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Surveillance State Wins - Senate Votes To Allow NSA Bulk Data Collection To Continue
Senate leaders failed to get the 60 votes needed to advance The USA Freedom Act - which would have limited the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of phone records - and as Bloomberg reports, it's unlikely a new version can be drafted for another vote before the congressional term expires this year. The 58-42 vote to move the measure forward came mostly along party lines as Senator Saxby Chambliss - the top Republican on the intelligence committee - rambling that the bill "eliminates tools critical to the intelligence community’s ability to prevent terrorist attacks, and its adoption would greatly degrade our ability to fight domestic terrorism in particular." In other words - it's for own good, now shut up!
Bloomberg reports that The Senate blocked legislation that would have limited the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of phone records, more than year after Edward Snowden exposed the extent of U.S. government surveillance programs.
Senate leaders failed to get the 60 votes needed to advance the bill today. It’s unlikely a new version can be drafted for another vote before the congressional term expires this year.
The 58-42 vote to move the measure forward came mostly along party lines.
Wired.com explains what the bill would have achieved...
The bill would have put an end to the government’s controversial bulk collection of phone records from U.S. telecoms—a program first uncovered by USA Today in 2006 but re-exposed in 2013 in leaks by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. The bill would instead have kept records in the hands of telecoms and forced the NSA to obtain court orders from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to gain access to them. It would also have required the agency to use specific search terms to narrow its access to only relevant records.
Additionally, the bill would have allowed service providers more transparency in disclosing to the public the number and types of requests they receive from the government for customer data. The government in turn would have had to be more transparent about the number of Americans caught up in its data searches. The NSA has said in the past that it has no idea how many Americans are caught up in national security collection efforts that target foreign suspects.
Remember - blocking the bill was for your own good!!
“The USA Freedom Act eliminates tools critical to the intelligence community’s ability to prevent terrorist attacks, and its adoption would greatly degrade our ability to fight domestic terrorism in particular,” Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, the top Republican on the intelligence committee, said by e-mail.
Former NSA and CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden and former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey have called it the kind of “NSA Reform That Only ISIS Could Love,” referring to the militant group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria that has terrorized parts of the Middle East.
There is still hope for privacy...
The bulk-records collection program still faces problems next summer when Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act are scheduled to expire. The government has used Section 215 to authorize collection of the records and reformers in the Senate and House have vowed to fight re-authorization of this and other sections of the Act next year and let them expire.
* * *
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) today released the following statement on the USA FREEDOM Act after the Senate failed to advance the bill:
“I supported the USA FREEDOM Act because it may have been be the best opportunity to reform the metadata collection program while maintaining the government’s ability to use this tool to prevent terrorist attacks at home and abroad.
“Key reforms in the bill would have made the program more transparent and protected privacy, most notably the requirement that a FISA Court order must be secured before conducting targeted queries of telephone metadata being held by phone companies. I also strongly supported measures to allow private companies to more fully report the number of times they receive government requests for information, which these companies believe is an important transparency measure.
“I had some concerns about the bill, notably the length of time telecom companies would retain data and ensuring that a FISA Court advocate could not unreasonably delay action by the court. But I was confident those issues would have been resolved through discussions with industry and through the amendment process. I look forward to continuing to work on this issue.”
* * *
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Fuck the .gov.
Nothing but lying, thieving, murdering cocksuckers.
Long live the status quo!!!
http://www.planbeconomics.com/2013/12/no-way-to-hide-from-nsa-except-liv...
Who guards the spies who spy on the guardians?
Listen.
Ha. They slipped it by while all the little American Zero's were watching evening TV!
NSA has determined that attractive young females, and sometimes boys, are most likely to be terrsts and therefore must be monitored 'round the clock.
Its no surprise that there wasn't 60 clean enough to vota against the NSA Senators.
Wait... What am I saying!
They COULDN'T be Senators unless the Dirt was already in a bag with their name on it.
Damn.
What a brain crushing riddle this whole thing is turning into.
Its like the WORST unqualified audit ever seen.
It'll be fixed the same way you fix the Company when the unqualify.
Zero the whole fucking thing out and start with a green field.
Why would they even think of voting against surveillance? It gives them power!
As long as everyone obeys every word they say, why should they give a shit about anything else?
Some of these Senators are not quite that gung ho about the surveillance.
They know what is going on. They are also scared shitless.
