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posted by
cmn32480
on Thursday November 19 2015, @01:43PM
from the never-let-a-crisis-go-to-waste dept.
from the never-let-a-crisis-go-to-waste dept.
A U.S. senator plans to introduce legislation that would delay the end of the bulk collection of phone metadata by the National Security Agency to Jan. 31, 2017, in the wake of security concerns after the terror attacks last Friday in Paris.
Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, believes that the termination of the program, scheduled for month-end under the USA Freedom Act, "takes us from a constitutional, legal, and proven NSA collection architecture to an untested, hypothetical one that will be less effective."
The transition will happen in less than two weeks, at a time when the threat level for the U.S. is "incredibly high," he said Tuesday.
The obvious answer to doing something that doesn't work is to do more of that something.
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In Wake of Paris Attacks, Legislation Aims to Extend NSA Program
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Nadia Comaneci, simple perfection.
-- '76 Olympics
(Score: 5, Insightful) by MrGuy on Thursday November 19 2015, @02:53PM
When there's a new shocking incident of gun violence, one of the first things we hear is a rousing chorus of "now is not the time!" to talk about gun control from so much of congress, implying that it's the wrong approach to make long-lived legislative decisions based on short-term emotional fuel (with the demonstrably false promise that we'll talk about it later when things have calmed down). Decisions to encroach on people's second amendment rights must be made on sober emotionless grounds.
But when a shocking incident of terrorism happens, now is the PERFECT time for us to rush into long-term legislative actions that will have long term consequences. Those same legislators have no problem wrapping themselves in flag and using the emotional momentum to pass legislation. Decisions to encroach on first and fourth amendment rights are just fine to be done emotionally.
Sure, I get the NRA has a better lobby than any organized coalition that's pro-privacy. I'm just amazed at the sheer hypocracy of the approach.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2015, @03:20PM
The NRA is run by gun manufacturers. They're defending the right of all Americans for them to have high revenues, high earnings and high pay for the corporate executives.
(Score: 2) by Mr Big in the Pants on Thursday November 19 2015, @04:04PM
If you think this is primarily about keeping your country safe and making reasoned responses to this incident then you are very naively missing the point.
This facade is so thin it doesn't even qualify as an undercoat so I am not sure it beggars explanation or in depth discussion.
"They" want access to everything all the time to do with as they wish. "They" will use any and all excuses no matter how ridiculous, unpopular or illegal. This has been obvious and discussed for some time now.
Coming up with bad comparisons to other decisions misses the point so badly you are in danger of shooting yourself in the head...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Thursday November 19 2015, @04:09PM
Your post is excellent and it's already hit 5 so I won't mod it. Instead I'll respond.
You have really hit the nail on the head. When it comes to big, splashy violence committed by 'terrorists' there's no limit to the outrages that elected officials in the government are willing to employ. When it comes to big, splashy violence committed by citizens, they do suddenly, strangely, find reserve. You have perfectly sourced those behaviors.
Still, for me it leads me to a different conclusion than it might lead others. That is, the mercurial penchant for government creatures, who demonstrably behave thus, with their blithe disregard for laws or the Constitution or cultural practice, tells me as a citizen that I am far better off being able to oppose their quirks by force of arms than not. That is, I have a real and material interest in owning and knowing how to operate weapons of war that would cause those government creatures to pause when considering if they want to summarily void my human rights.
Take, for example, the standoff at the Bundy ranch [wikipedia.org]. I have no particular sympathy with that rancher or the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). But, the outcome of the standoff was remarkably different from, say, the outcome in the Eric Garner case [wikipedia.org]. In the former, heavily armed neighbors and sympathizers arrived to support his case. In the latter, no one did.
To me, it says that an armed citizenry is far more able to win a deliberative, just outcome from an out-of-control government, than a disarmed citizenry can.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday November 19 2015, @05:12PM
I don't see those situations the same way you do. At all. I'm firmly of the view that the difference in their treatment has a lot to do with another factor entirely.
Imagine what the reaction would have been if Eric Garner had a group of big black guys armed with legally-owned guns had pointed them at the NYPD officers attempting to arrest Garner. You can bet that that would have turned into an all-out shootout in the middle of the street in broad daylight in Brooklyn, and it would have been considered completely justifiable if it had.
Now imagine what the reaction would have been Cliven Bundy had put his hands in the air in exactly the same gesture Eric Garner used. At most, the BLM would have handcuffed him as gently as they could have and taken him to jail. Or they might have simply done what they had planned to do when they arrived, namely take Bundy's cattle away. In any event, Bundy would not be dead.
So it wasn't a matter of who was armed and who wasn't, but about whose lives the authorities considered worth protecting.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Thursday November 19 2015, @05:34PM
You have really hit the nail on the head. When it comes to big, splashy violence committed by 'terrorists' there's no limit to the outrages that elected officials in the government are willing to employ. When it comes to big, splashy violence committed by citizens, they do suddenly, strangely, find reserve.
I really don't play the prejudice card very often.... But, seems to me the only observable difference between the two groups is color and religious affiliation.