up businesses that paid into the CIA on a regular basis and it was so covert that if the agent and his superior both dropped dead the income continues. For example a car dealership may pay a "supposed loan" back to a bank once a month for 30 years. Even if the business is sold the payments will continue. The agent that set it up need no longer be involved. By repeating this process with investments and covert accounts the budget of the CIA could never be revealed with only the tax dollars known as income. One would imagine the NSA has done something similar. Such projects help to shield new weapons development as the public expenses do not report the excess income and weapons development can continue without foreign scrutiny.
As the article said, the FBI is missing from this list, and this is only a fix for requiring companies to create back doors. The NSA can, and will, continue to find and exploit unintentional backdoors and security holes. We still need to encrypt everything.
At the very least the representatives still have to pay me some lip service. Hell, some of them may have retained the ability to care.
Either way, it's a small victory for the Republic.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
I wholeheartedly support this initiative of shifting money from a known three letter entity to a different unknown three letter entity that will now conduct our surveillance state in complete secret.
So the NSA will be getting its funding for domestic spying and product tampering from the FBI and other agencies instead of from the treasury. Business continues as usual...
Back in 2003 during the Bush administration, Adm. Poindexter tried to sell Total Information Awareness to Congress which ignited a firestorm of opposition and bill which defunded it. Of course, that didn't stop the project's progress. It just meant that its implementation had to occur in chunks paid for under different appropriations bills over time. Same thing is happening here. Congress makes a show for the public, but gives a wink and a nod to the DOD, intelligence communities, and LE signaling that nothing will really change.
The lawmakers who made this bill know slight-of-hand. Sure, de-fund NSA. But fund the FBI and other agencies... Yeah, Americans would not be the wiser.
Here's what I don't get. From what I understand, the NSA is not directly answerable to Congress - they're indirectly answerable through their parent agency, the Department of Defense, but they themselves are not answerable to Congress. What's stopping them from outwardly agreeing to Congress's regulations (assuming they pass) but inwardly ignoring them and continuing to do what they've been doing for years?
Where do you think all those missing bitcoins went?
Is warrant-less surveillance of the 123 rat bastards who voted against this.
That will sure work!
You can't stop the beast, it exists now. It is impossible to kill it without killing everyone else.
If you try cut it, it will go rogue and underground. Spy agency shows are based on reality, it does and has happened before. Many times.
Piss the higher-ups of NSA off, go, enjoy your worse problem with people being blackmailed for money now.
* You know who you are
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Who needs funding when you can just break into a random person's house on the pretense of a drug raid, steal all of their stuff, auction it off, and then later say, "My bad"?
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Taking a break from repealing obamacare and re-affirming "in god we trust" on the currency, Its hard to imagine Republicans are doing anything in the interest of their constituents. Republicans under bush authorized and evangelized this warrantless wiretapping. shit, they even passed retroactive immunity for telecom companies forced to do it. And now after 2 terms of sitting on their obstructionist do-nothing arses they've suddenly gotten around to saving america from their monster? Give me a break.
We have to have some form of populist legislation, anything really. We cant have gay marriage, immigration reform, tax reform, campaign finance reform, gun crontrol, climate change policy, or minimum wage because we as the republican party are strapped inexorably to a vocal minority of elderly bible thumpers ginned up on glen beck and sean hannity who have loudly stated, "Moderates arent allowed or we will end you politically." Every issue facing americans is toxic to us so the best we can do is dial down the crazy on a policy we voted for and approved and hope its enough to get us into the whitehouse in 2016. And the sad fact is, no amount of wayback machine legislation is going to help. Once the republican party quietly dropped immigration reform they basically conceded to drop any chance at the presidency.
Good people go to bed earlier.
CIA has a dark history with involvement in the drug trade... both in developing new and refined drugs after World War II as part of its R&D programs in collaboration with former Nazi scientists and in those agents in covert operations becoming involved in the drug trade itself either because they are corrupt or to finance their operations.
