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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.
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wasn't this found to be illegal anyhow? why continue it if it doesn't have any relevant use other than keeping an eye on your own citizens?
I guess that new NSA data collection facility in CO needs to be used for something...
And conservatives were worried that Obama would change everything that Bush did.
How's that hopey-changey stuff workin' out for ya?
:: winks ::
:: snaps gum ::
Obama has promised again and again to safeguard our liberties. Now he has morphed into George Bush. What did I miss?
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"
Not that it matters who I quote, or what anyone says. This and things much like it will likely get renewed, or they'll happen in secret.
I don't have any good solutions, but it doesn't have to mean I like the idiots in government or their idiotic decisions.
This sig left intentionally blank.
Congress shall pass NO LAW...
ie - the patriot act is unconstitutional - has been since day 1. Anyone involved with passing the law, signing the law, and performing duties under said law are traitors to this country, and are guilty of treason. Since they all seem to consider this "a time of war" against terrorism, there's only one penalty for treason.
Get your asses up against the wall, and pass out the smokes and blindfolds. We'll fix the national debt by selling raffle tickets to be drawn for members of the firing squads.
> In 2008 I seriously thougt that this man would mean change.
If I were you, I'd do some serious soul-seaching regarding this child-like gullibility problem you have. It's dangerous.
They need those records for another six months to manipulate elections
I think it is naive to assume that this isn't want Obama et al wanted all along. Good job to McConell for stalling long enough to force the issue.
Oh he is good. So the collection is a problem, so lets end the collection by outsouricing it. Problem solved.
As long as we maintain our ability to search through the records, we don't need to "collect them". CLearly the public only ever policy wonks about technicalities, nobody actually wants or needs privacy right?
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
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.
What nonsense. Moving the storage task to the phone companies does absolutely nothing to make the collection less nasty. Enacting the "reform" is, at best, no different than just renewing the Patriot Act as it is. But that's "at best". In reality, it's even worse, as requiring the telecoms to keep this data guarantees that the telecoms will use that data -- so the end result is an expansion of the the amount of spying that is being inflicted on us.
> In 2008 I seriously thougt that this man would mean change.
If I were you, I'd do some serious soul-seaching regarding this child-like gullibility problem you have. It's dangerous.
In his defense, the alternative wasn't much better. So, in the end, the result's the same, no matter who you elect. Obama, at least, *could* have been the better choice.
There is no need for the Patriot Act to exist any longer. There hasn't been for many years. The War on Terrorism is really the war on Fundamentalist a Saudi inspired Sunni Wahabi radicalism. The Patriot act should go away and the US powers that be should focus its efforts on neutralizing the Sunni-Wahabi threat by whatever means necessary.
Unfortunately we are taking the wrong side here in helping the Saudi's eradicate a Shia Minority in Yemen. Because the American leadership is the village idiots. We're also responsible for the Sunni Wahabi's creating ISIS in Iraq because we over threw a Ba'thist regime and created a power vaccum.
The "War on Terrorism" will end only when the Saudi's Sunni Wahabii ability to create colonies like this is neutralized.
So we've had a recent rash of threats called in against airlines. Set aside the case of a 'false flag' operation to stir up support for a Patriot Act renewal. Because if this is the case, all you TLA fuckers should lose your jobs. The remaining possibility is that these were called in by either terrorists or cranks. Either way, where are the inevitable arrests leading from the current data collection regime, huh? Couple of clicks on the metadata and the local SWAT team rolls, news at 11.
This is what these programs are supposed to do: catch the bad guys (or crazy guys). So, if you can't even round up a couple of suspects, what exactly have you idiots been doing up until now?
Have gnu, will travel.
[_] Because drugs
[X] Because terrorists
[_] Because think of the children
[_] Because infringement
Why bother. Would the other guy have done better?
Obama has probably put civil rights back a few decades.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
eom
It's probably the best way to get conservatives to let go of the Patriot act...
Apparently you don't understand why we have 3 branches of government, it's for that very purpose.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
the alternative wasn't much better
The alternatives have been:
- A crazed former POW who would have had us in a land war with Iran by now, and his literally retarded Alaskan sidekick.
- The sort of man the French revolted over.
