New Revelations U.S. Tracked Americans’ Calls for Over a Decade • Hacker News Board

Re: New Revelations U.S. Tracked Americans’ Calls for Over a Decade

#31

Post by tomohawk » Sat, Jan 17, 2015, 1:41 AM UTC

xnull1guest wrote: post #25

themartorana wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not, but just for the conjecture of it, let's assume that list contains Canada, since we have to protect our borders. And Mexico. And of course the UK, because they speak English and it's much easier for drug dealers to collude with other English speakers. And so on... So don't think Iran is the only country on the list, they just trumpet that to dig up thoughts of terrorism oh my. I'm jaded. I'm pretty sure pre…

> So don't think Iran is the only country on the list, they just trumpet that to dig up thoughts of terrorism oh my. For some reason Americans still overwhelmingly and falsely believe that Iran had something to do with 9/11.

I've not ever heard that. But there is plenty of involvement in other incidents:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_and_state-sponsored_terro...

Re: New Revelations U.S. Tracked Americans’ Calls for Over a Decade

#32

Post by moe » Sat, Jan 17, 2015, 1:43 AM UTC

rhino369 wrote: post #30

moe wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So all the defense the government used with the NSA database being overseen by the FISA court doesn't apply, there was no court oversight of this program. To be fair, calling FISA a "court" is a bit of an overstatement[1]. It's very unlikely that FISA oversight would have stopped or changed this in any way. Nonetheless it might be interesting to learn why they skipped the fig leaf altogether in this case. [1] http://…

It's comprised of legitimate federal judges. I'm not sure how much more you want.

Read the link in my comment, it goes into great detail about what FISA leaves to be desired. An NSA analyst sums it up as: "Kangaroo court[1] with a rubber stamp".

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangaroo_court

Re: New Revelations U.S. Tracked Americans’ Calls for Over a Decade

#33

Post by xnull1guest » Sat, Jan 17, 2015, 1:46 AM UTC

tomohawk wrote: post #31

xnull1guest wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So don't think Iran is the only country on the list, they just trumpet that to dig up thoughts of terrorism oh my. For some reason Americans still overwhelmingly and falsely believe that Iran had something to do with 9/11.

I've not ever heard that. But there is plenty of involvement in other incidents: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_and_state-sponsored_terro...

Oh certainly. State sponsorship of terrorism is regular practice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_state-sponso...

Re: New Revelations U.S. Tracked Americans’ Calls for Over a Decade

#34

Post by nl » Sat, Jan 17, 2015, 2:03 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #7

0x5f3759df-i wrote: post #6

The key point of this is that the database of calls was collected without court oversight. So all the defense the government used with the NSA database being overseen by the FISA court doesn't apply, there was no court oversight of this program. It did not target specific individuals and there was no probable cause before the collection of this data. This is a clear violation of the 4th Amendment in my view. >The rig…

The calls were cross-border: "The Justice Department secretly kept a database of Americans’ calls to foreign countries for more than a decade." The very first Congress, comprising many of the people who wrote the 4th amendment, passed a law allowing warrantless border searches. Since then, such searches have not been considered "unreasonable" under the theory that states have sovereign authority over what crosses the…

Not sure why this is downvoted. You might not like it, but it is pretty well established legal doctrine that cross border search doesn't require a warrent.

Re: New Revelations U.S. Tracked Americans’ Calls for Over a Decade

#35

Post by prawn » Sat, Jan 17, 2015, 2:28 AM UTC

mullingitover wrote: post #22

discardorama wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Washington, "left" and "right" are two sides of the same coin. The only difference is who they pay lipservice to: the left to the "poor", and the right to the "rich". Aside from this lipservice, they are both the same. Resolve to vote for someone not from the "(D)" or "(R)" side of the spectrum. It's time we got third parties in there.

It's a nice sentiment but the two party system is dominant by design. It's a feature that always emerges from winner take all voting systems.

You just need two-party preferred voting so that you can vote first for a niche representative if you wish and preference a major party. In Australia, for example, it allows parties outside the two majors to have some influence, which I think is healthy.

Re: New Revelations U.S. Tracked Americans’ Calls for Over a Decade

#36

Post by rdtsc » Sat, Jan 17, 2015, 2:42 AM UTC

rhino369 wrote: post #30

moe wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So all the defense the government used with the NSA database being overseen by the FISA court doesn't apply, there was no court oversight of this program. To be fair, calling FISA a "court" is a bit of an overstatement[1]. It's very unlikely that FISA oversight would have stopped or changed this in any way. Nonetheless it might be interesting to learn why they skipped the fig leaf altogether in this case. [1] http://…

It's comprised of legitimate federal judges. I'm not sure how much more you want.

