Snowden NSA Claims Partially Confirmed, Says Rep. Jerrold Nadler 337
bill_mcgonigle writes with this news from from CNET: "Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D NY) disclosed that NSA analysts eavesdrop on Americans' domestic telephone calls without court orders during a House Judiciary hearing. After clearing with FBI director Robert Mueller that the information was not classified, Nadler revealed that during a closed-door briefing to Congress, the Legislature was informed that the spying organization had implemented and uses this capability. This appears to confirm Edward Snowden's claim that he could, in his position at the NSA, 'wiretap anyone from you or your accountant to a federal judge to even the president.' Declan McCullagh writes, 'Because the same legal standards that apply to phone calls also apply to e-mail messages, text messages, and instant messages, Nadler's disclosure indicates the NSA analysts could also access the contents of Internet communications without going before a court and seeking approval.' The executive branch has defended its general warrants, claiming that 'the president had the constitutional authority, no matter what the law actually says, to order domestic spying without [constitutional] warrants,' while Kurt Opsahl, senior staff attorney at EFF claims such government activity 'epitomizes the problem of secret laws.'" Note that "listening in" versus "collecting metadata" is a distinction that defenders of government phone spying have been emphasizing. Tracking whom you called and when, goes the story, doesn't impinge on expectations of privacy. Speaking of the metadata collection, though, reader Bruce66423 writes "According to the Washington Post, the Bush administration took 'bulk metadata' from the phone companies under voluntary agreements for more than four years after 9/11 until a court agreed they could have it compulsorily." Related: First time accepted submitter fsagx writes that Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive has calculated the cost to store every phone call made in the U.S. over the course of a year: "It's surprisingly inexpensive. It puts the recent NSA stories (and reports from the Boston bombings about the FBI's ability to listen to past phone conversions) into perspective."
Beware of the next step (Score:5, Interesting)
"So they HAVE been listening. That has got to stop, but we'll keep the metadata collection, because that's not so bad."
Re:Beware of the next step (Score:5, Insightful)
Biden believes that collecting metadata is extremely disturbing and provides huge opportunities for abuse:
Biden in 2006 schools Obama in 2013 over NSA spying program [youtube.com]
Re:Beware of the next step (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Beware of the next step (Score:5, Insightful)
Now now, don't confuse Senator Obama with President Obama. They're entirely different people...
(I'm not sure to what extent I'm joking...)
Re:Beware of the next step (Score:4, Insightful)
Now now, don't confuse Senator Obama with President Obama. They're entirely different people...
(I'm not sure to what extent I'm joking...)
Senator Obama was made up. President Obama is the real person.
Re:Beware of the next step (Score:5, Insightful)
When you sit in the chair, you'll never be the one you wanted to be while looking up to it. And it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.
There's a simple reason while politician change and change their speech once they get (re)elected. It's only then that they are faced with reality, whereas all the speeches before are totally disconnected from it. In the end, it's the same person, but facing different realities. I don't excuse them really for it... it rather have candidates saying the things how they are, but that won't get them elected.
Re:Beware of the next step (Score:5, Insightful)
I've long thought it funny, in a perverse way, that one can get arrested for speaking the truth but never elected for doing so. Screwy system - our hypocrisy of demanding honesty of our elected yet refusing to vote for truth-tellers. We vote for a daddy who'll kiss the boo-boo and make it better, but woe betide the adult who tries to tell us the facts of life. Just as scary, we vote for people who want the job - which by rights ought to disqualify them.
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Oh please. Take a look at the south. Its not called dirty by accident.
Re:Beware of the next step (Score:5, Insightful)
Senator Obama was made up. President Obama is the real person.
That's at best partly true.
The American people thought they were voting for an idealist constitutional scholar, but actually voted for a politician. Not a career politician, admittedly, but still a politician. That's the true part.
The untrue part is that they are different people. Actually, Senator Obama is just as real as President Obama; they are the same person working under different conditions.
We know this because the psychological forces are extremely well-understood. When you are in a position of great responsibility, the temptation is always there to bend your ethics just a bit in response to a true moral dilemma. The job of POTUS involves weighing up the lesser of multiple evils, and you don't get to punt the choice to someone else. You have to compromise your ethics one way or another.
When you break the rules, even ostensibly for the greater good, you run the risk of becoming desensitised to breaking rules. Eventually, you can get to the point where you know that you only ever break the rules in the service of a good cause, so any rule-breaking you do must be in the service of a good cause. The logical extension of this is the Nixon theory of the legality of the exercise of presidential power.
That's if you don't have a check on your conscience like, oh, a culture of pervasive over-broad secrecy and being surrounded by yes-men.
