Congressional Agency Questions Legality of Wiretaps

[Kraken]

So what will it take to make the pendulum swing back? It took Nixon for the last big swing to decrease governmental power - but that was just about politics. I mean, there was no enemy they could point to that they were trying to fight. The big increase came with 9/11 obviously. What could happen to reverse the trend?

Supreme Court ruling? Seems to be the ACLU's strategery. 'Course, Citizens United destroyed what faith I had in the Court, so don't count on it ruling in favor of privacy (if it rules at all).

[cheeba]

So ya wanna say what this "one" is that you speak of, Defiant, or are you just going to keep saying, "no that's not it."?

[Defiant]

So ya wanna say what this "one" is that you speak of, Defiant, or are you just going to keep saying, "no that's not it."?

Convenience. Services. Technological progress. Profit.

The Onion gets it

[cheeba]

That's not one.

[Anonymous Bosch]

Heh, Snowden might have come out a few months ago but he had trouble finding someone with encrypted email to correspond with.

According to recent articles in The New York Times and The Huffington Post, Greenwald first heard from National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden in either January or February. Snowden said he had information that would be of "great interest" and said he wanted to communicate securely using PGP encryption. According to accounts by both publications, the request was a nonstarter.

"Mr. Greenwald wrote back that he did not have such software," the NYT reported. "Mr. Snowden later sent him a homemade video with step-by-step instructions for installing it, which Mr. Greenwald watched but never completed."

Heh, that sums up a significant part of the problem in a nutshell; it's pretty woeful that even professional journalists cannot be bothered to learn how to use PGP/GPG to protect the privacy of their source(s), if not their own. But alas, so many people would much rather spend hours a day complaining on the Internet about how the government continues to erode our rights to privacy than spend an hour or two learning how to actually protect their privacy with the likes of PGP/GPG. As has often been said, unencrypted email is the digital equivalent of sending a snail mail postcard. PGP/GPG-encrypted email would at least seal messages in a secure digital envelope, keeping the contents shielded from any prying eyes, be they Uncle Sam or just Gmail looking for certain key words to serve up more pertinent ads.

[Defiant]

That's not one.

Fine, four.

[noxiousdog]

So ya wanna say what this "one" is that you speak of, Defiant, or are you just going to keep saying, "no that's not it."?

Convenience. Services. Technological progress. Profit.

The Onion gets it

That's just apathy, someone else is paying for it, and you can't go to jail.

All this other stuff has serious lifelong ramifications if you are in the wrong place at the wrong time and it's being driven by fear.

[Defiant]

All this other stuff has serious lifelong ramifications

So does this.

[Zarathud]

I'm amused that everyone seems to be focusing over the government.

The issue is bigger than that.

That's why this battle is moot. Corporations are aggregating this data in the normal course of business. 20 year olds have already shared minute details of their life voluntarily on facebook for years. There are old geocities accounts and blogs, too. The boat sailed on this issue a decade ago, not just because of 9/11. Privacy lost.

[Isgrimnur]

Yup. Once you post something online, guess who has access to it if they know how to look?

[noxiousdog]

All this other stuff has serious lifelong ramifications

So does this.

How?

[Defiant]

All this other stuff has serious lifelong ramifications

So does this.

How?

It can potentially affect the prices of things you buy, your health insurance, life insurance, credit, your career. It's at risk from poor security/hacking exposing it to identity theft, creepy people, blackmail. It can affect the news you read, the entertainment you enjoy, the political ads you see, the people you interact with and the information you're looking for.

It's all about the information.

[LawBeefaroni]

All this other stuff has serious lifelong ramifications

So does this.

How?

It can potentially affect the prices of things you buy, your health insurance, life insurance, credit, your career. It's at risk from poor security/hacking exposing it to identity theft, creepy people, blackmail. It can affect the news you read, the entertainment you enjoy, the political ads you see, the people you interact with and the information you're looking for.

It's all about the information.

At the end of the day that's still all voluntary.

[Defiant]

At the end of the day that's still all voluntary.

So's using a phone.

[Pyperkub]

I'm amused that everyone seems to be focusing over the government.

The issue is bigger than that.

I wasn't.

Nor was I, but government action is the only force that can stop that train.

