12 ms·
The Wyden Siren Goes Off Again: We’ll Be “Stunned” By What the NSA Is Doing
- mpalmer 7mo agoNo means of law enforcement should be so secret that even the legal basis for it can't be revealed to voters. If that renders said means impractical, too goddamn bad.
- ticulatedspline 7mo agoWill we? like doesn't everyone already assume the the NSA has had their hooks in basically everything possible. Like I'm having a hard time concocting a reveal that would be "Stunning" "NSA wiretapped all major phone carriers, recorded every voice conversation and text message of every citizen" Meh, not that stunning. at least not in a "violation of rights" kinda way. Maybe in a "wow they had the technical acumen to even handle all that data" kind of way "NSA has secret database with all medical records", "NSA has logs of every credit card transaction", "NSA can compel anyone anywhere to spy and reveal all data on anyone for any reason" Would any of these reveals actually be "stunning", frankly I've assumed the worst for so long that the response will be more like "wow, that all they're doing?" like opening a diaper on a kid with IBS, you expect it to be so bad when it's a normal turd you're suddenly really happy about shit.
- cucumber3732842 7mo agoI wouldn't be surprised by it, but "they're actually using all of the above, laundered through some extra steps, to provide leads to state and local LEO" would probably get people pissed off.
- HoldOnAMinute 7mo agoSoma ( social media ) keeps everyone comfortably sedated
- bram98 7mo agoanxiously sedated
- TimorousBestie 7mo ago> Would any of these reveals actually be "stunning", frankly I've assumed the worst for so long that the response will be more like "wow, that all they're doing?" You’re far more cynical than the typical citizen, who Ryder is addressing.
- Rooster61 7mo agoThat's not what the quote is referring to directly (the title is a bit misleading): "In fact, when it is eventually declassified, the American people will be stunned that it took so long and that Congress has been debating this authority with insufficient information" You are correct that the American populace has normalized this already. The fact that this is done without congressional oversight is indeed stunning. Or at least it would have been a decade or two ago.
- lokar 7mo agoHN readers won't be surprised, but I don't think that's who he is talking about. Most Americans have this kind of thing tuned out, that have bigger issues in their lives.
- embedding-shape 7mo ago> Would any of these reveals actually be "stunning", Everyone knew the NSA spied on everyone, yet Snowden leaks were truly stunning, because no one had evidence of the sheer scale of what the NSA (and collaborators) were engaged in. Wyden Siren was already firing off about that many years beforehand, before we knew the actual truth, so considering his record, I'm also skeptical it'll be "truly shocking" for the average HN tech-nerd, but for the general public, to have evidence of what the government does? Probably will be "stunning", but the one who lives will see.
- rockskon 7mo agoSo - given the law allows the NSA to do things given legal constructs, reality be damned, then what new legal construct do you think Wyden is sounding the alarm about? When we un-tether the possibile from tech-specific delineations, you'll find things get more and more alarming. Whatever it is Wyden is sounding the alarm about, you can be certain the sole protection we have - the sole guiding principle and bulwark against abuse - is the agency's culture given the rampant "incidental" collection and the public claims that putting the equivalent of a removable sticky-note over the names of U.S. citizens from their personal data is sufficient to satisfy the 4th Amendment as the NSA searches through our persinal data in bulk. And what is culture if not the people we have to promote the practices? Boy am I glad we have an administration that lets agencies largely lead themselves and doesn't engage in efforts to replace a large part of various agency's workforce - specifically those who care about the agency's culture!
- imglorp 7mo agoDon't forget backdooring or interfering with multiple cryptography standards, at least Dual_EC_DRBG and RSA. Or backdooring most major microprocessors (tpm). Etc?
- runjake 7mo agoTo which TPM backdoors are you referring? I am aware that similar accusations are leveled against Intel ME and AMD's Platform Security Processor.
- bram98 7mo ago.
