House to Vote on De-Funding the NSA

[shiny!]

http://washingtonexaminer.com/defund...rticle/2533380

Members of the House of Representatives will vote this week on Rep. Justin Amash's amendment to defund the National Security Agency. Amash, R-Mich., announced the news on his Facebook page, writing, "I want to thank Speaker Boehner for working diligently toward resolving significant concerns over the amendment process with respect to NSA."

Amash's amendment would defund the NSA if the agency collected data and records from individuals who were not under official investigation. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court would be required to provide a statement confirming that the data being collected by the NSA is from a person under investigation.

Concerns surrounding the amendment process were resolved late Monday when the House Rules Committee voted to allow NSA amendments to the Department of Defense appropriations bill.

Previously, the Rules Committee had planned to limit the number of amendments to be included in the bill to avoid controversial amendments like Amash's and amendments regarding Syria and Egypt.

It'll be interesting to see who votes for and against this. Even if it passes, there's no chance it'll become law. Or if it does, they'll just find another way to collect the information and in 5-10 years there will be another big "leak" that will surprise everyone.

[Mega]

Re: House to Vote on De-Funding the NSA

Not a chance is Hell, but as you say its nice to see what IS said.
Mike

[c1ue]

Re: House to Vote on De-Funding the NSA

I'd say this will happen right after Ron Paul's audit the Fed motion passes.

[Slimprofits]

Re: House to Vote on De-Funding the NSA

I almost can't believe that I'm typing this sentence: Michelle Bachmann makes an excellent point here. People are all up in arms about the NSA, but these same people are more than happy to divulge their information to and place their absolute trust in numerous corporations. Do they read the so-called privacy policy statements?

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/0...ent-94674.html

Bachmann made the case that the program doesn’t violate Fourth Amendment rights because the businesses own the records being obtained, not the individuals.
“There is no expectation of privacy,” Bachmann said. “Individuals do not own the records.”



Of course there is 0% chance of this passing. It's pure political theatre that amounts to giving some members of the House the chance to appear to be acting righteously. They do this all the time with phony votes that most people don't remember a few months later.

[shiny!]

Re: House to Vote on De-Funding the NSA

I'd say this will happen right after Ron Paul's audit the Fed motion passes.

It's an amendment to the Defense appropriations bill. What are the odds of that passing?

[charliebrown]

Re: House to Vote on De-Funding the NSA

The amendment did not pass. Defeated 217-205, 12 people did not vote. (coincidence?)

Here is a link to zerohedge for the voting role.
My "conservative" rep did not vote for it.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-0...a-surveillance

[dcarrigg]

Re: House to Vote on De-Funding the NSA

I almost can't believe that I'm typing this sentence: Michelle Bachmann makes an excellent point here. People are all up in arms about the NSA, but these same people are more than happy to divulge their information to and place their absolute trust in numerous corporations. Do they read the so-called privacy policy statements?

This is a really good point. In this case, the NSA wasn't doing the spying. It just asked Verizon and Facebook for a link to download their databases. The real question here is: "Why is keeping personally identifiable data about people in perpetuity legal?" It is not in many other countries. And it would be easy to sell many of the same products and services they do by anonymizing data. But they don't. And they do keep data in perpetuity. De-funding the NSA will not change that. And so long as the data exists, someone, be it NSA, hacker, company, whatever, will get ahold of it and use it against people. There is no other reason to keep it around.

[Raz]

Re: House to Vote on De-Funding the NSA

My Neocon representative voted to fund the NSA and continue the expansion of infrastructure for the police state.

I sent an E-mail to him expressing my objections, told him he had lost my vote - even if a super-leftist Democrat has a chance to beat him - and told him it wouldn't take much more of this on his part and I'd look to help fund a challenger in the next Republican Primary.

I'm sure he gives a big rat's a$$.

[vinoveri]

Re: House to Vote on De-Funding the NSA

This is a really good point. In this case, the NSA wasn't doing the spying. It just asked Verizon and Facebook for a link to download their databases. The real question here is: "Why is keeping personally identifiable data about people in perpetuity legal?" It is not in many other countries. And it would be easy to sell many of the same products and services they do by anonymizing data. But they don't. And they do keep data in perpetuity. De-funding the NSA will not change that. And so long as the data exists, someone, be it NSA, hacker, company, whatever, will get ahold of it and use it against people. There is no other reason to keep it around.

