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Rep. Amash's Amendment To Defund The NSA's Domestic Phone Metadata Program Fails 205-217
Today Rep. Amash’s amendment to the 2014 Defense Appropriations Bill failed on a vote of 205 in favor to 217 opposed in the House. When it became known that the amendment would in fact come up for a vote, the powers of the status quo came together to decry its tenets as ham-fisted and irresponsible.
The White House called the amendment a “blunt approach” that is not “the product of an informed, open, or deliberative process.” Naturally, the irony of that specific complaint resonates: The intelligence programs in question were not enacted with any of those forms of debate. To ask that their rescinding be held to a higher standard then their enaction is hubris of a real sort.
Underlining how seriously those who are in favor of maintaining the phone record collection program took the amendment’s threat to yank its funding, General Alexander himself — the good general heads the NSA — gave briefings on the Hill to House Democrats and Republicans, albeit in different sessions.
A formal statement from the White House and face time with the head of the NSA are some of the larger guns available for this sort of court press.
The NSA has come under heavy scrutiny for its collection of both Internet data and telephonic records by privacy advocates, certain members of Congress, and what is sometimes referred to as the netroots — efforts that include broad surveillance of U.S. citizens and the retention of information relating to their actions. Those in favor claim that it doesn’t violate the Fourth Amendment and is a key tool in the fight to protect American interests and national security. Opponents directly proclaim that the various NSA data-collection efforts are beyond unconscionable and should instead be viewed as nothing less than utterly un-American given its diametric opposition to hallowed Constitutional rights.
This isn’t a small argument, and it goes beyond our current simplistic ideological dialogue in which there are only two perspectives: left and right. Instead, we’re seeing a number of supposedly small government members of Congress stand behind action that gives the Federal government chronic authority to end the right to privacy. At the same time, the argument that national security can at times take primacy over privacy has been upheld in the past by American courts.
Before the vote, House members opposed to the amendment circulated a letter that included the following text:
While many Members have legitimate questions about the NSA metadata program, including whether there are sufficient protections for Americans’ civil liberties, eliminating this program altogether without careful deliberation would not reflect our duty, under Article I of the Constitution, to provide for the common defense. Furthermore, the Amash amendment would have unintended consequences for the intelligence and law enforcement communities beyond the metadata program.
Rep. Rogers was among those signed to the above. From the other end, a different House cadre came out in favor of the amendment, including Rep. Lofgren, who released a letter that said:
In short, this amendment would not prohibit the government from spying on terrorists under Section 215, or from collecting information in bulk about American’s under other legal provisions. However, the amendment would prevent the bulk collection of sensitive information on innocent Americans under Section 215 – and important improvement.
The vote was surprisingly close, with broad bipartisan support in favor of the amendment, and equally strong support opposed; this is a vote that split parties.
That the vote was so close all but guarantees that as an issue, the NSA’s domestic surveillance programs will be challenged again, and perhaps successfully.
Top Image Credit: Andrew Malone
Meet Helpouts, Google's Secret Plan To Bring Live, Video Commerce To Local Businesses
While its roots lie in search, today, Google wears many hats. From self-driving cars and wearable technology to social networking and mobile operating systems, there are few industries where the search and advertising giant has yet to make its presence felt. Lately, however, Google’s expansion has taken a noticeable tack in a more singular direction: eCommerce.
With the outsized success Amazon and eBay have had building online marketplaces that seek to remove the barriers around buying and selling on the Web, it was only a matter of time before Google decided to pull its chair up to the eCommerce table. Today, TechCrunch has learned via tipster that Google has quietly been pursuing its marketplace ambitions under the auspices of a new platform that leverages its increasingly powerful cloud services to power live, realtime commerce.
The product, which has reportedly been named “HelpOuts” and is currently being tested internally in Mountain View, will take shape as a marketplace that enables individuals and small and large businesses to buy and sell services via live video. With the capacity to connect merchants and consumers on both an immediate and scheduled basis, according to our tipster, the platform will allow sellers to create their own profiles and take advantage of reputation management, scheduling and payment features, while offering robust search and discovery tools for consumers.
As its live video infrastructure is increasingly becoming the unifying backend for its expanding roster of realtime products, Google’s new marketplace will leverage HangOuts to deliver services via live video. To that end, the platform will also come integrated with what could end up being a handful of Google products, particularly its young virtual wallet and payment service, Google Wallet.
From what we’ve heard, Google began internal testing of the product in late June, but may be at least a month away from a public release.
In the meantime, from what we can gather from leaked mockups of Helpouts, the platform seems reminiscent of eBay’s recent efforts to expand its own marketplace with the launch of Secretguru, its concierge-style platform that allows merchants to offer a range of services directly to consumers — from business mentoring to beauty tips.
Part of the reason Amazon has sprinted out to such a commanding lead in the eCommerce market is its growing network of fulfillment centers and distribution warehouses, which allow it to produce that magic, online retail bullet of low prices, convenience and speedy delivery. Without a fulfillment network, Google’s own local shopping ambitions seem to be taking a different shape. With Helpouts, Google, like eBay appears to be leaning into the territory of collaborative consumption marketplaces like, say, Zaarly, TaskRabbit and Live Ninja.
According to our source, Helpouts, like these startups before it, will cover a range of categories, including computers, education, food, health, hobbies and repair. One can then imagine services on Helpouts ranging from health consultations and fitness classes to appliance repair support and cooking lessons.
Google has also apparently partnered with a number of brands during internal testing, including One Medical Group, Sears, Weight Watchers and Alliance Frances, for example. At launch, the platform will also reportedly include an array of individual merchants and instructors as well, from yoga gurus to fitness teachers — all of whom will be able to offer both free and paid services to consumers via Helpouts.
