NSA-Reform Bill Fails In US Senate 135
New submitter Steven King writes with a link to The Daily Dot's report that the U.S. Senate has rejected the controversial USA Freedom Act, thus "all but guaranteeing that key provisions of the USA Patriot Act will expire"; had it passed, the bill would have allowed continued use of some mass data-collection practices, but with the addition of stronger oversight. From the article:
The Senate failed to reach agreement on passage of the USA Freedom Act, a bill to reauthorize and reform Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, which the government has used to conduct bulk surveillance of Americans' phone records. The House of Representatives passed the bill last week by an overwhelming bipartisan majority, but Senate Democrats, who unified behind the bill, did not get enough Republican votes to assure passage. The linked piece also mentions that the EFF shifted its position on this bill, after a panel of Federal judges ruled that the Feds at the NSA had overstepped their bounds in collecting a seemingly unlimited trove of metadata relating to American citizen's phone calls.
Oh, don't get all panicky and stuff (Score:5, Insightful)
An 'emergency order' will extend the rule until Congress comes back from a very well deserved vacation from their hard work :-/
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Is that well they deserve deep, wet, and dark?
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It's deep, but it's dry. And it has a sharp rock floor at about the 100 foot level.
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How about a bottomless well with spikes at the bottom?
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An 'emergency order' will extend the rule until Congress comes back from a very well deserved vacation
Not likely. The executive does not have the authority to extend a law that congress decided to let lapse.
If congress does not take action to re-authorize, then the authorization is gone effective immediately at the date of expiration; not at the date it is most convenient for the NSA or others.
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You know it just doesn't matter. They are going to do it anyway, and everybody will keep on believing their denials and reelecting the same old politicians who make it all happen. Nothing changed in '75 either, when we went through all this same shit before.
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You are probably right. President Obama has changed/extended statutory deadlines several times by executive fiat. If he can ignore laws he doesn't like and invent new ones from whole cloth that he can't get passed otherwise, and be applauded for it by people who prefer "results" over Constitutional limitations on powers, then why does he even need this extension anyway? He can just declare that the program will continue because he's "administratively" extended the deadline. He can even declare (with som
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That's recklessly endangering America! (Score:3, Insightful)
Now the NSA will feel compelled to stage a domestic terrorist act in cooperation with the FBI in order to make their point, needlessly endangering the life of Americans. Do you really want another 9/11?
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Now the NSA will feel compelled to stage a domestic terrorist act in cooperation with the FBI in order to make their point, needlessly endangering the life of Americans. Do you really want another 9/11?
You are crazy. Here is an example of the democratic process working, yet you desperately have to search for some conspiracy theory to continue your irrational hatred of the USA. This is real life, not a Tom Clancy novel.
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But real life is so boring. Let him have his paranoid fantasies.
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No. It's an example of a republic not working. What history books tend to call "decline and fall" when it's happened in the past. It is what happens when governments completely lose sight of, and concern with, and respect for, the principles that brought them into being.
Oh, we know. In Cla
Hard to predict how this will turn out (Score:5, Insightful)
It's hard to predict what the end result of this will be.
On the one hand, I can imagine that letting the mass spying provisions expire, and forcing the bulk data collection to stop, could actually be a win for privacy in the long run. After all, inertia is powerful, especially in politics. It is much easier and less controversial to say, "let's continue with our existing domestic spying program" than it is to say, "now that we stopped spying on everyone for a while, let's start spying on everyone again."
On the other hand, letting everything expire could create an environment where it becomes easy for fear to rule the day (or, easier than usual). We'll no doubt have politicians eager to scare us with stories of how letting bulk domestic surveillance expire makes us unsafe and vulnerable to terrorists, and so "we need to do something now before we die!" Then, new spying legislation could be hastily pushed through that is no better (or worse, depending on your perspective) than what we have now.
As I said, I think it is hard to predict the ultimate outcome, but if the recent past is any indicator, I sadly suspect that fear will win.
