[aryastark]

call records? Are you shitting me? The White House is acting like Grandpa trying to wrap his mind around the concept of the Internet. "overhaul", "new kind of court order". Yeah, okay.

Here's the broom, Obama. Need a little help sweeping it all under the rug?

[ganeumann]

Agree. I might have been placated by this last Summer. At this point it's too little too late. Unless he does something more substantial to open up the intelligence services to scrutiny, he's not the Executive, he's just another puppet of the police state.

[pekk]

Because the major consideration for any kind of policy is whether it feels subjectively fast enough for ganeumann, not whether it is good policy.

[ganeumann]

It has nothing to do with speed. It has to do with ability to get it done.

When faced with clear wrongdoing and public disapproval, nothing happened. It took almost a full year of constant news, almost universal disapproval from people whose opinions matter, and the changing opinion of Congressional leaders before any concessions at all were proposed.

What that says to me is that there is a very unlikely conjunction of things that needs to happen before the infosec agencies can be held to account. That unlikely conjunction is probably so unlikely that it will not happen again for decades. Now may be the only chance we (meaning you, me, Congress, and the Executive) have to change practices for a long time. Given that the infosec agencies, no matter how much we roll their power back, will struggle to regain that power and more, we better roll them back at least a few decades worth while we have the chance.

[001sky]

Has nothing to do with "policy", has everything to do with lack of character.

[moskie]

Such a bill as this one wouldn't solve all the problems. It would merely solve one of them. You should support it, hope it passes, and then demand more.

The alternative situation, where this bill does not become law, is worse. Why be against something that progresses things in the right direction? Do you demand everything be solved all at once?

[wfunction]

I would agree with you, but if it passes, it becomes a distraction that will take people's mind off the real issue.

[moskie]

There are many "real issues." This bill would address one of them.

I just think it's silly to be against this type of legislation because it doesn't solve all problems, or doesn't bigger problems. I solves a problem. That's a good thing. Maybe it will get the ball rolling towards more legislation.

If this bill passes and gets support from the public, it sets precedent that proposing and passing legislation that strips power away from the NSA isn't political suicide.

[gone35]

This. I've noticed how the government and most established/traditional media outlets keep referring to the NSA phone metadata stuff as if that were the only disclosed program worthy of review. But what about Prism, etc?

[alexqgb]

Etc.? More like etc. etc. etc. etc. And as the folks working with Greenwald have noted, there's plenty more to come. The easier to digest stuff is what's appeared to date. The more complex programs - i.e. the ones that take more time to fully grasp - are what they're still working through.

[lern_too_spel]

What about Prism? That's the most harmless program Snowden leaked by a country mile. It simply allows the NSA to search data that was collected by the FBI's internet communication wiretap system for users that the government presented a court order for.