Senator Bob Corker Says NSA Should Be Spying On More Americans, Not Fewer

from the say-what-now? dept

Senator Bob Corker, who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, appears to now be calling for the NSA to spy on more Americans, rather than fewer, arguing that the metadata collection program that is currently being debated in Congress is so small that he considers it negligent.

"It's almost malpractice," Corker said at a breakfast for reporters hosted by The Christian Science Monitor. "That's the best word I can use to describe the amount of data that is being collected."

Corker, who said the NSA's data collection needs to be "ramped up hugely", was reacting to a closed-door briefing that national security officials held Tuesday to brief senators on federal surveillance programs....

[....]

"I think there was an aha moment (Tuesday) for people on both sides of the aisle when we realized how little data is being collected.... It's beyond belief how little data is part of this program, especially if the goal is to uncover terrorists."

Now, this is the same Senator Corker who originally was quite disturbed when he first heard about the very same program after it was leaked by Ed Snowden (suggesting he was completely unaware of it prior to it leaking, despite being a Senator). Back in June of 2013, he sent an angry letter to the President about how such "broad collection" raised "extremely serious concerns."

But now he thinks the NSA should actually be spying on more Americans? It sounds like the NSA briefing that was just given to Senators was designed to really ramp up the fear-mongering.

Filed Under: bob corker, metadata, nsa, section 215, surveillance

Reddit Turns Its Attention To Politics: Seeking Supporters Of SOPA & NDAA To Unseat

from the the-internet-awakens? dept

Following its ability to build up enough grassroots support to get GoDaddy to change its position (if not its mind) on SOPA & PIPA, it appears the Reddit community wants to see if it can do the same thing with some politicians. Earlier this week, we had asked who would be the first politician to be "GoDaddy'd" and it appears that the Reddit community has already jumped onto that challenge. It's been rather fascinating to watch over the past few days as the amorphous crowd self-organized and set up its own rules over who to focus on and why. They've decided to focus on politicians who supported both NDAA (the controversial bill that crystallizes the government's ability to detain Americans without trial) and SOPA/PIPA. They also want to pick one politician from each major party, to keep this from being a partisan thing. Separately, they've been seeking out politicians who may actually be vulnerable... and trying to vet their opponents to make sure who gets elected in their place isn't even worse.

So far, the community has focused in on Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee as its main Republican target (there have been a few others listed as well), but doesn't seem to have settled on a Democratic target yet.

I still think that a lot of this will depend heavily on who is challenging these politicians, and if they're willing to make a campaign issue out of these free speech/civil liberties issues. It'll definitely be tough to unseat incumbents, but even if the internet community can make it into an actual fight, politicians will start to take notice. And, even if it fails this time around, watch out for what comes next. Like many "open" systems, the first version may not be pretty, the second version may be a little buggy, but once you get around to the third version and beyond, they often start being a lot more powerful than anyone expects. Politicians who underestimate the community of folks at Reddit and similar sites may be in for a surprise before too long...

Filed Under: bob corker, community, ndaa, pipa, politics, protect ip, sopa
Companies: reddit