Congressional Agency Questions Legality of Wiretaps

[Rip]

Amazing to me that one area that there is bipartisan support is in tramplingour rights beyond even what the Patriot Act endorses. Telling.

The time is ripe for an alternative party to restore the freedoms the existing parties seem to not give a crap about. If they want to fight crime by analyzing phone records they should start with collecting phone records on ALL politicians.

[Rip]

http://intelligencelaw.blogspot.com/201 ... ached.html

Judge Vinson's term with the "Fast-Food FISA Court" ended on May 3, 2013, and he issued this disgraceful secret-police order attacking the rights of millions of Americans just weeks before he left that disgraceful "court." Judge Vinson still sits as a Senior Judge on the US District Court for the Northern District of Florida. He should be impeached. By conspiring with the NSA and FBI to spy on millions of Americans without probable cause, he has violated his oath to defend the Constitution from all enemies foreign AND domestic. In addition, "conspiracy against rights" is a federal felony outlawed by 18 USC § 241, which provides the "high crime" needed for impeachment.

As Americans, we need our judges to protect our rights from the overzealousness of executive officials. When judges lack the courage or integrity to stand up to abusive requests made in secret, 300 million Americans are left completely unprotected.

Even if he is not impeached, Judge Vinson should still be ashamed of himself for issuing this truly disgraceful order attacking millions of Americans. By conspiring against millions of Americans in this way, Judge Vinson has ended his career with an outrageous act of treason.

I would support whatever action could be taken against him.

[Fireball]

On the AP/NSA stuff, here's my no-bullshit take:

After 9/11 we *massively* empowered the Federal government to take actions designed to prevent another terrorist attack of that scale. We as a nation effectively demanded that the government never allow that sort of thing to happen again. The "War on Terror" laws make the AP snooping and the NSA scanning of emails and phone calls legal. So long as these tools are legal *every* Administration will use them, because *no* President will ever be willing to potentially be the President who has a 9/11-level attack happen on his watch and then have to admit that there were more surveillance tools available to them that they did not use.

If we as a people now think some of these tools go too far, and some of the new legal ways the DOJ can monitor for terrorist activity are too high a price to pay, then the answer is to repeal those laws and take those tools away. So long as they are legal, they will be used.

Today the President said clearly that he welcomes a debate on this issue, and action by Congress. Now's the time for pressure on lawmakers.

[Rip]

While I agree we opened the door the patriot act was never intended to allow this level of collection with NOT A SINGLE SHRED of cause. It is supposed to be used to assist in investigations not used to collect data without the suspicion needed to initiate an investigation. The only way to justify this is to say they are "investigating" everybody.

I am a Verizon customer and wonder what exactly justifies investigating me?

Are the call records of politicians and federal agents included?

[cheeba]

[Grundbegriff]

On the AP/NSA stuff, here's my no-bullshit take:

After 9/11 we *massively* empowered the Federal government to take actions designed to prevent another terrorist attack of that scale. We as a nation effectively demanded that the government never allow that sort of thing to happen again. The "War on Terror" laws make the AP snooping and the NSA scanning of emails and phone calls legal. So long as these tools are legal *every* Administration will use them, because *no* President will ever be willing to potentially be the President who has a 9/11-level attack happen on his watch and then have to admit that there were more surveillance tools available to them that they did not use.

If we as a people now think some of these tools go too far, and some of the new legal ways the DOJ can monitor for terrorist activity are too high a price to pay, then the answer is to repeal those laws and take those tools away. So long as they are legal, they will be used.

Today the President said clearly that he welcomes a debate on this issue, and action by Congress. Now's the time for pressure on lawmakers.

This is right.

The program's apparent goal is to isolate in domestic traffic information relevant to foreign actors (even if it doesn't originate or terminate outside the US). Complaints mainly focus (for good reason) on how else the data graph might be used, since it comprises wholly domestic transactions as well as pass-throughs.

I would only add that anyone who thinks that "connecting the dots" by actually connecting the meta-transactional dots is too intrusive, but who still demands a solution set for the problems in question, hasn't reflected sufficiently on (a) the volume of data generated daily and (b) the rate at which data generation is increasing and (c) the means by which adversaries coordinate their efforts.

In other words, if not this way, then how?

[Defiant]

The program's apparent goal is to isolate in domestic traffic information relevant to foreign actors (even if it doesn't originate or terminate outside the US).

As long as there is a 51% confidence level that the actors are foreign, whatever that means.

