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Patriot Act Spy Powers To Expire As Rand Paul Blocks USA Freedom Act Vote
Saturday, we mentioned that three major spying powers that the U.S. government has exercised under the Patriot Act might be nixed, as the sections of the Act granting authority to use them expires. The Daily Dot reports that Senator (and presidential contender) Rand Paul today used Senate rules to block a bill which would have extended those powers, which means that as of midnight Sunday on the U.S. east coast, sections 206, 207 and 215 of the Patriot Act will have expired. Says the Daily Dot's article, linked by reader blottsie:
The reform bill, which the House passed before leaving town for a week-long recess, would end the government's bulk collection of Americans' phone records under the Patriot Act's controversial Section 215 but leaves the other two provisions intact. ... Sunday's procedural meltdown was the second narrow defeat for the USA Freedom Act. In a late-night session on Friday, May 22, the bill fell three votes short of an initial procedural step after [Senate Majority Leader] McConnell lobbied hard against it. The Senate's failure to meet its deadline was a blow to President Obama, who on Friday had warned lawmakers that the country would be vulnerable if the USA Freedom Act did not pass.
I am so jittery... as the clock strikes Midnight I will no longer bask in the protective glow of Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act. I cannot fall asleep without the reassuring sound of telephone records being gathered. Surely something awful will happen tonight or tomorrow. Maybe I will try to organize the neighborhood for a continuous vigil until the Act is restored. But first, I'll just turn on the radio and catch some news...
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he's got my vote.
That's a good first move. It'd be entertaining to watch and see a Libertarian fuck up a country, too.
Just a couple weeks ago, a US Court of Appeals ruled that the NSA was violating the law. It doesn't matter what's legal and what's not, they'll just do it. c.f. "above the law".
Copyright (c) 1990 - 2014 Dice. All rights reserved. Use of this comment is subject to certain Terms and Conditions.
It is the right thing to do. You and Ron Wyden are about the only reps who seem to honestly give a shit about the constitution. Nice work. Keep it up.
They'll still collect if they want to, and they'll label it important to security, and they'll do it in secret. This is all just for show and you're all eating it up.
Guess who?
And the endorsements keep coming in...
Seastead this.
The Huffington Post was live updating the proceedings, and said this:
USA Freedom Act advances 77-17
In a stunning reversal from last week’s drama, the USA Freedom Act was passed by a vote of 77-17. The bill, which passed the House overwhelmingly several weeks ago will now move forward and is likely to receive a final vote on Tuesday.
The bill fell three votes short of the needed supermajority to advance last week but with the clock ticking on controversial provisions of the Patriot Act, supporters of NSA surveillance thought that the proposed reforms were better than letting the program expire entirely.
Rand Paul stated that the Freedom Act will likely get passed on Tuesday.
Wait... did we win or not? Isn't this just a 2-day repreive?
If it dies, it's because they already have something to replace it. We will be informed on a 'need to know' basis. They will decide when we 'need to know'.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
So he did one thing you agree with. The rest of his profile is just bat shit crazy.
That's a useful technique - agreeing or conceding the immediate issue, while making nebulous unsupported statements about everything else. Look to see this for the next year or so. "I agree with him on this issue, but everything else is crazy".
...problem is, that "agreeing on this one issue" seems to happen a lot. Like, for most issues.
Who do you recommend as an alternative? (And did they, by any chance, support the Patriot act?)
In order to keep America safe, does anyone know where I can send my emails and phone records to until this whole misunderstanding is resolved? I'd hate for a terrorist to get me because my information was private.
This would have a lot more meaning if the NSA had anything to fear if they break the law.
Now get the NSA out of the cloud.
You really think they will stop just because the legal justification they claimed is gone? They will just invent a new legal theory to justify what they have always done, what they always do, and what they have always been planning to do.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
LOL Breitbart. Keep it classy.
