Senate Rejects FBI Bid For Warrantless Access To Internet Browsing Histories (zdnet.com) 224
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.
Non Stop Orwell (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Non Stop Orwell (Score:5, Insightful)
as has been said many times, 'they' only need to win once and we need to win 100% of the time or we lose our liberties.
I really didn't ever think I'd see the US, my home country, turn into this kind of attack on freedom and privacy.
then again, I have to keep reminding myself, this is a human thing and we see this all over the world. I could list a dozen countries that are also attacking their citizens in this way.
I wonder how we solve a HUMAN problem? in fact, I have my doubts we can. this may well be the trigger that ends our world (yes, dramatic statement, but all signs are that the world is giving up on itself and doubling down on the derp, as the kids say, today). the disease of anti-liberty is infecting the whole world and the holdouts are losing. we are losing.
not pleasant thoughts, I know. but again, we have to win 100% of the attacks on our freedoms, and they only need to win once and once a law is enacted, its near impossible to fix it later. it can easily be too late by the time we realize what we have done to ourselves.
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Every time this happens (which is WAY to much) I hear some official say things like, "We need to succeed every time, the bad guys only need to succeed once."
It is starting to look like this is the playbook for stripping away our liberties as well. We must count on our elected officials to shoot this kind of garbage down EVERY time, but just like these heinous attacks, they only need to win once.
Every now and then we fail and one of them "slips through the cracks". Sound familiar?
Due to the nature of these l
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There is some truth in this: The defenders of freedom must succeed every time, while the fascists can remove freedoms bit by bit and eventually they are gone.
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Specific to this story, all of their PERSONAL online activity turned over to some agency with the power to utterly destroy them.
Too late. Already happening. Yes, there is a lot of debate. But that's only for show. Along with some token actions to make it look like they are protecting the rights and freedoms of the people.
Re:Non Stop Orwell (Score:4, Informative)
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It seems it requires yet another fascist catastrophe with global impact to make it clear (for a while) that what they are doing is not a good idea.
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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.
The only reason they were stopped from further investigating was because they were dissuaded from continuing to investigate. News at 11: His wife has now disappeared and is considered a person of interest in the case.
To everyone who voted yes (Score:5, Funny)
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The Federal Agency of Privacy.
Rules Rules Rules (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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You spelled BITCH McConnell wrong.
So other than the 16 (Score:2)
Re:So other than the 16 (Score:5, Informative)
https://www.govtrack.us/congre... [govtrack.us]
Party breakdown:
For: 46 R, 11D, 1I
Against: 7R, 30D, 1I
Not Voting: 1R, 3D
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And if anyone else wants to see how their senator voted you can find it here [senate.gov].
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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.
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Wouldn't change anything. FBI is a failure. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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 a
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Maybe they should play more D&D then.
Back in the real world the concepts of good and evil are mostly bullshit.
It's not about good vs evil but about conflicts of interests.
Penalizes Thinking and Reading. (Score:3)
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.
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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.
Now you realize the real reason most of this sort of legislation happens.
Freedom of religion and freedom of life (Score:5, Interesting)
Sam Harris [samharris.org] 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 [americanbar.org] 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 [wikipedia.org], 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 [huffingtonpost.com], or evangelists calling on their flock to assasinate abortion providers [patheos.com].
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.
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Personal safety should be absolute, and the right to religion isn't more important.
well a lot of people of faith will disagree with you. Many consider the state of their eternal soul to be more important than their lives. On a more technical grounds I would argue the framers did not agree either. There is some reason to think the Bill of rights ordering implies their importance at the time. All the freedom of religion stuff is in the First Amendment, all the due process stuff that guarantees freedom of life and property stuff comes later in the Fourth and Fifth Amendments.
I am not to
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I think it's pretty clear and obvious that Freedom of Religion doesn't mean clear reign to do anything if you frame your actions in religious mumbo-jumbo.
For example, murder is illegal whether "God tells you" to do it or not.
Venomous hate speech is illegal whether "God tells you" to vocally express unbridled hate or not.
And so on. Also, in a wider sense, freedom to worship in a manner of your choosing does not imply that you may coerce or force others to worship the way you wish them to, or that you may att
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Right, but it does seem to imply that you may exhort others to behave the way you wish them to.
When does that constitute conspiracy to commit a criminal act? It seems like it should, in some cases, and that freedom of religion should not be a shield.
