CBP Refuses To Tell Congress How It's Tracking Americans Without a Warrant (vice.com) 72
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: U.S. Customs and Border Protection is refusing to tell Congress what legal authority the agency is following to use commercially bought location data to track Americans without a warrant, according to the office of Senator Ron Wyden. The agency is buying location data from Americans all over the country, not just in border areas. The lack of disclosure around why CBP believes it does not need a warrant to use the data, as well as the Department of Homeland Security not publishing a Privacy Impact Assessment on the use of such location information, has spurred Wyden and Senators Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown, Ed Markey, and Brian Schatz on Friday to ask the DHS Office of the Inspector General (DHS OIG) to investigate CBP's warrantless domestic surveillance of phones, and determine if CBP is breaking the law or engaging in abusive practices.
The news highlights the increased use of app location data by U.S. government agencies. Various services take location data which is harvested from ordinary apps installed on peoples' phones around the world, repackages that, and sells access to law enforcement agencies so they can try to track groups of people or individuals. In this case, CBP has bought the location data from a firm called Venntel. "CBP officials confirmed to Senate staff that the agency is using Venntel's location database to search for information collected from phones in the United States without any kind of court order," the letter signed by Wyden and Warren, and addressed to the DHS OIG, reads. "CBP outrageously asserted that its legal analysis is privileged and therefore does not have to be shared with Congress. We disagree." As well as not obtaining court orders to query the data, CBP said it's not restricting its personnel to only using it near the border, the Wyden aide added. CBP is unable to tell what nationality a particular person is based only on the information provided by Venntel; but what the agency does know is that the Venntel data the agency is using includes the movements of people inside the United States, the Wyden aide said.
The news highlights the increased use of app location data by U.S. government agencies. Various services take location data which is harvested from ordinary apps installed on peoples' phones around the world, repackages that, and sells access to law enforcement agencies so they can try to track groups of people or individuals. In this case, CBP has bought the location data from a firm called Venntel. "CBP officials confirmed to Senate staff that the agency is using Venntel's location database to search for information collected from phones in the United States without any kind of court order," the letter signed by Wyden and Warren, and addressed to the DHS OIG, reads. "CBP outrageously asserted that its legal analysis is privileged and therefore does not have to be shared with Congress. We disagree." As well as not obtaining court orders to query the data, CBP said it's not restricting its personnel to only using it near the border, the Wyden aide added. CBP is unable to tell what nationality a particular person is based only on the information provided by Venntel; but what the agency does know is that the Venntel data the agency is using includes the movements of people inside the United States, the Wyden aide said.
This is what I don't get abvout the US government (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:This is what I don't get abvout the US governme (Score:4, Insightful)
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Presumably if an agency that was enacting his policies was defunded by Congress, he would just reallocate money to fund them again.
The catch is there's only so much money which can be moved around and in the vast majority of cases the money can only go to what Congress allocates. For example, you couldn't use money allocated for transportation funding to do covid-19 vaccine research. So yes, some money, a very small amount, could be moved around, but that's an extremely shortsighted way of doing something
Re:This is what I don't get abvout the US governme (Score:4, Insightful)
The catchier catch, though, is that all this information is becoming easier and cheaper to collect. Where you used to need an entire National Security Administration to collect extensive fine-grained domestic detail, now it's voluntarily dropped by the surveillees into a few centralized databases for (significant) convenience's sake, resold cheaply which is made up on volume, and you can get the same information for ... 1% of the cost? Less?
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He's allowed to move money from the DOD in case of declared Emergency.
That's the largest funded department in the US Government.
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Nice example. You have the executive branch doing something that maybe the legislative branch might not like. Guess what, we have a tie breaker, it's the judicial branch.
It absolutely does not work like this.
Since the judicial branch didn't stop this redistribution of money, it's therefore legal.
Nor does it work like this.
If people don't like this being done, it's up to them to vote for people who'll strip this ability from the executive branch or to give some other branch the right to say nuh uh uh.
Argh. Your ignorance is painful.
The legislative branch empowers the executive with powers above and beyond its constitutional mandate (The Legislature is allowed to delegate its powers)
The Judicial branch is *not* a peace keeper between the branches, and it has said so itself.
What Trump is doing is legal, because Congress passed laws making it fucking legal.
Whether or not "Congress" "likes" it is irrelevant if there isn't enough of a majo
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The Judicial branch does not just "get involved", it must be "gotten involved" by a third party.
