Who expected different? This is the sort of thing that once you give up, you're not getting back. We let fear and paranoia decide it was ok and the people we gave that freedom to are never giving it back, why would they when they were given exactly what they wanted.
Whenever there's an emergency, real or imagined, be very careful which rights you give up. Once they're gone they're probably not coming back even once the emergency is over.
9-11 was decades ago and we still haven't gotten our freedom from being surveilled back.
I fail to see how this a productive way to look at this. Rights can easily be restored if people knew that they are impacted by these programs.
We "gave up" a number of "rights" during COVID and the restrictions were voluntarily relinquished by the government as they were no longer needed. It helped that the changes were very obvious to the average person -- i.e. mask mandates and inter-state travel limitations.
(Note: I personally found some actions reasonable hence the quotes above)
I view this as an overly optimistic way of looking at this. It would not be "easy," nor do I believe it's as simple as raising awareness.
Those with power will manipulate people into preserving that power through fear, uncertainty, or doubt. Secret courts, gag orders, and disinformation will be used to keep Americans in the dark at all costs.
> Secret courts, gag orders, and disinformation will be used to keep Americans in the dark at all costs
We’re discussing a bill whose text is public and which was openly debated in the Congress. None of this was in the dark. It was just, unfortunately, wholly uninteresting to most voters.
Comparing the rights we gave up after 9/11 (read: actual rights that we no longer have) to the "rights" we "gave up" during the COVID era (read: inconveniences that right-wingers propagandized about) doesn't seem very genuine...
> the sort of thing that once you give up, you're not getting back
We could get it back. But we don’t care about it.
I know staffers on a handful of House and Senate staff. Nobody could understand why Judiciary was taking up this cause, because when you look at call sheets, the voters who care about privacy don’t tend to call and don’t tend to vote. (Large crossover between the lazy and/or nihilists and the privacy conscious.) That pattern bore out here, and eventually, was used to grind down the dissidents.
Hell, I didn’t bother calling about it, and my Congresswoman was trying to build a coalition for. I’m keeping my ear to the ground in case a wave of heightened give-a-shit comes through. But it strikes me there are better issues to spend time on.
9/11 - patriot act, which has existed in one form or another ever since, along with countless others, and will exist in perpetuity until the end of time. Prism, warrenrtless wire taps, the room in att mirroring all their traffic for a three letter agency[0]…
at some point we decided all that was ok, either directly out of anger as we did after 9/11, or indirectly by not stopping them.
At some point we decided to elect people who would turn against us
At some point we decided we don’t care about right and wrong, for the people, we care about I’m right and you’re wrong, for our party.
Like I said, I was not involved at all in bringing the patriot act into existence and no one gave feedback on it. And it looks like almost literally every single person who doesn't want it to be an existence has absolutely no say about whether it is still operational. So your reply is incorrect. if you tried to vote someone in who removed such things, your effort would be sabotaged and we have seen this multiple times. and it's obvious the so-called representatives know that we don't want it. So it is very clear that I am not even counterargued by your reply. do you have some attachment to believing that you're actually in control of your government right now? it's like people have lost their minds these days. Even the people who think they know what the hell they're talking about.
"we" would be every voting aged US citizen who isn't a felon. "we", yes, you, and me, allowed that to happen. You may have not wanted it, I may have not wanted it, but you, I, and every other person who didn't want it, failed to prevent it. Our inability to prevent something makes us just as guilty of our rights being taken away as those who took them, because our inaction told them it was ok. Bitching and moaning about something while still allowing it to happen isn't worth shit.
> prevents warrantless surveillance of members of Congress
While I have a dim view of Congress, even they aren't dumb enough to believe that would hold true. Every other "exception" has been ignored in the quest for gathering every scrap of data.
It’s a caveated notice requirement “to Congressional leadership” and “the member who is the subject” of the query, unless the Director of the FBI “determines such notification would impede an ongoing national security or law enforcement investigation” [1].
Not a warrant requirement. Not even a right to notice. Pretty milquetoast.
Yeah, no need to surveil the government insiders giving tours of the capital to now-convicted seditionists. No national security threat to address there...
Indeed. Just calling it what is is. We got a decade or two before people recognize the implications of this "trust us, we're protecting" types of legislation.
How about never. In a couple of decades creeping normality will be complete and nobody will ever fight for these rights back because they'll have forgotten they ever existed in the first place.
Not an excuse but the Judicial Branch is woefully underfunded due to their limited leverage for funding from Congress. Two of my friends clerked for different Appeals district judges. Windows 98 and Lotus Notes were still in use.
To see which of your congressmen voted yea or nay on this bill so that you can write down in your notes who to vote in or out this November, see this senate.gov link:
This bill is an obvious violation of the 4th amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
In my state, all electors (votors) must swear the following Oath: “I do solomnly swear (or affirm) that I will protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of…”
It is my interpretation that anyone that votes for any of the yea-voters in the upcoming election would be a violation of that Oath to uphold the Constitution.
> Friday morning, the holdouts fell in line – sending the Section 702 renewal bill to the House floor for a full vote
God party politics will be the death of us. Why even bother electing specific individuals at this point. How is this bill not abhorrent to more Republicans, and to wit how is this bill not fine with more Democrats?
In a saner world this bill should have split both parties on auth/lib lines. It is truly a testament that we can make anything partisan along one specific ideological axis, even totally orthogonal issues.
I think people are reading OP's comment wrong. They said "abhorrent to more Republicans" and "fine with more Democrats", not 'more abhorrent to Republicans' and 'more fine with Democrats'. The entire point is that support should be less correlated with party. It probably didn't help to abbreviate "libertarian" into "lib", which despite having the same root as "liberty", has been turned into a partisan slur in a truly Orwellian fashion.