Complaints mainly focus (for good reason) on how else the data graph might be used, since it comprises wholly domestic transactions as well as pass-throughs.

My biggest complaints are the lack of transparency (and likely the lack of safeguards in place).

I would only add that anyone who thinks that "connecting the dots" by actually connecting the meta-transactional dots is too intrusive, but who still demands a solution set for the problems in question, hasn't reflected sufficiently on (a) the volume of data generated daily and (b) the rate at which data generation is increasing and (c) the means by which adversaries coordinate their efforts.

Perhaps someone hasn't reflected sufficiently on (d) the increasing ability of tools available to process and analyze that volume of data.

(I would be interested in (c), if you have any information on that you could point me to).

[Smoove_B]

I am a Verizon customer and wonder what exactly justifies investigating me?

You're a paranoid crank?

I would only add that anyone who thinks that "connecting the dots" by actually connecting the meta-transactional dots is too intrusive, but who still demands a solution set for the problems in question, hasn't reflected sufficiently on (a) the volume of data generated daily and (b) the rate at which data generation is increasing and (c) the means by which adversaries coordinate their efforts.

I'm not a techie but I cannot get my mind around the idea that someone proposed a plan to monitor everything and then constructed a system that apparently does exactly that. I honestly don't know how you could possibly find any useful information in all of the nonsense data that's generated each and every day, but I'm guessing someone got paid a ridiculous sum of money to figure it out.

[stessier]

I'm not a techie but I cannot get my mind around the idea that someone proposed a plan to monitor everything and then constructed a system that apparently does exactly that. I honestly don't know how you could possibly find any useful information in all of the nonsense data that's generated each and every day, but I'm guessing someone got paid a ridiculous sum of money to figure it out.

I remember reading that the ultimate safe guard to our privacy is that it's simply too difficult to track everything everybody does. That doesn't make it right or acceptable for them to try, however.

[msduncan]

Yesterday my wife and I were talking on our Verizon phones. Normal conversation -- when am I getting home. Do we need any millk? Oh yeah honey, I have 3 games I'm interested in buying in the next week. blah blah blah....

When we were wrapping up the convo, wife and I both broke into an amusing back and forth that featured stuff like this:

"Hey NSA dick that is listening to this conversation. Go **** yourself. Too bad they didn't have cell phones back in the 1940's, you could have landed a job with the Third Reich."

etc etc

[Smoove_B]

Here's a primer from The Atlantic:

So, whoa, the government has been eavesdropping on our phone conversations?

Not quite slash not that we know of. The order calls for the turnover of metadata, the external information about the telephone calls. It specifically excludes the content of the call. As the order puts it, "telephony metadata does not include the substantive content of any communication, as defined by 18 U.S.C. 2510(8), or the name, address, or financial information of a subscriber or customer."

Then what kind of metadata was actually sought through the order?

The order compelled Verizon to provides the NSA with "all call detail records or 'telephony metadata' created by Verizon for communications (i) between the United States and abroad; or (ii) wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls."

Which includes, per the order:
- originating and terminating telephone number
- International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) number
- International Mobile station Equipment Identity (IMEI) number
- trunk identifier
- telephone calling card numbers
- time of call
- duration of call

As the New Yorker's Amy Davidson summed it up: "The government seems to have a list of all the people that Verizon customers called and who called them; how long they spoke; and, perhaps -- depending on how precise the cell-phone-tower information in the metadata is, where they were on a given day."

[Zarathud]

In other words, if not this way, then how?

I think those who are complaining effectively answered in other threads. You ask the bad guys and, if you don't believe them, it's time for enhanced interrogation.

For the record, I think phone data aggregation is unfortunate but it gives basically connections to investigate further. As much as hepcat would like someone to listen in on his Poopeye impersonation, no one cares until there's reasonable cause.

[Exodor]

Yesterday my wife and I were talking on our Verizon phones. Normal conversation -- when am I getting home. Do we need any millk? Oh yeah honey, I have 3 games I'm interested in buying in the next week. blah blah blah....

I think this program is huge intrusion by the government but... you realize they're not recording the actual calls, just the meta-data, right?

[hepcat]

I am a Verizon customer and wonder what exactly justifies investigating me?

You're a paranoid crank?

Show him some respect, damn it. Don't you think Native Americans have suffered enough ridicule in this country?

Yesterday my wife and I were talking on our Verizon phones. Normal conversation -- when am I getting home. Do we need any millk? Oh yeah honey, I have 3 games I'm interested in buying in the next week. blah blah blah....

