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Last night, we noted that an amendment from Reps. Thomas Massie and Zoe Lofgren was on the docket that had two provisions to stop two different kinds of surveillance: the first, taking away funding from "backdoor searches" which are a hugely problematic "loophole" that the NSA uses to do warrantless surveillance of Americans. In many ways, this is much worse than the bulk collection programs that were just hindered by the USA Freedom Act. The second part of the amendment was barring funds from being used to mandate "backdoors" into technology products -- another hugely important move. Thankfully, the amendment passed by a wide margin earlier today: 255 - to 174.
The article goes on to mention that a similar amendment was proposed and passed with a much wider margin in previous debates last year, but was later dropped when passing the higher profile "CRomnibus bill" required it.
Original Submission
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kurenai.tsubasa on Tuesday June 16 2015, @01:22AM
Unfortunately those folks in the checkout lane get old and then show up every other November to give a vote to their team. I don't think they've ever critically considered the underpinnings of a healthy democratic republic.
Gay rights! Abortion! Other women's health topics! Creationism in schools! They're outlawing Christmas! Dearborn, MI is under Sharia law!
*rolls eyes*
Ok, I have strong opinions about most of those, and most of you folks know what those opinions are or could probably guess. What do we need to do to make the case to the general public that those things are meaningless compared to the government panopticon?
Cannabis prohibition is finally ending. Once that comes to pass at a national level, suddenly we have a lot of spooks, kooks, and thugs with badges that don't have anything to do. I won't believe for a second that they're going to go quietly off to unemployment lines.
Portent for the future? First they came for the jihadis, and I did not speak out because I was not a jihadi. Then they came for people who used unauthorized encryption, and I did not speak out because I did not use unauthorized encryption.* Then they came for BSD users, and I did not speak out because I did not use BSD. Then they came for the athiests and Muslims, and I did not speak out because I was not an athiest or Muslim. Then they came for the socialists and trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist or trade unionist. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.
* I would hope I would begin speaking out here personally, but will the everyman, especially as long as he has bread, circuses, and weed?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday June 16 2015, @04:16AM
They do, for a variety of reasons, and still nothing changes. Flipping the federal government from Republicans to Democrats and back again within a decade and the narrative wears quite thin. I read the partisan blogs from both. People are fed up. On the left, the base really believed Obama would do something different. When he kept Geithner on, they reasoned it was some 11th dimensional chess he was playing, that they had convinced themselves he was a master of for beating Hillary in the primaries. But it signaled status quo. On the right, they've seen Boehner and McConnell getting in bed with Obama, whom they've hated, and been baited to hate, as the anti-Christ. Both sides' partisans are a long way from singing kumbaya, but it has sunk in that the two parties are the two sides of the same coin and that everyone is deceived. I see that narrative everywhere. I also see both sides talking about revolution in sober tones.
If I was a guardian of the status quo, that would make me nervous. When people move from disbelief to acceptance, action isn't long to follow. And reports are that the keepers of the status quo do begin to feel it, too, because the construction of panic rooms in the big houses is up. (Of course that doesn't help much in a revolutionary condition, because panic rooms can be burned out with thermite, encased in concrete to form a tomb, or yanked out of the superstructure and dropped in the ocean) I've read half a dozen editorials in major publications in the last year from some of those wealthy cautioning their peers not to push it too far. They're signs that they're reading the tea leaves the same way we are.
All of it could be avoided if the government and its superiors in corporate America were to radically change how they do business, and move everything back to a more equitable footing, but they really can't. They're committed. They're heavily overrepresented for sociopathy. They surround themselves with people who keep them in a bubble, telling them constantly how wonderful and smart and important they are. If they have any native talent, it withers because really talented people throw themselves at them for pay or prestige and it becomes easy for the masters to slide into indolence, petulance, and autocracy. Round that off with a healthy dose of social darwinism and its attendant dehumanization of the masses of humans who don't have a billion dollars, and they will careen their crazy car right off the cliff.
Washington DC delenda est.