Congress Is About To Vote On Expanding the Warrantless Surveillance of Americans (vice.com) 226
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: On Tuesday afternoon, a handful of U.S. Representatives will convene to review an amendment that would reauthorize warrantless foreign surveillance and expand the law so that it could include American citizens. It would, in effect, legalize a surveillance practice abandoned by the NSA in 2017 in order to appease the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which found the NSA to have abused its collection capacity several times. If it passes Tuesday's review, the bill may be voted on by the U.S. House of Representatives as early as Thursday. Drafted by the House Intelligence Committee last December, the FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act of 2017 is an amendment to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). It is one of six different FISA-related bills under consideration by Congress at the moment, but by far the most damaging to the privacy rights of American citizens.
FISA was enacted in 1978, but Section 702, referred to by former FBI Director James Comey as the "crown jewels of the intelligence community," wasn't added until 2008. This section allows intelligence agencies to surveil any foreigner outside the U.S. without a warrant that the agency considers a target. The problem is that this often resulted in the warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens as well due to two loopholes known as "backdoor searches" and "about collection." Backdoor search refers to a roundabout way of monitoring Americans' communications. Since intelligence agencies are able to designate any foreigner's communications as a target for surveillance, if this foreigner has communicated with an American this means this American's communications are then also considered fair game for surveillance by the agency.
FISA was enacted in 1978, but Section 702, referred to by former FBI Director James Comey as the "crown jewels of the intelligence community," wasn't added until 2008. This section allows intelligence agencies to surveil any foreigner outside the U.S. without a warrant that the agency considers a target. The problem is that this often resulted in the warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens as well due to two loopholes known as "backdoor searches" and "about collection." Backdoor search refers to a roundabout way of monitoring Americans' communications. Since intelligence agencies are able to designate any foreigner's communications as a target for surveillance, if this foreigner has communicated with an American this means this American's communications are then also considered fair game for surveillance by the agency.
Making America Great Again (Score:5, Insightful)
The government absolutely needs to the legal ability to keep the 99% under constant surveillance in order to ensure that they don't rise up against the 1%, after all.
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Cards on the table (Score:3)
Ok, let's be clear about this. This "debate" is about what we suspect is still going on and about what Congress refuses to even ask of what is being done under FISA or the Patriot Act.
Most Americans including myself don't give a damn whether or not the Federal government is spying on the communications in and out of the US if it were actually being targeted at communications with terrorists, certain foreign institutions and foreign governments as part of legitimate national security and international crimi
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Donald Trump is not Hussein Obama
Donald Trump isn't interested in knowing everything every American does every second of every single day
Donald Trump did not ask for those draconian measures
It was the *DEMONCRAPS* who tagged on all those draconian stuffs
The bill is sponsored by Devin Nunes [congress.gov], a Republican
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My first "reality pill" regarding Obama was a FISA vote he made while a candidate. This vote violated his own campaign promises.
This rot infests both parties. Don't kid yourself. Crap like this can't persist otherwise.
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Devin Nunes has nothing to do with Trump besides being selected as a member of Trump's transition team you fucking retard.
FTFY
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Likewise - Devin Nunes has nothing to do with Democrats or even Obama.
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The reason to bring up Obama in this context is the last President's willingness — nay eagerness [circa.com] — to unmask [cnn.com] US Citizens tangled in the surveillance for political reasons [thehill.com]. The former Administration officials remain evasive [bloomberg.com] about the process and procedures — they really are to blame for the actual privacy deterioration that took place.
After all, the worry is not so much that the NSA will know, who said something. It is wh
Your logical fallacy is "strawman" (Score:2)
OMG! The Democrat are infecting Republicans (Score:2)
WHAT! He SIGNED the bill. He's a GLOBAL TOO? Is there NO ONE that DIANE FEINSTEIN won't take to BED???
Re:*STOP BLAMING TRUMP* ! (Score:5, Informative)
Donald Trump is not Hussein Obama
Donald Trump isn't interested in knowing everything every American does every second of every single day
Donald Trump did not ask for those draconian measures
It was the *DEMONCRAPS* who tagged on all those draconian stuffs
This actually started under the Bush Administration. Just sayin'
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Oddly, we need major parts of this. Where the real issue came in, is that CONgress critters continue to throw away the checks and will even remove their oversight of the work.
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No no... we don't bail out every farmer that can't keep a crop alive. Only the big corporate farms that have failures get bailouts because they're too big to fail. Small farms run by actual families are actually pushed toward bankruptcy so that their land can be bought up cheaply by corporations.