When we were wrapping up the convo, wife and I both broke into an amusing back and forth that featured stuff like this:

"Hey NSA dick that is listening to this conversation. Go **** yourself. Too bad they didn't have cell phones back in the 1940's, you could have landed a job with the Third Reich."

etc etc

NSA breaks in: "Dumbass, we read your mail when there was no cell phones. And p.s., we know what 'blah, blah, blah' REALLY means...Achmed!"

[msduncan]

Yesterday my wife and I were talking on our Verizon phones. Normal conversation -- when am I getting home. Do we need any millk? Oh yeah honey, I have 3 games I'm interested in buying in the next week. blah blah blah....

I think this program is huge intrusion by the government but... you realize they're not recording the actual calls, just the meta-data, right?

Yeah we do. Didn't stop us from amusing ourselves though.

[Defiant]

I'm surprised no one has brought up PRISM

[LordMortis]

“I would just push back on the idea that the court has signed off on it, so why worry? This is a court that meets in secret, allows only the government to appear before it, and publishes almost none of its opinions. It has never been an effective check on government.”

Fnord.

[Kurth]

I'm surprised no one has brought up PRISM

So, at breakfast this morning, I tried to have a discussion about the phone records revelation and about PRISM with my kids. My 10 year old son is pretty quick on the uptake, but he just looked at me with a puzzled expression and asked me "What's the big deal?" I explained that the big deal is that when he sends an email or is on Skype with his friends, under PRISM, the government is likely recording and archiving the contents of his private conversations. He asked why he should care about that. He told me he "doesn't get the whole privacy thing and why I think it's so important." I just shook my head at that point.

I think this shit is outrageous and runs counter to some of the most fundamental principles this country was built on, but maybe I'm just out of step with the times.

[hepcat]

Times change...and with them perceptions. What we consider outrageous may very well be common place and accepted in the (near) future.

Look at slavery (granted, I'm going with an extreme example here). When our founding father's wrote the constitution, many of them were slave owners themselves. They saw no issue with it (in spite of what Michele Bachmann would like you to think). But now? It's considered morally reprehensible and the average citizen would be shocked to hear it being endorsed.

I'm simply playing devil's advocate here as I honestly don't agree with the intrusive nature of our government since 9/11 though. But I would be curious to see how these things are viewed 10, 20 or 50 years from now.

[LordMortis]

I'm surprised no one has brought up PRISM

So, at breakfast this morning, I tried to have a discussion about the phone records revelation and about PRISM with my kids. My 10 year old son is pretty quick on the uptake, but he just looked at me with a puzzled expression and asked me "What's the big deal?" I explained that the big deal is that when he sends an email or is on Skype with his friends, under PRISM, the government is likely recording and archiving the contents of his private conversations. He asked why he should care about that. He told me he "doesn't get the whole privacy thing and why I think it's so important." I just shook my head at that point.

I think this shit is outrageous and runs counter to some of the most fundamental principles this country was built on, but maybe I'm just out of step with the times.

It's not important... until something you do something looks bad but isn't. OTOH, I think it's healthy for children to feel open and that privacy (which can easily lead to shame or deceit) is generally over rated.

[Smoove_B]

He asked why he should care about that. He told me he "doesn't get the whole privacy thing and why I think it's so important."

It's likely because as a kid he has no expectation of privacy at this point in his life. Wait until he's older and then have the conversation again.

Lucy Wallace: [crying] You told me you were combing your hair!

Garry: But I was! I was!

[Kraken]

I'm surprised no one has brought up PRISM

That bothers me more than the telephone data, mainly because I seldom use the telephone -- 3 or 4 business calls a week and the rare personal call. I'm a comparatively heavy internet user. It bothers me that the government is monitoring my taste in funny cat videos.

My 10 year old son is pretty quick on the uptake, but he just looked at me with a puzzled expression and asked me "What's the big deal?"

I think it surprised everyone that Big Brother didn't come and take our privacy away; we cheerfully surrendered it. You're a paranoid old fart if you think it's a big deal.

[silverjon]

I think a large part of it likely is that it's become so commonplace to voluntarily share everything, that people who are growing up in that environment don't bat an eye at the idea of sharing information involuntarily. It doesn't even register.

It's not just Facebook and Twitter. Steam broadcasts your gaming activity and last.fm and other music services will announce your listening habits. Integrate into even more social networking sites to tell even more people the minutiae of your life. Amazon tries to predict other things you'll want to buy based on what you've been viewing. Netflix analyzes the movies you watch.

