4 ms·

Maybe I'm an idealist, but I believe freedom also comes with responsibility and accountability. The NSA Act protects those working on the shadow from every bei

by m-p-3 6y ago

Maybe I'm an idealist, but I believe freedom also comes with responsibility and accountability. The NSA Act protects those working on the shadow from every being held accountable for potentially illegal acts, therefore the whole nation is slowly losing its freedom.

bergstromm466 6y ago
“And I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free...” ...to be abused by the Corporatocracy
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  The only non-US act I know who's covered Me and Bobby McGee ("Freedom's just another word...") is Dame Olivia Newton-John, AC, DBE. As they sing in the Expanse's asteroid Belt: "Feriting" bera owta wowt, fo nating mo fo pish Nating showxa nating, sili mebi na fire
wahern 6y ago
But how do you hold them accountable? The traditional remedies in Anglo-American courts, before qualified immunity and similar doctrines metastasized into impenetrable shields protecting government officers, come from tort law. But torts require a showing of damages. What are your damages from the NSA collecting all your metadata, or even from recording a conversation? Most people in the U.S. consent to letting companies like Microsoft or Google not only track all their online contacts, but literally analyze their e-mail for tracking and targeting purposes, and do it in returns for services that have an effective market value (to the user) of nearly $0. IIRC, Scalia once said that he would ditch the fruit of the poison tree doctrine to return to old Common Law tort remedies. At Common Law the remedy for an illegal search was typically a claim of trespass, for which the remedy was often a token sum, such as $1, imposed on the officer, not much of an incentive to abstain from illegal searches, but right in line with the effective economic losses of property trespass or invasion of your digital privacy. So when people talk about "accountability" in the realm of privacy law they seem to be referring to something beyond simple compensation for immediate harms; they seem to want to impose some sort of penalty. But what kind of penalty is appropriate to impose on some government bureaucrat just "doing his job"; and when entire departments of bureaucrats might need to be penalized en masse? Maybe we should penalize the supervisors, but at some point those supervisors are political appointees doing the bidding of elected politicians, who are supposed to be accountable through elections. We already have doctrines like fruit of the poison tree that are crafted to disincentive illegal government prosecutions. An illegitimate guilty verdict is at least a quantifiable loss of liberty. But if there are no economic damages, no reputational damages, no illegitimate prosecutions, nor similar quantifiable consequences, I'm not sure exactly what we should be doing except electing into office politicians who will ensure our existing laws are honestly applied, and who will rid the statute books of unnecessary exceptions to the letter of the law.
- bergstromm466 6y ago
  > But what kind of penalty is appropriate to impose on some government bureaucrat just "doing his job" Public money, public code. We need to generate more Commons (like Free Open Source Software). Stop using government funds to give to private corporations for black-box solutions.
  - RHSeeger 6y ago
    The same type of penalty that would be appropriate to impose upon anyone else just "doing their job". - A security worker being told to throw someone of color out of the store because management thinks "those people" cause problems. - A mob enforcer breaking someone's kneecap because they didn't pay their "bill". Somewhat on end of extreme, but... if your job has you doing things that are wrong, then you are doing wrong. The fact that someone else said to do it, or said that it's ok, doesn't make it ok.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- mindslight 6y ago
  > At Common Law the remedy for an illegal search was typically a claim of trespass, for which the remedy was often a token sum, such as $1, imposed on the officer, not much of a disincentive to avoid illegal searches Presumably there was some sort of punishment for ordinary citizens trespassing, and it was much higher than one dollar. So this seems more like a common law way of formalizing state corruption rather than an actual equitable outcome. Damages aren't limited to purely financial. That's a modern myth to disempower individuals in favor of commercial entities. Take for example, insurance compensation where if you simply pay a company to make something right, they'll come up with copious line items to justify customary costs. But if you DIY to have control over the end result, you'll end up getting screwed with your time being considered "free" rather than compensated at your hourly rate. Loss of privacy is itself a damage, in the same way loss of limb is with no commensurate loss in earnings. You have a good point that someone who willingly hands over their information to Surveillance Valley has much less of a claim of harm. But surely if I take costly steps to preserve my privacy (eg spending several hours to setup a microg phone), then those steps demonstrate that privacy has value to me. That's to say nothing of the long tail of damages from surveillance databases being leaked to the wider public, or resulting in wrongful arrest or prosecution (both also not generally compensated these days, or per common law). To me, accountability should look like criminal sanctions for government employees. Just as it's illegal for me to steal from a store, it's illegal for the government to violate my rights - the two should be similarly criminalized. There's leeway for actions carried out with a good faith belief of legality, but that defense vanishes the moment they form conspiracies to insulate themselves with secrecy rather than remaining open and directly accountable to the People.
boomboomsubban 6y ago
In the absolute best case scenario, the NSA has been created to ensure US hegemony, also known as destroy the freedoms of anyoune outside America. In reality, it was probably created to ensure the current hegemony is largely unchanged, meaning it will trample on the freedom of US citizens too. The entire organization needs to go. The article written by an intelligence agency insider just wants to try and ensure only foreign rights are violated, but that should not be acceptable either.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  It’s horrible for Americans, too.
  - bergstromm466 6y ago
    Yes, they wrote: > it will trample on the freedom of US citizens too.
- pjc50 6y ago
  > The entire organization needs to go. Abolish the (secret) police.
charliebrownau 6y ago
Mp34 Can anyone be free as long as you have Federal Goverment (National goverment) + Taxation + Welfare + Police that enforce laws and "rules" by the state Yet to see a single nations goverment held accountable for the corruption, illegal activity and going against the interest of the ethnic native citizens of any nation on the planet Police + arm forces have a choice Stand for FREEDOM and Rights of citizens or defend the state system

by m-p-3 6y ago

bergstromm466 6y ago

“And I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free...” ...to be abused by the Corporatocracy