Re:*STOP BLAMING TRUMP* ! (Score:4, Interesting)
Donald Trump isn't interested in knowing everything every American does every second of every single day
Then I guess we can expect him to refuse to sign such a law and protect our freedoms and liberties. Which is, by the way, pretty much part of his job...
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Donald Trump isn't interested in knowing everything every American does every second of every single day
Then I guess we can expect him to refuse to sign such a law and protect our freedoms and liberties. Which is, by the way, pretty much part of his job...
The law isn't even necessarily the issue, except that it doesn't set up adequate 4th amendment protections and appears to be far too open ended... An open ended law isn't a problem if we (and Congress and the President) had greater transparency into how many Americans were being targeted and also how many Americans were being incidentally collected and also where those communications were originating or being received then it would go a long way towards either dispelling what we all suspect is mass abuse of
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Never said Obama was some kind of saint. Actually, he's the same kind of asshole as the others since Eisenhower.
Re:*STOP BLAMING TRUMP* ! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:*STOP BLAMING TRUMP* ! (Score:5, Insightful)
"The buck stops with my predecessor."
At this point.... Yes, it does....
Once the bill shows up on the Donald's desk, THEN the buck stops with him, but not before.
How about it boys and girls of the democrat caucus? You going to let this out of the Senate? I believe you can easily stop it from gaining cloture by just voting as a block. What are you going to do?
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Shucks, this sounds like grounds for a good old fashioned filabuster.
Even if it fails, you can at least be on record as fighting the good fight.
You don't have to be a total accomplice and then pretend something else later.
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If the democrats vote as a block there will be no cloture vote and no filibuster. Debate will never end and the bill will die, even if the majority tries to push it. The only way the majority would be able to do this unilaterally is to suspend the Senate rules and use the nuclear option to suspend the requirements for cloture for this bill. Where this is *possible* I don't think it's likely that the republicans would want to die on that hill.
However, I don't think this issue will be decided by a partisan
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It passed the House yesterday.
The buck is definitely in congress right now. Eventually it'll enter the oval office, stand above the Resolute Desk, and vomit.
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Yea, but do you think Rand Paul will be able to stop it in the Senate? Not sure he can.
Just so you know, this will be a bipartisan effort to get it though the Senate. Everybody will get the blame or praise (depending on your views) on this deal.
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Donald Trump is not Hussein Obama
Donald Trump isn't interested in knowing everything every American does every second of every single day
Donald Trump did not ask for those draconian measures
It was the *DEMONCRAPS* who tagged on all those draconian stuffs
Shesh there A/C... Ease up some... Until it actually passes the house and the senate, the Donald has nothing to do with this, except as a target...
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Idiots like you, are the ones that are causing America to lose out. You would rather blame others than your party because you put a bunch of putrid assholes first.
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There's plenty of blame to be found in both parties, plenty of putrid assholes on both sides of the aisle. It's idiots who don't understand it's all a pro wrasslin' spectacle put out for the populace to witness while behind closed doors they all collude to protect their own individual interests that's causing America to lose out.
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Pray stick in a comma after "spectacle" and "interests", I'm not making a living at this ya know....
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Up until recently, I was a registered Libertarian. Now, I am just a GDI, waiting for a decent 3rd party that is socially moderate to liberal, but strong fiscal conservatives. Basically, the party that Lincoln, Teddy and IKE had, along with FDR.
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When I first heard about Trump running for President I eyerolled and shook my head as hard as anyone else at the sorry state of affairs our country had fallen to. Then I watched the first Rep. primary debate where Trump noted he'd used $ to get what he wanted out of most of the other candidates on the stage with him and that it was a sorry state of affairs that he hoped to change. Then I took the time to go to his website and look over his positions and found myself thinking "Hey, that's not too bad if he a
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2008 was Bush..... Obama was elected in Nov 2008, but he was not seated until 2009....
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Sorry, correct, off by 1, but see comment about Dem controlled Senate and House which would have introduced the bill, brought it to committee, voted on it, approved it and sent it to Bush to sign.
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The senate had more repubs. they were procedurally in charge because of 2 independents who caucused with them, but other than that GOP had a majority..
That being said, if you look at the actual vote tallies every single GOP member voted for it, and more than 60% of the dems against it.
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Actually it was the republicans, the GOP president, ALL the GOP, and SOME dems.....
In fact over 60% of the dems voted AGAINST it.
Re:Making America Great Again (Score:4, Informative)
Singular they/them was used in William Shakespeare’s writings. I didn’t realize he was alive in “recent years.” Singular they has been part of common English use for 500 years. Get over it snowflake.
Re: Making America Great Again (Score:2)
How much do they pay you per post?
