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Congress Passes Bill Allowing Warrantless Forfeiture of Private Communications
Prune writes Congress has quietly passed an Intelligence Authorization Bill that includes warrantless forfeiture of private communications to local law enforcement. Representative Justin Amash unsuccessfully attempted a late bid to oppose the bill, which passed 325-100. According to Amash, the bill "grants the executive branch virtually unlimited access to the communications of every American."
According to the article, a provision in the bill allows “the acquisition, retention, and dissemination” of Americans’ communications without a court order or subpoena. That type of collection is currently allowed under an executive order that dates back to former President Reagan, but the new stamp of approval from Congress was troubling, Amash said. Limits on the government’s ability to retain information in the provision did not satisfy the Michigan Republican."
... mandatory. Seriously, what is the NSA going to do when the consequences of their arrogance propagate fully through our information culture? Eventually, everything of consequence is going to be held on private servers using private encryption keys that no one has access to but the users. The actual servers that push the information around are going to be shuffling around black boxes.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
If you do not declare this unconstitutional, immediately and unambiguously, then you have failed The People.
Your credibility is already hanging by a hair.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
I have actually met this guy in person, I have nothing against him, but holy shit. Before he actually cared and I would have backed him up 100% opposing this without question. But he seems to have gone for the republican kool aid and somehow wants to blame this on.... the executive branch.
Look man, the executive branch doesn't make laws and the law enforcement agencies that report to it already had this power. This is congress who isn't part of the executive branch passing the law. Don't go in there a decent guy and come out a soulless husk spewing what you hear on Fox News. Don't try to shift blame on that 'Obama' fictional character everyone seems to want to. You're better than that.
No pretense they have any respect for the Constitution, due process or the privacy of citizens. There's no doubt everyone will have to take matters into their own hands now. No doubt they'll make that illegal too, at which point only criminals will have any privacy.
I get to break this out again:
As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
Commissioner Pravin Lal, "U.N. Declaration of Rights"
Accompanies the Secret Project "The Planetary Datalinks"
Obama is just as bad... that doesn't excuse Bush from his errors, and he had many...
But frankly, if Obama doesn't Veto this, then he is the same scum of the Earth and frankly both sides need to be tossed out on their bums...
Voting third party may not bring in "better", but it will at least do SOMETHING different than the Repubs and Dems who are different sides of the same coin...
...and a REPUBLICAN tries to stop it?
I thought democrats were the good guys and Republicans are bad... I'm confused.
Let the down votes begin you Kool-aid drinkers.
In other words, the only issue he has with this bill is that it acknowledges an Executive Order is in place. It doesn't even particularly bless it. Nothing is changing other than a slightly-less tacet approval of an order that has been around for decades. It's not a terribly long bill, check it out yourself
Unfortunately, I suspect that anyone who is not a geek or privacy advocate still believes it.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Anyone who is a geek and/or privacy advocate never believed it.
I hope that most of the congress voted in favor of this out of ignorance. It appears to have passed through both the house and senate under the guise of a routine reauthorization of existing process.
My hope is that the statutory authorization of warrantless wiretapping was surreptitiously added in the hope that no one would notice. Much like the banking giveaway, the massive increase in individual campaign donations, and the de-legalization of marijuana in DC have been added to the big spending bill. I swear, it's like the election passed and these guys think it's time to celebrate the voters' exhaustion by sneaking in every possible trick while they can still blame it on "the other guys."
My hope is that there are a lot of incompetent congresspeople and only a few bad ones in there trolling, and it saddens me that this is the best I can hope of my government. I hope they're incompetent, because the alternative is sickening.
You missed everything I said about keeping the keys and decryption engine private
With NSA and all the spooks being given the blank check in snooping into every nook and cranny everywhere where do you think you gonna keep your files private ?
How long you think your files can be safely kept private?
The problem with the American government - no, not just the POTUS, not just the NSA, not just the Congress, not just the Court System, it's everything - is that it is turning into a totally uncontrollable monster, and it is getting uglier by the day
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
But fuck these assholes. Fuck all of them; every one of them who voted for this shit. Fuck them regardless of their party or their stances on other issues, or their charity work, or their stupid kids, or their veteran status. Fuck 'em. Burn in Hell you pieces of shit.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."