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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

#231

Post by lern_too_spel »

hackuser wrote: post #181
willstrafach wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

On what basis can you state these things with such authority? (Apologies if there is something obvious that I'm overlooking.) Also, do you mean that these are the stated rules, or that these are the practices? I don't mean that in a conspiratorial sense. In any institution, the actual practices vary from the rules, sometimes significantly.

What he's stated matches what was in Snowden's leaks. The big problem with Greenwald's reporting is that the leaked documents disagree with Snowden and Paul, but Greenwald believes Snowden and Paul instead of the leaks.

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

#232

Post by grandalf »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #228
grandalf wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people want you to have. Well, putting aside the observation that the documents speak for themselves, and ignoring the inaccurate claims made by leaders to the American people about surveillance, what impression should I have?

The documents agree with the person you're arguing with and disagree with you and Snowden.

examples? There was not really any press vetting of the information so it's been difficult to evaluate the claims.

I do think it's troubling that major news orgs won't go near the details.

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

#233

Post by grandalf »

willstrafach wrote: post #224
grandalf wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There was evidence, as repeatedly and publicly corroborated by 17 U.S. intelligence agencies. This is one of the false statements that gets repeated over and over. There was not evidence presented to the public, only an assessment in which the NSA felt it was only marginally probable that meddling had occurred, and it was only from a small number of agencies. The document was also an informal, unusual concoction th…

The implication of CIA having high confidence and NSA having moderate confidence was that the intelligence came more from humans sources rather than signals intelligence. This makes it more difficult to show proof. What kind of proof would be sufficient enough to be convincing, without burning the source? I cannot think of a good answer to that question, although I truly wish they did figure out a way to declassify s…

> was that the intelligence came more from humans sources rather than signals intelligence.

My read of it was that there was not any human or signals intelligence, only that the idea that Russia meddled in the US election fit with an established notion of what Russia might wish to do, so there was not really any need for evidence.

The closest thing to evidence was blaming an individual in the Ukraine for allegedly acting at the behest of the Russian government.

In order to be credible, the analysis would have to offer a sense of what Russia/Putin's alleged strategic mindset was. How did he benefit from the overwhelmingly likely event that HRC got elected and revelations that Russia meddled came out?

One must believe not only that Putin meddled, but that he saw Trump's victory as a sure thing and worth risking escalation over.

It seems likely that if someone like HRC or McCain had been in office, retaliatory military action by the US might have occurred.

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

#234

Post by grandalf »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #230
grandalf wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would think there would be far more leniency. I'm less concerned with Snowden's treatment than with the way that our leaders dealt with the revelation that crimes had been committed in the excessive collection of data. In my opinion, at least a few senior intelligence officials should have faced prison time, several more should have stepped down, and we should have seen full details disclosed about the problemati…

There was only one illegal program in the leaks — the phone metadata collection program that the GP mentioned. At the time it was leaked, its legality was unknown, but the leaks contained arguments from the government's attorneys explaining why it was probably legal. Their arguments had merit and were supported by the District Court of Judge William Pauley, who agreed that Smith v. Maryland's ruling was precedent. On…

> the government had already stated the program would be replaced.

Has the program been replaced? How do comments from high level officials denying that US citizens were being surveilled en mass fit into the picture?

What justification exists for such a program to be created without any public debate? Why should we believe that clearly illegal programs don't also exist?

Considering that there is outrage about Trump commenting that he wishes to re-institute a "Muslim watch list", how is a metadata program that is essentially a meta-watchlist about all affiliations, creeds, etc., not expected to be rejected by the public?

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

#235

Post by lern_too_spel »

grandalf wrote: post #234
lern_too_spel wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was only one illegal program in the leaks — the phone metadata collection program that the GP mentioned. At the time it was leaked, its legality was unknown, but the leaks contained arguments from the government's attorneys explaining why it was probably legal. Their arguments had merit and were supported by the District Court of Judge William Pauley, who agreed that Smith v. Maryland's ruling was precedent. On…

> the government had already stated the program would be replaced. Has the program been replaced? How do comments from high level officials denying that US citizens were being surveilled en mass fit into the picture? What justification exists for such a program to be created without any public debate? Why should we believe that clearly illegal programs don't also exist? Considering that there is outrage about Trump c…

> Has the program been replaced?

Yes. http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/11/29/457779757/...

> How do comments from high level officials denying that US citizens were being surveilled en mass fit into the picture?

There was a comment, singular, from a high-level official, singular, denying collection of data on US citizens en masse. There was never surveillance en masse, so any denying that would be completely kosher.

> What justification exists for such a program to be created without any public debate?