There aren't any "good guys" to run to these days.
So they Vote what they are told to vote.
For those who don't know: Senators and Congressmen (junior and senior) are TOLD what to vote by their respective chairs.
They do it too... If they want a committee seat.
Rejected!
What do you reject?
So lets get this straight.
Democratic majority in the Senate ends after 4 years then a week later they are outvoted in a proposal to constrain the NSA.
Scum, complete scum party.
Elections have consequ... pfft... HaHaHa! Thought I could make it through but I couldn't. FORWARD TEAM RED/BLUE!
No discussion of oversight. Interesting question though.
thats not it they're making sure thier counters on thier porn channels are showwing correct numbers then they can put those pop-ups in the respective places
"NSA has determined that attractive young females, and sometimes boys, are most likely to be terrsts and therefore must be monitored 'round the clock."
I wish that was the extent of the corruption.
Diane Fuckstain.
Its dave franklestien stop removing the true zio flavor of thee name and accrediting its gender as feminine
there fixed it no applause neccesary
May not be able to hide, but you can sure as hell jam them and give them shitty statistical data. Roll a die, leave the phone at home when 1 or 2 comes up, suddenly they have a lot less confidence in the data set. Have a couple friends that you arrange outings with only using offline means... it starts adding up to a lot of shitty data and confusion quickly.
mirror all your texts or use pig latin LMAO that'll fuck shit up and throw a big red flag next to your name also so might wanna consider the outcome first could be interesting if ya got the time an like risks
Seek. Yes. If 1 million people sent encyclopedia britannica out through a word scrambler every 90 secs for 60 days straight to random emails the NSA would be on their knees. That system is based on needle in haystack searches, give them a lot of hay. For more fun encrypt it in a foreign language. Mix it up, throw a lexical dictionary out for a few weeks as well.
For those unfamiliar with network capacity they are built for 25 % burst use. If everyone picked up a phone in the US right now only 15% would get dial tone.
Don't expect the govt. to help, people need to save themselves.
Screw the NSA, those traitorous, bootlicking statist human sump pumps. There is no need to hide - just ridicule them in public.
Why bother reading about anything having to do with congress ?
They have their job . . . which is to screw over the American people for their masters, while fooling those same citizens into thinking "they'll fix things".
What did you expect in a police state? The NSA runs this country as Snowden revealed:
The most extraordinary passage in the memo requires that the Israeli spooks “destroy upon recognition” any communication provided by the NSA “that is either to or from an official of the US government.” It goes on to spell out that this includes “officials of the Executive Branch (including the White House, Cabinet Departments, and independent agencies); the US House of Representatives and Senate (members and staff); and the US Federal Court System (including, but not limited to, the Supreme Court).”
The stunning implication of this passage is that NSA spying targets not only ordinary American citizens, but also Supreme Court justices, members of Congress and the White House itself. One could hardly ask for a more naked exposure of a police state.
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/09/13/surv-s13.html
But, but...voting. Voting solves everything. The TV told me so
Yep. Bill or no bill...they are going to do what they want. Just a little show for the sheep who tune into the msm.
I'm gonna see if I can fear monger the neighbors into payin me to keep (rac)coons outta thier rubbish cans on the fear that they carry ebola I'll present it on a "bill" (aka a worthless unfounded inked piece of paper with some fictitous signators) since the assholes don't even know who lives down or across the street might be a quick an easy couple of $ a month
The best slaves are those who believe they are free. Keep singing "land of the free" - never mind that the NSA completely owns your privacy. Snowden said that privacy would be an alien concept soon enough.
I'm gonna stop wearin pants so they can see I got nuttin to hide, want it plain to see they can kiss my hairy pale ass
If you want to be popular without pants on...
Try one of these:
http://www.kisskiss.ch/crystal-delights-crystal-minx-tail-siberian-husky...
Soon Enough? Sheeeeeit.
Have you seen Faceboot? Snapchat? Twitter?
People don't want privacy, they want to be in your face with "Better Than You" shit... And NON FUCKING STOP.
If that means they scan their fucking Black AMEX card and post that MF'r to FaceAss or some other stupid shit, even better.
They got people by their EGOs... Poor fuckers don't even know that is fake too. All implanted by clever marketing.
They want everyone to know everything about them, all the time. I guess they are hoping they will find that one true friend if they broadcast loud enough?
