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The Senate struggled to prevent an interruption in critical government surveillance programs early Saturday That is a very strange way to start this article. C

by cb18 11y ago

The Senate struggled to prevent an interruption in critical government surveillance programs early Saturday That is a very strange way to start this article. Consider to what type of government, activity of this sort(unencumbered spying on all of its citizens) would be 'critical.' Is that the type of government you believe the United States has or should have? Then after making this strange statement and providing no support for it, the article actually goes on to refute the claim. If nearly half of the senators are against it, then it is surely not very 'critical,' is it? Maybe instead of 'critical,' the author meant to say 'much criticized.'

CHsurfer 11y ago
Agree, the language was very conflicting throughout.
higherpurpose 11y ago
Not to mention that according to Chris Soghoian from ACLU, last year only 5 out of 180 FISA orders were authorized by 215 - the rest were authorized by other programs. So this "critical" program represents only like ~3% of the government's surveillance programs. After all we only are talking about "phone records" here. Most records would likely come from Internet communications these days and there are likely programs that include capturing the content as well. Also: "McConnell announced that the Senate would return from its break on Sunday, May 31, just a few hours before the midnight deadline. McConnell called it "one more opportunity to act responsibly." http://www.dailydot.com/politics/senate-usa-freedom-act-fails-section-215-patriot-act-expiration/ http://www.dailydot.com/politics/senate-usa-freedom-act-fail... So it's not over until the fat lady sings.
- ChrisAntaki 11y ago
  > After all we only are talking about "phone records" here Phone records are the most publicized example of Section 215 in use, but the section is worded to apply to any "tangible thing."
- throwawayaway 11y ago
  Your story checks out, how depressing: FISC 5/180[0] [0] https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/05/why_the_current.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/05/why_the_curre...
- derf_ 11y ago
  > only 5 out of 180 FISA orders were authorized by 215 If you have a statute that you believe allows you to surveil the entire population, how many orders does that require? As opposed to ones that require some standard of suspicion for an individual or group. I don't mean to imply there aren't other programs or theories of authority, but that this statistics tells you exactly nothing about the importance of a particular provision.
kristopolous 11y ago
It's written by Ken Dilanian, who was accused of being a CIA lackey: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/04/former-l-times-reporter-cleared-stories-cia-publication/ https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/04/former-l-times..., caught falsifying facts in the CIA's favor and left the LA Times: http://www.nationofchange.org/la-times-reporter-caught-falsifying-articles-cia-1410186373 http://www.nationofchange.org/la-times-reporter-caught-falsi... Seeing the guy enthusiastically shake his pom-poms for #team-surveillance is a no-brainer. note: the article at AP, with author credit, is here: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/60c0d988801742cf96cf8d725466c6e0/senate-expected-act-nsa-collection-phone-records http://bigstory.ap.org/article/60c0d988801742cf96cf8d725466c... ... AP gives the publisher the right to modify an article. Doing a fold -w 20 -s allows you to diff them and see the changes. Here they are: http://getpostdelete.com/ap-fold-20.txt http://getpostdelete.com/ap-fold-20.txt and http://getpostdelete.com/npr-fold-20.txt http://getpostdelete.com/npr-fold-20.txt
- skylan_q 11y ago
  I'm not surprised. I was about to say "What else would you expect from NPR?" People need to start realizing that journalism as reporting is dead and it's now journalism as consumption and thought control. Some further reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necessary_Illusions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necessary_Illusions
  - pas 11y ago
    You are not helping. Are there useful lists (metadata, hah) on publishers, sites, channels, journalists and co. that help navigate these murky waters? What's the best practice on dealing with this problem? How should one inform oneself and decide on how much time to spend on cross-checking communications for these conscious or unconscious biases and influences?
    - dredmorbius 11y ago
      Sourcewatch (HTTP://sourcewatch.org/) is a good start. Tends more toward AGW and ALEC.
noobermin 11y ago
Unrelated, but are you WilfredR on disquis? http://www.npr.org/2015/05/23/408927009/senate-blocks-patriot-act-extension#comment-2041087256 http://www.npr.org/2015/05/23/408927009/senate-blocks-patrio...
- nfoz 11y ago
  Why would you ask that? It seems rude to link up peoples' disparate online accounts.
  - mburns 11y ago
    >Why would you ask that? Maybe because the two comments are verbatim and posted at roughly the same time? If OP didn't want there to be a connection between the two accounts, they shouldn't have copy-pasted content between them.
    - nfoz 11y ago
      You've described that they can be linked. But what value does that provide to post it here?
indrax 11y ago
Another manipulation is equating "illegal NSA spying" with "collection of phone records" Does this bill just target the phone record collection, while it gets subtly branded as a fix to everything Snowden revealed? Is it a law against illegal things? The phone record collection has already been ruled unconstitutional, so they concoct a congressional debate on it. They sacrifice a program that was already killed in the courts, and distract from everything else.

