https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1...
The summary is this:
- Votes in the House and Senate used to be anonymous
- They then decided to make them public under the reasoning of transparency
- One side effect of making them public is that you got people like Grover Norquist and The Americans for Tax Reform who could see who voted for taxes and then use that to "name and shame" people (there was a pledge signing in there as well). For more details see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover_Norquist
- This now means that it's MUCH easier for lobbyists and special interest groups to see where to spend their money as a Senator's voting history is public knowledge (which both sides are WELL aware of)
- As a sibling poster points out: you can easily see who receives money from defense groups vs not.
- This is probably good for us as voters in the short term but bad for the country in the long term (Due to the above)
If you look at their donors, you'll see the lines. The people who voted for it make money from the defense and intelligence industries, and the people who didn't, don't. Voting for for something majorities of the voters of both parties are against is expensive (in terms of being re-elected.) That price is paid by donors, and the media control that those donors will exercise. Which again, is why the wedge issues are needed: you're going to have to vote for those people who voted against your civil liberties if you want Democrats to pretend to protect abortion rights for another 4 years, or Republicans to pretend to end them.
this is normal practice, to provide cover for your party members.
it’s divided by party line because it’s national security. they’re splitting the spoils.
What’s more surprising is the split in IL between Duckworth (yea) and Durban (Nay). Usually you don’t see states splitting too much. Tennessee was all Nays for instance.
Furthermore, I think the frequency of that overlap is a major problem for our political system, because it makes compromise impossible.
I still am a believer in digital freedom, I'm old enough to have seen the changes in the Internet, and it is a much more malevolent and fucked up force than it was even 15 years ago. Maybe, just maybe, the government needs the power to spy on international targets with oversight.
It’s not controversial to suggest that the interests of the political class, the special interests that fund their campaigns, and Washington bureaucrats differ from the interests of the public at large. You don’t need to evoke deep state conspiracies to explain nefarious coordination because when career and monetary incentives align then bills like this one get passed.
US Gov/LEO/IC must be gifted the most power possible
to surveil Americans who are not suspected of a crime
[1]https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1...
Unfortunately both my senators voted for it. I did call their offices Thursday to no avail.
But probably companies could have stopped cooperating and challenged it in court.
[1] https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-urges...
Now we get suppression and astroturfing from a bunch of autocrats who despise democracy and call themselves the "Intelligence Community."
1A, Nope, you have to have facts, and specific facts, and a subject-matter expert, source? 2A, Ban all guns, the government will protect us. 3A, No worry, they're not soldiers, they're law enforcement. 4A, Unreasonable search and seizure? What was unreasonable about us listening to your phone call? 5,6,7A, Fair trail? What public figure is getting a fair trail, and has been unreasonable fines? But he deserves it. 8A, The death penalty is fair, right? I mean, if evidence ever shows up that exonerates them, we can dig them up, right? 9A I don't think anyone cares what order we get rid of these, right? 10A Those states don't have rights, it's my body, right?
I don't vote anymore. No offense, you all disgust me.
I'm politically very conservative. I hate every single one of the Republicans. They claim to want smaller government and less intrusion and then vote for... bigger government, more intrusion, and endless wars.
I still vote, though. Mostly, at this point, it feels like an act of protest more than anything.
We need a significant change in leadership for all those that voted this in.
If I recall correctly, this bill also includes an expansion of surveillance performed by federal law enforcement agencies and NSA.
There was a real moment in the House where it might not have, at least without a warrant requirement. My Congresswoman was one of the attack dogs on this issue. She thought they would get an outpouring of support. She didn’t. The call sheets registered basically zero calls in support, and several lobbying against. So she caved. (This is a pattern I saw play out in New York years earlier in another privacy battle.)
> The unnecessary drama of stalling until after midnight is all theater
Sort of. The Senate calendar is funky. Putting it at the end of the roll was theatre. Having something voted on after midnight was not.
What's odd/interesting to me is that there's been little chatter of late regarding this. I spend an unhealthy amount of time on HN/Reddit/X and save for a few mild posts (as opposed to alarmist or clickbaity) on the topic, I barely see anything. During the net neutrality thing back when Ajit Pai was around I remember there was massive support. And I don't think I've ever heard of the NY privacy thing you mention. I wonder why it's so.
From the CNN article on this:
>> Another amendment at issue was from Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, a member of the Intelligence Committee. His amendment, which was co-sponsored by several of the most liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans in the chamber, would strike a new part of the program that he argued would lead every day Americans into helping the government spy if they have “access to equipment that is being or may be used to transmit or store wire or electronic communications.”