The Patriot Act was in the end largely an expansion of existing government powers. This did not create the CIA, FBI, or NSA. They will still exist even if the Patriot Act is not extended at all, and they will still have a lot of power to spy on Americans. In the end, this is a great move of political posturing, but it doesn't really help us as much as a certain presidential candidate wants us to believe.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
So if the choice were Trump and Rand, Sununu would vote for Trump? lol
RealClearPolitics.com poll average 2016 GOP presidential nomination (April 16 - May 26):
Bush 14.8
Walker 13.0
Rubio 12.2
Huckabee 9.2
Carson 9.2
Paul 9.0
Cruz 8.0
Christie 4.8
Trump 4.5
Perry 2.0
Kasich 2.0
Santorum 1.7
Fiorina 1.5
Jindal 1.3
The Huffington Post was live updating the proceedings, and said this:
USA Freedom Act advances 77-17
In a stunning reversal from last week’s drama, the USA Freedom Act was passed by a vote of 77-17. The bill, which passed the House overwhelmingly several weeks ago will now move forward and is likely to receive a final vote on Tuesday.
The bill fell three votes short of the needed supermajority to advance last week but with the clock ticking on controversial provisions of the Patriot Act, supporters of NSA surveillance thought that the proposed reforms were better than letting the program expire entirely.
Rand Paul stated that the Freedom Act will likely get passed on Tuesday.
Wait... did we win or not? Isn't this just a 2-day repreive?
Please note this [1] is one of the bills being proposed (by the sitting Senate Intelligence Chair, no less):
The bill Senate Intelligence Chair Richard Burr released last Friday is bad enough for the way it expanded the existing illegal dragnet. I argued here Burr’s bill would give the Intelligence Community everything they lost in 2009 and 2011. [...]
So think about it - is this just a 2 day reprieve or 2 days so they can rollback more restrictions and make things worse than they are now?
[1] https://www.emptywheel.net/201...
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
I have been an American citizen for over 30 years ever since I took my oath back in the 1980's
This is the day I can say that I feel proud as an American for at the very least the politicians in Washington D.C., for once, are doing something that the PEOPLE want them to do --- to kill that goddamn draconian bill that allows the government of the United States of America to act much like a totalitarian regime
I think I am not the only one in America who will keep note of who is voting to keep American under the dictatorship of Obama - and we will make sure that all the supporters of dictator Obama will get booted from the Capitol Hill
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Dunno what else he stands for, but he just made a huge "hell ya" in my book. I'm sure I'll find out in the next few days he's a misogynist endangered species farker.
Seriously, dunno what else he stands for but his efforts to let this abomination die wins him major points in my book.
Does anyone really think they, the NSA, is not going to spy, with or without approval? We have no way to control them, they hold all the cards!
So he did one thing you agree with. The rest of his profile is just bat shit crazy
Even if that Rand Paul guy has done only one thing right that ONE THING still represents one thing MORE than all the other congress-critters (plus senate critters) on the Congressional Hill!
Hey, as a citizen of the United States of America I do understand the problem with the devoid of quality of the congress-critters, and I know I do not have any more option to pick and choose --- whoever does anything right in the Congress in this days has become a RARITY, something that the People can appreciate, and we do appreciate that gesture, whether it is genuine or not, very much!
Yeah, call me bat shit crazy all you want - as long as we can dump that motherfucking law out you can call me anything you want!!
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
For some reason it drives me nuts when people make this basic mistake. Midnight Sunday is in the morning of the date in question. Therefore, the time this story was posted (Sunday May 31, 2015 @08:31PM) it already happened.
. In the end Rand Paul is just another fascist conservative running under the "libertarian" banner even though his notion of liberty is quite twisted
Excuse me?
Who the fuck are the REAL fascists here??
The ones who UPHOLD the spirit of the Constitution of the United States of America, or the ones who STEPPED ON IT??
Other than name calling what else you fascist liberals can do?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Seriously, some people are pro the "USA Freedom Act" because they think it's a start on the path to reigning in the "Patriot Act", and then again others with same agenda are con the "USA Freedom Act" because they would rather have the "Patriot Act" expire.
And on the other side, people who want more surveillance, are also split between the two, either seeing "USA Freedom Act" as the only way to avoid everything expiring. Or seeing the "USA Freedom" act a blocker for getting the "Patriot Act" re-authorized.
It's sad you can't just agree to disagree and then vote on the subject (perhaps compromise), rather than playing games trying to out smart each other.
Please spare me the history lesson, dude
I do need to ask you a question, tho ...
Who is the one coming out asking the Congress to extend the Patriot Act?