Its not turning around and will keep rotting until it just rots to peices... Then it'll rot some more.
the sheep don't care what snowden said they're just glad the gov is being spied on too, besides the average dolt has nuttin ta hide theyz not a tewworist
Former NSA and CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden and former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey have called it the kind of “NSA Reform That Only ISIS Could Love,” referring to the militant group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria that has terrorized parts of the Middle East.
The same ISIS that senior senator John AmnestyAIPAC/General Dynamics McCain did photo ops with?
McCain is also know as John Wet Start McCain and he is also as John My Old Man the Admiral Sold Out the USS Liberty Sailors McCain.
Was that a typo Freddie? Did you mean Wet Shart?
http://www.topix.com/forum/who/cnn/TIPHLLITR99DU2OKV
I heard from a neighbor who was an naval officer in Viet Nam that McCain had his afterburner on without the blast shield up and ignited the plane behind him. This was covered up becuase his father commanded the Pacific fleet. He was immediately transfered off the Forestal. 134 dead, 161 injured. He was a goof off in high school and at the academy, fnnished at the bottom of his class destroying 3 airplanes and his record in the navy was such that he saw no opportunity to advance to the admiralty and chose politics instead.
The story above is essentially correct and should be investigated more fully. Surely some seamen from the Forestal are still around.
His old man also ordered F4 Phantoms to return to their carrier when they were launched to save the USS Liberty. His family has a long legacy of treason.
Sorry, Freddie. I wish it was McCain's fault, but the facts are quite different.
The original fake story was that McCain was wet-starting his A-4 (not using the afterburner!) and that made an F-4's Zuni launch.
The way the Forrestal packed the planes on the flight deck during mass launches had the A-4s along the edge with their tails hanging over the side. Nobody could have been behind McCain's A-4 unless it was floating in mid-air next to the carrier. The F-4 was on the aft end of the flight deck angled towards the A-4s about mid-ship on the other side - nowhere near where the A-4s exhaust. They figured faulty wiring made the Zuni launch when the F-4 pilot was going through his pre-flight procedures. It hit the fuel tank on an A-4 next to McCain.
The raw Forrestal vids are confusing to watch. This longer documentary shows all the aircraft's placement on the deck.
McCain was spotted on the deck some time afterwards in high heels and women's clothing singing show tunes in an quirky, off-key manner. He had some kind of parrot on his shoulder accompanying him at first, but it turned on McCain and attacked him during the second stanza (the accounts vary) and eventually flew off after drawing blood. McCain never skipped a beat and finished the entire song before being sedated by the crew and confined in the chain locker.
McCain really had nothing to do with the Forrestal disaster other than almost getting barbecued in his A-4.
that's a fucking epic reply ROFL +1
Hayden the potato head and Michael Bukkake are paranoid, psychopathic shit heads. The Feds created ISIS and ISIS is no threat to the US.Even if it were, spying on every American does nothing to degrade the threat. Now, spying on all of ..gov, and putting it up on the web, all the discussion, all the decisions, all the fraud, theft, decit, etc., THAT would be something that would protect the people of the US.
"The most extraordinary passage in the memo requires that the Israeli spooks “destroy upon recognition” any communication provided by the NSA “that is either to or from an official of the US government.”
Thank God he said Israel, for a moment their I thought he said Israel.
Bonus question: What's the one country that punked the US military and got away with it?
hey I just wanna know when zionism is gonna get its own flag ....oh wait
Ugh. It is all about power and it's retention.
Curious Reid would schedule this now.
Just political theater, that's why. Same with that thunder cunt wanting to push keystone now to help with the runoff election. This bill was bullshit anyway, I wouldn't have voted for it, because it includes an extension of the patriot act. It's so watered down that it was basically worthless. Iknow rand Paul said he wouldn't vote for it for that reason
2 up arrows if I could. One for the content of the post and the other for the correct useage of Thunder Cunt.
