Pentagon surveilling Americans without a warrant, Senator Wyden reveals • Hacker News Board

Re: Pentagon surveilling Americans without a warrant, Senator Wyden reveals

#111

Post by phkahler » Thu, May 13, 2021, 9:10 PM UTC

billytetrud wrote: post #2

Unsurprising, but still disappointing. Actually I'm glad someone is trying to hold them accountable. It seems silly tho that we need to pass a law to uphold what's already written into the constitution. It highlights that the constitution only has teeth in some legal contexts, primarily where a court case is being heard on a citizen being prosecuted. Conditionality seems to not have any bearing on preventing agencies…

>> It seems silly tho that we need to pass a law to uphold what's already written into the constitution.

The argument is probably pretty simple. These companies will sell your data to anyone for the right price, why would a government agency be any different. It's probably not a search or seizure, just a purchase between parties that don't even include any specific member of the public.

First congress needs to make all this data selling and trading illegal, then we'll see how the government goes about obtaining it and weather that's legal or not. But too many lobbyists represent companies that make a ton of money on it, and of course these agencies would prefer to just purchase the data "legally", so I'm not terribly optimistic.

Re: Pentagon surveilling Americans without a warrant, Senator Wyden reveals

#112

Post by Frost1x » Thu, May 13, 2021, 9:13 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #98

WalterBright wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Constitution is just a piece of paper. It is powerless if people ignore it. It's the same with presidents, kings, and dictators. If people just stopped doing what they said, they become nothing. There's an incident in Soviet history where Stalin was sure they were coming to arrest and execute him. He was shaking and completely powerless. But they were just coming to affirm his power. The Arab Spring came about be…

> It is powerless if people ignore it. Indeed we just had a bit of a lesson in the recent past which showed exactly how dependent our country is (and probably most other countries as well) on shared values and tradition. The Constitution isn't all-powerful as a piece of paper, its real power is as an idea.

The real power is consensus in an idea. Hopefully that idea is good but ultimately, you need critical mass to accept an idea or reject it.

If people in the US really want to grab back power to the citizens of this country it can be done (peacefully even). All it really takes is a large enough consensus of voters to upend all the garbage we're being subjected to. The issue is that the consensus is more difficult to reach due to the scale of the US voter population combined with tactics like gerrymandering and overall difficulty of orchestrating movements to support ideals most people seem to support (which isn't oppressing a minority unless we classify power and wealth hungry individuals as a protected minority which we currently seem to do).

Reaching consensus amongst citizens is far far more difficult these days, giving an edge to those already sitting in positions of concentrated power with fewer players, lending itself more likely to reach a consensus. It doesn't help that those in power actively try and divide the general voter population and set us against one another making it even more difficult to reach a consensus.

Re: Pentagon surveilling Americans without a warrant, Senator Wyden reveals

#113

Post by nobody9999 » Thu, May 13, 2021, 9:14 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #81

maybelsyrup wrote: post #30

The thing I still can't fathom, all these years after Bush II and then Snowden, is just how little human beings really care about mass surveillance. Yeah, the Snowden leaks made a splash, but the media cycle turned over a couple weeks later and everyone moved onto other things. It's like, if you're of a certain age, you had to read 1984 or whatever in school. You'd think "well, no one would stand for that sort of thi…

I think most people don't care much about privacy for themselves ("I have nothing to hide") and are happy to let military intelligence daddy read their emails, as long as it doesn't affect their life. They remain ignorant of the fact that this means that people who actually do need privacy for purposes of organization against the harmful elements of the status quo (civil rights leaders, labor leaders, political party…

>I think most people don't care much about privacy for themselves ("I have nothing to hide") and are happy to let military intelligence daddy read their emails, as long as it doesn't affect their life.

I'd point out that the DoD is purchasing this data from private entities, not collecting it themselves.

As such, I'd say that it's less about government surveillance specifically, and more about surveillance in general.

Corporate surveillance is nothing new (Equifax/Experian/etc. have been doing that for at least half a century) and those folks collect, store and correlate enormously more data than does the US government.

There is a massive effort by corporations to hide this sort of data collection, which has been mostly successful.

Complaining about the government dipping into all that tasty, tasty data is like blaming the child who was sickened by stealing a cookie from a batch that was poisoned, then making sure that the rest of the batch is fed to the intended target.

That most folks are just complaining about big, bad government (which isn't wrong, but just a tiny portion of the larger issue), rather than the folks who are collecting, correlating and using such data to their own advantage (of which selling it to governments is just chump change) seems rather silly and short-sighted.

Re: Pentagon surveilling Americans without a warrant, Senator Wyden reveals

#114

Post by nobody9999 » Thu, May 13, 2021, 9:16 PM UTC

grayfaced wrote: post #90

SquibblesRedux wrote: post #53

Regarding the DoD purchasing data from data brokers, I would much rather first focus on laws or regulations that set legal standards for the collection, sale, and other distribution of personal information. For example, make the sale of personal information to a government agency an act that requires posting notice on a public register. Also, a hefty tax on the sale of personal information would be nice to see. I wou…

If these data brokers are already selling this data, I'm not going to get upset at the govt for buying it. I want restrictions on EVERYONE buying my data. Not just one entity.

>I want restrictions on EVERYONE buying my data. Not just one entity.

That's a start, but I'd prefer restrictions on EVERYONE collecting my data too.

