Congressional Oversight? Dianne Feinstein Says She's 'Not A High-Tech Techie' But Knows NSA Can't Abuse Surveillance
from the oh-really? dept
As the NSA and defenders of NSA surveillance are trying to minimize the damage from the latest leak, which revealed the details of the XKeyscore program, they're bending over backwards to insist that this program is both limited and immune from abuse. We've already mentioned that the claims that it can't be abused are laughable since there's already a well-documented history of abuse. However, even more bizarre is the following quote from Senate Intelligence Committee boss, Senator Dianne Feinstein (a staunch defender of the surveillance programs):Feinstein said, “I am not a high-tech techie, but I have been told that is not possible.”Note that among Feinstein's jobs is oversight of this program. Yet, what kind of "oversight" is it when she admits that she's not qualified to understand the technology but "has been told" that such abuses are not possible? That doesn't seem like oversight. That seems like asking the NSA "can this system be abused?" and the NSA saying "oh, no no no, not at all." That's not exactly oversight, now is it?
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Filed Under: dianne feinstein, nsa, nsa surveillance, oversight, surveillance, technology
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"You know, he told me the guy was a prince so I gave him all my belongings. I'm sure I will receive all the gazillion dollars he promised me."
It's amusing and depressing to see how these people ignore how the mindless defense of an illegal and failed scheme makes them look like complete dumb-asses.
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A: None, if you tell them it can't be abused.
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A: What's a computer.
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A: A way to charge someone twice for the same offense.
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Q: How does a Senator screw in a light bulb?
A:
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Have congress vote the bill down.
Sit in the dark.
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Q: How does a Senator screw in a lightbulb?
A: MONEY!!!
Bonus points if you said trickle down economics.
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Then after all the lobbying, fighting, delaying tactics, and closed door trade agreements are done: we pay 16.63 million for a guy with a top secret security clearance to come in and screw in a light bulb.
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Seriously...
Are the people these morons go against THAT bad that people continue to vote for them?
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Re: Seriously...
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Re: Seriously...
Also, the incumbent's job is basically full-time campaigning. That's how they spend most of their time - raising money to get re-elected.
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they are itching for me to leak a 40gb hard drive a mine
hell the proof was right on national tv as bush and Colin Powell rammed off bullshit....
they better quit lying , its already been abused
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Right, just like it's impossible for a contractor to exfiltrate classified training documents with details on the program... :-/
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It's the OTHER definition of oversight.
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Anyone who thinks otherwise is not qualified to work in government.
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I think, really, it's rule 1 of living with other human beings, not just government.
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Question of the day.
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...
but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.
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Have you been beating your wife?
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-Proverbs 14:15
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Sorry, can't be dealing with thys and eths
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"Heck, no Senator. I'm no surgeon. But anyone can do an appendectomy, right? Now, just relax and lie there for a minute while I look for my angle grinder."
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Dianne Feinstein is correct
The definition of 'abuse' is a classified secret, but the American people should be assured that the NSA will operate within and honor that secret definition of 'abuse'.
The secret definition of 'abuse' can be secretly changed without secret notice.
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[MontyPython] "Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, not at all! No, no, no. No. No. Well, yes. A bit. A little bit. Well, quite a bit, actually. In fact, almost totally." [/MontyPython]
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the biggest problem with politics and perhaps US politics in particular is that there is too much by far of this 'good speech' crap, old mates club and everything you can think of except being 'the right person for the job'. consider the amount of 'clout' this woman has and then to see she doesn't know anything about the very thing that has been/is being used to spy on just about the whole world. that is so scary, it's untrue! she may not know much about it, but she knows enough to deny what it can do, knowing full well that she is spouting nothing but lies! she needs to go and quick!!
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So who are you going to replace her with, Wyden? He's a lawyer. Wyden chairs energy and natural resources but has no particular training in those fields. His state is a big producer of lumber and forest products, hence his interest. Before you sputter in indignation, why don't you review the credentials of all of the committee chairs and find ONE chair with specific training. And then consider that the head of the railroads doesn't know how to run a locomotive.
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to get less-unqualified replacements
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Re: to get less-unqualified replacements
if politicians are drafted, then the natural result will be that the lower-level functionaries will become the real power, simply by virtue of the fact that they will stick around while the politicians come and go.
