Jeb Bush Comes Out Against Encryption

An anonymous reader writes: Presidential candidate Jeb Bush has called on tech companies to form a more "cooperative" arrangement with intelligence agencies. During a speech in South Carolina, Bush made clear his opinion on encryption: "If you create encryption, it makes it harder for the American government to do its job — while protecting civil liberties — to make sure that evildoers aren't in our midst." He also indicated he felt the recent scaling back of the Patriot Act went too far. Bush says he hasn't seen any indication the bulk collection of phone metadata violated anyone's civil liberties.

Comments

buh, bye

[harvey the nerd]

That's ok, most people are against Jeb Bush. Encryption makes it harder for the Stasi to do its job?

Jeb was already on his way to irrelevant, just another nail in his political coffin.

Re:buh, bye

[Spy Handler]

Jeb is gonna want some kind of a cabinet position in the Trump administration, so he better start catching up on past episodes of The Apprentice.

Re: buh, bye

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the establishment folks. Not those on the conservative/libertarian end of the scale.

Re:buh, bye

[fustakrakich]

That is so not true. Most people believe the bullshit and want to give the cops even more power. Any resistance can only mean you have something to hide and are *weak on crime*. If that were not so, neither republicans or democrats would be given the time of day.

Re: buh, bye

[bradrum]

But those want to defund the FAA so they can put a SCRAM necklace on every fetus.

Re:buh, bye

[bobbied]

Jeb was already on his way to irrelevant, just another nail in his political coffin.

We are about 5 months away from any "voting" taking place. That's a LONG time politically, where the public's attention span has a hard time lasting more than 2 weeks on anything. Jeb's got money so I'd not count him out. He's just biding time, as are a whole host of other candidates, sitting on their war chests and getting their ad buys ready for Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada.

Right now it's all about getting enough money to make a good showing late in January and making it though the four February primaries. Even though I don't like it, it's obvious that Jeb will make a good showing though this process because of his money, the hope is that some other candidate will best him though February and suck up the uncommitted funding.

So, the only "nails in the coffin" that count are loosing an actual primary...

Re: buh, bye

[buck-yar]

The right wing is severely splintered. There's the establishment side and there's the libertarian side. To see this in full effect, head over to ar15.com and read the General Discussion section.

Re:buh, bye

[bobbied]

Jeb is gonna want some kind of a cabinet position in the Trump administration, so he better start catching up on past episodes of The Apprentice.

We could do worse than Trump... But.... We could do a LOT better too. I sure hope Trump get's tired of spending his money on this side show pretty soon...

Re: buh, bye

[Lunix Nutcase]

So Scotsman don't exist in your universe?

Re: buh, bye

[FranTaylor]

Not those on the conservative/libertarian end of the scale.

all three of them

Re:buh, bye

[squiggleslash]

I wouldn't take it seriously. Right now, the candidates are telling Republicans want they want to hear so they can win the primaries. That goes for all of them, including the supposed straight talker who's winning because everyone thinks the Mafia-connected blowhard is "honest".

Re:buh, bye

[DarkOx]

The other reality and I am not sure even Jeb! gets it is that Trump is the best thing that could have happened to him at least as far as the primaries go.

The whole "anchor baby" conversation the other day with him getting testy isn't good. What Jeb! needs to do if he wants to win is stay the hell out of the spot light. Let Trump continue to suck up all the oxygen.

Trump will flame out sooner or later, he has too. Trump is smart guy but the rules of the game are different in politics there is only one Trump, if one of hits bets does not pay off its over. Its not like the world he is accustom to where if one entity goes bankrupt he has ten more pull capital out of and try another new business. Outspoken as he is eventually he will say something people can't get passed in a careless moment.

As long as Trump stays front an center the votes won't hear jack about any of the other candidates. At some point after Trump craters the voters are going to be left with 14 other candidates they have hardly heard of and a name they know "Bush". That will be enough to win a primary. I don't like it but its true.

Re: buh, bye

[Opportunist]

They still exist? I was under the impression all that's left from the Republicans I once knew is the religious nutjobs, the neocon assholes and the redneck hicks who vote for anyone that lets them keep their rocket launchers.

I really miss my Reps. I really do. It used to be such a great party. Now it's just a hodgepodge of lunatics and assholes.

Re: buh, bye

[ShanghaiBill]

The right wing is severely splintered. There's the establishment side and there's the libertarian side.

Not really. The only "libertarian" candidate is Rand Paul, and he is polling around 4%. His dad peaked at 10% eight years ago, so support for the authoritarians has actually gone up.

Re:buh, bye

[khasim]

I think it has more to do with how you phrase it to people.

I'm pretty sure that anyone sweating over the Ashley Madison leak is now in favour of encryption.

Encryption - because sometimes even "good" people don't want EVERYONE reading what they're doing.

Re: buh, bye

[mattwarden]

Based on what? I hate Jeb but he is still the most likely nomination. He has a huge money advantage and has signed up the most experienced staff. Don't get fooled by the polls. It's way too early and is primarily driven by name ID. Look back at where Romney was at this time in the polls.

tl;dr the rumor of Jeb's death is greatly exaggerated

Re:buh, bye

[aaron4801]

This is a pretty clear play to appeal not to the voters, but the money. The military-industrial complex has a large part to play (some would say the only part) in choosing the nominee. Coming out against encryption this early allows him to appeal to the check-writers, and leave him plenty of time to do damage control with the voters later. Still incredibly tone deaf, and hopefully it's a play that doesn't pay off, but as far as establishment candidates are concerned, it's just par for the course. It would have worked 8 years ago. Let's hope voters are more savvy now.
"Bush says he hasn't seen any indication the bulk collection of phone metadata violated anyone's civil liberties."
This, though, is entirely unforgivable. Bulk collection, BY DEFINITION , violates civil liberties.

Re: buh, bye

[mattwarden]

BREAKING NEWS: people are different.

The left is "splintered" too. Take a look at Bernie Sanders in the polls. Or people trying to recruit Warren, Biden, Gore, etc.

This is not something about "the right". The party system is artificial and people do not fall into two or three buckets.

Re: buh, bye

[FranTaylor]

The only "libertarian" candidate is Rand Paul

http://time.com/3759378/rand-paul-defense-spending/

His amendment would add $76.5 billion to the defense budget

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/03/09/3381381/rand-paul-gas-exports/

"I would immediately get every obstacle out of the way for our export of oil and gas, and I would begin drilling in every possible conceivable place within our territories in order to have production we can supply Europe with if it’s interrupted from Ukraine."

Here is a "libertarian" suggesting government involvement in the market on a scale never before attempted. He's the exact opposite of a "libertarian"

Re: buh, bye

[lgw]

The only "Scotsmen" here are in DC (or their lobbyists are) - the big money donors and the politicians they own.

There's a huge gap right now between the conservative base and GOP politicians in DC. Trump get his entertaining time in the spotlight purely because of his anger: the conservative base is really angry with the GOP establishment right now, to the point where they don't even care that Trump is not conservative! He's angry, and that emotional connection is enough for now.

Jeb is the establishment candidate. I've never seen him praised in the comments of any of the conservative blogs I read. He's seen as a horrifying combination of RINO and "could even lose to Hillary". But he has all the money, as he has the love of the exact people the base is angry with.

My strongest hope in the primaries is that we get no candidates names "Bush" or "Clinton". Enough with the legacies already! Bernie seems honest (for all I think he's a fool), I like Walker, Carson seems unobjectionable. Lets have an election where there's a difference between the candidates, for once!

Re: buh, bye

[mattwarden]

Yes not at all like the Left (socialists, #blacklivesmatter, occupy, envirowhackos, PETA, militant "feminists", etc)

Re: buh, bye

[FranTaylor]

The left is "splintered" too.

how many people on the left are calling for increased government surveillance?

Re: buh, bye

[fustakrakich]

You forgot the 's' on 'ends'. Conservative and libertarian are polar opposites.

Re: buh, bye

[Opportunist]

Well, as soon as that "left" has a candidate that actually backs them, things could get mighty interesting.

But since no candidate would touch any of them even with a 10 foot pole, we should be safe.

If only the same could be said about the religious nutters and the greedy bunch.

Re: buh, bye

[H0p313ss]

I love how by your admission the extreme right are the people who are clearly trying to make the world a worse place, and the extreme left are the ones who are trying, perhaps too hard, to make the world a better place.

Re: buh, bye

[fustakrakich]

Up until the middle/late 60s those lunatics and assholes were democrats, the party of George Wallace. They flipped when the Civil Rights Act was passed, Johnson saying,*There goes the democratic party in the south for a generation*.. So now they dominate the republican side, using "southern strategy" to get the votes that used to go to the likes of Wallace, etc. The big tragedy is in its ongoing success.

Re:buh, bye

[buddyglass]

People who actually had to deal with the Stasi would probably be pretty offended by your exaggeration. That aside, Bush his hardly politically irrelevant. He's the odds on favorite to be the Republican nominee if you believe betting markets.

Re: buh, bye

[MBGMorden]

I don't know - but I do know that that is a SINGLE ISSUE in the vast array of topics being discussed in this election. The left is simply splintered on different issues.

Re:buh, bye

[JoshuaZ]

I can't actually tell if this is meant to be a serious comment. Do you actually think Trump is likely to be the next elected US President?

Re: buh, bye

[MBGMorden]

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

Don't ends take your focus away from the damage the means can do - particularly when the ends isn't even realistically achievable.

Re: buh, bye

[Penguinisto]

Well, as soon as that "left" has a candidate that actually backs them, things could get mighty interesting.

Bernie handed over a speech to #blacklivesmatter, is(was?) a registered Socialist, both he and Hillary pay strong lip-service to single-issue nutjobs like NARAL, extreme feminism, Greenpeace, etc etc etc.

...here's the truth - both parties lavish love on their core constituents and their positions early in the primaries - then shift hard to look centrist as soon as someone wins the nomination.

Members of either party/ideology are too damned blind to see that.

Re:buh, bye

[bobbied]

Cannot disagree with you... But I also hate to say that what you describe is likely to happen.

Although, there are a number of interesting "happenings" that give me hope that we won't end up with either Trump or Jeb!.... Cruz's sudden alliance with Trump has me baffled, but it could turn into a master stroke if Trump does the crash and burn late in the fall. Cruz could easily suck up the disillusioned Trump voters when the wheels come off the train because he's positioned with generally the same views.

But... Jeb is better positioned here, if he can keep his mouth shut...

Re: buh, bye

[Firethorn]

Well, I figure that those are very good reasons that ShanghaiBill put scare quotes around "libertarian".

IE he's the most libertarian of the bunch, doesn't mean that he's actually one of us.

Then again - Defense budget: It says right in the article that he's doing it as a compromise/appeasement to the 'war hawks'. He balances that with other cuts that we'd generally approve of (though I'd drastically reform the EPA, not cripple it via fund cutting).

On Gas exports - REMOVING government obstacles against businesses is libertarian. Note that he didn't say 'subsidize' gas exports. So REMOVING the need for permits and such would be ' government involvement in the market on a scale never before attempted'?

Remember, speeches are limited, it's very difficult to shove every shade of meaning into them.

Re:buh, bye

[Penguinisto]

Trump will flame out sooner or later, he has too.

...you mean like that Obama guy was supposed to do in 2008?

Re: buh, bye

[ArmoredDragon]

Hmm...let's see...Obama, Feinstein, Napolitano, Holder...a lot of them, actually.

Re: buh, bye

[MBGMorden]

Based on what? I hate Jeb but he is still the most likely nomination. He has a huge money advantage

Huh?

Jeb Bush net worth: $10 million (according to the article I'm linking,though I've seen lower estimates and some as high as $22 million)
Donald Trump net worth: $10 billion (again, according to the link, though this could be as "low" as $4 billion)

Even taking the highest and lowest numbers for Bush and Trump, respectively, Trump has at least 2 orders of magnitude more money.

http://presidential-candidates...

Re:buh, bye

[TheGratefulNet]

no one would believe you if you went back in time and said that reagan and bush-2 would be president.

"an actor? president? you're making that up!"

(what movie was that from? doesn't matter.)

point is, with the true choice of leaders NOT being in the hands of the voters, anything's possible. if the hidden unseen rulers choose idiot-A or idiot-B, that's what we get. what: you thought we had a SAY in things? oh, how cute.

Re:buh, bye

[RabidReindeer]

Someone evidently transplanted in his brother's brain this week.

He also came out in favor of a totally voucher-driven school system. That was a bee in his bonnet while he was governor and one of the best things about his administration was that he had only limited success at it back then.

Re: buh, bye

[oldmac31310]

When was that?

Re: buh, bye

[Anonymous Coward]

Republican here......How about we make a deal together and agree to keep both Bush and Clinton on the sidelines? Would you agree to that deal?

It's sad/funny that every single person I have asked about this deal will gladly accept it. Its obvious to anyone watching that Bush/Clinton do not have strong support from the people.

So riddle me this: How are these two still going as strong as they are without the support of the people? How can that even happen?

Re:buh, bye

[Lab Rat Jason]

Trump is the Democrat's stealth MVP. The goal here is to disrupt the Republicans from within and capture the government completely.

Re:buh, bye

[RabidReindeer]

Primaries have become a curse upon the nation. The people most likely to vote in them are the extremists, who then dump extreme-leaning candidates on the general election who then have to scramble to appear centrist since the country as a whole has a significant gap between Left and Right, regardless of how far Right the Left is considered by Europeans.

So we have primary winners who are at best panderers to our worse natures and at worst aligned with them, whose credibility is suspect - they either have to "flip flop" or they're seen as unwilling to accommodate the other side. Anyone halfway sane or centrist cannot make it to the general election where they're needed most.

Re: buh, bye

[SvnLyrBrto]

Personal wealth is much less important than the Bush family political machine. Jeb will have the same superPACs thaw W had. He'll also have Darth Cheney, Karl Rove, all of Fox news, and the Koch brothers backing him up when the time comes. Compared to that, Trump's personal fortune is chump change and his campaign theatrics are just bread and circuses.

Re:buh, bye

[linuxguy]

>> Trump will flame out sooner or later, he has too.

