Submitted by Simon Black via Sovereign Man blog,
My general rule of thumb when it comes to legislation is that the more high-sounding the name, the more insidious the law.
Exhibit A: the just-passed USA FREEDOM Act.
“Freedom”. It sounds great.
So great, in fact, that they stuck it in the title and built an absurd acronym around it– the real name of the law is “Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ensuring Effective Discipline Over Monitoring Act of 2015″.
U-S-A-F-R-E-E-D-O-M. Hooray!
And without fail, the media has bought in to the myth, praising the government for heralding in a new era of liberty with headlines like “Congress Reins In NSA’s Spying Powers” and “NSA phone program doomed as Senate passes USA Freedom Act”.
Unfortunately this is simply not the case. And shame on the mainstream media for making such thinly-researched, fallacious assertions.
If anyone had actually taken the time to read the legislation, they’d see that most of the ‘concessions’ made by the government are entirely hollow.
Secret FISA courts still exist. Lone wolf surveillance authority and roving wiretaps still exist. They can still grab oodles of other data like medical and business records.
And the US Attorney General has even been awarded new ’emergency powers’ to use in his/her sole discretion… just in case the secret courts might be uncooperative.
The big victory being cheered by the media pertains to the collection of phone records. This one is actually hilarious.
The USA FREEDOM Act prevents the government from seizing and storing ‘call detail records’, the so-called meta-data information like your phone number, the other caller’s phone number, the length of the call, etc.
But section 107(k)(3)(B) of the new law specifically states that ‘call detail records’ do NOT include the *actual content* of the call itself. Or your name. Address. Financial data. Cell-site location. Etc.
So basically they can’t archive your phone number. But everything else is fair game. Congratulations on your freedom.
Lawmakers also managed to sprinkle all sorts of other worthless provisions into the USA FREEDOM Act.
For example, the Inspector General (IG) of the United States is required to issue a report discussing what civil liberty violations may have occurred over the last few years.
Great. Except that IG reports are just that– reports. They have no teeth. And Congress can do with this one precisely what they do with every other IG report that gets issued: nothing.
(Seriously, when was the last time you heard any ruckus about an IG report? Probably never.)
They also stated that a panel of ‘advocates’ (whoever they may be) would attend and observe any secret FISA court hearing in which profound legal issues might be at stake.
Again, sounds great. Except that, like the IG report, a panel of advocates has no teeth… no power to stop the court or spy agencies.
Bottom line, these concessions may look good on paper, but they don’t amount to any real concession.
This is a classic negotiation tactic. When working out a contentious deal, the stronger side will invariably offer some irrelevant concession that has no material impact on what they want.
We did this several months ago for our Chilean agriculture fund, pushing through a substantial price reduction on a 2,000 acre property by ‘conceding’ to let the seller stay in the farm house for a few months.
He felt like he got something, but for us the concession was pointless and ceremonial.
The same thing happened here. And the American people just got played.
The government has spent the last 14 years turning up the heat on the boiling frog. They increased the temperature by 100 degrees over that time… and have now turned it down 1 degree.
Yet people are treating this like it’s some sort of victory.
It’s not. And this is a sad reflection of how low people’s expectations have become of their own government and liberty.
It’s a mistake to rely on a government to solve the problems that they themselves created.
It’s a mistake to expect bureaucrats to voluntarily give up the power that they have awarded themselves… and have spent years abusing.
It’s a mistake to wait for politicians to give you back the freedom that they’ve taken away.
They don’t give a damn about your freedom. And they’re certainly not going to give it to you.
But it still exists. It’s out there for anyone who cares enough to do something about it.
When I was in the military everyone used to say ‘freedom isn’t free’. And this is totally true.
Freedom starts with the individual. No one is going to give it to you. Becoming free means you have to put forth just a little bit of effort to take some common sense baby steps.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The surveillance law enacted this week stands as the most significant curb on the government’s investigative authorities since the 1970s. But it’s practically inconsequential in the universe of the National Security Agency’s vast digital spying operations, a technical overhaul of a marginal counterterrorism program that some NSA officials wanted to jettison anyway.
After a six-month transition, the new law will end the NSA’s bulk collection of Americans’ phone records, moving instead to a system of case-by-case searches of records held by phone companies.
The existence of the program, in place since shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was perhaps the most startling secret revealed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, because it so directly affected the privacy of Americans. It was the first Snowden disclosure published by the journalists with whom he shared documents, and it landed with a thunderclap.
But in the two years since Snowden took up exile in Russia to avoid prosecution in the U.S., his documents have fueled dozens of revelations of NSA surveillance operations, disclosing how the agency seeks to exploit Internet communications. None of those programs are affected by the law President Barack Obama signed Tuesday night.
“It’s being talked about like it’s the Declaration of Independence or something,” said Robert Deitz, a former NSA lawyer. “These adjustments are marginal.”
How did Rand vote? Was his historic ‘Stand’ scripted, that is, an allowance for him to present a certain image, even though everyone involved, including him ‘knew’ it was inconsequential. If not, why did he not filibuster this Orwellian continuation.
Not to be a debbie downer for Rand supporters, I desperately wish for Real representative leadership as well. I just don’t want to end up looking like one of those blinded ‘Hope and Change’ Obama supporters.
