Facebook to Google Say NSA Spying Bill is Unacceptable

[NeoConsSuck]

Source: Bloomberg.com

A group of technology companies, including Facebook Inc. (FB), Google Inc. (GOOG) and Apple Inc. (AAPL), said the bill U.S. lawmakers plan to vote on tomorrow to limit National Security Agency spying doesn’t go far enough.

The legislation “has moved in the wrong direction,” the Reform Government Surveillance coalition said in a statement today. The coalition formed last year in an effort to distance Internet companies from perceptions that they willingly cooperated with government surveillance programs.

Objections by the companies, which also include Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) and Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO), come after Republicans in the House of Representatives negotiated in private with President Barack Obama’s administration to alter the legislation. It’s the only bill lawmakers from both major parties have been able to agree on to curb NSA powers almost a year after spying was exposed in documents leaked by former U.S. contractor Edward Snowden.

“The latest draft opens up an unacceptable loophole that could enable the bulk collection of Internet users’ data,” the coalition said. “While it makes important progress, we cannot support this bill as currently drafted and urge Congress to close this loophole to ensure meaningful reform.”

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-21/facebook-to-google-say-nsa-spying-bill-is-unacceptable.html

[grasswire]

1. DAMN!

"Objections by the companies, which also include Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) and Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO), come after Republicans in the House of Representatives negotiated in private with President Barack Obama’s administration to alter the legislation"

Who is this White House working for????

Boom, there it is.

The WH negotiated away the legislation that was negotiated by our Democratic Representatives!!!!!!!!!

[grasswire]

2. and the more I consider this, the more it stinks

Democrats crafted legislation in the House. Then House Republicans went to the White House and negotiated a weakening of the legislation!!!!!!!

No wonder we can't get anywhere. What the hell.

[Lasher]

6. The One is just being pragmatic.

Watch the two-part Frontline series, United States of Secrets, if you really want to know just how pragmatic he can be. Available online here, and on your local PBS station. Three minute trailer here.

[JDPriestly]

24. The Frontline shows are excellent.

The first part made it very clear that the NSA is collecting not just metadata but content, lots of content. That means either some very important people lied to us again or I misunderstood someone. Which is it?

I thought that Obama and others denied that the NSA was collecting, analyzing and storing content. Are they only doing that for communications outside the US or are they also doing that here?

[Lasher]

25. The 2 part series will acquire historical significance.

Frontline is the new 60 Minures. I watched part one when it came on TV, but I didn't catch all of it. So last night I watched that episode in its entirety. Tonight I will finish up on part two.

The thing is, and the most important thing I got from part one, is we can't believe anything they say because they repeatedly lied. This applies to both the Bush and the Obama Administrations including and especially the Presidents themselves.

They are collecting all data they can, foreign and domestic. This includes your phone calls and emails. They are parsing words in attempts to convey an impression that this so-called metadata is not actual data. I guess they say if they collect it but don't look at it right then, that means they haven't collected it or something. Such is the way of pretzel logic - it doesn't make sense when it is being fed to you.

This goes all the way back to Total Information Awareness. Nobody destroyed those programs as Congress intended, they just showed up in different agencies under different names. Well, here they are.

I hope I don't end up screaming at the monitor tonight like I did last night while watching part one.

Peace, JD. It's still a good idea.

[closeupready]

26. Yes. 100% agree with every word. It's a good FL documentary.

I watched Part II.

I just kept thinking, absolute power corrupts absolutely. And this is why they will never surrender the power to collect information. They will SAY they have, they will, they want to, yadda yadda, but at the end of the day, 'oops, I guess we're still doing it, sorry, we'll fix that pronto.'

[Lasher]

27. I was thinking that exact same thing, that they will never surrender the power.

But sometimes I get a little too long winded, so I cut my upthread rant a little short by leaving that part out. Back with TIA when Congress literally ordered them to shut it down, they made only superficial software changes and kept at it to this very day. The genie is out of the bottle now and it's too late to hope that it could ever be put back. In retrospect, Nineteen Eighty-Four started coming along around, well, in about 1984. Now Big Brother is all around us. George Orwell was quite a prophet.

[JDPriestly]

29. I have been asked why I trust Snowden to tell the truth. Well, he brought documents with him,

and the documents show that I cannot trust the government to tell the truth.

I could distrust both of the sources and do to a certain extent. But I think at this point, with regard to the scope of the surveillance, I most distrust the government.

I wonder whether Obama just lied to us or whether he is or was also in the dark. Perhaps he was not told the truth or at least not the whole truth. But then, he may have just lied to us.

Anyway, they are not just collecting metadata apparently.

