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House Votes to Renew Surveillance Law, Rejecting New Privacy Limits

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Re: House Votes to Renew Surveillance Law, Rejecting New Privacy Limits

#151
post #20
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Turmp should be happy about this To be fair, Trump is hardly the the first President to seek renewal of such laws. > useful in cracking down on citizens and opponents who criticize him. There were multiple reports about "Dark Side" yesterday - https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/dark-side-federal-unit-... What could possibly go wrong.....

He opposed it according to the article.

https://www.npr.org/2018/01/11/577331402/ahead-of-hill-vote-...

"For the record, Trump's administration supports full reauthorization. In fact, the White House issued a statement on Wednesday evening — hours before Trump's tweet — restating its call for members of Congress to vote for its continued use."

Re: House Votes to Renew Surveillance Law, Rejecting New Privacy Limits

#152
post #127
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parent comment literally shows that Democrats protect us for privacy more than Republicans do. 125 Democrats voted to add privacy protections, 55 did not. By Contrast 58 Republicans voted to add privacy protections, 178 did not. By definition, that means Democrats were better about privacy protections. Stop peddling this both-parties-are-the-same nonsense. Its amazing this can even be said with a straight face du…

The last President was a Democrat and he sure didn't care about American's Privacy even though he used it on his campaign trail to get elected... Please don't act like _only_ Republicans do this... From my comment down thread >Unfortunately Obama almost quadrupled funding to these agencies[1]. Throughout his administration he allowed the Alphabet boys to try and steal more american's data without warrants (See FBI v…

>Please don't act like _only_ Republicans do this...

Parent didn't say _only_ Republicans do this. Parent said Republicans do it more. They backed it up with proof (Congress voting record).

Re: House Votes to Renew Surveillance Law, Rejecting New Privacy Limits

#153
post #41

55 House Democrats, including Pelosi, voted against the USA Rights Act amendment that would have substantially limited the surveillance against US citizens. 65 House Democrats ultimately voted in favor of this bill and giving the Trump admin more unchecked surveillance powers. https://twitter.com/gzornick/status/951501089047764992 http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2018/roll016.xml

Every time this comes up, I'm again surprised how many people expect that Democrats will somehow have better policy for privacy. Folks, it ain't so. The Democrats won't protect us in this regard any more than the Republicans will.

Neither the Democratic party nor the Republican party are monolithic. This is an issue where party affiliation isn't as predictive of behavior as some others, but there clearly are a lot of politicians who have strong opinions about surveillance. Just because those differences don't exactly fall along party lines doesn't mean that Democrats and Republicans are all the same.

I don't have much faith in the Democratic party as an institution to protect privacy, but many Democrats are trying to do so.

Re: House Votes to Renew Surveillance Law, Rejecting New Privacy Limits

#154
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was no effort to dismantle the wiretapping... * Bush implemented surveillance of citizens in response to 9/11 * Obama continued to support this program after it was revealed by Edward Snowden * Now there's Trump

Personally, this was one of my biggest disappointments from the Obama administration. Before he became president, he was critical of the Patriot Act and seemed legitimately concerned[0]. After election he signed a four year renewal[1]. [0]: http://obamaspeeches.com/041-The-PATRIOT-Act-Obama-Speech.ht... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_on_mass_surveilla...

For better or worse, I can imagine that once you become POTUS and see all of the information it becomes very hard to stand by your privacy principles. This is by no means giving a pass to anyone, and I'd like to think I'd pick privacy every day of the week, but I'm also human. If I was POTUS I may end up doing everything in my power to avoid another attack on the US, no matter how unlikely.

Something to ponder.

Re: House Votes to Renew Surveillance Law, Rejecting New Privacy Limits

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time this comes up, I'm again surprised how many people expect that Democrats will somehow have better policy for privacy. Folks, it ain't so. The Democrats won't protect us in this regard any more than the Republicans will.

Sure democrats are not perfect on this, but they are still as good/slightly better than republicans which are a shitshow on more or less every issue. One of the reasons democrats feel able to be horrible here is that there is just no alternative.

Not sure why this is downvoted.

Re: House Votes to Renew Surveillance Law, Rejecting New Privacy Limits

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to have been downvoted, possibly for how quippy your comment is, but there's some indication that this reasoning isn't far off. Earlier this week Trump made clear during his televised immigration policy meeting that he would sign anything Congress actually sent him, which seems like a very odd position to take when you consider that immigration was Trump's signature campaign issue.

It's easy to say "I'll sign anything you send me" if you're certain they will be unable to send anything. It is risky, sure, because the unexpected can happen. The next day he also gave a summary of the meeting that was very different from what attendees thought. The meeting was a made-for-TV moment, so you should take it in with lots of salt.

[deleted]

Re: House Votes to Renew Surveillance Law, Rejecting New Privacy Limits

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pelosi and Feinstein are the worst when it comes to privacy law.

Which is something I find interesting since they are both Democrats from San Francisco - Pelosi(represents S.F, the 12th district) and Feinstein represents California but is born and bread S.F. and served as its' Mayor for a bit.

Personally I think both of them have been in office too long, what was progressive when they first took office is probably different from what it is now and the last town halls for both Feinstein and Pelosi were striking for how ossified and tone deaf they sounded.

Re: House Votes to Renew Surveillance Law, Rejecting New Privacy Limits

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, this was one of my biggest disappointments from the Obama administration. Before he became president, he was critical of the Patriot Act and seemed legitimately concerned[0]. After election he signed a four year renewal[1]. [0]: http://obamaspeeches.com/041-The-PATRIOT-Act-Obama-Speech.ht... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_on_mass_surveilla...

For better or worse, I can imagine that once you become POTUS and see all of the information it becomes very hard to stand by your privacy principles. This is by no means giving a pass to anyone, and I'd like to think I'd pick privacy every day of the week, but I'm also human. If I was POTUS I may end up doing everything in my power to avoid another attack on the US, no matter how unlikely. Something to ponder.

I think the other part is that after lightening surveillance any terrorist attack that gets through will be used as a political cudgel no matter what to show that you were soft on terrorism. This felt kind of inevitable in the jingoistic atmosphere when the Patriot Act first passed.

Re: House Votes to Renew Surveillance Law, Rejecting New Privacy Limits

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is something I find interesting since they are both Democrats from San Francisco - Pelosi(represents S.F, the 12th district) and Feinstein represents California but is born and bread S.F. and served as its' Mayor for a bit.

Personally I think both of them have been in office too long, what was progressive when they first took office is probably different from what it is now and the last town halls for both Feinstein and Pelosi were striking for how ossified and tone deaf they sounded.

I completely agree. They are career politicians and both completely out touch. There are 79 members of the US Congress who have been there for at least 20 years[1]

And if they weren't enough, the age average of them is fairly close to retirement age:

"The average age of Members of the House at the beginning of the 114th Congress was 57.0 years; of Senators, 61.0 years."[2]

[1] https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-05-18/79-members-congres...

[2] https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43869.pdf

Re: House Votes to Renew Surveillance Law, Rejecting New Privacy Limits

#160
post #54

As Wyden[1] points out, Congress has nearly no information on what impact the FISA program has. How many Americans are targeted already? The military refuses to answer Congress. How many emails & other collections are swept up? The military refuses to answer to Congress. This bill explicitly allows it's use directly against Americans and declares which circumstances the FBI & other agencies need to use warrants and w…

As if that matters...time for a new "law", big brother is inevitable, just a matter of time and a matter of justification

I see it as the Intelligence-Industrial complex flipside to the “Information wants to be free” adage: “FULL OUTER JOIN allTheThings AS you”.
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