Re: The NSA ruling a couple days ago ...

• O-Trap

  

  http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/12/27/the-most-kafkaesque-paragraph-from-todays-nsa-ruling/
  
  
  From the ruling a couple of days ago on the NSA spying, held in New York:
  
  
  So, more or less, the grounds on which it is ruled that targets are unable to question the legality of the surveillance on them is this: They were not supposed to find out about it.
  
  As an example, you get spied on, and you find out, but you have no course of action for challenging the legality of the spying on you, primarily because you were never supposed to know about it in the first place.
  
  Am I reading that right?
• justincredible

  

  Their response is basically: it's legal, because fuck you.
• Con_Alma

  Gee...Maybe Eric Snowden didn't help the U.S. citizens but rather hurt them.
  
  "...Re-read that a few times and let it sink in. Pauley is essentially saying that the targets of the order have no recourse to challenge the collection of their personal data because Congress never intended for targets to ever know that they were subject to this sort of spying. And that the fact that everyone knows about it now, thanks to Edward Snowden, doesn't change the targets' ability to challenge the legality of the order. ..."
• Devils Advocate

  

  Apparently this is a "reverse" fruits of a poisonous tree deal. I other words, if the information is obtained illegally, you can't use it.
  
  Stuff like this comes up in government bullshit all the time. Remember Arnie North? He claimed the the actions he took came from direct orders but could not prove it because discovery would cause incalculable damages to the covert actions taken by our government.
  
  He was left no choice but to fall on the sword, Or throw St. Reagan and King George the 1st under the bus.
• Devils Advocate

  

  Con_Alma;1559196 wrote:Gee...Maybe Eric Snowden didn't help the U.S. citizens but rather hurt them.

  I'm still kind of torn on the whole Snowden thing. It's amost as if he detonated a nuke and some people say "that's horrible, look at all the dead people" and the other side that says "look at all of the bad guys it killed".
• justincredible

  

  Who in the world is Eric Snowden?
• Con_Alma

  justincredible;1559216 wrote:Who in the world is Eric Snowden?

  That would be the guy that was incorrectly referenced and carries the birth name as Edward Snowden.
• O-Trap

  

  Con_Alma;1559196 wrote:Gee...Maybe Eric Snowden didn't help the U.S. citizens but rather hurt them.
  
  "...Re-read that a few times and let it sink in. Pauley is essentially saying that the targets of the order have no recourse to challenge the collection of their personal data because Congress never intended for targets to ever know that they were subject to this sort of spying. And that the fact that everyone knows about it now, thanks to Edward Snowden, doesn't change the targets' ability to challenge the legality of the order. ..."

  How does that sentence suggest he hurt them?
  
  If anything, it just doesn't help them.
  
  Person A: *surfs Internet*
  Person B: "Um ... hi, Person A. Did you know you were being spied on by the NSA?"
  Person A: "That's not cool. I'm going to challenge the legality of that."
  NSA: "You can't, because you were never supposed to know."
  
  
  Person B is hardly making anything worse in the example above. If anything, he's pointing out that the NSA is being shady. Whether or not they use an illogical defense for what they're doing doesn't change that.
• Con_Alma

  The monitoring is no longer being done secretively. The public has been notified such communications are not private. There is now court precedence dismissing the constitutional argument.
• Heretic

  

  O-Trap;1559225 wrote:How does that sentence suggest he hurt them?
  
  If anything, it just doesn't help them.
  
  Person A: *surfs Internet*
  Person B: "Um ... hi, Person A. Did you know you were being spied on by the NSA?"
  Person A: "That's not cool. I'm going to challenge the legality of that."
  NSA: "You can't, because you were never supposed to know."
  
  
  Person B is hardly making anything worse in the example above. If anything, he's pointing out that the NSA is being shady. Whether or not they use an illogical defense for what they're doing doesn't change that.

  Yeah. If anything, as opposed to hurting the people, he at least did something to facilitate a response that perfectly illustrates how shady the NSA is. If no one knows, there's no "BECAUSE WE SAID IT'S COOL!!!!!" response because no one knows.
• O-Trap

  

  Con_Alma;1559228 wrote:The monitoring is no longer being done secretively. The public has been notified such communications are not private. There is now court precedence dismissing the constitutional argument.

  How is that worse?
  
  If we never knew about it, they would have maintained unbridled freedom to do so because of the ignorance of the populace.
  
  They still have the unbridled freedom, only now it is because of legal precedent.
  
  However, at least now, people can see the idiocy of that legal precedent.
  
  And there is nothing to say that there will not be plenty to challenge this initial precedent in the coming years.
  

  Heretic;1559230 wrote:Yeah. If anything, as opposed to hurting the people, he at least did something to facilitate a response that perfectly illustrates how shady the NSA is. If no one knows, there's no "BECAUSE WE SAID IT'S COOL!!!!!" response because no one knows.

  Exactly. Knowledge trumps ignorance every time.
• Con_Alma

  It can be more difficult to cease the practice now as opposed to it having been challenged in another manner such as by an elected representative.
• O-Trap

  

  Con_Alma;1559233 wrote:It can be more difficult to cease the practice now as opposed to it having been challenged in another manner such as by an elected representative.

