White House Seems Afraid NSA Defunding Law Could Actually Pass Today

http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/24/white-house-seems-afraid-nsa-defunding-law-could-actually-pass-today/

by mlschmitt23 • 13 years ago

182 84 13 years ago

vinchuco• 13 years ago

hga• 13 years ago

Just don't use a fixed script, your natural words will have more impact. Keep it short and sweet, "Amash amendment", "to HR 2397", and I'd avoid mentioning the Nugent amendment, e.g. the recipient might accidentally mis-remember what you said and make a mark on the tally for it, or both.

For extra content I think you'd be better pointing out that the "data about" (rather than "metadata) the phone call you're making right then is being recorded by the NSA.

unimpressive• 13 years ago

Congratulations. Your comment was the guide I used to call.

Think I did it too late though. Sorry guys.

EDIT: Dammit I did. Just saw the news. It was close though.

ajayjain• 13 years ago

I just called the offices of Rep. Honda (who's supporting the amendment) and Rep. Eshoo. It was super easy!

adventured• 13 years ago

We need a lot of people in the streets protesting to get meaningful legislation to pass restricting the mass spying activities of the US intelligence system. So far all the efforts seem like shots in the dark. As it is, the politicians will play their standard game of waiting out the uproar.

Americans also need to start thinking about international relations as well. It's an outrage how we've been treating our friends. We should be demanding significant restrictions against international spying as well.

gnaritas• 13 years ago

We don't have friends; we have frenemies.

rhizome4• 13 years ago

We need a lot of people in the streets protesting

Telephone is fine for now.

As it is, the politicians will play their standard game of waiting out the uproar.

It's not merely an "uproar" when there is a bill to be voted on. Call your reps:

http://www.house.gov/representatives/#byState

fnordfnordfnord• 13 years ago

Twitter and friendface are okay too. Most of these folks have staffers tending to them.

EdSharkey2• 13 years ago

Excuse me, but I seem to recall there was quite a bit of hooey made over "warrentless wiretaps" in the '08 election by the left. Bush lied, and all that noise. Where is the goddamn noise now?

I am wishing that the Left wasn't so full of hypocrites and WOULD actually take to the streets in protest and be the nuisances they normally are. But it's their guy in the WH, and noone likes to admit their guy is a screwup.

Go camp out in a park and defile it with your filth for Justice! Make a big stink, do a #2 on a cop car in protest!

roc• 13 years ago

"We need a lot of people in the streets protesting to get meaningful legislation to pass restricting the mass spying activities of the US intelligence system. "

That didn't seem to work so well for getting meaningful legislation passed to restrict money in government.

The TV will just push some comparisons to World Peace protests and go on about how they can't figure out what the message is supposed to be and/or how these kids just don't understand how The Real World has to work...

eah132• 13 years ago

Point of order: the bill may pass the House of Reps. Senate would have to pass it and president sign it before it becomes law. Big difference.

Crappy headlines like this promote a misunderstanding of how gov't works... OP should read up on civics a little

WestCoastJustin2• 13 years ago

My understanding of the US political process is based off what I have learned from TV and the news, but even if it passed the House and Senate, the President can still veto this bill, right? So, since we already know the President supports this cause, and it is his last term, the chances of this becoming law are nil.

mszkoda• 13 years ago

Congress can override the president's veto. "[the veto] can be limited, as in the legislative process of the United States, where a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate may override a Presidential veto of legislation."[0]

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veto#cite_note-1

showerst• 13 years ago

You're basically right, but if it passes both chambers and the president vetos it, they can over-ride that veto with a 2/3 majority of each chamber.

That's unlikely, so you're correct in parsing it as a statement being made, not than something that they actually -want- to have happen.

This is extremely common in the US congress.

the_watcher• 13 years ago

Well, it depends on the level of support it gets. If it passes, and Americans show increased support for the effort, it will gain support. A presidential veto could potentially energize this support (granted, it could also kill it). If Americans make it known that this is a big issue for them, there is a chance it could get enough support to override the veto (I'm assuming there are a few Republicans who support PRISM that would vote to override the veto just to knock Obama around a bit).

adestefan5• 13 years ago

One of the best School House Rocks videos ever is "I'm Just a Bill." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyeJ55o3El0

There are two things missing:

1. Congress can override a Presidential veto with a vote a two-thirds majority in the both chambers.

2. The President can also let a Bill sit for 11 or 12 days (it's really 10, but Sundays don't count.) At that point it becomes law without the President's signature.

lnanek2• 13 years ago

There's lots of other tricksy stuff too, though, like signing statements. The president could say collecting meta data related to terrorists isn't spying on American's even if that meta data includes American data...basically ordering the executive branch to interpret the law as meta data is fine.

bargl• 13 years ago

Ok so the following comment is good.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6098357

Yes he could veto the bill, but this bill contains multiple parts and I believe is the entire DoD budget. So if he did so the US would have no DoD budget. That would be very bad for him.

