SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
One of the NSA’s most important surveillance authorizations is set to expire on December 31st, and all year, reformers have been looking at the reauthorization as a way to pare back the agency’s powers. But after months of negotiating terms, Congress is now preparing a bill with none of the proposed limits, and a number of troubling new measures that say could greatly expand the agency’s power.
Submitted by Rep. Nunes on Tuesday afternoon, the FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act of 2017 is based on a previous bill submitted by Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), generally seen as the most NSA-friendly of the proposals. The current bill is narrower than Burr’s proposal in some areas, but makes a significant expansion to “about” collection, which allows the NSA to search communications that mention a given target but was not sent or received by the target. In practical terms, that could mean searching a message simply because it contains an email address, phone number, or other string of characters associated with a target.
[...] The bill would also codify the backdoor search loophole, which allows for intelligence agencies to search communications to and from US citizens without obtaining a warrant, as long as those communications were intercepted overseas. While that loophole is most associated with the NSA, it also includes domestic agencies like the FBI, which the current bill says “has the discretion to seek a warrant” if the bureau deems it necessary.
A vote is expected this week.
Congress is sneaking through a major expansion of NSA surveillance powers
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bradley13 on Thursday December 21 2017, @02:12PM (13 children)
It's at times like this that one really has to marvel at the US Congress. It is just too remote, too removed from the concerns of the voters. Do any - any - of the people in Congress ever stop to think that they are supposed to be representing the interests of Joe Sixpack and Millie the Hairdresser? Apparently not. Just like the proposed bill to "restore" net neutrality, which was apparently written by the big corporations, because it codifies all the things they really want to do, like monetizing data streams on both ends. This bill codifies all the things federal law enforcement really wants, like being able to skip applying for those troublesome warrants. It's all about the interests of big organizations, while completely disregarding the concerns of Joe and Millie.
This is the kind of thing that makes me happy to live in a tiny country. Our politicians are regularly sighted on the same trains the rest of us use, or on the street, or wherever. They are embedded in the population, at least more so that the US "elite". We know where the bastards live. Too damned many of them are farmers, but maybe that's better than too many lawyers (though we have too many of those as well). More: When they do something stupid anyway, the population can, and regularly does tell them where to stuff it. [wikipedia.org]
When countries get too big, the government loses touch with the population. Which means: the population no longer really controls the government. US elections at the national level are a joke - you get to pick between two sides of the same clipped coin, over and over and over again. Best thing that could happen to the US (and to the EU, and to any other political entity with a population over 8 digits) is a break-up into smaller entities. Brexit is - I hope - just the beginning. Y'all need for Texas and California, and New Hampshire, and all of the other secessionist movements to succeed. But somebody needs to be first - and nobody has the guts.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 4, Informative) by crafoo on Thursday December 21 2017, @02:41PM
This was how it was supposed to work in the USA as well. States and counties were to have the majority of power. Any power not explicitly granted to the local governments by the people was necessarily reserved to individual people. Federal government existed solely to deal with treaties and broader interstate travel and commerce issues. There was to be no standing military in peace time. There was no federal income tax.
(Score: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Thursday December 21 2017, @02:51PM (3 children)
It'd be a horrific, bloody mess, probably even worse than the last time someone tried to pull out of the union.
I sometimes think we need to split it up too, but the existing processes are unimaginably terrible.
It'd be nice if we could tone it down more gently, but it's hard to imagine anyone going along with that either.
What to do...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 21 2017, @03:25PM (2 children)
It wasn't a bloody mess. The subsequent attack on US-manned Fort Sumter was the bloody mess. South Carolina had seceded from the US without consequence in December, 1860 and attacked Fort Sumter in April, 1861.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday December 21 2017, @04:43PM (1 child)
That was back in the days when there wasn't really a standing army. Even by World War I it still took countries like 2-3 weeks to mobilize in event of surprise invasion.