On the face of it, any cellphone or smartwatch seems to fit that definition. They could be converting everything into a listening device, recording all of it, and then making it available to intel officers only when they query for it and can argue one party is a foreign national.
So says Morgan Freeman's character Lucius Fox in 2008 in The Dark Knight[0].
The rest of the tech imagined in that scene is plausible today too, considering the density of WiFi/5G and research demonstrating the potential for its use as passive radar [1]. That paper metions a cooperative base station, but I am wondering if there is any value gained in knowing exactly what the traffic is (such as some of the intelligence community does) in modelling how the waves propagate and performing an even more passive observation.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRELLH86Edo
[1] Samczyński et al. 2021 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=966...
The Turner-Himes amendment expands the definition of “electronic communications service (ECS) provider” to include “any service provider” that has “access to equipment that is being or may be used to transmit or store wire or electronic communications.” (except not personal dwellings and restaurants)
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) comment: “It allows the government to force any American who installs, maintains, or repairs anything that transmits or stores communications to spy on the government’s behalf. That means anyone with access to a server, a wire, a cable box, a wifi router, or a phone. It would be secret: the Americans receiving the government directives would be bound to silence, and there would be no court oversight.”
EFF comment: “The Justice Department is playing word games when it says the amendment doesn’t change the ‘structure’ of 702 because the law prohibits targeting entities inside the United States. Garland’s pledge, isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on; if this amendment becomes law, the DOJ can and almost certainly will rely on it to conscript other providers who fit within its very broad scope.”
Notably, Trump doesn't like FISA? (removed yelly caps) “Kill FISA, it was illegally used against me, and many others. They spied on my campaign!!!”
Pelosi's speech was amusing: “I don’t have the time right now, but if members want to know I’ll tell you how we could have been saved from 9/11 if we didn’t have to have the additional warrants.”
https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/18/24134196/senate-cloture-v...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/12/fisa-surveil...
There are elected representatives of the people providing oversight and it seems to have strong bipartisan support. Is there a popular line of thought with tech people that is suggesting foreign surveillance isn't neccesary? Or should some provision of the law be updated to protect americans' data?
> The ACLU considers the FISA Act to be unconstitutional for several reasons including: the law was designed to mainly address terrorism threats, but in fact intercepts communications that have nothing to do with terrorism or criminal activity of any kind; and that "the government can create huge databases that contain information about U.S. persons obtained without warrants and then search these databases at a later point."
As I understand, these databases are only created if the other party is foreign, is that not the case?
I asked in earnest but you made this about my intent instead of articulating your views. My conclusion so far is that the HN crowd is jumping on the bandwagon and can't take any critique of the popular sentiment.
I have much critique of the patriot act and other provisions but FISA itself has been around since 1978 apparently. I was merely trying to figure out what specifically were the opposing views because in general, foreign surveillance is not optional.
Given recent events in the Middle East and the fact that both parties' senior politicians mostly lean the same way in terms of which sides they support, this result is unsurprising if disappointing.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/312605-schumer-t...
See what happens when a politician of any stature dares to defy them.
> The FISA resulted from extensive investigations by Senate Committees into the legality of domestic intelligence activities. These investigations were led separately by Sam Ervin and Frank Church in 1978 as a response to President Richard Nixon's usage of federal resources, including law enforcement agencies, to spy on political and activist groups.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligence_Surveilla...
What restrictions are you talking about? Constitutional warrant requirement was sidestepped using this law and you are still cheering here.
This was noticeably on display for me in 2020 right after it was determined that Biden had won the election. Lindsey Graham, a Republican Senator, was caught on video in the Senate chamber warmly congratulating and hugging Kamala Harris, a D senator and VP-elect. It was as if they both knew Graham's hyper-partisan antics during the preceding months before the vote was all just an act - a part of the game. I'd bet that he secretly voted for Biden/Harris as well and will do so again.
If nothing happens most people don’t understand or care either way.
I don't think this is accurate. Maybe on healthcare and welfare, sure. But on many social issues, the Democrats are much further to the left than the European left. On issues such as abortion, gender/sexuality, migration, and race, the Democrats are more extreme compared to Labour in the UK, SPD in Germany, and the PSOE in Spain. Even the left in France isn't as socially extremist as the Democrats.
> D in US is more right than other countries' left leaning parties
D in US is more right than other countries' right leaning parties
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligence_Surveilla...