"Iknow rand Paul said he wouldn't vote for it for that reason"
I agree with you the bill was shit because it didn't go remotely far enough, but funny that Rand would find a reason to keep the status quo and not vote for something that scaled back the NSA. It's not like he's holding out for the better bill which is right around the corner. There isn't one. So he decided to vote against the reduction in power in order to do nothing. Watch what they do, not what they say.
let me preface by saying Im not a big rand fan, and he has disappointed me greatly. However, Ron paul voted against many things that may have seemed slightly better than the status quo, but were still completely unconstitutional anyway. I feel like this is one of those situations. The bill was completely meaningless, nothing but a way for these shitheads to grab some headlines for "fixing" something a lot of people are pissed off about without actually fixing anything. I wouldn't want my name on it either. In a way, this bill makes things WORSE becuase it allows them to claim to be correcting a wrong when they are doing nothing of the kind. I wouldn't vote in favor of anything if it included an extension of the patriot act
I understand your point, but the Red Team ran in part on security issues so it's an absolute lock that there will be no chance in hell of scaling back the NSA or the Patriot Act in the coming years. The fact is that he voted to do nothing when he had a chance to do a little. If his view is that the system is so broken that there's no point doing anything, why is he in the Senate? His actions speak louder than his words.
Oh i agree with you 100% that the red team is absolutely not going to change anything. But my point is maybe he voted to do nothing instead of a little because the bill actually accomplished nothing and he knew it. It didnt scale back the spying, merely claimed that it would(the bill was a lie, basically) AND it extended the patriot act. As I said, you know how I feel about all this, and I wouldn't have voted for it either, and I guarantee you Ron wouldn't have put his name on it either.
This shitty bill would have extended the Patriot Act through the back door. It was a pussy bill. The Patriot Act will expire unless they take positive steps to extend it instead of this undercover extention.
Yes, let's all act like this had a snowball's chance of passing. F'n human cows and their ease with which you can lead them...
Iran's jet drone based on stolen USA drone is flying?
http://www.voltairenet.org/article185930.html
Hopefully it can reach Utah.
Rah! Go Reps!
Pat on the back to all of those libs who 'held their noses'.
Are we learning yet?
Funny, Mr came home the other day pissed to the gills his software was rejected by a major phone carrier because it lacked sophisticated security features that would foil hacking. After a few drinks we came up with some funny responses. Hopefully our house was not bugged or just let me say it has been nice knowing all of you.
Miffed
don't sweat it those damn black helos are always flying around my neighborhood
me thinks one of the neighbors' mouth is bigger than mine ;)
there's a house that isn't bugged?
No smartphone and a cathode ray tv still?
Hmmm, things are not always as they appear, especially in the Senate:
"McConnell, however, blasted the measure as one that would aid America’s enemies, including ISIS, also known as ISIL or the Islamic State."
Dumbass McConnell, again.
"His fellow Kentucky Republican, Sen. Rand Paul, voted against the bill because it didn’t go far enough in his opinion to roll back surveillance under the Patriot Act.
“In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Americans were eager to catch and punish the terrorists who attacked us,” he said in a statement. “I, like most Americans, demanded justice. But one common misconception is that the Patriot Act applies only to foreigners—when in reality, the Patriot Act was instituted precisely to widen the surveillance laws to include U.S. citizens,” Sen. Paul said. “As Benjamin Franklin put it, ‘those who trade their liberty for security may wind up with neither.’
In other words, it sounds to me like he wants it dead, not fiddled around with...repealed entirely.
http://blogs.rollcall.com/wgdb/nsa-reform-effort-dies-in-senate/
Why, as a matter of fact he does ;-)
http://www.randpaul2016.com/2011/02/senator-rand-paul%e2%80%99s-letter-of-opposition-to-the-patriot-act/
Would have chalked that RP one up to doublespeak myself. Actions speak louder than words.
Can we have Reid back
Well we'll find out, you're just as pissed about it as I am. None of them can slow walk it/double talk it forever.
They get boxed in every vote, either way ;-)
He was against it, so he was for it. Or the other way around. Same shit, different guy. There will be no bill to repeal the Patriot Act. So Rand voted against a scale back of the NSA, because he is waiting for a bill that will never exist. If it ever did exist, he knows full well it won't pass, especially in a Red Team Senate. Actions versus words. Yet several here want to give him a pass on his actions because of his words. When will we ever learn.
So, you're siding with Ted Cruz who voted to scale it back incrementally.
Will wonders never cease ;-)
He's saying they're all dbags and maybe implying Rand is a placation to the libertarians. Talks a good game but doesn't actually do crap. There will be no change from the senate or any other type of politics. Political power grows from the barrel of a gun. Revolution, likely in the form of non participation will be the only source of change. Of course a few suicide shooters and bombers could slow down the police state (make them fear for their lives instead of the other way around and thugs may think twice about enforcing pro 0.01% laws). Anyway, in short, anyone who thinks anti patriot act will be repealed is living ina fantasy world. Don't be pissed it failed to pass, be thankful that you're not that confused about how the world works.
