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

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


    I don't think there's much expectation of privacy on a work server, since the owner of the server has the ultimate right to information that goes through his/her property.

    However, digital ownership has plenty of precedent, and as such, not all of what takes place on the Internet is necessarily in a "public" place.
    Manhattan Buckeye;1559584 wrote: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.
    I see little practical difference between this and reading emails/chats/PMs/etc.
    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.
    Well, I'm angry, because whether or not it's being done, I submit that it ought not be, and that the grounds for doing so, particularly as demonstrated by the ruling in this case, are laughably illogical.

    I'm not shocked, though, except perhaps at the inability to come up with a better reason for it in the document cited.
    ptown_trojans_1;1559854 wrote:I will also say it is more complex than the discourse.
    In what way?
    ptown_trojans_1;1559854 wrote:There was also the other court case that says the exact opposite from last week too.
    I hadn't heard this, though I'm not surprised at this, either.
    gut;1559906 wrote: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,,,)
    The larger the company, the more difficult it seems to be to keep EVERYONE up to date.

    And when you move that to an entity that also doesn't necessarily have to adapt in order to survive (in the same way, at least), then it makes sense that government itself will inevitably be behind as long as it is large and unthreatened.
  • gut
    O-Trap;1559934 wrote: However, digital ownership has plenty of precedent, and as such, not all of what takes place on the Internet is necessarily in a "public" place.
    And it's constantly evolving, as it should.

    I take the perspective, for example, that an email or VoIP call is a private communication that is really no different than snail mail or a landline call. However, where I disagree with others is that your surfing habits and "anonymous" posts on a message board are, in fact, public communication/activity that is on par with chatting in a restaurant or strolling down the street.

    Now whether the govt should be able to hack that activity, or review it ex-post...the former should require a warrant (just as they would to surveil you) and the latter should be off-limits even with a warrant. Yet one could argue if shops kept security footage indefinitely then your past activity there HAS BEEN justifiably used, or as such with paper records that people have kept. Hmmmm....the more I think about it people are making distinctions with digital histories that maybe aren't valid, although a difference is the individual's choice or consent to keep such a record (which is different from a contract I keep in my safe, or that the counterparty would have kept for their records).

    Where I struggle is the digital history has obvious value to security and defense, but it's also very dangerous to freedom.
  • O-Trap
    gut;1559945 wrote:And it's constantly evolving, as it should.

    I take the perspective, for example, that an email or VoIP call is a private communication that is really no different than snail mail or a landline call.
    No contest here.
    gut;1559945 wrote:However, where I disagree with others is that your surfing habits and "anonymous" posts on a message board are, in fact, public communication/activity that is on par with chatting in a restaurant or strolling down the street.
    I don't think the two are quite equitable (though there certainly exist similarities, so I can see some correlation).

    If I'm walking down the street or chatting in a restaurant, I'm already revealing parts of myself by being physically present. People can look at me and have some sense of my identity. This is because I permitted such by going outside, allowing myself to be seen and heard (literally, I mean the sound of my voice, accents, unique speech characteristics, etc.).

    On the web, I commit no such willful acts. Things like Facebook and forums, while somewhat public, still don't require the revealing of any personal information by default, and are still often only public as a default inasmuch as a person would intend them to be (permission to only communicate with certain people and sometimes block others as well).
    gut;1559945 wrote:Now whether the govt should be able to hack that activity, or review it ex-post...the former should require a warrant (just as they would to surveil you) and the latter should be off-limits even with a warrant. Yet one could argue if shops kept security footage indefinitely then your past activity there HAS BEEN justifiably used, or as such with paper records that people have kept. Hmmmm....the more I think about it people are making distinctions with digital histories that maybe aren't valid, although a difference is the individual's choice or consent to keep such a record (which is different from a contract I keep in my safe, or that the counterparty would have kept for their records).

    Where I struggle is the digital history has obvious value to security and defense, but it's also very dangerous to freedom.
    Ah, I actually think the "site" or server owner does, and should, have a right to do with information collected on his own property as he wishes, much to your shop owner analogy. When I enter Justin's space, for example, I think he's free to surrender my history there to authorities as he sees fit (though I think Justin would probably tell the authorities to "GFT"). However, I don't think he should be forced to without a warrant, nor should his right to his space be ignored through the use of underhanded snooping practices (compare, perhaps, to the tapping of video feeds or phones at the business) without such a warrant.

