Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

No new boss at NSA until it answers questions on buying location, browsing data

theregister.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 229 posts

Re: No new boss at NSA until it answers questions on buying location, browsing data

#151

Post by yterdy »

hollerith wrote: post #110
yterdy wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

If we had the kind of legal system you want (where arguments like the one you just gave sometimes prevailed in court) nothing would ever get done because arguments about who owns what and who owes who (and how much) would abound and go on forever.

No need to throw out the legal system, just change the law. Currently, failure to adhere to norms can lock you out of the market entirely (thanks to companies like SafeRent). If the spectrum is homelessness -> rental -> homeownership, then the opposite should be true: successful and proactive stewardship of a property should entitle you to it, regardless of the current owner's claim (but especially in the case of practical absenteeism).

Note that half of this country was settled this way.

The alternative that is the current status quo is real estate corporations in New York and Delaware disrupting community fabric 200, 500, 1000 miles away in the name of quarterly profits. Legality is not the measure of morality.

Re: No new boss at NSA until it answers questions on buying location, browsing data

#153

Post by yterdy »

kenjackson wrote: post #107
yterdy wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Didn’t you get to live there? Thats what you paid for I presume? I’ve spent a lot of money at fast food over the years, but no one has given me a franchise.

Likewise, a society forced to spend 2x or more the cost of a home-cooked meal on fast food is not going to be a healthy one. From a broad economic perspective, rentals that cost so much more than purchases (which are inaccessible in part because so many are only on the market as rentals) aren't sustainable.

>Thats what you paid for I presume?

I presume I paid for shelter, but also someone's luxury car or home renovation.

Re: No new boss at NSA until it answers questions on buying location, browsing data

#154

Post by Passport4-Lurk »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #126
salawat wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The Senator does not have the answer. They couldn't ask the question if they'd already signed the appropriate contracts on which access to SCI or other classified info is underpinned, If they had, asking the question would amount to a tacit disclosure. Other Senators who have signed those documents have confirmed as much. Once the IC gets burned by you, even if they don't press charges due to political impossibil…

Wyden is on the Senate Intelligence Committee. As such, he is guaranteed by law to have access to all intelligence activities. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/about

> "Under certain circumstances, the President may restrict access to covert action activities to only the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Committee, the Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee, and the House and Senate leadership. By law, even in these rare cases, all Committee Members will be aware of such circumstances and be provided a “general description” of the covert action information that is fully briefed only to the leadership."

I guess that depends on what "general description" means. Take Stellar Wind for example, as briefings were limited to the Gang of Eight. [1] I would like to know what the "general description" of that program was and what other members were informed of.

[1]: https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/brief-history-programma...

Re: No new boss at NSA until it answers questions on buying location, browsing data

#155

Post by nvy »

eurebus wrote: post #144
cscurmudgeon wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a world where democracies have enemies, how do you not have govt secrets?

Security through obscurity is inferior to security through transparency. Imagine if every interaction with the government; every contract, negotiation, communication was a matter of easily searchable public record. Try sneaking a little graft in there and get laughed at in public. It'd be great.

The reason the NSA conducts its activities in secret have little to do with "a little graft" and everything to do with the fact you don't show somebody you've broken their ciphers unless you have to.

Re: No new boss at NSA until it answers questions on buying location, browsing data

#156

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

> CUI is not classified information, as its name indicates, but it should, generally speaking, be protected with access controls and not widely disseminated. Wyden is clearly not a fan of this labeling, which he described as a "made up designation with no basis in law." CUI was created by an executive order from President Obama in 2010.

This is the bigger problem. Classified documents have a mandatory declassification date that is only overridden in special circumstances. CUI can last indefinitely because it's an extra-legal construction designed to stay outside the classification system.

Re: No new boss at NSA until it answers questions on buying location, browsing data

#157

Post by Eumenes »

0xDEF wrote: post #131
Eumenes wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This guy is wrong about every single thing, except government surveillance/spying. Example, he supported the Israel Anti-Boycott Act (S.720) which criminalizes boycott and divestment activism by U.S. citizens against the State of Israel

US law forbids US government contractors from complying with foreign state sanctions and boycotts against Israel. For example Lockheed Martin is not allowed to comply with Qatari and Turkish demands to boycott and sanction Israel. Private US citizens and companies who are not government contractors can boycott Israel as much as they want. You are probably confusing the law with some weird Texas law that also forbids…

In May 2017, Wyden co-sponsored the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, Senate Bill 720, which made it a federal crime, punishable by a maximum sentence of 20 years imprisonment,[88] for Americans to encourage or participate in boycotts against Israel and Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories if protesting actions by the Israeli government. The bill would make it legal for U.S. states to refuse to do business with contractors that engage in boycotts against Israel.[89]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Wyden#Israel

Re: No new boss at NSA until it answers questions on buying location, browsing data

#158

Post by ajross »

I think Wyden is great, and broadly support the aim here. But the specifics just don't work for me. I mean, the argument presented by the article is that this is a fourth amendment violation: the government is conducting an unreasonable search by buying personal data.

But... sorry, that's batshit. Can there be ANY definition for "reasonable" more apt than "available for legal purchase on the public market"? If we don't want this stuff for sale, we should pass a law and get it out of the market.

Absent that, honestly? I think the NSA is one of the least threatening purchasers of this junk.

Re: No new boss at NSA until it answers questions on buying location, browsing data

#159

Post by orochimaaru »

morkalork wrote: post #124
Dalewyn wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are massively confused. The Constitution gives certain powers to the government at the pleasure of the governed (read: Americans) and affords protections to them while providing none to foreigners (read: those who aren't governed by the US government). Re-read what I said and re-read the Constitution too if you have time, the Constitution's protections and guarantees apply to individuals and whether they are Amer…

Is this the same line of reasoning that lead to things extraordinary rendition and black sites in GWOT? Non US citizens on non US land, thus the government can do whatever they want like detain people indefinitely and "enhanced interrogation"?

Yes. Those people and lands involved in the act are outside the purview of the US judicial system. Keep in mind I'm not discussing the morality of this. Just that whatever happens there cannot be brought to court in the US.

Re: No new boss at NSA until it answers questions on buying location, browsing data

#160

Post by Eumenes »

krapp wrote: post #123
willy_k wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? If you mean Trump, I think it’s pretty dishonest or at best ignorant to liken them to each other. He absolutely has his flaws, tons of them, but categorically excluding him from the discussion isn’t justified.

I mean both. I feel like Trump's flaws, crimes and Project 2025 [0,1] should exclude him from discussion. Like, he should be politically radioactive at this point. Set all of that lunacy aside and Trump is just a mainstream Republican. Not that I like Biden, mind you, I just hate him less than Trump. They're both imperialist, capitalist bastards but Biden is at least less fascism-adjacent. The problem is that our fir…

> The project seeks to revive a Trump administration effort to include a question of whether an individual counted in the decennial Census is a U.S. citizen. The census population count is used to reapportion congressional seats and the Electoral College.

This is incredibly based. Letting tens of millions of illegal immigrants be counted towards appropriating congressional seats/electoral votes is literal insanity.

Post reply on HN