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United States

Leaked Senate Talking Points Say Internet Surveillance Warrants Would Force FBI To Let Terrorists Bomb Things (gizmodo.com) 126

Requiring federal agents to have "probable cause" to eavesdrop on the internet activities of American citizens poses a direct threat to national security and would force the FBI to stand by while terrorist plots unfold on U.S. soil, according to a leaked copy of talking points distributed to Senate lawmakers this month. From a report: The talking points, which were distributed by the Senate Judiciary Committee, according to a spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, seek to provide a communications guide for promoting an amendment floated by McConnell this year that would have expanded the U.S. Justice Department's use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The document was circulated on Capitol Hill ahead of a Senate vote this month to reinstate three key FBI surveillance authorities under the USA FREEDOM Authorization Act, including Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which expired March 15. A draft being circulated in the Senate reportedly contained an "alarming expansion of Attorney General Bill Barr's powers under FISA" and "explicitly permits" the warrantless collection of Americans' internet search and browser data by the FBI.
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Leaked Senate Talking Points Say Internet Surveillance Warrants Would Force FBI To Let Terrorists Bomb Things

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  • The FBI, under Robert Muller, was made aware of Saudi men taking pilot training courses. The issue was that they were learned to fly, but not to land. At least one agent wanted to step in. Muller's FBI ignored the reports and let 9/11 happen, possibly by simply being lazy. I do not trust that the FBI will not abuse its citizens when it didn't even act when it had the data it needed. This will not be used to only track potential terrorists. The FBI already has the tools it needs to do the job, and does so po
    • by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Monday May 25, 2020 @11:03AM (#60101968)

      Indeed. It is not a problem of too little data or too little access. It is a problem of incompetence and arrogance. The absolute _last_ thing to do in this situation is give them more power and more access.

      • by cusco ( 717999 )

        The problem as I see it is that the fearsome terriers are not what we're being told. If al Qaeda/Daesh/MS13/boogieman-of-the-day were what they say then we'd be without electricity three days a week. Terrorism isn't rocket science, nor does it require much in the way of training or funding, and doesn't need suicide bombers.

        A dozen guys enter the country illegally, scatter around the country, each settles into a quiet life washing dishes or mowing lawns, like any illegal, acquire a used car like any illega

    • by raymorris ( 2726007 ) on Monday May 25, 2020 @11:50AM (#60102152) Journal

      The Bill of Rights is a list of things the federal government "shall not" do. By its plain terms it lists rights that the government "shall not infringe". It's all about limiting what the federal government can do.

      Is it easier to do a job if you didn't have a list of limitations on you, things you shall not do? Of course it is. Of course FBI agents could use more techniques to get the job done if they weren't limited by Constitutional rights. Oh fucking well. Yep you and I having rights they aren't allowed to infringe it makes their job harder. We as a nation have decided that's a price we're willing to pay in order for the US to not be like North Korea or China.

      To go with your example, the Arizona FBI office became aware that some middle eastern men were taking flight training. (None of them were 9-11 hijackers, by the way). What is the FBI going to do about when they hear middle eastern men are taking flying lessons? Arrest everyone who took flight lessons, including me, and put them in prison the rest of their lives? Yeah that would have included arresting Mohamed Atta, so maybe it would have been effective. The Constitution says they can't do that and I'm glad I'm not in prison for having taken flight lessons.

      Maybe they could have required that all passengers be handcuffed to the seat in every aircraft? I'm not sure how they'd even come up with that idea since the memo was about people training to be pilots, not passengers, but I guess it would have worked. We don't do that kind of thing here though.

      Singapore DOES have a very low crime rate, so it's a losing argument to say that style of government doesn't reduce crime. We just value human rights enough that we aren't willing to go there.

      • There are other ways to reduce crime besides murding and throwing people in jail.

        You try removing a few laws now and then, like the ones that let you put 3 million Americans in prison for non-violent fucking weed "crimes".

