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We Only Have Hours Left to Stop the NSA Expansion Bill

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Re: We Only Have Hours Left to Stop the NSA Expansion Bill

#2
Not sure if we're allowed to post links or whether this deserves its own topic, but this video is worth a look:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-qgmRnqces

Wiliam Binney explains what has taken place and why. He labels Dick Cheney and the Bush Admin for panicking after 9/11. What he fails to mention is that the Obama Administration brought the illegality to new lows.

Re: We Only Have Hours Left to Stop the NSA Expansion Bill

#3
Is there anything states can do about this?

And, if this passes, is there any way to protect myself? Obviously if the NSA is hoarding zero-days there isn't much you can do, but what are some practical steps?

1) avoid airports and security cameras

2) use an offshore VPN at all times

3) don't use the phone, use E2E encrypted calling like Signal

4) use cash as often as possible, or cryptocurrency

Or does none of that matter?

Re: We Only Have Hours Left to Stop the NSA Expansion Bill

#8
I don't want to be discouraging to anyone. Please, do anything you think will be helpful.

But the NSA's equipment is still in hundreds of network equipment rooms, and the data is being split off recorded and rifled at will. They'll tell you they're "not collecting" your data, but they are. They're just using some strange NSA version of English where siphoning your data and storing it on hard drives is not "collecting" it.

I advocate the peaceful destruction of their facility in Utah and any other similar facility.

Re: We Only Have Hours Left to Stop the NSA Expansion Bill

#9

Is anyone else fatigued? The effort required, ontop of just having a normal functioning life, to parse and make decisions around potential future law is incredible. Isn't this what elected officials are ment to do on our behalf?

Yes. I give to the EFF and a few other select causes each year, but I just can't keep up with individual issues. I just plan on waiting it out for the next 4 years.

Re: We Only Have Hours Left to Stop the NSA Expansion Bill

#10
> It would also give FBI agents the power to decide whether or not to seek a warrant to read American communications collected under Section 702

Hoover would be so proud. This bill basically legitimizes the relentless surveillance apparatus of his era by allowing the FBI to use the NSA's haystack resources without a warrant.

Considering the way the FBI has acted in the last 100yr (big organizations can only change their operational culture so far so fast and government is particularly slow because the incentives discourage turnover), their mission and their jurisdiction I think this is very bad. There's no way this power can not be abused. Warrants are so trivially easy to get that the only reason to not get them for stuff like this is to do things that you can't justify asking for a warrant for.

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