Was it Cheney Rumsfeld Bush and Co., or was it Obama?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
... in a few weeks the powers that be will let (if necessary, "encourage") an act of extreme terrorism on US soil succeed. Then they will go back to the well, and congress will enthusiastically vote us all into chains at the same time they increase the budget and personal power of all of the shadow spooks keeping us safe.
Well, probably not a few weeks -- that would be too suspicious. But look for it within the year, especially if they can find a poster-child terrorist they can point at and say -- look, if only we were tapping everybody's phone (including yours) we could have found him in time to prevent this tragedy...
rgb
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
No, no it does not
I'm a little bit afraid of what our Intelligence Apparatus will do if backed into a corner.
I'd feel a lot better if Senator Paul was fighting for increased oversight over the NSA's off-the-books budget. I mean, we already know that they don''t give fuck-all about the law.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Point
The Patriot Act and 215 represent the greatest mechanism for protecting the President of the USA and his unelected appointees as never before. This act as carried out by the National Security Agency gives the President unlimited power to blackmail and exhort untrusted USA citizens for tens of thousand of dollars per person, 3 Trillion Dollars gross per year. Even though the Patriot Act does not have any effect on the security of the USA regards foreign terrorists, it does give the President the means to KILL USA citizens who are disliked by President Obama.
Counter Point
The Patriot Act and 215 represent the greatest mechanism for attacking the President of the USA and his unelected appointees as never before. This act as carried out by the National Security Agency coupled with FOIA give USA citizens unlimited power to blackmail and exhort the President, Congress, the Judiciary and the Oligarchs of the Federal Departments for hundreds of thousands of dollars per person, 300 Trillion Dollars gross per year. Even though the Patriot Act does not have any effect on the security of the USA regards foreign terrorists, it does give the Legal Citizens of the USA the means to KILL the President and his unelected Government by legal means.
WAR
Oh the poor dears. Now the NSA and FBI will have to think up new weasel words to misinterpret another section of law, so they can carry on doing what they are doing.
Even if that Rand Paul guy has done only one thing right that ONE THING still represents one thing MORE than all the other congress-critters (plus senate critters) on the Congressional Hill!
While I applaud him for so openly opposing the bill, he's not the only one in Congress who has. There were 121 votes against the bill in the House.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
...unless you are caught with a dead child or live animal, you've got my vote for President. Posting as an AC due to my job, however I have a few notes:
1. Daily Dot's writeup is surprisingly comprehensive and decent.
2. This is going to be short-term,. The senate votes look like there's no reason this won't be re-authorized within a few days. Paul is playing the sides off of each other (McConnel didn't like the bill as he wanted it to be MORE draconian, etc.) and using this as an opening to shut it down, if only for a few days. We need to remember to not let the world start to think this is all in the past if it's reauthorized.
3. He's pissing a lot of people off that will bite him later, but winning my sympathy. Even if it's reauthorized, those involved won't be going with the status quo, they'll now be reimplementing these things on the record.
4. I'm not a huge Rand Paul fan in general, as he always seemed like a less-principled version of his father. There are ways to downplay his cleverness here or it's long-term, but I can't discount it. He's one of the only current politicians not only standing up against it verbally, but actually doing what actions he can take against it.
5. In the vein of point #4, here's a quick shoutout to Ron Wyden of Oregon, who I disagree with about many, many policies but was really one of the only lantern-lighters of his peers trying to tell the american people what was going on before and after Snowden.
Sincerely,
Anonymous Coward
I don't understand. News articles say these 3 sections were hardly or never used.
Why isn't the whole thing expiring??
Does anyone really think they, the NSA, is not going to spy, with or without approval? We have no way to control them, they hold all the cards!
The have always spied and that part will never cease. But it's time to shake them up a little.
1. If it can and will be abused, refrain from building it in the first place.
2. If it has been built, see that it is laid bare to the greatest extent possible and dismantled.
3. For egregious offenses, the offending Agency must be completely disbanded, its assets liquidated, and formed anew.
4. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. (only joking!)
