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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
But cloud is great, right? They told me cloud is great!
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.
Dear Colleague:
The intelligence reauthorization bill, which the House will vote on today, contains a troubling new provision that for the first time statutorily authorizes spying on U.S. citizens without legal process.
Last night, the Senate passed an amended version of the intelligence reauthorization bill with a new Sec. 309—one the House never has considered. Sec. 309 authorizes “the acquisition, retention, and dissemination” of nonpublic communications, including those to and from U.S. persons. The section contemplates that those private communications of Americans, obtained without a court order, may be transferred to domestic law enforcement for criminal investigations.
To be clear, Sec. 309 provides the first statutory authority for the acquisition, retention, and dissemination of U.S. persons’ private communications obtained without legal process such as a court order or a subpoena. The administration currently may conduct such surveillance under a claim of executive authority, such as E.O. 12333. However, Congress never has approved of using executive authority in that way to capture and use Americans’ private telephone records, electronic communications, or cloud data.
Supporters of Sec. 309 claim that the provision actually reins in the executive branch’s power to retain Americans’ private communications. It is true that Sec. 309 includes exceedingly weak limits on the executive’s retention of Americans’ communications. With many exceptions, the provision requires the executive to dispose of Americans’ communications within five years of acquiring them—although, as HPSCI admits, the executive branch already follows procedures along these lines.
In exchange for the data retention requirements that the executive already follows, Sec. 309 provides a novel statutory basis for the executive branch’s capture and use of Americans’ private communications. The Senate inserted the provision into the intelligence reauthorization bill late last night. That is no way for Congress to address the sensitive, private information of our constituents—especially when we are asked to expand our government’s surveillance powers.
I urge you to join me in voting “no” on H.R. 4681, the intelligence reauthorization bill, when it comes before the House today. /s/
Justin Amash
Member of Congress
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.
The court can't just jump up and say "We don't like that, it goes out." They have to follow procedure which means a challenge has to appear in front of them. That challenge can also only be brought by someone with standing, meaning that this law had a negative impact on you somehow.
That's one of the reasons the government loves the secret gathering so much, makes it harder for it to get challenged. If you can't show this harmed you, then you can't fight it in court.
So someone has to be impacted by this, challenge it, and it has to be appealed up to the SC. Then and only then do they rule on it.
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"
There is no endgame because there is no end. It will only get worse until the breaking point is reached, at which point the American empire will fall in a horrific way. Have we not learned this from history? It has happened many, many times before.
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.
Still there prioritizing free will and not making people automatons despite what many of them do with it.
I do find this a strange argument from a practical perspective, though. An existing God with afterlife consequences is the one and only thing that could make these people accountable. You certainly won't be changing anything.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
I may not wear a tinfoil hat but I'm becoming more paranoid as time goes on. A bit farfetch'd but between the private entities and the government I wonder if our internet, cellular, or GPS data is already available but only used for parallel construction. Does privacy matter to the people? Is it too late?
U+1F4A9
Thank you for posting the bill number, since neither slashdot nor the hill thought we should be able to look it up and see who voted for this bullshit.
It appears in the Senate it was passed by voice vote by a bunch of cowards that did not want their name attached to the bill.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
No one with a clue believes that anymore.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
That's the solution create an interconnected web of wlan and lan routes - also long ranges - freenet has some nice routing algorithms, and tons of encryption, now it just must be ported away from java.
It won't be that fast, but I think fast enough.
Start here.
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.
The NSA: "Made in China"... Full communist cultural adoption... Next: Human sterilization lotteries...
Good thing geeks are responsible for building the entire information backbone.
Look, decoding things client side isn't expensive. It isn't a big deal. All you have to do is retrain a copy of the decryption engine and key client side. Which means if you're running a large company network that hosts all company files on data centers in the "cloud" then all the IT guy has to do is maintain ONE tiny server client side that serves those two things to the clients. Which they download as part of their login script... etc etc etc.
It isn't hard. And when that is in place... assuming the NSA has total control over the data center that is the cloud... what exactly do they have? Jack and shit.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
When everything you say or do is recorded by the authorities, do you really want to be part of that world?
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
Fox News watchers - are they at least bitching about this? I mean if there is anything to pick on Democrats for it is THIS. No, they are going to bitch about Festivus poles or some such nonsense, aren't they. For profit propaganda is what we have for a media in this country.