Further, even if Rand is compromised on some levels, that doesn’t mean all, and his message is circulating to a wider audience, which I believe is a plus.
Rand voted against it.
The Warfare State Strikes Back Against Rand Paul
By Shane Smith – June 03, 2015
If you’re interested in knowing which scepters of power the Warfare State is most unwilling to relinquish, try wrenching a few from its grasp. The volume of the cacophony will let you know just how grievously the beast in DC has been wounded. And it’s never roared as loudly as it did at midnight on Sunday, when Rand Paul forced the expiration of the NSA’s domestic surveillance program. ABC News reports:
Three key provisions of the Patriot Act expired at midnight – Section 215, which authorizes the NSA’s bulk collection of Americans’ phone records; a roving wiretap provision that allows law enforcement officials to monitor terror suspects that use multiple phones; and a program that officials can use to monitor “lone wolf” terror suspects, not connected to any known terrorist organizations.
Virtually the entire Washington DC Establishment dogpiled Rand for his stand, outraged that anyone should shield American citizens from a Leviathan State that is accustomed to getting what it wants from its senators. To have its sustenance denied sends it into a rage. Sustenance, that is, in the form of slaughtered liberty. And Rand Paul’s peers in Congress are behaving predictably like the spoiled toddlers they are when their toys are taken away.
This piece from Politico illustrates the attitude Rand’s fellow senators have toward a scaling back of any government power whatsoever. John McCain had this to say about Rand’s filibustering: “I know what this is about – I think it’s very clear – this is, to some degree, a fundraising exercise… He obviously has a higher priority for his fundraising and political ambitions than for the security of the nation.”
Utah Senator Orrin Hatch couldn’t help but engage in a bit of red-baiting when discussing Rand’s actions: “I think he’s nestled in with a very large bunch of very radical people – from the left to the right… I don’t know if he feels comfortable being with all those leftists who hate the PATRIOT Act. But he has a right to do what he’s doing.”
The article goes on to state: “The stinging personal criticism of Paul showed just how unpopular the Kentucky Republican’s demands to kill the surveillance law is among party elders – and portended how this battle is likely to continue to hover over his presidential campaign, for better or worse.”
Liberty is only theoretical to our political class. It sounds good. It flatters us to hear talk of liberty waft to us from the heights of the Imperial Capitol, but when something concrete is done to advance liberty, they close ranks and attack. The political class benefits from the decay of liberty, not its growth.
This editorial from the Daily Caller, entitled “The Fall of Rand Paul?” makes a feeble case that Rand might have ruined his presidential prospects by standing for principle rather than adhering to non-specific wishy-washiness that is typical of presidential contenders. The article goes on to state:
Paul’s attempt to go mainstream may have worked for a time, but it is much harder task for the instinctually non-interventionist Kentucky senator to pull off when threats to American security dominate news cycles. Seeming more concerned with the threat of bulk metadata collection by the government is unlikely to win over many primary voters.
Contrary to what the author says, Paul’s attempt to “go mainstream” was the very thing that turned many off to his presidency. It was depressing to witness the Son of Ron attempt to cater to the more mainstream Republicans, but with his heroic actions on Sunday night, the real Rand came roaring back. Whether his victory will last, though, is debatable. A vote on the US Freedom Act, in effect a repackaged and expanded Patriot Act, will be had this week. Cut off a head of the Hydra and two grow in its place. But regardless of how long it lasts, watching the entire DC Establishment squirm is too good to miss. Expanding power has been too easy for them for far too long.
The Warfare State’s reaction to Rand’s stand on Sunday displays clearly what we’re up against when attempting to bring any semblance of limitations on the power of our government. When confronted with principle, or the ideas of liberty and privacy, it screeches and screams, and utilizes every weapon in its arsenal to repel the threat. A free society is a threat to the health of the State, and something to be feared by it. The State builds its power upon our own fear, fear of “terrorism,” fear of any and every enemy of convenience that it can effectively make use of. Every base emotion is appealed to when agitating for expanded power – more power is needed to “keep us safe,” etc. It hijacks the natural patriotism of the people and twists that love of country into support for the expansion of the State.
A government that recognizes no limits on power will do anything to eliminate a threat to that power. A government that scoffs at the liberty of its citizens is a tyranny, elected or otherwise. Like the Terminator, or the Blob, it can’t be reasoned with or bargained with or reformed, and it won’t stop. Its death is the only path to liberty and peace.
Rather than attempting to manipulate the emotions of the public to cajole us into abandoning piecemeal our heritage of liberty, Rand Paul is attempting to appeal to our reason, the way his father did. They implore us to ignore the appeals to emotionalism and plastic patriotism the War Machine in DC uses to get another bombing campaign, healthcare bill, surveillance bill, tax hike, etc. Our liberty is too important to sacrifice to the bogeymen of the moment.
The lesson to be learned from Rand’s stand is this: Every person who denounced Rand’s actions is an enemy of liberty and should not be trusted with political power.
I like what Rand did filibustering the “Patriot” act. And I like him speaking out in support of releasing the 28 redacted pages on the Senate’s 9/11 report implicating the Saudi’s as financing the attack.
But then he goes and votes for fast-tracking the TPP. And he still panders to the bible-thumpers on the right, and supports Israel.
Guess you can’t have everything.