The problem about lying is that those to whom you lie never believe you once they learn you have lied to them. It's very sad when the leadership of a supposed democracy lies to the citizens and when the citizens therefore cannot trust that leadership. That's a sad state of affairs.

[Lasher]

30. Those very same thoughts are going through my head right now.

Surely it must be true to say of millions of others. Until now I've considered Snowden pretty much of a traitor. Now I empathize with him and I might someday come to think of him as a patriot.

Metadata is sort of a euphemism intended to deceive. Candidate Obama might have known the full reality of it all and he might not have. But there's that problem with his vote in the Senate to codify Bush's crimes and double down on the very program he promised in no uncertain terms to protect us from. Being charitable I will suppose he learned the full truth shortly after he assumed the Presidency. And yet his ensuing actions are not those of a person who is worthy of trust.

I'm thinking back to the 2008 campaign when he promised to renegotiate NAFTA. It was leaked out at the time that the Canadians expressed concern at his rhetoric. As the story went, one of his staffers told them not to take that seriously because it was just some make-believe pandering for the campaign and nothing would come of it. At the time I was certain that the story was bullshit. But I have been paying attention since then. By now I have no doubt that the story was true from start to finish.

[JDPriestly]

33. Precisely. It's a shame. I'm backing Warren or Sanders for 2016.

Not much to do in 2014 in my district. We are solidly Democratic. It's not due to gerrymandering. I just live among many other Democrats. Hardly a Republican in sight.

[Lasher]

34. I just copied your signature line.

I'm worried about this election for my state. With Senator Rockefeller (D) retiring, Shelly Moore Capito (R) is probably going to get his seat. And I'm worried my state legislature might go R for the first time since 1930. Most people in my state have no idea what that would mean.

[JDPriestly]

35. Republcan governors in California meant that instead of raising taxes to cover costs,

our state borrowed. We accumulated far too much debt. Jerry Brown had to pay it off. He sponsored a referendum on raising taxes. As a majority, we voted yes for higher taxes. And now our state is getting out of debt and moving along.

The problem with the mantra of "never raise taxes" is that the economy changes, and old ways of raising taxes don't necessarily work in a new economy.

Sales taxes had to go up because with people buying things in ways that are not subject or not easily subject to sales taxes, the revenue from those taxes did not cover the state services and projects we needed. So we voted to raise the sales tax a bit and to raise taxes on the very rich.

[Lasher]

36. This is the GOP model.

Take over, borrow and spend, run up debt. That way they are the 'good guys' of low taxes and free money flowing to wherever their ideologies direct it. Then Democrats end up with their mess and have to cut spending plus raise taxes. Republicans come back to find the books not so much in the red as they had left them. Wash, rinse, repeat.

[JDPriestly]

37. How do we get the message across to people who prefer Hollywood gossip to politics?

[Lasher]

38. Low information voters.

Teh stooped, it burns! We can't overcome willful ignorance on such a massive scale, can we?

[JDPriestly]

13. +10000

[OnyxCollie]

9. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[MisterP]

11. the liberal purity brigade made Him do it!

[Ash_F]

32. On DU you must support Democrats and the President, not Republicans

Heads are going to explode trying to figure this one out.

[grasswire]

3. a big kick

I have now lost any, any hope that this WH is on the side of the people.

A WH colluding with the opposing House members in betraying the POTUS' own party by weakening its legislation---- what is that called? What is the precedent? Where is the honor?

I'm blowing my stack here. Never heard anything like this before.

[blkmusclmachine]

16. Trojan horse.

[arely staircase]

41. hopefully they can get a better bill

But here is a newsflash. Negotiating with the people who a a majority in the body that is going to do the voting is pretty much how the legislative process works.

[grasswire]

42. B.S.

Negotiating in a private meeting between House GOP and the WH, called by the WH, to weaken legislation written by Democrats is betrayal of voters who elected those Democratic representatives. It is capitulation to the overlords, apparently.

Way to GOTV, WH.

[arely staircase]

43. you realize the majority party in the house gets a say, right?

To the extent that nothing will pass without them, right?

[WillyT]

4. K & R !!!

[GeorgeGist]

5. Maybe when they stop hoarding cash overseas ...

they'll have more leverage.

[Fearless]

8. Whom should I direct my "I told you so" to?

[joshcryer]

10. No shit.

The blowback from Snowden's revelations is extraordinarily ... mediocre.

[riderinthestorm]

12. But I've been reliably informed by anonymous internet dudes the spying is no big deal

Why are these big multi national cyber companies whinging about national surveillance standards being too lax??

