N.S.A. Contractor Arrested in Possible New Theft of Secrets • Hacker News Board

Re: N.S.A. Contractor Arrested in Possible New Theft of Secrets

#21

Post by VelociRapster » Wed, Oct 05, 2016, 5:14 PM UTC

eeZah7Ux wrote: post #5

"New Theft of Secrets", as if whistleblowing was a bad thing. "he stole and disclosed highly classified computer codes developed to hack into the networks of foreign governments" "different in nature from Mr. Snowden’s theft" What's next, NYtimes, calling people "rats" for reporting a homicide?

Are you of the opinion that whistleblowing and espionage are the same thing?

It's one thing to call attention to warrantless wiretapping and unconstitutional practices. It's an entirely different thing to take and distribute the source code of a tool used to access foreign government systems. The former is illegal the latter is literally the reason why the NSA was created.

Re: N.S.A. Contractor Arrested in Possible New Theft of Secrets

#22

Post by madaxe_again » Wed, Oct 05, 2016, 5:15 PM UTC

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #12

jbapple wrote: post #4

What constitutes a "secret arrest", as mentioned in this article? Jose Padilla was arrested and initially held without notice to his family or attorney. Is that what this arrest is like? What proportion of the arrests in the US are "secret"? When the families of the prisoners are told, are they sometimes bound by court orders not to disclose the arrests?

I also wondered about that. Why would you "secretly" arrest anyone? And here I thought a critical component of due process is that we don't detain people without charging them with a crime, which is necessarily an open process. But what do I know? I'm just a schmuck who happens to believe normal people can read and interpret the constitution on their own.

Deleted as I thought better than posting this retrospectively. Sorry.

Re: N.S.A. Contractor Arrested in Possible New Theft of Secrets

#23

Post by vertex-four » Wed, Oct 05, 2016, 5:16 PM UTC

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #12

jbapple wrote: post #4

What constitutes a "secret arrest", as mentioned in this article? Jose Padilla was arrested and initially held without notice to his family or attorney. Is that what this arrest is like? What proportion of the arrests in the US are "secret"? When the families of the prisoners are told, are they sometimes bound by court orders not to disclose the arrests?

I also wondered about that. Why would you "secretly" arrest anyone? And here I thought a critical component of due process is that we don't detain people without charging them with a crime, which is necessarily an open process. But what do I know? I'm just a schmuck who happens to believe normal people can read and interpret the constitution on their own.

The Constitution is a piece of paper, and might influence certain parts of Government to some degree, the same as any other piece of paper. But the beliefs of the people are what really matters. And if the people don't actually entirely agree with the Constitution to the point that they're willing to fight for it and drag their representatives out of Government over it, it's as useless as any other piece of paper.

Re: N.S.A. Contractor Arrested in Possible New Theft of Secrets

#24

Post by NN88 » Wed, Oct 05, 2016, 5:19 PM UTC

eeZah7Ux wrote: post #5

"New Theft of Secrets", as if whistleblowing was a bad thing. "he stole and disclosed highly classified computer codes developed to hack into the networks of foreign governments" "different in nature from Mr. Snowden’s theft" What's next, NYtimes, calling people "rats" for reporting a homicide?

>"New Theft of Secrets", as if whistleblowing was a bad thing.

Thats not whistleblowing.

Re: N.S.A. Contractor Arrested in Possible New Theft of Secrets

#25

Post by jonknee » Wed, Oct 05, 2016, 5:19 PM UTC

jbapple wrote: post #4

What constitutes a "secret arrest", as mentioned in this article? Jose Padilla was arrested and initially held without notice to his family or attorney. Is that what this arrest is like? What proportion of the arrests in the US are "secret"? When the families of the prisoners are told, are they sometimes bound by court orders not to disclose the arrests?

According to the complaint the search happened August 29th so this has been ongoing for a while. Very curious.

Re: N.S.A. Contractor Arrested in Possible New Theft of Secrets

#26

Post by dogma1138 » Wed, Oct 05, 2016, 5:20 PM UTC

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #12

jbapple wrote: post #4

What constitutes a "secret arrest", as mentioned in this article? Jose Padilla was arrested and initially held without notice to his family or attorney. Is that what this arrest is like? What proportion of the arrests in the US are "secret"? When the families of the prisoners are told, are they sometimes bound by court orders not to disclose the arrests?

I also wondered about that. Why would you "secretly" arrest anyone? And here I thought a critical component of due process is that we don't detain people without charging them with a crime, which is necessarily an open process. But what do I know? I'm just a schmuck who happens to believe normal people can read and interpret the constitution on their own.

