Senator Saxby Chambliss Insists That NSA Reform Would Help ISIS... Despite Having Nothing To Do With ISIS Surveillance

from the pure-unadulterated-fud dept

Tue, Sep 23rd 2014 8:04am — Mike Masnick

The latest version of the USA Freedom Act is still on the boards, representing a big improvement in somewhat limiting NSA bulk surveillance on Americans. It's not great, but it's a step in the right direction, which would be more than has happened in decades. That said, never underestimate the ability of people spewing FUD. Senator Saxby Chambliss, one of the biggest kneejerk defenders of the surveillance state, has apparently decided that this minor curtailing of bulk surveillance efforts will help ISIS and therefore we shouldn't do it.

“If you want to take away the ability to monitor ISIS, then you eliminate the tools that are eliminated in the Leahy bill,” Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a weekend Hill report. “I can’t imagine anybody wanting to do that.”

This is the logic of fear, because it has no basis in reality. Most of the USA Freedom Act is about whether or not the NSA can do bulk collection of records in the US on US persons. It has no impact on Executive Order 12333 where most ISIS surveillance is almost certainly taking place. In short, there's nothing in the USA Freedom Act that has any real impact on ISIS surveillance.

Basically, you just have surveillance state defenders using the most convenient bogeyman, in this case ISIS, to seek more power for the surveillance state, logic and reality be damned. The whole thing is just a cynical ploy to defend the surveillance state at all costs. But, under that idiotic logic, we might as well do away with the 4th Amendment altogether. Hell, why not just mandate that every human being in the US walk around with a camera and microphone recording everything they say and do -- all automatically shipped off to NSA headquarters at Ft. Meade for analysis? That might help stop ISIS. Just like collecting all phone records might. But in all reality it won't. At all. So it's a cowardly, shameful FUD suggestion from a cynical Chambliss. He's not looking out for the American people or their rights. He's looking out for the surveillance state.

Thankfully, Senator Patrick Leahy (the sponsor of the USA Freedom Act) quickly hit back, though not quite as strongly as he could have:

Leahy himself dismissed such claims.

“We’re always going to face threats,” Leahy said in the report. “The biggest one we can face is the threat to our own liberties and our own privacy.”

That's a message that doesn't seem particularly popular among surveillance state defenders.

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Filed Under: eo 12333, executive order 12333, isis, nsa, patrick leahy, saxby chambliss, surveillance, usa freedom act

37 Comments

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BentFranklin (profile), 23 Sep 2014 @ 7:11am

"Hell, why not just mandate that every human being in the US walk around with a camera and microphone recording everything they say and do -- all automatically shipped off to NSA headquarters at Ft. Meade for analysis?"

Once it becomes technologically easy to do that, it will suddenly become necessary.
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- Anonymous Coward, 23 Sep 2014 @ 7:16pm
  
  Re:
  Like school children being required to wear RFID chips so that they can be kept track of at all times. This way when a student decides to skip school they can be tracked down and arrested.
  
  http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/kids-tagged-rfid-chips-creepy-new-technology-school s-use-track-everything-kids-do
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Sep 2014 @ 8:14am

'“The biggest one we can face is the threat to our own liberties and our own privacy” BY OUR OWN GOVERNMENT!!
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Sep 2014 @ 8:20am

Why do these idiots continue to lie bold faced when , so many people can debunk it in seconds,
I'm talking to you Saxby Sham-bliss.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Sep 2014 @ 8:23am

ISIS is an incredibly convenient distraction from NSA overreach and all the other problems we have at home.

Suddenly most of the people screeching about 'fiscal responsibility' loose their shit and decide to fund these 'rebels,' curremt and future costs be damned. That goes double for the "antiwar" caucus.

Does Congress not realize how tone deaf this is?! Our infrastructure is crumbling as we speak while we send money to burn overseas!
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Sep 2014 @ 8:23am

well obviously if we tried to reform the people helping terrorists by funding and spying on their enemies that would make it easier for them to spend that extra money and manpower on funding terrorism since they would not be using it to spy on americans.

The only state approved terrorism is that which the state does.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Sep 2014 @ 8:24am

To Noel Willmett

18 May 1944
10a Mortimer Crescent NW 6

Dear Mr Willmett,

Many thanks for your letter. You ask whether totalitarianism, leader-worship etc. are really on the up-grade and instance the fact that they are not apparently growing in this country and the USA.

