To break particular bill down a bit for those not overly familiar with it. In a nutshell it grants immunity to any corporation or government body that wishes to share private information with a government entity or relevant private organization. This is supposed to be for security purposes but it's not expressly structured as such.
It would give government agencies and many private companies access to your personal communications and financial information and would allow government security agencies like the National Security Agency unprecedented power to access your data including medical records, private emails and financial information – all without a warrant, oversight by any court or due process of law.
I still don't know why you are upset about this. Again if you aren't doing anything wrong you shouldn't have anything to hide. The government agencies in charge of this exist to protect us, and anyone that doesn't support that is up to no good, one way or another. How can they keep us safe if the bad guys can communicate secretly?? And by the way, now that we have socialized health care the government already can access your medical records without a warrant. SO, if you support Obamacare you were in favor of that access already.
This access to your records would require no misbehavior on your part, not even an accusation of terrorism or criminal activity and it would take place without your knowledge or any opportunity to protect your information or your privacy interests. That information could then be passed on to private companies or other agencies or used against you with no real rules or restrictions on who could access it or what hands it would end up in.
It would override virtually every privacy and due process law we have, and even toes against the 1st and 4th amendment as stated.
Zack, those ammendments werewritten hundreds of years ago by racist white guys that had no way of understanding how terrorists would use the internet against us. Exactly what information are you afraid of being made public Zack?
The courts have already ruled that the freedom of speech has limits, why would our government try to pass a law that was not constitutional, and not in our best interest?
Imagine going to court for some misunderstanding or even as a witness of some variety. To have the prosecution side present you with your internet activity and a list of e-mails, friend-only facebook posts, bill payments and subscriptions you may have, etc that are taken completely out of context. This is all legal and fair in a court of law if this passes, and you'll have no recourse against anybody who provided your information which had an expectation of privacy to anybody else.
What about bad guys using instant messaging to communicate criminal activity in a fashion law enforcement can't monitor? Are you in favor of blocking the efforts of the good guys fighting crime Zack?? I mean there is just too much danger that criminals can set up fake identities over the internet to harm our children. Again, if you aren't doing anything wrong why are you afraid?
The supporters of this bill are clueless, and are using international cyber attacks as justification for reintroducing it. Local spying doesn't help with an international problem like that. It's not a good solution to the current problems being used to justify it, but it can have dramatic effects and pretty much craps all over the majority of privacy laws we have in the process.
