Congress passed and President Biden signed a reauthorization of Title VII of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), approving a bill that opponents say includes a "major expansion of warrantless surveillance" under Section 702 of FISA.
Over the weekend, the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act was approved by the Senate in a 60-34 vote. The yes votes included 30 Republicans, 28 Democrats, and two independents who caucus with Democrats. The bill, which was previously passed by the House and reauthorizes Section 702 of FISA for two years, was signed by President Biden on Saturday.
"Thousands and thousands of Americans could be forced into spying for the government by this new bill and with no warrant or direct court oversight whatsoever," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said on Friday. "Forcing ordinary Americans and small businesses to conduct secret, warrantless spying is what authoritarian countries do, not democracies."
Wyden and Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) led a bipartisan group of eight senators who submitted an amendment to reverse what Wyden's office called "a major expansion of warrantless surveillance under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that was included in the House-passed bill." After the bill was approved by the Senate without the amendment, Wyden said it seemed "that senators were unwilling to send this bill back to the House, no matter how common-sense the amendment before them."
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said he voted against the reauthorization "because it failed to include the most important requirement to protect Americans' civil rights: that law enforcement get a warrant before targeting a US citizen."
Man amazing how overcoming the filibuster suddenly isn’t an issue when it comes to the surveillance state.
Anytime there is “bipartisan compromise,” one thing is absolutely certain - the American people are getting screwed.
A big radicalizing moment for me was how we were repeatedly told Obama's ACA had to pass the first time or it would never happen. "We're only gonna get one shot at this!" And then Rand Paul filibustered the patriot act renewal and they just voted on it again like two days later or something.
Anytime there is “bipartisan compromise,” one thing is absolutely certain - the American people are getting screwed.
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Fuck the dems, blue Maga, of course this isn't an endorsement
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Almost shows how much of a cynic I am, I assume they already have literally unlimited unrestricted access to anything you say within earshot of electronic device as well as your location data
Like I assume I they're talking about "expanding the surveillance state" there's literally gonna be a spook in a suit standing in the corner of my bedroom with a notepad who's furiously taking real time notes.
I assume they already have literally unlimited unrestricted access to anything you say within earshot of electronic device as well as your location data
This makes it legal though which means it holds up in court. Lots of scenarios in the past where the case got tossed because the feds obtained info illegally
100% on location data. All they have to do is ask Google, Apple, or your mobile provider and they fork it over with little protest
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name one thing trump did that's worse than funding genocide
grossly mismanaged the pandemic (killing a lot of people), did horrible stuff for the environment, passed a bunch of shit laws, including repealing net neutrality, deported a bunch of ppl for no reason, and he supports isreal
All that is literally and precisely what Biden has done, too (except net neutrality I guess, but you’re also leaving out Biden signing off on the biggest expansion of the surveillance state since the Patriot Act).
He fucked over queer people in the us
Lots of queer people on Hexbear, ask them if the barest crumbs Democrats throw to queer people (i.e. doing nothing to stop anti-queer actions, but not being the ones to propose the laws) is worth supporting genocide.
increased the federal debt by 7 trillion
Imaginary number doesn’t matter.
You seem well-meaning, so let me put my cards on the table: I don’t believe in validating the invalid dictatorship of the bourgeoisie by voting for anything beyond the local school board and various propositions, so it’s not like I’d be voting for Biden anyway. But what I don’t get about when libs push leftists to vote for Biden is… at what point does someone committing heinous acts mean that not voting for them is the only moral action? If Joe Biden murdered my daughter, would I not be in the right to say I wouldn’t vote for him? Even if in this weird scenario Trump also would have murdered my daughter… at what point do we measure someone by what they do and not what the other person would have done? And it doesn’t matter if my kid isn’t actually involved, I have seen enough death and sadness from parents and children in Gaza that the fact that it’s not my kid is totally and completely immaterial to me.
A really funny thing you should do is look up what Biden's done on these subjects.
For instance, did you know more people have died of covid under his tenure, despite vaccines existing?
Did you know he's approved more at home oil drilling than Trump did?
But also genocide is still worse than everything on that list other than the pandemic, but that's not a point in Biden's favor! He had the same plan!
He fucked over queer people in the us
Biden is just letting states pass transphobic legislation and has so far done nothing about it.
he increased the federal debt by 7 trillion
Oh no not the debt ceiling that keeps getting pushed higher
grossly mismanaged the pandemic (killing a lot of people)
Biden said he had a strategy, did fuck all about it after throwing out a handful of cheap test kits per household, and then told states to use any residual COVID aid to hire more pigs. His admin has also slowly been rolling back any reporting.
did horrible stuff for the environment
Biden is currently having the US drill for oil at all time high levels.
passed a bunch of shit laws, including repealing net neutrality
Biden plans on 'partially' bringing it back, but he's still gonna let ISPs gatekeep and gouge on things like 'fast lanes', so...
deported a bunch of ppl for no reason
Biden's AG argued that immigrants in the United States are not entitled to a bond hearing and got that wish. He's also still deporting people so...
You need to disabuse yourself of this liberal notion that blue team is better because they're blue. No one here will ever defend Trump, but you need to understand that this binary thinking is how you stay trapped in this endless cycle of supporting things slowly getting shittier.
Who deported more immigrants? Who provided more aid to Israel during an ongoing genocide? Who authorized more drilling on federal land?
End the genocide. That's the one thing that his re election is hinging on and everyone knows it. They can call the protestors terrorists if they want, but when Genocide Joe can't win the election it'll be his own fault. I've looked for the positions of many different marginalized groups on this and the consensus that I see is: solidarity with Palestine is more important that the danger and violence we could face under Trump. If we have to suffer to stand up for starving Palestinian children, so be it.
Ceasefire now!
All my blue reps voted for this. Oh yeah, they also voted for unconditional military aid to Israel and to not support UNWRA right after. Loser party.
excited for this to be used to hunt down trans people by neocons in some way
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said he voted against the reauthorization "because it failed to include the most important requirement to protect Americans' civil rights: that law enforcement get a warrant before targeting a US citizen."
I don't know how sincere that actually is but it's darkly hilarious that the democrats and Biden are to the right of Ted Fucking Cruz's official position.
"Forcing ordinary Americans and small businesses to conduct secret, warrantless spying is what authoritarian countries do, not democracies."
Gee, Ron, maybe you should sit down and chew on that for a while.
"Forcing ordinary Americans and small businesses to conduct secret, warrantless spying is what authoritarian countries do, not democracies."
So what's the libverse saying about this? Silence? Cope? I'm actually afraid to look...
hope people don't notice then make a show of getting mad in several years when $REPUBLICAN_PRESIDENT reauthorizes it with further rights erosion. also continue celebrating half their slate of candidates coming from "the Intelligence Community" as assurances of competence.
Probably something along the lines of 'well if you have nothing to hide you shouldn't care!'
nothing to hide nothing to fear nothing to hide nothing to fear nothing to hide nothing to fear nothing to hide nothing to fear nothing to hide nothing to fear nothing to hide nothing to fear nothing to hide nothing to fear nothing to hide nothing to fear nothing to hide nothing to fear nothing to hide nothing to fear nothing to hide nothing to fear nothing to hide nothing to fear
A snippet of the take on .world
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But also, on the hopeful side:
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this is what fighting fascism looks like! #resist