Re: Hard to predict how this will turn out (Score:5, Insightful)
First time any terrorist act happens, it will be blamed on the loss of domestic spying powers. This is how the politics game works.
my letter, as a security professional, to Senator (Score:2)
Texas republican senator Ted Cruz is leading the fight to do the right thing, to protect our Constitutional rights. Our other senator, John Cornyn, wants to renew the Patriot Act in full. Here is my letter to Cornyn.
As a career security professional, I implore you to reconsider your position regarding the Patriot Act, the USA Freedom Act, and the Fourth Amendment.
For twenty years I have worked to keep protect American citizens, interests, and our way of life. Currently, I am employed at TEEX
American habit (Score:4, Interesting)
We know how this works: Issue an emergency order until a bare-bones bill allowing basic programs can be passed by US congress. Then secretly append the nasty schedules of the failed bill into necessary bills such as bills of supply. The military-industrial complex will get the laws they want sooner rather than later.
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We know how this works: Issue an emergency order until a bare-bones bill allowing basic programs can be passed by US congress. Then secretly append the nasty schedules of the failed bill into necessary bills such as bills of supply. The military-industrial complex will get the laws they want sooner rather than later.
all this and they are still whining about not being able to read Hillary's Bengazi emails?
I officially call Shenanigans!
Hey Congress and Senate! I got your meta data right here!
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I don't get how they don't have her e-mails. The fucking NSA has everyone else e-mail, why don't they have Hillary's?
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I don't get how they don't have her e-mails. The fucking NSA has everyone else e-mail, why don't they have Hillary's?
They have Hillary's emails. They are just being polite. After all, there is a fairly good chance she will be the next PO(TU)S. Don't want to piss off your boss right off the bat.
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Not sure who is really the "boss" in that situation.
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If they have the e-mails then I guess that's leverage.
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They already tried that to some extent. McConnell tried to get a 1 day extension through and got shutdown. They've got one more day to try it again, the 31st, when they come back from their weeklong holiday.
I'm wondering though if it isn't possible for the senators that want it passed to come back early and sneak it through before the senate is supposed to reconvene. I don't really know enough about procedural rules and whatnot to know if that is even possible.
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Unless the Senators you speak of constitute a quorum, not even a ghost of a chance of it being legal. And if they have that many Senators who want to pass this, then they wouldn't need to bother playing games....
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Apparently a quorum requires 51 senators be present. They had enough to get 57 votes already so presumably they have enough to have a quorum. However it isn't help up on that point, they have to vote for cloture which requires 60 votes. They were short 3 votes, so if over this next week they can pickup those 3 they could do it on the sly. However at that point they wouldn't need to do it on the sly anyways. Here's to hoping that all the opposing senators hold their ground.
Again with the names (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Again with the names (Score:5, Funny)
"NSA Freedom Act"
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NSA stands for No Strings Attached
dailydot TFA is here (Score:5, Informative)
Not sure why I didn't see it in the summary. [dailydot.com]
Not enough blackmail (Score:2)
Looks like the NSA hasn't gathered enough blackmail material while they were spying on our politicians to get that extension. Better luck next time.
Just kidding -- expect to see an extension without any reform.
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Just kidding -- expect to see an extension without any reform.
Or they'll just say they stopped but keep on doing it.
I'll be astonished if they aren't already doing more than we know about.
Let's just say it... (Score:5, Informative)
there's no way they're building the data centers they are just to record metadata. It would be absurd to believe they're not recording the calls or having a third party do it. Or... does "metadata" include, for example, a series of hashes of the call content that lets you reproduce them with 98% accuracy, for example? :) It's just data about the call, after all...
No worries. (Score:1)
There will be enough customers for the data even if the U.S. government as a tier one customer is not interested. I am pretty sure that the NSA already has contingency plans in case the U.S. government is no longer interested in financing the collapse of privacy.
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"It would be absurd to believe they're not recording the calls": Is your tin hat crooked today?
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes (Score:2)
"It would be absurd to believe they're not recording the calls": Is your tin hat crooked today?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Which is more likely : (1) the best-funded signals intelligence apparatus in the world is lying by choosing their words carefully and, while they likely have *some* limits on how they are allowed to search US-based data, they still keep it or arrange for someone else to in case they have to search it later, or (2) this top secret program is being transparent and 100% non-deceptive?
