Obama Still Asking FISA Court To Renew Bulk Phone Collection
from the because dept
After President Obama announced his willingness to really end the bulk collection of phone records under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, Senator Patrick Leahy pointed out that the easiest way to do that was to simply not ask the FISA Court to renew that authority this Friday when it expired. The NY Times editorial board picked up that ball and ran with it, publishing an editorial saying that if the President wants us to believe he's serious about ending bulk phone surveillance he should end the program on Friday.No such luck.
While plenty of people are still waiting for the actual "legislative package" the administration claims it's putting together to accomplish its plan to end bulk phone record collection (but not other bulk collections), the White House has now released a "fact sheet" about its plans that concludes at the bottom by saying that the President has still asked the DOJ to renew the authority:
Legislation will be needed to implement the President’s proposal. The Administration has been in consultation with congressional leadership and members of the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees on this important issue throughout the last year, and we look forward to continuing to work with Congress to pass a bill that achieves the goals the President has put forward. Given that this legislation will not be in place by March 28 and given the importance of maintaining the capabilities in question, the President has directed DOJ to seek from the FISC a 90-day reauthorization of the existing program, which includes the substantial modifications in effect since February.There are still numerous questions raised by the President's proposal, and it really seems entirely focused on just one problematic aspect of the NSA's surveillance capabilities. Yes, it's the part that has received the most attention, and yes it's the part that also has been shown to have never actually been useful. But this proposal seems a lot more focused on pre-empting much more comprehensive legislation like the USA Freedom Act. Furthermore, the fact that the President still refuses to just kill off the program while waiting for Congress to act suggests this is all for show. Tossing this on Congress is a great way for the President to pretend to do something while knowing nothing will actually happen.
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Filed Under: barack obama, bulk phone records, fisa, fisc, metadata, nsa, section 215, surveillance
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Re:
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This isn't about ending it, it's about changing it to something else unknown. They've not be truthful to date, what makes you think they are suddenly going to start now?
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Color me...
No, no, your going to have to rub harder!
Maybe a second coat...
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Obama = Slimeball no better than Bush.
One of you may still win, but at least I can sleep well knowing I did one less thing to contribute to this countries demise.
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Re: Obama = Slimeball no better than Bush.
Certainly the person you vote for probably won't win, but is that really any different than in districts that are heavily one party or the other? If a district is 80% Republican and hasn't elected a Democratic Congressman for 20 years does that mean you vote republican so as not to 'throw your vote away'? No! You cast your ballot for the person you think most fit to hold the office, no matter party affiliation.
Telling people that not voting Democrat or Republican is equivalent to throwing your vote away is a way to attempt to maintain a two party system (which needs to go, in my opinion)
Throwing your vote away is pulling the straight party ticket! I can't think of one time in my life I have ever voted straight party. I take the time to research all candidates which I will be casting a ballot for (It certainly isn't hard these days). Throwing your vote away is not voting.
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Re: Obama = Slimeball no better than Bush.
Increasingly, the American people are registering to vote as Independent rather than for either party. Those changing their affiliation have reached the majority. All it will take now to end this is for some incident to happen that really turns away the public from either party. People across the nation are already fed up with a do nothing congress and two parties that look to be in a fight over next to nothing. Giving everything to the corporations while taking it from the public as well as the racism and corruption are killing the two party system without much need to anything else. But it will take some sort of trigger to actually change it. This business with the NSA is probably not it but it is pushing people hard to consider who they are supporting.
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Re: Re: Obama = Slimeball no better than Bush.
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Re: Re: Re: Obama = Slimeball no better than Bush.
'Oh you poor little peasants, you actually thought you got to determine who becomes president of the country? No no, you get who we choose, and that's the end of it.'
Oh yeah, things would get very messy at that point.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Obama = Slimeball no better than Bush.
If we talk about the parties and their policies all the time to raise awareness of them, maybe everyone else will sit up and take notice instead of continuing with the defeatist crap they're doing now.
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Re: Obama = Slimeball no better than Bush.
Voting for what you hope might be the lesser of two nearly-identical evils is throwing away your vote.
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Re: Re: Obama = Slimeball no better than Bush.
Unless you don't think the two evils are nearly identical.
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Re: Obama = Slimeball no better than Bush.
Obama chooses to be a pawn. The voters were to blame for Bush. But Obama is to blame for Obama.
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Geez...
You're drunk.
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What's the rush?
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Congress may pass no law...
All current NSA operations are violations of the constitution.
This constitutes treason.
All NSA officials, employees, officers, entities should be arrested, held for conviction, and executed to the fullest extent of wartime law. This includes but is not limited to any member of congress past, present or future who supported this, this also includes all judicial officials who did not stomp this, and includes the Presidents (past, present, future) who did not slam a tactical nuke inside the NSA's offices for even thinking about this.
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Re: Congress may pass no law...
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Re: Re: Congress may pass no law...
Congress tries to get around it by claiming that only corporations are people now.
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Re: Re: Re: Congress may pass no law...
Corporate personhood doesn't enter into it.
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About that...
You mean the program that hasn't done anything to stop or even slow down any potential terrorists, while at the same time trashing the US's reputation worldwide, and violating the people's rights like it was going out of style, that 'program'?
Please, at least be honest enough to tell people they're being handed a shit sandwich whether they want it or not, don't try and pretend it's actually something they'd want or that it's useful to anyone but the ones pushing it.
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'we don't want to stop violating the constitution, until we figure out how to stop violating the constitution without loosing all that violating the constitution gives us- which we cant factually define in any meaningful context with regards to why we purport it's acceptable to violate the constitution'
the sadly predictable result will be them placing another layer between themselves and the treason, rather then reducing or eliminating it, in any way, save for how it's reported in the mainstream news.
Kudo's for transparency though.
"legislative package"
Haa! I C what you did there.
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re: treason.
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Re: re: treason.
("Aid and comfort" also has specific meaning, and it is a lot narrower than being nice or generally helpful to them.)
If what a person does isn't one of those three things, it's not legally treason.
I agree with you about it being unamerican, but being unamerican is also not treasonous (nor should it be -- one of our most precious freedoms is the freedom to dissent or agitate even to the point where people would call it being unamerican).
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given the importance of maintaining the capabilities in question, "
Is it just me? Who put LSD in my coffee again?
So, legislation regarding "a plan to end bulk phone record collection" AND "maintaining the capabilities in question"
Yah, I see it. Let's legislate a plan to stop doing something we have capabilties to keep doing (and then add a law requiring to judges to dismiss all challenges to what we keep doing) then we can all move on.
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