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From the comments on a similar thread here yesterday it’s clear many people on HN are passionate about the subject even though they aren’t clear about what the
by austin-cheney 3y ago
From the comments on a similar thread here yesterday it’s clear many people on HN are passionate about the subject even though they aren’t clear about what the fourth amendment protects, what the NSA does, what are rights, and so on.
- jan3024-2r 3y ago[dead]
- chiefalchemist 3y agoCan you flesh out how what is effectively out in the open is protected by 4A? We have en mass traded privacy for convenience and saving a few bucks. We've literally sold our privacy souls. If you put your gun collection on your front yard, would a warrant be necessary? Well, our dirty laundry is hanging in the front yard, along with the rest of our personal data yard sale. That said, I know there's a book dedicated to 1A, if there's similar for 4A I be interested. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_for_the_Thought_That_We_Hate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_for_the_Thought_That... p.s. I should clarify, I'm pro-privacy. But if we're going to give ourselves away as we do, it's not clear to me how 4A protects that.
- crotchfire 3y agoCarpenter v. United States (2018) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpenter_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpenter_v._United_States "in Carpenter the court determined that the third-party doctrine could not be extended to historical cell site location information (CSLI)" Cell towers aren't a free market. Go ahead, try setting one up without involving the government. Cell towers are a massively-regulated sector that has collapsed into a trigopoly. The supreme court recognized this in 2018. Highly-regulated, highly-concentrated telecommunications carriers are, for purposes of the fourth amendment, treated as being part of the government. Hopefully the same reasoning will be applied to banking (another highly-regulated, highly-concentrated, surveillance industry), but the court hasn't done that yet.
- chiefalchemist 3y agoAnd yet the same three-letter intelligence agency hoovered up tons of phone meta data and...nothing happened legally to stop that. In fact, the whistle blower had to flee the country under a POTUS who expanded the reach of The Patriot Act. Also, that telecommunications data was a direct dump to the NSA. This other data is for sale on the open market. Anyone with the money can buy it. Hard to imagine 4A protects that which was legally acquired and being resold. If there's legal precedent to prevent this stuff it must be on holiday.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> nothing happened This is untrue. Legally and politically.
- chiefalchemist 3y agoSnowden is still considered a criminal. Again, politically, it was the same POTUS who extended and expanded the Patriot Act, and got zero - or close - push back for both efforts. Legally? Does it matter? When was the last time the law stopped the NSA from pushing - and breaking - the envelope? Aside from Snowden, who suffered? Hint: No one. Nuff said.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> Legally? Does it matter? Yes. Funding was shifted and practices changed. > Aside from Snowden, who suffered? Hint: No one. Nuff said Retribution isn’t the sole measure of progress.
- ethanbond 3y agoWhoa whoa, the Carpenter ruling has nothing to do with govt involvement in cell towers nor with the trigopoly. It has to do with two things: cell towers collect so much highly-personal info, and, more importantly, you have to have a cellphone to live in modern America.
- austin-cheney 3y agoThings I noticed yesterday that really confused people: * The fourth amendment does not provide a right to privacy. In US federal law there is no right to privacy except for the limited provisions defined in the Privacy Act of 1974. * The NSA is not law enforcement just as the Census Bureau is not law enforcement. Even when this was pointed out people still attempted to prove some point by comparing the NSA to police departments. * Rights exist to protect people from government intrusion. People really want to either confuse rights with liberties or sweeping mandates applied irrespective of personal intrusions. Your example is confusing. What does a warrant have to do with a person displaying weapons on their own lawn?
- chiefalchemist 3y agoThings in the open don't need a warrant. To get to this personal data doesn't require intrusion. We've used it as currency and that currency is being resold on the open market. I'm asking how 4A protects what is out in the open.
- Amezarak 3y agoDoes the Census Bureau collect information beyond what I voluntarily report?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago
- Geisterde 3y agoRight, so just to help clear that up: the fourth amendment is written on paper, it doesnt protect anything, the bill of rights only acknowledges that you have rights that supersede government authority.
- sidewndr46 3y agoNo warrants have been issued, no searches performed & to my knowledge no seizures have been performed. What does this have to do with the 4th amendment?
- idiotsecant 3y agoI would say a mechanism that effectively bypasses the 4th amendment has quite a lot to do with the 4th amendment. The intention behind the rule was not that it was OK to ignore it as long as money changed hands.
- austin-cheney 3y agoWhile your sentiment is valid it does not apply in this context. There is no activity the NSA performs that would require a warrant. In order for the fourth amendment to be necessary the collecting party must be the government, the possessing party must be inconvenienced or distressed, and the action must result in either involuntary seizure or violate a legally recognized expectation of privacy into public. The NSA only accounts for 1 of the three necessary ingredients.
- PolygonSheep 3y agoWhat this reminds me of is the free speech vs. 1st Amendment doesn't apply to private companies discourse in the sense that the spirit but critically not the letter of the amendment is broken
- xbar 3y agoNo doubt about it. I think that's great. I think societies are better served by a lot of passionate defenders of rights who don't quite get it right than by well-educated, apathetic lawyers who watch their actual rights get trampled.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> societies are better served by a lot of passionate defenders of rights We don’t have this when it comes to privacy. Keyboard warriors, yes. Folks willing to make a call or write a letter, no. (Not in New York, Pennsylvania, Arizona or California, at least.)
- jkestner 3y agoResist.bot and 5 Calls make it easy. I find half the friction is finding the contact information.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> Resist.bot and 5 Calls make it easy Duplicate comms work if they’re a significant fraction of likely primary voters. If ten people send a form letter in, it gets shredded. It’s not enough to signal organisation potential, yet enough to signal the people won’t take the next step of organising themselves. Practically always, going to the elected’s website and submitting a short blurb is better than using a form. (Getting contact information usually involves just searching for the elected.)
- jkestner 3y agoCheck them out—they aren't form factories. Resist.bot is just an SMS-based interface to send emails or paper letters to politicians, designed to minimize friction. (At least the way I use it.) When I get pissed about some issue, having a single, quick interface where I can text any relevant politician my position is the difference between sending it and not.
- 3y ago
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> it’s clear many people on HN are passionate about the subject even though they aren’t clear about what the fourth amendment protects, what the NSA does, what are rights, and so on Having worked on privacy issues before, I’ll also venture they’re too cool to vote and/or think contacting one’s electeds is some kind of scam despite having rarely or never having done so. This is an issue that most Americans don’t care about. Those that do are civically uninvolved.