How often do you think you've skimmed past the part of the ToS of something that said it would collect your (non-identifying) personal data and clicked "accept" or said that sure, of course you read their privacy policy, because you were in a hurry to access whatever they were offering? I've done it, and no doubt I'll do it again.

[hepcat]

What expectation of privacy can we expect while still ensuring the safety of citizens though?

In the name of national security, we literally took away the very freedom of thousands of Japanese Americans in WWII just because of their country of origin or even their look. So in some ways, things have improved.

[Defiant]

I expect it's a result of the times we live in - not so much as a result of security precautions to 9/11, but that people are encouraged to be open and share every funny cat video with Kraken and others.

But privacy is not overrated. In a world where your personal information can affect your employment or your insurance or the price of hotel stays or the news your see there are real, tangible consequences of a lack of privacy.

[RLMullen]

I'm surprised no one has brought up PRISM

So, at breakfast this morning, I tried to have a discussion about the phone records revelation and about PRISM with my kids. My 10 year old son is pretty quick on the uptake, but he just looked at me with a puzzled expression and asked me "What's the big deal?" I explained that the big deal is that when he sends an email or is on Skype with his friends, under PRISM, the government is likely recording and archiving the contents of his private conversations. He asked why he should care about that. He told me he "doesn't get the whole privacy thing and why I think it's so important." I just shook my head at that point.

I think this shit is outrageous and runs counter to some of the most fundamental principles this country was built on, but maybe I'm just out of step with the times.

Your son is 10. Go back in 5 years and tell him that *you* are monitoring all of his phone and internet conversations. I think you'll get a much different reaction.

[LordMortis]

I expect it's a result of the times we live in - not so much as a result of security precautions to 9/11, but that people are encouraged to be open and share every funny cat video with Kraken and others.

But privacy is not overrated. In a world where your personal information can affect your employment or your insurance or the price of hotel stays or the news your see there are real, tangible consequences of a lack of privacy.

I hate that my browser allows Amazon and Facebook and my ISP to custom advertise to me. Not places I visit but that words I type here show up as adds other places.

I find it humorous that I spend so much time doing help desk work and research on the Internet for machines that act abnormally like pieces of shit and then suddenly every website I visit is trying to sell the piece of shit I was researching how to fix.

I imagine that nonspecific misunderstanding sort of data and our government together and it makes me ascared.

[cheeba]

From the New York Times:

“What you’ve got is two programs that were originally authorized by Congress, have been repeatedly authorized by Congress,” the president said. “Bipartisan majorities have approved them. Congress is continually briefed on how these are conducted. There are a whole range of safeguards involved. And federal judges are overseeing the entire program throughout.”

Mr. Obama suggested that Congressional debate behind closed doors should offer the public some confidence that the surveillance is not being abused. He said that those members of Congress — and the judges on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court — were watching the process.

“If in fact there were abuses taking place, then presumably, those members of Congress could raise those issues.” Mr. Obama said. “They are empowered to do so.”

What a bunch of deflecting, weasely bullcrap.

From New York Magazine, a video of the Director of Intelligence lying to congress. When asked, "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?" He replied, "No sir." He continued, "Not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently, perhaps, collect, but not willingly."

How does this man still have a job?

[Smoove_B]

EDIT: NM - I thought you were talking about Obama, not the director of secret things.

[Pyperkub]

It makes it fun to look back at this post, though!

The only way that I can see Obama siding with Bush on wiretapping, something where they are ideological opposites, is for there to be evidence that the wiretap program produced actionable intelligence that actually prevented an attack... quite possibly a major attack. The reason that this is worrisome is that it is starting to feel like September 10th again. I just hope that President Obama has the balls to stand up to his liberal base when it comes to protecting the country.

It's as if power corrupts or something.

And I agree with cheeba. The world never ceases to amaze...

[Combustible Lemur]

What expectation of privacy can we expect while still ensuring the safety of citizens though?

In the name of national security, we literally took away the very freedom of thousands of Japanese Americans in WWII just because of their country of origin or even their look. So in some ways, things have improved.

ssshhhh! The good old days are always gooder.


Sent courtesy of the Galaxy.... note2.

[Anonymous Bosch]

Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems; some of these same voices also doing their best to gum up the works. They’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices.

