
Senate leadership pushing a surveillance bill as Americans focused on Covid-19 - tlrobinson
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/16/senate-short-term-extension-spy-programs-132401
======
jdp23
Good news: due to strong pushback, they've dropped this proposal, and just did
a straightforward short-term extension --
[https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/16/senate-short-
term-e...](https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/16/senate-short-term-
extension-spy-programs-132401)

~~~
dang
Ok, we've changed the URL to that from
[https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/03/16/senate-
leaders...](https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/03/16/senate-leadership-
pushing-through-dangerous-surveillance-bill-americans-are-focused).

------
tathougies
The article neglects to mention that the bill already passed the democratic
house without much debate.

The President of the United States wants the Senate bill to remove powers
given to the executive branch, because he's convinced they were used against
him. Yes, that's right, the president of the United States wants the Senate to
amend the bill to reduce the power of the executive branch.

In other words, by characterizing this bill as something Senate republicans
are trying to do to increase the power of the federal government, the article
neglects to mention that (a) the bill has already passed the Democrat-led
house (sponsored by Adam Schiff, BTW) and (b) that the head of the Republican
party, the POTUS, wants more restrictions on the powers they're giving to him.
That would certainly change the headline, but wouldn't satisfy people's
republican bashing appetite.

[https://www.usnews.com/news/technology/articles/2020-03-16/u...](https://www.usnews.com/news/technology/articles/2020-03-16/us-
senate-votes-to-extend-surveillance-tools-for-77-days)

~~~
tobramycin
"The Act passed the House late last week, but with significant bipartisan
opposition from civil-liberties champions in Congress and from leading
privacy, racial-justice and constitutional-rights groups, including my group
Free Press Action."

This is the second paragraph of the article.

~~~
daenz
So that negates the very clear spin of the headline, sub-headline, and first
paragraph? They're burying the lede intentionally to push their own warped
narrative of what's actually happening.

~~~
boomboomsubban
>In the House, a bipartisan group of representatives called for meaningful
reforms to federal spying powers, including Section 215. Democrats and
Republicans who voted against the bill—and even some who voted for it—joined
together to say that this legislation didn’t do enough to protect everyone’s
privacy rights

>Yet in the Senate, Majority Leader McConnell has prevented Sens. Steve Daines
(R-MT), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Mike Lee (R-UT), Ron Wyden (D-OR) and others...

And "The act passed the house..." is the second sentence of the article.

Or how about last week's headline

>152 House Democrats Join GOP to Reauthorize 'Abusive Government Surveillance
Powers

What are your expectations exactly?

------
nostromo
This does seem similar to many bad laws that were passed after 9/11, usually
with support of both parties.

Even decades after 9/11 many of those bad laws are still with us. Shockingly,
the very broad authorization of military force from 2001 is still the law of
the land:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Milit...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Military_Force_of_2001)

It's important to be diligent and not get distracted by a crisis. All
emergency measures should have sunset clauses.

~~~
SkyBelow
>All emergency measures should have sunset clauses.

I wonder if all laws should have sunset clauses. Even with as simple as murder
there are needs for the legislature to discuss if the penalty is appropriate
based on current science of rehabilitation and the edge cases like vehicular
homicide handled in the correct fashion.

~~~
Armisael16
I would say that’s already functionally the case with the debt ceiling, and
that’s a catastrophe every time it comes up.

~~~
lozenge
Not really, a sunset clause on the debt ceiling would mean after sunset there
would be no ceiling, as it is a completely artificial invention anyway. Most
countries don't have a debt ceiling.

~~~
Armisael16
It’s similar to the proposal in that not passing a replacement bill (“raise
the debt ceiling” : “murder is illegal”) would have very obviously negative
results.

The debt ceiling is a functional sunset clause on the ability of the US
government to pay its bills.

------
DubiousPusher
Here is the email I am sending my Senators. Feel free to copy and modify for
your own use.

Hello Senator _________.

I'm writing you today to ask you to oppose the USA Freedom Reauthorization Act
of 2020. I have written in the past to ask you to oppose other extraordinary
security measures that have been maintained since the aftermath of Sept. 11
2001. I repeatedly write and request this because it is my opinion that these
programs are contrary to the 4th amendment protections that are unalienable to
all Americans. And these programs are administered in secret. Any program
maintained in secret runs the risk of operating contrary to the public
interest. This is because a citizen's most significant recourse is to vote for
or against representatives who authorize government action. Any secret
government action is therefore unable to be valued by a voter and therefor
operates entirely outside public opinion.

I understand that some programs need to be shielded from public opinion for
security reasons. But that need for security must be weighed against the need
for a republican form of government to be transparent with its citizens. With
each passing year that the public entrusts that government with secrecy the
burden to justify it should become heavier.

So I ask you to oppose this measure. At the very least I would ask that as our
representatives to government you will require that these programs justify
their need by releasing some specific information to the public about the
benefit they have had. I know that our intelligence agencies have opposed
giving specifics examples of benefit. They claim to do so would reveal
important sources or techniques. But with all due respect, we have given them
the benefit of the doubt for nearly two decades now. Surely there is something
significant they can share from years gone by that will not be too damaging to
their operations.