        The plethora of laws are not about reducing crime. They're about INCREASING crime, by the creation of crimes, which can then be applied for control purposes. Racism, sexism, and fueling class warfare have proven extremely effective tools to get, exert, and maintain control.

        For fucks sake,

        • Funny how it only gets called class warfare when the poor fight back. Nobody ever calls out lower taxes on the rich, repealing worker protections, etc. class warfare, and yet that's exactly what it is - a continuous ongoing assault on the lower classes by the upper classes for pretty much the entire history of the country. But when people point it out and start complaining, saying we need to push back - suddenly it becomes class warfare. Funny that...

      • More importantly, and people get this backwards all the time (and those who want to take power from the people and give it to themselves, [including: the Supreme Court, Congress, and the Executive Branch], always try to say it is the opposite): the Constitution IS NOT a document that tells the people what rights they have, it is a document that tells the government what RIGHTS THE PEOPLE ARE WILLING TO CEDE TO THE GOVERNMENT IN A LIMITED FASHION.

        The "Bill of Rights" is redundant. Any right not EXPLICITLY ce

        • Well said.

          I will point out the distinction between powers and rights.
          The states delegated certain powers to the federal government.

          We are endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights.
          Inalienable means the rights can not leave us, they are part of being human. These rights can be violated, but cannot be taken away, and not given away.

          This is important because a majority could vote that the government may hang Catholics and that gives them the *power* to do so. That would still violate the rights o

    • by ceg97 ( 976736 )
      Not credible. Its fantastic. Reminds me of an ad campaign to stop a California referendum requiring bottle deposits initiated by soft drink bottlers and supermarkets that claimed there would be rats as big as cats carting off half empty bottles of sugary drinks from supermarket back rooms. The bottlers underestimated the intelligence of the voters and the referendum passed. On the other hand perhaps the FBI knows the intelligence level of our politicians quite well.
    • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

      "The FBI, under Robert Muller, was made aware of Saudi men taking pilot training courses..."

      "Saudi hijackers led by Bin Laden & Al Qaeda on 9/11" is the official conspiracy theory put forth by the Bush administration and his so-called 911 Commission. It is this disingenuous rubbish (The 9/11 Commission Report) that has brought America and the world ever closer to fascism and authoritarian rule.

      The science [ae911truth.org] behind the 9/11 attacks suggests (essentially proves) that Al Qaeda, Bin Laden and the Saud
      • by Rhipf ( 525263 )

        With stated objectives such as these:

        The objectives of the hearings were:

        To present evidence that the U.S. government’s official investigation into the events of September 11, 2001, as pursued by various government and government-appointed agencies, is seriously flawed and has failed to describe and account for the 9/11 events.
        To single out the most weighty evidence of the inadequacy of the U.S. government’s investigation; to organize and classify that evidence; to preserve that evidence; to make that evidence widely known to the public and to governmental, non-governmental and inter-governmental organizations.

        it isn't surprising that you would conclude "that Al Qaeda, Bin Laden and the Saudi's had nothing to do with the attacks, save being "patsies"".

      • Old fuddy-duddy that I am, every now and then I venture back to Slashdot to see if the quality of the commentary has bottomed out. Apparently not. But thanks for the data point, moron.
    • At least one agent wanted to step in. Muller's [sic] FBI ignored the reports

      False. The one agent you refer to was FBI liaison to NSA, and it was NSA that had the reports and did nothing, not FBI. The "one agent" desperately wanted to inform FBI, but he was not permitted to do so by Federal law, would have been arrested for treason or something. FBI and Director Robert Mueller knew nothing, or next to it. FBI had intelligence that two of the would-be attackers were involved in the US Cole incident, but NSA was actively tracking most of the hijackers right up to the week of the attac

    • The FBI, under Robert Muller, was made aware of Saudi men taking pilot training courses.

