Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Pentagon surveilling Americans without a warrant, Senator Wyden reveals

vice.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 265 posts

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

#161

Post by rayiner »

sophacles wrote: post #108
rayiner wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. No, it talks about "the people." As in the preamble: "We the People of the United States." > However, there is a long history of interpreting 'people' to mean specific groups - from only white people to only citizens. Playing with the interpretation of…

The first half of your post contradicts the second half of your post.

No it doesn’t. The condition of slavery wasn’t addressed by interpreting “people” to exclude enslaved people, additional words were added to distinguish enslaved people from free people. But free Black people, for example, were always included in the count of “free persons.” Other laws may have imposed limits. In 1789 women couldn’t vote and in 2021 children still can’t. But they were all included in the definition of “people.” Those other laws changed but the meaning of “people” didn’t.

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

#162

Post by cronix »

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…

I think part of the reason, maybe by design, is it took 7 years to be ruled illegal. I'm actually surprised it didn't take longer. A lot happens in 7 years.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/03/edward-snowd...

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

#163

Post by Apocryphon »

someguydave wrote: post #126
verall wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet he is publicly against Net Neutrality and doesn't believe in climate change. Tribal affiliation takes priority over technical ability I guess.

your tribe or his tribe?

> On April 10, 2019, Massie got in a tense exchange with former Secretary of State John Kerry during Kerry's testimony to the House Oversight and Reform Committee when Massie called Kerry's political science degree from Yale University a "pseudoscience degree" and called Kerry's position on climate change "pseudoscience." Kerry responded, "Are you serious? I mean this is really a serious happening here?"

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

#164

Post by howenterprisey »

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?

The campaign was certainly surveilled. Have you seen any indication it was unwarranted? I found https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/03/doj-fbi-review-of-s..., which suggests nothing untoward was going on. As I said, I don't think Trump was approaching this in a particularly well-considered way.

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

#165

Post by [deleted] »

Nasrudith wrote: post #115
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

Because they wanted to take as much as they could without any pesky constitutional rights getting in the way.

[deleted]

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

#166

Post by boomboomsubban »

kemitchell wrote: post #109
boomboomsubban wrote: post #34

I don't like how this article buries the important parts of this story. There is good reason to think that this surveillance by public info is legal currently, there was a court ruling stating that's the case. A law is necessary to codify that this practice is a violation Fourth Amendment, and Wyden is currently one of a handful of senators trying to get it passed. The story eventually mentions this, but the beginnin…

I'm not familiar with any such ruling. Which do you have in mind?

Sorry, I'm basing this off other articles on this subject I've read recently but my 30 second search didn't locate them. The DoD has some reason to believe their interpretation is correct though, a law clarifying it's not would still be a good idea.

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

#167

Post by koolba »

howenterprisey wrote: post #164
koolba wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The campaign was certainly surveilled. Have you seen any indication it was unwarranted? I found https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/03/doj-fbi-review-of-s... , which suggests nothing untoward was going on. As I said, I don't think Trump was approaching this in a particularly well-considered way.

> The campaign was certainly surveilled. Have you seen any indication it was unwarranted?

If it was any other campaign and there was sigint that a foreign power was trying to influence the campaign then they would have reached out to the candidate to alert him as such. But the intention here was not to prevent foreign tampering. It was to use the FISA process as an excuse to surveil the campaign wholesale.

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

#168

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

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…

There's a chance that it's actually not that huge of a deal? We like to be dramatic here like the sky is falling.

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

#169

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

nobody9999 wrote: post #113
sneak wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most people don't care much about privacy for themselves ("I have nothing to hide") and are happy to let military intelligence daddy read their emails, as long as it doesn't affect their life. They remain ignorant of the fact that this means that people who actually do need privacy for purposes of organization against the harmful elements of the status quo (civil rights leaders, labor leaders, political party…

>I think most people don't care much about privacy for themselves ("I have nothing to hide") and are happy to let military intelligence daddy read their emails, as long as it doesn't affect their life. I'd point out that the DoD is purchasing this data from private entities, not collecting it themselves. As such, I'd say that it's less about government surveillance specifically, and more about surveillance in general…

I don't like it but it really is just the govt adapting to the new connected landscape.

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

#170

Post by enraged_camel »

SR2Z wrote: post #124
pmiller2 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Law is primarily about voluntary submission, not power. Let me know how that works out for you, k? I can assure you that although state power ultimately comes from the people, the state most definitely will enforce its laws against you, should you break them. That is, unless you're rich and powerful enough to afford the best lawyers and a handful of legislators.

The state is rarely capable of enforcing the law on more than a small minority of lawbreakers because enforcing the law is expensive. If there's a busy road where people are routinely speeding, the state is actually incapable of pulling every single speeder over and ticketing them. Instead, the state relies on setting reasonable speed limits and scaring drivers with the prospect of fines. This isn't a personal philos…

>> The state is rarely capable of enforcing the law on more than a small minority of lawbreakers because enforcing the law is expensive.

This makes no difference because nobody wants to play Russian roulette with regards to risking whether the state will come after them.

Indeed, the state’s power comes from this threat of force application.

Post reply on HN