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Oh, the inconsistency in the system is VERY apparent to many of us:
Fire man - Sexist
Fire woman - Cult song
SEE!!!!! /feigned rage
They are watching (Score:4, Informative)
You're going to be surveilled, whether it's legal or not, so you might as well just legalise it and give up the pretence that you live in a free country.
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If it is illegal, at least it cannot be used against you in a court of law. that's the only difference.
Of course, when they see someone doing illegal stuff on a regular basis, they ask for a warrant and then everything becomes legal. But in order to ask for a warrant they are supposed to convince a judge of the hint you have. Not that much of a roadblock I guess. But still.
This is what you get (Score:1)
Dumbshits
Comment removed (Score:3)
ToiletPaper (Score:5, Insightful)
Stupid little thing called the 4th Amendment... Any conflicts?
Re: ToiletPaper (Score:1)
Land of the free, huh?
Re: ToiletPaper (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, "home of the brave" went out the window a long time ago when the US allowed "but terrrrist" to be a catch-all argument whenever something was to be done that eliminated another liberty, why bother clinging to that other part of the last line of the anthem?
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It actually flew out the window when they interpreted the interstate commerce clause to mean anything the owner might at some point in the future sell over state lines.
I think you meant anything for which an interstate market exists, regardless of whether commerce might occur. Seriously, Wickard v. Filburn (1942) was about preventing someone from growing their own wheat on their own land for their own consumption; the argument was that the entirely local action of simply growing one's own wheat and consuming it oneself could have an effect on the interstate wheat market. The regulations were justified on the basis of the "interstate commerce" clause but were applied to an
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The only conflicts are 50 US Senators, 435 Representa^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H the millions of citizen voters who don't vote out these "representatives" that continually erode our rights.
Besides, we don't need this security. Think of the children! What about terrorists!? Do you want those terrorists blowing up kidnapped children!?
A poor Archer meme just came to mind (be warned, this is terrible, but I laughed!). 4th Amendment: Do you want terrorists blowing up children
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Can't really say I'm for an expansion of domestic spying. It seems like the disease is a mosquito bite and the cure is to immerse yourself in fire.
SCOTUS (Score:2)
The Judicial Branch has entirely abdicated its responsibility to protect us from the government. Indeed, it seems that SCOTUS believes the reverse. In theory, Congress could pass all the snooping laws they wanted, but the judges would promptly swat them down on 4th Amendment grounds.
"Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it " -- Learned Hand
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You know how a politician can say "Think of the children!" and pass any crap law? You know how a cop can say "I feared for my life!" and walk after shooting a guy?
Well, all a government lawyer has to do is say "It's a matter of national security!" and they get a pass on the 4th Amendment.
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The problem was never the definition of "reasonable". "Reasonableness" is not the criteria for a legal search: having a warrant is. Searching or seizing someone else's property without their consent, legally, requires special legal dispensation granting immunity for that violation of the owner's property rights. Said special legal dispensation is known as a warrant. Without a warrant, searching or seizing someone else's property (domestic of foreign, it makes no difference) is a criminal act, regardless of
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What does Citizens United have to do with the 4th Amendment??
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Come on.. He was just spouting off the usual democratic talking points, but doesn't actually understand the underlying issues of each.
LOL..
Bring it on. (Score:4, Funny)
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Bring it on.
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[Filter error: That's an awful long string of letters there.]
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Well, I tried.
Power to abuse, not to do their jobs (Score:5, Insightful)
I used to work with a few Syrian expatriates who were nominally Muslim. They were shocked at the level of Saudi influence in the mosques in our region and had to really bounce around to find one that was not on the take. That's their word, not mine. They could not believe that we'd spend so much time and money on "surveillance," but allow what would be the equivalent of open KGB recruitment (as in uniformed Soviet officers at career fairs) on college campuses during the Cold War.
I have a much simpler and less constitutionally dangerous solution:
1. Pass a law forbidding the funding of any domestic organization by a foreign government except the Vatican.
2. Authorize the use the corporate death penalty and full asset forfeiture for any organization convicted of intentionally accepting that funding.
3. Pass a law that amends immigration law to provide for the banishment of any foreigner who is convicted of espionage or sedition.
4. Prosecute all extremist preachers (like Wahabis and Salafists) under the Sedition Act.
5. Pass a law providing the courts with the discretionary power to remove the citizenship of any foreign-born person who is convicted of sedition or espionage
Re:Power to abuse, not to do their jobs (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Why exempt the Vatican?
2. Careful, I could easily construct a way to get rid of political rivals that way.
3. No complaints here, as long as we find ways to ensure that this isn't abused to get rid of "inconvenient" people.
4. Does that include the Westboro Baptist Church?
5. See 3. Also, where do you want to put such a person, most likely there is no original state to shove him into.
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1. Why exempt the Vatican?