I had always hoped for a Gandhiesque type revolution in this country. However it is apparent that is impossible now. When has any part of our government been dismantled in its history? It only grows as a metastatic cancer, the only variable is the rate of change due to pressures from the people.
I watch for the tipping point when those who produce can no longer carry the dead weight of those reaping the rewards of this socialistic state. This is unsustainable.
Miffed
Release Rumsfeld's and Cheney's recorded information from when they helped Bandar take down the World Trade Centers.
if by help you mean designed and orchestrated the whole thing, then yes.
Oh yes, Rumsfeld's an idiot. Dick isn't but he uses his powers for evil.
Harry Reid is o-fer tonight. I wouldn't read too much into these votes tonight since they are being brought up for purely political reasons, and voted down likewise.
This one, however, is dead and will never be brought back to life in this Congress or the next.
Just to be clear here. 58 Senators voted in favor of the bill and it had the support of the President. And yet it didnt pass. Isn't 58 votes a majority?
And the article doesn't say exactly what party the 42 Senators who voted against the bill are in. Funny huh? It hints at the 42, but nowhere that I saw did the article say it was the Republicans. Seems odd, doesn't it?
Yes, the bill would pass with a simple majority if it was ACTUALLY voted on. However, it takes 60 votes to move the bill to an up-or-down floor vote if there are Senators who still want to debate it. The bill never got the 60 votes it needed to made it from "debate" to "vote".
The Zero Drudge report gives names and party affiliation of the Dems who blocked the who gives a fuck pipeline, but leaves you wondering who blocked legislation to rein in the NSA. But who cares. This bill was shit anyway. Show me a bill that gets rid of the NSA and then it will matter. But there never will be such a bill so long as the two Teams are in charge. It's all theater.
Legislation to keep most Americans' phone records out of government hands was defeated in the Senate on Tuesday, dooming at least for now prospects of national security reforms that supporters said would protect the privacy of law-abiding citizens.
A motion failed to get the necessary 60 votes needed to cut off debate on the bill sponsored by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), with most Republicans voting against. The final vote was 58 in favor to 42 against.
One of its most outspoken foes was incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who said stopping the National Security Agency from collecting telephone dialing records "would end one of our nation's critical capabilities to gather significant intelligence on terrorist threats."
Citing the recent beheadings of U.S. citizens in Syria, McConnell said, "This is the worst possible time to be tying our hands behind our backs."
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-nsa-bill-20141118-story.html
Listen.
Let them eat USSA terrrist threats!
Man, try to make some kinda cogent fucking argument.
Tony Wilson was a pleasure compared to you...
Where is that fucking guy?
That's right. See the Dem's only got rid of the supermajority requirement for some things and kept it for others. So, sometimes you need 51 votes and sometimes you need 60. It all depends on how many votes they actually have and what they actually want to accomplish. In this case, there were 58 senators who wanted to water down the spying, because they are afraid of the electoral consequences if they don't, so, since .gov doesn't want it watered down, 60 votes weere required. If the vote was on some confirming some statis bootlicker to a judgeship, then only 51 votes would be needed. It's called Consitutional Republicanism. That is also how you amend the constitution by passing legislation with "findings" that give additional power to .gov.
Tyranny never ends by a vote.
Tyranny ends with soap lots and lots of fuckin soap all fun aside Tyranny ends with a Y
Our "elected" officials don't work for us...surprise, surprise, surprise.
now we can keep blackmailing: judges (was justice roberts blackmailed? he looked like he had been blackmailed when he rewrote the obamacare law and went out on stage to tell us all), presidents, congressmen, senators, police, beaurocrats, .... etc, etc, etc.
LET THE BLACKMAIL CONTINUE ! IN THE NAME OF NATIONAL SECURITY ! IN THE NAME OF THE FIGHT AGAINST TERRORISM !
STOMP FREEDOM AND LIBERTY TO DEATH !!!
AMERICA NEEDS THIS STASI FASCIST SPYING TO STAY SAFE !!!
PUT THE CHILDREN UNDER STATE CONTROL !!! CAMERA'S IN EVERY KITCHEN IN AMERICA !!!