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That's a speech issue, I'd say, regardless of religion.
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I think speech implies "public speech", and conspiracy is associated with "private planning". So I think you are correct. Saying something in an open religious setting is probably speech.
Re:Freedom of religion and freedom of life (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Freedom of religion and freedom of life (Score:4, Interesting)
I just looked at the Wikipedia article on hate speech, and indeed Westboro won in the US Supreme Court [wikipedia.org] already.
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Freedom of religion is the only reason America got so far the non-religious can contemplate outlawing certain aspects of religion.
I wouldn't open that can of worms. Also, the same bullshit religion did is now shoved into non-religious, power-dominating memeplexes, and most don't realize it. Give up on "god", and proceed for dominance anyway, thus missing the forest for the trees.
A pox on rider bills (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
The Chain (Score:3)
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?
Lone Wolf's (Score:2)
They communicate with anybody? If they do their not Lone...
Bill not not fail. Cloture failed. (Score:3)
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.
Horrifying (Score:5, Insightful)
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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?
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Homophobia as a factor is irrelevant to certain narratives.
Radical Islam as a factor is irrelevant to certain narratives.
What matters is 1. Ban guns and 2. Some modern adaptation of Blame America First.
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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?
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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
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That flew so far over your head it may just knock the moon out of orbit...
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Let's try it this way. A person who had self-radicalized, in what appears to at least be in part as a reaction to his own homosexuality, targeted a gay club (as in a club that was well known in Orlando as being frequented by gay people, and by all accounts was marketed that way), decided to kill a large number of people in that club because of their sexuality and because what his religious beliefs taught him must be done.
Gay people were targeted because they were gay by a self-loathing homosexual.
Re:why qualify the nightclub as "gay"? (Score:4, Insightful)
> 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."
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Still too qualified. How about, "killed 49 people without cause".
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Yeah, I can think of a goddam good valid cause to kill 49 people. That is, if they are attacking you with deadly force.
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Following that logic:
Why does it matter that they were gunned down ? I'm pretty sure 49+ people died today from other non-natural causes, yet we never hear about them.
Why does it matter that it was 49 people at all ? I'm aware that we have to cross some imaginary threshold before mainstream media gives a damn about
it but, apparently, unless we set a new record or is somehow unique ( Gators at Disney for example ) most folks really don't give a damn. ( sadly )
We can kill millions of animals every year for va
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Or maybe make it "killed around 50 people in some place"? Or maybe we do not want to stipulate a person did it? Now I have it! "A kinetic impact happened in some place at some time." Unspecific enough?
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Re:why qualify the nightclub as "gay"? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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.
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Motivation is important when you want to prevent a repetition. If you just want to be outraged, it is completely irrelevant of course.
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Because there is reason to believe he was specifically targeting gay people. It *is* relevant to knowing what his motive might have been.
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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, onl
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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.
Re:why qualify the nightclub as "gay"? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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If he couldn't get a gun, he could have used an Axe, Hammer, Machete or Bats etc.
Right, because you can bump-fire an axe.
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BMO
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How about you google bump-fire.
Because you clearly have no idea what it is.
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BMO
Re:why qualify the nightclub as "gay"? (Score:4, Insightful)
>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
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I know exactly what it is.
You obviously just have no clue about how ballistics work.
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I said people are making money from it and that's the honest truth.
You're the one that brought conspiracy to the conversation.
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Nobody does a background check or require a cooling period for buying a car or licensing as a doctor and those kill WAY more people per year than Guns can even get close to.
Worst. Car analogy. Ever.
In order to legally drive a car, you need a driver's license which means you need to pass various tests--something you can't just do in the heat of the moment. It's not like I can go into a car dealership, buy a car, and drive it off the lot and run over someone. They'll let you buy the car without a license--hey, money's money--but they won't let you leave with it.
But you don't need to take a class or anything to own a gun.
If he couldn't get a gun, he could have used an Axe, Hammer, Machete or Bats etc.
Axes, hammers, machetes, and bats don't have the range
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But you don't need to take a class or anything to own a gun.
You don't need a license to own a car either. To drive one yes. To conceal carry or open carry a firearm, you also need a licence.
There are far fewer of those than there are psychotics, so you've already reduced the potential number of people who can kill lots of innocent people.
