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Rand Paul: NSA Routinely Monitors Americans’ Communications Without Warrants

theintercept.com

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Re: Rand Paul: NSA Routinely Monitors Americans’ Communications Without Warrants

#21

Post by snerbles »

joshontheweb wrote: post #15
mgamache wrote: post #5

The problem with the press coverage of this topic is a lack of personalization. What does the government know about me and why is that important? I think most US citizens would be shocked to learn that most of our personal information is accessible without a warrant. (phone records / bank account / email / web history / phone location data / Car location / Purchase history / Facebook etc....). Also, how much the gove…

Unfortunately I have found that most people aren't shocked when I explain this to them. Most commonly they just say That their life is boring and they've got nothing to hide. Additionally they think that it may be worth the invasion if we can catch the 'bad guys'. I'm not sure what would need to happen to change this sentiment on a large enough scale to get people motivated into political action.

We're fighting an uphill battle against fear peddled by various media outlets to attract viewers and clicks. Fear that is useful to the surveillance apparatus.

Re: Rand Paul: NSA Routinely Monitors Americans’ Communications Without Warrants

#22

Post by nerdponx »

exabrial wrote: post #2

My opinion on hn was unpopular when I spoke out against Apple during the San Bernardino affair, because the FBI seemed to have the proper DOJ signoff and I think the motivation was obvious. However this is unacceptable. We are a society of laws, and one of them is due process. Spying likely started during the Bush years, and Obama somehow escaped scrutiny for continuing the program (even with Snowden leaks). Hopefull…

Haven't we been spying on our own citizens since WWII? Or at least since J Edgar Hoover and thr McCarthy era?

Re: Rand Paul: NSA Routinely Monitors Americans’ Communications Without Warrants

#24

Post by ascagnel_ »

lordnacho wrote: post #19

I have a question about this whole government intrusion thing. Perhaps a lawyer can explain: Suppose the government gets a warrant to wiretap some guy. He happens to get a call from his lawyer, and the government overhears that he's committed some crime. Now there's an attorney/client privilege preventing you from directly producing the tape (is there?) so you can't just do that. But the fact that you've heard this m…

Parallel construction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction

Re: Rand Paul: NSA Routinely Monitors Americans’ Communications Without Warrants

#26

Post by strictnein »

One feels that Paul doesn't quite have a full grasp of the techniques he's describing (and it sounds like he's conflating a lot of stuff that Snowden leaked), but that headline sure gets the clicks, so let's go with it. Especially since it's Greenwald, who uses Paul's jumbled mess of an explanation to burn everything down.

Doesn't even make sense what he's proposing: Instead of getting a warrant to record the American, the NSA targets the foreigner? But what if they call someone else overseas? Or call people in the US? Seems like a really suboptimal way of targeting someone. And a low-level employee could unmask the caller? Sure, and that could also lead to that employee getting fired and prosecuted. I can access lots of data at work, but I would be shown the door and possibly sued if I did so.

Re: Rand Paul: NSA Routinely Monitors Americans’ Communications Without Warrants

#27

Post by strictnein »

mgamache wrote: post #5

The problem with the press coverage of this topic is a lack of personalization. What does the government know about me and why is that important? I think most US citizens would be shocked to learn that most of our personal information is accessible without a warrant. (phone records / bank account / email / web history / phone location data / Car location / Purchase history / Facebook etc....). Also, how much the gove…

All that is available without a warrant? Strange then that the government gets search warrants for lots of that stuff.

edit: Maybe my sarcasm/snark wasn't clear: almost the entirety of the parent comment's list of stuff available to the government without a warrant actually requires a warrant.

Re: Rand Paul: NSA Routinely Monitors Americans’ Communications Without Warrants

#28

Post by matthewbauer »

lordnacho wrote: post #19

I have a question about this whole government intrusion thing. Perhaps a lawyer can explain: Suppose the government gets a warrant to wiretap some guy. He happens to get a call from his lawyer, and the government overhears that he's committed some crime. Now there's an attorney/client privilege preventing you from directly producing the tape (is there?) so you can't just do that. But the fact that you've heard this m…

I think the short answer is that they could get away with it if they kept it secret, but if the courts found out about it that alone could be enough to through the entire case.

> The N.S.A.’s protections for attorney-client conversations are narrowly crafted, said Stephen Gillers, an expert on legal ethics at New York University’s School of Law. The agency is barred from sharing with prosecutors intercepted attorney-client communications involving someone under indictment in the United States, according to previously disclosed N.S.A. rules. But the agency may still use or share the information for intelligence purposes.

[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/16/us/eavesdropping-ensnared...

Re: Rand Paul: NSA Routinely Monitors Americans’ Communications Without Warrants

#29

Post by remx »

mysterypie wrote: post #6
willvarfar wrote: post #4

Why aren't politicians and their staff using end-to-end encrypted VOIP?

The same reason you aren't. The same reason PGP has been around for 25 years and only a miniscule fraction of people ever encrypt their email. I.e., it's because none of this privacy technology is built-in as the default into our communications infrastructure. Therefore, for the average person (and even for privacy-conscious techies), it is inconvenient and difficult, and you have to convince the party you're talking…

There's a big discussion about PGP here and why so many fail to use it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13114538

Some of the comments are worth reading if not for the sheer size of the discussion. It could take an afternoon or two to fully digest that thread.

The comments are in response to this: https://blog.filippo.io/giving-up-on-long-term-pgp/

Re: Rand Paul: NSA Routinely Monitors Americans’ Communications Without Warrants

#30

Post by shagie »

strictnein wrote: post #27
mgamache wrote: post #5

The problem with the press coverage of this topic is a lack of personalization. What does the government know about me and why is that important? I think most US citizens would be shocked to learn that most of our personal information is accessible without a warrant. (phone records / bank account / email / web history / phone location data / Car location / Purchase history / Facebook etc....). Also, how much the gove…

All that is available without a warrant? Strange then that the government gets search warrants for lots of that stuff. edit: Maybe my sarcasm/snark wasn't clear: almost the entirety of the parent comment's list of stuff available to the government without a warrant actually requires a warrant.

A formal statement of "we want this information and may be using it." There is a lot of paperwork that government goes through to document how it gets its information. Getting the information via warrant shows that this was asked for and received in a legal manner (rather than someone dropping some illegally obtained data on a website - even if there are legal channels to get it).
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