Recent NSA leaks

[Constable Reggie]

the article misses the point that just because the government can dig up something about you doesn't mean that it will

i'm not saying that citizens should eschew principle if it doesn't affect them. of course one should feel angry, or at least mildly displeased, that the government has been somewhat duplicitous in this matter (though, really, the government is duplicitous in everything). but i'm not going to waste my time caring about this because hardly any people have been adversely affected through this data mining.

Isn't the whole point of all the revealed NSA stuff is that the government is digging up practically everything about everyone?

And sure, there might be a difference between simply gathering the data and actually looking into it, but when the safeguards for letting them do so has been grinded down to a pittance, and we don't know exactly who they're looking into and/or why, it's foolish to assume that they absolutely wouldn't bother looking into you, I, or any other model citizen. And they've definitely proven time and again that we can't count on their word about not doing so. This isn't even considering all the wrong about them gathering the data in the first place.

I can understand why people wouldn't care about something like this, and I have no problem with them not caring, but something like this shouldn't just be written off as a typical scandal when the effects and future implications of what's been going on are massive.

Edited June 24, 2013 by Constable Reggie

[Steampunk]

They're obligated under law to release that information under the FOIA. How is it that an interpretation of a law can be considered classified due to national security reasons?

I thought The Freedom of Information Act listed several exemptions to the solicitation of info, some of which dealing with national security and law enforcement procedures (both of which would apply to the NSA), but you may be right. I haven't spent much time studying law (nor do I have any interest in it), so it's very likely you know something I don't.

It allows them to exercise the authority specifically granted to them by the Legislative; not allow them to secretly abuse it and refuse to explain how they're using it due to "national security" reasons.

If legislation such as the Patriot Act or similar national security policies grant them the authority to monitor phone records under relaxed circumstances, they aren't abusing anything. Congress passed those laws knowing the full scope of what they allowed. Seriously, look through the FISA amendments. It's insane what they can do without probable cause under that act.

But this is where we disagree -- it is being interpreted FAR more liberally than its intended purpose

That's hard to say. Even when it was being drafted and ratified, there was a lot of debate over how much power it gave the feds. You may like your interpretation better than others, but that doesn't mean it's more correct. Even the Founders of the US didn't agree on its interpretation.

Say every time you tried to mail a letter, somebody from the NSA snatched it, recorded your name, the name and address on the envelope, when you sent it, and how much you paid for postage, and then proceeded to put it in the slot.Are you saying people wouldn't be calling that a violation of the fourth amendment?

How is that a violation? They are documenting the names and addresses of you and the recipient: both of which the government probably already knows. How is documenting the time you sent a letter an unlawful search and seizure? They aren't opening the letter to read the contents or withholding it indefinitely "just because." They are only keeping track of your postal traffic. How does Amendment IV prohibit that?

Same thing with texts and phone calls. If they aren't actually going through the messages themselves, I don't think it qualifies as unlawful search or seizure if they document you made a call at a certain time of day.

Likewise, people knowing in general that the NSA is reserving the right to survey phone calls would be distinct from, say, informing terrorist X that the U.S. government is on to them.

Not saying I agree with this line of thought; but it's not like the NSA has no defense. If they can show their measures have a meaningful impact on counter-terrorism, Congress may not crack down on them as hard as we'd like them to.

[Constable Reggie]

I thought The Freedom of Information Act listed several exemptions to the solicitation of info, some of which dealing with national security and law enforcement procedures (both of which would apply to the NSA), but you may be right. I haven't spent much time studying law (nor do I have any interest in it), so it's very likely you know something I don't.

Classified stuff due to national security reasons, yes. But again, how is it that the interpretation used to rationale all the stuff going is vital to national security concerns? It isn't.

If legislation such as the Patriot Act or similar national security policies grant them the authority to monitor phone records under relaxed circumstances, they aren't abusing anything. Congress passed those laws knowing the full scope of what they allowed. Seriously, look through the FISA amendments. It's insane what they can do without probable cause under that act.

Clearly it wasn't meant to, since the original author of the Patriot Act said he didn't intend for it to be used to this extent. Again, this goes back to the whole "secret interpretation" thing that they refuse to divulge on.