There's a lot of bitching right now on the blogging dextrosphere about the shit the lame duck congress is pulling, especially about departing Republicans being dicks (the Dems at least are gaming the system in a predictable and understandable way, but the GOP has no excuse here, as you point out).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
All your papers are belong to us.
Unfortunately for us, it's not just denying access to information, but mandating access to our own information. What has yet to be tested is what legally happens when you generate a random file and send it to someone. If asked, how can you prove it's not an encrypted file? There is no key that can be used to unlock it!
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it dissolve.
No, it's not "currently allowed under an Exec Order".
Neither the constitution, nor the laws bound by it, nor the orders bound by the law are "bigger on the inside"... They're not TARDISes. They may not exceed their legal limits.
Laws must not exceed the authority routed to them by the constitution. Orders must not exceed the authority routed to them by law. That's how the system is designed.
www.facebook.com/DareDefendOurRights
www.fairtax.org
Yes, the cloud is secure too. Have you ever flown through a cloud? It's all misty and you can't see anything. When you store your data in the cloud, no one can find it in all that fog. Except of course you because you know where you put it.
Congress just declared war on America,,,,
It's gonna be abused.
The Republicans are absolutely certain they're going to win it in 2016 so it will be them who get to abuse it.
Big Government is only bad when Republicans aren't in control.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
So they can't settle on a decent healthcare system for us, but when it comes to spying on us... push it right through!
Wrists killing you? Not in 2 weeks. Learn Dvorak.
I grew up as an American in Europe. We all used to take the piss out of the Soviets and the Iron Curtain countries for their inability to travel without papers, home raids, and general lack of privacy and freedom. Now, 30 years later, it's become a reality in the USA. What goes around comes around...
My Tea Party representative voted against the bill, although I cannot be sure why. In the past he has supported civil forfeiture. I made a point of writing him a thank you note to balance my previous rap on the knuckles. My thank you noted my assumption that his vote was in support of Amash.
OTOH, my state's only Democrat voted yea.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
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.
Most have no clue what's really going on in the world... the powers that be are afraid of political awakening.
This (mass surveillance) by the NSA and abuse by law enforcement is just more part and parcel of state suppression of dissent against corporate interests. They're worried that the more people are going to wake up and corporate centers like the US and canada may be among those who also awaken. See this vid with Zbigniew Brzezinski, former United States National Security Advisor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ttv6n7PFniY
Science on reasoning, reason doesn't work the way we thought it did:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYmi0DLzBdQ
Brezinski at a press conference
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kmUS--QCYY
The real news:
http://therealnews.com/t2/
http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Incorporated-Managed-Inverted-Totalitarianism/dp/069114589X/
http://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Government-Surveillance-Security-Single-Superpower/dp/1608463656/r
http://www.amazon.com/National-Security-Government-Michael-Glennon/dp/0190206446/
Look at the following graphs:
IMGUR link - http://imgur.com/a/FShfb
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
And then...
WIKILEAKS: U.S. Fought To Lower Minimum Wage In Haiti So Hanes And Levis Would Stay Cheap
http://www.businessinsider.com/wikileaks-haiti-minimum-wage-the-nation-2011-6
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnkNKipiiiM
Free markets?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHj2GaPuEhY#t=349
http://www.amazon.com/Empire-Illusion-Literacy-Triumph-Spectacle/dp/1568586132/
"We now live in two Americas. One—now the minority—functions in a print-based, literate world that can cope with complexity and can separate illusion from truth. The other—the majority—is retreating from a reality-based world into one of false certainty and magic. To this majority—which crosses social class lines, though the poor are overwhelmingly affected—presidential debate and political rhetoric is pitched at a sixth-grade reading level. In this “other America,” serious film and theater, as well as newspapers and books, are being pushed to the margins of society.
In the tradition of Christopher Lasch’s The Culture of Narcissism and Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, Pulitzer Prize-winner Chris Hedges navigates this culture—attending WWF contests, the Adult Video News Awards in Las Vegas, and Ivy League graduation ceremonies—to expose an age of terrifying decline and heightened self-delusion."
Thanks for providing this, AC. I don't know what Mr. Amash is talking about. Section 309 doesn't grant any blessing of Executive Order 12333, or any other mechanism of collection. It just states that if any collection takes place without a court order, then it must be disposed of within 5 years with a few very-specific exceptions. The sky is not falling people. Do your research before you freak out based on alarmist stuff like this.
https://www.govtrack.us/congre...
