US Spies Are Lobbying Congress To Save a Phone Surveillance 'Loophole' (wired.com) 30
An effort by United States lawmakers to prevent government agencies from domestically tracking citizens without a search warrant is facing opposition internally from one of its largest intelligence services. From a report: Republican and Democratic aides familiar with ongoing defense-spending negotiations in Congress say officials at the National Security Agency (NSA) have approached lawmakers charged with its oversight about opposing an amendment that would prevent it from paying companies for location data instead of obtaining a warrant in court. Introduced by US representatives Warren Davidson and Sara Jacobs, the amendment would prohibit US military agencies from "purchasing data that would otherwise require a warrant, court order, or subpoena" to obtain. The ban would cover more than half of the US intelligence community, including the NSA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the newly formed National Space Intelligence Center, among others.
The House approved the amendment in a floor vote over a week ago during its annual consideration of the National Defense Authorization Act, a "must-pass" bill outlining how the Pentagon will spend next year's $886 billion budget. Negotiations over which policies will be included in the Senate's version of the bill are ongoing. In a separate but related push last week, members of the House Judiciary Committee voted unanimously to advance legislation that would extend similar restrictions against the purchase of Americans' data across all sectors of government, including state and local law enforcement. Known as the "Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act," the bill will soon be reintroduced in the Senate as well by one of its original 2021 authors, Ron Wyden, the senator's office confirmed. "Americans of all political stripes know their Constitutional rights shouldn't disappear in the digital age," Wyden says, adding that there is a "deep well of support" for enshrining protections against commercial data grabs by the government "into black-letter law."
The House approved the amendment in a floor vote over a week ago during its annual consideration of the National Defense Authorization Act, a "must-pass" bill outlining how the Pentagon will spend next year's $886 billion budget. Negotiations over which policies will be included in the Senate's version of the bill are ongoing. In a separate but related push last week, members of the House Judiciary Committee voted unanimously to advance legislation that would extend similar restrictions against the purchase of Americans' data across all sectors of government, including state and local law enforcement. Known as the "Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act," the bill will soon be reintroduced in the Senate as well by one of its original 2021 authors, Ron Wyden, the senator's office confirmed. "Americans of all political stripes know their Constitutional rights shouldn't disappear in the digital age," Wyden says, adding that there is a "deep well of support" for enshrining protections against commercial data grabs by the government "into black-letter law."
Pound Sand (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't read TFA because of a paywall, but the summary doesn't mention any arguments the NSA is making except for "please let us keep violating peoples' rights." That is effectively no argument at all. At least tell us how many American lives are at risk or how many have been saved over the past decade as a direct result of these illegal wiretappings. Give us something to work with.
Re:Pound Sand (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't read TFA because of a paywall
Allow me help you with that. https://archive.is/t8APl [archive.is]
Also, I agree with you - those asshats can go pound sand.
Spying on the civilian population without involving the court system is loathsome behavior.
"I have nothing to hide" is not a suitable reason why I should want and allow NSA/FBI/CIA to get all up in my personal shit. They have zero good reason to want to listen in on conversations with my wife, or busting into our home network to see if you can catch us fucking on a nanny cam, or to get access to my garage, and I have zero trust that if they do penetrate my systems that they won't accidentally leak these details such that they end up for purchase on some back-water mafia website.
We do need spies - it's a necessary part of coexisting on this planet alongside other nation-states - and sometimes the problem really does come from inside the house, so they do need a way to gather domestic intel, but skirting due process because "it's easier" is lazy and deplorable.
Re:Pound Sand (Score:5, Interesting)
Congress hasn't lifted a finger to make it illegal for the companies who collect and sell this data to do that.
It's ludicrous to ban the intelligence agencies from buying it while keeping it legal for everyone else.
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It's ludicrous to ban the intelligence agencies from buying it while keeping it legal for everyone else.
Sorry, but you're very wrong - it actually isn't ludicrous, nor are these situations comparable.
Private industry use cases are not inherently aimed at generating criminal legal cases against the subject or their acquaintances.
Try again?
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You're the one who brought up "criminal legal cases". I was talking about intelligence agencies, the "US spies" from TFS.
Look, I don't want these files to exist in the first place. That's where Congress needs to act. Those "private industry use cases" are no more legitimate than spying.
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You're the one who brought up "criminal legal cases". I was talking about intelligence agencies, the "US spies" from TFS.
Fair point here, but I brought up the "criminal legal cases", and fictional examples, because I believe this is where the proposed capability intersects most awkwardly with potential use cases. Ignoring an obvious end-goal, just because it is not mentioned within TFS or TFA, is a lack of critical thinking. What other natural end could this come to? Do you think that state "blessed" actors would only ever use their access to do "good"? Honestly, that's an extremely naive viewpoint.
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I am protected by the fourth amendment from having police come search my house without a warrant. That also, obviously, covers my right to not have anyone else enter my house and go through my stuff without my consent who are not police. The only difference between police finding the weed grow and the crook finding it, is the police will send me to jail, the crook will blackmail me into criminal service to not tell the police, and I will be helping him bury the bodes. Blackmail laws are the tiny fig leaf pr
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Maybe you're arguing 'blocking half the arseholes doesn't fix anything'. I think, blocking the arseholes with guns and prisons, halves the problem: Then, whatever happens, is much less likely to destroy one's livelihood or relationships. The "Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act" provides protection from the worst outcome.
