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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

#111

Post by jacquesm »

danarmak wrote: post #107
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…

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 Jew…

> 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?

If they had there would most likely not be a Jewish people to speak of, as it was the little bit of automation they had coupled with a stereotypical dose of German thorougness already did a very good job (good is not really applicable here). Now combine that with say a twist of 'big data' and some nice pattern recognition algorithms (facial recognition for instance, or maybe DNA analysis) and it would have been possible to round up a significantly larger chunk of the Jewish population than what already happened.

The fact that we now have wall penetrating radar doesn't help either.

> The Nazi's logistical problems in enacting the Holocaust were more in moving and killing Jews, less in finding them.

They had a hard time actually, because the local population did a reasonably good job of hiding them in the strangest spots.

> 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.

Yes. But it won't be made any less efficient by all this helpful identification technology we have nowadays, most likely more, and communications intercepted long before a conflict might even help to identify those that would aid the hunted.

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

#112

Post by mirimir »

waqf wrote: post #104
Consultant32452 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

> demagoguery

Well, if President Trump actually does serve the common people, it will be a wondrous thing.

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

#113

Post by linkregister »

The author of this article did a poor job of refuting Susan Hennessey's statement that reverse targeting is unlawful and not practiced. Taking an excerpt of a Hayden speech and then highlighting his statement that "communications with one end in the U.S." are the most interesting doesn't really prove this.

The author would have a stronger argument by sticking to the facts. Searches of U.S. persons without a warrant are directly at odds with the language in the 4th amendment of the Constitution, full stop.

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

#114

Post by jupiter90000 »

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.

I've heard this same argument, "I've got nothing to hide." I personally don't understand how, even if that's true, someone would want to freely provide many personal details of their lives for strangers to look at. Maybe certain privacies are becoming uncommonly valued.

Even though I feel I don't have anything worthwhile to hide, I don't like the idea of random strangers finding out the details of my personal life and habits. I don't understand why some(most?) people are totally fine with that...

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

#115

Post by sctb »

youdontknowtho wrote: post #74
k-mcgrady wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> You have to deny them victories, even on issues that you support. It sucks but the right has outsized influence over the country because of party discipline like I've just described. This attitude is the reason politics is fucked. Vote based on issues, not party bullshit. If a party is good on one issue you support and bad on every other issue obviously they won't get your support but voting based on a party and n…

I would say that the reason politics is fucked is that one party is an apocalyptic cult. The Republicans have given up on governance. Change is not possible when one party is willing to defy any norms. I wish it wasn't that way, but unless the right wing is broken as a political block, nothing is possible...

If we're going to have the occasional political discussion on Hacker News, we're going to have to please refrain from calling names like "apocalyptic cult".

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

#116

Post by pdkl95 »

luxuryballs wrote: post #73
mattnewton wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your opinion was probably unpopular because DOJ signoff does not make good encryption with a master key any more technologically possible, and HN is a very pro-encryption crowd as a technical means to privacy. The disagreement for me is not about the warrant process but about why this warrant would be different. I think the warrant should not have been granted and needed to be fought in court. And the great thing abo…

I've always felt like the intent of a warrant was to prove to ME that the police were authorized to search my property. I'm thinking back to when people had to physically show up and be allowed entry into your estate. If my feeling on warrants match up with the true intention of the law (as it was originally written) then no-knock warrants are suspect as well as any kind of secret warrant to tap your phone/computer.…

The 4th Amendment doesn't just require "a warrant". The English government was using "writs of assistance", a type of general warrant that granted broad powers. As a protection against that type of easily-abused power, the founders created a set of requirements that limit the scope of allowed warrants.

    ... and no Warrants shall issue,
    but upon probable cause,
    supported by Oath or affirmation,
    and particularly describing the place to be searched,
    and the persons or things to be seized.
While a judge might deny some extremely bad requests for a warrant, the point isn't about a judge denying warrants or proving anything to anyone. That kind of legal arguing can happen later in an actual court. Instead, warrants - as allowed under the 4th Amendment - establish the limits of power.

The violation of personal rights is allowed, because of specific reason ("probable cause"), in a particular place, limited to specified people or things. These limitations slow down the application of power and (hypothetically) create opportunities to fight back when authority is exceeded.

> no-knock warrants

I suspect those are constitutional when the are properly targeted to a specific event/person/etc. The tactics used to implement the search isn't limited by the warrant.

> secret warrant

That's may be a problem, but it may depend on the specifics.

> what's really stopping them from getting a warrant

Generally nothing, but that's the wrong question. If police are making many requests for specific warrants, that's the warrant system working as intended.

However, playing word games to pretend wiretapping everybody isn't "seizing" data until an agent looks at it is exactly the type of general warrant that is banned by the 4th Amendment.

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

#117

Post by wbl »

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…

They hang up the recording when the lawyer calls. Have you watched The Wire? The cops get in trouble because they listen too long to a non-pertinent call which becomes pertinent when a shipment is discussed.

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

#118

Post by willstrafach »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #108
willstrafach wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 be…

Thank you for the specific references. I can understand the argument of specifically bulk SIGINT collection being problematic.

> I'm not saying that wiretapping someone with a warrant or monitoring someone within the law is a human rights violation.

As the communications of targets now mostly flow through the same "pipes" as the communications of normal citizens who are not of interest, I am curious how effective intelligence gathering could be conducted on actual targets without bulk collection. For example, the IC cannot quite get a warrant to secretly monitor non-state actors such as members of ISIS, al-Shabaab, AQAP, etc. Nor could the IC easily get a warrant to breach PLA computer systems to investigate the party responsible for breaching DoD networks.

It is very possible that I am not seeing this the right way, but I don't like the idea of the USA being the only country in the world who is suddenly in the dark with regards to intelligence. It puts us at a disadvantage with regards to our own defense as well as the defense of our close allies. I am genuinely curious if there is a counter-argument for this?

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

#119

Post by bo1024 »

willstrafach wrote: post #110
bo1024 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I'm not being specific about what the word "spy" means here, but just trying to make a general comment about what would appropriate for agencies like the CIA, NSA, FBI.

The parent comment seemed to imply that the goal/job of an intelligence agency ought to be to spy as much as possible on as many people as possible. I expressed doubt.

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

#120

Post by allemagne »

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 that contains some degree of inherent value, sure.

Being honest and informed are much more valuable and refreshing traits to me.

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