How You Know USA Freedom Act Is A Bad Bill: Half Of Its Own Co-Sponsors Voted Against It

from the broken-politics dept

Fri, May 23rd 2014 3:41am — Mike Masnick

We already wrote about how the fake USA Freedom Act passed the House of Representatives, with many of the "no" votes coming from the Representatives who are most vocal about wanting to reform the NSA. As we noted, this shows just how much the bill changed from reforming the NSA to locking in the status quo. But here's an even bigger indication of what a joke the bill became 76 of the 152 co-sponsors of the bill voted against it. In other words, half of the people whose names are on the bill as co-sponsoring it, felt the bill was so unlike the one they sponsored that they voted against it entirely. For all the talk from supporters of this bill about how it showed how Congress can "come together" and agree to "reform the NSA," the reality is quite the opposite. It shows how a few powerful folks in the government can undermine real attempts at reform that had tremendous and widespread support.

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Filed Under: co-sponsors, nsa, privacy, surveillance, usa freedom act, votes

22 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 23 May 2014 @ 3:54am

Don't Reform PATRIOT/FAA - REPEAL IT!
If we are lucky, this 'ultra-shocking' revelation that Greenwald is getting ready to publish in the next few weeks might just be enough to push reform supporters into 'repeal' territory, and push the NSA loyalists into supporting real reform.

I'm guessing the subject is going to be along one of these lines:
-Confirmation that the NSA spies on Congress, particularly on its critics. The major dirt will be that it's established 'profiles' and provides intel to 'sway' (read: blackmail) critics into supporting mass surveillance
-NSA is spying on groups critical of surveillance, including but not limited to EFF, ACLU, CDT and so on
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Anonymous Coward, 23 May 2014 @ 4:03am

All of my Techdirt RSS links are directing to https://www.techdirt.comarticles at the moment, which doesn't actually exist. This is as much effort as I can be bothered to put into informing you about the problem.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 May 2014 @ 4:43am

not only that, it shows how gutless the Representatives are! nothing more important than getting the 'campaign funding, is there! has any single law that made things more secure for the public, made things better for the public, without allowing the government and it's 'security forces' access to everything of the public, ever been brought in?
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Anonymous Coward, 23 May 2014 @ 5:41am

When the NSA is just flat out spying on everything, I am sure they realize that not only does the NSA know about the skeletons in their closets, the NSA is already in the skeleton closet.

It is getting uncomfortably too close to using the 2nd amendment vote of no confidence in government and for everyone to walk over to capital hill and declare that everyone in office needs to open their positions up to election. With the general rule being, no one currently in office gets to stay in office.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 May 2014 @ 6:02am

Response to: Anonymous Coward on May 23rd, 2014 @ 5:41am
Only problem is, most likely, the feds 2nd amendment vote of Fuck You is more powerful with a much bigger magazine.
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silverscarcat (profile), 23 May 2014 @ 6:33am

Re: Response to: Anonymous Coward on May 23rd, 2014 @ 5:41am
Why do you think the media focuses so much on the 2nd Amendment and how it has to be protected?

Because all the other amendments are being ran over and the 2nd Amendment isn't going to do jack squat.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 May 2014 @ 6:34am

Re:
Yup.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 May 2014 @ 7:03am

Re: Don't Reform PATRIOT/FAA - REPEAL IT!
One does not simply.... repeal bad law
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Anonymous Coward, 23 May 2014 @ 7:04am

Re: Re: Response to: Anonymous Coward on May 23rd, 2014 @ 5:41am
Indeed. It's funny how the 2nd Amendment defenders use the argument about government taking over, but don't do squat to protect the 1st or 4th Amendment. If you're so worried about government overreach, then you should be fighting it long before you need to use the 2nd amendment...
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Anonymous Coward, 23 May 2014 @ 7:13am

Yet the media is dumb enough to pretend the bill is good
On the way in to work today the radio announced that a bill to 'reform the NSA and prevent their abuses' passed overwhelmingly.

At least I can say it was a music station and not a news station, but still, downright pathetic.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 May 2014 @ 7:28am

American Citizens are being drm'd out of our rights.
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Aaron (profile), 23 May 2014 @ 7:38am

Re: Re: Don't Reform PATRIOT/FAA - REPEAL IT!
One law to fuck us all over.
One law to find another way to fuck you over.
One law to bring all ways to fuck you over together and in Congress, fuck you over.

Meanwhile in New Jersey, Chris Christie desperately trying to find his penis "Precious".
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Aaron (profile), 23 May 2014 @ 7:43am

Re:
Not gutless. It's just that they're body is so pumped with the Greed hormone, that their balls shrink.
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Lurker Keith, 23 May 2014 @ 8:01am

Re: Yet the media is dumb enough to pretend the bill is good
Same here. Unfortunately, I saw it on one of the Major TV Stations (either CBS or NBC, can't remember which), though.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 May 2014 @ 8:34am

Re: Don't Reform **THE STATE** - REPEAL IT!
I prefer the big picture/principled view.

The initiation of force is immoral (self-defense is valid).

The State by definition is a monopoly on the use of force within a geographic area.

Just because someone wears a fancy badge or hat, or has a fancy title (i.e., "President", Senator...etc), does not give them any more fundamental rights than anyone else.

Two princples to follow and applied to human interaction universally:

1. Respect for inherent self-ownership derived property rights.

2 The initiation of force (or threat thereof)is immoral, while self-defense is valid.

Apply the above principles to State actions such as "taxation", "economic stimulus", "war"....and you can see past the euphemisms to the truth - theft, counterfeiting, murder.

I prefer consensual relationships and voluntary exchange.
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Michael, 23 May 2014 @ 8:47am

I don't think you can tell if a bill is good or bad based on how US representatives vote on it - that does not seem to impact their vote very much.
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John Fenderson (profile), 23 May 2014 @ 1:11pm

Re:
True enough. But you can tell something when half of the original co-sponsors vote against it. Namely that it's not really the bill that they co-sponsored.
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Aaron (profile), 23 May 2014 @ 2:25pm

Re: Re: Re: Response to: Anonymous Coward on May 23rd, 2014 @ 5:41am
Well...putting a hole in some technically is a form of fighting.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 May 2014 @ 10:23pm

Re: Re:
Yeah, it's one or the other, where gutless includes blackmail.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 May 2014 @ 10:43pm

Re: Re: Response to: Anonymous Coward on May 23rd, 2014 @ 5:41am
More accurately, that is why they demonize semi-automatic rifles (they call them assault rifles, though that adjective is inaccurate until and unless they are used that way, and even then it is the act which deserves that description, not the inanimate object involved), because they pose a significantly greater threat than handguns in such a situation.

Beyond that, what the future holds, remains to be seen.
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OrganizedThoughtCrime (profile), 23 May 2014 @ 10:46pm

How you know USA Freedom Act is a bad bill:
It's called USA Freedom Act. They only use the word freedom in the context of destroying it.
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GEMont (profile), 26 May 2014 @ 3:33pm

Re: Don't Reform PATRIOT/FAA - REPEAL IT!
Ummmm.... I thought all of that was obvious.

Half the operations deal with ways and means of attacking those that the NSA and the Fed do not like.

I would assume they do not like any of those organizations for very obvious reasons and would have spent quite a lot of their energy (read tax payer money) attempting to both spy on and infiltrate all such organizations for years.

I'm beginning to think that this is the NSA's true mandate.

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