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No new boss at NSA until it answers questions on buying location, browsing data
- h2odragon 3y ago[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- tomohawk 3y agoHow about passing a law explicitly covering the kind of information being collected and sold as actually being private, and against the law to share with anyone without a warrant?
- cm2187 3y agoIntelligence agencies' very role is to break laws.
- konschubert 3y agoI think they are explicitly exempt from certain laws. This doesn’t mean they are above the law. And maybe they break the law and keep getting away with it. But this doesn’t mean that’s how they are meant to work.
- 9dev 3y agoAn intelligence agency’s role is gathering intelligence on malevolent entities that threaten a country in some way. Not more, not less—but their role certainly isn’t breaking laws per se, or amassing data on the general public to engage in pre-policing. No matter how much certain parties may advocate for that, a democracy cannot exist in a surveillance state, and anyone convinced of that has lost democratic legitimacy.
- cm2187 3y agoThey equally gather information on friendly democracies, bribe or blackmail people, hack computers, they are involved in trade negotiations, watch what all the parties are doing in civil wars, etc. It's not a good guys vs bad guys, good vs evil thing. They are a limited exception to democratic governments abiding to the rule of law. They are hired thugs, "our thugs". And I am not disputing that they are necessary. Just that it is a bit naive to think people whose job it is to break laws all day long will abide to another law. That's why they tend to be scandals rich organisations.
- 9dev 3y agoWhat is considered malevolent is obviously dependent on the perspective, but we cannot accept agencies without any oversight or control, that will always lead to a shadow government. Which leads me to my point: we need to be extra vigilant when it comes to the mandate of intelligence agencies.
- OfSanguineFire 3y agoGathering information on friendly democracies, or watching what all the parties are doing in civil wars, is not a violation of US law. Espionage between states is rarely a violation of the law of the state that is doing the espionage. The “friendly democracies” on which the US spies, are in turn gathering information on the states they consider friendly democracies.
- insickness 3y agoThat's not true at all. Intelligence agencies can't just do whatever they want. They are beholden to the people just like every other government agency. They can be granted power to do things that ordinary people can't, but that doesn't mean they are above the law.
- School-Cotton 3y agoYes they can do whatever they want and no they’re not beholden to anyone. When has the NSA ever been held accountable for their illegal spying on US citizens?
- AnimalMuppet 3y agoThey're beholden to Congress funding them, if nothing else.
- insickness 3y agoRight, I'm not saying that they don't break the law. They do. But technically, their role is not to break the law. There ostensibly is oversight but it obviously doesn't work well enough.
- adhesive_wombat 3y agoIndeed. Being granted exclusive powers that would otherwise be illegal must always be given the respect it deserves: use of powers only when and as far absolutely necessary and reporting of and punishment of transgressions, intentional or not. There is nothing more morally corrosive than a law enforcement agency betraying the trust represented by their powers.
- cedws 3y agoThe NSA has literally broken laws, lied about it, and gotten away with it.
- wkat4242 3y agoTechnically not, they just had secret courts rubber stamp for them. In the most technical sense it's legal though of course it subverts the entire idea of the justice system by having a court in your pocket.
- phkahler 3y agoTo the extent that maybe it is, it should be other countries laws. Nobody has the authority to grant such law breaking permission (without a warrant). When you break the rules establishing a system, you no longer have that system, but a free for all. The US constitution in particular aims to protect the people from government overreach. See the original amendments and read them in that light.
- cm2187 3y agoEven from a pure legalistic point of view, US laws have extraordinary extra territorial reach. I believe if a bribe occurs between two foreigners in a foreign country, the mere fact that they used USD for payment brings it within US jurisdiction. And certainly if a US citizen is involved.
- gred 3y agoMy guess is that this will probably require a Constitutional Amendment to shore up the fourth amendment (call it 4A++).
- insickness 3y agoIt won't. There are already laws in place, like the California Consumer Privacy Act, which governs how user data is handled.
- stjohnswarts 3y agoCalifornia law never supercedes federal law unless it's even more strict.
- phkahler 3y agoAnd HIPPA.
- nathanaldensr 3y ago*HIPAA
- School-Cotton 3y agoThe NSA doesn’t follow the law, so why would that matter?
- tempodox 3y agoAnd when questioned, they lie to courts and Congress with impunity.
