Scorecard for Obama's NSA reforms

boing
21

Ah yes, the meaningless platitudes version will likely result in alcohol poisoning.

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22

That’s because you misquoted the Bill of Rights, it actually reads, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, unless you’re not a WEALTHY American, in which case you can fuck right off.” :slight_smile:

23

I had always thought those liberties where applied to all persons and that the bill of rights was an enumeration of human liberties which restrict the governments power.

“[A] bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, and what no just government should refuse.”
— Thomas Jefferson December 20, 1787

24

That’s what the Declaration of Independence says, which is not the law of the United States. The Constitution is the law and the Bill of Rights is the first 10 amendments and starts “Article One - Congress shall make no law…”.

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25

I stand corrected, we only have the Magna Carta over here in Blighty.

26

Like most other promises Obama’s reform will be minimal at best. Lots of lip service that sounds real good but no real action. How’s that hope and change working now?

27

We can’t really have the NSA spying debate in this country, and we really shouldn’t change the NSA spying laws, until we 1. have a public record of what kinds of terrorism attacks these programs have allegedly prevented, and 2. have a public debate about how this country should respond to terrorist attacks in general. Because if we just do this game of “oh I guess we were caught red handed spying on you all, we’ll stop it now” I can guarantee you that when another terrorist attack inevitably happens in this country, that we’re going to immediately hear “I told you so” from the pro-NSA people, and that the NSA programs are going to come back with absolute vengeance.

We need to talk about what’s a reasonable response to terrorist attacks. We haven’t had that discussion in this country. It was a taboo subject for years after 9/11, and we’re just getting to a place now where we could have that conversation. And if we don’t do it before there’s another attack we are seriously boned.

28

If we’re doing I pool, I’ve got zero.

29

You’re correct. There’s no “metric” of success or failure for this. Not a public one that people could understand, or that wouldn’t shift each time a politician opens their mouth. At companies, or even in most households, there’s a basic utility metric that anyone spending money uses whether to judge if the expenditure met expectations. Like, a really basic ROI economic concept. With all these billions and trillions spent on all this high-tech spyocratic bullshitography, there hasn’t been any talk EVER of a real, tangible, measurable utility. It’s never even crossed their minds.

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30

It doesn’t appear to have crossed the minds of the media, either.

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