Dianne Feinstein's reply to constituents' opposition to EARN IT act | Hacker News Reader

Dianne Feinstein's reply to constituents' opposition to EARN IT act

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203 pointshkmurakami83 comments

Sigh, another feel-good law being proposed with no consideration for second or third order effects.

Tech companies would be required to police their systems for this data. There’s no good automated way to do this, so an army of compliance workers would be needed if you have a non-trivial amount of content on your platform. For small tech companies, this would be prohibitively expensive.

Then there’s the 800lb gorilla in the room: the encryption issue. How can a company police its content if it doesn’t know what it is? Are we really suggesting that every end-to-end encryption technology be nuked in favor of “saving the children?” How many children will it really save? And how many others will it endanger in oppressive, dictatorial regimes? Not to mention the myriad other criminals seeking to exploit unencrypted and non-private technologies?

This is akin to vehicle manufacturers being required to monitor the audio of vehicle occupants at all times in case a rape occurs.

“Think of the children.” This is one of the oldest tricks in the book. It’s disgusting.

I’m counting the days until Feinstein leaves office. EARN IT causes more harm than good.

Politicians like this never seem to understand that when I strongly oppose their position and challenge the law they want to pass, I am thinking of the children.

In particular, I don't want the next generation to grow up in an authoritarian surveillance state, where thought-crime is punishable, deviation from conventional wisdom is an anomaly to be corrected, and these punishments and corrections are mostly enforced automatically by some impersonal system where no-one in power has any real responsibility or accountability for the effect they have on other people's lives.

The things that happen to some children are awful, and of course any decent human being wants to see them stopped and to see the people who would do them kept away from those they would harm. However, these events are not the only important factor here. We need a rational, considered position on the issues as a whole, not an extreme position based on one emotionally-charged issue and the near-exclusion of all other considerations.

If you pare it back to the basics; the government has two actual powers:

1) Send in the police and have people imprisoned 2) Send in the army and have people killed

In practice they have a lot of much softer options because they leverage the basic powers into more subtle ones, but government is fundamentally about who controls the army and the police. Feinstien, like all people in the US Congress, has made decisions that ultimately involve some really, truly horrible outcomes for other people. She lives in a world where horrible things do have to happen sometimes to keep order, even in the more optimistic models of government.

It is unlikely, so say the least, that the implications around civil liberties escape any long-serving politician. The enforcement of laws necessarily sits on the edge of abusing civil liberties. It is more likely she just doesn't want to talk about that.

3) Fine you with some made up sum. If you don't pay, you lose you credit score, your home and everything else.

This is rarely applied to members of the government, the rich or corporations. It is the favorite instrument to keep the middle class work horses under control.

And how will the government deal with a fine non-payer who keeps their wealth in physical form? Say they have no money in the bank but keep gold bars in a stack under their bed. They barter for everything they need.

At some point it devolves to burly men with or without guns making people do things. Or women in this enlightened age. In practice it hopefully isn't a common thing but there has to be a level of physical compulsion backing up everything that communities don't enforce among each other anyway. A major job of people in Congress is to work out exactly what does happen when people refuse to comply and at some point it gets physical (quite quickly if someone is really bent on being uncooperative). Issues like that would be close to the top of every politicians's mind.

It is possible to confiscate physical wealth if it's "assumed" to be obtained by illegal means.

> Are we really suggesting that every end-to-end encryption technology be nuked in favor of “saving the children?”

Yes. Their goal is to nuke encryption. The children are a red herring. This is solely about government power.

Yeap. Clipper chip 2.0. The ruling elite doesn't want us "plebs" to have any privacy in order to make mass surveillance easier and to be able to exploit pilfered details to silence and defeat their enemies. It strikes me as inverted totalitarianism about to give way to direct totalitarianism.

Think of the children fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children

No. Their goal is to protect the children. They don't understand technology and do not care how many enterprises are destroyed by their clumsy fumbling. Stop trying to reframe stupidity as conspiracy.

