Senators Push To Preserve NSA Phone Surveillance 252
cold fjord writes "The New York times reports that the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and Vice Chairman, Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), are moving a bill forward that would 'change but preserve' the controversial NSA phone log program. Senator Feinstein believes the program is legal, but wants to improve public confidence. The bill would reduce the time the logs could be kept, require public reports on how often it is used, and require FISA court review of the numbers searched. The bill would require Senate confirmation of the NSA director. It would also give the NSA a one week grace period in applying for permission from a court to continue surveillance of someone that travels from overseas to the United States. The situation created by someone traveling from overseas to the United States has been the source of the largest number of incidents in the US in which NSA's surveillance rules were not properly complied with. The rival bill offered by Senators Wyden (D-OR) and Udall (D-CO) which imposes tougher restrictions is considered less likely to pass."
Fire them. (Score:5, Insightful)
They're not representing the people and therefore undemocratic. Fire them.
Re:Fire them. (Score:4, Insightful)
I would. The problem is I don't think they'll listen to me and I'd probably be arrested if I call the cops to try and forcefully remove them from office.
Re:Fire them. (Score:5, Funny)
do you think god would fire them?
Start praying. He's our best shot at this point.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Fire them. (Score:5, Funny)
I don't think sleeveless shirts will help the situation, but thanks for trying.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think sleeveless shirts will help the situation, but thanks for trying.
But how else will I show of 'Mah gunz'!
Oh yeah, welcome to the gun show ladies.
Re:Fire them. (Score:5, Insightful)
Prove that we didn't elect them. Prove that the elections are all rigged. Then I would support, even join such a move.
Until then baring arms against elected officials would just be a subversion of democracy. Who would take their place? Those who fight against the people's will by removing their chosen leaders? That would lead to tyrany for sure.
Until then all there is to do is try to vote for the best lizards we can with lots of facepalms over who our felow citizens keep chosing.
Re:Fire them. (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually I would submit the election system is so terribly set up that it barely deserves to be called one. We have a great system, for a world where it takes weeks to get information a few hundred miles, and the number of states and subjects are a fraction of what we have today.
What has happened, with the expansion of territory, increase in population, and indroduction of mass media, is that representation has become an utter joke.
It comes down to issues as basic as the voting system itself. A single non-transferable vote system creates the situation where a two party stranglehold is inevitable. Two parties are barely good enough for a small community. In fact the very structure of the non-ranked vote, gives more power to the parties.
For the most part Democrats are not people who believe in the Democrat platform, shit, most have never read it and few know more than a few of its more basic points. They are, the people afraid of the basic points the republicans make. The republicans, are basically the same, just with some of the issues switched.
In a way, this works, if any party becomes too powerful, they stumble and fall as their member constituencies begin fighting with each other. However it means, nobody actually has an agenda that can be taken seriously because neither party has a real coalition, until they are behind and able to rally their members together out of fear of the other party.
This is a democracy in name only, its really become a sham (it is debatable whether it always was, but, it came about in a context where it made more sense than it does today).
Re: (Score:3)
The funny thing in this case is that we're talking about US Senators, who weren't supposed to be directly elected in the first place (until the 17th Amendment). The way it should work is that Senators are chosen by the state legislature, in which case we'd be able to call up our state rep/state senator (who we actually can call up, because their constituencies are small enough that they'd have time to talk) and complain.
Re: (Score:3)
Prove that we didn't elect them. Prove that the elections are all rigged. Then I would support, even join such a move.
Until then baring arms against elected officials would just be a subversion of democracy. Who would take their place? Those who fight against the people's will by removing their chosen leaders? That would lead to tyrany for sure.
Until then all there is to do is try to vote for the best lizards we can with lots of facepalms over who our felow citizens keep chosing.
It has been shown that the elections are rigged. http://blackboxvoting.org/ [blackboxvoting.org] Not all of them, all the time of course. But the big boys can put their thumb on the scale when it matters most.
Re:Fire them. (Score:5, Interesting)
It would be no great surprise if voting on this bill went along the same lines as the congressional vote on reining in "the NSA’s phone-spying dragnet. It turns out that those 217 'no' voters received twice as much campaign financing from the defense and intelligence industry as the 205 'yes' voters. [wired.com]"
In particular,
See also:
Good luck firing them, though.