- SV_BubbleTime 3y agoClapper and Brennan should absolutely be in jail. Instead, they are still treated as respectable authorities by our media.
- creer 3y agoWhich most likely is part of the problem. There is no major outcry about any of this. It's a mere inconvenience to agencies, congress, courts, press, etc - nobody seems to care much about it.
- rtpg 3y agoPeople say this but probably underestimate how much the NSA at least pretends to follow the letter of the law compared to intelligence services in almost any other nation on the planet. Them following the law is entirely downstream from Congress doing things like what Wyden is doing. Their existence is predicated on congressional satisfaction, and many congresspeople are at least fellow travellers to the practical frustrations many people on this site have with the NSA. It's never enough, but it's _something_. Meanwhile plenty of countries just have their intelligence services tucked away, out of the spotlight, and with barely any legal framework to bind them.
- autoexec 3y ago> Them following the law is entirely downstream from Congress doing things like what Wyden is doing. Their existence is predicated on congressional satisfaction The director of the NSA outright lied to congress while under oath and has faced zero consequences for it. There is zero meaningful oversight in the US and congress is absolutely powerless to do anything but bitch and moan about it publicly just like the rest of the American people. That was what drove Snowden to finally leak what he knew. He saw that congress had no means of knowing what was happening and therefore they couldn't do anything to stop it. Not even the president can do anything about the NSA. Obama campaigned on ending the mass surveillance of the American people. Presidential candidates tell a lot of lies while trying to get elected, and Obama was an effective orator, but he was also a civil rights attorney and taught constitutional law. I believed he meant what he was saying when he said that the NSA was ignoring the law whenever it was convent for them, and that he would oppose any bill that included retroactive immunity for telecom companies that were handing over American's data to the NSA illegally. Of course, once he got into office everything changed and he very quickly spoke out in favor in the NSA, he vastly expanded their powers to spy on Americans, and he granted immunity to those same telecom companies. I figure that means that once he was elected the NSA showed Obama some super secret information that convinced him that violating the constitution was necessary or perhaps he was shown exactly how much dirt they had on him and his family and he was threatened to fall in line. Either way, it doesn't appear that anyone at any level of government can oppose the NSA in a meaningful way.
- GuB-42 3y agoThese data are probably legally collected and sold, as mentioned in page 573 of the terms and conditions users have agreed with.
- TacticalCoder 3y ago> ... as mentioned in page 573 of the terms and conditions users have agreed with Except that it's not how EULA do work. If it's made illegal by law (which GP suggess), then lawyers writing these EULAs can write anything they want in fineprint: it's not superseding the law.
- GuB-42 3y agoYou can't make this blanket illegal. For example, if you buy something online, the seller will need to share your address with the delivery company, unless they do the delivery themselves, with is impractical most of the times. So you can make laws regarding the transfer of personal information, but these are bound to be really complicated, just look at GDPR.
- beAbU 3y agoBut that's not the same? The online retailer is /giving/ my address to the courier. Without it the retailer nor the courier will be able to give me the service/product I'm paying for. I think it's perfectly fine to make ‐reselling‐ of personal data blanket illegal. Since it's my data, I might have consented to giving the data to someone for some purpose. However, they absolutely have no implied consent that they can sell that data to someone else, no matter what their EULA says. If they want to sell it, then I need to get a dividend of that sale revenue, since it's my data. This is not a physical good that's changing owners. It will always be irrevocably linked to /me/. That's what makes it valuable. So the owner of that data will forever and always be me, no matter who "bought" it. Exactly the same way that buying a digital game does not make me an owner of that copy, but merely the owner of a perpetual-yet-revokable license to play the game on my sanctioned console.
- 3y ago
- user3939382 3y agoI’d be surprised if they’re “buying browsing data” instead of just having a tap on all major ISPs and siphoning everything off directly, or compelling ISPs to do this with NSLs.
- bilekas 3y agoThis. There is no need to purchase data, and also maybe a loophole legally when there is no need for a warrant when the traffic is passing through.
- bearjaws 3y agoWhy create new problems (that will cost you lawyer money) when you can just buy the data?
- password4321 3y agoThey get the data either way and it's all taxpayer funded.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- NemoNobody 3y agoThey buy it so someone else has theoretically done all the nasty stuff to get it - they just take advantage of the opportunity. Truthfully, the NSA should know at least as much about me as Google, or I don't know why it exists.
