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New Bill Would Repeal Patriot Act
schwit1 points out a new piece of bipartisan legislation that aims to repeal the Patriot Act and the FISA Amendments Act, which the NSA has used to justify broad domestic surveillance. House Representatives Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Mark Pocan (D-WI) introduced the bill yesterday, calling it the Surveillance State Repeal Act (PDF). Pocan said, "This isn't just tinkering around the edges. This is a meaningful overhaul of the system, getting rid of essentially all parameters of the Patriot Act." The bill also attempts to dramatically strengthen whistleblower protections, so situations like Edward Snowden's and Thomas Drake's don't happen in the future. This legislation is not expected to get the support of Congressional leaders, but supporters hope it will at least inspire some debate about several provisions of the Patriot Act coming up for renewal in June.
This will never pass. You can't repeal the PATRIOT Act... That would be unpatriotic. The FISA Amendments Act won't be repealed either. This is merely for show and we all know it.
No. This should be titled "No chance in hell".
The people who currently control congress are the same people who created the Patriot Act.
If you want the surveillance state rolled back, do what you can to support this - take a couple of minutes and e-mail your U.S. House Representative:
http://www.house.gov/represent...
The more public support it appears this gains, the more likely it is that we can get some push back on our road to total surveillance. Much better than just saying it's got no chance and not doing anything.
Which is pathetic, because this seems to be a genuine attempt to rein in an out of control spying apparatus.
But, apparently far too many people are still thinking "well, I don't care what they have to do as long as we're safe" -- in fact, I've been told that by people.
Unfortunately, these people just think that this crap is actually keeping them safe, and utterly fail to understand the ways in which it undermines their rights.
I find it worrying that a lot of people are willing to give carte blanche to something they haven't stopped to consider what it actually means.
The world seems to be filled with too much stupid to realize what we've done, and why it needs to be undone.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
You have that wrong. Thomas Massie would be caught in a gay sex scandal, while it would be discovered that Mark Pocan has only been involved in a hetero monogamous relationship. For both of them it would be career ending.
Time to offend someone
I suspect that for most people it is not even a matter of 'I don't care as long a I am safe', but of 'if I do not vote to keep my representative in place, one from the OTHER side might get the seat!', so most just get reelected over and over no matter what they do.
Let your congress critter know you want them to support this bill. If you don't know who is yours you can find them here and from their page send them an e-mail or get the number to call their DC or local office. I have already sent an e-mail to my worthless war hawk nuclear football carrying congress critter but I suspect that it will fall on deaf ears. I also contacted my senators but don't expect much from either of them as one avoids controversy like the plague and the other has been hanging low for a while.
Time to offend someone
Not really.
While people on slashdot might agree with this proposal, politically it is no different than all those other 'stunt' bills that have no chance of passing. The people proposing it get to stand up and say 'look what I did!', while being safe from any negative publicity from effects of their actions if it did pass. This IS pretending to lead.
the Patriot act is affected through the Homeland Security Act, which in turn uses wings of the FBI and CIA to implement various measures but most importantly it uses the Department of Homeland Security. with a quarter of a million people employed and a sixty billion dollar budget, many southern senators and politicians would likely find the bill, or any bill that touches DHS for that matter, toxic. customs and border protection agents, largely composed of veterans who would otherwise find themselves unemployed, make up the bulk of nearly 60,000 employed by the agency. Expect Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico senators to turn a blind eye to this legislation as no one wants to face an election with the fact they voted to axe these jobs, however pointless and destructive.
expect the administration --any administration for that matter-- to object to strengthening whistleblower protection. The laundry list of whistleblowers in federal government whos actions have directly led to their chronic unemployment and ostracization from society is evidence enough that we as a society care more about the idea of american patriotism than the actual functional implementation and repercussions of it.
Good people go to bed earlier.
With Jeb Bush about to become the nominated leader of the party? Good luck with that.
When it comes to stuff like homeland security and defense appropriations, the parties don't matter. It's neo-cons all the way down.