If you wanted to be part of this experiment we call the United States, you could gain citizenship by learning and understanding what liberalism meant.
Not anymore, just cross the border, we will give you a debit card, and just wait, because we're going to make you a citizen, and your uneducated self will help us burn this nation to the ground.
No war will go unfunded, no problem will be solved, and we will teach you to hate everyone else. This while everyone is screaming about their abortion access while the Nation goes bankrupt.
We have $34T in debt, every 93 days we add another $1T. If you're all such internet geniuses, you should have figured that soon, and very soon, that starts walking away from the Treasuries' ability to pay just the interest.
Democrats will scream raise taxes on the rich, but guess what, there are not enough of them to tax. They won't agree to cutting spending cuts.
Republicans will refuse to cut the military because we have to defend Taiwan, and against every mythical and imaginary enemy.
But wait, there is more, Democrats want to expand surveillance on anyone practicing the 1A, the 2A, while violating the 4A & 5A.
Everything is about what you can get from this country. No one listened to John F. Kennedy. He was murdered. "Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country..."
It is all about what you can get out of this for yourself. It doesn't matter if you're a billionaire or some guy on the street. You're trying to get what is best for you, not what is best for all of us.
I want what is best for this Nation. I served, my grandfathers served, my children serve now. But F-U when you tell me I'm part of the problem. I understood what I was fighting for, you have no clue why we're even here.
All this stuff has been around for literally decades at this point, and at some point people just get tired rehashing the same old stuff to every new person coming in and asking, "what's wrong with that?".
The constitution's term for this is "warrant".
The both parties are the same is such a lazy take, except in super limited circumstances like this naked power grab in the article. Both are going to use it in wildly different ways
Depends which left which you are talking about. LFI is certainly on that level in their way, PS/Place Publique are not(given that "printemps républicain" was part of what killed popular support for the party).
Those parties you listed are known for being center to center left in Europe, sometimes explicitly escuing the left as UK Labour and SPD have done.
Excpet PSOE which is farther left than the Democrats, having all of the identity politics of the Democratic party while being explicitly and empathetically pro union. Heads would have rolled if PSOE had broken the rail workers strike that like Biden did. The also tried to legalize abortion in the Spanish constitution in the 1970s, and haven't wavered on their view of abortion since. They passed same sex marriage when they got their first chance to (and before the US did), and used the same opportunity to expand transgender rights.
But then there was the time Biden installed Hunter on the White House staff and ordered that he be given a security clearance, despite dozens of discrepancies, undisclosed foreign contacts, and other red flags on the paperwork. Oh, wait, no, that was Trump, too.
Besides, it cost him nothing.
A former lover tried to blackmail Wellington. His response was 'Publish and be damned.' It was published to the delight of many. But he still went on to become Prime Minister.
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/rear-window-when-wellin...
E.g. get someone fervently believing that their vote is critical to preventing "murder of children", and you can abuse them economically however the hell you want - they'll hate you but they'll still vote for you because the other guy "murders children". This one is such an oldie but goodie that each party has crafted its own wedge issue around it: abortion for Republicans, guns for Democrats.
It wasn't always like this. Many have agreed these were legitimate issues during the Iraq war. Where have all those people gone today?
This really isn't all that true in my experience. And, I mean, look at the discussion here... Maybe consider the people you hang around with?
You can generally convey the same idea gently as long as you hedge your phrasing somewhat. Making it sound like a wacky accusation comes off sounding, well, wacky.
“when private citizens are able to vote privately, it protects their ability to vote their conscience, rather than allowing some third party to explicitly buy votes or bully someone into voting in line with someone else”,
and the belief that somehow this doesn’t apply to congress members.
Additionally, on hard philosophical and policy qurstions, some bits of negotiation and dealmaking are bare-knuckled “the sausage gets made” affairs that are brutally hard on the ego and participants. Part of why nothing can get through Congress anymore in a timely fashion and without continual brinksmanship on important funding or to prevent shutdowns is because even if crossing party lines would very often be in the public’s interest, and to the public’s net benefit, haggling to make it happen or voting to make it so often doesn’t stand up to the scrutiny of thousands of watchful eyes where an important deal may hinge on brutal haggling which the public couldn’t stomach seeing the intermediate steps and votes of.
One such example in practical terms: if the constitutional convention which replaced the articles of confederation took place in the internet age with modern real-time, to the minute reporting on how everyone was voting on every intermediate plan and how any compromise made was a betrayal of “party lines” on an issue, America as a country probably wouldn’t exist today.
