Bill to Restrict N.S.A. Data Collection Blocked in Vote by Senate Republicans
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Proving once again that going thru "Official" Channels was never an option. That in the toxic hyper-partisan environment of Washington the Powerful will find a way to kill any meaningful reform of even the worst abuses.
The solution to this has to be first and foremost Technological.
I very much agree, but keep that in mind.
Second, technology and political are not an either/or proposition (or even a primary/secondary proposition). IMHO, it's something like: Privacy = Technology * Politics. Simply stressing one will give you (relative) diminishing returns if you don't push the other as well.
Good encryption can make it difficult for the NSA to conduct widespread online surveillance, but given (a) the difficulty of getting crypto right, (b) the sheer number of organizations with the ability to (intentionally or unintentionally) compromise security for a large number of users, and (c) the relatively low impact privacy and security have on purchasing decisions for many (if not most) people, it's something like the size of the NSA's budget (a political question) that will ultimately determine whether mass surveillance is prohibitively expensive or merely inconvenient.
Rule contraction at times of relative piece and expansion at times of duress are never effective. Expanding surveillance after 9/11 with sweeping judicial reforms and due process, and vice versa (in today's case) contracting or attempting to contract is also not a good idea. Yes there are many problems, but think of it from a impact and policy perspective. What happens after if there is a terrorist event? Then do we expand again because perhaps someone yells out "not enough oversight or data?". Although many here are PRO reform, the pattern contraction/expansion is not the way to go about national security policy.
The serpentine flow of the amount of power given to the executive branch or government in general is nothing new. There was an overstep with the patriot act, and according to Rep. Sensenbrenner (the author of patriot act) the executive branch under Bush and Obama exceeded the authority of the patriot act.
I think ultimately these types of powers need a congressional kill switch. Much like under the war powers act. The Congress through a concurrent resolution can remove the executive's authority under these acts.
What pattern of expansion and contraction are you talking about? I know the expansion part, but I certainly don't know what the last contraction was.
What due process are you talking about? These policies were effected unilaterally, in secret.
What is a good way "to go about national security policy" if not by working within the legislative framework? Are you saying that there is no legislative solution?
What if there is a terrorist event now? How much more data can we collect?
My position is that it is never too early to examine the effects--the consequences--of any legislation. This particular incident has lingered secretly for well over a decade, and that is oppressive. Regardless of wordsmithing and mental gymnastics, these programs are clearly out of line with the spirit of American civil liberties and need to be checked.
One might make the argument that most consumer hardware is not produced in the US. But it suffices to say that if Microsoft or Apple choose to obey a secret order rather than exiting a market of 300 million people, they will do so for other countries.
App Stores are subject to more than American law. For example, there isn't just a single Apple App Store. It's split up.
It is true that the NSA has uniquely easy access to say, Google and Facebook servers and so things are a little easier than just tapping all the fiber. That's precisely so many countries are gung-ho about creating their own, in-state services...so they're the ones with uniquely easy access.
But that's not "far in excess" of others, it just makes the job easier.
The same goes for certificates.
There is no deep asymmetry, other countries already have the powers you are talking about and they are using them here, today, in the now.
You also did not address my point concerning their "legal power" over e.g. Microsoft/Windows and Apple/OS X.
As for cloud providers, they are located all over the globe, and countries they operate in have the same power you are counting the US as having.
This was only about mass surveillance conducted over phones.
If this "analog tip of the iceberg" already fails, how can they ever be stopped politically regarding mass surveillance conducted by simply tapping all Internet traffic (as was shown they do)?
It means they're scared and are circling the wagons.
And that rather than dropping the fight, we need to keep pushing even harder.
Just look at how the civil rights movement made progress. It certainly wasn't just by writing polite letters to their representatives...
The vote: All D's voted right except Bill Nelson of Florida. All R's voted wrong except Cruz, Lee, Heller, Paul, and Murkowski.
Where "right" means "for the overhaul bill" and "wrong" means the opposite.
You'll also notice that this bill got way over 50 votes, but still failed due to the modern filibuster.
In fact: the more "grassroots-friendly" this bill had been, the less tenable a yea vote would have been, particularly for Paul.
The following Republican Senators Elect are currently US House Reps and voted:
Yea Tom Cotton
Nay Cory Gardner
Yea Bill Cassidy (assuming win in run off)
Nay Steve Daines
Yea Shelley Wellons Moore Capito
These are not your Goldwater Republicans.