[JDPriestly]

14. The Guardian reports on the Obama administration's changes in the

bill:

"That category is a “specific selection term.” That is the root data from which the government must suspect of connection to terrorism or espionage to launch the collection of call records. Without possessing that term, the government cannot collect obtain the call records at issue.

"The version of the USA Freedom Act that cleared House committees earlier this month defined it simply as a term that “uniquely describe[s] a person, entity, or account.”
. . . .

"But the version that will head to the floor, at the Obama administration’s insistence, has broadened the definition, opening the door to broader data collection than the bill’s architect’s initially envisioned.

. . . . . .

"Sources familiar with the process said the government had pushed for an even broader definition.

. . . .

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/20/nsa-reform-restrictions-data-surveillance-talks?CMP=ema_565#

[Helen Borg]

15. And how do we know it's not just more theater?...

Last edited Thu May 22, 2014, 12:04 PM - Edit history (1)

Trust has been breached. It cannot be reinstated this quickly and without evidence. All these companies did not have to go along to the extent they did. This is clear from Greenwald's book.

[KoKo]

17. It's hurting their business dominance. Other countries starting to develop their

own systems to be more secure. The threat of losing world dominance could factor into why they went along before (to keep control) and why they now want to make it seem like they are more privacy concerned since their cooperation and the massive extent of the surveillance has been revealed..

Follow the Money....

[Blue_Tires]

18. It would be nice if Bloomberg took a look at google's data collection operations

which have been well-documented elsewhere and are arguably just as alarming; along with their backroom congressional lobbying for even looser restrictions on what data they collect and what they do with it...For the life of me I cannot understand why there has been so much resistance to having a discussion on the topic...Even Snowden/Greenwald have repeatedly said it's a non-issue, which beggars belief, to be honest...

Big tech corporations and Telecoms have been hoping since last year that the more anti-NSA outrage they can manufacture for the public, the less attention gets paid to their own transgressions...And sadly so far the campaign has been a great succes, based on what I see on DU on a daily basis...

[closeupready]

20. 'campaign has been a great succes[s]' - no, it hasn't, I don't think.

If it's clear to a nobody like ME that all the US tech companies were complicit in helping to destroy privacy among anyone connected to a computer (in exchange for lucrative government defense contracts or other kinds of largesse), then it's crystal clear to people in other countries, maybe moreso since foreign states historically complain about the CIA and a domineering US presence within their supposedly sovereign territory.

[Blue_Tires]

21. Good points

I've based this on how little media coverage there has been on the telecoms/big tech, along with how many stories I've posted on DU which fell off the table with maybe 1-2 replies...

[closeupready]

22. Right, okay, I see.

[Cha]

31. That was kind of my first thought.. who's calling out who on "spying"? They're all

"Looky Over There.. nothing to see here".

[closeupready]

19. "perceptions that ... they cooperated with gov't. surveillance" - lol

More than a perception. Concrete reality. Bunch of liars.

[GoneFishin]

23. Somewhere there is an NSA contractor whose $ billion contract hinges on this loophole.

And they are going to fight like hell to keep it.

[phazed]

28. The NSA Doesn't Need To Hack Your Phone, just use the Facebook App - Ugh.

And then Facebook goes and does this.

I will quote Carl Denninger at his site market-ticker.org:

All you have to do is use Facebook while you're going somewhere or are somewhere and anyone who cares to can tap into the audio of whatever is going on around you!

Facebook’s mobile app just grew a keen sense of hearing. Starting Wednesday, the app has the ability to recognize music and television shows playing in the vicinity of users.

The feature is designed to make it easier for users to share. When users begin to write a post, the Facebook app will offer to include information about music or shows playing in the background.

Riiiiiight.

And that data is transmitted how securely? It's used.... how? We know this.... how?

Uh huh.

There's no need for the government to tap your phone or listen in wherever and whenever you are around your friends when you do it for them.

Of course those around you might not have given consent, but who cares about that, right? Wiretapping laws in some states requiring all party consent aren't an issue here because Facebook says so.... right?

Never mind just plain old-fashioned common decency.

**** you Facebook.

The news article listed is at: The Wall Street Journal

I find this quite disgusting myself.. not to mention, you will be uploading and receiving this data constantly - couple this with the what seems to be inevitable data caps and high pricing on internet services - why should "we" have to pay for that bandwidth which is nothing more than advertising? Ya.

[klook]

39. Google & Facebook care about our personal data

so they can keep presenting it to their advertisers.

They're concerned, all right. Concerned that their users might wise up and quit sharing every detail of their online activities with them.

[Uncle Joe]

40. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, NeoConsSuck.