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NSA-Reform Bill Fails In US Senate
New submitter Steven King writes with a link to The Daily Dot's report that the U.S. Senate has rejected the controversial USA Freedom Act, thus "all but guaranteeing that key provisions of the USA Patriot Act will expire"; had it passed, the bill would have allowed continued use of some mass data-collection practices, but with the addition of stronger oversight. From the article:
The Senate failed to reach agreement on passage of the USA Freedom Act, a bill to reauthorize and reform Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, which the government has used to conduct bulk surveillance of Americans' phone records. The House of Representatives passed the bill last week by an overwhelming bipartisan majority, but Senate Democrats, who unified behind the bill, did not get enough Republican votes to assure passage. The linked piece also mentions that the EFF shifted its position on this bill, after a panel of Federal judges ruled that the Feds at the NSA had overstepped their bounds in collecting a seemingly unlimited trove of metadata relating to American citizen's phone calls.
Congress
An 'emergency order' will extend the rule until Congress comes back from a very well deserved vacation from their hard work :-/
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
It is a recurring thing... and the polls show that this issue is a generational thing.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
The Facebook generation.
Now the NSA will feel compelled to stage a domestic terrorist act in cooperation with the FBI in order to make their point, needlessly endangering the life of Americans. Do you really want another 9/11?
It's hard to predict what the end result of this will be.
On the one hand, I can imagine that letting the mass spying provisions expire, and forcing the bulk data collection to stop, could actually be a win for privacy in the long run. After all, inertia is powerful, especially in politics. It is much easier and less controversial to say, "let's continue with our existing domestic spying program" than it is to say, "now that we stopped spying on everyone for a while, let's start spying on everyone again."
On the other hand, letting everything expire could create an environment where it becomes easy for fear to rule the day (or, easier than usual). We'll no doubt have politicians eager to scare us with stories of how letting bulk domestic surveillance expire makes us unsafe and vulnerable to terrorists, and so "we need to do something now before we die!" Then, new spying legislation could be hastily pushed through that is no better (or worse, depending on your perspective) than what we have now.
As I said, I think it is hard to predict the ultimate outcome, but if the recent past is any indicator, I sadly suspect that fear will win.
We know how this works: Issue an emergency order until a bare-bones bill allowing basic programs can be passed by US congress. Then secretly append the nasty schedules of the failed bill into necessary bills such as bills of supply. The military-industrial complex will get the laws they want sooner rather than later.
"USA Freedom Act" - what evil manipulative piece of shit gave that name to a bill on communication monitoring?
Not sure why I didn't see it in the summary.
Looks like the NSA hasn't gathered enough blackmail material while they were spying on our politicians to get that extension. Better luck next time.
Just kidding -- expect to see an extension without any reform.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
there's no way they're building the data centers they are just to record metadata. It would be absurd to believe they're not recording the calls or having a third party do it. Or... does "metadata" include, for example, a series of hashes of the call content that lets you reproduce them with 98% accuracy, for example? :) It's just data about the call, after all...
Both oppressive regimes treat their people like shit.
Ok kids, I have argued it before and either it has been ignored or some moron(s) have come in and made some snarky comment or argued against either:
1- my spelling or grammar which this is not a spelling or grammar contest so fuck off.
2- some outside fact that is not germane to the argument
3- made some logical fallacy in their argument (Ahem I am looking at you narcc! and your ilk get the remote control out of your ass and look at this, you are wrong!)
4- made some logical sounding argument that has turned out to be wrong, as it has here.. and this brings me to my point I am making here:
This kids is what happens when out of control Republicans control the senate and congress and get out of control trying to prepare to make hyper conservativism count to discredit a sitting democratic president by wasting taxpayer money turning the same lame hyper conservative arguments over and over and accomplish nothing and then point to it and wring their hands again and again and try to shift the blame on a sitting democratic presidential administration that they have been repeatedly unable to oust with anything they do or say.
Here we are! You republican idiots are wrong and you idiots are not going to get what you want. Live with it!
I was right!
They rejected Freedom.
A minority rejected Freedom on behalf of an entire countries population...
Yep.
Anyone?
No one?
I'll tell you where. In fucking Russia sucking down chilidogs outside the tasty freeze. Oh, wait. No. Wrong sheet. He's in fucking Kansas squeezing potatoes to make vodka in the tub, along with his smells of vodka wife. There. That's the one.
The EFF still has some pull. That's my take on this. Enough people listened that their support, or lack thereof, made a substantial difference to political support behind the bill. And that's damn good news.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
There will be enough customers for the data even if the U.S. government as a tier one customer is not interested. I am pretty sure that the NSA already has contingency plans in case the U.S. government is no longer interested in financing the collapse of privacy.
Hmm, that tablet of Lady Liberty in the NY harbour, is actually a large iPad, on which she writes down the metadata of everything you do...
