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U.S. Presidential Candidates Answer ScienceDebate 2016 Questions

posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @01:07PM   
from the interesting-but-not-surprising dept.

slash2phar writes:

Three of the four major candidates for United States president have responded to America's Top 20 Presidential Science, Engineering, Technology, Health and Environmental Questions. The nonprofit advocacy group ScienceDebate.org has posted their responses online. Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and Jill Stein had all responded as of press time, and the group was awaiting responses from Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson.

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Original Submission

• Re:Summary of responses Re:Summary of responses (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:09PM

  by Phoenix666 (552) on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:09PM (#401944) Journal

  I think that gives Stein short shrift. I found her answers the best, informed and to the point. Hillary's answers were wonky, empty drivel. Trump's were half Republican reflexive, "laissez-faire!!!" but he did make some solid points. I especially liked his answer on government surveillance.

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  Washington DC delenda est.

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• Re:Summary of responses (Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:56PM

  by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:56PM (#401967) Journal

  I especially liked his answer on government surveillance.

  Here's the ScienceDebate statement by Trump:

  The United States government should not spy on its own citizens. That will not happen in a Trump administration. As for protecting the Internet, any attack on the Internet should be considered a provocative act that requires the utmost in protection and, at a minimum, a proportional response that identifies and then eliminates threats to our Internet infrastructure.

  Now let's look at some other stuff:

  Trump sides with Rubio over Cruz in NSA surveillance debate [thehill.com]

  Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Tuesday sided with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) over Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on restoring surveillance measures under the Patriot Act. "I tend to err on the side of security, I must tell you," Trump told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt when asked about the metadata program. [...] Trump said his position in favor of the NSA data collection had been the same since before last month's terrorist attacks in Paris, which stoked fears of international terrorism and revived debate over government surveillance measures. "I assume when I pick up my telephone people are listening to my conversations anyway, if you want to know the truth," Trump told Hewitt. "It's a pretty sad commentary."

  Trump Says He Supports Reauthorizing Patriot Act, NSA Metadata Collection [truthinmedia.com] (same story, longer quote)

  Hewitt then asked, “Alright, so you would be in favor of restoring the Patriot Act?” “I think that would be fine. As far as I’m concerned, that would be fine,” Trump responded. Newsweek points out that Donald Trump has held the same position since before the Paris terror attacks. He said this summer, “I support legislation which allows the NSA to hold the bulk metadata. For oversight, I propose that a court, which is available any time on any day, is created to issue individual rulings on when this metadata can be accessed.”

  A below-embedded CBS46 Atlanta Ben Swann Reality Check report challenges the notion that the NSA has stopped spying on Americans’ cell phones and notes that “under the USA Freedom Act, NSA computers remain at the carriers’ and service providers’ switching offices [collecting metadata]. But the NSA computer analysts return to their NSA offices and from there they operate remotely the same computers they were operating directly in the Patriot Act days.”

  Trump calls for bringing back surveillance of Muslim communities [politico.com]

  "There’s hatred and there’s hatred like nobody has ever seen, and it’s obviously emanating from and coming out of, among other places, the mosques," the Republican presidential candidate said in a Thursday interview with Sirius XM's "Breitbart News Daily." "I think we ought to start [surveillance] up again, and we ought to start it up this morning. We ought to start it up again and get going. And use your head. This is a lot of nonsense that we ended that," he went on. The program was a "good thing" that yielded "frankly good information," he remarked. "And I think we ought to start it up and not be naive and not be stupid. And they ought to start that up immediately." "As far as weapons, they’ll use anything they can get," Trump said of terrorists, mocking concerns about a potential erosion of civil liberties. "These people will use anything — they’re not worried about 'Oh gee, this isn’t ethical.' These are not people that are politically correct."

  Both Trump And Clinton Suggest Expanding Mass Surveillance, Bogus Watch Lists After Attack In Orlando [techdirt.com]

  Donald Trump made some confusing remarks about an internet shutdown or ban, but he appeared to be describing a counterterror plan. [snopes.com]

  This clown is an authoritarian just like Hillary. Don't be fooled.

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