"Conspiracy" makes it sound like the US government hasn't been building the largest spying apparatus in history over the past 2 decades. Reality says otherwise.

And Feinstein has always been on the side of surveillance, except of course when she is affected:

https://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/13/politics/feinstein-cia-sn...

If Congress were serious about "protecting children", there are many other things they would do before focusing on the boogeyman of online pedophilia. I already mentioned child health care in another comment; you could also think of social/public housing for destitute parents of children; food security, which _is_ a problem in the US (and the programs are being cut); minimum wage increase; free child-care for working parents etc.

Has Senator Feinstein been promoting any of this?

Those are all massively expensive ideas, EARN it isnt. Just because these senators haven't been able to enact some of your other ideas doesn't mean they aren't serious about protecting children. At least some of the senators behind EARN it are in favor of expanding social welfare programs [0] - its just politically difficult to get traction on new laws with huge costs attached to them.

[0] https://democrats.org/where-we-stand/party-platform/

1. Diane Feinstein isn't in favor of those things, and this is who we're talking about.

2. The party platform? Really? After the last primary cycle, Sanders was allowed influence over that document, improving it somewhat. Are party elected officials bound by it? was Clinton? Is Biden?

2. "In favor" for a Senator or Congressperson must mean: Propose it, speak about in in the Senate, speak about it in the media, support civic organizations campaigning for it, and don't be dependent on donors who want it not to happen.

They have made it abundantly clear that they don't give a fuck about the children in so many ways it isn't funny. They are more willing to give free lunch to contractors than schoolchildren.

>Yes. Their goal is to nuke encryption

Who is "they"? Are you talking about the deep state?

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/deep_state

> A large group of people, typically members of government agencies and the military, believed to have long-lasting political influence that is difficult for an administration voted into power to counter. [from 1990s]

United States law enforcement doesn't have the greatest track record of not blackmailing people. Or not shooting the wrong person and their dog for good measure.

If you want to call the FBI, NSA, and CIA the "deep state" go ahead. They have real names though and aren't secretive about their desire to make (end to end) encryption illegal.

While the deep state as a scholarly concept does not require secrecy, this bill certainly uses deception to manipulate the public, and did not originate with Representative Feinstein's local constituency as evidenced by the overwhelming opposition.

>A deep state can also take the form of entrenched career civil servants acting in a non-conspiratorial discretionary manner to further their agency mission

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_state

The question I wish would be asked is "should the deep state (CIA, NSA etc) be influencing the legislative process to the point of overriding the concerns of voters?"

This is pretty funny: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_state#Differences_from_sc...

As generally used, the term "deep state" refers to career officials acting in opposition to the democratically-elected leadership of a country.

In this case, the elected officials are completely in accord with the desires of the security/intelligence agencies.

We could have had Kevin de Leon. It was actually closer than I expected.

So, US people will not allow EU citizens onto their websites because cookie/GDPR pain, and EU websites will ban US citizens because we want small companies to still be able to build platforms without enough knowledge about building an AI police. The internet started out nice a long long time ago ;)

I disagree.

The web has been lawless since forever. Conventions have been established and reinforced by the big players to their profit. They now buy politicians like any other big, bad rent-seeker.

The total lack of sensible, restrained legislation is how we got a surveillance state and a turnkey fascist police-state, Stasi-like enforcement.

The lawless web never cared about that. Still doesn't. But yeah we used to "feel different" about that lawlessness. John Perry Barlow's big "world f.off and leave us" statement seems different now the NSA said sure, and bugged literally everyone because no consequences. With the assistance of google, Apple, ms because path of least resistance means what you think and you do not matter. At all. Yay lawless, huh?

> I was deeply disturbed by recent reporting by The New York Times about the nearly 70 million online photos and videos of child sexual abuse that were reported by technology companies last year.