[silverjon]

All that voluntary info-sharing is what's conditioning the kids to not care about the involuntary stuff.

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.

[noxiousdog]

All this other stuff has serious lifelong ramifications

So does this.

How?

It can potentially affect the prices of things you buy, your health insurance, life insurance, credit, your career. It's at risk from poor security/hacking exposing it to identity theft, creepy people, blackmail. It can affect the news you read, the entertainment you enjoy, the political ads you see, the people you interact with and the information you're looking for.

It's all about the information.

None of that is jail time, false accusations, or violation of constitutional rights (keeping in mind: terrorist! shoot first, ask questions later!).

Regardless, don't you think it's a more serious issue when the government is making it worse rather than better?

[noxiousdog]

This sort of encapsulates it to me.

They aren't being truthful when questioned.

CNN is claiming, "Director of NSA tells lawmakers that formerly secret surveillance program helped prevent "dozens" of terrorist events." If so, where's the prosecution? Surely these guys were brought to trial?

[LawBeefaroni]

At the end of the day that's still all voluntary.

So's using a phone.

Checking in on 4-square voluntarily makes your location public. Putting a photo on Facebook is voluntarily making your image public. Using your phone doesn't voluntarily give the NSA the right to log your data.

When I make a phone call, I have the reasonable expectation that no one else is listening in or storing my call data for intelligence purposes without a warrant. When I send an email, I have the reasonable expectation that it's not first being routed through an NSA black box and searched. If I'm wrong, it's not my fault for reasonable expectations, it's the NSA's fault for violating the law and the Constitution.

[LawBeefaroni]

None of that is jail time, false accusations, or violation of constitutional rights (keeping in mind: terrorist! shoot first, ask questions later!).

Regardless, don't you think it's a more serious issue when the government is making it worse rather than better?

Nevermind the use of control (blackmail, etc).


Not to go all Glen Beck, but

If you ever get on their enemies list, like Petraeus did, then you can be drawn into that surveillance.

Even if it's not the case, the very fact that it's conceivable is an indictment of where we are today.

[noxiousdog]

Also, as Mr. Fed has mentioned, once you're under investigation, you can be sure they'll go back through every bit of evidence ever collected and find everything else that you might have done wrong.

[$iljanus]

This sort of encapsulates it to me.

They aren't being truthful when questioned.

CNN is claiming, "Director of NSA tells lawmakers that formerly secret surveillance program helped prevent "dozens" of terrorist events." If so, where's the prosecution? Surely these guys were brought to trial?

Well, some of them may have met justice at the end of a drone...

[Zarathud]

I'm pretty sure your cell phone contract includes a "we can give info to the government upon a legal request or investigation" clause. Same for your internet. I'll let someone else find that in the fine print.

[Pyperkub]

Also, as Mr. Fed has mentioned, once you're under investigation, you can be sure they'll go back through every bit of evidence ever collected and find everything else that you might have done wrong.

Yup, everything you've ever said or done will be used against you in the Star Chamber.

[Defiant]

None of that is jail time, false accusations, or violation of constitutional rights (keeping in mind: terrorist! shoot first, ask questions later!).

I can be outraged by both. They're all potentially serious, life-long consequences that are far more likely to affect everyone It's also a lot of power for any organization to have.

It's also not clear to me that what is being done violates the constitution, but I'm not a lawyer (It's also not entirely clear to me what is being done, since some of the details are fuzzy).

And there's always the potential that these companies could -blackmail people, give the information away, sell the information to the government, reveal all the historical data to the government at the slightest reason to do so.

For what it's worth, while I don't like either, I think the government is better designed to handle this data so long as there's transparency, safeguards and checks and balances.

Regardless, don't you think it's a more serious issue when the government is making it worse rather than better?

I think it's a bit of doing both.

[Defiant]

When I make a phone call, I have the reasonable expectation that no one else is listening in or storing my call data for intelligence purposes without a warrant. When I send an email, I have the reasonable expectation that it's not first being routed through an NSA black box and searched. If I'm wrong, it's not my fault for reasonable expectations, it's the NSA's fault for violating the law and the Constitution.

When you send a letter, do you expect privacy for the From address and To address, the stamp or the type and size of the envelope? Because that's similar to the metadata on the phone call.