082349872349872 6y ago
The only non-US act I know who's covered Me and Bobby McGee ("Freedom's just another word...") is Dame Olivia Newton-John, AC, DBE. As they sing in the Expanse's asteroid Belt: "Feriting" bera owta wowt, fo nating mo fo pish Nating showxa nating, sili mebi na fire

wahern 6y ago

But how do you hold them accountable? The traditional remedies in Anglo-American courts, before qualified immunity and similar doctrines metastasized into impenetrable shields protecting government officers, come from tort law. But torts require a showing of damages. What are your damages from the NSA collecting all your metadata, or even from recording a conversation? Most people in the U.S. consent to letting companies like Microsoft or Google not only track all their online contacts, but literally analyze their e-mail for tracking and targeting purposes, and do it in returns for services that have an effective market value (to the user) of nearly $0. IIRC, Scalia once said that he would ditch the fruit of the poison tree doctrine to return to old Common Law tort remedies. At Common Law the remedy for an illegal search was typically a claim of trespass, for which the remedy was often a token sum, such as $1, imposed on the officer, not much of an incentive to abstain from illegal searches, but right in line with the effective economic losses of property trespass or invasion of your digital privacy. So when people talk about "accountability" in the realm of privacy law they seem to be referring to something beyond simple compensation for immediate harms; they seem to want to impose some sort of penalty. But what kind of penalty is appropriate to impose on some government bureaucrat just "doing his job"; and when entire departments of bureaucrats might need to be penalized en masse? Maybe we should penalize the supervisors, but at some point those supervisors are political appointees doing the bidding of elected politicians, who are supposed to be accountable through elections. We already have doctrines like fruit of the poison tree that are crafted to disincentive illegal government prosecutions. An illegitimate guilty verdict is at least a quantifiable loss of liberty. But if there are no economic damages, no reputational damages, no illegitimate prosecutions, nor similar quantifiable consequences, I'm not sure exactly what we should be doing except electing into office politicians who will ensure our existing laws are honestly applied, and who will rid the statute books of unnecessary exceptions to the letter of the law.

bergstromm466 6y ago
> But what kind of penalty is appropriate to impose on some government bureaucrat just "doing his job" Public money, public code. We need to generate more Commons (like Free Open Source Software). Stop using government funds to give to private corporations for black-box solutions.
- RHSeeger 6y ago
  The same type of penalty that would be appropriate to impose upon anyone else just "doing their job". - A security worker being told to throw someone of color out of the store because management thinks "those people" cause problems. - A mob enforcer breaking someone's kneecap because they didn't pay their "bill". Somewhat on end of extreme, but... if your job has you doing things that are wrong, then you are doing wrong. The fact that someone else said to do it, or said that it's ok, doesn't make it ok.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
mindslight 6y ago
> At Common Law the remedy for an illegal search was typically a claim of trespass, for which the remedy was often a token sum, such as $1, imposed on the officer, not much of a disincentive to avoid illegal searches Presumably there was some sort of punishment for ordinary citizens trespassing, and it was much higher than one dollar. So this seems more like a common law way of formalizing state corruption rather than an actual equitable outcome. Damages aren't limited to purely financial. That's a modern myth to disempower individuals in favor of commercial entities. Take for example, insurance compensation where if you simply pay a company to make something right, they'll come up with copious line items to justify customary costs. But if you DIY to have control over the end result, you'll end up getting screwed with your time being considered "free" rather than compensated at your hourly rate. Loss of privacy is itself a damage, in the same way loss of limb is with no commensurate loss in earnings. You have a good point that someone who willingly hands over their information to Surveillance Valley has much less of a claim of harm. But surely if I take costly steps to preserve my privacy (eg spending several hours to setup a microg phone), then those steps demonstrate that privacy has value to me. That's to say nothing of the long tail of damages from surveillance databases being leaked to the wider public, or resulting in wrongful arrest or prosecution (both also not generally compensated these days, or per common law). To me, accountability should look like criminal sanctions for government employees. Just as it's illegal for me to steal from a store, it's illegal for the government to violate my rights - the two should be similarly criminalized. There's leeway for actions carried out with a good faith belief of legality, but that defense vanishes the moment they form conspiracies to insulate themselves with secrecy rather than remaining open and directly accountable to the People.

boomboomsubban 6y ago

In the absolute best case scenario, the NSA has been created to ensure US hegemony, also known as destroy the freedoms of anyoune outside America. In reality, it was probably created to ensure the current hegemony is largely unchanged, meaning it will trample on the freedom of US citizens too. The entire organization needs to go. The article written by an intelligence agency insider just wants to try and ensure only foreign rights are violated, but that should not be acceptable either.

saagarjha 6y ago
It’s horrible for Americans, too.
- bergstromm466 6y ago
  Yes, they wrote: > it will trample on the freedom of US citizens too.
pjc50 6y ago
> The entire organization needs to go. Abolish the (secret) police.

charliebrownau 6y ago

Mp34 Can anyone be free as long as you have Federal Goverment (National goverment) + Taxation + Welfare + Police that enforce laws and "rules" by the state Yet to see a single nations goverment held accountable for the corruption, illegal activity and going against the interest of the ethnic native citizens of any nation on the planet Police + arm forces have a choice Stand for FREEDOM and Rights of citizens or defend the state system