TL;DR Senator Obama == lawful good. President Obama == chaotic good.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
We have failed (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at yourselves. Go on, look at you. People of the United States, you've been had. Hoodwinked! Bamboozled! Run amuck
If it were people of Turkey or people of any banana republic, I can't fault them, not even a bit, for human beings are very easily bamboozled
However, for the Americans - I am one of them - THERE IS NO EXCUSE !!
The founding fathers had repeatedly reminded us, in their writings, of the dangers of letting the government runs amok
The founding fathers had even outlined what could went wrong, and what did went wrong in their time, and what they had done to rectify the wrongs
So many of our ancestors sacrificed so much in their struggle to regain their liberties, and yet, look at us
Are we even fit to call ourselves "AMERICANS" ??
We have failed
We have failed to uphold the spirit of America
We have failed the founding fathers
And more importantly, we have failed our children, and their children, in giving away our country and our liberties to the scoundrels
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I appreciate your fervor, but you really need to put your bullshit detector on full
As of this point:
"Update at 2:50 p.m. ET on June 16: We're pulling the plug on this story — (for clarification: ZDNet's story, not CNET's) — following Rep. Nadler's latest comments casting doubt on CNET's story. In a statement to our sister site, Nadler said: "I am pleased that the administration has reiterated that, as I have always believed, the NSA cannot listen to the content of Americans’ phone calls wi
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Oh - I suddenly believe the new story.
"The statement that a single analyst can eavesdrop on domestic communications without proper legal authorization is incorrect and was not briefed to Congress,"
What does "proper legal authorization" mean? Weasel words... you're right about propaganda. You're wrong about making it partisan... both parties are complicit in this.
I still believe the NSA is wiretapping at will without warrants specifically identifying individuals and cause. Even seizing just metadata is wrong
Re:We have failed (Score:4, Insightful)
What you say should be paid attention too. But the problem is that most Americans no longer know their history or the reasons is happened. We constantly find people claiming the constitution is a 200 year old document that has no relevance to modern time (this usually comes out when talking gun control).
The founding of the country, the whys and whatnot simply aren't being taught in any significant ways in schools now. When they are, they are brushed over with political slants mostly leading to conclusions used to shape the next generation of voters for a political party.
People claim the federalist papers are meaningless but they go a long way in explaining a lot of the hows and whys the constitution of the government was in such a way. After all, it was a public discussion that expressed the concerns of people as well as explaining the intent and reasons of some parts of the constitution. Yet, I'm not aware of any high school that has it as part of the curriculum and people who bring it up are often dismissed as kooks.
I guess my question is how long will this continue before something is done and if and when something is done, will anyone like the results. A lot of political power is spent making the state we are in today and a lot of power will be spent on keeping it that way.
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Why would they want the program to stop? If it stops they can't use it after they win an election.
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Re:Beware of the next step (Score:5, Informative)
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I know you were making a different point but your wording leaves me to point out that it isn't ok. Otherwise the terms wetback, niggar, spic, would all be common and acceptable in today's society.
The fact of the matter is that the term Teabagger is a derogatory term and only caught on after someone went to a protest with the intentions of degrading people calling them teabaggers and those protesters
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Fine. Political opponents. Sheesh. TeaBagger=TeaParty=AntiObama/Democrat=PoliticalOpponent
Not everyone that opposes corruption does so for political advantage. Some of them actually really believe in honest, transparent government. Many of the most outspoken critics of the NSA spying have been Democrats. Such as Ron Wyden [wikipedia.org] the Democratic senator from Oregon. If you look at his record, he is about as from a "teabagger" as you can get.
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What stereotype? I didn't write down any stereotypes
You use a derogatory term to refer to anyone that would suspect Democrats of abusing the national security apparatus for political ends, while stating that it is nonetheless reasonable to suspect future (presumably non-Democrat) administrations. If you study history, you will learn that the most dangerous authoritarianism is that which is cloaked in righteousness.
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Fine by me, but the public can't do that, only the Congress. And almost the entire Senate signed off on this stuff. And when given the chance to look at the NSA's open kimono, over half the Senators did not attend [thehill.com] so they could catch early flights home for the weekend. We're on our own here.
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Sure, they've been listening to the words of your conversation, but the words are just meta-data. Just like the words we get from government: they're simply a wrapper and have only a cursory relationship to their actual content and meaning.
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Fuck off peddler. I don't want your pamphlet.
Re:Beware of the next step (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't it odd that the one and only thing Obama, McCain, Feinstein, etc etc can all agree on is the importance and legality of these programs....
Actions to take (Score:5, Interesting)
From a previous post, here's the collected list of suggested actions people can take to help change the situation.
Have more ideas? Please post below.
