
Freedom Act Passes: What We Celebrate, What We Mourn, and Where We Go from Here - snowpanda
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/05/usa-freedom-act-passes-what-we-celebrate-what-we-mourn-and-where-we-go-here
======
ChrisAntaki
I'm celebrating the only two Senators who voted against the "Freedom" Act [1]
and supported net neutrality [2]. Both also voted against the "Patriot" Act in
2001, while they served in the House [3]:

Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) & Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

[1]
[http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_c...](http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=114&session=1&vote=00201)

[2] [http://www.baldwin.senate.gov/press-releases/us-senator-
tamm...](http://www.baldwin.senate.gov/press-releases/us-senator-tammy-
baldwin-statement-on-net-neutrality) &
[http://www.markey.senate.gov/news/press-releases/to-
protect-...](http://www.markey.senate.gov/news/press-releases/to-protect-net-
neutrality-markey-leads-senate-dems-in-call-to-reclassify-broadband-as-a-
utility)

[3]
[http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2001/roll398.xml](http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2001/roll398.xml)

~~~
ahi
Sanders won't win, but it will be nice to be able to vote for someone I don't
hate for once. In an ideal world it would be Rand Paul/Bernie Sanders race.
Two people who actually believe what they are saying.

~~~
dragonwriter
While they may coincide on a few issues, I don't see enough policy overlap
between a right-libertarian who is at least as solidly the former as the
latter, like Rand, and a democratic socialist, like Sanders. Maybe they both
believe what they are saying, but they believe radically different things when
it comes to the role and ideal policies of government.

~~~
mcv
While I really appreciate Rand Paul's efforts against the Patriot Act, I've
also seen some crazy talk from him, like the claim that universal health care
would lead to slavery. It's fine if you think it's a bad idea, but unhinged
rhetoric like that severely undermines your credibility.

I realize that unhinged rhetoric is part of the toxic political culture in the
US, and almost all US politicians are guilty of similar bizarre polemic, but
from what I've seen, Bernie Sanders actually seems to be a rare exception to
this. Might he actually be an honest politician? It's hard to believe one
really exists, but he gives me hope.

------
coldtea
One good step would be to prohibit laws to be named with nice words and
acronyms ("Freedom", "Patriot", etc).

Those are advertising and only serve to confuse discussion of the actual
content ("you are opposed to the Patriot act? Aren't you a patriot?" etc.).

~~~
tertius
I've never gotten this comment from anyone. Do you actually have friends that
ask these types of questions?

~~~
bmelton
I can't say that I've heard those exact comments either, but in context, it's
really hard to voice an opinion that criticizes something named "The Civil
Rights Act" or "The Clean Air Act", because a lot of America takes their cue
from the political rhetoric of their party.

Using neutral bill names, e.g., HR 625 or SB 1780 would be an upgrade from
what we have now.

~~~
chimeracoder
> Using neutral bill names, e.g., HR 625 or SB 1780 would be an upgrade from
> what we have now.

In theory, but the names catch on because they're easy to remember and use in
conversation. People responded to Heartbleed because it was catchy and easy to
remember. CVE-2014-0160 was not.

Asking people to remember what SB1780 is and whether they support it is about
as likely to happen as them remembering the CNAME or A record corresponding to
a DNS request[0].

Even if we forbade these names from bills, the media would invent them.
"Obamacare" was not even the real name for the Affordable Care Act, and was
originally a pejorative term, but the media started using it because it was
much more distinctive and evocative. It became so widely used that it's now
lost much of it's pejorative connotation (you'll even hear Democrats referring
to it non-pejoratively).

[0] Remember that the same bill has multiple such numbers (one each for the
House and Senate, plus a new one if it's reintroduced in subsequent years,
etc., which is not uncommon for many pieces of legislation).

~~~
EdSharkey
I think Obamacare is still mostly a pejorative in my community - to the point
that the minority proponents have recently taken to referring to it as the
Affordable Care Act in a sort of rebranding attempt.

The Patriot Act has similarly transformed into a negative, doublespeak term.
I'm not surprised the lawmakers felt the need to create a new bumpersticker-
named law rather than continuing to edit the old one.

~~~
mcv
I believe the Daily Show at some point asked people what they thought of
Obamacare and what they thought of the Affordable Care Act, and while most
people were negative about Obamacare, the very same people were very
supportive of the Affordable Care Act.

