Obama Can’t Confirm If Courts Ever Rejected Spying Requests
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Re: Obama Can’t Confirm If Courts Ever Rejected Spying Requests
#2The number of requests is not, as Obama asserts, "surprisingly small". It is probably smaller than it ought to be, and in light of the NSA's recent admission that they've tapped warrantlessly, that's probably the explanation.
Regardless, here's their record, and they certainly aren't disapproving much. https://epic.org/privacy/wiretap/stats/fisa_stats.html
If there's a reason that Obama can't confirm it (beyond that he just doesn't know), it's because it is believed that the FISC acts differently than other warrant-granting entities in that at least usually, when it denies a request, it also then provides guidance on how to refile the request in a way that it might be approved. Regular courts will do this on procedural errors, but not as a matter of course.
In all likelihood, the 11 denials the FISC has issued over the past 34 years were likely all later converted to approvals with their guidance.
Re: Obama Can’t Confirm If Courts Ever Rejected Spying Requests
#3[deleted]
Re: Obama Can’t Confirm If Courts Ever Rejected Spying Requests
#4For reference, one FISA request can be an entire company's user-base. "Direct access" is direct enough when a majority of content can be accessed real-time, much of it back stored for "direct accessing" later using non obvious relationship awareness analysis.
Citation: Much of HN's top listings the past few days. Go read.
Re: Obama Can’t Confirm If Courts Ever Rejected Spying Requests
#5Obama:
> You have my telephone number connecting with your telephone number. There are no names. There is no content in that database...At no point is any content revealed because there’s no content that...the FBI — if, in fact, it now wants to get content; if, in fact, it wants to start tapping that phone
Snowden (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/17/edward-snowden-n...):
> If I target for example an email address, for example under FAA 702, and that email address sent something to you, Joe America, the analyst gets it. All of it. IPs, raw data, content, headers, attachments, everything.
Notice how Obama only talks about the phone metadata DB, and a process for getting data from companies about "non-US persons" (Google, etc) based on "essentially a warrant" (not the same thing as a warrant, though). Snowden's allegations are starting to become much wider than the original Verizon DB and PRISM systems. And I don't think that we are going to see Obama address them and deny them directly any time soon.
Re: Obama Can’t Confirm If Courts Ever Rejected Spying Requests
#6Best article I have read in a while. It's tragic comedy how they get a way with it.
I mean i tried asking a group of friends what they thought, to learn they don't know what the fuck PRISM is!
It usually goes. "No one cares about, what the government does, your just weird."
I'm anti social so the only time I hangout with them is when I'm stoned. So I can see why I'm weird to the average teenager, but to not know about the government being caught spying on us, makes it seem like they were never really caught unless your on 4chan or reddit...
Fuck it...
Re: Obama Can’t Confirm If Courts Ever Rejected Spying Requests
#7Best article I have read in a while. It's tragic comedy how they get a way with it. I mean i tried asking a group of friends what they thought, to learn they don't know what the fuck PRISM is! It usually goes. "No one cares about, what the government does, your just weird." I'm anti social so the only time I hangout with them is when I'm stoned. So I can see why I'm weird to the average teenager, but to not know abou…
Is it anti-social to not want to hang out with people who don't care much for fair and just systems of governance?
Re: Obama Can’t Confirm If Courts Ever Rejected Spying Requests
#8Best article I have read in a while. It's tragic comedy how they get a way with it. I mean i tried asking a group of friends what they thought, to learn they don't know what the fuck PRISM is! It usually goes. "No one cares about, what the government does, your just weird." I'm anti social so the only time I hangout with them is when I'm stoned. So I can see why I'm weird to the average teenager, but to not know abou…
It's questionable that they are "getting away with it".
The implications of what they've done are incredibly vast and damning. Not to mention, persistent - people now know everything they type on their computer is handed over to the government. That doesn't go away, no matter how much the media might want to ignore the subject.
I'd actually be surprised if they completely get away with it. At least a few people will be in trouble over this whole thing. Lots of civil rights organizations are organizing lawsuits over this as we speak.
Re: Obama Can’t Confirm If Courts Ever Rejected Spying Requests
#9The question I want to see asked is:
"Obama, in the course of your day, you and your staff probably interact with many foreign diplomats and other persons which this system is likely to classify as 51% likely to be foreign. On top of that, the content of those conversation, depending on the topic at hand, is likely to include words that would trigger an alert. With this in mind, do you think it is acceptable that those in the NSA, many of whom may have a differing political affiliation than you, can read any correspondence flagged for review? Furthermore, how can any member of congress operate from a position of equality if they cannot have confidence that their communications could fall into the hands of their compatriots across the aisle that may have a different agenda?"
If the answer to those questions included a filter that excluded all members of the executive, legislative and judicial, the obvious follow up question would be, "Why are members of congress allowed this right, but not the citizens of this country?"
I would also take comments he made on the Wikileaks Manning trove and present them as counterpoints to any rebuttal he has. I don't remember anything verbatim, but I remember him specifically addressing the importance of American diplomats being able to be secure in their communications to be able to carry out the roles for which they were appointed. This exact same argument can be applied to every single elected representative of the people and every official appointed by a duly elected representative.
Re: Obama Can’t Confirm If Courts Ever Rejected Spying Requests
#10Obama is almost certainly the best spoken US President in 50 years. But when asked a simple, straightforward yes or no question:
"But has FISA court turned down any request?"
We get this answer:
"The — because — the — first of all, Charlie, the number of requests are surprisingly small… number one. Number two, folks don’t go with a query unless they’ve got a pretty good suspicion."
Just blather, incoherence and grasping at straws. C'mon man you went to Columbia and Harvard Law, you give speeches almost every day - you can do better.
How about "yes", "no" or "I don't know" next time.