Facebook has hired the Patriot Act's co-author as a general counsel | Hacker News Reader

Facebook has hired the Patriot Act's co-author as a general counsel

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37 pointsJerry212 comments

“Jennifer Newstead helped craft the Patriot Act, a cowardly work of treasonous legislation foisted on the American people in the wake of the 9/11 attacks;”

Source seems a little biased. Treasonous? That’s gotta require a lot of cortortion around the definition of treason.

Patriot Act provisions have been repeatedly reauthorized by the democratically elected legislature since it was originally passed. This isn’t a case of foisting anything upon the people, the people are perfectly happy to vote in supporters of the Patriot Act. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act#Reauthorizations

> This isn’t a case of foisting anything upon the people, the people are perfectly happy to vote in supporters of the Patriot Act.

Oh come on. The act was written and passed during a Republican administration and renewed during the second term of a Democratic administration that campaigned against it.

Then claim and blame a broken democracy or political meekness of American voters. But you can't blame the law itself.

The name of the act is a hint that the adjectives of treasonous and cowardly are accurate.

It's well known that many members of congress passed through the act without having read it. Given the enormity of the act's effects on the country, this is quite a problematic thing.

I don't it was democracy that saw that bill through. It was crisis politics. Democracy requires a well-informed public, and capable representatives. With the USA PATRIOT act there was neither.

With the current state of campaign finance, congress is essentially two corporations with congressmen/women as employees. If you don't vote the party line or you don't secure funding for the party you get defunded on your next election. Surprising they don't bother to read the bills they are told to pass.

A perfect fit really.

This guy figures it's ok to allow personal records like telephone, e-mail, financial, and business records to be surreptitiously captured without full due process/transparency.

Facebook would love to push the (no-)privacy envelope much further: a complete data free-for-all for their commercial gain.

It's unfortunate that mods decided sink this story. Any explanation as to why?

What exactly... do they think is going to happen when news outlets hear this?

The 30 minute news cycle we've had for the last 3 years of course.

Yeah unlike when the Patriot Act passed, and the news media spoke truth to power or whatever, and saved us all from that treasonous law.

Apologies for the snark but it’s been like this for more than 20 years.

To add to your comment. Manufacturing Consent came out in 1988, 31 years ago. That book manfully built the case that this stuff has been going on for well over a century, but that it really kicked up in the post WW2 era with the erosion of labour-class news media.

Today 6 US media companies control 90% of US media, and any hope one has of the internet disarming them dims more than a little at the sight of a P.A.T.R.I.O.T act author crossing over into the arms of a tech giant.

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