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It's ludicrous to ban the intelligence agencies from buying it while keeping it legal for everyone else.
Right. It's not like other nations' intelligence agencies aren't going to buy it just because we disallowed our own from doing so.
The problem isn't that intelligence agencies buy the information. The problem is that it's for sale.
The NSA... (Score:1)
The government's head Privacy Rapist agency.
Oh look everyone! (Score:2)
keep your rape fantasies to yourself
Look! That easily triggered Meta[stasize] employee [slashdot.org] is back!
What is evil? (Score:5, Insightful)
the amendment would prohibit US military agencies from "purchasing data that would otherwise require a warrant, court order, or subpoena" to obtain
If you can't even get one single judge, out of countless judges, to agree with what you're doing and issue a warrant... it is for certain that what you are doing is wrong, and that makes you the bad guy.
There is no loophole .. (Score:4, Insightful)
GCHQ marks 75th anniversary of the UKUSA agreement [gchq.gov.uk]
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Don't forget the Five Eyes. Each one with different laws, each circumventable by one of the others followed by parallel reconstruction.
All the laws of the Five must be counted together to see the full capability.
Re: (Score:2)
Okay, yea, agreed. But also, what is your point here?
Different countries always have different legislation to follow, and that legislation is, and always has been, fluid. Five Eyes isn't an agreement built on a momentary promise, it's a long-life acquiesce that all the nations involved have a generally similar goal, now and unto the foreseeable future.
Are you mad that our country makes deals where some variables are still left unknown? What's the actual gripe here?
Re:There is no loophole .. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the point the posters above were trying to make is:
If the NSA cannot buy the information it wants, the GCHQ can buy the information, and upload it into a shared database and the NSA still gets the information. (In return, the NSA uploads information the GCHQ is prohibited from collecting. We help our allies, they help us.)
Banning the NSA from buying the information does nothing to protect citizens privacy as long as it remains legal to collect and sell the information. It just adds an extra step in the process.
I'm not convinced we should prevent the NSA from doing their jobs -spies gotta spy or they are useless. But this law is posturing to no effect. If we want to protect citizens, then prevent the collection and sale of the information.
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> it into a shared database and the NSA still gets the information. (In return, the NSA uploads
> information the GCHQ is prohibited from collecting. We help our allies, they help us.)
So if the NSA is prohibited from buying this information, wouldn't that mean that this information is not available for upload? You know, the very same information that GCHQ wants but can't collect? Wouldn't that make t
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lol. Why be mad that our laws are meaningless? hmm can't imagine a reason.
This isn't so much about spying I admit, as it is about law enforcement, but if they do things one way for this, it's probably not the only thing.
i.e. It's not legal to break into a computer in the USA for any reason. This is not true in the other Four eyes. One of the Five will break the laws of the other Four, in full cooperation with each other. They will never admit it of course, but that's how they roll.
No unknown variables there
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one bad apple means we all end up as cider, yep. The law has always been bendable, people corrupt. We are a trash species apparently doomed to wallow in our own filth.
the data being procured is protected under the US (Score:1, Funny)
A government report declassified by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence last month revealed that US intelligence agencies were avoiding judicial review by purchasing a “large amount” of “sensitive and intimate information” about Americans, including data that can be used to trace people’s whereabouts over extended periods of time. The sensitivity of the data is such that “in the wrong hands,” the report says, it could be used to “facilit
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It is with the cooperation of private companies that these government agencies are able to get this information. I believe that in time it will be a selling point for companies to not track your purchasing habits. One indication of this starting is the large number of advertisements from various VPN services. Those aware of the problem will sign up for these services, and as this becomes the norm then we should see companies catch on to how these services are destroying the value of what data they can co
Don't forget.. (Score:2, Interesting)
The public money that's buying this data has an opportunity cost. There is a lot of "Well how are we gonna pay for it?" always getting thrown around in these committees. If the NSA and friends have the spare funds to waste on this kind of thing instead of doing things they way they're supposed to be done, then it looks to me like the budget is a little bit too high, and we've found a little extra scratch to put towards something with real tangible value to the common citizen.
If we punish these agencies with
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
If the NSA and friends have the spare funds to waste on this kind of thing
"This kind of thing" is actually dirt cheap. Private investigators can get access to it and it's not all that expensive. "Doing things they way they're supposed to be done" on the other hand can often cost quite a bit of money. So the NSA and friends are often driven to commercial data sources out of economy. You figure out what it might cost to sneak up to each suspect and stick trackers on their cars. On agents' overtime rates to boot.
Or would you have the likes of AT&T and Verizon rely solely on inc
not sure why they're worried (Score:1)
Not sure why they're worried?
We have fairly recent examples where, if they want to spy on Americans, they'll just gin up some bullshit for FISA approval. Oppo research, complete fabrication, whatever works. Nobody will ever get punished, even if it's recognized later that it was utter fiction. No worries!
Never Underestimate (Score:1)
Just how quickly and demanding some in the government are to give you any rights. The sad fact is, the NSA will get its way whether we know about it or not. They showed zero concern over this stuff in the past. They WILL NOT lose again. With our current level of government control we will never have total privacy. Our privacy was gone before the digital age...and now it's just made it totally dead. Rights taken are lost forever. We lost those rights years ago. We lost them under the name of national securit
Since when is the NSA allowed to look in the US? (Score:2)
That's not okay.