Senator Biden On NSA Database (2006) [video] | Hacker News Reader

Senator Biden On NSA Database (2006) [video]

cbsnews.com

163 pointsck264 comments

Transcript: http://votesmart.org/public-statement/295064/cbs-early-show-...

MR. SMITH: Well, the president, though, said yesterday, we're not listening to the phone calls; we're just looking for patterns.

SEN. BIDEN: Harry, I don't have to listen to your phone calls to know what you're doing. If I know every single phone call you made, I'm able to determine every single person you talked to; I can get a pattern about your life that is very, very intrusive.

---

Mind blown. I think history just went into an infinite loop because it EXACTLY repeated itself in just seven years.

"Officially the change of partners had never happened. Oceania was at war with Eurasia: therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia. The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and it followed that any past or future agreement with him was impossible."

It is only evil when the other guys are doing it.

I'm actually fairly impressed by the degree of outrage from my left-wing friends. I figured most of them would be far more rationalizing now that "their guy" was in charge.

Similarly, I'm not getting too riled up about all this, since I thought programs like this were Constitutional back when "my guy" was running them.

I have to admit I like the variant with court and Congressional oversight just a wee bit better... but as long as people are able to buy guns all willy-nilly and avoid vaccinating their children because of their special religious rites, it's hard for me to claim with a straight face that the NSA is even in my top 25 list of things I'd worry about.

Or to summarize, you're too bothered by freedoms to worry about tyranny.

Everyone has a priority list, whether they acknowledge it or not. If everything is important, nothing is important.

Not to cause offense, but I find that, in general, leftists are more likely to speak against "their guy", and conservatives usually support "their guy". Not sure why, but it's just what I've observed through the years.

I wonder how much of it is a lame duck effect: The bottom never fell out of GWB's conservative support until his second term, either, despite much to complain about.

The bureaucracies don't change much between administrations and there is a lot of the same faces at the top between administrations. It causes a permanence of policy regardless of the party. In fact, the bureaucracy are more or less required to be non-partisan in their long term policies. The hypocrisy is probably more of an effect of indoctrination into the bureaucracies than of actual changes in an individual politicians views. It would be difficult for a president to reverse 8+ years of an institution's operations, especially when those have been funded for longer by congress.

Well, they do lobby heavily for the religious vote. Better to keep a 'good Christian' in the Presidency than some 'godless Liberal.'

If faith in something greater than oneself gives people hope; I'd think that liberals would not have a problem with that.

Liberals aren't against it, but the most fanatically religious people tend towards conservative candidates, which was what I was (ineffectively) trying to get across.

Speaking as a leftie, we haven't had an "our guy" since maybe Carter. If you think Obama is left-wing, I have some nice beachfront property you might be interested in. He talked a good game in 2008, though.

Well on that note, Conservatives haven't had a guy in office since Reagan.

You must not know a lot of Tea Partiers. Though to be fair, they are more "right-wing revolutionaries" than "conservatives" by any reasonable sense of the word.

That's your bias in wanting to believe that people like you are more honest and true to their convictions.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5864729 ... looks like Republicans and Democrats are pretty close in their consistency. Small sample, but usually what you see on most similar issues.

Unfortunately your friends are not representative of most people on the left in the US. According to a recent Pew poll Democrats find NSA surveillance programs more acceptable than in 2006 despite all the recent revelations:

Democrat Views of NSA Surveillance (Pew)

  Jan  2006 - 37% Acceptable, 61% Unacceptable
  June 2013 - 64% Acceptable, 34% Unacceptable
    Change:  +27%            -27%

Also despite a more negative wording of the question (in my opinion):

Jan 2006: "NSA has been investigating people suspected of terrorist involvement by secretly listening in on phone calls & reading emails without court approval..."

June 2013: "NSA has been getting secret court orders to track calls of millions of Americans to investigate terrorism..."

Not that Republicans are any better. They went the other way for probably similar political reasons. But at least, in my opinion, they are moving in the right direction for now. I think I can safely predict this will at least partially reverse next republican president[1].

http://www.people-press.org/2013/06/10/majority-views-nsa-ph...

[1] Edit: Interesting side effect of democracy: since our leaders have the support of a majority of voters the cognitive dissonance of voting for someone who supports policies you don't like will lead a significant portion to support those policies anyway.

These aren't polls of the same thing, or of "NSA Surveillance" generally, despite Pew's spin on it.

The 2006 question askes about warrantless wiretapping ("listening in on phone calls...without court approval")

The 2013 questions asks about tracking calls (not listening in) under FISA warrants ("secret court orders to track calls").

Not the same thing.

Just to be clear, though, we're still doing the 2006 thing, with the only "warrant" being a general FISC ruling on the overall legitimacy of the program. Specifically, that it has acceptable measures in place to reduce and eliminate purely domestic intercepts.