The United States is presently under attack, by itself, in a way even Stalin was unable to achieve given the limited technology of his time. Due to a lack of transparency and believability, a technological renaissance with (apparently) no moral compass steered by Charter, the NSA has likely deployed assets and capabilities for domestic surveillance. The following attack vectors cannot be ruled out:
There is an unknown, possibly massive tapping of the backbone network occurring. Utah Data Center's central location is a clue. Thomas Drake, Bill Binney and Mark Klein have all come forward alleging domestic surveillance far exceeding 'telephone records'. Klein is of especial note, for it is he who revealed the existence of Room 641A in the lawsuit Heptig vs AT&T that EFF took almost to the Supreme Court, who declined to hear the case on the basis that the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 protected AT&T from liability for involvement with any illegal activities. A law passed after the lawsuit was filed. In response to it, even.
That should make you a bit angry. We're not talking about telephone records here. We're talking about fiber splitting with drop-in access to the whole slurp. To any future despot this means that the United States may be prepared to deliver real-time private communications and databases of activity for its citizens, cradle to grave. Why the fuck would anyone want to build this thing, unless they were insane? James Bamford hinted at the possibility that NSA was 'going domestic' in his 1982 book Puzzle Palace as he suggests its interest in developing technology for bulk microwave gathering. That is to be expected as this technology was deployed worldwide. But the way they wished to go about it was a bit... peculiar:
Another indication of NSA's "broadband sweeping of multi-circuited domestic telecommunications trunk lines," David L. Watters told the Senate Intelligence Committee [in 1978!] lies in the Agency's request for an amendment to the wiretap law that would permit NSA to engage in warrantless wiretapping "for the sole purpose of determining the capability of equipment" when such "test period shall be limited... to... ninety days." Continuing, he warned: "Let there be no misunderstanding here. There is only one category of wiretapping equipment or system which requires up to ninety days for test and adjustment, and that system is broadband electronic eavesdropping equipment, the vacuum-cleaner approach to intelligence gathering, the general search of microwave trunk lines. I make this assertion on the strength of actual experience in the electronic intelligence trade and on the strength of over twenty-five years' experience in the telecommunications profession. An ordinary, single-line wire tap requires only five minutes to adjust and test."
NSA should not have wanted th
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I've always considered the "Patriot Act" to be a mockery of American values of honesty. The DOJ's disenfranchisement of all Americans is as worthless as those who would wish us to be gone. Grinning Showoffs have profited greatly from this baseless fear. Some showoffs have stopped grinning, and a few can never grin again. If the West wishes to stop more grinning show offs, the easiest solution is large scale, ocean based environmentally sound desalination plants pumping water to the dry areas of this planet. Powered by Solar and Wind. It's off the self technology and cheaper than the life of one american.
Most of the Obama haters have missed the simple, more at home point on /. which is if nothing extra-ordinary happens, all of the NSA shenanigans that were revealed by Edward Snowden and Julian Assange are going away, at least on the books. (Meaning they will not be legal anymore and brushed under the carpet if you happen to get illegally wiretapped during an email or a phone call or while surfing the internet.) This is a good day!
Meanwhile in the Republican controlled Senate and House, the Republicans are dancing around trying to make a big show of the fact of what "They intended to do and couldn't" because of .. (they hit the rebranded Staples "Easy" button that now says "Blame on Obama".) These Republicans are digging their hole deep ensuring none of them are going to be in the White House in 2016 if this keeps up. Predictable and obvious political posturing never helped anyone win an election. (Ask Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, Walter Mondale, Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee.. just to name a few!)
Who is the one coming out asking the Congress to extend the Patriot Act?
Was it Cheney Rumsfeld Bush and Co., or was it Obama?
This argument is exactly the argument they want. because this argument leads nowhere.
The patriot act was promulgated by Cheney Rumsfeld Bush and Co. under a republican controlled congress. And it was backed by Obama under a democratically controlled congress, and - if not for the exception of one guy with a backbone - almost got pushed through a Republican controlled congress by a Democrat president again. So you are both right. What are your points?
The one thing that you two probably agree with, the one thing that polls have shown like 80% if Americans agreeing with, is that the Patriot Act is nonsense and needs to be repealed. Yet, over 99% of the elected representatives seems to want the Patriot Act passed.
Meanwhile, armchair yahoos such as yourselves are busy arguing about which politician is to blame? Balderdash! How about blaming all elected officials, except for maybe Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders? If you can only think of this through the lens of political parties, how about going with the vertebrate and invertebrate parties? I know, without their own news channels, it is hard to imagine....
