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Pentagon surveilling Americans without a warrant, Senator Wyden reveals

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Re: Pentagon surveilling Americans without a warrant, Senator Wyden reveals

#91

Post by totalZero »

nickysielicki wrote: post #14
ssklash wrote: post #4

I knew before even reading that the senator would be Ron Wyden. He's a treasure and the most tech-literate politician I know of. Oregon is lucky to have him, and we could use a lot more like him.

Respectfully, the most tech-literate politician is without a doubt Thomas Massie, who went to MIT for both his undergrad in electrical engineering and his masters in mechanical engineering, who formed a decently successful startup working on novel computer input mechanisms. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Massie#Early_life,_educ...

Thomas Massie is an example of what I like to call the "tetazoo paradox": As a person gets more adept regarding technology, their capacity to communicate with laypeople about technology diminishes. The best advocates for tech literacy are not the most tech-literate, but rather the ones in the middle ground who are smart enough to understand the technology and patient enough to communicate about it with laypeople who are a few eureka moments behind.

We occasionally find wonderful people like Richard Feynman who can sidestep this inverse relationship, but not frequently.

Re: Pentagon surveilling Americans without a warrant, Senator Wyden reveals

#92

Post by clairity »

xinniethepooh wrote: post #68
clairity wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i'd go one step further and prohibit our government from surveilling any non-governmental foreigner without an auditable warrant, and strictly prohibit corporations with heavy sanctions from sharing any non-governmental surveillance with the government whatsoever (on top of existing privacy laws of course). the government should be in service, not in command, of the people.

'Any non-governmental foreigner' includes the vast number of non-official-cover spies sent by other nations. The government is to serve the people, but it must balance the fact that other world powers and enemy nations are seeking to undermine the nation.

then get a warrant since spying is probable cause. but no warrant, no surveillance. and the warrant should be reviewable/challengeable by more than a secret/military court. transparency and balance of power are crucial to maintaining a service (rather than a domineering) orientation.

also, foreign governments in general spy with non-cover agents not to undermine our (US) government secretly, but to get an edge for their own power and prestige. undermining activities usually happen either with government agents for high secrecy operations (like stuxnet) or relatively openly if obscurely (disinformation/propaganda campaigns).

the long-running encroachment against our liberties has been largely due to fundamental misgivings/misunderstandings like 'everyone is out to get us'. those are the same impulses that led us to performative responses to a pandemic rather than relatively minimal but targeted federal action (e.g., honest information dissemination and financial support for r&d and the at-risk/marginalized).

Re: Pentagon surveilling Americans without a warrant, Senator Wyden reveals

#93

Post by WalterBright »

billytetrud wrote: post #2

Unsurprising, but still disappointing. Actually I'm glad someone is trying to hold them accountable. It seems silly tho that we need to pass a law to uphold what's already written into the constitution. It highlights that the constitution only has teeth in some legal contexts, primarily where a court case is being heard on a citizen being prosecuted. Conditionality seems to not have any bearing on preventing agencies…

The Constitution is just a piece of paper. It is powerless if people ignore it.

It's the same with presidents, kings, and dictators. If people just stopped doing what they said, they become nothing.

There's an incident in Soviet history where Stalin was sure they were coming to arrest and execute him. He was shaking and completely powerless. But they were just coming to affirm his power.

The Arab Spring came about because people stopped following orders.

When Nixon was on his way out, the military decided to not follow his orders (so I've read).

The US will end when people just decide Constitution Shmonstitution.

Gun control is neither here nor there for me personally, but what greatly concerns me is if the Bill of Rights is ignored wrt the 2nd Amendment, then what about the rest of the Bill of Rights? Is that next?

Re: Pentagon surveilling Americans without a warrant, Senator Wyden reveals

#94

Post by throwaway8581 »

koolba wrote: post #52
howenterprisey wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just in case anyone sees that and thinks it was due to any sort of principles or concerns about mass surveillance, a quote from the article: "Thank you to our GREAT Republican Congressmen & Congresswomen on your incredibly important blockage last night of a FISA Bill that would just perpetuate the abuse that produced the Greatest Political Crime In the History of the U.S., the Russian Witch-Hunt. Fantastic Job!"

Who would have a better understanding of the issue at hand than someone who’s campaign was spied on by political operatives leveraging FISA powers?

Umm, orange man bad.

