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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.
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.
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.
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".
Libertarianism is just Big Government renamed to Big Government Inc., with less accountability to the people.
Power always finds a vacuum.
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.
>Libertarianism is just Big Government renamed to Big Government Inc., with less accountability to the people.
This is why most of us grow out of our Libertarian phase by our mid-20s.
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 wonder if maybe attaching a PATRIOT extension to the bill might have anything to do with it dying.
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.
One Democrat and almost every Republican is not "bipartisan effort against liberty".
I read the internet for the articles.
If the entire government became Libertarian today, it would take less than 10 years for corporations to take total control of governance and we'd have just as much (or probably more) squashing of individual liberties, but no longer any accountability to voters. There are many powerful players in society and I'm not one of them. Does it make me a crony capitalist or a welfare queen when I decide I'd rather the power go to those I can vote out of office than those I can't?
I sometimes ask revealing, often ignorant-seeming questions. Maybe they're harder to answer than you think.
Ahem.... There were TWO bills, ONE of which was introduced by Jim Sensenbrenner, a republican in the House. I don't know how it started, and Sensenbrenner is the guy that helped WRITE the Patriot Act, who later said "oops". He gets credit for that in my book. Anyway, the HOUSE (R controlled) version went through committees and THAT version extended the Patriot act and didn't go far enough.
The OTHER bill was introduced by Patrick Leahy, a Dem in the Senate. THAT version was stronger, and THAT version unequivocally was BLOCKED by Republicans in the Sentate.
If you'd care to look for yourself... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U...
So, it seems you don't know what you're talking about....