Re: (Score:3)
Bingo. We need campaign finance reform first. It's not "the problem" but it needs to be solved before these other issues can be addressed.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Arnie for gov was the most awesome thing ever because none of the really fucked up stuff he wanted to do ever came to pass. I knew that this was what would happen, which is why I voted for him. I voted against Moonbeam but we got him again anyway because as you say, the voters of California are idiots. That's not entirely true, though; many of them are simply assholes. There's a lot of self-entitled rich fucks in California, it's not just self-entitled poor.
Re:Fire them. (Score:5, Informative)
You do realize that most of the folks in Northern california fall under standard rural demographics, which leans to republican* right?
You do realize that "Northern California" is not simply "everything north of LA" right ?
You do realize that Senators don't have districts and are elected by the entire state right?
You do realize that her power base is primarily San Francisco and the Southern California cities (LA metro, San Diego) right?
(*Other than San Francisco and Hippy Central I mean Mt Shasta City)
Re: (Score:2)
Senator Feinstein believes the program is legal, but wants to improve public confidence.
IOW, she's just going to put a spin on how she presents the program to the public, no actual changes to the program itself are intended.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Saxby Chambliss has already announced his retirement. Thus, he is currently free to leverage his seniority and lame-duckness to act against the wishes of his constituents.
Re: (Score:2)
They don't represent Slashdot. However, Slashdot doesn't represent the US. Governments always reflect the greater wishes of the governed. Anyone who thinks that representatives passing stupid legislation isn't a direct reflection of the nature of the majority is probably a member of that majority.
Re: (Score:3)
Governments always reflect the greater wishes of the governed.
What utter bullshit.
Governments reflect the greater wealth/power for the individuals in the government. At least these days.
Anyone who thinks that representatives passing stupid legislation isn't a direct reflection of the nature of the majority is probably a member of that majority.
Yeah, because we all wanted to be spied on. How stupid are you?
Carlin - half of them are dumber (Score:4, Insightful)
It DOES reflect the majority of voters. The majority voted for Feinstein and all the rest. I've spoken to several people who think the NSA thing isn't a problem. They grow more concerned when I provide them some information about what the NSA has been doing.
It's not that the majority wants to be spied on, it's that the majority is watching Dancing With the Stars. In some surveys, most people didn't know who the vice president was. Of those who DID know the vice president's name, around 40% say they get their news from Comedy Central.
So about 15% of Americans read or watch news programs (South Park and Daily Show aren't news).
The majority doesn't know what NSA stands for, and the nature of that majority is reflected in the government's actions.
Re:Fire them. (Score:5, Interesting)
> They're not representing the people and therefore undemocratic. Fire them.
Do you remember a few years back when Isreal invaded Lebanon? Shortly after that their own military put out a SCATHING report which absolutely skewered many people in the government, including elected officials.
There was an interview about this on NPR with a war scholar at west point who was asked why you never see reports like this within the US or from the US military. His answer was simple: We have no mechanism by which to remove the incompetent, if they screw up there is no point in saying anything because you are stuck with them until their term runs out anyway
Re: (Score:2)
Doesn't matter. Whoever their replacement is will be brainwashed within hours of taking office. They will never ever do what the people want anymore. It all about their personal pocketbooks and their family. When it comes to running again, they just start spewing lies out to the people for a few months to get re-elected then back to old business.
Re: (Score:2)
"...The last vestige of the old Republic has been swept away..."
These criminals have been voting away Constitutional provision through simple majority and 2/3, statute-by-statute, since the end of the Civil War. This is just your 150-year end-game. It's too late, to stop it now,
Just wait til you see what they do with this manufactured "Budget Crisis". Emergency powers people. With a little coterie of Feinstein/Leiberman style Senators as arse-cover, for "representation".
Re: (Score:2)
As a world traveler (Score:5, Insightful)
As a world traveler who is actively seeing many places, cultures and things let me tell you about my perspective... Nah, I better keep my mouth shut.
Also who trusts FISA again??? The secret court that declares itself legal... I think I did that in the garage when I was 5.
Re:As a world traveler (Score:5, Interesting)
That was the debate the NSA and GCHQ always warned about historically and tried to stay out of books, politics, the press, courts for as long as they could in the ~1950-80's.
Once any target population knows they are under active, long term domestic surveillance programs their telco/isp use changes.
The classified programs and the brands are out now in public. How people interact and consume via the brands will be interesting to see.