If the tech companies are reporting 70 million photos and videos, doesn't that mean current measures are already effective at finding and reporting massive quantities of child sexual abuse content? It's like complaining about firefighters putting out too many fires - even if there is some real problem causing an excessive amount of fires to start, there's no reason to interfere with the firefighters successfully combatting the problem.

It is quite frightening that the bill's prominent supporters won't list even a single problem with the current system that they hope their new "best practices" would rectify.

It's quite troubling, too, that the senator does not provide a baseline against which to assess the 70 million figure. How many of the pictures are duplicates or substantially duplicates? What is the report actually counting? How does that translate to number of victims? How many more images does the senator believe that the EARN IT act will uncover?

The senator quoted the 70 million figure not to inform us, but to shock us and make us suspend judgement. It shouldn't be the norm for senators to respond without carefully sourced statistics, and it shouldn't be the norm for them to present a single statistic without a baseline or without something to compare it against, leaving it to our imagination, what the effect of their policies will be or what the scope of the issue is.

As someone that's had to submit CP reports to NCMEC before (very rarely fortunately), I find that 70 million figure to be pretty strange and suspect. If you consider that Facebook has 2.45 billion active users, if it was one report per person it would represent 3% of Facebook's entire user base. I'm assuming there's some sort of automation in this, and perhaps a lot of duplicates (but MS PhotoDNA is supposed to catch this) or false reports. I wouldn't take that number at face value, it feels very off from my experience.

It is a bit suspect, likely for the reasons you suggest. I can imagine that large caches of CP media does get transferred some portion of the time, which might be inflating the numbers.

Also, how many of those images are just sexting between consenting young people? I do recall reading about kids who have been prosecuted for sharing images of themselves. And then there are all the cam entrepreneurs.

> nearly 70 million online photos and videos of child sexual abuse that were reported by technology companies last year.

Is there a reference for this figure? Also, how many individual children were involved in this content? What counts as abuse? How many appear each year?

No, it shows there is a widespread problem. Like cockroaches, for every one you see, there are ten you don’t. Thankfully, once content is found, it is added to a database so that it can be quickly removed from the public internet. Emphasis on “public.”

I got a very similar reply from Bob Menendez.

>Thank you for contacting me to express your concern for the Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies (EARN IT) Act. Your opinion is very important to me, and I appreciate the opportunity to respond to you.

The EARN IT Act would amend Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to require companies to “earn” their liability protection for violations of laws related to the trafficking of child sexual abuse material. The EARN IT Act lays out best practices for companies to maintain immunity from child sexual abuse material statutes and bolsters enforcement if companies choose not to comply with the practices. The companies would not lose Section 230 protections for other content like defamation and threats.

> As someone concerned about internet freedom, you will be pleased to know that I am an original cosponsor of the Save the Internet Act. This bill would remand the Commission back to its February 2015 ruling protecting and promoting an open internet and make the net neutrality permanent. This bill would also prevent the Federal Communications Commission from reissuing any rulings or orders unless specifically authorized by law.

> I also voted for S. J. Res. 52, a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution which would reverse the December 14, 2017 vote by the Federal Communications Commission to repeal the Open Internet Order of 2015. The resolution, which I cosponsored, passed the Senate on May 16, 2018. In addition to cosponsoring the CRA, I cosigned a letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai opposing the FCC’s vote to eliminate net neutrality. Access to information and open communications are critical to maintaining democratic internet practices, supporting small businesses, and protecting consumers. The EARN IT Act was introduced in the Senate Judiciary Committee, and although I am not a member of this Committee, please know that I will keep your views in mind in the future.

Wow. So they can’t even take the time to write their own thoughtful reply to their constituents on heated issues? They simply plagiarize the work of others or pay some intern to do it?

How insulting.

What the heck is wrong with these politicians? Do they think their office is simply a place where they can “play Game of Thrones” and sit back and smirk?

And we wonder why Americans band together in excitement for non-career-politician presidential candidates like Yang and Trump.

