
Bill to Restrict N.S.A. Data Collection Blocked in Vote by Senate Republicans - danielnaab
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/19/us/nsa-phone-records.html?module=Notification&version=BreakingNews&region=FixedTop&action=Click&contentCollection=BreakingNews&contentID=22423438&pgtype=article
======
suprgeek
So that's it - the net legislative effect of all the "bombshell" disclosures
that Ed Snowden made has been what - Nothing, NADA, Zilch.

Proving once again that going thru "Official" Channels was never an option.
That in the toxic hyper-partisan environment of Washington the Powerful will
find a way to kill any meaningful reform of even the worst abuses.

The solution to this has to be first and foremost Technological.

~~~
3327
Honestly, I'll start by saying I am a democrat so before the full flak of the
HN community peppers me.

Rule contraction at times of relative piece and expansion at times of duress
are never effective. Expanding surveillance after 9/11 with sweeping judicial
reforms and due process, and vice versa (in today's case) contracting or
attempting to contract is also not a good idea. Yes there are many problems,
but think of it from a impact and policy perspective. What happens after if
there is a terrorist event? Then do we expand again because perhaps someone
yells out "not enough oversight or data?". Although many here are PRO reform,
the pattern contraction/expansion is not the way to go about national security
policy.

~~~
ibejoeb
I'm not peppering you because your political leanings, but because I have no
idea what you're trying to say. It sounds like you're saying that there is
never a good time to change our current state of mass surveillance.

What pattern of expansion and contraction are you talking about? I know the
expansion part, but I certainly don't know what the last contraction was.

What due process are you talking about? These policies were effected
unilaterally, in secret.

What is a good way "to go about national security policy" if not by working
within the legislative framework? Are you saying that there is no legislative
solution?

What if there is a terrorist event now? How much more data can we collect?

My position is that it is never too early to examine the effects--the
consequences--of any legislation. This particular incident has lingered
secretly for well over a decade, and that is oppressive. Regardless of
wordsmithing and mental gymnastics, these programs are clearly out of line
with the spirit of American civil liberties and need to be checked.

~~~
brazzy
I think s/he's saying that policy should not be determined as a knee-jerk
Reaktion to current events, either way.

------
Hario
Nice of the article to clearly lay out the partisan divisions here. None of
that "blame both sides" bs.

The vote: All D's voted right except Bill Nelson of Florida. All R's voted
wrong except Cruz, Lee, Heller, Paul, and Murkowski.

Where "right" means "for the overhaul bill" and "wrong" means the opposite.

You'll also notice that this bill got way over 50 votes, but still failed due
to the modern filibuster.

~~~
mariodiana
This bill was completely watered down and subverted from the original, to the
point where even many of its initial champions turned against it. Voting it
down was the right choice. The worst thing would have been to have passed it
and pretended that "reform" had been made.

~~~
mikeyouse
I think one of my favorite sayings applies:

'The Perfect' is the enemy of 'The Good'.

Google, MSFT, Apple, the EFF all supported this bill. Obviously there are
further improvements that could be made, but instead of starting from a better
platform, we're at ground zero with an incoming congress that has no interest
in curbing the 'military' power of the US.

The EFF's case for supporting the bill that was just killed is very clear
about this:

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/08/understanding-new-
usa-...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/08/understanding-new-usa-freedom-
act-questions-concerns-and-effs-decision-support)

~~~
001sky
This is (arguably) a lame excuse.

Half-measures are often incoherent and worse

than the status quo.

See: banking & healthcare

You just lock yourself into a disaster.

Obama can update the EO's for the NSA without congress[+].

[+] EFF: _" Future reform must include significant changes to ... Executive
Order 12333, and to the broken classification system that the executive branch
counts on to hide unconstitutional surveillance from the public."_

He just doesn't want to stick his neck out.

So this bill was a distant 3rd choice for the country.

1) pass a good law

2) administrate the NSA into compliance

3) pass muddled legislation in a lame duck session

~~~
mikeyouse
Yet the EFF still supported it.. and given your false choices, why not do
_both_ #2 and #3?