I must say I believe, or fear, that taking the world as a whole these things are on the increase. Hitler, no doubt, will soon disappear, but only at the expense of strengthening (a) Stalin, (b) the Anglo-American millionaires and (c) all sorts of petty fuhrers° of the type of de Gaulle. All the national movements everywhere, even those that originate in resistance to German domination, seem to take non-democratic forms, to group themselves round some superhuman fuhrer (Hitler, Stalin, Salazar, Franco, Gandhi, De Valera are all varying examples) and to adopt the theory that the end justifies the means. Everywhere the world movement seems to be in the direction of centralised economies which can be made to ‘work’ in an economic sense but which are not democratically organised and which tend to establish a caste system. With this go the horrors of emotional nationalism and a tendency to disbelieve in the existence of objective truth because all the facts have to fit in with the words and prophecies of some infallible fuhrer. Already history has in a sense ceased to exist, ie. there is no such thing as a history of our own times which could be universally accepted, and the exact sciences are endangered as soon as military necessity ceases to keep people up to the mark. Hitler can say that the Jews started the war, and if he survives that will become official history. He can’t say that two and two are five, because for the purposes of, say, ballistics they have to make four. But if the sort of world that I am afraid of arrives, a world of two or three great superstates which are unable to conquer one another, two and two could become five if the fuhrer wished it. That, so far as I can see, is the direction in which we are actually moving, though, of course, the process is reversible.

Two and two could become five if the fuhrer wished it.
As to the comparative immunity of Britain and the USA. Whatever the pacifists etc. may say, we have not gone totalitarian yet and this is a very hopeful symptom. I believe very deeply, as I explained in my book The Lion and the Unicorn, in the English people and in their capacity to centralise their economy without destroying freedom in doing so. But one must remember that Britain and the USA haven’t been really tried, they haven’t known defeat or severe suffering, and there are some bad symptoms to balance the good ones. To begin with there is the general indifference to the decay of democracy. Do you realise, for instance, that no one in England under 26 now has a vote and that so far as one can see the great mass of people of that age don’t give a damn for this? Secondly there is the fact that the intellectuals are more totalitarian in outlook than the common people. On the whole the English intelligentsia have opposed Hitler, but only at the price of accepting Stalin. Most of them are perfectly ready for dictatorial methods, secret police, systematic falsification of history etc. so long as they feel that it is on ‘our’ side. Indeed the statement that we haven’t a Fascist movement in England largely means that the young, at this moment, look for their fuhrer elsewhere. One can’t be sure that that won’t change, nor can one be sure that the common people won’t think ten years hence as the intellectuals do now. I hope they won’t, I even trust they won’t, but if so it will be at the cost of a struggle. If one simply proclaims that all is for the best and doesn’t point to the sinister symptoms, one is merely helping to bring totalitarianism nearer.

You also ask, if I think the world tendency is towards Fascism, why do I support the war. It is a choice of evils—I fancy nearly every war is that. I know enough of British imperialism not to like it, but I would support it against Nazism or Japanese imperialism, as the lesser evil. Similarly I would support the USSR against Germany because I think the USSR cannot altogether escape its past and retains enough of the original ideas of the Revolution to make it a more hopeful phenomenon than Nazi Germany. I think, and have thought ever since the war began, in 1936 or thereabouts, that our cause is the better, but we have to keep on making it the better, which involves constant criticism.

Yours sincerely,
Geo. Orwell
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- Anonymous Coward, 23 Sep 2014 @ 11:33am
  
  Re:
  I note that what we have not done in response to ISIS is to actually take on Islam as a philosophy - in the way that we took on communism.
  
  In fact our efforts against ISIS take the form of supporting one faction within Islam against another in a military way when we should be opposing the whole thing ideologically.
  
  Our best weapon against the extremists is to speak the truth about the whole religion whilst avoiding any form of violence. This is the exact opposite of what we are actually doing.
  
  In reality the more Islam there is the more extremists there will be - this is an inevitable consequence of the core nature of the religion - however good individual muslims may be.
  
  Read Islam 101 if you don't believe me.
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  - John Fenderson (profile), 23 Sep 2014 @ 11:48am
    
    Re: Re:
    "Read Islam 101 if you don't believe me."
    