Trials with the domestic metadata 'lock box' could also prove legally interesting as skilled defence teams ask to see more and present more to open courts.
Re: (Score:3)
Trials with the domestic metadata 'lock box' could also prove legally interesting as skilled defence teams ask to see more and present more to open courts.
It's only metadata until an algorithm finds you interesting.... then it's full-on logging on all communications.
They fix the defense team problem by never admitting the NSA was involved and falsifying information basically saying a little birdie dropped the evidence off.
The rules only matter when people play by them. If our government can run around committing felonies against the whole population (which I consider willful, blatant violation of the constitution a felony) then why can't I? If I attack peop
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Are we not constitutionally bound to defend ourselves against such evil?
Shush, Honey Boo Boo is on...
Re: (Score:2)
This is quite true. Today's technology has just clarified that fact. But the cat is now out of the bag and anyone worried about surveillance, unless they are idiots, will take measures to protect themselves. The rest of the population who don't give a crap will carry on. All the NSA are going to have left to read is "ZOMG Kim Kardashian!!!!!"
Re:As a world traveler (Score:4, Insightful)
What is the point of passing any bills or laws related to this? It is not like NSA is going to obey the laws in first place, which is the actual problem.
If your government refuses to respect the very constitution that is supposed to give it its power in the first place, and do unconstitutional acts, your government's behavior is not so different from that of Pakistan's previous president Musharraf's imprisonment of all his political rivals during election and then declaring himself to be the "democratically elected representative".
In the meanwhile, Americans continue debating between "republicans" v/s "democrats" and "Bush" v/s "Obama".
Re: (Score:3)
The next legal move is what people may want to avoid. Facing a life long legal domestic metadata 'lock box' for use state or federal court at any time for any reason.
Giving the domestically illegal enough color of law cover to present in a courtroom is the next chilling step.
Re: (Score:2)
Came here to say this. The NSA will at most only pretend to follow orders at this point. What do they have to fear?
Re:As a world traveler (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:As a world traveler (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:As a world traveler (Score:5, Interesting)
A police state isn't made by border guards, which is what those police were, but by how the state deals with its citizens on a day to day basis.
Yes, and the average citizen commits a felony every day, and the police use selective enforcement to control the populace in a way that benefits the oligarchs, because this is a police state.
Re:As a world traveler (Score:5, Interesting)
A police state isn't made by border guards, which is what those police were, but by how the state deals with its citizens on a day to day basis.
Spying on them like a Stasi wet dream, searching them on a whim, either making them protest in "free speech zones" or having the media look away while the cops rush in to clear them, militarized police forces doing SWAT raids for nonviolent offenses or clearing houses door to door if there's a TERR'IST on the loose, temporarily detaining cryptographers and foreign politicians who stand up to the state or are friends with whistleblowers...
Totally not a police state. Goddamn now that I write that I'm second-guessing my 2015 vacation plans even more...
Re: (Score:3)
Ooo Fables! Some of these are pretty topical:
The Trees and the Axe [taleswithmorals.com]
A Man came into a forest, and made a petition to the Trees to provide him a handle for his axe. The Trees consented to his request, and gave him a young ash-tree. No sooner had the man fitted from it a new handle to his axe, than he began to use it, and quickly felled with his strokes the noblest giants of the forest. An old oak, lamenting when too late the destruction of his companions, said to a neighboring cedar: "The first step has lost us all. If we had not given up the rights of the ash, we might yet have retained our own privileges and have stood for ages."
Re: (Score:3)
Terry Pratchett - Interesting Times (p. 243)
'Poison,' said Cohen. 'I hate poisoners. Just about the worst sort, poisoners. Creeping around, putting muck in a man's grub
He glared at the Chamberlain.
'Was it you?' He looked at Rincewind and jerked a thumb towards the cowering Chamberlain. 'Was it him? Because if it was he's going to get done to him what I did to the
Re: (Score:2)
Kinda like how the US is 17 trillion in debt, can't pay for most things and threaten to shut down government putting families out of work yet congress can all agree within a few hours to give themselves a pay raise.
Re:As a world traveler (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I complement you on pointing to an article from Reason. Normally I am quite open to the arguments there. Unfortunately the author in this case gets it wrong. Issuing warrants is typically a one sided matter in courts, not an adversarial process. An actual trial needs to be adversarial, but the FISA court doesn't try suspects. It only issues warrants, rules on questions of law before it, and performs oversight. It also regularly modifies warrant requests rather than issuing them as requested. So, whil
Re:As a world traveler (Score:5, Insightful)
the court is constitutional
How can a court that doesn't have any oversight, including the supreme court, be constitutional?
