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From net neutrality to digital privacy, Congress does diddly

washingtonpost.com

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Re: From net neutrality to digital privacy, Congress does diddly

#21

Post by wallace_f »

rayiner wrote: post #14
ISL wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We get the Congress for which we vote.

The problem isn’t Congress—most people are happy with their own representatives. The problem is us. If we took 10 random people from New York City and ten from rural Alabama, they wouldn’t be able to get anything done either. Why are we surprised that the people those people elect can’t work together?

I personally think we need a civil libertarian movement. The abuses of the federal government are beyond ridiculous at this point. We are fighting over political differences while everyone's liberties/rights are legitimately being eroded.

Congress is subservient to the Military, the Federal Reserve, and even relatively small-time players like Healthcare/Big Pharma.

How many congressman are actually crying foul that Afghanistan, etc., are unconstitutional wars that are not approved by congress--a constitutional right of congress.

Congress also has the right to issue and regulate currency, but even that we leave up to a private bank that has Wall St's best interests in mind--not the taxpayers.

These kinds of constitutional injustices could go on and on.

But most people are bombarded with the injustices of the latest Trump tweet, or the inhumanity of mansplaining.

Re: From net neutrality to digital privacy, Congress does diddly

#22

Post by makecheck »

Even if Congress were paying any attention to what constituents want (and they rarely seem to), it’s laughable that such a small number of people are expected to faithfully understand the wishes of so many people. Right now it’s on the order of one million regular people per representative!

Moreover, with such a small number of people, buying them becomes “easy”; it just doesn’t take that much money to corrupt a few hundred people. If most people need to work their entire lives to reach a million dollars, does it really take much for billionaires to steer the ship?

Now, if you were to vastly increase the number of representatives, you’d solve both problems. Suppose there were 5,000 members of Congress; then it would take a lot more money to corrupt enough people to change outcomes, and each of them would have to represent a much smaller fraction of the population.

A huge number of representatives would’ve been impractical before the age of the Internet (as you’d need a stadium just to hold a session) but with secure remote access it’s quite feasible to have tons of people logged in at once. And heck, why not designate a Congress-stadium anyway, for rare in-person sessions? If it works for mega-churches, it can work for politicians.

Re: From net neutrality to digital privacy, Congress does diddly

#23

Post by betterunix2 »

rayiner wrote: post #14
ISL wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We get the Congress for which we vote.

The problem isn’t Congress—most people are happy with their own representatives. The problem is us. If we took 10 random people from New York City and ten from rural Alabama, they wouldn’t be able to get anything done either. Why are we surprised that the people those people elect can’t work together?

We're surprised because in the past people in Congress have worked together, and in some cases have done good things by working together.

You are also wrong about people from New York and Alabama; on some issues, Americans are mostly in agreement with each other, but that is not reflected in Congress. Net neutrality is an example of an issue the majority of Americans agree on, across all political perspectives. Social security and medicare are supported by a large majority of Americans. You would not know it from the people in Congress, who have managed to turn all the above and more into partisan issues despite the broad agreement by their own constituents.

Re: From net neutrality to digital privacy, Congress does diddly

#24

Post by dingo_bat »

ISL wrote: post #9
dingo_bat wrote: post #5

> In the case before the court, Timothy Carpenter’s cellular provider supplied investigators a record of his smartphone’s whereabouts. The pings placed Carpenter in the vicinity of several armed robberies in Ohio and Michigan. Now behind bars, he is asking the justices to find this a violation of his Fourth Amendment right to be safe from warrantless searches of his private domain. What is this bullshit?! Next a guy…

The alternative is to allow the government to be able to search anyone's entire location history for the past decade at its own whim, without requesting a warrant. Amendment Four: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, a…

> The alternative is to allow the government to be able to search anyone's entire location history for the past decade at its own whim, without requesting a warrant.

The ISP/cellphone company can choose not to give the history.

> Amendment Four

Nowhere does it say that third parties cannot provide information about you. Location data using cell tower usage is not the user's "person, house, paper or effect". It belongs to the operator.

Re: From net neutrality to digital privacy, Congress does diddly

#25

Post by kurthr »

ISL wrote: post #13
40acres wrote: post #7

Congress is becoming a non factor. The amount of pettiness and partisianship over the past few years had made Congress into the de factor weakest branch of government. Most of Obama's legacy was executed via executive order and guidance given to executive departments, a year into the Trump administration and we are seeing the same thing. The other big decisions (gay marriage, citizens United, etc.) are being made by…

We get the Congress for which we vote.

Well, if you can gerrymander the vote, then your vote may not count as much as others.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering

Re: From net neutrality to digital privacy, Congress does diddly

#27

Post by 40acres »

wallace_f wrote: post #21
rayiner wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn’t Congress—most people are happy with their own representatives. The problem is us. If we took 10 random people from New York City and ten from rural Alabama, they wouldn’t be able to get anything done either. Why are we surprised that the people those people elect can’t work together?

I personally think we need a civil libertarian movement. The abuses of the federal government are beyond ridiculous at this point. We are fighting over political differences while everyone's liberties/rights are legitimately being eroded. Congress is subservient to the Military, the Federal Reserve, and even relatively small-time players like Healthcare/Big Pharma. How many congressman are actually crying foul that A…

Definitely agreed that Congress is not executing their congressional rights as strongly as they should. The unauthorized wars combined with the fact that it's a guarantee that AUMF will continuously be approved is just one example.

Congress is simply too worried about toeing the party line and their own reelection to understand it's collective power.

Re: From net neutrality to digital privacy, Congress does diddly

#28

Post by aaron-lebo »

makecheck wrote: post #22

Even if Congress were paying any attention to what constituents want (and they rarely seem to), it’s laughable that such a small number of people are expected to faithfully understand the wishes of so many people. Right now it’s on the order of one million regular people per representative! Moreover, with such a small number of people, buying them becomes “easy”; it just doesn’t take that much money to corrupt a few…

...or because the positions are smaller (and even less salient), it becomes easier to buy off a bunch of smaller reps. If the rep for Chattanooga is corrupt, would you know? Do you even know who they are, right now?

I'm not aware of any academic research on this off the top of my head, but it must exist, that's probably a better reference than a belief that everything changes if we adjust some numbers. That's a very engineer-oriented approach, but it misses that the current crisis (can we call it that) is social. People have to decide they will not support and/or elect unethical morons who say what they want to hear. Until then, it doesn't matter, and you aren't going to be able to reform the system without getting reformers into it, anyway. If you can do that, why is a massive change needed?

Don't mean to be a complete dick about this, but any supporting evidence would be appreciated. You made a logical leap (more reps = less corruption) which is not at all obvious.

Re: From net neutrality to digital privacy, Congress does diddly

#29

Post by mac01021 »

makecheck wrote: post #22

Even if Congress were paying any attention to what constituents want (and they rarely seem to), it’s laughable that such a small number of people are expected to faithfully understand the wishes of so many people. Right now it’s on the order of one million regular people per representative! Moreover, with such a small number of people, buying them becomes “easy”; it just doesn’t take that much money to corrupt a few…

I'm not saying I disagree in general but, in this case, I don't think the megacongress would help. The issue here is that the vast majority of citizens do not know or care about net neutrality.
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