As far as form letters go it's not too bad ... but I thought this was surprisingly frank and undermined any note of reason she was trying to strike:

> Media reports, however, make it clear that ....

So she admits they had no basis for these laws other than some news articles? It seems crazy they'd shift fundamental aspects of how the internet works with no more basis than some media reports.

It reads to me like "thanks, but fuck off."

Having received the same letter from DF a couple weeks ago, this is exactly how I took it as well.

Except maybe s/but/and/

Is this horrid bill going to pass? Do we stand any chance in getting this canned like SOPA/PIPA, or is the coronavirus too big of a distraction?

Shame on these folks for using this crisis to shove this into our legal framework. This is tyranny.

Think of the children! ...

Don't let them grow up in a police state where the government spies on their conversations and whereabouts, forever.

On the other hand, _do_ enact universal healthcare in the US, so that they get decent medical care when they're sick. But as we all know - Mrs. Feinstein is definitely _against_ that.

Where do you get that she’s against universal healthcare? Googles turning up that she supports universal healthcare.

Well, she's not proposed a bill, and not supported Sanders' Medicare for All bill which is the current leading proposal for universal health care in the US. And - she gaslights about it, see:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbq6t7bg2ro

To explain why I claim she's gaslighting, note that universal health care in Capitalist societies has basically two options:

1. Government insurance, non-governmental provision 2. No insurance, government provision

US Medicare is option (1.), US veterans' healthcare as well as UK national health service is option (2.) and is quite viable. Option (3.) is only for non-Capitalist economies. In the clip, Feinstein gaslights by pretending Medicare for All is (2.) rather than (1.) and declaring opposition to (2.)

Finally, several days later, health insurance industry lobbyists organized a fundraiser for Feinstein, as mentioned here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFZxVixSjDc

She does not, she supports for people to have "access" to healthcare, which isn't the same thing.

Totally void of content. Think of the children sweetness, no proper legal, civil or even political reasoning.

Just: hey, you must agree if you are not a pedophile.

If there were content then there would be points to argue against.

This is the same vein of response I'd get from Obama, or really any politician who has every word they say picked apart by a dozen staffers trying to make sure the decision that's already been made stays made while not saying anything that will cause blowback.

Mild, uninformative, intentionally misunderstanding the problem.

Summary: FOR THE CHILDREN!!!

Orwellian.

Similar "but the children" fallacious legislation BS took down Craigslist's personals section.

This makes encrypted, zero-knowledge customer data an insurance liability.

Porn is next. And then the regulation of abortion and consensual sex between adults. Oh wait, the first is already happening.

Next will be individual social media licensure, individual journalism licensure, and internet licensure... "it's a privilege, not a right" they will say.

Watch when the wealthy elites begin to lose their grip on power from below, the restrictions on freedoms, eliminations of rights, and sanctioning of more abuse and violence against dissidents will accelerate markedly. If the people cede one inch, they will take a mile and never give it back without a revolution.

Dianne Feinstein is the absolute worst, especially on these issues, but also many others. I don't know how she keeps getting elected. Here's a quick rundown:

Feinstein on internet freedom and free speech:

* Feinstein was the original Democratic co-sponsor of a bill to extend the USA PATRIOT Act.

* In 2012, Feinstein voted for the extension of the Patriot Act and the FISA provisions.[41]

* On May 12, 2011, Feinstein co-sponsored PIPA.

* Following her 2012 vote to extend the Patriot Act and the FISA provisions,[41] and after the 2013 mass surveillance disclosures involving the National Security Agency (NSA), Feinstein promoted and supported measures to continue the information collection programs

* She was the main Democratic sponsor of the failed 2006 constitutional Flag Desecration Amendment.[43]

* In 2010, Feinstein voted in favor of unilateral US censorship of the Internet by voting in favor of COICA

* In 2013, Feinstein called for the immediate extradition and arrest of Edward Snowden