While I agree with you on the broad principal, and the broader issue is certainly ripe for discussion and its a good thing to raise awareness generally, I'm wary of the distraction it provides to focusing on the "turnkey tyranny" at hand. There's a bit of difference between the private sector (if we even have much of that anymore) doing it and gov, because gov has guns, badges, guantanimo etc. - in short they have physical power over the individual (e.g., the lock-up), and are currently directly violating the law, Bill of Rights, which are direct prohibition on certain government activity against citizens. Sure, let's talk about public policy regarding privacy and data collection in general, but let's stop NOW what the Feds are doing to their own citizens.

[shiny!]

Re: House to Vote on De-Funding the NSA

My Neocon representative voted to fund the NSA and continue the expansion of infrastructure for the police state.

I sent an E-mail to him expressing my objections, told him he had lost my vote - even if a super-leftist Democrat has a chance to beat him - and told him it wouldn't take much more of this on his part and I'd look to help fund a challenger in the next Republican Primary.

I'm sure he gives a big rat's a$$.

If our votes could really change things, you can bet it wouldn't be allowed.

It's pretty clear that our country is now a full-surveillance state. What used to be called a police state. They aren't beating down our doors (much) and herding us onto trains (yet), but they absolutely have the power to. Every aspect of our lives is controlled by government regulations and decrees, enforced by government bureaucrats.

So what are our options? Keep waiting for the next election? And the one after that, and the one after that? Every new crop of politicians chops away further at our liberty. People are being made destitute and dependent on government handouts for their survival. It's slavery, but the Malls are still open, the TVs are more affordable than ever, and few people remember what freedom used to feel like.

What should we do? Protest in our designated "Free Speech Zones"? Surrounded by paramilitary police forces wielding high tech crowd control weapons? Yeah, that'll show them!

Blog? Letters to the Editor? Rant 'n' Rave? Keep quiet? Keep our heads down?

Deny, Minimize and Hope that somehow things magically get better? (I hear antidepressants work wonders for that)

Move? Where? How?

That last option for me is the most frightening, the most drastic, expensive, and the one that seems the most crazy. But looking at history, whenever totalitarian forces have massed against small folk, the folk that got the hell out of Dodge when they could were the smart ones.

Is it that bad yet here? And if it isn't, should we be waiting for it to get that bad before deciding to make a change? I keep thinking, it wasn't raining when Noah built the Ark...

This voice inside me that tells me not to do anything... that anywhere I run to could and probably would be worse... is it 'Good Sense', or 'Normalcy Bias'?

[BadJuju]

Re: House to Vote on De-Funding the NSA

It probably wouldn't matter where you went. Still, I would go to Canada if I could.

[shiny!]

Re: House to Vote on De-Funding the NSA

It probably wouldn't matter where you went. Still, I would go to Canada if I could.

"If I could". That's often a statement based more on comfort zone than actual capability. Vietnamese boat people, Cuban boat people, Jews escaping the pograms of whatever group that wanted to kill them... none of those people could afford a graceful, secure transition with a nice job and home in place at the end of their journey.

"Can we afford to go?" becomes "Can we afford to stay?" The longer that decision is put off because leaving everything familiar in order to leap into the unknown is so terrifying... the harder the move is once the crisis is dire.

I look at the people who stayed so long that eventually having a choice in the matter became a moot point: Germans behind the Berlin Wall, Soviets trapped in the Soviet Union, the 12 million who died in Nazi concentration camps, those killed by Pol Pot, those trapped in North Korea, the list goes on and on...

So again I ask, is staying in a deepening police state good common sense or normalcy bias? If being an "early adopter" is smart for gold, when other people think it's a crazy investment, is it not also smart to be an "early adopter" for leaving a police state, before the doors slam shut?

Or is it already too late? Many countries won't even open bank accounts for Americans anymore.

[BadJuju]

Re: House to Vote on De-Funding the NSA

What makes you think any country will be any better? America doesn't have a monopoly on this stuff. It will be the same all over, perhaps worse.

[shiny!]

Re: House to Vote on De-Funding the NSA

What makes you think any country will be any better? America doesn't have a monopoly on this stuff. It will be the same all over, perhaps worse.

I don't think that. I don't not think that. I'm asking for opinions.

[BadJuju]

Re: House to Vote on De-Funding the NSA

You are fucked either way you go. And you will be maggot food soon enough anyway. Might as well just accept it.