Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

FISA court rules NSA can resume bulk data collection

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 157 posts

Re: FISA court rules NSA can resume bulk data collection

#101

Post by BillinghamJ »

simplemath wrote: post #68
fru2013 wrote: post #13

I personally think that creating laws to prevent government surveillance is a pointless endeavor. The NSA has ignored and broken laws in the past, why would we expect them to follow new ones that are passed? The only way to prevent surveillance is with a technical solution (encryption), not a legal solution (more laws).

Always-on end to end crypto is an extremely difficult problem, and whoever solves it is going to win a gigantic market.

It adds complexity, but it ultimately isn't really particularly difficult.

The problem is that your backend servers can no longer operate on that data in any meaningful way. For this reason, full end-to-end encryption is likely not realistic for certain applications.

Simpler applications, like iMessage, can and do implement end-to-end encryption without much difficulty at all.

Re: FISA court rules NSA can resume bulk data collection

#102

Post by BillinghamJ »

simplemath wrote: post #68
fru2013 wrote: post #13

I personally think that creating laws to prevent government surveillance is a pointless endeavor. The NSA has ignored and broken laws in the past, why would we expect them to follow new ones that are passed? The only way to prevent surveillance is with a technical solution (encryption), not a legal solution (more laws).

Always-on end to end crypto is an extremely difficult problem, and whoever solves it is going to win a gigantic market.

It adds complexity, but it ultimately isn't really particularly difficult.

The problem is that your backend servers can no longer operate on that data in any meaningful way. For this reason, full end-to-end encryption is likely not realistic for certain applications.

Simpler applications, like iMessage, can and do implement end-to-end encryption without much difficulty at all.

Re: FISA court rules NSA can resume bulk data collection

#103

Post by Perseids »

0x5f3759df-i wrote: post #76
fru2013 wrote: post #13

I personally think that creating laws to prevent government surveillance is a pointless endeavor. The NSA has ignored and broken laws in the past, why would we expect them to follow new ones that are passed? The only way to prevent surveillance is with a technical solution (encryption), not a legal solution (more laws).

I'm sorry but no. https://xkcd.com/538/ You need both. By that same logic do you think the constitution and bill of rights is a pointless endeavor? Our government has violated these rights many times in our history. I could just as easily say that the constitutional amendments passed after the civil war were pointless because there was still institutionalized discrimination and racism for another hundred years. How m…

Furthermore, even the best encryption does little to prevent meta data and anonymity networks ala Tor are inherently high latency and low throughput.

What's more, people tend to prefer centralised systems at the moment, for the sake usability. E.g., I don't see how Androids automatic photo backup could be as friction-less otherwise.

Re: FISA court rules NSA can resume bulk data collection

#104

Post by bitJericho »

ikeboy wrote: post #98
bitJericho wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NSA: Aw man the supreme court just told us to stop. Fisa: Don't worry about them I'll approve it for "six" more months lol.

That's not what happened here.

Could have fooled me.

Re: FISA court rules NSA can resume bulk data collection

#105

Post by mkstowegnv »

0x5f3759df-i wrote: post #76
fru2013 wrote: post #13

I personally think that creating laws to prevent government surveillance is a pointless endeavor. The NSA has ignored and broken laws in the past, why would we expect them to follow new ones that are passed? The only way to prevent surveillance is with a technical solution (encryption), not a legal solution (more laws).

I'm sorry but no. https://xkcd.com/538/ You need both. By that same logic do you think the constitution and bill of rights is a pointless endeavor? Our government has violated these rights many times in our history. I could just as easily say that the constitutional amendments passed after the civil war were pointless because there was still institutionalized discrimination and racism for another hundred years. How m…

>with real penalties for the violation of our rights.

This. The flagrant violations of our constitution that have taken place are tantamount to treason and the guilty parties deserve punishment at the level of life in prison. And I will vote for any candidate that has the intestinal fortitude to say so.

Re: FISA court rules NSA can resume bulk data collection

#106

Post by tempodox »

harry8 wrote: post #73
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can tell you from first hand experience that getting a warrant TO the FISA court from a sponsoring agency is a massive bureaucratic battle in and of itself. Reason being, the agency powers that be don't want to send something up that will be disapproved because it takes significant time and effort of general counsel and leadership of these agencies to process, implement and track to maintain compliance - even if th…

I don't believe you, sorry. You may be telling the truth but there are so many lies we've been told that I just don't. Sorry, that's how it is and I'm sure a very large number of people would agree with that. The FISA court /is/ a rubber stamp, how do we know? Ed Snowden told us about all the incredible amounts of overreach that the FISA court approved in secret. We're at far more risk from public servants with delus…

Your last two sentences should be framed and displayed in every office of every agency concerned.

Re: FISA court rules NSA can resume bulk data collection

#107

Post by Ntrails »

ikeboy wrote: post #52
JoshTriplett wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, it's OK that the court is effectively a rubber-stamp, because we can trust that the agencies requesting warrants won't ask for things they don't think are reasonable? No.

I believe you misunderstood him. He seems to be saying that almost no invalid requests were submitted, because there was a rigorous review before submission. The court might not be a rubber-stamp, but the agencies happened to only send reasonable requests, so they got approved.

Damn near everything they sent to be approved was in line with how FISA rules on such things.

We've got two arguments

    - Did FISA properly check submissions were appropriate for their rules/laws.
    - Are FISA rules/laws appropriate for USA #1
I think we can all agree the first might be true (and thus they are not rubber stamping), whilst simultaneously mostly agreeing the second is definitely doubtful

Re: FISA court rules NSA can resume bulk data collection

#108

Post by [deleted] »

gjm11 wrote: post #97
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can tell you from first hand experience that getting a warrant TO the FISA court from a sponsoring agency is a massive bureaucratic battle in and of itself. Reason being, the agency powers that be don't want to send something up that will be disapproved because it takes significant time and effort of general counsel and leadership of these agencies to process, implement and track to maintain compliance - even if th…

Imagine a system that works as follows. You can have people assassinated. In order to do so, however, you need to fill in a hundred-page form with exhaustive details of your personal finances, your medical history, and the contents of your computers' hard drives; and then you need to play six sets of tennis against a strong player and win at least two; and then you need to play a 7-game chess match against a holder o…

[deleted]

Re: FISA court rules NSA can resume bulk data collection

#109

Post by ikeboy »

bitJericho wrote: post #104
ikeboy wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what happened here.

Could have fooled me.

Not sure if you read the OP, but it made it clear the conflicting ruling was from the Second Circuit, not the Supreme Court. Also, the Second Circuit ruling was based on Congress not being clear on what was allowed; now that Congress passed another law that extends bulk collection for 6 months, that argument no longer applies.

Re: FISA court rules NSA can resume bulk data collection

#110

Post by tootie »

gjm11 wrote: post #97
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can tell you from first hand experience that getting a warrant TO the FISA court from a sponsoring agency is a massive bureaucratic battle in and of itself. Reason being, the agency powers that be don't want to send something up that will be disapproved because it takes significant time and effort of general counsel and leadership of these agencies to process, implement and track to maintain compliance - even if th…

Imagine a system that works as follows. You can have people assassinated. In order to do so, however, you need to fill in a hundred-page form with exhaustive details of your personal finances, your medical history, and the contents of your computers' hard drives; and then you need to play six sets of tennis against a strong player and win at least two; and then you need to play a 7-game chess match against a holder o…

That's a terribly analogy. The bureacracy isn't there as just a speedbump. It's there to make sure you don't waste time on cases doomed to fail. Secondly, surveillance is an essential tool in fighting crime. Assassinations are not.
Post reply on HN