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The USA Freedom Act? Based on the Patriot Act should I assume it is the exact opposite of freedom? From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_Freedom_A

by bcheung 11y ago

The USA Freedom Act? Based on the Patriot Act should I assume it is the exact opposite of freedom? From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_Freedom_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_Freedom_Act "According to supporters of the USA Freedom Act, the USA Freedom Act was meant to end the bulk collection of Americans' metadata by the NSA, end the secret laws created by the FISA court, and introduce a "Special Advocate" to represent public and privacy matters." "The USA Freedom Act is perceived as containing several concessions to pro-surveillance legislators meant to facilitate its passage, such as extending the Patriot Act powers until 2019." I'm so confused. Is this bill a good thing or a bad thing?

blumkvist 11y ago
>I'm so confused. Is this bill a good thing or a bad thing? I find it particularly amusing that you want somebody to make that judgement for you, while being obviously pro civil activism.
- ChrisClark 11y ago
  You can be both pro civil activism and not a lawyer at the same time. It's not bad to ask someone to help you understand a legal document.
  - blumkvist 11y ago
    Nobody can explain you such matters. It's like asking someone to briefly explain Quantum Mechanics. You will never truly understand a word unless you learn everything you need to know first. This is especially true in law and politics because things can be ambiguous and often times people deliberately want to deceive you. If you are pro civil activism, take the time and effort and learn how to read documents. Otherwise you are just lying to yourself so you can feel warm and fuzzy.
kej 11y ago
Assuming you have typical HN leanings, this bill is a qualified good thing. It ends the NSA bulk metadata collection, but keeps less controversial things like roving wiretaps.
- CWuestefeld 11y ago
  No. Bulk metadata collection will continue, but is in the custody of the telecom companies. The only obstacle to NSA running amok through the data is having to say "please" to the telecom companies first. AIUI, there's still no need for a warrant, and there's still no need for a specific individual as target. Nothing was reined in, it was just shuffled around a bit.
  - kej 11y ago
    > The only obstacle to NSA running amok through the data is having to say "please" to the telecom companies first. The obstacle to the NSA running amok is that this bill drastically reduces what's covered by a specific selection term. It means the NSA can request things like "records for people living in this one house" or "any records pertaining to this one person" but can't request things like "all call records from New York", which is what they had a week ago. On top of that, any FISA decisions that attempt to redefine what a specific selection term is have to be declassified now.
    - CWuestefeld 11y ago
      Not that I disbelieve you, but do you have a reference? It was my understanding that no amendments were allowed to USA FREEDOM, which still leaves the barn doors open. But perhaps I misunderstood something about the version of USA FREEDOM that was current at the time of the vote, so I'd like to read more about it.
      - kej 11y ago
        The EFF summary addresses this issue pretty well: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/04/new-usa-freedom-act-step-right-direction-more-must-be-done https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/04/new-usa-freedom-act-st...
istvan__ 11y ago
We should also stop calling these bills like "the patriot act", "USA freedom act" and replace the names with something like a unique identifier. That would remove some of the support from bills like the patriot act.
- seany 11y ago
  HR 3361 https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/3361 https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/3361
- totalforge 11y ago
  That'll never happen. Congressmen and senators would then not be able to say "...and my opponent voted against the America Awesome Act..." in the next election.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > We should also stop calling these bills like "the patriot act", "USA freedom act" and replace the names with something like a unique identifier. All bills have a unique identifier (a bill number combined with the Congress in which it is introduced.) However, its very common for them to have, as part of the content of the bill, language providing a title, which -- especially with controversial bills -- is often, for bills with controversial subject matter, itself a brand name designed to make the bill sound warm and fluffy. The Unique IDs are hardly memorable and hard to keep straight which applies to which substance, so the titles are convenient and useful in most cases (and the convenience encourages the use, which is then exploited in the controversial cases.)
- filoeleven 11y ago
  I'll repost this with minor edits from the last time I saw someone call for the sensible naming of bills in Congress: == See Downsize DC's One Subject at a Time Act (OSTA) which does almost exactly what you ask[0] in addition to eliminating riders. I have heard that what the bill wants to accomplish would require a constitutional amendment due to legislative entrenchment (the current congress cannot bind a future congress) but I do not know what the truth of the situation is. Downsize DC's Agenda page has a list of all of their bills[1]. OSTA is the one I think has the best chance of being implemented. Some others with good ideas include: * Read The Bills Act: 'Yea' votes require that the congressperson has read/heard the bill (no more "I didn't know that was in there!"), mandatory 7-day public review period of final bill text. I think that the additional requirement of a mandatory reading of a bill's text before a quorum will keep this one from being considered though. * Enumerated Powers Act: Congress must cite the constitutional authority on which any proposed bill rests. The full text of OSTA[3] includes this citation. I don't view Downsize DC as a very effective organization (don't sign up for their newsletter unless you like poorly-formatted rants), so I would love to see other orgs throw their weight behind OSTA and RTBA. It seems to me that it's something EFF or ACLU could support, for example, because so many of the things they fight against were enacted using sneaky riders. [0]https://downsizedc.org/etp/one-subject https://downsizedc.org/etp/one-subject [1]https://downsizedc.org/agenda https://downsizedc.org/agenda [3]https://downsizedc.org/blog-content/the-one-subject-at-a-time-act-0613.pdf https://downsizedc.org/blog-content/the-one-subject-at-a-tim...

by bcheung 11y ago

blumkvist 11y ago

>I'm so confused. Is this bill a good thing or a bad thing? I find it particularly amusing that you want somebody to make that judgement for you, while being obviously pro civil activism.