It's why a lot of votes in both houses can seem close, or bipartisan, but in fact they are not - just Congressmen who are owed a favor being allowed to vote in such a way that won't piss off their constituents or hurt their chances of being elected to a higher office someday, or land them a sweet consulting gig after they leave office, or whatever. If the leadership knows they have votes to spare anyway. This is a pretty common and well-known practice I thought, so I don't really understand the downvotes.
I mean, if both Cruz and Paul had voted for cloture and the Senate had moved on cloture with e.g. 61 votes or something (i.e. both their votes actually mattered and were against the party interests), then their votes would be big news and evidence of an actual schism. As it stands, how they voted doesn't mean shit, other than that they are reasonably famous politicians.
The roll-call vote I'm looking at [1] only has Cruz, Lee, Heller, and Murkowski voting to move the bill to a vote on passage; Paul supported the filibuster.
[1] http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_c...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_Freedom_Act
http://www.paul.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=1244
He's actually been very consistent in opposing Patriot ACT renewals, and I applaud him for it.
> “In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Americans were eager to catch and punish the terrorists who attacked us. I, like most Americans, demanded justice. But one common misconception is that the Patriot Act applies only to foreigners—when in reality, the Patriot Act was instituted precisely to widen the surveillance laws to include U.S. citizens,” Sen. Paul said, “As Benjamin Franklin put it, ‘those who trade their liberty for security may wind up with neither.’ Today’s vote to oppose further consideration of the Patriot Act extension proves that we are one step closer to restoring civil liberties in America.”
Please don't make political arguments into personal quarrels on HN, even when someone doesn't bother reading. Political arguments are abrasive to begin with. Let's not add gratuitous abrasiveness.
This comment would be quite a good one without the first sentence.
I am not making any kind of political statement nor a personal quarrel, I am simply pointing out that he got the answer previously but jumped on the comment trigger before reading anything linked. Is saying "Do you bother reading" considered offensive now?
> Some of its opponents, like Senator Saxby Chambliss, Republican of Georgia, believe it went too far in curbing the N.S.A. Others, like Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, thought it did not go far enough.
Well, there's your problem in a nutshell. That's why we are where we are.
'The Perfect' is the enemy of 'The Good'.
Google, MSFT, Apple, the EFF all supported this bill. Obviously there are further improvements that could be made, but instead of starting from a better platform, we're at ground zero with an incoming congress that has no interest in curbing the 'military' power of the US.
The EFF's case for supporting the bill that was just killed is very clear about this:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/08/understanding-new-usa-...
Half-measures are often incoherent and worse
than the status quo.
See: banking & healthcare
You just lock yourself into a disaster.
Obama can update the EO's for the NSA without congress[+].
[+] EFF: "Future reform must include significant changes to ... Executive Order 12333, and to the broken classification system that the executive branch counts on to hide unconstitutional surveillance from the public."
He just doesn't want to stick his neck out.
So this bill was a distant 3rd choice for the country.
1) pass a good law
2) administrate the NSA into compliance
3) pass muddled legislation in a lame duck session
Your comment is absurd.
Fixing the EOs is simple.
(That buys time. Time to get
coherent legislation
figured out.)
Its a shitty situation no matter what.
I find it interesting that Barbara Boxer voted for it, given her staunch defense of the NSA's abuses-to-date.
No personal insults on Hacker News, please, even when someone else's comment seems dumb.
1) Show up at the primaries. 2) Reform your local laws to allow you to vote in the primaries for both parties. 3) Don't shut up. Keep talking. 4) Keep in mind, at all times, that the fight isn't over once the NSA is squelched. AT&T et. al. still get to keep this information forever. 5) Think about parallels. Encryption isn't good enough, as the same kind of meta-data is generated when you visit an encrypted site. It's not any one activity it's the pattern of all activity that's important and no one is making anyone give up that data, either.
I could have sworn that within my lifetime, the press talked about "50 votes needed" to pass a bill. Then at some point in the Bush years, threat of filibuster was regularly invoked, making 60 votes the requirement in practice.
Now no one even mentions a filibuster. As a non-American, it's rather strange.
A good history of how we got to where we are:
http://www.brookings.edu/research/testimony/2010/04/22-filib...
And the more encyclopedic answer:
Very briefly:
In the mid years of Bush, the D Senate filibustered more than usual in regards to nominations of non-Supreme Court judges.
In 2006, when Democrats took the Senate, the Republicans started filibustering up a storm. But no one in the press noticed because Bush would have veto'd anyway, so the balance of power didn't shift.