"Secret" arrests are fairly common, they are often used daily when you need to arrest a large group of people without them scattering.

Say you have 5 arrests warrants for members of a gang, you often can't arrest them all the once so here is where the "secret" comes into play when they are arrested and the arrest is maintained confidential for 24-48 hours depending on the jurisdiction.

This is done to prevent the rest from scattering into hiding as soon as the news of one or more of them getting arrested breaks, this also means they won't hold down somewhere and be ready for a fight, or even go and do something worse like take hostages in order to try to get out of dodge.

This also means that in some rights are withheld for the duration of the "gag order" like access to a phone or an attorney, however the police is not allowed to question or formally charge the subjects during that period either, so while there is some violation of rights it is not egregious.

Re: N.S.A. Contractor Arrested in Possible New Theft of Secrets

#27

Post by M_Grey » Wed, Oct 05, 2016, 5:21 PM UTC

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #12

jbapple wrote: post #4

What constitutes a "secret arrest", as mentioned in this article? Jose Padilla was arrested and initially held without notice to his family or attorney. Is that what this arrest is like? What proportion of the arrests in the US are "secret"? When the families of the prisoners are told, are they sometimes bound by court orders not to disclose the arrests?

I also wondered about that. Why would you "secretly" arrest anyone? And here I thought a critical component of due process is that we don't detain people without charging them with a crime, which is necessarily an open process. But what do I know? I'm just a schmuck who happens to believe normal people can read and interpret the constitution on their own.

Then you haven't been paying attention to legal precedents set since the late 70's, and think that you can hide behind a devalued piece of paper that courts and politicians and LEO's have been shitting on for decades.

Re: N.S.A. Contractor Arrested in Possible New Theft of Secrets

#28

Post by micaksica » Wed, Oct 05, 2016, 5:22 PM UTC

madaxe_again wrote: post #22

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also wondered about that. Why would you "secretly" arrest anyone? And here I thought a critical component of due process is that we don't detain people without charging them with a crime, which is necessarily an open process. But what do I know? I'm just a schmuck who happens to believe normal people can read and interpret the constitution on their own.

Deleted as I thought better than posting this retrospectively. Sorry.

> Of course, from the outside it looks like he was just some Bad Man. Even the prime minister went on the news to condemn him.

This is a lot of obfuscation. What happened here? How did they smear him?

> From the external actions of the characters who oversee the legal professionals who are drafted into service in these secret systems, they definitely have their own, uh, interpretation of law and ethics.

I am friends with some ex-IC guys; from their stories they appear closed in rank more than police, and are indoctrinated to the point that they see themselves as the paladins of American values and democracy. In reality, they are usually only upholding the interests of the powerful, where corporate interest and political value coincide, and those with real power know and reinforce this. To see this is too much cognitive dissonance for the ones that aren't secretly there just because they get off on the power.

The paranoia and the power trip are good at reinforcing the "us vs. everyone" mentality that we know is pretty dangerous psychologically.

Re: N.S.A. Contractor Arrested in Possible New Theft of Secrets

#29

Post by lettergram » Wed, Oct 05, 2016, 5:23 PM UTC

vertex-four wrote: post #23

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also wondered about that. Why would you "secretly" arrest anyone? And here I thought a critical component of due process is that we don't detain people without charging them with a crime, which is necessarily an open process. But what do I know? I'm just a schmuck who happens to believe normal people can read and interpret the constitution on their own.

The Constitution is a piece of paper, and might influence certain parts of Government to some degree, the same as any other piece of paper. But the beliefs of the people are what really matters. And if the people don't actually entirely agree with the Constitution to the point that they're willing to fight for it and drag their representatives out of Government over it, it's as useless as any other piece of paper.

Have you ever tried to get a group of people to protest anything? Like seriously, the black lives matter are more effective, than people regarding the NSA, privacy, or encryption. Even though some of the stuff we know about the government is WAY scarier.

Re: N.S.A. Contractor Arrested in Possible New Theft of Secrets

#30

Post by redwards510 » Wed, Oct 05, 2016, 5:25 PM UTC

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #8

I ask myself what I should be more upset about: that someone walked away with government hacking tools, or that our government knew about existing exploits in critical American company technologies and kept them a secret?

Understandable complaints, but isn't the latter just standard procedure in modern cyberwarfare? I think I would be more upset if America didn't have any offensive zero-day weapons to strike with. If we only had capability against foreign companies software, everyone would just buy American and be immune.