* Feinstein has supported Hollywood and the content industry when it has come into conflict with technology and fair use on intellectual property issues. In 2006, she co-sponsored the "PERFORM Act", or the "Platform Equality and Remedies for Rights Holders in Music Act of 2006", in the Senate, which would require satellite, cable and internet broadcasters to incorporate digital rights management technologies into their transmission

Feinstein on marijuana:

* Feinstein has a "C-" rating from NORML for her voting history regarding cannabis-related causes. She considers marijuana a "gateway drug", and has opposed the legalization of medical marijuana without further research

* Feinstein voted in support of legislation to override a Department of Veterans Affairs' prohibition on allowing doctors to recommend cannabis to veterans in states that sanction its use as a medicine.

Supporting pork-barrel farm subsidies for her constituents:

* In March 2019, Feinstein was one of thirty-eight senators to sign a letter to United States Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue warning that dairy farmers "have continued to face market instability and are struggling to survive the fourth year of sustained low prices" and urging his department to "strongly encourage these farmers to consider the Dairy Margin Coverage program.

Not understanding how markets work:

* In May 2011, Feinstein was one of seventeen senators to sign a letter to Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler requesting a regulatory crackdown on speculative Wall Street trading in oil contracts, asserting that they had entered "a time of economic emergency for many American families" while noting that the average retail price of regular grade gasoline was $3.95 nationwide. The senators requested that the CFTC adopt speculation limits in regard to markets where contracts for future delivery of oil are traded

Knowingly employing Chinese spies:

* On July 27, 2018, reports surfaced that a Chinese staff member who worked as Feinstein's personal driver, gofer and liaison to the Asian-American community for 20 years, was caught reporting to China's Ministry of State Security.[95][96] According to the reports, Feinstein was contacted by the FBI five years ago warning her about the suspected employee. The employee was later interviewed by authorities and forced to retire by Feinstein.[97] No criminal charges were filed against the individual.[95]

Sourced from:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dianne_Feinstein#Political_pos... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Dianne_...

Please stop electing this woman.

You left out the financial dealings of her husband, Richard Blum:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_C._Blum#Controversy

Gerry Mander.

You can't talk about any of these individual problems without talking about how the corruption of democracy that is the Gerry Mander and is the norm on both sides of the aisle.

I have no idea about Feinstein but everything said here is consistent with the actions of a person who can only lose office through criminal prosecution. And is being blackmailed by those who have the surveillance data.

Mad conspiracy theory. Zero evidence for it. As insane as the things Assange said before Snowden showed he was absolutely right.

By the way. I don't /like/ Assange any more than the editor of the New York Times or any other public figure. I have a lot of trouble swallowing the rape story. I'd that normal nowadays or people still hate him because he's as Russian as Donald or something?

She's a senator, so gerrymandering is not the problem. It's a statewide election without districts.

The problem is that she has a (D) after her name in CA and that's all it takes to get elected. She did some good things in the 80s, apparently, and has been riding on that since then because my entire adult life she's been on the wrong side of just about every big vote.

It is more complex than that. People who actually vote consistently tend to be older. Many such have strong feelings for Dianne because she was there when it happened and many old voters associate her with their feelings when they heard that they had lost Moscone and Milk together in a senseless freak out that disrupted their local government. This is part of why she and her followers keep trying to do to guns what we did to drugs.

Wanting to rebel for justice is great, but daring to trivialize the past will tend to trip you up. If the present situation teaches us anything is that morons can be formidable foes.

Yes, I am aware of the loyalty older voters have to her and why. I wish they would pay attention to what the impact of her actual decisions are in the present, but I do get it.

That sounds ridiculous. I can totally buy that CAs don't want to vote for a republican, but don't other democrats exist?

EDIT: Looks like she's still what Californians want.

> De León's 12% was the lowest ever recorded for a candidate who advanced to the general election since California instituted its jungle primary rules in 2016. In July, De León won the endorsement of California Democratic Party at their executive board meeting in Oakland.

> On November 6, 2018, Feinstein defeated De León 54.2% to 45.8%.

