back to article Who gives a F about privacy? New scorecard rates US pols on spying

Civil-rights groups and other campaigners have built a website that tracks US politicians' voting records on privacy laws. Members of the bipartisan outfit Stand Against Spying say their scorecard database will publish an overview and tracker of how senators and representatives in Congress vote for or against key issues on …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    I love the blimp overflying the NSA datacenter!

    They need to come back later with a "The NSA--Ask us what your ex is saying about you!". Or maybe "Can't remember when you promised to move your friend's furniture? We can help!"

  2. JaitcH
    Happy

    New law coming?

    Making it unlawful to overfly NSA facilities - just watch the FAA leap into action!

    1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

      Re: New law coming?

      They'd have to tell everyone where each and every NSA Facility was so that people would know where not to fly otherwise the courts would have a hard time convicting anyone.

      That is probably not on the cards. The spooks really want to keep a lot of their locations a secret.

      1. Don Jefe

        Re: New law coming?

        Yep, the locations of the really scary State intelligence facilities aren't disclosed to much of anyone. Such facilities use invisibility as their primary defense. They tend to lose value if they are exposed.

        What I think is just (sad) hilarious in all that is the fact those covert facilities are DoD properties. Military assets hidden away in civilian areas. Intentionally turning civilians into legitimate military targets. Violating international military conventions is hilarious, in its own way. But we call other countries that do that everything from cowards to evil. Lethal hypocrisy. Get yours today!

      2. Matt Bryant Silver badge
        Boffin

        Re: Steve Davies 3 Re: New law coming?

        "They'd have to tell everyone where each and every NSA Facility was...." Not really, in the UK they just designate an area as 'closed airspace' by making the area a Military Air Traffic Zone (MATZ) where public fliers are obliged by law to obey the military ATC for the zone, and that's it. As you approach the zone the MATC simply directs you to fly elsewhere, if you don't then you won't have a pilot's licence for long. They don't have to give a reason as to why you're not allowed to fly over it. In the UK there were quite a few buildings-that-officially-didn't-exist that just happened to correspond with MATZs. It's rumoured that, to hide the number of real sites, a number of normal government offices were also designated as coming under MATZs just to keep the conspiracy theorists guessing. In the US they usually just designate an area as an SUA (Special Use Airspace) and again, ignoring ATC and entering such a zone will see your licence revoked in no time. No new law needed.

  3. knightwing

    someone gives a F about privacy. or else it wouldn't keep appearing everywhere. always. not ever going away. constantly.

  4. Ross K Silver badge
    Black Helicopters

    Greenpeace Blimp?

    Hardly original, and not as funny as Mark Thomas flying over NSA Menwith Hill in a hot air balloon in 1999.

    What are Greenpeace protesting? The spying, or the massive amounts of water and electricity this data center is using?

    1. brooxta

      Re: Greenpeace Blimp?

      Consider your question seconded! Is this mission creep from Greenpeace? What does this stunt achieve for them, beyond establishing that they are fond of flying, which actually we already knew about.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Greenpeace Blimp?

        Greenpeace,

        Love flying

        Try to make popular cause unpopular

        Want to degrade most people's lives

        Appear openly hostile to many donor's interests.

        Leadership appears to copy the average Politburo 'all for us none for the cause' methods.

        May take money from any source.

        Did I miss anything out?

      2. Ross K Silver badge

        Re: Greenpeace Blimp?

        What does this stunt achieve for them, beyond establishing that they are fond of flying, which actually we already knew about.

        I could tell you similar stories about other so-called charities - "Do as I say, not as I do."

        They should have made that guy cycle home. On a bike with no saddle.

      3. Mad Chaz

        Re: Greenpeace Blimp?

        They are afraid of what'll happen when all the internal memos about where the next big stunt is going to happen get read by the NSA and they get labeled terrorists?

        It was another chance to protest something while polluting the environment themselves?

    2. Awil Onmearse

      Re: Greenpeace Blimp?

      "What are Greenpeace protesting? The spying, or the massive amounts of water and electricity this data center is using?"

      Greenpeace in particular, and anyone who opens their gob about anything important anywhere in general, have been the direct victims of these fucking vampire-squid for decades.

      1. Don Jefe

        Re: Greenpeace Blimp?

        You nailed it Awil. There is valid concern that practicing Free Speech and exercising the Right of Assembly and Protest is a good way to become James Clappers newest hand puppet. We know the IRS has acted with prejudice and we know individuals with the NSA have acted with prejudice as well. It's pretty safe to assume that institutional prejudice is built into an organization that is failing in its job if you know what their job is.

        I have no time for Greenpeace, bunch of useless grundle scrapers if you ask me, but they make an easy target for jackasses the system has rewarded with too much power, since I'm pretty sure just about everybody dislikes Greenpeace. But they shouldn't have to fear exercising their rights.

      2. Ross K Silver badge

        Re: Greenpeace Blimp?

        All very well bitching about it here... If you're an American, have YOU personally demanded your congressman do his part to put an end to this indiscriminate eavesdropping?

        1. Don Jefe

          Re: Greenpeace Blimp?

          To whom do you speak Señor Ross?