  The precedent for what you're suggesting is that it isn't likely an elected representative would have done anything about it.
  
  Why ought we trust some new elected official to be so different on the matter?
• Con_Alma

  O-Trap;1559243 wrote:The precedent for what you're suggesting is that it isn't likely an elected representative would have done anything about it.
  
  Why ought we trust some new elected official to be so different on the matter?

  ...and now we will never know.
  
  I'm not suggesting you either do or don't trust anyone but rather I merely commented on what I think the outcome results in.
• gut

  Where to begin....secret laws and secret actions on US citizens without their knowledge would have the forefathers rolling in their graves.
  
  However, I think there's something to be said for an expectation of privacy on a public internet...no different than someone standing naked in their window for everyone on the street to see.
  
  But then you have the issue that most cell phones (VoIP being a gray area) are not public communications. And most text messages go over the cell network and not the internet (Google Voice being an example of the latter).
  
  Then, however, if we talk snail mail vs. internet mail (or even SMS) are we making a distinction without a difference? Why should a VoIP call be viewed differently from a landline call?
  
  At the end of the day, does anyone really take issue with what the NSA is trying to achieve, or is it truthfully about the potential for abuse? The latter is why these programs should not be secret with secret oversight. It's not exactly unprecedented for the US govt to put resources to work to dig up dirt to attack political dissidents, among others.
  
  I wonder how long before people's "private" internet posting and surfing habits becomes a routine part of the public vetting of candidates?
• believer

  

  Basically our government has granted itself permission to invade the privacy of its citizenry ostensibly for reasons of national security. The citizenry has no recourse against domestic spying because the people aren't supposed to be aware of the practice so therefore the practice officially doesn't exist.
• Manhattan Buckeye

  "However, I think there's something to be said for an expectation of privacy on a public internet"
  
  There should be zero expectation of privacy for anything you do on the internet, or via your work server. Every keystroke (not just posting or saving, every keystroke) on your work server is typically recorded, and anything you post on the internet is up to to the webmaster's whim, and can be recoverable.
  
  The phone surveillance bothers me more. Recording of phone calls have a history of statutory and common law history.....it seems as if the government is circumventing the law.
• gut

  Manhattan Buckeye;1559584 wrote: There should be zero expectation of privacy for anything you do on the internet, or via your work server.

  That's what I meant. I worded it poorly. Basically you are in "public" when surfing the internet, even in the privacy of your own home. It's the digital version of going down to Starbucks to chat-up the unemployed pretending to be writers.
• ptown_trojans_1

  

  While I do think they should reign the NSA in, keep in mind, the intelligence agencies have been doing this since 1945.
  All throughout the Cold War, this is essentially what they did.
  So, don't be shocked or angry.
  
  I will also say it is more complex than the discourse.
  There was also the other court case that says the exact opposite from last week too.
• ptown_trojans_1

  

  believer;1559323 wrote:Basically our government has granted itself permission to invade the privacy of its citizenry ostensibly for reasons of national security. The citizenry has no recourse against domestic spying because the people aren't supposed to be aware of the practice so therefore the practice officially doesn't exist.

  Been doing that since 1945
• gut

  ptown_trojans_1;1559854 wrote:While I do think they should reign the NSA in, keep in mind, the intelligence agencies have been doing this since 1945.
  All throughout the Cold War, this is essentially what they did.
  So, don't be shocked or angry.

  What's different is the govt has the ability to access far, far more information than they ever have - not only a given point in time but also the ability to go back and retrace an extensive digital trail.
• ptown_trojans_1

  

  gut;1559868 wrote:What's different is the govt has the ability to access far, far more information than they ever have - not only a given point in time but also the ability to go back and retrace an extensive digital trail.

  Perhaps, although the CIA did do a lot more intrusive measures during the Cold War.
• Manhattan Buckeye

  For some reason I think the CIA people in the Cold War era were a bit more intelligent and qualified and had some idea what they were doing. If nothing else in the information age our government has been exposed for the nincompoops they are currently. I wouldn't trust half of the DC intelligentsia to go across the street and get a Starbucks order correct.
• gut

  ptown_trojans_1;1559873 wrote:Perhaps, although the CIA did do a lot more intrusive measures during the Cold War.

  Maybe so, but it's a different animal on that vs. the ease (and quantity) with which they hack anyone's digital footprint.
  
  Again, the core issue is not that the govt can and does do this, it's the potential for abuse. And that "potential" is of a magnitude far greater given how much past history can be easily recovered, not to mention warehousing billions of gigs of data for future reference.
• gut

  Manhattan Buckeye;1559888 wrote:For some reason I think the CIA people in the Cold War era were a bit more intelligent and qualified and had some idea what they were doing.

  It's a different animal when you are talking tech people, the best and brightest of which are working for the tech giants and emerging companies, or founding their own start-ups.
  
  Funny how most companies, especially larger ones, are still a good 10-15 years behind what is being taught at universities. And on those sort of issues the govt is probably further behind (though the tech and savvy of the CIA and NSA should in no way be compared to the IRS, Healthcare.gov, etc,,,)