Earlier quoted context omitted.
What? You thought a lame duck president was going to up and dismantle a trillion dollar defense measure? Come on...
Or that someone who was a 'constitutional expert', and ran on "Hope and Change" for two consecutive terms would risk nothing politically (in terms of re-election) to dismantle what is obviously an unconstitutional measure? "COME ON!" -Gob Bluth
Watchdog Report Says N.S.A. Program Is Illegal and Should End
81–90 of 133 posts
Re: Watchdog Report Says N.S.A. Program Is Illegal and Should End
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. American history is full of government actions that were later found unconstitutional and were abandoned and condemned. Think about slavery, women's voting rights, mistreatment of the Japanese during WWII, McCarthyism, segregation and the civil rights movement, and now finally marriage equality. These things unfortunately take longer than a few months to get shut down, but they do stop.
You could not hide slavery, a woman's inability to vote, internment camps, segregation, or any of these other things. Spying on your own people, however, is something that has always been hidden in this country except the times it has arisen to the public eye (think of the communism-witch-hunts of American citizens by the government and fellow citizens). ... only to retreat and be hidden again and forgotten again. At…
I also do think that introducing harsher laws for this type of stuff is a good technique. Currently the NSA is above the law, but that can change. Basically, if anyone there is caught doing anything illegal, they should be held to a higher, not lower standard since they do have the ability to do much more damage. Then spell out what constitutes legal vs illegal spying.
Re: Watchdog Report Says N.S.A. Program Is Illegal and Should End
#83Brand 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.
They've also been providing tips to the DEA: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/dea-and-nsa-team-intel...
How is subverting due process by engaging in parallel construction not a crime against US citizens?
Re: Watchdog Report Says N.S.A. Program Is Illegal and Should End
#84The problem with the NSA is not just one or more illegal program but their operating culture and philosophy. The NSA has gone into the business of preemptively acquiring capabilities(subverted systems,large scale databases, zero days, malware, etc) and then marketing those capabilities to other institutions from law enforcement to foreign governments. The NSA leverages the classification system, deception and parallel construction to evade judicial and legislative review on how those capabilities are used.
This approach to covert actions means that there is no part of society that the NSA will not attack to stockpile a capability for some unspecified future use.
Re: Watchdog Report Says N.S.A. Program Is Illegal and Should End
#85Brand 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…
Well, it makes sense that she'd say that since she's one of the two that rejected that the program is illegal. I've been reading Tim Weiner's Enemies, a history of the FBI and one thing stuck with me. That was that there was a period of time when the FBI was incredibly useless because of a previous Supreme Court ruling that wiretapping was illegal and then FBI agents all began to misunderstand what they could and cou…
If you catch a criminal, but do so by subverting the Constitution, you should feel shame, not pride. When you have the power the agency has, it is of utmost importance that values be palpable in the air among staff. Power without obligation to something higher like the Constitution and Bill of Rights will always be debased in favor of achieving concrete objectives.
If we're worrying about hurting their feelings, we're having the wrong debate.
Re: Watchdog Report Says N.S.A. Program Is Illegal and Should End
#86Earlier 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.
Ok let's say they have some evidence that is sufficient to create reasonable suspicion, but probably insufficient to secure a conviction. Why would it be wrong for the FBI, under the supervision of a court order, to tap this person's phone to see if he is the killer? Keep in mind this is not a broad NSA dragnet here. This would be a targeted wiretap driven by probable cause and governed by the federal rules of eviden…
Personally, I would love to see a two-factor commit with all warrants. All warrants should require two judges to sign off on them, one federal judge and one state judge where the wiretap will be carried out.
The other thing I would like to see is some sort of "cost" that the agencies must bear to be able to request warrants. It should cost each agency money to apply for warrants and they should have a limited budget each year to spend on warrant applications. At the end of each year, to apply for increases in this budget, they should present an equal number of both cases which they would have liked to pursue warrants on someone, but it was deemed outside the budget and cases where they pursued a warrant and got one, but the person turned out to be innocent. Such a policy applies market forces to limit rampant wiretapping and phishing expeditions. Instead they will adjust to only use their warrants on those people who actually should be wiretapped. This would also help prevent unilateral action by a single agent or team, without appealing to another independent group with power of the purse over warrant applications. Individual agents and teams would try to get warrants for all their suspects, but the group with power of the purse has the responsibility to dole out warrant applications according to merit so that the agency doesn't run out of them before year's end.
Re: Watchdog Report Says N.S.A. Program Is Illegal and Should End
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Palmer raids in the early 1900s arrested more than 10,000 people. Of that, 3,500 of them were held indefinitely. Almost all of them were innocent people. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, 1,200 Muslims were arrested. Some were beaten (this is according to the Justice Department's own Inspector General of the time). Hundreds were held for months. Absolutely none of them were found to be with al-Qaeda. These are jus…
And because of how fucked-up the system is, when they come to pick you up, any number of minor things during that encounter ("Fuck you pig, where's the warrant?", running, etc.) can escalate into resisting arrest, disturbing the peace, or assaulting an officer, and then magically you're in the system "for real" and screwed.
Re: Watchdog Report Says N.S.A. Program Is Illegal and Should End
#88Brand 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.
Re: Watchdog Report Says N.S.A. Program Is Illegal and Should End
#89I'm OK if they want to look at my data. I just want to know who and when they look at it and how much they are going to pay me for it. 1,000 Bitcoin gets you everything I have data-wise.
I think this deal is poorly thought out since, coincidentally, all of your bitcoin wallets are in fact data. I'll happily pay whatever sum of BTC into a wallet in exchange for that wallet + some more data. Nothing but gain.
Re: Watchdog Report Says N.S.A. Program Is Illegal and Should End
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
You could not hide slavery, a woman's inability to vote, internment camps, segregation, or any of these other things. Spying on your own people, however, is something that has always been hidden in this country except the times it has arisen to the public eye (think of the communism-witch-hunts of American citizens by the government and fellow citizens). ... only to retreat and be hidden again and forgotten again. At…
That's not quite true. You can hide spying when it's small scale, but we can certainly defund spy agencies. Currently the budget for the NSA is classified, but estimate at around $11 billion. Let's slash that to $100 million and watch these programs fall away. I also do think that introducing harsher laws for this type of stuff is a good technique. Currently the NSA is above the law, but that can change. Basically, i…
What I would most like to see is states assert the requirement that all wiretaps carried out within its borders to also require approval by a state judge and not just a federal judge. This two-factor auth would add another layer to prevent transgressions and abuse of warrants.