~~~
001sky
False choices what?

Your comment is absurd.

Fixing the EOs is simple.

(That buys time. Time to get

coherent legislation

figured out.)

------
WBrentWilliams
If what the purest form of this bill was trying to do is important to you and
you're from the US, keep working for it. I suggest the following:

1) Show up at the primaries. 2) Reform your local laws to allow you to vote in
the primaries for both parties. 3) Don't shut up. Keep talking. 4) Keep in
mind, at all times, that the fight isn't over once the NSA is squelched. AT&T
et. al. still get to keep this information forever. 5) Think about parallels.
Encryption isn't good enough, as the same kind of meta-data is generated when
you visit an encrypted site. It's not any one activity it's the pattern of all
activity that's important and no one is making anyone give up that data,
either.

~~~
bobsil1
Net architecture needs to go Tor-style.

------
graeme
Does anyone have a history of the "60 votes needed" to pass a bill in the
Senate?

I could have sworn that within my lifetime, the press talked about "50 votes
needed" to pass a bill. Then at some point in the Bush years, threat of
filibuster was regularly invoked, making 60 votes the requirement in practice.

Now no one even mentions a filibuster. As a non-American, it's rather strange.

~~~
Hario
This might be what you're looking for:
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/post/the-
histor...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/post/the-history-of-
the-filibuster-in-one-graph/2012/05/15/gIQAVHf0RU_blog.html)

Very briefly:

In the mid years of Bush, the D Senate filibustered more than usual in regards
to nominations of non-Supreme Court judges.

In 2006, when Democrats took the Senate, the Republicans started filibustering
up a storm. But no one in the press noticed because Bush would have veto'd
anyway, so the balance of power didn't shift.

As soon as Obama was elected, the Republican Senate had an internal meeting
where they agreed to filibuster everything all the time -- legislation,
judges, executive appointments, everything. Even legislation they supported,
just to throw a wrench into the plans. It was a momentous change. The press
failed to point it out or make an issue out of it. And here we are.

~~~
deciplex
I wonder what the odds are that the Republicans will end the filibuster once
they take back the Senate. Seems like the smart play would be to only do that
if you have a veto-proof majority or a Republican President, but who knows.

~~~
ericcumbee
Actually Harry Reid already ended the filibuster on Judicial Nominees
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-poised-to-
limi...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-poised-to-limit-
filibusters-in-party-line-vote-that-would-alter-centuries-of-
precedent/2013/11/21/d065cfe8-52b6-11e3-9fe0-fd2ca728e67c_story.html)

------
dobbsbob
At least your media even talks about this, I'm in a 5 Eyes Alliance country
and none of them have written anything except excuses why we should be under
24/7 surveillance. Our senate can't even block bills.

------
devindotcom
Not to sound more cynical than the situation warrants, but in this case I'm
not particularly surprised or disappointed. Congress is clueless and more
concerned with partisan politics and re-election fundraising.

We should be (and many are) working to secure ourselves so that Congress and
the legal system must work to catch up to the possibilities of citizens to
protect themselves on their own terms: good end-to-end encryption, true
anonymity when it's needed, and as much open and auditable code as we can get.

They're not going to give security and privacy to us — they wouldn't even if
they could. So we make it ourselves, slowly, surely, and publicly, and maybe
in a few years _they 'll_ be the ones that are outraged.

~~~
xnull2guest
You will, however, be bound by current 'lawful intercept and storage' laws. If
you provide a remote computing service (email, hosting, cloud storage, fitness
tracking, etc) you will be bound by 18 U.S.C. § 2703(f) [1]. If you provide
telecommunications you will be bound by CALEA [2]. You will be bound by the
Stored Communications Act and by the Patriot Act, and you will be bound to
provide access to the core of your service and/or your private keys if you are
given an NSL.

Essentially - you can not provide secure communication as a service.

If you try to provide it as a _product_ it's more blurry. With precedents like
Blackberry, RSA and Skype you need to make sure you're operationally able to
deal with extreme levels of leverage and influence.

[1]
[http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2703](http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2703)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_Law_Enforcement_Act)

~~~
joering2
Will this also apply if your server is outside US. Example: you're using an US
company (Rackspace) that is hosting your website in HongKong.

