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End the N.S.A. Dragnet, Now

nytimes.com

91–100 of 176 posts

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

#91
post #2

Senators have to go to the press to try to stop the government from doing what clearly breaks the law -- the Constitution, no less -- using up billions of taxpayer funds and undermines American business for no clear benefit. Conventional wisdom says the Cold War was between the doctrines of Capitalism and Communism and that the doctrine of Capitalism won. It doesn't look like that view was right. The doctrine of the…

It has always been this way.

“In this age, in this country, public sentiment is everything. With it, nothing can fail; against it, nothing can succeed. Whoever molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes, or pronounces judicial decisions.” -- Abraham Lincoln

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

#92
Unfortunately, for this opinion to make it into the mainstream conscious, it needs to be broadcast with the same gravity on Fox News and CNN where the large majority of uninformed Americans are spoon-fed their beliefs and opinions.

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

#93
post #50
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that 'data' vs 'metadata' loophole has been scaled beyond belief to undermine the plain english understanding of 'reasonable' is worthy of new jurisprudence.

"Data" versus "metadata" doesn't go to the definition of "reasonable." It goes to the definition of "their" in "their persons, houses, papers, and effects..." The basic distinction is your data versus data that's about you. If I own a store, and make a note that 001sky came in to buy a box of cookies at 2:00pm on January 23, 2005, that's my paper. It's not your paper. I can claim 4th amendment protection if the FBI b…

> "Data" versus "metadata" doesn't go to the definition of "reasonable." It goes to the definition of "their" in "their persons, houses, papers, and effects..."

Not really, its still the persons, houses, papers, or effects of "the people" no matter which of the people it belongs to.

There's this weird idea which seems to have emerged from the use of the exclusionary rule as the main (and pretty much exclusive) remedy for violations of the Fourth Amendment that the Fourth Amendment only applies when the person about whom information is sought is the person whose person, houses, papers, or effects are being searched or seized, but there is nothing in the text of any reasonable context of the Constitutional language itself to support that, its simply a byproduct of an inadequate remedy (which, in fact, that aspect reveals to be inadequate) that seems to have worked its way back into the way that the language is read.

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

#95

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…

A side note on the anthem: The lyrics started as a poem written by Francis Scott Key after watching a battle in the War of 1812. Americans don't like to talk about the War of 1812 because we got our asses whooped by a handful of Canadians. The story of the music is even weirder: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star-Spangled_Banner#Early...

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

#96
post #88
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Data" versus "metadata" doesn't go to the definition of "reasonable." It goes to the definition of "their" in "their persons, houses, papers, and effects..." The basic distinction is your data versus data that's about you. If I own a store, and make a note that 001sky came in to buy a box of cookies at 2:00pm on January 23, 2005, that's my paper. It's not your paper. I can claim 4th amendment protection if the FBI b…

Thes boundaries are blurred quite easliy with sufficiently advanced technology. That is the point. I can FLIR your house from a public location. Or isps and email providers could store every message (full data) just like the metadata and now 'own' a free copy. Arguably gmail has walked this line in their argument that scanning the metadata to route the message and scanning the content for meaning are equivalent inter…

There are situations in which technology changes things and the law has adapted (e.g. using an infrared camera to look into a house from a public location is a 4th amendment violation), but this is not one of those situations. At least when it comes to call metadata, technology really has nothing to do with it. Whether AT&T records it on magnetic tape or quantum bits, it's still their records, generated by their equipment, kept for their purposes, that you never have access to. These characteristics aren't an artifact of the technology, they're reflective of the fundamental nature of the information in question: it's AT&T's information about you, not your information.

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

#97
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, forgot to add 6. It's early... Fixed.

In five years she will have done so much more damage it's hardly fun to think about it.

Plausibly. She doesn't individually have much power without cooperation from others, who could potentially stop cooperating, though. That is likely a better use of resources than railing against her individually.

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

#98
post #96
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thes boundaries are blurred quite easliy with sufficiently advanced technology. That is the point. I can FLIR your house from a public location. Or isps and email providers could store every message (full data) just like the metadata and now 'own' a free copy. Arguably gmail has walked this line in their argument that scanning the metadata to route the message and scanning the content for meaning are equivalent inter…

There are situations in which technology changes things and the law has adapted (e.g. using an infrared camera to look into a house from a public location is a 4th amendment violation), but this is not one of those situations. At least when it comes to call metadata, technology really has nothing to do with it. Whether AT&T records it on magnetic tape or quantum bits, it's still their records, generated by their equi…

At least when it comes to call metadata, technology really has nothing to do with it

I'm not sure this is logically possible. The metadata retention by the telco's is an artifact of their business process (minimize fraudulent billing liability)[1]. A similar process did not exist for mail until the government mandated and paid for it. Now, every piece of mail is photgraphed ("to collect the 'metadata' ")and the images are recorded. That notwithstanding, the entire notion of such meta-data is strictly an artifact of technology. There is no analogue in pure verbal speech, in other words.

[1] There is no need for them to retain it or to otherwise "posess" it in an-other-than-temporary-like-snapchat-way.

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

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a bogus argument. A mortgage is a private agreement between you and a bank. A bank foreclosing on a property without a mortgage (as at least Bank of America is alleged to have done on several occasions) is a tort that should be litigated and a crime that should be prosecuted.

So it's a private agreement? I don't understand your point. You agree to pay a certain amount and if you don't a bad thing happens. When it's a bank and a mortgage, you lose your house and your family is harmed. When it's the government and taxes, your wages are garnished and your family is harmed. Having a banking system helps people buy houses and having a government helps literally everything a society does.

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