ELECT HENRY KISSINGER FOR PRESIDENT !!! WE NEED A NEW WORLD ORDER !!!
ya forgot the bed and bath cameras those heeb porn sites need money to
How else can they discover how to personalize the experience in room 101? You guys want to make everything so hard for the inner party. They shoulder terrible responsibilities: billions in assets to allocate, income streams to reinvest, sub-prime bond ladders to build, markets to rig. You can't blame them for automating the boring tasks like building daily dossiers on all the tax donkeys.
I'm sofa king confused. When they say domestic terrorists, does that mean Bush, Cheney, Obola, Pullet Silverstein et. al?
Is there a reason they cannot find one kid on a milk carton with all this whiz bang pry your butt cheeks open technology?
Help me out here. What am I missing?
SHHHHH don't mention those missing kids ya want them at your door they're sensitive about that paedophillia biz ain't you been payin attention to the news across the pond .... besides that these fucks can't find thier own asses with both hands an a rearview mirror. first they never find thier own peeps that would look bad and cause em to create a new bunch of ficticious asshats for us to fear they don't want to take all your money to fund this shit well not right now anyway....
I love your site Tyler, but Jesus, you HAVE to do something about these adds now. I can't even afford the band width these videos are gobbeling up, and sometimes these full screen adds are all but impossible to close without shutting down your page and trying again. I feel sorry for the other folks who have to pay by the minute for bandwidth, worse still view your page on a smart phone.
two words AD BLOCKER ;)
The statist shit shovelers waited until the lame duck session to allow the bill to die.
Good work Reid and Feinstein.
But you see it is really for our collective good, since we are now told we will have to send troops, troops not boots, back into Iraq if ISIS has WMD. Sound familiar?
Just like the vote on the who gives a fuck pipeline, they made it very close but no cigar. How coincidental. You've got to hand it to the Teams. They are good at putting on a show for the masses, and giving both Team affiliates something to bitch about and for which to blame the other Team on the same night.
That is why we have Anderson Cooper. He can make sense of all this for us. Come to think of it...that is why we have Bill O'Reilly. Fuck it, what we really need is Anderson O'Reilly.
Anderson O'Reilly is totally biased. That's why I only watch Bill O'Cooper.
The state of liberty in the USA is better served by the expiration of constitutionally offensive provisions of the 'patriot act' hidden in the 'USA Freedom act' than it would for the freedom act to pass with the 'patriot act' extensions.
Only a criminal governmnet need spy on the people.
An American, not US subject.
And my local newspaper never even MENTIONED this. Guess its owners have sold out, too.
The irony is that the NSA really could not care less about me or any of you who are so incensed about what they do. Collectively, you are less than meaningless. Yes, they should be prohibited from anything that infringes upon the Constitutional rights of US persons, but they lack either the expertise or the will to be precise enough to target only non-Americans. It is as much laziness as anything. It is also, apparently, too much to ask for Congress to do its friggin job and uphold the Constitution. Thank you, Ed, for tossing egg in all their faces.
Fortunately for the Man-Puti Love Society here, Puti has no such problem and faces no similar vote in Russia. He has full access to every Russian’s phone calls and internet records, and no one can stop him. And like leaders everywhere, he taps international communications, too. He got, inter alia, Geoff Pyatt’s phone and the Foreign Minister of Estonia, plus others. The NSA got Merkel, but Merkel’s BND got Hillary. Tit for twat. Merkel also has every senior EU bureaucrat, including the personal mobile of Mario Draghi, which she justifies by saying Germany must know what financial responsibilities will be thrust upon it. What the NSA has on Eurocits was given to it by each host country, who are all over their own domestic communications. The NSA took the heat (Keith let that slip in an off-the-cuff response to a reporter's question) and let other countries off the hook in exchange for sharing of terror-related data, letting citizens from Spain to India believe their own government isn’t doing it. It is. Eavesdropping is what leadership---any leadership---does in this world of ubiquitous technology. The private sector will join the parade sooner rather than later, calling it the need to do precision marketing. Some of you who write code are enabling that. Even some popular websites---cough cough---collect copious data on the behavior patterns of site visitors, no doubt all for a good cause.
I don't have a reason to care about politicians' bulk collection of phone records,
BUT
I DO have many reasons to care about politicians' bulk collection of EARNINGS
AND
politicians' bulk buying of votes with entitlement programs.