I maintain that democracy only works for small city states. Congress is useless - the number of senators per capita means you will never be represented by them without billions. The number of Representatives means you will never be represented by them without millions. And our ridiculous population means you will rarely be represented by someone who actually shares a majority of your views.
I don't have a magical fix. My latest pet theory is that, at a Federal level, there should be a specified number of politicians. Rather than state-by-state, gerrymandered-district-by-gerrymandered-district, shit should be direct. Is there 3% of the US population who are pot-smoking tree-humping eco-dweebs? Then 3% of the politicians should be from the Nature Molestin' Party. Sure, we wouldn't have the 'hope and change' of meaningless party swaps over individual seats. We might get locked into some terrible shit if the majority of the country are, in fact, clueless assholes. But it'd be better representation.
We need to elect someone who puts an end to this nonsense. Maybe the guy who said this would be a good candidate:
Oh, wait...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
If the NSA had only been spying on terrorists we wouldn't even be having this conversation. (although it's not really a conversation, but you get my point)
Why would the NSA and CIA be spying on Congress? Is it someone's goal to set up the apparatus of a police state?
Why is the NSA spying on the EU Parliament? Are they looking for terrorists in Parliament?
See: TED How the NSA betrayed the world's trust — time to act
at: 4:30
also see at: 12:40 (or at 12:00 for better context) "I don't think they're looking for terrorists in Parliament."
(see at: 6:00 if you believe in encryption golden keys)
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
"It's necessary to keep the American people safe and secure."
Grammatically, this is written as a statement of fact. Assuming everyone agrees on what the sentence actually means (granted, they don't, but go with me here), it is either true or it is false statement. We may not be able to tell if it's a true or false statement, but it is a true or false statement.
In the real world, it really means "I, President Obama, believe that [this] is necessary to keep the American people safe and secure."
I'll grant Obama is either an expert or is relying on experts and I'll grant that his opinion is an informed one, and I'll grant that for some definition of "safe and secure"* that I don't subscribe to he might actually be correct. However, making a statement as if it was a true-or-false statement doesn't change the fact that he's still just giving us his opinion.
* Any definition of "safe and secure" that I would subscribe to in peacetime includes being able to assume that my private conversations, including who I am communicating with, are not being monitored.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
The Pentagon has increased security for unkown reasons at many bases today.
Citation?
Just another day in Paradise
I maintain that democracy only works for small city states.
Then thank god we aren't a democracy! We're a republic.
Yeah, he sure was more presentable and internationally not as much a liability. Other than that, well, same bullshit in a differently colored wrapping.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Note to Obama: You are being lied to.
Seriously, and trying to sidestep most of the political angles: This is what happens when a person with authority collects a small set of advisers -- in an effort to cut noise/increase focus/get to data-driven decisions -- and then those advisers are not challenged or regularly rotated or infused with new thinking.
This instance pains me, partly because by my citizenship I'm on the wrong end of the Patriot Act aka "Putin's Law" ...but even more because I make my living by gathering and giving security and privacy advice on both the technical and compliance sides. When Obama's not even getting the quality of mid-market commercially-available advising, we're all in deep doo-doo.
To wit:
- Let's get real: metadata IS the data. Who/when/how/where you called is just as important as the what/why content of the call. The ears don't get much more totalitarian than this, we just don't have totalitarian fists yet. (Oh wait... *watches news about street cops outfitted with combat armaments and light tanks, then acquitted for movie-style executions*)
- NSA's collection of citizen's communication data and metadata have not led to even one single foiled terrorist plot. Not one. It's not even the right model to catch the stuff we know about in hindsight. The only reliable detection tool for decades has been manual notification by family and friends to authorities, and there's still no good unified repository and workflow system to handle it.
- There are multiple documented instances of abuse where the collected information was too tempting for federal employees not to do something stupid or illegal or both. (LOVEINT is almost funny, but multiple instances of commercial espionage have been alleged and documented.) If we amass this kind of information, people will use it for whatever purpose they imagine -- justified or illicit -- because admitting there's no legitimate function is the worst option of all.
- In the big picture, total security really does obliterate freedom. How I wish we could discuss that without hyperbole. Maybe we could stay grounded by involving the French, who are further into a discussion about how overreaction to Muslim immigration will destroy their governing principles as effectively as any perceived human threat.
