I think I have just read about the man for which I have waited.Earmarks of a real hero. guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun…
— Glenn Beck (@glennbeck) June 9, 2013
I was just with Dan Ellsberg as he learned out about Edward Snowden. He called Snowden a hero, said he's been waiting for him for 40 years.
— Trevor Timm (@trevortimm) June 9, 2013
(Via the up-and-running Wikipedia page for Edward Snowden.)
AND: Sounds so millennialist: He is the one we've been waiting for. Just what was said about Barack Obama. There's quick turnover in messiahs these days.
Posts
273 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 273 of 273Chip S wrote:
So you're fine w/ whatever the gov wants to do b/c you lack the ability to think about alternatives?
Sorry to hear that.
How about this? No unrestricted data-gathering. One degree of separation from one of those terrifying Waziristanis is necessary to authorize the acquisition of any US citizen's data.
Youre arguing points that are based on nothing at all. What does restricted access to data mean? That's completely open ended. If it's so restricted that it's not workable then what is the point of having a surveillance program. So what is the right balance between restriction and efficiency? Well since you're not describing anything with any specificity , how the hell should I know?
What restriction are you suggesting? should the govt only have access to one carrier? Only a days worth of phone metadata at a time? A separate warrant every time a new number comes into play? No data that crosses between carriers? I can see a lot of those restrictions making a surveillance program become a completely useless program. I would call those restrictions a road block. You might call those road blocks a feature. Because you don't really want the govt to have any type of surveillance program.
Lem, I agree the O Administration has passed a tipping point. Burning Woodward then the AP was a bad, bad idea.
The Press was their Maginot line, and they let those mean old Righties go to the right or it. Invited them, actually.
Always burn a source that burns you.
Mark wrote:
Nice little hypothetical, JR. You simply ask the database which you've compiled with no supervision.
But there is supervision. You need a FISA warrant. And there is a limit to your search. Your search only contains the numbers that are linked to the number tied to the phone you think belongs to terrorists.
Think of it like Google. Google requires data from as many web sites as possible to make its searches accurate. But even though all the data is technically there, you are limited by the searches you perform. Imagine if you could only access search terms that have been cleared by a warrant. There's your limit and there's your supervision.
Would Google give you better search results if you had all of the internet cached, or if google had to get clearance every time you ran any search and write a new webpage with the data you want?
And I'll ask you, since you are accusing people of fascism - suppose you had the supervision (whatever that means). Could we do the search then? Or would that make you a fascist?
jr, I don't see where your argument allows for any restriction of the executive branch.
Seriously, that's Fascism. But I get it that Obama is such a good guy that I shouldn't be worried.
Google can't do a no-knock raid on my house and kill every thing in it and then say "Oops, wrong address."
You were all about "effectiveness" earlier. There really are tools I want to make really hard to use, and to leave a discovery-rich trail in their wake.
I bet you thought Bush was the second coming of the devil too. Until you found your own personal Satan.
Mark wrote:
jr, I don't see where your argument allows for any restriction of the executive branch.
Well, there is a restriction. The search requires a FISA warrant and must be related to terrorist activity.
Seriously, that's Fascism. But I get it that Obama is such a good guy that I shouldn't be worried.
Who said i was for Obama? Im for the NSA program being efficient and effective. I think Obama is a douche and the country were moronic to elect him.
Mark wrote:I bet you thought Bush was the second coming of the devil too. Until you found your own personal Satan.
No, actually I supported Bush.
Mark wrote:
You were all about "effectiveness" earlier. There really are tools I want to make really hard to use, and to leave a discovery-rich trail in their wake.
Well then if you're all about effectiveness why don't you come up with a surveillance program that targets terrorists. And be extremely specific about what makes it more effective.
suppose you had the supervision (whatever that means).
It means the executive asks the judiciary for approval before doing something that might violate an innocent citizen's rights.
Said approval will be granted (or not) and will be preserved in the public record, and be available to citizens and/or the legislative branch.
No disappearing. No memory holes. The people who make bad calls don't get free passes.
Is this so hard, jr? Is your personal Obama worth whatever it is you call your soul? Because in the end what you will allow Obama is what you would allow yourself if you had the means, motive, and opportunity.
Mark, are you a gun control advocate or are you for the right to bear arms?
You write:
Google can't do a no-knock raid on my house and kill every thing in it and then say "Oops, wrong address."
