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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

#131

Post by willstrafach »

bo1024 wrote: post #119
willstrafach wrote: post #110

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 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.

I was responding to the point that the initial commenter was making regarding spying as a whole. I agree with you that if we actually did literally spy on 7,000,000,000+ people it would be an incredibly massive waste of time and resources.

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

#132

Post by C4K3 »

danjoc wrote: post #66
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.

How exactly is one domain per IP better than SNI privacy wise?

If you run one domain per IP, then it's just as obvious who you're connecting to.

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

#133

Post by k-mcgrady »

willstrafach wrote: post #118
k-mcgrady wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 int…

My argument would be that they need to find a way to access info on specific individuals as opposed to grabbing data indiscriminately from the pipes. I don't know if this is possible but it's the job of the IC to come up with a solution compatible with the law and human rights.

My point on warrants wasn't well thought out. You make some good points there.

As for the USA being in the dark I think my points are relevant to most countries so the idea is not to disadvantage anyone but that there is a level playing field that respects everyone's rights. Obviously some countries are going to violate human rights but it shouldn't be highly developed democratic nations just because the right is less glamorous than others.

It's very hard to have a useful debate on this when we don't actually have data showing how useful bulk data collection is. If we were able to say 'x' lives have been saved because of it I might more readily be willing to cede some privacy. I think that number would have to be quite high though as I believe privacy is fundamental to a democratic society and should be treated more seriously than it generally is.

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

#134

Post by weaksauce »

mirimir wrote: post #112
waqf wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> A demagogue ... is a leader in a democracy who gains popularity by exploiting prejudice and ignorance among the common people, whipping up the passions of the crowd and shutting down reasoned deliberation.

Where is he doing anything other than furthering his interests?

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

#135

Post by monocasa »

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?

There was significant custom logistical technology developed for the challenge of tracking millions of people during the Holocaust.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust

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

#136

Post by memmcgee »

mirimir wrote: post #112
waqf wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Doesn't look too promising so far.

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

#137

Post by vacri »

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.

It would be refreshing if he actually backed up his words, rather than just saying what he thinks you want to hear. It's not refreshing when he flip-flops depending on who his audience is at the time.

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

#138

Post by ajross »

grandalf wrote: post #43

While this article offers the clearest presentation of the issue I've seen to date, I think the key point (which the article points out halfway in) is that the truth of Trump's claim that he was wiretapped does not depend on the presence or absence of a FISA warrant. The system is designed to be used without warrant, so those harping on the detail of whether or not a warrant existed that had Trump in scope are not fo…

Why, in a thread about unacceptable reach of executive power, is the top comment a defense of the sitting president (the wielder of such power) and a canard about a mostly-unrelated political scandal?

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

#139

Post by vacri »

datatan wrote: post #58
nerdponx wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

McCarthy didn't spy on anyone. He was a Senator not an intel agent. Additionally, McCarthy has been proven right. His estimate was that there were around 20 Soviet agents that had infiltrated the US government at the highest levels. Once the USSR fell and their documents became public it was proven they had well over 200. McCarthy was right but people still tarnish his name out of spite. Hoover was an SOB far worse t…

Obama didn't spy on anyone, he was a president, not an intel agent. Bush didn't invade Iraq, he was a president, not a soldier.

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

#140

Post by alasdair_ »

grandalf wrote: post #43

While this article offers the clearest presentation of the issue I've seen to date, I think the key point (which the article points out halfway in) is that the truth of Trump's claim that he was wiretapped does not depend on the presence or absence of a FISA warrant. The system is designed to be used without warrant, so those harping on the detail of whether or not a warrant existed that had Trump in scope are not fo…

For Trump to make such a claim, he would (presumably) need reasons. I would sincerely hope that his reasons are more than simply "I read it on my friends blog"
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