- imglorp 7mo agoYeah. Obviously we can't know officially for decades but there's still some signals. One is the HAP flag (1, solid) to turn off IME, which has had at least one pubic vuln. Are they merely reducing their attack surface? Why can only they buy CPUs without IME (2, rumor)? Etc. https://www.csoonline.com/article/562761/researchers-say-now-you-too-can-disable-intel-me-backdoor-thanks-to-the-nsa.html https://www.csoonline.com/article/562761/researchers-say-now... https://www.franksworld.com/2025/09/18/the-intel-backdoor-nobody-can-remove-not-even-you/ https://www.franksworld.com/2025/09/18/the-intel-backdoor-no...
- jeffrallen 7mo agoWyden is a national treasure. Thank you for your service, Ron. Also: Hello from Roseburg.
- contubernio 7mo agoSecrecy is anathema to governance accountable to the governed.
- phendrenad2 7mo agoI looked up Section 702 and top result was an official government powerpoint justifying it to the public. https://www.dni.gov/files/icotr/Section702-Basics-Infographic.pdf https://www.dni.gov/files/icotr/Section702-Basics-Infographi... Under "Oversight", they point out that the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board concluded that that the government's Section 702 program operates within legal constraints, as recently as 2014! Wow! </sarc>
- wing-_-nuts 7mo agoEveryone who's not terribly worried about privacy always uses the line 'if you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about', but my line of thinking is not 'do i trust the government' it's 'do I have faith in all future forms of government who will have access to this data' Given how fast and lose I've seen the DODGE folks play with the data they have, absolutely not. I still shudder over the fact that my OPM data was hacked years ago
- alpple 7mo agoif you're not doing anything wrong, a government that is doing something wrong may not like it
- EGreg 7mo agoThis, exactly. And governments are always doing something wrong...
- dylan604 7mo agoDOGE != DODGE They may have dodged, ducked, dodged the rules while they DOGE'd their way through the government, but not sure if they used RAM trucks while they did it
- briffle 7mo agoI have seen what happens with garbage-in/garbage-out in databases, so this kind of stuff terrifies me. I often think of a case where we had a person listed twice in our database, with same address, birthday, etc, only thing different was gender, and last 2 digits of SSN were transposed.. After we 'fixed' the issue a few times, they BOTH showed up to our office. Both Named Leslie, born on same day, a few small towns apart, same last name and home phone since they had been married. Back then, SSN were handed out by region sequentially, so one had the last two digits 12 and the other 21.
- quesera 7mo agoThat's funny as a human, amazing as a developer, and terrifying as a data processor. All at the same time. I'll bet that pair has stories to tell.
- markus_zhang 7mo agoI wouldn’t be surprised by anything nowadays.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- JohnMakin 7mo agoI can't imagine it's anything people haven't been suspecting for years - if I had to take a wild guess, it's the government's interpretation of not needing a warrant to scour things for intelligence on citizens using things like adtech and stuff that probably should require a warrant.
- electronsoup 7mo agoIf it was so important, wouldn't he just filibuster it till he got what he wanted?
- nozzlegear 7mo agoIt's my understanding that a single senator can't just filibuster anything they want unless the conditions are right. It depends on a few different factors and requires the bill to be brought to the floor for debate, which itself would require cooperation from the majority leader. That's not likely to happen.
- recursivecaveat 7mo agoIf you're solo you have to actually stand up and talk still it seems. (And even then a 60+ person majority can vote to close the debate on you) Nobody has done it solo for more than 24 hours or so. Presumably at that point you're about ready to keel over.
- kelnos 7mo agoHe needs 40 other Senators to agree with him; 60 votes can close debate and stop a filibuster.
- Hizonner 7mo agoFilibuster what, exactly? No proposal is before the Senate... ON edit: Oops, sorry, 702 is up for renewal. Still not clear he could win a cloture vote, though.
- losvedir 7mo agoWyden has been special, as long as I can remember. I feel like a lot of us early tech people had something of a libertarian bent. I think to some extent I've grown out of it in my less idealistic older age, but the whole idea of freedom from the government, living your own life, not being spied on, still resonates with me, and Wyden has always been a champion of it to some extent. You used to have Ron Paul, and these days now Rand Paul and Thomas Massie sometimes waving that flag, too. It was definitely swimming upstream in the post-9/11 days. I was hopeful for a while with Trump that we'd see more of a mainstream resurgence, but it's not looking like it to me anymore. Anyway, I can only imagine what he's alluding to here...