It particularly does not get involved in separation of powers cases, which this would have been, even if asked to- as it will gladly decide that it has no standing to rule on such cases.
I.e., if the Executive uses money that it isn't allowed to use, the only remedy for that is impeachment. This is by design.
The Judicial branch is *not* the referee for the Legislative and Exe
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You're witnessing how I calmly speak to stupid fucking people.
you're the one who is confused about the purpose of the judicial system. For all intents and purposes they write the laws these days by "interpreting" old laws to be whatever they please.
See? This is the kind of shit I was talking about. Now I have to use my stupid-people verbiage again.
You're conflating the system as written with your perception of the system as-is.
As you can see, one of those is objectively debatable, one is entirely subjective.
As you can see, you're a fucking moron.
Re:This is what I don't get abvout the US governme (Score:5, Informative)
Except of course, the part where Trump followed existing laws Congress passed allowing reallocating of funds.
If Congress wants to make the decisions (and they should), they have to step up and stop delegating so much decision-making to executive branch agencies. Sadly, most in Congress are too afraid to have to take responsibility for their own decisions, they'd rather be able to blame it on the people implementing their poorly thought out laws.
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But, just for an example, Congress didn't fund Trump's wall, and he just moved money allocated to Pentagon projects to the wall. Presumably if an agency that was enacting his policies was defunded by Congress, he would just reallocate money to fund them again.
What Trump did was actually legal, and power granted to him *by* Congress.
He has the power to use Defense dollars pretty much how he wishes after an emergency has been declared (Again- this is granted by statute)
The solution to preventing this would be A) an amendment/repeal of the National Emergencies Act, or using the procedure outlined in the Act to revoke the emergency.
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and he just moved money allocated to Pentagon projects to the wall.
The US government is so large these days that it would be basically infeasible for congress to review and maintain stringent approval over each and every INDIVIDUAL line item or expenditure – instead, the Congress is supposed to be consulted on the big things, but there will also be many pretty general funding authorizations that could potentially be abused - unless, and/or until congress includes in a law something basically suc
Re: This is what I don't get abvout the US governm (Score:2)
It mentions segregation, but similar happened with the trail of tears. The Executive branch ultimately can do what it wants, with only career bureaucrats to protect us (for example the Saturday night massacre).
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You need some work on your logic reasoning.
Re: They didn't break the law (Score:1)
You have two asshat congresscritters who don't want to admit that buying data from a legal data broker is perfectly legal without a warrant.
You're actually so dumb that you think all the government has to do to get around the Constitution is subcontract the illegal searching out to private entities?! That's funny.
You're playing the game they want you to play... (Score:5, Interesting)
The congress is in total control - if they want some document they are constitutionally entitled to have from some part of the executive branch, they need only ask for it, and then if it's not provided they can go straight to refusing to fund that part of the executive. If the FBI won't hand over a document, congress can defund the FBI, and even cancel their pensions if they want. They COULD take the intermediate and slow step of trying to drag the judicial branch into the fight by suing for the requested document, there's no requirement for them to take that step. The dirty little secret is that the congress lacks the balls to pull that trigger. Each senator dreams of being President someday and would not want congress doing this to HIM/HER. Every senator and member of the House also dreads having their office bombarded by angry calls from anybody affected by their actions (for many of them, re-election and a long career in DC is the REAL goal). They have all the power our founders gave them, but they simply refuse to use it and instead prefer to whine on the internet and in the press and try to use this as fuel to energize their base funders/voters.
Stop letting politicians manipulate you!
While you're at it: STOP ANSWERING POLLSTERS! Pollsters are NOT trying to help YOU - they are helping politicians and their consultants figure out how to more-skillfully manipulate you into voting for them or sending them contributions. They do NOT use polls to figure out policies, the use polls to figure out how to "message" better, and which special interest groups need to be more narrowly targeted with better lies.
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If you *have* to answer pollsters, please watch this first [youtu.be]. It's not about the answers, it's mostly about the questions.
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When a Party controls the Presidency and the Senate, they're the majority party, not the minority party... the Democrats only have a majority in the House of Representatives and the bureaucracy.
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When a Party controls the Presidency and the Senate, they're the majority party, not the minority party...