Links worthy of attention:
http://anticorruptionact.org/ [anticorruptionact.org]
http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_the_republic_we_must_reclaim.html [ted.com]
http://action.fairelectionsnow.org/fairelections [fairelectionsnow.org]
http://represent.us/ [represent.us]
http://www.protectourdemocracy.com/ [protectourdemocracy.com]
http://www.wolf-pac.com/ [wolf-pac.com]
https://www.unpac.org/ [unpac.org]
http://www.thirty-thousand.org/ [thirty-thousand.org]
Suggestion #1:
(My idea): If people could band together and agree to vote out the incumbent (senator, representative, president) whenever one of these incidents crop up, there would be incentive for politicians to better serve the people in order to continue in office. This would mean giving up party loyalty and the idea of "lessor of two evils", which a lot of people won't do. Some congressional elections are quite close, so 2,000 or so petitioners might be enough to swing a future election.
Someone added: Vote them out AND remove their lifetime, taxpayer-funded, free health care. See how fast the health care system gets fixed.
Someone added:You can start by letting your house and senate rep know how you feel about this issue / patriot act and encourage those you know to do the same.
If enough people let their representivies know how they feel obviously those officials who want to be reelected will tend to take notice. We have seen what happens when wikipedia and google go "dark", congressional switchboards melt and the 180's start to pile up.
I added: Fax is considered the best way to contact a congressperson,especially if it is on corporate letterhead.
Suggestion #2:
Tor, I2dP and the likes. Let's build a new common internet over the internet. Full strong anonymity and integrity. Transform what an
eavesdropper would see in a huge cypherpunk clusterfuck.
Taking back what's ours through technology and educated practices.
Let's go back to the 90' where the internet was a place for knowledgeable and cooperative people.
Someone Added: Let's go full scale by deploying small wireless routers across the globe creating a real mesh network as internet was designed to be!
Suggestion #3:
A first step might be understanding the extent towards which the government actually disagrees with the people. Are we talking about a situation where the government is enacting unpopular policies that people oppose? Or are we talking about a situation where people support the policies? Because the solutions to those two situations are very different.
In many cases involving "national security", I think the situation is closer to the second one. "Tough on X" policies are quite popular, and politicians often pander to people by enacting them. The USA Patriot Act, for example, was hugely popular when it was passed. And in general, politicians get voted out of office more often for being not "tough" on crime and terrorism and whatever else, than for being too over-the-top in pursuing those policies.
Suggestion #4:
What I feel is needed is a true 3rd party, not 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th parties, such as Green, Tea Party, Libertarian; we need an agreeable third party that can compete against the two majors without a lot of interference from small parties. We need a consensus third party.
Suggestion #5:
Replace the voting system. Plurality voting will always lead [wikipedia.org] to the mess we have now. The only contribution towards politics I'v
Re:Actions to take (Score:5, Interesting)
Thanks - good idea (Score:3)
Thanks. I've added that to the top of the list:
Join Senator Rand Paul's class action suit [randpac.com] against the government for invading our privacy. (!!!)
Re:Actions to take (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes.
I've lived 51 years, most of them O.K., and a few very well.
I'd be quite willing to die on my feet rather than live under tyrany on my knees. Somehow, either beats becoming infirm and dying of old age. On this issue, I thinks heads should roll. The responsible people (all, of them, Republican and Democrat alike), should be found out, tried for treason, and if found guilty, commensurately punished, to send a message to future politicians about who serves whom.
So, without further ado, and to certainly attract the attention at the good folks at the Secret Service:
What to do about a treasonous president
1. 218 (50%+1) of the 435 representative members of congress vote to imeach.
2. 67 (2/3) of the 100 Senators vote to convict.
3. 1 President is removed from office and is now subject to criminal prosecution.
4. 23 members of a grand jury indict him to stand trial for treason (Benghazi certainly qualifies: ordering troops to stand down when Americans are under attack?).
5. 12 members of a jury convict and sentence him for treason.
6. One disgraced, former president.
Rinse, Lather, Repeat with all the other traitors, and send a message to "politicians".
It's an easy process to remember: 218 67 1 23 12, almost like a phone number: (218)671-2312.
I am not afraid, of criticism, of torture, or of death.
Re:Actions to take (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes.
I've lived 51 years, most of them O.K., and a few very well.
I'd be quite willing to die on my feet rather than live under tyrany on my knees. Somehow, either beats becoming infirm and dying of old age. On this issue, I thinks heads should roll. The responsible people (all, of them, Republican and Democrat alike), should be found out, tried for treason, and if found guilty, commensurately punished, to send a message to future politicians about who serves whom.
So, without further ado, and to certainly attract the attention at the good folks at the Secret Service:
What to do about a treasonous president
1. 218 (50%+1) of the 435 representative members of congress vote to imeach.
2. 67 (2/3) of the 100 Senators vote to convict.
3. 1 President is removed from office and is now subject to criminal prosecution.
4. 23 members of a grand jury indict him to stand trial for treason (Benghazi certainly qualifies: ordering troops to stand down when Americans are under attack?).
5. 12 members of a jury convict and sentence him for treason.