Just because congress passed a law creating FISA doesn't make it constitutional.
Re: (Score:2)
You are misinformed since the FISA court does have oversight in the same way that any other Federal court does. There is an appeals court over the FISA court, and the Supreme Court is over the appeals court.
The FISA court is constitutional.
Re: (Score:2)
This is not an appeals court.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court_of_Review [wikipedia.org]
The United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review (FISCR) is a U.S. federal court whose sole purpose is to review denials of applications for electronic surveillance warrants (called FISA warrants) by the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (or FISC). The FISCR was established by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (known as FISA for short) and consists of a panel of three judges. It is not an adversarial court; rather, the only party to the court is the federal government, although other parties may submit briefs as amici curiae if they are made aware of the proceedings.
You are delusional.
Re: (Score:2)
Your error is relying on Wikipedia as an authoritative source.
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court [fjc.gov]
The act of 1978 also established a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, presided over by three district or appeals court judges designated by the Chief Justice, to review, at the government’s request, the decisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
You are misinformed.
Re: (Score:2)
And the very next sentence, which you failed to quote, shows how extraordinarily deluded you are.
Because of the almost perfect record of the Department of Justice in obtaining the surveillance warrants and other powers it requested from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the review court had no occasion to meet until 2002.
The DOJ did everything perfectly in the FISA from 1978 until 2002. If you believe that there's an actual oversight court. Or are completely deluded.
Also note that NO ONE BUT THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT CAN APPEAL A FISA RULING.
Re: (Score:2)
You are still misinformed, and mistaken.
The FISA court has rejected a small number of warrant requests, the government has withdrawn nearly three times as many itself, and many, many more have been modified by the court - about 4.3%.
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court: A Look At The Judges Who Preside Over America's Secret Court [huffingtonpost.com]
Companies that receive FISA warrants, like Yahoo, have challenged them in the FISA court.
Re: (Score:2)
Companies that receive FISA warrants, like Yahoo, have challenged them in the FISA court.
How hard is it for you to understand that those companies cannot APPEAL the FISA court decisions?
Even though you said there was an appeals court.
It's only allowed to be used by the government, not the other parties in the case.
Re: (Score:2)
you might be right that the supreme court could be an appeal location to FISA. Unfortunately there is a requirement to prove that a person has been harmed in order to bring any case to a court. You cant sue because of harm to someone else, and you cant sue if you cant prove you were harmed. Since it is illegal to possess or make public the information that would be required to prove that you have been harmed in a material way by a decision that was made at the FISA court, there is no way that you can even b
Re: (Score:2)
Courts don't issue warrants, judges do. The article has a very cogent point.
Re: (Score:2)
> The FISA court can always say "no" to a warrant request, or modify the request - which it regularly does.
0.03 percent of the time. Must be a definition of 'regularly' I am not acquainted with.
Oh, and you forgot to mention the velvet rope. Velvet Rope
Damn it (Score:4, Insightful)
Would someone fucking put Feinstein out of my misery already.
Re: (Score:2)
but they are consistently better at it...
"Legal" does not equal "ethical" or "right" (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do so few people understand that? The surveillance in totalitarian regimes is typically "legal", something being "legal" does not mean anything.
You can in fact establish a totalitarian regime in an entirely legal way almost everywhere. Step one is to scare the population into irrationality ("terrorism" and other specters work nicely). Then you manipulate the supreme court (if you have one) into doing more and more bizarre interpretations of the constitution (if you have one). This has been going on for some while in the US. And finally you drop all pretense and make laws against "crimes" that place more and more people into that class (victim-less crimes work well here), so you can get rid easily of anybody you do not like. Allowing the use of random finds in searches, even when the original reason for the search turns out to be bogus (a truly despicable practice) helps, because everybody has something illegal that can be found with over-broad criminalization. Then scare the targets into a deal, so no judge or jury gets to examine the accusations.
See, easy. And well under way in the US.
Re:"Legal" does not equal "ethical" or "right" (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:"Legal" does not equal "ethical" or "right" (Score:5, Insightful)
"Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany.
