8 ms·

It's amazing that these operations and bills are intentionally wrapped in wording that makes them politically untouchable. I can see why lawmakers wouldn't want

by yardie 16y ago

It's amazing that these operations and bills are intentionally wrapped in wording that makes them politically untouchable. I can see why lawmakers wouldn't want to investigate this. Who wants to be the congressman/woman that went against Operation Save our children?

joeybaker 16y ago
Meh… it's semantics, they'd vote against Operation Save our Children if they were voting for the Internet Bill of Rights Act
- tjmaxal 16y ago
  You and I may know that but your average voter probably doesn't, and they certainly wouldn't two or three years later when it come back up out of context, in a attack ad.
  - glhaynes 16y ago
    This seems a key failing of our system: people that try to be moderately informed (the best you can reasonably expect - the vast majority can't/won't be political wonks) may end up even less informed in part because the relationship between voting record and the appearance of that record is radically distorted by this kind of thing. So what can be done about this? It's hard for me to imagine a structural remedy.
  - ajays 16y ago
    That is the idea! They know that people only pay attention to the title, so they deliberately give titles which make 'em hard to vote against.
jdp23 16y ago
or the PATRIOT Act ...
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  Or the "Heroes Earnings Assistance and Relief Tax Act of 2007" The more detailed title: "To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide earnings assistance and tax relief to members of the uniformed services, volunteer firefighters, and Peace Corps volunteers, and for other purposes." http://www.opencongress.org/bill/110-h3997/show http://www.opencongress.org/bill/110-h3997/show It's only when you read the text you discover things like tax credits for low sulfur diesel fuel, tax subsidies for small business, and a $700 billion bailout for the financial services industry.
  - gyardley 16y ago
    Ah, yes, the 'Heroes Earnings Assistance and Relief Tax Act of 2007'. I'm no tax attorney, but I believe that was the act that subjects me to immediate capital gains tax on all my illiquid assets (read: start-up stock) at their fair market value should I ever stop being a permanent resident of the United States. Woo, nothing like potentially bankruptcy-causing exit taxes, especially when they're triggered by losing permanent residency - a status that's not 100% up to me. And my fiancee wonders why I get nervous whenever I cross the American border. Can you believe I was eventually planning to naturalize when I got my green card eight years ago? Now that just cracks me up.
- jdp23 16y ago
  Thanks everybody for the upvotes! For the latest on the PATRIOT Act, please see http://bit.ly/feb16news http://bit.ly/feb16news
  - jdp23 16y ago
    It's interesting that this was downvoted while the parent was upvoted. My initial reaction is that people on Hacker News react positively when somebody makes a snarky remark about the PATRIOT Act, but react negatively when told how they can make a difference. Or is there some other explanation?
- Bossman 16y ago
  Heh. The Patriot Act was the biggest in recent history. Remember how little debate there was when the entire Congress was afraid of looking weak after 9/11? You'd think some of them would go back and read the bill and have second thoughts, but it looks like 10 years later, we're going to renew it again.
GrandMasterBirt 16y ago
How about a better question: Why is this allowed in the united states? This is an absofuckingloutely clear violation of the due process in our constitution. Yes save the fucking children, but do it properly. We see the abuses that arise from improper giving of power. I guess people are waiting until basically we live in communist russia where you got to bribe cops to not give you speeding ticket, impound your car, and throw you in jail, because they felt like breaking some balls. And then you get to sit in a nice abusive prison cell for a few months awaiting trial. Sure it sounds like paranoia, but the government will never turn to a giant powergrab overnight. It will always be gradual, slowly taking power until its too late.
- mcantelon 16y ago
  >the government will never turn to a giant powergrab overnight. They've learn through history and the wisdom of the public relations industry: consolidate power gradually and using numerous pretexts. I'd guess the power consolidation has an end vision in mind: one doesn't spend the kind of effort they've spent without a goal.
  - asdfj843lkdjs 16y ago
    one doesn't spend the kind of effort they've spent without a goal. Never credit to malice what can be explained by incompetence. I personally believe that pretty much all democratic governments are slipping towards fascism, not because any one or any group has that as a far vision, but because all have short term goals which create the emergent long term effect of a slow slide towards fascism. Ever bigger law enforcement in the name of "Save the Children" is a prime example. I really do think the motivation here is primarily to help, not drive America towards fascism. The secondary effect is just not something the prime movers want to bother their minds with.
    - billswift 16y ago
      That is just what the evil, power-mongering scumbags want you to think. Just because it is (probably) true most of the time does NOT mean it is always true.
Splines 16y ago
They should just stop giving them names to avoid this sort of emotional attachment.
- GHFigs 16y ago
  Even in the absence of an official title a bill will be given an equally glittering nickname by the opposition.
  - alexophile 16y ago
    Fine with me - everything gets spin-friendly nicknames in the media, it's just apalling when that's allowed to be absorbed into the system itself. What really bothers me is that the lines separating media, commerce, and legislation have been blurred beyond recognition - candidates are rarely measured on any sort of substantive metric, but on fundraising numbers and media presence.
  - pjscott 16y ago
    Then all bills should be given memorable but neutral official nicknames, generated semi-randomly. This bill could be called the "Eight-headed Platypus Act", for example. The name has nothing to do with the bill itself, but hopefully it will fill the name niche well enough to crowd out less entertaining competitors.
byrneseyeview 16y ago
I think the rule should be that the people who vote against it get to collectively vote on a name. This would be a pretty cool game theory case study, actually.
- jokermatt999 16y ago
  Then you'd end up with every bill having a name like "The Job Killing Health Care Bill". It would just be biased from the other side. That might be good in this case, but when a bill you want to pass comes along, and gets renamed into the "FCC is taking over your internet and will burn sites like Hitler burned books", it may seem less attractive.
  - byrneseyeview 16y ago
    Not exactly. You'd get logrolling--the worse the name, the fewer votes it would get, meaning that former voters can tone down the name. What you'd actually get is accuracy, like the "Necessary expenditures with a side of pork act" or the "Handout to lobbyists that will also probably protect consumers, but not necessarily enough to justify the higher costs" bill.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
johnfn 16y ago
Those kind of names are like linkbait titles on HN. :)
bonch 16y ago
Sure can't wait for "net neutrality." What could possibly go wrong in having politicians determine what fair traffic is rather than letting sysadmins manage the bandwidth on their privately-owned networks as they wish?
joe_the_user 16y ago
Note that these are operations that haven't waited for any new bills to pass. As has been debated here previously, these actions are based on importing the draconian "civil forfeiture" device from the drug war into a "war on counterfeiting" or whatever they would call it. Some have argued that this wasn't a big expansion of US state power. Indeed, this is not technically an expansion of legal power. It is certainly a expansion of effective powers. It's so not much that someone just put a knife in US rule of law. It's more someone grabbed the wound already opened by the "war on drugs" and ripped it a fair bit wider. I don't know to what degree civil forfeiture" found been found constitutional by the courts. Regardless, in my opinion, it makes a mockery of basic justice in the US (specifically, innocence until proven guilty and the right to face your accusers).

