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Senate Rejects FBI Bid For Warrantless Access To Internet Browsing Histories (zdnet.com)
Zack Whittaker, reporting for ZDNet:An amendment designed to allow the government warrantless access to internet browsing histories has been narrowly defeated in the Senate. The amendment fell two votes short of the required 60 votes to advance. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) switched his vote at the last minute. He submitted a motion to reconsider the vote following the defeat. A new vote may be set for later on Wednesday. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) introduced the amendment as an add-on to the commerce, justice, and science appropriations bill earlier this week. McCain said in a statement on Monday that the amendment would "track lone wolves" in the wake of the Orlando massacre, in which Omar Mateen, who authorities say radicalized himself online, killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in the Florida city. The amendment, which may be reconsidered in the near future, aims to broaden the rules governing national security letters, which don't require court approval. These letters allow the FBI to demand records associated with Americans' online communications -- so-called electronic communications transactional records.
Don't think for a second that they're done. The all out assault on our liberties by statists is non stop. The FBI failed to stop Omar Mateen after meeting with him twice, but somehow that is justification for asking for MORE spy powers? Orwellian move by the Oligarchs.
In the context that it was used, that he was gay, the nightclub was gay or anyone or anything else was gay is irrelevant. The context here is not why, but rather what happened. That the place it happened is frequented by gay people is irrelevant.
The message here is: A nutjob killed people, and so let's try to stop that and not just gay or homophobic nutjobs targeting gay establishments. So why bother mentioning the gay aspect?
Is there anyone in Washington who has forwarded a sensible proposal in response to this tragedy?
All you hear from the left is "take away freedom A" and all you hear from the right is "take away freedom B".
All the while, the government had all the information they needed to act on this, they just governmented the whole thing up.
> killed 49 people at a gay nightclub
What does the fact that the nightclub was oriented towards gay people have to do with the nutjob whacking 49 people in it?
Why does it matter that it was a nightclub? Wouldn't it have been just as terrible an event if it were at, say, a grocery store?
The statement could have been "killed 49 people in a big building."
Wait, does it matter that the building was big? Or, that it was indoors?
Let's make it "killed 49 people in a place."
I find it funny how when the FBI and the other letters always think that our losing our rights will stop future crimes. It won't. Because when something happens under their watch, they will just say once again, well, if we can access X without a warrant, we can keep this stuff from happening. Yet bad shit still happens anyways.
You want to stop terrorists? How about we stop making them and stop supplying them with weapons, stop giving them money for oil. Stop killing their family and friends with drones. How about we, the USA be the bigger fucking person and apologize for how we have treated the Middle East for that last 70 years. How about we stop fucking giving Saudi Arabia weapons and money.
And seriously, I'm not against guns at all, but we need smarter laws on purchasing them.
Be seeing you...
The message of your post is "I don't want to hear about a gay nightclub being targeted..."
What's your problem? You don't like gay people? You don't want to admit that this was a hate crime? Please explain why you have such an allergy to an obvious attack on gay people being referred to as an attack on gay people?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
the sensible proposal is to do nothing in the immediate, gather as much information as possible, and use it within the bounds of the constitution
so no... unfortunately no one in washington has made that proposal
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
How is "killed 49 people at a gay nightclub" any more informative than "killed 49 people at a nightclub".
It's informative about his motivations. It wasn't random, he was deliberately attacking gay people. That is useful to know to understand that particular crime.
The question you probably should have asked is what does it being a gay night club have to do with enhancing government spying privileges. Either enhancing spying to stop mass murders is OK or it is not. It doesn't matter what particular aspect of the victims set him off, some other nut job will have some other criteria for the same result. Throwing "gay" into the mix in this case may dampen the crime for the majority of people who are not gay, because they are now less afraid.
Regardless, this is just a power grab, and it is shut down however narrowly, yay.
I hate rider bills totally unrelated to the primary bill just to get some nasty thing passed that can't get passed on its own.
And just exactly why should the government know when you buy a car (they actually don't they know when you register a car)? Why should they know when you withdraw a large sum of money from the bank another private entry, that you work with? Its all your personal property and none of the business and should not be unless there is probably suspicion of a crime.
Its also true that unlike your VERY EXPLICIT Constitutional Right to keep and bear arms, there is no such explicit right to keep and drive autos, only implicit ones under the 9th and 10th. So that is another difference, that may be key. The government could in theory legislate away your right to operate and potentially own that car, so they have an implicit interest in tracking ownership. They cannot legislate away your right to own a gun, well except under completely bogus SCOTUS rulings that upheld the assault weapons ban and the fire arms control act etc. So many (maybe most) gun owners rightly feel that baring the effective tracking and registry of weapons is sensible as it provides a barrier to government abuse.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
It's doubtful they will include in their analysis the use of guns in maintaining freedom, the real constitutional readon, any more than the FDA includes in its regulations for safety and efficacy the masses of deaths caused by dragging out or stopping the development of useful drugs.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Does being a religion give you a license to say anything you like?
