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We Just Got a Rare Look at US National Security Surveillance
- j_m_b 7y agoSo secret courts free from alternative adversarial opinions are abused? Shocking!
- bilbo0s 7y agoIf you're a believer in rights you shouldn't even play their game. There shouldn't even be secret courts. Debating their integrity almost glosses over the real, more fundamental, problem. Secret courts themselves, their very existence, are abuses. That's just my opinion, but I really do think you start down a dark path when you create this type of judicial organ.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Mirioron 7y agoWhen I learned about history in school I learned about how bad the past was, how there were so many abuses of power. One thing that stood out to me was that what enabled many of these abuses of power was the ability for the rulers to keep things secret. I naively thought that in our day and age we, or at least the West, had done away with secret courts. The time around Snowden was quite shocking to me. I fully agree that secret courts are a bad idea and that a free society has no place for them.
- spaginal 7y agoNot only that, a secret court setup specifically for foreign surveillance was used to spy domestically. It’s why you don’t give governments secret toys and extra judicial powers, the people that run it are worst than toddlers, and more abusive and dishonest.
- Craighead 7y agoDomestically on someone in tuned with foreign intelligence.
- noelsusman 7y agoThe court was set up to spy on foreigners and Americans. To get a FISA warrant on a US citizen you have to show probable cause that the person is an agent of a foreign government engaging in intelligence activities.
- marcusverus 7y agoIn practice the bar is so incredibly low. Carter Page was wiretapped based on nothing but the word of a foreign intelligence agent. Page had previously aided the US government in an investigation of a Russian asset. There was no other corroborating evidence. Suggesting that Page was committing or contemplating the commission of a crime. When hearsay from foreigners is sufficient 'probable cause' for a FISA warrant, there is no barrier to obtaining one. I read in a recent article that, out of more than a thousand FISA applications, ONE was rejected. FISA courts are a rubber stamp for wonton state surveillance.
- spaginal 7y agoLove or hate Trump, doesn’t matter. Americans have been able to peek behind the curtain if you will, and see how these secret courts are operating, and it doesn’t inspire an incredible amount of confidence. Seeing as they knew what buttons to push and strings to pull to obtain these warrants, one has to wonder how many other times this script has been played.
- Consultant32452 7y agoDon't worry, I'm sure Biden will publicly be held to account for this during the next Democratic debate, and then Trump in the later Presidential debates.. Just kidding, this is going to disappear from public discourse just like the recent revelations that the government consistently lied to us about the Afghanistan war.
- mc32 7y agoIf the FBI can’t follow protocol for actions at the highest levels and engage in amateur tactics, just imagine how they conduct themselves with ordinary citizens. Now, I was under the impression FISA courts has an aversion to allowing spying if there was a possibility of one of the targets being a US national. Witness Martha Stewart. Now, she’s not your average citizen, but you can see how they railroaded her. Yup, they didn’t get her on FTC violations, nope, they got her for “lying”. If she’s not guilty of a crime how the hell do you get people for “lying”.
- snowwrestler 7y agoIt is a crime to lie to federal agents in the course of a criminal investigation. You can avoid committing that crime by not lying to agents. Note that this is not the same as the "if you're honest, you have nothing to hide anyway" argument in favor of mass surveillance. This is about answering a specific set of questions from a member of law enforcement in the course of a specific investigation. You always have the right to decline to answer questions under the Fifth Amendment in that situation as well (another way to avoid telling a lie). Obviously that's not true under a regime of mass surveillance, which is one of the many reasons I think mass surveillance is a bad idea and unconstitutional.
- frockington1 7y agoThe US citizen in question was interrogated for more than 40 hours. I think its safe to say anybody will lie in that time frame intentionally or not.
- chmod775 7y agoI don't think you can lie accidentally (it wouldn't be lying), bit you'd have to convince a jury you just didn't know any better or misspoke.
- creaghpatr 7y agoMore likely you would be pressured to cooperate under a plea bargain to avoid getting Martha Stewart'd.
- deogeo 7y agoWouldn't it be more fair it the Times waited until after the election to publish this piece? They used to know better: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/eff-nytimes-dont-get-fooled-again-claims-nsa-spying-legality-0 https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/eff-nytimes-dont-get-f... Edit: I was being extremely sarcastic. I was hoping linking to the EFF would be enough of a clue.
- JPKab 7y agoSorry, but abuse of power by a federal institution that once upon a time harassed MLK isn't partisan, it's a problem. The USA political system fosters a short term focus on who gets to be king of the hill, at the expense of reforming this shit show. We get it: orange man bad. But guess what? Orange man didn't create this system. That was done over decades. Orange man didn't start a needless war that cost trillions and the deaths of thousands of troops and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens. Obama, who I voted for twice, not counting my primary votes for him, kept us in Afghanistan, and didn't pardon Snowden, but did pardon Chelsea Manning. I don't care if this helps orange man a little bit, because he will be gone in a few years, worst case scenario, a few months best case. But the smooth talking, non offensive marketing figurehead for the other party will hopefully not have so much power to abuse when they take office.
