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End the N.S.A. Dragnet, Now

nytimes.com

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Re: End the N.S.A. Dragnet, Now

#61

Post by DamnYuppie »

dalek_cannes wrote: post #32

Surveillance. It always starts with a desire to be safe. And that comes from fear. It seems Americans today are afraid of more things than ever: pedophiles, guns, terrorists, lawsuits. Some news reports are ridiculous by foreign standards: teachers not being allowed to shake hands with students out of fear of sexual harassment allegations, boys suspended from school for drawing guns, bystanders not administering firs…

I couldn't agree more. Security and freedom are inversely proportional. I was upset when the start of the second paragraph to this piece stated that the most important thing for the government to do is protect people from terrorists. I couldn't disagree with that more, safety is never a given and freedom and resiliency in the face of adversity and setbacks should be our goal, not a nanny state.

Re: End the N.S.A. Dragnet, Now

#62

Post by rayiner »

kabdib wrote: post #56
rayiner wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, so tell me how call records generates by ATT that are never even in my possession are nonetheless "my" papers or effects? The text of the amendment does not clearly support your position. Indeed, the focus is clearly on personal things (house, person), not things possessed by third parties.

By extension, then, wiretaps are just fine, by anybody. All that data, entering and leaving your house, is not in your house, so it's fair game. So is opening mail (if it's in the post office it's not under your control, right?) Your car? It's on the street, so what if we attached GPS devices. Those microphones and cameras in public places are there for your protection. We'll never abuse that, trust us. Oh never neve…

Postal mail is historically treated as a special case because it's a government agency. Cars on the street are still your property, even when you're not in it, just as your house is still your property even when you're on vacation.

Wiretaps and documents hosted on the "cloud" are somewhere in-between. The first time the Supreme Court considered the Constitutionality of warrantless wire taps, it found that they were not protected by the 4th amendment. In the 1960's they overturned that precedent, but using reasoning that really only makes sense in an analog context where your voice directly modulates signals on a wire, and there is no intermediate storage.

Call records are further removed still. They're not a recording of your voice. They are generated by the telco, for the telco's own purposes. They are never in your possession, and you don't even know their contents. It's a huge stretch to say that they are nonetheless "your" papers.

Finally, microphones and cameras in public are clearly Constitutional. Whether they can be abused is irrelevant. The 4th amendment is not a prohibition on anything that can be abused. It's a prohibition designed to protect peoples' physical persons and their property rights from government searches.

Re: End the N.S.A. Dragnet, Now

#63

Post by samolang »

rayiner wrote: post #44
samolang wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Okay, so tell me how call records generates by ATT that are never even in my possession are nonetheless "my" papers or effects? The text of the amendment does not clearly support your position. Indeed, the focus is clearly on personal things (house, person), not things possessed by third parties.

> Indeed, the focus is clearly on personal things (house, person), not things possessed by third parties.

You need to understand the context. People did not store information about their private communications with third parties in 1776. Can you call AT&T and ask for someone else's records and get them? Why not? Things you wish to stay private do stay private unless a warrant is issued citing probable cause to violate your privacy.

Re: End the N.S.A. Dragnet, Now

#65

Post by rayiner »

samolang wrote: post #63
rayiner wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, so tell me how call records generates by ATT that are never even in my possession are nonetheless "my" papers or effects? The text of the amendment does not clearly support your position. Indeed, the focus is clearly on personal things (house, person), not things possessed by third parties.

> Indeed, the focus is clearly on personal things (house, person), not things possessed by third parties. You need to understand the context. People did not store information about their private communications with third parties in 1776. Can you call AT&T and ask for someone else's records and get them? Why not? Things you wish to stay private do stay private unless a warrant is issued citing probable cause to violat…

> People did not store information about their private communications with third parties in 1776.

People stored all sorts of private information with third parties in 1776. They had accountants and bookkeepers and suppliers and vendors, etc.

> Can you call AT&T and ask for someone else's records and get them?

Can you call up Ernst and Young and ask for someone else's accounting records? No, but the government can.

The test isn't "things you wish to stay private." It's "reasonable expectation of privacy." It's an objective test, not a subjective one. And I find it very difficult to understand how anyone could have a "reasonable expectation" of privacy in information generated by a third party for its own use, that's exposed to god knows how many engineers and system administrators.

Re: End the N.S.A. Dragnet, Now

#66

Post by Lagged2Death »

Our first priority is to keep Americans safe from the threat of terrorism.