Your username is "socialismiscancer," but you don't care if the NSA spies on you all day long? Putting aside how ridiculous that is on so many levels, let me boil it down to one black and white issue you'll understand. Whose money do you suppose is funding the NSA? And how do you suppose they collect it?
I'm sure they'll take it up in the new senate............
If you really want to return liberty to the USA, you're going to have to put Rand Paul in the white house.
"If you really want to return liberty to the USA, you're going to have to put Rand Paul in the white house."
If you really want to return liberty to the USA, you're going to have to tear down the white house with all the vermin in it.
Republicans will demonstrate greater, more businesslike efficiency in flushing us all down the toilet.
Please let us stop this nonsense of acting like a terrorist is lurking under every bed. Governments are ramping up fear as an excuse to expand their control. Will terrorists kill innocent civilians in the years to come? Of course. They did so more than 100 years ago, when they were called anarchists, and a responsible nation-state must take "reasonable" measures to protect its citizens. But there is no way to completely eliminate terrorism.
The challenge that confronts us is how we will live with that threat. We have created a massive economy of fear, an industry of fear, a national psychology of fear. Al Qaeda could never have achieved that on its own. We have inflicted it on ourselves. the article below delves deeper into how we have built a massive and expensive industry to strip us of our liberties because of fear.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2013/09/a-terrorist-under-every-bed.html
Well thank god for that limp dick lame duck congress.
harry, (can we just get along), reid, brings up more bills in a week than the last 6 mo.'s.
cherry picking the ones that will not go their way come jan..
i sure hope the reb. house, and senate have about 20 bills to bring up in the first month, something along the lines of school vouchers, and rachet it up from there.
Oh yeah, quite a loss. The FISA court would have protected our rights.
Gimme a break.
I've got a better chance of catching Ebola at a Professional African Hair Braiding than being beheaded by a terrorist, domestic* or otherwise.
*Excluding Pigs, of course.
“I supported the USA FREEDOM Act because it may have been be the best opportunity to reform the metadata collection program while maintaining the government’s ability to use this tool to prevent terrorist attacks at home and abroad."...
I keep having this awful nightmare about a very famous journalist who breaks this story about this post-apocalyptic event "spy/IT admin" who is fed up with the system and the agency he works for and decides to spill the beans on all the violations to our law(s) in the U.S. and abroad by delivering to the "free press" dozens of documents (which soon blossom into hundreds, then thousands of pages of documents) with funding through a mysterious well connected donor that reveals classified information about programs that violate every facet of our time honored rights to privacy under the Constitution.... Even though 25 and 30 year career officers of this same agency did the same years earlier alerting the DOJ and legislators in the Nation's Capital to these scandals through the retribution they received as whistleblowers, this "8 year career IT guy" just had it all in the palm of his hand... And in this dream I keep telling myself that this effort was being used by the Federal government all along to "open up the debate" on our freedoms in order to identify both individual(s) and organization(s) within the U.S. and Western Europe that could be considered "antagonistic" or running counter to the extreme measures that are necessary in fighting a "war on terror"... And while they continue to watch their fellow citizens illegally and with impunity to the rule of law they swore an oath to protect and defend the American people still do nothing... Just like they did nothing to force their elected officials to investigate the events that gave us the war on terror and in turn a surveillance state in the first place!
Diane thanks for all your hard work and resolute dedication. I'm sure the contradictions of both you and your husband's work and profits with the DoD and DHS can be completely disregarded and that you wanted nothing more then to ensure the highest level of transparency possible in our surveillance state that you helped create -especially after what the CIA did to you and your colleagues when you were investigating that clandestine service for torture and rendition and the lasting damage it has had on our government and country these last 13 years alone given our obligations to the UN charter and Geneva Convention(s)!
Wait a (bleep)ing minute. A bill can pass on a majority vote. In the senate, members of the minority can filibuster relentlessly to squash a bill, but that's not what happened.
Also, this piece says "along party lines," but doesn't clearly say whether it was the elephant or jackass division of the one-party system that squashed the bill.
WTF?! Something doesn't smell right...
Yea baaaabeeeeee Keep Votin' !!!!!!!!!!!!!
Doesn't it make ya feel good? Doin' that civic doooty?
Consent to the assrape!
