There's A Reasonable Debate To Be Had About Showing The James Foley Beheading Video, But Claiming Its Illegal To Watch Is Ridiculous

from the name-the-law dept

By now you've probably heard of the barbaric and tragic beheading of journalist James Foley by the extremist group ISIS. There's an ongoing debate happening as many people sought to have the video (and screenshots) removed from the internet. Twitter and YouTube are actively removing such things, and even shutting down some accounts of people who are sharing those links. Mathew Ingram has a fantastic discussion about whether or not it's the right thing for these companies to be removing those images and videos, and our own Tim Geigner has been weighing whether or not to write about the subject.

However, I wanted to do a quick post about this ridiculous claim from the Metropolitan police in London that it's a criminal act merely to view the video. I have no interest in seeing the video, but I think it's crazy that someone deciding they do want to see the video might face criminal charges over it.

The MPS Counter Terrorism Command (SO15) is investigating the contents of the video that was posted online in relation to the alleged murder of James Foley. We would like to remind the public that viewing, downloading or disseminating extremist material within the UK may constitute an offence under Terrorism legislation.

However, when reporters from Buzzfeed asked the UK government to elaborate, no one will say what law would actually be broken:

The Metropolitan police are unable to currently name the law that citizens could be arrested under for watching the video that depicts the beheading of photojournalist James Wright Foley, despite earlier releasing a statement that said any British nationals watching the video could be committing a criminal offence.

They did get a police spokesperson to say that they're not intending to pursue people for merely watching the video, but that "viewing it could be used as evidence as part of a wider investigation." That seems fairly questionable in many ways, even as we're used to UK officials stretching anti-terrorism laws in dangerous ways.

Filed Under: beheading, debate, isis, james foley, legality, metropolitan police, uk

Based On NSA Defender's Arguments Against Public Debate, The 4th Amendment Should Be Classified

from the sources-and-methods! dept

One of the key points that we keep hearing from defenders of the intelligence community concerning the Snowden leaks, is that all these revelations about what the NSA is spying on is providing important info to "our enemies" who can then use that information to evade the watchful eyes of US intelligence. That's silly for a variety of reasons, with a big one pointed out by Conor Friedersdorf at The Atlantic. Based on that same logic, you could argue that the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution should be classified as top secret for revealing the same kind of information. Cue the sarcasm:

Notice how much the Fourth Amendment tells our enemies. "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated," it states, "and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

The Framers are usually considered patriots. Yet they gave traitors and criminals in their midst such powerful knowledge about concealing evidence of skullduggery! Today every terrorist with access to a pocket Constitution is privy to the same text. And thanks to the Supreme Court's practice of publishing its opinions, al-Qaeda need only have an Internet connection to gain a very nuanced, specific understanding of how the Fourth Amendment is applied in individual cases, how it constrains law enforcement, and how to exploit those limits.

He makes the basic point that you can more or less apply this kind of test to all of the claims by NSA defenders. He points to regular Techdirt favorite, Stewart Baker, who is still apoplectic about the idea that we're having a public debate about any of this, because:

"You can't debate our intelligence capabilities and how to control them in the public without disclosing all of the things that you're discussing to the very people you're trying to gather intelligence about," he said. "Your targets are listening to the debates."

But, uh, yeah, that's kind of the point of living in a free and open society. Nearly a decade ago, in a totally different arena, Professor Ed Felten talked about how you could debunk calls for stronger intellectual property protections via the Pizzaright Principle, whereby if the identical argument being made for why we need stronger copyright or patent protections could similarly be made for why someone deserves an exclusive right to sell pizza, then the argument is bogus.

It seems that we could do a similar sort of thing for any discussion that tries to cut off public debate and discussion about what the intelligence community is doing as well. If the same argument could equally apply to why we should not have a public 4th Amendment, it should be default evidence that the argument being pushed is completely bogus. We can call it the "Classified 4th Amendment Test."

