U.S. House votes to defund backdoor NSA communications spying

[Justin Kahn]

The House of Representatives has passed a proposal that will stop the NSA from appropriating funds to conduct backdoor communications searches on Americans without a warrant. An amendment to the 2015 Defense appropriations bill, the proposal will basically stop the Agency from using its allocated budget in two key ways. The first of which is conducting warrantless searches of this nature and secondly, to prevent the NSA from forcing hardware/software companies to give it access via built-in security loopholes.

Reports suggest the proposal doesn't actually prevent the NSA from conducting back door searches, instead it just cuts the funding to both activities. However, if it makes it through the Senate and President Obama to become law, it will technically shut down both operations.

The surprise bi-partisan vote, which came in at 293 in favor and 123 against, has been labelled by some as a sign of how discontent Congress is with the backdoor tracking of US communications by the NSA. Similar amendments didn't fair so well with Congress in the past, but now after a year or so of reports from leaked Snowden documents, sentiment in the House is beginning to sway. It is also likely in response to the USA Freedom Act, which many considered a watered down approach to reining in NSA surveillance activity in the US.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/57185-us-house-votes-to-defund-backdoor-nsa-communications-spying.html

 

[oldikes]

The scary thing here is why in the world were 123 politicians against it...

 

[Guest]

Sounds like you have a good amount of corporate azz kissers who thinks it's ok to spy on every one & invade peoples privacy for no good reason. If you don't have a warrant & a good reason to come after me, then you don't have a good reason to spy on us wasting millions of our tax dollars treating us like corporate criminals.

 

[cliffordcooley]

The scary thing here is why in the world were 123 politicians against it...

Yeah, I'd like to hear and possibly cry over their reasoning.

 

[Greg S]

The scary thing here is why in the world were 123 politicians against it...

Yeah, I'd like to hear and possibly cry over their reasoning.

Because they have campaign donors that support them. That's why.

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

The scary thing here is why in the world were 123 politicians against it...

I agree, maybe they were coerced by the NSA to veto it. I'm not an American but bad decisions like that affect the entire world.

 

[robb213]

There's a lot of loopholes and generalizations in the bill with little to no specifics. To me, it's predominantly just a vote-grabber to make it seem like they're doing something, but aren't--something not new.

 

[Hexic]

*sigh*

It's almost like America assumed we were free from surveillance in the first place. All these bills are doing is reinstating the obvious, and hopping on the ignorant bandwagon.

The NSA (and countless other organizations and governments) have been spying on everyone for years. And years, and years. Online and offline. Now once one tard 'whistleblows' the obvious, everyone acts surprised.

Get real, I'd rather have the government scan the conversation that I had with my mother, (and even store the hash, God help me!) than attempt to have naive politicians, fueled by the herd mentality, try and make it illegal. If passive internet surveillance can stop a bombing, killing, or another international terrorist attack, so be it. You have to learn to trust someone at some point. Unless you happen to have multibillion dollar supercomputers in your basement that can do what the NSA has already.

Quit conceding to the hype of 'Big brother sees what I'm doing' - they always have, and always will. The clandestine community still continue to do what they always have, whether a piece of paper signed by a corrupt politician says yes or no. They look at the big picture, and don't give two sh**s about what casserole recipe your mother emailed you, or what sketchy picture you received over Snapchat.

 

[stansfield]

The free world has a lot to thank Edward Snowden for. No wonder the establishment want their revenge on him for showing up the incredible amount of spying that our governments use on their citizens both in the UK and US.

 

[Guest]

Then you go ahead and let them scan your conversations. You're right, they don't care about what you had for dinner...but somebody might care that you went trapshooting last week, because it means your proficient in firearms...or that you don't like a political figure's position...or you spent an evening at a strip club...etc. What seems to be innocuous information can be used against you if somebody wants to do so.