Transparency has its own benefits, but it’s not without costs - you make a legislative body’s job more difficult, you get corresponding gridlock to match.
If you believe that electorates punish politicians for decisions in the public interest, and legislators’ jobs would be easier if they were less accountable to their voters, why support democracy at all?
There's no "THE problem." There's a ton of "problems." Just to be clear. Because many of the problems we face today are through interaction of different things, often in a complex chain, rather than a direct easy to follow causal chain.
> via old fashioned grapevine
Treat the problem as an adversarial problem. Yes, your adversary will always be able to break your defenses. Nothing is bulletproof. How you defend is through forcing adversaries to expend resources. It is very clear that forcing lobbiests to learn through the grapevine is a more costly method than simply looking at a public database. And if you aren't familiar with this concept, people lie. No one need know your vote unless you reveal it (which... might be a lie).
The point also is that it can also prevent inner conflict, among parties. You're not voting along party lines? You think you're going to get as much support from your party when it comes to your bills and campaign funds? So you have plenty of incentive to not reveal your vote, even among allies.
I agree with you in that switching to private votes won't solve the problems we have. But would it improve? I'd guess some and I'd guess it would take time for the real effects to be seen. But the other side is, would it do harm? I doubt it.
I’m not one who believes the constitution is sacred or that the founding fathers were infallible, but I do think the chance for a person to vote their conscience vs their politics is an important feature. While the grapevine might be a route to learn, it’s also a route that doesn’t have to be accurate. I can tell my lobbyist whatever I want about my vote, but only I know what my vote was in private voting. This feels like a feature not a flaw.
The point of representative democracy is selecting a person whose judgement you believe in. Public voting records lead to populist and party strangleholds on outcomes with consequences for breaking dogma. Practically speaking it also gives lobbyists proof positive of whether their money was well spent.
I’m not the one here cheering for demise of constitutional republic…
I am seriously asking whether being flat-out unconstitutional is worse than building a (legislated and approved) backdoor around the constitution, yes.
I mean, better than both would be to just follow the constitution, but that wasn't the question.
The two parties do not significantly differ on indefinite detention of American citizens on US soil.
The two parties do not significantly differ on domestic spying, dragnet-style data collection and warrantless wiretapping.
The two parties do not significantly differ on allowing extra-judicial targeted killings.
The two parties do not significantly differ on the use of unmanned drones, either for combat or domestic surveillance.
The two parties both support pre-emptive "cyber" war and non-defensive hacking.
The two parties do not significantly differ on their support for continuing the War On Terror.
The two parties both support maintaining US military bases around the world.
The two parties do not significantly differ on favoring Keynesian economics.
The two parties support delegating monetary policy decisions to the Federal Reserve, including support for quantitative easing.
The two parties do not significantly differ on their use of earmarks and pork barrel spending.
Neither of the two parties have (recently) proposed plans for balancing the budget.
Neither of the two parties plans to significantly cut defense spending.
The two parties both favor taxpayer-funded foreign aid.
The two parties are largely backed by the same corporate sponsors and special interest groups, with a few key differences.
The two parties both backed TARP and in general favor bailing out companies too big to fail.
The two parties do not significantly differ on their general support of "economic stimulus" as a tool to prop up the economy.
The two parties do not significantly differ on their support for and allegiance to Israel.
The two parties both favor and continue sanctions on Iran.
The two parties do not significantly differ on their use of super PAC funding and their support of unlimited spending from corporations and special interest groups.
The two parties do not significantly differ on their use of gerrymandering to gain political advantage.
The two parties oppose any measures that would strengthen the viability of a third party.
This is not true; the Republicans strongly oppose them and have repeatedly tried to abolish them (and were temporarily successful at one point).
> Neither of the two parties have (recently) proposed plans for balancing the budget.
This isn't true. Both parties have recently proposed plans for balancing the budget; Biden proposed plans to balance it by raising taxes and instituting a wealth tax just last year, and Republicans have put forward various entitlement reform proposals to balance the budget.
> The two parties both favor and continue sanctions on Iran.
Obama ended sanctions on Iran with the nuclear deal before Trump reinstated them; Republicans blocked Senate ratification of the deal, allowing him to do that and ensuring the Iranians wouldn't trust future entreaties from the US. Claiming the two parties are the same on this is odd.
> The two parties do not significantly differ on their use of super PAC funding and their support of unlimited spending from corporations and special interest groups.
Dems support and have repeatedly attempted to pass an anti-Citizens United amendment.
> The two parties do not significantly differ on their use of gerrymandering to gain political advantage.