You were all about "effectiveness" earlier. There really are tools I want to make really hard to use, and to leave a discovery-rich trail in their wake.
So, if you are for the right to bear arms, what about those instances where people who lawfully own guns shoot the wrong person. Or who's kids play with their guns and kill themselves? Arent those situations analagous to the no knock raid going to the wrong address? Would you curtail your right to bear arms because of accidents that might occur if you have a gun?
A no knock raid might go to the wrong apartment from time to time. But that doesn't mean that it's never necessary to conduct a no knock raid. If you ban no knock raids, what about the times when a no knock raid would be the best way to handle a situation and you have the right address?
Mark wrote:
It means the executive asks the judiciary for approval before doing something that might violate an innocent citizen's rights.
Said approval will be granted (or not) and will be preserved in the public record, and be available to citizens and/or the legislative branch.
The NSA needs to get a warrant, and congress is apprised of the program. Next?
Oh, and what's your security clearance? Why should you have access to covert programs absent that clearance? Are you on the House Intelligence committee? NO, then you don't have access to that info.
Sorry.
Mark wrote:Is this so hard, jr? Is your personal Obama worth whatever it is you call your soul? Because in the end what you will allow Obama is what you would allow yourself if you had the means, motive, and opportunity.
Im not supporting Obama on this!Im supporting the NSAs program,whether the president is Bush or Obama or the president who comes after Obama.
And i don't want the program hobbled to the point of inefficiency becuase of bogey man arguments from people like yourself, Judge Napolitano and Code Pink assholes. .
Mark wrote:
It means the executive asks the judiciary for approval before doing something that might violate an innocent citizen's rights.
Anything MIGHT violate an innocent citizens rights if its abused. A court case might send an innocent person to jail. What then, dont have trials? Don't pass laws that MIGHT cause innnocent people to be found guilty of them? Don't allow police officers to enforce laws because they MIGHT conduct a no knock raid on the wrong house?
jr, if you really supported Bush, I'm sorry for Bush. He deserved better.
Way back I did support monitoring specific international phone traffic. This is when I was making and taking calls from all around the world on a regular basis.
I worked in international banking, supporting Trade Finanace software, and my cell phone in a month would have send and receive records from six continents, and Antarctica wasn't included only because there isn't a bank there.
So right here, on this blog, I said I sincerely hoped I was being tracked because my call patterns were so far out of the norm.
I stand by that.
But tracking everything is at best stupid, at worst evil.
The question is always "what are they looking for?" If that question can't be traced back to a legitimate cause for suspicion, then the assumption has to be (particularly in the current climate of scandal) that it's political intel gathering.
Hope you're good with saying you supported Bush in a public space, or that you have a good paper trail that says you were paid to do it.
jr: Anything MIGHT violate an innocent citizens rights if its abused.
Give that troll a cigar. The whole point of requiring judicial approval is to get a (hopefully) independent set of eyes on a specific case.
And as I have stated, the paper trail becomes a lot more hard to hide when it crosses boundaries between the Executive, Judiciary, and Legislative.
jr, are you a Verizon customer? Are you considering changing plans? Or do you have Assurances?
Agreeing with Chip S on this post.
As for what the IRS tells us about this NSA program, wouldn't we all feel better of the executive branch seemed to actually care about what they did? They are completely unable to tell us exactly how it happened, who did it, who supervised it, who got in trouble for it.
It should have been a huge emergency to fix it, but it wasn't. It's all murky CYA.
The government requires companies to disclose their privacy policies. There is no reason the government can't be required to disclose the same.
Another failure was the underwear bomber. His father went to an embassy to report him and he was still allowed on a plane, apparently because the state department didn't have some good way of registering the concern.
Perhaps the government is focusing too much on big data
I carefully evaluated every single document I disclosed to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest
Great that we've finally got someone to decide this for us! Way better than the elected people we've been struggling along with up to now.
Inga said...
Pm 317, a female Edutcher.
pm, you're in good company.
The She Devil of the SS is thew female some phony folksy (probably in more ways than one).
earmarks ??
Anybody stop to consider this guy could be another Cook, a pure, hard core, doctrinaire Lefty who hates Choom just as much as any "rightist" does?
Just a thought.
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"a beautiful "Look Squirrel!!" distraction"
Oh my God, I agree with every word of a Cedarford comment. I think I'd better have a little lie-down.