That is an extreme oversimplification. Reputation is important for politics. Dianne is well known around the state and De Leon is not. If a politician with some momentum would take her on then she would likely fall but that would mean causing flak with the Democratic party machine.

Apparently she is not well-known enough, or rather - her actual _policies_ and their implications are not well known enough.

Thank you for your letter. I haven't read it and won't be answering any of your questions or concerns. Here is some bs from a pre approved press release about how great I am and why this is important. You are important to me, which is why I haven't read this and won't be reading it, now be quite while the adults make decisions that will wreck your life.

There should be an age cut off where politicians aren’t allowed to create Internet legislation.

She's not like this because of her age. It's because she leans more towards the authoritarian side of things. That's not a new position for her, it goes back decades. Hell, she voted in favor of adding a "disrespecting the flag" exemption to the 1st Amendment

Yes, she's authoritarian. She supported the Clipper Chip, along with Al Gore. Which is one of the reasons why he lost to Bush.

Ron Wyden is 70 and makes perfectly reasonable proposals. I don't think the extra 16 years is Feinstein's problem.

People like her is a good reason for term limits.

On the other hand, Wyden's practically the only consistently-good congresscritter on privacy and the Internet, and one of the sponsors of the act is on his first term.

A politician spouting empty words, imagine that.

I’m amazed by how vague this law is. Basically it all depends on what the National Commission decides later on. It could be as simple as a checkbox or some kind of crazy filter database thing... who knows... no doubt it’ll keep changing and be a good opportunity to make money for some.

Also what are companies going to do once they find such material? Just remove it from their platform and sweep it under the carpet?

I emailed her in response to the Snowden revelations back in 2013. I noticed some similarities in her format. Here's what she emailed back:

------

Dear Cale:

I received your communication indicating your concerns about the two National Security Agency programs that have been in the news recently. I appreciate that you took the time to write on this important issue and welcome the opportunity to respond.

First, I understand your concerns and want to point out that by law, the government cannot listen to an American's telephone calls or read their emails without a court warrant issued upon a showing of probable cause. The programs that were recently disclosed have to do with information about phone calls – the kind of information that you might find on a telephone bill – in one case, and the internet communications (such as email) of non-Americans outside the United States in the other case. Both programs are subject to checks and balances, and oversight by the Executive Branch, the Congress, and the Judiciary.

As Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I can tell you that I believe the oversight we have conducted is strong and effective and I am doing my level best to get more information declassified. Please know that it is equally frustrating to me, as it is to you, that I cannot provide more detail on the value these programs provide and the strict limitations placed on how this information is used. I take serious my responsibility to make sure intelligence programs are effective, but I work equally hard to ensure that intelligence activities strictly comply with the Constitution and our laws and protect Americans' privacy rights.

These surveillance programs have proven to be very effective in identifying terrorists, their activities, and those associated with terrorist plots, and in allowing the Intelligence Community and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to prevent numerous terrorist attacks. More information on this should be forthcoming.

· On June 18, 2003, the Director of the National Security Agency (NSA) testified to the House Intelligence Committee that there have been "over 50 potential terrorist events" that these programs helped prevent.

· While the specific uses of these surveillance programs remain largely classified, I have reviewed the classified testimony and reports from the Executive Branch that describe in detail how this surveillance has stopped attacks.

· Two examples where these surveillance programs were used to prevent terrorist attacks were: (1) the attempted bombing of the New York City subway system in September 2009 by Najibullah Zazi and his co-conspirators; and (2) the attempted attack on a Danish newspaper that published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in October 2009 by U.S. citizen David Headley and his associates.