And you might recall the Union had a lot of trouble with finding competent commanders for like the first half of the war, too.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 22 2017, @01:55AM
(Score: 5, Interesting) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday December 21 2017, @03:09PM (5 children)
Possibly. You make striking points. I think you're right that the vast majority of Congresspeople really don't have any idea of the way Joe and Millie actually live their lives - not in the sense that they've experienced what it really means to be that, anyway. (They have LOTS and LOTS of experts to tell them how their constituents may react to a given proposition or whatever, especially concerning how a majority of their constituents will or will not vote for them based on whatever.)
But no, it's not entirely about disregarding what Joe and Millie want. Joe Sixpack really DOESN'T give a damn if the guv'mint can read every single email he's sent or Facebook Message he's sent. Nobody with access is going to give a crap that he spends money with a bookie or sent a message to his side honey to meet him at the motel. And Joe Sixpack IS Scared that that dark skinned feller walking into that there Mosque in Chicago just sent a message to an Imam in New York City that Mustafa can hijack the plane and fly it into the Sears Tower (yep, you and I know its Willis Tower - he DOESN'T CARE,) anyway that dark skinned Hadji can do that thang. He WANTS law enforcement to be able to check everyone's private Facebook if they can learn that Hadji is saying that thang. Joe KNOWS he's a God-Fearing, Gun Owning, Beer Guzzling American and he wants his Football and Guns and doesn't care about the rest.
Millie Hairdresser is worried about her hubby Joe, especially when he gets to drinking while watching Fox News. Millie wants to be sure that Joe keeps his job and brings enough money home that Joe has his nice beer and she can buy her knitting suppiles by Amazon. Plus she wants to make sure that Hadji won't come over and knock Joe off and take her into the bushes. So she's all behind having a nice great big wall built, especially if it won't be coming out of her tax bill. That little brown Jose who set her table and washed her dishes at the restaurant can sure keep doing that for her, so long as she never has to see him on her shopping trip to Sears or her annual fling at Macy's. But in the meantime, anything that the government does which keeps that brown boy from taking away Joe's job because he'd do it for less money if given a chance... yep she'll take that.
So no, Joe and Millie, for example, voted for Trump and are actually HAPPY at what he Tweets and would probably support these provisions. And what Trump getting elected proved was that they ARE still in charge of this country, no matter what those folks in the cities on the coasts (or on Lake Michigan - same thing really) think.
Don't think for a second that those folks who run for elections can't see these things, especially after they've happened. And, by the way, we HAD our Secessions and Seven States tried to get free. In 1861. The South Lost.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Thursday December 21 2017, @03:36PM (1 child)
(Score: 2, Touché) by redneckmother on Thursday December 21 2017, @05:15PM
That reminds me of an unattributed quote:
Which is worse: ignorance or apathy? Who knows? Who cares?
Mas cerveza por favor.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday December 21 2017, @04:17PM
Ha, your post reminded me of that song about "I'm an asshole, and i'm proud of it".
Joe and Millie Sixpack "I'm an asshole, yo-yo, yo-yo, yo-yo....We're assholes, and we're proud of it"
:)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 21 2017, @04:42PM (1 child)
everyone I know that I've spoken to about this and other congressional grabs like this... are very against it
but feel powerless to stop it. and it is that powerless feeling that discourages any acting upon it.
many really really REALLY thought that the democrats were to blame, and draining the swamp would restore... something.
but they now concede what has happened wasn't what they imagined. even if it really is what they were told. everyone believed something else would happen, america would be stronger because of patriotism and traditions and... and not made weaker by fear.
now they are afraid, too
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday December 21 2017, @08:49PM
"I never thought leopards would eat MY face!" sobs mutilated woman who voted for Chief Leopard of the Leopards Eating Peoples' Faces Party.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 21 2017, @03:39PM (1 child)
I'm not the first to say this, but I'll repeat it:
If pro is the opposite of con, what is the opposite of progress?
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday December 21 2017, @04:18PM
Justin Trudeau, the Waffle King!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---