Inga said...
Traitor. Coward. Runs off to China.
the apple doesn't fall far from the fuhrer.
The NSA eavesdropping program that was leaked under Bush was supposedly that in order for communication to fall under the allowed parameters the communication had to include a foreign source to a domestic source.
I seem to recollect CIA director Hayden, who had been a multi star general in the pentagon, saying this and reassuring people that the NSA was not just willy nilly monitoring the communications of US citizens here in the country.
I know I heard that.
While looking for the video that I just mentioned remembering, I've found this.
Hayden is discussing with Charlie Rose an Inspector Generals "Review".
I take from what Hayden and Rose discussed to mean that there is apparently an Inspector General monitoring what the CIA does, just as there is one for the IRS.
If you recall, it was the specter of the IRS Inspector General's report that compelled the IRS to put out the information of what they, the IRS, had done with Tea Parties Tax Exemption Applications.
So ultimately, after about an hour worth of digging, my question is does the NSA have an independent Inspector General looking at what they do?
Again as I said yesterday, I don't want to get too caught up in this.
My impression is that Snowden, seems like he's gone off half-cocked. Means well, but just didn't have all the information and made a wrong judgment call.
edutcher said...
Anybody stop to consider this guy could be another Cook, a pure, hard core, doctrinaire Lefty who hates Choom just as much as any "rightist" does?
Just a thought.
Yeah. That was my first conclusion.
More than likely it is the correct one.
He's like Bradley Manning. An attention whore.
What I would like to know is what is the NSAs working definition of ,"terrorist"?
What groups and associations are included in the definition?
That would go a long way in determining if the system is being used for political purposes.
OK so we found out that the IRS targeted individuals. What do you propose to do about it? Can we be sure that republicans or libertarians who win the white house wont ever target their opponents? So then what is the solution? have no one run the IRS because if anyone does they might actually target people?
Insist the IRS is run well.
Punish the people who did wrong.
Right now, the IRS is demonstrating how little they care about solving the problem or holding people accountable. They are basically saying they have no idea how it happened. That proves to me they don't care, and will do it again because there's no downside.
If what they did were truly unacceptable, they wouldn't be accepting it.
"Anybody stop to consider this guy could be another Cook, a pure, hard core, doctrinaire Lefty...."
Hahaha! How could I be a "doctrinaire Lefty" when I've never read any of the doctrine?
One does not have to be--should not have to be--a "lefty" to abhor this gross rape of our 4th Amendment.
That some here continue to deny the possibility this could be happening--that the NSA has the technical capacity to do what Snowden claims--or who insist that such egregious intrusion by the government into our privacy is justified in order to stop a kook once every few years with a grudge and a pipe bomb--or not stop him, as the case sometimes is--is a vivid illustration of the power of denial...and of the willingness of those who are weak of mind to accept total surveillance (and control) by the government in exchange for the illusory promise of "protection" from "the enemy," however vaguely identified or defined.
"Anybody stop to consider this guy could be another Cook, a pure, hard core, doctrinaire Lefty...."
that's a dumb reason to be OK with a surveillance state. how about this: Anybody stop to consider what a hyper partisan asshole like Obama who has demonstrated he can't handle power responsibly (see IRS) would do with this power?
Chip S. said...
"[Simon said...] this is not a debate that can be had in the normal political process. I do disagree w/ this. I disagree that a public determination of the legality and the advisability of massive data mining violates national security."
As I said the other day, this is a debate that cannot be carried out in public, because there in information that is highly relevant to the debate but which cannot be revealed to the public. Nor is it a debate that can be had in Congress, because Congress has the institutional capacity to keep a secret that a seive has to retain water. Moreoever, not only are the antecedents necessarily secret, but the conclusions must necessarily be secret: A program such as this functions best when no one knows about it. If the bad guys know about it, they will change their behavior to seek ways around it, as the President says. So for these reasons, I maintain that this cannot be a debate held in the normal political process, and if it is to remain subject to any part of the normal structure of law, the only place in which it can be reposed is the President, who is an elected official in whom the public truist is placed.
"The Tsarnaev brothers weren't missed--we were warned explicitly about them."
We were tipped about them, yes, but there's an information problem here. The argument foes: The government was warned about them, and obviously they were actually bad guys because they did the bombing! But that relies on information that wasn't available to the government. Do you think that the Tsarnaev brothers were the only tip the government got that year? It's incredibly easy to pick people out of a pool of names once you know the names for which you are looking! It's much, much harder to do what the government actually had to do: Look at a pool of names and figure out for whom they were looking!