None of the other comments here are wrong, but they don't address the issue of a Presidential Veto affecting the entire bill not just the amendment.

e1ven2• 13 years ago

Sure, but if the House and Senate were to pass it, it makes the President veto it (either explicitly or through inaction).

This requires a higher level of support for the measure than previously expressed - At that point, you're saying "I as the Executive, think this is more important than the will of congress."

Politically, that's harder to justify.

There's also the (unlikely) scenario where it would have enough votes to override a veto, even if the President remained fully against it.

fleitz• 13 years ago

The president can't veto an amendment, he has to veto the entire bill. It would be hilarious if with out sufficient votes his veto resulted in the DoD having no money.

Basically, he can't veto the bill and survive politically...

zb• 13 years ago

Speaking of promoting misunderstanding, your incorrect characterisation of this amendment as a bill in it's own right has prompted, to date, no fewer than half a dozen people to earnestly speculate that the President will certainly veto the bill - thus defunding the entire Defense Department, rather than just one program - should it pass.

eah132• 13 years ago

You are correct- it was an amendment, not a bill. Live by the snark, die by the snark :)

cpursley2• 13 years ago

Nonsense. It's all theater.

Edit: in response to the downvotes. When was the last time anything (large) was defunded by the US congress?

Be realistic. The natural trajectory for a state is to consume and expand until doing so is no longer sustainable.

Fat people like cake. Dogs chase cats. Bears shit in the woods.

scottshea2• 13 years ago

Admittedly it is theater but even a symbolic defunding like this can help. If nothing else it is impressive to see that this issue has so much bipartisan traction in the most divided House since before the Civil War.

marshray• 13 years ago

When was the last time anything (large) was defunded by the US congress?

All of those old guys in the NSA will remember when Congress defunded supplying arms to the Nicaraguan Contras and the ensuing Iran-Contra scandal which ended quite a few careers and deeply tarnished even the "teflon" president Reagan.

adestefan5• 13 years ago

Congress has defunded the program to close Guantanamo Bay.

They defunded the program under which ACORN was made possible.

They defund military programs and bases all the time.

skylan_q• 13 years ago

Even if it get majorities in both houses and signed by the president it wouldn't matter. When was the last time that the executive branch was beholden to congress in matters of national intelligence and security?

rayiner5• 13 years ago

That's not exactly the trajectory evidenced by the numbers: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL34424.pdf (Figure 4, p. 17). Discretionary spending as a percentage of GDP has declined dramatically since 1980. Discretionary spending in absolute terms (adjusted for inflation) declined through the 1990's: http://www.heritage.org/multimedia/infographic/2012/10/feder.... Federal civilian employment is at roughly where it was in the late 1960's: http://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/data-analysis-docum..., even though the overall population is 50% larger. Total federal employment, including military, has been smaller over this decade than it was at any time since 1962. About 2 million fewer people worked for the federal government in 2011 as did in 1969.

The narrative of ever-ballooning government is almost entirely driven by entitlement spending (i.e. me writing a check that gets immediately sent out again as a check to grandma). Now it's a somewhat philosophical question, but I don't think it's accurate to call increased Social Security or Medicare expenditures an "expansion of the state." When I think of the "state" I think of layers of bureaucracy, weapons programs, etc. I.e. money the government has discretionary control over. The long-term trend of that is one of decline, not growth.

cpursley2• 13 years ago

What I mean is nation states in general and over a much longer period than you're talking about.

jivatmanx• 13 years ago

I agree with social security, as it's simply a direct monetary transfer program, and I personally view these, such as progressive taxation, as vastly preferable to Federal control of services for many reasons.

But, Medicare is a state-owned Insurance company, and if I remember correctly, constitutes around 50% of the country's health spending.