> Just to be clear, though, we're still doing the 2006 thing, with the only "warrant" being a general FISC ruling on the overall legitimacy of the program. Specifically, that it has acceptable measures in place to reduce and eliminate purely domestic intercepts.

Just to be clear, that's not at all the same thing. FISA warrants have always been allowed to be quite broad, and were primarily concerned with identifying that there was a foreign intelligence target and that appropriate minimization procedures were in place, exactly as is the case now.

What was at issue in 2006 had no review from anyone outside of the executive branch for either of those issues.

You can oppose what is being done now, but you cannot (without erroneously assuming that everyone else in the world agrees with you on everything but partisanship) validly look at the 2006 polls and the 2013 polls, especially given the difference in both the kind of surveillance at issue (listening in vs. call tracking) and the procedures at issue (warrantless vs. FISA warrants) and makes claims about consistency because they aren't about the same things, even if you think that people should feel the same about them.

Do you believe that, in actual effect, the 2006-era program was substantially different from its 2013 equivalent? And that the program had "no review" is false, members of the "Gang of Eight" were briefed, and of course could have pursued legislative measures to shut down the program consistent with separation of powers (i.e., defunding it).

I actually agree with you about the wording of the poll and the difference between the metadata collection and "warrantless wiretapping". But hey, all the stuff HN is going nuts about for the past week was all cleared by the FISA court, AFAICT, so the lack of that fig leaf wasn't really what would have pissed off a consistent citizen in 2006, no?

> But hey, all the stuff HN is going nuts about for the past week was all cleared by the FISA court, AFAICT, so the lack of that fig leaf wasn't really what would have pissed off a consistent citizen in 2006, no?

Assuming by "a consistent citizen" you mean the same people "going nuts" on HN, probably not.

But that's not really relevant, now, is it?

You always have to look at the wording of polls - that is exactly why I included it in my comment. I don't think this is "spin" on Pew's part but the fact that the current situation is different today than in 2006. In this case the comparison is mixed: the wording is worse is some ways better in others.

On one hand listening/reading without warrant is worse than tracking with secret order. But on the other hand targeting suspected terrorists is not as bad as targeting millions of Americans. After all that might be you!

The theory is that a secret court order procedure on much broader surveillance program is enough to make NSA's surveillance acceptable to 27% of Democrats seems farfetched to me.

Of course the clencher is that the new program is IN ADDITION TO the continuing 2006 program. This was not mentioned in the poll question. Too bad most people don't understand this.

> The theory is that a secret court order procedure on much broader surveillance program is enough to make NSA's surveillance acceptable to 27% of Democrats seems farfetched to me.

The procedural difference isn't the only difference in either the public facts or, more relevantly, the poll questions, and the issue isn't that it explains the entire difference, its that the difference in the circumstances and the poll questions makes the conclusion that the swing reflects a change of opinion on the same thing (whether partisan or otherwise) invalid.

Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qk12ALX9fz8

There can be only one country to spread democracy.

``History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme." -- Mark Twain

That line isn't by Mark Twain.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:History

Transcript: http://votesmart.org/public-statement/295064/cbs-early-show-...

SEN. BIDEN: But this idea that no court will review, no Congress will know, and we've got to trust the president and the vice president of the United States that they're doing the right thing, don't count me in on that.

---

Mind blown x 2

To put it bluntly, if you change your opinion on fundamental issues like civil liberties based on who is currently in office, you are an idiot and are part of the problem in this country.

Unfortunately, we seem to have a lot of idiots: http://www.people-press.org/files/2013/06/6-10-13-4.png

There is also 7 years between those polls, so there are a lot more factors than just 'who is currently in office' that may have impacted the results.

Similarly, if you do not change your opinions as you mature as an individual, and as you receive more information about particular situations and the world in general, then you are 'an idiot and part of the problem in this country'.

I think you have to distinguish between a change in the actual or understood facts vs. only a change in the party controlling the presidency.

Over the course of several years there have been countless new events and new revelations. Literally countless. Every single day every single voter has new experiences in life, gains new perspectives, and hears more of history than they knew before. It is impossible to know what precipitated any individual's change without asking that individual. In absence of that specific knowledge, it is not appropriate to criticize anyone changing their mind, particularly over such a large span of time.

Can a change in administration be the sole cause of such a change in heart? Perhaps, but it is uncharitable (to say the least) to dismiss changes in public sentiment as the product of partisan politics and simple minds. Uncharitable, and unproductive.

If the overwhelming pattern is that the members of a single party change their views on multiple issues in concert, particularly of those shifts involve disavowal of prior views (or even diametric opposition to views previously held), while those of other parties (not just the primary opposing one), or persons outside that political system (e.g., in other countries) don't, and there's an expressed policy of opposing a party or its head, then I think the suspicion that the shift is largely partisan is rather well founded.

