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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.
Come on, we know that it was dead before word one was written. I'm just curious when libertarians will admit their people are just as in bed with money as the rest of us so we can finally fight the money together. The ones with money are the ones taking all your guns and taking all the jobs.
Um... every day?
You're willing to sit on the sidelines while ISIS engages in a campaign of genocide and ethnic/religious cleansing?
Why were we fine with doing this when the warlords of Africa were doing it? Or Bosnia?
Or anyplace else on this list:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
...and become anarchists?
Again, I ask you: did anyone read the article?
Both Democrats and Republicans voted against this bill. So this was, tongue in cheek, a bipartisan effort against liberty. For what it's worth, Democrat Mark Udall seems to have opposed it because it doesn't do enough, which can be a frustrating, yet respectable position.
But the days when at least every other Slashdot headline and summary actually reflected what was contained in the article are gone. So you TL;DR types dominate the discussion with nonsense partisanship that is not based on fact. And that fact is that, as usual, the schmucks in charge value their power over liberty and do not serve us.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I wonder if maybe attaching a PATRIOT extension to the bill might have anything to do with it dying.
According to Dr. Paul, the bill didn't go far enough (I agree). It also extended the PATRIOT act. Are you really led around that easily, to think that helping to kill this bill somehow makes him an authoritarian stooge?
Failure to pass this bill means we'll get another chance. The pressure is on. Once they pass a bill, nobody is going to want to pass another one for a while, so the first one has to get it right. The ACA is an example of a bill that was slammed through, and got a lot of things wrong. Let's not do the same thing with limiting the NSA.
Also, Rand Paul does not claim to be a libertarian, and if you actually knew anything about libertarians you should have known that libertarians tend to give him a giant stink-eye.
So basically, they're saying "the land of the free and the home of the brave" should sacrifice our fundamental liberties and allow the government to ignore the constitution to keep us safe. Why don't they just move to North Korea? It has everything they want.
Honestly? In its final form? The FREEDOM act was BADLY compromised. To the point where it would, in some ways, be achieving the OPPOSITE of the bill's original intent and could compromise our rights
I'd rather a bill like that get left on the floor.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I think you need to take a breath and realize that there are people trying to enable corporate power, and there are people trying to enable responsible agency for intelligent beings, and that they are not the same people, but they both find themselves under the libertarian banner.
NO, they don't. At all. The former are not even remotely Libertarians, even if they are trying to associate themselves with the Libertarian name.
Those are Republicans trying to pretend to be Libertarians. And by the way: progressives over the last years (Obama and friends are great examples) have been as supportive of "corporate power" as the Republicans. Just usually different corporations. But it's all the same game.
And honest Libertarian, however, is for free markets, with reasonable antitrust laws to keep the markets free. The latter part is integral to the capitalist system, and when it is lacking (as it has been under both Democratic and Republican rule since at least the late 90s), then what you have is oligopoly and monopoly (i.e., "corporate power"), not free markets.
So don't be fooled. Corporatists are NOT Libertarians. If they claim they are, show them where the Libertarian philosophy actually supports free competitive markets, not corporatism. They are not the same things.