Most government programs are created without a public debate, just as most private sector advertising programs are created without a public debate. As long as in-house counsel says it is probably fine, the programs go ahead.

> Why should we believe that clearly illegal programs don't also exist?

We have no way to know for sure, but since no clearly illegal programs existed in the indiscriminate dump provided by Snowden, and since the one program that was questionably legal had plenty of legal documentation in the dumps, we can conclude that it is unlikely that any clearly illegal program exists.

> Considering that there is outrage about Trump commenting that he wishes to re-institute a "Muslim watch list", how is a metadata program that is essentially a meta-watchlist about all affiliations, creeds, etc., not expected to be rejected by the public?

The difference is in how the data is used. One is used to harass Muslims and their acquaintances. The other is used solely to find affiliates of a known threat to national security by anonymized ID, which then requires a court order to be deanonymized.

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

#236

Post by colanderman »

rand77763 wrote: post #210
colanderman wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why place any weight on Trump's wiretap claim? He was one of the loudest voices in the "birther" movement. That he's now president doesn't mean his self-serving crackpot conspiracy theories suddenly deserve credit.

Except multiple leaks have proven this isn't some crackpot conspiracy theory. Whether or not the NSA, CIA, or FBI were specifically targeting Trump, his communications, and ours, ARE intercepted and monitored.

Listen to yourself. What you're saying does not logically follow. That some people, generally, are monitored by the TLAs, does not in any way validate Trump's very specific claim that Trump Tower was wiretapped by Obama. Dragnet surveillance of the populace and targeted wiretap of a political opponent are very very different. One does not imply the other, and you can not walk back Trump's claim to pretend he meant something else. Words have meaning.

Think about it. Your rebuttal is akin to someone asserting that Trump specifically e-mailed Russian political contacts (on no evidence), and me claiming validation of that assertion when it turns out that yes, an e-mail address in Russia was one of 50 million to receive spam mail for Trump's shitty steaks. But it would be ridiculous for me to claim such a walk-back – even though what I just wrote actually happened [1] – because words have meaning.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/01/th...

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

#237

Post by unpythonic »

55555 wrote: post #222
mixmastamyk wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

George Washington was born in Virginia colony.

Right. Doesn't that make him British? Asking honestly... How could he have been American if the USA didn't exist yet. Obviously he was North American, but his citizenship at birth would have been British, no?

It's in the Constitution: "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President". - Article II, Section 1, Paragraph 5

As you can see, this covers the corner case you've identified.

Interestingly, the term citizen wasn't defined until the 14th amendment: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside"

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

#238

Post by dang »

youdontknowtho wrote: post #179
sctb wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

I'm not the one that came up with that term. I think it was Norm Ornstein? What I don't understand is how you think you can have a discussion with one side willing to do anything to subvert your position. My point is that republicans have been playing to win and Democrats have been playing along. If you value science or secular society there isn't another choice. You have to oppose them.

Even if Norm Ornstein came up with it, it counts as name-calling in an HN argument, which the site guidelines specifically ask you to avoid:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

More importantly, HN isn't supposed to be a place for political and partisan battle. We ban accounts that use the site primarily for that. Fortunately that doesn't seem to be your case, but comments like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13863594 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13860575 are definitely not ok here, so please don't do that.

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

#239

Post by dang »

datatan wrote: post #96
youdontknowtho wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great. Another half thought out cliché. That really helps. Thanks. Meanwhile the Republicans have been focused and disciplined for decades on policies that screw everyone but a few. The democrats are corrupt, but you can work with corrupt. The republicans have a well financed ideology machine that polices itself for dissention. Hopefully your trite cliché will disarm them and convince them that your aren't a pointy h…

You're completely hopeless. Grow up and stop acting like a petulant stuck up spoiled little brat.

The GP should not have crossed into incivility (and I chided them for it upthread), but this comment is way out of line, as is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13864219. We ban accounts that post like this. Please post civilly and substantively, or not at all.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

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

#240

Post by Dylan16807 »

danjoc wrote: post #183
willstrafach wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SSL does not really keep the domain name private at all either way though. That is no good solution to this, because your ISP needs to know how to route your request, right? Or, am I misunderstanding your point?

>SSL does not really keep the domain name private at all either way though. Sure it does. That's the whole point of SNI. SSL encrypts the request, including the domain name. If you share a single IP address with multiple vhosts, you have two options. SNI, which leaks the domain in the clear, or a certificate matching all the domains you vhost. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Name_Indication If a server hosts hil…

And in practice there will almost never be other domains on the same certificate that can cloak your actions. SNI takes a bit of metadata that is basically public and makes it fully public. If you want to hide the domain you need to use another method.
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