Remember, they have a history of lying to Congress and the public, of conducting massive surve
Simply Put (Score:1)
They rejected Freedom.
A minority rejected Freedom on behalf of an entire countries population...
Yep.
The EFF still has some pull. (Score:1)
Libertas (Score:1)
Hmm, that tablet of Lady Liberty in the NY harbour, is actually a large iPad, on which she writes down the metadata of everything you do...
if any of us did this we would be prosecuted (Score:4, Insightful)
It pisses me off to no end that they can just violate our rights all they want, do it for years on end, then....no harm no foul in the end.
There is no scenario to my mind where every person involved should be walking free in the sunlight. Every single analyst, every politician, every single person who knew the facts and didn't turn them in.
All broke the law, all are guilty and deserve to be made individual example of for they are each individually 100% guilty of what they did.
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Actually, this is an interesting point about how there is no 'morality' at the state level only 'morality' with individuals.
I have thought about this over time about how the state is able to lie, cheat, be dishonest, spin, be violent, etc all in its own interests. Whereas, you are right, individuals suffer all sorts of sanctions.
When Robin Cook was Foreign Secretary he spoke of an 'Ethical Forign Policy' and I was listening but in the end it transpired that he was referring specifically to foreign arms sale
Stupid bill names (Score:2)
The Freedom (to spy on citizens) Act.
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Whoever wrote the article didn't watch CSPAN all the way to the end. Mitch McConnell moved to reconsider Sunday the 31st. They're going to put it to a vote the following Sunday, because the bill expires at midnight on that day. Meaning this could still pass. I'm betting they're going to twist some arms to make that happen. What was really disturbing about watching that whole ordeal last night was that McConnel was able to put it to a re-vote multiple times in hopes of getting the answer he was looking for.
I'm not sure what he was expecting here... you would have to be a fool to change your mind so quickly even if you wanted to. "I was against the same bill 10 minutes or 1 week before I was for it." ... your political adversaries would be negligent not to hang you with that.
The public needs to write their senators ASAP this coming week to demand they vote it down or it's probably going to go through.
Amen.
Support Ron Wyden (Score:5, Informative)
Never heard of him before I read this article.
If you had any shred of respect for obama still left, this article will destroy it
http://www.newyorker.com/magaz... [newyorker.com]
He is the only one fighting for the rights of americans to not be spied upon. Its a shame that 2 years after this article was written, people are caring less and less about these issues. For a while there in 2013, it looked like people really did care.
not the best article (Score:4, Interesting)
as it omits (this from the NYT)
Death Blow To Democracy In USA (Score:1)
The NSA spying programs on the citizens of the USA represent the LAST means for democracy in the USA.
The 'treasure trove' of telecommunications meta-data and voice communications of members of the USA Federal Government and State Governments coupled to FOIA represents the only way ordinary citizens of the USA can blackmail and extort the President and WhiteHouse Staff, the Federal Departments and Staffs, the Congress and congressional staffs and the Supreme Court and Staffs going down to the district court
Sen Rand Responsible for this? (Score:2)
There is no mention in the article of Sen Rand's filibuster opposing the bill.
I presume that when the article says that they could not get enough Republican votes they mean they did not get enough to override the filibuster?
(I'm Canadian and so not as knowledgeable about american political procedures as I could be.)
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Which generation likes being spied on?
Re:older generation is totally clueless about tech (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:older generation is totally clueless about tech (Score:5, Insightful)
While this is true of many there are those that do excel with tech. I also know that there are many of the younger generation who think that because they know how to use twitter they are special somehow but when their laptop wont boot they bring it to this old man to fix.
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That matches what I've seen too. Younger folks excel at "tech" in the sense that they are all over Twitter and Facebook and zipping around screens on their smartphones.
But as for how any of it works? They are clueless. They've never even seen assembly language. They've never read any of the RFCs and have no idea how networking works. When something stops working, they need help to fix it. Increasingly, they lack even basic literacy like copying this file to that directory, because tablets and smartpho
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I hear ya.. I'm not a "digital native".
However, I designed CPUs, I/O boards, power supplies, and RF circuits.