          1. Ross K Silver badge

            Re: Greenpeace Blimp?

            The world at large?

            Any American who complains about being surveilled by US government agencies?

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  6. danny_0x98

    Here's the problem: my Senators and Congressperson are of my party (Democrat) and I absolutely know that one Senator is a key enabler for the degradation of privacy.

    Still, their opponents at election time are intent on dismantling every thing I like and their thoughts on privacy matters are rather vague, as the gauntlet they ran to get a Republican nomination entailed being tough on terrorism. As the Carte Blanche is semi-rationalized with suggestions that while everyone is monitored, it's the scary Them that are really being watched. Diverse groups, such as Libertarians and EFFies get that that assertion is effectively nonsense, but it it is an effective dodge for the general electorate. Voters prioritize economic issues any way.

    Any way, yes, thank you, but let's not expect that these grades will vex incumbents.

  7. Don Jefe

    Siege Mentality

    The scorecard thing is nice, but the big proponents of 'nothing to hide, nothing to fear' aren't exactl hard to identify; besides, they aren't the real threats anyway.

    The threat is the siege mentality Congress has adopted over the last 12 years or so. Bills are packaged in obscenely convoluted ways that hopelessly entangle absolutely unrelated legislation. What used to be considered 'dirty pool' has become the standard and only served to intensify Intra-Congress willy waving at the expense of the general population.

    You won't see many bills titled 'Downloading Pictures from Your Daughters Phone Act'. That'll be rolled in as Provision XXIII and will be tied to funding for improved water treatment facilities in places where there's more coal ash than water in the public water supply, or whatever. What matters is that the backers of Provision XXIII will not budge until they get what they want. Denying resources to the public until they get what they want from their 'opponent' across the aisle.

    There's no way to come out of that not looking like a piece of shit. The chucklefucks that pushed Provision XXIII are fulltime chucklefucks, so they can't lose. But anybody else, who might only be a part time chucklefuck, (everyone in Congress is at least moonlighting as a chucklefuck. It's required to get your name on the ballot) becomes the people who either voted for more surveillance or voted to deny (thing) from the public.

    Anyone who puts people into such a situation cannot be negotiating in good faith. It's the negotiation tactic of cowards, the politics of the weak and impotent. Hilariously, the entire fiasco is completely bipartisan. The only thing those clowns can absolutely agree on is that it's OK to fuck the voter by using them as pawns in an incredibly abstracted game of King of the Hill.

    Although not a legal necessity, the governance mechanisms of our entire Republic are built around a two party system (from Day 1) that assumed the people elected to Congress would have the general voting population in mind. Of course some degree of bias would be present in those from different parties, that's part of the overall design.

    But the idea of treating free, landowning white men like black slaves by using them to further their own ends while giving them nothing in return was simply an unthinkable affront to Liberty. To do so would have been in direct opposition to the 'Taxation & Representation' legislative cornerstone the country was founded on. Nobody got everything they wanted, but compromise to benefit the taxpayers was not only just and right, compromising was seen as a the bold, strong way to be. It wasn't seen as selling out, compromise was standing up and doing the best you could for all taxpayers, even if it meant you got some egg on your face or if it cost you a reelection bid.

    It's all really fucking stupid. As long as Congress is comprised of cowards and fools nothing is going to get better. They will continue to treat us like slaves: Always taxing, spying, controlling, using and endangering every US voter as an expendable piece in an internal scorched Earth campaign. As it stands, it doesn't matter who supports what legislation, they're going to fuck us like prison mattresses with every single move they make.

    1. willi0000000

      Re: Siege Mentality

      yeah, if i had a couple of days to carefully craft a response i'm sure i could have done half as well as you seem to have done in five minutes. congratulations.

      the biggest factor getting fools and cowards elected is money. if you have it, you can put out enough FUD and ramp-up the attack ads to the saturation point. a misinformed electorate is easily manipulated.

      unfortunately, money is easy to come by. all you need to do is sell yourself to one or more large donors and make sure you stay bought.

      the fact that the average voter has the attention span of a two year old in a toy store doesn't help much either . . . LOOK! SHINY!

      it's sad to think that the only way out of the current situation might be for the "average voter" to notice that he is un/underemployed, breathing and drinking toxic soup, poor, and that the cameras, microphones and ultrasound wands up his ass are getting so big and numerous that it's really uncomfortable. a few more government shutdowns and a large dose of congressional obstruction might just put the country so far down the toilet that it might just do the trick.

      i hope that when the crash comes that it isn't irreparable.

  8. veti Silver badge
    FAIL

    45%?

    If that many people are getting an "A", I'd be looking at my grading thresholds.

    Simply "voting against increased surveillance", however consistently, shouldn't be getting you an 'A'. For that, you should have to actively move or vote for legislation to reduce surveillance.

    Those who do nothing but vote for the status quo (which is what "voting against increases" means), should be getting at best a B or C.

  9. tom dial Silver badge

    Stupid grading scheme

    You get a B for upvoting the Sensenbrenner-Massie-Lofgren amendment, which is a sop and won't inconvenience the NSA in any significant way.

    One upvote for veti as well.

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