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

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

#81

Post by tssva »

ixwt wrote: post #36
sgift wrote: post #25

> This won't guarantee answers, however. It does mean the NSA will either need to satisfy Wyden's request, or Congress will need to hold a procedural vote to push through the confirmation. So, the most probable outcome is that this will delay the process for a few weeks at most until congress just pushes it through. At least it shines a bit light on the whole charade. Not that it makes much of a difference for me, si…

> So, the most probable outcome is that this will delay the process for a few weeks at most until congress just pushes it through. Tell that to all of the high ranking military positions that Senator Tuberville is still holding up months later.

The reason Tuberville has been able to hold up the military confirmations is the large number and frequency of them. If there isn't unanimous consent the process of approving each individually would leave the Senate with no time to do anything else. If they want to move forward a single appointment through the process that can be done in a few weeks.

The Democrats may even try to use this to gain more support for the temporary rule change needed for mass approval of the military confirmations. They can say it isn't a partisan effort because they will use the rule change to override the hold of a Democrat.

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

#82

Post by FirmwareBurner »

jjtheblunt wrote: post #59
master-lincoln wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But private companies do not have the legal option to invade your home or use physical force on you.

You just made me wonder if those smart TVs have the ability to packet sniff what’s going on on the Wi-Fi networks in the homes in which they’re installed.

Some IOT devices definitely do scan your network automatically to look for other compatible members of the ecosystem.

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

#83

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

gordian-mind wrote: post #49
goblinux wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The INSANE thing to me about naming your company Palantir after the artifact from Middle Earth is the story behind the seeing stones. By the Third Age - when the events of the Lord of the Rings take place - several of the Palantiri (plural) are lost. The danger of using the stones was twofold: 1) not all the stones were accounted for, you couldn’t know who was listening in and 2) Sauron had one of the stones. A dark…

This is just a nerdy reference to the activity of gathering intelligence. > But again, to me this shows the danger of making decisions based on spying technology. Having more information is rarely a bad thing for making decisions. So that was probably not the point.

> Having more information is rarely a bad thing for making decisions.

It’s a bad thing commonly enough that it has a name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic

The caution in the tale is that attention paid to what is known might distract from what is unknown.

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

#84

Post by kube-system »

master-lincoln wrote: post #39
api wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But that would mean going against companies and we can't have that now, can we? Exactly. Surveillance capitalism is orders of magnitude more invasive than the NSA and does not answer to anyone. Regulations don’t even really work because they can just offshore anything shady or do it through fly by night data brokers.

But private companies do not have the legal option to invade your home or use physical force on you.

For profit companies ultimately sell to anyone with money. Profit maximization ensures that if private companies can collect the data, everyone who wants it will have it.

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

#85

Post by yterdy »

ericmay wrote: post #67
injeolmi_love wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big tech companies are not private; they are public companies that rely on state force to maintain their monopolies. Just as an example, intellectual property laws rely on the state for enforcement.

Idk. I like having property rights and so naturally that will extend to others and their homes and businesses else they won’t respect my property rights. Leveling such a broad criticism against “big tech companies” isn’t helpful, especially when you personally (along with every American) is categorically guilty of the same.

[flagged]

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

#86

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

injeolmi_love wrote: post #60
master-lincoln wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But private companies do not have the legal option to invade your home or use physical force on you.

The big tech companies are not private; they are public companies that rely on state force to maintain their monopolies. Just as an example, intellectual property laws rely on the state for enforcement.

Bigtech is not the main threat. They are the new kids on the block. There is no shortage of privately held data brokers that will provide data to intelligence services. They've been doing it since before the Internet existed.

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

#87

Post by injeolmi_love »

ericmay wrote: post #67
injeolmi_love wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big tech companies are not private; they are public companies that rely on state force to maintain their monopolies. Just as an example, intellectual property laws rely on the state for enforcement.

Idk. I like having property rights and so naturally that will extend to others and their homes and businesses else they won’t respect my property rights. Leveling such a broad criticism against “big tech companies” isn’t helpful, especially when you personally (along with every American) is categorically guilty of the same.

There’s limits to property rights even among the most extreme voluntaryist political philosophers. Rothbard, a famous anarchocapitalist, wrote extensively about why property rights don’t extend to slaveowners.

Unlike private households and businesses, public companies only exist due to licenses from the state. These include limitation on liability, protection for many types of property, and much, much more. The protections even extend to securities regulations; since public companies aren’t privately owned, there is a misalignment between incentives of owners and managers. The state sides with the owners by using force on managers to prevent them from acting in their own self interest, and instead to act on behalf of the shareholder public.

The NAP cannot extend to public companies as they are not privately owned and can only exist when granted rights by the state. A lot of work has been done by libertarians on the topic of how monopolies are formed; it’s not due to private markets.

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

#88

Post by yterdy »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #76
yterdy wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can use the cops against you. Ask Kim Dotcom (whatever else you think of him).

That wouldn't happen without power delegated from the government. We leave capitalism and free enterprise behind when that happens, yet still insist on using the same terms to label the consequences. See also patent trolls, predatory DRM and copyright enforcement, and (often) the creation and maintenance of harmful monopolies.

The government's power is delegated by the people (and, in particular, people with influence, i.e., money). The power of corporations to direct government force is therefore inextricable from the power of corporations writ large, and that is derived wholly from unrestrained or improperly-restrained capitalism/enterprise. The government loses the power to abuse the public so intensely when corporations lose the power to abuse government, at least within a capitalist framework.

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

#89

Post by suoduandao2 »

bannedbybros wrote: post #78
suoduandao2 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incentives are a factor too though. The us needs to hold a mostly voluntary empire together, that requires a lot more intrigue than the average country.

>voluntary empire lmao ycomb.

I mean relative to other empires in history. Maybe the Persian one comes close, maybe. I don’t like living in a client state but I’m under no illusions things would be better under the British or Spanish

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

#90

Post by pyuser583 »

sgift wrote: post #25

> This won't guarantee answers, however. It does mean the NSA will either need to satisfy Wyden's request, or Congress will need to hold a procedural vote to push through the confirmation. So, the most probable outcome is that this will delay the process for a few weeks at most until congress just pushes it through. At least it shines a bit light on the whole charade. Not that it makes much of a difference for me, si…

> Not that it makes much of a difference for me, since I'm not an US citizen

The NSA exists to spy on non-citizens, so it affects you more.

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