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The Wyden Siren Goes Off Again: We’ll Be “Stunned” By What the NSA Is Doing

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Re: The Wyden Siren Goes Off Again: We’ll Be “Stunned” By What the NSA Is Doing

#71

Post by the_af »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #13

Everyone who's not terribly worried about privacy always uses the line 'if you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about', but my line of thinking is not 'do i trust the government' it's 'do I have faith in all future forms of government who will have access to this data' Given how fast and lose I've seen the DODGE folks play with the data they have, absolutely not . I still shudder over the fact t…

> Everyone who's not terribly worried about privacy always uses the line 'if you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about'

The right way to reply to that is: not everything that's legal must be public.

You probably don't want the rest of the world to see you poop, or pick your nose, or listen to every word you say. Almost everyone has things they'd be embarrassed to disclose to other people. And this can be weaponized against you should any rival gain access to it.

Re: The Wyden Siren Goes Off Again: We’ll Be “Stunned” By What the NSA Is Doing

#72

Post by palmotea »

Analemma_ wrote: post #31
simulator5g wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Secret laws, secret courts... Jeez, man.

This is why I'm never giving a penny to OpenAI again, now matter how much damage control Altman tries to do with "look, we reworded the contract to have redlines too!". Yeah, legal redlines that the administration can bypass with their secret memos and secret rubberstamp courts. This isn't even a Trump thing: the Bush DOJ wrote secret memos making torture legal, the Obama DOJ wrote secret memos making it legal to ass…

> This is why I'm never giving a penny to OpenAI again, now matter how much damage control Altman tries...

Altman is like Musk: he showed his true colors long before the current politically-inflected drama.

Musk was over-promising about self-driving, so much and for so long it became pretty clear he was a shameless liar. There are also so many reports of Altman lying (e.g. that's apparently why he got fired) and engaging in Machiavellian manipulations that you can be pretty sure he's a shameless liar too.

Re: The Wyden Siren Goes Off Again: We’ll Be “Stunned” By What the NSA Is Doing

#73

Post by MengerSponge »

blueone wrote: post #38

I’ve stayed private for most of my adult life. Network wide dns, vpns, alternative personas online for different purposes, etc. Nonetheless, my personal data has been exposed numerous times. Once in a while, I’d get into a conversation with a friend or a stranger I met at some random function, and they’d ask how to stay private online and protect their data. I used to go in depth about how to do it, with excitement.…

It's very hard to participate in a digital society while truly remaining private. The things you do to ensure privacy generate their own type of unique signal!

https://chuniversiteit.nl/papers/browser-extension-fingerpri...

You know this, but "normal" patterns are less remarkable.

Re: The Wyden Siren Goes Off Again: We’ll Be “Stunned” By What the NSA Is Doing

#74

Post by rootusrootus »

One of the things I am proud of as an Oregonian is that Wyden is one of my senators. And it looks like maybe, possibly, he is starting to make Merkeley a true believer as well. Which is good, Wyden is getting kinda old, and there aren't enough people like him in Congress, by a long shot.

Re: The Wyden Siren Goes Off Again: We’ll Be “Stunned” By What the NSA Is Doing

#75

Post by rootusrootus »

kasey_junk wrote: post #26
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #13

Everyone who's not terribly worried about privacy always uses the line 'if you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about', but my line of thinking is not 'do i trust the government' it's 'do I have faith in all future forms of government who will have access to this data' Given how fast and lose I've seen the DODGE folks play with the data they have, absolutely not . I still shudder over the fact t…

Does anyone ever actually use that line? Most people will argue that the trade off in privacy is worth it for security. That is, if you frame your argument such that you believe people don’t understand the trade off it allows you to not engage with the fact they just disagree with your conclusion.

> Does anyone ever actually use that line?

Not that exact phrase, it is too elaborate. Most people grunt "eh, don't care" and "it's free, right?"

The average person really is that apathetic.

Re: The Wyden Siren Goes Off Again: We’ll Be “Stunned” By What the NSA Is Doing

#76

Post by Hizonner »

themafia wrote: post #66
alwa wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Immunity from prosecution, maybe, but not immunity from consequence. I can’t imagine congressional leadership would think of it as a good look—and isn’t the “need to know” based on the congressperson’s role? For example don’t they brief only congresspeople in specific roles on specific matters, like the so-called “Gang of Eight” on intelligence matters? [0] It feels a little like keeping the filibuster around: maybe…

> congressional leadership would think of it as a good look Why do they have any power? Wyden was elected by his constituency. The "congressional leadership" can go pound sand. To the extent they have any power here it should immediately be completely neutered and then removed.