    I read it. I still don't believe you.
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    - Anonymous Coward, 23 Sep 2014 @ 2:16pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      What exactly do you not believe?
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      - John Fenderson (profile), 23 Sep 2014 @ 2:21pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        I don't believe that Islam is inherently any more or less evil or prone to violence than the other Abrahamic religions (Christianity or Judaism). Every argument made that Islam is some kind of special evil can be applied with equal force to those other two.
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        Anonymous Coward, 23 Sep 2014 @ 3:13pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Every argument made that Islam is some kind of special evil can be applied with equal force to those other two.
        
        That is simply not true.
        
        Look at the lives of the founders.
        How many people did Jesus kill or authorise the killing of?
        
        How many people did Mohammed kill or authorise the killing of?
        
        Christianity was spread only by peaceful persusasion for the first 300 years. Islam was spread by military force from (what they themselves call) year one.
        
        Look at the situation today.
        
        Go to any Islamic country and try making polite but public criticism of Islam.
        
        See what happens to you.
        
        Do the same in any major centre of Christianity (eg the Vatican ) See what happens to you there.
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        Zonker, 23 Sep 2014 @ 4:22pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Fulcher of Chartres' account of Pope Urban II's speech at Council of Clermont 1095:
        I, or rather the Lord, beseech you as Christ's heralds to publish this everywhere and to perse all people of whatever rank, foot-soldiers and knights, poor and rich, to carry aid promptly to those Christians and to destroy that vile race from the lands of our friends. I say this to those who are present, it is meant also for those who are absent. Moreover, Christ commands it.
        So according to the Catholics, Jesus authorized the killing of hundreds of thousands during the First Crusade. Many more pagans were slaughtered in his name throughout Europe. The peaceful Christians you speak of in the first three centuries were the Gnostic Christians, all but completely wiped out by the "Roman" Catholic Church that first formed around the second century. By the fourth century, the Romans had banned Gnostic Christian books and Gnosticism carried a death penalty.
        
        In Judaism, Moses himself killed an Egyptian slavemaster then authorized the killing of many more Egyptians with the Ten Plagues.
        
        So yes, all three branches of the Abrahamic religions have comparable roots in violence when you look at them closely.
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        Anonymous Coward, 24 Sep 2014 @ 3:08am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Fulcher of Chartres' account of Pope Urban II's speech at Council of Clermont 1095:
        
        You may not have noticed - but Pope Urban was not Christ.
        
        His words are not in the new testament. For him to claim that "Christ commands it" does not mean that Christ actually did command it.
        
        Christ in fact said "You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor[a] and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you,"
        Nothing that Pope Urban said can change that.
        
        Mohammed - on the other hand - himself said
        
        " Then when the Sacred Months (the 1st, 7th, 11th, and 12th months of the Islamic calendar) have passed, then kill the Mushrikun {unbelievers} wherever you find them, and capture them and besiege them, and prepare for them each and every ambush."
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        Anonymous Coward, 24 Sep 2014 @ 3:22am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Actually even your attribution of those words to Pope Urban is questionable - here is the relevant Wikipedia excerpt.
        
        "There exists no exact transcription of the speech that Urban delivered at the Council of Clermont on 27 November 1095. The five extant versions of the speech were written down quite a bit later, and they differ widely from one another. All versions of the speech except that by Fulcher of Chartres were probably influenced by the chronicle account of the First Crusade called the Gesta Francorum (dated c. 1102), which includes a version of it. Fulcher of Chartres was present at the Council, but his version of the speech was written c. 1100–1106; Robert the Monk may have been present, but his version dates from about 1106. The two remaining versions were written even later by authors who certainly did not witness the speech. The five versions of Urban's speech reflect much more clearly what later authors thought Urban II should have said to launch the First Crusade than what Urban II himself actually did say."
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        John Fenderson (profile), 24 Sep 2014 @ 11:48am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        "How many people did Jesus kill or authorise the killing of?
        
        How many people did Mohammed kill or authorise the killing of?"
        
        Both of those points don't address the issue at all. What addresses the issue is the actions of the people who adhere to the belief system -- and all of the Abrahamic religions have an enormous amount of blood on their hands.
        
        "Go to any Islamic country and try making polite but public criticism of Islam.
        
        See what happens to you.
        
        Do the same in any major centre of Christianity (eg the Vatican ) See what happens to you there."
        
