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The FBI tracking your browsing history without a warrant might be the beginning

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Re: The FBI tracking your browsing history without a warrant might be the beginning

#61
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The United States used to be an example to the world. As a nation it used to take its founding principles seriously. That started changing during the cold war and became most obvious post-9/11.

if that's true then the terrorists have won.

I think the seeds were planted in the pacific theater. After such a terrible surprise attack, the USA probably feels justified in preventing future attacks by all means possible. Isn't that what national security is all about? Also, cryptanalysis was highly successful in the second world war: the outcomes of many battles were determined by successful interception and decoding of enemy communications. The importance of knowing enemy secrets was proven.

The cold war marked the beginning of global surveillance: the USA and other world powers launched satellites pointed at the Earth in order to constantly watch their enemies. After 9/11, the definition of "enemy" apparently expanded to include a nation's own population. Thus the 21st century is the beginning of total surveillance of all humans on Earth, not just enemy military forces.

Terrorism really is effective. America was not defeated but it a certain way it was destroyed. It abandoned all the principles it stood for in the name of national security.

Re: The FBI tracking your browsing history without a warrant might be the beginning

#62

So the US, with its Constitution protecting the people from its Government, is allowing this whilst also considering Edward Snowden a traitor? It seems something has shifted 180 degrees since WW2, and the US Government has quietly won the game where the goal was to shit on the entirety of the history upon which it was built whilst, at precisely the same time, pointing to the Constitution as the reason why "America is…

> It seems something has shifted 180 degrees since WW2 The Twin Towers were destroyed, the Pentagon was damaged, and an additional plane was crashed, via a successful conspiracy that could have been detected by blanket, passive surveillance. That's what changed. The threat model the US defense department is concerned about has changed significantly since WWII. The threat to Pax Americana is not direct military interv…

I wouldn't even say it is just the threat model that changed. Humans in developed markets now have a very unhealthy relationship with death to the point where any policy that minimizes death is acceptable consequences be damned.

We no longer see death as a normal and natural part of life like previous generations did because it's not as prevalent as it once was.

The threat model you just described in another era would have more likely been met with acceptance if the alternative was to give up our hard fought for freedoms.

Re: The FBI tracking your browsing history without a warrant might be the beginning

#63

I can't even imagine how muted the Civil Rights era would have been had the FBI had this power back then.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_suicide_lette... Let's not pretend that things are materially worse than they were back then. We certainly aren't blackmailing civil rights leaders into suicide anymore within the FBI.

How do we know they aren't?

King letter only came to light because citizens stole it from an FBI office. Maybe the FBI just has tighter security now.

Re: The FBI tracking your browsing history without a warrant might be the beginning

#64
post #59
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

incarceration rate of the United States of America is one of the highest in the world i love the “freedom” meme for america

But criminals still need to be imprisoned, free country or no.

I wish this were the case, but they seem to disproportionately lock up African Americans while giving the rich white people a free pass on crime.

Re: The FBI tracking your browsing history without a warrant might be the beginning

#65

So the US, with its Constitution protecting the people from its Government, is allowing this whilst also considering Edward Snowden a traitor? It seems something has shifted 180 degrees since WW2, and the US Government has quietly won the game where the goal was to shit on the entirety of the history upon which it was built whilst, at precisely the same time, pointing to the Constitution as the reason why "America is…

America has been over for a very long time. I know I'll get downvoted for saying this, but this is something that more people need to hear because the fact they can vote affords citizens the cognitive dissonance they need to believe the propaganda they were taught about the US federal government. I'd still choose America over China any day, but that doesn't mean I think the United States is a free country; it's a fre…

'a country? It's a free-range farm.'

[OT and (hope so) un-biased:] 'From the Land of the Free, to the Land of the Lost' ?? We used to love America. Is there something your blind at, maybe ahead ?

You know...there once was a story, about a snake not understanding 'step'... (-;

Sry, too offtopic...^^

Re: The FBI tracking your browsing history without a warrant might be the beginning

#66

> law enforcement agencies such as the FBI and CIA can continue to look through the browsing history of American citizens without the need for a warrant. I'm always curious what the heck does this mean exactly . - Do they seize your computer and literally copy the browser history from any/all installed browsers? - Do they ask your ISP to pipe DNS requests from your IP to them? - Do they wiretap your line or cellular…

In the case of the laws discussed in this article, the FBI can gain access to the logs of one's ISP (or VPN provider) without a warrant. So they can trace a suspect's TCP traffic without any duty to notify anyone they're doing so.

Re: The FBI tracking your browsing history without a warrant might be the beginning

#67
Isn't it common to assume that everything connected to the internet is illegally monitored, recorded, and exploited to the fullest extent?

After Snowden, how could anyone not be aware of this? You see the director of the NSA blatantly, and provably, lying under oath. Multiple whistleblowers saying this stuff has been going on for almost two decades. These agencies operate outside of the law already... regardless of what any legislation states they are, or are not, allowed to do.

Isn't this already obvious? Not in a conspiratorial paranoid sort of way, but I mean, just look at the world pragmatically. Maybe I lost all faith years ago, but this is not surprising to me in the least.

All you can really do is look out for yourself, if you have the technical know-how, and understand what to avoid doing. In an ideal world you don't solve problems like this, you solve them through public policy, not technological workarounds. But we don't live in an ideal world... most of the public is unequipped to discuss the gradual, invisible, insidious undermining of their civil liberties through ever-present opaque technologies.

Re: The FBI tracking your browsing history without a warrant might be the beginning

#68
post #36

I don't buy into the end times doom and gloom here, some of it downright hysterical. I do think there are serious issues and the scale of government reach into our lives has expanded dramatically with technology. I hope we see a sort of eventual awakening to what the scale of potential abuse is and we see more rights extended into the long neglected digital space. The law moves slow (too slow in this case) and it is…

There are serious issues with the scale of everyone's reach into everyone's lives, thanks to the location-destroying effect of modern bidirectional peer-to-peer anonymously-routed communications technology.

The government, like everyone else, from corporations to individuals, is trying to keep up and to figure out what it all means.

Re: The FBI tracking your browsing history without a warrant might be the beginning

#69
post #31

So the US, with its Constitution protecting the people from its Government, is allowing this whilst also considering Edward Snowden a traitor? It seems something has shifted 180 degrees since WW2, and the US Government has quietly won the game where the goal was to shit on the entirety of the history upon which it was built whilst, at precisely the same time, pointing to the Constitution as the reason why "America is…

>China isn't pretending to be free. What does a sentiment like this even mean? Take a look at China's own propaganda, they very much celebrate their idea of what freedoms their citizens have.

"freedom" and "democracy" are two of the twelve "core socialist values" that are plastered almost anywhere you look in China.

Re: The FBI tracking your browsing history without a warrant might be the beginning

#70

So the US, with its Constitution protecting the people from its Government, is allowing this whilst also considering Edward Snowden a traitor? It seems something has shifted 180 degrees since WW2, and the US Government has quietly won the game where the goal was to shit on the entirety of the history upon which it was built whilst, at precisely the same time, pointing to the Constitution as the reason why "America is…

The United States used to be an example to the world. As a nation it used to take its founding principles seriously. That started changing during the cold war and became most obvious post-9/11.

> The United States used to be an example to the world.

Or so the americans say. Who else ?

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