No.
We have laws against hate speech even though we have free speech in general, and we have laws against speech that encourage a specific crime.
The US does not have laws against hate speech. The article you linked to explains that.
We guarantee freedom of religion, but we also guarantee freedom of life. Which one has priority?
I acknowledge your intent here: Islam calls for the deaths of many kinds of people. But religion and life are not in conflict. Be careful: that is a false dichotomy and a dangerous generalization.
Maybe we should say categorically that you *can't* preach that it's OK to kill people of a certain class, whatever the class might be.
Hmmm... Now this is interesting... let us think it through. It sounds like you propose some kind of criminal penalty for a religious group to call for people to be killed. Does this affect only groups, or individuals? What about secular people who do the same? Should it become illegal to threaten someone in general?
Threatening someone with harm, when you show capability and intent to carry out that harm, is called assault. Assault is a crime in the United States. Assault is defined carefully, because really, how many people have called for the death of celebrities or politicians? Or call for the death of immigrants? Or certain classes of criminals? The average Joe calls for the death of lawyers on a daily basis. ;-) Perhaps it should be illegal to call for the death of any group of people?
Implementing this would be hard. Would we round-up religious leaders who call for the death of gays? I'm not sure how many of them are really living in the US anyway. You cited Westboro, which is a good example, but they haven't actually killed anyone... hmmm.... I suspect we could round-up the Westboro folks on assault already since they have carried out a number of their threats, but so far just protests. Seems like they would have a good chance of winning such a case. Although it would certainly send a message.
Suppose we did round-up such people: would it help, or would it merely cause the crazies to lash out? There is a thought that by allowing racist nutjobs like the Nazis and the KKK to go about their business in public, they demonstrate that they are crazy, and actually limit the growth of their own organizations. Some feel that by banning such things, they go underground where they are not publicly criticized and can quietly proliferate. There is a real fear of that kind of thing in Germany.
This becomes a slippery slope, which is why the founders of the United States wrote the first amendment.
What this actually means is that slightly under 3/5 of the senate is totally fine with this invasion of privacy clearly guaranteed by the fourth amendment, to say nothing of these "national security letters" which are a perversion of our justice system.
Police have been catching people for a long time, even while following the Fourth Amendment. It may make law enforcement less efficient, but that's a reasonable tradeoff.
Besides, what were the police and FBI going to do about the guy? Assuming they conclude he's likely to turn violent in the near future, what can they do? If it's due to mental illness they can request involuntary commitment, but the ability to hold someone indefinitely without a conviction is a civil rights nightmare.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
While I understand your anger, I don't really think that makes much sense.
First, I'm Canadian. We have loads of guns here, but we don't seem to be as violent with them for some reason. I would say that this might be the first place to look.
Second, there is no modern gun on the planet that can't kill 30 people in 30 minutes. Or, even 30 people in 30 seconds. Even a cheap shotgun can take 5 or 6 slugs, and it isn't hard to saw one off and even take a spare.
But, let's say you ban all guns. Do you think that helps the people of the middle east? They have guns laying all over the place, but instead? They show up with home made bombs and blow themselves to bits.
And, many of these shootings I read about in the US, the person often turns the gun on themselves in the end!
So, you take away all the guns. Well then, what next? Bombs. Strapped to people.
Or, what? Poison? Knives?
I'm sure I could casually walk up to a group of people and stab at least 2 mortally, and a few that would soon bleed to death, easily.
And then there's the other side of the coin. Your (the US) has its biggest problems with just plain gun violence. As in, one or two people getting killed by a gun.
While these large unfortunate groups of people getting killed are terrible, and big news too, they aren't even where all the deaths come from. It's the hundreds and hundreds of people per week that die in the US, all in single, double or triple homicides by one person with a gun.
Many times, these people were co-workers, family members, friends, etc.
There are many ways to kill someone that doesn't see you as a threat. :(
And, for single or even double homicides? A knife, a chainsaw, an axe, a crossbow, gas and matches, and fire and mustard gas and your car or a baseball bat and on and on and on...
Guns aren't the problem here. Something else is.
And, surveillance isn't the solution, it will just add on extra problems.
>Climate change will exist so long as there's money to be made from it.
I just noticed this.
You're a flat-out moron. No, really. You think it's some sort of grand conspiracy. This view is just plain nuts.
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BMO