------
yodsanklai
> We’ve gone from just killing bad bills to passing bills that protect
> people’s rights.

By people, do they mean "american people"? I may be wrong but my understanding
from Snowden revelations is that the NSA is listening and recording without
restriction all conversations from non-US citizen (whereas it was restricted
to meta-data for US citizens). I don't know if the freedom act is an
improvement for the rest of the world, but I doubt so. It would be nice for
our american friends to understand that we value our privacy too.

~~~
happyscrappy
>It would be nice for our american friends to understand that we value our
privacy too.

I love how everyone pretends that only the US has spies. Or they say "oh but
my country sucks at it so it doesn't matter". The entire West shares intel and
double checks each other by espionage. Of course you don't want to condemn the
entire West, that would be stupid.

~~~
yodsanklai
> I love how everyone pretends that only the US has spies.

We're not talking about spies here but about mass surveillance. And if that
can reassure you, I wouldn't be any less upset knowing that Norway or Japan
openly record all my conversations and stores them until the end of times.

But the thing I find insulting and scary here is that there are no
consideration at all in this debate for non-US citizens. Basically, the
message there is "sorry guys, what we did was wrong... except when it's about
everybody else in the world".

And in the end, everybody suffers from that. What Snowden said in Citizenfour
is that the NSA uses the British surveillance system because it has less
restriction than their own concerning americans.

------
hackuser
I follow this issue and read a lot about it, and I'm still not sure what
powers the NSA has, other federal and state agencies have, under what laws,
and which have been restricted.

It would be a valuable public service -- more than all the newspaper articles
and press releases -- if someone who knows all that could make a simple table:
Agency | Power | Limits | Legal authority

~~~
hackuser
I found the following, which is good but I suspect it's incomplete:

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/usa-
freedom-...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/usa-freedom-act/)

------
getsat
>we have every reason to believe that President Obama will sign USA Freedom
into law

His official Twitter account said he'll be signing it:
[https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/605841647193030657](https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/605841647193030657)

------
kweinber
Hat tip to the eff... Don't forget to support them, they've got your back on
stuff like this....

------
fleitz
Isn't this a step backwards from yesterday?

~~~
kijin
It is. Still, we're slightly ahead of where we were the day before yesterday.

If you're a cup-is-half-full type of person, that would be enough reason to
celebrate a bit.

~~~
shard972
What if your a cup half empty person who looks as this as a failure as now all
the people on the fence will have reason to ignore this issue for the next few
years baring some kind of new revelations.

Seriously, who in congress is going to be supporting a bill in the next 3
years to cut more powers from the spying apparatus when they can just say "We
just did that, it's time to talk about X instead".

~~~
fleitz
I think we'll have to see how the campaigns play out, it might just get
resonance with voters.

------
peteretep
I think people forget that Congress are people — with their own secrets — too.

~~~
themartorana
I imagined that once Congress found out the CIA was spying on _them_ [0] they
would shut the program down faster than I can think of a decent analogy.

They didn't. Which I had a hard time believing.

But you're ever so correct.

[0] [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/31/cia-admits-
spyi...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/31/cia-admits-spying-
senate-staffers)

~~~
mbca
They will find a way to opt-out instead. One set of rules for them, and
another set of rules for everyone else.

~~~
uptown
Like they did with insider trading!

[http://nyulocal.com/national/2013/04/15/congress-quietly-
rep...](http://nyulocal.com/national/2013/04/15/congress-quietly-repeals-
congressional-insider-trading-ban/)

------
MCRed
We've been fighting this fight for 20 years. The lack of progress is
unacceptable. The NSA and the government in general have only gotten more and
more out of control, more and more aggressive in violating rights.

That the result of Snowden is this pathetic attempt would convince me that
government was useless in this current form and that it has totally failed- if
I weren't already convinced of that seeing the past 20 years of legislation.
(I've been watching more than 20 years, but the gloves really began to come
off during the Clinton administration when he banned gay marriage for no good
reason (he could have simply pocket vetoed the bill.) )

My how our standards are low, and that makes this country increasingly a joke-
a parody of itself, commonly summed up with the phrase "MERICA". It's not
funny, it's tragedy.

