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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.
Because he attacked a gay nightclub, appears to have been homosexual himself, and conflicted about his sexuality. Why is there this need in some circles to eliminate the homophobic nature of the attack?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
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.
Please submit your phone, laptop and office computer browsing histories for public inspection before the vote. After all, you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide, right?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
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."
For those not familiar with parliamentary rules, this is the archetypal dick move:
>Mitch McConnell (R-KY) switched his vote at the last minute. He submitted a motion to reconsider the vote following the defeat.
In generic rules of order, when a motion is voted down, only someone who voted against it is allowed to submit a motion to reconsider. So if it looks like you don't have enough votes to pass you motion, you vote against it and then file a motion to reconsider. The motion to reconsider has a lower vote threshold, so the failed motion is resurrected like a zombie.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Wouldn't it be a simpler task to track sales of guns? The government knows when I buy a car, when I withdraw or deposit a large sum of money and when I vote, shouldn't they also know when I buy a gun?
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.
Here's the full list. Note that 4 didn't vote, so they may try again later - this thing isn't dead by any means. Also, McConnell switched his vote at the last minute so he can bring it up again, so the actual tally is 59.
https://www.govtrack.us/congre...
Party breakdown:
For: 46 R, 11D, 1I
Against: 7R, 30D, 1I
Not Voting: 1R, 3D
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
Assuming the accuracy of the summary, shame on those who voted for this.
Consider a simple hypothetical. Suppose a piece on Al-Jazeera critical of America gets flagged so that when the reader interacts with a customs official or a police officer or a TSA agent, "reads anti-American Al-Jazeera articles" comes up as extra information on that public servant's screen.
Guess who is going to be retaliated against for having once followed a link to a web page? Guess who is going to risk losing the ability to fly?
This proposal discourages freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, freedom of association, criticism of any actions of the US or the Administration here and abroad, research on the enemy, and simple academic free thought. It is the equivalent of monitoring you for checking "subversive" material out of a library.
As someone who very occasionally reads foreign news sources so that my view of the world is a little less dependent on the domestic American narratives and worldview that dominate the American Press, I find the potential for abuse here staggering. As a practical matter, this kind of surveillance penalizes thinking and reading.
The only way around that would be VERY strict controls on when it could be used, combined with good oversight and accountability, which right now we simply do not have. There are lots of very nice and good people involved in the three letter agencies, but they are not the only ones there and the system as a whole has incredible potential for abuse and keeps getting caught abusing its power. Expanding NSL Authority is not the answer.
Real lawyers write in C++
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.
Since when hasn't the government not known about when you buy a gun? Where is it possible for you to purchase a gun, legally, that the government wouldn't know about?
Any time you purchase a firearm from a private party. I can go through all of the checks etc when I purchase a firearm from an licensed dealer. But there is nothing stopping me from deciding I don't want it any longer and reselling it to another person. As far as I know I'm allowed to sell it to another person in most (if not all) states without performing a background check.
Sam Harris had a podcast which contains an audio clip of an imam teaching that it's OK to kill gays, that it was the compassionate thing to do. I got the impression from the 'cast that the clip was from an imam in the Orlando area, and that it was taken a week or so before the shooting.
(I can't link the specific podcast at the moment because the site that I read it at is temporarily offline.)
We have often thought that the right to practice religion is absolute, but I'm wondering now if it should be.
Does being a religion give you a license to say anything you like? 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.
We guarantee freedom of religion, but we also guarantee freedom of life.
Which one has priority?
Maybe it's time to prioritize freedom of life over the freedom of religion. 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.
This would apply to any religion, even Christian ones ("thou shall not suffer a witch to live"), and it would apply to all cases: people who leave the religion are free to go unmolested (Islam, Scientology), people that the religion dislikes would be free to go unmolested (Christianity, Islam, Hinduism), and so on.
So for example, I would cite The Westboro Baptist church claiming that gays should be put to death, or evangelists calling on their flock to assasinate abortion providers.
As a country, I think we might legitimately say "not in this country" to these extreme views, and in these specific cases maybe intervene and say "no, you can't preach that even if your religion believes it".
Personal safety should be absolute, and the right to religion isn't more important.
In the aftermath of the Orlando shooting, imams haven't stopped teaching that gays should be killed.
Perhaps they should.
How is "killed 49 people at a gay nightclub" any more informative than "killed 49 people at a nightclub".
You really need to have that explained? "killed 49 people at a gay nightclub" is more informative than "killed 49 people at a nightclub" because it contains more information.
You better be very careful.
All private sales in California must employ a licensed firearms dealer as middleman, and the dealer must perform a background check. Connecticut and Delaware require background checks on all private sales. Each county in Florida may or may not require a check. Hawaii requires anyone purchasing a firearm from anyone to acquire a permit involving a background check. In Illinois, anyone not a licensed firearms dealer must coordinate the transferee's Firearms Owner ID Card with the state, and await approval. Illinois does have a loophole for gifts to close relatives. In Iowa, anyone providing or acquiring a handgun without the transferee possessing a valid annual permit is a criminal. Private transfers of handguns and "assault weapons" in Maryland must be conducted through licensed dealers, with a background check. Massachusetts basically outlaws private transfers completely, but with a loophole for "not more than four" weapons in one year. Private sales must be reported by both sides to the "Department of Criminal Justice Information Services". In Michigan, when purchasing a handgun from other than a licensed firearms dealer, the buyer must have a handgun purchase license or a license to carry a concealed handgun. New York requires a National Instant Criminal Background Check by a licensed dealer before any private transfer other than to immediate family. Oregon requires private sellers to perform a background check. And so on.
