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Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

> How’s that “democracy” and “bill of rights” working for you my fellow US citizens?

In this case, pretty well. The bill was debated openly. My own Congresswoman tried to push the warrant-requirement amendment through. Literally nobody called into her office about it. Her colleagues seem to have had similarly-empty call sheets.

Most Americans were, as of 2018, unconcerned about the government surveilling them [1]. There is a growing share who are concerned about how the government uses their personal data [2]. But it's not been an issue voters get off their asses about.

[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/06/04/how-ameri...

[2] https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2023/10/18/how-american...

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That doesn't mean that voters don't care or that something like this is even legal.

> doesn't mean that voters don't care

No, but it means they care less about it than other issues which they are willing to mobilise in respect of. In that context, holding the status quo makes sense.

> or that something like this is even legal

Agree here, though that’s on the Courts and President more than the Congress.

President will sign the bill and courts will uphold its legality. I think it’s pretty obvious.

> President will sign the bill and courts will uphold its legality. I think it’s pretty obvious

Sure, but the original complaint was about democracy. I'm challenging that democratic principles weren't observed here.

I think it's a failure of the rule of law. But that's not the same thing, even if the rule of law in general is an important component of democracies as we understand them.

The bill is beside the point. Intelligence/law enforcement will do the stuff the bill authorizes -- and probably already are, and worse -- even if it dies in Congress, or the president's desk, or whatever. Legislation simply doesn't matter to people for whom there is no effective oversight by any branch of government, as is the case with these agencies. Time and time again people have painstakingly uncovered massive breaches of legality and constitutionality by the security state, and never has it mattered one bit. This stuff literally goes back to before the founding of the United States, probably before recorded history, and "democracy" has never slowed it down.

Maybe democracy is a good process for deciding on how much to spend on highways and social security (though this is doubtful as well), but it is for sure not something that has ever been a useful tool in restraining security services.

At no point were we the people consulted about whether or not we agree to this violation of our constitutional rights which we thought were inalienable.

> At no point were we the people consulted about whether or not we agree to this violation of our constitutional rights which we thought were inalienable

Of course you were. It was on the House floor. Did you call your representative? That's how it works in a republic. (If you did, I'd be curious for the rep. From what I heard, the call sheets were blank.)

My representative does not represent me. In fact I’ve never seen a representative from my state that did since I reached voting age like 30 years ago. Every time I write to them about the issues that matter to me I receive obviously canned responses that show that the most their staffers ever read is the first couple of sentences, if that. This whole Congress thing is bullshit to create an illusion of representation while the congresspeople actually cater to their lobbyists and the security state.

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