Thank you.

~~~
YPCrumble
Thank you for sharing!

------
anoplus
The Coronavirus crisis is a perfect opportunity for governments to take
totalitarian leaps forward.

Look what happened this week in Israel. At 1:00AM when citizens were sleeping:
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2020/03/14/coronavir...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2020/03/14/coronavirus-
spy-apps-israel-joins-iran-and-china-tracking-citizens-smartphones-to-fight-
covid-19/#6a50639781bb)

Edit: I would also want to point out the prime minister trial supposed to
begin today(!) and was delayed to May because the courts were closed as "non
crucial" service. He has been indicted for bribe, fraud and breach of trust.

~~~
scotty79
This is perfect opportunity for citizens to observe totalitarian capabilities
of governments and on next election decide which ones are excessive.

~~~
futurix
Provided that next election is still happening.

~~~
anoplus
From a dictator point of view, elections are still useful to provide citizens
with false sense of democracy

------
brenden2
The government has a history of taking advantage of panic and fear to pass
egregious legislation. Another famous example is the Patriot act, passed
during the height of "terrorism" hysteria.

~~~
leftyted
There's another side to this story.

Americans _demand_ this kind of action during emergencies. The widely accepted
idea that the government is capable of protecting us from events like this is
tacit acknowledgement of the government's right to closely monitor society.

To put it another way: as soon as you start blaming the government for a
terrorist attack (or something), you are rather close to condoning government
surveillance of the citizenry (or whatever extreme measure).

~~~
keiferski
I would say that the people demand _action_ of some kind, not necessarily
action that violates civil rights. A wise leader would know how to satisfy the
populace without sacrificing liberty in the process.

~~~
clairity
yes to action, not surveillance. but i remember the patriot act having lots of
popular support (but not from me). it still makes me mad thinking about it.

police powers (internally delegated coercive power) are largely the domain of
states and localities, not the federal government (who's responsible for
externally targeted force), along with an FBI that's limited to federal
concerns, like interstate commerce and crimes against the federal government.

citizens need to be ever vigilant about maintaining those distinctions.

------
ropiwqefjnpoa
"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste."

~~~
jb775
What is this quote from?

~~~
lukifer
Rahm Emanuel, Chief of Staff to Barack Obama:
[https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Rahm_Emanuel](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Rahm_Emanuel)

~~~
ComputerGuru
And until last year, mayor of Chicago. You can guess how he’s have capitalized
on this, I suppose.

------
inetknght
I hope all ya'lls VPNs to work are secure. It would be unfortunate if, thanks
to a misguided government requirement to not be, your only way to work
remotely were compromised.

~~~
o-__-o
Civil disobedience.

------
jtbayly
So, the vote was supposed to be last night. Did it happen? Did it pass?

~~~
rodion_89
They instead extended it for 77 days due to COVID-19. Basically punting for
now

~~~
pythonaut_16
So literally the opposite of what the headline is implying.

~~~
jfengel
No, it's correct. These are powers that already exist. The bill is to renew
it. Parts were to expire; the bill extends them. That did not pass yet, but
they did vote to keep them for a few months.

If the headline is inapt, it's in implying that the bill is something new. And
that this is happening now to hide it, rather than because the existing bill's
sunset clauses are coming up.

~~~
pythonaut_16
So if I understand you correctly, they voted to extend these (existing) powers
short term, and will have another vote later on whether to keep them long
term.

The headline seems to imply congress is trying to sneak something by while
everyone is distracted, rather than maintaining the status quo temporarily.

There's enough to be concerned with congress without being misleading. Framing
everything Congress does as some conspiracy theory only dilutes the response
when actually shady things are happening.

~~~
jfengel
You are correct: the headline is not-untrue, but it is misleading. The short-
term extension is solely a matter of the pandemic; it's unclear what the
outcome of the long-term vote will be.

There are many who consider this bill shady regardless, since it's there to
extend powers passed in the immediate aftermath of 9/11\. Civil libertarians
(of whom there are many on this site) always considered it dangerous, and two
decades on even more so. So from that standpoint, the alarm in the headline is
called for, even if not precisely for the reasons it says.

------
maerF0x0
see also:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shock_Doctrine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shock_Doctrine)

------
the_watcher
While I almost certainly agree with the OP on surveillance overall, it seems
like this bill doesn't actually change the status quo in any negative
direction? It seems to mostly preserve a status quo that already contains all
of this.

------
ck2
Corporate media is being completely silent on this or have I missed any
coverage?

------
wiseleo
Made my call

------
forkexec
The majority of the US Senate is a threat to the world, peace, liberties, and
people.

~~~
FooBarWidget
How does that work? Isn't the senate elected?

------
Anon1096
This "dangerous surveillance bill" is the status quo. Not to say that it is
acceptable, but please realize that there's no new powers being granted, just
old ones being renewed that expired this week.

Also, are we really allowing articles from Common Dreams now?

~~~
iamnothere
It may be the status quo, but since these powers were intended to be
temporary, it is arguably relevant that they may finally be expiring. Many
users here care about issues around surveillance and privacy.

Re: Common Dreams, HN guidelines don't limit sources by their political slant,
as long as the article in question is interesting or relevant. Frankly I find
this to be refreshing, since many places are dominated by articles from
sources with a center-right slant.