Dems repeatedly tried to pass a bill banning gerrymandering federally when they controlled the House in 2021.
I'm no expert but for these 5 at least, I am aware of significant and specific interparty differences.
the best capitalist simply had their competition shot.
A big step forward for the USA would be a vast reduction of federal power over the states.
However, there is a very solid case for a weak federal government, and it is simply that US is a country that's way too big for any coherent national policy on most matters that we've currently pushed there. It's such a vicious fight because it's half the country trying to bludgeon the other half into submission, motivated by the knowledge that, if you yield, the other guy will pick up this huge club and do the same to you. This will continue until the country breaks down unless we dial it down to state level and accept the fact that other states may have laws and lifestyle that is despicable or horrifying to us in some ways. Either that, or we might as well just break the whole thing apart now and not wait for it to happen in a more violent manner.
The US is a massive country, with the populace far removed from the decision making. I believe this is the core problem.
How that is broached depends on whom you are talking with.
We're in this really weird place where some of us on different parts of the political spectrum who may not have previously agreed are now in general agreement one way or the other, just because politics itself has become so insane.
I mean, I'm a little crazy, I won't deny that. But it's kind of bugging me that phrasing matters far more than the idea. Most reasonable people would agree that the system is fundamentally broken. We might not agree on a solution, but at least we can look at it and say "yeah, this isn't sustainable." Unfortunately, if you use the wrong word around the wrong group of people, you get branded a little bonkers. :)
As you noticed, following constitution is apparently not an option here. Being unconstitutional and ignored, there was at least some hope for improvement, but codification gave us a clear answer that elected representatives are, at best, only selectively interested in supporting constitution.
Not everything is spelled in ink.
The effect of a law is at least as important as the literal words on the page.
That is inevitable. If there is an easier path to a goal some human will use it. It doesn't matter if the goal is against the people.
Maybe don't jump to biases so fast, people within all age groups have different opinions about the same topics.
HN is very opinionated on surveillance, as the comments on this story reinforce
Yes, I am. That is in fact what I want.
> FISA protects Americans
No, it does not. At this time, the greatest threat to me (and other Americans) is in fact the glowies who want to use this sort of law to violate our civil liberties.
FISA is Congress exercising the only authority it has here, which is oversight & regulation. You could argue FISA should be stricter, but it can’t extend the Constitutional reach of the Fourth Amendment, nor can it contract it the way many in this thread believe it’s somehow doing.
Also, free nations should have higher standards than "Not a citizen? Too bad, anything goes."
Congress can't pass a law violating the Fourth Amendment. They can certainly pass a law constraining the executive from doing something that is otherwise constitutional, if the courts are reading the Fourth Amendment too narrowly.
They could also straightforwardly require the FISA court to publish its opinions, or have the same cases heard in ordinary federal courts with public accountability for the decisions. There is nothing in the constitution requiring secret courts.
But we most certainly WILL abuse individual civil rights my abusing that intel. THAT has been confirmed in history again and again.
Could you explain what you mean by this? On a tangential note, have you considered talking/explaining this with politicians/academics studying this field? Or is it more of something that's already known to those familiar with the field?
So even as damning and revealing as the Zimmerman telegram was, ultimately it was Germany's bold resumption of the torpedoing of US oceangoing traffic that catalyzed US public opinion into ending 3 years of American neutrality and joining the fight in WWI. Thus even when intel is most damning, the role of intel will always be subservient to publicly motivating events like lost lives, as in the much ballyhooed sinking of the Lusitania 2 years before (1915).
Wikipedia has a couple of outstanding articles on the topic:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimmermann_Telegram
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_entry_into_World_Wa...
> In 1800, the British Levant Company purchases nearly half of all of the opium coming out of Smyrna, Turkey strictly for importation to Europe and the United States.
0: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/heroin/etc/hi...
We were fine before, and arguably it would've done little to change the events that caused the reaction that allowed it to be established in the first place.
https://bja.ojp.gov/program/it/privacy-civil-liberties/autho...
I take issue with this bit: FISA also established the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), a special U.S. Federal court that holds nonpublic sessions to consider issuing search warrants under FISA. Proceedings before the FISC are ex parte, meaning the government is the only party present.
When combined by foreign agents including US citizens, it’s troubling.
These laws work a very specific way and have very specific controls in place to prevent shit like you describe from happening which you could go and read up on if you wanted to but it’s much easier to fear monger amongst one another because it plays to your ego that somebody who is important enough to be under surveillance by an intelligence agency.
