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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.
I think it is fair to say that dems, are repubs, are responsible for this.
Trying to imply that Obama is the good guy in the mess is pure bullshit.
https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=113&session=2&vote=00282
As you can see, it was pretty much along party lines.
I am filled with a deep sense of schadenfreude as I watch the US drive itself into the ground.
At some point the Republicans and Democrats got the strange idea in their heads that the last party in charge before the country collapses wins.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
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.
A couple more Republican's voted against it than Democrats.
"insightful"?
If you look at the data (scroll down to "grouped by vote position", all but three Republicans voted against it, and all but one democrats in favour of it. So, a lot more than "a couple".
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.
Um... every day?
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*.
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.
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.
The NSA supported this bill. Various whistle blowers signed a joint letter against it.
http://fdlaction.firedoglake.c...
The original version several months ago had some significant good points, but after negotiations with the administration removed the primary protections, what was left was mostly a bill extending the Patriot Act. Republicans might be right to vote against this and let the Patriot Act expire.
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.
It's probably important to note that the vote was not 58 against and 42 for. It was 58 for and 42 against, with 60 "yes" votes needed for passage.
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!!!
Sounds like the most crucial parts were stripped out to get the President's pre-approval. What party is Obama from, again?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
This was not the vote on the bill. This was the vote for cloture.
Cloture is a vote to end debate and call the question. Under current US Senate rules it takes 60 votes for cloture where it applies. A bill take 51 votes to pass.
Of the 42 votes against cloture, 1 was a Democrat. Of the 58 votes for cloture, 4 were Republicans.
Since the Republicans had enough votes to block cloture, the question could not be called. This means that either debate must continue until quorum fails (fillibuster) or debate is tabled with no vote and the agenda proceeds to the next item.
What every article seems to bury if not outright ignore is that this was the vote for cloture, not the bill itself.
Cloture is a vote to end debate and call the question. Under current US Senate rules it takes 60 votes for cloture where it applies. A bill take 51 votes to pass.
Of the 42 votes against cloture, 1 was a Democrat. Of the 58 votes for cloture, 4 were Republicans.
Since the Republicans had enough votes to block cloture, the question could not be called. This means that either debate must continue until quorum fails (fillibuster) or debate is tabled with no vote and the agenda proceeds to the next item.
However, whether the votes against cloture were because the individual senator felt work on the bill is not complete and it would be worse than the status quo or that the individual senator desired to just stall the vote cannot be determined only from the vote results.
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.
There is no amount of freedoms they can take away which will actually make us safer. There is always a way around their plans to be destructive. In the end we are no longer free and we are not safer. Al we have are systems of control and power that we cannot hide from.