      Uh, Robert Muller became director of the FBI exactly one week before the 9/11 attacks occurred. The intelligence you're referring to came weeks, maybe even months, before that. And the FBI and CIA made numerous attempts to bring this intelligence to Bush and his staff and every time they were rebuffed. Bush even famously quipped to a CIA briefer, "All right. You've covered your ass, now." That was five weeks before

  • disgusting (Score:5, Insightful)

    by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Monday May 25, 2020 @10:56AM (#60101940) Journal
    Barr has proven that he is a constant liar. The idea of him having expanded capabilities is just plain SCARY.
    What is really needed is a modification to this bill:
    Allow the feds access to any part of the internet (stream/data) that is unencrypted. THink of a postcard that is in the open. Technically, anybody can read it while going through USPS. However, if both Data/Stream are encrypted, require a warrant, though allow them to follow anywhere for 1 week. At the end of the week, warrant is over, unless applied for again. And all results (where and why searched and what was found) MUST BE TURNED OVER to the FISA court.

    This simple modification will fix everything quickly.
    • Re:disgusting (Score:4, Insightful)

      by DontBeAMoran ( 4843879 ) on Monday May 25, 2020 @11:11AM (#60102002)

      Allow the feds access to any part of the internet (stream/data) that is unencrypted.

      If that part goes through, their next step will be to make encryption illegal.

      • by Calydor ( 739835 )

        Why don't they just do that anyway?

        • Because King Canute can no more ban mathematics than he can stop the tides.

          • by Calydor ( 739835 )

            So what you're saying is that if we allow the feds access to the plaintext part of the internet, and we then have them ban encryption, we can stop the tide?

            • Build a better mouse trap, create a smarter mouse. Obfuscating encrypted data in ordinary-looking data streams is hardly a new thing. The irony is, of course, that the people most like to use these methods will be criminals. The dumb crooks and terrorists will get weeded out, but the smarter ones will simply find new ways to encrypt their data.

              You can't kill encryption any more than you can kill Pi or the Planck constants. They are fundamental mathematical constants and constructs.

              What a number of governmen

      • by Anonymous Coward

        Allow the feds access to any part of the internet (stream/data) that is unencrypted.

        If that part goes through, their next step will be to make encryption illegal.

        Why even bother with that? ... just install a cranial implant in all citizens (except the deserving rich of course) that detects 'wrongthink' and automatically alerts he NSA.

      • No, what will happen is companies will all encrypt stream/data, thereby denying their data to all governments.
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Barr has proven that he is a constant liar. The idea of him having expanded capabilities is just plain SCARY.

      This is a systemic problem. It shouldn't be possible for one person to scare you this much, there should not be that concentration of power or lack of balances.

      • Barr has proven that he is a constant liar. The idea of him having expanded capabilities is just plain SCARY.

        This is a systemic problem. It shouldn't be possible for one person to scare you this much, there should not be that concentration of power or lack of balances.

        You have no idea.

        Prosecutors are the most powerful officials in the American criminal justice system. The decisions they make, particularly the charging and plea-bargaining decisions, control the operation of the system and often predetermine the outcome of criminal cases. Prosecutorial power is vast and unrestrained, and the mechanisms that purport to hold prosecutors accountable are weak and often totally ineffective. In addition, the most important prosecutorial decisions are made behind closed doors

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday May 25, 2020 @11:03AM (#60101966)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by moxrespawn ( 6714000 ) on Monday May 25, 2020 @11:08AM (#60101986)

    USA FREEDOM Authorization Act

    Continuing Congress' tradition of naming laws as the exact opposite of what they contain.

  • by MikeDataLink ( 536925 ) on Monday May 25, 2020 @11:10AM (#60101996) Homepage Journal

    Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

    • Tell that to people in tech, and suddenly that's a meaningless concept. Taking away a users liberties in being able to install apps of their own choice on their devices without some form of big brother choosing what they feel is acceptable is viewed as amazing and a good thing...
    • by Anonymous Coward

      Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

      Does this apply to Covid-19 lock-down orders too?

      • The saying? Yes. The common sense application of an extraordinary measure in a single extraordinary case? No.