As soon as Obama was elected, the Republican Senate had an internal meeting where they agreed to filibuster everything all the time -- legislation, judges, executive appointments, everything. Even legislation they supported, just to throw a wrench into the plans. It was a momentous change. The press failed to point it out or make an issue out of it. And here we are.
I am now curious to see if things will shift back once there's a Republican president. The Republicans seem far better at press management than the Democrats.
FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt), part apathetic electorate that chooses to not vote (period) because 'it doesn't matter', part uninformed electorate that votes based on a letter next to the name rather than positions (if the candidate even bothered to establish any positions / if the voter bothered to even look up the candidate's views) and a media that is so bent on presenting 'both sides' that they fail to call out the mountain of bullshit that we often hear (climate change isn't real, etc.).
I feel like this is the worst excuse, there are usually many things to vote on other than a US rep, or Senator. For example, here in Arizona the exit polls showed that people felt education was the most important issue. In turn, we elected a governor that loathes the idea of public schools / supports vouchers; and a school superintendent that loathes common core (because, state rights) and __did not__ run a campaign (other than repeating 'nobama' & 'states rights'). The needs and results couldn't be further apart.
On the other hand: over the next couple years, the same force is going to work in the other direction as the Democrats assume the minority. Were it not for the filibuster, Social Security might be a block grant to NY financial firms by now.
Maybe. The republicans seem far better at parliamentary procedure and press management. Once there's a Republican president, I can imagine there will be loud outcries against "Democratic obstructionism" if the democrats attempt to block votes with a filibuster.
As Hario's comment above pointed out, the reverse happened in 2006 then 2008. I could see them successfully switching the narrative back.
These past several years I've been very surprised that the Democrats simply acquiesced to 60, and didn't even try to make Republicans actually filibuster bills by talking.
As this article points out, actual filibustering is a gruelling process. The speaker can't leave the podium:
http://mentalfloss.com/article/49360/5-famous-filibusters
I looked up any more recent filibusters. I came across Rand Paul's filibuster from 2013. He lasted 13 hours, and failed to block the appointment of John Brennan.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/sen-rand-paul-my-fili...
Anyone have insight on the Democrat's (lack of) response to the threat of filibustering?
We should be (and many are) working to secure ourselves so that Congress and the legal system must work to catch up to the possibilities of citizens to protect themselves on their own terms: good end-to-end encryption, true anonymity when it's needed, and as much open and auditable code as we can get.
They're not going to give security and privacy to us — they wouldn't even if they could. So we make it ourselves, slowly, surely, and publicly, and maybe in a few years they'll be the ones that are outraged.
Essentially - you can not provide secure communication as a service.
If you try to provide it as a product it's more blurry. With precedents like Blackberry, RSA and Skype you need to make sure you're operationally able to deal with extreme levels of leverage and influence.
[1] http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2703
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_...
Is there anywhere a list of "nay" voters.. I want to put few phonecalls in place tomorrow, express my disgust.
Companies doing business in the US are bound by US laws.
Server location not so important.
[1]: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/09/23/microsoft_vs_the_lon...
[2]: http://www.zdnet.com/yes-u-s-authorities-can-spy-on-eu-cloud...
I'm also not such a noob at politics that I think this is the entire story. Democrats knew this wouldn't pass. This was their last couple of months of control. So it's a poke in the eye to Republicans on the way out.
The really interesting counter-factual here is what would have happened if a large block of Republicans switched up. My bet is that you'd see quite a few defections in the Democratic camp.
If I'm a politician, I can either support something, oppose something, look like I'm supporting something when I really don't, or look like I'm opposing something when I really support it. The key issue isn't my stance, it's how I can position myself against the other politicians.
I'd love to see movement on this. Not for a second did I think this vote was anything but political posturing. But still -- any vote is a good one. Just wish it would have actually meant something instead of more fodder for all the partisans to throw dung at each other. It also looks like the beginning of "See! If we were just back in power, this time we'd really fix all those problems we approved of and encouraged the last time we were there!"
I wonder if this will have any traction among the base, which was the entire point. Sadly, I think it will.
When would be a good time? Seriously, I hate these arguments, because there is no reasoning with them. Sure, these various programs may have helped stop terrorism, or at least have the potential to.
However, so would killing anyone (citizen or not) who has any potential threat. I would argue the later is even more effective, and uses the same chain of reasoning.
Why then, can we not move past that and try to stand a bit more on law (being the constitution in this case), if not reason. Clearly, these programs are disliked by a large number (if not the majority) of the constituents these senators represent. Then, why are they not voting on their behalf?
That seems like a far better question.
