“The Google of
online dating”
— The Boston Globe
“Completely free”
— TIME
“A favorite hangout
for internet goers”
— The Village Voice
“A perfect example
of the Web 2.0 revolution”
— New York Post
Find better matches with our advanced matching system
—% Match
—% Friend
—% Enemy
Slepneir
29 / M / Straight / Seeing someone
Gainesville, Florida
His journal posts
Checks and balances? Rights? Who needs 'em?
I just came across
news of this lovely bill to come out of the Senate Judiciary
Committee. Here's a taste of what it would do:
And here's the kicker: "Specter has moved to have his bill voted upon next week by voice vote, called a unanimous consent motion, according to the ACLU's Graves. Such a procedure would leave no record of who voted for or against the bill."
Meaning, if I'm reading this correctly, we won't even know who is responsible for robbing us of our rights.
- Redefines surveillance so that only programs that catch the
substance of a communication need oversight. Any government
surveillance that captures, analyzes and stores patterns of
communications such as phone records, or e-mail and website
addresses, is no longer considered surveillance.
- Repeals the provision of federal law that puts a time limit on
the government's wartime powers to conduct warrantless wiretapping
and physical searches against Americans. Under current law, the
president has that power for only 15 days following a declaration
of war.
- Allows the attorney general, or anyone he or she designates, to
authorize widespread domestic spying, such as monitoring all
instant-messaging systems in the country, so long as the government
promises to delete anything not terrorism-related.
- Moves all court challenges to the NSA surveillance program to a secretive court in Washington, D.C., comprised of judges appointed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Only government lawyers would be allowed in the courtroom.
And here's the kicker: "Specter has moved to have his bill voted upon next week by voice vote, called a unanimous consent motion, according to the ACLU's Graves. Such a procedure would leave no record of who voted for or against the bill."
Meaning, if I'm reading this correctly, we won't even know who is responsible for robbing us of our rights.
I found this particularly interesting. Technically, this President never had this power, since there has not actually been a declaration of war by Congress during his term.
The fact that we won't even know the voting record for this is immensely scary. It makes me pissed off that there are still citizens of this country who defend these men for their cowardly actions such as these.
Are there any lawmakers left in this country who have the courage to stand up for openness? It's looking more and more like the only recourse we have as citizens is to vote every single last incumbent out of office, whether they are one of the "good guys" or not. It may sound a little extreme to vote out every single current congressmember, but think of it this way:
When you were in school, at one point, one of your teachers probably did the "group punishment" thing. Someone did something wrong, but they didn't know who, so they punished your class as a whole in the hopes that one of you would rat out the person who did it. Congress has become like a group of children. All of their uselessness aside, I think such a "group punishment" is appropriate and practically sound. If the people who support the "unanimous consent motion" knew that passing the motion would result in their ejection from office unconditionally, they would not do it, and we would be able to preserve the openness which is so very important.
Not sure if that made sense. Reading this has made me very angry.
MrHuggles commented on
A former user commented on