Once lower-level functionaries are the real power, you have a defacto hidden government and less transparency and accountability than we have even now.
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If you think a bit, the only difference between the draft version and the current version is how the people who rotate are selected. They still rotate, and the problem you mention doesn't change.
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I ain't a smart woman...
How do these people get elected?! And even more curious is how such a complete techno-moron gets put on this sort of committee, which by it's very definition requires a member to be somewhat of a "high-tech techie".
How about we start requiring members of certain committees to take tests to demonstrate their ability to actually be useful before being allowed on a committee.
If it's a committee on agriculture, then they should have SOME agricultural experience. If it's a committee that deals with high tech issues, then they should have more knowledge about computers than just knowing where the on switch is.
MORONS.
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Lets be real
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Re: Lets be real
And we're just supposed to swallow that, because the lunatic fringe said so. No rational or technical reason.
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Time to retire Dianne...
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Re: Time to retire Dianne...
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Credits
but I play one on TV.
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No wonder out government is in the mess it's in. It's the rich leading the rich and no one else has a clue.
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Suddenly, a man knocks on the window. The driver rolls down the
window and asks, "What's going on?"
"Terrorists have kidnapped Congress, and are asking for a $10
million dollar ransom. Otherwise, they are going to douse them all
in gasoline and set them on fire. We are going from car to car,
taking up a collection."
"How much is everyone giving, on average?" the driver asks.
The man replies, "About a gallon."
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Just attacking the poor fool in the committee is pretty worthless since it is a systemic problem with no easy solution.
A politician is a person who is either arrogant and stupid or has no specific opinion on most issues. They are elected based on their ability to speak and endear the old media and because of donations. When they are in office the people who donated is lobbying to get their moneys worth.
Last I heard, politicians often do not look at laws because they haven't got the time. Instead, they read every lobby-opinion or has people finding the most important to read through. By doing that, they are assuring they know the arguments for or against a law, which in a mudthrowing-debate is more valuable. After that they look up who donated the most and what opinion they had on this law, they determine their stand on that issue.
That system somewhat works when there are more or less equal and opposite opinions among those lobbying, but it is completely bullocks in terms of copyright and any kind of security spending.
Copyright is made into a clusterf** of companies wanting harder laws and most of them have no upper limit on how extreme, while mostly non-donating groups are making up the opposition. Today tech industry has entered the battle on the small groups side and that is the only reason anything can ever change in that debate among politicians...
Security spending is a problem because of the "better safe than sorry"-mentality in politics. Look at what happened in Benghazi and how Obama was grilled there! That is a sign of the real problem.
Add to that bias, a 100 % lack of real opposing views and open debate on secret service spending and you have every red alert of a democratically estranged group with a lack of real oversight since no politicians dare challenge the better safe than sorry doctrine and an eternal downpour of spending based on lobbying activity.
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Silicon Valley
Yet another reason she needs to go, she does not represent our state.
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If you're a legislator and there is a problem, your solution is to pass a law.
Make it illegal to do something, and that thing can't happen, see? Problem solved.
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Abuse? What abuse?
Has she not "atleast" had the fourth amendment of the U S Constitution read to her??
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Most of the Feinstein articles would fall under that.
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Anti-intellectualism prevails in the senate.
Disappointed.
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Re: Anti-intellectualism prevails in the senate.
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"Bunch of dumb losers"
She won't be getting any more of my votes, mind you, but I have good reasons to not endorse a GOP rival. Especially considering that said candidates would probably be pro-surveillance anyway.
Same as the old boss.
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It's not if it's being abused...
After-all, we're talking about logic here... how the hell can a computer program tell the intent of a user, it only knows _if_ they can access it.
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Compare and contrast.
We don't access it until there's something to be discovered. Once we discover something significant that justifies our accessing it.
Because we magically detect when there's significant information with our magic significant information detector.
Just like our magic terrorist detector which can determine a terrorist without due process.
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Re: Compare and contrast.
That detector?
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Not possible
Thousands of Medicare, tax, social security and transport records are trawlled by government employees for 'less than professional' reasons every year. (eg: checking up on your ex-wife's new partner)
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Dianne Feinstein's overlooking oversight of NSA
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