According to our sources, with Helpouts, Google is looking to remove some of the barriers that have traditionally stood in the way of the seamless delivery of live services. For example, using Helpouts, a Spanish tutor from Argentina could offer language training to students in Japan, while a Yoga instructor in New York would be able to provide classes to a stay-at-home mom in Wyoming and an appliance repair shop could walk a customer through fixing a broken fan in their laptop — with an Internet connection being the only requirement.
Under the new, “One Google” Era, the company has begun to prioritize a greater collaboration or interrelationship between its products. With Helpouts, one could also imagine how the platform can act as a logical extension of Google’s core search and ads business. For example, customers could connect to retailers and manufacturers to get recommendations and advice on product purchases — or receive guidance on how to set up their products.
This could work to shore up a nagging gap for Google: When it comes to product searches, people no longer turn to Google. It’s all about Amazon. It also wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine Helpouts connecting to YouTube to offer video or lesson playback or integrating with Google’s Nerd Glasses.
Of course, as with any Google product launch, life could be getting a little bit tougher for its smaller (and startup-y) competitors. There is a long list of businesses that either parallel or would directly compete with some part of Helpouts, whether it be LiveNinja, PowWow (which is, believe it or not, founded by a former Googler), Live Moka, InstaEdu, Shmoop and, perhaps less directly, platforms like Angie’s List, Udemy, Skillshare, TaskRabbit, CreativeLive and Curious. Though, admittedly, some of these overlap more than others.
When it comes to Big Data or resources that can be thrown into curating a service offering like this, startups are bringing a knife to a gun fight. Firstly, there’s plenty of room for a more polished, higher-quality product in this space and, secondly, Google has video tech that’s already been widely adopted by individuals and businesses. Not to mention, most startups can’t hold a candle to Google’s marketing machine.
Furthermore, according to our sources, Google has been building Helpouts in complete secrecy — well, until now — and few employees at the company were initially aware of the product, which has been developed by a team of two dozen engineers over the past year. Other than that, details are hazy. Perhaps Sergey and his secretive Google X unit are responsible. Only time will tell.
In the meantime, some may be wondering, if Helpouts is destined for YouTube (or at least HangOuts)-level adoption, or whether this is more of an experiment and it will just end up suffering the same fate as Reader or the geek-adored Wave. While it’s not totally clear just how much marketing spend Google is going to dish out and whether it intends for this to have mass-appeal, but based on what we’re seeing, I would lean towards the affirmative.
Furthermore, while the type and date of the product’s roll out remain unclear, we’ve heard from sources that Helpouts was recently the subject of a company-wide meeting, which suggest that at least a few Googlers are taking this seriously.
Stay tuned for more.
On Its 3rd Birthday, The Cloudy OpenStack Is A Marketing Machine, And That's Just Fine
OSCON, the open-source conference, is in full-gear today and OpenStack is celebrating its third birthday there with lots of fanfare, self-serving platitudes and an infographic — the tell-tale mark of a “we are awesome” campaign.
While I couldn’t care less that an industry-funded foundation turned three last week and is still celebrating, OpenStack is an important effort enabling anyone to build their own cloud service free from the control of proprietary cloud vendors. However, it also has a high PR quotient that can make any seasoned reporter cringe.
But consider the marketing budgets that companies like VMware have. OpenStack needs to be marketing itself in order to survive. If it can keep the developer interest accelerating then it has a fighting chance against Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google and the other players in the market.
The cloud market is just emerging and will take more than a decade to pan out. There is no way Amazon or any other company can build data centers all over the world to fulfill every cloud-computing need. But OpenStack can be a blueprint for any provider to build out their own cloud. They may not get the level of innovation that comes with AWS, but they will get the foundation to create something of their own.
I don’t buy the myth that the vendor-driven nature of OpenStack makes its future a big question mark. They have to make tough decisions such as what Cloudscaling CTO Randy Bias made clear in his open letter this morning. Sure, the competition with AWS, Google Compute Engine and Windows Azure is more intense than ever and poses questions for the cloud strategies of Rackspace, HP, IBM and Red Hat — all major investors and participants in OpenStack. But to capitulate is not in the DNA of these companies.
Instead, they will have to cooperate through OpenStack and compete on that basis with AWS. Krishnan Subramanian, now a cloud evangelist with Red Hat, notes that an organization like OpenStack is a test bed for this new way of competing. Defining the foundation is the first priority.
But becoming too caught up in its own grandeur is OpenStack’s biggest challenge. There are some big egos in this group and they all want to take credit. How many co-founders are there with OpenStack? Ten? More? That says it all.
Piston Cloud’s Joshua McKenty is arguably one of the more brilliant people who I talk to about the cloud world. But you tell me what you take from it after reading his words to his “daughter, OpenStack” that he penned in a blog post last week:
By many popular measures, you turn three years old this week. But when do you actually start charting a life? Was your birth at the PR event in July, or rather the first release of source code (May), the first design summit (June) or concurrent with the birth of the first actual human OpenStack *baby* (Lily Andrews, August 2011).
Regardless of the date, I must say, I’ve never had one of my children grow up this fast. While only three calendar years have passed, Ohloh says that you represent 379 years of effort. My dear, you certainly look good for being 379.
Rackspace even made a mini-documentary about OpenStack and how they started it all:
I am all for the self-promotion. There is this myth that foundations should keep their marketing costs down and instead put the money in the organization. I say that’s a sure path to irrelevance. AWS, EMC, Google, VMware and the rest spend millions in marketing, so why should OpenStack hamper itself by keeping its mouth shut?
So keep it coming, OpenStack. Cut the birthday cake and pour a glass of champagne. The money spent is worth every drop.
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