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Senate passes reauthorization of key US surveillance program after midnight

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Re: Senate passes reauthorization of key US surveillance program after midnight

#211

Post by int_19h »

e40 wrote: post #103
soraminazuki wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree with the sentiment, but spying capabilities have been abused before FISA, just ask Martin Luther King Jr. So I don't think things were particularly fine before 9/11 either. It's just that technological advancements have made abuse on a mass scale possible for the first time in human history. AFAICT surveillance used to be much more targeted and labor intensive. That all changed after 9/11.

I didn't downvote you, btw (I upvoted you). I think MLK Jr's problems with the government weren't traditional spying, they were more harassment of government employees acting on their own because they were bigots. The organized government actions that did happen, IIRC, were in places were the local government was highly corrupt and infiltrated by the KKK.

COINTELPRO?

Re: Senate passes reauthorization of key US surveillance program after midnight

#212

Post by squarefoot »

mdhb wrote: post #116
AmVess wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These laws aren't about protecting America and its citizens, but rather as means to control them.

People just toss comments like this around as though they were facts when in fact it’s completely paranoid made up q-anon level nonsense. These laws work a very specific way and have very specific controls in place to prevent shit like you describe from happening which you could go and read up on if you wanted to but it’s much easier to fear monger amongst one another because it plays to your ego that somebody who is…

> completely paranoid made up q-anon level nonsense.

For what is worth, I'm quite left leaning and fully agree with the parent poster. Information is power, no matter which party or in which country.

Re: Senate passes reauthorization of key US surveillance program after midnight

#213

Post by mijamo »

SSJPython wrote: post #18
outlore wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

horseshoe theory. D+R are not so different. D in US is more right than other countries' left leaning parties

> D in US is more right than other countries' left leaning parties I don't think this is accurate. Maybe on healthcare and welfare, sure. But on many social issues, the Democrats are much further to the left than the European left. On issues such as abortion, gender/sexuality, migration, and race, the Democrats are more extreme compared to Labour in the UK, SPD in Germany, and the PSOE in Spain. Even the left in Fran…

For migration, sure, but it is very related to the history of the US (nearly everyone is a relatively recent immigrant so it feels wrong to refuse that others come in). For abortion and gender this is not correct though. It is not as hot a topic but positions are not that different between European left and democrats. There is also a very wide scale of opinions inside the Democrat party itself. Some people just focus on the very left of the party but plenty of democrats are much more similar to Macron than the French left when it comes to social issues.

Re: Senate passes reauthorization of key US surveillance program after midnight

#214

Post by int_19h »

twoodfin wrote: post #158
soraminazuki wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Constitution grants the president unlimited spying powers? That's news to me. Whether the FISA vote can fix all the problems isn't the point. The problem is that current surveillance practices looks illegal to begin with.

Intercepting communications between US persons and foreign non-citizens isn’t “unlimited spying powers” and is not illegal. Do you disagree?

Yes

Re: Senate passes reauthorization of key US surveillance program after midnight

#215

Post by int_19h »

twoodfin wrote: post #164
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what exactly stops them from doing that, as a condition of how they spend the money? You could certainly have budget allocation for "surveillance conducted pursuant to a warrant" that prevents the money from being wasted on useless surveillance of innocent people.

The Constitution. What you’re saying is no different from Congress declaring war and funding the army, but with the proviso they must clear all battles with a Federal judge before they’re begun. Or funding the Department of Justice, but with the proviso that any nominee for Attorney General must be over age 60. The power of the purse is not unlimited.

The Constitution has already been shat on in all manner of ways to the point where it's not recognizable anymore. If we continue doing so anyway, we might at least do that to the citizens' benefit.

Re: Senate passes reauthorization of key US surveillance program after midnight

#216

Post by int_19h »

rightbyte wrote: post #75
njarboe wrote: post #12

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.

So 55 needed for passing and 60 voted for. Closer then I thought it would be.

Once enough votes are there to secure the bill, there's no reason for either party to "waste" any more votes of their members on something that can be so politically unpopular with large parts of their electorate.

Re: Senate passes reauthorization of key US surveillance program after midnight

#217

Post by int_19h »

Cacti wrote: post #183
coolbreezetft24 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the partisanship is mostly a farce This was noticeably on display for me in 2020 right after it was determined that Biden had won the election. Lindsey Graham, a Republican Senator, was caught on video in the Senate chamber warmly congratulating and hugging Kamala Harris, a D senator and VP-elect. It was as if they both knew Graham's hyper-partisan antics during the preceding months before the vote was all just an…

This is basic human empathy from a very small group of insiders. I mean, this is their job. Do you think they all go around work being dicks to each other all day every day? Besides, it cost him nothing.

Their job is to represent us, supposedly. And they keep trying to whip their own supporters into frenzy against each other (quite successfully, I should note - so much so that it's already getting violent at times). The fact that the people doing so are themselves chum buddies tells volumes.

Re: Senate passes reauthorization of key US surveillance program after midnight

#218

Post by int_19h »

golergka wrote: post #115
ryandrake wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot more similarities between "both sides" than that. They make a big show out of arguing over a small number of things they disagree on. But for many important things, they don't significantly differ. The two parties do not significantly differ on indefinite detention of American citizens on US soil. The two parties do not significantly differ on domestic spying, dragnet-style data collection and warrant…

Many of these points are just common sense. Does America really need a major party that's insane on one of the important issues?

I guarantee you that whichever points you think are "common sense" on this list, there's millions of people in this country who will disagree with you on every single one of them.

Re: Senate passes reauthorization of key US surveillance program after midnight

#219

Post by int_19h »

akira2501 wrote: post #62
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #3

Does anyone want to suggest some reasons why, the one thing that D+R always, always, always agree on is this: US Gov/LEO/IC must be gifted the most power possible to surveil Americans who are not suspected of a crime

Corruption of our intelligence agencies to the point they've been weaponized against our own elected officials.

Have there ever been a point where our law enforcement and intelligence agencies haven't been weaponized by our politicians against their opposition? FBI under Hoover, COINTELPRO, Watergate...

Re: Senate passes reauthorization of key US surveillance program after midnight

#220

Post by int_19h »

thejazzman wrote: post #127
ein0p wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I struggle to nail down my political affiliation because there’s literally just one party. They quibble over materially irrelevant hot button issues to create the illusion of choice, but all the bullshit that robs me and my kids or strips us of our rights is _always_ “bipartisan”, passed without reading in the dead of the night. And yeah the only two choices in our upcoming “elections” here are a guy with profound de…

"pro life" is a pretty hard (and exploitive) line separating the two

The whole point of having cultural issues like abortion, gay rights, guns etc in the spotlight is because it's much easier to make people emotionally invested into that in lieu of, say, economics, foreign policy, military-industrial complex, or political reform.

E.g. get someone fervently believing that their vote is critical to preventing "murder of children", and you can abuse them economically however the hell you want - they'll hate you but they'll still vote for you because the other guy "murders children". This one is such an oldie but goodie that each party has crafted its own wedge issue around it: abortion for Republicans, guns for Democrats.

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