X said...
Anybody stop to consider this guy could be another Cook, a pure, hard core, doctrinaire Lefty....
that's a dumb reason to be OK with a surveillance state. how about this: Anybody stop to consider what a hyper partisan asshole like Obama who has demonstrated he can't handle power responsibly (see IRS) would do with this power?
Certainly possible, but look at the Blackfive piece that was in the sidebar.
Snowden says he was "disillusioned".
"When I take a leak in my bathroom, "I have a reasonable expectation of privacy. When I take a leak behind a tree, there's the possibility that that poignant moment is being captured by CCTV."
How about when I pee off my deck? (I do that a lot.) Should I be on the lookout for "CCTV" pointing into my backyard in order to prevent terrorism? The current government says they have the right to watch whatever I do in public or in private, which include both the deck and your bathroom. For your own good.
As I said the other day, this is a debate that cannot be carried out in public, because there in information that is highly relevant to the debate but which cannot be revealed to the public.
This is a textbook example of petitio principii.
One of many in this thread.
Clear sign of the Apocalypse. Not the zombie one. The real one.
It's incredibly easy to pick people out of a pool of names once you know the names for which you are looking! It's much, much harder to do what the government actually had to do: Look at a pool of names and figure out for whom they were looking!
This is the same ridiculous argument made by jr565 last night.
Dude, the surveillance program you think is so vital to the protection of the US was already in place.
You actually seem to be arguing that we need to go even further than PRISM. And you'll call those of us who oppose that as paranoid libertarian wackos.
I don't think you're a fascist, but based on your definition of conservatism I think there's a good chance that you're a monarchist.
Chip S. said...
"This is a textbook example of petitio principii."
Hardly. Are you really willing to feign belief that the government is not in possession of intelligence data of which the general public is not and cannot be made aware? If that data exists, it is so critically relevant to the question that the debate cannot be held without access to that information, and if that information cannot be publicly divulged, the debate cannot be held in public.
Chip S. said...
"Dude, the surveillance program you think is so vital to the protection of the US was already in place."
Oh, so if a program is not 100% effective, it's no good and should be scrapped? The military is not deterring our enemies; clearly, it must be scrapped.
"You actually seem to be arguing that we need to go even further than PRISM. And you'll call those of us who oppose that as paranoid libertarian wackos. I don't think you're a fascist, but based on your definition of conservatism I think there's a good chance that you're a monarchist."
I'm a traditionalist. I support the government's prudent exercise of traditional governmental functions, of which national defense is lies at the very core. Unless the government goes beyond its constitutional limits, it is well within its traditional purview on this matter. As to whether any particular measure is prudent: I also believe that where expertise is pertinent, those without it owe reasonable deference to those who have it. We do not have the information necessary to decide whether this program is prudent; the President of the United States, however, who does, and who is charged before God and history with making produent choices, has concluded that it is prudent, and I defer to his judgment. If he determines that we need to go even further than PRISM, I fully support him, so long as he stays within constitutional limits.
Are you really willing to feign belief that the government is not in possession of intelligence data of which the general public is not and cannot be made aware?
I'm not "feigning" anything, least of all the pathetic straw-man argument you're attributing to me. So let me be clear--for about the 3rd or 4th time in this thread: Yes, I think the gov has some data that should remain secret. But I can't believe I have to specify that that does not mean I believe that no discussion of PRISM is possible w/o revealing said data.
Your position is that it is not possible to discuss restrictions on domestic surveillance w/o revealing critical intelligence data. Therefore, it cannot be discussed--except, of course, insofar as gov officials choose to reveal whatever tidbits they feel will justify the program to willing believers like you.
That's question-begging, pure and simple.
If [the president] determines that we need to go even further than PRISM, I fully support him, so long as he stays within constitutional limits.
The entire point of this controversy was to determine what it means to stay within constitutional limits. A debate that you think cannot be held, b/c it would necessarily violate national security.
We were tipped about them, yes, but there's an information problem here. The argument foes: The government was warned about them, and obviously they were actually bad guys because they did the bombing! But that relies on information that wasn't available to the government. Do you think that the Tsarnaev brothers were the only tip the government got that year? It's incredibly easy to pick people out of a pool of names once you know the names for which you are looking! It's much, much harder to do what the government actually had to do: Look at a pool of names and figure out for whom they were looking!
