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

Court Order told Yahoo that Prism does not require a warrant [pdf]

fas.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 63 posts

Re: Court Order told Yahoo that Prism does not require a warrant [pdf]

#21

Post by justinschuh »

mtgx wrote: post #10
drivebyacct2 wrote: post #7

Wait, are there actually people in the US who still assume that there someone has to get a warrant to investigate them under the auspices of terrorism or National Security? I assumed this was a more or less accepted fact by now. They take everything they want off the wire anyway; the best case scenario is that they have FISA rubber stamp warrants for the times where they "need a warrant". Do we really care about spec…

The use of FISA "warrants" (misnomer, really) is highly questionable as is, especially when they're just rubber-stamped anyway, but if we can prove that most of the time they don't even bother to use those "warrants", then we can at least take steps to sue them over it and try to declare it unconstitutional, and hopefully get Congress to not only repeal many of the current laws allowing them to do with this their sec…

I don't think there's a single factually accurate statement in your comment. A FISA order really is a warrant in the legal sense, so it's not a misnomer. There's no substantiated evidence that the government is failing to comply with its legal obligations under FISA and other relevant laws here. The Supreme court has consistently upheld that constitutional protections do not apply to non US persons. The general trend since roughly 2008 has actually been increased oversight and scaling back of 9/11 era expansion of surveillance powers.

Re: Court Order told Yahoo that Prism does not require a warrant [pdf]

#22

Post by csoghoian »

justinschuh wrote: post #20
declan wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't think it was controversial to claim that the PAA and FAA have similar language. Here's one section from both bills (Sec. 702 in the FAA and 105B in the PAA) authorizing warrantless surveillance: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:s.01927 : Notwithstanding any other law, the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General, may for periods of up to one year authorize the acquisition of for…

Claiming the bills have similar language implies that they have similar effect. However, the facts are quite opposite. The PAA significantly reduced oversight and individual protections while the effect of the FAA was to increase both. Even those passages you're citing are night and day apart. The first authorizes collection against US persons on foreign soil, which flew in the face of 50 years of precedent. Whereas…

Justin, have you read the recently leaked NSA rules outlining how they define a non-US person for the purpose of FAA surveillance?

See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2013/jun/20/exhi..., page 4, paragraph 1.

If the NSA does not know whether someone is a US person or a foreigner, the agency assumes that the person is a foreigner. That matters a lot if, for example, you're using Tor.

You might also want to look at the recently leaked minimization rules, which permit the retention of purely domestic communications collected under the FAA, if that information can be used to develop and exploit security vulnerabilities. Given where you work now, and what you work on, that might be somewhat important.

See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2013/jun/20/exhi..., page 5, paragraph 3.

Re: Court Order told Yahoo that Prism does not require a warrant [pdf]

#23

Post by drivebyacct2 »

mehwoot wrote: post #18
drivebyacct2 wrote: post #7

Wait, are there actually people in the US who still assume that there someone has to get a warrant to investigate them under the auspices of terrorism or National Security? I assumed this was a more or less accepted fact by now. They take everything they want off the wire anyway; the best case scenario is that they have FISA rubber stamp warrants for the times where they "need a warrant". Do we really care about spec…

This document doesn't say that somebody in the U.S. can be targeted without a warrant. It says For these reasons, we hold that a foreign intelligence exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement exists when surveillance is conducted to obtain foreign intelligence for national security purposes and is directed against foreign powers or agents of foreign powers reasonably believed to be located outside the U…

Aka, FISA warrants and FISA courts which in practice haven't been limited to foreign spying for... decades? now?

Re: Court Order told Yahoo that Prism does not require a warrant [pdf]

#24

Post by justinschuh »

mehwoot wrote: post #17

Because these are FISA requests for individuals "reasonably suspected to be residing outside the U.S.". Those have never required warrants. Before FISA existed they just did it to whomever they pleased; now it requires a FISA request which is not the same thing as a warrant. Nowhere in that document does it say anything about not needing a warrant to get information on U.S. citizens residing in the U.S. What it does…

A few points. A FISA order really is a warrant, and the NSA needs one to collect on a US person (ie. US citizen anywhere or anyone on US soil). Before 9/11, FISA warrants were also used to compel US companies to comply with collection against non US persons for which they were the carrier. At some point after 9/11 the Bush administration realized the law could be reasonably interpreted as not strictly requiring this, so they stopped using FISA for this purpose. That was the heart of the warrantless wiretapping controversy, and the primary goal of the FISA Amendments Act was to add requirements and oversight for these situations.