Don't confuse the few geniuses with the total amount of brainless zombies that populate this planet
That, and in my experience the very young these days are very good at knowing what technology DOES, but pitifully few of them know anything about how it works.
Proportionally it's probably not all that different. In the 80s and 90s you had to know something about how this worked in order to do anything serious with it. Everyone else had their VCRs flashing 12:00 all the time.
Tech was less harmful then. If you used it you knew abit it
It pisses me off to no end that they can just violate our rights all they want, do it for years on end, then....no harm no foul in the end.
There is no scenario to my mind where every person involved should be walking free in the sunlight. Every single analyst, every politician, every single person who knew the facts and didn't turn them in.
All broke the law, all are guilty and deserve to be made individual example of for they are each individually 100% guilty of what they did.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Reminds me of George Carlin: "Reflect for a moment how stupid the average (median) person is. Now realize that half of them are even dumber than that.".
If it acquires resources on instantiation like a duck, then its a shared_ptr<Duck>
Laws don't matter to Obama. If he wants his NSA to spy on you, it's going to spy on you.
No matter what Congress says or doesn't say.
Now that it is proved wrong in principle to collect all of the telephone and email data etc in the US, let the British Government take note. What you are doing in the same collection of data is an outrage, an offence and a violence to the people of Britain and more specifically, to me.
1. Stop collecting that data, and my data immediately.
2. Give me compensation for the harm and damage that you have done specifically to me and to milions of other subjects (note not citizens! in the UK).
3. Make a full unreserved public apology.
4. Punish all those people and employees that were involved in this reprehensible action.
5. Publish a law to prevent this from ever happening again.
The Freedom (to spy on citizens) Act.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Whoever wrote the article didn't watch CSPAN all the way to the end. Mitch McConnell moved to reconsider Sunday the 31st. They're going to put it to a vote the following Sunday, because the bill expires at midnight on that day. Meaning this could still pass. I'm betting they're going to twist some arms to make that happen. What was really disturbing about watching that whole ordeal last night was that McConnel was able to put it to a re-vote multiple times in hopes of getting the answer he was looking for. The public needs to write their senators ASAP this coming week to demand they vote it down or it's probably going to go through.
Never heard of him before I read this article.
If you had any shred of respect for obama still left, this article will destroy it
http://www.newyorker.com/magaz...
He is the only one fighting for the rights of americans to not be spied upon. Its a shame that 2 years after this article was written, people are caring less and less about these issues. For a while there in 2013, it looked like people really did care.
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The way it works according to Snowden is that they grabs all the data, metadata + content, and stores it in their data center. They don't look at the content, they only search the metadata. If the metadata implies that the person may be contacting a foreigner in any way, for example doing business for your company overseas or having a girlfriend in Canada, then they can pull up the content and look at it. The content can include voice calls where you talked about what you wanted to do to your girlfriend's butthole, images of your dick, recorded webcam feeds of you fingering your own butt at your girlfriend's request, text messages where you admit you enjoyed playing with your butthole, etc. Also, it is confirmed agents sit around laughing at people having phone sex by a previous official whistleblower before even Snowden came out with his revelations. In addition, they use the material to blackmail, which was revealed in July 2014 by another whistleblower.
as it omits (this from the NYT)
And, I forgot to mention. They get it coming and going. Any data they can't get U.S. citizens who aren't contacting foreigners, other countries in the world supply to our government in exchange for data on their own citizens as well. This way they can say, well we didn't collect the data, that other government did and gave it to us.
Come get me, bitches
Hey guys, I know you're busy with that "big shutdown" (wink wink) but before you "go dark", can we get a copy of Hillary's inbox? She seems to have misplaced it.
You mean the generation that actually invented computer? That generation? Or the following one, the one that invented the internet? The only clueless generation is the current one: stupid kids who do not create anything and will never, ever, amount to anything.
"It would be absurd to believe they're not recording the calls": Is your tin hat crooked today?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Which is more likely : (1) the best-funded signals intelligence apparatus in the world is lying by choosing their words carefully and, while they likely have *some* limits on how they are allowed to search US-based data, they still keep it or arrange for someone else to in case they have to search it later, or (2) this top secret program is being transparent and 100% non-deceptive?
Remember, they have a history of lying to Congress and the public, of conducting massive surveillance that is warrantless and/or authorized by a minimal number of broad-scope warrants. And they have incentives to do so. And they operate almost entirely without real oversight--their public oversight consists of elected representatives with generally *zero* technical ability.
I believe there are a lot of great guys there, but it doesn't take many bad apples for flagrantly illegal programs to keep going, with all the weight of institutional momentum behind them. Institutional momentum is hard enough to change in *transparent* institutions.