Did you know that Jeb Bush has asked Howard Baker to become his senior advisor?
It's gonna take a much bigger shift in government than just a one party or the other taking over to get rid of the Patriot Act.
You are welcome on my lawn.
is one not-so-catastrophic terrorist event to happen and all this talk about oversight, rights, freedom, privacy and The Constitution will go right out the fucking window and everyone knows it.
One Event
Think of the children. Hell, think of the shareholders...
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
It's ridiculous that we would ship them off to gitmo. What will be done is the two affairs they have had, the business deal under the table last year, his son being gay, the fact that his family has employed illegal immigrants, and the fact he did cocane in college will all be released to the public if he votes the wrong way. Further if he speaks out on this he is revealing state secrets and will be tried in a secret court by secret judges and sentenced to 'pound me in the ass penitentiary' in the most pedestrian sense.
10 years ago I would have called this tin foil hat material, now I'm not so sure.
I have to admit to being surprised at how many posts suggest that contacting your Congresscritter will actually work. Those days are long gone for several reasons.
1) The Supreme Court ruling that basically allows virtually limitless campaign contributions means that reps and senators no longer have to depend on the public for financing, meaning that they can do whatever they want and if Big Money likes it, they'll get re-election money. I don't see this as anything Big Money cares about.
2) There's a possibility that the majority of Americans may actually be in favor of the Patriot Act. I know that it's common for American Slashdotters to believer that the entire nation agrees with them politically, but I believe that in fact the majority of Americans are not troubled at all by the things that drive American Slashdotters mad.
3) Voters have proven for decades that they don't pay attention to issues at all, they have short memories, and they merely vote on party lines every time. Incumbents have little incentive to listen to the voters when they can literally do anything short of breaking the law and handily get re-elected. And polls have laughingly shown that year after year the US electorate wants to "throw everybody out, except my representative/senator" and they fail to grasp that when the entire country insists that their rep/senator isn't the problem but yours is, nothing will ever change.
No. This should be titled "No chance in hell".
The people who currently control congress are the same people who created the Patriot Act.
Considering the Democrats who controlled both parties failed to do anything but renew it, the Republicans may be our best shot - particularly while they don't control the executive branch.
There are some (on both sides) that thought the bill was a good idea at the time but now realize how awful it really is. Additionally, a very large portion of the Republicans in Congress today were not in Congress when the first bill passed.
That's like saying "We failed to find snow in hell so our best chance now is to find it on the surface of the sun"
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
I know it's a worn-out analogy, but look at the fight to decriminalize cannabis. One activist told a reporter in an interview that years ago, one could not even discuss the issue in polite company, and now it's been taken to its logical conclusion in a handful of states. If these people had just given up and said "no chance in hell", we would still have the status quo from years ago.
Therefore, I'm glad that *someone* in the halls of power is standing up for the little man, even if things look extremely bleak for his cause today.
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
It doesn't work that way. A congressman cannot be investigated for doing his job as a legislator.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
The people of WWII Germany had the same opinion in terms of "I don't care as long as I am safe", look where it got them. In 1954 the US began playing with the same things that Hitler did, what you are seeing now are the side effects and obvious brain damage. Soviets played with the same thing and look where they are now. One cannot put the genie back in the bottle but the many could make that conscious choice, but the greed and lust for power will ultimately bring a biblical style ending to it before things will get better.
Sorry, but when it lies to Congress about what it's doing ... it's really out of control.
When it spies on the people who oversee it to influence the oversight, it's out of control.
When it formalizes a mechanism of perjury by law enforcement, it's out of control.
When it hides how it uses technologies to perform warrantless wiretaps, it's out of control.
I see no evidence that any has control over these clowns. And if anybody does, nobody knows who that is to have control over them.
So, to you I say, bullshit. The spying apparatus does whatever the fuck it wants, arbitrarily decides when/if the law applies, and keeps doing what they want no matter what they're told.
These people are now quite dangerous to our freedoms and our societies.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.