        Here's another great saying: "Stop fucking generalising"

    • You don't get any temporary safety. (And that quote is from a different context, so not applicable.)

      If you don't even have probable cause to check what is going on, you don't actually know there is even a plot. If you knew there was an active plot, you'd already have probably cause to search anything remotely related to what information you already had.

      Their "talking point" is just flamebait.

    • by hey! ( 33014 )

      Well, before we even weigh that choice, we had better figure out whether the proposed course of action would have any beneficial effect whatsoever. People who do a job often conflate something that makes the job easier with something that is essential.

      As for tradeoffs, we do them all the time. In fact that's what search warrant is, a tradeoff between liberty and security. That tradeoff is not so apparent because we're used to warrants, perhaps a little *too* used to them. They are a potent source of govern

    • Let’s face it, our founding fathers did indeed intend the Constitution to be a suicide pact that would be adhered to even in the face of existential threats to our lives.

      Specifically, it’s the implementation of the suicide pact first envisioned in the Declaration of Independence. A declaration that ends with “For support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”
  • They should also send at least one FBI agent to live with the people in every house in the country, just to make sure everyone is safe and is not planning anything nefarious.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • While I agree this sucks, it is not without precedent. The Supreme Court has previously found that the 4th Amendment does not apply to searches of your garbage [wikipedia.org], so a warrant is not necessary. The reasoning being that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy for stuff you throw away in the garbage.

      I suspect the argument here would be that since your web browsing history is not a secret (from the sites you are visiting, from the web browser, and from the computer OS), that you do not expect the hist
    • by guruevi ( 827432 )

      As did every other congress critter and FBI agent. This is a systemic problem in any government that is grown too large. And this has very little to do with Barr, who is upholding due process and the like but with the FBI, which has recently become a rogue agency.

  • by Freischutz ( 4776131 ) on Monday May 25, 2020 @11:11AM (#60102008)
    I regularly run into right wingers who, when discussing survellance, tell me that I'm a libtard commie and that the Soviet Uniion was a police & surveillance state. This usually makes me laugh, not because it is wrong, I am a libtard (though not a communist) and the Soviet Union was a police & surveillance state. It makes me laugh because these same people then turn around and advocate for police & surveillance laws like this and think they can afford to criticise the Soviet Union. Better yet they manage to do this with a straight face and apparently completely oblivious to the massive hypocrites it makes them.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by SirAstral ( 1349985 ) on Monday May 25, 2020 @11:19AM (#60102032)

    I am sick of the "I have to have the power to oppress you in order to protect you" folks.

    Dear Senate... you are becoming a greater threat to our "National Security" than the terrorists! Nix that... you are becoming Terrorists yourselves! People are living in fear of your shoot first and CYA later militarized police!

    • Dear Senate... you are becoming a greater threat to our "National Security" than the terrorists! Nix that... you are becoming Terrorists yourselves! People are living in fear of your shoot first and CYA later militarized police!

      Congress, actually.

      There is a possible solution that may have a chance, but only if 3/4ths of the States do it:

      https://conventionofstates.com... [conventionofstates.com]

      • If you want to get Specific it would be Dear Legislature which comprises the House of Representatives and Senate.

        The States themselves should indeed call a convention, however do remember that they themselves are guilty of doing nothing against the shoot first CYA later militarized police as well. The most important part of proper policing starts with your Sheriff. Sheriffs must be kept in check by State Government and the voters State Government must be kept in check by the Federal Government and the vot

      • by guruevi ( 827432 )

        Although I like the prospect of a convention of states, the states with the most legislative power are also the ones most in debt and highly dependent on the Federal government. If you really think NY or CA or MI will suddenly want the government(s) to become fiscally responsible (conservative) then you wholly misunderstand the Democrat platform.

  • That "if you are not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about?"

    It is this thought process that needs to be addressed and corrected or we WILL end up in a police state.

    • That "if you are not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about?"

      It is this thought process that needs to be addressed and corrected or we WILL end up in a police state.