Filed Under: 4th amendment, classified, debate, nsa, openness, public discussion, stewart baker

Facebook Needs To Learn It Can't Teach Tolerance By Acting As An Overzealous Censor

from the a-huge-platform-for-speech-undermined-by-its-own-caution dept

Facebook is developing a speech impediment. The recent fracas over beheading videos was marked by severe bouts of waffling from the social media giant. On one hand, it seems to want to ease unfettered expression. On the other hand, it's set itself up as the content police.

These two aspects often collide with disastrous results. Beheadings are a go, but breast cancer groups can't post photos of mastectomies. Recent partnerships with government agencies see Facebook willing to censor by proxy, even as it attempts to roll back its control in other areas. Giving 800+ million users access to a "report" button is well-intended, but the reality is more troubling. Something that's simply unpopular can be clicked into oblivion in nearly no time whatsoever.

Here's how Facebook's efforts to play both sides (free speech/content patrol) works in practice. [Caution: contains mandatory autoplay video because every TV news website in the US apparently believes we want to be informed without consent.]

Fitness advocate and mother of three, Maria Kang, is an avid blogger and Facebook user, but her most recent post didn't sit well with Facebook, and some people are now calling her a bully...

When Kang saw an article online from the Daily Mail showing plus-size women posing in lingerie, she logged onto her Facebook page and started writing.

"The popular and unrelenting support received to those who are borderline obese (not just 30-40lbs overweight) frustrates me as a fitness advocate who intimately understands how poor health negatively effects a family, a community and a nation," Kang said.

"While I think it's important to love and accept your body, I was a little peeved because I think that we're normalizing obesity in our society," Kang said.

One thing that's worth pointing out is that Kang posted this rant on her page. She didn't head to a body acceptance group page or the Daily Mail's post or anywhere that she would be, in effect, intruding. So, while people may have found it offensive, she didn't go out of her way (so to speak) to offend.

This ultimately didn't matter. Outraged readers reacted swiftly enough to get her post taken down and her account yanked in record time. Facebook explained its actions to Kang this way.

Just three hours after her post went viral, Facebook responded by removing the post and shutting down her account, calling the post "hate speech," according to Kang.

The bright line between protected expression and hate speech may occasionally be rather grey and dim, but there's a big difference between what Kang said and what most people would consider to be "hate speech." Something that angers others -- even if it's several others -- is not "hate speech" solely because it provokes a strong reaction.

Shortly after Kang went public with this, Facebook offered a completely different explanation of what happened.

"A user reported content on her page, and it was mistakenly removed by Facebook. When we realized the error we corrected it immediately, and restored full access to Ms Kang. We apologize for the inconvenience."

Facebook restored Kang's account but did not restore the post, saying Kang could repost it if she chose to. At this point, the post is still deleted, along with every comment, Like, etc. that was attached to it. Reposting it fresh would pretty much be pointless. Kang made her point once and was treated to Facebook's baffling, inconsistent "policy" on controversial content.

Many readers agreed with Kang's sentiments. Many others felt it was bullying. There's no real "right" viewpoint here because all Kang did was express her opinion. The correct response would have been to leave it alone and let the best weapon against offensive speech sort it out: more speech. Kang's posting undoubtedly drew at least as much vitriol as she offered up. Speech battles speech better than weak censorious efforts like Facebook's knee jerk response.

The platform has nearly one billion users. To shut down speech because of a single report completely undermines the power inherent in one of the largest social networks in the world. Facebook: you have a billion voices. Let them talk it out. Hastily pulling the trigger at the behest of those offended only makes it harder for the offender to see how their words have affected others. It certainly doesn't teach anyone to be more tolerant. All it does is feed into their mindset by proving them "right" -- that the rest of the world can't handle their "truth."