It's like a feller can't even write a serious editorial in support of American liberty without kowtowing to irrational fear-mongering anymore.

The battle to keep us jumping at shadows has been won so conclusively that no one even bothers to stand up and say anything like:

You are safe. Your family is safe. You are safer now than you would have been at nearly any other time in American history. Your children will probably view these years of The Terrorist Menace in much the same way we view McCarthyism and the excesses of J. Edgar Hoover - a humiliating betrayal of everything that was supposed to make America different from the rest of the world.

There is nothing patriotic about being afraid all the time.

But that won't sell, and the Senators who wrote this know it. I don't fault their judgement, but it makes me really sad.

Re: End the N.S.A. Dragnet, Now

#67

Post by hobs »

rayiner wrote: post #54
dalek_cannes wrote: post #32

Surveillance. It always starts with a desire to be safe. And that comes from fear. It seems Americans today are afraid of more things than ever: pedophiles, guns, terrorists, lawsuits. Some news reports are ridiculous by foreign standards: teachers not being allowed to shake hands with students out of fear of sexual harassment allegations, boys suspended from school for drawing guns, bystanders not administering firs…

The Ben Franklin quote is apropos here: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither." While it's wildly misquoted on the interblags, you can't read out the word "essential." The point of the quote isn't that no trade-offs between freedom and safety are appropriate, but rather that we shouldn't trade away those freedoms that are "essential." It is debatable whethe…

Yep, but as the op-ed states, they dont think the government should be unable to surveil the citizenry, just not surveil them all the time for no reason besides they said so.

The op-ed states: "So we offered amendments: One would end the bulk collection of Americans’ records, but still allow intelligence agencies to obtain information they legitimately needed for national security purposes by getting the approval of a judge, which could even be done after the fact in emergency situations. "

I think you are absolutely correct in stating that there needs to be a balance, but when the American people have no say in how that balance is defined, we have programs that watch us all and as far as I am concerned trample our rights (1st chilling effect, 4th privacy, however you want to frame it).

Re: End the N.S.A. Dragnet, Now

#68

Post by rayiner »

hobs wrote: post #67
rayiner wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Ben Franklin quote is apropos here: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither." While it's wildly misquoted on the interblags, you can't read out the word "essential." The point of the quote isn't that no trade-offs between freedom and safety are appropriate, but rather that we shouldn't trade away those freedoms that are "essential." It is debatable whethe…

Yep, but as the op-ed states, they dont think the government should be unable to surveil the citizenry, just not surveil them all the time for no reason besides they said so. The op-ed states: "So we offered amendments: One would end the bulk collection of Americans’ records, but still allow intelligence agencies to obtain information they legitimately needed for national security purposes by getting the approval of…

I don't disagree with the article. I'm objecting to the characterization 'dalek_cannes makes about security versus freedom as a binary affair. Balancing of security versus freedom is written in to the Constitution. We're just arguing about the appropriate balance. But grandstanding like the OP is much easier when dealing with binary things than when dealing with balancing.

Re: End the N.S.A. Dragnet, Now

#69

Post by danielweber »

rayiner wrote: post #62
kabdib wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By extension, then, wiretaps are just fine, by anybody. All that data, entering and leaving your house, is not in your house, so it's fair game. So is opening mail (if it's in the post office it's not under your control, right?) Your car? It's on the street, so what if we attached GPS devices. Those microphones and cameras in public places are there for your protection. We'll never abuse that, trust us. Oh never neve…

Postal mail is historically treated as a special case because it's a government agency. Cars on the street are still your property, even when you're not in it, just as your house is still your property even when you're on vacation. Wiretaps and documents hosted on the "cloud" are somewhere in-between. The first time the Supreme Court considered the Constitutionality of warrantless wire taps, it found that they were n…

Historically, are safety deposit boxes considered your property?

Re: End the N.S.A. Dragnet, Now

#70

Post by a3n »

Zigurd wrote: post #53
a3n wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should be concerned now, because the government can compel those companies to hand over their dossier on you, including your cell's tower or GPS records, your extremist views (surely something you've written is extremely different from someone in power, now or in the future), your advocacy of treason (you must have expressed displeasure about a President or member of Congress at some time), your support of terror…

I think everyone here would agree about that, but you are ignoring that avoiding an intrusive commercial product, or obfuscating your private information from a commercial product is easier than avoiding state-actor pervasive surveillance. It would be a step in the right direction to reduce the state-actor threat.

Not ignoring, just talking about one among many related problems. I agree completely it would be good to reduce the state-actor threat.
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