You really think these clowns will follow the law? They'll just shift funding from one activity to another and keep it up.
This is how revolution works people. Kicking them in their nuts through the house. And if that don't work, kicking their ass on the streets. Rock on!
No wonder the approval rating of Congress is so low. They shamefully vote to extend the Patriot Act with 303 votes last month and this month they pass this toothless piece of distraction. This is a political stunt to try and mollify Liberty activists and not anything meaningful. They need to vote against the unconstitutional provisions of the Patriot Act and overturn any provisions that appear to give the government broad authority to force companies to hand over telecommunications data.
The majority of the NSA budget does not come from the GAO/Congress.
We are way beyond that point by decades. Most of the money comes from Blackmail, Industrial Espionage and drug operations.
(One of the reasons for the seemingly senseless and harsh drug laws is these people really hate competition.)
The NSA and CIA are rogue criminal operations and should be torn down until we repair our governmental authorities with respect to the constitution.
We no longer live in a constitutional republic and are fast approaching the end game.
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
Are not a lot of these people the same people that helped pass the Patriot Act? So now they are attempting to de-fund the Patriot Act? Did we not debate this right here on slashdot way back when that the Patriot Act would unleash all this surveillance? Why not just pass the Patriot Act II & make it illegal again? Better yet, how about a vote to repeal the Patriot Act?
SLOWER TRAFFIC KEEP RIGHT
They should made it illegal for companies to be gagged from making public comment when served with such warrants. They're a violation of the first amendment at the very least.
Freedom of speech. You silence me and make it illegal to even say I was silenced... how is that not a violation?
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
as are our elections. Carefully calculated to project an illusion.
Cut NSA's funding for surveillance? How much does it cost the NSA to send letters demanding access and secrecy? What about the cost of maintaining all those servers and huge databases? Chump change. They'll unscrew a few lightbulbs and start stocking the employee restrooms with cheaper toilet paper.
Hold elections every two, four, or six years to elect politicians to run the government? A great way to give the masses the illusion that they are living in an actual democracy!
US House of Representatives Votes To Cut Funding To NSA
Not sure if this a solution to... what? One can cut to one's heart content, but without structural reforms, the problems that plague NSA will remain there. So, we cut funding, and all we get is to cripple a vital organization that needs to function well, without fixing the things that makes it not function well. Funding is not the root cause. It is not a monetary problem, but a political one.
I'm sure the NSA et al have shell corporations in order to fund all the stuff they won't admit to doing.
And I'm sure the dragnet of surveillance allows them to do some pretty lucrative insider trading.
The shadow government will be well funded, and will just go further underground and it will be business as usual, and the politicians get to keep acting like they're in charge.
You know, it's pretty sad when you more or less have to assume all of the tropes from movies are actually happening. Increasingly it feels like you couldn't possibly be paranoid enough.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I'm keenly aware this statement by the US House can be circumvented in some fashion. These folks they're dealing with are secret agencies.
At the very least the representatives still have to pay me some lip service. Hell, some of them may have retained the ability to care.
Either way, it's a small victory for the Republic.
Forget the lip service. Just forget it. When you get involved in power politics at the level you're talking about, what happens *in the meeting* is what matters, and what you talk about outside the meeting is the window dressing.
Personalities change when you go into the back room. So do goals. People beg, borrow, steal, lie, blackmail, and it's all about what you can do for me, what I can do for you, what we can deliver, how we can ensure goal X gets done, and goal X isn't what we tell the people outside the room.
You're selling a narrative to people outside the room.
Ok, ignoring all the armchair generals who are saying How It Should Be...
This is a good thing. It's not the RIGHT thing. Ahem. "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized" Frankly, warrantless wiretapping IS illegal, per the US Constitution.
I don't blame the government. I blame us. There's less than 50% voter turnout. People ramble about the ammo box, but we haven't even TRIED the ballot box yet, and apparently we can't be bothered to. This is OUR fault.