Filed Under: censorship, debate, free speech, maria kang, takedowns, tolerance
Companies: facebook

James Clapper Admits That The Debate Snowden Created 'Needed To Happen'

from the then-why-didn't-it-happen dept

Director of National Intelligence and confessed liar to Congress, James Clapper, has now admitted that the debate over what the intelligence community has been doing, brought on by Ed Snowden's leaks, "needed to happen."

"I think it's clear that some of the conversations this has generated, some of the debate, actually needed to happen," Clapper told a defense and intelligence contractor trade group. "If there's a good side to this, maybe that's it."

Well, isn't that interesting? Of course, considering that he was the Director of National Intelligence and that the oversight committee, which is supposed to keep him in line, tried to start that debate a few months ago and Clapper's response was to flat-out lie to them, it seems worth questioning why it appears that he did everything possible to avoid having that debate? It also raises the question of why he's still in a job (and not facing charges).

Clapper also admits that he knows that the leaks aren't done:

"Unfortunately, there is more to come," he said.

Seeing as the existing leaks helped push forward a debate that "needed to happen," I don't see what's so unfortunate about that.

Clapper also insisted that those awful journalists covering the story have been letting their minds run wild:

Journalists examining the surveillance programs that Snowden disclosed "go to the deepest darkest place they can and make the most conspiratorial case for what the intelligence community is doing."

Two things about that. First, so far what we've seen after pretty much every leak is that Clapper's office or others in the administration make a statement that includes a bunch of weasel words that are redefined to mean something different than what the public actually thinks -- and those "non-lie lies" are then exposed in later revelations from the leaks. Given that, is it really any surprise that people have little trust in what the intelligence community is saying?

Second, you know how you avoid having journalists take the details of the program and "going to the deepest darkest place and making the most conspiratorial case for what the intelligence community is doing"? It's called being more open and transparent and actually having the debate that you're now running from.

Besides, considering some of the existing leaks about rampant abuses (some not defined as abuses), dreadful coverups, the inability to know what Snowden took or how he took it, the economic espionage, the finding internal informants to help get around encryption and a variety of other very questionable things, is it any wonder that people don't trust the NSA?

Filed Under: debate, ed snowden, intelligence community, james clapper, nsa, nsa surveillance

Don't Insult Our Intelligence, Mr. President: This Debate Wouldn't Be Happening Without Ed Snowden

from the the-big-joke dept

One of the more ridiculous claim's during President Obama's press conference on NSA surveillance today was the claim that he had already started this process prior to the Ed Snowden leaks and that it's likely we would end up in the same place. While he admitted that Snowden may have "accelerated" the process, he's also claiming that the leaks put our national security at risk. There is, of course, little to support any of this. Tim Lee has the best response to this so far, noting that it's clearly bogus that this debate would have happened without Snowden:

... the Obama administration showed little interest in subjecting the NSA to meaningful oversight and public debate prior to Snowden’s actions. When Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked for a “ballpark figure” of the number of Americans whose information was being collected by the NSA last year, the agency refused to give the senator any information, arguing that doing so would violate the privacy of those whose information was collected.

In March, at a Congressional hearing, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper answered “no sir” when Wyden asked whether the NSA had collected “any type of data at all on millions of Americans.” We now know his statement was incorrect.

Wyden and Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.) had also been pressing for almost four years for access to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court’s legal opinions interpreting Section 215 of the Patriot Act. Until Snowden’s disclosures, the senators made no headway. Now, the Obama administration has announced it intends to release its legal interpretation of Section 215.

As Lee's colleague Ezra Klein points out in response, the fact that Obama is still attacking Snowden is simply ridiculous.

“What makes us different from other countries is not simply our ability to secure our nation,” Obama said. “It’s the way we do it, with open debate and democratic process.”

If that’s so, then Edward Snowden should be hailed as a hero. There’s simply no doubt that his leaks led to more open debate and more democratic process than would’ve existed otherwise.

Or, in the shortest possible form, NY Times' reporter Binyamin Appelbaum summed it up thusly:

Obama is really mad at Edward Snowden for forcing us patriots to have this critically important conversation.