Those people use Bombs which are already illegal everywhere. If you can't buy it, people will build it.
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When you remove people constitutional rights they have to already have done something (due process you know) or it's unconstitutional. Privacy is a constitutional right. Requiring a license to use encryption because you may or may not be a terrorist is unconstitutional. This is not rocket science you know. Arguing for the government to take away people constitutional righ
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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.
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>What's funny is that I left a gun on my front porch.
You're a shitty gun owner. You leave your weapon to be fucked with by passers-by.
You don't know what an "attractive nuisance" is. If a kid had gone up to your porch and shot himself with your gun, say goodbye to everything you own.
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BMO
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You're comparing an AR15 round to a .22 Long round?
Yes, they are of similar caliber, but you don't fucking understand F=M*A. You also don't understand that the AR15 round has so much force behind it that the damage isn't done by the round itself, but by the cavitation generated by the round going through the body.
Idiot.
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BMO
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If you're shot with a .22 long, unless you're extremely unlucky, you're going to survive.
If you're shot with a Remington .223/5.56mm NATO in the abdomen, you're going to die, because it's made hamburger of your insides from the cavitation.
It's not the speed at which you can pull the trigger that's the difference, here. It's the fact that being shot with one vs. being shot with the other is the difference between "it's a flesh wound" and the EMT saying "he's dead, Jim."
Moron.
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BMO
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Had the ban from the 1990s still be in existance
Like the ban on these weapons in France prevented Bataclan and Charlie Hebdo?
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Re:sigh.. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:sigh.. (Score:5, Insightful)
so no... unfortunately no one in washington has made that proposal
If they were collecting information (Score:2)
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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.
Re:If they were collecting information (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps they should focus on the factors causing society's violence rather than specifically how it is violent. If society has a violence problem (historically, we're as peaceful as we've ever been), then it must deal with those problems. Infantilizing the environment in order to bury the violent acts themselves without addressing the conflicts that cause them solves nothing and creates its own problems. Politicians have long histories of blaming specific things for the ills of society (music, movies, video games, guns) rather than doing some self-reflection on their ideological convictions. It's like arguing with westboro baptist church over gay rights. If liberal society is to survive, it must force politicians to do their jobs rather than let them use fear to knee jerk us until we have no liberty left.
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But but but but ....
"We must do something! THIS IS SOMETHING! We must do it!"
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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 th
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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.
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or better yet, deal with the external threats that radicalize people to shoot up nightclubs and the like.
Re:sigh.. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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All you hear from the left is "take away freedom A" and all you hear from the right is "take away freedom B".
Same bird. Wings are being clipped. And people wonder why we are flightless chickens.
Stop voting for the side that is clipping wings, because it will eventually cause your side to fall out of the sky too.
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Don't worry, I'm sure they will vote to do *something* about that problem too.
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What could they have done? He hadn't committed a crime when they talked to him. You can't start locking people up before they commit a crime, because that set includes everyone.
The gun store owner called the FBI to tell them this guy in particular, they should watch. A member of his mosque (which a previous terrorist shooter also came from) called the FBI to tell them this guy in particular, they should watch. This guy was nothing but red flags.
You don't have to lock him up, but you can keep an eye on him in real time. You can also pay him a friendly visit in person, and just directly ask him. That will derail just about anyone's plans.
If you've ever credibly threatened the pr
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I'm pretty sure no gun store told the FBI that this guy seemed suspicious. They told the FBI that *a* guy seemed suspicious, but they didn't have any information to provide about who the guy was.
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They didn't do a background check because they didn't trust the guy and told him to go somewhere else without starting any transaction.
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To say they chose poorly is to make an assumption about what their goals were. When I look at the legislation introduced based on this attack I have to suspect that allowing the attack to go forwards was the action that they evaluated as having maximal positive effect.
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The real lesson here is that the founder's opinion of politicians was not abysmally bad enough.
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In this context of new technology, your private "papers" are moving online into the virtual world for convenience. The People maintain an expectation of privacy in their papers wherever they are.
This warrantless stuff is complete sophistry on the part of those in power. There are reasons the Constitution denies general search and General Warrant powers to the government -- to stop the king from going on fishing expiditions to tag uppity opponenrs with, as most people have some minor violations, usually un
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Indeed. As to emergency powers, I wonder whether the French will manage to get rid of the Government emergency powers again. Somehow I doubt it.