71–80 of 83 posts
Getting excited about Rand Paul speaking out about this is exactly like getting excited by candidate Obama talking about how he was going end the wars, close Gitmo, and stop torture.
1) don't we have more track record on Paul regarding this issue than we did on Obama? 2) isn't it possible that having a senator express this opinion publicly could influence other elected officials?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I think the central question here is whether a democracy can endure a constant state of war where every part of our lives is catalogued and cross-indexed by the government. With regards to the latter point, I think it's both inevitable and not likely to be the downfall of democracy. There is no future scenario in which the government does not have the kind of insight into our lives that Google, Facebook, etc, have.…
Google doesn't have anywhere near the power the government does, and people realize this well enough to not make a false equivalence between the two.
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…
Its not a "search" of you to get information google keeps about you using government powers. It just isn't. The framers did not contemplate that people would freely hand over private information to third parties who have no legal obligations to protect it.
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.
Do you ever think the framers contemplated you being able to invoke the 4th to protect other people's letters about you?
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…
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? Techni…
Actually, the 4th doesn't protect sealed letters you hand to just anyone, only USPS carriers. And not what's written on the outside (metadata). Also, in this hypothetical you didn't write the "paper" in question. A CDR isn't your data. Its verizon's data about you.
So take away the special status of the USPS, and add in the fact that its verizon's tracking data for you, and its more like the government hitting up your local steamboat company for a list of all the shipments you sent through them. And I think that would not have required a warrant in 1810.
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.
http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ar_libertari...
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I imagine it being quite wonderful. Imagine further if a bill could only contain 1 law in it and it had a built in shelf life of only 10-15 years and had to be renewed by a super majority vote in excess of 75%.
> ...had to be renewed by a super majority vote in excess of 75% While I'm sure some small government fans would say this is a good thing, the answer is that very little would get done. Symbolic gestures and the like would pass, but very little of real substance. It's commonly the case that most everyone agrees that something needs to be done, but often they disagree on what exactly needs to happen. You can see what…
Yet I am surprised that it was that element of my statement that people ran with. For me having a built in shelf life of a law is not nearly as important as having clearer legislation and the cessation of co-mingling unrelated laws into one bill.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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? Techni…
Something not being private doesn't mean its has to be public. It just means it has to be disclosed beyond your sphere of personal privacy. Actually, the 4th doesn't protect sealed letters you hand to just anyone, only USPS carriers. And not what's written on the outside (metadata). Also, in this hypothetical you didn't write the "paper" in question. A CDR isn't your data. Its verizon's data about you. So take away t…
Snowden is quoted as saying:
>> “I, sitting at my desk, had the authority to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant to a federal judge to even the president if I had a personal e-mail,” he added.
http://blog.sfgate.com/techchron/2013/06/10/on-first-glance-...
The IRS reportedly thinks it has the authority to read the contents of emails, not just metadata:
http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty-national-sec...
The NSA reportedly has fiber cable taps at AT&T:
Getting excited about Rand Paul speaking out about this is exactly like getting excited by candidate Obama talking about how he was going end the wars, close Gitmo, and stop torture.
It is a good point that we should focus on track record, not speech. But: 1) don't we have more track record on Paul regarding this issue than we did on Obama? 2) isn't it possible that having a senator express this opinion publicly could influence other elected officials?
Reading his statements regarding his commitment to the Republican party & its goals as well as the right-wing "Libertarian" principles he habitually talks about and then comparing that to the analysis of the actual text of his proposals; it's obvious that he is simply using these "Libertarian" talking points as blunt weapons against the Democrats.
Many of Rand Paul's proposals don't actually do or change anything at all, instead they are designed only to make the news cycle and then to disappear. Many lack many of the details actual legislation is required to have or because they are designed such that a voting majority is impossible to develop. It's clear that they were never intended to go further than a news cycle... and they don't.
Besides often being couched in language Democrats are unlikely to ever accept, they're also consistent with the proposals from other Hard-Right Republican's who don't associate themselves with the right-libertarian political movement at all. So it's not like he's making non-partisan basic pro-freedom proposals, which the Democrats (being the anti-freedom party) reject. He's only making proposals about issues which can be expressed in the hyper-partisan language and which support the hyper-partisan strategy that is currently dominating D.C. politics. Moreover, he's studiously avoided good-faith, non-partisan, basic policy reform proposals which could get through the legislation process.
Assuming that Rand Paul continues to be successful with this gambit, the obvious influence it will have on other elected officials is that this sort of deceptive and manipulative strategy is politically effective and that they should be doing it too.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.