Comment by MR4D
2 years ago
Ron Ryden has been barking up this tree for a long time:
https://www.wyden.senate.gov/issues/secret-law
https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-colle...
https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-intro...
https://www.wyden.senate.gov/priorities/gps-act
https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-relea...
He even inspired Snowden to expose the illegal mass surveillance programs. IIRC Snowden reached a breaking point when James Clapper, then director of national intelligence, lied under oath to Congress when pressed about domestic surveillance by senator Wyden.
It's sad we don't hear more about people like this in positions of power.
His position on it has been clear for a while:
2008: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligence_Surveilla...
The votes: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/110-2008/s168
But this is a MUCH older issue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A
And if you don't know about Quest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nacchio
The entire time period of the Bush admin is a microcosm for unresolved issues of today: Voting machines, government over reach and spying, security, encryption, copyright, bad behavior by corporate entities (M$ has a cohort).
Good thing there is no penalties for lying under oath anymore. That pesky rule of law was so long in the tooth.
There are instead life destroying penalties being handed out to whistleblowers. What a world we live in.
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Um try that in a normal court as a citizen and you get your ass handed to you. Only the powerful get exceptions.
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Penalties for whom? Clapper was bound by conflicting laws requiring both honesty and secrecy. This problem goes all the way to the root of government and legal system.
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Google tells me perjury is still very much a thing. Do you have a source?
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Nine times out of ten, when there's a news piece about a senator advocating for privacy and constitutional rights with regards to tech, it's senator Wyden. He's on the senate intelligence committee and has a decent track record of getting shit done with bipartisan support, so he's not just virtue signaling for votes either (not to mention that he's basically unbeatable in state election with all the support he has in Oregon). He's 74 years old, I do hope someone will step up and carry the torch when he retires. It's a losing battle but it's still important that we have someone who is competent and well respected to fight it for us.
I know it's the Oregonian in me and getting to meet him as a kid where he spent a decent amount of time with my class, but he strikes me as a senator that Oregon can be proud of. I might not agree with him on everything, but in my personal opinion, he's advocating and pushing for change on what he personally believes in. Makes me wish my current senator was more like that.
> he's advocating and pushing for change on what he personally believes in
That's certainly a step above many of the grifters we have in government, but it's also not necessarily a good thing. People can truly believe in stuff that's harmful or flat out wrong.
Gosh I am so happy to have like the best senator in the senate next to Bernie Sanders in Oregon.
Oregon is an extremely based state. Y'all crap on PDX but the reality is that we have more freedom and less tyranny here than in any other state in the nation, and possibly in the world. PDX is "bad" because it's one of the only places in the world that hated the cops enough to actually muzzle them - and not living in fear of the boot is worth needing to deal with homeless people.
Want to smoke weed? Check (lowest prices in the world). Want to do psychedelics? (functionally legalized) Check. Want to shoot guns? (relatively lax gun laws for a blue state) Check. Want to not be spied on? As check as Ron Wyden can make it!
> Want to shoot guns? (relatively lax gun laws for a blue state)
Your DA is determined to destroy this right by spending tax dollars appealing 114 until they find a judge who agrees with them.
Yeah it sucks, but I care the least about it tbh.
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> Want to smoke weed?
The tyranny of the masses is still a tyranny. I'd personally like to move to a state where all smoking, but at least weed smoking, is illegal. I really don't like second hand smoke, especially when it smells and hangs as much as weed smoke does.
It's already not legal to smoke in public for weed and in most places for cigarettes. Frankly I don't think outright prohibition addresses that any better than the existing system. Nor do I see how having bodily autonomy is necessarily a tyranny of the masses.
In all seriousness, Utah sounds like your ideal so long as you stay outside of Salt Lake City. I'm glad to no longer be a resident
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This comment is rather obtuse.
You want to live in a state where all smoking is illegal?
Because you don’t like the smell of weed smoke?
How interesting.
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> Want to smoke weed? Check (lowest prices in the world)
One of the biggest reasons I'm happy I moved away from my home in Oregon. The second-hand weed smoke is gross.