It's not a question of having something to hide; it's a question of allowing the surveillance in the the first place. The Fourth Amendment is supposed to guarantee freedom from unwarranted surveillance, so it shouldn't be happening anyway.

 

[Guest]

Absolutely correct! The "what have you got to hide..." line of reasoning completely misses the point. You CAN be harmed by this rampant surveillance. The 4th amendment helps in keeping us from looking a lot like Fascist Germany of the 1930's and 40's and the late Soviet Union. Its being shredded and nobody seems to care...after all, what have you got to hide, right???

And not's let kid ourselves about our Congressional representative's motives on this vote. They didn't care about it until recently because of revelations that they and their staff were included in some of this surveillance...including Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Feinstein, the one Senator that is supposed to know about all of the NSA activities. Senator Feinstein was a staunch defender of the NSA spying on American's until she found out that meant her too and promptly did an about face. This was a self serving vote, as so many are, being paraded around as "look, Congress does act and represent!".

 

[cliffordcooley]

Senator Feinstein was a staunch defender of the NSA spying on American's until she found out that meant her too and promptly did an about face.

Perfect example, of how they don't have our best interest at heart.

 

[Hexic]

Congress is a joke, and Feinstein changes her support with the barometer reading of the day.

The times are changing, and technology with it. It's not the 1940's anymore, or even the cold war - the enemy is not defined. They, the modern day enemies, are using the same technology (sometimes better on average) that we as citizens use. If we don't keep up, and realistically the means keep tabs on certain individuals and identities, then have fun dealing with another 9/11. This next one could possibly be worse.

Take away all of the mass surveillance, the collection of meta-data, passive phone records, go for it. That way when something does inevitably happen (because it will, America isn't exactly the world's best friend), we won't have had any means of knowing it would have happened, and no idea who did it until x amount of people die. All because we want the privacy that we've never had in the first place.

If anyone knows any individual(s) in the defense sector, ask them how we've been under the radar of the top nations in the world for well over a decade. The detailed truth may surprise you.

 

[cliffordcooley]

If anyone knows any individual(s) in the defense sector, ask them how we've been under the radar of the top nations in the world for well over a decade. The detailed truth may surprise you.

In other words, you want them to become the next whistle-blower (eligible to be deemed a traitor). All because we want to know the surprising truth, that would help us make better informed decisions. Didn't we already go down this road with Edward Snowden? Which now is considered an outcast and facing prison time, if he ever steps foot on US soil again? Yeah I bet we will get our answers, all we have to do is ask.

 

[captaincranky]

....[ ].....Take away all of the mass surveillance, the collection of meta-data, passive phone records, go for it. That way when something does inevitably happen (because it will, America isn't exactly the world's best friend), we won't have had any means of knowing it would have happened, and no idea who did it until x amount of people die. All because we want the privacy that we've never had in the first place.....[ ]....

So you'd just allow the intelligence gathering to continue unabated, and deprive every intelligence agency in the country the opportunity of saying, "we told you this would happen", when something preventable did happen?

Aren't we quite the little party pooper.

 

[Hexic]

In other words, you want them to become the next whistle-blower (eligible to be deemed a traitor). All because we want to know the surprising truth, that would help us make better informed decisions. Didn't we already go down this road with Edward Snowden? Which now is considered an outcast and facing prison time, if he ever steps foot on US soil again? Yeah I bet we will get our answers, all we have to do is ask.

I said no such thing regarding leaking classified information. Such is traitorous, and will always land you in a very dark room in a very deep basement. I believe you miss my point - the my point being that it's been common sense for years that we've been watched as a planet, not tied down to one country and their programs. I was merely making the point of receiving verification from someone who actively works in the field.. Not to continue humanity's mistake of continuously repeating history.

So you'd just allow the intelligence gathering to continue unabated, and deprive every intelligence agency in the country the opportunity of saying, "we told you this would happen", when something preventable did happen?

Aren't we quite the little party pooper.