- ilc 3y agoThe NSA doesn't need to know what Google knows. It needs to know things beyond what Google knows. It may have less information overall. But that information may be of much higher value. It is not much data to know how other countries are encrypting their political or military data. And the amount of data in there may not be that high. The value is... tremendous. Bulk data collection, gives an overall picture. But the details that make it real, that's the secret sauce of the NSA and CIA.
- deleted 3y ago
- sgift 3y ago> This won't guarantee answers, however. It does mean the NSA will either need to satisfy Wyden's request, or Congress will need to hold a procedural vote to push through the confirmation. So, the most probable outcome is that this will delay the process for a few weeks at most until congress just pushes it through. At least it shines a bit light on the whole charade. Not that it makes much of a difference for me, since I'm not an US citizen, but imho the easiest and best solution would be to stop private companies from gobbling up and selling private data. But that would mean going against companies and we can't have that now, can we?
- jerpint 3y agoThis is very likely common practice by many other governments
- master-lincoln 3y agowhat makes you think so?
- AnimalMuppet 3y agoThe United States is this limited government, with strict limits on what it's allowed to do. Yeah, I know. It hasn't worked out that way. But do you think other governments, starting with fewer restraints, are doing less than the US? Or more? I could see saying that the US is doing it in higher volume, because it's got more money to spend on government excess.
- suoduandao2 3y agoIncentives are a factor too though. The us needs to hold a mostly voluntary empire together, that requires a lot more intrigue than the average country.
- bannedbybros 3y ago>voluntary empire lmao ycomb.
- georgeg23 3y agoThe main source that sells a continuous cross-platform civilian tracking dragnet (probably to the NSA) is Peter Thiel's company Palantir. Thiel is at the center of so much other sci-fi military industrial complex stuff, it's scary.
- georgeg23 3y agoUpdate, actually NSA is a confirmed customer. https://techcrunch.com/2015/01/11/leaked-palantir-doc-reveals-uses-specific-functions-and-key-clients/ https://techcrunch.com/2015/01/11/leaked-palantir-doc-reveal... The company's name is derived from The Lord of the Rings where the magical palantíri were "seeing-stones," described as indestructible balls of crystal used for communication and to see events in other parts of the world
- goblinux 3y agoThe INSANE thing to me about naming your company Palantir after the artifact from Middle Earth is the story behind the seeing stones. By the Third Age - when the events of the Lord of the Rings take place - several of the Palantiri (plural) are lost. The danger of using the stones was twofold: 1) not all the stones were accounted for, you couldn’t know who was listening in and 2) Sauron had one of the stones. A dark lord who wanted to rule the world in fire and ash and darkness had this surveillance tool and used it to corrupt the other known users of the seeing stones, Denethor and Sauroman. That was the plot structure of these stones. Aragon and Merry/Pippin were able to use them against Sauron, who thought the hobbits with Aragorn might be Frodo. But again, to me this shows the danger of making decisions based on spying technology. Sauron committed his forces against Gondor because his intel told him and it led to his eye being distracted from Frodo/Sam/Gollum sneaking over the mountains and into Mt. Doom. Why you would name your surveillance company after that is beyond me. To me it would be like getting aboard a plane run by Icarus airlines or naming the next big boat/plane/rocketship Titanic.
- gordian-mind 3y agoThis is just a nerdy reference to the activity of gathering intelligence. > But again, to me this shows the danger of making decisions based on spying technology. Having more information is rarely a bad thing for making decisions. So that was probably not the point.
- Apocryphon 3y agoWyden for President.
- uncletammy 3y agoI would quit my job tomorrow and move to Oregon to work on his campaign. No joke.
- willy_k 3y agoUnfortunately, there’s only one candidate over 70 with a real chance.
- krapp 3y ago[flagged]
- willy_k 3y agoWhat? If you mean Trump, I think it’s pretty dishonest or at best ignorant to liken them to each other. He absolutely has his flaws, tons of them, but categorically excluding him from the discussion isn’t justified.
