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Senate Bill Would Ban Most Bulk Surveillance
An anonymous reader writes: Today Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) introduced a bill that would ban bulk collection of telephone records and internet data for U.S. citizens. This is a stronger version of the legislation that passed the U.S. House in May, and it has support from the executive branch as well. "The bill, called the USA Freedom Act, would prohibit the government from collecting all information from a particular service provider or a broad geographic area, such as a city or area code, according to a release from Leahy's office. It would expand government and company reporting to the public and reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which reviews NSA intelligence activities. Both House and Senate measures would keep information out of NSA computers, but the Senate bill would impose stricter limits on how much data the spy agency could seek."
I will cheer for you all the way until the first anonymous hold prevents you from advancing to a vote!
Golly gee, with a name like the "USA Freedom Act," it must be good!
I wonder if anyone's every thought of writing up a "Patriot Act" - that would be doubleplus awesome!
Well, since the party whose member is placing the hold has to at least make that known, if there's bipartisan support in the House and the Executive Branch is on board, I don't expect such a hold to go over very well. This might be one of the few things that both parties agree on and that neither party could really use as leverage against the other in an election year, as the public is starting to get upset across the board about it too.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
As a non-American I couldn't care less how much the U.S. government is spying on its citizens. What I'm concerned about is the absence of effort to curb the U.S. spying on non-Americans. I haven't heard my government even acknowledging the fact that the U.S. is going through all our communications. Decentralized Internet is badly needed and nothing seems to be in works...
As someone who is generally an Obama supporter, the executive hasn't been on board the last few times this question came up.
While the changes are good, I do not think they go far enough.
Allowing full monitoring from someone two hops away from a suspect still can involve a lot of people. What if a suspect were to call Time Warner, then I was to call the same number later that day? It could potentially be a very large number. Also what qualifies as being a suspect? It may be that there are a half million suspects, and a majority of the earth's population is two hops away.
It also doesn't remove the First Amendment violations on the National Security Letters.
It's pretty clear at this point that the executive branch can get away with completely ignoring any law they want, without actual repercussion.
Congress fiddles while our separated-powers republic burns. I can't find words for how much I hate Congress and the President for this.
Of course not! Would you voluntarily give up a tool that was handed to you when you started your job, without a replacement provided?
That's the entire point of having separate branches of government.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Don't the NSA report, directly or indirectly, to the President? So if executive branch support a measure to limit bulk surveillance, couldn't they, of their own initiative, direct the appropriate agencies to cancel or modify the mass surveillance programs?
1. The President doesn't support this. He's the executive and is over the NSA. If he really wanted to stop bulk data collection he would simply call the NSA and say "hey, quit doing bulk collection". The law is needed specifically because he doesn't support it.
2. Unless the law will include criminal penalties it's of no value. A cursory glance shows that it simply says "hey, don't do that" instead of "hey, don't do that, and if you do it'll be a class _ felony with a minimum penalty of ___". It's interesting how laws made to limit non-government workers *always* have the criminal penalties, and laws that are made to limit government workers always conveniently forget that part. When we start jailing people who break laws like this we'll start making headway.
Do you have ESP?
...it's called the Bill of Rights.
How about instead, we just pass a law clarifying that the constitution does indeed apply to algorithms?
Just because a robot searched your car does not mean your car was not searched.
i.e. A police officers doing:
C:\directory search batch file.bat
is no different than:
C:\dir
and really... that's what this all comes down to.
Remember Bush pardoning the telcos for their fascist behavior?
It turns out that spying on Europe is perfectly legal in the US after this law passes, and that spying on the US is perfectly legal in Europe. . . .
Lucky for everyone's citizens, no European country and the US are incredibly close allies.
So this would:
> prohibit the government from collecting all information from a particular service provider or a broad geographic
> area, such as a city or area code
Sounds rather specific. My bet is this was very carefully crafted, with help of the NSA to specifically and publically ban a slice of activities so narrow and specific as to stop NOTHING that they are currently doing.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Given that the executive branch, that being the POTUS, has never seen a surveillance law it didn't like, I seriously doubt this law would actually impede the government's lust for any and all information on the People.
Besides, the actual implmentation of any law is always the exact opposite of the bill name. My guess, "The USA Freedom Act" means "freedom for the government to do whatever the fuck they want."
-- Will program for bandwidth
and the media for not taking an issue of this over the last 20 years.
they play patsy
They make money by getting viewer to watch ads.
What gets viewers?
Bullshit issues. Issues that anger people.
Is the TV media covering this bill, the ramifications and past abuses by our government?
Fuck no!
When Snowden was caught it wasn't so much what he uncovered but about him personally and whether or not he is a traitor.
distraction.
Currently, the big news is what?
Russia, Gaza, and Fox News is all worried about something about In god we trust on money.
More distraction.
Now, when Bengazi or whatever it was called - don't give a shit - happened, the Republicans and Fox News beat the shit out of and it's still going on. But for something as serious as spying on us Americans? They bitched and moaned a bit but they went after some other distraction bullshit.
Or could it be that it would shine a bit too much light on the W. Bush administration and their power grab for the Executive branch - the biggest ever?
In the meantime, Obama took ALL those powers that the Bush administration grabbed and ran with it!
And the next President will do the same fucking thing.
what will Joe Schmoe worry about? Distraction issues. Abortion, gun rights, "entitlement programs", taxes - even we're paying the lowest I think since the Income Tax was implemented.
See, people do NOT know what Freedom is.
And that's why we should be teaching Civics in school and not code monkey skills to supply cheap local labor to Facebook and Silicon Valley parasites.
I'd like to see an analysis by EFF or ACLU. Laws these days are named so that people will think they do when thing when the often do something else or even the opposite of what they do. There's no details given. I'm betting there are no criminal penalties for breaking this new either. Without that, it's useless.
TFS notes that Obama is behind this bill.
I find this interesting, since as head of the Executive Branch, he can order the NSA to do what this bill requires without bothering with a law, since no law exists requiring the NSA to collect telephone records on everyone.
And if such a law existed, it would be pretty clearly unconstitutional, and thus null and void....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I find this interesting, since as head of the Executive Branch, he can order the NSA to do what this bill requires without bothering with a law, since no law exists requiring the NSA to collect telephone records on everyone.
However, he can't order the next President to continue his policies. There's a lot to be said for pinning these things down so that they can't be changed on a whim.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
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I find it interesting that ALL OF THIS is covered by the Fourth Amendment. WE shouldn't need new legislation to uphold it.
Good-bye
This bill is entirely superficial. It's nice as a first step but the "two hops" bit makes it essentially meaningless pending further significant reform. It can be twisted to allow the level of surveillance we see today and it can be twisted that way in secret courts and closed meetings by bribed and blackmailed politicians. This is not the real reform that we need.
Ends the secret courts. Ends the closed door meetings. Establishes new definitions, clear ones to be used across all laws to stop the bullshit about "keeping America safe" by abusing its freedom. We need real reform not this lip service for the masses shit.
I would support a bill that
Hailing this as an effective law on its own is a mistake and the freedom of the United States is in serious jeopardy. Let's not step off that cliff.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
It's a real shame that the Supreme Court doesn't really agree with you.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
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It turns out that spying on Europe is perfectly legal in the US after this law passes, and that spying on the US is perfectly legal in Europe. . . .
Lucky for everyone's citizens, no European country and the US are incredibly close allies.
Are you saying the NSA is going to outsource spying on Americans to our allies? We can't allow this; we need to keep jobs right here in the US.
If the (current) President of the USA is willing (and able) to ignore the Constitution of the USA, why do you think the next President would follow a mere law?