Not saying I agree with this line of thought; but it's not like the NSA has no defense. If they can show their m easures have a meaningful impact on counter-terrorism, Congress may not crack down on them as hard as we'd like them to.

Well they haven't really done a great job assuaging us about its usefulness so far: all they've done was throw out baseless claims about it preventing so-and-so terrorist attacks, of which completely fall apart under the tiniest bit of scrutiny.

Edited June 24, 2013 by Constable Reggie

[Steampunk]

Classified stuff due to national security reasons, yes. But again, how is it that the interpretation used to rationale all the stuff going is vital to national security concerns? It isn't.

The way I understood it, he did release classified information to the media. That's why the government is pursuing criminal charges instead of just waging a publicity war.

Clearly it wasn't meant to, since the original author of the Patriot Act said he didn't intend for it to be used to this extent. Again, this goes back to the whole "secret interpretation" thing that they refuse to divulge on.

It's true that he did, but the timing raises some flags for me though. It's one thing for him to protest abuse these laws before they became incredibly unpopular and received heavy criticism. He didn't though. When executive agencies took advantage of it, he didn't seem bothered. After several institutions raised valid complaints of how much the act stepped on people's rights, then this Congressman became vocal about it. Call me a cynic, but that's rather convenient in my opinion. If you don't like the way agencies are exploiting your law, you don't wait twelve years to speak up; especially since it was controversial well before 2013.

Well they haven't really done a great job assuaging us about its usefulness so far: all they've done was throw out baseless claims about it preventing so-and-so terrorist attacks, of which completely fall apart under the tiniest bit of scrutiny.

They definitely seem to be in full damage control mode right now. Should be interesting where this goes. Hopefully Congress reconsiders some of these laws. I don't know what long-term change it will have though. From what I've read about the Patriot Act, the majority of Congressmen that passed the bill didn't even read it. That honestly scares the hell out of me, because they don't even know what they're voting for anymore. They just know they owe a senator or representative a vote, and that person chose one particular bill to call in the favor. I suspect, even if these laws do get revised, we'll see more of this in the future so long as people don't actually pay attention to what they're signing in to law.

Edited June 25, 2013 by Dieselpunk

[Constable Reggie]

The way I understood it, he did release classified information to the media. That's why the government is pursuing criminal charges instead of just waging a publicity war.

Huh? I was talking about the government refusing to release their interpretation of the laws due to "national security reasons".

It's true that he did, but the timing raises some flags for me though. It's one thing for him to protest abuse these laws before they became incredibly unpopular and received heavy criticism. He didn't though. When executive agencies took advantage of it, he didn't seem bothered. After several institutions raised valid complaints of how much the act stepped on people's rights, then this Congressman became vocal about it. Call me a cynic, but that's rather convenient in my opinion. If you don't like the way agencies are exploiting your law, you don't wait twelve years to speak up; especially since it was controversial well before 2013.

I don't find him just finding out the extent his law was being used to be unreasonable. He's talking specifically about the secret NSA stuff that was revealed, not the Patriot Act as a whole.

They definitely seem to be in full damage control mode right now. Should be interesting where this goes. Hopefully Congress reconsiders some of these laws. I don't know what long-term change it will have though. From what I've read about the Patriot Act, the majority of Congressmen that passed the bill didn't even read it. That honestly scares the hell out of me, because they don't even know what they're voting for anymore. They just know they owe a senator or representative a vote, and that person chose one particular bill to call in the favor. I suspect, even if these laws do get revised, we'll see more of this in the future so long as people don't actually pay attention to what they're signing in to law.

It's even more baffling that the executive ignores the intentions of the bill, specifically Section 215 of the Patriot Act, that were meant to prevent data mining of this scale. I guess when you've got a rubber stamp court backing you up, you don't have to worry about these meddlesome things called "safeguards".

Edited June 25, 2013 by Constable Reggie

[Steampunk]

Huh? I was talking about the government refusing to release their interpretation of the laws due to "national security reasons".

Ah, I gotcha now. Sorry, I misunderstood what you were saying.

I don't find him just finding out the extent his law was being used to be unreasonable. He's talking specifically about the secret NSA stuff that was revealed, not the Patriot Act as a whole.

I still have a hard time believing no one in Congress knew crap like this was going on. They pass these laws and allocate a lot of money to these agencies, but have no idea what they're doing? I think that's a little odd, but w/e.