by cb18 11y ago

CHsurfer 11y ago

Agree, the language was very conflicting throughout.

higherpurpose 11y ago

Not to mention that according to Chris Soghoian from ACLU, last year only 5 out of 180 FISA orders were authorized by 215 - the rest were authorized by other programs. So this "critical" program represents only like ~3% of the government's surveillance programs. After all we only are talking about "phone records" here. Most records would likely come from Internet communications these days and there are likely programs that include capturing the content as well. Also: "McConnell announced that the Senate would return from its break on Sunday, May 31, just a few hours before the midnight deadline. McConnell called it "one more opportunity to act responsibly." http://www.dailydot.com/politics/senate-usa-freedom-act-fails-section-215-patriot-act-expiration/ http://www.dailydot.com/politics/senate-usa-freedom-act-fail... So it's not over until the fat lady sings.

ChrisAntaki 11y ago
> After all we only are talking about "phone records" here Phone records are the most publicized example of Section 215 in use, but the section is worded to apply to any "tangible thing."
throwawayaway 11y ago
Your story checks out, how depressing: FISC 5/180[0] [0] https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/05/why_the_current.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/05/why_the_curre...
derf_ 11y ago
> only 5 out of 180 FISA orders were authorized by 215 If you have a statute that you believe allows you to surveil the entire population, how many orders does that require? As opposed to ones that require some standard of suspicion for an individual or group. I don't mean to imply there aren't other programs or theories of authority, but that this statistics tells you exactly nothing about the importance of a particular provision.

kristopolous 11y ago

It's written by Ken Dilanian, who was accused of being a CIA lackey: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/04/former-l-times-reporter-cleared-stories-cia-publication/ https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/04/former-l-times..., caught falsifying facts in the CIA's favor and left the LA Times: http://www.nationofchange.org/la-times-reporter-caught-falsifying-articles-cia-1410186373 http://www.nationofchange.org/la-times-reporter-caught-falsi... Seeing the guy enthusiastically shake his pom-poms for #team-surveillance is a no-brainer. note: the article at AP, with author credit, is here: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/60c0d988801742cf96cf8d725466c6e0/senate-expected-act-nsa-collection-phone-records http://bigstory.ap.org/article/60c0d988801742cf96cf8d725466c... ... AP gives the publisher the right to modify an article. Doing a fold -w 20 -s allows you to diff them and see the changes. Here they are: http://getpostdelete.com/ap-fold-20.txt http://getpostdelete.com/ap-fold-20.txt and http://getpostdelete.com/npr-fold-20.txt http://getpostdelete.com/npr-fold-20.txt

skylan_q 11y ago
I'm not surprised. I was about to say "What else would you expect from NPR?" People need to start realizing that journalism as reporting is dead and it's now journalism as consumption and thought control. Some further reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necessary_Illusions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necessary_Illusions
- pas 11y ago
  You are not helping. Are there useful lists (metadata, hah) on publishers, sites, channels, journalists and co. that help navigate these murky waters? What's the best practice on dealing with this problem? How should one inform oneself and decide on how much time to spend on cross-checking communications for these conscious or unconscious biases and influences?
  - dredmorbius 11y ago
    Sourcewatch (HTTP://sourcewatch.org/) is a good start. Tends more toward AGW and ALEC.

noobermin 11y ago

Unrelated, but are you WilfredR on disquis? http://www.npr.org/2015/05/23/408927009/senate-blocks-patriot-act-extension#comment-2041087256 http://www.npr.org/2015/05/23/408927009/senate-blocks-patrio...

nfoz 11y ago
Why would you ask that? It seems rude to link up peoples' disparate online accounts.
- mburns 11y ago
  >Why would you ask that? Maybe because the two comments are verbatim and posted at roughly the same time? If OP didn't want there to be a connection between the two accounts, they shouldn't have copy-pasted content between them.
  - nfoz 11y ago
    You've described that they can be linked. But what value does that provide to post it here?

indrax 11y ago

Another manipulation is equating "illegal NSA spying" with "collection of phone records" Does this bill just target the phone record collection, while it gets subtly branded as a fix to everything Snowden revealed? Is it a law against illegal things? The phone record collection has already been ruled unconstitutional, so they concoct a congressional debate on it. They sacrifice a program that was already killed in the courts, and distract from everything else.