      While I agree with you that comment is at least 30 years too late. We are already in a police state, the issue that confronts us today is how to roll that back.

      • seize upon the revelations of the fisa court related to Carter Page, jump on the bandwagon with the republicans, and shove this reality down Democrat's throats.

        under the last administration, an undercover CIA 'source' happened to 'volunteer' for a political campaign, and then the FBI 'accidentally' investigated his cover story for 3 years.

      • Not so much a police state as a corporate state.

        Our decline began with allowing corps individual rights.

        Actually our decline began when we took this land from it's native occupants! :^)

    • You need to tell those people, impress upon them, that anyone, anywhere, any time, can have their life sifted through, and they'll find something that can be prosecuted for -- even if they have to get a little creative to do it. No one is 100% innocent, no one is 100% clean. So their entire mantra ("if you are not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about?") is demonstrably FALSE.
      • Hell, these people who want to destroy people's rights to privacy? Give them enough room and they'll make laws that make it possible to effortlessly arrest and prosecute anyone, anytime. In fact there's been a law on the books just about everywhere for as long as anyone can remember: 'Resisting arrest'. You can be arrested solely for 'resisting arrest'; it's designed to be a catch-all for when they think they should arrest you, but they can't come up with any valid reason to arrest you.
      • I am well aware of this, and looking for an argument perspective that will get these folks attention.

        Without a hook to get their attention they often stick their head in the sand.

        • Sadly the fact of the matter is that people who think that way are very often entirely closed and won't listen to any argument of any kind and will just stare at you like you're insane and need to be locked away somewhere. It's like trying to explain to someone who is a Creationist and believes the Earth is only 6000 years old that all their 'proof' and 'arguments' involve circular logic and blind faith, nothing that can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt -- or trying to convince anti-vaxxers that they're
  • by mark-t ( 151149 ) <markt AT nerdflat DOT com> on Monday May 25, 2020 @11:28AM (#60102072) Journal

    .... with *internet* surveillance?

    The same argument could be said for monitoring anyone's activities, or needing "probable cause" to search someone's private home.

    My point being that if you are going to create a law enforcement framework that needs anything resembling probable cause to invade someone's privacy under the notion of guilty until proven innocent, then this should not even be a matter for discussion. Of *course* you should need a warrant, and it shouldn't matter what the nature of the privacy is that is being invaded.

    And similarly, if you are going to decide that probable cause is not needed for internet surveillance, then it should similarly not be needed for any of the numerous other things that ordinarily would require a warrant either, because contrary to what these apparently clueless idjits seem to think, privacy isn't somehow magically different just because it happens to be in a virtual space.

    • by Rick Schumann ( 4662797 ) on Monday May 25, 2020 @01:44PM (#60102618) Journal
      Here's the thing that I think some people can't wrap their heads around: The Law Enforcement Mindset.
      Not ALL LEOs, but *some* LEOs, and too many Congresscritters who listen to them, are so anal-retentive and obsessive-compulsive about wanting to control every aspect of everything around them, that they feel like they're going to piss their pants if they can't know everything about everyone, all the time. So they want more and more control, and to hell with peoples' so-called 'rights'. Have you ever had a cop tell you 'you have no rights'? I have. More than once. And they MEAN IT when they say it; they somehow forget that there is such a thing as The Constitution and Human Rights. They have the badge and the gun, so THEY are the LAW and THEY are the only ones who have any 'rights' -- and those 'rights' are the 'right' to do whatever they want, whenever they want, to whoever they want, and maybe you get beaten, maybe you get SHOT if you try to stop them, or even argue with them about it.
      No, I'm not making this up. In the hearts of some of them, they think this way, even if they're not so brave as to say it all out loud.
      This is what they want for this country: Police in charge of everything, *YOU* have no 'right' to privacy whatsoever, and if you don't like it, have the nerve to actually protest against them, then maybe you need to be 'investigated', because one way or another they'll find something they can arrest and convict you for (even if they have to get 'creative' to do it).
      Surveilling every last mouse click and keystroke you make on the Internet is just the beginning.
      You give these people license to do whatever they want, and they'll have cameras and microphones in every room of your house, by law, 'for your protection', of course.
      Oh and by the way: 'smart speakers', 'digital assistants', 'smartphones', 'smart TVs (with a camera and microphone and internet access)', and so on. We're already halfway there.