> ...you mean like that Obama guy was supposed to do in 2008?

You are not seriously comparing Trump to Obama, are you?

Re:buh, bye

[kheldan]

And yet another member of the Bush family outs himself as a traitor to his country, just like the rest of his family going back for generations. Fuck Jeb Bush sideways with a rusty chainsaw. Or better yet take the entire crop of GOP 'candidates' out to the wood chipper, they'd all do the U.S. more good as mulch than they'll ever do as politicians.

..not that the DNC is any better, really. In 2016 we're faced with 'bad or worse' for choices yet again, except this time around the bar has been set lower than ever.

Re:buh, bye

[morgauxo]

Nah, surely the people doing the actual chosing have more than just 2 candidates to chose from. No doubt the real action is before even the primaries. All that idiot A, idiot B stuff is just the show to keep the masses cooperating.

Re: buh, bye

[SvnLyrBrto]

Democrat in the heart of democrat territory (San Francisco) here. And the only "support" for Hillary that I've heard expressed by anyone I know has essentially been: "I'm voting for Bernie in the primary. But if he doesn't get the nomination, I'll vote for Hillary in the general. Better her than any of the republicans.". That pretty much sums up my own plans too.

Re: buh, bye

[allquixotic]

As a Democrat who's more liberal than nearly all the running Democratic candidates, I could see myself being content to let the country be run by most of the Republican presidential candidates or elects from about Eisenhower up until and not including Dubya. Eisenhower is my favorite Republican of all time; Nixon did a few things right and many things wrong; we could've done a lot worse than George H. W. Bush; Reagan was okay because most of his crazier ideas didn't get implemented, and the ones that did were beneficial or not very harmful; and Dubya was disastrous.

I wouldn't have voted for them, but they wielded the responsibility of the Presidency pretty well overall, and occasionally supported more liberal initiatives like government-funded space exploration, social programs, and civil liberties. In fact, defending civil liberties was the marching order for the Republican party for a long time.

I also believe that the way our President would swing between being Democrat and Republican every couple of years was a big contributor to making the country a better place overall. Each party and each President would have something on their agenda and would address a severe problem, which meant that as long as we kept switching parties, we'd be okay - and each party, each President, would bring their own, net-beneficial changes to the table. We'd "be okay" as long as this kept going.

The problem today is that there is an extremely small and nitpicky difference in policy between the most popular (i.e. most likely to be elected) candidates on both sides. Since popularity is more or less a positive feedback loop, this all but guarantees that, even this early in the election season, we have a good sense of either Hillary or Trump being our next POTUS. And their views are close enough that, in the past, you could've roped them together into one party.

Now, in BOTH parties, anyone in favor of civil liberties and against big government and mass surveillance is marginalized into the fringes and will almost certainly not get past the primaries. We live in a fear society. Promoting fear and "big government will protect you" gets you votes. A warmongering foreign policy is popular. The military-industrial complex is popular because of all the useless bureaucratic desk jobs it opens up. Eisenhower must be rolling in his grave.

Re:buh, bye

[Cutting_Crew]

thats from "Back to the Future" when Marty (Michael J Fox) first meets Doc at his house and tells him he is from the future. Doc asks him who the president will be in 1985.

Re:buh, bye

[JoshuaZ]

Reagan was the governor of California before he became President. It is true that no one would have believed you if you had said this when he was still an actor, but in late 1979 he was already plausible. I'm curious, what probability do you estimate that Trump will be the next US President?

Re: buh, bye

[amicusNYCL]

The right wing is severely splintered. There's the establishment side and there's the libertarian side.

In all fairness, so is the left. There's the establishment side (Hillary) and "other" (Sanders).

Re:buh, bye

[0123456]

You are not seriously comparing Trump to Obama, are you?

Indeed. Obama was just another puppet of Big Business. Trump is Big Business.

Re: buh, bye

[0123456]

how many people on the left are calling for increased government surveillance?

Clinton was in the White House the last time the US government tried to eliminate encryption.

Besides, the left love government surveillance, so long as they're in charge. Look at... any communist society in the 20th century.

Re:buh, bye

[Captain Splendid]

News Flash: The Dems didn't need Trump to make that happen. Sure does help, though.

Re: buh, bye

[Ronin Developer]

Actually, they weren't trying to eliminate encryption - just limit its strength. Yes, they were trying to implement restrictions as per the ITAR on strong encryption. They were up in arms over PGP being outside of their control. They were trying to force the Clipper encryption chip and Skipjack down our throats. And, Gore was the guy who was pushing these things for the administration with the urging of the 3 letter acronym organization.

Encryption, in the US, would have remained. Clipper, embedded into everything would have allowed law enforcement to decrypt communications using, supposedly, a warrant to obtain the "Law Enforcement Access Field (LEAF)" that would then have allowed the recovery of the encryption key. It probably should have been called the "Law Enforcement Access Key" (wait..that spells LEAK...can't have that). A vulnerability was discovered that enabled a hacker to encrypt communications while bypassing the generation of the LEAF key. That derailed the entire project and Clipper died in 1996.

Yes, I still have my "Sink Clipper" tee shirt from the RSA Data Security conference from back when they were actually trusted.

Re: buh, bye

[afeeney]

I can't imagine it being feasible for major elections, but it would be great if there were a voting option to say, "None of these candidates." If the majority of voters select that option, the candidates are replaced with a new batch.

Re: buh, bye

[FranTaylor]

REMOVING government obstacles against businesses is libertarian.

tell us more about how it's libertarian to use government power to gain personal freedom

Re: buh, bye

[phantomfive]

My strongest hope in the primaries is that we get no candidates names "Bush" or "Clinton". Enough with the legacies already!

Yes

Bernie seems honest

I was watching a speech by Bernie recently, and he came across as very sincere. It was shocking, actually, because it's such a rare trait in a politician. He doesn't hide what he actually thinks.

Re: buh, bye

[CronoCloud]

Because people are hypocrites. They "say" they want democracy and don't want political families and legacies..... and then they'll elect/appoint the son of an officeholder to his dad's post when he retires.

They really DO want familiarity and a pseudo-aristocracy. For example John McCain considers the Senate Liaison Office position within the Navy's Office of Legislative Affairs to be his first real entry into politics. Do you know how he got that job? His father once held it. And his Father and Grandfather were both Admirals. Any person other than John McCain would have been kicked out of Annapolis or tne Navy years before for all the shit he pulled. But hey, he was a legacy with an Admiral for a father and grandfather.

Best thing we could do is forbid relatives of officeholders from holding the same office, the ban should probably extend to extended family (nieces/nephews/uncles/brothers/sisters/cousins) to the great grand child level.

I'd rather ban relatives from holding ANY elected or appointed office even those in other states/branches of government to try and kill the oligarchy forever, but that's not going to happen.

Re:buh, bye

[CaptainDork]

This.

Hillary has a huge advantage, so far, because there is no mudslinging primary going on for her.

The GOP is a fucking circus and after the the lead clown evaporates, the remainders are not very exciting to listen to.

Hillary appeals to LGBTQ, immigrants, poor, middle class, etc.

She does have baggage and the GOP has leveraged that too soon. As one poster pointed out, the attention span of the public is about two weeks. If she can get past the emails, she's a shoe-in.

She testifies in October about Benghazi, I think, but a bipartisan panel has already cleared her of that.

I want Clinton to win because I support the things she does, and I'd like to see a woman president.

I wouldnot pee down both legs if Bush won, though.

I survived the womanizing Kennedy, the crooks Nixon and Agnew, and the other war-mongering Bushes, so I ain't skeered or stuff.

Re:buh, bye

[Spy Handler]

'm curious, what probability do you estimate that Trump will be the next US President?

As far as Trump actually becoming President, it depends greatly on what happens on the Dem side.

Trump winning GOP nomination is actually quite plausible, I'd put the odds at 60%.

Trump vs. a greatly weakened and scandal plagued Hillary has a good chance to win the Presidency. I would give it 70%. So in this scenario, 60% * 70% = 42% chance of a Trump White House.

If Hillary is arrested or forced out and it's Socialist Sanders vs. Trump, I'd put it at 50/50. That would make it 30% overall for Trump.

Vs. Biden is Trump's worst scenario. Biden is mainstream, has the full backing of Obama, and many establishment (i.e. big business) GOP supporters might prefer him over Trump. I'd say 25% of Trump beating Biden, and 15% overall for Trump.

Re:buh, bye

[Anonymous Coward]

(what movie was that from? doesn't matter.)

Back to the Future.

Re: buh, bye

[SpankiMonki]

No one knows what "Conservative" means anymore. It's a label looking for a constituency. Democrats have as much of a chance as Republicans for taking on that mantle, but they are both so far away. The Dems have a "Socialist" candidate, the Repubs have an off the charts crazy candidate. Isn't democracy grand?

Re: buh, bye

[parkinglot777]

So riddle me this: How are these two still going as strong as they are without the support of the people? How can that even happen?

Here is my simple answer. If you are against them, you will never find out the reason. It is obvious that you aren't looking for the answer from the right place, but rather look from obvious places where you are usually attracted to. ;-)

Re:buh, bye

[Anonymous Coward]

Which extreme-leaning candidates in the general election are you referring to? McCain? Romney? So basically anything that isn't a democrat is extremist... Got it.

Re: buh, bye

[JackieBrown]

We hear this all the time, but after all is said and done, the democrats have always have and spend more money than republicans during elections/

Re:buh, bye

[ItsJustAPseudonym]

Help me remember here. How long has it been that the Republicans have been holding primaries with something approaching two dozen candidates? It seems like a relatively recent phenomenon, like in the last three elections or so.

Re:buh, bye

[davester666]

Stupid houses with their non-transparent walls and curtains for the windows. Why do house-builders hate America?

Re:buh, bye

[JackieBrown]

Really - you see Ted Cruz or Rand Paul more in favor of these restrictions than Hilary?

Re: buh, bye

[lgw]

A race between Bernie and Trump would be spectacular.

Re:buh, bye

[TheNastyInThePasty]

Sounds like the problem is that the vast majority of the general population doesn't pay any attention to politics except for a couple months every 4 years.

Re: buh, bye

[Opportunist]

Back when Eisenhower was president. The last decent president the US had.

Re: buh, bye

[phantomfive]

I have no idea how that would turn out.

My assessment of Trump is more reserved.....he comes across as an actor. It's hard for me to figure out what he really thinks, or what parts of what he says are sincere.

Re:buh, bye

[kheldan]

Could you please be bothered to have the reading comprehension of a 6th grader? I said they all suck, every last candidate from ANY party sucks ass; I don't want to vote for ANY of them. That clear enough for you or do I have to get a bunch of people to do a skit explaining it to you?

Re: buh, bye

[DaMattster]

Bernie Sanders would have my vote.

Re:buh, bye

[Woeful Countenance]

In Like Flint (1967):

[On hearing that the president has been replaced by an impostor.]

Flint: An actor? As president?

Re: buh, bye

[WalksOnDirt]

The Democrat should win in California anyway. If Hillary gets the nomination I'll find some third party to vote for.

Re: buh, bye

[Archangel Michael]

how many people on the left are calling for increased government surveillance?

Depends on what you call surveillance. I see both (D) and (R) increasing government access to personal information, usually under the guise of "children" or "free" (as in beer) or some other scam.

Have you seen what rights you give up if you want to be a truck driver? It is insane! but "Safety!"

Re: buh, bye

[SvnLyrBrto]

You're missing my point. Jeb won't be spending his own money. Others will be spending their money on Jeb's behalf. And Fox News will turn into a months-long continuous campaign advertisement on his behalf, no compensation required. The usual assortment of AM talk radio jockeys will do the same. You can't even place a dollar value on the the last two, as they wouldn't be available to the Democratic candidate at any price.

Re: buh, bye

[Archangel Michael]

Better her than any of the republicans

If you ignore the treason she's being accused of right now.

Re:buh, bye

[Fire_Wraith]

Biden vs Trump would be hilarious, if only for the quotes and misquotes. No matter what you think of them or their politics, they're definitely some of the quickest on the verbal trigger in or around the current presidential race.

Re: buh, bye

[sysrammer]

Maybe. He certainly had the chops.

Re: buh, bye

[lgw]

I have no idea how that would turn out.

Nor do I, but it would surely be a spectacle. With neither side telling pleasing lies, I suspect the political debate would be entertaining at the least.

My assessment of Trump is more reserved.....he comes across as an actor. It's hard for me to figure out what he really thinks, or what parts of what he says are sincere.

He seems to me like Bill Clinton was: quite sincere in what he says, and just as sincere when he says the opposite a few weeks later. (Not an actor but a salesman/pitchman, and the best salesmen always believe what they're saying, but are ... flexible in their beliefs).

Re:buh, bye

[Steve B]

Personally, I hope Trump gets out of the GOP sideshow and starts up his own independent sideshow (blackjack and hookers optional).

Re:buh, bye

[adrn01]

Supreme Court nominations?

Re:buh, bye

[sysrammer]

More or less. I don't like politics; it tends to make me hate Americans. It can become an all-consuming disease, as addictive as any pay-to-win freebie on the internet.

BTW, I like your sig. Let's set up a protocol where I can acknowledge your wit.

Re: buh, bye

[sysrammer]

Really? I thought the R's outspent the D's in trying to oust Obama last election. I remember a few tweets of disgust from the Donald and others, disappointed that the money spent on the election was a huge waste.

Re: buh, bye

[MillionthMonkey]

What treason? The mail server thing again?

Re: buh, bye

[h33t l4x0r]

That money won't kick in until after the primaries. Nobody has the kind of money to spend during the primaries that The Donald has.

Re:buh, bye

[Jeremi]

How long has it been that the Republicans have been holding primaries with something approaching two dozen candidates? It seems like a relatively recent phenomenon, like in the last three elections or so.

I think you can largely attribute that phenomenon to the Citizens United ruling, which effectively allowed billionaires to give as much money to a campaign as they feel like giving. Before that, most candidates had to raise money from many sources, and therefore only the candidates who were widely seen as viable and acceptable could afford to stay in the race. Post-Citizens, any candidate with his own billionaire sugar daddy can now run and keep running for as long as the sugar daddy continues to pay the bills, regardless of what the party would prefer. Hence the large number of candidates.