Revolution is the opium of the intellectuals.
I find it a depressingly sad state of affairs that a country like America needs something called a "Freedom Act"
So who is going to jail for violating it when it's off the books? The same guys that didn't go to jail when they were caught breaking the law by torturing people?
just going under-ground. Do you think the corrupt U.S would begin to play fair? NOW?
I think the reality is that all of the wiretapping, spying, etc. is going to continue, but the results will be much less visible. Countries have been spying on each other forever, and most spy on their own citizens to some extent.
One thing I have to wonder is this -- whether you like the President or not, he's pretty much the only person in the world who knows most of what is going on in the military and intelligence community. So I've always been curious about the real state of affairs...none of us have access to the information he does. It must be interesting getting back from the inaugural ball, waking up the next morning and walking into your first daily briefing where you find out the difference between what made the news that morning and what's actually going on in the world. "Good morning, Mr. President -- here's your nuclear launch codes, your security detail, and the four scenarios the Joint Chiefs have worked up for a possible land invasion of China...choose one." There's a reason heads of state age prematurely -- and I'm guessing this is a large part of it. I know I'd be a little worried about being the ultimate authority responsible for 300 million people. Like the sign on the desk says, "The buck stops here." So, for example, if the President chose to continue the Patriot Act data collection, there was probably a reason for doing so, especially since he campaigned on rolling back a lot of this. Whether this was done by his military/ntelligence advisors to keep things easy, or driven by something else is the question.
All I'm saying is that none of us knows what's actually being done with this information. I'm of the opinion that, while the threat may be overblown, some of the intelligence gathered through this program at least helped connect the dots on a few things. No one just walks into an Internet forum and announces they want to join ISIS and are looking for something to blow up. We'll see what happens...it's probably nothing, but it will be very interesting to go back late in my life and see what was declassified from this time period.
If they're willing to let Pearl Harbor happen, as well as 9/11 to get a desired outcome. What's next if you take away their bill ensuring they win? I fear a nuclear detonation will be the end result, quickly followed by a knee jerk reaction from the public.
Some terrorist(s) will kill many dozens or hundreds in the US and everybody will want snooping back. Just you watch and see. Bookmark my post. I've been around long enough to notice political patterns.
Table-ized A.I.
it's hardly anti-Libertarian to oppose first degree murder... even Libertarians do not say "do whatever you want, even if that means planning to and then actually killing your neighbor". Rand is a pro-lifer, which is consistent with opposition to first-degree-murder - Selective (as opposed to medically-required and thus always justified, like triage) abortion is nothing more and nothing less than the planned and deliberate murder of a human being to save money, for convenience, to avoid embarrassment, etc. A fetus IS human - No human mother has ever given birth to anything other than a human being. A human fetus is a unique living being with its own unique DNA. A fetus is NOT just a growth of tissue like a tumor. Left to natural processes, a fetus will eventually become an old geezer sitting on a porch yelling "hey you kids, git offa my lawn!". Sperm or eggs are just components that will never become anything unless brought together. There's no real scientific debate here, just a political-philosophical argument about when life starts in which one side pretends an child is not a human being in order to justify murder; most pro-choicers pretend, contrary to science, that a baby mystically becomes human at the moment of birth (like some Catholics pretend wine mysteriously becomes blood) but some very prominent ones have asserted that abortions may be performed even months after the child is born (even Obama in the Illinois Senate voted to allow doctors to abort a baby AFTER it is born). There is simply no science that says that ANY mystical event happens at the moment a child leaves its mother that makes it suddenly human.
One side insists gay marriage is a RIGHT and any opponent is stepping on somebody's rights. The opponents, on the other hand, are perfectly aware that society can only adopt gay marriage by trampling on both the free speech and religious rights of people who disagree. Even Hillary Clinton has recently warned that people will be required to change their religious beliefs. To anti-gay marriage people, supporters of gay marriage are the bigots. Rand's position is in-between: he has opposed the idea of forcing people to accept gay marriage, but supports leaving it to the states to decide whether to support it.