And of course this applies not only to the NSA spooks, but all the way up. You shouldn't be any more comfortable letting 'the government' spy on you, than you would be letting me spy on you. If you want another example along the same lines, spooks spying on their love interests is so common that there's a slang term for it - LOVEINT [2]. Basically, don't grant people power over other people unless it's really just completely and absolutely necessary, because it will be abused. So the benefit needs to substantially outweigh the inevitable abuses. And in this case, that obviously doesn't hold.
[1] - https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/21/us/politics/edward-snowde...
[2] - https://slate.com/technology/2013/09/loveint-how-nsa-spies-s...
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/13/world/middleeast/book-rev...
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/dec/20/gchq-targete...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/08/24...
https://apnews.com/article/b25197d5b11740b2b29681bbc521a45f
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/05/fbi-misused-fore...
One does not have to be “important enough” if they are conducting mass surveillance and storing it in a database indefinitely.
For what is worth, I'm quite left leaning and fully agree with the parent poster. Information is power, no matter which party or in which country.
Congress can regulate the process that must be followed, the documentation that must be made, even require judicial review at the program level to ensure it doesn’t also record traffic that is Constitutionally protected. That’s what FISA is.
But it can’t ban that tapping, nor can it require the executive to get a warrant for a particular otherwise Constitutional intercept from an Article 3 court.
Which part of this do you think is incorrect?
But let's ignore that for a moment and move on to the next point. Your example is still hoovering up communications from citizens who are supposed to be protected by due process of law. En masse. How does this not run afoul of the law?
The problem is compounded by the fact that the internet blurs geographical borders. Wholly domestic communications can and does end up crossing borders. Also, I'd bet a large part of our communications aren't even between people. The majority of the traffic likely are sent to or from computer programs. They happen without most people even realizing it, but contains highly personal information. The simple telegraph analogy doesn't translate well to the internet.
What's more, there's currently no meaningful system in place to prevent abuse. And no, a rubber stamp court authorizing dragnet surveillance isn't it.
The poster was roundly criticized for being correct.
https://www.npr.org/2013/06/21/193578367/calling-it-metadata...
That's not correct at all. It would only fall under federal overview if it's commercial (Article 1 section 8 clause 3 of the constitution gives congress the right to regulate commerce with foreign nations).
The Feds don't just get to do anything they want by default. All powers that aren't specifically given to the feds are defaulted to either the states or the people.
There is some judicial oversight in the FISA court of course. What's the argument for why congress can legislate that, but not a more typical warrant?
The FISA court exists to ensure that the executive is not operating outside his Constitutional authority, not as a gatekeeper for use of that authority at all in any instance.
I think it would be a lot harder to do that with speech though. Maybe you could argue that the telegraph line itself impacts international copper markets or something, but there are non-tangible based communication methods.
What I keep trying to explain is that this FISA vote can’t address your concerns one way or the other. If you disagree, I wish you’d explain how.
Whether the FISA vote can fix all the problems isn't the point. The problem is that current surveillance practices looks illegal to begin with.
This is not true. The constitution explicitly reserves the power to declare war or enact treaties to Congress. Neither the military nor federal law enforcement can spend a single dime, or even exist, without Congressional approval. If the budget allocates no money to mass surveillance, no money is available to conduct mass surveillance.
What they can’t do is allow them to spend money on foreign surveillance, but only if an Article 3 court gives them a warrant.
Do you have any case law to cite for this, or it's just your favored argument that you'd hope a court would agree with? You are talking about it like it's settled law. Cites?
Also, note that the cases you are talking about to which the law applies have someone in the USA involved in the wiretapped conversation as well. It wouldn't shock me if the courts -- although probably not the current supreme court, but you never know -- simply said it required a warrant constitutionally at some point in the future. It's certainly not obvious that you can wiretap an American without a warrant as long as they are talking to someone overseas.
Do you disagree?
Or funding the Department of Justice, but with the proviso that any nominee for Attorney General must be over age 60.
The power of the purse is not unlimited.
You're proposing an alternative where the executive gets to decide how money is spent. As if mass surveillance, which is a waste of money, has to be funded in order to fund ordinary investigations.
The executive is the weakest branch. It has almost no powers of its own, and shouldn't. It's checks and balances. For something to happen, the executive has to want to do it and Congress has to fund it. Not one or the other; both.
Isn't this about the opposite issue, whether Congress can delegate control over funding to the executive? They were trying to get the executive to do the job of Congress and control the CFPB's funding.