6. One disgraced, former president.
Rinse, Lather, Repeat with all the other traitors, and send a message to "politicians".
It's an easy process to remember: 218 67 1 23 12, almost like a phone number: (218)671-2312.
I am not afraid, of criticism, of torture, or of death.
It's never going to happen because too many of the people in (1) and (2) of your list are complicit.
Re:Actions to take (Score:5, Insightful)
Was I drunk the day that everyone signed away their freedoms? Did someone forge my signature on various documents to give rise to these monstrosities? When did I exchange freedom for security, and call it a fair trade? What is with these weak spirited responses condoning the yoke that beckons to the grave?
The home of the brave indeed. More like the home of the scared. The home of the frightened. The home of adult children threatened by the dark shadows cast by the bogie men they conjured up in the first place to protect them, bogie men that many of them never wanted. What happened to this country, that started off so strong, with such valiant leaders, only to end up like this...I fear it would take the resurrection of your forefathers to restore some valor to those frames. Yes, yes, we know you can fight wars, and win them...but it's been a while since you've fought one for the right reason. So here's one that you're scared of -> fighting one of your own creations, not on a battlefield filled with foreign enemies that you know nothing about, but on the court grounds of the land that you love so dear, over the laws that were setup to protect you if you but say the word 'No,' and yet, sadly, many of you cannot. You're scared, because you're not sure you can win this battle, when every other battle, until now, has been ducks in a barrel; you have to take a stand, if only on an issue, and there might be some repercussions for it. Better to choose the cowards way out, and remain silent, right? Then you can celebrate with everyone else after the battle has been won, without ever exposing yourselves...
Re:Actions to take (Score:4, Interesting)
The home of the brave indeed. More like the home of the scared. The home of the frightened.
The media is telling you that the people are afraid, but have you actually witnessed people being afraid?
MSNBC sure as fuck is telling us on a daily basis now that the majority of people dont mind being spied on. If its a majority, then how come in practice the majority of the people that you actually know are against being spied on? The media has invented new imaginary Americans that are different from the actual Americans that you might come across.
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On one hand you have the public backlash if/when an attack succeeds due to inadequate intelligence gathering.
On the other you have the public backlash if/when the depth and pervasiveness of intelligence gathering is revealed.
As long as the former consequence is considered more severe and career-threatening, politicians will continue to put up with the latter.
Re:Actions to take (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know about this. Take 9/11 for example -- did GWB get voted out? Did he have his power limited? Did Congress refuse to let him do whatever wars he wanted?
No. He was re-elected. He expanded executive power. And even Democrats like Clinton were not reading the Intelligence Estimate calling into question GWB's push for Iraq and falling all over themselves to start a pointless war. All those private contractors profited handsomely. The revolving door between cabinet posts and VP of this or that is lubed up and spinning.
So, perhaps the opposite is true. Perhaps an attack results not in backlash, but in uplift for these DC fuckwads.
Re:Actions to take (Score:5, Insightful)
On one hand you have the public backlash if/when an attack succeeds due to inadequate intelligence gathering.
I'll take my chances. Statistically this century I've had a greater chance of drowning in my bathtub than being an American killed by a terrorist. And no, that's not evidence that the spying is working.
Re: Actions to take (Score:2)
Re:Actions to take (Score:5, Funny)
On one hand you have the public backlash if/when an attack succeeds due to inadequate intelligence gathering.
I'll take my chances. Statistically this century I've had a greater chance of drowning in my bathtub than being an American killed by a terrorist. And no, that's not evidence that the spying is working.
It's evidence that bathroom surveillance is not what it should be (or at least not used properly).
Re:Actions to take (Score:5, Interesting)
you have the public backlash if/when an attack succeeds due to inadequate intelligence gathering
"Intelligence gathering" is much too broad of a term. Call this blanket electronic eavesdropping. If the government could defend this program by citing cases where it foiled a terrorist plot they would. But they can't.
Plain old-fashioned police work and people reporting things that are genuinely suspicious (that does not include your Muslim neighbor saying his prayers in his backyard) are the key, as amply demonstrated by history. Before 9/11 a flight instructor reported to the local FBI field office that it was suspicious that he had students who weren't interested in learning to take off and land. The problem was that FBI headquarters ignored the report. Listening to their own field agents could have averted 9/11, but blanket electronic eavesdropping wouldn't have. The bombing of LAX in 2000 was averted by an alert customs inspector, who didn't find it necessary to "disappear" the wannabee perpetrator. A plain old-fashioned arrest did just fine. The attempted Times Square bombing was averted by a couple of street vendors who reported a car with smoke coming out of it. Etc., etc., etc.
Re:Actions to take (Score:4, Interesting)
A good list.
I would add,
Suggestion #7: Use your power as a consumer strategically. If corporations learn that there is a price to pay for their political actions, you'd see a big positive impact.