Presumably if said judges worked in a coffee shop making and serving coffee, that coffee shop would not all of the sudden become a federal court?

Re: New Revelations U.S. Tracked Americans’ Calls for Over a Decade

#37

Post by skywhopper » Sat, Jan 17, 2015, 2:43 AM UTC

rhino369 wrote: post #29

0x5f3759df-i wrote: post #6

The key point of this is that the database of calls was collected without court oversight. So all the defense the government used with the NSA database being overseen by the FISA court doesn't apply, there was no court oversight of this program. It did not target specific individuals and there was no probable cause before the collection of this data. This is a clear violation of the 4th Amendment in my view. >The rig…

But it isn't a violation of the 4th amendment according the Supreme Court. Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735 (1979). The number you dial isn't private because you are showing it to the phone company.

This is what the court said back then, but the court and the public were naive, and the future implications of such a rule were not yet clear. But even without hindsight, I think the court's logic was flawed. The phone company does not publish a list of who called whom for all the world to read. We would be justifiably outraged if they did. That's the test we should use in determining if information shared with a company is "private". Just like I expect the phone company to keep my payment information private, I also ought to be able to expect my call history is private.

Re: New Revelations U.S. Tracked Americans’ Calls for Over a Decade

#38

Post by 0x5f3759df-i » Sat, Jan 17, 2015, 2:56 AM UTC

rhino369 wrote: post #29

0x5f3759df-i wrote: post #6

The key point of this is that the database of calls was collected without court oversight. So all the defense the government used with the NSA database being overseen by the FISA court doesn't apply, there was no court oversight of this program. It did not target specific individuals and there was no probable cause before the collection of this data. This is a clear violation of the 4th Amendment in my view. >The rig…

But it isn't a violation of the 4th amendment according the Supreme Court. Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735 (1979). The number you dial isn't private because you are showing it to the phone company.

U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon has already rejected that Maryland applies to the NSA bulk collection. Ultimately it will come down the supreme court but I would not be surprised to see them limit the scope of Maryland.

>The government’s legal justification for the call-tracking program is based on a 1979 case, Smith v. Maryland, involving the surveillance of a criminal suspect over a two-day period. In that case, the Supreme Court said that Americans have no expectation of privacy in the telephone metadata that companies hold as business records, and that therefore a warrant is not required to obtain such information. A succession of judges on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court have adopted the government’s argument based on that ruling.

>But Leon said the question the Supreme Court confronted in 1979 is not the same as the one he was faced with. “Indeed, the question in this case can more properly be styled as follows: When do present-day circumstances — the evolutions in the government’s surveillance capabilities, citizens’ phone habits, and the relationship between the NSA and telecom companies — become so thoroughly unlike those considered by the Supreme Court thirty-four years ago, that a precedent like Smith does not apply?” he wrote. “The answer, unfortunately for the government, is now.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/judge-nsas-collecting...

Re: New Revelations U.S. Tracked Americans’ Calls for Over a Decade

#39

Post by 0x5f3759df-i » Sat, Jan 17, 2015, 3:03 AM UTC

nl wrote: post #34

rayiner wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The calls were cross-border: "The Justice Department secretly kept a database of Americans’ calls to foreign countries for more than a decade." The very first Congress, comprising many of the people who wrote the 4th amendment, passed a law allowing warrantless border searches. Since then, such searches have not been considered "unreasonable" under the theory that states have sovereign authority over what crosses the…

Not sure why this is downvoted. You might not like it, but it is pretty well established legal doctrine that cross border search doesn't require a warrent.

I'm not sure you can claim that the movement of a physical object across a border is the same thing as a phone call.

This becomes especially dangerous, once you start applying it to the internet, the average user has no way of knowing where a website they request is coming from and typing the same domain name will get a page from different locations depending on the circumstances.

Am I really crossing a border by requesting a website from Europe? Should I need a passport to do so?

Re: New Revelations U.S. Tracked Americans’ Calls for Over a Decade

#40

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jan 17, 2015, 4:02 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #7

0x5f3759df-i wrote: post #6

The key point of this is that the database of calls was collected without court oversight. So all the defense the government used with the NSA database being overseen by the FISA court doesn't apply, there was no court oversight of this program. It did not target specific individuals and there was no probable cause before the collection of this data. This is a clear violation of the 4th Amendment in my view. >The rig…

The calls were cross-border: "The Justice Department secretly kept a database of Americans’ calls to foreign countries for more than a decade." The very first Congress, comprising many of the people who wrote the 4th amendment, passed a law allowing warrantless border searches. Since then, such searches have not been considered "unreasonable" under the theory that states have sovereign authority over what crosses the…

[deleted]