Is there anywhere a list of "nay" voters.. I want to put few phonecalls in
place tomorrow, express my disgust.

~~~
g4k
Yes, it will apply. Hosting location does not matter [1] [2]

[1]:
[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/09/23/microsoft_vs_the_lon...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/09/23/microsoft_vs_the_long_arm_of_us_law/)

[2]: [http://www.zdnet.com/yes-u-s-authorities-can-spy-on-eu-
cloud...](http://www.zdnet.com/yes-u-s-authorities-can-spy-on-eu-cloud-data-
heres-how-7000010653/)

------
DanielBMarkham
I have no pity for the Republicans and every one that voted against it needs
to be reminded of it every day from now until election.

I'm also not such a noob at politics that I think this is the entire story.
Democrats knew this wouldn't pass. This was their last couple of months of
control. So it's a poke in the eye to Republicans on the way out.

The really interesting counter-factual here is what would have happened if a
large block of Republicans switched up. My bet is that you'd see quite a few
defections in the Democratic camp.

If I'm a politician, I can either support something, oppose something, look
like I'm supporting something when I really don't, or look like I'm opposing
something when I really support it. The key issue isn't my stance, it's how I
can position myself against the other politicians.

I'd love to see movement on this. Not for a second did I think this vote was
anything but political posturing. But still -- any vote is a good one. Just
wish it would have actually meant something instead of more fodder for all the
partisans to throw dung at each other. It also looks like the beginning of
"See! If we were just back in power, this time we'd really fix all those
problems we approved of and encouraged the last time we were there!"

I wonder if this will have any traction among the base, which was the entire
point. Sadly, I think it will.

------
tylerlh
It's worth noting that the USA Freedom Act would have extended the Patriot Act
until the end of 2017.

------
logn
"Earlier this evening, Sen. Rand Paul voted against further consideration of
the USA Freedom Act as it currently extends key provisions of the Patriot Act
until 2017. Sen. Paul led the charge against the Patriot Act extension"

[http://www.paul.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=1244](http://www.paul.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=1244)

------
lettergram
"“This is the worst possible time to be tying our hands behind our backs,” Mr.
McConnell said before the vote, expressing the concerns of those who argued
that the program was a vital tool in the fight against terrorism."

When would be a good time? Seriously, I hate these arguments, because there is
no reasoning with them. Sure, these various programs may have helped stop
terrorism, or at least have the potential to.

However, so would killing anyone (citizen or not) who has any potential
threat. I would argue the later is even more effective, and uses the same
chain of reasoning.

Why then, can we not move past that and try to stand a bit more on law (being
the constitution in this case), if not reason. Clearly, these programs are
disliked by a large number (if not the majority) of the constituents these
senators represent. Then, why are they not voting on their behalf?

That seems like a far better question.

~~~
deciplex
Notice that the article only _inferred_ that McConnell was referring to
terrorism specifically. Perhaps they anticipate domestic unrest (due to, among
other things, egregious NSA spying, ironically), and don't want to tie their
hands behind their backs in the fight against _that_. In which case, a good
time to do it, is whenever they decide to stop the spying and the
impoverishment to destitution of literally everyone save for the rounding
error of a demographic that constitutes the ruling and elite classes, _et
cetera_. So, never.

------
devindotcom
Not to sound more cynical than the situation warrants, but in this case I'm
not particularly surprised or disappointed. Congress is clueless and more
concerned with partisan politics and re-election fundraising.

We should be (and many are) working to secure ourselves so that Congress and
the legal system must work to catch up to the possibilities of citizens to
protect themselves on their own terms: good end-to-end encryption, true
anonymity when it's needed, and as much open and auditable code as we can get.

They're not going to give security and privacy to us — they wouldn't even if
they could. So we make it ourselves, slowly, surely, and publicly, and maybe
in a few years they'll be the ones that are outraged.