ChrisClark 11y ago
You can be both pro civil activism and not a lawyer at the same time. It's not bad to ask someone to help you understand a legal document.
- blumkvist 11y ago
  Nobody can explain you such matters. It's like asking someone to briefly explain Quantum Mechanics. You will never truly understand a word unless you learn everything you need to know first. This is especially true in law and politics because things can be ambiguous and often times people deliberately want to deceive you. If you are pro civil activism, take the time and effort and learn how to read documents. Otherwise you are just lying to yourself so you can feel warm and fuzzy.

kej 11y ago

Assuming you have typical HN leanings, this bill is a qualified good thing. It ends the NSA bulk metadata collection, but keeps less controversial things like roving wiretaps.

CWuestefeld 11y ago
No. Bulk metadata collection will continue, but is in the custody of the telecom companies. The only obstacle to NSA running amok through the data is having to say "please" to the telecom companies first. AIUI, there's still no need for a warrant, and there's still no need for a specific individual as target. Nothing was reined in, it was just shuffled around a bit.
- kej 11y ago
  > The only obstacle to NSA running amok through the data is having to say "please" to the telecom companies first. The obstacle to the NSA running amok is that this bill drastically reduces what's covered by a specific selection term. It means the NSA can request things like "records for people living in this one house" or "any records pertaining to this one person" but can't request things like "all call records from New York", which is what they had a week ago. On top of that, any FISA decisions that attempt to redefine what a specific selection term is have to be declassified now.
  - CWuestefeld 11y ago
    Not that I disbelieve you, but do you have a reference? It was my understanding that no amendments were allowed to USA FREEDOM, which still leaves the barn doors open. But perhaps I misunderstood something about the version of USA FREEDOM that was current at the time of the vote, so I'd like to read more about it.
    - kej 11y ago
      The EFF summary addresses this issue pretty well: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/04/new-usa-freedom-act-step-right-direction-more-must-be-done https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/04/new-usa-freedom-act-st...

istvan__ 11y ago

We should also stop calling these bills like "the patriot act", "USA freedom act" and replace the names with something like a unique identifier. That would remove some of the support from bills like the patriot act.

seany 11y ago
HR 3361 https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/3361 https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/3361
totalforge 11y ago
That'll never happen. Congressmen and senators would then not be able to say "...and my opponent voted against the America Awesome Act..." in the next election.
dragonwriter 11y ago
> We should also stop calling these bills like "the patriot act", "USA freedom act" and replace the names with something like a unique identifier. All bills have a unique identifier (a bill number combined with the Congress in which it is introduced.) However, its very common for them to have, as part of the content of the bill, language providing a title, which -- especially with controversial bills -- is often, for bills with controversial subject matter, itself a brand name designed to make the bill sound warm and fluffy. The Unique IDs are hardly memorable and hard to keep straight which applies to which substance, so the titles are convenient and useful in most cases (and the convenience encourages the use, which is then exploited in the controversial cases.)
filoeleven 11y ago
I'll repost this with minor edits from the last time I saw someone call for the sensible naming of bills in Congress: == See Downsize DC's One Subject at a Time Act (OSTA) which does almost exactly what you ask[0] in addition to eliminating riders. I have heard that what the bill wants to accomplish would require a constitutional amendment due to legislative entrenchment (the current congress cannot bind a future congress) but I do not know what the truth of the situation is. Downsize DC's Agenda page has a list of all of their bills[1]. OSTA is the one I think has the best chance of being implemented. Some others with good ideas include: * Read The Bills Act: 'Yea' votes require that the congressperson has read/heard the bill (no more "I didn't know that was in there!"), mandatory 7-day public review period of final bill text. I think that the additional requirement of a mandatory reading of a bill's text before a quorum will keep this one from being considered though. * Enumerated Powers Act: Congress must cite the constitutional authority on which any proposed bill rests. The full text of OSTA[3] includes this citation. I don't view Downsize DC as a very effective organization (don't sign up for their newsletter unless you like poorly-formatted rants), so I would love to see other orgs throw their weight behind OSTA and RTBA. It seems to me that it's something EFF or ACLU could support, for example, because so many of the things they fight against were enacted using sneaky riders. [0]https://downsizedc.org/etp/one-subject https://downsizedc.org/etp/one-subject [1]https://downsizedc.org/agenda https://downsizedc.org/agenda [3]https://downsizedc.org/blog-content/the-one-subject-at-a-time-act-0613.pdf https://downsizedc.org/blog-content/the-one-subject-at-a-tim...