REP. YEA -> 184
DEM. YEA -> 141
REP. NAY -> 45
DEM NAY -> 55
Well, not a big difference but still...
Not if you're standing under it and it rains down in torrents.
Arg, link fail. I intended to link to the text of H.R. 4681 so you can read section 309 yourself.
In the UK that could get you an infinite prison sentence.
You can be locked up for 2 years for not revealing an encrption key.
Then another 2 years if you don't reveal it after that.
Ad infinitum.
https://www.govtrack.us/congre...
If your congressman voted YEA and you don't agree, write to him/her.
They are representing you.
A law giving the NSA authority to intercept all communications means that your corporate crypto server will be copied, giving them all your keys so they can decrypt everything. If you want security it must be done entirely at the client side, with only the client having the keys. Any central crypto means they get everything. Also you should assume Microsoft and Google are working for the NSA, so they can patch your OS to copy your client side keys to the NSA if required.
Good thing geeks are responsible for building the entire information backbone.
Look, decoding things client side isn't expensive. It isn't a big deal. All you have to do is retrain a copy of the decryption engine and key client side. Which means if you're running a large company network that hosts all company files on data centers in the "cloud" then all the IT guy has to do is maintain ONE tiny server client side that serves those two things to the clients. Which they download as part of their login script... etc etc etc.
It isn't hard. And when that is in place... assuming the NSA has total control over the data center that is the cloud... what exactly do they have? Jack and shit.
That's a pretty strong assumption that Jack and/or Shit don't have the ability to crack said decryption engine like a fucking egg.
Don't worry. I'm sure we can still trust any part of the CA infrastructure.
And the next Snowden-like leak that reveals al...oh what the hell am I talking about. Americans don't give a shit about this crap anymore. The NSA is standing in front of Congress stating blatantly what they're about to do. Basically make everything that has been reported on in recent times as being either highly illegal and/or unconstitutional completely legal.
There will be no more "tell-all" books about our shadows. There will be no more shadows to talk about when it's all out in the open.
It's an interesting fantasy, and it would make a superb story. But note that the Chief Executive controls the FBI and the prisons.
OTOH, while a President who is a participant in an evil government gone rogue, as all for at least the last 100 years have been, makes a fearsome tyrant, at the same time a truly patriotic and true President who has a powerful enough strength of character and persuasive/organizational powers to keep just 1/3 of the Senate from impeaching him, could be the only credible source of salvation.
When I looked that up, it said undefined. Is that what you wanted to say? I was kind of thinking it'd be a symbol for a bomb or a mushroom cloud or something.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
You missed everything I said about keeping the keys and decryption engine private... didn't you? Read that again and then comment please... you'll sound less stupid.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Ban the fucking voice vote, goddammit. It's only a rule of the Senate that allows it. The term does not occur in the Constitution.
Fuck the government
Anyone who is a geek and/or privacy advocate never believed it.
Good point.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Torrents... I see what you did there.
How are they going to copy information that isn't flowing over the lines?
As to copying everything. While they might be able to keep meta data there is no way they're ever going to have enough data capacity to copy everything.
The 4k horse porn streams are not getting copied into the NSA data server... unless they really want it.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
We really do have to throw them all out...
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
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 !
Agreed. I read it and I don't see where it authorizes any collection, but rather states limits on retention of information collected under other authorization. Writer Julian Hattem and Rep. Justin Amash need to get their facts strait. If you want to attack the that bill the better argument would be, why the fuck do they get to keep the unauthorized stuff for 5 years? 120 days ought to be enough time to decide if the content is or isn't legally justified to retain, even at the pace of government. Instead of filtering and retaining current data of interest, they want a crystal ball that can see five years into the past even for data belonging to U.S. persons not suspected of any wrong doing. Oh, and if you encrypt it, then they have no retention limit. Then again we don't have it that bad today. Henry Ford used to send men to his factory workers homes and if they had too many liquor bottles around, they would be warned and reinspected shortly there after. I'd call that more invasive than reading my email.
What part of
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
does Congress not understand?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
But cloud is great, right? They told me cloud is great!
Yes, cloud is great as a convenience for you.
It is also great as a convenience for NSA and other agencies. The text of the bill allows that anything that was encrypted can be kept indefinitely. If your web site says HTTPS then it is fair game for permanent governmental storage.
