Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Rand Paul Bill Would Curb NSA on Phone Records

abcnews.go.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 43 posts

Re: Rand Paul Bill Would Curb NSA on Phone Records

#21

Post by gizmo686 »

uvdiv wrote: post #2

Text of the proposed law: "The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution shall not be construed to allow any agency of the United States Government to search the phone records of Americans without a warrant based on probable cause." http://www.paul.senate.gov/files/documents/EAS13699.pdf ("Fourth Amendment Restoration Act of 2013")

As someone without training in law, that wording seems extremely odd.

It seems like it is not a piece of legislation, but rather an interpretation of the amendment; where I thought that interpreting the constitution was the job of the court. If this wording works, than wouldn't it give Congress the ability to work around the constitution simply by passing laws saying that shall be interpreted to make constitutional.

Re: Rand Paul Bill Would Curb NSA on Phone Records

#22

Post by microcolonel »

Nothing will be curbing, you all think you have some level of control over this process but you don't.

Stop trusting people who don't have motivation not to mess with your life.

What happens to the people behind these debacles? Nothing, absolutely nothing; in addition, having them fired would just open up the position to more people who would make the same actions.

A state will always seek to expand, and you will always go lax and let them, it's best to just forego the whole pot of pain to begin with.

Re: Rand Paul Bill Would Curb NSA on Phone Records

#24

Post by deadairspace »

uvdiv wrote: post #4

'waterphone' -- your comment history appears benign and helpful, I think you deserve to know you've been hellbanned. The automated filter on HN will hide your comments from most users. It is a waste of your time to comment if this is not fixed. (reply to invisible comment): You're welcome!

I see this happening more and more. Especially with regard to the recent topic of transparency, I don't think hellbanning is a good idea.

Re: Rand Paul Bill Would Curb NSA on Phone Records

#26

Post by anigbrowl »

gizmo686 wrote: post #21
uvdiv wrote: post #2

Text of the proposed law: "The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution shall not be construed to allow any agency of the United States Government to search the phone records of Americans without a warrant based on probable cause." http://www.paul.senate.gov/files/documents/EAS13699.pdf ("Fourth Amendment Restoration Act of 2013")

As someone without training in law, that wording seems extremely odd. It seems like it is not a piece of legislation, but rather an interpretation of the amendment; where I thought that interpreting the constitution was the job of the court. If this wording works, than wouldn't it give Congress the ability to work around the constitution simply by passing laws saying that shall be interpreted to make constitutional.

Yeah, it's just grandstanding designed to impress the simple-minded.

Re: Rand Paul Bill Would Curb NSA on Phone Records

#27

Post by anigbrowl »

jpwagner wrote: post #23

For those of you missing the point, this "bill" is a bit tongue-in-cheek. He's simply saying "Hey everyone! read the f$%^ing Constitution!"

He's pandering to a simplistic interpretation of the Constitution. Back in 1979, the Supreme Court explained why searching phone records did not require a warrant or constitute a search under the 4th amendment.

Re: Rand Paul Bill Would Curb NSA on Phone Records

#28

Post by mtgx »

uvdiv wrote: post #10
dkulchenko wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that the entire bill? Seems extremely narrow-scoped and with no terms defined. IIRC, the ongoing spying is not even warrantless - they're operating under a broad-scope warrant issued by FISC, so this bill would do absolutely nothing.

Yes, the entire rulemaking part. It's true the Verizon spying had a secret-court FISA warrant, but was that warrant required to have "probable cause"?

Haven't you heard? The way they do it now is that the NSA secretly spies on people, and then they give the info to FBI, which now has "probable cause".

These guys are hellbent on finding every possible loophole in the Constitution, and (ab)using it to the extreme. They've forgot all about the spirit of the Constitution.

It must help that they have a Constitutional lawyer in office helping them discover all these loopholes. And here we thought that because he was a Constitutional lawyer, he was going to use that knowledge to uphold the Constitution. The joke's on us, I guess.

Re: Rand Paul Bill Would Curb NSA on Phone Records

#29

Post by cpeterso »

Statements from the President assert:

  "What you’ve got is two programs that were originally authorized by Congress, have been 
  repeatedly authorized by Congress. Bipartisan majorities have approved them. Congress 
  is continually briefed on how these are conducted ... Congress has been briefed 13 
  times on the programs since 2009."
So why haven't any members of Congress spoken up about this program? Rand and Ron, where were you?

Re: Rand Paul Bill Would Curb NSA on Phone Records

#30

Post by pg »

uvdiv wrote: post #4

'waterphone' -- your comment history appears benign and helpful, I think you deserve to know you've been hellbanned. The automated filter on HN will hide your comments from most users. It is a waste of your time to comment if this is not fixed. (reply to invisible comment): You're welcome!

No, it's just a bug.
Post reply on HN