Unfortunately there is a billion dollar industry that do want war and combined with the all too prevalent revolving door politics little will change for the better anytime soon.
Re:"Legal" does not equal "ethical" or "right" (Score:5, Insightful)
billion dollar industry?
You're thinking too small.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. And it worked well in any day and age and does so today. People are generally too stupid to recognize the mechanism and being scared reduces effective intelligence and wisdom even further below the pathetic performance level the average human being is capable of.
This guy was scum, but highly perceptive and insightful scum. The NSDAP has several others that fall into this class. It looks like their texts are held in high regard by the US political elite.
Re:"Legal" does not equal "ethical" or "right" (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're ever in a jury where the NSA is presenting data against someone, find that person innocent?
Err, what makes you think that will ever happen? The data from the NSA isn't going to be used for those silly trials (where a jury might find somebody not guilty). Instead, we'll use the data to put people on secret lists that will ensure that it is extremely unpleasant for them to:
- Get on a commercial plane.
- Cross an international border.
- Deposit money into a bank account.
- Get or keep a job.
- Vote.
- Rent a car.
- Take out a bank loan.
- Enter a court of law, regardless of the reason.
- Own a smartphone, laptop, or other portable electronic device.
Oh, and if you're in a foreign country that nobody important cares about, like Yemen, then they may just decide to kill you and your family with a drone and be done with it.
Most of these kinds of steps have already been taken against people who the national security state has decided are troublemakers.
Re: (Score:2)
Why the future tense? How do I know that the data collected by the NSA hasn't already been used to blackmail the politicians who are now the most vocal supporters of the NSA?
"Legal" what a stupid word. (Score:2)
Absolutely right and on topic. "Legal" became very fashionable word for various organized crime rings within governments around the world.
"The law" turned into another business venue which can be stretched to some shady organization or group of people liking. Add media ownership to that mix and any passages from the Constitution are not worth more than toilet paper.
Re: (Score:2)
And make sure "the law" is a widely held fetish that many people use to replace concepts like "ethics", "responsibility", "right or wrong/shades of gray". This blinds them to the realities until it is too late.
Re:"Legal" does not equal "ethical" or "right" (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me add to this that the problem is not that the US is super-evil. Everybody knows that the US is not significantly more or less evil than most other civilized countries, just a bit more powerful. The problem is that when the mechanisms for abuse are in place, they will invariably be used for something evil one day or another. Perhaps not now, but who knows what happens in 20 years?
Re: (Score:2)
you are exactly right. The US is not more evil than other countries. The problem is that there has always been a myth pushed to the world that the US has a government of, by, and for the people, and because of this there will not be the same types of threats possible from the US that could come from a tyranical dictator. It is starting to appear that the government is opposed to its own people in many ways, and it is completely obvious that the government no longer reports to the people.
Re: (Score:2)
Be careful what rights you give away. One day your children will bleed to get them back.
Still not learned from history (Score:5, Insightful)
America has a horrible habit of not learning from history. It is worrying to see obvious extremists like Feinstein, pushing through viciously totalitarian legislation of this type.
Look at the German experience of these type of laws - first with the Nazis, then with the Stasi police state.
What has been happening in America is FAR more reaching than either the Nazi or Stasi surveillance ever was. The American people need to act now, to move towards a democratic path. It will be a difficult journey after such a long period of ruthless totalitarian government. It will require rebuilding of all the fundemental institutions of the state, to be free of corruption, and to be free of corporate interference. I hope for the sake of ordinary americans, that they can cast aside the corrupt regime, before it is too late, and their country implodes.
Re: Still not learned from history (Score:5, Insightful)
Nah, too early. Most people, out of lack of personal experience, aren't yet terrified enough of a totalitatian govt. thus don't quite know why and how to love a proper functioning democracy.
Wait another decade or so, it will be easier then. More bloody, and will require more work, but there'l be more hands to help.
Cheers
Re: (Score:2)
How can you do it without intercepting everyone's communications? Nutbags and gangsters have killed more innocent people on US soil than terrorists over the last decade or so, and anyone could be a nutbag or gangster. Guess you have to spy on everyone to keep them safe.
Or just allow a few people to die in rare acts of violence for a free society to function. The NRA lets thousands and thousands die each year for citizens' right to keep guns in an unsafe manner (unsecured, undocumented and by blind or crazy
Re: (Score:2)
Road systems and food are highly valuable to us, we consider the cost for those acceptable.
