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charrob
06-03-2015, 05:03 PM
Are we: better off, the same, or worse off with the passage of the USA Freedom Act (rather than if Congress had simply extended the Patriot Act as it was with no changes at all)? And why?


Just curious how others feel about this. The EFF, ACLU, and civil liberties organizations seemed to stay rather neutral. From what i can understand so far about the argument:





The USA Freedom Act actually contains within it a re-authorization of the Patriot Act that i assume will now have to abide by the updated changes written into the Freedom Act (which would include number 3 below).




Nothing has changed at all with respect to NSA bulk collection of our internet data, ie. emails, googles, skype calls, etc. – which I think are the authorities NSA has under section 702 of the FISA law as well as Bush’s executive order 12333 which has never been rescinded. I think there were parts of Section 215 not related to bulk phone record capture that also haven't changed. Also i think National Security Letters completely override a need for warrants anyhow, but i may be wrong.




There’s a new civil liberties panel to oversee the FISA Court. (Before only the government saw the cases/warrants that were before the FISA Court. And before the FISA Court was simply a rubber stamp for the government: 34,000 cases came before it since 9/11 and only 12 had been refused by the FISA Court.)

So this new civil liberties panel creates an extra check against the Government. However:

Once again, the warrants before the FISA Court are for reasonable suspicion rather than probable cause. So to weigh net gains versus losses, these warrants would be divided into 2 sets:

Warrants unrelated to phone records: Since virtually there was no oversight before for these warrants, it seems to be a net gain for freedom.

Warrants for phone records: Since the appellate court ruled the NSA's bulk collection of phone records under Section 215 illegal, that would mean agencies would have had to obtain regular probable cause type warrants for phone company records. Since the Freedom Act lowers the bar from probable cause to reasonable suspicion that seems to be a net loss for freedom from what we would have had.
Unlike before, the new Freedom Act allows for “emergency powers” where no warrant at all is needed up front as long as agencies eventually get a warrant through the FISA Court in these ‘special’ situations. This seems to be a net loss: even though this could have been achieved before through the rubber stamp known as the FISA Court, at least it was assumed that warrants were granted by the court before records were given over to agencies.


So a simplistic overview from above: net gain + net loss + net loss == net loss. Just wondering if there's other issues in these laws anyone is aware of to be considered that is not covered above that could weigh the issue in another way?

Slave Mentality
06-03-2015, 05:13 PM
Like finding out you have cancer worse. I do not consent and The Constitution is why.

William Tell
06-03-2015, 05:16 PM
Don't like the choices. I think it was obviously good that the Patriot Act expired. The freedom act is bad as well though.

tod evans
06-03-2015, 05:18 PM
The passage of ANY act or law leaves Joe Citizen in worse shape.....

JK/SEA
06-03-2015, 05:30 PM
//

Occam's Banana
06-03-2015, 06:46 PM
Like finding out you have cancer worse. I do not consent and The Constitution is why.

Just "I do not consent" (regardless of why) is more than sufficient ...


The passage of ANY act or law leaves Joe Citizen in worse shape.....

What tod said.

charrob
06-03-2015, 07:32 PM
Really sorry if there's confusion. Because i think my original question wasn't clear, I've changed my original question from:


Are we: better off, the same, or worse off with the passage of the USA Freedom Act? And why?

to:


Are we: better off, the same, or worse off with the passage of the USA Freedom Act (rather than if Congress had simply extended the Patriot Act as it was with no changes at all)? And why?

CaptUSA
06-03-2015, 07:35 PM
It's all the same to me. What they're doing is wrong. I don't really give a shit about how they word their justification.

jj-
06-03-2015, 07:35 PM
Not better, or worse, or the same, it's not very relevant. What's relevant is that the chickenhawks lost a battle and that you can filibuster the Patriot Act and the public doesn't see it as a big deal in a negative sense.

tod evans
06-03-2015, 07:39 PM
Really sorry if there's confusion. Because i think my original question wasn't clear, I've changed my original question from:


Are we: better off, the same, or worse off with the passage of the USA Freedom Act? And why?

to:


Everyone agrees we would have been better off if the Patriot Act had simply been sunset and no law re-enacted. However that didn't happen.
With that said: Are we: better off, the same, or worse off with the passage of the USA Freedom Act (rather than if Congress had simply extended the Patriot Act as it was with no changes at all)? And why?



We're (citizens) are still worse off......If for no other reason than this new and improved version is going to require more government employees to achieve the same amount of surveillance....

And you can bet your bottom dollar there's not going to be any less surveillance....

charrob
06-03-2015, 08:18 PM
We're (citizens) are still worse off......If for no other reason than this new and improved version is going to require more government employees to achieve the same amount of surveillance....


Well i think the location where bulk phone records are accessed would just be a quick software change, so no additional government there. I think the argument is that there is going to be more oversight by an outside Civil Liberties panel on the giving away of warrants by the FISA Court. That does seem to at least check the government a little bit better than before. But i'm still confused about all the details (including details not listed above that i'm unaware of) that would weigh the end result toward more freedom or less freedom.

tod evans
06-04-2015, 04:57 AM
Well i think the location where bulk phone records are accessed would just be a quick software change, so no additional government there. I think the argument is that there is going to be more oversight by an outside Civil Liberties panel on the giving away of warrants by the FISA Court. That does seem to at least check the government a little bit better than before. But i'm still confused about all the details (including details not listed above that i'm unaware of) that would weigh the end result toward more freedom or less freedom.

This is what's going to require "more government employees"...

Government isn't going to stop collecting data it'll just take more government employees to jump through the new hoops in order to collect it...

As for the issue of more/less freedom.......There's a finite amount of data to collect every day so that's not going to increase, all the data is all the data period. Where the infringement comes in on freedom as I see it is even more government employees having access, because with that access comes the likelihood of criminal charges being filed and criminal charges absolutely affect freedom.

charrob
06-04-2015, 08:13 PM
This is what's going to require "more government employees"...

Government isn't going to stop collecting data it'll just take more government employees to jump through the new hoops in order to collect it...

As for the issue of more/less freedom.......There's a finite amount of data to collect every day so that's not going to increase, all the data is all the data period. Where the infringement comes in on freedom as I see it is even more government employees having access, because with that access comes the likelihood of criminal charges being filed and criminal charges absolutely affect freedom.

thanks Tod, that makes sense.

nobody's_hero
06-06-2015, 01:47 PM
I think anytime you 'solve' an issue without actually solving it, things get worse because people just think it's over and go back to sleep. Kind of like what happens when a republican takes office, the GOP just falls silent, foolishly thinking that everything's better now.

jj-
06-06-2015, 01:50 PM
I think anytime you 'solve' an issue without actually solving it, things get worse because people just think it's over and go back to sleep.

This thing you said reminded me that there was a campaign to remove BPA from baby bottles. The campaign succeeded. So the companies removed the BPA, and added something worse (http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/03/tritan-certichem-eastman-bpa-free-plastic-safe).