My prediction is that in another election or three, the novelty of buying your own personal Presidential candidate will wear off, and not so many sugar daddies will be interested in throwing their money away on unlikely campaigns. So the number of candidates will probably go back down again.

Re:buh, bye

[Jeremi]

Primaries have become a curse upon the nation. The people most likely to vote in them are the extremists

A good description of the problem -- are there any realistic proposals for a solution? (The only thing I can think of is doing away with primaries and holding only a general election, but even with a more elegant voting system like e.g. approval voting or range voting, I suspect that the general election would turn into a confusing 27-candidate circus if we did that, and the problems introduced might be as bad as or worse than what we have now)

Re:buh, bye

[ihtoit]

This. Pretty much what I was going to say on a new thread, you saved me the trouble.

Re:buh, bye

[ihtoit]

Back To The Future:

Brown: All right, Future Boy, who's President in 1985?
Marty: [beat] Ronald Reagan.
Brown: Ronald Reagan? The actor?? Ha! Then who's Vice President, Jerry Lewis? I suppose Jane Wyman is the First Lady?
Marty: Whoa, wait. Doc!
Brown: And Jack Benny is Secretary of the Treasury!

Re: buh, bye

[ihtoit]

maybe he could reconcile with Ivana and get that half back...

Re:buh, bye

[skam240]

Trump will flame out sooner or later, he has too.

I thought the same thing at first myself but I'm starting to think that if he hasnt flared out yet it isnt going to happen. This is a very different election then what we've seen in quite some time and i think Trump is tapping into allot of the frustrations people on the Right are having with thier party.

Re:buh, bye

[shutdown -p now]

I want Clinton to win because I support the things she does

You support her vote for Iraq invasion? Or the one for Patriot Act?

If you want the more recent stuff, how about her saying that Glass-Steagall is not worth reinstating? Or her support for the "free trade" treaties that radically expand the forced monopoly that is intellectual property?

I'm also curious, did you support her before when she was adamantly against gay marriage, or do you support her now when she's not only adamantly for it, but refuses to admit that she was wrong before.

Re: buh, bye

[shutdown -p now]

Why can't you imagine it being feasible for major elections? That's exactly how elections work in several countries, up to and including presidential.

Re: buh, bye

[michaelbuddy]

The extremes are never where you want to be. Far right is fascist and far left is communist.

Re:buh, bye

[CaptainDork]

Yes.

Re:buh, bye

[Phoghat]

from your mouth to Dog's ears

Re:buh, bye

[Phoghat]

"We could do worse than Trump.." you could have fooled me

Re:buh, bye

[rocket rancher]

The other reality and I am not sure even Jeb! gets it is that Trump is the best thing that could have happened to him at least as far as the primaries go.

The whole "anchor baby" conversation the other day with him getting testy isn't good. What Jeb! needs to do if he wants to win is stay the hell out of the spot light. Let Trump continue to suck up all the oxygen.

Trump will flame out sooner or later, he has too. Trump is smart guy but the rules of the game are different in politics there is only one Trump, if one of hits bets does not pay off its over. Its not like the world he is accustom to where if one entity goes bankrupt he has ten more pull capital out of and try another new business. Outspoken as he is eventually he will say something people can't get passed in a careless moment.

As long as Trump stays front an center the votes won't hear jack about any of the other candidates. At some point after Trump craters the voters are going to be left with 14 other candidates they have hardly heard of and a name they know "Bush". That will be enough to win a primary. I don't like it but its true.

No, I don't think Trump will flame out. He is saying things that the xenophobic, racist, Evangelical Christian base of the Republican party wants to hear. The GOP helped create the conditions for a Trump-like candidate, starting with the Southern Strategy that put Nixon in the Whitehouse. Fox News helped too, by mainstreaming the same calculated paranoid, racial fear mongering to its audience. Fox News is the most widely watched program in the US, reaching tens of millions of voters every fucking night. So, no, the Donald is not going to flame out. In fact, the rest of the clown car that is the GOP nomination race are falling over themselves to move to Trump's right. Attacking the 14th Amendment seems to be the current tactic -- two-thirds of the GOP nominees are promising to end jus soli, which is the source of all the "anchor baby" angst that Trump is currently capitalizing on.

Re: buh, bye

[H0p313ss]

Sadly, no nation has ever achieved a true communist state, it would be refreshing.

Re:buh, bye

[RyoShin]

I think a large problem with primaries is that, in most states, you have to be registered with the party before you can take part in their primary. Sure, you can game this by switching registration before and after, but it's still very limiting. The POTUS would be more representative if the primaries were not allowed to do that. Sure, it means that one side can try to vote for a joke candidate to make it easier that their own candidate wins the office, but it also means that "honest" voters can pick a candidate from the other side that they would be most likely to support (or least likely to oppose, anyway.) If that person does get into the office, it's still involvement from more of the population in doing so, which might help fight the "us vs them" mentality in US politics.

Of course, the Democrats and Republicans both bank heavily on that very "us vs. them" mentality to rally their base, so I wouldn't expect change in the primaries, electorate college, or first-past-the-post voting short of a revolution (political or physical.)

Re: buh, bye

[mattwarden]

You are very, very confused. You are taking personal net worth numbers and suggesting that has some impact on campaign spending. What matters is money raised directly and money raised by various PACs that support Trump vs. Jeb. Jeb is way ahead of Trump and everyone else.

Is Donald going to liquidate $1b (10%!) of his assets, write a check to his campaign, and spend it to make up the gap? And if so when is he going to start doing that? Because Jeb's contributions are liquid and are already being put to work.

I would just caution that it seems like you have a fundamental misunderstanding of money in campaigns.

Re: buh, bye

[mattwarden]

You are mostly right, except for your last sentence. If Trump's net worth is $10b, he could liquidate a portion of that and swamp anyone. Even the most recent presidential campaigns, which have been absurd in spending, are around $1b per side the entire cycle, including everything (campaign, party, PACs, etc.).

Re: buh, bye

[mattwarden]

You hear both things because people play with whatever number they want to use. The D's outspent R's when considering candidate campaign dollars and party dollars. But when you include outside money (e.g., PACs), R's outspend D's. This is due in no small part to the decline of unions, which would generally counter R outside money.

Re: buh, bye

[mattwarden]

you are just talking about hard money contributions. early primary states have been blanketed with campaign ads for a while now.

Re: buh, bye

[mattwarden]

saying the extreme of anything is bad is arbitrary thinking. the extreme right is just as likely to be "correct" as the dead center middle. and in the real world, most moderates are generally people who form their opinions based on social pressures rather than thought, resulting in an internally inconsistent ideology. the explosion of "no labels", "moderate", "center", "not a democrat nor republican", "independent", and even "libertarian" is the result of people attempting to disassociate themselves from damaged brands (republican and democrat, conservative and liberal). the brands are damaged each election cycle, and the move to no labels is purely to avoid association with them.

people are as different as they have always been. 100 years ago they were just as unlikely to fit into two political buckets. the difference now and the reason for the rapid rise in "independents" is simply brand related.

He is not a Republican

[Bodhammer]

Jebby is a a RINO a best and most likely a New World Order statist.
I wouldn't piss on him if he was on fire...

Re:He is not a Republican

[Anonymous Coward]

As a Recovering Republican, I have to agree with you. I used to call scum like this "RINO," until I realized that it was actually ME, and other people who gave a whoop about freedom who were the "RINOs," and the Jeb Bushes of the world are the real Republicans.

Re:He is not a Republican

[FranTaylor]

Can you please define what you would consider as a "Republican":

if you call yourself a republican, you're a republican

if you are a registered republican, you're a republican

it's not like a birthright or a club, it's just a box you check on a form

Re:He is not a Republican

[buddyglass]

He's not a true Scotsman either. At some point you have to come to terms with the fact that "True Republican" may not mean what you like for it to mean.

Re:He is not a Republican

[tom229]

As a non-usian I can honestly say the term makes a lot more sense than democrat. Not only *is* the US a republic, but besides having a democratically elected republic, it's not a real democracy. And, rightfully so. A true democracy would be terrible. After all, a democracy can be two wolf and a sheep deciding what to have for supper.

To put "the republicans" more in line with what every other country in the world calls that party: they are conservative. Conservatives, free from corruption, are for small government. They prioritize tradition over progressive ideas, saving over spending, and the free market over social bureaucracy.

The world needs more conservatism. The problem is that a proclivity towards private enterprise makes them easy targets for corruption. This is precisely why we need to keep the government's impact and their ability to monetize self interest as small as possible. The US (and others) political system has done a terrible job of this so far. A good start would be to remove corporate contributions to political campaigns.

Re:He is not a Republican

[Gr8Apes]

To put "the republicans" more in line with what every other country in the world calls that party: they are conservative. Conservatives, free from corruption, are for small government. They prioritize tradition over progressive ideas, saving over spending, and the free market over social bureaucracy.

Well, then these are not conservatives. They're not even quite social conservatives. They're more like the US christian (im)moral conservatives, if you really want to pin them down.

The world needs more fiscal conservatism. ... A good start would be to remove corporate contributions to political campaigns.

Actually, start by removing party affiliation from the ballot. Do that first. That will mean people will actually have to know who they're voting for instead of pulling the red or blue handle blindly. How that was ever considered constitutional (government support of parties) amazes me even today.

Re:He is not a Republican

[tom229]

I couldn't agree more. I call them gangs; because that's what they are. Political parties are nothing more than a slight evolution of the same social structures formed by chimpanzees. A constituent from my area should not be pressured to align with the broad ideals that happen to go against the "enemies" of our larger area. There's no wonder the western political system simply seems broken. The real wonder is why the people haven't become disillusioned enough to seek reform. Charismatic politicians like Obama seem like they can provide the answer in good faith, but they can't, and the illusion that democratic election has any power under the current structure persists. If you need to fix a structure of any kind you start with the foundation. Anything else is patchwork.

Re:He is not a Republican

[phantomfive]

Not only *is* the US a republic, but besides having a democratically elected republic, it's not a real democracy.

A representative republic (like the US, and every other liberal democracy) is a true democracy. Lear what words mean.

Re:He is not a Republican

[Bodhammer]

They prioritize tradition over progressive ideas, .

I agree with what you say - I would change the above from "tradition" to "US Constitution" here in the US. I also think that the last 20 years have taught us that there is plenty of corruption irregardless of so-called "party affiliation". With 40,000+ lobbyists in Washington DC and only 535 congresscritters, odds are your "representatives" are corrupt.

Re:He is not a Republican

[ItsJustAPseudonym]

A good start would be to remove corporate contributions to political campaigns.

Crap. Now I'm seriously getting wistful. If only we could fix that one.

Re:He is not a Republican

[Darinbob]

"RINO" is a code word that means the user is incapable of independent thought and is just another partisan hack.

Re:He is not a Republican

[Darinbob]

Today's Republicans are heavily influenced by the southern Democrats from 50 years ago, who up and swapped parties over night once the Democratic Party decided to be against segregation.

But that's politics when it's treated as a sports contest. Yankees in bed with Confederates to create a voting bloc stopping the other side. The point is no longer to stake out a consistent and well defined political stance, the point isn't even to try to improve the country and provide good governance. Instead the goal has become to divide every single issue into one of two camps, Us versus Them. If a new issue arises then it is split between the parties and every politician is told how they will think about the issue and what the talking points will be. If you want to know if you are pro-Mars-Colonizaton or anti-Mars-Colonization then you have to ask your politial party how to think. If one side or the other starts to gain the upper hand then the battle lines are redrawn to maintain the 50/50 split.

There really isn't anything like a "real" Republican or Democrat anymore.

Re:He is not a Republican

[Darinbob]

The names of the parties are irrelevant. They were invented over a hundred years ago but the parties themselves change their faces every decade.
The first major parties were the Federalist Party and the Democrat-Republican Party.

In reality there have been only a few major political splits. Federalist vs Anti-Federalist, which could roughly be defined as strong central government, fiscally at least, versus reduced federal power and a looser coalition of states. There was another divide, the slave states versus non slave states. Over time these two divides aligned themselves a bit, as slave states became worried about excessive federal power. A third divide arose over time, present all over the world too, was industry versus agriculture, or cities versus rural. This also aligned with agrarian slave states versus more industrialized northern states. Politics meant this all aligned into a big north versus south, with strange bedfellows all over.

We desparately need multiple parties in which there is a struggle to find a government coalition. What we have instead is each party is composed of multiple factions who then struggle to lay out their platform during the party primaries, but that leaves no room for anyone who isn't really behind either platform. You can't be pro-gun and pro-union at the same time in the US and find a welcoming political party.

Re:He is not a Republican

[dryeo]

There's one democracy in the world by your standard, and they've done pretty good for themselves, namely Switzerland.

Re:He is not a Republican

[tom229]

The world needs more conservatism

I'd like to expand on this for clarification. I don't think the world *always* needs more conservatism. I'm not a card carrying conservative. I am a swing voter. For example, during the civil rights movement and abolition of slavery progressive ideas, social programs, and liberal thinking were needed. But right now, I think we need the opposite. We need to get back to basics, shrink the impact of the government, critically analyse and evaluate broken social programs, and exercise fiscal conservatism. However, at the same time we need progressive reform of long in place political and financial policy. The democrats were supposed to do this in the last 8 years. They didn't. It would seem no one can. In which case I think it's prudent to neuter these corrupt and ineffective institutions as much as possible.

Privacy is a civil liberty, Jeb

[MacDork]

If you create encryption, it makes it harder for the American government to do its job -- while protecting civil liberties -- to make sure that evildoers arenâ(TM)t in our midst

That sounds like a threat... "If you make encryption, we won't bother with protecting civil liberties any more."

Re:Privacy is a civil liberty, Jeb

[Gunfighter]

I think we should establish privacy as a Constitutionally protected right under the 9th Amendment.

Re:Privacy is a civil liberty, Jeb

[Fire_Wraith]

"Those are some very nice civil liberties you have there. It would be a shame if anything were to 'happen' to them."

