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> there were technical and procedural safeguards that were intended to filter out US citizens' data, and analysts were not supposed to access US citizen data wi
by wutwutwat 2y ago
> there were technical and procedural safeguards that were intended to filter out US citizens' data, and analysts were not supposed to access US citizen data without a search warrant from a judge.
Nope
> The NSA has built a surveillance network that has the capacity to reach roughly 75% of all U.S. Internet traffic.
> An internal NSA audit from May 2012 identified 2776 incidents i.e. violations of the rules or court orders for surveillance of Americans and foreign targets in the U.S. in the period from April 2011 through March 2012, while U.S. officials stressed that any mistakes are not intentional.
> The FISA Court that is supposed to provide critical oversight of the U.S. government's vast spying programs has limited ability to do so and it must trust the government to report when it improperly spies on Americans.
> A legal opinion declassified on August 21, 2013, revealed that the NSA intercepted for three years as many as 56,000 electronic communications a year of Americans not suspected of having links to terrorism, before FISA court that oversees surveillance found the operation unconstitutional in 2011.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010s_global_surveillance_di https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010s_global_surveillance_di...
The kicker to me:
> it must trust the government to report when it improperly spies on Americans
The courts told them to watch themselves and to self incriminate if they do crimez. An honor system. Which naturally, they did not snitch on themselves to the courts, because why would they.
Also let's not forget that they can make all the illegal surveillance legal in an instant just by labeling any person a "terrorist"
- ForHackernews 2y agoSure this is a great example. You're extremely suspicious of the NSA's willingness or ability to police themselves, but you trust Amazon? Google? Facebook? Why? https://www.vice.com/en/article/google-fired-dozens-for-data-misuse/ https://www.vice.com/en/article/google-fired-dozens-for-data... https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/amazon-ring-camera-spying-alexa-b2349827.html https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/amazon-ring-camera-spying...
- sneak 2y agoGoogle staffers can't jail or torture or assassinate you. The CIA can and does.
- ForHackernews 2y agoThere are very few cases of the CIA torturing or killing US citizens (foreigners, yes) There is legal and congressional oversight over the CIA, intelligence agencies can be held accountable by American voters through the democratic process. There is no similar venue for oversight and accountability over the tech industry, which almost certainly holds more sensitive data on the American public.
- wutwutwat 2y agoThe CIA wouldn't really be good at what they do if the assasinations or other illegal things they do were well documented and available to the public. There's a reason the things they do are done in places where US laws don't apply... > CIA black sites systematically employed torture in the form of "enhanced interrogation techniques" of detainees, most of whom had been illegally abducted and forcibly transferred. Known locations included Afghanistan, Lithuania, Morocco, Poland, Romania, and Thailand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_black_sites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_black_sites Then there's GITMO
- sneak 2y agoThere is zero meaningful congressional oversight of the CIA. They broke major laws and tortured people, hacked the computers of the congressional oversight group to delete evidence, got caught hacking, lied about it, and nothing happened anyway. The mental model you have where the CIA is in any way constrained by the law is an utter fiction. They would summarily execute Snowden in a millisecond if they could.
- ForHackernews 2y agoWhy haven't they, then? Your model of intelligence agencies as sinister and omnipotent is at odds with all the available evidence. This is who is lurking behind the curtain, petty, fallible humans just like everywhere else: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/06/13/the-surreal-case-of-a-cia-hackers-revenge https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/06/13/the-surreal-ca...
- wutwutwat 2y agoPlease show me where I said I trust Amazon, Google, or Facebook. You must have read that I trust those companies for you to hold that belief so again, show me where I said that... Don't make assumptions and don't put words in my mouth