A big part of the surveillance state has been created in service of corporate interests. We would benefit from having these companies learn that consumers are paying attention. Right now, too many of them believe tyranny is good for business.
Re:Actions to take (Score:5, Informative)
ACLU anti-surveillance petition:
https://www.aclu.org/secure/repeal-the-surveillance-state2 [aclu.org]
EFF Resources and Personal Defense (Score:3)
EFF Action: Demand Answers Now! [Direct e-mail form to contact POTUS and your senators+House rep]:
https://action.eff.org/o/9042/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=9260 [eff.org]
https://action.eff.org/o/9042/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=9297 [eff.org] [Form for non-US citizens; directed at implicated corporations]
The links below are to resources of the personal-privacy type, as opposed to the those intended to help bring about change:
EFF Surveillance Self-Defense Project [Guide to surveillance-avoidance tools and techn
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We need easy to use end to end encryption (Score:5, Insightful)
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How do you propose to achieve secure key exchange when the man in the middle is literally plugged into the Internet backbone?
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Gosh! (Score:3, Insightful)
You mean to say that the initial story about Snowden just being a narcissistic traitor who couldn't possibly have known about those things that weren't happening in any case weren't entirely true?
And that, despite Senator Pelosi, wicked witch of the west's, assertions, congress was not in fact clued in to what was going on?
Color me shocked.
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[...] WITHOUT SPEAKING PUBLICLY OR RELEASING HIS NAME[...]
Like that would have kept him safe. They would have eventually found the source out, and I don't want to know what would have happened to the guy then. Maybe kidnapped and flown him to Egypt [spiegel.de] over Germany for Interrogation. We can't tell what would have happened, but they would have found him. He is playing the only card he has: convince the people that what he did was correct, both morally and legally. That, you cannot achieve in a case like this under a hidden veil.
Now he has a door wide open for political
At this point (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:At this point (Score:5, Insightful)
Bush bears his share of the blame; but he was still a hard-drinking, draft-dodging, daddy's boy when the US clandestine services were already in up to their eyeballs in seriously dodgy shit.
The Church Committee and the Rockefeller Commission(both reactions to things that had already been going on for some time, but had begun to seep out to the point where they couldn't be ignored) were ~1975. On the domestic side, the FBI was squelching 'radicals' more or less the moment Hoover oozed onto the scene. And, of course, almost as soon as WWII ended, we started up the Cold War secrecy-and-ethically-troubling-activities division in a serious way, and never really recovered.
Bush certainly contributed his push in the wrong direction, when his turn came; but the rot goes a lot deeper.
Re:At this point (Score:5, Informative)
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I'd like to see more of these finger pointing exchanges. It means we're no longer debating the existence of the problem which is a step forward.
I've thrown fuel on such fires around the Internet just to reinforce the notion that it's such a big deal that blame needs to be assigned.
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Nothing new under the sun (Score:5, Informative)
BY THE WAY, they've been recording calls for a long time. Maybe not everyone's, but a lot of them. Right after 9/11, they admitted that in the aftermath they went into these recordings to find out vital information.
This scary revelation was largely ignored at the time because of the go get 'em attitude in the nation as a whole, but I made a mental note of it.
Re:Nothing new under the sun (Score:5, Insightful)
A frightening number of people seem to have a 'It's okay if it saves lives!' mentality. We're supposed to be the land of the free and the home of the brave, but supporters of this sort of nonsense never got the memo.
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Exactly. While saving lives is a good thing, what it will lead to in the future is quite horrifying.
While I agree with what you're trying to say, there is an unproven assertion in your statement - an implication that this is an "either/or" scenario.
That hasn't been proven, and frankly I don't believe it's true. Intelligence gathering and old-fashioned police work can operate within sane boundaries and still protect us.
Will the occasional attack happen? Yes, unfortunately it will - but, as we've seen, that's true even with these intrusive, unconstitutional secret proceedings running amok.
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But I still feel it's important to emphasize that freedom is more important than safety even if the safety we're being offered is not genuine. People do need to accept that this is not a perfect world, and they need to stop giving away freedoms so they can feel safe.
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Re:Nothing new under the sun (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yeah, but making a recording of calls, and keeping them in case we need them later, that is a whole new level of Orwell.
phone-call metadata (Score:5, Informative)
This is true under current 4th amendment interpretations, but severely curtailed by statutes that are still in force.
Much of the law on the subject was developed in the 1960s and 70s over the use of pen registers [wikipedia.org] and trap-and-trace devices, which would record a list of all incoming and outgoing calls (the numbers and times, but not the call contents). The Supreme Court ruled in 1979 [wikipedia.org] that pen registers were not "searches" under the 4th amendment, because there was no reasonable expectation of privacy in phone-call metadata (as opposed to recording the call itself via a wiretap, which was held in 1967 [wikipedia.org] to require a warrant).