(pasted from the other thread where I wrote this before I saw this one)

------
ninguem2
Wasn't the program created by executive order? Can't it be dismantled the same
way?

~~~
pmorici
If you are talking about the Bush executive order congress went and passed
laws legitimizing it after it was leaked in the press.

~~~
dllthomas
It may well still be able to be dismantled by executive order. Just 1) the
next President could put it together again, and 2) Obama doesn't have much
interest in dismantling it in the first place.

~~~
bediger4000
In 2008 he campaigned against dragnet (or at least warrantless) surveillance.
Obama's wikipedia entry says he taught constitutional law for twelve years or
so.

 _Why_ is Obama not interested in dismantling dragnet surveillance? He also
worked as a civil rights lawyer.

Obama has the education and experience to know that surveillance has lots of
bad effects, and that some secret special reading of a law doesn't make it
legal or ethical or constitutional. Why didn't Obama dismantle the universal-
as-possible surveillance?

~~~
001sky
This is a really fair question. I think it is simply he doesn't want to look
weak. The political problem with him fixing the EOs is he has to sign them.
This is just a publicity stunt to blame someone else for not doing something
he lacks the courage to do himself. Its truly mind-bending. A good leader
would dix the stuff he can fix by himself and then work with other people to
fix what needs to be fixed by consensus. POTUS is not that guy, tho.

------
JumpCrisscross
> _With the bill’s defeat, the Senate faces a hard deadline for new
> legislation since the legal basis for the phone records program, a provision
> of the Patriot Act, expires in June. After that, when the 90-day orders to
> phone companies requiring them to turn over their customers’ records expire,
> the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court would be unable to issue a new
> round of orders._

Given the "rifts between the [GOP's] interventionist and more libertarian-
leaning wings," what are the probable endgames? Specifically, what are the
odds of–and promoting factors for–an obstructionist minority flipping over the
table in June?

~~~
Hario
D's lost 8, R's gained 8 in the latest election.

Assuming no new R's vote right, that gets us to a vote of 50 / 50, with Biden
getting the deciding vote. However, in the modern filibustering Senate, 41
Senators can kill any bill.

So in theory, if everyone who voted for the bill hangs tight, they could
destroy any new legislation, including PATRIOT ACT reauthorization.

However, I'd be quite surprised if neither of these things happen: 1\.
McConnell decides the filibuster no longer works for him, so he kills it. 2\.
Obama puts remarkable pressure on fellow D's and they buckle.

But theoretically, we have all the votes we need. And if 1 new R senator joins
the anti-NSA caucus (and all the D Senators hang tight, and all the D senators
are good on the issue), they wouldn't even be a minority -- they'd have 51
votes.

Hope that makes sense.

~~~
protomyth
I'm away from my lists, but some of the new R Senators will vote anti-NSA with
Paul / Cruz. I would imagine the Patriot Act reauthorization might be
problematic.

~~~
_delirium
This article characterizes the new R senators as belonging more to the
establishment wing of the party, in part because the party was fairly
successful in getting its preferred candidates through the primaries, avoiding
some of the surprises that characterized 2010/2012:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/us/new-senators-tilt-
gop-b...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/us/new-senators-tilt-gop-back-
toward-insiders.html)

Some do have more track record in that regard than others though, so it might
be that they won't all side with the national-security conservatives.

~~~
protomyth
4 were swept into the House in the wave that brought the R majority and their
voting record isn't exactly all happy happy with the establishment. Joni Ernst
is not establishment. I am not sure about the other 2.

There were a lot a jockeying and some losses from the outsiders, but remember
that Cantor got beat in the primary.

------
discardorama
It's ironic that the same people who detest "big government" are for big
government spying on them.

------
arh68
If there's any nugget of gold in there, it's that Dianne Feinstein voted
_with_ Ted Cruz in a _Yea_. I would have expected a different outcome.

Apart from that it's hard to frame positively. Is this something Americans
should be proud of? Should the Germans have been proud in the '30s?