If this was Leahy's Bill it may have extended the Patriot Act a few years and should have been defeated. How about that, same old shit, packaged as an improvement.
How else can they vote. The NSA has so much shit on all of them that they wouldn't dare vote against it.
Bingo. Those sex party videos and kiddie porn selfies hang over their heads like the Sword of Damocles.
The ones who voted against it were permitted to in order to make the vote seem close.
Before everyone gets their panties in a knot, from what I recall this is a good thing that it didn't pass. This so called 'freedom act' is a farce. Justin Amash stopped supporting the house bill after they watered it down. The fact the senator Feinstein supports this should give u pause for thought. The bill as I understand it would actually have entrenched a lot of what the NSA already does. The FISA court requirements are already a joke. The security apparatus apparatus are only pretending that they hate this bill.
Read up on why Amash voted no against his own bill.
What the bill does is.
Extends the Patriot act sec 215 to 2017 instead of ending it in 2015.
Allows the government (FISC) to appoint a 'defendent' (can't get your own counsel)
Forces the FISA court to publish 'significant' decisions. Who defines 'significant'?
Allows the government to request 'specific' records. Now they cannot collect everyone's email / phone calls, but they can go to all the mobile operators and say "give me all records for all states east of the Mississippi, and give me all records of states west of the Mississippi". Doesn't change anything does it?
Well yeah, it failed this time because the new congress doesn't even get sworn in for a couple of months.
This is a lame duck congress and they're not going to reverse themselves and admit they were wrong. Perhaps they won't reverse themselves later either, but too soon to tell. But the big tech companies are now making noise that they also dislike the NSA sitting in their laps. We'll see.
Um, the Red Team killed it and stuff. So more Red Team will make it pass next time. Like for sure. Give me a fucking R.
Umm...Buried in this bill were extensions to the Patriot Act. It not passing is a good thing. The Surveillence State lost tonight. At least read about your material before writing about it.
EXACTLY... it's how the 'Patriot Act' was anything BUT 'patriotic'.
This 'Freedom' act has NOTHING to do with freedom.
How the politics work... you get a good sounding name... get some politicians (Feinstein) who vocally support this act that will 'restore your liberties'... (same politicians who voted in the patriot act in the first place I might add).
Vote on the bill. Congressmen and senators who have a clue (Rand Paul, Justin Amash) vote against it, and it fails.
everyone gets their panties in a knot crying foul, that this should have been passed.
Some neocon (e.g. McCain) comes out with another USA Freedom Mission Accomplished Act, that purports to supposedly do what the 'freedom act' was suppose to, and restore these civil rights. Everyone's in a fervor and votes for it.
No one reads it.
McCain is a hero for passing this 'anti-NSA' bill, where the reality is the bill he passes is a new version of the Patriot Act that everyone asks their congressman to vote for, because the 'USA Freedom Act' failed.
No one's the wiser until the next Edward Snowden, 10 years later, shows how nothing has changed. Everyone acts shocked
Wash, rinse, repeat.
Change we can believe in.
- Signed by the powers that be
If the government had the best interests of the people at heart, then this kind of decision could NEVER be made.
Clearly the opposite is true and has been for a very long time ... maybe forever.
Wow!!! Look at Kim Kardashian's ass!!!
I'm sure it's just metadata with no names or emails or anything. Shit anyone can get that from K-Mart or Home depot. Shittttt.
On a global scale, any criticism of US domestic or foreign policy makes you a terrorist or potential terrorist and you need to be monitored.
It's the weapon of choice of TPTB. Get used to it.
Ooops, have I just put myself on a list somewhere
Any of their reforms would entail requiring FISA courts to authorize records searches. So what? Nothing changes for the better.. FISA courts rubber stamp every request they get. Besides wtf kind of court is completely closed to the public and has no real oversite (fox guarding the hen house anyone?) Whole thing is a fucking joke.
Stupid Article.
The vote was for window dressings, I don't see either party voting to repeal or abolish the NSA so this is just more Left/Right clap trap.
BIGTIME FAIL !
Senate = shitheads
OK EVERYONE, get this straight. By this bill NOT passing, the Patriot act will expire in 2015. The bill would have extended it to 2017.
As a result, the NSA lose the key sec 215 provision that is the legal justification for their programs. This bill NOT passing is a good thing, it will terminate sec 215 by Dec 2015 as a result.
Everyone understand?