· Regarding the planned bombing of the New York City subway system, the NSA has determined that in early September of 2009, while monitoring the activities of Al Qaeda terrorists in Pakistan, NSA noted contact from an individual in the U.S. that the FBI subsequently identified as Colorado-based Najibullah Zazi. The U.S. Intelligence Community, including the FBI and NSA, worked in concert to determine his relationship with Al Qaeda, as well as identify any foreign or domestic terrorist links. The FBI tracked Zazi as he traveled to New York to meet with co-conspirators, where they were planning to conduct a terrorist attack using hydrogen peroxide bombs placed in backpacks. Zazi and his co-conspirators were subsequently arrested. Zazi eventually pleaded guilty to conspiring to bomb the NYC subway system.

· Regarding terrorist David Headley, he was also involved in the planning and reconnaissance of the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India that killed 166 people, including six Americans. According to NSA, in October 2009, Headley, a Chicago businessman and dual U.S. and Pakistani citizen, was arrested by the FBI as he tried to depart from Chicago O'Hare airport on a trip to Europe. Headley was charged with material support to terrorism based on his involvement in the planning and reconnaissance of the hotel attack in Mumbai 2008. At the time of his arrest, Headley and his colleagues were plotting to attack the Danish newspaper that published the unflattering cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, at the behest of Al Qaeda.

Not only has Congress been briefed on these programs, but laws passed and enacted since 9/11 specifically authorize them. The surveillance programs are authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which itself was enacted by Congress in 1978 to establish the legal structure to carry out these programs, but also to prevent government abuses, such as surveillance of Americans without approval from the federal courts. The Act authorizes the government to gather communications and other information for foreign intelligence purposes. It also establishes privacy protections, oversight mechanisms (including court review), and other restrictions to protect privacy rights of Americans.

The laws that have established and reauthorized these programs since 9/11 have passed by mostly overwhelming margins. For example, the phone call business record program was reauthorized most recently on May 26, 2011 by a vote of 72-23 in the Senate and 250-153 in the House. The internet communications program was reauthorized most recently on December 30, 2012 by a vote of 73-22 in the Senate and 301-118 in the House.

You may be interested to know that the Senate Intelligence Committee will be proposing changes to these programs to ensure transparency and to make public additional facts. Attached to this letter is an opinion piece (http://tinyurl.com/NSA-OpEd) I authored in the Washington Post on July 30, 2013 that further highlights our proposed changes. While I very much regret the disclosure of classified information in a way that will damage our ability to identify and stop terrorist activity, I believe it is important to ensure that the public record now available on these programs is accurate and provided with the proper context.

Again, thank you for contacting me with your concerns and comments. I appreciate knowing your views and hope you continue to inform me of issues that matter to you. If you have any additional questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact my office in Washington, D.C. at (202) 224-3841.

Sincerely yours,

Dianne Feinstein United States Senator

An intern definitely wrote that. Source-was an intern for a public official at one point

Not exactly a scandal there...I would hope that a congressional staffer would handle all mass communications with constituents.

Somebody needs to primary her.

She's been the senior Senator from the USA's largest state for over 27 years. How many major legislative accomplishments has she achieved?

Some may name the Desert Protection Act, until one looks closely at the specifics -- it was primarily a vehicle for pork and to financially benefit her family.

Some may name the "assault weapons" ban elements of the 1994 Crime Bill, but that lapsed 15+ years ago, and its failure to accomplish its stated goals was so pronounced that even she hasn't moved it again.

Anything else? For 27 years in what should be the most prominent seat in the Senate?

She's secured fantastic profits for her donors. Doesn't that count for something?

I was shocked to read that according to the source I read (since forgotten, it was a study of net worth changes for US legislators since 1990), Feinstein/Blum net worth actually went down a touch since 1993, perhaps even in nominal dollars (not counting inflation).

I haven't looked into that. However - she's in her 80s. Look at the net worth of her children, grandchildren and other family members.

She's 86 and just started another 6-year term last year.

And what if she lives to be 100 like Strom Thurmond?

California has jungle primaries. She successfully fended off a serious challenge from De Leon just a couple years ago.

Sadly, this is the government we deserve.

What would happen to non-US based platforms? Could this lead to offshoring of social media or does the bill cover this case somehow?

