171–180 of 243 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://apnews.com/article/fisa-foreign-surveillance-fbi-3f7... One does not have to be “important enough” if they are conducting mass surveillance and storing it in a database indefinitely.
How things work in your mind and how they work in the real world are very very different things in this instance.
What's most interesting is that this wasn't on party lines. The yes/no mix is very mixed party-wise. https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1...
Agreed that’s interesting. Really makes you think about all these crackpots talking about a uniparty, deep state vs the people, etc
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Other countries don't institutionalize the two-party system by law. Because it would be insane and antidemocratic to create a complicated network of laws that would have to be eliminated state by state in order to ordain that an entire country must be ruled by two intimately-linked private clubs in turn.
The two-party system isn't so heavily institutionalized "by law". The law generally gives advantages to parties that pull in more than x% of the vote, and it so happens that the first-past-the-post system of electing representatives makes it very difficult for a third party to take root.
Not everything is spelled in ink.
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A couple years ago I stumbled upon this YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz27n1tNNMg The summary is this: - Votes in the House and Senate used to be anonymous - They then decided to make them public under the reasoning of transparency - One side effect of making them public is that you got people like Grover Norquist and The Americans for Tax Reform who could see who voted for taxes and then use that to…
I'm not convinced that this is a problem. Lobbyists and special interests already knew how politicians voted, they just knew via old fashioned grapevine methods. There was an information asymmetry between well connected lobbyists and average people. The fact that no longer exists is a good thing, in the long and short term.
Here is a link to how the senators voted[1]. [1] https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1... Unfortunately both my senators voted for it. I did call their offices Thursday to no avail.
You don't see any value in FISA?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A couple years ago I stumbled upon this YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz27n1tNNMg The summary is this: - Votes in the House and Senate used to be anonymous - They then decided to make them public under the reasoning of transparency - One side effect of making them public is that you got people like Grover Norquist and The Americans for Tax Reform who could see who voted for taxes and then use that to…
I'm not convinced that this is a problem. Lobbyists and special interests already knew how politicians voted, they just knew via old fashioned grapevine methods. There was an information asymmetry between well connected lobbyists and average people. The fact that no longer exists is a good thing, in the long and short term.
“when private citizens are able to vote privately, it protects their ability to vote their conscience, rather than allowing some third party to explicitly buy votes or bully someone into voting in line with someone else”,
and the belief that somehow this doesn’t apply to congress members.
Additionally, on hard philosophical and policy qurstions, some bits of negotiation and dealmaking are bare-knuckled “the sausage gets made” affairs that are brutally hard on the ego and participants. Part of why nothing can get through Congress anymore in a timely fashion and without continual brinksmanship on important funding or to prevent shutdowns is because even if crossing party lines would very often be in the public’s interest, and to the public’s net benefit, haggling to make it happen or voting to make it so often doesn’t stand up to the scrutiny of thousands of watchful eyes where an important deal may hinge on brutal haggling which the public couldn’t stomach seeing the intermediate steps and votes of.
One such example in practical terms: if the constitutional convention which replaced the articles of confederation took place in the internet age with modern real-time, to the minute reporting on how everyone was voting on every intermediate plan and how any compromise made was a betrayal of “party lines” on an issue, America as a country probably wouldn’t exist today.
Transparency has its own benefits, but it’s not without costs - you make a legislative body’s job more difficult, you get corresponding gridlock to match.
What's most interesting is that this wasn't on party lines. The yes/no mix is very mixed party-wise. https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1...
On the republican side, those voting yea are almost always the old McCain crowd. What the right calls “RINOs” or republicans in name only. That’s not surprising, they’re also the group funding wars, voted for the initial spy bills, etc. What’s more surprising is the split in IL between Duckworth (yea) and Durban (Nay). Usually you don’t see states splitting too much. Tennessee was all Nays for instance.
1A, Nope, you have to have facts, and specific facts, and a subject-matter expert, source? 2A, Ban all guns, the government will protect us. 3A, No worry, they're not soldiers, they're law enforcement. 4A, Unreasonable search and seizure? What was unreasonable about us listening to your phone call? 5,6,7A, Fair trail? What public figure is getting a fair trail, and has been unreasonable fines? But he deserves it. 8A, The death penalty is fair, right? I mean, if evidence ever shows up that exonerates them, we can dig them up, right? 9A I don't think anyone cares what order we get rid of these, right? 10A Those states don't have rights, it's my body, right?
I don't vote anymore. No offense, you all disgust me.
What's most interesting is that this wasn't on party lines. The yes/no mix is very mixed party-wise. https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1...
What’s most interesting is this is incredibly unpopular amongst voters of both parties.
this is normal practice, to provide cover for your party members.
it’s divided by party line because it’s national security. they’re splitting the spoils.
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Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) https://bja.ojp.gov/program/it/privacy-civil-liberties/autho...
And the components of the program being discussed are from the 2008 amendment.
I take issue with this bit: FISA also established the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), a special U.S. Federal court that holds nonpublic sessions to consider issuing search warrants under FISA. Proceedings before the FISC are ex parte, meaning the government is the only party present.
When combined by foreign agents including US citizens, it’s troubling.