No... They're the party in with a majority of representatives in the Senate, and with a member in the White House. Nothing more, nothing less.
the Democrats only have a majority in the House of Representatives
Correct. You managed to properly use the word majority this time. Congratulations.
and the bureaucracy.
Oh god.
[citation needed]
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2/3 of the bill-passing infrastructure (President, Senate, House) equals a majority of it.
Citation provided [opensecrets.org]. Political donations 68% Democrats, 32% Republicans.
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All it says is that a majority of the dollars that come from Federal employees, go to Democratic Federal campaigns.
That does *not* mean or imply that the majority of Federal employees support democrats.
That is *one* possible answer out of several.
If you look at 2014 and before, you'll see that spending from US government Employees was close to 50/50.
I present a more likely explanation:
People in the Government find Trump ant
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> People in the Government find Trump antithetical to the institution they work for.
Exactly right. And a majority of Americans find the people in the Government antithetical to the country they love.
Fireworks will be bright.
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Exactly right. And a majority of Americans find the people in the Government antithetical to the country they love.
I'm not sure that you speak for a majority of Americans, or are correctly characterizing their opinion.
I do not suspect that a majority of Americans hold the career workers of the Federal Government accountable for the ills in the institution.
They'll be bright over Fort Sumpter when you open fire, and they'll be bright over Appomattox when we accept your surrender. Again.
Re:This is what I don't get abvout the US governme (Score:5, Interesting)
Congressman Justin Amash has spoken at great lengths about this, which is also why he's leaving Congress because it's absolutely ineffective.
He's a process nerd and that resonates strong with me as a geek. He looks at the way Congress doesn't function like an engineering/structural problem.
He was on Andrew Yang's podcast recently which explains this in detail.
https://youtu.be/g5aRvUu2daM?t... [youtu.be]
Everything is run by the majority leaders, nothing is debated anymore, no amendments get through, it's all decided by the top. Congress rarely even reads bills, and any legislation that amends exisisting law is presented in such a backwards way by lawmakers that it makes it very hard to disseminate the revisions. Imagine having a github repository and instead of seeing someone's committed changes line by line in an easy to digest and understandable format from before and after, you only get a document that references files and line numbers which leaves staffers on the hunt to compile this information themselves. Now imagine having to do this with very little time, and be expected to understand and vote coherently on a bill that may be thousands of pages long.
It's insanity.
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It's also something that nobody realizes. I bet a lot of people making voting decisions and paying the bulk of the tax revenue is still working on the Schoolhouse Rock model of government; and the millenials and beyond think that the US government is behind the times because they still use Facebook, when a lot of them ... well, I have no idea what level of technology they stopped at.
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Either house of congress can subpoena people, and if they refuse to show up, they can hold that person in contempt-of-congress (with just 1 of the houses).
If they still don't show up, they can send the deputy sergeant-at-arms to arrest and detain the person.
Our current politicians are too afraid of the political ramifications of using their constitutionally-granted powers to actually do what their jobs require of them.
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Good thing you were born in the Internet era, after sleeping through those classes. Apparently separation of powers has broken down somewhat [lawsandsausagescomic.com], and we're watching it continue to happen.
If you buy into the rationale presented, I think they're saying it's an unanticipated possible outcome of how the U.S. government structure was set up to manage power dynamics during "runtime".
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The whole "separation of powers" thing is /grossly/ misunderstood by most people. The founders did NOT intend for the three branches of government to be fighting each other and watching each other.
I'll admit I didn't read your entire post, but if the rest of it is as fabricated as the information this sentence attempts to "convey", then it's a pile of shit anyway.
The Federal Government was absolutely designed to be at odds with each other. It was deemed the only way to prevent tyranny with the newly empowered non-confederate form of Government.
In the Constitutional Convention of 1787, it was said that each branch would guard its own power so jealously that it would prevent any 2 of the branches fr
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The whole "separation of powers" thing is /grossly/ misunderstood by most people. The founders did NOT intend for the three branches of government to be fighting each other and watching each other.
I'll admit I didn't read your entire post, but if the rest of it is as fabricated as the information this sentence attempts to "convey", then it's a pile of shit anyway. The Federal Government was absolutely designed to be at odds with each other. It was deemed the only way to prevent tyranny with the newly empowered non-confederate form of Government. In the Constitutional Convention of 1787, it was said that each branch would guard its own power so jealously that it would prevent any 2 of the branches from dominating the separated powers of the Government. This was by design. Unfortunately, they failed to foresee nationally organized political parties (They didn't exist yet) Either way, shame on you for presenting misinformation as fact.
