Obama Can’t Confirm If Courts Ever Rejected Spying Requests • Hacker News Board

Re: Obama Can’t Confirm If Courts Ever Rejected Spying Requests

#71

Post by CWuestefeld » Tue, Jun 18, 2013, 4:29 PM UTC

Apparently there has been at least one instance of the FISA court rejecting a request, but we're not allowed to know about it.

From http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2013/06/justice-department...

the Justice Department was due to file a court motion Friday in its effort to keep secret an 86-page court opinion that determined that the government had violated the spirit of federal surveillance laws and engaged in unconstitutional spying. ...

But in July 2012, Wyden was able to get the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to declassify two statements that he wanted to issue publicly. They were:

- On at least one occasion the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court held that some collection carried out pursuant to the Section 702 minimization procedures used by the government was unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment.

- I believe that the government's implementation of Section 702 of FISA [the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] has sometimes circumvented the spirit of the law, and on at least one occasion the FISA Court has reached this same conclusion.

Re: Obama Can’t Confirm If Courts Ever Rejected Spying Requests

#72

Post by bad_user » Tue, Jun 18, 2013, 5:21 PM UTC

weland wrote: post #46

angersock wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These "dedicated malcontents", I presume?

Yeah, there were enough terms for it. The scarring this left in the popular consciousness is impressive though. More than twenty years later, the exact same phrasings are still being used occasionally, and with the same meanings, especially by older people. The sorriest part is that today's teenagers don't notice it, or don't know it. and underestimate what's under the words. A couple of years ago I went to visit my…

Dude, all of what you said happened in Romania, word for word, including the usage of "hooligans" and the reporting of "agitating elements" to the security apparatus. People were scared shitless that their own neighbours are going to report them for whatever crap they were doing (I distinctively remember my mother bringing home bananas and telling me to be quiet about it, as bananas, like other tropical fruits were quite rare).

Re: Obama Can’t Confirm If Courts Ever Rejected Spying Requests

#73

Post by crispycret » Tue, Jun 18, 2013, 6:58 PM UTC

fragsworth wrote: post #8

crispycret wrote: post #6

Best 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…

Indeed the government will do as they please, it;s not like anyone is truly going to force them to stop that requires strength not complainants an lawsuits. My personal opinion is that we truly have no power in a large government, unless we were to revolt with riots, militias, and a organized task force and basic wage an un-winnable war with our own government. Anyways no one wants that except for maybe so guns nuts and anarchist. Although it would be pretty interesting in the history books. Which will be over written... haha America blows!

Re: Obama Can’t Confirm If Courts Ever Rejected Spying Requests

#74

Post by MDCore » Tue, Jun 18, 2013, 8:11 PM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #67

MDCore wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it makes more sense to say the author is writing it like that to show that Obama was stumbling with his words in response to a "yes/no/I don't know" question. That's useful information that I appreciate the author conveying.

The problem here is that that information is being conveyed solely through contentless innuendo. You can expect the same level of disfluency from a softball "How awesome is your new program?" "So awesome" Q&A session. People only think this transcript shows Obama stumbling with his words because they aren't aware that printed media cleans up the natural disfluencies that occur in speech. This transcript looks highly…

I think your response is valid and an excellent counterpoint.

I would only disagree by pointing out that the President of the United States is not a normal person merely having a spoken interview. He's known as an excellent orator -- that's an important part of his job --, his speeches are carefully crafted and as you (seem to) say this is a softball interview. With all that in mind, why is he stumbling over a seemingly simple question?

Re: Obama Can’t Confirm If Courts Ever Rejected Spying Requests

#75

Post by weland » Wed, Jun 19, 2013, 6:53 AM UTC

mtgx wrote: post #49

Spearchucker wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And what that does is that does not apply to any U.S. person. Has to be a foreign entity. Referring to a living, breathing human being with feelings, emotions, needs and wants (just like any American) as an "entity" is what Rory Miller calls "othering" [1]. The point of othering is to remove the humanity from someone or from a group of people. It makes it easier for someone to monitor, torture and... kill someone e…

The media could help here, by instead of using the administration words in their articles, they'd be using their words - the normal words. Also, at every press conference where they say "entities", they could ask, do you mean "people"? Or something along those lines. The people in the media are American citizens, too. It would help if they'd try to defend their own rights, too, instead of being nice to the government…

Yeah, but why would the media want that?

Re: Obama Can’t Confirm If Courts Ever Rejected Spying Requests

#76

Post by weland » Wed, Jun 19, 2013, 6:55 AM UTC

bad_user wrote: post #72

weland wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, there were enough terms for it. The scarring this left in the popular consciousness is impressive though. More than twenty years later, the exact same phrasings are still being used occasionally, and with the same meanings, especially by older people. The sorriest part is that today's teenagers don't notice it, or don't know it. and underestimate what's under the words. A couple of years ago I went to visit my…

Dude, all of what you said happened in Romania, word for word, including the usage of "hooligans" and the reporting of "agitating elements" to the security apparatus. People were scared shitless that their own neighbours are going to report them for whatever crap they were doing (I distinctively remember my mother bringing home bananas and telling me to be quiet about it, as bananas, like other tropical fruits were q…

It was fairly similar all over the place :-).

Re: Obama Can’t Confirm If Courts Ever Rejected Spying Requests

#77

Post by weland » Wed, Jun 19, 2013, 6:58 AM UTC

JonSkeptic wrote: post #68

weland wrote: post #18

Dear God, it's like I'm a kid again. I didn't grow up in the US; when I was a kid, we didn't have this kind of interviews on TV. For one thing, most of the TV shows they aired was propaganda, and it was so utterly boring most of us didn't bother. The newspapers, on the other hand, carried propaganda along with the news, so you kindda had to read it, too, if you were to know what's happening. The smarter folks could e…

You may be right. However, "foreign entity" does not strictly mean "non-US person" and this is highly intentional. A foreign entity does not have to be a person. It can be a bank, a corporation, a nation, an foreign based activist group. You view it as discriminatory and it may very well be; I purport that its purpose is to encompass literally everything that is not a U.S. person, thereby allowing them nearly unlimit…

When you are spying on a foreign bank or corporation, aren't you spying on a bunch of foreign people?

I mean, arguably, if the NSA were spying on Google, would that make it reasonably all right? It's not like Google has feelings or a right to privacy -- it's not a person, it's a corporation.

Unless they're spying on bulldozers or kitchen ustensils, "entity" could be easily replaced with "one or more people" and the phrase would retain the same meaning. It's one of the many procedures in the family of othering: we're not shooting at people, we're shooting at the 4th platoon.

Re: Obama Can’t Confirm If Courts Ever Rejected Spying Requests

#78

Post by malandrew » Thu, Jun 27, 2013, 9:05 PM UTC

aetimmes wrote: post #55

malandrew wrote: post #9

The 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 tho…

I believe Snowden has gone on record saying that members of Congress are exempt from NSA spying.

Are all the staffers of those members of congress and the counter-parties with whom they interact also exempt? If you know someone's address book, you can spy on them while maintaining the appearance of spying on others.