I am "obsolete" because I don't like Facebook or Twitter (and refuse to get involved with them).
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Such an intelligent response.
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Such an intelligent response.
What do you expect from the tech savvy younger crowd. At least he got it spelled correctly, so he must be smarter than average. Just be careful - they get a little testy when they figure out all that self esteem inculcation wasn't actually real.
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Just be careful - they get a little testy when they figure out all that self esteem inculcation wasn't actually real.
Is that why they click on penis enlargement spam, to compensate for "a little testy"? :-p
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And yet they can't seem to comprehend the internets and need their 5yr old grandchild to show them how to use an ipad.
And yet, millenials seem to think that the internetzs and ipads are "High Tech".
Once you strip away the veneer of Facebook, Twitter, and knowing the mechanics of hooking up a wireless router, it turns out most of the "technologically savvy" millennials don't know much more than the Grandma of the endless memes.
I had this problem at work with them - The toughest part of dealing with the millennials was getting them to accept that I knew much more than they did, and they didn't know as much as they though
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Yep. Generally the older you get the less in touch with society and technology you become. Look back at the news articles about cars when they first came out, telephones, radio, music and so on. It's an age problem for many with any new tech. Think about it, imagine in 10 years you could get wetware and plug yourself into technology. Now propose that to someone who's in their 60's or 70's. Now think about computers, encryption, and so on and remember that many of the folks in politics are between 40
Re:older generation is totally clueless about tech (Score:5, Insightful)
Please actually look at the older generation, and revisit your own. Many younger people have _no idea_ how the technology works, much like their older peers. They have considerable hands-on familiarity with newer tools and no older habits to unlearn, but wait that same 10 years and they will be in a similar situation. I'm old enough to remember when 'C' and 'BASIC' were new and exciting. And it's a delight with my older colleagues and peers to learn new tools, and a personal delight to walk the young programmers through the same problems we had decades ago, problems they didn't realize the new tools would also have or which they ignored in testing.
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That's great, but you're missing something aren't you? You're 'specialized' in an area of technology, they're specialized in an area of technology. These people aren't. See that point where you missed what happens when you're dealing with people who aren't adept, familiar, or even have the basic concept of something? You're welcome.
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Now propose that to someone who's in their 60's or 70's. Now think about computers, encryption, and so on and remember that many of the folks in politics are between 40 and 75.
Wow. Just wow. Any of your brilliant insights we can get about dark skinned people or women or Hispanics or hey maybe even the Irish or polish people?
Your statements about computers and encryption - used as some sort of proof against us olde fartes and our inabilities - is simply ridiculous.
That you would include it, merely seems to illustrate the limits of your abilities.
Hell, I'm one of those olde fartes you denigrate - hey - I've been doing computers since the 70's, we're talking ancient IBM mainf
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Funny that you trotted out race, can you explain where that applies? Right. It doesn't, but I'm sure you can pat yourself on the back for thinking you're witty.
So much like the other person who replied to me, you also missed the point. Tell me something, how much understanding do you think a politician is going to have about technology that you're specialized in, but they're not. Or are you going to say that they're as adept as you because of their age. Now you're suddenly realized where your reply is
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Funny that you trotted out race, can you explain where that applies?
Because you trotted out a nasty stereotype. Old people are technically stupid - politions are technically stupid. It's prejudice alongside Black people are (fill in the racist stereotype) and on and on. Seriously are you trying to tell me that you did not understand the comment? Wow.
So much like the other person who replied to me, you also missed the point. Tell me something, how much understanding do you think a politician is going to have about technology that you're specialized in, but they're not.
A
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Hey there, good buddy, I'm with you; passed double nickels a long time ago, and still got it on cruise.
What's your handle? Oops, that's old tech.
Last ten years: Python, LaTeX, xslt (ok, xslt has got to be my un-favorite programming language, maybe it's mastered me instead of the other way around), sfst.
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Honestly, I don't see a lot of age difference in politician's understanding of tech. Young or old, f they're in politics, they typically don't understand it at all.
