It should be: Watchdog Report Says N.S.A. Program Is Illegal and those involved must be imprisoned.
Anything less is unacceptable.
Watchdog Report Says N.S.A. Program Is Illegal and Should End
21–30 of 133 posts
Re: Watchdog Report Says N.S.A. Program Is Illegal and Should End
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just for a purely hypothetical scenario: If the FBI identified an organized crime hitman who killed 20+ people and left no evidence other than making incriminating phone calls, is it wrong for them to place a tap on his phone line once they have probable cause that he is a hitman?
Your hypothetical makes no sense. If they have "probable cause" before tapping his phone, that means that the "left no evidence other than incriminating phone calls" must be false.
No, probable cause is not the same thing as evidence. His hypothetical is actually how warrants are supposed to work. Law enforcement have probable cause to suspect someone of being guilty. If they can make a strong argument about why the person is probably guilty, they then get a warrant to search for evidence in homes, phone calls, emails, whatever.
His hypothetical literally described the standard for getting a warrant.
Re: Watchdog Report Says N.S.A. Program Is Illegal and Should End
#23The NSA has committed no crimes. As an organization, they've acted within the bounds of the law and done exactly what they were supposed to do. This watchdog report is saying that the law is not in the interest of the people and it should be changed. But until that happens, the NSA is in the right to continue with business as usual.
Our constitution prohibits ex post facto law. This means that someone can't be charged with violating a law that was not in effect at the time of the person's action. ie, if the the speed limit is lowered to 50mph on Tuesday, you can't be ticketed for having driven 55mph on Monday. This should apply to the NSA in the same way that it applies to citizens. We may not like the law, but we can't call them criminals, dictators or all around bad guys for playing by the rules as they were written at the time.
It's also important to note that the NSA currently has the support of the people and the people's representatives. If 80% of the country hated the law that allows blanket collection of business records then it would have been changed long ago. The issue is 50/50 at best among the people and much more lopsided in favor among members of congress. Changing the law will be difficult at this point, as it's supposed to be. The whole point of a democratic bureaucracy is that they are stable and slow to change. We can't routinely re-write laws that are disliked by 40% or even 50% of the people and lawmakers. In general, it's bad for business. It's difficult to plan for the future when a relatively small group of citizens can throw out the rules in a short time period.
If the NSA had some kind of effect on the life of the average citizen this law would be rescinded immediately. If that doesn't end up happening, it's going to take a lot more than personal interpretations of the constitution to get the federal government to give up capability and assets it spent a lot of time and money building. This law may change and the country may be better without it. If anything it will be a long time until the majority of people make up their minds or even form an opinion on this issue. Until then the NSA is going to what all of us do: pursue their goals while acting within the boundaries of the law.
Re: Watchdog Report Says N.S.A. Program Is Illegal and Should End
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your hypothetical makes no sense. If they have "probable cause" before tapping his phone, that means that the "left no evidence other than incriminating phone calls" must be false.
No, probable cause is not the same thing as evidence. His hypothetical is actually how warrants are supposed to work. Law enforcement have probable cause to suspect someone of being guilty. If they can make a strong argument about why the person is probably guilty, they then get a warrant to search for evidence in homes, phone calls, emails, whatever. His hypothetical literally described the standard for getting a wa…
> No, probable cause is not the same thing as evidence.
Probable cause is based on evidence.
> His hypothetical is actually how warrants are supposed to work.
No, its not.
> Law enforcement have probable cause to suspect someone of being guilty. If they can make a strong argument about why the person is probably guilty, they then get a warrant to search for evidence in homes, phone calls, emails, whatever.
And that "strong argument" is based on factual evidence that was either received through mechanism other than search and seizure, was the product of prior search and seizure in conditions that do not require a warrant, or was the product of prior warrant-based searches and seizures.
If there was no evidence left other than what was sought in the warrant, there would be no basis for probable cause to support the warrant.
Re: Watchdog Report Says N.S.A. Program Is Illegal and Should End
#25The NSA has committed no crimes. As an organization, they've acted within the bounds of the law and done exactly what they were supposed to do. This watchdog report is saying that the law is not in the interest of the people and it should be changed. But until that happens, the NSA is in the right to continue with business as usual. Our constitution prohibits ex post facto law. This means that someone can't be charge…
> If 80% of the country hated the law that allows blanket collection of business records then it would have been changed long ago.
Source?
If one thing I've learned from this whole thing is that the general public holds a very dangerous belief in some high-functioning state of representative democracy.
A combination of crippled public dissent and (state-supported) public ignorance makes me highly question a strong majority of opinion would make a difference in real-life politics. Let alone active protest among a minority.
This isn't SOPA where it's people against lobbyists and special interests. This is against internal government power. The stakes are much higher.
Re: Watchdog Report Says N.S.A. Program Is Illegal and Should End
#26The NSA has committed no crimes. As an organization, they've acted within the bounds of the law and done exactly what they were supposed to do. This watchdog report is saying that the law is not in the interest of the people and it should be changed. But until that happens, the NSA is in the right to continue with business as usual. Our constitution prohibits ex post facto law. This means that someone can't be charge…
>It's also important to note that the NSA currently has the support of the people and the people's representatives. If 80% of the country hated the law that allows blanket collection of business records then it would have been changed long ago.
That's ingenious. We didn't know about these secret courts. We didn't know the extent to which we were being spied on. The extent to which laws were being manipulated. Obama's administration even claimed that their interpretation of these laws and therefore what they could do with them were too vital to national security to let us know!