But Simon, the difference is that screening everybody means that at some level, resources were wasted screening people like us. I want more scrutiny on people like the brothers, one of whom came with ample red flags before any time or resources are wasted collecting useless data. Show me an example of a terror act that was foiled against someone who came out of the blue. They always seem to have priors. There is a very self destructive policy which avoids profiling criminals.
If the President's new prerogative is "it helps to information on everybody" then clearly there needs to be bipartisan oversight on such powers. To do otherwise is to invite disaster.
Certainly possible, but look at the Blackfive piece that was in the sidebar.
Snowden says he was "disillusioned".
even if I assume he is a commie sleeper it does not change my opinion that the domestic surveillance program violates the 4th amendment.
Mark wrote:
Way back I did support monitoring specific international phone traffic. This is when I was making and taking calls from all around the world on a regular basis.
FASCIST!
Mark wrote:
Give that troll a cigar. The whole point of requiring judicial approval is to get a (hopefully) independent set of eyes on a specific case.
Are you not aware that they need to get FISA warrants to do anything? It's like you're arguing about a program that exists only in your mind. Oh, and Bush had the same requirement. And the libertarian/liberal retards like Barack Obama were saying that wasn't enough then either. Why did you support Bush's program? Because you're that much of a hypocrite?
Chip said...
" I can't believe I have to specify that that does not mean I believe that no discussion of PRISM is possible w/o revealing said data."
You cannot have a national debate about a largely-secret program that responds to largely-secret needs for the same reason that you can't have a debate about the implications of the Higgs Boson for supersymmetry with a fourth grader. A debate presupposes knowledge of the relevant issues. An opinion, a bare, conclusory assertion, made free of such knowledge, is not a debate position. Ergo: Believe it. If you concede that there is relevant information that we don't and can't know, you necessarily concede that any debate we had would be meaningless and uninformed. I'm not asking you to like it. I'm just saying that it is a necessary consequence that follows ineluctably from the epistemological limits that you have just conceded.
"The entire point of this controversy was to determine what it means to stay within constitutional limits. A debate that you think cannot be held, b/c it would necessarily violate national security."
The question isn't whether there can be a debate on those questions. The question is, what is the arena and who are the judges? I maintain that the proper answers to those questions must be, can only be the executive branch, the FISA court, the FISA court of review, and the intelligence committees of the Congress—to wit, people in posession of the relevant facts. You appear to concede that the general public isn't in posession of the relevant facts and yet maintain that it is nevertheless competent to judge what it shouldn't know against what it can't know. I don't know how to make that argument with a straight face, because it is so patently defective.
El Pollo Rayan wrote:
But Simon, the difference is that screening everybody means that at some level, resources were wasted screening people like us. I want more scrutiny on people like the brothers, one of whom came with ample red flags before any time or resources are wasted collecting useless data. Show me an example of a terror act that was foiled against someone who came out of the blue. They always seem to have priors. There is a very self destructive policy which avoids profiling criminals.
The brothers had yet to commit any terrorist activity. One of the brothers was an American citizen. And most phone calls on their phones would be to other Americans (and maybe a few in Russia).
So right there I'm seeing a bunch of roadblocks for the libertards that fly in the face of their privacy absolutism.
jr565 said...
It's like you're arguing about a program that exists only in your mind.
Or you are.
In another instance that was made public in July 2012, a U.S. intelligence official acknowledged in a letter to Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon that “on at least one occasion” the national security court found that “some collection” by the intellligence community “was unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment” to the U.S. Constitution. The official also wrote that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence believed that the government’s collection of information “has sometimes circumvented the spirit of the law” and that “on at least one occasion” the national security court had “reached this same conclusion.”
From Chip S's article:
Ret. Adm. Dennis Blair, who served as President Obama’s DNI in 2009 and 2010, told NBC News that, in one instance in 2009, analysts entered a phone number into agency computers and “put one digit wrong,” and mined a large volume of information about Americans with no connection to terror. The matter was reported to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, whose judges required that all the data be destroyed, he said.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another former senior official, who asked not to be identified, confirmed Blair’s recollection and said the incident created serious problems for the Justice Department, which represents the NSA before the federal judges on the secret court.