Well, based on your post I'll assume you haven't read much about US history either. You probably think the Revolutionary War was about "taxation without representation" too. (It wasn't).
No sane person designs a government to be at odds with itself. You get exactly what we have now: a do-nothing cesspit that can't accomplish anything meaningful. The way the founders decided was best to avoid tyranny was to vest the majority of power in the States (of which there are many) and not the Federal (single) pow
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Well, based on your post I'll assume you haven't read much about US history either. You probably think the Revolutionary War was about "taxation without representation" too. (It wasn't).
What the fuck does US History have to do with it?
I have literally read the commentary and notes from the Constitutional Convention. You can too.
I can't figure out if you're making shit up because you're ignorant but don't know it, ignorant but don't want to appear it, or are just gaslighting.
You're confusing Separation of Powers with Federalism. They are separate things. It doesn't matter how many times you try to say that Seperation of Powers meant Federalism- you'd still be wrong. And I can back that
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Well, based on your post I'll assume you haven't read much about US history either. You probably think the Revolutionary War was about "taxation without representation" too. (It wasn't).
What the fuck does US History have to do with it? I have literally read the commentary and notes from the Constitutional Convention. You can too. I can't figure out if you're making shit up because you're ignorant but don't know it, ignorant but don't want to appear it, or are just gaslighting. You're confusing Separation of Powers with Federalism. They are separate things. It doesn't matter how many times you try to say that Seperation of Powers meant Federalism- you'd still be wrong. And I can back that up. You can't.
I know the difference between SoP and Federalism.
What you seem to be confused about is my saying the Federal government wasn't created in three branches so that they'd fight each other and keep each other in check. Such a system would be idiotic.
The powers vested in each branch weren't done so to be "checks and balances" on the other branches. They were split that way based on what made sense. That's why the Legislative Branch holds the majority of Federal power.
But hey, let's look at what powers
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The powers vested in each branch weren't done so to be "checks and balances" on the other branches. They were split that way based on what made sense. That's why the Legislative Branch holds the majority of Federal power.
And here you go again. You keep saying the same thing over and over again, and it's no more true than the first time you said it.
My turn for some excerpts from the convention that quite literally wrote our Constitution:
urged the motion of Mr. L. Martin for restoring the words making the Executive ineligible a 2d. time. If he ought to be independent, he should not be left under a temptation to court a re-appointment. If he should be re- appointable by the Legislature, he will be no check on it. His revisionary power will be of no avail.
Randolph.
Mr. MADISON. If it be a fundamental principle of free Govt. that the Legislative, Executive & Judiciary powers should be separately exercised, it is equally so that they be independently exercised. There is the same & perhaps greater reason why the Executive shd. be independent of the Legislature, than why the Judiciary should: A coalition of the two former powers would be more immediately & certainly dangerous to public liberty. It is essential then that the appointment of the Executive should either be drawn from some source, or held by some tenure, that will give him a free agency with regard to the Legislature. This could not be if he was to be appointable from time to time by the Legislature. It was not clear that an appointment in the 1st. instance even with an eligibility afterwards would not establish an improper connection between the two departments. Certain it was that the appointment would be attended with intrigues and contentions that ought not to be unnecessarily admitted. He was disposed for these reasons to refer the appointment to some other source. The people at large was in his opinion the fittest in itself. It would be as likely as any that could be devised to produce an Executive Magistrate of distinguished Character. The people generally could only know & vote for some Citizen whose merits had rendered him an object of general attention & esteem. There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of the Negroes. The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to fewest objections.
Madison.
Mr. WILLIAMSON, preferred a small number of Senators, but wished that each State should have at least one. He suggested 25 as a convenient number. The different modes of representation in the different branches, will serve as a mutual check.
Williamson.
Mr. Govr. MORRIS. thought a Come. adviseable as the Convention had been equally divided. He had a stronger reason also. The mode of appointing the 2d. branch tended he was sure to defeat the object of it. What is this object? to check the precipitation, changeableness, and excesses of the first branch. Every man of observation had seen in the democratic branches of the State Legislatures, precipitation-in Congress changeableness, in every department excesses agst. personal liberty private property & personal safety. What qualities are necessary to constitute a check in this case? Abilities and virtue, are equally necessary in both branches. Something more then is now wanted. 1. [FN6] the checking branch must have a personal interest in checking the other branch, one interest must be opposed to another interest. Vices as they exist, must be turned agst. each other.
