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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: 3, Insightful) by metamonkey on Friday June 20 2014, @06:30PM
So it'll be done by private companies and independent contractors then.
Okay 3, 2, 1, let's jam.
(Score: 2) by Sir Garlon on Friday June 20 2014, @07:10PM
Maybe. IANAL but I think the word I would want to see is "agent" because that could include someone who is working on behalf of the government, without being an employee.
That said, if the NSA tried that dodge this year, there is a good chance someone would blow the whistle, and Congress's rage would be epic if that happened. Seriously, you might indeed see Congress do something real -- a special prosecutor, aka "witch hunt" -- if the NSA pulled a stunt like that. I think the smart move would be for the NSA to wait out the storm before trying those kind of shenanigans. But they're so incredibly arrogant, I don't actually trust them to act in their own self-interest. Would love it if they shot themselves in the foot, so here's hoping.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday June 23 2014, @05:26PM
This assumes Congress actually WANTS to put a stop to this. A couple sentences full of loopholes big enough to float a freakin' oil tanker through, which only applies to a single bill, for only a limited period of time...that sure as hell isn't the impression I got from it!
Congress doesn't want to stop the NSA; at most they want to threaten the NSA enough that the NSA doesn't screw with Congress.
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Sunday June 22 2014, @06:50PM
And those contractors are quite aware that they have no whistleblower protection and will be hounded.
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