- dlev_pika 7mo agoI think he is a reflection of the broader libertarian streak of Oregonians. Source: am Oregonian.
- tehwebguy 7mo agoThe interpretation of the law is classified? That’s stupid and everyone who protected that classification, regardless of whatever the interpretation is, is a traitor!
- simulator5g 7mo agoSecret laws, secret courts... Jeez, man.
- Analemma_ 7mo agoThis is why I'm never giving a penny to OpenAI again, now matter how much damage control Altman tries to do with "look, we reworded the contract to have redlines too!". Yeah, legal redlines that the administration can bypass with their secret memos and secret rubberstamp courts. This isn't even a Trump thing: the Bush DOJ wrote secret memos making torture legal, the Obama DOJ wrote secret memos making it legal to assassinate American citizens. Non-technical redlines which aren't under the vendor's control aren't worth a piss squirt.
- Gud 7mo agoBy using ChatGPT, OpenAI are losing money. So if you want them to die faster, use their services.
- Analemma_ 7mo agoContra the popular memes, I don’t think they’re losing money with every query sent (the money pit is capex on new models and hardware, but I don’t think inference itself is unprofitable), so this wouldn’t actually work. I was already paying for Claude Max before the War Department fiasco, so there’s not much more I can do to hurt OAI apart from complain about it online, although I did persuade several people on various group chats I’m on to switch.
- bigyabai 7mo ago
- dlev_pika 7mo agoSo glad to see my Oregon senator regularly on the money.
- WarOnPrivacy 7mo agoI can name 3 ethical politicians, Ron Wyden, John Huntsman and Bob Graham. It's a painfully short list, considering my longish life.
- ProllyInfamous 7mo agoSoon-to-be US Senator James Talerico (D-Tex)? My "ethical" list has several dozen politicians, but it is definitely short. And their names don't seem to last very long into each career...
- snowwrestler 7mo agoThe warnings are nice but he could just say what it is. Members of Congress have immunity for what they say on the floor of their chamber in session, classification or no.
- alwa 7mo agoImmunity from prosecution, maybe, but not immunity from consequence. I can’t imagine congressional leadership would think of it as a good look—and isn’t the “need to know” based on the congressperson’s role? For example don’t they brief only congresspeople in specific roles on specific matters, like the so-called “Gang of Eight” on intelligence matters? [0] It feels a little like keeping the filibuster around: maybe technically it’s within their power to change the norm, but once unilaterally spilling secrets becomes The Done Thing, it’s hard to imagine it wouldn’t spin out into a free-for-all. For all the mud that gets slung around, I think congresspeople really don’t get there without some kind of patriotic instinct, some kind of interest in the United States’ ongoing functioning. And I certainly can’t imagine they’d keep getting access to new secrets after pulling something like that, one way or the other… [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_of_Eight_(intelligence) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_of_Eight_(intelligence)
- anigbrowl 7mo agoYou can say the same thing about secret laws and tyrannical executives.
- themafia 7mo ago> congressional leadership would think of it as a good look Why do they have any power? Wyden was elected by his constituency. The "congressional leadership" can go pound sand. To the extent they have any power here it should immediately be completely neutered and then removed.
- Hizonner 7mo agoThey can remove him from all his committees, including the ones that give him access to this stuff to begin with. If they really work at it, they can freeze him out to the point where he can't get anything done on this or any other issue. And they can use him revealing the information as an excuse to avoid blowback from their own constituents. It's not as bad as in the House, but it's pretty bad. Oh, and they can probably deprive him of the floor the second he starts to say anything "interesting". Yes, there are serious problems with the way Congress is organized, but there's probably a reason that practically every parliamentary body on the planet has similar problems.
- blueone 7mo agoI’ve stayed private for most of my adult life. Network wide dns, vpns, alternative personas online for different purposes, etc. Nonetheless, my personal data has been exposed numerous times. Once in a while, I’d get into a conversation with a friend or a stranger I met at some random function, and they’d ask how to stay private online and protect their data. I used to go in depth about how to do it, with excitement. Now I just say: be normal, fit in with the crowd, freeze your credit.