Morris.
Mr. MADISON. In order to judge of the form to be given to this institution, it will be proper to take a view of the ends to be served by it. These were first to protect the people agst. their rulers: secondly to protect the people agst. the transient impressions into which they themselves might be led. A people deliberating in a temperate moment, and with the experience of other nations before them, on the plan of Govt. most likely to secure their happiness, would first be aware, that those chargd. with the public happiness, might betray their trust. An obvious precaution agst. this danger wd. be to divide the trust between different bodies of men, who might watch & check each other. In this they wd. be governed by the same prudence which has prevailed in organizing the subordinate departments of Govt., where all business liable to abuses is made to pass thro' separate hands, the one being a check on the other.
Madison again. I love him.
On reconsideration of the vote rendering the Executive re-eligible a 2d. time, Mr. MARTIN moved to reinstate the words, "to be ineligible a 2d. time."
Mr. GOVERNEUR MORRIS. It is necessary to take into one view all that relates to the establishment of the Executive; on the due formation of which must depend the efficacy & utility of the Union among the present and future States. It has been a maxim in Political Science that Republican Government is not adapted to a large extent of Country, because the energy of the Executive Magistracy can not reach the extreme parts of it. Our Country is an extensive one. We must either then renounce the blessings of the Union, or provide an Executive with sufficient vigor to pervade every part of it. This subject was of so much importance that he hoped to be indulged in an extensive view of it. One great object of the Executive is to controul the Legislature. The Legislature will continually seek to aggrandize & perpetuate themselves; and will seize those critical moments produced by war, invasion or convulsion for that purpose. It is necessary then that the Executive Magistrate should be the guardian of the people, even of the lower classes, agst. Legislative tyranny, against the Great & the wealthy who in the course of things will necessarily compose the Legislative body. Wealth tends to corrupt the mind & [FN1] to nourish its love of power, and to stimulate it to oppression. History proves this to be the spirit of the opulent. The check provided in the 2d. branch was not meant as a check on Legislative usurpations of power, but on the abuse of lawful powers, on the propensity in [FN2] the 1st. branch to legislate too much to run into projects of paper money & similar expedients. It is no check on Legislative tyranny. On the contrary it may favor it, and if the 1st. branch can be seduced may find the means of success. The Executive therefore ought to be so constituted as to be the great protector of the Mass of the people. -It is the duty of the Executive to appoint the officers & to command the forces of the Republic: to appoint 1. [FN3] ministerial officers for the administration of public affairs. 2. [FN3] officers for the dispensation of Justice. Who will be the best Judges whether these appointments be well made? The people at large, who will know, will see, will feel the effects of them. Again who can judge so well of the discharge of military duties for the protection & security of the people, as the people themselves who are to be protected & secured? -He finds too that the Executive is not to be re-eligible. What effect will this have?
Morris.
The conclusion which I am warranted in drawing from these observations is, that a mere demarcation on parchment of the constitutional limits of the several departments, is not a sufficient guard against those encroachments which lead to a tyrannical concentration of all the powers of government in the same hands.
Madison.
I could keep going all day long.
Let's recap:
The powers vested in each branch weren't done so to be "checks and balances" on the other branches.
is demonstrably (and demonstrated to be, right here) false.
Quit saying it. Whether or not "they made sense" isn't remotely relevant. They were *specifically* designed
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This is an important one. Forget what your terrible teacher may have told you- read the notes for yourself. This is also where you'll learn that the elector system isn't what you thought it was either. It wasn't made to stop popular election. It was made to extend the 3/5ths compromise into the Executive election to appease the South. [yale.edu]
The view of the US Court system. [uscourts.gov]
Just in case you think the court system is in on the conspiracy to misdefine "Separation of Powers" [cornell.edu]
I
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> 10) Make all bills public and easily readable using a system like git
Already done.
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We, the Voters, have to respond by electing a President that will enforce Accountability and the people who didn't follow the law will either go to jail, lose their jobs, or be under some sort "consent decree" that governs their future behavior on the matter.
Congress has power. Lots of power. Sometimes enforcing those powers takes time. But the pendulum swings and the wheel grinds.