Re: Pentagon surveilling Americans without a warrant, Senator Wyden reveals

#95

Post by auiya »

So Wyden's issue is the DoD is buying access to these data sets from private industry? I'm not sure there has been a court ruling declaring this practice to be illegal, and it might very well be legal depending on the dataset's coverage and what it's intended use would be. The DoD's OGC are not stupid when it comes to these sorts of matters, and surely they've had to weigh in on this collection point already. I guess this is why Wyden is trying to pass legislation for this practice to be illegal unless explicitly directed by court order to do so? I'm betting the DoD has already anticipated this and filters out the domestic traffic they don't care about prior to ingest - I think they have to do so by law anyway. So Congress can pass a law saying a court order is needed first to buy these communications datasets, but the FISC will continue to be a rubber stamp for the IC, and not at all the friction barrier the legislators are hoping for. This strikes me as posturing and nothing more.

Re: Pentagon surveilling Americans without a warrant, Senator Wyden reveals

#96

Post by xinniethepooh »

maybelsyrup wrote: post #39
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't watch because I am at work but the NSA conducts foreign surveillance. If a foreign target talks to a US citizen that's "unwittingly" surveiling a US citizen. Do you believe that it's alright for the NSA to conduct surveillance on foreign threats?

> Do you believe that it's alright for the NSA to conduct surveillance on foreign threats? I like this question, but I think there's a better one: "do you believe it's alright for the NSA to exist ?"

I like this question, but I think there's a better one: "do you think there is no legitimate threat that the NSA addresses?"

Re: Pentagon surveilling Americans without a warrant, Senator Wyden reveals

#97

Post by [deleted] »

HDMI_Cable wrote: post #23

The Third Party Doctrine is one of the things that is so obviously out of date, and needs to be changed. When so much of our lives (to the point where it is our lives) are online, why is there no expectation of privacy? --- [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine

[deleted]

Re: Pentagon surveilling Americans without a warrant, Senator Wyden reveals

#98

Post by rootusrootus »

WalterBright wrote: post #93
billytetrud wrote: post #2

Unsurprising, but still disappointing. Actually I'm glad someone is trying to hold them accountable. It seems silly tho that we need to pass a law to uphold what's already written into the constitution. It highlights that the constitution only has teeth in some legal contexts, primarily where a court case is being heard on a citizen being prosecuted. Conditionality seems to not have any bearing on preventing agencies…

The Constitution is just a piece of paper. It is powerless if people ignore it. It's the same with presidents, kings, and dictators. If people just stopped doing what they said, they become nothing. There's an incident in Soviet history where Stalin was sure they were coming to arrest and execute him. He was shaking and completely powerless. But they were just coming to affirm his power. The Arab Spring came about be…

> It is powerless if people ignore it.

Indeed we just had a bit of a lesson in the recent past which showed exactly how dependent our country is (and probably most other countries as well) on shared values and tradition. The Constitution isn't all-powerful as a piece of paper, its real power is as an idea.

Re: Pentagon surveilling Americans without a warrant, Senator Wyden reveals

#99

Post by clairity »

tsimionescu wrote: post #67
clairity wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i'd go one step further and prohibit our government from surveilling any non-governmental foreigner without an auditable warrant, and strictly prohibit corporations with heavy sanctions from sharing any non-governmental surveillance with the government whatsoever (on top of existing privacy laws of course). the government should be in service, not in command, of the people.

The text of the US constitution explicitly talks about the rights of people, not citizens - so I would argue that the constitution itself has always prohibited this. However, there is a long history of interpreting 'people' to mean specific groups - from only white people to only citizens.

yes, i'd generally agree, but not everyone does. and we see that politicians are relentlessly driven to expand their own power, so soemtimes we need to spell out limitations like this explicitly.

Re: Pentagon surveilling Americans without a warrant, Senator Wyden reveals

#100

Post by nobody9999 »

adventured wrote: post #36
atatatat wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> he'd never win election to begin with though How do you persevere in the face of this type of media blacklisting? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMdrwhDoZjQ

I didn't watch your link (I rarely follow stray YouTube links). However regarding Ron Paul, I don't envy what he has endured in his lifetime from moronic opponents on both sides of the political aisle. The YouTube video of him being harangued & attacked by zombie anti-drug zealots on the Morton Downey Jr show is enough to feel sorry for him for a lifetime. Persevere, though? Anyone that dares to tell the truth today…

>Persevere, though? Anyone that dares to tell the truth today is begging for a blacklisting.

Indeed. Liz Cheney's fate[0] is a great example of that.

[0] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/05/12/liz-...

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