        Your comparison here makes little sense. There actually are lots of Islamic countries where you can publicly criticize Islam without getting attacked. There certainly are countries where doing so will get you killed. This has more to do with the political scene than the tenets of the religion.
        
        Also, there are absolutely places (even within the US) where publicly criticizing Christianity will get you attacked and killed.
        
        Extremism and absolutism are the problem, and there are dangerous extremists in any belief system you can think of. It's a severe mistake to judge a belief system by the extremists.
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        Anonymous Coward, 24 Sep 2014 @ 3:03pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Both of those points don't address the issue at all. What addresses the issue is the actions of the people who adhere to the belief system -- and all of the Abrahamic religions have an enormous amount of blood on their hands.
        
        As does Atheism in the person of Joseph Stalin.
        
        Incidentally to call Islam an Abrahamic religion is incorrect.
        
        In fact Mohammed imported some Jewish ornamentation in order to curry favour with a Jewish tribe whose support he needed but Islam has no real connection to either Judaism or Christianity.
        
        Also, there are absolutely places (even within the US) where publicly criticizing Christianity will get you attacked and killed.
        
        Where exactly?
        
        Extremism and absolutism are the problem, and there are dangerous extremists in any belief system you can think of. It's a severe mistake to judge a belief system by the extremists.
        
        Wrong! It absolutely matters what you are extreme about.
        
        Being exteme about loving your enemies and turning the other cheek is not a problem.
        
        Being extreme about converting the world to your viewpoint at the point of a sword is a problem.
        
        The point is that Mohammed qualifies as a dangerous extremist himself. Also Islam is by its nature absolutist. It knows no way of existing in a society that it does not dominate. There is no such thing as a non-extreme Muslim - apart perhaps from the Ahmadiyya (and mainstrem Muslims don't regard them as Muslims).
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        Anonymous Coward, 24 Sep 2014 @ 3:14pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Both of those points don't address the issue at all. What addresses the issue is the actions of the people who adhere to the belief system
        
        I find that rather an odd view. When I want to judge a piece of mathematics, science, art, philosophy or literature I look primarily at the work itself, not at the fans.
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  - Zonker, 23 Sep 2014 @ 3:18pm
    
    Re: Re:
    I note that what we have not done in response to ISIS is to actually take on Islam as a philosophy - in the way that we took on communism.
    Because Islam is not a philosophy, it is a religion. Would you take on Christianity the same way you would take on capitalism - as a philosophy?
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    - Anonymous Coward, 24 Sep 2014 @ 3:13am
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      Would you take on Christianity the same way you would take on capitalism - as a philosophy?
      
      Well as a Christian I wouldn't myself.
      
      BUT - I would be perfectly happy for any atheist or agnostic or member of another religion wanted to take on Christianity (as a philosphy) by intellectual argument - as you are doing and I am responding.
      Christians should be well usd to this - we've had nearly 2000 years of practice.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Sep 2014 @ 8:49am

Nine Eleven/Patriot Act 2.0 You must give up your rights and freedoms...

... Because Terrorists!
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Sep 2014 @ 8:59am

Is the current Leahy bill an improvement?
Emptywheel and others are indicating that they think that the latest revisions are a bad move. They say that it grants immunity to providers, extends portions of the Patriot act, exempts the FBI from reporting requirements and legalizes non-phone-record bulk collection.

I haven't read through the bill myself, so I'm not sure. I understand it's better than the house version of the bill. But is it a step forward or backward?
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- John Fenderson (profile), 23 Sep 2014 @ 9:04am
  
  Re: Is the current Leahy bill an improvement?
  In my opinion, it's better than the house bill, but it still sucks. The danger I see in it is that if it passes, everyone will claim the problem is fixed and drop the issue, when it isn't fixed at all. In many ways, as you point out, it's worse.
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- Anonymous Coward, 23 Sep 2014 @ 9:09am
  
  Re: Is the current Leahy bill an improvement?
  Rush Holt has a bill that would just flat out repeal these laws. Snowball's chance in hell of it passing right now but it's better than >90% of these "reform" bills.
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- Mike Masnick (profile), 23 Sep 2014 @ 10:16am
  
  Re: Is the current Leahy bill an improvement?
  Emptywheel and others are indicating that they think that the latest revisions are a bad move. They say that it grants immunity to providers, extends portions of the Patriot act, exempts the FBI from reporting requirements and legalizes non-phone-record bulk collection.
  