We should be (and many are) working to secure ourselves so that Congress and the legal system must work to catch up to the possibilities of citizens to protect themselves on their own terms: good end-to-end encryption, true anonymity when it's needed, and as much open and auditable code as we can get.
They're not going to give security and privacy to us — they wouldn't even if they could. So we make it ourselves, slowly, surely, and publicly, and maybe in a few years they'll be the ones that are outraged.
(pasted from the other thread where I wrote this before I saw this one)
Why is Obama not interested in dismantling dragnet surveillance? He also worked as a civil rights lawyer.
Obama has the education and experience to know that surveillance has lots of bad effects, and that some secret special reading of a law doesn't make it legal or ethical or constitutional. Why didn't Obama dismantle the universal-as-possible surveillance?
The NSA only needs legislation to expand for the most part beyond existing laws. But here we are talking about limiting. That is simple fiat, not an issue for congress. (The nsa reports to the dod, headed by a civvy, who reports to potus.)
etc.
Given the "rifts between the [GOP's] interventionist and more libertarian-leaning wings," what are the probable endgames? Specifically, what are the odds of–and promoting factors for–an obstructionist minority flipping over the table in June?
Assuming no new R's vote right, that gets us to a vote of 50 / 50, with Biden getting the deciding vote. However, in the modern filibustering Senate, 41 Senators can kill any bill.
So in theory, if everyone who voted for the bill hangs tight, they could destroy any new legislation, including PATRIOT ACT reauthorization.
However, I'd be quite surprised if neither of these things happen: 1. McConnell decides the filibuster no longer works for him, so he kills it. 2. Obama puts remarkable pressure on fellow D's and they buckle.
But theoretically, we have all the votes we need. And if 1 new R senator joins the anti-NSA caucus (and all the D Senators hang tight, and all the D senators are good on the issue), they wouldn't even be a minority -- they'd have 51 votes.
Hope that makes sense.
Some do have more track record in that regard than others though, so it might be that they won't all side with the national-security conservatives.
There were a lot a jockeying and some losses from the outsiders, but remember that Cantor got beat in the primary.
Apart from that it's hard to frame positively. Is this something Americans should be proud of? Should the Germans have been proud in the '30s?
[1] - https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/11/usa-freedom-act-week-w...
Here are the 23 Republican members on the committee:
Bob Goodlatte, Virginia, Chairman
Jim Sensenbrenner, Wisconsin
Howard Coble, North Carolina
Lamar S. Smith, Texas
Steve Chabot, Ohio
Spencer Bachus of Alabama
Darrell Issa, California
Randy Forbes, Virginia
Steve King, Iowa
Trent Franks, Arizona
Louie Gohmert, Texas
Jim Jordan, Ohio
Ted Poe, Texas
Jason Chaffetz, Utah
Tom Marino, Pennsylvania
Trey Gowdy, South Carolina
Mark Amodei, Nevada
Raúl Labrador, Idaho
Blake Farenthold, Texas
George Holding, North Carolina
Doug Collins, Georgia
Ron DeSantis, Florida
Jason T. Smith, MissouriThe parties have successfully rigged the system such that they only need to cater to lobbyists, and the extremist wings of their respective parties, to maintain power.
It really wouldn't matter what the majority of Americans believed, notwithstanding that a majority of Americans probably would view the NSA programs as, at worst, a necessary evil. You also have to take into account the politics approaching the upcoming presidential election.
-- actual title
I can't believe anything I read on the Internet anymore. I would be interested to see why they voted against it.
I'm shocked that a group that claims they are open and accepting, yet when the word republican is used, the tactics and tone change to that of the people you are against (personal attacks, slander, bigotry, and bias). It's because most of it is bullshit. There is only acceptance when someone aligns with your personal beliefs.
I can see how evil dictators can come into power. The average person can so easily be swayed by emotion.
Entire consumer stack will go encrypted.
To solve this from a purely technical standpoint we'd need to design services where the service provider is a completely untrusted party - never allowed to see or manipulate user data on the backend, and all processing that requires decrypted user data would need to be moved to the client. We would also need a way to verify client code to ensure that malicious changes haven't been introduced. And finally, we would need a way to anonymize all requests to the backend.
An architecture like this is pretty hard to implement, so it would be nice if we could just get the NSA to stop.
The NSA will not stop because DC wants to spy on governors, lawyers, judges, companies, etc. NSA has been illegally spying domestically since its inception, which was itself an undemocratic exec order. Only Supreme Court will restrain, and doesn't protect against Chinese and Russian hackers. So encryption throughout consumer tech stack and net protocols is the only answer.