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Senate May Vote On NSA Reform As Soon As Next Week

Posted by samzenpus on from the stop-looking-at-me dept.

apexcp writes Senate Majority Leader (for now) Harry Reid announced he will be taking the USA FREEDOM Act to a floor vote in the Senate as early as next week. While the bill, if passed, would be the first significant legislative reform of the NSA since 9/11, many of the act's initial supporters have since disavowed it, claiming that changes to its language mean it won't do enough to curb the abuses of the American surveillance state

5 of 127 comments (clear)

  1. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. by rmdingler · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I listened to campaign ads from parts of the country considered liberal, and from regions considered conservative this election season. Assuming the candidates were attempting to address issues important to voters, the topics ran the gamut from job creation to how malevolent the opposition candidate was.

    Not once did a political ad obviously endorse curtailing the government's sweeping surveillance powers.

    Candidates from elections are prone to endorse whatever view the polls say their constituents are interested in. I'd say this is a poor harbinger of curtailing the powers of the surveillance state.

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

  2. Re:Not a solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Uh, it's a spy agency. Spying on the rest of the world is their mission.

  3. Re:I hope it... by Thanshin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How many redundant players do we need to keep us safe?

    I'd suggest starting by questioning the base. Which, if any, is actually contributing significantly* to keeping someone safe?

    And then I'd suggest to compare that significance to the investment in money and in degradation of privacy among other rights.

    i.e.: If every life saved by HS costs some millions of dollars, it's way more efficient to spend that money in idiot-proofing vending machines and, as an added bonus, the country gets to keep being free.

  4. Re:I hope it... by Noryungi · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Repeals the Patriot Act and shuts down Homeland Security. How many redundant players do we need to keep us safe?

    As many as it takes to give tons of money to all the little cogs in the militaro-industrial complex.

    Seriously, the USA were already spending more than everyone else in the world on its military (and its security apparatus, including the NSA), before 9/11.

    Was this able to prevent the WTC/Pentagon attacks? No. And not just that, but Osama bin Laden was able to hide practically in plain sight for years, communicating all the time with his organization through written and recorded messages (meaning: outside the reach of the NSA).

    Will the NSA be able to prevent the next 9/11? Let me go out on a limb and say "No" again. If the hard-core terrorists haven't got it by now, every single telecommunication in the world is being spied upon. The safest way is to organize the next attack by courier and letters, and not through electronic communications at all.

    The Iraq war was all about oil, Halliburton and Exxon bottom line. Today's enless wars, conflicts and spying is all about keeping the money machine going strong, and the US Government doling mountains of cash to contractors and sub-contractors.

    The whole thing will end very badly.

    --
    The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
  5. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion