USA Freedom Act moves forward as House prepares for vote The USA Freedom Act is currently being debated by the House of Representatives and could come up for a vote in hours that would move the surveillance bill one step closer to becoming law. The bill, which failed last year but has since picked up a wave of bipartisan support, passed out of committee earlier this month. …
Just realized that NSA might be a 1984-ism
For National Security Agency and NSA
read
National Insecurity Agency and NIA?
(Here in the UK we are very, very extremely good at doublespeak. For example we say Democratic Kingdom when we mean that royalty is a slave to parliament, We also say Democracy when parliament is a slave to Whitehall et al (un)civil serventia and Home Office when it used to mean anything that happened in the nation whether it was at home or in the street :-) )
"Not much better in the UK in terms of enacting scenario's from "1984":
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/new-counterextremism-plans-to-allow-police-to-ask-to-vet-anyones-internet-communications-10246381.html"
There was a tweet about that from the Number10gov Twitter account about that yesterday, saying:
"PM chaired the new National Security Council (NSC) today where he discussed plans for a new Counter-Extremism Bill: http://ow.ly/MUlom"
My reply said:
"@Number10gov Yes, we must put a stop to discriminating against extremes. It's no better than sexism, racism, aneurism, prism or indeed jism"
"For National Security Agency and NSA
read
National Insecurity Agency and NIA?"
More like NHAABB: National Hindsight Agency And Budget Bureau
After an incident: "We totally saw that coming (See our seven hundred page report about how we saw it coming), and if we had more money (is gajillion a real number? Sam, look that up.), we might possibly have done something!"
"Based on the name, I had assumed it was a bill to end freedom."
more, "someone should find out what that 'freedom' thing is ..." at this point. Eventually the Bill will be signed and Lawmakers will have time to flesh out the details and perhaps even consult a spell checker.
I don't see this ending well at all... Given the dysfunctionality within Congress and Congress with the President, there's no telling what we'll end up with. Quite possible that both this and the renewal of the Patriot Act will go through. Or this bill could end up more draconian.
Not enough data he says? What the.... They don't know what to do with the data they get now other than what has been pointed out: "oh yeah... we knew about them...." They may know but do they stop them? Show me numbers and I might say "it's good thing"... but I doubt they can.
All this money and hot air and bupkis is what we get. Are we safer? Are we giving up more of our rights for this vaporware? Where is Patrick Henry when we need him?
.. making it illegal is absolutely no guarantee that it will stop, especially in the light of the mass convictions that have followed earlier discoveries of unauthorised activities (as in "none whatsoever").
There is also the slight issue that whereas collection of actual data may end up being controlled a bit better, meta data collection is pretty much unconstrained now. Oh, and that "transparency" thing needs fixing too, but that problem is old.
In short, personally I don't think much will change in practical terms. As a matter of fact, I'm now rather worried about some major atrocity taking place just before final voting takes place.. :(
Maybe it isn't so much to do with acquisition of data but the storage, accessibilities and analytics that may be performed on that stored data?
If the analytics wish to be used as solid evidence then I suppose someone will have to say something like "the data are tamperproof" and "the metadata are tamperproof"?
Would it be a shame if the data, metadata and analytics were ruled inadmissible in law court by points of order from some legal eagle?
"Would it be a shame if the data, metadata and analytics were ruled inadmissible in law court by points of order from some legal eagle?"
Meta Data delenda esse ... not delenda est (wink) (nod)
I have read one theory of spontaneous pshaws (TOSP) which said the NSA is thrilled. For years now meta data has been recognized as 10 pounds of shit in a 5 pound bag costing 100 Pounds Sterling to maintain. No more. The Private Sector owns the Meta Data Porta-Potty.
Mass monitoring of communications is not unreasonable in the current world we live in. Hell your neighbor can monitor all of your electronic communication for about a hundred quid in hardware so it's absurd to complain about authorities monitoring communications to catch terrorists and digital crims.
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