Also, they can retain it forever for a number of reasons:
From the bill now on its way to the President's desk: "(3)(B) A covered communication shall not be retained in excess of 5 years unless ... (ii) the communication is reasonably believed to constitute evidence of a crime ... (iii) the communication is enciphered or reasonably believed to have a secret meaning; (iv) all parties to the communication are reasonably believed to be non-United States persons;"
#2 should be troubling. Does your communication (which is not limited to just email, but also includes web pages and any other data) have any evidence of a crime? Evidence that you downloaded a movie or software from a warez site, or looked at porn as a minor, or violated any of the policy-made-crimes that even the federal government has declared they are not countable? With an estimate of over 300,000 'regulations-turned-crime', plus laws that incorporate foreign laws (the Lacey Act's criminalization of anything done "in violation of State or foreign law"), pretty much anything you do probably violates some law somewhere in the world. Better preserve it just in case somebody eventually wants to prosecute you for that crime someday.
#3 refers back to a vague definition of "enciphered" that does not just mean encryption. The "secret meaning" could be as simple as data inside a protocol, Who is to say that the seemingly random bytes "d6 0d 9a 5f 26 71 dd a7 04 31..." used as part of a data stream are really not an encrypted message? Better record it just in case.
And of course #4, the law has a careful wording about communications between "non-United States persons". Considering the "internet of things", all those devices talking to other devices are not communications between United States persons. It was your camera (a non-United States person) communicating with a data warehouse (a non-United States person), so better exempt that from the 5-year retention policy as well.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
Unless there is an air gap in between your server and the Net, rest assure, they will find ways to access it
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
How are they going to copy information that isn't flowing over the lines?
Simple. They patch your OS with a rootkit. They can make information flow over the lines, so long as it isn't airgapped. And an airgap is only so useful, as stuxnet shows.
but the new stamp of approval from Congress was troubling
What's troubling is that nobody knows, nobody cares, and nobody realizes legislation like this can be changed if enough somebodies cared.
Or ever did.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
So... The NSA has a double-ROT13 filter on all data they intercept?
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Yes, it does, in that part where the House can set the procedural rules. IIRC, the current procedure only requires one Congresscritter to request the vote be recorded and they have to comply. With this knowledge it is particularly concerning that the DMCA and some other horrid bills were passed by voice vote.
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
Congress never gave a shit, this proves it. What they really don't want us to know, is they knew about this the whole time, and never gave a fuck about our rights or privacy.
And they got space capability that's monitoring us 24/7 too. Building and ground penetrating tomography, watching us fuck, listening to us talk, recording and analyzing our brainwaves from space, all patented stuff.
When does the public backlash and defend themselves?
http://www.myronmays.com/
http://www.obamasweapon.com/
Look at link #1. Did you know the police and US military are able to under the table torture, execute, and mentally main people using space based weapons, and that whistleblowers and patents exist exposing the technology? Time to arrest our Congressman, Our President, and Our Police, and get them the fuck out of the game because they kill us all.
wow an AC that has a valid point.
I'm not sure what context you are presenting this from. Assuming it's atheism, please include your objection from the perspective of Darwinism. We can take it from there, on whether DNA propagation would be increased or decreased by this, that sort of thing. Everything you've got derived from your stance, whatever little that may be.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
... cares for the nation ... works for the people
As long as we still rely on the Republicans and the Democrats to steer this country, USA is going nowhere fast
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
My read of #3:
"Hi Mom, I baked a couple of really good pans of cornbread with the cornmeal you sent me" just might be code for "Hi Muhammad, received the PCX and both bombs are now ready". You can never be sure, right?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
I think he was trying to say "Oh Shit!"
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
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."
You never had Private Communications, get over it, the only people who engage in really private communication are the real terrorists, the real purpose of this bill is to keep an eye on you, the people who presumably voted them into office.
The rules of good journalism clearly state that when the story is positive, no party affiliation mentioned means Republican. If the story is negative, no party affiliation means Democrat.
So, you may have guessed that "Justin Amash" is "Justin Amash (R-MI)"
See that "Preview" button?
Just shows what a POS Obama is as well, coming out and speaking as though he was concerned by surveillance, only to have this try to slip by.
