“CISA was meant to allow companies to share information on cyber attacks — including data from private citizens — with other companies and the Department of Homeland Security. Once DHS had all the pertinent details, they could be passed along to the FBI and NSA for further investigation and, potentially, legal action. The thing is, critics saw the bill as way for government agencies to more easily keep tabs on Americans without their knowledge.” – engadget
And yeah, all the big tech companies tried to point it all out…this time, to no avail.
So the fake cybersecurity actual surveillance bill passed and was signed, no problemo.
Why? Because the folks who hate the Fourth Amendment like anathema found the perfect way to sneak it through: The Omnibus Budget Act. Two thousand pages pages which they had two days to read (as usual).
“ ... if anything, the version of CISA that was quietly slipped into this budget plays with privacy even faster and looser than the original. For one, a previously held prohibition against sharing information with the NSA has been removed, meaning America's best surveillance agency can receive pertinent data without it being handled by Homeland Security first. More importantly, the provision that required personal information to be scrubbed from cybersecurity reports also seems to have gone missing, leaving that task up to the discretion of which ever agency gets their hands on it.” – ibid
What really bothers me is that the same folks who determined that you or I lying to Federal investigators is a felony, but for them…business as usual.
Ah, what does it matter? People don’t seem to be able to give away their rights fast enough.
This, from Yale (where a President and Secretary of State went to school):
“Here is some depressing news out of Yale University. A majority of students favor restricting free speech on campus.” – CaffeinatedThoughts
But far worse:
“To put some numbers behind that perception, The William F. Buckley Jr. Program at Yale recently commissioned a survey from McLaughlin & Associates about attitudes towards free speech on campus. Some 800 students at a variety of colleges across the country were surveyed. The results, though not surprising, are nevertheless alarming. By a margin of 51 percent to 36 percent, students favor their school having speech codes to regulate speech for students and faculty. Sixty-three percent favor requiring professors to employ “trigger warnings” to alert students to material that might be discomfiting. One-third of the students polled could not identify the First Amendment as the part of the Constitution that dealt with free speech. Thirty-five percent said that the First Amendment does not protect “hate speech,” while 30 percent of self-identified liberal students say the First Amendment is outdated.” – Wall Street Journal
This is frightening. One third could not identify the First Amendment as part of the Constitution? And 30% of self defined liberal students said it’s outdated? I don’t care about the “liberal” part, and neither should you. I care that one third couldn’t identify the First Amendment as part of the Constitution…and then, the rest of these depressing statistics.
Is it any surprise that the social media generation doesn’t know squat about privacy? No.
Is it a surprise the degree to which they live in a country for which so many have died for those rights, yet they couldn’t be bothered to learn the basis of their history, historical documents and national holidays and yet receive a high school diploma and be accepted into a college/University? Yes.
This post is about the loss of freedoms through apathy and ignorance, not about politics, and I want it kept that way.
Sources:
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20151218/15571633126/want-to-know-how-ridiculous-omnibus-bill-is-it-has-meaningless-porn-filter-clause-four-times.shtml
https://caffeinatedthoughts.com/2015/10/yale-students-the-first-amendment-is-outdated/
http://www.wsj.com/articles/notable-quotable-unfree-speech-on-campus-1445555707