Trump reverses stance on surveillance law in series of contradicting tweets

originally posted by: DBCowboy
I wish someone in DC would justify this.

Didn't like it when the Obama administration spied on Americans, I don't like it when Trump's administration does it either.


I'll have to search ATS to see if anyone here supported it when Obama signed it.

Are you talking about when obama let all agencies share info?

That's how all the unmasking started.

The original program wasn't supposed to let them do that so easily.

Gonna make an extremely unpopular statement here...

But while you all cry about the surveillance state surrounding us, if it didn’t exist you could firmly kiss goodbye to any semblance of stability the globe is already precariously trying to cling to.


1984 is better than Mad Max.
Deal with it.

a reply to: Hazardous1408

Our military industrial complexes aint a force of nature, and the tiny number of attacks all this surveillance prevented doesn't justify the criminalisation of all the innocent people in this Total War.

But the Mad Max scenario doesn't really differ much from 1984s world. It's the same setting, actually.

The society of Airstrip One and, according to "The Book", almost the whole world, lives in poverty: hunger, disease and filth are the norms. Ruined cities and towns are common: the consequence of the civil war, the atomic wars and the purportedly enemy (but possibly false flag) rockets. Social decay and wrecked buildings surround Winston; aside from the ministerial pyramids, little of London was rebuilt. Members of the Outer Party consume synthetic foodstuffs and poor-quality "luxuries" such as oily gin and loosely-packed cigarettes, distributed under the "Victory" brand. (That is a parody of the low-quality Indian-made "Victory" cigarettes, widely smoked in Britain and by British soldiers during World War II. They were smoked because it was easier to import them from India than it was to import American cigarettes from across the Atlantic because of the War of the Atlantic.)

en.wikipedia.org...

Be careful what you wish for?

a reply to: PublicOpinion

Intelligence gathering does far more than just counter-terrorism...

It prevents local wannabe warlords from controlling territories...
It prevents paedo-rings...
It prevents deadly drug smuggling and distribution...
It prevents rape-slave trade and trafficking in general...
It prevents local gangbanging clicks from turning into full blown Cartels...
It prevents mob uprisings that wouldn’t be conducive to society...
It prevents foreign invasion...
It prevents our elected leaders turning full blown tyrant...
It prevents race-war proliferation...
It prevents hackers from emptying your bank account...

Want me to carry on?
Cos I could... endlessly, in fact.

Yeah, sometimes they fail...
And maybe some rogue elements even facilitate the above...

Doesn’t change the overall benefits it provides, and the protections it guarantees.


It’s really easy to be against that sort of system, but it’s just completely emotion fuelled nonsense with Swiss cheese logic.




“Trade freedom for safety yada yada yada”...

Freedom doesn’t exist...
With or without Intelligence gathering.

Safety does exist though...
Only with Intelligence...

Remove it, and then see how quickly your little Worlds crumble as that list above becomes normal and frequent.



It’s not what I’m “wishing” for... That’s just ludicrous.
It’s what I’ll accept as necessary for the whole (especially the defenceless among us) to actually stand a chance in society.


People need to get with reality.

a reply to: Hazardous1408


I definitely need to get off this reality, maybe only off this planet though.

Or ... we could just try to focus on total surveillance and not on the merits of intelligence in general. You seem to conflate both things and lost me with the 4th paragraph.

Back to the drawing board?

originally posted by: Grambler
I think the tweets show Trump had no idea what he was talking about.

I liked the order he put out yesterday, calling for more openess in the Fisa process.

But him criticizing fisa in one tweet, then praising it 90 minutes later shows to me that he was shooting his mouth off without being fully informed.

Such a rare occasion.

Glad we're able to cover it.

a reply to: Southern Guardian

Well, isn't it convenient that they made the story about Trump's tweets rather than ---- DEMOCRATS VOTE TO GIVE TRUMP (a man known to be in collusion with the Russians, the dumbest man on the planet) THE FREEDOM TO PUT ALL US CITIZENS UNDER SURVEILLANCE!

It may be a GOP-controlled House but just take a look at how many Democrats voted to hand over this sort of power to the man they are claiming to be a Russian agent.

To me this just proves that neither party gives a flying fiddle about US citizens as they conspire to spy on us. Now I can better understand the poo-poo story and the obsession the msm had with it. All the better to not to have to report on this story.

theintercept.com...

Apparently all you anti-Trumpsters need to get in touch with your Reps. It was a coalition of Republicrats that managed to defeat the slight changes that would have given at least a sliver of protection to US citizens. Send 'em copies of the Constitution with the Fourth Amendment highlighted.

This law was un-Constitutional when Bush got it rammed through and it is still un-Constitutional. I hope Rand goes through with his threat to filibuster. Maybe he'll use some vulgar language to get the media interested!

a reply to: Hazardous1408
So you are okay with an "unstable Russian colluder " having this type of power at his fingertips?

You can't have it both ways. Either he is unstable, stupid, and in collusion with the Russians" and shouldn't be handed this kind of power or ....you are perfectly happy with him having this sort of power to look into anyone's life without so much as a warrant.