Sure. Only the most paranoid black helicopter conspiracy theorists, like the NYT editorial board, would raise any such concerns:

Within hours of the disclosure that federal authorities routinely collect data on phone calls Americans make, regardless of whether they have any bearing on a counterterrorism investigation, the Obama administration issued the same platitude it has offered every time President Obama has been caught overreaching in the use of his powers: Terrorists are a real menace and you should just trust us to deal with them because we have internal mechanisms (that we are not going to tell you about) to make sure we do not violate your rights.

Those reassurances have never been persuasive — whether on secret warrants to scoop up a news agency’s phone records or secret orders to kill an American suspected of terrorism — especially coming from a president who once promised transparency and accountability.

The administration has now lost all credibility on this issue. Mr. Obama is proving the truism that the executive branch will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it. That is one reason we have long argued that the Patriot Act, enacted in the heat of fear after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by members of Congress who mostly had not even read it, was reckless in its assignment of unnecessary and overbroad surveillance powers.

[Grundbegriff]

Perhaps someone hasn't reflected sufficiently on (d) the increasing ability of tools available to process and analyze that volume of data.

Perhaps. Perhaps not. Depends on, among other things, whether one has worked for years in that vertical of the industry.

I honestly don't know how you could possibly find any useful information in all of the nonsense data that's generated each and every day

Have you ever used Google?

[cheeba]

The administration has now lost all credibility on this issue.

Heh, apparently this line used to be, "The administration has now lost all credibility."

[stessier]

I honestly don't know how you could possibly find any useful information in all of the nonsense data that's generated each and every day

Have you ever used Google?

Our greatest fear should be the Feds finding a way to recruit Isgrimnur.

[Defiant]

Perhaps someone hasn't reflected sufficiently on (d) the increasing ability of tools available to process and analyze that volume of data.

Perhaps. Perhaps not. Depends on, among other things, whether one has worked for years in that vertical of the industry.

Is that a subtle way of saying you have been? If so, please, enlighten me.

I honestly don't know how you could possibly find any useful information in all of the nonsense data that's generated each and every day

Have you ever used Google?

[Defiant]

You can’t have 100-percent security and also have 100-percent privacy and zero inconvenience. We’re going to have to make some choices as a society.

It strikes me that we have had neither 100-percent security nor 100-percent privacy.

So he's right about that.

[hepcat]

I'm not a fan of the recent revelations, but I think you're being a little silly expecting 100 percent in anything.

[msduncan]

Look at slavery (granted, I'm going with an extreme example here). When our founding father's wrote the constitution, many of them were slave owners themselves. They saw no issue with it (in spite of what Michele Bachmann would like you to think). But now? It's considered morally reprehensible and the average citizen would be shocked to hear it being endorsed.

I know you are just using an example to further your point, but I have to stop and point out here that some of the most influential founders knew slavery was wrong and stated so. The problem was that they couldn't really hold the union together and simultaneously do anything about it. Thus they punted, guessing that the issue would fade in the coming decades.

"there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it." -- Washington

—Letter to Morris, April 12, 1786, in George Washington, A Collection, ed. W.B. Allen (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1989), 319.

"Every measure of prudence, therefore, ought to be assumed for the eventual total extirpation of slavery from the United States…. I have, through my whole life, held the practice of slavery in …abhorrence." -- Adams

—Letter to Evans, June 8, 1819, in Selected Writings of John and John Quincy Adams ed. Adrienne Koch et al. (New York: Knopf, 1946), 209-10.

"Slavery is …an atrocious debasement of human nature." --Franklin

—"An Address to the Public from the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery" (1789), Benjamin Franklin, Writings ed. J.A. Leo Lemay (New York: Library of America, 1987), 1154.

"The laws of certain states …give an ownership in the service of negroes as personal property…. But being men, by the laws of God and nature, they were capable of acquiring liberty—and when the captor in war …thought fit to give them liberty, the gift was not only valid, but irrevocable." --Hamilton

—Philo Camillus no. 2 (1795), in Papers of Alexander Hamilton, ed. Harold C. Syrett (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961-), 19:101-2.

"We have seen the mere distinction of colour made in the most enlightened period of time, a ground of the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man." --Madison

—Speech at Constitutional Convention, June 6, 1787, in Max Farrand, ed., Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1937), 1:135.

[Zarathud]

And you're comparing Obama to the founders in that he's known government snooping is wrong and said so, but he punted, guessing that the issue of terrorism would fade in the coming decades?

How...unexpected. Unless, of course, you're making excuses for some politicians but not others.

Maybe Obama should only collect data on 3/5 of your phone calls.