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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

#241

Post by Dylan16807 »

willstrafach wrote: post #106
rbg246 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

Let's start with an easy step. Only intercept the communications of identified targets, not the masses. There, 7 billion people get the ability to speak freely. A solid start. That's without needing to stop any of the first 6 things you listed. The seventh one is a bit vague, detect via what method? Don't do it by tapping all the ISPs.

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

#242

Post by mirimir »

waqf wrote: post #169
mirimir wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

By demagoguery I mean demagoguery — I mean highly charged oratory, persuasive whipping-up rhetoric ( https://youtu.be/ZFD01r6ersw?t=40 ).

Yes, but isn't that a prerequisite for political success?

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

#243

Post by mirimir »

memmcgee wrote: post #136
mirimir wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Doesn't look too promising so far.

It's too soon to say. If he does end up serving a constituency, it'll arguably be one that's been long underserved. But personally, rueful cynicism is about the best that I can manage.

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

#244

Post by youdontknowtho »

Bartweiss wrote: post #193
youdontknowtho wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It means primary Feinstein from the left. Even if you lose you will have scared her. It means you don't surrender the issue. It means that you use this as an opportunity to hit Paul on the issues he's bad on. You thank him for making sense for once and the point out how he's opposed to the voting rights act. I'm not saying that we should be soft on democrats. I'm saying that they are the only party that doesn't activ…

> I'm saying that they are the only party that doesn't actively portray you as a villain to their base. On surveillance? They do. High-profile Democrats consistently talk about privacy advocates and encryption developers/users as threats to the security of the country. This is my point - surveillance is perhaps the most nastily bipartisan issue going. More broadly: I absolutely support primary challenges from the out…

McCain is not a moderate. Not even remotely. This is my point. You can't judge the republicans on this one issue. He's also opposed to torture. That doesn't make him any less crazy on anything else. If McCain had his way in 08 we would already be at war with Russia.

There are more things wrong with American than surveillance. The Republicans are making them all worse.

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

#245

Post by youdontknowtho »

mythrwy wrote: post #229
youdontknowtho wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Someone else said it first isn't really a good excuse for that kind of rhetoric though. I understand you feel strongly about your beliefs but you really are out of line. Everyone else is not evil nor wrong for not supporting the Democratic party in all they do.

That's not even remotely what I'm saying. I'm not saying that people are Evil for not supporting the Democratic party in all they do.

I'm saying that the Democrats are the only option for change. The Republicans are opposed to evidence based decision making. My point is that Rand Paul is not a moderate because he's got a good position on this one issue. On other issues he's extreme. Without some strategy to deal with the Democratic party's problems there's no way to get anything done, because the Republican's are completely captured.

So far, people have been downvoting me and replying with pablum about party politics being the problem. Well, no one has told me how you roll back the surveillance state or draw down the military budget. In fact, the "discussion" is really just people saying how bad it is and how RMS was right. Without getting involved in politics there is no way to roll it back. If you have to get involved in politics how do you do it in a way that succeeds? I'm saying that there is a way to do that. Everyone who has responded has said...I don't like your attitude.

My larger point is that defeating the surveillance state is no good if we have large numbers of people getting lead poison from their water. If we roll back militarism but lose coastal cities due to the rising water level...is that a victory? The Republicans are worse then the Dem's so we should concentrate on forcing the Dems to take the correct positions.

If you don't want to talk politics, fine. Don't put words in my mouth, though. If I thought the Republicans could be useful I would say we should use them.

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

#246

Post by youdontknowtho »

datatan wrote: post #190
youdontknowtho wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying republicans are corrupt. Democrats are corrupt. I can work with corrupt. Republicans are crazy and dangerous. Keep fiddling while Rome burns. Hopefully no one will be aggressive to you...but then you never really had to worry about that did you?

Look at your posts in this thread. Then ask yourself who the "crazy" one is. Hint: it isn't the Republicans.

Sure. Now it's name calling. Great. You win.

