Are all telephone calls recorded and accessible to the US government? • Hacker News Board

Re: Are all telephone calls recorded and accessible to the US government?

#11

Post by 6d0debc071 » Sat, May 04, 2013, 10:33 PM UTC

joshuahedlund wrote: post #7

If the government is already recording everything, why do they have to reach out and reprogram cards to get access to specific people? [1] I think the illegal things the government does to get more access is evidence they don't have total access at this time. [1] http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/04/verizon-rigmaiden-a...

That just shows that the FBI don't have access to everything all the time, which is probably true. I've worked for groups before where you'd know that someone else in the same group had the data you were interested in but it was less bother to go and get it yourself than it was to make a freedom of information request and wait a month for that to process.

One of the few advantages that smaller groups have against big systems is that big systems don't totally trust other people in their own systems. Even the police classify their information hierarchically - maybe this bit of information only needs to be known by inspectors in firearms units, etc ,etc.

Re: Are all telephone calls recorded and accessible to the US government?

#12

Post by gwgarry » Sat, May 04, 2013, 10:35 PM UTC

b6 wrote: post #4

gwgarry wrote: post #2

The more data they have the less they know. Most people with extreme voiced opinions will do nothing. Thinking doesn't mean doing and doing doesn't mean thinking.

The problem is that if you ever cross them, they have over 10 years worth of every type of your electronic communications to sift through for dirt. Not only do they have all that on you, which gives them some unknown but extremely worrisome level of insight about you, but also on all your friends and family and colleagues. And the likelihood of crossing them keeps growing.

Well I don't deal with them... so I don't care. They don't have to worry about me crossing them.

Re: Are all telephone calls recorded and accessible to the US government?

#13

Post by gwgarry » Sat, May 04, 2013, 10:37 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #8

moxie wrote: post #3

My recollection of the NSA's legal interpretation is that they feel they don't need a warrant to record everyone's traffic; they only need a warrant for a human to subsequently access those recordings. The twist this puts on "having nothing to hide" is that it means you have to trust everything you say now will forever be considered benign, rather than just at this particular moment in history. Open Whisper Systems i…

It's not a completely ridiculous legal interpretation. The 4th amendment is implemented via the exclusionary rule, which excludes evidence from a court case obtained from an unreasonable search. As a matter of history and practice (the exclusionary rule predates the Constitution), the 4th amendment is in many ways a rule governing criminal procedure more than it is a privacy rule per se. Now, today the prevailing vie…

Liberal democracies don't particularly care about principles. I guess they are just a rhetorical device with which the masses beat the government upside the head. The government officials are numb to this.

Re: Are all telephone calls recorded and accessible to the US government?

#14

Post by moxie » Sat, May 04, 2013, 10:39 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #8

moxie wrote: post #3

My recollection of the NSA's legal interpretation is that they feel they don't need a warrant to record everyone's traffic; they only need a warrant for a human to subsequently access those recordings. The twist this puts on "having nothing to hide" is that it means you have to trust everything you say now will forever be considered benign, rather than just at this particular moment in history. Open Whisper Systems i…

It's not a completely ridiculous legal interpretation. The 4th amendment is implemented via the exclusionary rule, which excludes evidence from a court case obtained from an unreasonable search. As a matter of history and practice (the exclusionary rule predates the Constitution), the 4th amendment is in many ways a rule governing criminal procedure more than it is a privacy rule per se. Now, today the prevailing vie…

To be clear, I don't actually think it's worth trying to influence what is or isn't the legal interpretation that we might desire.

We can't blame power for establishing systems of control, just as we can't blame a tiger for mauling a zoo keeper: it's the nature of the thing. It's what we should expect, no matter how much time we spend coaxing or training it.

I'd much rather invest energy into developing solutions that allow us to communicate securely, rather than investing energy into asking those with power not to monitor our insecure communication.

Re: Are all telephone calls recorded and accessible to the US government?

#15

Post by 6d0debc071 » Sat, May 04, 2013, 10:43 PM UTC

gwgarry wrote: post #2

The more data they have the less they know. Most people with extreme voiced opinions will do nothing. Thinking doesn't mean doing and doing doesn't mean thinking.

Prosecutors in the states are known to withhold exculpatory evidence. It's not about knowing, it's not even about what you can prove, it's about what they can pin on you - what they can get people to believe about you.

"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him."

