"Today, corrupt politicians put on another dog and pony show while continuing business as usual. Is our democracy secretly a farce? Details at 11."
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Today Is One of the Biggest Surveillance Votes. Will the FBI Stop Spying?
91–100 of 192 posts
Re: Today Is One of the Biggest Surveillance Votes. Will the FBI Stop Spying?
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. We cannot have our cake and eat it too. We cannot have unprotected, open borders for decades, and then expect to identify and track foreign internal threats AND not provide the USGOV the means to detect and surveil. We cannot assume that because we're an HN regular who thinks power corrupts (it certainly does) the cost of that corruption is greater than what we pay if/when a foreign adversary acts against the US.…
Fun fact, "open borders" is a complete myth.
fun fact, no its not.
Re: Today Is One of the Biggest Surveillance Votes. Will the FBI Stop Spying?
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. We cannot have our cake and eat it too. We cannot have unprotected, open borders for decades, and then expect to identify and track foreign internal threats AND not provide the USGOV the means to detect and surveil. We cannot assume that because we're an HN regular who thinks power corrupts (it certainly does) the cost of that corruption is greater than what we pay if/when a foreign adversary acts against the US.…
Fun fact, "open borders" is a complete myth.
Good point.
Re: Today Is One of the Biggest Surveillance Votes. Will the FBI Stop Spying?
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
Weird how the most prominent example of terrorism on American soil from foreign agents was perpetrated with completely legal non-land-border penetration. Seems like we have locals lot more dangerous than anyone coming through the land border with Mexico to work or seek asylum in the US. Actual foreign terrorists just aren't as ignorant as you want them to be.
Exactly, this "open borders" nonsense is a right-wing talking point, like "fiscal responsibility." It sounds great in TV interviews and speeches, but they mysteriously only trot out when there's a democrat in the Oval Office.
is that why the republican mayor of NYC is loudly sounding the alarm on this? my mistake, he is a democrat.
Re: Today Is One of the Biggest Surveillance Votes. Will the FBI Stop Spying?
#95Mass surveillance is antithetical to liberty, but direct, concrete harm is hard to identify. The surveillance complex has been pretty good at using secrecy, and perhaps even good internal controls, to limit everyday impact. How can we find real harms to win this fight? Or how can we get people to care?
To play devil's advocate, if good internal controls are preventing abuse, why start with the foregone conclusion that there must exist "real harms" to find?
Because the FBI has pinky promised to develop those and has consistently failed with violations continuing. There’s also plenty of technical reasons why “good internal controls” are a myth. For example, the CIA and NSA could help out the FBI by secretly trawling through that database bypassing all “controls” using exploits / back doors and sending tips from “confidential sources” and parallel reconstruction being used to prosecute.
Btw we also have similar problems with normal police officers misusing records to spy on spouses and whatnot and occasionally we find out about and the department promises stricter controls and reforms and round we go the merry go round.
Re: Today Is One of the Biggest Surveillance Votes. Will the FBI Stop Spying?
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
One can explain the phenomenon and understand the history yet it's not wrong to say governments (or any other large org really) rarely give up power and only ever do so under coercion.
> it's not wrong to say governments (or any other large org really) rarely give up power It’s incredibly wrong to say this. More modern states fail due to gridlock and fragility than violent coercion. Individual actors rarely give up power without coercion. That doesn’t mean the system as a whole doesn’t ebb and flow as interests diverge and align.
Why are you LARPing based on first principles? Just give examples:
* Trump's First Step Act. E.g., title III-- can no longer use restraints on prisoners during pregnancy-- and IV-- reducing mandatory minimums for drug felony convictions
* Trump's Affordable Clean Energy rule which removed caps on emissions
* Clinton's repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act back in 1999
* Carter's Airline Deregulation Act back in the late 70s
* the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963
If I searched my memory for five minutes a day I'd have a list of hundreds by the end of a week.
I get that domain expertise doesn't magically apply outside a domain. But how is HN this special level of asinine when it comes to the simple history of legislation in the U.S.?
Reading the thread with your interlocutor is like reading someone claim that C only has global scope. What could they possibly have read to convince them of such a thing?
Re: Today Is One of the Biggest Surveillance Votes. Will the FBI Stop Spying?
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is NOT what 702 provides. 702 prohibits US citizens from being targeted (see: https://www.dni.gov/files/icotr/Section702-Basics-Infographi... )
In practice, it provides for parallel construction in order to conduct domestic surveillance of US citizens by bringing a secret action against a foreign correspondent.
If the HPSCI version passes, it will be legal (and presumably, automatic) to target any non-citizen or permanent resident traveling to the US and search "one end foreign" 702 data on them.
Of course, if they're traveling to the US, it's much more likely that they're communicating with Americans (e.g. visiting friends). Which means that scrutiny of Americans' conversations, swept up en masse, will dramatically increase.
If that passes, tell your friends not to visit America. Because if they do, then all your conversations with them are totally fair game for secret government review.
Re: Today Is One of the Biggest Surveillance Votes. Will the FBI Stop Spying?
#98Pay careful attention to who is not on that list that opposes section 702. Microsoft, Google and Apple. If they really cared about privacy on their platforms, they would have made that known at some point before this vote.
Microsoft, Google, Apple, etc are also putting up a spectacular dog and pony show in order to convince you they carr about privacy. They don't.
Re: Today Is One of the Biggest Surveillance Votes. Will the FBI Stop Spying?
#99Re: Today Is One of the Biggest Surveillance Votes. Will the FBI Stop Spying?
#100I hope that the Government Surveillance Transparency act gets some legs. See: https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-daine...
At least in turn, we could get a level of insight into how much these warrants are used, and keep those in power accountable.