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If someone appeals to me to care about X but lies about the facts of X, their credibility is damaged in my eyes and I am inclined to think that they are overpla

If someone appeals to me to care about X but lies about the facts of X, their credibility is damaged in my eyes and I am inclined to think that they are overplaying the danger. For example, "sneak" replied to my comment with lots of CAPITAL LETTERS and links to other information. But I'm already less inclined to trust sneak, since he/she is already known to play fast and loose with the facts.

sneak 14y ago
I don't mean to appear to be playing fast and loose with the facts. Certainly, the NSA tapping exchanges is a different issue than whatever restrictions the government has placed on itself when issuing NSLs for message metadata. The fact is, message metadata is enough. I have friends and acquaintances that have been harassed and detained by officials based on their names appearing in contact lists of other suspected-but-not-charged-with-anything individuals. We're not even talking about evidence of actual communications such as message headers or metadata. The fact that they can (and do) pull thousands of people's message headers and have access to the communications graph and traffic frequency without ANY JUDICIAL OVERSIGHT WHATSOEVER means that their ability to conduct state-sponsored extrajudicial harassment is way out of control. It truly doesn't matter if NSLs allow them to get the body of the messages or not. If you're on the radar, you and everyone you communicate with regularly is a target. There are no legal remedies for this sort of stuff anymore. If you do anything of import non-anonymously, you can expect to have your hardware stolen and never returned (under the guise of a search), your travel impeded, your accounts inaccessible (google "civil asset forfeiture"), your social network harassed and detained similarly, and your access to legal remedies hindered in every conceivable way. A half-dozen examples known to me personally come to mind immediately. I'm sure there are more that I don't know about. The threat is very real, and trying to split hairs about whether or not "reading your email" means message bodies or just headers is not productive.
- tptacek 14y ago
  I disagree that "It truly doesn't matter if NSLs allow them to get the body of the messages or not". It truly matters a whole hell of a lot to me if someone can see my messages, as versus my email headers.
- ballard 14y ago
  One of the big issues: the watchers need to be watched. Too many secrets creates an opportunity for hiding malfeasance, real or perceived. Grant external auditors enough clearance with the caveat of separating background investigation diligence from those being audited. This implies strict independence and jurisdiction of auditors to materially enforce the constitution and provide adequate safeguards to be sure organizations are not exceeding their charter to amass more power and control behind an obscure exemption from reporting requirements. And, if one had the responsibility to defend against many types of harm, one question begs asking: Would it not be rational prevention to attempt to detect planning and coordination? What specific measures would be deployable and which would not? It does not sound reasonable to mandate a blanket intelligence policy of "don't ever read anyone's email, don't ever capture any packets and don't ever look online." Perhaps something more of "Every intelligence analyst is being monitored 24/7 by external auditors. If there is so much as viewing of porn on Company time, their career is immediately over." I can neither confirm nor deny that dozens of analysts have been let go for this reason. The fourth amendment is quite clear in both spirit and letter as to the nature of privacy rights that the state must respect. If the state fails at this, it would be rightly a failure of all individuals to keep their politicians, and hence state, honest. Ultimately, there exists an implicit balancing act on the ground with the realization that wishing the world were perfectly safe everywhere does not make it so. There are some sick, crafty actors out there that have nothing but contempt for their life and society, and are okay with blowing themselves up and generally dragging society down for their own delusions. Also, if limited methods and case files were made available for semi-public inspection, perhaps there would be less mistrust of organizations that attempt to hide everything behind a veil of mystery. (Security theater is another rant.)

sneak 14y ago

I don't mean to appear to be playing fast and loose with the facts. Certainly, the NSA tapping exchanges is a different issue than whatever restrictions the government has placed on itself when issuing NSLs for message metadata. The fact is, message metadata is enough. I have friends and acquaintances that have been harassed and detained by officials based on their names appearing in contact lists of other suspected-but-not-charged-with-anything individuals. We're not even talking about evidence of actual communications such as message headers or metadata. The fact that they can (and do) pull thousands of people's message headers and have access to the communications graph and traffic frequency without ANY JUDICIAL OVERSIGHT WHATSOEVER means that their ability to conduct state-sponsored extrajudicial harassment is way out of control. It truly doesn't matter if NSLs allow them to get the body of the messages or not. If you're on the radar, you and everyone you communicate with regularly is a target. There are no legal remedies for this sort of stuff anymore. If you do anything of import non-anonymously, you can expect to have your hardware stolen and never returned (under the guise of a search), your travel impeded, your accounts inaccessible (google "civil asset forfeiture"), your social network harassed and detained similarly, and your access to legal remedies hindered in every conceivable way. A half-dozen examples known to me personally come to mind immediately. I'm sure there are more that I don't know about. The threat is very real, and trying to split hairs about whether or not "reading your email" means message bodies or just headers is not productive.

tptacek 14y ago
I disagree that "It truly doesn't matter if NSLs allow them to get the body of the messages or not". It truly matters a whole hell of a lot to me if someone can see my messages, as versus my email headers.
ballard 14y ago
One of the big issues: the watchers need to be watched. Too many secrets creates an opportunity for hiding malfeasance, real or perceived. Grant external auditors enough clearance with the caveat of separating background investigation diligence from those being audited. This implies strict independence and jurisdiction of auditors to materially enforce the constitution and provide adequate safeguards to be sure organizations are not exceeding their charter to amass more power and control behind an obscure exemption from reporting requirements. And, if one had the responsibility to defend against many types of harm, one question begs asking: Would it not be rational prevention to attempt to detect planning and coordination? What specific measures would be deployable and which would not? It does not sound reasonable to mandate a blanket intelligence policy of "don't ever read anyone's email, don't ever capture any packets and don't ever look online." Perhaps something more of "Every intelligence analyst is being monitored 24/7 by external auditors. If there is so much as viewing of porn on Company time, their career is immediately over." I can neither confirm nor deny that dozens of analysts have been let go for this reason. The fourth amendment is quite clear in both spirit and letter as to the nature of privacy rights that the state must respect. If the state fails at this, it would be rightly a failure of all individuals to keep their politicians, and hence state, honest. Ultimately, there exists an implicit balancing act on the ground with the realization that wishing the world were perfectly safe everywhere does not make it so. There are some sick, crafty actors out there that have nothing but contempt for their life and society, and are okay with blowing themselves up and generally dragging society down for their own delusions. Also, if limited methods and case files were made available for semi-public inspection, perhaps there would be less mistrust of organizations that attempt to hide everything behind a veil of mystery. (Security theater is another rant.)