Panderer in Chief.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
The context is plain: Martin Luther was a devout Christian who believed in God and an afterlife yet advocated horrific actions be taken against Jews, contradicting your statement.
How would an existing god with afterlife consequences make these people accountable? If he punishes them after they die, well that makes no difference on Earth or to all the other people that got fucked up by these people.
Even if they believe in a god who would punish them after the fact, most of these people honestly believe they're doing gods work and that is why god has rewarded them with money and power. Even punishing them forever won't undo the damage they did in life, at the best it is making them regret what they did forever.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
I'm not sure you understand how contradictions work, since I've made none.
I said people have free will, including to do harmful things, and suggested accountability exists in the afterlife.
Luther's stance on Jews (which may, in fact, ultimately serve as example of exactly my statement) has no more to do with contradicting this than me saying that because someone of your political party held a view that you do not, your statement is contradicted.
Ah, no.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
It means that political systems that simply specify their own rules of evaluation of their actions per their own benefit, and are militarily and economically entrenched in doing so, have as a practical matter no accountability, which the OP seemed to suggest he was going to fix.
Well, no. He'll futilely rail against it ("the West", but any government can be substituted) on Slashdot, accomplish nothing, then die and become irrelevant. As will you. I suggest a more pragmatic viewpoint.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
I'm not clear on how you think this is different from the model you currently accept from a secular standpoint. We make people accountable by putting them in prison. That doesn't revert their actions, either. That isn't a part of the definition of "accountable", and you seem to be making up a definition according to whatever you need to say it is to attack theism, contradicting the system you already have and agree with every day.
What they "honestly think" they are doing is likewise irrelevant, same as people still go to prison even if they "honestly thought" robbing that bank was perfectly fine.
Your thought process here seems very convoluted, in a self-inflicted and rather hypocritical way.
As for the afterlife, though again whether or not it undid the damage would be irrelevant, "punishing them forever" is not a model I ascribe to nor IMHO the proper conclusion to draw from scriptural sources. I am a "conditionalist"--you do not have an immortal soul by default, you receive one through God's will and your faith. If you don't accept that, you ultimately get exactly what you demanded--nonexistence in every sense.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
Working on a segue to the supposed "Problem of Evil"?
Occasionally, in terms of direct intervention, but primarily this is left to us to implement, as a function of retaining our free will and avoiding making us and our actions morally irrelevant.
We do so poorly, all in all. We can, however, attempt to align ourselves with a system which can lead to better results, which alone we've shown no propensity or capability in accomplishing, for quite a few millennia now. Leaving religious presumptions aside for a moment, a structure that could reach an objective beats a non-definition of a non-plan that never, empirically, worked anywhere as a matter of history.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
At the time of that writing, later in his life, or now?
The truth is compulsory. Alignment with it is unpleasant to the degree one has been misaligned.
As for the specifics, though, I leave that to the one who can address it with a degree of precision and thoroughness I cannot.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
This still needs to pass the senate, and if enough commotion can be stewed up among the masses it'll make that whole process a bigger pain in the ass for them. And it should, because this is blatantly unconstitutional and they know it. Now would be the time to make it a point to your representatives that this is not what you want, and certainly doesn't represent the intents and demands of their constituents.
So again, at the time of that writing, or later in his life, say on his deathbed, when he came very close to recanting the entire Reformation, or now?
But we still need to go back to how I can address your question of "better", so again it would clarify your standards by reference to your worldview. Right now you are saying that my religion is incorrect, which we know by reference to its moral axioms, with the religion as the only source of justification of them we've put on the table.
To summarize, your stance is that my view is untrue, which we know because it is true.
So, again, what is your derivation of the basis of your implied moral criticism? Since context-dropping would be wholly invalid on your part, and Christians killing all the Jews would be fine according to Darwinian naturalism, Jews killing all the Christians would be equally fine according to it, both of them killing all the atheists would be perfectly fine as well, it's simply a matter that some DNA survived and some did not, case closed, what else do you mean by "better"?
You'll have to define your term, because right now you're doing an Argument from a Void.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
You've obviously got a different idea of accountable then I do. To me the idea is to encourage someone to realize they need to improve and become a better person. Probably hopeless as someone with no empathy will probably not acquire it. Still some people do come out of prison better people as they have become accountable for their actions and learned. This works best in systems that believe in rehabilitation. Of course some people are hopeless and just removed from society, but that's about protecting society, not making them accountable. What is the point of making someone accountable if not in the hope that they learn something from it.