So, an error occured because someone typed in the wrong number. That can happen in any agency and even in any private company. And it was reported to the higherups and supposedly caused a lot of problems for the Justice Dept.
Clerical errors in and of themselves should not invalidate programs, since I have yet heard of any program anywhere that didn't have the potential for a clerical error.
What was done when the clerical error was discovered? Did they bury it under the rug, or did they report it their higherups as they were supposed to?
The brothers had yet to commit any terrorist activity. One of the brothers was an American citizen. And most phone calls on their phones would be to other Americans (and maybe a few in Russia).
So right there I'm seeing a bunch of roadblocks for the libertards that fly in the face of their privacy absolutism.
"Libertards." Ha ha, that's a good one.
You fascist tool. You don't even seem to understand how absurd your defense of domestic surveillance is. PRISM didn't deliver any actionable intel, according to you...but it's essential to...something or other. "Rollups" in Waziristan, apparently.
And despite the fact that the NSA has already been discovered overstepping its authority, we can trust it w/ every conceivable bit of info.
I suppose there's an alternate reality where that makes perfect sense.
El Pollo, one answer is that the problem is that you're arguing that the inputs for a program for figuring out who is a terrorist should comprise only the outputs from that program. This isn't a surveillance program where we watch the activity of known terrorists, this is a data mining program where we look for suspicious activity that might identify people as terrorists. It's really easy to find the needle in the haystack if you remove all the hay!
Another answer is that you're assume that the government doesn't already do precisely that just because it doesn't do it at the threshold. But it can't do it at the threshold! The government can't say to Verizon "hand over all the data on your customers who meet these red flags"—as if Verizon knows which of its customers are citizens and which of them have travelled to Chechnya in the last six months, and even if it did, do we really trust Verizon to do that screening process? Is Verizon really the proper body in which to repose that kind of national trust? The only sensible way to run a program like this, it seems to me, is that you ask the telco for everything and then winnow the dataset yourself, and I assume that the government does precisely that.
And note, suppose we had your super special restricted Surveillance program that you would sign off on (which of course has no detail as to restrictions that would make it all ok).
If you had a clerical error there, you would probably look at records of people who weren't involved in terrorism. Right?
So, then by that logic, we should also dismantle your super special restricted surveilllance program were a clerical error to occur there to.
Could you ever construct a surveillance program that didn't have the potential for human error?
How many phone numbers are there that are off by a single digit?
If you watch tv there's a commercial that highlights the problem. Supposedly Michael Bolton's number is an awful lot like Optimums. And the tagline is "please dont call Michael Bolton". Michael Bolton is washing his dog or playing guitar, and keeps getting Optimum online calls.
This isn't a surveillance program where we watch the activity of known terrorists, this is a data mining program where we look for suspicious activity that might identify people as terrorists.
That's actually a very good description of the cutting line here.
You don't think that data seining (that's what this is, rather than "mining") for "suspicious activity" by Americans who are not otherwise under suspicion violates the 4th amendment. Or else you don't like the 4th amendment.
I do.
Simon wrote:
The only sensible way to run a program like this, it seems to me, is that you ask the telco for everything and then winnow the dataset yourself, and I assume that the government does precisely that.
Yes, exactly!
So, then by that logic...
You've demonstrated to my satisfaction that you're incapable of logic. Or reading w/ comprehension.
Chip S wrote:
You don't think that data seining (that's what this is, rather than "mining") for "suspicious activity" by Americans who are not otherwise under suspicion violates the 4th amendment. Or else you don't like the 4th amendment.
IF they are getting a FISA warrant, isn't there a presumption of probable cause?
So, lets say we have a FISA warrant for one of the Tsarniev brothers. Do you think its not relevant who he calls?
ChipS wrote:
You've demonstrated to my satisfaction that you're incapable of logic. Or reading w/ comprehension.
Your article outlined how, due to a clerical error, information was brought up that wasn't terror related.
Can you say that your super special super restricted in just the right way surveillance program that somehow surveills perfectly but has no potential for abuse will never have a clerical error? If it did though and the wrong number was put in, it would mean that it would run afoul of the 4th amendment, since numbers would be brought up that aren't related to terrorism.
So then, what? Scrap your program?
You don't think that data seining (that's what this is, rather than "mining") for "suspicious activity" by Americans who are not otherwise under suspicion violates the 4th amendment. Or else you don't like the 4th amendment.
