[wycats]

Article 1, Section 6: "They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place"

[ktsmith]

> except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace

Congressmen telling the public about this would have been a felony which they are not protected from. That's part of the reason Obama's comments are completely disingenuous.

[kristofferR]

Breaking the Espionage Act of 1917 is unfortunately a felony though. It's nauseating.

[mtgx]

I don't understand why some of them aren't becoming whistleblowers, either. Maybe because Obama has already shown he is willing to use the Espionage Act against whistleblowers, because his logic is that "any revelation of our wrongdoings helps the enemy". That seems like a very weak argument to me either way.

But why aren't Americans in the street already? Europeans would be already in the street by now for a lot less than this. Remember the ACTA protests?

[keithpeter]

"Europeans would be already in the street by now for a lot less than this."

Some Europeans. Former East Germans, Greeks, most of those in the eastern European countries, Spain, Portugal. People of a certain age in those countries can remember what living under a dictatorship was like.

[jared314]

I am not in the streets over it, because I already assumed they were doing it, or were going to, since the Patriot Act was first signed. Most large policy issues don't get fixed until there is both a crisis and interests align.

Now, the members of congress fighting the Obama administration have a crisis to run their next election on. And, in their quest to "take Obama to task", they might solve some of the existing issues around the Patriot Act, which they voted for multiple times.

[pessimizer]

>But why aren't Americans in the street already?

Because authoritarians secretly like it, and others are terrified that they will be put on a list (or many lists) and their lives will be ruined.

Same reasons people aren't constantly in the streets within every authoritarian country.

[ekianjo]

> But why aren't Americans in the street already?

Because they don't care too much ? Honestly there should have been multiple occasions for the American people to go and protest in the recent past but they did not. That's very easy for the government to continue and see how far they can go. The answer is : very far.

[saraid216]

When the system has cracked you down so far that poverty is a bigger threat than surveillance, yeah. It's hard to care.

[mikeash]

Americans aren't in the streets because we (collectively) want this. Americans care about fighting terrorism far more than they care about privacy or government spying.

I wager that, for the average American, this news made them feel safer, and the only thing they're upset about is that the "bad guys" now know something they shouldn't.

[will_work4tears]

Yep, I was talking about this whole situation with my wife and she of course was like "I've got nothing to hide, yadda, yadda." I tried to explain why it matters even so, and she kinda just dismissed it as not mattering to her as much as the government "protecting" us.

I'm convinced most of us Americans just don't care, and that bothers me more than what the government is doing.

[mikeash]

The tech community paints this as a government conspiracy in opposition to the desires of the public. I think it's mostly because the tech community is generally opposed to this stuff, and they incorrectly project that onto the population. I think it's also partly because this scenario is a lot more comforting than reality.

If it's government running amok, that leaves open the possibility that they can be reigned in. All you need to do is get the people sufficiently aware and sufficiently angry and the problem is solved!

But if it's simply the government obeying the will of the people, then we're screwed much harder. Convincing people who are deeply afraid of terror attacks and who find comfort in massive government programs meant to protect them that they should invert their priorities is massively difficult, perhaps impossible.

[Andrew_Quentin]

You are mistaken. There are polls which show that the majority of Americans care far more about privacy than fighting terrorism.

[mikeash]

The government-run polls that really matter a.k.a. elections don't seem to bear this out.

[brown9-2]

This clause is meant to prevent the Executive from preventing a meeting of Congress. It is not a blanket protection from criminal charges. The key phrase is "during their attendance" and "in going to and returning from".

[rayiner]

Uh, felony.