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Obama Asks Congress To Renew 'Patriot Act' Snooping
mi writes: President Obama has asked the Senate to renew key Patriot Act provisions before their expiration on May 31. This includes surveillance powers that let the government collect Americans' phone records. Obama said, "It's necessary to keep the American people safe and secure." The call came despite recent revelations that the FBI is unable to name a single terror case in which the snooping provisions were of much help. "Obama noted that the controversial bulk phone collections program, which was exposed by National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, is reformed in the House bill, which does away with it over six months and instead gives phone companies the responsibility of maintaining phone records that the government can search." Obama criticized the Senate for not acting on that legislation, saying they have necessitated a renewal of the Patriot Act provisions.
Bulk data collection provides *very* useful information for people in a position to do market manipulation on wall street.
Like, you know, politicians, who are allowed to do insider trading as per special laws that protect them.
That's all Obama is after.
Obama has promised again and again to safeguard our liberties. Now he has morphed into George Bush. What did I miss?
You missed the meeting he had with the NSA the day he took officer where they showed him their file on him.
A free society can not exist in conjunction with a government that has unfettered power. That's what the NSA has done, unchained itself from the restrictions of the constitution. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. If the NSA isn't blackmailing the president, they will eventually. It is quite literally inevitable.
He did? Funny I don't see it that way at all.
What I see is him pledging to implement a technical loophole. How is making someone else do the collection and storage (with far less security than their own current collection) really any real change? Do you honestly think the people who were complaining about this are just policy wonks who want the letter of the law followed but who don't actually care about the real privacy implications?
This is not progress, its window dressing.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Um, someone WAS trying to do something about it - Congress actually tried to sneak in an extension - there was a provision in the USA FREEDOM Act that extended section 215 until 2019 (originally it was 2017, and Rand Paul especially objected to tacking on another 2 years). That was passed by the House but defeated in the Senate. Incidentally, Obama was pro USA FREEDOM Act as well (and yes, all those caps are necessary - FREEDOM is a backronym, though I don't remember what it means).
Right, just because a 3rd party holds my data for me doesn't mean it's fair game. The bank can't authorize a search of my house just because I have a mortgage with them.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
Except this is all bullshit because the courts have already ruled that the Patriot Act does not authorize snooping. It was a generous reading that let this happen in the first place. For those wondering this was probably the biggest reason that the EFF pulled their support: because if an amendment to the Patriot Act was to acknowledge that snooping was restricted then it would also implicitly acknowledge that snooping was legal when not violating those restrictions. Not passing the extension would actually do more to kill snooping than the proposed changes being made. (in the legal sense they will obviously find some other bullshit from 50+ years ago to justify this crap)
"There are lies, there are damn lies, and there are statistics"
Actually they made no ruling to the constitutionality of section 215. What they did determine is that the Obama Administration was exercising authority not granted to it by section 215, therefor the practice of bulk collection was ruled illegal.