Earlier quoted context omitted.
Whether or not you agree, there is a legitimate & legal distinction between a private corporation and a publicly-funded government organization.
Line gets fuzzy when ISPs, in most part, are government-backed monopolies (I'm "lucky" because both Verion and Comcast covers my area)
Rand Paul: NSA Routinely Monitors Americans’ Communications Without Warrants
121–130 of 300 posts
Re: Rand Paul: NSA Routinely Monitors Americans’ Communications Without Warrants
#122The 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
#123Earlier 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'm always interested in what people think the intel agencies do or should be doing. Personally I agree with you, targeted intelligence is more valuable than blanket intelligence but today with "big data" this may be changing.
Re: Rand Paul: NSA Routinely Monitors Americans’ Communications Without Warrants
#124Earlier 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…
Interesting as that is exactly what China and Saudi Arabia are doing in the US.
Re: Rand Paul: NSA Routinely Monitors Americans’ Communications Without Warrants
#125Earlier 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…
> If that's the type of monitoring you mean Not at all. I mean that any number of people inside the intelligence organizations could have opted to "wiretap" Trump and there would have been no audit trail and no warrant. > holds no more water than an average Joe claiming "Obama ordered a wiretap on me" For what it's worth though, I do think the lowly "average Joe" you mention does deserve to be quite irate about his f…
This is not true. The system will not allow you to just query a US Person, and will automatically flag such requests for review if you try to do so. Even if an analyst conducted "reverse targeting" (Querying a foreign person who the US Person was communicating with), the US Person's information within the intercept(s) is automatically minimized and specific approval would be needed to de-anonymize it, including solid proof that the US Person was actually acting as a foreign adversary, such as a spy.
I have no ability to argue that there is not a conspiracy involving multiple people in NSA approving these and OGC turning a blind eye to it and the senate intel committee ignoring it and so on, that is not impossible I suppose, but the reality is very far from simply having the ability to go ahead and wiretap Trump with ease.
> and there would have been no audit trail and no warrant.
There is absolutely an audit trail, including non-repudation for the analyst who performed the query (They must use their smartcard or "PKI"). This is good, because if you do believe that something awry is going on, you can push for a very specific cause: Put together an independent committee of representatives, have them go through the security clearance process (for those who have not already done so) to be read-in on any necessary SCI compartments to review the data, and conduct a thorough investigation regarding the audit trails of any query regarding Trump and/or associates. I personally find this to be far-fetched, but it is at least a tangible action which you and anyone who shares the belief can push for.
Re: Rand Paul: NSA Routinely Monitors Americans’ Communications Without Warrants
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If that's the type of monitoring you mean Not at all. I mean that any number of people inside the intelligence organizations could have opted to "wiretap" Trump and there would have been no audit trail and no warrant. > holds no more water than an average Joe claiming "Obama ordered a wiretap on me" For what it's worth though, I do think the lowly "average Joe" you mention does deserve to be quite irate about his f…
> Not at all. I mean that any number of people inside the intelligence organizations could have opted to "wiretap" Trump This is not true. The system will not allow you to just query a US Person, and will automatically flag such requests for review if you try to do so. Even if an analyst conducted "reverse targeting" (Querying a foreign person who the US Person was communicating with), the US Person's information wit…
Re: Rand Paul: NSA Routinely Monitors Americans’ Communications Without Warrants
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If that's the type of monitoring you mean Not at all. I mean that any number of people inside the intelligence organizations could have opted to "wiretap" Trump and there would have been no audit trail and no warrant. > holds no more water than an average Joe claiming "Obama ordered a wiretap on me" For what it's worth though, I do think the lowly "average Joe" you mention does deserve to be quite irate about his f…
> Not at all. I mean that any number of people inside the intelligence organizations could have opted to "wiretap" Trump This is not true. The system will not allow you to just query a US Person, and will automatically flag such requests for review if you try to do so. Even if an analyst conducted "reverse targeting" (Querying a foreign person who the US Person was communicating with), the US Person's information wit…
What do you make of Snowden's assertion that he could have eavesdropped on anyone he wanted? Was he failing to mention that his actions could be audited? Was he failing to mention that he had access to someone else's PKI with which to do the surveillance? Other?
Assuming you have knowledge of how the intelligence agencies work:
- Which agency is the process you described applicable to?
- Are you certain it is the same in other agencies?
- Are you aware of any loopholes (or might Snowden have been?) which would have allowed it to happen without consent from higher level officials?
I do not have a belief one way or another about whether Trump was "wiretapped". My intent was to apply the logical consequence of the Snowden revelations to the issue being discussed, and flag the FISA warrant argument as a straw man.
Re: Rand Paul: NSA Routinely Monitors Americans’ Communications Without Warrants
#128Where 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
#129Earlier 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…
It's extremely disingenuous to characterize his role as "continued policy begun by previous administration" when his Vice President wrote the core legislation of the Patriot Act, he was actively working to expand those policies for 8 years, and one of his very last acts was to issue an EO further entrenching them.
Re: Rand Paul: NSA Routinely Monitors Americans’ Communications Without Warrants
#130Earlier 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'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 an…