The horseshoe theory comes full circle as both the left and the right despise her.

FYI: This was carefully written by a professional legislative correspondent.

Obligatory Franklin quote: “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

FWIW, the liberty Franklin was speaking of was the liberty of Pennsylvania to tax land, specifically the Penn family's lands. The Penn family was offering to make a one-time contribution to Pennsylvania's military defense in exchange for Pennsylvania forswearing the power to tax them.

The point was that the state should jealously guard its powers so that it has the flexibility to enact policies that secure the long-term safety and welfare of its citizens, even if that comes at the literal expense of some, such as the Penn family.

This is the view advanced by Benjamin Wittes, made popular in a recent NPR piece which you may have heard or read. I am not convinced it is right. Have you read the rebuttal by David Brick, currently the first comment on https://techcrunch.com/2014/02/14/how-the-world-butchered-be... ?

The entire rebuttal is a bit long to repost, but essentially, Brick says Wittes is taking that statement of Franklin's as applying to the entirety of his letter when in fact "[t]he real context of the quote is actually a very small portion of that letter in which the authors are discussing the defensive needs of certain 'freemen' living on the frontiers, or 'backwoods' areas of the colony." Furthermore, Brick states that Franklin made very similar statements elsewhere where the meaning is very clear--and in line with the conventional pro-liberty understanding, not Wittes' pro-government-power understanding.

I would like to see some historians argue it out.

But the usage of "Liberty" only makes sense as the liberty of self-governance through the Assembly. As I read that paragraph, Franklin is rebutting the hypothetical counter argument that the governor is simply doing what he must to keep the frontiersmen safe in exigent circumstances. (I.e. s/frontiersmen/children/--Franklin is anticipating the "but think of the children" deflection.) And Franklin is saying 1) at that very moment those who want arms have been armed, 2) all the Bills the Assembly has tried to have signed by the governor have been precisely to help for their defense, and 3) that any frontiersman willing to give up the "Liberty" (i.e. his right to implement policy, and particularly defense policy, through the Assembly) for whatever additional modicum of security the governor's plan might temporarily provide deserves neither the liberty being denied him (vicariously via the Assembly) nor any security.

Even ignoring all the other paragraphs, in no way could the liberty imply the frontiersmen's individual freedom (or civil rights, as we would call them). The contended Bill doesn't encroach on the frontiersmen livelihood or freedoms; it's a Bill to raise money for their defense (it literally says that in the next sentence) by taxing proprietary estate holders, who are definitely not the same people as the frontiersmen. It doesn't effect the frontiersmen directly, except by providing for more consistent defense funding. It's a pretty difficult piece to work through and I wouldn't claim that I fully understand all that Franklin is arguing, but whatever he is saying there, it can't possibly be referring to individual freedom. There's not the slightest hint of such a connotation. Rather, whatever the precise point, it's clearly an equivocation of the Assembly's rights with those of the People.

Yeah, he uses that phrase again years later and the arguments are different in those contexts, but it's obviously a cool phrase. Of course he would repurpose it to suit whatever point he's trying to make.

For others' convenience, here's the whole thing: https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-06-02-01...

I agree with you. It's still a good quote for the exact same reason both of you are quoting it. It is true for States and for individuals. You shouldn't give up your long term, established, and customary rights or privileges for a little bit of short term gain in security. This is true for X where X is an entity with rights and privileges. A state giving up it's rights to an individual, or another state; or an individual giving up their rights to another individual, or state.

There are plenty of quotes that are right despite, rather than because of the point the quotee was trying to make: "Information wants to be free.", "The last enemy to be defeated is death.", "I'm not my brother's keeper.", probably dozens more if I had the patience to make a proper list. Adding "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." to list means little for the the latter, or the former.

Another quote relevant to Feinstein: Truman's "An honest public servant can’t become rich in politics."

Certainly, as an almanac writer, he would not give up anything based on "media reports"

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