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Rand Paul: Big Brother Really Is Watching Us

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Re: Rand Paul: Big Brother Really Is Watching Us

#61

Post by mtgx »

u2328 wrote: post #4

Congratulations Obama, Feinstein. You've got me throwing in with Rand Paul. Though I could trust you with our civil liberties and privacy, but now I have to get behind the Ayn Rand loving libertarian on this. So be it; policy over party.

Ayn Rand hated libertarians. She didn't care much for all the "liberty" stuff. She mostly cared about low taxes and such, just like current Republicans who only care about low taxes and aiding their corporate friends, and only pay lip service to other liberties, but never follow through.

Re: Rand Paul: Big Brother Really Is Watching Us

#62

Post by wwweston »

jevinskie wrote: post #55
jeffdavis wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't "broadcast" their information. They send it using point-to-point protocols to companies or people. The government is using special, secret authority to compel intermediaries or stewards of the information to turn it over en masse. If the government was just browsing Facebook or doing Google searches, nobody would complain. But they are using government powers to get the information, which means that it i…

Precisely. Can rayiner obtain my call metadata? They cannot. I did not broadcast this information, the NSA obtained it by using state powers to secure a secret, unrestricted (in the most literal sense) warrant.

> Can rayiner obtain my call metadata? They cannot.

That's what we suppose, anyway.

Of course, we don't know whether or not rayiner has acquaintances who work for your carrier who have access to it, or perhaps law enforcement who have access to a portal that the carrier voluntarily provides.

And we don't know if the carrier has freely entered into any private agreements to sell call data to others... which they might be free to do even in the face of aggressive bans on law enforcement or national security organizations ever even breathing at carriers.

Re: Rand Paul: Big Brother Really Is Watching Us

#63

Post by flyinRyan »

salimmadjd wrote: post #2

As a progressive, I have conflicts with some of Rand Paul (and his father Ron) policies and positions. However, you have to admit they're beginning to sound like profits. Like it or not, they adhere to a fairly strict view of the constitution and that's admirable in the current poll-based world of politics. That said, Paul (and father) were never good communicators. Both vocally and even prosaically. I'm surprised he…

My position all through the last Republican primaries was "yes, I realize many of Ron's policies (e.g. gold standard) are down-right dangerous. But those policies could never be passed in any case so we should vote on the things he can change like no new wars, etc.". I don't know that I got downvoted every time but I was always shot down with more "hope and change".

Re: Rand Paul: Big Brother Really Is Watching Us

#64

Post by flyinRyan »

michaelwww wrote: post #24

It's unfortunate that he believes the government should control a woman's uterus, which is an even more serious invasion of privacy and more likely to cause harm than this data collection.

Thanks for helping make the US suck. Do you really think if someone like Rand or Ron were president they would overturn Roe vs. Wade? You irrelevant-one-issue voters have got to get your heads out of your collective asses.

Re: Rand Paul: Big Brother Really Is Watching Us

#65

Post by flyinRyan »

zecho wrote: post #29
michaelwww wrote: post #24

It's unfortunate that he believes the government should control a woman's uterus, which is an even more serious invasion of privacy and more likely to cause harm than this data collection.

I'm unsure why exactly you're being down voted, but unless someone who down voted you comes forward, I'm guessing the answer is in part misogynistic and also in part myopia on the importance of data collection vs. women's reproductive rights. Regardless, it's an important point to make that politicians are complex creatures, just like the rest of us. It's best not to hold them in high regard as people and to instead…

He's probably being downvoted because his comment is a useless sidetrack of the issue. It doesn't matter what Rand's position on Abortion is as he'll never have the required level of support to change it.

Re: Rand Paul: Big Brother Really Is Watching Us

#66

Post by flyinRyan »

michaelwww wrote: post #30
zecho wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm unsure why exactly you're being down voted, but unless someone who down voted you comes forward, I'm guessing the answer is in part misogynistic and also in part myopia on the importance of data collection vs. women's reproductive rights. Regardless, it's an important point to make that politicians are complex creatures, just like the rest of us. It's best not to hold them in high regard as people and to instead…

I'm guessing HN is over-whelmingly younger males, so reproductive rights are not a big issue. Someday some of them will have a daughter and they'll have a chance to rethink the issue.