Re:Privacy is a civil liberty, Jeb

[Jason Levine]

No, civil liberties are like mint in box collectibles. Only when the federal government puts your civil liberties securely away in a place where you can't use them can it truly protect them!

Re:Privacy is a civil liberty, Jeb

[OhPlz]

You're fighting the wrong battle. Adding amendments isn't going to help, the government doesn't obey the ones that we already have.

Re:Privacy is a civil liberty, Jeb

[bobbied]

You're fighting the wrong battle. Adding amendments isn't going to help, the government doesn't obey the ones that we already have.

How true... We are ignoring a number of "inconvenient" amendments now..

Re:Privacy is a civil liberty, Jeb

[FranTaylor]

I think we should establish privacy as a Constitutionally protected right under the 9th Amendment.

it would an awful lot easier if the supreme court declared that your "effects" include your personal data, in which case we already have an amendment for that.

Re:Privacy is a civil liberty, Jeb

[Opportunist]

I doubt any politician will be bothered with you adding another amendment to the list. Whether there's one more to ignore, who cares?

Re:Privacy is a civil liberty, Jeb

[Opportunist]

Liberties and rights that can be taken away are neither. They are privileges. Not rights.

The very nature of rights is that they CANNOT be taken away by some entity, government or else, just because it doesn't suit them.

Re:Privacy is a civil liberty, Jeb

[FranTaylor]

The very nature of rights is that they CANNOT be taken away by some entity, government or else, just because it doesn't suit them.

this would be news to people who have been unjustly imprisoned, maybe they just need an attitude adjustment?

Re:Privacy is a civil liberty, Jeb

[Opportunist]

Again, if their "rights" have been removed, they did not have rights. What can be taken from you ad lib because it doesn't suit someone in power is not a right. It's a privilege, granted to you until, and only until, it does not fit into the plan of someone who can take it from you.

Rights work a bit like an insurance. Whether they function and work out is something you won't really know 'til you need it.

Re:Privacy is a civil liberty, Jeb

[fustakrakich]

Who's gonna notice? We aren't using them anyway.

Re:Privacy is a civil liberty, Jeb

[RabidReindeer]

Rights may not be removed, but they sure as heck can be denied.

The USA declares that all men have the inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. However, the US government (among other authorities within the nation) has been known to remove life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness from countless individuals through various means and for various reasons (of greater or lesser justification).

English being what it is, we call that form of denial "taking away someone's rights".

Re:Privacy is a civil liberty, Jeb

[amicusNYCL]

That sounds like a threat... "If you make encryption, we won't bother with protecting civil liberties any more."

"Any more?" Cute sentiment.

Re:Privacy is a civil liberty, Jeb

[Jason Levine]

I was hoping my statement would be outrageous enough that people would know I was joking. Sadly, I guess too many people actually hold that viewpoint so it can be hard to tell when one is joking and one is serious.

Re:Privacy is a civil liberty, Jeb

[NatasRevol]

One?

Which one?

The one working for the Nazis? Prescott
The one working for the CIA? H.W.
The one working for the oil companies? Junior

Re:Privacy is a civil liberty, Jeb

[dryeo]

OMG don't they teach ANYTHING in school nowadays? Sheesh.

"Amendment IV" to the United States Constitution (the document that establishes our government):

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

The flaw in the 4th is the word "unreasonable" as anything can be argued as reasonable so searching everything to stop "evil" is reasonable to many.

$$money$$

[Anonymous Coward]

It's easy for Jeb to call for more privacy invasion when he has the money to evade any sort of personal consequences of this.

Re:$$money$$

[Opportunist]

That can be said about any candidate, and anything they push for.

in other words

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't want to get elected but am doing this because they are making me

Such a time savings

[DesertBlade]

This makes it so much easier for me. I can now just store Passwords, Credit Card Numbers, and PI in plain text.

Re:Such a time savings

[cdrudge]

Don't forget the cost savings too! No more need for ssl certs, developing secure infrastructure, DRM...

Re:Such a time savings

[Noah Haders]

I always store PI in plain text, preferably out to 100 digits. which I know by hear!

Re:Such a time savings

[DesertBlade]

DRM is needed still. Someone has to pay politicians.

Re:Such a time savings

[cdrudge]

Well I welcome a future with lots of encryption-free DRM.

Re:Such a time savings

[colordev]

Yes and I can now use your message as a lame excuse for posting these hash-strings. Thanks :)

MD5:67605fb300b7cbf964e2de91831eebb8
SHA1:8e3b0e953be18f4d7fdc8e8b33bb8b9e76521106
SHA256:f4494ce3b4267b6d5f9371188a861e95f95835db23f8038d8b40961a3ab5afc2

Re:Such a time savings

[dryeo]

There will still be legal encryption such as ROT13 and if you break it or even talk about it, to circumvent DRM, it's life in jail.

He lost my vote

[mrlinux11]

I would vote for Donald Trump before voting for Jeb based on this issue.

Re:He lost my vote

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd vote for Jared Fogle first.

Re:He lost my vote

[bobbied]

I'd vote for Jared Fogle first.

Daz Nutz... Oh wait.. Wrong party..

Re:He lost my vote

[pla]

I would vote for Donald Trump before voting for Jeb based on this issue.

I would vote for Don before Jeb for a lot of reasons. In fact, of the current Republican slate, I'd pretty much vote for Trump over all of them, because I consider him "mostly harmless" by comparison. I'd like to say I prefer Rand, but Rand has that whole "religiot" angle going that I just can't tolerate.

Sadly enough, as a fiscal conservative (and social liberal), I'd actually call Sanders my candidate of choice so far. Yep - The self-proclaimed socialist shows more fiscal responsibility than all 38 GOPpers running.

And they wonder why people don't show more interest in our elections...

Re:He lost my vote

[Opportunist]

Me too.

But then again, I'd vote for my dog rather than voting for Trump, so it doesn't really say THAT much.

Re:He lost my vote

[mrlinux11]

Yeah Trump does not set the bar very high. I am thinking of Voting for "NONE OF THE ABOVE" or write myself in.

Re:He lost my vote

[fustakrakich]

I consider him "mostly harmless" by comparison.

Yeah, about 90 years ago, many Europeans were saying the same thing about another crazy person. Boy, were they embarrassed!

Re:He lost my vote

[pla]

I'll take a risk of getting cancer over a guarantee of it.

Re:He lost my vote

[fustakrakich]

With him, you'll get the best guarantee, in big bold letters. It's everything the party wants, and more.

Re:He lost my vote

[tacokill]

Advocating a 90% tax rate is fiscally responsible? Hmmm. Ok, you go first.

Re:He lost my vote

[phantomfive]

Yep - The self-proclaimed socialist shows more fiscal responsibility than all 38 GOPpers [slashdot.org] running.

FYI your link is broken.

Re:He lost my vote

[DroolTwist]

And they wonder why people don't show more interest in our elections...

What elections?

Re:He lost my vote

[meglon]

http://mic.com/articles/119630...

Considering the growth we had during the late 40's and 50's, that 90% top marginal tax rate certainly didn't hurt then, and in fact, helped to pay down a lot of debt we had from WWII.

What is fiscally irresponsible is bottoming out taxes while exploding the national debt, like Reagan and Bush II did. People like to bring up the whole "balanced budget" thing on occasion, and in a sense i agree with it... but those people that do are being disingenuous at best. We could balance the budget in two years with a simple constitutional amendment that says "we WILL bring in the revenue to pay for ALL of governments expenses, or the rates will automatically be adjusted to do that. Period, no exceptions." The problem we have is a whole generation who are selfish, greedy, anti-American piss-ants who prefer to act like petulant children instead of living up to the social contract of continuing to invest in future generations, and those people have been leeching everything ever generation before them invested since the 1980's.

Then again, by the way you wrote that... leaving out the "top marginal rate" part... i have to assume you either do not understand history, or what Sanders said.... or that you're just being deceptive to get people to agree with you.

Re:He lost my vote

[pla]

Advocating a 90% tax rate is fiscally responsible?

First of all, you need to learn the difference between marginal and average tax rates.

Second - Yes. Not spending more than you make counts as rule #1 of fiscal responsibility. I disapprove of the vast majority of government spending and would far prefer we balance the budget through cuts; but as long as neither the Republicans nor the Democrats can refrain from writing rubber checks, we'd damned well better back them with something other than green ink.

That said - We last saw a top marginal rate of 91% from 1946 through 1963. Y'know, the post-WWII era, the "baby boom", one of the most prosperous eras in US history for the lower and middle classes? I don't normally go for rose-tinted glasses, but tough to see much but pink about that (unless you can't see anything through all the green).


Hmmm. Ok, you go first.

As soon as I make over $1,766,000 per year (the inflation adjusted 90% bracket floor in 1946), yes, I will gladly pay 90% of anything over that.

Re:He lost my vote

[ancientt]

That phrase, "mostly harmless" rings a bell.

It was for the sake of this day that he had first decided to run for the Presidency, a decision which had sent waves of astonishment throughout the Imperial Galaxy -- Zaphod Beeblebrox? President? Not the Zaphod Beeblebrox? Not the President? Many had seen it as a clinching proof that the whole of known creation had finally gone bananas. ... The President is always a controversial choice, always an infuriating but fascinating character. His job is not to wield power but to draw attention away from it.

Re:He lost my vote

[goose-incarnated]

I consider him "mostly harmless" by comparison.

Yeah, about 90 years ago, many Europeans were saying the same thing about another crazy person. Boy, were they embarrassed!

And since then, it was said millions of times about millions of other crazy people, and those proclamations were correct. Are you really that afraid of odds smaller than getting struck by lightning?

Re:He lost my vote

[drew870mitchell]

Sanders and most other serious socialists are more fiscally responsible than the average Republican because they actually care about the condition that the government is in after they're through with it.

Re:He lost my vote

[fustakrakich]

And since then, it was said millions of times about millions of other crazy people...

Well then, I guess we're due for another strike by now, aren't we? We've been at peace way too long. I always get a little scared when there are signs this crap gets taken seriously. Once the manure cart tips, it can leave a big mess.

I really will enjoy seeing him run as an indie against Bush and Clinton. So nostalgic... Another Bush, beat by a flashy billionaire that is really the democrats hired mercenary. How much more money is going their way? And after that, ratings ratings ratings. It's magic...

Re:He lost my vote

[shutdown -p now]

As soon as I make over $1,766,000 per year (the inflation adjusted 90% bracket floor in 1946), yes, I will gladly pay 90% of anything over that.

Not to forget that we're talking about personal income here - wages and such. If you're making more than $1.7 million, you're almost certainly getting most of it from capital gains instead, and those were taxed at what, flat 25% then; and 20% at most now?

Re:He lost my vote

[Opportunist]

I'm actually pretty sure if "none of the above" was an option, that option would win in a landslide.

How do people not understand

[Glarimore]

Collecting "meta-data" (really just data) about the context of people's phone calls is no different than collecting information on what library books people are checking out (which IS protected).

It's a serious invasion of privacy.

Is there a candidate who understands this?

Re:How do people not understand

[Lennie]

Bruce Scheier said it best:

Metadata Equals Surveillance
https://www.schneier.com/blog/...

Re:How do people not understand

[bill_mcgonigle]

Rand understands it.

And Vermin too, but good luck getting him to stop talking about dental hygiene and time travel.

One presumes whichever candidate the LP stands up will get it too.

But, hey, America gets the government it deserves.

Re:How do people not understand

[CanadianMacFan]

Yes, but encryption isn't going to help you keep the meta data private. It will only let you keep the contents of the message private (or at least help keep it private). If you call someone and speak in code then nobody else will know what the two of you are talking about but the phone company will still have the meta data about the call (the number you called, the number you called from, start time, call duration, etc).

One More Reason

[hduff]

Besides being an asshat in general, this is one more reason not to vote for him.

Which other candidates share this view?

Re:One More Reason

[Noah Haders]

just the republicans and democrats too. I'm voting for Rand!

Re:One More Reason

[Austerity Empowers]

As far as I know they all do, if you are an exec you want absolute power. The only real hope here is congress and the supreme court.

Re:One More Reason

[FranTaylor]

just the republicans and democrats too. I'm voting for Rand!

hey if you can't win the election fair and square, just buy yourself a new one

Re:One More Reason

[Macdude]

Which other candidates share this view?
All of them. That's the problem. Jeb was just stupid enough to say it out loud.

Re:One More Reason

[Mantrid42]

Nope.

“As someone who voted against the Patriot Act and opposed its reauthorization, I have long been concerned about out-of-control intelligence agencies.

“At a time when the American people are outraged by government attacks on our constitutional rights, the president’s proposal is a step forward. We must, however, go further. Ending the bulk collection of phone records of virtually all Americans – 99.999 percent of whom have nothing to do with terrorism – is important. The president should end that program now, not 90 days from now. We also must also make sure that the government isn’t harvesting records on our emails and other Internet activity except in instances where there are specific reasons to suspect wrongdoing.

“Our intelligence and law enforcement agencies must be given the tools they need to protect us, but that can be done in a way that does not sacrifice our constitutional rights. If we allow the government to see all of what we read, what we watch and what we hear, then we cannot be called a free society.”

http://www.sanders.senate.gov/...

Jeb steps in it again

[erp_consultant]

It seems like every time this guy opens his mouth he makes another mistake. Trump is right about one thing - Bush is a low energy candidate. This guy looks like he has been dragged kicking and screaming into this campaign. He has little interest and fewer ideas. Anyone that is against encryption and in favor of expanding the Patriot Act won't get my vote. Time to hang it up Jeb.

Re:Jeb steps in it again

[Foobar of Borg]

I can just see a news article in the near future: "Hitler! Boy, do we need him now!" - Jeb Bush

Re:Jeb steps in it again

[haruchai]

Just this week, Rachel Maddow made that point about Jeb, just how bad he's at running for President - a 2-term Governor of the most important swing state with 2 Presidents in his immediate family.

Whether or not he becomes the nominee or POTUS, I predict it won't be long before we start referring to Dubya as the smarter Bush brother.

Fuck you Jeb!

[Desler]

Well this is historic. For once, a presidential campaign has a candidate specifically for identity thieves and credit card fraudsters.