Re:older generation is totally clueless about tech (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, the generation that sponsored the SR-71 to keep a close watch on godless communists and who commissioned astonishingly accurate satellite surveillance to keep the bad guys from taking over the world like a series of dominoes are also responsible for approving a system to keep close watch on the scary Muslims. The scary Muslims are even more dangerous than the godless Communists, because they don't concentrate inside any particular national boundaries. Therefore, it's necessary but unfortunate that every person on the planet be monitored in order to determine whether they are one of "Us" or one of "Them." The Cold War generation understands the "Us" and "Them" dichotomy, and invasive surveillance helps to distinguish.
They don't have to know how the technology works, and it may even help to be ignorant of the uselessness of so much data on so many innocent people. The people who designed the SR-71 are at the top end of their generation's technological bell curve. The people who sponsored it are at the bottom end.
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The people who designed the SR-71 are at the top end of their generation's technological bell curve. The people who sponsored it are at the bottom end.
So what you're saying is that those who designed the SR-71 were mediocre and those who sponsored it were a mix of geniuses, idiots and anything in-between?
If you're on the top end of a bell curve, your possible deviation is as low as it can be. You are mediocre, belonging to the largest segment of the population.
If you're at the bottom end of a bell curve, your possible deviation is as high as it can be. There's no telling. You may be a genius or you might be an idiot.
Anyhow, what's pretty clear is that
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Rotate the graph in your mind 90-degrees counter-clockwise.
I'm pretty sure you understood what was said, and are choosing to act otherwise.
Re: older generation is totally clueless about tec (Score:1)
Don't confuse the few geniuses with the total amount of brainless zombies that populate this planet
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Reminds me of George Carlin: "Reflect for a moment how stupid the average (median) person is. Now realize that half of them are even dumber than that.".
Re:older generation is totally clueless about tech (Score:5, Interesting)
The poster thinks that being knowledgeable about tech is knowing your memes and posting selfies of yourself regularly. I could ask my 20 year old millenial daughters how they think their phones/laptops work if you want an example of "clueless". Being a crack addict does not confer knowledge of plant alkaloids or even botany.
On the other hand people who aren't clueless about tech (and the disturbing direction it's headed in) will voluntarily use as little tech as possible...
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posting selfies of yourself regularly.
How does one take a selfie of someone else? A self portrait is, by definition, a portrait you take of yourself.
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Oh, wow, gotta get me one o' them!
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You can only TAKE a selfie of yourself, but you can easily POST someone else's selfie if you understand the technology.
Selfie with someone else (Score:2)
By including both yourself and someone else in a single portrait.
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Being a crack addict does not confer knowledge of plant alkaloids or even botany.
Nicely said. I hope you don't mind if I hold on to that one for future use.
Re:older generation is totally clueless about tech (Score:5, Insightful)
You can pretty much bet that the cool new cutting edge tech your young technophile or fresh college graduate is playing with was invented and designed by somebody you call an "older generation".
Re: older generation is totally clueless about tec (Score:1)
That, and in my experience the very young these days are very good at knowing what technology DOES, but pitifully few of them know anything about how it works.
Proportionally it's probably not all that different. In the 80s and 90s you had to know something about how this worked in order to do anything serious with it. Everyone else had their VCRs flashing 12:00 all the time.
Tech was less harmful then. If you used it you knew abit it
Re:older generation is totally clueless about tech (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a lawyer thing. Most people in congress simply had no education that enables them to do an honest job.
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No... because less than 1 percent of 1 percent of that generation actually knows enough to even begin to cop to that claim.
So if you're argument is that 1 percent of 1 percent of that generation knows lots. I agree.
However, that is a politically insignificant portion of the population and so can be ignored if we are talking about POLITICS.
And we are... so I can. And I just did.
What is beyond obvious to even the most limited of semi humans is that the current generation is more fluent with new technology tha
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First, the older generation does not have that facility. Are you implying that the older generation could fix their own personal blender or something of nature? Because they didn't. They took it to a repairman or bought another one.
Second, the older generation absolutely thinks the computers are sealed magic boxes. Ever showed a 75 year old how to use a computer? Give me a break.
Third, yes there are a lot halfwits in the new generation but all things are relative. The fact is that they're more fluent in thi