Congress wouldn't have had hearings where Keith Alexander had to explain and defend what he was doing if we already knew what he was doing. These wiretap laws also run contrary to an older Supreme Court ruling. You know how the government got around that? Bush's administration claimed that Congress told him to use military power and he considered the NSA a military force so they could ignore the Supreme Court ruling. The FBI did the same. These are twisted versions of laws we allowed that we weren't even allowed to know about. Fuck secret interpretations of laws.
Re: Watchdog Report Says N.S.A. Program Is Illegal and Should End
#27The NSA has committed no crimes. As an organization, they've acted within the bounds of the law and done exactly what they were supposed to do. This watchdog report is saying that the law is not in the interest of the people and it should be changed. But until that happens, the NSA is in the right to continue with business as usual. Our constitution prohibits ex post facto law. This means that someone can't be charge…
> The NSA has committed no crimes. As an organization, they've acted within the bounds of the law and done exactly what they were supposed to do. This watchdog report is saying that the law is not in the interest of the people and it should be changed. But until that happens, the NSA is in the right to continue with business as usual.
From the article, quoting the report:
The program “lacks a viable legal foundation under Section 215, implicates constitutional concerns under the First and Fourth Amendments, raises serious threats to privacy and civil liberties as a policy matter, and has shown only limited value,” the report said. “As a result, the board recommends that the government end the program.”
Now, you could mention that two out of the five representatives disagree with the idea that the program is illegal. That would be fair enough. Saying that the report finds nothing wrong law-wise with the program isn't.
> This means that someone can't be charged with violating a law that was not in effect at the time of the person's action. ie, if the the speed limit is lowered to 50mph on Tuesday, you can't be ticketed for having driven 55mph on Monday.
No doubt. But if you were to be caught red-handed doing warrantless wiretaps, on the other hand, retroactive immunity would automatically follow.
> In general, it's bad for business. It's difficult to plan for the future when a relatively small group of citizens can change how things work in a short time period.
I don't know what ordinary US citizens think about having their privacy violated and have the head of the NSA lie about their activities. You may well be right about them not caring, it's certainly the case here in Europe. But saying that changing the law would "harm business" is grotesque. I'm pretty sure you'll be hard-pressed to find any support for the activities of the NSA in the US IT sector, short of security/defense suppliers, who bloody well know which side of the bread is buttered. The rest is scared of losing non-US customers and of the EU implementing stringent laws about transferring data outside of the EU borders.
Re: Watchdog Report Says N.S.A. Program Is Illegal and Should End
#28Brand also worried that declaring that counterterrorism officials “have been operating this program unlawfully for years” could damage morale and make agencies overly cautious in taking steps to protect the country. It's great to have another voice speaking up against mass surveillance. Still -- you're telling me these agencies are in all likelihood committing crimes against the American people, but we need to be car…
They're not committing crimes against the American people. Not one American has been found who has been demonstrably harmed by any NSA program. Without harm, there no criminal act. That said, something can be unlawful without being criminal.
> Not one American has been found who has been demonstrably harmed by any NSA program.
First they came for some foreigners and I did not speak out - because I was an American.
Re: Watchdog Report Says N.S.A. Program Is Illegal and Should End
#29The NSA has committed no crimes. As an organization, they've acted within the bounds of the law and done exactly what they were supposed to do. This watchdog report is saying that the law is not in the interest of the people and it should be changed. But until that happens, the NSA is in the right to continue with business as usual. Our constitution prohibits ex post facto law. This means that someone can't be charge…
> The NSA has committed no crimes. As an organization, they've acted within the bounds of the law and done exactly what they were supposed to do. This watchdog report is saying that the law is not in the interest of the people and it should be changed.
No, the watchdog report is saying that the actual program was not within the statutory legal basis on which the Executive Branch, in the past two administrations, attempted to justify it, and, beyond that, is not within the bounds of the Constitution.
> This should apply to the NSA in the same way that it applies to citizens. We may not like the law, but we can't call them criminals, dictators or all around bad guys for playing by the rules as they were written at the time.
We can call them whatever we want (see US Constitution, Amendment I). Further, the report is saying that the program was not within the laws in place at the time, both the statute laws governing surveillance (and, since there are criminal laws for that, outside of the statutory allowance, the conclusion that, if the report is correct, they are criminals is not unjustified) and the fundamental laws limiting government power in the Constitution (from which, again on the assumption the report is correct, justifying the description as dictators, or at least agents of those usurping power in the manner of dictators).
And "bad guys" is a conclusion that doesn't require a violation of the law to support, since something can be bad without being illegal.
> It's also important to note that the NSA currently has the support of the people
No, it doesn't.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/01/20/poll-...
> If 80% of the country hated the law that allows blanket collection of business records then it would have been changed long ago.
Aside from the mistake of assuming that the US is a direct democracy where public opinion is immediately and infallibly reflected in policy (which is decidedly not the case), this errs further in arguing that if there was current widespread opposition, that opposition would cause policy change in the distant past ("long ago"). This is an astounding claim of retrocausality, and is simply implausible.
Re: Watchdog Report Says N.S.A. Program Is Illegal and Should End
#30The NSA has committed no crimes. As an organization, they've acted within the bounds of the law and done exactly what they were supposed to do. This watchdog report is saying that the law is not in the interest of the people and it should be changed. But until that happens, the NSA is in the right to continue with business as usual. Our constitution prohibits ex post facto law. This means that someone can't be charge…
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