Re: Court Order told Yahoo that Prism does not require a warrant [pdf]

#25

Post by drivebyacct2 »

justinschuh wrote: post #21
mtgx wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The use of FISA "warrants" (misnomer, really) is highly questionable as is, especially when they're just rubber-stamped anyway, but if we can prove that most of the time they don't even bother to use those "warrants", then we can at least take steps to sue them over it and try to declare it unconstitutional, and hopefully get Congress to not only repeal many of the current laws allowing them to do with this their sec…

I don't think there's a single factually accurate statement in your comment. A FISA order really is a warrant in the legal sense, so it's not a misnomer. There's no substantiated evidence that the government is failing to comply with its legal obligations under FISA and other relevant laws here. The Supreme court has consistently upheld that constitutional protections do not apply to non US persons. The general trend…

>I don't think there's a single factually accurate statement in your comment. A FISA order really is a warrant in the legal sense, so it's not a misnomer. There's no substantiated evidence that the government is failing to comply with its legal obligations under FISA and other relevant laws here.

Er, um, no. FISA warrants and courts are different than regular warrants and courts for a very good reason. Most of them are issued post de-facto and as mtgx and I have pointed out, are literally rubber stamped. ZERO were declined last year.

I'd love a citation for the last sentence of your post. I'll work on background info on FISA warrants. Like I said, wish I had my debate evidence I cut years ago. Rather ironically, it's actually remarkably hard to refind some of that evidence 10 years later. Google loves to emphasize more recent publications.

A FISA warrant is as much a warrant as an FBI agent wiping their ass on a piece of paper and calling it a National Security Letter makes it a "legal warrant". (Yes, field FBI agents can issue them, and they're issued in the tens of thousands every single year, AND a single letter can apply to a person, team, family, or entire workplace.)

You might call it "legal" in that a law passed by Congress with secret interpretations and special addenedums tells them they can... but yeah, I'm going to keep on calling FISA warrants and NSLs used on US Citizens what it is: unconstitutional and thus practically, illegal.

Re: Court Order told Yahoo that Prism does not require a warrant [pdf]

#26

Post by drivebyacct2 »

mayneack wrote: post #14
drivebyacct2 wrote: post #7

Wait, are there actually people in the US who still assume that there someone has to get a warrant to investigate them under the auspices of terrorism or National Security? I assumed this was a more or less accepted fact by now. They take everything they want off the wire anyway; the best case scenario is that they have FISA rubber stamp warrants for the times where they "need a warrant". Do we really care about spec…

Just because everyone "knew" doesn't make this less useful to be released. Last month if you went on CNN and claimed that the NSA had free reign to access whatever they wanted, you'd be considered a conspiracy theorist. Now you are at least just considered to be aiding the terrorists. This type of thing is also useful for groups like the ACLU filing lawsuits because they need more proof than "everyone knows already"

You're right. I don't know why I was being such a pessimist about it. More ammo, more attention, it's probably good unless or until we reach the max attention span of people who need to become more informed. Or if we encounter the 'disaster porn/fatigue' effect of this stuff.

I guess that's pretty much exactly what I'm experiencing. "Why bother trying if no one is listening". Not exactly the concept of 'disaster porn' but it's a close enough allusion.

Re: Court Order told Yahoo that Prism does not require a warrant [pdf]

#27

Post by justinschuh »

csoghoian wrote: post #22
justinschuh wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Claiming the bills have similar language implies that they have similar effect. However, the facts are quite opposite. The PAA significantly reduced oversight and individual protections while the effect of the FAA was to increase both. Even those passages you're citing are night and day apart. The first authorizes collection against US persons on foreign soil, which flew in the face of 50 years of precedent. Whereas…

Justin, have you read the recently leaked NSA rules outlining how they define a non-US person for the purpose of FAA surveillance? See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2013/jun/20/exhi... , page 4, paragraph 1. If the NSA does not know whether someone is a US person or a foreigner, the agency assumes that the person is a foreigner. That matters a lot if, for example, you're using Tor. You might also want…

Chris, that's one paragraph absent the surrounding context. Targeting must be validated and verified as outside the US, but beyond that it can be very hard to authoritatively guarantee what the nationality of the parties is. The best I can add is that I've done the job, and I know the cardinal rule is you do not collect on US persons except in the rare case that you have a FISA order. And the people I know still doing the job concur that hasn't changed. Violating it willfully or negligently means the end of a career and possible jail time.