- It deeply troubles me that Obama appears to have no better tech-sourced intel than 3rd tier CEOs buying security guidance from consultancies with 800 number to a sales guy and $150/hr bill rate.
What a sad state of affairs.
I think not...(*poof*)
"There was that one case... and the other one... then there was that case with the thing... and the person with the other thing... Yeah, we need to keep this running."
The problem with this program (from an FBI-perspective, not a privacy one) is that it floods them with too much data. There's a false notion that since data is good that more data is always good. Not all data is good data. You need to go through it and find the useful parts. As you get more and more data, you eventually become unable to weed through the data to extract the good parts. You either wind up ignoring it entirely (and thus missing good data coming in) or you grab hold of any data point you can find without properly vetting it (due to no manpower for that step) and wind up chasing down phantom leads.
That's why a properly limited (warrant-based) system would not only be better for privacy, but would actually be better for national security.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Can we just fuse them back into the "Democratic Republicans" and be done with the whole show every other year? It's getting tiresome and it's mostly a waste of money and TV airtime, and in general a huge insult to the collective intelligence of the US people.
Seriously. Why not change the whole election game to something like the American Idol election? Everyone can vote as often as they like, corporations get a mass text rebate so they don't lose their right to choose who's going to make their laws, and the money for the messages goes to a fund for nations with crippled economies. In other words, hand it to the IRS.
And the candidates don't have to lie to us about what they claim they'd do, they have to sing and dance for us so they at least entertain us instead of just making us mad.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The voices in his head, and the Art Bell radio show coming in on his tinfoil hat.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Well maybe he was like I was when I voted for GW in the first presidential election I could vote in. I was young and dumb and still in college and still believed the lie that if you vote 3rd party is is just a vote of the other guy. I did however believe that Bush was a better choice than Gore (keep in mind this is before the War on Terror) and it looked like the biggest issue was going to be economic. I Obama does seem to have one thing that Bush lacked which is a cult of personality.
Time to offend someone
Why did anybody vote for this asshole?
If we, the people, can't even look at the content of a trade deal, I'm not too enthusiastic about letting the government look at the content of my activity.
For my money, Mr. Obama. the NSA, et. al. scan take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
He couldn't have done worse.
Yes... yes he could have. And the trouble with "things could always be worse"? Making things worse is so much easier than putting effort into making things truly better.
The Terrorists Win!!!!!
Hey, at least I, for one, had learned my lesson by 2012.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
to quote the prophetic lyrics penned by The Who. Obama has proven that he is just another greasy, lying, scumbag of a politician. Closing down Gitmo? Well, maybe not. Against the Patriot Act? Easy to say when you're not in power. The list goes on.
I don't agree with everything that Rand Paul says but I accept his premise that government cannot be trusted when it comes to the Patriot Act. The government will tell us that it's for "our safety". That is it protecting us "from terrorists". The fact of the matter is that all of this NSA data has not prevented a single "terrorist" attack. Just like the TSA charade playing out at every airport in this country. The fact of the matter is that random bombings and other acts of terror cannot be prevented - period. The Israelis have been dealing with this for decades and have been unable to prevent bombings.
The Patriot Act is a power grab, plain and simple. It gives the government the green light to collect personal data on every person in America without any probable cause or court order. Supporters say, yes but it's only the phone number and the duration of the call not the actual conversation. How long do you think it will take before recording of the conversations sneaks its way into the Patriot Act? Where does it end?
I can hear the congessperson's bones snapping and popping as the establishment twists thier arms behind thier backs...
The pressure must be intense to pass this. We aren't privvy to the details. Something has to be driving the passage of this extension. As citizens, we must
demand that the reasons for extending this law be justified. The proponents must come clean.
A much "simpler" change (in terms of concept, not ease of execution) would be to go re-learn the concept of Federalism and take a bunch of power away from the Federal government and give it to state and local ones. The less the Federal government has responsibility over, the less harm unaccountable Congresscritters can do.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
What does our dear leader stand for, anyway? It's getting hard to tell.
The warrant-less collection of telephone metadata is a blatant violation of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, but Mr. Obama (constitutional lawyer that he allegedly is) continues to disregard that document whenever it becomes inconvenient. Just yesterday, he got his willy slapped by the 5th circuit appeals court for overstepping his constitutional authority -- again -- this time because of a unilateral decision on immigration that got the attention of 26 states.