That the House of Reps actually did this is an amazing step in the right direction. Everyone whines that it's not enough, but you NEVER get what you want in one go. It's always a slow series of steps. It's a continual fight.
Anyway, just a note... Dems: 158 yes, 29 no. Repubs: 135 yes, 94 no. Many more Dems voted for this. Think on that next time someone (possibly you) trots out how much Dems love big government and spending, and hate freedom. Sigh... The really sad thing is that there are no Independant votes on this, because there are no Independant reps, because you bastards can't be bothered to vote. :(
- cut off the blood supply to the tumor.
THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK.
dutch nazis, and other quasi-nazis are surely behind alot of BS in America....for sure...wont' argue that point
I guess I applaud this law, however I *want* the authorities, with proper warrant, to be able to access any digital/analog communication
if you were the victim you'd expect it
Thank you Dave Raggett
The agency leadership isn't stupid. If they pull funding from other programs, the could get backlash from cutting other (presumably useful) activities, and when the public notices that the spying hasn't stopped, the next cuts will be even deeper. At some point congress would get collectively pissed off defund the agency completely.
Americans tend to be complacent in the face of minor irritations, but when faced with a real threat/outrage they tend to go completely postal. Just ask the Imperial government of Japan or the Taliban about this.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
NSA = No Sales for America. The NSA is a powerful advertisement that anything complicated made by a U.S. manufacturer may have intentional defects or surveillance methods.
U.S. government policies allow many secret agencies. I find it odd that news stories assume that, other than doing things that almost no citizens want, the secret agencies are otherwise well-managed. For example, in the case of Edward Snowden, someone who worked for a sub-contractor was able to walk away with all the data.
To me, it is also odd that news stories assume that the NSA works to improve security of the U.S. and U.S. citizens. For example, the book House of Bush, House of Saud explains that the Bush and Cheney families worked for the Saudis, who paid them billions for their help. The U.S. taxpayer paid for the arms, military presence, and violence that supposedly was free security for the Saudi government, but actually was, as Saudi acquaintances I met in a gym said long before the 9/11 attack, Saudi government oppression of the Saudi people.
There is a HUGE conflict of interest, and the U.S. government seems to have no influential methods of dealing with conflicts of interest. If there is security, people who work for the NSA are less likely to be promoted, and may lose their jobs. That is a powerful reason for NSA employees and management to create more insecurity. Since they work entirely in secret, no one can stop them.
Michael Moore is a self-taught movie maker. His movie about U.S. government corruption in secret agencies, Fahrenheit 9/11, made $222,446,882. It's not like U.S. government corruption is a secret.
The U.S. government's war in Iraq is now being called a "mistake". For example, Hans Blix: Iraq War was a terrible mistake and violation of U.N. charter. It wasn't a "mistake", other articles say, it was deliberate deception. For example, Stop Calling the Iraq War a 'Mistake'.
There WILL be another 9/11. This stuff happens, and it CAN NOT be 100% avoided.
You can do some things that could help (hint: the issue with 9/11 wasn't a lack of info, but a lack of communication. We still have this problem regardless what the NSA does), but you can't stop it from ever happening.
So, no matter what things you do to prevent 9/11, something like it will happen again. The Boston Marathon bombings, while much less severe, show that even with the super surveillance, people dedicated to cause death can do it, and always will be able to.
What makes for more interesting discussion is if there are ways of preventing the root causes for wanting to cause death. Perhaps that can be more effective than ignoring what the cause is & trying to stop the effect?
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
"NSA gets 'Creative Accounting' lesson from the Experts"
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
They probably thought it was NASA they were cutting funding to.
Sure. Call me when the Senate passes it, too. Until then, it's reelection theatre for Congresscritters to tout their 'proof' of how they Stand for Freedom, when they already know it doesn't have the first chance of actually getting enacted.