[Rip]

When I make a phone call, I have the reasonable expectation that no one else is listening in or storing my call data for intelligence purposes without a warrant. When I send an email, I have the reasonable expectation that it's not first being routed through an NSA black box and searched. If I'm wrong, it's not my fault for reasonable expectations, it's the NSA's fault for violating the law and the Constitution.

When you send a letter, do you expect privacy for the From address and To address, the stamp or the type and size of the envelope? Because that's similar to the metadata on the phone call.

Hopefully not because most of those get photographed.

[Smoove_B]

Hopefully not because most of those get photographed.

Which is how they finally caught Flat Stanley.

[Rip]

Hopefully not because most of those get photographed.

Which is how they finally caught Flat Stanley.

You can't catch Flat Stanley, he will just slip through your fingers.

[LordMortis]

I'm pretty sure your cell phone contract includes a "we can give info to the government upon a legal request or investigation" clause. Same for your internet. I'll let someone else find that in the fine print.

I've read the clauses for both Sprint and WOW. WOW says they spy on you and will hand information over to the government at their discretion. It's the price I pay for cheap Internet. I don't like it but I'm sure all ISPs have the same sort of clauses.

Gubment and the Corporate world aren't at odds with each other. That's what lobbies are for. They work in concert. That's why we need to be more vigilant with our elected officials and need to elect officials who are more vigilant with out non elected officials.

The promise of transparency had me bright eyed with this current administration. They fooled me once. I'm more careful now, for all the good it does me.

[Isgrimnur]

If we pass federal laws to make it a federal crime to obtain call records consisting of to; from; duration a la TRPPA, it is reasonable that people have an expectation of privacy and that society as a whole sees it as reasonable.

[Pyperkub]

Secret Court's opinion that the FISA 702 exception (a lynchpin of the legality of the NSA Program) is unconstitutional has been released publicly:

The FISC gave its OK to the public disclosure of an earlier opinion of the FISC—an opinion that declared aspects of the NSA's surveillance under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act to be unconstitutional.

I know that I'll be cutting a nice donation to the EFFthis year. I hope others will too.

[Isgrimnur]

I know that I'll be cutting a nice donation to the EFFthis year. I hope others will too.

Talk to me after I'm employed, and I very well might.

[Pyperkub]

I know that I'll be cutting a nice donation to the EFFthis year. I hope others will too.

Talk to me after I'm employed, and I very well might.

Actually figured no time like the present, and just laid down the credit card. I've been thinking and talking about it for quite awhile, and figured it was time to put my money where my mouth is has been.

[Defiant]

I know that I'll be cutting a nice donation to the EFFthis year. I hope others will too.

Talk to me after I'm employed, and I very well might.

Actually figured no time like the present, and just laid down the credit card. I've been thinking and talking about it for quite awhile, and figured it was time to put my money where my mouth is has been.

Also, you could buy humble bundles, and set the money to all go to the EFF. Money for the EFF, games for you (or gifted to someone else), it's win-win.

[Defiant]

PGP/GPG-encrypted email would at least seal messages in a secure digital envelope, keeping the contents shielded from any prying eyes, be they Uncle Sam or just Gmail looking for certain key words to serve up more pertinent ads.

For now, anyway.

[Holman]

What is with Snowden's latest declaration of hacking/snooping against China (and specifically Hong Kong)?

I don't think anyone doubted that this was going on, but does outing it give the appearance of trying to curry favor with his new hosts? (I mean in a who's-winning-the-narrative kind of way. I think he's running scared, and this seems like a boneheaded move.)

[RLMullen]

PGP/GPG-encrypted email would at least seal messages in a secure digital envelope, keeping the contents shielded from any prying eyes, be they Uncle Sam or just Gmail looking for certain key words to serve up more pertinent ads.

For now, anyway.

That was last year's news. Try something a little more now.

[Anonymous Bosch]

…and if/when quantum computing becomes sufficient to render traditional public key cryptography insecure, there are public key cryptographic algorithms that are believed to be resistant to quantum computing based attacks according to NIST.

[cheeba]

Candidate Obama debates President Obama
Candidate Obama, "This administration [Bush] also puts forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we provide." lol, asshole.