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
Check this out!. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxnp2Sz59p8). It's more than meta data, it's about Total Surveillance.
We are trading the low probability risk of being killed by a terrorist for the high probability risk that we will be living in 1984 on steroids.
On balance, I think this president has been okay -- not great, but okay. This is one of a handful of disappointing positions that I'll never understand.
.. pa-ra-bo-la, pa-ra-bo-la, 2 pi R, 2 pi R, where's your latus rectum, where's your latus rectum, 2 pi R
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"
It seems like Obama has gone so far off from where he indicated he would go when originally running for office that I can't help but wonder what happened. I have to assume that since coming into office he has learned things that aren't common knowledge that have turned him from the path he originally envisioned. What could he have possible learned and will we ever get the whole picture?
I voted for Obama twice, I really do not know who I will vote for next year. I may join the growing ranks of disenfranchised voters and not vote at all. If all we have is a choice between two sides of the same coin, then we really have no choice at all.
Anyone who still supported Obama after he signed that first extension to the PATRIOT act is either a hypocrite or a fucking idiot.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Nixon looks like a patriot compared to this bullshit..
At least Nixon had the decency to resign after getting caught taking a few records from one hotel room. Obama is demanding the right to burglarize every record in the US.
Not exactly the Pentagon, and it wasn't today...the article is dated 8 May.
The decision to increase security at U.S. bases was made by Admiral Bill Gortney, commander of the U.S. Northern Command, responsible for troops in North America, Warren said. The decision did not affect bases outside his region.
Just another day in Paradise
The 10th amendment was specifically designed to help prevent overreach of the Federal government. While it doesn't fix the representation issue you have, it would limit the amount of power wielded by those who are on the hill significantly, if applied and followed in a different manner than it has been in the past.
It just requires you to stop believing the lie that your only choices are R or D
Presidents don't pass legislation on their own it has to go through the house and senate and unless they have the support of both, they either compromise to get legislation passed and make a small accomplishment or throw out a bunch of legislation that goes nowhere and accomplishes nothing. This is how we get presidents that promise big then deliver on little if any of their promises.
I voted for GW in the first presidential election I could vote in.
George Washington? Man, you are old.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
This is the continuation of Karl Rove's plot first put into action on Sept 11, 2001 to replace America's Democrat leadership with Republicans.George Bush had plastic surgery and replaced Obama before the 2008 inauguration! Even Michelle has been fooled!
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
If they renew this program Can they see my Dick?
In a bit of shameless internet panhandling, I accept Litecoin Donations at Lbd2oH9QsthD1GfuUXPyka12YxvWJYnBVf
the article only has quotes on him asking to approve it. there is zero about his reasoning. did he just say those 4 quoted phrases about senate having to say yes? or did he provide any semblance of a reason for why they have to say yes?
i can't find his actual words anywhere.
here are the latests "new" on whitehouse.gov:
Reasons We Need the Clean Water Rule
4 Years of Building Energy Efficiency Across America
Implementing the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Executive Order
A much "simpler" change (in terms of concept, not ease of execution) would be to go re-learn the concept of Federalism and take a bunch of power away from the Federal government and give it to state and local ones. The less the Federal government has responsibility over, the less harm unaccountable Congresscritters can do.
Because Congresscritters don't come from states?
What is needed is accountability at all levels. Of course as it's the people in power that make the rules..well, it just isn't going to happen is it.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
And as well, there's the provision that allows the FBI to go into any library and demand to see the book checkout records of any patron. Because, you know, the government needs to know exactly what you're reading. Which is precisely why many libraries delete and scrub records once the book is returned - immediately. If it's not there, they can ask for it, but they can't get it. They can also ask about Internet search history on public terminals - oh wait, that's right, many libraries now reboot between every user and delete the histories and scrub everything. They infiltrated the Muslim Student Club of my former academic institution - and got to listen to a lot of arguing about who to invite as a guest speaker that year, and bickering about the crappy print system on campus.
....sorry yet?
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
Really? I didn't know that not winning a single primary and having far less delegates at the convention to vote for your nomination was now called "changing the rules."
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