They can remove him from all his committees, including the ones that give him access to this stuff to begin with. If they really work at it, they can freeze him out to the point where he can't get anything done on this or any other issue. And they can use him revealing the information as an excuse to avoid blowback from their own constituents. It's not as bad as in the House, but it's pretty bad. Oh, and they can probably deprive him of the floor the second he starts to say anything "interesting".

Yes, there are serious problems with the way Congress is organized, but there's probably a reason that practically every parliamentary body on the planet has similar problems.

Re: The Wyden Siren Goes Off Again: We’ll Be “Stunned” By What the NSA Is Doing

#77

Post by query_demotion »

dmix wrote: post #69

FISA courts are not sufficient oversight of this stuff. Not to mention there’s little rules for foreign data, including Americans talking to foreigners on the phone. As long as one end is foreign…

You're right. FISA courts are not sufficient oversight. Even Judge James Robertson resigned from the FISA Courts (FISC) in 2005 because:

>On December 20, 2005, Judge James Robertson resigned his position with the court, apparently in protest of the secret surveillance,[11] and later, in the wake of the Snowden leaks of 2013, criticized the court-sanctioned expansion of the scope of government surveillance and its being allowed to craft a secret body of law.[12] The government's apparent circumvention of the court started prior to the increase in court-ordered modifications to warrant requests. In 2011, the Obama administration secretly won permission from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to reverse restrictions on the National Security Agency's use of intercepted phone calls and e-mails, permitting the agency to search deliberately for Americans' communications in its massive databases.

Re: The Wyden Siren Goes Off Again: We’ll Be “Stunned” By What the NSA Is Doing

#78

Post by Hizonner »

electronsoup wrote: post #16

If it was so important, wouldn't he just filibuster it till he got what he wanted?

Filibuster what, exactly? No proposal is before the Senate...

ON edit: Oops, sorry, 702 is up for renewal. Still not clear he could win a cloture vote, though.

Re: The Wyden Siren Goes Off Again: We’ll Be “Stunned” By What the NSA Is Doing

#79

Post by LorenPechtel »

briffle wrote: post #21
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #13

Everyone who's not terribly worried about privacy always uses the line 'if you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about', but my line of thinking is not 'do i trust the government' it's 'do I have faith in all future forms of government who will have access to this data' Given how fast and lose I've seen the DODGE folks play with the data they have, absolutely not . I still shudder over the fact t…

I have seen what happens with garbage-in/garbage-out in databases, so this kind of stuff terrifies me. I often think of a case where we had a person listed twice in our database, with same address, birthday, etc, only thing different was gender, and last 2 digits of SSN were transposed.. After we 'fixed' the issue a few times, they BOTH showed up to our office. Both Named Leslie, born on same day, a few small towns a…

Being married to someone with the same name could be very confusing!

Re: The Wyden Siren Goes Off Again: We’ll Be “Stunned” By What the NSA Is Doing

#80

Post by jrockway »

Zigurd wrote: post #44
kasey_junk wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone ever actually use that line? Most people will argue that the trade off in privacy is worth it for security. That is, if you frame your argument such that you believe people don’t understand the trade off it allows you to not engage with the fact they just disagree with your conclusion.

Have you ever sat on a jury in a criminal case? A frighteningly high percentage of people will swallow every lie a cop tells, even when thoroughly discredited in cross-examination. There's no shortage of people to guard the concentration camps.

I've been on a grand jury... the cops lied through their teeth, couldn't keep their stories straight through a prepared monologues reading from notes and ... everyone in the room picked up on it and didn't indict the suspects. Our grand jury was so cynical the DAs stopped giving us cases and made the other two grand juries stay late to make up for the lost capacity. It was great. We did something good. And it was just a bunch of random people from Brooklyn.

The establishment likes to pat the establishment on the back but ordinary people seem to know what's up. In my minimal experience, anyway.

(One thing to keep in mind... grand juries really are a cross-section of the population, whereas lawyers get to select jurors after talking to them, so there is some selection bias on ordinary juries that grand juries don't have.)

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