Now some people just like to punish and call it making them accountable and even come up with weird fantasies where they might be punished forever or at least lose out on some reward. I've never understood that, especially when they claim it is to do with love.
We have our one life with whatever chance threw us, some are lucky and get a good start and take advantage of it, others not so much. Is there any point to trying to make a badly fetal alcohol victim accountable, or someone who was born with no empathy?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
You're wandering pretty far afield from what I actually said. I said that people who sociopathically use the mechanisms of control given them by their government positions, and likewise use these positions to make up rules for themselves that extends their control and manipulation of the public and which exempt themselves from any real penalties for any of their actions, fully knowingly and making extensive effort to systematically do precisely that, should be held accountable.
And now you tell me I'm talking about mentally handicapped people and making them accountable. Ah, no. Whoever you think you're talking to, it isn't me.
So, people not being punished forever is a weird fantasy, and really they will, as a matter of what's actually true? You need to review your ideas here for internal coherence.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
So you too have reading comprehension issues? Listen, idiots... I have no problem with people disagreeing with me. Disagree all day and I'll be just fine with it. But fail to read my post and then respond to your illiterate interpretation of my posts and I'm going to call you on your illiteracy.
Take you for example. You are apparently under the impression that I "flew off the handle" because someone disagreed with me. Which is clearly idiotic since it is quite clear that I flew off the handle because the moron commenting on me didn't actually read my post at even a grade school level.
If you are literally at the level of "run spot run" then please do the internet a favor and do not comment.
Welcome to the internet.
http://heeereswilly.ytmnd.com/
Good day, sir.
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And the US takes one more step down the slippery slope. At the bottom lies a police state.
Aside from a few nerds and right-wing blogs, no one noticed. Interestingly, this information is nowhere to be found on mainstream media sites. Why is that, I wonder? Maybe all those conspiracy theorists have a point.
On Swiss TV last night they showed an interview with some of the USAF people flying drones. Surreal: sit down at your joystick, , drop a hellfire missile on a vehicle, go home to the kids. The fact that some debatable-but-large portion of the drone targets are misidentified? The Captain playing the video game really, really didn't want to discuss that. He just shoots what he's told to shoot.
Sad to see - the once great bastion of freedom now tortures prisoners, kills civilians by remote control, and now freely spies on its own citizen's communications. It may be time for y'all to abandon the sinking ship.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Which means you're assuming they're going to passively hack every computer in the US and keep it a secret from all the people fiendishly looking for it. Good luck with that plan. The discrepancy between what the computer should be doing and what it is doing will be noticed. When it contacts IP addresses that it shouldn't, it will be noticed... etc. There is no way they'd get away with that for any extended period of time. Which means it would be all over the media and the only people that would allow the hack to stay in place would be people so clueless they don't even read newspapers.
Utterly impossible to sustain... just no.
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Actually your logic is floored. Abscence of evidence is not evidence of abscence. It's one thing to state that cops are unlikely to be aliens but it's another thing altogether to prove that no cops are aliens.
Wrong. Absence of evidence is absence of evidence. Full stop. Period. End of line.
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We still have one technomoron here who keeps pushing to move everything to the cloud. We are in a country with dodgy overseas internet connections as it is and this artard want's to move everything offshore!
There are three kinds of falsehood: the first is a 'fib,' the second is a downright lie, and the third is statistics.
If you're throwing a large amount of encrypted data around then that will show up and make you a target, after all anyone who encrypts must have something to hide from the NSA and so they'll want to see what it is.
As the malware Regin shows - they route your data through other hosts known to you to disguise it phoning home - it phones your friends and asks them to pass the message on.
lots of people throw encrypted data around now and the government doesnt even try to break most of it or consider those people targets just because they encrypt.
As time goes on that will become more common and the government if anything will view the issue as being less hostile even if it does make their job harder. If everyone does it then they're not going to call everyone an enemy.
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He was right, though. You really are a pompous pile of shit when it comes to social interactions. Just enough intelligence to turn a serious case of tiny-cock syndrome terminal.
Subtle, I love it :)
This is the sig that says NI (again)
Every single one of those bastards should be facing a public trial for breaking their oath of office. They have successfully passed a bill that is directly in violation of the Constitution.
Just wow.
