The House of Representatives are moving forward with a pair of rival NSA “reform” bills from two different committees, leaving open questions of which, if either, will make it to the House floor for a vote, and indeed whether either is going to be worth anything by the time that happens.
The Intelligence Committee offered the FISA Transparency and Modernization Act, penned by pro-surveillance Reps. Mike Rogers (R – MI) and Dutch Ruppersberger (D – MD), and contains very little in the way of reform.
By contrast, the USA Freedom Act, out of the Judiciary Committee, started out with some heft to it, but in the battle to be more palatable than its feckless rival is being dramatically weakened, amounting to less and less.
Industry analysts say they see a lot of interest among Congressmen to have some sort of vote against surveillance they can run on come election season, but it seems few have much of an appetite for real reform, meaning the two bills are in a race to the bottom, with the winner likely to be the one that does the least to threaten government surveillance power while still providing the illusion of reform.
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No reform
"…some sort of vote against surveillance they can run on come election season…"
Now seriously…no one really, really thought Congress was going to do anything to curtail the power of the Surveillance State. It's clear that our electeds foolishly believe that they are not being surveilled like the rest of the citizenry. It's also clear that our electeds think that the citizenry are too stupid to see what they are doing or that the voters just don't care – that all the chatter calling for reform is just created by the media and there is no groundswell objection to being spied upon by our government. I don't know who the bigger fools are…Congress for thinking no one is paying attention or the voters for continually sending these tools back to supposedly represent them.
"…some sort of vote against surveillance they can run on come election season…"
Now seriously…no one really, really thought Congress was going to do anything to curtail the power of the Surveillance State. It's clear that our electeds foolishly believe that they are not being surveilled like the rest of the citizenry. It's also clear that our electeds think that the citizenry are too stupid to see what they are doing or that the voters just don't care – that all the chatter calling for reform is just created by the media and there is no groundswell objection to being spied upon by our government. I don't know who the bigger fools are…Congress for thinking no one is paying attention or the voters for continually sending these tools back to supposedly represent them.
"…some sort of vote against surveillance they can run on come election season…"
Now seriously…no one really, really thought Congress was going to do anything to curtail the power of the Surveillance State. It's clear that our electeds foolishly believe that they are not being surveilled like the rest of the citizenry. It's also clear that our electeds think that the citizenry are too stupid to see what they are doing or that the voters just don't care – that all the chatter calling for reform is just created by the media and there is no groundswell objection to being spied upon by our government. I don't know who the bigger fools are…Congress for thinking no one is paying attention or the voters for continually sending these tools back to supposedly represent them.
This is the kind of all-hat-no-cattle behavior many of us have come to expect from Congress, and that in itself says a lot about what a sham our "representative government" has become.