Re:He has a point

[acoustix]

The 4th amendment still applies regardless of your stance on privacy.

Sure, who's not against encryption?

[RevWaldo]

When comes out against all this nonsense with passwords and door locks, then he gets my vote!

.

Jeb Bush?!

[fustakrakich]

Is anybody here really considering voting for him? Or any other republican or democrat? Seriously? We're doomed! Doooomed!

C'mon folks! Get it together here...We still have over a year to find something a bit more acceptable, *a blender, anything*...

Re:Jeb Bush?!

[SecurityGuy]

This field of candidates truly is the worst I've ever seen.

Re:Jeb Bush?!

[Lunix Nutcase]

People used to say the exact same thing about his brother.

Re:Jeb Bush?!

[Foobar of Borg]

Is anybody here really considering voting for him? Or any other republican or democrat? Seriously? We're doomed! Doooomed!

C'mon folks! Get it together here...We still have over a year to find something a bit more acceptable, *a blender, anything*...

This reminds me of what Fry and Laurie suggested to replace Margaret Thatcher.

Re:Jeb Bush?!

[fustakrakich]

That's what is scary. People actually do vote for them! They actually want this bullshit, in the false hope there's something in it for them.

Re:Jeb Bush?!

[fustakrakich]

Actually my post was a ripoff from 1972 Nation Lampoon, Radio Dinner(?):

Anything but Nixon, man! A blender, anything!

And you know, it just doesn't matter how bad these people are. They still win by landslides. Our friend Trump has a real chance. Dog help us!

Re:Jeb Bush?!

[bobbied]

With 17 serious potential candidates on the Republican side and 3 on the democratic side you still say that? 20 isn't enough choice for you? Dang man, what DO you want here?

Re:Jeb Bush?!

[fustakrakich]

You could have a thousand. It doesn't matter when they are all cut from the same cloth, taking money from and serving the same people. The major parties are completely and utterly compromised. It time to turn our backs.

Re:Jeb Bush?!

[bobbied]

Your choice, but consider this...

If you don't vote, you cannot complain when those elected don't reflect your views.

BTW... I believe that it is this exact attitude that has Trump on top of the polls... He's seen as the "outsider" anti-PC brash talking guy and there is some appeal in that. That should scare everybody...

Re:Jeb Bush?!

[fustakrakich]

If you don't vote...

Damn! Now you're playing the same stupid game a couple of others are trying on me. I see nothing that requires that I vote for your ruling party (both factions). There are other options right there on the ballot. You can choose to ignore them as you wish, but don't go accusing people of not 'participating' when they decide to use those options. If you wish to continue in this fashion, the only suggestion left is, *Fuck off!* I say that in the nicest way, advocating that you save your breath, and that you go find somebody that believes that crap. I'm sure there's plenty out there.

Re:Jeb Bush?!

[bobbied]

THEN... Go advocate for the people you like... But I'll warn you, just thumbing your nose at the whole system is a good part of the problem we have today.. Too many have just accepted that corruption and politics go hand in hand. This needn't be true, and wouldn't be if the average person actually cared enough to hold their elected representatives to account.

Re:Jeb Bush?!

[fustakrakich]

You did it again! I'm not thumbing my nose at the system! Yet... I'm thumbing my nose at the greedy idiots who continue to reelect the crooks into office, looking for a piece of the action. You needn't lecture me on what's going on.

Re:Jeb Bush?!

[bobbied]

Ok.. As long as you are committed to *legal* means of fixing this AND you intend to exercise your right to vote, do what you want...

IMHO, I would urge you to consider what might be the shortest path to your goal though. Third party/Independent candidates are not going to be viable at the national level no matter how much you wish it to happen. It is this practicality that has driven the TEA party to attempt to work within the republican party, an attempt that may actually succeed in reigning in the abuses without having to spend decades trying to build a party, splitting the vote and guaranteeing the wrong kind of people are in power.

Re:Jeb Bush?!

[fustakrakich]

Defeatist! Then me then, if it's so bad, then what is the point of voting at all? Or am I to be condemned for not playing along? The wrong people are already in power. What is your point?

Re:Jeb Bush?!

[fustakrakich]

Sorry, I meant Tell me then...

Re:Jeb Bush?!

[SecurityGuy]

Just one good one.

Ashley Madison poll

[geggam]

Ask those folks in Ashley Madison dump how they feel about encryption

Re:Ashley Madison poll

[FranTaylor]

Ask those folks in Ashley Madison dump how they feel about encryption

ask folks with no empathy how they feel, yeah that's the ticket

Re:Ashley Madison poll

[Anonymous Coward]

I would argue that they have lots of empathy. They keep their extra-marital action out of sight out of mind. In the good old days, mistresses were part of the fabric of society.

Re:Ashley Madison poll

[phantomfive]

ask folks with no empathy how they feel,

They have empathy: they realize their wives hate them.

THIS JUST IN...

[Revarg]

... The Internet comes out against Jeb Bush.

I appreciate his honesty

[bjdevil66]

As a Republican, his views on encryption and the Patriot Act are not reconciliable with mine. I can scratch him off the ridiculously long list.

What that said, it's pretty hard to get any politician not named Donald to truly speak his mind. Thanks, Gov...

Re:I appreciate his honesty

[Nidi62]

What that said, it's pretty hard to get any politician not named Donald to truly speak his mind. Thanks, Gov...

You think Trump is speaking his mind? He's not. He's telling people exactly what they want to hear and they are eating it up. He is tapping into the frustration against the establishment. He tried it with the birther movement the last time but that "controversy" was so ridiculous and contrived that there was no way he could ride it. But now he's found something with much broader appeal.

Re: What about Hillary?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hillary Clinton is for running your own private mail server, making her the most intelligent candidate for the office.

She has my vote.

So, I guess he's against on-line banking

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiot

"Evildoer"? Seriously?

[sjbe]

"If you create encryption, it makes it harder for the American government to do its job — while protecting civil liberties — to make sure that evildoers aren't in our midst."

I will never vote for someone who uses the word "evildoer". The last guy to use it in office didn't work out so well...

And I don't give a shit that it is hard(er) for the US government to step on my throat. We have restrictions on the government because the government has proven time and again that it cannot be entirely trusted. If they have to work a little harder I don't care at all. The Bad Guys aren't going to use weak encryption (unless they are stupid) and there is no reasonable argument that can be made that I shouldn't have access to it either. Bad encryption is effectively the same as no encryption and no encryption is unacceptable when using modern technology.

He also indicated he felt the recent scaling back of the Patriot Act went too far. Bush says he hasn't seen any indication the bulk collection of phone metadata violated anyone's civil liberties.

Then he is just as much of an imbecile as his brother. Jeb clearly has the same moral deficits as George. Trump may be a clown but apparently Jeb is much more dangerous.

I postulate the following hypothesis

[prefec2]

X \in Candidate and X \in Republican => isNuts(X) = true

Re:I postulate the following hypothesis

[Anonymous Coward]

I propose the slightly stronger statement:
X \in Politician => isNuts(X) = true

Re:He has a point

[Falos]

>implying you'll be safe from terrorists

Well, now I'm confused

[haruchai]

So are Clinton & Obama evil or not?
And what about the big, bad government?
Ah, to hell with all these posers, the most deserving is the guy who's been consistent all along anyway.

SANDERS 2016!!

Re:Well, now I'm confused

[bobbied]

SANDERS 2016!!

We can only hope.... Unless he takes a hard right turn after the Hill's exit, the general election will be a land slide, just not in his direction.

However, unless they arrest Hillary or she kicks the bucket between now and the convention, Sanders has a snowballs chance of beating the Clinton election machine once they start spending their money this winter..

Re:Well, now I'm confused

[AntronArgaiv]

SANDERS 2016!!

Trump/Palin! // Bristol -- for the youth vote

Re:Well, now I'm confused

[Nidi62]

Is it too much to hope Jon Stewart runs? At least he actually seems to care about the country and isn't as crazy as Sanders.

Re:Well, now I'm confused

[phantomfive]

So are Clinton & Obama evil or not?

No. At the worst they are paranoid and incompetent. They are both trying to move America forward, though.

And what about the big, bad government?

Bush is an establishment man, he likes the government. Sometime check out how much spending went up under his brother.

Ah, to hell with all these posers,

Agree.

the most deserving is the guy who's been consistent all along anyway.

The most deserving is the one who will do the best job. Most people would rather have a flip-flopper who does what they want, rather than a consistent person who does what they don't want.

Re:Well, now I'm confused

[haruchai]

Sanders is about par with 3 of the 4 leaders vying to be Canadian prime minister in a few months and they have a pretty nice country.
Even their current rightwing leader is to the left of Obama, the "most radical socialist POTUS" ever.

Re:Well, now I'm confused

[haruchai]

" Sometime check out how much spending went up under his brother.

No need to pick on Dubya, spending goes up under almost every president, whether Donkey or Elephant.
The only difference is what they choose to increase spending on and the level of hypocrisy.

The trouble with electing a flip-flopper is once he's in power, he does what his REAL bosses want and that has never been the unwashed electorate.

There's a nice, cosy padded cell for this guy...

[flightmaker]

at the Fletcher Memorial Home.

Cut from the same cloth

[sjbe]

Which other candidates share this view?

Once they get into office it seems like most of them... They want whatever makes their life easiest and your civil rights can be damned.

And another clueless one

[gweihir]

Why can politicians not shut up about things they do not understand? Obsessive-compulsion disorder?

Re:And another clueless one

[Lunix Nutcase]

Diarrhea of the mouth syndrome.

Re:And another clueless one

[bobbied]

Why can politicians not shut up about things they do not understand? Obsessive-compulsion disorder?

No it's not OCD, it's called being a narcissist, which is a common problem with politicians..

Re:And another clueless one

[cmdr_klarg]

Why can politicians not shut up about things they do not understand? Obsessive-compulsion disorder?

Foot in mouth disease.

Re:And another clueless one

[GumphMaster]

To quote Stephen Fry, "It is complete loose stool water. It is arse-gravy of the worst kind."

Re:And another clueless one

[gweihir]

Nice one!

Bad timing ...

[techstar25]

There are (reportedly) 10,000 govt employees in the Ashley Madison hack that would probably disagree with you, Jeb.

Re:Bad timing ...

[Applehu Akbar]

"There are (reportedly) 10,000 govt employees in the Ashley Madison hack that would probably disagree with you, Jeb"

Especially the major player formerly posting as wjc@whitehouse.gov .

Re:Bad timing ...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's amazing to me that the press and other so-called experts on governmental surveillance haven't pointed out that the kind of information released by the Ashley Madison dump is the kind of information that is scooped up by the bulk surveillance of the NSA, or is hacked by foreign government intelligence services.

Re:He has a point

[Noah Haders]

actually, several justices have said basically this. given the power of modern technology, it's time to re-evaluate the scope of the 4th amendment.

Re:He has a point

[acoustix]

>implying you'll be safe from terrorists

Correct. Plus there's nothing stopping people from creating their own communication software, protocols or encryption that would bypass whatever is being backdoored by the government.

Re:He has a point

[Lunix Nutcase]

Plus this would provide a huge economic boom to criminals now that the barriers to entry would be lowered. Maybe that's how he was planning to increase GDP growth?

ADOLPH HITLER NOW!!

[Foobar of Borg]

Just skip straight to the election to get rid of Hindenberg and Schleicher all at once. Hell, the economy is so bad, and the Mark so worthless, I'll take ANYONE over those two clowns!

Re:ADOLPH HITLER NOW!!

[bobbied]

Nice dig....

I wonder how many people get this... Although, I disagree with your point. I think the bad intolerant people are on the left this time..

Re:ADOLPH HITLER NOW!!

[Foobar of Borg]

Nice dig....

I wonder how many people get this... Although, I disagree with your point. I think the bad intolerant people are on the left this time..

I didn't realize I was only talking about the right. I think bad, intolerant people are well entrenched on both sides.

Re:ADOLPH HITLER NOW!!

[Opportunist]

What left? There is now a left in the US? When did that happen?

Re:ADOLPH HITLER NOW!!

[amicusNYCL]

Oh, the humanity?

Re:ADOLPH HITLER NOW!!

[Gr8Apes]

if only there were more than one side.

Re:ADOLPH HITLER NOW!!

[phantomfive]

I think the bad intolerant people are on the left this time..

Why?

Re:He has a point

[Lunix Nutcase]

Yes, it is. We should be even more strict in what the 4th Amendment covers. Fuck Jeb Bush and his ilk.

Bush, shut your pie hole if you don't know shit

[Opportunist]

Sorry, but there is no polite way to say it. Shut the fuck up if you don't have the foggiest clue what you're talking about.

Lowering the encryption standard not only would make it easier for law enforcement to break the encryption of bad guys, it would also make it easier for bad guys to break into the secrets that do actually ensure your national security. And no, making some security services and three letter goons exempt from it won't change shit. There are still companies, government agencies and other entities that have to rely on secure encryption to ensure the security of the state you would swear to protect if (god forbid) you ever got to take the helm.

There is also no such thing as a government-only backdoor. Such a thing would be like wanting a "secret" door in your house (complete with "secret door, do not enter" sign), secured with a padlock, where opening the door also immediately disengages all security alarms you might have (so the potential "bad guy" won't notice when government uses the supersecret government-only door). If you can't see just why this is a BAD idea, you should throw in the towel. And I don't mean in the presidential election, I mean in life.

I have some plaintext for Jeb

[Applehu Akbar]

Thanks for the update. That's another candidate scratched off my list.

Re:He has a point

[Foobar of Borg]

Privacy is an outdated concept. It is a low price to pay for safety from terrorists.

Says the Anonymous Coward! Perhaps you should check out this concept.

Harder To Do Its Job

[Jason Levine]

"If you create encryption, it makes it harder for the American government to do its job — while protecting civil liberties — to make sure that evildoers aren't in our midst."

I see the same appeal to laziness from the RIAA/MPAA when it comes to anti-piracy programs and law enforcement when it comes to actual anti-terrorism procedures.