Re: Court Order told Yahoo that Prism does not require a warrant [pdf]

#28

Post by justinschuh »

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #25
justinschuh wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there's a single factually accurate statement in your comment. A FISA order really is a warrant in the legal sense, so it's not a misnomer. There's no substantiated evidence that the government is failing to comply with its legal obligations under FISA and other relevant laws here. The Supreme court has consistently upheld that constitutional protections do not apply to non US persons. The general trend…

>I don't think there's a single factually accurate statement in your comment. A FISA order really is a warrant in the legal sense, so it's not a misnomer. There's no substantiated evidence that the government is failing to comply with its legal obligations under FISA and other relevant laws here. Er, um, no. FISA warrants and courts are different than regular warrants and courts for a very good reason. Most of them a…

You genuinely have no idea what you're talking about and you're adding nothing to the discussion. I'll leave it to you to look up the definition of a warrant if you want to verify my statement.

Re: Court Order told Yahoo that Prism does not require a warrant [pdf]

#29

Post by drivebyacct2 »

justinschuh wrote: post #28
drivebyacct2 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don't think there's a single factually accurate statement in your comment. A FISA order really is a warrant in the legal sense, so it's not a misnomer. There's no substantiated evidence that the government is failing to comply with its legal obligations under FISA and other relevant laws here. Er, um, no. FISA warrants and courts are different than regular warrants and courts for a very good reason. Most of them a…

You genuinely have no idea what you're talking about and you're adding nothing to the discussion. I'll leave it to you to look up the definition of a warrant if you want to verify my statement.

A "warrant", "FISA warrant" and "National Security Letters" are all distinct things that are used to circumvent the Fourth Amendment. By definition only the FIRST of those three are allowed for by the Constitution; the others do NOT meet the same standards and probably or at least fortunately maqy exist primarily for that reason.

Literally hand picking any of these keywords pretty much leads to the same Wikipedia page discussing at least some of these things. I'm still reading it to see how complete it is. Again, where are you getting this information that the government has been more conservative or particular about these directives?

Ironically it actually has a fairly good record dating back to 2006 in several places when some of this stuff got stirred up that time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_co...

The whole thing is insightful. (I edited this comment to be far less rude, my apologies, I should've slowed down)

Re: Court Order told Yahoo that Prism does not require a warrant [pdf]

#30

Post by mtgx »

justinschuh wrote: post #21
mtgx wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The use of FISA "warrants" (misnomer, really) is highly questionable as is, especially when they're just rubber-stamped anyway, but if we can prove that most of the time they don't even bother to use those "warrants", then we can at least take steps to sue them over it and try to declare it unconstitutional, and hopefully get Congress to not only repeal many of the current laws allowing them to do with this their sec…

I don't think there's a single factually accurate statement in your comment. A FISA order really is a warrant in the legal sense, so it's not a misnomer. There's no substantiated evidence that the government is failing to comply with its legal obligations under FISA and other relevant laws here. The Supreme court has consistently upheld that constitutional protections do not apply to non US persons. The general trend…

FISA warrant = "general warrant" = misnomer

According to the 4th amendment, "warrants" must be used in specific investigations and for specific individuals. There's nothing specific about a FISA warrant. They just get data en masse from a lot of people. And they use this paper that they are calling a "warrant" from the FISA court, that says they can get the data on everyone.

Also, FISA warrants completely ignores such things as "probable cause" and "reasonable searches", which are pretty important for a democracy, I'd say. You can't say you're getting all the data of 100 million people, and also have "probable cause" for them.

"The Fourth Amendment (Amendment IV) to the United States Constitution is the part of the Bill of Rights which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures, along with requiring any warrant to be judicially sanctioned and supported by probable cause. It was adopted as a response to the abuse of the writ of assistance, which is a type of general search warrant, in the American Revolution. Search and seizure (including arrest) should be limited in scope according to specific information supplied to the issuing court, usually by a law enforcement officer, who has sworn by it."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United...

Post reply on HN