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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

#101

Post by Consultant32452 »

ComradeTaco wrote: post #88
unityByFreedom wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It would be nice if all surveillance could be traced back to FISA warrants, but Snowden's revelations make it clear this is absolutely not the case You mean, since the NSA collects data on millions of Americans? If that's the type of monitoring you mean, Trump's complaint holds no more water than an average Joe claiming "Obama ordered a wiretap on me". More like, "Obama continued policy begun by previous administra…

Trump is amusing. He'll say something absolutely obscene, then his surrogates will say that he meant something different and slightly less obscene. Then supporters will go to great lengths to translate his words into an extremely favorable reading that actually isn't obscene at all. We don't need a Rosetta Stone for it. Trump means exactly what he says.

>We don't need a Rosetta Stone for it. Trump means exactly what he says.

Policy disagreements with Trump aside, I find that actually kind of refreshing.

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

#102

Post by willstrafach »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #100
willstrafach wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>> I hear this brought up a lot but do not see how it would be an issue. Because it's a massive human rights violation. Just because the agencies job is to gather intelligence doesn't mean it can trod all over the rights of non-US citizens.

Can you be more specific? This is often repeated, and I like to be open minded, but I have never seen it articulated as to how exactly intelligence gathering is a violation of human rights.

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

#103

Post by bo1024 »

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…

I don't think it's a given that the right and proper thing for an intelligence agency to do is spy on every person it possibly can as much as it possibly can.

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

#104

Post by waqf »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #101
ComradeTaco wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump is amusing. He'll say something absolutely obscene, then his surrogates will say that he meant something different and slightly less obscene. Then supporters will go to great lengths to translate his words into an extremely favorable reading that actually isn't obscene at all. We don't need a Rosetta Stone for it. Trump means exactly what he says.

>We don't need a Rosetta Stone for it. Trump means exactly what he says. Policy disagreements with Trump aside, I find that actually kind of refreshing.

I think a lot of people do, but it's best not to rate it too highly. It's a lot easier to communicate clearly and effectively when your propositions are simple, and it's a lot easier to have simple propositions when you're not constrained by the evidence.

That's pretty much the whole story of demagoguery and why it continues to work.

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

#105

Post by 3131s »

youdontknowtho wrote: post #83
Bartweiss wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should have become pretty clear that this wasn't partisan when an outgoing Obama helped ramp up surveillance in full knowledge of who was next. Seeing people treat this as a D/R fight when Udall and Feinstein are viciously opposed to one another is bizarre to me.

Jesus Christ. Who do you think you can influence? Do you honestly believe that you can sway enough republicans to get anything important done? People who don't see the republicans for what they are is pretty bizarre to me. We have a two party system. Which one do you think you could have an impact on?

Your comments in this thread are repetitive and totally devoid of content. The one above is a non sequitur that is unnecessarily aggressive.

I think it is you not paying attention if you haven't noticed yet that Democrats and Republicans are nearly the same and equally blunderous and corrupted. They both support war, surveillance, mass incarceration, mass deportation, drug prohibition, and more. Barack Obama was a terrible president, so much so that I'm not sure even Trump will do worse. At least Trump seems to attract more scrutiny.

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

#106

Post by willstrafach »

rbg246 wrote: post #48
willstrafach wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

No i don't think it is the job of an intelligence agency to spy on the rest of the world's citizens and i think its a terrible idea to normalise this behaviour as such or to somehow make it sound ethical. The everyone else is doing it defence does not change the unethical nature of the action.

I am curious how you would define "spying" though.

- Should NGA not use imaging satellites to keep track of national disasters and environmental issues?

- Should NGA not use imaging satellites for nuclear non-proliferation monitoring?

- Should DoD not have digital sensors at the egress points of their networks to gather information on attacks by foreign actors?

- Should NSA not monitor the communications of foreign adversaries to determine their intentions on the battlefield?

- Should NSA not investigate adversarial nations launching attacks and information-gathering operations against DoD infrastructure as well as US private industry?

- Should our military intelligence branches not monitor weapons development of adversarial nations (using ELINT measurements, imaging satellites, along with other forms of intelligence gathering to determine their offensive/defensive capabilities)

- Should we not use SIGINT sensors and capabilities to detect an incoming attack on the USA or an ally?

- I can add a whole lot more to this list if interested.

The act of "spying" is far more than just SIGINT collection and processing of internet data. Can you elaborate on what you specifically take issue with? Do you take issue with all intelligence collection as a whole, or specifically SIGINT collection, or more specifically SIGINT collection of internet data or phone records? I am curious and like to keep an open mind about these things, so am being genuine when I ask this.

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

#107

Post by danarmak »

jacquesm wrote: post #46
joshontheweb wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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…

The Nazis didn't have anything like modern surveillance, and they didn't need it to enact the Holocaust. So I'm not sure what your point is; could you clarify?

Surveillance enables many kinds of government oppression, but large-scale ethnic cleansing doesn't seem to be one of them, in that it's already possible and efficient. The Nazi's logistical problems in enacting the Holocaust were more in moving and killing Jews, less in finding them.

ETA: many of the Dutch Jews who did survive were hidden by Dutch people. And yes, such efforts could be thwarted by surveillance. But that seems like an edge case; rare even in the Netherlands, where only a few percent of local Jews were so hidden, and vanishingly rare in the Holocaust as a whole across Europe.

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

#108

Post by k-mcgrady »

willstrafach wrote: post #102
k-mcgrady wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I hear this brought up a lot but do not see how it would be an issue. Because it's a massive human rights violation. Just because the agencies job is to gather intelligence doesn't mean it can trod all over the rights of non-US citizens.

Can you be more specific? This is often repeated, and I like to be open minded, but I have never seen it articulated as to how exactly intelligence gathering is a violation of human rights.

Article 12 of the UDHR for a start: "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence...". Similar protections exist in the ECHR.

It could be also argued that it's a violation of our right to freedom of expression. Personally I have started to self-censor anything I post online.

The CJEU also recently ruled against mass data collection that the UK was doing and I believe that sharing data with agencies outside Europe was also ruled illegal.

I'm not saying that wiretapping someone with a warrant or monitoring someone within the law is a human rights violation. It's specific to bulk collection.

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

#109

Post by willstrafach »

krushing wrote: post #64
willstrafach wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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?

I have trouble understanding how this analogy relates, do you have a different one which can illustrate your point? (It may be a good point so I would like to understand it)

> 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.

How would we go about doing this? Would we trust other nations if they said that they do not conduct any of intelligence gathering operations, or would we use a more covert manner of discovering and verifying that they indeed are not engaged in such activities?

Additionally, how would we be able to continue to ensure the safety of our allies if we removed all sensors responsible for detecting an incoming attack from an enemy?

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

#110

Post by willstrafach »

bo1024 wrote: post #103
willstrafach wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't think it's a given that the right and proper thing for an intelligence agency to do is spy on every person it possibly can as much as it possibly can.

> I don't think it's a given that the right and proper thing for an intelligence agency to do is spy on every person it possibly can as much as it possibly can.

I do not understand what you mean by this. I am assuming you do not believe there is an analyst looking at every bit of data that flows through the internet backbone, so could you elaborate here? Are you referring to intelligence collection?

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