TPP and NSA Bills
Currently there are 2 very important bills in congress, the Transpacific Partnership Bill (TPP) and the National Security Agency (NSA) Surveillance bill, which was just voted on this morning.
The NSA Surveillance Bill, which was passed by the House, has been blocked by the U.S. Senate. This is a good thing as far as I'm concerned.
By rejecting the bill, it eliminates the NSA's ability to collect mass telephone records of Americans. Consequently, the material would remain with the phone companies and the government would only be able to access particular phone records by gaining a court order. This would be done on a case by case basis.
I'm all for protecting our country from extremists who would like nothing more than to do us in, but at what cost?
Most American's will say, well 'I've got nothing to hide, so what's the big deal'? And 'our national security is more important than someone having my telephone number'.
Bottom line, is that the NSA will still have the power to access phone records of those they suspect want to hurt our country. That's a good thing. BUT they'll have to get a court order to do so. Consequently, the privacy of the American people will be protected against possible corrupt NSA officials and/or those who would take advantage, if the bill had passed.
In regards to the TPP bill. The official spin is that the bill is meant to 'enhance trade and investment among TPP partner countries to promote innovation, economic growth and development and support the creation of and retention of jobs'.
What does that mean? What are the details? How does it help our economy and in which way?
NOBODY KNOWS and if they DO KNOW, they're not allowed to talk about it! It took me hours to find this out. I read articles by the Fox News, Washington Post, the NYT's, CNN, NPR and a few others. Nowhere was there mention of this restriction. All that was discussed was the infighting, etc.
I thought to myself, this is odd... So I continued searching, thinking there has to be SOME INFO SOMEWHERE that tells something about the bill!
Long story short, I finally came across an article on the Breitbart wesbite where they spoke with Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala). He, along with Mike Lee (R-UT) were the only Senator's who were willing to speak with any kind of transparency. Here's what Session's had to say:
"If you want to learn details of the TPP bill, you've got to be a member of Congress and go to the basement of a building and leave your staff behind, along with your cell phone at the door."
In a Politico article, it was indicated that 'Documents were handed over to you, one at a time, while you were watched over when reading. Then you were forced to hand over any notes you made before leaving. And no matter what, you can't discuss the details of what you've read.'
Sessions did give a brief synopsis of what's in the bill as follows: 'participating countries can both add countries to TPP without congressional approval (like China) and can change any terms of the agreement-including the entry of foreign workers and employees.' That's it. I guess that's as much detail as he was allowed to give. At least it was something.
Last, I finally learned which presidential candidates were in favor or not in favor of the bill. Here's the results: Bush, Perry, Cruz, Rubio, Paul and Hilary are in favor. Graham, Paul, Carson, Christie and Walker haven't taken positions yet. I guess this article was written before the vote took place or we'd know that Graham had to vote yay or nay. Jindal, Huckabee, Trump and Fiorina publically announced they are against it.
But how could anyone take a stand on the bill, if they are outside of the Senate and weren't able to read it ???
One more interesting tidbit. None of the candidates who ARE in the Senate, according to the Breibart article, ever said whether they actually read the bill or not. Why not at least acknowledge this one way or the other? Guess there must be some political advantage that I haven't figure out yet. Clearly, something's not right, that We the People will probably never know what's in the bill and that leader's WE elect cannot talk about it.
The NSA Surveillance Bill, which was passed by the House, has been blocked by the U.S. Senate. This is a good thing as far as I'm concerned.
By rejecting the bill, it eliminates the NSA's ability to collect mass telephone records of Americans. Consequently, the material would remain with the phone companies and the government would only be able to access particular phone records by gaining a court order. This would be done on a case by case basis.
I'm all for protecting our country from extremists who would like nothing more than to do us in, but at what cost?
Most American's will say, well 'I've got nothing to hide, so what's the big deal'? And 'our national security is more important than someone having my telephone number'.
Bottom line, is that the NSA will still have the power to access phone records of those they suspect want to hurt our country. That's a good thing. BUT they'll have to get a court order to do so. Consequently, the privacy of the American people will be protected against possible corrupt NSA officials and/or those who would take advantage, if the bill had passed.
In regards to the TPP bill. The official spin is that the bill is meant to 'enhance trade and investment among TPP partner countries to promote innovation, economic growth and development and support the creation of and retention of jobs'.
What does that mean? What are the details? How does it help our economy and in which way?
NOBODY KNOWS and if they DO KNOW, they're not allowed to talk about it! It took me hours to find this out. I read articles by the Fox News, Washington Post, the NYT's, CNN, NPR and a few others. Nowhere was there mention of this restriction. All that was discussed was the infighting, etc.
I thought to myself, this is odd... So I continued searching, thinking there has to be SOME INFO SOMEWHERE that tells something about the bill!
Long story short, I finally came across an article on the Breitbart wesbite where they spoke with Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala). He, along with Mike Lee (R-UT) were the only Senator's who were willing to speak with any kind of transparency. Here's what Session's had to say:
"If you want to learn details of the TPP bill, you've got to be a member of Congress and go to the basement of a building and leave your staff behind, along with your cell phone at the door."
In a Politico article, it was indicated that 'Documents were handed over to you, one at a time, while you were watched over when reading. Then you were forced to hand over any notes you made before leaving. And no matter what, you can't discuss the details of what you've read.'
Sessions did give a brief synopsis of what's in the bill as follows: 'participating countries can both add countries to TPP without congressional approval (like China) and can change any terms of the agreement-including the entry of foreign workers and employees.' That's it. I guess that's as much detail as he was allowed to give. At least it was something.
Last, I finally learned which presidential candidates were in favor or not in favor of the bill. Here's the results: Bush, Perry, Cruz, Rubio, Paul and Hilary are in favor. Graham, Paul, Carson, Christie and Walker haven't taken positions yet. I guess this article was written before the vote took place or we'd know that Graham had to vote yay or nay. Jindal, Huckabee, Trump and Fiorina publically announced they are against it.
But how could anyone take a stand on the bill, if they are outside of the Senate and weren't able to read it ???
One more interesting tidbit. None of the candidates who ARE in the Senate, according to the Breibart article, ever said whether they actually read the bill or not. Why not at least acknowledge this one way or the other? Guess there must be some political advantage that I haven't figure out yet. Clearly, something's not right, that We the People will probably never know what's in the bill and that leader's WE elect cannot talk about it.
posted by Candle in the Wind at
11:08 AM
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