Why would nutbags and gangsters be considered different to terrorists? When some idiot goes on a random violence spree, I don't care if it's because they think they're the Joker, they're defending their turf or they think their deity wants them to kill infidels.
Re: (Score:2)
Stop pissing off the terrorists.
I see but one solution. (Score:3)
Crypto-anarchism.
Victory through mathematics!
That's going to work (Score:5, Insightful)
The bill would reduce the time the logs could be kept, require public reports on how often it is used, and require FISA court review of the numbers searched.
Riiiight. The organization that lied to Congress, lied to the FISA Kangaroo Court, and then lied to the public when they got caught is going to suddenly be cowed by tweaking the law.
They should call this the Whitewash Amendment.
Re: (Score:3)
I'd prefer the Feinstein&Chambliss Are Traitors Amendment. FCATA.
So what the NSA got on these senators? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Given that their behaviour is grossly inconsistent with their other political views, one is forced to the conclusion that the NSA has got some means of coercion to get them to propose this.
This might make sense, if those being coerced were actually in a position of influence. They are above the law, and smear campaigns don't work anymore due to the average sheeples attention span.
If you need further evidence, let me refer you to the collective criminal records of our esteemed lawmakers who kept their jobs and their felonies. People forget come voting time. Over and over again.
Don't worry though, I'm sure Amendment #28 is just around the corner, which will simply state that "Congress shall
Re: (Score:2)
Gee, ya think?
Pols have been cowed by their own skeletal closet contents since the days of Allen Dulles and J. Edgar Hoover.
That is why nothing short of a complete and thorough housecleaning (don't hold your breath), or a complete systemic collapse of the Establishment's economic oligarchy (in my dreams), will avail.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure what's worse. That the Star Wars quote sounds 'right' for our current government, or that it's so perfectly right.
Clone, drone, whatever.
Well, this makes it easy. (Score:2)
I'm so glad that Senator Feinstein believes that this is a legal program that just needs a few "tweaks".
It will make it very easy for her to understand when she is fired for not following the basic tenants she swore to uphold, as documented within the Constitution and our Bill of Rights.
If we're going to keep ignoring these documents over and over again, then the next thing we should initiate is a complete erasure of these topics in the public school system. I certainly see no point in teaching students ab
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah, because the two vastly Democrat urban areas in California are going to vote Republican to toss a senator. I wish you were correct, but right now people vote for the brand, and not the policy.
And the Republican brand is only slightly better than Enron in California.
Re: (Score:3)
<rant>
Oh wait.. maybe that's actually true. I'm not American so I wouldn't know.
But from an outsider perspective, the fact that your Political Party of Power has more than 90% of the vote (about equally split between the slightly-more-right PPP-Republian wing and the slightly-more-left PPP-Democrat wing), is in fact your largest problem. You need a political party that promises just *ONE* thing: to r
Re: (Score:2)
It will make it very easy for her to understand when she is fired for not following the basic tenants she swore to uphold, as documented within the Constitution and our Bill of Rights.
Step 1: The word is tenets. Do not use words you don't understand. It only makes you look like a stupid ass.
Step 2: Sorry, nothing Feinstein is doing is illegal, and Feinstein is known for trying to do end runs around the constitution, and the people who vote for her vote for her on that basis.
Step 1: Noted, and the fact that you understood what I was getting at (as did likely many others) shows some level of basic understanding with a common grammatical error.
Step 2: You may want to stop using words like "nothing is illegal" and "end runs around" when speaking of a US Senator who is supposed to be representing and upholding said Constitution. It tends to make you look like far worse than I, seething with ignorance of a basic understanding of grammar and law.
As far as the corrupt ignorant fuckt
FISA most be abolished (Score:3)
It's too convenient an escape hatch for anything the government wants to sweep under the rug.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The government would rather abolish the FOIA. It incites discontent with its authority.
Bizness as usual (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow.... (Score:2)
I just cant get over how the worst enemies of this country are the ones we elected.
These are EVIL men, everyone needs to write their congresscritters and tell them how they do NOT support the actions of these Evil senators who want to permanently destroy our freedom.
Sadly, I know I am in the minority and that most of you think that all this domestic spying is a good thing.
Sernate confirmation what a joke (Score:3)
The bill would require Senate confirmation of the NSA director.
