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Republicans Block Latest Attempt At Curbing NSA Power
Robotron23 writes: The latest attempt at NSA reform has been prevented from passage in the Senate by a margin of 58 to 42. Introduced as a means to stop the NSA collecting bulk phone and e-mail records on a daily basis, the USA Freedom Act has been considered a practical route to curtailment of perceived overreach by security services, 18 months since Edward Snowden went public. Opponents to the bill said it was needless, as Wall Street Journal raised the possibility of terrorists such as ISIS running amok on U.S. soil. Supporting the bill meanwhile were the technology giants Google and Microsoft. Prior to this vote, the bill had already been stripped of privacy protections in aid of gaining White House support. A provision to extend the controversial USA Patriot Act to 2017 was also appended by the House of Representatives.
A watered down version of the original bill with the name "FREEDOM" in the very title still couldn't pass muster once the WSJ put the words "terrorist" and "ISIS" next to it.
"I'd just like to emphasise that taking a million years isn't a metaphor here..." -Rich Bradshaw
Remember that ISIS is our enemy now. They have always been our enemy.
Ignore those who say they used to be our ally in Syria and we were sending them weapons and aid. They want the T E R R O R I S T S to win!
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
ISIS will be running amok in the US... the FBI and CIA will be recruiting and funding gullible fools to do these "acts"... all so they can catch them and say look ISIS is running amok...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
The Dems (including Obama) expanded and extended the patriot act at a time when they could have pushed it through with little resistance.
As much as the talking heads are going to try to make this seem like a partisan issue the fact of the matter is that there is heavy bi-partisan support for controlling the slaves of the USA and any resistance to this is largely lip service to keep the sheep filling the party coffers.
How many times do we have to go through the "It's the Democrats!" "No, no, it's the Republicans" mantra before we get sick of the game and smash the established sacred idols of the jackass and the elephant? We, The People, have become of the dog chasing its own tail. The sad thing is that the vast majority think that they're fighting the good fight when they're just being kept busy while the real powers that be loot and pillage.
Those dummies.
From the WSJ article: "the former head of the National Counterterrorism Center, Matthew Olsen, disclosed in September that terrorists tracked by U.S. intelligence services have started encrypting their communications in ways that defeat detection, and that the government has lost track of several."
Not sure how the continued bulk collection is going to help anyone.
Trying to imply that Obama is the good guy in the mess is pure bullshit.
He was mocking the astroturfed memes that blame Obama for every perceived wrong in the world, even if the supposed wrong or its justification makes you spin-dizzy. But you knew that.
Obama is not responsible for this law initiative or this down vote. That does not mean Obama is the good guy in the NSA-powers scandal, it only means that Obama is not responsible for this law initiative or this down vote.
Similarly, the Republicans are responsible for this down vote. That does not mean they are solely to blame for the NSA-powers scandal, or that everything should be explained in terms of Democrats versus Republicans, it only means that in this case the Republicans are responsible for this down vote.
No, Obama has deported *more* illegal aliens than his predecessor. The ones that aren't being deported aren't being deported because the *LAW* says they're entitled to an asylum hearing, but the courts which handle those hearings are *beyond* understaffed because Congress won't do it's job regarding appointments to those courts.
Obama wrote an executive order delaying *enforcement* of those deadlines. Republicans are all upset about those executive orders, even as they argue for those *same* delays, but won't actually put a bill to effect those delays up for a vote.
On the third point, yes, Obama could, 'with the stroke of a pen' write an executive order to disallow what the NSA is doing. He may or may not 'want to'. However, much of what they're doing is *expressly* legal according to the law as written (even if those laws may not necessarily be Constitutional) due to the incompetence of Congress in passing laws which they haven't read and didn't understand. Likewise, Congress could 'with the stroke of a pen' make what the NSA is doing expressly *illegal*, but they haven't, and they won't because one party wants to be able to blame Obama for it. In fact blaming Obama is *much* more important to that party's congress-critters than actually *doing their freaking job*.
I'll start this off by stating I'm non-partisan and have no particular party affiliation. That said, the AC above is being disingenuous at best.
Domestic surveillance of the American populace by the NSA as almost certainly been in place since its inception, but it didn't really come into full-force until Bush signed the order to begin domestic spying on Oct.4, 2001. (see https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying... say that its reached "new and unimagined levels" under the current administration is true, but only because the program has grown and expanded steadily since 2001.
But all of that is history to be rewritten by those with the motivation to do so, and relearned by those with short memories. As Americans, our forefathers built a nation upon the idea that we could create and maintain a country free of political tyranny; that those with power could not subjugate those without; that as humans, we have the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that its laws will provide justice and protection for all its citizenry; and that those citizens will be brave in the face of those who would try to take those ideas from us, and fight to preserve what we have built.
The Senate had the chance to take a stand to honor the sacrifices made by so many, and everything that we've fought and bled for 238 years; but they did not. Perhaps that is fine. Perhaps ISIS, and Al-Qaeda before them, have shown us that the idea of America is a false one. That all it takes to shake our country to its foundation is to sneak in and blow up some buildings. Maybe we were delusional in thinking that we could really ever be free? Maybe it's all been romanticized through movies, literature, and rewritten history books; and that we never really were a "land of the free and home of the brave". Maybe that's just song lyrics. Maybe it is the best form of government on the planet, or maybe that doesn't matter because it's government of and by an animal driven by greed and fear. And maybe it's always been that way since we came out of the caves.
That's what I take away from this vote, and all the other votes on all the other measures that either erode our freedoms, or prevent that erosion from happening. That it doesn't matter what we do, no form of government can overcome our failings as species.
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
My answer is that both parties have decided that security at any costs, and privacy be damned is the way of the future.
While I hope my cynicism is misplaced, I personally don't think they give a fuck about security. If they did, they'd do the math and realise there are higher priorities in terms of preventable deaths. What they give a fuck about is power. Specifically, getting it, keeping it, and increasing its scope.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.