This is an important discussion, but President Obama has had five years to have it, and has actively resisted it at multiple key opportunities to do so. To pretend that any of this would have happened without Snowden is ridiculous. At the same time, to insist that people who care about our civil liberties are patriots, while still trying to attack and demonize Snowden, just screams of insincerity on the issue. Snowden should be proud: he did this to start the debate and to create change, and it appears that's happening. But President Obama should be ashamed to pretend that this would have happened without Snowden. It's insulting the intelligence of the American public.

Filed Under: barack obama, debate, ed snowden, nsa, nsa surveillance, patriotism

Congress Should Support Amash Amendment Just Because White House Statement Is So Insulting

from the don't-take-that-kind-of-crap dept

Last night, we wrote about the pure insanity of the White House's statement against the Amash Amendment, which would pull funding from the NSA for just the "dragnet" surveillance efforts, in which it collects all metadata on all phone calls. Considering that the very author of the Patriot Act insists the law was never meant to allow this kind of collection, Amash's amendment shouldn't be all that controversial. It's literally him bringing the actual law back in line with what many in Congress thought the law already was. For the Obama White House to hit back by claiming that this clear fix to the law "is not the product of an informed, open, or deliberative process" is downright ridiculous and insulting, considering that the decision to reinterpret the law in secret was hardly the product of an "informed, open or deliberative process."

In fact, as Marcy Wheeler points out, this statement is so insulting to Congress, that Congress should vote for the Amash amendment as a response to the White House's claim. As she notes, this seems to be the White House blaming Congress for not being "informed, open or deliberative" in responsing to the administration's own efforts to mislead Congress by keeping them not fully informed, with a secret process, that guaranteed many were kept in the dark. To then flip that around and blame Congress as if it was Congress who wasn't being open is downright insulting:

Hell, if I were a self-respecting member of Congress, I’d support Amash-Conyers even if I weren’t already predisposed to, if only because this is such a crazy bat-shit claim to reason and openness.

The Executive Branch has had 7 years to have an open debate. It chose not to have that open debate. Now that one has been brought to it by Congress, it pretends Congress is the one at fault for the lack of informed or open process.

Of course, Wheeler makes another good point in that same post. The fact that the White House put this statement out, even after the NSA did a full court emergency lobby extravaganza to convince Congress not to support the amendment, at least suggests that the White House is realizing that there might really be enough votes to get this amendment through.

President Obama claimed he "welcomed this debate." He might want to speed up that process, because it's happening and all he's doing is stalling and blaming others. But the debate is happening without him, and he might not like where it ends up.

Filed Under: amendment, appropriations, debate, justin amash, nsa, nsa surveillance, patriot act, section 215, white house

Irony Alert: Obama Opposes Amash Amendment Because It's A 'Blunt Approach' And Not A Product Of 'Open' Process

from the now-they're-just-fucking-with-us,-right? dept

Okay, someone in the White House just feels like giving people who believe in protecting civil liberties a giant middle finger today. As a quick review, the President and the administration have been hiding behind secret court orders with secret interpretations of the Patriot Act and the FISA Amendments Act to use a very blunt instrument: collecting pretty much all digital data around, and keeping the whole thing totally quiet for years. In response, Rep. Justin Amash is seeking to pull funding from one of the key NSA programs -- the one that involved a secret interpretation of Section 215 of the Patriot Act by a secret court to pretend that language that clearly applied to only limited data now meant the NSA could order AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and others to hand over every call record on every phone call. And, this is a program that no one knew about until Ed Snowden leaked it to the Guardian and the Washington Post.