Because it puts the Roman Catholic Church and its institutions at risk. The RCC is the largest religion in the US and controls 1/3 of our hospitals. Nothing good can come from antagonizing your largest native religious group and putting at risk an immense number of charitable organizations, hospitals and colleges connected to it and its international seat of authority.
2. Careful, I could easily construct a way to get rid of political rivals that way.
It could, but if you establish a
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1) Let's for a moment imagine that this has a chance to survive the first amendment, will Israel and Saudi Arabia get the same preferential treatment? I mean, let's face it, they already do, but making it official...?
2) You remember when it became a law that you'd have to declare if you hand a load of money to politicians? What happened? A couple letterbox companies sprung into existence where you could conveniently send your money to who were then the ones who handed the money to the politician. I bet you'
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Why does the Vatican get a pass? They helped cover up pedophile priests for decades.
If someone is convicted of espionage, your plan is to kick them out of the country instead of punishing them? I mean, unless they have diplomatic immunity so that we couldn't prosecute them, what does that solve?
Why are you limiting prosecution of preachers to Wahabis and Salafists? I mean, if you're serious about religion being used against the U.S....
Oh, wait, you're not.
2008? Oh, the DEMOCRAT Senate and House? (Score:1, Insightful)
In 2008, DEMOCRATS controlled both the House and the Senate.
Hey, they had to lay the groundwork for a surveillance regime to use against Trump.
Why else would we need the FBI to use a bogus "dossier" to get a FISA warrant against Trump's campaign and then have UN Ambassador Susan Rice unmask all of them?
And then feed all that to Robert Mueller?
Driving the use of encryption. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it's hilarious that they don't realize that it's their own insatiable desire to spy on everyone that is the primary driving force behind the spread of encrypted communications. That they don't realize this truth makes it all the more funny.
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Exactly. Tell that whiny dude from the FBI that THIS is why Americans need unbreakable encryption.
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I think it's hilarious that they don't realize that it's their own insatiable desire to spy on everyone that is the primary driving force behind the spread of encrypted communications. That they don't realize this truth makes it all the more funny.
The law will not be to legalize it. They will conduct mass surveillance whether it is openly legal or not. What the law will do is make it seem that they are not conducting mass surveillance to lower the demand for ubiquitous encryption. I would prefer that they just make mass surveillance openly legal since it is going to happen anyway creating more demand to deploy ubiquitous encryption.
Would this frustrate lawful interception? Yes, and I do not care. If they wanted me to trust them, then they should
Always good to remember... (Score:3)
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"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety". Benjamin Franklin.
Police states never ensure the safety of the people, Police states ensure the power of those who have it.
The downfall of America and the West (Score:2)
All you can do is watch it fail.
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It would actually be a bit entertaining if it didn't carry such a huge chance to have a global impact.
IOW (Score:2)
We need MORE encryption, not less, as the FBI wants.
We'll need it _everywhere_!
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Seconded.
A Quiet Civil War (Score:2)
When you have many groups in a nation, and many of them hate each other [wnd.com], you will have massive instability. Add technology into the mix and you have a surveillance state. Before this nifty new tech, it would have simply been an informant state as in the Soviet Union: turn in a coworker and get twice as many beets in your soup this week.
Simple solution (Score:2)
There's a very simple solution that allows one to completely avoid this surveillance- don't talk to foreigners. It often ends poorly. For example, it is known that talking to Slovenian women [wikipedia.org] leads to disaster.
So... They are no longer waiting (Score:2)
for the Reichstag to burn down.
this synopsis is NOT accurate (Score:2)
Since intelligence agencies are able to designate any foreigner's communications as a target for surveillance, if this foreigner has communicated with an American this means this American's communications are then also considered fair game for surveillance by the agency.
First off, note that this is what was used to catch Trump's ppl committing treason. We were listening in on Russian/Chinese/Amongst others communications and caught trump's ppl asking for a different secured way to talk to them. This occurred PRIOR to Trump being elected.
Secondly, just because you talk to a foreigner outside of our nation does NOT mean that they can then listen to all your calls. There has to be REASONABLE reason for such a thing to happen. Now, if you talk to a known/suspected terror
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#1 Why would he veto it?
#2 Farce? Perhaps. Perhaps not. The jury still seems out on that. Its a fact, also, that Trump is HEAVILY connected to russian money as they were the only ones that would invest in him anymore. There are also possible ties to russian money laundering. Even if there is no direct collusion during the election, which I must add the Russians helped swing in Trump's favor via social networking, even if that is true, the Russians are very much in Trump's pocket. The fact that they changed
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Haha so the democrats are behind it. Ok. Let's just ignore the mountain of evidence that has already been overturned.