      No, no tinfoil hats here. We're not to the Police State stage just yet, but the stage is being set for that to happen. The tech is already in place. All they're waiting for now is license to turn it all on whenever they want.
      So what we all have to do is fight against Congress voting away our rights to privacy for the illusion of security. 'Warrantless searches' of any kind, digital or otherwise, cannot be allowed. Ever.
      • by mark-t ( 151149 )

        *YOU* have no 'right' to privacy

        No doubt, but it is very telling that the very same people who would say this are, in fact, most likely very protective of their own privacy...

        There is simply no world in which you can adopt the innocent until proven guilty mindset while simultaneously disregarding privacy, and if you cannot presume that a person is innocent until proven guilty, then it follows that the very people who are suggesting these sort of changes must be guilty until proven innocent, and I would

        • by cusco ( 717999 )

          Maybe it it's Alexandria Ocasio, but I really don't want see McConnell naked.

          • by mark-t ( 151149 )

            Neither do I, particularly.... at least it wouldn't make the person a hypocrite for proposing it.

            My point is that I can pretty much guarantee that anyone who has ever proposed this kind of legislation in front of lawmakers or politicians did so while clothed, and that by being so clothed, they are hiding parts of their body from public view. This means that even while they are actively advocating the notion that privacy should not matter to people who are not doing anything wrong, they are simultaneousl

      • by cusco ( 717999 )

        I'm reminded of Scott McNealy's (CEO of database server company Sun Microsystems) statement in 1998: "You have no privacy. Get over it." Anyone who thinks they have any privacy online 22 years later is living in Fantasyland.

        • by mark-t ( 151149 )

          I'm reminded of Scott McNealy's (CEO of database server company Sun Microsystems) statement in 1998: "You have no privacy. Get over it."

          And I'm betting he was wearing clothes while he said it.

          Hypocrite.

        • Is that why you list your actual name and actual email address where everyone can see it, brian.bixby@gmail,com? Because you gave up and are just allowing yourself to be anally probed by whoever cares to do so?
          • by cusco ( 717999 )

            I've posted under my own name and email address since the late '90s. I've had the gmail address since they were still invite-only. Other than getting put on a couple of spam lists by the losers at Free Republic and having gotten a couple of death threats nothing has ever happened even though I don't hide that I live in the Seattle area and until last year (when we finally canceled the land line) was listed in the Seattle phone book. I've actually gotten several emails from people who support my views, mo

            • See, here's the thing: you can open up a brand-new email address somewhere, never give it out to anyone, never even send anything from it, and it will still get SPAM. So when you claim (apparently) that your gmail address doesn't get SPAM, I don't believe you. I'd sooner believe that Google is intercepting your SPAM, probably because it's not SPAM they're making money from. Or, you're just not being honest about it.
              Oh and by the way why bother having an alias for your account name here when your (ostensibl
              • by cusco ( 717999 )

                I never said that I didn't get spam, back before filters were good the jackasses at Free Republic put my email on a bunch of them. It was a nuisance for a while, but Google's filters eventually reduced it to almost nothing.

                I post as Cusco because CuscoF2 was my screen name all over the Internet when I first signed up for a SlashDot account in the late '90s. I eventually lost that password and had to create a new account so dropped the F2 (was part of our address when we lived in Peru).