What if they ARE under suspicion though. Are you ok with it then?
ISn't that what the NSA is saying they are doing? Looking at the history of phone calls from a suspicious phone number (which is why they got a warrant).
If they are simply typing in your number and saying "lets see where this takes us" thats a far different scenario. But that's not what they're saying they're doing. And they probably wouldn't get a warrant to simply look up your information (unless you are a suspect).
IF they are getting a FISA warrant, isn't there a presumption of probable cause?
You keep missing the point completely.
The intel heads-up about Tsarnaev from the Russians would probably have served as sufficient basis for an ordinary old surveillance authorization. There's absolutely no demonstrated value added by PRISM in this case.
And w.r.t. FISA warrants, you do realize, don't you, that the revelation that triggered all this controversy was that FISA granted blanket authority to collect just about all Verizon call data --overseas or domestic--over a 3-month period?
What definition of "probable cause" fits that?
Chip S. said...
"That's actually a very good description of the cutting line here. You don't think that data seining … for 'suspicious activity' by Americans who are not otherwise under suspicion violates the 4th amendment. … I do."
Yes, but you can't just portray that as a simple difference of opinion, because the claim that it violates the Fourth Amendment is absolutely untenable. The Fourth Amendment governs how data is gathered by the government. It imposes absolutely no limitation on what the government does with data that it acquires legally—or even illegally. If it did, every case from Leon to Herring, which allow improperly-obtained evidence to be used in some cases where the deterrent purpose served by the exclusionary rule, was wrongly-decided, because it would then be the case that the constable's error violated not only a prudential and prophylactic court-created rule designed to discourage fourth amendment violations, but the fourth amendment itself. If the government buys data on the open market, there are absolutely no restrictions in the fourth amendment on what it does with that data. Like Edutcher (see here), you are confusing the fourth amendment with the little known aggregation clause of Article 8, which says that the government may not aggregate and mine legally-acquired data compiled by private third parties if they describe private citizens. The problem is that that clause doesn't exist, and so you're trying to shoehorn the fourth amendment as a substitute.
The intel heads-up about Tsarnaev from the Russians would probably have served as sufficient basis for an ordinary old surveillance authorization. There's absolutely no demonstrated value added by PRISM in this case.
This. And there is also the possible factor that Tsarnaev was ignored because to have looked harder at him would have been ethnic profiling.
The intel heads-up about Tsarnaev from the Russians would probably have served as sufficient basis for an ordinary old surveillance authorization. There's absolutely no demonstrated value added by PRISM in this case.
Probably? Not definitely? Well what if it didn't. As Hayden said earlier during Bush's term when he was defending that program. If the older programs worked so well, why woudn't he use that?
If the older programs worked so well, why woudn't he use that?
Because the older programs amounted to profiling and became illegal, not that they were ineffective.
Here is the quote I was referring to.
QUESTION: General Hayden, the FISA law says that the NSA can do intercepts as long as you go to the court within 72 hours to get a warrant.
I understood you to say that you are aggressively using FISA but selectively doing so. Why are you not able to go to FISA as the law requires in all cases? And if the law is outdated, why haven't you asked Congress to update it?
GEN. HAYDEN: Lots of questions contained there. Let me try them one at a time.
First of all, I need to get a statement of fact out here, all right? NSA cannot -- under the FISA statute, NSA cannot put someone on coverage and go ahead and play for 72 hours while it gets a note saying it was okay. All right? The attorney general is the one who approves emergency FISA coverage, and the attorney general's standard for approving FISA coverage is a body of evidence equal to that which he would present to the court. So it's not like you can throw it on for 72 hours.
I've talked in other circumstances -- I've talked this morning -- about how we've made very aggressive use of FISA. If you look at NSA reporting under this program -- you know, without giving you the X or Y axis on the graph -- NSA reporting under this program has been substantial but consistent. This is NSA counterterrorism reporting. Substantial but consistent. NSA reporting under FISA has gone like that. FISA has been a remarkably successful tool. We use it very aggressively.