How do I get them into a courtroom? Do I have to write the Justice Department? Can I make a citizens arrest? How does this work exactly because this is clearly the time it needs to happen.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
(B) Limitation on Retention - A covered communication shall not be retained in excess of 5 years, unless:
(iii) the communication is enciphered or reasonably believed to have secret meaning
ftfy: looked at porn_of_a minor
First, we're talking about the Senate, not the House. Second, after a voice vote, one member can "request" what is called a "division of the assembly", in which members rise in turn by aye or nay to be counted - but NOT named. It takes 20% of the members to demand a true recorded vote. Good luck with the first, and particularly the last, before the consideration is gaveled closed.
And you didn't pay very close attention to what I said. The Constitution does not specify what the procedural rules are. It doesn't talk about a voice vote. At most it spells out that rules can be made by the houses of Congress to govern themselves, without any specificity or bounds. The President of the Senate is not normally such a fine figure as Harry Carey was in Mr. Smith Goes To Washington. What if these boobs get together and change the rules in such a way that nobody can challenge a voice vote? What recourse is there then? What if Rule 22 (Cloture) is changed to require 80 votes (or 51 votes) instead of 60? What if the rule permitting the interruption of the floor to call for a cloture vote were removed? Keep in mind that the Constitution set up the Senators to be elected by their respective state legislatures, not by popular vote. The House of Representatives was already the body which represented the people directly. Why have two such bodies? Morons made the change via the 17th Amendment. That opened the door to making the Senate a body of lowly politically-motivated self-serving assholes.
no, they're wrong: the portal is on the far side of the screening
True, absence of evidence is evidence of absence, but it's weak evidence. It reduces the probability somewhat, but not a whole lot, and certainly not to zero. Stronger evidence of absence could exist, but we don't get to see it.
Yes. It's viewed by the less astute as something magical, apparently because the salespeople told them so.
I'm in a country with fairly solid overseas internet connections, and it pretty much sucks for us. I keep getting reports of users losing connection with important resources. I tell them I can't really help you. Ask the cloud.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Congress quietly also passed a bill allowing searches up everyones crack while asleep in their bedrooms..
When was the last time you saw, "Clue required," on an executive level job description?
Ooooh, "thas raysis", I never saw that one coming! Can't even tell if trolling.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Again, if I only send encrypted information and both the key and encryption engine stay local then simply intercepting my communications gets them nothing but an encrypted stream of data.
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Actually, he was wrong because my point, if you had read it, made his point irrelevant.
Neither he nor you either read or understood my point as evidenced by your continued inability to grasp a very simple issue.
As to tiny cocks, so let me get this straight... some idiot on the internet displays manifest illiteracy and someone else pointing that out is evidence that they have a tiny penis?
Is the ability to read something you associate with having small genitals?
You are an idiot. That isn't an insult. That is a conclusion of the above observation that concludes with you having to be an idiot. Only an idiot could make such a fucking retarded argument.
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Sec 302. Restriction on conduct of intelligence activities
The authorization of appropriations by this Act shall not be deemed to constitute authority for the conduct of any intelligence activity which is not otherwise authorized by the Constitution or the laws of the United States.
...which I think means the bill cannot have the effect of making any intelligence activities legal. It can only restrict, if I'm reading it right.
Where's my "-1 Naive" mod?...
http://undecidedgames.blogspot.com
Do you think they are spying on me personally because I frequently push encrypted files around?
I rather doubt it. I'm sure that they passively grab things from me just like they do from everyone... but as to specifically focusing on me?... unlikely.
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Is the ability to read something you associate with having small genitals?
Not at all... Is that really what you think I was criticizing you for? I think I've found your problem, if so.
I'm beginning to wonder if you have in fact been reading your own posts or not. I'm starting to think you misjudge your own literacy.
Substantiate your position with quotes immediately or it must be assumed your statement is baseless.
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Read that again and then comment please... you'll sound less stupid.
What is up with people being completely unable to read?
So you too have reading comprehension issues? Listen, idiots...
The instant you fuck with that... that is gone. You doubtless crypto communistic environmental policy will at best serve a communist agenda. But the environment will actually get trashed by your ideas. Look at the soviets. Communists don't give a shit about the environment... because it is a stupid economic model and they're always poor. And poor people don't care about the environment.
Twit.
You completely missed the point. Good work.
You fuck up the economy = no one gives a shit about the environment.
