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Senate passes reauthorization of key US surveillance program after midnight

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Re: Senate passes reauthorization of key US surveillance program after midnight

#131
post #116
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These laws aren't about protecting America and its citizens, but rather as means to control them.

People just toss comments like this around as though they were facts when in fact it’s completely paranoid made up q-anon level nonsense. These laws work a very specific way and have very specific controls in place to prevent shit like you describe from happening which you could go and read up on if you wanted to but it’s much easier to fear monger amongst one another because it plays to your ego that somebody who is…

You could easily look at things like the Snowden leaks to see how well such controls end up working out. My favorite was NSA agents collecting and sharing sexual content. [1] The reason that's my favorite is not because it's the most extreme example of abuse - it's not, not by a longshot. The reason is that it really demonstrates that 'government' isn't some abstract or holistic entity. It's just a group of people, like you and I -- with the exact same vices, egos, weaknesses, and so on.

And of course this applies not only to the NSA spooks, but all the way up. You shouldn't be any more comfortable letting 'the government' spy on you, than you would be letting me spy on you. If you want another example along the same lines, spooks spying on their love interests is so common that there's a slang term for it - LOVEINT [2]. Basically, don't grant people power over other people unless it's really just completely and absolutely necessary, because it will be abused. So the benefit needs to substantially outweigh the inevitable abuses. And in this case, that obviously doesn't hold.

[1] - https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/21/us/politics/edward-snowde...

[2] - https://slate.com/technology/2013/09/loveint-how-nsa-spies-s...

Re: Senate passes reauthorization of key US surveillance program after midnight

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's baffling to many people how FISA is even a thing. To a layperson, the Fourth Amendment leaves no room for a rubber stamp court authorizing mass surveillance. And no one except politicians and bureaucrats are buying the argument that this is somehow targeted surveillance. Also, free nations should have higher standards than "Not a citizen? Too bad, anything goes."

This is not complicated: If you run a telegraph wire between El Paso and Juárez, the executive has the Constitutional authority to tap it to intercept communication to or from a non-citizen not in the United States, warrant-free. Congress can regulate the process that must be followed, the documentation that must be made, even require judicial review at the program level to ensure it doesn’t also record traffic that…

Not to nitpick too hard here, but you can't know whether I'm talking to a US citizen without first eavesdropping on the conversation.

Re: Senate passes reauthorization of key US surveillance program after midnight

#133
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligence_Surveilla... 2008.

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) https://bja.ojp.gov/program/it/privacy-civil-liberties/autho...

And the components of the program being discussed are from the 2008 amendment.

Re: Senate passes reauthorization of key US surveillance program after midnight

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume any congress person who voted for surveillance has a horrible kink and received photos of it shortly before the vote.

That reminds me of Wellington's response under similar circumstances. A former lover tried to blackmail Wellington. His response was 'Publish and be damned.' It was published to the delight of many. But he still went on to become Prime Minister. https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/rear-window-when-wellin...

Reminds me of when the KGB and the CIA tried to use knowledge of the sexual exploits of Indonesia's president Sukarno to blackmail him. Instead of falling in line, he told them to release what they had so his countrymen could be impressed by his sexual prowess. The KGB went as far as having a group of their agents pose as flight attendants to engage him in an orgy, which they secretly filmed. When confronted with the film, he asked if KGB for extra copies for him to take home.

Re: Senate passes reauthorization of key US surveillance program after midnight

#135
This is FISA right? The target is foreign individuals and entities? It seems by default HN is against it, can someone articulate why?

There are elected representatives of the people providing oversight and it seems to have strong bipartisan support. Is there a popular line of thought with tech people that is suggesting foreign surveillance isn't neccesary? Or should some provision of the law be updated to protect americans' data?

Re: Senate passes reauthorization of key US surveillance program after midnight

#136

Does anyone want to suggest some reasons why, the one thing that D+R always, always, always agree on is this: US Gov/LEO/IC must be gifted the most power possible to surveil Americans who are not suspected of a crime

I would guess that Democratic and Republican politicians want to give more power to the USA government because they are the USA government.

Re: Senate passes reauthorization of key US surveillance program after midnight

#138
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I obviously can't guess your age, but I'm gonna wager you weren't around much prior to 9/11. The world was getting on quite well without massive surveillance creep, and none of the stuff FISA has done in the last 23 years would have stopped it. The authorities already had all the info they needed back then and just didn't act on it.

I watched 9/11 live from my dorm Maybe don't jump to biases so fast, people within all age groups have different opinions about the same topics. HN is very opinionated on surveillance, as the comments on this story reinforce

Doesn't really matter, but I was 21 when it happened. I suspect we're basically the same age.

Re: Senate passes reauthorization of key US surveillance program after midnight

#140
post #135

This is FISA right? The target is foreign individuals and entities? It seems by default HN is against it, can someone articulate why? There are elected representatives of the people providing oversight and it seems to have strong bipartisan support. Is there a popular line of thought with tech people that is suggesting foreign surveillance isn't neccesary? Or should some provision of the law be updated to protect ame…

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