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Whats happening? Why the sudden rush of common sense? Sincerely hope that good sense prevails and continues to move forward.
In a surprising vote late Thursday night, a strong majority of the House of Representatives voted to cut funding to NSA operations that involve warrantless spying on Americans, or involve putting hardware or software "backdoors" into various products. The amendment to a defense appropriations bill was offered by Reps. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), and Thomas Massie (R-KY), passed 293-123.
The amendment ( http://repcloakroom.house.gov/uploadedfiles/massie.pdf ) [PDF] specifies that, with a few exceptions, "none of the funds made available by this Act may be used by an officer or employee of the United States to query a collection of foreign intelligence information acquired under section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1881a) using a United States person as an identifier."
In addition, "none of the funds made available by this Act may be used by the National Security Agency or the Central Intelligence Agency to mandate or request that a person...alter its product or service to permit the electronic surveillance...of any user of said product or service for said agencies." Since Edward Snowden began leaking documents about the NSA's tactics in June of last year, security experts have worried about reports of intentional weaknesses left in widely-used cryptography specifications.
(Score: 2) by AnythingGoes on Friday June 20 2014, @01:03PM
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 20 2014, @03:20PM
The CIA has used "illegal" things like drugs to fund black ops etc. The government created a law that allowed them to steal money from drug dealers to be used to create war chests for law enforcement, unfortunately the laws actually allow them to steal from even little old ladies life's savings, provided it is over X amount of cash in their possession, which by law makes them a drug dealer and property subject to confiscation and use by law enforcement. The FBI has even used child pornography to fund the investigations into it etc.
There is growing evidence appearing in public that the NSA can snoop into computers/networks/etc pretty much when they want to. People's identities get stolen along with their wealth, banking exchanges gets leached for funds constantly, etc, etc. "Hackers", organized crime around the world, foreign governments, etc all to blame so far? Who points the fingers at such evidence? FICA covers much of it for American accounts but of course that comes out of the general fund, like the money "taken" from the NSA for certain things used to? Wonder what a near world wide hidden truncation hack would add up to? But hey not really necessary when you can insert invoices, approve payments, etc?
(Score: 2) by Sir Garlon on Friday June 20 2014, @03:25PM
Nice try, AC, pushing the "child pornography" button to short-circuit people's critical minds, but when you make an accusation like that without providing a shred of evidence, I call bullshit.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 20 2014, @05:11PM
Bullshit? Yeah, everyone bullshitted about it and other things so much on IRC almost 20 years ago that it was considered that such stings [salon.com], which obviously still happen, were common knowledge. As well as how they didn't necessarily want it well known that they often seized sites and evidence that they could use to entrap even more people while continuing its operation, even some who only had their stolen CC info used. Maybe the Candyman can find you an Avalanche of information on similar events but this is too much like discussing the existence of speed traps and other IRC time wasters, perhaps even discussing whether or not XYZcorps uses paid shills. Have to be careful not to go Russian into things anyway.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 20 2014, @03:53PM
The only funding this prohibits is searching the database for names of US residents. Just how much do you think it costs to search the database? There's still plenty of funding to collect, maintain, and enlarge the data store, NSA just won't be able to use federal funds to pay for specific queries. I have little doubt they will easily find alternate funding sources.
Hell, agents might even be willing to pay the penny out of their own pocket. I can see it now: every computer will have a Search Jar next to it, like the jar where you're supposed to put a quarter when you take a cup of coffee from the break room.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday June 20 2014, @05:14PM
The air conditioning will actually be for Alaska... the inground pools as well.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---