However, Congress added statutory restrictions on the use of pen registers and similar devices in 1986; the current statute can be found here [cornell.edu].
Re:phone-call metadata (Score:5, Interesting)
> This is true under current 4th amendment interpretations, but severely curtailed by statutes that are still in force.
The reasoning goes back to old law which is based on the idea that when you mail a letter, you have no expectation of privacy regarding with respect to the outside of the envelope, however the contents of the envelope are protected unless a warrant specific to the person involved is authorized by a judge.
So packet headers and phone call metadata really wouldn't seem protected under this precedent. However contents should be. For IP that really means even looking at email headers should be forbidden without a warrant.
Now the idea that the executive isn't bound by the 4th Amendment is preposterous. By common law it certainly is. What do people think the Magna Carta is about? This was settled 898 years ago. The authors of the Constitution surely believed what they wrote was binding on every member of the Federal Government.
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because there was no reasonable expectation of privacy in phone-call metadata
If asking the phone company for metadata isn't unreasonable, then why can't they just ask the phone company to record all the calls? If using companies to spy on people is okay, why is one reasonable but the other isn't? This is arbitrary nonsense used to justify spying, and it's phrased in such a way that it makes it look like a good compromise.
afaik thats what they actually do. the phone company is required to provide them the ability to put calls on wiretap. I reckon it's an online system that they have in use, but I reckon there's two systems actually. the one used for mafiosos, drug dealers and organized crime(which go just through normal warranty process) and then the NSA wiretaps which are for "fighting terrorists" which are broader more direct capability to tap any call they want when they want. they're supposed to use self restraing on doi
Well, there's the problem (Score:5, Interesting)
Where on earth does the constitution say this? Once found, it needs to be removed immediately, in my opinion. Further, any president willing to use such an outrageous power should also be removed immediately. And anyone who supports them using it.
I am a bit curious about the past tense wording (had the authority), though.
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It doesn't, but there is enough ambiguity in the language that layers upon layers of court cases have created this authority.
If someone exceeds constitutional authority and then it's upheld by the Court, it becomes de facto Constitutional until further suits are brought to challenge it.
It's not like the Constitution is a rule book, and it's certainly not like the Supreme Court is anything but a bunch of politicians in robes. We have too much faith in both.
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There is no ambiguity in the Constitutional language. Just because they (courts & politicians) try to muddy the water with semantic word games, solipsist reasoning, and tortured re-interpretations of the meaning of plain words and got some judges to buy it is meaningless. It's just a way to render the protections granted under the Constitution, and the restrictions upon government power, meaningless.
If someone exceeds constitutional authority and then it's upheld by the Court, it becomes de facto Constitutional until further suits are brought to challenge it.
Yes, that's the way it has traditionally worked. But by
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You must be one of the Dominionists who believe that the Constitution is the inspired Word of God.
Of course there's ambiguity. Words like "liberty" and "common good" and "pursuit of happiness" are completely open to interpretation. In fact, if you read some of Madison's correspondence with Jefferson after the Convention, you'll see them both bemoaning (and in Jefferson's case) celebrating the ambiguity that was left in the ratified document.
Re:Well, there's the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
You must be one of the Dominionists who believe that the Constitution is the inspired Word of God.
No. I believe that the Constitution is a giant leap forward in human civilization. It is the first time in 5,000 years of human history where men rule themselves by common agreement and their natural rights recognized and protected, and where the government is the servant and answerable to the people it governs. When it dies, it may well be another 5,000 years before it happens again.
I would like you to cite where Jefferson says that hangings "should occur every 20 years or so".
Maybe what you're thinking of is that Jefferson wanted, every 20 years or so, for the whole Constitution to be thrown out and rewritten by future constitutional conventions.
""I do not know whether it is to yourself or Mr. Adams I am to give my thanks for the copy of the new constitution. I beg leave through you to place them where due. It will be yet three weeks before I shall receive them from America. There are very good articles in it: and very bad. I do not know which preponderate. What we have lately read in the history of Holland, in the chapter on the Stadtholder, would have sufficed to set me against a Chief magistrate eligible for a long duration, if I had ever been disposed towards one: and what we have always read of the elections of Polish kings should have forever excluded the idea of one continuable for life. Wonderful is the effect of impudent and persevering lying. The British ministry have so long hired their gazetteers to repeat and model into every form lies about our being in anarchy, that the world has at length believed them, the English nation has believed them, the ministers themselves have come to believe them, and what is more wonderful, we have believed them ourselves. Yet where does this anarchy exist? Where did it ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusets? And can history produce an instance of a rebellion so honourably conducted? I say nothing of it's motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be 20. years without such a rebellion.[1] The people can not be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13. states independant 11. years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half for each state. What country ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it's natural manure. Our Convention has been too much impressed by the insurrection of Massachusets: and in the spur of the moment they are setting up a kite to keep the hen yard in order. I hope in god this article will be rectified before the new constitution is accepted." - Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, Paris, 13 Nov. 1787
BlueStrat, I think you have a childish, mythical view of what the Constitution is and does.