    I certainly don't intend to neuter our defenders, but I don't think one has to neuter the notion of online privacy in order to do that.
  • gut
    O-Trap;1559950 wrote: I don't think the two are quite equitable (though there certainly exist similarities, so I can see some correlation).

    If I'm walking down the street or chatting in a restaurant, I'm already revealing parts of myself by being physically present. People can look at me and have some sense of my identity. This is because I permitted such by going outside, allowing myself to be seen and heard (literally, I mean the sound of my voice, accents, unique speech characteristics, etc.).
    But they are the same. That's the point I'm making - people get caught up in semantics and make a rather arbitrary distinction between your physical persona being observable in public and your digital presence, which is also observable on a PUBLIC internet. So if someone were to snapshot your digital self somewhere on the internet it's truthfully no different than a camera catching your physical self at a restaurant. It's not your physical location but where the activity is taking place that matters - that you're sitting at home has no relevance to your digital self being out in public.

    Basically people struggle with the concept that they are actually two places at once, because they are thinking of themselves only in the physical sense. For example, if you are Skyping and it's being broadcast on a billboard at Times Square (let's just assume you know that to avoid complicating things) and you get naked - just because you're naked in the privacy of your own bathroom doesn't absolve you from indecent exposure in NY.
    O-Trap;1559950 wrote: On the web, I commit no such willful acts. Things like Facebook and forums, while somewhat public, still don't require the revealing of any personal information by default, and are still often only public as a default inasmuch as a person would intend them to be (permission to only communicate with certain people and sometimes block others as well).
    Again, for practical and legal purposes you are no more anonymous than you are in that public restaurant. As such you could be "discovered" in a digital version of detectives working to find out who a person in a photo is.

    Put another way, your activity or information is really controlled by that site owner (just as a restaurant owner could voluntarily turn over receipts and video footage)....but your digital journey in connecting to that site is public and should be observable and traceable without a warrant. That's the public aspect, no different than walking down the street to the restaurant.
  • Glory Days
    O-Trap;1559950 wrote:No contest here.



    I don't think the two are quite equitable (though there certainly exist similarities, so I can see some correlation).

    If I'm walking down the street or chatting in a restaurant, I'm already revealing parts of myself by being physically present. People can look at me and have some sense of my identity. This is because I permitted such by going outside, allowing myself to be seen and heard (literally, I mean the sound of my voice, accents, unique speech characteristics, etc.).

    On the web, I commit no such willful acts. Things like Facebook and forums, while somewhat public, still don't require the revealing of any personal information by default, and are still often only public as a default inasmuch as a person would intend them to be (permission to only communicate with certain people and sometimes block others as well).
    Define personal information. Your IP address etc is basically you in digital form. when you enter the forums, you are just as visible as you are in starbucks.



    Ah, I actually think the "site" or server owner does, and should, have a right to do with information collected on his own property as he wishes, much to your shop owner analogy. When I enter Justin's space, for example, I think he's free to surrender my history there to authorities as he sees fit (though I think Justin would probably tell the authorities to "GFT"). However, I don't think he should be forced to without a warrant, nor should his right to his space be ignored through the use of underhanded snooping practices (compare, perhaps, to the tapping of video feeds or phones at the business) without such a warrant.

    I certainly don't intend to neuter our defenders, but I don't think one has to neuter the notion of online privacy in order to do that.

    Many people often forget to read the fine print when it comes to third parties releasing their information to the government.
  • O-Trap
    gut;1559965 wrote:But they are the same. That's the point I'm making - people get caught up in semantics and make a rather arbitrary distinction between your physical persona being observable in public and your digital presence, which is also observable on a PUBLIC internet.
    The distinction is that there are observable identifiers that are the result of being physically present which are absent online. You're in public when your body is outside because you ... as an entity ... are literally in public. Not just your ideas or words. You, yourself.