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

#247

Post by youdontknowtho »

Bartweiss wrote: post #194
youdontknowtho wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

On surveillance? I genuinely don't know. Across Bill Clinton, Obama, Hillary Clinton, Pelosi, Feinstein, and the rest, there's really no evidence that the Democrats are any more open-minded than the Republicans. From a federal government perspective, the intelligence community is a tool; it's not a terminal goal (where I think one party is obviously more reasonable than the other), it's an intermediate step to achiev…

I agree with you that techno-solutionism, as some might call it, is a big part of the solution. I just think that the Republicans are so wrong on other issues that there is no point allying with them on any issues. There's more to American life than surveillance. It's huge, but so is the voting rights act. (That's just one example. I won't beat you up with more.)

You are right, the foreign policy elites in both parties are largely homogenous. That being said, I don't think that it's possible to build a coalition with the Republicans that doesn't betray something else that you hold dear. I think that you have a better chance of building a coalition inside the democratic party that can move the center of power away from the foreign policy elites.

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

#248

Post by youdontknowtho »

3131s wrote: post #198
youdontknowtho wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying republicans are corrupt. Democrats are corrupt. I can work with corrupt. Republicans are crazy and dangerous. Keep fiddling while Rome burns. Hopefully no one will be aggressive to you...but then you never really had to worry about that did you?

Why do you make that assumption about me? I get your gripe with the GOP. We all do. But your posts don't have much depth or add anything new to the discussion.

My posts are the discussion. Everyone keeps saying that they don't like party politics. I'm saying that, like it or not, if you want to do something about mass surveillance you will have to do something in the Democratic party, because the Republican positions on a host of other issues will be antithetical to some other position that you hold dear. Want to support NASA? They don't. Think homosexuals should be able to marry? They don't. Think that life evolved on earth? They don't.

What I meant by the last line of my comment, is that the Republicans are willing to do some really bad stuff to the least powerful among us in service of their ideals. It isn't going to effect you and me. It's going to effect the people that clean my building. There are more issues on the table than mass surveillance. If you ally with the Republicans on this issue you empower them on those issues. We need strategies to break the Republican party, that can only be done by a massive coordinated defeat and then causing irreparable fissures between their coalitions.

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

#249

Post by unclebucknasty »

grandalf wrote: post #217
unclebucknasty wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only to the extent that is typically the sitting president's responsibility to jump on board with the campaign rhetoric of his/her own party No. In this case, simply carrying out the normal duties of the president could have been seen as political, given the context. Obama himself later mentioned this and indicated it was why he hadn't acted sooner, especially with Trump already making the "rigged election" charges…

> 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…

I have heard this critique repeated frequently and was pretty sure it would be trotted out here.

I am not referring specifically to that document, but to the repeated public assertion that the intelligence agencies had reached a consensus, combined with the reality that the assertion itself went unchallenged by those agencies. They could have easily denied those claims. Yes, I am aware that this area was not the specific purview of all agencies, however, the united front represented the intelligence community coalescing around this finding.

And, you assail the document, but do you expect them to divulge sources and methods?

>But it all rests on trusting the agencies

No. It actually doesn't. You look at all of the other evidence and ask whether the agencies' explanation is plausible in that context. The strange affinty that Trump has for Putin, the inexplicable modification of key RNC platform elements in favor of Putin, the telegraphing of lifting sanctions, the connections and contacts between Trump associates and Russia, the lying about said contacts, the entire Wikileaks operation, and on and on.

Via raw common sense alone, it is actually difficult to believe any other conclusion except that found by our intelligence agencies. What are you suggesting, that we instead believe Russian denials? Or that we believe some conspiracy theory that HRC was directing the intelligence agencies or they otherwise went rogue to elect her by making up a conclusion that happened to make perfect sense, and which many observers had already reached?

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

#250

Post by willstrafach »

grandalf wrote: post #233
willstrafach wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ac…

Personally I do not have enough knowledge on the circumstances to credibly argue one way or another with regards to the alleged meddling.

> 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.

This is not the case. The declassified version only had open source evidence. In combination with the fact that the general public is not going to know how exactly to read an ICA or read between the lines, the release was not very helpful, as it understandably lead many to think that they were presenting their full case, rather than the reality of "evidence is too sensitive so here is some analysis of RT!" being what they put in the ICA. Definitely not a good strategy, as I said, this would have been far better for critical discussion if they figured out a way to declassify actual evidence.

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