Okay, having reinforced those basic points, check out the giant "screw you guys" the White House just pushed out in the form of a "statement" in response to the Amash Amendment. I'll bold the key guffaw-inducing lines:

In light of the recent unauthorized disclosures, the President has said that he welcomes a debate about how best to simultaneously safeguard both our national security and the privacy of our citizens. The Administration has taken various proactive steps to advance this debate including the President’s meeting with the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, his public statements on the disclosed programs, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s release of its own public statements, ODNI General Counsel Bob Litt’s speech at Brookings, and ODNI’s decision to declassify and disclose publicly that the Administration filed an application with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. We look forward to continuing to discuss these critical issues with the American people and the Congress.

However, we oppose the current effort in the House to hastily dismantle one of our Intelligence Community’s counterterrorism tools. This blunt approach is not the product of an informed, open, or deliberative process. We urge the House to reject the Amash Amendment, and instead move forward with an approach that appropriately takes into account the need for a reasoned review of what tools can best secure the nation.

Let me repeat that again: This blunt approach is not the product of an informed, open, or deliberative process. As opposed to the blunt process of collecting all data on everyone which was arrived at via an "informed, open and deliberative process -- known as totally secretly interpreting the plain language of a law in a secret ruling from a secret court to mean something almost entirely different than what the language itself said?

This is a joke, right?

Only someone who really has a sick sense of humor would try to argue that a bill looking to slow down the rampant spying on pretty much all Americans comes from a lack of an "informed, open, or deliberative process" when the process to create that massive surveillance infrastructure was all done in complete darkness.

Filed Under: appropriations, barack obama, debate, irony, justin amash, nsa, nsa surveillance, open, surveillance

President Obama 'Welcomes' The Debate On Surveillance That He's Avoided For Years Until It Was Forced Upon Him

from the that's-not-welcoming-it dept

President Obama's incredibly weak response to the revelations this week of widespread data collection of pretty much everything by the NSA is to say that he "welcomes" the debate. But, of course, he hasn't actually welcomed the debate at all, because people have tried to bring that debate to him for years, and he's brushed them off:

When it comes to surveillance, Obama has as president shown no sign of really wanting to have a robust debate. For years, Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Mark Udall (D-Colo.) and former Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) have been pleading with the administration to disclose more information about call-tracking tactics that they suggested would shock many Americans.

The administration largely rebuffed those calls. Only after the leak Wednesday of a four-page “top secret” court order indicating that millions of Americans’ phone calls were tracked on a daily basis did officials begin to confirm the program’s details.

But Obama could have chosen at any time to disclose the data-sifting program, or even its rough outlines. That fact leaves critics unimpressed with his latest round of let’s-talk-it-over.

In other words, he's not "welcoming" the debate at all. The debate is happening with or without him, and when he had the chance to "welcome" the debate, he didn't. Now, it appears, he's trying to appear willing "to talk" about something that's now gone way beyond the stage where "welcoming the debate" is sufficient.

If anything, his helps explain why over-aggressive secrecy is such a stupid government policy. If they had been open about this and there had been public discussions earlier, and people were free to express their concerns, and the government could explain its position, then the discussion would have been different, and more interesting. But having all this information denied by government officials for years, only to come out via a leak just looks so much worse.

Update: So around the time this post went up, President Obama actually spoke directly about all of this. He focused on a non-issue, however: about how they're not listening to everyone's phone calls. Except that was clear from the beginning. It was always said that it was just the data -- but it's a hell of a lot of data: who you called, when you called, how long you spoke to them. That's data that most people feel should be private. After that, he said this:

Now, with respect to the Internet and emails, this does not apply to U.S. citizens, and it does not apply to people living in the United States. And again, in this instance, not only is Congress fully apprised of it, but what is also true is that the FISA Court has to authorize it.

But that's not entirely accurate, since it seems pretty clear that there was access to data that included US citizens, so long as the claim was that the investigation (not necessarily any of the parties) targeted non-US persons.

