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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

#151

Post by tpmx »

jhayward wrote: post #142
TheTester wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you are quite rich and powerful, saying that what Assange has done is mostly "asshattery" is dishonest, yes he has had flukes but consider the mental state of someone being prosecuted and hunted by the most powerful and corrupt people in our planet, mostly what Assange has done s good and denying and calling him an asshat is dishonest and shows a clear bias on your part

> mostly what Assange has done s good No, colluding with the GRU to create false documents interfering with the US Presidential election, resulting in the disaster that was Trump's election can not, in any sense, be called 'good'.

For the record: That's not what I wrote about above.

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

#152

Post by anaerobicover »

pmiller2 wrote: post #145
shkkmo wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may have been a bit overstated, but the core point is solid. One of the main reasons the war on drugs failed is a lack of voluntary submission. Pure enforcement, even with the progressive strengthing of enforcement powers, was simply unable to stop drugs being widely available in the USA. Our society runs on trust and voluntary submission to the rule of law. If either of those went away in a signifant fashion, the…

Except you have it backwards. The "War on Drugs" came about as a way for the state to exert power over youth and minorities. > “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people,” former Nixon domestic policy chief John Ehrlichman told Harper’s writer Dan Baum for the April cover story published Tuesday. > “You understand what I’m saying? We knew we c…

The original publication was at Harper's Magazine, not CNN, but this infamous quotation has dubious provenance and veracity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ehrlichman#Drug_war_quote

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

#153

Post by CrazyPyroLinux »

jhayward wrote: post #142
TheTester wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you are quite rich and powerful, saying that what Assange has done is mostly "asshattery" is dishonest, yes he has had flukes but consider the mental state of someone being prosecuted and hunted by the most powerful and corrupt people in our planet, mostly what Assange has done s good and denying and calling him an asshat is dishonest and shows a clear bias on your part

> mostly what Assange has done s good No, colluding with the GRU to create false documents interfering with the US Presidential election, resulting in the disaster that was Trump's election can not, in any sense, be called 'good'.

More Trump Derangement Syndrome spotted!

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

#154

Post by austincheney »

maybelsyrup wrote: post #30

The thing I still can't fathom, all these years after Bush II and then Snowden, is just how little human beings really care about mass surveillance. Yeah, the Snowden leaks made a splash, but the media cycle turned over a couple weeks later and everyone moved onto other things. It's like, if you're of a certain age, you had to read 1984 or whatever in school. You'd think "well, no one would stand for that sort of thi…

That is why I find most interesting about social media generally. Many people seem to care about government mass data collection all the while voluntarily and intentionally providing to private companies from which the government purchases it. Having your cake and eating it too.

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

#155

Post by anaerobicover »

tick_tock_tick wrote: post #129
WalterBright wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The 2nd Amendment is always a great point in these kind of debates if any other right had half as many restrictions on it people would be on the streets. Requiring an ID to vote is viewed as completely unacceptable by many but the very same people think it's perfectly reasonable to require it for other rights.

The right of voting is more essential, however, it is the sine qua non of all the others. If we fall down to the point where guns are required to indeed defend the rights, they functionally are not existing any more.

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

#156

Post by danans »

fredgrott wrote: post #134
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…

it is often stated that locks are not for honest people, but to keep dishonest people out. can be applied to US constitution as additional laws needed not for those who WANT to uphold the US constitution but those who want to violate it. Most of you probably already saw a Michigan-congress rep submit a bill to violate the US constitution by trying to force twitter posters to register with Michigan to post facts becau…

> it is often stated that locks are not for honest people, but to keep dishonest people out.

The saying goes the other way: "Locks are for honest people", implying that criminals aren't deterred by locks, and will just break a window if they want to get in.

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

#157

Post by nobody9999 »

sneak wrote: post #148
nobody9999 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Corporations don’t generally have guns or handcuffs that they can use on arbitrary people. The state does, which is why there’s such a danger associated with them being able to access the data. And that makes it perfectly fine for corporations to do so? Because they can't rough you up or arrest you? Please. As I said: ...complaining about big, bad government (which isn't wrong, but just a tiny portion of the larger…

There’s a big difference between being under surveillance because people want to manipulate you into giving them money, and being under surveillance so that you can be kidnapped at gunpoint to stop you from whatever it was you were doing (even if it is all legal). Corporate surveillance is bad, sure. But, even when maximally bad, it doesn’t pose that grave a threat to a society’s correct functioning. When the state g…

>Corporate surveillance is bad, sure. But, even when maximally bad, it doesn’t pose that grave a threat to a society’s correct functioning.

Except it does. Especially in this case, since the government purchased the data collected via corporate surveillance. Or did you miss that part?

If the data hadn't been collected via corporate surveillance,the DoD would have nothing to buy, would they?

We can vote out of government those who would allow violations of our privacy (whether or not we do so is a different, but equally important discussion). We cannot do so with corporations.

Given the circumstance in this case (the DoD purchasing this data from private corporations rather than collecting it independently), including corporate surveillance in the discussion is critically important.

When one's paycheck depends on a not understanding certain things, it's often difficult to get that person to understand those things. Some food for thought, friend.

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

#158

Post by jnwatson »

The US Intelligence Agencies have been using this trick for a long time. They ask the Brits for intel on US persons and they trade for intel on Brits.

The only difference is they go through a commercial entity now. If it is legal to trade with the Brits, it is legal to go through a private entity. Data is big business.

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

#159

Post by spydum »

auiya wrote: post #95

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…

Agree, buying sampled Netflow data would technically hit this bar. Hard to know if it is troublesome without knowing the purpose. Are we using this for analyzing citizens traffic and correlating with other identifiers... Or are we analyzing traffic patterns to critical infrastructure and/or foreign nations?
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