Better still, call me when the inevitable veto is overridden.]
Better better still, call me when this is attached to some piece of must-pass legislation. You know, like how the majority of binding laws get passed.
Did you know the FBI is mostly mormon? It's true.
Always remember this whenever reading about the FBI
Is John Poindexter available? He has experience not only with information awareness but also self-funding operations.
Backdoor in the bill. Did not outright outlaw it by anyone. I call that pandering to voters.
They can just get their black money selling arms to Iran. Worked well enough last time...
Obama's Atty Gen (Eric Holder) is NEVER gonna prosecute any member of the Obama administration for breaking the law... the man has been in contempt of congress for many months now over his hiding of evidence in his "Fast & Furious" gun-running case. When somebody in the Bush Administration "outed" CIA employee Valerie Plame (working at a desk in the US) The press and Democrats had a field day, and Bush appointed a special prosecutor to investigate. That special prosecutor investigate everybody in the administration including Bush himself (even though the prosecutor learned immediately that Richard Armitage, an aid to Colin Powell had inadvertently done the leak). The prosecutor ultimately convited and jailed Scooter Libby for having a different recollection of a phone call from the recollection of the other person on the call (NOT for anything actually related to the leak). Under Obama, the actual identity of the CIA undercover station chief in Afghanistan was given to the press.... and NOBODY was punished and the alphabet networks that bothered to mention it acted like it was just an innocent flub. Neither Obama himself, not Eric Holder, appointed ANYBODY to do ANYTHING about this breach of federal law that was a "vital emergency" and an act of "treason" (according to both Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi) under the Bush administration. Holder also appointed an Obama campaign donor to head the investigation of the IRS abuses of the TEA Party... not surprisingly, and like Seargent Shultz, he sees NOTHING!
The problem is that when you have a nation built upon a Constitution that depends on the majority of the office holders being honorable men who uphold their oaths (particularly when it hurts them to) and then you elect men who care nothing for oaths, you have a BIG problem, and lawlessness follows. Had the Nixon administration been populated by men of the low stature of the Obama administration, the public would never have become outraged because nobody would have turned over any tapes (the Obama administration just says "No" to congressional subpoenas, or claims the materials have been "lost" on "crashed" hard drives). If Nixon's people had done like Clinton's people or Obama's people and simply "circled the wagons" getting all their friends at ABC,CBS,NBC,PBS, and the NYT to suppress any bad news (as all 3 netwrorks did on Fast & Furious and on the IRS missing E-mails) while accusing their accusers of being corrupt and (in the case of Obama) laughing at the idea of appointing any independent or "special" prosecutors... Nixon would have served his full two terms and most Americans would not equate his name with Mud (or worse). The Lessons of both Clinton and Obama to ALL future administrations are: [1] break any laws you want to and [2] refuse to either police yopurself or cooperate when the other branches try to police you. Obama has indeed "fundamentally changed" the United States.
dutch nazis, and other quasi-nazis are surely behind alot of BS in America
But to the Dutch, all the nations are run by Nazis. In Dutch, the suffix "ation" is spelled "atie", and it rhymes with Yahtzee. German speakers watch Dutch TV and get confused when the news anchor mentions what sounds like "United Nazis", because natie (nation) and Nazi (National Socialist) are homophones. It also led me to think up the portmanteau "discriminazi", meaning one who discriminates against a particular class of people out of prejudice, because that's what the Dutch word for discrimination sounds like.
The US moved to SIGINT back in the late 90s and put most of the resources there.
If we're spending so much on SIGINT, then why can't we just send a Ctrl+C to warrantless wiretaps and adding backdoors to software?
... The appropriations bill in its entirety will now proceed to the Senate for approval."
Where any provisions to defund the NSA will be promptly removed.
...any and all representations to the contrary are slackjaw theater
One program getting highlighted negatively vs all of the other things they possibly do behind the scenes. Knee-jerk reaction to everything and public ignorance.