                With your userID you

                • All I can say to you at this point is "don't poke Murphy with a stick like that."
                  The Internet is getting worse not better, and idiots on it are getting more and more wound up. If you're easy to find in real life then someone will eventually try to ruin you -- or kil you.
  • by jader3rd ( 2222716 ) on Monday May 25, 2020 @11:32AM (#60102090)
    As much as I like crime prevention, there's a line that gets crossed. Crimes should happen before there is punishment.
  • No surprise. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by AlanObject ( 3603453 ) on Monday May 25, 2020 @11:44AM (#60102130)

    We let known nut cases amass private arsenals and don't arrest them until after they shoot up a school or shopping mall. So what is different here?

    I know this will be modded Troll because people will have to defend what they imagine the 2nd amendment to be and they think that's the way to do it.

    But still -- the question is valid.

    • Some people have guns and do awful things to innocent people with them,
      therefore all people with guns will eventually do awful things to innocent people with them,
      therefore we should ban all guns (except for military and police). That'll fix everything!

      'Inductive reasoning' is probably the biggest, nastiest logical fallacy of them all. Please knock that off.
      Do you want to live in an out-and-out Police State? Because that's how you get a Police State!

  • by skam240 ( 789197 ) on Monday May 25, 2020 @11:46AM (#60102138)

    Now don't get me wrong here, there are probably plenty of Democrats who will vote for this but the fact that it's Republicans pushing this bill is yet another example of why I can't vote Republican. Reining in government overreach is supposed to be one of the hallmarks of the Republican party but in reality it only involves programs pushed by Democrats, everything else is fair game including slowly turning our country into a surveillance state.

    Debt? Let the money flow!
    illegal immigration? Your best solution to this problem is to waste billions on a wall? Get back to me when you have a ladder proof idea that might actually make a meaningful impact
    Government Overreach? No such thing if it's a bill proposed by us!
    National Security? We havent had such poor relations with our allies in my lifetime.

    Pretty much every value the Republican party espouses to have that has any overlap with my own political beliefs is all talk. To give them some credit though, their social conservative wing does at least seem to have the integrity to walk their talk but they'll never get my vote advocating for the policies they do.

    On the other hand, the dems are far from perfect but they do occasionally do things to meaningfully improve our country like make health insurance affordable for millions of Americans. Even with that, Obama Care doesn't go after our system's core problem (cost) like Socialized Medicine would but it did in fact actually do something to help a problem our country is having.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • by jacks smirking reven ( 909048 ) on Monday May 25, 2020 @12:58PM (#60102410)

        If you look at the trends over time insurance costs have continued increasing, but after the initial spike in premiums when the act passed the rate of increase has been pretty constant, which is really the issue with health care over the last 40 years. Premiums and cost of service continue rising year over year with no end in sight. The ACA's main goal was to increase coverage, it was mostly successful in that regard. When the public option got stripped from the plan any hope of it driving down costs went out the window. A larger reform of the system and how we treat and pay for health care will be necessary to make any change to costs.

    • Two sides of the same coin. Remember all the executive orders Obama used? He set some serious precedents for the expansion of Presidential power. Trump is building on that, of course.

      The Democrats occasionally, accidentally do something good, no question. But they're right there expanding government power. Same for the Republicans.

      Yhe huge expansion in emergency powers brought in by COVID? Both parties will keep and expand on those, and use them ever more frequently, for ever more trivial reasons.

      The frog i

      • by skam240 ( 789197 )

        Oh I'm under no delusions in regards to the Democrats and the high likelihood of government growing under them and while I think more could be said on the subject I do ultimately agree that Obama set very bad precedent with the volume of his executive orders. On the other side though I'm not at all anti government and I very strongly believe there are things the government can and should do for us so (for me at least) a growing government is not inherently bad, just something to be kept an eye on.

        I also thi

    • FYI, when they were re-authorizing Section 215 back in March, the majority of "aye" votes in the House were Democrats. They have the overall majority, of course, so it's not surprising - but even looking at proportions, they were identical across both parties.