RIAA/MPAA: "Playing by the rules is too HARD! First you need to gather evidence. Then you need to file a John Doe lawsuit. Then you need to convince a judge that your evidence is good enough to get the person's name. Then you need to file a lawsuit against that person. Then you need to fight that lawsuit. Why can't we just say 'X did this wrong so destroy his computer'?!!!"

Law Enforcement: "Playing by the rules is too HARD! First you need to gather evidence. Then you need to convince a judge that your evidence is good enough to get a warrant. Then you need to use that warrant to get more information. Then you need to arrest that person. Then you need to present that evidence in a court of law. Why can't we just say 'X did this wrong so we're tossing him in jail'?!!!"

Re:Thank goodness!

[bobbied]

Unlikely, he has a lot of money to spend and name recognition galore...

Jeb unveils plan do destroy US tech economy

[Thud457]

Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho 2016! YEEEEEEHAAAAWWWWWW MOTHERFUCKERS!!!!

Re:Jeb unveils plan do destroy US tech economy

[morgauxo]

Didn't I see you in Idiocracy? Wow, we have a movie star in our presence!

Re:Jeb unveils plan do destroy US tech economy

[dinfinity]

I can't decide between +1 Insightful or +1 Funny. I guess +1 Idiocracy fits best here.

Re:Jeb unveils plan do destroy US tech economy

[MobSwatter]

No encryption, no clothing, and cattle branding for everyone.

Perhaps Jeb too might be satisfied with a shiny new short bus?

Re:Jeb unveils plan do destroy US tech economy

[NotOddManOut]

Von Clownstick 2016...make America Great Again!

Re:Jeb unveils plan do destroy US tech economy

[Phoghat]

I'm just stunned by your stupidity. But, then again read my sig

Re:Jeb unveils plan do destroy US tech economy

[meta-monkey]

That movie was so unrealistic.

When presented with a problem he didn't know how to solve, the President of the United States, instead of "going with his gut," trusting God or doing what lobbyists said, hired the smartest man in the world to fix the problem. No U.S. President has ever done anything that smart.

Re: What about Hillary?

[Opportunist]

Hillary Clinton is [...]the most intelligent candidate for the office.

I agree. But only 'cause the water cooler on our floor isn't running for it, and neither is my dog.

9/11

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who has looked into the scientific evidence behind 9/11 knows there was never any outside "terrorist" threat, which means the patriot act and mass spying wasn't to get the baddies at all. This is about nothing more than making sure political dissenters can be picked out and silenced. This word "terrorist" has morphed over the last 30 years like a boiling frog in a pot and today may be applied to ANYONE who doesn't buy the lie. Keep in mind Jeb was part of the PNAC think tank that likely played a significant roll in planning the attack.

Re:He has a point

[FranTaylor]

The 4th amendment still applies regardless of your stance on privacy.

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects"

sorry it says nothing about digital data that others accumulate about you.

He actually said "evildoers?

[jpellino]

Did he learn NOTHING from his brother's tenure? There should be a team of handlers with cattle prods around every make Bush never uses that word again.

Re:He actually said "evildoers?

[MattGWU]

The preferred term is n'er-do-wells.

Re:He actually said "evildoers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did he learn NOTHING from his brother's tenure?

You have blotted out one of the most incredible events in the 21st century. His brother was ..

I almost don't know how to say this.

His brother was ... was ... RE-elected. America said "Good job. More of that, please." And that was after the Iraq war!

Seriously, that happened. It really did. So if you're wondering whether or not he learned from his brother, maybe the answer is "hell yes, the more irresponsible I look, the better."

Re:He actually said "evildoers?

[jpellino]

Yes, I was awake for that. "Kerry lost" more than "Bush won" give or take an especially stubborn xenophobic national security hangover. I'd bet lunch that if they re-ran Gore he would have won. Heck, he won the popular vote the first time. Reagan won twice, candidating four times. `

Re:He has a point

[bobbied]

The 4th amendment still applies regardless of your stance on privacy.

Yes, it does.. However the key term here is "search" because electronic data collection is not a seizure where something is taken from you. Here's the text of the amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

One could argue that data collection that is not searched is still allowed under the constitution. One could then argue that as long as the government has a warrant based on probable cause that outlines the kinds of data to be searched that they do not violate the 4th amendment.

I'm not arguing for unfettered data collections, just for a bit of understanding that there ARE legal arguments for how it doesn't violate the constitution.

Re:Jeb Bush Comes Out Against His Own Nomination

[Opportunist]

The problem about this is that the amount of people who understand this is probably lower than the amount of people who cheer for "tough on terrorism".

Communism is the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Democracy the dictatorship of the proles.

JEB:

[jpellino]

ALL YOUR - well, everything - ARE BELONG TO US

Cue the "democrats do it too"

[circletimessquare]

"democrats bailed out banksters"

"democrats take money from corporations"

"obama admin spies on people"

"obama uses drones"

etc., etc.

except on every single one of these policies, republicans are far more worse or openly promise, as jeb bush just did, to do far worse

yet you have this amazing cognitive dissonance where right wing media will pillory democrats for doing something republican candidates do far worse. "as a republican, i hate that the democrats do {X}, that's why i will vote republican" (who will do far worse on X)

at which point we have to address the air head idealists who will reject both parties and insist on ideological purity before they ever vote. thereby, making themselves not matter, and helping the guy further from them ideologically win

we are talking about POLITICS folks. the very nature of the topic is compromise. with politics and voting your job is to steer the boat of your society in the right direction by putting your hand amongst thousands on the steering wheel. not refusing to help unless the boat magically transports to where you are at ideologically first

you vote the party *closer* to you ideologically. that's as good a deal as you will ever get, in any society, ever possible. by refusing to participate until a choice matches you ideology, you are simply announcing your social immaturity and/ or stupidity on what politics is. it is YOUR job to wiggle a little bit in your ideological straightjacket and *influence*. rather than demand full ideological compliance before you participate. that's an ignorant temper tantrum

that being said, my dream for 2016 is trump v sanders. then sanders can win as trump is a fucking joke, and i will vote sanders with glee, as i love sanders

but if it's something like rubio v clinton, vote clinton! don't stay home ebcause it's not sanders. and if the contest is close, and enough air head idealist morons throw away their vote on sanders as a protest vote, or don't show up to vote, then guess what? then our next president will be rubio. and it's your fucking fault, for being an airhead idealist: you split the left wing vote. even though there are more on the left, you let the republicans win

so i love sanders. but depending upon the nominees, i will be voting for clinton who stands a better chance of beating a serious republican contender

that's called realpolitik

that's call strategy

idealism only gets you things like gwbush "beating" gore in 2000 (gore actually won the popular vote) because just enough morons on the left voted for nader when they should have voted strategically for gore

that is the real effect of voting idealistically instead of realistically: 8 years of a republican moron who got us in a ruinous war and cratered our economy and moved us backwards on progress on social issues

Re:Cue the "democrats do it too"

[0123456]

Dimwit.

The last time the US government tried this was the Clipper Chip, back in the 90s. That was started by the EVIL REPUBLICAN Bush Sr, and continued by the LOVELY, FLUFFY DEMOCRAT Clinton.

Fortunately, thanks to the fight against the Clipper Chip, the very idea of restricting encryption is now so insane that only idiots like Bush think it's actually possible.

Re:Cue the "democrats do it too"

[circletimessquare]

get back alex jones, you conspiratard

Re:Cue the "democrats do it too"

[skam240]

Your point only holds for swing states. For most of the states it literally doesnt matter who you vote for because your state will always go red or blue.

Our lovely electoral system makes sure that in most states your individual vote for president doesnt matter

Re:Cue the "democrats do it too"

[circletimessquare]

no, i'm part of the top secret conspiracy

we're onto the geniuses like yourself out there who have independently figured out our vast plot

curses you brave extremely intelligent detective, foiled by the truth finders again!

herp derp, herp derp...

Re:Cue the "democrats do it too"

[circletimessquare]

eunuch? that's a peculiar insult. you seem obsessed with something, perhaps you need a dating site

proof of being bored is not responding asshole

you have my permission to never respond to a comment of mine ever again

Re:Cue the "democrats do it too"

[circletimessquare]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Cue the "democrats do it too"

[circletimessquare]

wow, that's a first. i'm getting psychological projection about the accusation of psychological projection

that's one hell of a pit

Encryption eliminates one temptation

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do Christians pray "Lead us not into temptation"? Making it harder for the government to descend into a police state and surveillance society makes the actual job of the government easier. Pervasive access to communication is a temptation that the government must resist. The people are not your minions. They're your boss.

Re:"Evildoer"? Seriously?

[khasim]

I will never vote for someone who uses the word "evildoer".

Yep! Why the fuck does that word keep showing up in political statements? It makes them sound like children.

"If you create encryption, it makes it harder for the American government to do its job â" while protecting civil liberties â" to make sure that evildoers aren't in our midst."

Except that the majority of "evil" done in this country is NOT encrypted. It is publicly displayed and celebrated.

Re: What about Hillary?

[Opportunist]

Said everything Bush and Obama have ever said in all of their speeches about the war and more.

Goodbye

[tom229]

If American's vote this guy in I might actually lose faith in humanity and jump off a tall building. "Evildoers"? Seriously? What are you 8? You can't even invent your own horribly ignorant and disconnected term for people that don't like you? Even worse you blindly copy your big brother (arguably the worst president in US history)? Fuck it... Goodbye cruel, retarded world.

how many people on the left

[frovingslosh]

how many people on the left are calling for increased government surveillance?

Well, lets see. The top "man" on the left is certainly doing it. And he really got pissed when the patriot Snowden revealed what his administration was doing. And his party seems to be behind him (in both this and the destruction of American ideals in plenty of other ways). So all in all I would say most of them.

Re:how many people on the left

[TheGratefulNet]

you fell for the trick-question.

there isn't a single serious politician in the US who is leftist. that died well over 20 years ago, perhaps even 30+.

we have ultra right and middle right. that's about it.

Re:how many people on the left

[JackieBrown]

That's not really possible when you consider that left and right are political spectrum.

Also, we are talking American politics not European.

Re:how many people on the left

[Gliscameria]

Sanders has a foot in the left part of the spectrum. The trouble is, even being that type of centrist comes off as more or less TOTAL COMMUNISM to people now.

Re:how many people on the left

[Archangel Michael]

I'm sure Bernie Sanders being called "middle right" would cringe over that label. He is an open socialist.

Re:how many people on the left

[Jeremi]

we have ultra right and middle right. that's about it.

Doesn't the Overton window apply here? i.e. what was the "middle right" is now referred to as "the left", and what was the "ultra right" is now referred to as "the right"?

Or is that too Orwellian? ;)

Re:how many people on the left

[skam240]

There's nothing wrong with judging our political system in a global context. Our country doesnt exist in a vacume after all.

Re: how many people on the left

[DariusMacSean]

It's not necessarily a question of political orientation. Surveillance in the form of the the NSA's embarrassinly Orwellian data mining is simply ineffectual, and primarily continued because of it's lucrative benefit (to the tune of trillions) to greedy defence contractors. But where were the 3 letter agencies (NSA, CIA, FBI) on 911, Boston or even the Oklahoma disaster? The answer is they were engaged in silly, internecine, turf battles. The truth is both parties are corrupt & ONLY interested in placatory actions toward corporate lobbyists who buy their reelection. Obama is among the worst--but the Bush regime's Iraq debaccle takes the prize for its use of agitprop, fear-mongering & completely fabricated, false links to 911. These were used as a casus belli to simply attack a country for its oil-rich, geostrategic location. This hegemonic action alone is responsible, in large measure, for the increase of jihadic radicalization. As for Jeb Bush, he's just another atavistic cretin in a corrupt human genome. I'd personally like to see Trump elected, stare congress in the eyes, and say: "You're fired."

Re: how many people on the left

[DariusMacSean]

It's not necessarily a question of political orientation. Surveillance in the form of the the NSA's embarrassinly Orwellian data mining is simply ineffectual, and primarily continued because of it's lucrative benefit (to the tune of trillions) to greedy defence contractors. But where were the 3 letter agencies on 911, Boston or even the Oklahoma disaster? Both parties are corrupt & ONLY interested in placatory actions toward corporate lobbyists who buy their reelection. Obama is among the worst--but the Bush regime's Iraq debaccle takes the prize for its use of agitprop, fear-mongering & completely fabricated, false links to 911. These were used as a casus belli to simply attack a country for its oil-rich, geostrategic location. This hegemonic action alone is responsible, in large measure, for the increase of jihadic radicalization.

Re:how many people on the left

[mattwarden]

He calls himself a socialist. So, I don't think it's a stretch to say he's a socialist.

If the government is to protect its people...

[rs1n]

...then promoting encryption is what will help. Think about it: it's always the government playing catchup to hackers when their (the government) systems are breached. And that's with encryption. If the "evildoers" wanted to do harm, removing or hindering encryption makes it that much easier for them (the evildoers, though I suppose the government could arguably be placed into this group, too).

Maximum damage

[Okian Warrior]

We could do worse than Trump... But.... We could do a LOT better too. I sure hope Trump get's tired of spending his money on this side show pretty soon...

The summary nature of voting on legislature (yea, nay, abstain) puts an upper bound on the amount of damage a bad congressman can do.

Essentially, there are a finite number of times any congressman can vote on an issue. If they vote against the interests of the people every time, they've reached maximum damage.

The same can be said of presidents (pass, veto, pocket-veto, &c.).

Few issues are black-and-white: most laws are some percent good for the people and some percent bad. The two issues I can find that are closest to 100% bad for the people are H1B Visas and the Patriot and USA Freedom acts.

H1B visas take jobs away from Americans and allow corporations to impose misery on the imported workers, and the Patriot act and related violates our rights and makes us less safe (by diverting resources away from effective strategies like intelligence gathering).

The relevant votes are shown below. The government doesn't care about our rights, and it doesn't care whether we have jobs. It has reached maximum damage.

Trump might be the worst president we've ever had, but at this point in time, he's not *guaranteed* to be the worst.

USA Freedom Act (Senate)

YEAs: 67 (D = 43, R = 23, I = 1)
NAYs: 32 (D = 1, R = 30, I = 1)
Not voting: 1 (R)

USA Freedom Act (House)
https://www.govtrack.us/congre...

