Trump was on the right side of an issue for the wrong reasons, for a minute. [NSA spying]

[Strapped]

Law or no law they will still snoop & invade people's privacy in the name of national interest.

 

[FAH1223]

 

[afterlife2009]

bipartisanship

 

[Dr. Acula]

bipartisanship

This is what we really want from our government. The two sides to just sit down and work together. Work together to strip away american's rights and give more power to the military and intelligence agencies and money to elites.

Thats personally why I'm voting for milquetoast aw shucks all around nice guy John Kaisch in 2020. Because if I'm going to be fukked, I want you to be a nice guy while you do it ()

 

[re'up]

I don't have a problem with FISA....but you make a good point about who is in power, that gives one pause.

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

Then why not skip all the bullshyt and implement a benevolent dictatorship and skip all the bureaucratic red tape? That way the government can act decisively in any capacity without oversight? Also it would achieve the perceived parity with countries without these protections such as Russia and Turkey.

I'm not trying to attack you here with snark and I think our worldviews may be just different. My thinking is that all the homeland-esque view on everything shouldn't be the overruling view of how the government should operate. At the end of the day, the checks and balances are supposed to be there for a reason to keep our government in line. SUPPOSEDLY, these are the values that the US is SUPPOSED TO BE fighting for. Otherwise, what does it matter and it simply becomes essentially team sports.

This type of stuff is fine for certain parties if its headed by someone people particularly favor like Obama, but that is the constant conundrum with this stuff and why this should be checked regardless of who is in charge. Because as we see with the current administration, you're not always going to have rational people at the helm. So now that this type of stuff is expanded, normalized, and approved under more "stable" people like Obama and even relatively speaking, Bush, on the other hand it is also an instrument of the unstable people like Trump. This why regardless of the party or people in charge, this shyt should be kept in check. It won't always be in your favor.

Plus, its not like the proposed changes were asking to move heaven and earth. All they asked it to require a warrant as an extra check. I'm willing to be convinced how this is such a major obstacle outside of the executive branch wanting more autonomy from legal check and oversight. Otherwise, I just view it as further power consolidation by the executive branch to get around the judicial process via intelligence agencies, and that is bad news, imo.

well the caveat is that those policies are restricted by a boatload of bureaucracy and legal protections within them

i.e. its damn hard to just abuse these things without triggering internal law enforcement.

There was a story about the NSA handling an issue about someone spying on an ex girlfriend who was IMMEDIATELY fired

 

[FAH1223]

 

[StatUS]

Pelosi's such a fighter

 

[greenygreen]

actually trumps on the wrong side with this but you neolibs love big brother

 

[Dr. Acula]

actually trumps on the wrong side with this but you neolibs love big brother

Don’t have reading comprehension brehs.

 

[Mythical Truth]

So 'Murica is now officially a police state. Wonderful. Just wonderful.

 

[StatUS]

 

[StatUS]

After Basically No Debate, And No Opportunity For Amendments, Senate Votes To Expand NSA Surveillance
from the not-unexpected,-but-dumb dept
As was unfortunately expected, after a very short (and fairly stupid) debate that was full of misleading statements that focused more on "but... but... terrorism!" than anything substantive, the Senate has voted for cloture on the same bill the House approved last week that extends and expands the NSA's 702 surveillance program, opening it up to widespread abuse and refusing to do simple things like adding in a warrant requirement when used to spy on Americans. The vote was actually surprisingly close -- going right down to the wire. They needed 60 votes to get this bill over the top and they almost didn't get them. The final vote was 60 to 39 with the final vote (well over an hour after the vote starting) coming from Senator Claire McCaskill in favor of warrantless spying on Americans.

This is not all that surprising, even if it's disappointing. It follows the pattern that we've seen with surveillance programs over the past decade. Whenever they are up for renewal, Congress refuses to debate or discuss serious reforms until there's like a week left... and then they have a simplistic and rushed debate that basically consists of the hawks freaking out about how we're all going to die if the NSA can't keep spying on people, and civil liberty defenders pointing to the 4th Amendment, only to have the surveillance state supporters push back that the NSA protects us and is full of good people and how dare you question their good nature by insisting on petty little things like "warrants" as required by the Constitution.

The cloture vote is not technically the final vote. It just shuts down debate and blocks the ability to raise any amendments. There will be a final vote soon, but the cloture vote is, effectively, the important vote here, and having voted for cloture the bill will pass -- and despite President Trump's confusion last week, he will sign the bill, and the NSA will get to turn back on its "about" surveillance capabilities it had been forced into shutting down last year, and the FBI will continue to get full, warrantless access to the "backdoor" or "incidental" collections of the communications of many, many Americans without a warrant and without anything approaching probable cause.

While this was expected to turn out this way, it's still bad. It's our Senate (and the House and the White House) purposely spitting on the 4th Amendment of the Constitution to appease the NSA and the FBI. And, as with last week, it's especially incredible to see a number of Senators who have spoken out against Donald Trump -- including Senators Jeff Flake and Dianne Feinstein -- then turn around and vote for this. Last week, Flake compared Trump to Stalin. And just days later he votes to give that same Trump vast surveillance powers over Americans. Incredible. Meanwhile, Trump has been attacking Claire McCaskill left and right as she's up for re-election... and she repays that by giving him more surviellance power and selling out the American public. Missouri voters should remember that.

After Basically No Debate, And No Opportunity For Amendments, Senate Votes To Expand NSA Surveillance

Let us all remember that the Dems narrative is that Trump is possibly a Russian agent and so unfit to be president that he needs to be removed asap. Of course the GOP doesn't give a fukk they're the American Taliban at this point but the "left wing" is going with this too and will be interesting to see who voted for this and compare it to their fears of dear leader Trump.

So let's give him more spying powers anyway because the 4th amendment doesn't mean anything and neither does their narrative because it's all a game at some level and the citizens of this country aren't playing anything short of pawn on the chessboard.