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Senate narrowly rejects plan to require a warrant for Americans’ browsing data

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Re: Senate narrowly rejects plan to require a warrant for Americans’ browsing data

#111
post #110

'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds' -Robert Oppenheimer we did this to ourselves. we built these tools that are now at the disposal of people with malicious intentions. in another thread about surveillance of WFH employees everyone is aghast that managers would use such tools. again: we did this to ourselves. you can shift the blame any number of times around the loop of responsibilities it's not my faul…

How will finding someone to blame make the problem any better? Finding fault isn’t useful here. Our mental energy is better spent finding ways to fix the process and/or technologies.

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Re: Senate narrowly rejects plan to require a warrant for Americans’ browsing data

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless I’m mistaken, you’d need 66 votes to override a veto - the number 60 is for overriding a filibuster

No. First it has to be brought to the floor (not automatic) in each house with quorums present. It then takes 2/3s vote of members present in both houses. The minimum to override in the Senate would be 2/3 * 51 = 34 votes.

What? the Senate has 100 members+VP, whats 51?

Re: Senate narrowly rejects plan to require a warrant for Americans’ browsing data

#113
post #19

Once again the lack of media coverage on this is appalling. Rand Paul has introduced an amendment that goes up for vote tomorrow that would disallow this surveillance on American citizens, which of course is not expected to pass. McConnell is drafting language to prevent this from being used on “federal election candidates” which of course is expected to pass.

> the lack of media coverage on this is appalling What media do you think should cover this? FOX News? CNN? MSNBC? Do you think Rachel Maddow should report on this? Who is going to report on this kind of stuff?

Yes, yes, yes, yes, everybody. Right now on the NYT side there's a story about renewable resources being used more than coal. Great news, but is it more important than the government snarfing your browser history? A California congressional election? We have college students considering gap years, LA Times has a spurious Wuhan-interest story and a whole 1/3 sidebar dedicated to the death count.

There are plenty of stories being written, but not about this. Pretty much at all. That is the problem, and I don't know how assigning blame certain outlets would change that. We don't know if pitches are getting rejected, or the money is in other topics, or anything, but the simple fact is that it's not happening and it's something that affects everybody in the US (and beyond, I'm sure).

Looks like you're getting the usual HN anti-intellectual downvotes and my upvote wasn't enough to drag you out of the gray.

Re: Senate narrowly rejects plan to require a warrant for Americans’ browsing data

#114
post #17
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bernie decided to just not vote even though his vote would have changed the outcome.

It’s a strange vote. I mean it’s completely bipartisan. And a couple on either side and an independent abstained. Guess there was some good horse trading.

How is it strange? It is completely consistent with "My way or the highway, No Compromise attitude"

Re: Senate narrowly rejects plan to require a warrant for Americans’ browsing data

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The House has already passed the surveillance renewal bill, so unless the Senate passes the House bill with at least one amendment (so it's not technically the same bill), it doesn't have to go back to the House.

I've been reading that Mitch McConnell's changes, the ones that would expressly allow warrantless surveillance, are a "new amendment". Wouldn't that kind of reporting imply that this amendment hasn't yet been cleared in the house?

Democrats are federally elected officials and are of course gonna vote yes on his amendment. Just bec they wear a blue tie it doesn't suddenly make them less self serving.

Re: Senate narrowly rejects plan to require a warrant for Americans’ browsing data

#116
post #110

'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds' -Robert Oppenheimer we did this to ourselves. we built these tools that are now at the disposal of people with malicious intentions. in another thread about surveillance of WFH employees everyone is aghast that managers would use such tools. again: we did this to ourselves. you can shift the blame any number of times around the loop of responsibilities it's not my faul…

How will finding someone to blame make the problem any better? Finding fault isn’t useful here. Our mental energy is better spent finding ways to fix the process and/or technologies.

Where did I say blame? I essentially said we should take responsibility for our part. So far I've seen many people say things like "it's not my problem I only do as I'm told" absolving themselves of the responsibility of doing anything to rectify the situation.

Re: Senate narrowly rejects plan to require a warrant for Americans’ browsing data

#117
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> McConnell is drafting language to prevent this from being used on “federal election candidates” which of course is expected to pass. So privacy for those in positions of power but not for us plebes.

Do they have to be viable candidates? I don't mind being in a permanent state of casual campaigning

We can even make a political party out of it where everyone in the party is a candidate.

Re: Senate narrowly rejects plan to require a warrant for Americans’ browsing data

#118
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't use VPN services: https://gist.github.com/joepie91/5a9909939e6ce7d09e29

But, according to that link, you should be using one in this case: "You are on a known-hostile network (eg. a public airport WiFi access point, or an ISP that is known to use MITM), and you want to work around that." An internet connection from an ISP operating under a government that logs your browsing history is a "known-hostile network".

This law would almost certainly be exercised via Google and not the ISP, which can't see the contents of your browsing history anyways.

Re: Senate narrowly rejects plan to require a warrant for Americans’ browsing data

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's a reasonable comparison to make between WFH managers of consenting employment contracts and the national security apparatus which we didn't get to vote on or opt out of. The rationale for the Manhattan Project (the impetus for your quote by Oppenheimer) was that the US government thought that if we got the atomic bomb before our national enemies, we would be more virtuous in its usage. That is alwa…

i'm constantly so frustrated by the lack of imagination of people on this forum. employees of some company consented more or less just as much as we did - they consented by staying in the employ and we consented by voting/not voting/not emigrating. in fact we consented more because we at least had a say in representation. is that a silly argument? good i agree - those workers are just as aggrieved as we are in this c…

> i'm constantly so frustrated by the lack of imagination of people on this forum

It's not a lack of imagination. I simply don't agree with your framing of the options.

To quit a job is fairly low friction for most employees (except where there is a high friction complication like a pension or a medical pre-existing condition). It doesn't even require changing companies -- just finding a better boss which doesn't feel the need to surveil their employees is a lower friction way to accomplish the same ends.

To emigrate is fairly high friction -- it requires another country willing to accept the immigrant and usually requires physically moving and lots of time/money (I've heard the IRS demands 10 years of future income taxes for US citizens to give up American citizenship). I personally think the "love America or leave it" is an intellectually crippled argument -- America exports its bad drug / foreign policies around the world, so just leaving the country isn't enough to get away from the bad policies.

You are being disingenuous when you speak about voting because in practice we get a small sliver of a say in electing a representative from one of two parties (if that many) and no guarantee that the people we vote for will vote the way they promise (if they even give us a straightforward promise).

I don't disagree that "we" should take far more responsibility for the sad state of surveillance policy in the USA, but some of "we" are far more culpable in the current problems than others.

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