Where do you anti-Paul idiots get these talking points that include Rand wanting a World Police??? As a strict Constitutionalist, there is no way he would support such an abomination. Whatever sound bite is being used to support this recurring accusation, it's almost certainly intentionally taken out of context.
I do not support Rand, primarily for national security reasons (REAL ones, NOT phony ones used to justify the invalid NSA warrantless wiretapping) but I find some of the attacks on Rand launched from both the left and the right to be completely dishonest.
Since you want to play these games, how do you feel about Hillary Clinton's support for child sacrifice? How about her support for her husband's molestation of women? Her paying women less than she pays men for the same work? Her support of child molesters? Her support for the Chinese military ballistic missile program? Her support of global government? (see how STUPID this sort of thing is when aimed at somebody you probably support?)
The law was bought in to give them permission to do something they always did anyway, you think a politician can stop them now ?
Until one of them goes to Jail nothing will change.
The so-called "USA Freedom Act" (politicians ALWAYS title bills with a patriotic name when they are planning to do something supremely un-patriotic) actually does one big important thing: It moves the collection and storage of metadata to the telcos, and the Feds than need an actual warrant to get it. Given that the telcos collect the data already as part of their basic function, and given that the feds have always been able to get warrants to get telco data, this is not a significant increase in telco power/authority. This does however re-introduce certain Constitutional protections that some in the federal government have long been pretending do not exist - and it would NEVER have happened had not one man (Rand Paul) done a fillibuster a few days ago that some here on Slashdot (who will probably vote for Hillary next year) claimed was just a stunt and had he not been assisted by several others (like Ted Cruz who is also routinely dissed here).
Sometimes it's just really important to re-assert a basic Constitutional protection to make a point. Sure, it may not slow-down the feds much to get a warrant for the metadata (and who would WANT it to in an emergency?) but that additional hassle and inconvenience, coupled with the extra possibility for scrutiny that comes with a paperwork trail, will likely reduce any NSA snooping against non-terror-suspects. Happily, it's also a bit of a public rebuke to the people who sit in bunkers dreaming of ways to inject ever-more government more deeply into the lives of the citizens (often just because it can be done) always under the banner of promised but unproven safety benefits.
For all the anti-NSA-wiretaps ranting on Slashdot, the remarkable thing is that thos who whine the loudest are also among those who heap the most hate on the ones who oppose the wiretaps while eagerly celebrating its big supporters (like Obama and Hillary).
you support murdering babies??? Ok, Got it. Joseph Mengele is apparently the patron-saint of the modern left. Guess that goes hand-in hand with funding most left-leaning groups with a sprinkle of Soros cash.
Since WHEN did the definition of Libertarian include killing babies? Deciding to kill another human being, and then paying somebody to do it, is hardly a libertarian act, particularly for the victim.
In fact, when did "Libertarian" become a new codeword for imposing pro-homosexual policies on people who oppose that particular perversion? A Libertarian might very well support the right of a gay church to gay marry people, but demanding a non-gay church do it or demanding other people recognize/support it is the opposite of Libertarianism.
Are you sure you understand the term "Libertarian"? I suspect you have it confused with "Libertine"
are carefully selected by corporate money/the rich who own them then there is no real change since it's the same hand up the ass of both party puppets.
So investigations started before June 1 can still continue under old rules. They probably just opened an investigation on every person on May 31...
can't the senate get anything done? ... oh wait!
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
this won't stop the NSA and FBI, CIA, etc from continuing their unconstitutional surveillance state...
I'm so scared that an law that it has been admitted stopped 0 terrorist attacks will expire. Whatever will we do?
All of this is moot. ...unless you actually believe that we haven't invented quantum computing already.
This is moot unless you believe quantum computing isn't already here.
This is happening is because Quantum Computing is already here, and the patriot act is moot.
What I'm expecting is that if Hillary gets in, many woman voters are going to see her as a saviour only to be sorely disappointed when she either ignores any prominent womens' issues or outright craps on them, especially issues she's promised to address (similar to how Obama did to many of his supporters).
Since your diatribe completely avoids knowing what history was in its intent to rewrite it to make that uppy nigger in the whitehouse the villain.
Because you're a shithead.
So I guess that either kills your "argument" stone dead or makes you a chinese commie.
Your comment made my day! :)
Paul B.
