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United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden

justice.gov

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Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden

#211

Post by 317070 »

nostrademons wrote: post #137
Rooster61 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not trying to plug Andrew Yang here, but this is a big part of his platform. He's advocating for a right-to-data bill that would make any and all data collected and transmitted yours. If that goes into place, your data immediately becomes subject to these amendments. It does away with some of the legal grey area that surrounds data.

Curious how this handles data that is not specifically about one person, but is about the relationships between many people? Facebook's social graph, for instance: is the fact that I am friends with someone on Facebook my property, their property, or Facebook's property? Or this conversation we're having on HN: you could argue that we each own our words, but the conversation itself (including contextual replies, quot…

It is the basic premise for GDPR in the EU. While convoluted (it did not end up that bad, or as bad as you'd predict), it actually delivers this idea in a workable way.

Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden

#212

Post by behringer »

tyri_kai_psomi wrote: post #209
okmokmz wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's like someone being stalked by a police officer being told to call the police

It's more along the lines of, and the maturity required to understand that, there are two sides to every story and the people on the "other side" are human beings, too, and in fact, not your enemy. Average Americans most of them, believe it or not. Chances are some of them have been your friend, neighbor, church member, frat bro/sorority sis, etc.

The "other" side here is looking for an Orwellian dystopian society. They aren't nice people.

Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden

#214

Post by geggam »

tssva wrote: post #163
MereInterest wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, 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." Any law that allows the NSA carte blanche to observe my communication is a law author…

I'm not aware of any law that gives the NSA carte blanche to observe my communications. Can you site the specific law?

Executive orders count ?

https://epic.org/privacy/surveillance/12333/

Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden

#215

Post by txcwpalpha »

mattkrause wrote: post #187
txcwpalpha wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My original comment was apparently unclear in this, but in regards to the 4th amendment protections, there isn't a distinction between "things" being sent via mail and "speech" being sent by mail. Some letters of "speech" are not covered by the 4th amendment, just as some bulk shipments of "things" are covered by the 4th amendment.

That distinction isn't drawn in the 4th Amendment itself. It comes from from 39 CFR § 233.3, which defines the rules and procedures for searching mail ("mail covers"). There, a distinction is drawn between (3)Sealed mail is mail that under postal laws and regulations is included within a class of mail maintained by the Postal Service for the transmission of letters sealed against inspection... and (4)Unsealed mail is…

Sealed vs Unsealed has more nuanced definitions than just "letter"/speech and "item"/things, though. If you look a bit further past the quotes you provided, you'll see:

>Sealed mail includes: First-Class Mail; Priority Mail; Priority Mail Express;

Shipped packages ("things") can be (but aren't always) sent as First Class or Priority Mail, and thus would fall under the "sealed" category as well.

OTOH, you can also send normal letters (not periodicals or marketing material) as "standard mail" which would make them unsealed (I don't know why you would do this as opposed to sending it as First Class or Priority, but you can).

Basically, USPS provides a service where, regardless of what you are sending in most cases, you can choose whether or not you want it protected by the 4th amendment. The origins of this "choice" (and why it isn't the standard to always being protected) is where I am more confused. And when talking about parallels to electronic media, I think this is an important point, because if this is the case for physical mail, it also stands to reason that electronic media for some reason might not default to being protected by the 4th amendment, either.

Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden

#216

Post by michaelmrose »

bb88 wrote: post #42
excalibur wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try the 4th Amendment: > The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, 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.

If you're an originalist (and I'm not saying that I am), data in transmit is not necessarily protected by that amendment If your data has left your house, is it really your data, or is it Google's say?

I don't think that logic even works from an originalist perspective. If the bank holds a safe deposit box on your behalf it doesn't become the banks property unless you abandon it and searching it is no less legally problematic because its lies within the banks property.

One doesn't even have to reach into the realms of tech not imagined at the founders time to find useful analogies.

Furthermore the idea that a document written hundreds of years ago can't be reinterpreted in the context of framers intentions and new reality is fundamentally broken.

It means you have to rewrite from scratch every century.

Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden

#219

Post by bumby »

jonnybgood wrote: post #170
colejohnson66 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The PATRIOT Act is a big one[0] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act

It would be helpful if you could cite specifically where it says the NSA can do this. I don't see it anywhere on the wikipedia page.

Sec. 201. Authority to intercept wire, oral, and electronic communications relating to terrorism. [0]

Sec. 202. Authority to intercept wire, oral, and electronic communications relating to computer fraud and abuse offenses. [0]

Sec. 217. Interception of computer trespasser communications. [0]

"by striking ‘‘wire and oral’’ and inserting ‘‘wire, oral, and electronic’’"[0]

Allows federal agents to follow sophisticated terrorists trained to evade detection. For years, law enforcement has been able to use "roving wiretaps" to investigate ordinary crimes, including drug offenses and racketeering. A roving wiretap can be authorized by a federal judge to apply to a particular suspect, rather than a particular phone or communications device. Because international terrorists are sophisticated and trained to thwart surveillance by rapidly changing locations and communication devices such as cell phones, the Act authorized agents to seek court permission to use the same techniques in national security investigations to track terrorists.[1]

This was just a cursory look into the Act. To be fair, it looks like there is a judge involved but who knows how rigorous the approval procedure is. It didn't read to me as a 'carte blanche' approval, but again, it may be in the eye of the beholder of the agency/judge.

[0] https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-107hr3162enr/pdf/B...

[1] https://www.justice.gov/archive/ll/highlights.htm

Re: United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against Edward Snowden

#220

Post by alexanderdmitri »

rblion wrote: post #196

This will only attract more attention to him and what he has to say, won't it? If non-tech people did forget about him, now they will recall and wonder what came of all this.

General public conflates him with Assange, who had his own flurry of press recently.
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