Do you logic?
Do you see, dude? You're a completely incorrigible shitbag. And just to top it off, you're not even that damn smart. You keep conflating people seeing you as stupid as an indictment against their literacy. I remember some of the less bright children in school playing that same card.
I mean, really? Communistic environmental policy? Are you truly so dense as to ascribe it to a socio-economic model? Can you truly not fire up the logic centers in that lump of decaying mass you call a brain to try to deduce a more accurate model for the effect you have noted? If you think you're the only one who can read, perhaps that says something about you.
SEC. 309. PROCEDURES FOR THE RETENTION OF INCIDENTALLY ACQUIRED
COMMUNICATIONS.
(a) Definitions.--In this section:
(1) Covered communication.--The term ``covered communication''
means any nonpublic telephone or electronic communication acquired
without the consent of a person who is a party to the
communication, including communications in electronic storage.
[...]
(b) Procedures for Covered Communications.--
(1) Requirement to adopt.--Not later than 2 years after the
date of the enactment of this Act each head of an element of the
intelligence community shall adopt procedures approved by the
Attorney General for such element that ensure compliance with the
requirements of paragraph (3).
(3) Procedures.--
(A) Application.--The procedures required by paragraph (1)
shall apply to any intelligence collection activity not
otherwise authorized by court order (including an order or
certification issued by a court established under subsection
(a) or (b) of section 103 of the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1803)), subpoena, or
similar legal process that is reasonably anticipated to result
in the acquisition of a covered communication to or from a
United States person and shall permit the acquisition,
retention, and dissemination of covered communications subject
to the limitation in subparagraph (B).
(B) Limitation on retention.--A covered communication shall
not be retained in excess of 5 years, unless--
The key words here are "shall apply to any intelligence collection activity not otherwise authorized by court order"
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Again, this wording adds restrictions to any such collections that may occur. It does not grant permission to do them.
Do you think they are spying on me personally because I frequently push encrypted files around?
I rather doubt it. I'm sure that they passively grab things from me just like they do from everyone... but as to specifically focusing on me?... unlikely.
No, they are spying on everyone because they are so self conscious and are insanely jealous of penis sizes they observed while watching illegal PR0N.
No really, it is about power, it is about awareness to maintain it. What bugs me about it is the I.T. community has played into an act on their part of taking up the sword against their own people, the ones they have been charged with acting in the defense of as well as the constitution, all for the purpose of justifying the insane size of the black budget.
Bread and Circuses: bribe the population with free bread and distract them with circuses whilst the rulers do whatever they want.
Casteism
Don't believe everything you read on the Internet.
OK...so I should believe everything I read on the Internet?
ominous Star Trek music begins to play
Actually, you are illiterate.
Here is what I said when I responded negatively:
""My god... read my fucking posts please. I am talking about keeping the keys client side. Which means if you do a man in the middle attack they get nothing but encrypted garbage.""
See that? I am not conflating your insults with your illiteracy. Rather, I am conflating your inability to read my post as evidence of illiteracy.
By all means, disagree with something I said. However, if you say I said something I didn't say or make a point that makes no sense in the context of the discussion because you didn't read my post... I am going to fucking call you on it.
You complete waste of skin. Turn off the computer and get off the internet. The moron quotient was met decades ago on the internet.
That you presume to judge my intelligence is frankly the most offensive thing you've said. You're garbage.
Log off and vanish.
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Don't be naive. The IT man's loyalties lie with the man that pays him. Just like everyone else.
How many other professions fuck over their coworkers on command? The only exception I can think of is doctors... and only under special circumstances... typically they'll fuck you over on command just like everyone else.
The IT man is nothing special in this context. He's another employee executing a command.
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It requires nothing. It is itself. If you want to present a counter argument you need to present evidence of SOMETHING. Without that you have an argument based on nothing which is an argument based on nothing.
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You complete waste of skin. Turn off the computer and get off the internet. The moron quotient was met decades ago on the internet.
That you presume to judge my intelligence is frankly the most offensive thing you've said. You're garbage.
Log off and vanish.
The prosecution rests ;)
Maybe you're right though, the smartest people I know often resort to ad hominem attacks when they've got a good argument... cough.
Riiiight, because ignoring someone's whole argument and then focusing entirely on the last part where they called you a fucktwit proves you're not a fuckwit.
What a fuckwit.
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