I saw Hannity on Fox news yesterday at a restaurant and he was all up in arms about how this program violated our privacy and the 4th amendment, but after 9/11 the same guy was talking about how we needed these types of programs to protect the U.S. from terrorists.

Fox News and its hypocritical morons are some of the most biased, unmoving, blabbering, illiterate and uneducated right-wing journalists I've ever seen.

Same goes for MSNBC, but just replace right-wing with left-wing.

Fox News is commonly regarded as the propaganda arm of the Republican Party.

MSNBC doesn't seem to have fully earned the complementary title, though it certainly leans that way.

I saw some meta-analysis of those numbers. I think it's useful to extract the "people actually changing their minds" number: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732349560457853...

"The Republican response went from 75% to 23% under George W. Bush to 52% to 47% under Barack Obama. If we assume the swing was entirely partisan--that is, if we exclude the possibility that some Republicans opposed the policy under Bush and favor it now--that means 52% of Republicans are consistent in support and 23% consistent in opposition.

The Democratic response went from 37% to 61% under Bush to 64% to 34% under Obama. Making the same assumption as above, that means 37% of Democrats are consistent in support and 34% consistent in opposition.

Add the figures together and you come up with 75% of Republicans and 71% of Democrats consistent in their positions, which would mean that well under one-third of partisans switched for partisan reasons."

But also, party identification in these polls is self-reported and volatile, so the "Republicans" and "Democracts" aren't even the same people. Some people will just say they're whatever party the President is, if they're generally supportive, or whatever he's not, if they're opposed.

Another factor is that some people, I believe especially more recent immigrants, are suspicious that phone pollsters are not disinterested researchers of anonymous opinion, but rather testing loyalty or trying to identify people to persecute. (That is, are you sure it's really a pollster, and not the NSA/CIA/DHS/DEA/FBI/INS calling?)

Such people might be especially prone to identifying as the same party as, and refusing to complain on record about, "the powerful". This could throw in an extra few percent "Dem/OK-with-NSA" today, and would have thrown in extra "GOP/OK-with-NSA" then.

Its also worth noting, in addition to the point gojomo makes that party identification is self-reported and volatile (and the further, related, point that people both enter and exit the sampled population over time), so that the populations of "Democrats" and "Republicans" in the 2013 poll aren't the same as the population in the 2006 poll, that the questions in the two Pew polls that are the basis of that "metaanalysis" aren't about the same thing.

The 2006 poll question asked about warrantless wiretapping by the NSA (it specified both "listening in on telephone calls" and "without a warrant".)

The 2013 poll questioned asked about asked tracking call information under "secret court orders", which is neither listening in on calls or done without a warrant. They are two different things; it is a mistake to treat them as the same thing and consider different reactions to them as inconsistent.

(Though, given the specific differences, shifting from supporting the former to opposing the latter is something I find odd, but I suppose it could be consistent and not based on pure partisanship if it was grounded, for example, in a strong ideological opposition to the idea of judges overseeing executive national security actions.)

I know this is not the intended result, but my take away from this is that a majority of Republicans continues to support NSA surveillance no matter who is in office.

This is ironic considering how much they hate the government...

Every government employee who carries a gun is trustworthy and honorable while every government employee who carries a pencil is the modern face of tyranny.

Biden is one of the most dangerous men in politics. Very convincing when speaks (as in this video) and has a great sense for politics but not known for his intelligence (barely graduated lower tier law school) or honesty (caught cheating at law school and plagiarizing speeches, regularly called out for inaccurate statements). Everything is just a means to an end - in this video hurting his political opponents. I would be extremely surprised if he were to repeat these statements while Vice President or perhaps someday President. This makes me sad.

http://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/18/us/biden-admits-plagiarism...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/bidens...

Regardless of political party, people that seek to rule over others tend to be overbearing and hypocritical. Obama and Biden are clearly no exception to this. Here is a very similar video of Obama -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aznaD8yzVjM

I simply cannot understand how his base, including most of the media, is sticking with him through all of this, but they are. This will likely lead to additional brazen constitutional violations by this and the next administration, regardless of political party, because there are no consequences for any of them regardless of what they do. I weep for the future.

Best part from the very end:

MR. SMITH: All right, Senator Joe Biden, thank you for joining us this morning; do appreciate it.

SEN. BIDEN: Thank you very much, Charlie.

MR. SMITH: Harry.

SEN. BIDEN: Appreciate it.

MR. SMITH: That's all right.

Joe Biden is like an amazing "character actor" of politics.

He has an almost Clinton-like ability to remain likable ... but whatever you think Clinton was actually like, he came off as sharper conversationally than Biden.

Still, the ability to remain likable in spite of gaffes seems to be vital in Presidential politics -- look at Bush/Kerry.

