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House Votes To End Spy Agencies' Bulk Collection of Phone Data
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from a story at Reuters that gives a rare bit of good news for the Fourth Amendment: The U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill on Wednesday that would end spy agencies' bulk collection of Americans' telephone data, setting up a potential showdown with the U.S. Senate over the program, which expires on June 1. The House voted 338-88 for the USA Freedom Act, which would end the bulk collection and instead give intelligence agencies access to telephone data and other records only when a court finds there is reasonable suspicion about a link to international terrorism.
Have you actually read the text of the bill? The bulk collection of phone data is not only still allowed, they give legal protections and guidelines for monetary compensation to the businesses they order to collect the data.
Oh yeah, and at the very bottom of the bill? They reauthorize another section of the Patriot Act.
The bill that made it to the house floor was so watered down it was meaningless. It got so many votes because it was a way for congressmen to clean their skirts, while doing nothing significant to curtail the activities of the NSA.
This.
Hope it gets defeated in the Senate, and they just let Sec. 215 expire. Call or write your Congresscritters in the Senate and tell them to vote down this deceitful POS. Sunset 215!
I believe (from a quick Google search) that to be pardoned for a crime you first have to be convicted of that crime.
Nope. See U.S. Proclamation 4311, for example:
NOW, THEREFORE, I, GERALD R. FORD, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, pursuant to the pardon power conferred upon me by Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, have granted and by these presents do grant a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969 through August 9, 1974.
388 to 88. That's pretty much a consensus that crosses party lines.
Why guess that its a consensus that crosses party lines when you can know for a fact how the vote went?
I see this again and again here on slashdot. Supposed computer nerds averse to the simple act of looking at how exactly a vote went. Often times they guess, and guess wrong. This time you guessed correctly, but thats no excuse for you guessing something so fucking trivial to look up. Every vote in both the House and Senate are documented on their respective websites.
REPUBLICAN yeas 196 nays 47 nv 1
DEMOCRATIC yeas 142 nays 41 nv 5
Its as if you fucks think the information is impossible to get, rather than the exact fucking opposite. For the House its as easy as going to http://clerk.house.gov/ and clicking on the fucking calendar, or entering a query in the search box.
Even my grandmother can do it. But no, not fucking slashdot people.
"His name was James Damore."