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House Introduces Bill to Repeal the Patriot Act

freedomworks.org

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Re: House Introduces Bill to Repeal the Patriot Act

#31

Post by cmdkeen »

amyjess wrote: post #23
jgroszko wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's weird public discourse has gone from "Na, the NSA couldn't possibly be that widespread and invasive" to "Na, they're not doing anything bad with it..." It's like some collective denial of what the next step could be, apparently we have a lot more faith in government than a lot of people let on...

Oh, everyone assumed the government knows anything anyway, long before Snowden. I remember after the Boston Bombings, people were complaining, saying things like "How could the government be so incompetent as to not stop this before it happened? They monitor everything on the Internet, so they should have known!". This was before Snowden. Years before that, I remember people were casually talking about Room 641A. Thi…

Hasn't the existence of Echelon been common knowledge for years? The concept was popularised in Enemy of the State in 1998. Before that you had Clinton and the Clipper chip which could easily lead the poorly technically informed to assume all their internet traffic was already capable of being monitored.

Re: House Introduces Bill to Repeal the Patriot Act

#32

Post by timepiece »

bkurtz13 wrote: post #2

I really want to believe this could become reality. But the past surrounding this issue, as well as seemingly widespread apathy about our loss of civil liberties, leaves me cynical. Nearly every time I fly, I hear someone in the security line (which to me resembles a cattle chute) remarking that they're in fact glad for the inconvenience, as they somehow feel safer. Nearly every family member or friend with whom I di…

I hear someone in the security line (which to me resembles a cattle chute) remarking that they're in fact glad for the inconvenience

They could be govt stooges (field agents) implanted to distort public opinion and create a false narrative that the general public is happy with these draconian procedures and that they're very popular (peer pressure) to advance their agenda and support the status-quo.

Re: House Introduces Bill to Repeal the Patriot Act

#33

Post by briandh »

astrodust wrote: post #11

How ironic that FreedomWorks ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreedomWorks ) is the source for this reporting.

Not really. Its president and CEO is a self-described libertarian [1] and FreedomWorks is co-plaintiff in Rand Paul's NSA lawsuit [2].

[1] http://reason.com/archives/2014/08/10/being-a-libertarian-in... [2] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1017524-rand-paul-co...

Re: House Introduces Bill to Repeal the Patriot Act

#35

Post by worklogin »

patrickmay wrote: post #17
ck2 wrote: post #13

Careful what you wish for. Instead of one big target bill with a set of laws allowing unconstitutional activity by the government, they will replace it with a ton of tiny laws buried in other bills that are impossible to target as a group. Actually now that I think about it, Congress barely passes any bills anyway anymore so that would be tricky for them, but since many of them are there for decades, they have plenty…

> Term limits really would make sense. Three terms in the House, two in the Senate. Eighteen years is more than enough time for anyone to hold that much power. A nice side effect would be more people working hard at the state level rather than seeing the state legislature as just a stepping stone to national office.

Two terms in the Senate is 12 years, two in the house is 4.

So I don't know where you got 18 from!

Re: House Introduces Bill to Repeal the Patriot Act

#36

Post by Balgair »

http://whoismyrepresentative.com/

Go ahead and give them a call to voice you opinion on how you want them to vote. Democracy only works if you participate in it. Remember that phone calls and actual letters are worth a lot to a Rep. Go ahead and give your senators a call too. Make sure to save all 3 numbers in your phone for easy access, that way anytime you want to participate in democracy, it is easier to do so.

Re: House Introduces Bill to Repeal the Patriot Act

#37

Post by tomjen3 »

happyscrappy wrote: post #16
kmeves wrote: post #5

Can someone who is informed on this shed some light on its shortcomings? I know this is new, but the article on the bill is a bit too supportive that it feels highly biased. I can't help but feel that the line about collection on foreign enemies for WMD's is some sort of loophole. I agree with bkurtz--its surprising how few people care about Snowden's revelations.

>the line about collection on foreign enemies for WMD's is some sort of loophole The view that the NSA should do no spying at all is a minority absurdist viewpoint that is easily discarded.

If you are just going to disregard minority opinions, why should the minority not just disregard you?

Re: House Introduces Bill to Repeal the Patriot Act

#38

Post by njharman »

twoodfin wrote: post #19
jgroszko wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's weird public discourse has gone from "Na, the NSA couldn't possibly be that widespread and invasive" to "Na, they're not doing anything bad with it..." It's like some collective denial of what the next step could be, apparently we have a lot more faith in government than a lot of people let on...

I don't remember that Pollyanna public discourse. What would you consider the most shocking Snowden disclosure? None that I'm aware of were that surprising. It was an open secret at the phone companies that TLA folk of one sort or another have been (only sometimes with direct cooperation) plugging mysterious gear into the network for decades. Really astounding that their methods are now targeted at Gmail and Facebook…

Taping phones of foreign politicians

Intercepting shipments to plant back doors

Sabotaging cryptography efforts to so everyone has weak encryption.

Lying to congress.

Are a few shocking revelations from Snowden disclosure my bad memory recalls.

Re: House Introduces Bill to Repeal the Patriot Act

#39

Post by clarkm »

Since it's HN, I'll note that one of the cosponsors, Thomas Massie, is both a Mechanical Engineer and an entrepreneur. In the mid-90s, he and his wife (also an MIT engineer) started SensAble Technologies, a company which develops haptic feedback hardware and software. He has also built his own off the grid house, and even appeared on Junkyard Wars.

Re: House Introduces Bill to Repeal the Patriot Act

#40

Post by jmccree »

Lawtonfogle wrote: post #6
bkurtz13 wrote: post #2

I really want to believe this could become reality. But the past surrounding this issue, as well as seemingly widespread apathy about our loss of civil liberties, leaves me cynical. Nearly every time I fly, I hear someone in the security line (which to me resembles a cattle chute) remarking that they're in fact glad for the inconvenience, as they somehow feel safer. Nearly every family member or friend with whom I di…

People value 'feeling safer' far more than 'being safer' or 'having rights'. This is the classical problem of not appreciating what you have until it's gone.

For an example of this, in GA last year a bill was passed that allowed people with weapons carry licenses (who have to be fingerprinted, background checked, etc.) to carry weapons into unsecured government buildings. Immediately local governments began complaining about now having to install metal detectors and have police officers to screen people for weapons before entering their buildings.

Local government officials said they didn't "feel safe" with the new law, even though by virtue of being an unsecured building, nothing prevented a person with illegal intentions from entering with a weapon before or after the law. The law just exposed the faulty thinking that a "no guns" sticker on the front door would keep bad guys out.

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