I wasn't happy with Bush or Obama having this sort of power---my feelings are the same no matter what name or party occupies the White House. NOBODY should have this sort of power over the lives of individual citizens.

a reply to: diggindirt

Firstly, this particular news refers to hostile foreign actors...
And I highly doubt you don’t want him to monitor potential radicals.

Secondly, where do you get this fanciful idea that I’ve ever considered Trump to be “an unstable Russian colluder”?

You guys are seeing “collusion pushers” everywhere and it’s a little unhealthy, to be honest.

If you want to know what I think, you can go to my thread list and you’ll find my opinions on the Russia saga documented fully in a thread I created specifically for that discussion.


So to answer your question, yes, I am happy for Intel to have this sort of power at their finger tips.
Because I’m not too keen on living in a warzone you see.

a reply to: Hazardous1408
So you missed the announcement about how we are in a war, "an information war." It was in all the papers.

If you want to know what it is like to live under constant government surveillance, talk with some people who have lived that way in the Eastern Bloc. We're one step from that. But ours is digital---and intertwined with corporate interests. Nice---two entities who want to part you from your money.

Before anyone is monitored there should be, in the words of the Fourth Amendment, "no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause." That is the Constitutional standard and this law violates that standard.

a reply to: diggindirt

Sigh.

The House passed a bill this morning to reauthorize the key foreign intelligence collection program with an important tweak. It requires the FBI to get a warrant if it wants to view the contents of Americans’ communications swept up in the process.

This (from OP source) literally contradicts everything you just said.

So I don’t know how to respond to your post sadly.

a reply to: Hazardous1408
Sadly, you didn't bother to read the entire article apparently.

Before Trump’s tweets, it was the opposition of privacy advocates that presented the chief obstacle to renewing Section 702. They had rallied around an alternative measure from Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) that would have required law enforcement agencies to obtain warrants before being able to sift through the NSA’s records database. The underlying bill requires only that the government seek a court order when it wants to use information about Americans in criminal cases.

The amendment would have given at least an appearance of a nod to Constitutional rights but it was defeated.

a reply to: diggindirt

Right. My apologies.

I was quoting the Guardian source.

Until now, I hadn’t bothered with the WashPo as I find it to be very unreliable.
Because I couldn’t find what you quoted in the Guardian I guessed it must be in the WashPo link.

And now I concede to the point you made, mate.

That’s not agreeable to me at all.


I am confused as to the difference between a court order and a warrant though...
While it’s obviously unconstitutional to do so without a warrant, I don’t understand why they still need a court order to look at data.
They are both literally permission granted by a judge, so why not just use a warrant instead?


Ultimately, we will have to wait and see what the Senate decide.
It’s certainly possible they will reject it without appropriate amendments.

Donald J Twit barely keeps up with the will of his masters. Past presidents actually pretended to be a part of their decision making process.

The decline since Kennedy has been de-sensitization. Prepping us for the types of government we were warned about as children.

a reply to: diggindirt

This law was un-Constitutional when Bush got it rammed through and it is still un-Constitutional. I hope Rand goes through with his threat to filibuster. Maybe he'll use some vulgar language to get the media interested!

Did he? Or Sanders for that matter? Just curious, I didn't follow up on this.

a reply to: PublicOpinion
I believe the vote is scheduled for tomorrow (Thursday) before the full Senate. Rand is working with some other moderate Republicans and Democrats but Moneybags Mitch is determined to remain in the Bush-era mindset of 'Nobody can have any privacy while I'm scared half out of my mind by...you know...terrorists."

originally posted by: neo96
a reply to: Southern Guardian

Trump reverses stance on surveillance law in series of contradicting tweets

There is no bigger contradiction than Trump critics whining bout surveillance then hiring a private 'intelligence' company to spy on their political opponent.

So you don't care about warrantless surveillance enacted by Trump, but care about warrantless surveillance enacted by Obama.

About par for the course.

a reply to: RomeByFire

Says the people that used the dossier of a foreign spy to get 'warrants' to spy on their political opponent.

Should I actually give a snip bout the 'do as I say not as I do' whiners ?

a reply to: diggindirt

Precisely what was to be expected, wasn't it? Fcking cowards... Well, guess it's official then. A world united under the watchful eyes of our Brave Neoliberal World.

Champagne anyone?

a reply to: PublicOpinion
Actually I would call it a Brave New Neo-Con World since it was George II that got all this mess started because they claimed to be afraid of ...TERRORISTS! I fully expected the Dems to try to repeal all that stuff but NO! They found ways to use it and they, too, screeched about security and you know...TERRORISTS! But apparently good ole John (I was a POW) McCain wasn't really afraid of them since he traveled over there and got his pictures made with them.

They can all take a long walk off a short plank as far as I'm concerned. Neither party gives a quick whistle about the citizens who are paying their salary, only the corporate interests that can make tons of money off this data mining project they've got going.