So this Senator's solution to "reform" is to give more power to herself and that respected, august body of dispassionate reason and good judgement, the Senate.
Yet she has no problem with the FISA rubberstampers being the final overseer.
Why am I surprised?
I voted for Feinstein many times, but you know what? She needs to go. She needs to lose her job because she's nothing but an ossified and unoriginal thinker in times which call for a radical re-thinking of the relationship between privacy, security and liberty.
She's 80 years old and she doesn't "get" the modern world anymore. The times she';s legislating for are now officially over and the post 9-11, post apocalyptic global terrorism, post-Snowden times are what we have now have to sort out. She's doddering around commanding her staffers to tweak things here and there and move a few chairs around .
She is part of the go-along-to-get-along business as usual crows that has failed us and brought us to this point. Time to go. Enjoy your gold-plated Senate healthcare retirement benefits.
Re: (Score:3)
I voted for Feinstein many times,
Why? Why the fuck would you have done that? She's been an unabashed opponent of the constitution all along. Now you want a medal for waking up to what the rest of us have been saying about her for fucking decades?
Re: (Score:3)
Admitting you have a problem is the first, and usually hardest, step.
Re: (Score:2)
I voted for Feinstein many times, but you know what?
YOU !! It was you!! Over the past few years, I've been wondering, who the FUCK votes for people like this?
Feinstein's involvement with the Senate Intelligence Committee has been a joke ever since this NSA shit hit the fan, but her history of being a fucking idiot goes back at least to 1994 when she authored the original "scary looking gun" bill, the Federal Assault Weapons Ban that outlaws guns based solely on cosmetic, non-functional features. She has also consistently voted to extend the Patriot Act,
"Toute nation a le gouvernement qu'elle mérit (Score:2)
A government program that feels its duty is to review the contents of every American email, phone call, and SMS, regardless of such superficial things like 'warrants'? You own it, Americans. After decades of inviting the federal government to fix your problems, this is what you get. From the Midwest corn farmers enjoying their subsidies to the inner city food-stamp-reared-baby-machines, Americans have sold themselves for pennies on their liberty. Worse, yo
Stasi-like regime preserving itself. (Score:2)
I have a better idea (Score:2)
I have a better idea, which I shall propose here.
I propose that the NSA be allowed to wiretap phone calls and keep logs of phone calls when they have either a) a court-issued warrant or b) direct and verifiable probable cause. In fact I think there is some old document, words scribbled on parchment that were mumbling something about court oversight over the government prohibiting unreasonable search and seizures, but perhaps I'm just a radical extremist and only imagined the whole thing.
Just how badly (Score:2)
Just how badly do these people want to be lynched by angry mobs? Are they daring us to stand up to them? Or do they live in such a bubble that they think the American people will take their abuse forever?
LOL (Score:5, Interesting)
Senator Feinstein believes the program is legal, but wants to improve public confidence.
That made me chuckle. Sorry Senator, once you've been caught hiding things people are going to think you are still hiding things even if you're not. That's how the loss of trust works. You see, we don't trust you or the NSA anymore. As a wise man once said, fool me once shame on you, fool me can't get fooled again. So there will be no improvement of confidence amongst thinking people. The NSA spies on us and lied about it. It will take a long time of explicit good behavior for us to trust you or NSA again. And we all know that's not going to happen.
Just let us know! (Score:2)
I don't think we can put the surveillance genie back in the bottle, and I fully understand why anyone involved in national defense would want to keep things just as they are.
My primary concern is the lack of oversight. Or rather, the lack of *proof* of oversight. They could have the best oversight in the world and it wouldn't matter if it were all performed by secret courts.
I'd be satisfied if they'd simply let people know when their records were being viewed for any reason, with a reasonable delay for on
Privacy Law(s) (Score:2)
Are very much needed to overcome SCOTUS rulings which appear to allow the collection of phone meta data. While it would be nice to see a liberal/progressive critter step up, they seem unlikely to grow a pair. That puts it on the likes of Lee, Paul or Amash.
I would start with a very simple bill. "Phone call records are private information to be shared only with customer and company except by explicit search warrant with probably cause shown." That would get the rest of the fuckwads on record once and for all
Re: (Score:3)
If there is any hope, it lies in the proles.
Re: (Score:2)
And 'follow the money' leads you to the real reason she's doing this.
Consequences be damned. And they will be.