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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

#61

Post by andy_ppp »

thinkling wrote: post #54
andy_ppp wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably that he was running for president and wanted to appear on the side of the security services? Then when in office it clearly must be a useful tool to start build profiles of everyone and be able to mine their activities.

It's easy to be principled when you're not calling the shots yet and not confronted with all the realities of the choice. I imagine once Obama was in office, he was told what had been accomplished so far using this kind of intelligence (terrorists killed, plots prevented, lives (allegedly) saved, etc) that the US would give up if the intelligence dried up. Who will chose to accept that attacks might happen on your wa…

Yes, but it's clearly illegal to search everyone under the constitution, so these sort of advances in counter terrorism should never have been allowed. Hard to argue with tracking everyone once it's happening without uproar, I imagine it's very very useful.

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

#62

Post by jacquesm »

lostlogin wrote: post #55
jacquesm wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. A couple of razzias where they or their loved ones were taken to gas chambers should do the job. But we have such short memories. In just about every Dutch town, usually near the railway station there is a monument documenting just that and it still does not seem to make much of a d…

From what I understand, the Dutch are one of the most surveilled societies on earth. It would appear that a holocaust doesn't make a population sensitive to state surveillance.

Yep. Because 'we have nothing to hide'.

Interestingly though, just after the wall fell if there was one country that was hyper-sensitive to any kind of surveillance it was the Eastern part of re-united Germany. That was one part of Europe where people seemed to 'get it' in large enough numbers to actually make a difference. Some parts of Poland after their independence from Soviet domination as well.

Though for the most part that seems to have slowly crumbled away.

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

#63

Post by johngalt »

youdontknowtho wrote: post #37

It's a mistake to empower and legitimize the right. Rand Paul is an extremist on issues of life and limb. Just because he's "good" on this issue doesn't change that. In fact, it makes it more likely that he will be afforded the position of a moderate because he went against his party on this issue, when he is just as extreme as anyone in his party on any others. It is something that Democrats will need to understand…

> You have to deny them victories, even on issues that you support.

And then the right does the same, and nothing ever gets done in the Legislature. Now any real progress needs to be made by the judiciary or by executive fiat.

"Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future." -JFK

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

#64

Post by krushing »

willstrafach wrote: post #18
Darthy wrote: post #8

Of course the other 7.2 billion people in the world are also routinely monitored, but since this is an action on foreign territory, these 7.2 billion people have no recourse against this practice.

I hear this brought up a lot but do not see how it would be an issue. This is part of the job of an intelligence agency. Something often ignored: The intelligence agencies of other countries are likely to be doing the same thing. It has already been shown that BND and GCHQ engage in similar behavior with regards to upstream and satellite signals interception, but it seems foolish to assume that other countries are no…

Imagine if the US just bought all the foreign media companies it could and then controlled the news to protect national security. Would that be ethical or legal?

This is analogous to what the government is doing with privacy rights. The US can't say we're a nation rooted in innate human rights but then dismiss those rights when dealing with the rest of the world.

To the contrary, the US should be supporting countries that don't spy on their citizens and punishing those that do. We should want to encourage liberal free societies, and not become a global threat to freedom.

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

#65

Post by datatan »

youdontknowtho wrote: post #37

It's a mistake to empower and legitimize the right. Rand Paul is an extremist on issues of life and limb. Just because he's "good" on this issue doesn't change that. In fact, it makes it more likely that he will be afforded the position of a moderate because he went against his party on this issue, when he is just as extreme as anyone in his party on any others. It is something that Democrats will need to understand…

And this right here is why reasonable debate has died in the world today.

Put your country before your party or you're damned to lose both.

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

#66

Post by danjoc »

emehrkay wrote: post #57

Where exactly does Paul stand on issues of privacy like this? You'd think we is against it, but he is also okay with ISPs selling your browsing history. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/gop-senators-new...

SSL should prevent that. Sadly, SNI leaks the domain name. Hacker News appears in favor of SNI though, because lack of IPv4 address space.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13639112

Oddly, HN is really worried about server privacy. If we shared a single certificate across 20 domains, then people could see all those domains are hosted in the same place.

My point? We are part of the problem.

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

#67

Post by Dirlewanger »

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…

>What does the government know about me and why is that important?

This is why no one will care until we're years beyond too late. It won't be until the federal government starts mass-arresting (e.g. hundreds of thousands) people for some thing found through the dragnet. This probably won't be for several years, if not decades, but it will come.

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

#68

Post by newjersey »

mi100hael wrote: post #59
emehrkay wrote: post #57

Where exactly does Paul stand on issues of privacy like this? You'd think we is against it, but he is also okay with ISPs selling your browsing history. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/gop-senators-new...

Whether or not you agree, there is a legitimate & legal distinction between a private corporation and a publicly-funded government organization.

So in my mind there are two parts to publicly funded projects. One is whether the spending of funds is worth it and another is whether the people have a choice.

We think that by definition that when private companies have programs, they're not spending public money but I'd argue (somewhat controversial I agree) that any tax break is public money. Also the second part of whether participation is mandatory. I'd say if an ISP has a de facto Monopoly in a market, then we could say participation is mandatory. I hope this part is less controversial.

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

#69

Post by oculusthrift »

Darthy wrote: post #8

Of course the other 7.2 billion people in the world are also routinely monitored, but since this is an action on foreign territory, these 7.2 billion people have no recourse against this practice.

sounds like a problem for them and their governments

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

#70

Post by joering2 »

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…

> Hopefully it finally gets shut down during the Trump administration

Are you insane?? Didn't you hear many of Trump speeches saying that NSA doesn't have enough power??? And that we need to monitor more, especially certain groups but pretty much everyone as well?

And that companies like Apple should be forced to decrypt or have tools to decrypt their own technology.

Bush made surveillance wanted by public fear because of 911. Obama made it further legal by not doing anything against it and praising NSA as "your friendly neighbor". Trump is here to make it more invasive and to make it stay for good!

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