------
adventured
Anybody know who attached the Patriot Act renewal to this bill? Which
politician/s specifically.

~~~
mikeyouse
Only 3 provisions of the roughly 100 from the Patriot Act would be renewed
with this bill[1], but that amendment was added on by one of the original
authors of the Patriot Act, Jim Sensenbrenner (R)Wisconsin.[2]

[1] - [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/11/usa-freedom-act-
week-w...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/11/usa-freedom-act-week-whats-
come-and-what-you-need-know)

[2] -
[http://sensenbrenner.house.gov/biography/](http://sensenbrenner.house.gov/biography/)

------
lazyant
I can very much understand people for the 2nd amendment and people for
government surveillance but for the love of me I cannot understand people for
both things, they seem direct contradictions of what your idea of government
involvement in citizen's life should be.

------
enlightenedfool
I think they just reflect what the people want. In other words, a majority of
American population does not want overhaul of NSA program. Right or wrong we
will see in the future.

~~~
krapp
Yes and no.

The parties have successfully rigged the system such that they only need to
cater to lobbyists, and the extremist wings of their respective parties, to
maintain power.

It really wouldn't matter what the _majority_ of Americans believed,
notwithstanding that a majority of Americans probably would view the NSA
programs as, at worst, a necessary evil. You also have to take into account
the politics approaching the upcoming presidential election.

~~~
bavcyc
Matt Taibbi is a good writer to read in regards to how Washington really
works. I can't remember which of his books had the best example, but the
system is broke.

------
benguild
I feel like the biggest problem we have is that whatever can be done will be
done by other nations, so the USA has to break rules too. :(

~~~
Havvy
Being spied on by your own country is worse than being spied on by other
countries. Your own country doesn't have another country between you and it to
protect you. Also, other countries will look at the USA and say 'we can do it
because they do it', and that just leads to more problems. Eventually you have
to say no to spying. It's morally and ethically unacceptable, and we should
not tolerate anybody doing it.

~~~
Istof
When a country wants to spy on it's own citizen, they apparently think that
it's acceptable to ask for that data from another country as opposed to being
illegal when getting the data directly. USA <-> Germany being an example

------
001sky
"Bill to Restrict Data Collection Blocked in Vote "

\-- actual title

~~~
mikeyouse
The title on the article changed after it was submitted here. From NYTimes
twitter:

[https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/534873348686495745](https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/534873348686495745)

~~~
001sky
This is a common tactic for NY times articles.

------
paulhauggis
The democrats want the government to control everything. Do you think we will
have less data collection when we have universal health care? How about making
the Internet a "utility"? You don't think when this happen there won't be a
direct pipe to our data??

I can't believe anything I read on the Internet anymore. I would be interested
to see why they voted against it.

I'm shocked that a group that claims they are open and accepting, yet when the
word republican is used, the tactics and tone change to that of the people you
are against (personal attacks, slander, bigotry, and bias). It's because most
of it is bullshit. There is only acceptance when someone aligns with your
personal beliefs.

I can see how evil dictators can come into power. The average person can so
easily be swayed by emotion.

------
bobsil1
dm;we (doesn't matter; will encrypt)

Entire consumer stack will go encrypted.

~~~
slang800
Encryption doesn't quite solve everything here - the NSA can still demand the
encryption keys, or demand direct modifications to the service like logging
being installed.

To solve this from a purely technical standpoint we'd need to design services
where the service provider is a completely untrusted party - never allowed to
see or manipulate user data on the backend, and all processing that requires
decrypted user data would need to be moved to the client. We would also need a
way to verify client code to ensure that malicious changes haven't been
introduced. And finally, we would need a way to anonymize all requests to the
backend.

An architecture like this is pretty hard to implement, so it would be nice if
we could just get the NSA to stop.

~~~
bobsil1
It stops mass spying, targeted is fine if legit.

The NSA will not stop because DC wants to spy on governors, lawyers, judges,
companies, etc. NSA has been illegally spying domestically since its
inception, which was itself an undemocratic exec order. Only Supreme Court
will restrain, and doesn't protect against Chinese and Russian hackers. So
encryption throughout consumer tech stack and net protocols is the only
answer.

