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Personal Privacy Is Only One of the Costs of NSA Surveillance

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Re: Personal Privacy Is Only One of the Costs of NSA Surveillance

#11

Post by w4 »

smoothgrips wrote: post #9

I've often wondered if the NSA is constitutional. Not what they're doing, but the organization itself. The constitution, from my understanding, grants the federal government power to do certain things. Therefore, if the constitution doesn't specifically grant the federal government the power/ability to run, say the NSA (or other federal department), does that not warrant the entire thing unconstitutional?

Not really; the Constitution establishes the Federal government as responsible for national defense. Assuming you can construe the NSA as necessary for national defense then the NSA is constitutional (though not necessarily its activities).

Re: Personal Privacy Is Only One of the Costs of NSA Surveillance

#12

Post by vezzy-fnord »

vonmoltke wrote: post #10
diafygi wrote: post #3

> Economic losses to US businesses due to lost sales and declining customer trust. Whenever I have a discussion with friends on this topic, this is what I focus on. For many people, safety has a higher political priority than privacy. However, when you start saying that mass surveillance kills jobs, it gets much more attention because economic issues are usually on par or above safety concerns. This is why I don't un…

> For many people, safety has a higher political priority than privacy. However, when you start saying that mass surveillance kills jobs, it gets much more attention because economic issues are usually on par or above safety concerns. Then there are people like my wife, who thinks disclosure hurt the US politically and economically, thus rationalizing that it is Snowden's fault for revealing all these surveillance pr…

I, unfortunately, can't come up with many good, non-tinfoil rebuttals.

It's an assertion that all crime is permissible, if the perpetrator is not caught.

Re: Personal Privacy Is Only One of the Costs of NSA Surveillance

#13

Post by triangleman »

smoothgrips wrote: post #9

I've often wondered if the NSA is constitutional. Not what they're doing, but the organization itself. The constitution, from my understanding, grants the federal government power to do certain things. Therefore, if the constitution doesn't specifically grant the federal government the power/ability to run, say the NSA (or other federal department), does that not warrant the entire thing unconstitutional?

Technically speaking, you are correct. Practically and legally, everything Congress does is jammed through Article I Section 8 of the Constitution, which grants it the authority to "regulate" interstate commerce.

Also, what w4 said. But again if you want to get technical, the Constitution restricts Congress's authority to provide for the common defense to having an army or a navy, but not an Air Force, and not a National Security Agency.

Re: Personal Privacy Is Only One of the Costs of NSA Surveillance

#14

Post by [deleted] »

smoothgrips wrote: post #9

I've often wondered if the NSA is constitutional. Not what they're doing, but the organization itself. The constitution, from my understanding, grants the federal government power to do certain things. Therefore, if the constitution doesn't specifically grant the federal government the power/ability to run, say the NSA (or other federal department), does that not warrant the entire thing unconstitutional?

[deleted]

Re: Personal Privacy Is Only One of the Costs of NSA Surveillance

#15

Post by sp332 »

watwut wrote: post #8
Stefanrio wrote: post #2

I love how people still make noise about NSA, while gladly using facebook.

Facebooks ability to use my kids and cat pictures is not comparable to government ability to read political activists or journalists emails. Random person ability to know what school I did go to is not as dangerous to justice as governments ability to read communication of defense in high profile case. By your logic, everyone who make noise about NSA should go underground to keep the right to complain.

Every level of government, right down to the municipal level, can ask Facebook to hand all that data over at any time. They don't even need a court order if they claim it's an emergency or involves a child. https://www.facebook.com/safety/groups/law/guidelines/ Facebook admits to turning over data on tens of thousands of people in the USA. https://govtrequests.facebook.com/country/United%20States/20...

Re: Personal Privacy Is Only One of the Costs of NSA Surveillance

#16

Post by vezzy-fnord »

watwut wrote: post #8
Stefanrio wrote: post #2

I love how people still make noise about NSA, while gladly using facebook.