- newsclues 7mo agoAs someone that worked in an illegal industry (urban pharmaceuticals), you need to appear normal and hide your crimes. If you just hide your crimes, you stick out and become a target. Plausible deniability is harder than just total protection.
- blueone 7mo agoYes.
- MengerSponge 7mo agoIt's very hard to participate in a digital society while truly remaining private. The things you do to ensure privacy generate their own type of unique signal! https://chuniversiteit.nl/papers/browser-extension-fingerprinting https://chuniversiteit.nl/papers/browser-extension-fingerpri... You know this, but "normal" patterns are less remarkable.
- anigbrowl 7mo agoThe whole concept of 'secret interpretations of law' is anathema to me. Secret information makes sense, there are lots of reasons a government might legitimately want to maintain a veil of obscurity. Secret interpretations of law are a manifestation of tyranny. I like Ron Wyden but he should just employ his Congressional privilege here and read it out.
- mogwire 7mo agoCoincidentally, there’s an article about this exact topic and it happens to mention Senator Wyden. https://www.pointoforder.com/2013/08/06/congressional-release-of-classified-information-and-the-speech-or-debate-clause/ https://www.pointoforder.com/2013/08/06/congressional-releas...
- rincebrain 7mo agoI believe the problem here is that that works precisely once, then they stop inviting you to the classified parties. So as he gets older, the cost/benefit changes, but I believe that's why he hasn't, is that his calculus involves him being the only one this reliable on screaming about what's going on behind closed doors.
- bram98 7mo agoWhatever we imagine, the NSA seems to top it each time.
- IshKebab 7mo agoUhm this article is a total lie, no? Claim: We’ll Be “Stunned” By What the NSA Is Doing Under Section 702 Actual quote: I strongly believe that this matter can and should be declassified and that Congress needs to debate it openly before Section 702 is reauthorized. In fact, when it is eventually declassified, the American people will be stunned that it took so long and that Congress has been debating this authority with insufficient information. He said people will be stunned that it took so long to be declassified; not that people will be stunned by what it is.
- casey2 7mo agoAND that Congress has been devating this authority with insufficient information. That's what will stun the American people. He said AND not NOT.
- IshKebab 7mo agoGood point but it doesn't change the conclusion because being stunned that Congress are debating it with insufficient information also isn't the same as being stunned about what was actually done.
- root_axis 7mo agoIt's been my experience that most people already assume full surveillance of everything happening on all devices.
- ionwake 7mo agoYou'd be surprised, I know IT managers with 20 years experience who ( probably incorrectly) think otherwise.
- kittikitti 7mo agoI think it's going to be more about how many people have access to the surveillance who might use it for needless things or personal reasons, at a large scale.
- kittikitti 7mo agoI'm going to guess warrantless search of all of our data, retention policies, and the worst part is who gets access to search through it. Basically, I speculate that anyone under a loosely defined classification would be able to access it legally. I also think there's a bunch of information and password sharing between people who don't even have a clearance for it. Perhaps sprinkle in abusing this system for personal or political reasons. My word of caution is if you do have access to these systems or a shared password, tread very carefully.
- dmix 7mo agoFISA courts are not sufficient oversight of this stuff. Not to mention there’s little rules for foreign data, including Americans talking to foreigners on the phone. As long as one end is foreign…
- query_demotion 7mo agoYou're right. FISA courts are not sufficient oversight. Even Judge James Robertson resigned from the FISA Courts (FISC) in 2005 because: >On December 20, 2005, Judge James Robertson resigned his position with the court, apparently in protest of the secret surveillance,[11] and later, in the wake of the Snowden leaks of 2013, criticized the court-sanctioned expansion of the scope of government surveillance and its being allowed to craft a secret body of law.[12] The government's apparent circumvention of the court started prior to the increase in court-ordered modifications to warrant requests. In 2011, the Obama administration secretly won permission from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to reverse restrictions on the National Security Agency's use of intercepted phone calls and e-mails, permitting the agency to search deliberately for Americans' communications in its massive databases.
- rootusrootus 7mo agoOne of the things I am proud of as an Oregonian is that Wyden is one of my senators. And it looks like maybe, possibly, he is starting to make Merkeley a true believer as well. Which is good, Wyden is getting kinda old, and there aren't enough people like him in Congress, by a long shot.