Never underestimate the impact of the entertainment media in shaping public opinion.

If SNL did a recurring imitation of Biden in an unflattering light, making up things he didn't really say or just repeating the really dumb ones over and over - Biden would be perceived a lot more like Sarah Palin or at best Dan Quayle.

SNL does portray Biden as a caricature. Jason Sudekis played him as a quick talking ex-fraternity asshole who takes upskirt pictures of Hillary Clinton and then proclaims "You've been Biden'd!". SNL isn't doing him any favors - to them he's a lovable buffoon.

What they did with Biden was to do a good physical imitation, but to have him act uncharacteristically as a spoof. What they did with Palin was to go after her in as cutting a manner as possible in order to take her down as a credible candidate.

Here are a couple of examples off of Youtube. The first one, they went out of their way to make Biden look large and in charge.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yl8LcbtQ75A

This second one, Biden is commiserating with George W. on being second in command. So even when imitating Biden, they make sure to really make Bush the butt of the joke.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lyZrtd83Mk

The SNL folks have long admitted that they used their skits to push a political agenda:

http://www.worldtribune.com/tv/videos/as-stupid-as-he-acts-c...

I guess if that's how you see it, I just have to disagree. To me, someone who voted for Obama/Biden twice, in both of those skits they do a fairly good job of making him seem incompetent, simple, and short-sighted. In the second, they equate him with their version of incompetent W - that doesn't seem all that flattering.

EDIT: Adding the 'Biden Bash'[1]

[1] http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/biden-bash/n320...

I guess if that's how you see it

So despite a very well known SNL actor's ADMITTING that what they did was focused and political. Despite his extraordinarily relevant insight stating that they still do it that way... that's just how I see it?

At some point you have to wonder if your theories are falsifiable or if they're just dogma.

First, Chevy Chase hardly represents the current cast of SNL. He hasn't been on the show for decades.

Second, I was talking about how you think SNL is building up Biden with positive sketches. I don't agree that they are very positive. Sorry if that's my opinion.

Third, no shit they push a political agenda but its probably less biased than Fox News. They do attack those who are insanely inferior politically (Palin, Perry, Bachmann) because they can and should. I'm just saying that dumb Democrat decisions don't get the kid gloves you seem to be just so sure they do. After the election there hadn't been a lot of noteworthy political sketches this season, they didn't seem to be able to make light of the gun control debate, the sequester, etc.

Isn't partisan politics a wondrous thing?

Do we know that the VP is supportive of this program? Admittedly it's hard to tell what parts of a politician's speech are principles and which are just to build their party or tear down the other one's party.

Of course he is supportive now - they purposely made it "legal".

See we fell for the promise that they would end illegal surveillance of Ameicans

We thought that meant no more surveillance on Americans.

Instead they just made it "legal".

I really cannot believe they did that word game and we fell for it.

The same goes for illegal extra-judicial killing of citizens... don't think too many figured that it would be resolved by simply publishing a DOJ argument explaining that it's perfectly legal.

If any good has come from either of the last two administrations it may simply be that more people on both sides of the popular political spectrum have become convinced that the government is not our friend.

Surveillance on Americans by the NSA is still illegal. What we're upset about is that NSA has made it easier to abuse the law to perform surveillance of Americans by pre-caching Verizon phone record metadata and automating FISA compliance in a fashion that may actually be usable on arbitrary user IDs.

In other words they've made it easier to do all that surveillance if they choose to, but as far as I'm aware even Snowden has not claimed to see the NSA actually track an American down using the system, only that the NSA could do it easily.

While that is certainly a serious matter that warrants public debate, it's not the same as what you're referring to (which makes me wonder why... it's not like this issue requires any exaggeration).

This makes me think there is a shitload we don't know about. (like this program has stopped a nuclear bomb going off in San Diego or something).

To have so many people switch their minds about privacy and to have this so secret for so long means there has got to be something BIG that they heard of day one of their jobs that drastically changed their value-system/world-view.

My guess is Snowden didn't have the whole picture (b/c he worked for a contractor)

false logic.. your justifying an actual erosion of freedom based on massive speculation. And you could bring anything into that argument, because it will always be secret and non verifiable.

Another theory is that Stuxnet stopped Iran nuking San Diego.. but that didn't require recording the private communications of everyone on the planet.

... I wasn't justifying anything.

I was just speculating.

I think this is a rather unique situation where a lot of pro-privacy people seemed to have switched sides.

That raises questions. What everyone seems to be concluding is that these people were insincere before and now their true colors are coming out. That sounds highly improbably and very conspiracy-theory-ish.

It's more likely that there is a lot going on than we know about. It doesn't necessarily make it okay.

It's just something to think about.

"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which." George Orwell, Animal Farm

"It's not fascism when we do it!"

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