Facebooks ability to use my kids and cat pictures is not comparable to government ability to read political activists or journalists emails. Random person ability to know what school I did go to is not as dangerous to justice as governments ability to read communication of defense in high profile case. By your logic, everyone who make noise about NSA should go underground to keep the right to complain.

It's not just that, though. All of the casual information that you post on Facebook, including timestamps and whatnot, can all be used to infer and create a detailed portfolio as to your personality, location, political views, sexual orientation, interests, commonly visited places, employer, etc. EXIF data from photographs alone is a goldmine.

There was actually a practical example of a man FOIAing his documents from Facebook, which revealed that they had over a thousand pages specifically devoted to him alone on every facet of his life. Even though he was only a "casual" user (one wall update a week, or so). You can see it in the documentary film Terms and Conditions May Apply.

As for me personally, I've never had a Facebook account. Although virtually no one is impervious, reducing social media presence is still always useful to get rid of the blatantly incriminating things.

Unfortunately, the biggest threat is perhaps, what other people are saying about you. I have no idea about what's going on there...

Re: Personal Privacy Is Only One of the Costs of NSA Surveillance

#17

Post by opendais »

happyscrappy wrote: post #7
opendais wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is because the people with MBAs and the people on the Board don't really care that much . They'll protest and engage in a little bit of legal action but they don't want to go all out to fight it.

Google and Facebook just posted record profits, why are the MBAs supposed to care?

I never said they were supposed to care. :P

Re: Personal Privacy Is Only One of the Costs of NSA Surveillance

#18

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

imgabe wrote: post #4
Stefanrio wrote: post #2

I love how people still make noise about NSA, while gladly using facebook.

Facebook does not have the power to imprison you or mark you as a suspected terrorist and put you on a no-fly list and freeze your bank accounts.

But it has the power to completely undermine public discourse and thus democratic decisionmaking.

Re: Personal Privacy Is Only One of the Costs of NSA Surveillance

#19

Post by XorNot »

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #16
watwut wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebooks ability to use my kids and cat pictures is not comparable to government ability to read political activists or journalists emails. Random person ability to know what school I did go to is not as dangerous to justice as governments ability to read communication of defense in high profile case. By your logic, everyone who make noise about NSA should go underground to keep the right to complain.

It's not just that, though. All of the casual information that you post on Facebook, including timestamps and whatnot, can all be used to infer and create a detailed portfolio as to your personality, location, political views, sexual orientation, interests, commonly visited places, employer, etc. EXIF data from photographs alone is a goldmine. There was actually a practical example of a man FOIAing his documents from…

"incriminating". You don't want to use that word. Because if you're actually doing something illegal or immoral, that is not a compelling reason for us not to act on it.

The idea that you need to be able to hide your political speech is a problem to start with. You won't be saved from tyranny by that power - if you use it, you already experience it and tyranny needs no reason to kick in doors beyond suspicion. Accurate intelligence is what you need when you're trying to do things right (or you've executed all the dissidents and the remaining ones are still a real threat).

Those who want to hide don't interest me. If there fears come to pass, I'll be long dead, and they'll have sat by and done nothing while it happened.

Re: Personal Privacy Is Only One of the Costs of NSA Surveillance

#20

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

vonmoltke wrote: post #10
diafygi wrote: post #3

> Economic losses to US businesses due to lost sales and declining customer trust. Whenever I have a discussion with friends on this topic, this is what I focus on. For many people, safety has a higher political priority than privacy. However, when you start saying that mass surveillance kills jobs, it gets much more attention because economic issues are usually on par or above safety concerns. This is why I don't un…

> For many people, safety has a higher political priority than privacy. However, when you start saying that mass surveillance kills jobs, it gets much more attention because economic issues are usually on par or above safety concerns. Then there are people like my wife, who thinks disclosure hurt the US politically and economically, thus rationalizing that it is Snowden's fault for revealing all these surveillance pr…

So, if you, I dunno, cheated on her, and a friend who knew about it told her, then it would all be that friend's fault, right? People have weird ethics ...
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