TL;DR: it's a hodgepodge of state laws. Plenty of states require background checks, and just about all of them make it an illegal act to knowingly transfer to an unsavory party. And there are a significant number of states where it is almost impossible for an ordinary person to legally even POSSESS a firearm, let alone carry it.
My understanding on the matter is confused, but apparently the CDC is banned from studying gun violence. https://www.bing.com/search?q=...
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.
Thanks. It is nice to know that at least one of my senators doesn't' completely hate my freedoms (Al Franken) but that Amy Klobuchar does seem to hate freedom.
And if anyone else wants to see how their senator voted you can find it here.
Time to offend someone
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
Nightclubs themselves don't identify with any sexuality at all considering the bulk of buildings in my experience have been fully asexual. Calling a nightclub, service station, or your local YMCA, 'Gay' just doesn't fit.
I would be terribly uncomfortable coming across a gay building specifically if it were male, not knowing how it would manifest it's desires for me. Or worse, entering a female building without permission thereby perpetuating 'rape culture', or *cough* Interrupting two buildings 'getting it on'. Could get a bit messy.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
That flew so far over your head it may just knock the moon out of orbit...
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
Thank you. I am not too bashful to admit that my Markey and Warren, both of whom I thoroughly disagree with most of the time, came through like champs in this instance. So, from an unexpected corner, thank you Markey and Warren.
or better yet, deal with the external threats that radicalize people to shoot up nightclubs and the like.
Maybe they should stop approving military actions that cause unnecessary wars that lead to blow back... err... oh, you mean they *want* all that to lead to an erosion of our freedom?
:T:R:A:N:S:
This is one reason why I am in favor of Trump. As a Republican I can't stand stuff like this and it is usually my party leading it. Trump is a pipe bomb tossed into the RNC. I'm hoping that we either get a re-positioning or a forking of the party.
It would only take a majority vote to pass the bill. However, you must first close debate and bring the question. In the US Senate since 1975, you need 3/5 of the duly sworn and chosen Senators to allow the bill to be voted on.
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.
The sensible proposal is no guns for anyone which are capable of killing 30 people in 30 minutes.EVER
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
Not to mention that this isn't really a big deal. We have people being terrorized, 49 dead, lots of friends and family having a horrible night trying to find if their loved one is still alive. It's a tragedy.
However, that day, there were almost certainly more people killed in the US in accidents involving drunk driving. That was true for the day before and the day after, when there were no mass shootings. Each one of the deaths was also a tragedy, ending a life and causing great distress to friends and families.
If we're going to go for mass surveillance, wouldn't it make more sense to look for potential drunk drivers? The FBI interviewed the night club shooter twice, and couldn't do anything to stop him anyway. If the police find a drunk driver, they can do things to make drunk driving accidents less likely.
"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.
--
BMO
So then he uses a bomb surrounded with nails and kills 100 people in under 1 second.
Or he just drives through a wall at 100 MPH.
I qualify expert with an M-16 and I have a pretty good knowledge of firearms as I have been shooting my whole life.
The idea that an AR-15 is just as dangerous as a hunting rifle is stupid. I know I can kill a lot more people in a shorter amount of time with an AR-15 than I can with any hunting rifle. The NRA(the gun manufacturers lobby) has successfully brainwashed a generation of people into thinking the 2nd amendment is sacrosanct and that it means you should be able to get any damned firearm you want.
There are many problems with this. One is that this country has changed dramatically over the last ~200 years. Technology has improved and population density has increased. Another problem is that traditionally as the west was being settled one of the ordinances a new town would enact is a no guns in town ordinance. It is a sign of lawlessness to have people running around in town with a gun. Rural settings are obviously different and should be treated differently. But in the cities and towns, guns are stupid and just asking for trouble. Another huge problem is the NRA. I used to be a member but those guys are fucking crazy. They block very sensible legislation and technology like single user gun tech. We can make guns that can only be operated by one or two designated users. This tech is sensible and would prevent many tragedies yet the NRA not only blocked legislation making the tech mandatory, they went further to prevent municipalities from requiring weapons like this for law enforcement. Think about that. The NRA didn't want cops to have guns that couldn't be fired by people who aren't police. Furthermore the NRA has blocked legislation that would make it easy to identify a shooter after the fact. We have forensic capabilities with tasers that will allow law enforcement to identify the person who purchased the taser cartridge, we could easily do the same with firearms, but the NRA won't have it. That's fucking insane.
I could go on for days but think about this. If there was a non lethal and better alternative to guns, would you be OK with getting rid of guns? If you ask someone who is pro gun that question and they can't answer in the affirmative then a couple of things might be at play. They are either too stupid to deal with a hypothetical or they have a deeply rooted religious belief about guns which can't be shaken.
Neither option is good and I don't really see a third. Generally a pro gun person will find all sorts of ways to try to show that the hypothetical doesn't or can't exist in reality, which is proof of the first option as the link above demonstrates or their belief is too deeply rooted.
Oh yes, I forgot the other option. They just like to kill.