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How cute. You actually think autocratic, authoritarian Trump would veto this. Do they have unicorns in the world you inhabit?
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Afterwards he will be back to defend trump for his signing it.
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> You actually think autocratic, authoritarian Trump
That kind of silly nonsense is straight out of the Trump troll book. It's also classic Goebbels.
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Awwww, the snowflake is triggered.
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Fear. It will validate his claim that he was wiretapped by Fartbongo, and conservative authoritarians lash out at any perceived violation with force. If they did it once they can do it again.
That's a plausible reason why he specifically might veto it. But more likely someone will spin it as a way to catch the brown folk and it gets signed as fast as possible.
Either one is possible with this mercurial moron depending on what Fox and Friends says about it.
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> a president to try to stop a mean nasty book being published
You mean libel? Individuals have had legal cause to try to punish people for libel since pretty much forever. People like to ignore this fact because they don't like the victim. If the shoe were on the other foot, they would be out for blood.
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Why would it stop him. GOP is the ones who primarily voted for it in 2008, and how many of them lost their seats?
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At the very least, it would probably preclude him from getting re-elected for a second term in 2020.
How's that? It didn't hurt Obama's reelection why would it be an issue for Trump? Because it ticks off Rand Paul or something?
I suppose democrats will demagogue this issue the best they can, but they have dirty enough hands they cannot go too far or it will certainly be made to backfire on them.
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Are you suggesting that there are some Americans who *want* warrantless surveillance on them?
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Are you suggesting that there are some Americans who *want* warrantless surveillance on them?
No, I'm suggesting that if renewing FISA didn't hurt the last guy in the Oval Office, why would it hurt the current one? Or maybe I missed where an Obama veto was overridden to get FISA renewed?
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This is a parody post, right? If supporting this bill would cause someone to not get re-elected then how do you explain all the Senators and Reps still in office after repeatedly supporting the reauthorization of this horrendous Section previously? Name a single person in Congress that was voted out specifically for supporting Section 702. I won’t hold my breath, though.
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It's my understanding that this would be because the people that it previously impacted weren't people who had any say in the outcome of an election, and there are a very large number of people who will only care about an issue when something bad may or wll happen to them personally as a resu
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Wonderful non-answer. You still have yet to show any reason to believe anyone involved will be significantly impacted by voting to expand Section 702.
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Re: No it wont (Score:3)
Do worry - a healthy majority of Democrats will also vote Yes on the Stasi bill. Tyranny has string bipartisan support.
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It actually also drives people underground.
Without going into detail, there is a reason why some limited "extremist" activity is quite useful for organizations fighting it. That way you have a foot in the door. You can control it. And you have a chance to avoid disaster. If it's completely underground and there is no way to even find out what's going on, you're fucked.
Let's say there is a reason why some countries do actually catch terrorists before they can strike, even though there are soooooo many evil "
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Do tell me then wise A/C.. IF the US Constitution applies to the whole world, who is responsible for enforcement of say "the bill of rights" in China or North Korea?
Re: Clearly what "they" want (Score:5, Interesting)
The United States and its people, are who is responsible for enforcing the limits of the US government's power in China, North Korea, North America, and on the planet Mars. If the US Congress tries to pass a law that abridges the freedom of the press on the moon, or a law that infringes the right to bear arms on Alpha Centauri colony 3, we are responsible for striking down or otherwise nullifying that law.
The purpose of the Bill of Rights is to protect people's freedom. But the mechanics of the Bill of Rights is to deny power to an entity considered particularly at risk of violating peoples' freedom. To enforce the Bill of Rights is to enforce the limits of US government power. You can do that to the US government, no matter where the victim happens to be. It's just a question of whether or not we want to, is a good idea, is practical, etc.
That last part is what it's really about: you can enforce the law which limits the US government's power to infringe peoples' rights in China, but doing so doesn't have a really practical effect on how freely Chinese citizens can exercise their rights. So of course, we all have reason to be lax about enforcing the law, despite our responsibility as US citizens.
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"We fought for freedom, and all we got was democracy." -- Pieter-Dirk Uys
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Where I get your attempt at humor and would mod you up if I had points...
I do need to point out that FISA isn't really part of this little controversy you bring up. Foreign nationals on foreign soil do not require FISA warrants to have their communications intercepted and monitored... Should a US citizen be inadvertently collected on while talking to a valid foreign target, that's OK to do. You just cannot use such intercepts as evidence in a criminal investigation/prosecution w/o a warrant which requir