He repeatedly points out that Congress and the FISA Court have repeatedly known and authorized all of this -- which could be read as throwing Congress a bit under the bus (not that they don't deserve it):

So in summary, what you’ve got is two programs that were originally authorized by Congress, have been repeatedly authorized by Congress. Bipartisan majorities have approved them. Congress is continually briefed on how these are conducted. There are a whole range of safeguards involved. And federal judges are overseeing the entire program throughout. And we’re also setting up — we’ve also set up an audit process when I came into office to make sure that we’re, after the fact, making absolutely certain that all the safeguards are being properly observed.

But that doesn't help. It just raises more questions about who Congress really represents, and whether or not "the public" is included.

The President does suggest that he might be open to reconsidering some of this, but also explains why he failed to live up to his promise to stop warrantless wiretapping:

But I think it’s important for everybody to understand, and I think the American people understand, that there are some trade-offs involved. You know, I came in with a healthy skepticism about these programs. My team evaluated them. We scrubbed them thoroughly. We actually expanded some of the oversight, increased some of the safeguards. But my assessment and my team’s assessment was that they help us prevent terrorist attacks. And the modest encroachments on privacy that are involved in getting phone numbers or duration without a name attached and not looking at content — that on, you know, net, it was worth us doing.

That’s — some other folks may have a different assessment of that. But I think it’s important to recognize that you can’t have a hundred percent security and also then have a hundred percent privacy and zero inconvenience. You know, we’re going to have to make some choices as a society.

He was also asked how he felt about it being leaked, and said he wasn't happy about it, given that it was secret for a reason -- but then uses the opportunity to throw Congress under the bus again:

That’s why these things are classified.

But that’s also why we’ve set up congressional oversight. These are the folks you all vote for as your representative in Congress, and they’re being fully briefed on these programs.

And if in fact there was — there were abuses taking place, presumably, those members of Congress could raise those issues very aggressively. They’re empowered to do so.

Congress: your ball.

Filed Under: debate, nsa, president obama, surveillance

California Senator Leland Yee Tells Gamers To Shut Up And Let The Grown Ups Talk

from the awww...-your-pet-legislation-got-shot-down-by-the-Supreme-Court...-u-mad-bro? dept

As we've noted, recent events have pushed the discussion of video games (namely the violent ones) back to the forefront. Even the President has chimed in, authorizing the CDC to perform a study to determine if any link exists between violent media (including video games) and so-called "gun violence."

While most gamers (and indeed, most people who can put two and two together without adding a bunch of rhetoric into the equation) have come to the rather sensible conclusion that violent games do not create violent people, the floor is still open to debate, most likely for the next several years. The sheer number of violent video games sold has failed, over the course of many years, to be matched by a comparable escalation in violent crime. If you're a gamer, you've probably thrown this argument into the debate a number of times and wondered why more people, especially those who active work to censor violent games, haven't arrived at the same conclusion.

Well, if so, here's your answer, courtesy of California State Senator Leland Yee, whose last effort to censor video games was shut down by the US Supreme Court.

"Gamers have got to just quiet down," Yee, D-San Francisco, said in an interview Tuesday. "Gamers have no credibility in this argument. This is all about their lust for violence and the industry's lust for money. This is a billion-dollar industry. This is about their self-interest."

You got that, gamers? No credibility. None. Beat it. If we want to talk about video games, like grown ups, we'll do it without you. We'll just talk to senators and the CDC and concerned parents' groups and the NRA. But we won't be talking to game developers. No way. And certainly not gamers, whose opinion amounts to nothing in a debate of this (periodic) importance.

You know who else won't be included in this conversation until absolutely necessary? The Supreme Court. Because if anyone's opinion is invalid, it's the highest court in the land.

Yee, a former child psychologist, believes the court set the standard too high for any study to firmly link the cause and effect of violence.

Yes. This court, which stated that any effects caused by violent video games were too small to be distinguished from effects produced by other media, needs to butt out. Fortunately for Yee, the Supreme Court rarely offers an opinion until asked directly, unlike the millions of gamers who spout off in every forum imaginable.