- attributed to Richelieu, Cardinal De

That's the fear - (or a large part of it anyway.)

You don't even have to cross them for them to do it - not in any significant way. Maybe you slight a cop and he decides to screw you if he can. Maybe you're just a figure on someone's KPIs. You don't have to cross someone - not really - for your desires to conflict.

Re: Are all telephone calls recorded and accessible to the US government?

#16

Post by fchollet » Sat, May 04, 2013, 10:44 PM UTC

danbruc wrote: post #10

The first question that comes to my mind - is this technically and economically possible? How many minutes does the average person spend on the phone per day? I found some numbers in the range from 6 to 28 minutes per day. Let's just pick 15 minutes. This times the population of the states (313.9 million) divided by two yields 39,237,500 hours per day. Storing this at 8 kbps requires about 128.5 TiB per day or 45.8 P…

No doubt that intelligent processing on that scale will be feasible in time, and most likely soon. Opinion surveillance at the scale of a nation is too strategically important.

And when it will start happening, it will also apply to today's data.

Re: Are all telephone calls recorded and accessible to the US government?

#17

Post by alan_cx » Sat, May 04, 2013, 10:47 PM UTC

gwgarry wrote: post #12

b6 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that if you ever cross them, they have over 10 years worth of every type of your electronic communications to sift through for dirt. Not only do they have all that on you, which gives them some unknown but extremely worrisome level of insight about you, but also on all your friends and family and colleagues. And the likelihood of crossing them keeps growing.

Well I don't deal with them... so I don't care. They don't have to worry about me crossing them.

You will if they object to something you said.

Re: Are all telephone calls recorded and accessible to the US government?

#18

Post by dwiel » Sat, May 04, 2013, 10:53 PM UTC

6d0debc071 wrote: post #11

joshuahedlund wrote: post #7

If the government is already recording everything, why do they have to reach out and reprogram cards to get access to specific people? [1] I think the illegal things the government does to get more access is evidence they don't have total access at this time. [1] http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/04/verizon-rigmaiden-a...

That just shows that the FBI don't have access to everything all the time, which is probably true. I've worked for groups before where you'd know that someone else in the same group had the data you were interested in but it was less bother to go and get it yourself than it was to make a freedom of information request and wait a month for that to process. One of the few advantages that smaller groups have against big…

Just because they ask for access doesn't mean they don't already have it. It just means they haven't collected it in a way that can be used in a court case.

Re: Are all telephone calls recorded and accessible to the US government?

#19

Post by danbruc » Sat, May 04, 2013, 10:57 PM UTC

fchollet wrote: post #16

danbruc wrote: post #10

The first question that comes to my mind - is this technically and economically possible? How many minutes does the average person spend on the phone per day? I found some numbers in the range from 6 to 28 minutes per day. Let's just pick 15 minutes. This times the population of the states (313.9 million) divided by two yields 39,237,500 hours per day. Storing this at 8 kbps requires about 128.5 TiB per day or 45.8 P…

No doubt that intelligent processing on that scale will be feasible in time, and most likely soon. Opinion surveillance at the scale of a nation is too strategically important. And when it will start happening, it will also apply to today's data.

Yes, that seems to be no question - population growth is mostly linear or even sublinear and nobody is able to produce more than 24 hours of speech per day. If computational power keeps growing exponentially and algorithms keep getting better and better, it is only a question of time.

Re: Are all telephone calls recorded and accessible to the US government?

#20

Post by flogic » Sat, May 04, 2013, 11:00 PM UTC

moxie wrote: post #14

rayiner wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a completely ridiculous legal interpretation. The 4th amendment is implemented via the exclusionary rule, which excludes evidence from a court case obtained from an unreasonable search. As a matter of history and practice (the exclusionary rule predates the Constitution), the 4th amendment is in many ways a rule governing criminal procedure more than it is a privacy rule per se. Now, today the prevailing vie…

To be clear, I don't actually think it's worth trying to influence what is or isn't the legal interpretation that we might desire. We can't blame power for establishing systems of control, just as we can't blame a tiger for mauling a zoo keeper: it's the nature of the thing. It's what we should expect, no matter how much time we spend coaxing or training it. I'd much rather invest energy into developing solutions tha…

The critical difference is one is a tiger with limited reasoning ability and the other is a human being. So, I can and should be pissed at people in power when they overstep their bounds.