YEAs: 67 (D = 124, R = 179, I = 1)
NAYs: 32 (D = 70, R = 51, I = 1)
Not voting: 2 (R) 5(D)

Increase H1B Visas (Senate)
https://www.govtrack.us/congre...

YEAs: 67 (D = 52, R = 14, I = 2)
NAYs: 32 (D = 0, R = 32, I = 0)

Re:Maximum damage

[NatasRevol]

Apparently, you don't realize that congresspeople can manipulate the laws they're voting on by rewriting them.

That's a bit more than just a yea/nay/dunno.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Chris Christie

[Cafe Alpha]

came out in favor of total surveillance even before the debate.

It's amazing how fast the Republican candidates are running away from the freedom position now that they're actually running.

But it's a sad fact that too many people will agree to anything and follow anyone when they're scared. When Bin Laudin knocked down the towers he also scared the country so much that the bill of rights is totally, permanently doomed.

Re:Chris Christie

[JustNiz]

When Bin Laudin knocked down the towers he also scared the country so much that the bill of rights is totally, permanently doomed.

By voting for people like Jeb Bush or any other person that uses fearmongering as a justification to dilute and remove constitutional rights, you're directly making Bin Laden's actions even more successful.

Re:He has a point

[spire3661]

Its the 'effects' part you dolt

That was before the tea party

[Cafe Alpha]

The Republican party is never going back to being sane, the threat of being primaried is worse than that of killing their constituents. They will prefer to refuse Medicaid, lower taxes on the rich till the government looks like Greece and starve Medicare etc.

The Democrats move back to the right after being elected. The Republicans scream and shift blame and deadlock but they won't ever be able to govern responsibly ever again.

Re:That was before the tea party

[Archangel Michael]

Sorry, but it is socialism that caused Greece to fail, not capitalism. They have , as Thacher once opined, finally "run out of other people's money". And if you look around, the stench of failure around socialistic economies is growing. AND YET people like you seem to think it is all "republican's fault"

Sorry, but the (R) and (D) parties are just taking turns slowly moving us to the failed socialism, just slower or faster depending on party.

It is interesting that you think that failures like Greece aren't because of runaway socialism. Maybe, you think "with a little tweaking, it might work next time"

Re:That was before the tea party

[Anonymous Coward]

funny and all this time we thought it was because the banking industry etc managed to shift a huge fuck load of iressponsible impossible to service private sector debt on to the public sector.

Re:That was before the tea party

[skam240]

It wasnt Socialism itself that killed Greece, there are plenty of countries that are doing fine in the world that are roughly as socialist as Greece is.

Greece's problem wasnt the tool, it was how they used it. If you hit your thumb with a hammer it's not the hammer's fault that you werent using it right. This is why, aside from the South, most of Europe is doing reasonably well economically speaking.

Re:That was before the tea party

[michaelbuddy]

Banks being bailed out from something they shouldn't have been able to guarantee in the first place. The fed and gov't are the enabling force. The banks with their buddies in gov't were bailed out by both parties.

Re:That was before the tea party

[Archangel Michael]

Except ... its not. Germany is the strongest economy in Europe right now, and just about everyone else is having issues related to socialism.

And Corporate Socialism is still socialism.

Re:That was before the tea party

[skam240]

Except... that's not true.

There are a ton of ways to gauge economic performance but in the interest of not spending hours writing this and siting sources i'm going to choose the ratio of those employed versus the total population of a country as evidence that quite a few European countries are doing at least reasonably well economically speaking. I am choosing this number over unemployment rate as it is much harder to fudge and doesnt exclude parts of the population like in the US where people who are not working and havent looked for work in the last 4 weeks are not included.

Here is my source data: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...

In going over the data you will find the US at a ratio of 67.4 which is not bad. On the other hand though, you will find a ton of European countries (outside of the South of course) and Canada with rates in the 70s which strongly suggests they are at least doing alright economically speaking (not to mention it contradicts the American conservative "wisdom" that socialism disincentivizes people from working)

There are a ton of metrics that can be brought to bare when gauging a country's economic prosperity, some will show the US as top dog economically speaking and others a bit less so (like the fact that Canada has a more rebust middle class then us). In using this one single point, however, I do feel i've established that quite a few countries more socialist then us are doing at least alright economically speaking.

Re:That was before the tea party

[mattwarden]

as usual, you clowns are all oversimplifying. the debt was taken on voluntarily, mostly because membership in the euro drove greece's borrowing costs down below market for greece's risk profile. greece took advantage of the cheap money, and when borrowing costs increased, they were in serious trouble. they have now been teetering on the edge of a death spiral where they could end up unable to service their debt, thus spiking interest rates, thus making it even harder to service their debt, thus spiking interest rates, etc.

other euro countries have been bailing greece out in various forms, mostly to avoid setting the precedent that moving to the euro is reversible (because, if not bailed out, greece would need to exit the euro, issue its own currency, then devalue it in order to pay off its debt, at least nominally). tacked on to each bailout were demands of specific reform milestones for greece to fix is structurally problematic public sector and welfare/disability programs, as well as sell off assets (like islands, art, etc.) to raise funds. greece did none of this, and then just to top it off, its voters elected a part into power that ran on reneging on the bailout terms.

incidentally, since the "bailouts" are really the IMF giving money to greece so greece can make its payment to the IMF for the last bailout (for example), none of this helps out greece's citizens. they need to exit the euro and default, take the pain, and hopefully be smarter next time.

Re:That was before the tea party

[mattwarden]

Your selected metric is seriously flawed. It treats all employment the same. Working 1 hour per week is the same as working 40 hours per week. That's pretty dumb. Why wouldn't you use hours worked / total potential labor hours? It's weird to me that you would identify the problem with fudging with "those not in the labor force", but then pick the metric you picked, which has pretty much the same problem (the metric you mock arbitrarily doesn't count 1 FTE that isn't working, and your metric arbitrarily doesn't count 0.75 FTE that isn't working).

Example from David Stockman:

At the present time, there are 210 million adult Americans between the ages of 16 and 68â"to take a plausible measure of the potential work force. That amounts to 420 billion potential labor hours, if we accept the convention that all adults are at least theoretically capable of holding a full-time job (2,000 hours/year) and pulling their share of societyâ(TM)s need for production and work effort.

By contrast, during 2014 only 240 billion hours were actually supplied to the US economy, according to the BLS estimates. Technically, therefore, there were 180 billion unemployed labor hours

Re:That was before the tea party

[skam240]

Yes i mentioned there was no perfect metric but it can be safely assumed that the those working extreme scenarios of improbably short work weeks are probably going to be similar between countries (congradulations on reading the whole wiki btw). It's still one hell of a better metric then "unemployment rate" which has a different deffinition for every country. Is some one who has no job and hasnt looked for worked in 4 weeks really not unemployed?

As for the rest of your post, you're posting a bunch of data with no conclusion. Where's the comparison to countries more socialist then us since that's what we're talking about? The qoute you've posted is literally meaningless in the context of our discussion without a basis of comparison.

I said there are allot of countries more socialist then ours doing alright, you said no. I posted data supporting my conclusion and you posted total hours worked in the US. How is that a contradiction?

Re:That was before the tea party

[skam240]

Oops, sorry. I assumed a post on an article this old would only come from the person i replied to. My point till more or less hold though.

Re:That was before the tea party

[mattwarden]

> but it can be safely assumed that the those working extreme scenarios of improbably short work weeks are probably going to be similar between countries

Uh, that is a really silly assumption.

As for the rest of your reply, I was just a reader in the thread and I found your choice of metric perplexing.

Re:That was before the tea party

[skam240]

I dont think that's all that silly of an assumption for comparing Western nations. They lead pretty similiar lifestyles.

Also, I specifically chose the metric i chose because while a country's unemployment rate is easy to find it's terrible for comparisons between countries. The ratio i chose was still easy to find data on as it has recently become a fashionable measurement amoung economists for doing exactly what i was doing. Was it the very best option i could have chosen to support my claim? Probably not but it was easy to find data for a ton of countries all at once and it is accurate enough to make my claim with. I'm not interested in sorting through a bunch of economic data on a couple dozen countries to bolster my arguement in an internet forum.

Basically, what i chose was good enough for the context.

As for the rest, as i'm sure you saw in the follow up comment, I poorly assumed that because it was an older article that the only person who would be replying was the person i had replied to earlier. My mistake and ignore all the non applicable junk i said.

Agree!

[p51d007]

NO MORE: Bush's, Clinton's, or CAREER politicians!

"evildoers"

[koan]

Trigger word.

Re:DONALD TRUMP NOW!!

[RabidReindeer]

Where do you think we will be building the Trump Memorial? And how are we going to make Trump's hair work on Mt Rushmore?

Plant it with kudzu.

The Evildoers?

[MagickalMyst]

Evildoers?

Now where have I heard that term before?

The Right to Encryption is Right to Bear Arms

[jmvidal]

Can't we say that the same reasons behind the constitutional right to bear arms can be applied to a right to use encryption?

Isn't encryption already considered a "weapon" by the Pentagon?

Re:"Evildoer"? Seriously?

[avandesande]

And how big is the danger from 'evildoers' for the country to have weak encryption? Isn't this far worse?

evildoers?

[devnulljapan]

He really said "evildoers"? What is this, September 12th 2001?

Re:He has a point

[0123456]

I'm not arguing for unfettered data collections, just for a bit of understanding that there ARE legal arguments for how it doesn't violate the constitution.

Lawyers will argue that anything is anything.

Do you really, honestly, believe that the people who wrote the Constitution believed the US government should be able to spy on everyone, all the time?

It doesn't even matter.

[xenotransplant]

No matter how bad the current president is, we (read: the media) will all forget who he was the minute we have a new guy in the chair.

Well I'm sold

[Balial]

This seems fine. We know for a fact that the government has use the utmost restraint when snooping on communications so far.

Unencrypt

[MagickalMyst]

I'm against encryption too, Mr. Bush. I value our freedoms and security - just like you do.

I'll tell you what.. I will unencrypt all of my files if you and your government do the same. Complete transparency.

If you do, i'll even send you a list of all of my passwords and PIN numbers as well. Promise.

Remember, this was your idea.

Typical Republican....

[tekrat]

Can anyone who's a member of the GOP *explain* why the party of "Smaller Government" always wants to expand government when it comes to spying on US citizens and expanding the military?

Why does it always come down to "cut social programs because we're broke", but "no spending limit for bombs/aircraft carriers"?

And while we're at it, can someone explain why "every life is precious" when it comes to abortion, but then have no problem thowing away lives on useless wars, and expanding the death penalty to include petty theft?

Why will they spend every dollar to force an unwed mother to bring her child to birth and then refuse to support it in any way once it's out of her womb?

And why are these questions NEVER ASKED at a "debate"?

Re:Typical Republican....

[phantomfive]

And why are these questions NEVER ASKED at a "debate"?

They don't need to. The candidates (and viewers) all know the answers to those questions because they've read the manual. You don't know the answers because you are just a muddle headed liberal. You probably believe in science.

No, not "Against Encryption"

[seven of five]

Jeb Bush is not against encryption, just encryption for you.

Re:Jeb Bush Comes Out Against His Own Nomination

[Anonymous Coward]

Part of what the government needs to do is build trust. If people feel too insecure, they will take what precautions they feel are needed, even if it means going back to pencil and paper.

My question is, how are the back-doors protected? The LEAF fields on Clipper chips were zeroed out before it was declassified (which meant key escrow was impossible.) Will signatures and keys be used? There is a LOT of pressure a government can exert if they want a root level CA key, including sending in a goon team to kidnap an admin's family and demanding access to the HSM for a signing or two, with a daily "payment" of fingers, toes, ears, and other body parts from the kidnapped relatives until the job is done.

If the back door is protected like the Clipper chip with tamper resistant hardware, that might have worked when the US had the top tier fabs. Now, it just takes a few chips going offshore to be uncapped and painstakingly unwrapped. Assuming Clipper-like chips are cheap enough for all encryption transactions, if the blackhats don't already have a backdoor, they will find some vulnerability.

The US doesn't hold all the cards anymore. After Snowden, Manning, et. al. sold their country out, there are other nations which have the capability to find backdoors and take advantage of them.

What Jeb proposes would ruin national security in the US far worse than the OPM breach has done. It would allow access and there would be no legal way to prevent that, and even air-gapping means nothing because physical access can still glean data if the encryption is weak.

Jeb needs to figure out how to do security right, and not just just demand weakened encryption, since all he will get is pushback. As it stands, he needs to re-earn the trust of the world. It can be done:

1: Government funding into NIST to code review open source security projects, as well as contribute code. Things like OpenSSL, Apache, the Linux kernel, filesystems, GPG, and many other projects.

2: Work with OS makers for another round of hardening, and focusing on the Web browser as the primary vector of attack/compromise.

3: Earn the trust of foreign nations which was lost due to Iraq. Already, the Iraq debacle has created an organization so powerful and brutal that some European countries are actually recognizing Daesh as a nation in order to not have a Charlie Hebdo on their soil.

Jeb is lying, or an idiot, or both

[kimvette]

> Bush says he hasn't seen any indication the bulk collection of phone metadata violated anyone's civil liberties.

That is true of a sensible and benevolent government.

However, your associations, even with casual friends, may land you on no-fly and watch lists with little to no recourse. Why are you on that no-fly list? How can you get off it? I can't help but wonder if casual aquaintances of the Tsarnaevs are on such lists just because they may have been study or workout partners, or casual friends, even though they never knew of their intentions. And yet, those evildoers were not on such lists despite urgent warnings coming from our frenemy Russia, who gave us names and dates.

Time after time I read or hear about those who are on no-fly lists - including infants, and have been unable to learn how and why they came to be on those lists, and how to clear their names, and there is NO due process or accountability, which is REQUIRED by the Constitution, citing "national security concerns" even though the greatest threat to our national security is tyranny within our own government.

And then, we have the "secret courts" which gag you; even if you do manage to clear your name and resolve the issue you cannot go to the media about your experience out of fear of reprisal.