Also, an incorrect assumption of my stance.
Then we would be looking at a potential 1985 scenario, which of course, isn't what anyone wants. The topic of this debate is how far can they [the feds] go, and what is acceptable to allow. I do not have a bill to present before congress that would alleviate the underlying cause here, no one does. The current legislation being introduced is moot at best, and isn't getting anything foundational accomplished. It's a bunch of 'what ifs' and 'well, they can't do x now, but with circumstances y and z in play, x is acceptable temporarily, with correct oversight.'

This is an excellent debate, I don't have hard feelings for anyone here btw.

All I'm suggesting is that everyone needs to calm down from the hype, get realistic and realize the situation that we were in before, compared to now, and take into account modern day technology and politics. There are bad guys out there that look for every opportunity to get back at us. No system is perfect, we are only human, and I believe that there are inherent problems with some of the means of data collecting, and how to use it from there on. I think that some politicians are getting their panties in a bunch, and trying to lob off -too much- of a program that if correctly used, can do a great deal of good.

 

[Hexic]

Apologies for some of the typos.. My phone doesn't make this too easy sometimes.

 

[captaincranky]

So you'd just allow the intelligence gathering to continue unabated, and deprive every intelligence agency in the country the opportunity of saying, "we told you this would happen", when something preventable did happen?

Aren't we quite the little party pooper.

Also, an incorrect assumption of my stance.
Then we would be looking at a potential 1985 scenario, which of course, isn't what anyone wants. The topic of this debate is how far can they [the feds] go, and what is acceptable to allow. I do not have a bill to present before congress that would alleviate the underlying cause here, no one does. The current legislation being introduced is moot at best, and isn't getting anything foundational accomplished. It's a bunch of 'what ifs' and 'well, they can't do x now, but with circumstances y and z in play, x is acceptable temporarily, with correct oversight.'

No, I didn't make an "incorrect assumption about your stance". You made the incorrect assumption, when you over thought my post. If you intend to survive in this forum, perhaps you might hit Webster's Dictionary", and look up, "sarcasm". We used to have an emoticon to indicate sarcasm, > <,but apparently, I wore it out, and they didn't replace it in the new software. Perhaps they thought, if there wasn't an emoticon for sarcasm, then I wouldn't be sarcastic. And another incorrect assumption goes on the books.

This is an excellent debate, I don't have hard feelings for anyone here btw.

I think we can all breath a sigh of relief, secure in the knowledge that there are no hard feelings on your part.........,(wait for it)..........

 

[Jad Chaar]

The scary thing here is why in the world were 123 politicians against it...

LMAO you are right! That is crazy.

 

[Hexic]

No, I didn't make an "incorrect assumption about your stance". You made the incorrect assumption, when you over thought my post. If you intend to survive in this forum, perhaps you might hit Webster's Dictionary", and look up, "sarcasm". We used to have an emoticon to indicate sarcasm, > <,but apparently, I wore it out, and they didn't replace it in the new software. Perhaps they thought, if there wasn't an emoticon for sarcasm, then I wouldn't be sarcastic. And another incorrect assumption goes on the books.

I think we can all breath a sigh of relief, secure in the knowledge that there are no hard feelings on your part.........,(wait for it)..........

How to survive this forum? I think I may have struck a nerve, captaincranky. :irony: (doubtful on that emoticon). I apologize, have a nice day.

 

[Sniped_Ash]

Here's the roll call if anyone was wondering:

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2014/roll327.xml

 

[captaincranky]

Here's the roll call if anyone was wondering:

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2014/roll327.xml

It's hard to say if simply voting every incumbent member out of congress at each and election would be a positive step in the cleaning up our government, but I sure would be willing to give it a shot.

What do you think would prevail? Government would be crippled by too many inexperienced members? Or, government would be improved by not allowed the political "ticks", to set their teeth fully into the dog that it the good old US of A?

It would no doubt, make for some interesting roll call statistics.