Freedom Act Passes Senate, Freedom Dies
- Thread starter Nat Algren
- Start date
I'd care, it's like the resident idiot telling me my car is broke down when the moron can't even go outside to prove to me that it is.
Did you stop reading the Constitution after the first amendment?
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, 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."
I'm sure a lot of people voted for the Freedom Act because they felt it was better than the PATRIOT Act. And that's probably true. But is it enough better?
While it reins in some of the government's ability to surveil Americans, it really doesn't curb the collection of private and personal communications and personal data in any way, as far as I can tell. It just makes a small shift in who does the collecting.
The government can still collect a lot. And what it can't collect it can still get from the private sector. Until we are also willing to put restraints on what the private sector can collect, keep, and sell, have we really made things any better?
While it reins in some of the government's ability to surveil Americans, it really doesn't curb the collection of private and personal communications and personal data in any way, as far as I can tell. It just makes a small shift in who does the collecting.
The government can still collect a lot. And what it can't collect it can still get from the private sector. Until we are also willing to put restraints on what the private sector can collect, keep, and sell, have we really made things any better?
If read thoroughly, The Constitution is full of conflicts of "Constitutional rights" promised to "we the people." When you start to sort them out, some people will be pissed others will understand.
If the government is tasked with defense and general welfare (in the Preamble) of the nation, at what point does it shrug those duties in defense of personal rights (or perceived personal rights)? This is the argument that has been fought ever since the nation was established as The United States. It will be fought forever. There is no right or wrong to this question.
OiTers in HROT will disagree with me.
Maybe you should check into WHY she voted against. Basically she thinks it's not intrusive enough. Probably some of the other Nays had the same reason. Even Uncle Chuckle agreed with Joni's reasoning but voted for it because he felt we needed something even if it wasn't as intrusive as he preferred.
Don't worry........Obama will be speaking soon to tell us all how this is good for us, and a break thru in bipartisanship.
Mitch McConnell already gave that speech - even before the new Congress was sworn in.
He only invoked it in the Preamble. It's one of the few duties the government is charged with that actually appears twice. The Preamble and in Article I, Section 8, laying out the powers. Interestingly, it's the only one the right seems to think the founders didn't actually mean.
We have a similar situation with the Bill of Rights where the right generally ignores the existence of the 9th amendment. Otherwise why do they keep asking "where does the constitution say that?" when it comes to rights?
On joel's point, though, wouldn't you think the later amendment would supersede the earlier language? So, for example, when the original constitution lets states run elections in ways that let them take away or restrict voting rights, but the 14th and 15th amendments update the constitution, why is it still permissible for some states to deny felons and others the vote when others states don't? How is that equal protection? Or when we add the right of free speech, doesn't that basically say that government needs to figure out how to provide for the common defense without violating the right to speech?
Generally we just ignore such concerns. If we're at war, rights are sacrificed. Even when it's a made up war.
Rejoice it is true!
“As a soldier and member of both the Homeland Security Committee as well as the Armed Services Committee, I cannot support legislation that hampers important security tools implemented as a part of our original counter-terrorism approach.”
I find this post repulsive. I got an idea. Let's tear up the Constitution and bring back King George.
Good Lord the constitutional ignorance is astounding.
Madison stated very clearly that the GW clause did not mean what you progressive clowns think it means. Look it up, and stop littering this thread with stupidity.
Madison stated very clearly that the GW clause did not mean what you progressive clowns think it means. Look it up, and stop littering this thread with stupidity.
Or maybe they pulled a Pelosi and voted Yea, so they could see what is in the bill. These shysters don't read the bills. I think Rangell said so. Not 100%. They have staffers read them. Besides, if they are not leaning the way the Establishment desires, the NSA has plenty on these Sodomites in the way of blackmail.
Good Lord, the mindless worship of a single dead person is astounding.
Madison is entitled to say what he wanted that to mean. But he is not God. What it arguably means is what the people who voted for it thought it meant when they adopted the language. If you don't know what they thought, you really shouldn't be making an originalist argument.
I really don't know why people worship Madison. If he was so smart, why do so many parts of the constitution cause problems of knowing what they mean? He could have made it very clear.
What we know is that the Preamble says it's a goal and Article I, Section 8 reiterates that as a power of Congress. Even if you buy the muddled claim about what Madison really meant with his semi-colon, that only reins the power in to matters of spending, taxing and debt - which is hardly reining it in at all.
Judge Napolitano: Why the NSA Loves the USA FREEDOM Act
By Adam Dick
Ron Paul Institute
June 6, 2015
Why did the National Security Agency (NSA) dispatch hundreds of agents to the US Congress to lobby for the USA FREEDOM Act if the legislation would, as many of the bill’s advocates in the Congress assert, greatly restrain the US government’s mass surveillance program? Judge Andrew Napolitano, the senior judicial analyst at Fox News, answers in a new video commentary that the NSA lobbied for the USA FREEDOM Act because the bill actually provides absolutely no “savings of civil liberties” and does not in any way change the “volume or nature” of the information the US government obtains via mass surveillance.
Napolitano, a Ron Paul Institute Advisory Board member, concludes that under the USA FREEDOM Act there is only “a very slight difference in the manner” by which information is acquired in mass surveillance in comparison to how it has been acquired under the PATRIOT Act. Napolitano explains that, under the USA Freedom Act, NSA snoopers who have been sitting in front of computers located in telecommunications companies’ offices will instead sit in front of computers in NSA offices. From their NSA offices, they then can remotely access everything they had been accessing while inside the companies’ offices.
Watch Napolitano’s complete commentary here:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/06/no_author/did-the-spooks-write-the-usa-freedom-act/
By Adam Dick
Ron Paul Institute
June 6, 2015
Why did the National Security Agency (NSA) dispatch hundreds of agents to the US Congress to lobby for the USA FREEDOM Act if the legislation would, as many of the bill’s advocates in the Congress assert, greatly restrain the US government’s mass surveillance program? Judge Andrew Napolitano, the senior judicial analyst at Fox News, answers in a new video commentary that the NSA lobbied for the USA FREEDOM Act because the bill actually provides absolutely no “savings of civil liberties” and does not in any way change the “volume or nature” of the information the US government obtains via mass surveillance.
Napolitano, a Ron Paul Institute Advisory Board member, concludes that under the USA FREEDOM Act there is only “a very slight difference in the manner” by which information is acquired in mass surveillance in comparison to how it has been acquired under the PATRIOT Act. Napolitano explains that, under the USA Freedom Act, NSA snoopers who have been sitting in front of computers located in telecommunications companies’ offices will instead sit in front of computers in NSA offices. From their NSA offices, they then can remotely access everything they had been accessing while inside the companies’ offices.
Watch Napolitano’s complete commentary here:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/06/no_author/did-the-spooks-write-the-usa-freedom-act/