by yardie 16y ago

joeybaker 16y ago

Meh… it's semantics, they'd vote against Operation Save our Children if they were voting for the Internet Bill of Rights Act

tjmaxal 16y ago
You and I may know that but your average voter probably doesn't, and they certainly wouldn't two or three years later when it come back up out of context, in a attack ad.
- glhaynes 16y ago
  This seems a key failing of our system: people that try to be moderately informed (the best you can reasonably expect - the vast majority can't/won't be political wonks) may end up even less informed in part because the relationship between voting record and the appearance of that record is radically distorted by this kind of thing. So what can be done about this? It's hard for me to imagine a structural remedy.
- ajays 16y ago
  That is the idea! They know that people only pay attention to the title, so they deliberately give titles which make 'em hard to vote against.

jdp23 16y ago

or the PATRIOT Act ...

yummyfajitas 16y ago
Or the "Heroes Earnings Assistance and Relief Tax Act of 2007" The more detailed title: "To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide earnings assistance and tax relief to members of the uniformed services, volunteer firefighters, and Peace Corps volunteers, and for other purposes." http://www.opencongress.org/bill/110-h3997/show http://www.opencongress.org/bill/110-h3997/show It's only when you read the text you discover things like tax credits for low sulfur diesel fuel, tax subsidies for small business, and a $700 billion bailout for the financial services industry.
- gyardley 16y ago
  Ah, yes, the 'Heroes Earnings Assistance and Relief Tax Act of 2007'. I'm no tax attorney, but I believe that was the act that subjects me to immediate capital gains tax on all my illiquid assets (read: start-up stock) at their fair market value should I ever stop being a permanent resident of the United States. Woo, nothing like potentially bankruptcy-causing exit taxes, especially when they're triggered by losing permanent residency - a status that's not 100% up to me. And my fiancee wonders why I get nervous whenever I cross the American border. Can you believe I was eventually planning to naturalize when I got my green card eight years ago? Now that just cracks me up.
jdp23 16y ago
Thanks everybody for the upvotes! For the latest on the PATRIOT Act, please see http://bit.ly/feb16news http://bit.ly/feb16news
- jdp23 16y ago
  It's interesting that this was downvoted while the parent was upvoted. My initial reaction is that people on Hacker News react positively when somebody makes a snarky remark about the PATRIOT Act, but react negatively when told how they can make a difference. Or is there some other explanation?
Bossman 16y ago
Heh. The Patriot Act was the biggest in recent history. Remember how little debate there was when the entire Congress was afraid of looking weak after 9/11? You'd think some of them would go back and read the bill and have second thoughts, but it looks like 10 years later, we're going to renew it again.