Hey, I hope I'm wrong, and most of the people I've met who've worked for intelligence have been really great people. But then you get people who are just real assholes, or who should never be trusted with important decisions. I remember one guy saying the American people weren't *ready* for the war on terror to be over, so we should keep having it--his whole view of the thing was as an exercise in propaganda that justified all of the government overreach we've seen, and that was okay with him. He was a junior guy, and I've met much better guys who work in the community, so I'm not willing to say he's representative--but it's concerning. It's an entirely understandable perspective intellectually, just morally bankrupt and contrary to values of freedom from a policy standpoint. Get the wrong guys like that at the top, and you're fucked, and there's no outlet for good transparency.
I don't think what Snowden did was okay. But I do think he should have been able to complain at the very least to the Intelligence Committee without fear of reprisal, because otherwise the wrong guys in charge inside the intelligence community and Democracy is fucked.
The NSA spying programs on the citizens of the USA represent the LAST means for democracy in the USA.
The 'treasure trove' of telecommunications meta-data and voice communications of members of the USA Federal Government and State Governments coupled to FOIA represents the only way ordinary citizens of the USA can blackmail and extort the President and WhiteHouse Staff, the Federal Departments and Staffs, the Congress and congressional staffs and the Supreme Court and Staffs going down to the district court level.
Blackmail and Extortion are the only means left to USA citizens to control the Lawless USA and State governments.
Example. Who are Obama Presidential Prostitutes ? From what country do Obama's Presidential Prostitutes come from ? It is rumored that Obama likes especially, prostitutes 4 to 6 years old.
Example. It is rumored that General John Brennen prefers prostitutes ages 1 to 3 years old and male gender.
The NSA 'treasure trove' is the way to control the lawlessness of the Federal and State and Local Governments.
IT MUST BE CONTINUED.
Texas republican senator Ted Cruz is leading the fight to do the right thing, to protect our Constitutional rights. Our other senator, John Cornyn, wants to renew the Patriot Act in full. Here is my letter to Cornyn.
As a career security professional, I implore you to reconsider your position regarding the Patriot Act, the USA Freedom Act, and the Fourth Amendment.
For twenty years I have worked to keep protect American citizens, interests, and our way of life. Currently, I am employed at TEEX, where I work with our National Emergency Response And Rescue Training Center, assist in homeland security training, and support our role as a founding member of the National Cybersecurity Preparedness Consortium. I do this work in order to protect the American way of life, that we might be the beacon of freedom that founders envisioned. The antithesis of this would be that the United States would be taken over by those who would subjugate the citizens. Our role, sir, is to, protect Americans from not one specific foreign threat, but from any and all who would threaten our Constitutional liberties. Your current position, senator, places you on the wrong side of this fight. Please reconsider whether you wish to be the force fighting against the Constitution, against the fourth amendment, and against the American way of life. We work today, and will work at election time, to realize the vision of American as the brightest beacon of freedom and liberty in the world.
The abilities of the NSA far exceeded the expectations of the G.W. Bush WhiteHouse and Federal Government of the day.
The collections abilities were originally aimed at non-governmental citizens, the 'gray area', of USA security.
The NSA however collected all meta-data and voice-records of all Federal and State Government Officials, and are held in servers at Fort Meade Maryland and in a facility in Utah.
Holding all of the meta-data and voice records of all Federal Employees and all State Government Employees and Local Government Employees puts them in 'harms way' for blackmail and extortion by a third party using the FOIA.
It is for this reason that the Patriot Act will die.
The Perversions of the President, WhiteHouse, Congress, Supreme Court, District Courts and Federal and State employes must never be made known.
By including both yourself and someone else in a single portrait.
bunch of cocksuckers around here
Nigress
There is no mention in the article of Sen Rand's filibuster opposing the bill.
I presume that when the article says that they could not get enough Republican votes they mean they did not get enough to override the filibuster?
(I'm Canadian and so not as knowledgeable about american political procedures as I could be.)
No... because less than 1 percent of 1 percent of that generation actually knows enough to even begin to cop to that claim.
So if you're argument is that 1 percent of 1 percent of that generation knows lots. I agree.
However, that is a politically insignificant portion of the population and so can be ignored if we are talking about POLITICS.
And we are... so I can. And I just did.
What is beyond obvious to even the most limited of semi humans is that the current generation is more fluent with new technology than the previous generation.
And you can see that in many different ways. But on topic, you can see that in political statistics that show young people as being more in favor of less NSA bullshit and the older generation being actively supportive of it.
Now, if you actually explain to the older generation what is happening, they tend to change their views.
I was talking to a 75 year old man the other day and he was for the whole NSA thing. He thought Snowden was a traitor... etc. I explained what actually happened... and because this fellow trusted me, he took my word for it on several things that he would have required proof for if we didn't have that bond of trust.
The reality of the matter is that on many of these issues, the older generations simply don't know what the fuck is going on. They are echo chambered into establishment media sources that are misleading them. And because they generally don't feel comfortable stepping outside of that box, they're are more easily manipulated by certain types of media manipulation.
The younger generations are likewise open to manipulation but of a different kind and generally with less uniform success because the media landscape at that level is more fragmented.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.