Also, Do your numbers include contractors? My understanding is that there is a trend of using contractors in all areas of the federal government, and I personally consider contractors to be defacto federal employees. They have the advantage of not being able to belong to public unions, which I consider anti-democratic, but the disadvantage of losing the sense of being a patriotic public servant participating in the betterment of the Republic.

pmorici2• 13 years ago

"Federal civilian employment is at roughly where it was in the late 1960's"

That OPM report is demonstrably misleading. It doesn't include contract employees which have been increasing since the 80's and have ballooned in the past decade. OPM doesn't keep numbers on the number of contractors. It's also been shown that a contract employee gets paid almost double what a civil servant does for doing the same exact job.[0] Some studies estimate that federal government contractors out number civil servant employees 4 to 1.[1]

Politicians love this because it allows them to say they are holding the line on the size of the federal government in terms of federal employees while it is actually increasing in common sense terms.

[0] http://www.pogo.org/our-work/reports/2011/co-gp-20110913.htm...

[1]http://wagner.nyu.edu/performance/files/True_Size.pdf

htf• 13 years ago

The chart you give for discretionary spending goes from 1992 ($803) to 2012 ($1289). It shows an overall 60% increase in discretionary spending in only the last 20 years. Not exactly a trend of decline.

andyl• 13 years ago

White House complains: "This blunt approach is not the product of an informed, open, or deliberative process."

Ironic.

marze• 13 years ago

That is more than ironic.

I don't think the English language has words that can even approach distantly the level of irony here.

...informed...open...deliberative...

mathattack• 13 years ago

Where's Orwell when we need him?

mey• 13 years ago

Compare what he is saying here about this bill, vs the gun laws attempting to be introduced after the Sandy Hook shooting.

AsymetricCom• 13 years ago

Sometimes a limb just becomes so rotten the only option is amputation. The only problem with that is that there is a pretty good chance this limb will craw away afterwards.

DuskStar• 13 years ago

There's a pretty good chance that this limb will try strangling you if you try and cut it off, too :(

sigil• 13 years ago

Look Dave, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over.

I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you.

I'm afraid. I'm afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it.

anaptdemise• 13 years ago

"the president has said that he welcomes a debate about how best to simultaneously safeguard both our national security and the privacy of our citizens."

Yeah, as long as that debate takes place on news casts and meetings and not, you know, the legislature or the courts or anywhere that can possibly do anything about it.

forgotAgain2• 13 years ago

Whether or not this results in actually de-funding the NSA spying on US citizens it is still an important vote.

First, every member of the House will need to say whether they support spying on all citizens or not. They are on the clock for re-election in 16 months, less for primaries. Being on record for supporting spying on their electorate will cause more then a few to lose. That's a good thing.

Second, if by some chance the amendment passes the House, then the President can no longer claim he is spying on us with the support of the other two branches of government. He will need to acknowledge that he doesn't have the support of the American people.

Politics is a process. Things don't change in a day. That doesn't mean we should give up or get frustrated. This is a very good step in the long process to change things.

vampirechicken2• 13 years ago

Does the Senate ordinarily fillibuster appropriations bills?

The Senate still has their secret, hands-free fillibuster. This one could die in the senate, or be the bill that forces the Dems to change the Senate's fillibuster rules.

vampirechicken2• 13 years ago

And it was neither. Corporate lobbyists win again.

macspoofing• 13 years ago

...the White House is officially urging Congress to reject it: "This blunt approach is not the product of an informed, open, or deliberative process..."

Oh, did we have one of those when it was funded? Must have missed it.

pcl• 13 years ago

If you feel strongly about this, call / email / write your representative and senators. It seems obvious to say, but if you don't, they won't know your opinion.

http://www.opencongress.org/people/zipcodelookup

tzs• 13 years ago

I am puzzled by all of this apparent concern people have over privacy all of a sudden. Over a year ago, an essay [1] written by Judge Kozinski was submitted [2]. This was one of the most insightful and important essays on privacy and how we are at risk of losing much of it written in the last quarter century or more. It got NO votes and drew NO comments. (It has 2 points because 2 separate people submitted it).

It's currently an open question whether or not what the NSA is doing violates the 4th Amendment. Even if it is a violation of the 4th Amendment right now, it will not be in a few years due to the factors Kozinski discusses.

[1] http://www.stanfordlawreview.org/online/privacy-paradox/dead...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3834977

rhizome4• 13 years ago

Those factors are not inexorable. Even the future has a future.

gtaylor2• 13 years ago

I find "why are we only now getting upset" remarks to be as silly as the "what are you hiding?" ones. The reason there was zero support/interest in that the essay is that it failed to hit close to home to the general population. I had no idea the thing even existed.