GrandMasterBirt 16y ago

How about a better question: Why is this allowed in the united states? This is an absofuckingloutely clear violation of the due process in our constitution. Yes save the fucking children, but do it properly. We see the abuses that arise from improper giving of power. I guess people are waiting until basically we live in communist russia where you got to bribe cops to not give you speeding ticket, impound your car, and throw you in jail, because they felt like breaking some balls. And then you get to sit in a nice abusive prison cell for a few months awaiting trial. Sure it sounds like paranoia, but the government will never turn to a giant powergrab overnight. It will always be gradual, slowly taking power until its too late.

mcantelon 16y ago
>the government will never turn to a giant powergrab overnight. They've learn through history and the wisdom of the public relations industry: consolidate power gradually and using numerous pretexts. I'd guess the power consolidation has an end vision in mind: one doesn't spend the kind of effort they've spent without a goal.
- asdfj843lkdjs 16y ago
  one doesn't spend the kind of effort they've spent without a goal. Never credit to malice what can be explained by incompetence. I personally believe that pretty much all democratic governments are slipping towards fascism, not because any one or any group has that as a far vision, but because all have short term goals which create the emergent long term effect of a slow slide towards fascism. Ever bigger law enforcement in the name of "Save the Children" is a prime example. I really do think the motivation here is primarily to help, not drive America towards fascism. The secondary effect is just not something the prime movers want to bother their minds with.
  - billswift 16y ago
    That is just what the evil, power-mongering scumbags want you to think. Just because it is (probably) true most of the time does NOT mean it is always true.

Splines 16y ago

They should just stop giving them names to avoid this sort of emotional attachment.

GHFigs 16y ago
Even in the absence of an official title a bill will be given an equally glittering nickname by the opposition.
- alexophile 16y ago
  Fine with me - everything gets spin-friendly nicknames in the media, it's just apalling when that's allowed to be absorbed into the system itself. What really bothers me is that the lines separating media, commerce, and legislation have been blurred beyond recognition - candidates are rarely measured on any sort of substantive metric, but on fundraising numbers and media presence.
- pjscott 16y ago
  Then all bills should be given memorable but neutral official nicknames, generated semi-randomly. This bill could be called the "Eight-headed Platypus Act", for example. The name has nothing to do with the bill itself, but hopefully it will fill the name niche well enough to crowd out less entertaining competitors.

byrneseyeview 16y ago

I think the rule should be that the people who vote against it get to collectively vote on a name. This would be a pretty cool game theory case study, actually.

jokermatt999 16y ago
Then you'd end up with every bill having a name like "The Job Killing Health Care Bill". It would just be biased from the other side. That might be good in this case, but when a bill you want to pass comes along, and gets renamed into the "FCC is taking over your internet and will burn sites like Hitler burned books", it may seem less attractive.
- byrneseyeview 16y ago
  Not exactly. You'd get logrolling--the worse the name, the fewer votes it would get, meaning that former voters can tone down the name. What you'd actually get is accuracy, like the "Necessary expenditures with a side of pork act" or the "Handout to lobbyists that will also probably protect consumers, but not necessarily enough to justify the higher costs" bill.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

johnfn 16y ago

Those kind of names are like linkbait titles on HN. :)

bonch 16y ago

Sure can't wait for "net neutrality." What could possibly go wrong in having politicians determine what fair traffic is rather than letting sysadmins manage the bandwidth on their privately-owned networks as they wish?

joe_the_user 16y ago

Note that these are operations that haven't waited for any new bills to pass. As has been debated here previously, these actions are based on importing the draconian "civil forfeiture" device from the drug war into a "war on counterfeiting" or whatever they would call it. Some have argued that this wasn't a big expansion of US state power. Indeed, this is not technically an expansion of legal power. It is certainly a expansion of effective powers. It's so not much that someone just put a knife in US rule of law. It's more someone grabbed the wound already opened by the "war on drugs" and ripped it a fair bit wider. I don't know to what degree civil forfeiture" found been found constitutional by the courts. Regardless, in my opinion, it makes a mockery of basic justice in the US (specifically, innocence until proven guilty and the right to face your accusers).