- krapp 3y agoI mean both. I feel like Trump's flaws, crimes and Project 2025 [0,1] should exclude him from discussion. Like, he should be politically radioactive at this point. Set all of that lunacy aside and Trump is just a mainstream Republican. Not that I like Biden, mind you, I just hate him less than Trump. They're both imperialist, capitalist bastards but Biden is at least less fascism-adjacent. The problem is that our first past the post, two party (in practice) system means most of the "discussion" we could have is meaningless. The candidates and most of the votes were already locked in well before any campaigning even took place. Biden vs Trump 2 Electric Boogaloo was a fait accompli. Most people will vote red pill or blue pill. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025 [1]https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/09/19/project-2025-trump-reagan-00115811 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/09/19/project-20...
- GartzenDeHaes 3y agoComplete nonsense. My uninformed guess is that they aren't buying from some political crony, so the crony's friend in the congress or senate (Ron Wyden probably) is rattling some cages.
- yonaguska 3y agoRon Wyden has been pretty consistent in his opposition to overreach of the 4th branch of govt for his entire political career. I don't think he's grifting. I'm usually very pessimistic about this stuff.
- pbronez 3y agoWe are fortunate to have Wyden.
- yodon 3y ago> My uninformed guess Your description of your own comment is quite likely the most self-aware statement I've ever seen here on HN. You would do well to read up on Ron Wyden's history, both as a senator and as a representative.
- mardifoufs 3y agoCronyism is when you fight for civil rights? What in the psyop is this argument
- 0xDEF 3y ago[Deleted]
- bitvoid 3y agoIIRC, FBI get a lot of their domestic surveillance data from the NSA.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- bananapub 3y agoit is absolutely amazing that this plus the "military facilities being mapped via Strava data" etc never lead to a serious discussion about privacy in general in the US. why does the government allow this commercial database to exist at all?
- anticorporate 3y agoThe government allows commercial spying to exist so they can buy the data. They would have all sort of legal hurdles collecting this data themselves, but they don't have to bother with it when the corporations collecting it are doing the dirty work for them.
- calvinmorrison 3y ago[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- worewood 3y agoSo it's like a canary: the senator has the answer but wants to make it public. If the answer was "no" then he wouldn't be pushing for it, so the answer is obviously yes, they are buying data of american citizens in bulk, warrantlessly
- bilbo0s 3y agoEven if that's true, the mitigation is not to sell it. Even better, forbid its collection. This is all theater. The answers are obvious and easy to legislate. Simply forbid the practice of collecting the data in the first place. But they won't. The fact is they want these companies to collect and aggregate our data. But recently privacy advocates have been asking for a ban on that practice. So the corrupt politicians are trying to distract the general populace with privacy theater in a desperate and pathetic attempt to alter the public gaze. Enter this "no-action" on the NSA.
- spacephysics 3y agoBut I think there’s additional layers at play here. Its less of the logistics of outlawing it, it seems this is more akin to “sunlight is the best disinfectant” I wouldn’t be surprised if this senator doesn’t have the backing or the political capital to pull this off successfully (just submitting legislature vs withholding appointment) I think anything that can be exposed to more mainstream viewers has a higher likelihood of getting “better” sooner. (“Better” being highly relative)
- salawat 3y agoNo. The Senator does not have the answer. They couldn't ask the question if they'd already signed the appropriate contracts on which access to SCI or other classified info is underpinned, If they had, asking the question would amount to a tacit disclosure. Other Senators who have signed those documents have confirmed as much. Once the IC gets burned by you, even if they don't press charges due to political impossibility, you don't get invited to those parties anymore.
- lern_too_spel 3y ago
- Slava_Propanei 3y ago[dead]
- worik 3y agoI am not a lawyer, let alone a constitutional scholar . But if I understand the fourth ammendment protects you USA from government unreasonable search. I say it a lot, the state is nolonger the main threat to your freedom. This data gathering, building detailed dossiers on AL, of us all, by faceless business operators is a genuine, immediate threat It must be stopped
- raincom 3y agoFor every amendment, there are 'loopholes': third-party doctrine [1] is a legally sanctioned loophole around 4A. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- mav3rick 3y ago[dead]
- kevin_thibedeau 3y ago> CUI is not classified information, as its name indicates, but it should, generally speaking, be protected with access controls and not widely disseminated. Wyden is clearly not a fan of this labeling, which he described as a "made up designation with no basis in law." CUI was created by an executive order from President Obama in 2010. This is the bigger problem. Classified documents have a mandatory declassification date that is only overridden in special circumstances. CUI can last indefinitely because it's an extra-legal construction designed to stay outside the classification system.