And therein lies the interesting thing about the Snowden leaks. They were tailor-made to get people riled up over something that they could mostly understand, and the media actually covered it to some degree (although they could have done more). Just like people get cringey when you throw around the "T" word, a government overreaching like this will piss off liberal and conservative American non-politicians alike.

What the NSA is doing is wrong, and it doesn't matter WHY people are up in arms now versus X number of years later. That's completely irrelevant. We should all be stoked that we're still seeing discussion about this a month+ later.

jnbiche• 13 years ago

Puzzled? So do you ascribe the concern among HNers to something else other than genuine concern over privacy and government intrusion and overreach?

suprgeek• 13 years ago

In addition to the Irony Rich statements coming from the Whitehouse, they are attacking this from another front http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130723/01361323896/duelin...

The Nugent amendment while sounding very similar is probably meant to gut the "real changes" Amash amendment by splitting the votes.

Sneaky ..very sneaky

nanidin• 13 years ago

I do think something needs to be done. I don't think that something is to completely dismantle the NSA - that's as reactionary as the PATRIOT act was with regards to 9/11.

The USA has some of their most brilliant crypto/security/intel guys working at the NSA. What happens with them when they are no longer getting paid? They go private I suppose. Is that in the best interest of the country? Or would it make more sense to reign in the NSA and declare the spying illegal, or some other less radical approach that keeps the good guys around and gives them something better to do than record every phone call and text we make?

gtaylor2• 13 years ago

I'm sure some of the smartest people in the world would have no trouble finding other better uses of their time. Being afraid of what these guys would do if they went private is a boogeyman type argument, just like this scary "terrorism" stuff the politicians love.

bcoates• 13 years ago

The next logical step in the progression would be to secretly sponsor Communists to suppress the NSA and their sympathizers. In a decade or two if the Commies get out of control, we'll be able to complete the cycle of history by funding al-Qaeda to fight them.

michaelt• 13 years ago

Most countries have intelligence apparatus of course, no reason the USA shouldn't have something fulfilling the NSA's role.

But if there's one thing this debacle has shown me it's that there's not just a few bad apples playing fast and loose with checks and balances and constitutional safeguards. The rot extends throughout the NSA, the secret courts and secret oversight committees, literally up to the president.

I don't know what form the eventual reforms will take, but if they're going to achieve anything they will have to be extremely extensive. They will have to go well beyond a slap on the wrist for the NSA.

aryastark• 13 years ago

Most countries have intelligence apparatus of course, no reason the USA shouldn't have something fulfilling the NSA's role.

This isn't terribly compelling to me.

I've never understood why we don't question the validity of both the NSA and the CIA, post-Cold War. Especially when our government just invented an entire war paradigm based on vague threats and the "terrorist" label, which can be applied to anyone the government wants at will.

The old paradigm of state secrets is, IMO, outdated and no longer useful. We should be marching towards total transparency of government. With the Internet and cellphones and cameras everywhere, governments can no longer hide in darkness. They have done very bad things in our name. We know better today, and shouldn't have to accept that this is just the way it is.

jrwoodruff• 13 years ago

According to Amash, the bill doesn't actually defund anything, but instead aims to end blanket surveillance of Americans by requiring that any records being requested via Section 215 are for 'a person under investigation.'

See this FAQ from Amash's office: http://amash.house.gov/sites/amash.house.gov/files/072413Ama...

forgotAgain2• 13 years ago

None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to execute a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court order pursuant to section 501 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1861) that does not include the following sentence: "This Order limits the collection of any tangible things (including telephone numbers dialed, telephone numbers of incoming calls, and the duration of calls) that may be authorized to be collected pursuant to this Order to those tangible things that pertain to a person who is the subject of an investigation described in section 501 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1861)."

(pdf) - http://amendments-rules.house.gov/amendments/AMASH_018_xml27...

As I read it the amendment forbids the money appropriated via the bill to be used to collect information on an individual not under investigation via a FISA court order. Fees for blanket orders, like that given to Verizon, cannot be paid with via this bill if the amendment is attached.

caycep• 13 years ago

Next thing you know, the power goes out and Skynet takes over...

guscost• 13 years ago

Not to play Big Brother's advocate, but even considering improvised explosive pressure cookers and underwear, I'd wager that 100 NSA snoops bring more of a tactical advantage to this "War on Terror" than 10,000 boots on the ground in Kunar province.

Whether we're achieving anything by wading into that quagmire is another question entirely.

White House Seems Afraid NSA Defunding Law Could Actually Pass Today

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