  Yeah. There's some disagreement within privacy/civil liberties circles about the interpretations of the bill, with Marcy insisting it's worse. While Marcy's truly amazing in digging up possible questionable interpretations, having spoken about it with a number of other folks, I tend towards the side of agreeing that this bill *is* a step in the right direction, but a small one. It is, however, realistically about as much as can be obtained at this time.
  
  I do think it can open the door to further reforms though.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Sep 2014 @ 9:13am

when someone is desperate to back something that is happening, that just about everyone with an iota of sense is against, then all stops come out and the most ridiculous of reasoning is employed. if he were to be one of those who was under the NSA microscope, for no reason other than he was wanted to be watched, maybe he would change his mind! as it is, just do your best to ignore him until the 'idiot in him' has been removed and he shows a modicum of of brains!
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Joel Coehoorn, 23 Sep 2014 @ 9:21am

New Legislation Won't Help
> "The latest version of the USA Freedom Act is still on the boards, representing a big improvement in somewhat limiting NSA bulk surveillance on Americans."

Sadly, this won't help at all.

We've already seen how far certain parts of the government are willing to twist the letter of the law to completely eliminate the spirit. This portion of the government has decided that these surveillance programs are necessary. The only way to stop this is through a complete change in leadership at the appropriate agencies, departments, and courts.
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- Anonymous Coward, 23 Sep 2014 @ 7:19pm
  
  Re: New Legislation Won't Help
  What they cannot twist they just plain ignore as they know, no one is going to call them out on it otherwise The criminal American government would have been arrested and thrown in jail years ago.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Sep 2014 @ 9:21am

Somebody ask Saxby Chambliss why letting the NSA spy on him helps defeat middle eastern terrorists, or does he think that being a congress critter protects him from being spied on.
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- Andrew Norton (profile), 23 Sep 2014 @ 9:27am
  
  Re:
  He doesn't care. He's not running for re-election, so right now, he's trying to say whatever he can to get the best job offers possible come January.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Sep 2014 @ 10:08am

Funny how these assholes will point to any excuse to keep the spying machine running.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Sep 2014 @ 10:15am

Sure the law and Constitution says we can't spy on citizens, but it doesn't say specifically that we can't spy on John Jackson and Bill Bowler and Ann Anderson and Catherine Cooper and...
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Trevor, 23 Sep 2014 @ 11:40am

Open Letter
Mr. Saxby (His first name is so much fun to say, so I'll use than instead of his last):

In April 2013, the NSA was conducting bulk metadata surveillance on all Americans, as well as intercepting who-knows-how-many other records from around the world.

On April 15, 2013, the Boston Marathon was bombed by two people who immigrated to the United States in 2002. Russia warned the United States about this family based on the two brothers' mother, who was an activist back home. Similarly, the mother and one of the brothers was placed on a terrorist watch list 18 months before the bombing, which probably prompts more surveillance than "regular" bulk collections.

The NSA wasn't able to stop this bombing, even though one of the actors was on a watch list and the US had been warned about the family on two occasions by Russia.

Tell me again: How is increasing/continuing NSA surveillance keeping us safer?
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Sep 2014 @ 12:34pm

Sorry
As a Georgian, please accept my apology for Senator Chambliss. I promise that lots of us really did vote against him.
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Anonymous, 23 Sep 2014 @ 8:50pm

Saxby Chambliss
Whenever I hear Saxby Chambliss talk FUD, I think of that other Fudd, Elmer, saying, "Be vewwy quiet. I'm hunting wabbits" in a southern accent.
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Jeffrey Nonken (profile), 24 Sep 2014 @ 12:01pm

"...why not just mandate that every human being in the US walk around with a camera and microphone recording everything they say and do...?"

... With automatic shutoff any time they are within 30 feet, hearing, or line-of-sight of any police officer or federal agent. Of course.
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John85851 (profile), 24 Sep 2014 @ 3:04pm

Again?
It seems like lawmakers use the terrorist group du jour when speaking out against reforms.
So, in the interest of helping our lawmakers do a better job, here's a template that they can use:
“If you want to take away the ability to monitor [the IRA, the PLO, Libya, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, China, the Taliban, al-Queda, ISIS, ISIL, insert your group name here], then you eliminate the tools that are eliminated in the Leahy bill,” Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a weekend Hill report.
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