I think you have a solipsist and cynical view of what the Constitution is and does, and are all too ready to allow whatever re-interpretation allows government to do whatever it wants as long as it's "your team" in power.
The Constitution was written in plain language and does not require advanced education to understand the plain meaning of it's words. All the tortured re-interpretations that seek to redefine the plain meaning of the Constitution are attempts to circumvent the Constitution and avoid the Amendmen
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Where on earth does the constitution say this?
Apparently there's also a secret constitution we're not allowed to see...
Article X (Score:5, Insightful)
Mr. Obama and company need to review article X of the U.S. constitution:
This is understood to mean that just because there isn't a specific prohibition on some action doesn't mean that the action is allowed. Thus, there is NO constitutional authority that allows the President (or any one else) to ignore the constitution and, especially, the fourth amendment:
I'd say that's pretty clear to me but I'm not a lawyer.
Cheers,
Dave
So... (Score:2, Insightful)
When will these taxpayer-funded criminals be arrested and prosectued?
Is that even true? (Score:5, Insightful)
'the president had the constitutional authority, no matter what the law actually says, to order domestic spying without [constitutional] warrants,'
This quote suggests two (independent) things:
1) that the constitution authorizes the president to order domestic spying.
2) that congress can [in essence] make no law that the president must obey (short of modifying the constitution).
Is that actually true? It would mean that when Bush (and Obama) made signing statements that they didn't need to follow certain laws, they were 100% correct. It means Reagan acted 100% legally in Iran Contra. It means that even if Obama directly ordered the IRS to harass certain groups, it was 100% legal. That's kind of scary.
Dont' forget about Nixon (Score:3)
Your first point implies that Nixon would have been perfectly legal in ordering the Watergate break-in, wiretapping, etc. As I recall, the final answer was that he didn't order, but did try to cover-up that it happened.
Your second point would also imply that the cover-up of which Nixon was a part, was not illegal.
I agree with you; kind of scary. Once started, where does it end?
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Your second point would also imply that the cover-up of which Nixon was a part, was not illegal.
It makes me wish the Nixon case had gone through the courts just to see what had happened.
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Nixon is said to have argued during Watergate that it is legal if the president does it. Nobody bought that argument then. I don't see why it should be legal now.
Re:Is that even true? (Score:5, Insightful)
'the president had the constitutional authority, no matter what the law actually says, to order domestic spying without [constitutional] warrants,'
This quote suggests two (independent) things: 1) that the constitution authorizes the president to order domestic spying. 2) that congress can [in essence] make no law that the president must obey (short of modifying the constitution). Is that actually true? It would mean that when Bush (and Obama) made signing statements that they didn't need to follow certain laws, they were 100% correct. It means Reagan acted 100% legally in Iran Contra. It means that even if Obama directly ordered the IRS to harass certain groups, it was 100% legal. That's kind of scary.
No, it's not the least bit true. The fact is that the Constitution specifically forbids spying without a warrant, and that the Congress can remove a President if they find his exercise of power to be illegal. But it's also a fact that unless Congress acts the President as a practical matter can and will flout the law.
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So basically the checks and balances break down when all three branches of government gang up against the people.
Who needs conspiracy theorists? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Who needs conspiracy theorists? (Score:4, Insightful)
So much for "Hope and Change". I was looking forward to the end of the Patriot Act, and the closing of Guantanamo Bay.
I say this as the United States Government is staging "advisors", on the border between Syria and Jordan. I guess our Government didn't learn much from Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Remember, the enemy of our enemy isn't necessarily our "friend".
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Let's not forget that the entire surveillance state is first and foremost a huge grift.
There are companies getting very very rich from all of this. It's the old military/industrial complex on steroids, because these new cyber-spook companies don't even have to build anything. They pay a bunch of guys like this Snowden character and pocket the rest as profit.
Meant to add this illuminating link: (Score:2)
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/us/after-profits-defense-contractor-faces-the-pitfalls-of-cybersecurity.html?hp&_r=2& [nytimes.com]
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Which is why I have the created the greatest conspiracy theory of all: "We have a representative government that respects the rule of law, and its direction and actions are controlled via free and fair elections by the people."
Seriously, there is no statement more likely to get you scoffed at and called crazy for today.
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Which is why I have the created the greatest conspiracy theory of all: "We have a representative government that respects the rule of law, and its direction and actions are controlled via free and fair elections by the people."
There is a difference between a mere conspiracy theory and a wild fantasy that flies in the face of all evidence.