Which anthrax attack are you talking about? The one many years ago, or the attack from a few weeks ago, where our own government sent live anthrax spores through the postal system to unsuspecting labs, exposing dozens of people at minimum, to test if they were ready for just such an attack? (Yes, this really just happened, and it hasn't gotten nearly the airtime it deserves, since it was a terrorist attack perpetrated by the government)
...the phone companies can??? If this shit's illegal, then why are the phone companies allowed to do it? All that just happened is that the US government spent citizen's tax dollars to buy a bunch of hardware, installed it at the phone companies place, pushed the envelope (used the hardware for illegal activities, hoping not to be stopped) until they were stopped, and now they're simply leaving that hardware at the site where it was illegally installed, and using a secret court to tell the phone companies to give them the data.
Are we supposed to feel good about this?
Normally, I wouldn't have problems w/ wiretaps, if we didn't have recent cases like the IRS auditing people based on their political beliefs, as came out. But I do have problems, and here it is.
Who are the vocal supporters of continuing all this? It's the Bush Republicans - I mean guys like McCain, Gramm, McConnell, Christie, Rubio, Santorum, et al. Aside from Paul, real Conservatives like Ted Cruz have expressed reservations about this. Also, I'd take the jibes of the McCains more seriously if they supported other secutity measures.
Since 9/11, what has been the biggest gaping hole in our security? It's been allowing Muslims to continue to come to this country, no questions asked. While it's tough for people from Mexico, China or India, people from Saudi Arabia - the country of 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers - can get visa stamps on their passports from their travel agents. Not just that, Mid East Muslims coming here is as easy as taking a flight from SFO to JFK. And Muslim immigration has increased to the point where they dominate cities like Dearbornistan.
So all the Republicans concerned about our security - why aren't they publicly opposing Muslim immigration? The last major Republican to have done that was Tom Tancredo, and his candidacy in 2008 went nowhere. McCain and Gramm, as well as a lot of the mainstream candidates, including the Pauls, have supported amnesty. While the primary beneficiaries of them may be Mexicans, there are a huge number of Muslims too in the mix, who won't be subjected to any deportation despite participating in terror threats or other criminal acts.
And the rhetoric about ISIS - let's revisit why it became an issue in the first place. Some journalists captured in Syria were beheaded, and that's when the collective blood of the media began boiling. But if members of the media are stupid enough to believe in their own lies about how benign Muslims are, why should American - or any non-Muslim troops from anywhere - be responsible for their stupidity? The whole issue would never have happened had Western journalists stayed out of Muslim countries following the so-called 'Arab Springs' and let them run their own civil wars. While I don't support Obama's anti-Israel policies, at least his policy of not sending US ground troops there is a sound one. In fact, he needn't even conduct bombing operations there.
Also, this policy of blocking US and other Muslims who want to go to Syria to join ISIS - my question - why stop them? Let them go, but revoke their citizenship the moment they are in Syria - or even Turkey. Let them join ISIS, and fight in battles in Raqqa, Tadmur, Ramadi or Tikrit. Why are we howling over (un)Americans who want to go and wage jihad/taqfir wars? Let them go and die there, and meet their 72 virgins or whatever.
Also, in all the arguments about the situations in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and so on, or on what should be our policy towards ISIS, when two or more of your enemies are fighting each other, what does one normally do? The sensible response is to get into the seating area of the theater and open the popcorn. Why is the West agonizing over supporting Iran, or Syria, or Yemen's government or anybody else for that matter? Just let the Shi'ites and ISIS fight it out, and if we have to do anything at all, it should be to supply each side adequately so that the war never ends. Hopefully, that should drain out all Jihad-minded Muslims into battlefields in Iraq and Syria, and we'll have less of them in our countries.
All of this is moot. ...unless you actually believe that we haven't invented quantum computing already.
This is moot unless you believe quantum computing isn't already here.
You are in a little twisty maze of quantum computing, spooky at a distance..
You are in a twisty little maze of quantum computing, all entangled.
You are in a little twisty computing of quanta, all moot.
You are in a moot of quantum twisters, all charmed.
There are some keys on the ground here.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
Patriot act lapsed? Why are we not being invaded by muslims? I don't see any planes flying into buildings....huh...
I would love to see you stop bulk collection in foreign countries too...