[Constable Reggie]

Oh, I'm sure some of the senators and/or reps were briefed about it, like Intelligence Chair Sen. Idiot Feinstein, and it's likely that they were either forbidden to disclose the info to anyone else, or are demented enough to believe that it's not worth disclosing to anyone. That, or they were directly lied to (see: Clapper) or were given specifically crafted lines to imply that they weren't doing it when in actuality they were.

Edited June 25, 2013 by Constable Reggie

[Anouleth]

It's true that he did, but the timing raises some flags for me though. It's one thing for him to protest abuse these laws before they became incredibly unpopular and received heavy criticism. He didn't though. When executive agencies took advantage of it, he didn't seem bothered. After several institutions raised valid complaints of how much the act stepped on people's rights, then this Congressman became vocal about it. Call me a cynic, but that's rather convenient in my opinion. If you don't like the way agencies are exploiting your law, you don't wait twelve years to speak up; especially since it was controversial well before 2013.

When he says that the law is being used in a way he didn't intend, he means by the other side. The Patriot Act was meant to give sweeping powers to a Republican president, not a Democrat!

Some cynics might also point out that the fact that the Patriot Act gives the government far greater power than originally intended points to massive incompetence on the part of the people who wrote it and voted for it without actually understanding it.

1) With the NSA, here's the problem -- the 4th amendment prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, with people's effects being protected from the government with the SOLE EXCEPTION of a WARRANT. However, I *believe* the Supreme Court ruled in the late 70s something to the effect that the government can acquire records from a third party so long as they give permission or submit a subpoena; in this case, the third party being Verizon or Google -- in effect, so long as you use practically any electronic communication, which naturally involves a third party, the government is able to get proof of communication without a warrant, but not the content of the messages itself. The NSA takes this to a massive scale, absorbing pretty much EVERY phone call record of every citizen that uses these third party, period -- this is called meta-data.

The problem is that you can use this meta-data to track/stalk people and can even derive an undue amount of personal information about a person without even checking the content of the message, using basic logical deduction. I think the Supreme Court needs to review this issue again, and I hope a case comes up which presents the opportunity. My concern is A) FISA courts failing to reject more than like 1/2000 warrants given to them, which is suspicious, and B) the NSA is supposed to monitor FOREIGN conversations, or did we forget the purpose of the FISA act here?

So no, this bothers me a ton. I'm a rather conservative person, and this is one of the few issues where your stance on the matter isn't really broken down by party lines.

While the 4th amendment does prohibit unreasonable searches and seizures, it's not clear at all whether the government knowing that you sent an email or made a phone call counts as an unreasonable search. I don't see how it's relevant at all that you can deduce personal information about a person from that metadata. If it's legal for the government to acquire that metadata, it shouldn't be illegal for the government to use that data to make deductions.

[Constable Reggie]

When he says that the law is being used in a way he didn't intend, he means by the other side. The Patriot Act was meant to give sweeping powers to a Republican president, not a Democrat!

I'm not saying that partisanship could affect your stance on the issue, it most likely does, but regarding this polls laughable conclusion that Americans are fine with it, even more than before, it's all about the wording:

2006: "without court approval"

2013: "has been getting secret court orders"

It's amazing how wording your question to focus on specific aspects can change the outcome.

Edited June 27, 2013 by Constable Reggie

[Anouleth]

I'm not saying that partisanship could affect your stance on the issue, it most likely does, but regarding this polls laughable conclusion that Americans are fine with it, even more than before, it's all about the wording:

2006: "without court approval"

2013: "has been getting secret court orders"

It's amazing how wording your question to focus on specific aspects can change the outcome.

Uh, actually, the point of the poll is to show that the opinion of people on this kind of surveillance changes depending on whether their party controls the white house. That is to say, that Democrats are more likely to be okay with this kind of surveillance program because it's being controlled by other Democrats.

[Constable Reggie]

You do realize that they were testing more than one characteristic for the poll they made. Specifically, how many people overall find the spying acceptable compared to 7 years ago. I know you were trying to make a point about partisanship affecting the results, but you can't ignore the fact that they used two radically different worded questions that, without a doubt, greatly altered the result too.

Edited June 28, 2013 by Constable Reggie