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> are not escorted from the hearing room to a cell underneath the house to cool their heels until their mind changes
Common lore is that the Congressional Jail was turned into a conference room during the 1930's as Roosevelt was implementing Moussilini's method.
Read Washington's farewell address about political parties, or, even better, Bastiat's /The Law/. It is short and the free-culture .mp3 is quite a good narration. Save you ten years of polisci.
Congress barely represents any constituents beyond fund
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Let's see: Ron Wyden (D-OR), Elizabeth Warren (D-Pocahontas), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Ed Markey (D-MA), and Brian Schatz (D-HI). Hm. Seems weirdly partisan, that list.
Ya, it's a shame that only Democrats seem to care about people's privacy and potential violations of the law. That's kooky since Republicans consider themselves the "Law and Order" party.
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" Ya, it's a shame that only Democrats seem to care about people's privacy and potential violations of the law. That's kooky since Republicans consider themselves the "Law and Order" party. "
Oh, make no mistake about it, they'll change their tune quickly once all the money flowing in from the Tech Giants they're going after dries up.
Watch what happens when Team Blue falls out of favor and Big Tech turns on them instead.
Fun site for you: https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying... [eff.org]
( The takeaway from that site is the
Just no (Score:5, Insightful)
The only way to even remotely dream of getting away with this constitutional violation is Congressional oversight, and there are members with the requisite security to see things.
So no, you don't get to spy on Americans without a warrant and no Congressional oversight.
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> The only way to even remotely dream of getting away with this constitutional violation is Congressional oversight
I'm not sure why you labeled this a constitutional violation. This is a legal violation, which has nothing to do with the US Constitution. Some heads might roll, but that's not going to be under the guise you have suggested and Congress isn't going to be doing it. I love the kangaroo court congressional subpoenas, but they are pointless, both metaphorically and practically (most of the time)
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Because the SCOTUS ruled in Carpenter v US [qz.com] that location data on cellphones is protected under the 4th Amendment and thus a violation of the Constitution.
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Where is the determination that location data is being collected? At best, there's a bad-faith assumption with these assertions. It's entirely possible that they purchase 3rd party data that's NOT location data, specifically. If you can't imagine good-faith possibilities, you might not have a compelling viewpoint. Either way, that's not relevant to the issue of Congress not having any power to compel this kind of disclosure.
I guess there's nothing to be done about people who continue to make wildly politici
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The article and Congressional request revolves around location data, though it is unclear whether or not it is relevant to Carpenter.
CBP said that the legal justification for this surveillance without a warrant is privileged, the Wyden aide said. Wyden's office also asked if CBP had taken a position on whether location data sold by Venntel didn't fall under the Supreme Court ruling of Carpenter v United States, which said that location data requires a warrant; CBP also said that information was privileged, the Wyden aide said.
CBP is stonewalling Congressional oversight on the very question, so it is a legitimate assumption and not bad-faith at all. I can imagine good-faith possibilities, but CBP isn't saying "no" they're saying "none of your business", so they lose the benefit of my doubt.
Umm because freedom ??? (Score:4, Insightful)
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No. It is the function that is unconstitutional -- illegal search and seizure -- not the source of the data set. There are things the public and private companies may have the the gov't needs special purpose (a warrant) for.
Tracking citizens through cellphone location data without a warrant was already ruled illegal and unconstitutional in Carpenter v US [qz.com], 2018.
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I disagree. Before this got to the SCOTUS the Appelate Court ruled [wikipedia.org] "cell-site data -- like mailing addresses, phone numbers, and IP addresses -- are information that facilitate personal communications, rather than part of the content of those communications themselves", hence the SCA doesn't apply.
Carpenter was specifically addressing Cell Site Location Information (CSLI). Simply washing data through a private third party doesn't strip it from the protections against gov't intrusion. The 4th Amendment is pr
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Exactly.
If the Government does it DIRECTLY, it's illegal.
If the Government uses third party contractors ( private corporations like say. . . Facebook, Twitter, Google, et al ) then, in their eyes, it's all perfectly legal.
If they only made movies worth watching (Score:1)
Because itâ(TM)s a police state (Score:1)
You want a Contempt of Congress charge? (Score:2)
Blatent unconstitutionality (Score:2)
Joint the party... (Score:2)
About all the other Government agencies that track Americans without a warrant...
Or better yet... just purchase the data from a "private" company.