I have a daughter. That still doesn't make me willing to throw out a candidate for his/her potential to stop or slow a problem we are actually having because they hold a position that could never actually be applied in any case.

Pretty much all politicians are awful right now so if you're not going to run yourself you're going to have to make compromises in who you vote for. Please make practical ones.

Re: Rand Paul: Big Brother Really Is Watching Us

#68

Post by nathan_long »

jeffdavis wrote: post #52
rayiner wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "No one objects to balancing security against liberty. No one objects to seeking warrants for targeted monitoring based on probable cause. We've always done this. What we've always done is get warrants for searches. No warrants were required to monitor someone (say, to have a cop follow them around). That is still the case. The FISA warrants allow monitoring. An Article III warrant is still necessary for a real sea…

People don't "broadcast" their information. They send it using point-to-point protocols to companies or people. The government is using special, secret authority to compel intermediaries or stewards of the information to turn it over en masse. If the government was just browsing Facebook or doing Google searches, nobody would complain. But they are using government powers to get the information, which means that it i…

Excellent point.

A thought experiment: the Founding Fathers specified that individuals' "papers" must be safe from casual government search. They did not say that by handing a sealed letter to a postman, I'm implicitly making it public. If someone had invented a machine to see through envelopes and read letters, they would not have approved of its warrant-less use.

Why should email or phone calls be different? Technically, the communication leaves my control. Technically, there are ways to snoop on it. But the law concerns itself not with what is possible, but what is permissible. A machine that could see through envelopes wouldn't make letters a "broadcast" medium; only the intention of the sender to make something public could do that.

Snooping on phone calls and emails without a warrant specifying which people's communications should be investigated and why is an obvious Fourth Amendment violation.

Re: Rand Paul: Big Brother Really Is Watching Us

#69

Post by nathan_long »

mindcrime wrote: post #9
u2328 wrote: post #4

Congratulations Obama, Feinstein. You've got me throwing in with Rand Paul. Though I could trust you with our civil liberties and privacy, but now I have to get behind the Ayn Rand loving libertarian on this. So be it; policy over party.

Hey, ya never know, once you take the plunge, you might find that you like it here on the dark-side. :-) Libertarians are mostly pretty nice once you get to know them. Some of us are downright friendly at times.

For any party other than Democrats and Republicans to get a foothold in the US, we'd have to reform our voting system.

Suppose you want to vote for the Libertarian candidate but you'd prefer the Republican candidate to the Democratic one. By voting for the Libertarian, you "take" a vote from the Republican and make the Democrat's success more likely. (Or reverse the scenario: voting for a Green Party candidate hurts the Democratic candidate and gets you a Republican.)

Thus the system discourages you from expressing your true preference.

This is a major flaw in the most basic idea of democracy. All citizens, and especially all parties outside the Big Two, should work toward a better voting system.

One proposed system: http://rangevoting.org/

Re: Rand Paul: Big Brother Really Is Watching Us

#70

Post by nathan_long »

zecho wrote: post #40
a-priori wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't blame people for downvoting michaelwww because their comment is an ad hominem attack on Rand Paul. Paul's attitude on abortion has no bearing on the PRISM lawsuit.

Yes it does. It calls into question his motivations when it comes to civil liberties. He could build a much stronger coalition among civil libertarians if he were more consistent in his beliefs about the extent to which the government can monitor and control the people who give it power.

>> It calls into question his motivations when it comes to civil liberties.

Only if you accept a priori an answer to the core issue which is debated in the abortion issue: whether an unborn baby should be protected as a human life.

Nobody argues that government is invasive if it forbids stabbing a toddler to death behind closed doors. People do argue that one may stab a fetus to death behind closed doors.

The point of contention is not privacy, but the definition of human life. Pretending that the issue is already settled even as you argue for a particular policy is either naive or disingenuous.

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