Yes, Yee is right about the industry being self-interested. It does have a lot at stake, especially if some sort of government regulation results from this renewed attention. Pleasing a government censor is a lot harder than pleasing an independent ratings group. One has a political motivation to save humanity (mostly "the children") from "violent media." The other has an interest in preserving its autonomy by doing its job properly and giving each game a rating that reflects the content. In other words, one is more willing to kill the end result of $30 million in production costs in order to score political victories while the other wants to make sure mature content doesn't end up with a family-friendly T slapped across the front of the case.

Elsewhere in the article, you can find thoughtful comments from the very people Yee feels should just shut up. Kris Graft, editor-in-chief of Gamasutra, feels the violent video game problem is one of perception.

"It's not all about shooting people in the head and guts everywhere, but that's what the public perception is, and probably rightfully so," said Kris Graft, editor-in-chief of the San Francisco-based site Gamasutra, which along with its print magazine sibling, Game Developer, covers the video game industry. "There is plenty of diversity in video games, but I don't think it's being highlighted enough."

So does Kate Edwards of IGDA:

"It's important to point out that some of the most popular video games in history are all titles such as 'Wii Sports,' 'The Sims,' 'Super Mario Brothers,' the Pokemon series and 'Tetris,' " said Kate Edwards, executive director of the trade group International Game Developers Association. "So while the games containing more violence get the attention, they're not a reflection of the game industry as a whole, just as a single genre of film, TV or literature doesn't represent that medium as a whole."

Edwards also welcomes the CDC's study, stating that it will add to the "large body" of existing studies that have failed to show a link between fake violence and real violence.

But Yee doesn't want to hear from these people, who are rightly concerned because they have an investment in this industry and who feel this added attention is doing harm to not only their careers, but also to the games they love.

The people who should be keeping their mouths shut, or at least, sitting in the back with their hands folded until called upon, are those who know nothing about video games beyond scare reels put together by like-minded individuals and anecdotal "evidence" cobbled together out of headlines like 'Adam Lanza played Call of Duty' and 'Hans Breivik said Call of Duty taught him how to use guns.' Without a broader overview of the history, the industry and the culture, they're operating with a damaged data set culled from all the worst humanity has to offer and linked together by a single, gossamer strand of self-identifying as "gamers," ignoring the millions of other self-identifying gamers who are indistinguishable from others who have never played a game in their lives, united by the much thicker linkage of never having committed a violent crime.

Filed Under: california, debate, leland yee, video games, violence

Senator Chambliss Says There's No Reason To Debate FISA Amendments Act; Just Pass It

from the unconstitutional dept

We've been covering in great detail the FISA Amendments Act, which is likely to be renewed before the end of the year. As you may recall, this was the "law" that expanded the ability of federal law enforcement to warrantlessly wiretap Americans -- and then, thanks to a secret interpretation appears to be used to scoop up tons of information on Americans, despite appearing to be limited to only foreign communications. As we noted recently, a former judge has made a pretty compelling case why the whole thing is completely unconstitutional. While Senator Wyden has put a hold on the renewal of the FAA, he's also said he'll lift the hold if the Senate will consider some important amendments and actually debate the law.

And yet... that might not happen. Senator Saxby Chambliss, apparently with no regard to the Constitution or the privacy of the public he's supposed to represent, has apparently complained that any debate is a waste of time after Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid tried to bring up the issue.

Reid wanted S. 3276 to be considered with a limited number of amendments, but Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) objected and said he didn’t understand why the Senate couldn’t just pass the House FISA bill. He referred to a letter stating that the Obama administration supports the House-version.

So, apparently, as long as the White House wants to trample on Americans' 4th Amendment Rights, and there's a House version that was passed because Representatives misrepresented or lied about what was in the bill, the Senate should just approve it? Yikes. We deserve better. We should absolutely demand that Congress debate this issue, and not rubber stamp it.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, debate, fisa, fisa amendments act, privacy, ron wyden, saxby chambliss