So yes, Jeb (nice white trash name by the way), there are indeed civil liberties volations. Our government is supposed to be transparent and accountable to The People, but it actually in practice is not. Congress makes laws from which they often exclude themselves, treating themselves as royalty.

Are we really supposed to believe you, that our government is benevolent, when all the evidence as shared by Manning, Snowden, and Assange proves otherwise? Why on earth should we believe ANYTHING that you say when you believe the Patriot Act does not infringe upon our inalienable rights?

Re:Candidacy

[ChunderDownunder]

What the heck is a 'jeb', anyway?

The irony is strong with this on

[naasking]

"If you create encryption, it makes it harder for the American government to do its job — while protecting civil liberties — to make sure that evildoers aren't in our midst."

Oh the face-slapping irony. The freedom to create encryption is a civil liberty.

Re:He has a point

[tehlinux]

The language was (understandably) just not sophisticated enough back then to address these types of issues. But it's clear exactly what they meant, even if their choice of words leaves some ambiguity.

Re:He has a point

[bobbied]

I'm not arguing for unfettered data collections, just for a bit of understanding that there ARE legal arguments for how it doesn't violate the constitution.

Lawyers will argue that anything is anything.

Do you really, honestly, believe that the people who wrote the Constitution believed the US government should be able to spy on everyone, all the time?

I'm not a lawyer.. But I play one on TV and I stayed at a holiday inn express last night...

The argument here is easy.. You have to prove that the 4th amendment prohibits the *collection* of these electronic records in all cases, including when the records are never looked at. Does it always violate the 4th amendment? I'm not so sure it does, specifically when the records are NOT searched.

So the question becomes can the collected data legally be searched and If so, under what conditions? I think the 4th amendment makes that clear, you need a specific warrant to search for anything, and running a search on this data requires the same.

So, IMHO warrantless searches of the data are forbidden by the 4th amendment, but the collection of the data does not seem to be forbidden if it's not searched.

Another reason

[duggman]

Another reason not to vote for this guy. The first is that he is a Bush and true Americans don't believe in aristocracy.

Time to use scare tactics to promote encryption

[qzzpjs]

The government is always using scare tactics against the people saying we need to be protected. There's super bad people out there and they can't find them without seeing all our private data. What if we started telling people how bad it really would be without encryption?

Without encryption, your own neighbors would be able to see your emails as you transmit them, your banking details, etc. Anyone at the coffee shop could get this information from you. The government will be spying on you without your knowledge all the time. They'll know about everything you buy online, every web site you visit. Criminals will sit on the street outside of your home and watch your WiFi traffic to find things to blackmail you with.

Those are extreme's of course but there's probably lots of things we can think of to get the word out. Maybe even spin it to tell people how strong encryption is helping protect them every day. We just have to use examples they'll understand. Things like, "Your bank uses strong encryption to protect your bank information but Jeb Bush wants the government to see what your doing".

Re:He has a point

[TheNastyInThePasty]

When a policeman comes to your house to search it, what is the purpose? To gain information about what you have in your house. To collect data about you. A search and data collection are essentially the same thing.

Bye Bye Jeb...

[cayenne8]

I think this should pretty much eliminate Jeb from consideration as US President.

He seemed ok on some other things, a bit more moderate on many issues, but this...geez, taking sides against the citizens' rights to privacy, that's a deal killer instantly.

Even Obama's not argued for that one...

Re:Thank goodness!

[NatasRevol]

I bet the NY Post already has a front page with his face and 'You're Fired!' across it.

Thank god then

[DaMattster]

For open source encryption. Fuck Jen Bush! We don't need another Bush in the Whitehouse. I'd rather Trump.

Um, not really

[rsilvergun]

He's only polling so low because there are so many candidates. Also he's very popular with big donors. It's going to either be him or Walker running, and odds are winning. Hillary is probably going to get the nomination this time around and she completely fails the 'have a beer with' test.

Re:DONALD TRUMP NOW!! - no understanding of gov.

[MerlynEmrys67]

So - my favorite Trumpism so far is that the 14th amendment to the constitution is unconstitutional.

Guess actually being in the constitution isn't enough for these people to make it so, this is the scariest thing since BO started presidential decrees to "Make it so" regardless of what the law/constitution actually says (And yes, saying that you are acting because Congress refuses to act in the way you want them to isn't an excuse here)

Re:He has a point

[bobbied]

No, data collection is collecting data. It does not need to be interpreted as a search until somebody or something inspects the data looking for something.

"Essentially the same" is not "exactly the same" and there in lies the open legal ground. One can argue that making copies of data is not a search if the data is not actually inspected. Clearly if the data is inspected we have a search that requires a warrant by the 4th amendment, but it's not so clear that just collecting it legally constitutes a search.

Now, it may not be a good idea for the data to be collected in that it may lead to illegal searches, but that's a totally different argument than what most people try to make on this topic.

Re:Dem's MVP

[harvey the nerd]

Trump is not disrupting the Republican voters, he's disrupting the Rinos and looters DC's Beltway gangs.

Re: What about Hillary?

[JackieBrown]

Her servers where ran out of a bathroom of a huge democrat supporter

http://www.theblaze.com/storie...

Trump will not be president

[rsilvergun]

And I wish people would stop acting like he will. As soon as the GOP clown car empties we'll be left with Jeb and Walker because those are the candidates the billionaires want and we are not a Democracy. Then the billionaires will decide amongst themselves out of those two and the Democrats will lose because Hillary had all the charm of a ball python and Americans vote with their feelings...

Re:Trump will not be president

[JoshuaZ]

So you assign a high probability to the final election being Jeb or Walker v. Hillary with Hillary then losing? How high a probability do you assign to that result?

Re:Trump will not be president

[billstewart]

Definitely not Trump. It's either Jeb! or Walker or maybe Rubio. (We don't need an other Bush Presidency, and we certainly don't need another "Walker/Bush" either :-)

Sure, Hillary's no nicer than most of the Republicans, and we don't really need another Clinton Presidency either, but I'm hoping the country's dislike of the very dislikeable Republican choices will get her in, plus she really is an effective politician, and would have been President in 2008 if Obama hadn't shown up.

I'm a Libertarian, so I get to pretend to be neutral here, but the Republicans would be even worse than Hillary, and there were lots of reasons for preferring Candidate Obama to her, even though the President Obama who showed up to do the job was nowhere as good on policy as Candidate Obama. I'll vote for a Republican for some office higher than dog-catcher after they've cleaned up all the corruption of the Bush/Cheney/Rove/Norquist/Koch years, and that's not going to be any time soon. If my party can't get its act together enough to run a candidate, California's solidly enough Democratic that I'll vote for the Greens or Peace&Freedom or write in Joe Biden before voting for Hillary, but otherwise I'd hold my nose and vote for her the way I did for Walter Mondale (:-)

Re:Thank goodness!

[bobbied]

You act like the NY Post has any pull with voters who are on the fence about him. If they denounce Jeb, they will be preaching to the Choir... It won't make any difference...

Heil Jeb!

[WillAffleckUW]

Same type of idiocy, same basic hatred of our freedoms.

Re:Thank goodness!

[Darinbob]

Comapre this to Ross Perot. People flock to him as a none-of-the-above choice. Perot failed in the long run because he never set up any long term ideals or goals for a Reform Party, so it got hijacked by lots of opportunists and populated by nut cases. Many of those people I believe were early founders in the Tea Party movement.

For Trump I see something similar, an uneducated buffoon Perot, and people will flock to him not because he has good ideas but because he's none-of-the-above. And again it won't be people seeking a well defined political party but just a big clump of populism by people who think a president is 100% of the government and the most important vote they'll be casting on election day.

Re:Jeb Bush Comes Out Against His Own Nomination

[Darinbob]

Partisanship helps in the misunderstanding too. If you rephrase it however... Ask a Republican if they want to see a Clinton administration with control over encryption of all phones and computers. They'd be horrified. Ask if they want a Bush administration that can monitor terrorist communications and they'll be all for it.

For a partisan, if our side has control of encryption then that's good, but if the other side has control of encryption then that's bad. And these people rarely think ahead 4 or 8 years to what will happen when control of government switches parties again.

Re:He has a point

[bobbied]

IMHO, it's not a language problem. Their intent was perfectly clear, searching for evidence among your personal effects and papers requires a warrant. So, if they go collect data, and search though it, that clearly requires a warrant.

What's not so clear though is that simply collection data is prohibited. I can see a legal argument that says the collection and storage of data is not prohibited because it's not a search and yields no evidence, but searching the data requires a warrant if you intend to use the results as evidence.

People need to remember that the 4th, 5th and 6th amendments are about the rights of those suspected and accused of crimes. They are about how evidence can and cannot be obtained and how trials must take place. So the 4th amendment is about criminal investigations and how they must proceed.

His brother's son

[mbone]

If there was any doubt that Jeb (!) was his brother's son, this removes them.

What I'd like to see

[CanadianMacFan]

Whenever a politician comes out with a statement like this I would love to see some group go in, hack them, and post everything they have on the web. And I mean everything. Financial statements, e-mail, browser history, text messages, documents, and anything else that they can get their hands on.

Show them that this is what they are asking us to do and see if they are still willing to go through with it.

Generic questions get generic answers

[Firethorn]

Simple, libertarians are properly for limited governments, not weak ones. If you want a better answer, ask a better question.

Trump: Opening Clown Act in Primary Circus

[billstewart]

Trump's job this election is about the same as last Presidential election - he's the opening clown act who's there to kick off a really long circus show, and he's getting the crowd riled up to be excited when the next clown car rolls in before the lion tamers and elephants do their act. He's not the guy on the trapeze, he's not the ringmaster, but he's the opening act. He's a good clown, sold them on the job last time, and they invited him back.

Last election's circus was about telling the Tea Party that they weren't going to get one of their favorites or even anybody from their wing of the party, because none of them were electable, and they were going to have to vote for somebody from the Corporate Party Machine Wing, but their participation was appreciated and the party wanted them to spend a year bashing Democrats before the real candidates had to behave themselves in public. (Unfortunately for them, Romney never quite got the "behaving himself" part down, because he didn't always realize he was in public rather than among friends who'd appreciate remarks about the 47%.) There was really only one other electable candidate, Jon Huntsman, but Romney already had the "Billionaire Mormon Ex-Governor" slot lined up, and he'd shown the party machine that he was happy to play their games, while Huntsman was too independent.

Deez Nutz is just as likely as Trump

[billstewart]

Trump's not the candidate; he's the opening clown act for the circus.

Jeb! not only is showing his support for the spook establishment by coming out against encryption, but he's also lined up with just about all of Dubya's policy cronies, many of whom were his dad's cronies. But he's unfortunately as realistic as anybody. Walker's a stooge for the Koch Boys, and also has a good chance (aargh!) Rubio might be sellable as well. Kasich is currently second-tier, but might have a chance later in the process. Cruz pisses off too many people in the party by being very much his own guy, and not in a sellable "maverick" way. (My perspective on Fiorina is a Silicon Valley local "we saw how she botched things at HP" plus "boy was she an annoying candidate for Senator against Boxer", though while I'm not taking her seriously, the other choices are all pretty sad too; if she's on the ticket it's as VP, probably with Rubio.)

GOP Party Machine's MVP

[billstewart]

The GOP needs to keep all the right-wingers busy and angry and giving money and bashing Democrats at their state and local levels and in Congress so they can play the long game, in terms of sustained majorities and control or gridlock of Congress and state-level gerrymandering, and they don't want to lose them in the long time between now and when they pick their real candidate. Trump's job is to keep the troops entertained and get them engaged, insult the Democrats in ways the Party Machine Candidates can pretend were somebody else's fault, and kick off a year-long circus. It might end up like last election, with the Official Candidate getting far in the lead too early in the process and opening his mouth too often, or it might go down to the wire with the convention actually deciding between Bush, Rubio, and Walker, but for now they've got Trump to get everybody back bashing Hillary for as long as possible.

Jeb ENTIRELY gets that

[billstewart]

Jeb gets it, Walker gets it, Rubio gets it but has to deal with it a bit more, but the major candidates all know that they have to let the loudmouth right-wingers say all the nasty things that they'll pretend not to have been encouraging, because this is the part of the race for bashing Democrats and raising money and manpower from the angry people (as well as quietly raising money from the rich people.)

This is the part of the game they WANT Trump for, and Huckabee, and Cruz, and let them play off against Carson and Fiorina and Chris Christie and Rand Paul. He's playing to the GOP audience, and only secondarily to the National audience.

Trump's an opening act, not a finalist.

[billstewart]

No, like that Trump guy did in 2008. He's the opening clown act, and he'll get out of the way when the elephants and lion-tamers come in, or at least shut up when the cute chick is on the trapeze.

Yup. Bush is Mr. Military-Industrial Complex

[billstewart]

He's in bed with pretty much all the same advisors his brother was, and many of the same as his father was. He's the smarter brother, but Dubya's the older brother and may have spoiled it for him. The other likely candidates are Walker and Rubio, and just maybe Kasich will make it into the Final Four.

Nice Try, Jeb

[Greyfox]

Trump's already proven with his campaign of misogyny and racism that he is the One True Voice of the Republican party.The rest of you never had a chance in the face of his glorious Trump hole. He doesn't even listen to himself, he just opens it and some new Trumpism comes forth, like a unicorn crapping a rainbow. And when that unicorn craps that rainbow, he goes up in the polls another 5 points. Jeb, you and the other also-rans are already completely irrelevant, so please stop trying to out-crazy the guy.

Re:He has a point

[mordjah]

Obvious troll is obvious..at least i hope you are trolling..

Re:the big lie

[michaelbuddy]

Thank you. Democrats are racist as ever. Every enabling move they make takes the next black generation down further. They've basically split up the black family.

Re:Candidacy

[ConceptJunkie]

I think it's an old nautical term... you know, "I like the cut of his jeb."

Hey Jeb!

[DirtyAmish]

Does that mean you don't have anything encrypted? I bet you do...

really??

[rccorkum]

Jeb Bush can spell encryption 10 times out of 10? on his own?

Cryptobozo

[manlygeek]

Is he also against telephones, radios, computer and the Internet? What if I send an encrypted smoke signal?