FISA court rules NSA can resume bulk data collection • Hacker News Board

Re: FISA court rules NSA can resume bulk data collection

#121

Post by nathan_long » Wed, Jul 01, 2015, 2:12 PM UTC

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #58

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'm not saying anything about how much trust you should put in the system, rather that the review process is significantly more in depth than what these statistics can show.

Maybe so, but what evidence does the public have of that claim? We get only the tiniest peeks at this process, and they look terrible, and then we're told "it's not so bad, you don't have enough information to know."

Which is exactly what people have complained about.

Re: FISA court rules NSA can resume bulk data collection

#122

Post by fnordfnordfnord » Wed, Jul 01, 2015, 2:12 PM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #26

3pt14159 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also the FISA court has been called an "almost parallel supreme court" by the New York Times, and given that it only hears one side of a case, makes this all the more troubling.

people have talked about only hearing one side of the case, but that's the same for all warrant proceedings. FISA court isn't about declaring people guilty, it's about declaring whether there's reasonable suspicion.

It's about stuffing databases full of surveillance information gathered by the NSA; databases which are shared with law enforcement agencies across the country. Those agencies then use the data to mine for leads, stage fake context searches, seize peoples' property, and put people on criminal trial; all while denying collusion with the surveillance state. I'm supposed to think this is all okay because, 'hey, they're guilty, right?' except that 1. This is explicitly prohibited by the Bill of Rights and 2. They aren't always guilty.

Re: FISA court rules NSA can resume bulk data collection

#123

Post by Bartweiss » Wed, Jul 01, 2015, 2:13 PM UTC

Ntrails wrote: post #107

ikeboy wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This is a great summary of the problem, and of why we're talking at cross purposes. Defending the accuracy of the FISA decisions only defends points one, while almost everyone attacking the court is talking about point two.

Re: FISA court rules NSA can resume bulk data collection

#124

Post by rebootthesystem » Wed, Jul 01, 2015, 2:19 PM UTC

Help elect Rand Paul and all of this is likely to stop. Any other candidate, regardless of party affiliation, is a vote for maintaining the current state of affairs.

Not sure he'd be able to accomplish everything he talks about due to political realities. That said, the massive message sent by having him and his ideas pushed to the top of the stack would shake-up the political class. It's about letting them know, in very clear terms, what we want and what we are unhappy with.

Re: FISA court rules NSA can resume bulk data collection

#125

Post by fnordfnordfnord » Wed, Jul 01, 2015, 2:21 PM UTC

nathan_long wrote: post #118

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…

So you're saying that the pass/fail ration we see is meaningless because there's effectively a prior filter. What's the pass/fail ratio for it?

Well, it's also very high. Obviously, because these are highly trained, hard working, excessively competent, law enforcement agents who wouldn't suspect a person if he weren't doing something wrong. Who's got the time for that what with them being chronically under-funded, under-trained, and under-staffed. /s

Re: FISA court rules NSA can resume bulk data collection

#126

Post by ikeboy » Wed, Jul 01, 2015, 2:25 PM UTC

Bartweiss wrote: post #123

Ntrails wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This is a great summary of the problem, and of why we're talking at cross purposes. Defending the accuracy of the FISA decisions only defends points one, while almost everyone attacking the court is talking about point two.

Whoever mentions the numbers on how few applications were rejected as an argument seemingly can't be talking about point two. And that was what prompted this particular discussion, so I don't think you can claim the people involved are talking about point two.

Re: FISA court rules NSA can resume bulk data collection

#127

Post by kevin_thibedeau » Wed, Jul 01, 2015, 2:38 PM UTC

saosebastiao wrote: post #119

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…

If the evidence bar is so high, why exactly have there never been any arrests made using the data? That is an awful lot of people affected negatively for a zero benefit program. You would think a massive bureaucratic battle to only submit valid warrants would result in at least one arrest.

They have been hiding the activities of FISA by using parallel construction as the basis for arrests: 1) Get dirt on someone illegaly. 2) Find a legal avenue to discover that same information now that you know it's there. That protects their collection methods when defendants try to find out how they were nabbed. The FISA warrant never has to be disclosed if no one outside the community knows it exists. Consequently they are never "officially" used for an arrest.

Re: FISA court rules NSA can resume bulk data collection

#128

Post by kyleblarson » Wed, Jul 01, 2015, 2:59 PM UTC

bazillion wrote: post #53

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…

This is exactly the case. The reason there are almost no denials is that there would have been a great amount of due diligence performed to ensure that FISA collection was warranted. The fact that there are any denials after such analytic rigor takes place, suggests that the FISA court is not a rubber stamp. Every single year people who are read onto FISA must complete a comprehensive course on how to deal with FISA…

This reeks of the typical police brutality / killing internal affairs investigation: we investigated ourselves and found that we did nothing wrong. Trust us.

Re: FISA court rules NSA can resume bulk data collection

#129

Post by digler999 » Wed, Jul 01, 2015, 3:36 PM UTC

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #42

dmix wrote: post #9

Just a reminder about FISA's historical performance: > Between 2001 and 2012, the FISA judges approved 20,909 surveillance and property search warrants - an average of 33 a week. During that 12-year period, the judges denied just 10 applications. Prosecutors withdrew another 26 applications. > From 2007 to 2012, FISA judges also approved 532 "business record" warrant applications, the category used in the order that…

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 stop you right at the term 'court'. The doors are locked and all proceedings are done in secret with no counterparty. I say this 'court' doesn't conform to its definition of a "place where justice is administered". Maybe "court theatre" or "cargo cult court" might be a more accurate term ?

Re: FISA court rules NSA can resume bulk data collection

#130

Post by DSMan195276 » Wed, Jul 01, 2015, 3:37 PM UTC

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #94

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…

Ok, let's assume anecdotally that this is true. This is your experience. How would this be any different from the bar that a prosecutor has for bringing a criminal trial to court? Lost time, lost reputation, chance of losing the election. Every time a prosecutor decides to go all in, they're taking what could be a huge risk -- if not in that particular case then in the aggregate. Yet we see much different numbers fro…

That's not a fair comparison, because the FISA court isn't proving guilt, it's requesting a warrant by attempting to prove reasonable suspicion. It would be a fair comparison if you compared them to the percentage-granted for regular search-warrants, and what I can find online seems to indicate that it's fairly high for those as well, again because they're not proving guilt.