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To be honest, "we're actually ruled by lizard people from the Hollow Earth" is more plausible.
Impeachment? (Score:2)
the president had the constitutional authority, no matter what the law actually says, to order domestic spying without [constitutional] warrants
"no matter what the law actually says" - is that seriously what the people in charge think nowadays?
Telcos (Score:5, Informative)
""According to the Washington Post, the Bush administration took 'bulk metadata' from the phone companies under voluntary agreements for more than four years after 9/11 until a court agreed they could have it compulsorily.""
For those who don't read TFA, the missing context is huge:
When the New York Times revealed the warrantless surveillance of voice calls, in December 2005, the telephone companies got nervous. One of them, unnamed in the report, approached the NSA with a request. Rather than volunteer the data, at a price, the “provider preferred to be compelled to do so by a court order,” the report said. Other companies followed suit.
And then they got immunity.
Re:Telcos (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest damage (Score:5, Insightful)
General Keith Alexander lied (Score:5, Informative)
"When asked by Maine Senator Susan Collins if Edward Snowden's claim that he could he could tap into virtually any American's phone call or e-mails. True or false?" Alexander said, "False. I know of no way to do that. "
The system is knowns as DCSNet, it lets them tap any phone in the country remotely:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DCSNet
NSA general is fucking liar.
What is MetaData? (Score:5, Interesting)
So what exactly is metadata?
Many years ago I was a telecommunications engineer for a large company and worked CALEA. [wikipedia.org] For the uninitiated, that is law-enforcement wiretapping.
My job was to make sure CALEA functioned properly on the new cellular network. We tested on an internal, micro-cell network that was isolated from the real world. The end result was to make sure targeted devices sent CDR (call data records, or metadata) and voice to the destination. This was all piped thru IPSec tunnels to the appropriate destination law-enforcement agency.
In the event of a tunnel failure, CDRs were required to buffer but voice was not. Saving voice during an outage required too much storage space, but the text nature of CDRs meant they were small and largely compressible.
Metadata consisted of EVERYTHING THAT WAS NOT VOICE.
To be clear, it included the following:
called number
calling number
time of call
duration of call
keys pressed during call
cell tower registered to
other cell towers in range
gps coordinates
signal strength
imei (cell phone serial number)
codec
and a few other bits of technical information.
Everything above "cell tower registered to" applies to traditional, POTS land line phones. This information seems to be what the disinformation campaign currently going on seems to revolve around. They never mention that there are over 327 MILLION cellular phones in the U.S., which is more than one per person. They never mention the bottom set of metadata.
Capturing all key presses makes sure things like call transfers, three-way calls and the like get captured.
It also grabs things like your voicemail PIN/password, which never seems to get explicitly mentioned.
But the cellular set is more interesting. This data come across in registration and keep-alive packets every few seconds. This is how the network knows you're still active and where to route calls to.
But by keeping all this metadata it allows whomever has it to plot of map of your phone's gross location and movements.
By "gross", I mean the location triangulated from cell tower strength and not GPS coordinates. Towers are triangular in nature and use panel antennas. They know which panel you connect thru and can triangulate your location down to a few meters just by the strength of your signal on a couple different towers.
GPS coordinates are "fine" location. For the most part the numbers sent across are either zeroed out or the last location your phone obtained a fix.
GPS isn't turned on all the time because it sucks batteries down. If you own a phone you know how long it can take to get a fix, so this feature isn't normally used.
HOWEVER, it can be turned on remotely and is a part of the E911 regulations pushed to help find incapacitated victims after 9/11.
[There is a reason the baseband radio chip in your phone has closed, binary-blob firmware -- whether or not the OS itself is FOSS. We wouldn't want the masses to be able to disable remote activation, would we? Or let them start changing frequencies and power levels.]
So, are we comfortable with the government knowing where we, thru our cell phones, are at every moment of the day? Because that is what metadata allows.
Think of what can be learned by applying modern pattern analysis to that data set.
Re:What is MetaData? (Score:5, Interesting)
The software I was working with at the time kept text messages as metadata. However, there was a debate between the FBI (give me everything) and the corporate lawyers of the telco about that. I do not know who won or what the legal standing is today.
My suspicion is that SMS messages are kept as metadata.
False... (Score:2)
Next time someone yells "fallacy! slippery slope!" (Score:3)
... just fscking shoot him. Well, maybe not. But you might ask him how we got from Smith v. Maryland, which determined that the police could legally collect dialed numbers from suspects without a warrant, all the way to where we are, where the NSA and FBI can legally collect everything about phone calls except the actual voice, on EVERYBODY, ALWAYS?
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They were prohibited from selling it ABROAD, due to export regulations. That was back when the NSA was still not supposed to be spying on US citizens.
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http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/5/5263/1.html [heise.de]
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Don't give Congress any more ideas!