Re: Pentagon surveilling Americans without a warrant, Senator Wyden reveals

#115

Post by Nasrudith » Thu, May 13, 2021, 9:19 PM UTC

HDMI_Cable wrote: post #23

The Third Party Doctrine is one of the things that is so obviously out of date, and needs to be changed. When so much of our lives (to the point where it is our lives) are online, why is there no expectation of privacy? --- [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine

Because they wanted to take as much as they could without any pesky constitutional rights getting in the way.

Re: Pentagon surveilling Americans without a warrant, Senator Wyden reveals

#116

Post by splithalf » Thu, May 13, 2021, 9:22 PM UTC

Slow_Hand wrote: post #61

splithalf wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you prefer no laws? Seems we benefit from them no?

Parent post isn’t arguing against the existence of laws. They’re illustrating that laws have limits and can be overcome by entities that wield enough power.

Look at the post above yours. Yes, some want to make the case that laws on the whole are essentially oppressive. Whether of not foucault made that case precisely, or whatever, is totally irrelevant if it’s what most people actual mean, viz that laws are the tools by which the powerless are oppressed.

Re: Pentagon surveilling Americans without a warrant, Senator Wyden reveals

#117

Post by pmiller2 » Thu, May 13, 2021, 9:23 PM UTC

slibhb wrote: post #104

babesh wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surveillance is a form of power. Power does not give up power. Law is enforced via power. When it meets a greater power then the law is contravened. Look at the US and how it broke international law to force a plane down that it thought had Snowden.

Law is primarily about voluntary submission, not power. A law that is followed only as long as it is enforced is not much of a law and is unlikely to last. In terms of your broader point, something about restricting the authority of a law-giving entity via the law seems paradoxical. An example of this paradox is the fact that it's difficult to have standing to sue the government over an illegal spying program that is…

> Law is primarily about voluntary submission, not power.

Let me know how that works out for you, k? I can assure you that although state power ultimately comes from the people, the state most definitely will enforce its laws against you, should you break them. That is, unless you're rich and powerful enough to afford the best lawyers and a handful of legislators.

Re: Pentagon surveilling Americans without a warrant, Senator Wyden reveals

#118

Post by baybal2 » Thu, May 13, 2021, 9:27 PM UTC

billytetrud wrote: post #2

Unsurprising, but still disappointing. Actually I'm glad someone is trying to hold them accountable. It seems silly tho that we need to pass a law to uphold what's already written into the constitution. It highlights that the constitution only has teeth in some legal contexts, primarily where a court case is being heard on a citizen being prosecuted. Conditionality seems to not have any bearing on preventing agencies…

In other news:

- More than 120 retired generals and admirals wrote to Biden appearing to back a false election conspiracy and questioning his mental health - https://www.businessinsider.com/former-generals-admirals-let...

- An open letter by former officers calling the president a “Marxist” dictator is a greater threat to U.S. democracy than the ouster of Liz Cheney. - https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/05/12/joe-biden-military-revo...

- Over 120 retired generals and admirals signed on to a letter falsely claiming the 2020 election was stolen in a move other veterans say erodes democratic norms. - https://sofrep.com/news/retired-officers-question-2020-elect...

30 Brigadiers, 16 Lietenant Generals, 42 Major Generals.

In any other normal country, at this stage people will call a military putsch brewing an inevitability.

Re: Pentagon surveilling Americans without a warrant, Senator Wyden reveals

#119

Post by Nasrudith » Thu, May 13, 2021, 9:29 PM UTC

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #7

java-man wrote: post #3

"not wittingly" [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEh-l_G1Gcs

Can't watch because I am at work but the NSA conducts foreign surveillance. If a foreign target talks to a US citizen that's "unwittingly" surveiling a US citizen. Do you believe that it's alright for the NSA to conduct surveillance on foreign threats?

Calling it unwitting is as lame an excuse as "I was suveiling the middle school locker room walls to prevent graffiti with hidden cameras when I recorded twenty-five terabytes of undressing minors. Therefore no crime was committed by shipping it over interstate lines to third parties for back up."

They knew exactly what they were doing every step of the way.

Re: Pentagon surveilling Americans without a warrant, Senator Wyden reveals

#120

Post by ncmncm » Thu, May 13, 2021, 9:30 PM UTC

c3534l wrote: post #46

clairity wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i'd go one step further and prohibit our government from surveilling any non-governmental foreigner without an auditable warrant, and strictly prohibit corporations with heavy sanctions from sharing any non-governmental surveillance with the government whatsoever (on top of existing privacy laws of course). the government should be in service, not in command, of the people.

The government only has the powers granted to it by the constitution. If the power for the executive to unilaterally conduct searches was not given to it, then it doesn't have it. Just because it doesn't say the government can't surveil foreigners doesn't mean they can - it has to specifically say the government is granted the right to surveil foreigners. And there's really very little reason to think that a power ne…

Government exercises exactly the powers it claims and is not restrained from exercising. E.g., the US Constitution does not grant the Executive branch the power to torture prisoners taken without due process. Instead, persons nominally overseen by the Executive branch exercise those powers exactly until they are exposed and stopped.

The main use of surveillance is, always and everywhere, extortion. We see this daily among local, state, and federal police, abusing it to coerce the public to become informants; among prosecutors to coerce false admissions of guilt; and among spooks to convert formerly free individuals to "assets", and to enforce silence about abuses. It is used to coerce judges to issue unjust orders and decisions, to coerce witnesses to remain silent, and to coerce elected officials to vote against the interest of their constituents, or even to step down from an elected position or not to seek re-election. It is used to coerce awarding contracts or custom to undeserving suppliers, or to coerce lower prices in services sold.

Coercion need not be based on surveillance of the person coerced; it can come from surveillance of parents, siblings, offspring, friends, business partners, customers, service providers.