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posted by cmn32480 on Thursday November 19 2015, @01:43PM   Printer-friendly
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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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anal Pumpernickel on Thursday November 19 2015, @05:26PM

    by Anal Pumpernickel (776) on Thursday November 19 2015, @05:26PM (#265412)

    The bulk collection of phone metadata was never going to end in the first place. It's just that companies would be forced to store the data instead. If the government forces companies to do something (especially that would be unconstitutional for it to do), then those companies become a de facto part of the government, so it is not really different. The "freedom" act solves nothing, as the problem is that the data is being collected in the first place.

    The NSA's mass surveillance is completely unconstitutional, which is why passing more laws saying it's legal will do nothing; you can't override the highest law of the land with petty laws like these. People who would trade our fundamental liberties and our constitutional form of government for security are naive cowards who don't realize that the corrupting influence of power doesn't disappear merely because someone is part of the government. Tom Cotton is a traitor.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2015, @07:00PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2015, @07:00PM (#265449)

    The claim that these programs are "constitutional" are based on the courts preventing anyone from challenging them in the light of day. Basing a claim of constitutionality on the fact that no one has been able to try to prove it unconstitutional is bullshit. "We're not keeping any secret prisoners here so you can't look."