In the instances where this program applies, FISA does not give us the operational effect that the authorities that the president has given us give us. Look. I can't -- and I understand it's going to be an incomplete answer, and I can't give you all the fine print as to why, but let me just kind of reverse the answer just a bit. If FISA worked just as well, why wouldn't I use FISA? To save typing? No. There is an operational impact here, and I have two paths in front of me, both of them lawful, one FISA, one the presidential -- the president's authorization. And we go down this path because our operational judgment is it is much more effective. So we do it for that reason. I think I've got -- I think I've covered all the ones you raised.
if the old ways are not as effective as the newer ways (and in this case he was actually talking about Bush's program not Obama's)then why would he use the older ways?
You have to address the effectiveness of the approach. Why are all records used as opposed to only having records of people who are calling and numbers they are calling. Effectiveness. It's harder to try to construct a database on the fly like that. They don't know the numbers that a phone might call until they do a search. They don't know the carriers involed until they do a search. And if they do a search and the calls involve multiple phone numbers then they have to get approval from each carrier every single time.Not as effective.
But the effect would be the same it would just take a lot longer to get your answer using the old way.
Simon says....
The Fourth Amendment governs how data is gathered by the government.
And yet you claim that PRISM doesn't raise any 4th amendment issues. So either you're not really up to speed on PRISM, or you think there's no rational basis for considering tracking and storing anybody's online data to be "unreasonable search and seizure".
Probably? Not definitely? Well what if it didn't.
I suppose that Tsarnaev would've detonated a bomb in some public space.
What point are you trying to make?
Do you know the facts of the FBI's investigation of Tsarnaev? After the heads-up from the Russians, they got permission to dump all the data collected about him. Nothing incriminating turned up, so they dropped their investigation.
It suggests that, besides being a colossal invasion of privacy, a vast database can become both a crutch and an excuse for law enforcement. "Hey, it's not our fault. We checked the database. What else do you expect us to do? That's state of the art, folks."
Middle-eastern aviation student who's not interested in learning how to land a plane? Hey, he's clean according to PRISM. Stop profiling!
Chip, it doesn't raise any fourth amendment issues for individuals. The fourth amendment issues, if there are any, exist between the government and the service providers, and assuming dubitante that the subpoenas in question are governed by the warrant requirement, what trips them up is the particularity requirement.
Simon's retort to Chip S chirbitized.
Dubitante (Latin: "doubting") is used in law reports of a judge who is doubtful about a legal proposition but hesitates to declare it wrong. E.g., "Justice X acquiesces in the Court's opinion and judgment dubitante on the question of Constitutional preemption."
Some judges use this term after their names in separate opinions, as if analogous to concurring or dissenting. Doing so may signal that the judge has doubts about the soundness of the majority opinion, but not so grave as to cause him to dissent.[1]
Particularity.—"The requirement that warrants shall particularly describe the things to be seized makes general searches under them impossible and prevents the seizure of one thing under a warrant describing another. As to what is to be taken, nothing is left to the discretion of the officer executing the warrant."117 This requirement thus acts to limit the scope of the search, inasmuch as the executing officers should be limited to looking in places where the described object could be expected to be found.118 The purpose of the particularity requirement extends beyond prevention of general searches; it also assures the person whose property is being searched of the lawful authority of the executing officer and of the limits of his power to search. It follows, therefore, that the warrant itself must describe with particularity the items to be seized, or that such itemization must appear in documents incorporated by reference in the warrant and actually shown to the person whose property is to be searched.3
Legalese can be a bit impenetrable. One of those things that can either be a bug or a feature, depending on whether you are the speaker or the listener.
"it doesn't raise any fourth amendment issues for individuals"
Why not?
El Pollo Raylan said...
"Simon's retort to Chip S chirbitized".
Hilarious, well worth a listen.
Fourth Amendment text:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
It seems obvious that "papers" cover email, computer files, and phone communications.
Because, Steve, as I have explained repeatedly, nothing is being seized from the individuals making the call. If the government taps your phone, that is a fourth amendment problem. If the government seizes the business records of a company that has provided you with services, you rights have not been violated simply because those records describe services that you bought.
The loudest and longest standing ovation I've ever heard in my life was when Daniel Ellsberg was introduced as a speaker at the University of Toledo in 1972. I covered the event for my high school newspaper. Ellsberg and the kid are American heroes.
Lots of kids thought Bill Ayers was a hero back then too. I'm younger, but I saw a room erupt in cheers over Karleton Armstrong on the Madison campus in 1979.
Steve Koch said...
Hilarious, well worth a listen.
Thanks Steve, and I meant no disrespect towards Simon nor WFB. Sometimes I just can't help myself.
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