- frockington1 7y agoDemocrats need to realize that if this is pushed under the rug it will give evil orange man even more credibility and fire power about the "Deep State". If they push this under the rug this will be a huge rally cry (literally in the case of orange man) for 2020.
- guelo 7y agoI realize we live in an upside down world nowadays, but I'd like to point out that FISA reauthorization votes in the past have been unanimously supported by Republicans while half of Democrats would vote against them.
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- datashow 7y agoThis is not the worst yet. Durham's investigation may reveal something even worse. https://www.justice.gov/usao-ct/pr/statement-us-attorney-john-h-durham https://www.justice.gov/usao-ct/pr/statement-us-attorney-joh...
- ailideex 7y agoHow do you know?
- cachemiss 7y agoHe doesn't.
- nkozyra 7y agoHm, I thought this last IG report was going to be the one that had the Deep State perp-walked to Guantanamo and The Hague. Now it's the next one? Then the next one?
- datashow 7y agoI never said anything like "the Deep State perp-walked to Guantanamo and The Hague", nor did anyone on this discussion. Maybe there is a right-win conspiracy theory about that, but it has nothing to do with the discussion here. FBI / DOJ violation of the protocol in secret courts is really a serious matter in a democratic society.
- IAmEveryone 7y agoHow is your insistence that “something even worse will be revealed” not a conspiracy theory? It’s almost literally the definition!
- datashow 7y agoIt is not "a conspiracy theory", it is a logical interpretation of Durham's statement. DOJ's internal investigation already showed lots of violation of its protocol. Durham made clear his investigation is not limited to within the DOJ/FBI, of course he found more damning evidence that's why he made this statement. Otherwise how would you logically interpret? Investigation outside of DOJ/FBI makes DOJ/FBI look better? "literally the definition"? You have a weird definition of "conspiracy theory". Every interpretation does not fit with your narrative is a conspiracy theory?
- pgo 7y agoI searched this article on reddit to see how the usual left leaning subreddits are reacting to it and was surprised to see it is nowhere to be found. Truly both sides are living in their own echo chambers
- habnds 7y agocurious which subreddits those are.
- busymom0 7y agopolitics sub being one. 2 of the posts made by others were removed for being “off topic” in that sub. Others were downvoted to oblivion. I won’t comment further as I prefer HN to not get too political.
- NopeNotToday 7y agoSo far, the article was posted in 37 different subs. The highest upvotes: /r/politics - 155 karma /r/libertarian - 49 karma /r/conservative - 34 karma I'm not trying to make any case for any side here. Just providing some numbers.
- CompanionCuuube 7y agoSo what are those results, normalized for active users?
- NopeNotToday 7y agoI have no idea how to compute active users. Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that the karma number meant anything, relative to each subreddit. IMO, pro-Trump/anti-Trump news is keeping many other important topics off the front page.
- coolspot 7y agoNo, those are absolute numbers. /r/politics is default sub-reddit, so every user is subscribed to it unless manually opted out. r/politics/ - 5.6M members r/conservative/ - 275K members r/libertarian/ - 349K members
- doe88 7y agoAnd these kinds of behaviors are bipartisan, equally bad, on both sides. That's just sad.
- tomphoolery 7y agowould love to read this :P
- auiya 7y agoHistory has always proven in any system where there is a great power/responsibility granted to a group, no matter how many levels of oversight, there will always be some level of abuse at one or more of those levels.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- busymom0 7y agoOne important thing to note for people reading media sources on this topic - "Consensually recorded" in IG-speak means the CHS (confidential human source) agreed to wear a wire--not that the target agreed to be recorded. This is why AG Barr call this spying. The same with sending FBI into "briefing" to collect info on General Flynn. Media is spinning this "consensually recorded" as if both parties agreed to be recorded and therefore not spying but that's not true at all. https://oig.justice.gov/special/0509/chapter6.htm https://oig.justice.gov/special/0509/chapter6.htm > Consensual monitoring is the interception by an electronic device of any wire, oral, or electronic communication where one of the parties to the communication has given prior consent to the monitoring or recording.
- colejohnson66 7y agoSo when the media gets a one party consent recording on Barr, it’s spying, but when they do it to me, it’s about not “going dark”
- rapind 7y agoIn a just alternate universe we spy on the government (oversight) and they can't spy on us (people). I'm utterly devoid of sympathy when the government spies on itself.
- watersb 7y agoThanks for the clarification; I think it is a significant observation, quite apart from any measure of sympathy I may feel regarding those targeted in this investigation.
- smartbit 7y agohttp://archive.is/LiASs http://archive.is/LiASs