31–40 of 43 posts
'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!
Thanks. I noticed, and it's been happening off and on, but prior to today, comments I was making were eventually being unhidden after a few hours. Not so today, it seems.
Until they ignore it, just like they ignored the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Or, in a secret legal opinion, construe "phone records" to not include mere metadata about whom called whom from where for how long. You can't get around the need to identify the people attempting to circumvent the very explicit restrictions placed upon them and exclude them from the levers of power.
Funny how stuff like this only starts getting action from politicians once it's politically expidiant to do so.
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 w…
Some did speak up, pretty loudly. Did you read this story (Wyden & Udall) when it came it out in 2012? I did.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/16/us/politics/democratic-sen...
Here's follow-ups from this week, linking their warnings to the current stories:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/07/us/politics/senators-wyden...
http://www.denverpost.com/politics/ci_23406958/sen-mark-udal...
Rand and Ron? I'm reasonably confident they've been against this from the start (it's part of their core ideology), but Rand Paul was never on the secret Senate committee that was allowed to know about this, nor Ron on its House counterpart:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_Select_Co...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_Permanent_...
Wyden and Udall were (on the Senate side), and they did inform the public. Sort of. The public doesn't really care that much.
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.
The courts interpret the Constitution, and due to separation of powers, Congress can't tell the courts how to interpret it. So, no effect from Paul's bill here, either. Separation of powers also prevents Paul's bill from having any effect on the executive branch.
To make this sort of thing work, I think you'd have to go to the laws that actually created or authorized the agencies whose behavior you want to change, and amend those laws.
This bill would do absolutely nothing at all legally. Here is the operative part of the bill: 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. The 4th is part of the Constitution. Congress cannot change its meaning with a mere bill. Changing the meaning requires a Cons…
I think this bill isn't expected to pass anyway, so it makes sense if it's been optimized for rhetorical, not legal, power.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
It got on Hacker News.
This bill would do absolutely nothing at all legally. Here is the operative part of the bill: 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. The 4th is part of the Constitution. Congress cannot change its meaning with a mere bill. Changing the meaning requires a Cons…
Congrats to Paul for titling a bill with the name of what it actually does, instead of these "Orphan and sick elderly relief act"s that end up doing 73 other things completely unrelated to orphans or the elderly.
Also congrats for such a small bill.
Both of these factors together lead me to believe that this is just grandstanding, and the bill has no chance of succeeding. But still, here's hoping other Congresspeople follow his lead and start making all bills like this: single issue, clear, readable legislation that the public can openly and clearly debate.
Like father, like son. Don't expect Rand to actually get legislation passed.