It’s about fucking time.
Remember these are the nice people who brought you the Benghazi hearings.
Maybe they just have something to hide…
Only the innocent have anything to fear.
So it’s at least technically possible for Congress to be useful to the people of America?
Now, whether anything comes of this is another story.
But, for the first time,it seems like Congress hasfinallyopened its eyes to the long-termeffects_benefits_ of designingvulnerabilities_front doors_ into our communications systems andforcing_enabling_ tech companies to becomes investigative arms of the government.
Even if Congress ends up rolling over and wagging its tail RE: dystopian surveillance state(as seems not unlikely); I imagine that the increasingly obvious “we use the all writs act because we don’t want to have to ask you for authority” attitude of Team Fed is probably pissing them off.
As Orenstein’s decision in the NY meth-dealer iPhone case pointed out so incisively, Congress did lay down the law on the role of tech companies in spying for the executive branch; and it’s called CALEA. Even a congress weasel who would deliver CALEA++ in a heartbeat probably resents the fact that the FBI is just sidestepping him.
I can’t help but think that the only reason Congress is even (pretending) to show any resistance is that they are still intensely butthurt that a) there’s a Democrat in the White House, and b) he’s African-American. Put a white Republican in the White House, and they’d rubber-stamp the FBI’s wish list in a heartbeat.
I wish it were really a principled stand on individual rights, but I just don’t think it’s so, and that doesn’t excuse the Obama administration’s handling of this, either.
More or less…The idea that these politicians and their instruments are anything but power hungry maniacs must be some form of delusion.
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