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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

#51

Post by Bartweiss »

chimeracoder wrote: post #25
mtgx wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And FISA reauthorization always happens a few days before Christmas. Californians, remember to vote Feinstein out in the Democratic primary . She's been one of the main champions of this bill and type of mass surveillance (as well as the anti-encryption bills, which she's not giving up). It's probably one of the reasons why she decided to go back on her promise not to run again, so she can pass it once more in a few…

> Californians, remember to vote Feinstein out in the Democratic primary. She's been one of the main champions of this bill and type of mass surveillance (as well as the anti-encryption bills, which she's not giving up). Senate Minority Leader Schumer has been the other main proponent. Unfortunately, New York is not really a democracy, so there is no way for us to get rid of him.

Schumer is awful on a lot of levels, but I don't seem him losing his office unless he goes the way Sheldon Silver did.

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

#52

Post by logfromblammo »

okonomiyaki3000 wrote: post #34

"We only have hours"? What are we supposed to do in those hours? Make phone calls that won't get through? Tweet? Forget it. Senators and congressmen don't fear their constituents so they're not going to listen to their constituents.

We may only have hours left to watch elected representation completely ignore the welfare of the electorate again, but we probably still have months left to choose who exactly it is that we will be shoving up against the wall when the revolution comes. At this point, when they obviously don't fear losing their office, they need to fear something else.

If you can't bring yourself to do physical violence, you can maybe plan out some property crimes. Keying cars and slashing tires is a traditional method of expressing anger against specific individuals, and those types of crimes are infrequently investigated, and even more rarely solved--at least when the insignificant people are the victims. When the catalytic converter was stolen off the bottom of my car, I never even saw a cop; I had to fill out the report myself, and the police apparently never actually did anything about it. Why should they, after all? They aren't working for us. Why not give them something to do for their real bosses?

Watching C-SPAN last night, the shouting and chanting did nothing. There was no effect at all. The sergeant-at-arms will restore order in the gallery, and we will continue to pretend that those people don't matter. The sit-ins have done nothing. The communications campaigns had no effect. More of the same will yield more of the same. Try something different.

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

#53

Post by wu-ikkyu »

0xfeba wrote: post #38
CWuestefeld wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just plan on waiting it out for the next 4 years. You're not thinking that if the Democrats manage to take the White House, that this situation will improve - are you? I mean, most of this damage was done when Pres. Obama was in the White House and the Congress skewed more toward Democrats. The idea that the Democrats will defend our privacy and 4th Amendment is absurd.

Obama expanded the program, yes. He did not create it. And also, many other groups I donate to are just swamping me with non-NSA stuff related to Trump and the GOP, so that's also what I meant. But still, yes, I feel democrats have a better chance of at least listening to constituent concerns about privacy. The GOP wallies about small government, except for the military and they view the NSA/FBI/CIA as the same. But…

This is a false dichotomy which is enabling to the surveillance state.

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

#54

Post by ataturk »

peterwwillis wrote: post #12

Bad tax reform that benefits mostly corporations and the 1% reported by foreign news outlets get flagged here, but talk about a spy group or internet regulation and suddenly politics is fair game. I'm sick of the echo chamber and the pathetic rules of civility strangling human communication, the invisible voting down of opinions people don't like, the moderation filters that carve out a single world view catered to a…

NY Times is Carlos Slim(e). There is no news outlet that is objective anymore--none. Maybe there never was. "News" is just propaganda for whoever owns them now.

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

#55

Post by logfromblammo »

twothamendment wrote: post #33
b6 wrote: post #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…

> I advocate the peaceful destruction of their facility in Utah... How? Either voting doesn't work or we as a people are too collective stupid to vote for anyone different. How many like Reid, Fienstien and Hatch just keep getting elected despite their actions? Maybe we need some real people to run? Maybe we need to be smart enough to vote them in (and out when their time is up - I'm looking at you, Hatch). A there l…

Shut the water off. There won't be enough cooling for the servers.

Maybe shoot a hole in the bottom of a big, oil-filled transformer at the nearest power substation.

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

#56

Post by kabdib »

mtgx wrote: post #17
trisimix wrote: post #11

Is there plan to bombard the american public on so many fronts that they accept mass surveillance? What the actual fuck is wrong with this country.

And FISA reauthorization always happens a few days before Christmas. Californians, remember to vote Feinstein out in the Democratic primary . She's been one of the main champions of this bill and type of mass surveillance (as well as the anti-encryption bills, which she's not giving up). It's probably one of the reasons why she decided to go back on her promise not to run again, so she can pass it once more in a few…

If you're not a resident of California, you can still "vote" by sending campaign contributions to her opponents.

I figure [without much supporting evidence or data] that one vote equals $50, so you can "vote" as much as you want, quite cheaply.

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

#57

Post by ataturk »

nerdponx wrote: post #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 ma…

None of it matters. Watch Binney talk about it--they have us all by the nuts.

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

#58

Post by CWuestefeld »

0xfeba wrote: post #46
archvile wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Three letter agency abilities were expanded hugely under Obama. Why people can’t grasp this, I’ll never know.

The boat was built and set sail under Bush and the GOP congress, under the super-Orwellian PATRIOT Act. I am not happy Obama expanded their powers but fail to see how the GOP would make the situation better.

The boat has been under construction for decades. The FISA courts were set up in 1978 (that's the Democrat Carter, and I believe that it was Democratic Congress at the time, too), but even that was only a response, trying to rein in the national surveillance apparatus that was already running wild. Reagan upped it a notch with Exec Order 12333, GWB obviously built on top of that, and Obama went hog-wild with it. There's plenty of blame to drown both parties.

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

#59

Post by bluntfang »

bo1024 wrote: post #45
d33 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your threat model? Unless you name what you're afraid of and what you're trying to hide, you're just feeding paranoia and it's unhealthy. And I'm not trying to say you should do nothing - the steps you suggest would at the very least increase the cost for NSA to collect data, potentially making it scale less or even make you fly under the radar. Still, if you want those rather uncomfortable actions to become h…

> Unless you name what you're afraid of and what you're trying to hide I think of it a little differently. I am trying to be part of a collective movement toward as much privacy as possible so that those who do need to protect themselves can have access to the tools they need and won't stick out when they use them. A sort of herd immunity. I guess a good start are habits that neutralize automated mass surveillance. T…

>I am trying to be part of a collective movement toward as much privacy as possible so that those who do need to protect themselves can have access to the tools they need and won't stick out when they use them. A sort of herd immunity.

by creating a standard you are effectively creating an easy way and/or justification to automate against that standard. I think your logic is sound, but consider the big picture. The more people do things in a certain way, the higher the incentive to investigate that way.

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

#60

Post by wu-ikkyu »

trisimix wrote: post #11

Is there plan to bombard the american public on so many fronts that they accept mass surveillance? What the actual fuck is wrong with this country.

Reminds me of when MSNBC cut off NSA criticism with "breaking news" about Justin Bieber

https://youtu.be/GH68bSJXGE8

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