- WarOnPrivacy 7mo ago> Wyden is getting kinda old, and there aren't enough people like him in Congress, by a long shot. I can't name another indisputably ethical congressman. I dread the day he leaves office.
- djoldman 7mo agoAs I've said before: "I don't need to care about privacy because I have nothing to hide" is trivially disproved: Humans arrive at conclusions about other humans based on information. Sometimes these conclusions are incorrect because humans aren't perfect at reasoning and this happens more often with some kinds of information. Therefore, it's perfectly rational to hide/not-disclose/obscure some information to lessen the chance that others take action based on faulty conclusions.
- jmward01 7mo agoI have wrestled with the concept of 'classified' many times. The question is always how you balance democracy's need for information with the real need to keep some things away from adversaries. I think the only answer is to vigorously enforce automatic declassification AND dissemination but also ensure that this happens within the useful lifetimes of those involved. This last part is especially important for accountability. Laws need to apply, without a statute of limitation, to abuse of classification and for that to happen this stuff needs to come out while those involved can still be held accountable. Additionally, if abuse is found while something is still classified there should be an immediate evaluation if the public interest in understanding the abuse outweighs the danger of releasing the information with an explicit understanding that the public has already received real harm compared to a theoretical harm of release. Another aspect is that we need to lower the bar for declassification in general. The reality of classified information is that it is almost universally boring and time limited in its value. Also, so many people have access to it that it leaks out slowly anyway. Just look at how much of the US military and contractors have or have had secret and higher clearances. [1] When multiple percentage points of Americans (and other governments) have access currently or have had access in the past to supposedly 'top secret' information then hiding it from the rest of the population just sounds silly. It is time to start re-asserting the public's requirement to be informed even if that has some potential risks or even actual harms associated with it. [1] https://news.clearancejobs.com/2022/08/16/how-many-people-have-a-top-secret-security-clearance/ https://news.clearancejobs.com/2022/08/16/how-many-people-ha...
- UltraSane 7mo agoI can easily imagine that the NSA has exabytes of data with Splunk style search capabilities. It would be ridiculously powerful.
- xbar 7mo agoThanks Senator Wyden. Please do not stop fighting for us.
- SauntSolaire 7mo agoThe article lede reads: "Senator Ron Wyden says that when a secret interpretation of Section 702 is eventually declassified, the American public “will be stunned” to learn what the NSA has been doing." Technically the full quote from Wyden is: "when it is eventually declassified, the American people will be stunned that it took so long and that Congress has been debating this authority with insufficient information." It's a small thing, but I find the click-bait editorializing from techdirt a bit off-putting.
- SilentM68 7mo agoThat's insightful. Traditionally both political parties have expanded surveillance powers and engaged in actions that have usurped privacy of US citizens citing national security as the reason. That's historical fact. In my view, when one side does it, it is to stop the other side from doing something that does not align with the former side's interests or goals. But that's just a humble opinion.
- w10-1 7mo agoKey point (mostly drowned): Feds can compel A to surveil B if A maintains equipment or services for B. The Feds can also compel A's silence on point. Originally applied only to the largest communications companies, this now has effectively unlimited scope. The only safeguard (which took years to add legislatively) was that the FBI had to clear it; but now the FBI is refusing even to record such requests, to avoid any record of abuse (and the person responsible is dubious). Surveillance seems necessary, but in the wrong hands, it's systemically deadly: it grants overwhelming advantage, and destroys arms-length trust, driving transactions of any size into networks prone to self-dealing and corruption.
- avazhi 7mo ago“ Senator Ron Wyden says that when a secret interpretation of Section 702 is eventually declassified, the American public “will be stunned” to learn what the NSA has been doing” This is not the same thing as saying people will be stunned by how long it took to discuss/investigate the matter, which is what Wyden actually said…
- ProllyInfamous 7mo ago"When the American People figure out what we've been up to, there will be riots in the streets" former analyst George Herbert Walker... decades ago.
- chinathrow 7mo agoGotta fill Bluffdale somehow, right?
- tim-tday 7mo agoDisappointed yes. Surprised? No.