    No matter how much you try, it is currently impossible for you, yourself, to exist in an online form.

    That's not semantic. It's the law of identity. The words I type on here, no matter how they might be an attempt to demonstrate who I am, are technically a personality in a vacuum.

    Not so of the example you gave.
    gut;1559965 wrote:So if someone were to snapshot your digital self somewhere on the internet it's truthfully no different than a camera catching your physical self at a restaurant.
    There is no "digital self." That's the point.

    If I could be transferred into soft form, then perhaps, but I cannot.
    gut;1559965 wrote:It's not your physical location but where the activity is taking place that matters - that you're sitting at home has no relevance to your digital self being out in public.
    Sure it does, inasmuch as it enables a person to track my words to me. My words are easily transferable to the web. I am not. As such, I don't concede privacy on the web in the same way I do when I am out.
    gut;1559965 wrote:Basically people struggle with the concept that they are actually two places at once, because they are thinking of themselves only in the physical sense. For example, if you are Skyping and it's being broadcast on a billboard at Times Square (let's just assume you know that to avoid complicating things) and you get naked - just because you're naked in the privacy of your own bathroom doesn't absolve you from indecent exposure in NY.
    It certainly does, though it doesn't absolve me of any wrongdoing. You seem to assume that, because they're seeing an image of my physical body in the buff, then they're seeing me in the buff, but this is not true. They're not seeing me. They're seeing an image. The image is of me, and I'm the one exposing the public to it, but it is nevertheless just an image. I wouldn't be exposing myself indecently in public. It would be more akin to me handing out pornographic pictures of myself in public or more aptly, playing a video of my exposure in public. The user experience is no different. They see an image of me, but they don't actually see me.
    gut;1559965 wrote:Again, for practical and legal purposes you are no more anonymous than you are in that public restaurant.


    Well, if I revealed myself to the public in the same way I would actually being in public, then sure. However, that isn't necessary, so treating it as necessary is disingenuous.
    gut;1559965 wrote:As such you could be "discovered" in a digital version of detectives working to find out who a person in a photo is.


    Again, "I'm" not being discovered in digital form. An image ... a digital representation of me ... is. Only upon matching the image to my actual body can a person verify that the image is, in fact, an image of me.
    gut;1559965 wrote:Put another way, your activity or information is really controlled by that site owner (just as a restaurant owner could voluntarily turn over receipts and video footage)....but your digital journey in connecting to that site is public and should be observable and traceable without a warrant.


    I disagree, because at no known point am I traveling through "public space." Each step in the connection is either owned by me or a privately-owned service provider. As such, at no point in time am I sitting in, or observable from, "public land," digitally speaking.
    Glory Days;1559966 wrote:Define personal information. Your IP address etc is basically you in digital form. when you enter the forums, you are just as visible as you are in starbucks.


    That is tracked by the site owner, and it is indeed their prerogative, but that information is up to the site owner. It's still not "public" information at that point.

    Plus, I use a VPN and a private proxy. If someone checked my IP right now, they'd see me as being from Oklahoma City.
  • Devils Advocate
    In Summary:

    The 4th amendment protects you from all unreasonable searches and seizures *






    *Void where prohibited. Check individual states where applicable. National security is by far more important than individual rights..
  • Con_Alma
    The debate legally is the reasonable nature of the seizure of this information. It's not exactly cut and dry.
  • Devils Advocate
    [URL="http://The NSA to tap your toilet"]http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/howard/bs-md-nsa-howard-county-water-20131230,0,1365917.story[/URL]
  • believer
    ptown_trojans_1;1559855 wrote:Been doing that since 1945
    There was potential for abuse then and even more so now.

    I was in military intelligence, specifically the Army Security Agency, for quite a few years. Believe me...the power can be abused.
  • dwccrew
    Devils Advocate;1559201 wrote: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.
    Who's Arnie North? I've heard of Ollie North that was involved in the Iran-Contra scandal, but I am unaware of an Arnie North. Couldn't even google him.
  • Mulva
    Second circuit court of appeals rules that bulk phone collection is illegal. I'm sure the activities will stop immediately and the punishments will be harsh and swift.
  • rydawg5
    Support the troops