- c0pium 3y agoThat’s untrue, they have a mandatory declassification review date. The review can push the date back effectively infinitely through further reviews. The special circumstances, as you call them, are that the reviewer deems that information needs to remain classified.
- goodluckchuck 3y agoClassification doesn’t derive it’s legal existence from statute. It’s the POTUS’s inherent authority to maintain (and disclose) state secrets under the constitution and separation of powers doctrine. Congress has limited authority to regulate this executive power.
- zmgsabst 3y agoWhere is that power defined in the constitution? I’m unaware of the “state secret” clause in the executive section, while Congress is explicitly granted the power “To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces”. Regulating classification sounds like “making rules for the government”.
- goodluckchuck 3y agoYou’re misreading that line. It’s referring to rules for how the military is governed, and for how the military is regulated. So the rules control the military’s government, and the military’s regulation. It’s somewhat fair, that the words “state secrets” do not appear, but I would hope we could agree that any sovereign state would have to be anle to keep secrets, particularly in the realm of military, war, diplomacy, law enforcement investigations, espionage, etc. It’s a power the executive must have and “ The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” Of course, the Legislature and Judiciary also have the inherent right to keep secrets. The Supreme Court keeps their deliberations secret, because they feel they need to. Congress keeps some meetings secret. None of that falls into the classification system.
- ajross 3y agoI think Wyden is great, and broadly support the aim here. But the specifics just don't work for me. I mean, the argument presented by the article is that this is a fourth amendment violation: the government is conducting an unreasonable search by buying personal data. But... sorry, that's batshit. Can there be ANY definition for "reasonable" more apt than "available for legal purchase on the public market"? If we don't want this stuff for sale, we should pass a law and get it out of the market. Absent that, honestly? I think the NSA is one of the least threatening purchasers of this junk.
- hannasm 3y agoIt seems like the spirit of the 4th amendment could / should be applied to the corporations and big data brokers. The problem seems to be with how it's applied in practice, private entities are freely allowed to make insecure papers / effects (data) of their customers, claim it as their own property and then redistribute it. If that was happening with physical property instead of digital data I don't think anyone would be confused about the legality of it.
- jeffrallen 3y agoWyden is maybe the best politician to ever come from Oregon. Thank you, Ron.
- hereme888 3y agoYou could say that I'm a "Republican", but I love reading articles where it's a Democrat doing things that are obviously correct. It shatters the divide that politics and media try to create. That's why, while party platforms are vastly different in core values, I don't care to be grouped into any party but my own beliefs, judging actions and people individually, not collectively.
- secfirstmd 3y agoAs a European in a country with complex multi-party coalitions and most people voting across the party system every couple of years. This comment is just so weird.
- appplication 3y agoWe don’t have that luxury in the US. It’s not that voters don’t want it, it’s that there is no feasible way to get there (without structural change to our voting system). Sure, US voters like the above comment have generally developed strong political identities to one of the two parties. But there is no chance for any third party under the current system. It allows for overwhelmingly entrenched party lines. Should you as a voter choose to vote for a third party candidate, you’re basically voting against your second choice and for your last choice. “Voting for a third party is throwing away your vote” is a very real phenomenon, to the point here it is an actively exploited political strategy to promote third party candidates with overlapping views to your opponent to siphon off votes. See Russian interference promoting the Green Party in 2016 as an example. And sure you could wave your ideals around and say “but you absolutely must vote for what you think is right, that is how change happens”. But in reality, under the US system that’s how you end up ensuring the least palatable party (to you) ends up in power. There are thousands of elections every cycle, and we have overwhelming empirical evidence that third party candidates are completely inviable at basically all levels of government.
- remram 3y agoThis is such a wrong take. Sure, you have to vote for a single party, but that doesn't mean you can't support specific ideas no matter where they come from. And not even that, mostly voting does nothing either, because winner-takes-all: the way to be heard is packing up and moving to another state. Make a blue state bigger demographically because voting blue in a red state does nothing (and vice versa).
- MichaelMoser123 3y agowait, if the NSA needs to buy location data, does that mean they can't get it directly from the mobile phone carrier?
- mediumsmart 3y agoassassination DES NORAD Delta Force Waco, Texas SDI explosion Serbian Panama Uzi Ft. Meade SEAL Team 6 Honduras PLO NSA