      Unfortunately, this is not one of the issues on which the parties meaningfully differ. They know that "tough on crime" brings more political dividends than any downsides from those laws, so the only time they oppose them is when one of their own is spe

      • by skam240 ( 789197 )

        The difference here though is that Republicans are the ones that advertise themselves as being apposed to things like this. The Democrats are at least honest enough to not make fiscal responsibility a plank. They even sometimes put the money they collect towards us, the people, rather than trying to find new ways to shovel money at the affluent.

  • by Sebby ( 238625 ) on Monday May 25, 2020 @11:49AM (#60102146)

    Requiring federal agents to have "probable cause" to eavesdrop on the internet activities of American citizens poses a direct threat to national security and would force the FBI to stand by while terrorist plots unfold on U.S. soil

    Maybe, just maybe, should start looking at the root causes of terrorism instead - like bad policies where the U.S. interferes with the affairs of other nations/people affecting them negatively. I mean, there's a reason the reputation of the U.S. isn't that stellar around the globe.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      I hate to have to put it to you like this Sebby, but the Dunning-Kruger Effect applies to people's opinions on World Politics as much as it does anything else. The issue of U.S. Foreign Policy is not anywhere near as simple as you think it is, and our just more-or-less exiting the World Stage and pulling everything back inside our borders would have massive negative effects not only for the U.S., but all of our allies (who would abandon us in our hour of need as a consequence) and the very concept of Democr
      • by cusco ( 717999 )

        China spreading their influence and enforcing their agenda with little to no opposition

        Do you know why China's 'New Silk Road' initiative is so enthusiastically received in the Third World? Because they're tired of a century of abuse by the US and seven decades of USAID/IMF/World Bank policies designed to rip the guts out of their economies and leave them in perpetual debt. The deals that China are offering are at least less one-sided, and build needed infrastructure that will benefit the country as a whole rather than just the foreign extractive companies.

    • I mean, there's a reason the reputation of the U.S. isn't that stellar around the globe.

      Let me just say, that's very true for the US government and certain agencies, but I for one like Americans just fine. Thanks to Slashdot and similar places, I actually understand quite a bit of how Americans tick... Yes, even the ones that vote for trump. This is not met with a lot of understanding of my fellow Europeans though...

  • screw this, no. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by luis_a_espinal ( 1810296 ) on Monday May 25, 2020 @12:20PM (#60102260)

    Requiring federal agents to have "probable cause" to eavesdrop on the internet activities of American citizens poses a direct threat to national security and would force the FBI to stand by while terrorist plots unfold on U.S. soil, according to a leaked copy of talking points distributed to Senate lawmakers this month. From a report:

    Right after 9/11, as a Republican then, I was sympathetic to this line of argument, and I lent support to it (although with hesitation.)

    It has been one of the greatest political fuck-ups I've ever made. This argument holds no water, and with the current administration, it is being done maliciously.

    Democrat or Republican or independent, or I dunno, fucking Klingon, we got to oppose such arguments. I seldom consider slippery-slope arguments. I make an exception to this.

  • is how we're stopping the pedophiles!

  • ..or, 'USSR' for short.
    That's what some of these brown-nosed assholes want to turn this country into. ARE WE GOING TO LET THEM GET AWAY WITH IT?
    • Yes, that happened long ago and the Reds had nothing to do with it at all, other than being a Wookie to point at.

  • Each time a politician exploits people's fear of terrorism to gain more power, I swear, I can hear a little baby-terrorist being born somewhere.

  • Make it unlawful to give laws misleading and suggestive names.

  • This is a lie. FISA explicitly allows going to get the warrant after the fact in an emergency, precisely to avoid the problem they are lying about.

    Every president does this, and sometimes gets reversed. It is not unusual. Presumbly said info queers the court case at that point, but it is not held up during the emergency.

    In summary, this is a lie.

  • I'm sick and tired of the FBI crying and whining like a little bitch wanting surveillance authorities that would violate the constitution. It's been proven times and times again that agents abuse surveilance authorities while ignoring apparent threats. It's obvious that they are incompetent of their jobs yet they still want more authorities that will allow them to do nothing better.

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