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Google continuing to deny that their is a dragnet is not evidence that their is no dragnet. If there was a dragnet it is very likely that they legally are not a

by cracell 13y ago

Google continuing to deny that their is a dragnet is not evidence that their is no dragnet. If there was a dragnet it is very likely that they legally are not allowed to admit it as per terms of the court order. There's nothing Google could say or do to clear their name on this. The NSA, Congress or the Executive branch need to detail the level of access and the form of access that the NSA has to Google's information in order to clear Google's name. Even that unfortunately has to be taken with a large grain of salt. There's simply too much information pointing towards mass surveillance with assistance from US companies to believe what the companies themselves say. This is a shitty position for Google to be in but consumers didn't put them in it, the US government did by admitting to the PRISM slides being correct without detailing how the companies mentioned on them are involved.

jmillikin 13y ago
> If there was a dragnet it is very likely that they > legally are not allowed to admit it as per terms of > the court order. In the US, gag orders may compel silence but to my knowledge may not compel private citizens to claim they are not under a gag. > The NSA, Congress or the Executive branch need to > detail the level of access and the form of access > that the NSA has to Google's information in order > to clear Google's name. Just to be clear: you believe that Google's press release is untrustworthy, but you would trust an NSA press release about the extent of NSA surveillance?
- cracell 13y ago
  An NSA release that is confirmed by another party such as Senator Wyden, Rand Paul, ACLU or EFF. Realistically I'm not sure what the NSA would share with anyone that could be conclusive. But a logical explanation of how the NSA gets into data without corporate cooperation and that explanation matching up with the timeline presented on the one slide would be a great start. For instance, you could argue that the PRISM timeline is simply showing once the NSA had filters in place to identify and capture general internet traffic headed to and from those specific companies. But this has a large hole in that why would Google, a company who's search queries would be highly valued, come so far after Microsoft on the timeline. So an explanation that addresses the large questions like that. As opposed to the current situation which is a credible leak that makes Google look very bad, an executive branch that is defending the information in the leak as being legal and Google flat out denying any involvement.
  - aniket_ray 13y ago
    I think you're conflating two different issues. The government was defending intercepting emails and getting phone records. The government too never claimed that they can access data from web companies.
  - mpyne 13y ago
    Of course the company would have to cooperate to make PRISM work, but I think you're missing what PRISM is meant to do on the company end. It takes what the company was doing manually before PRISM (complying with NSLs and FISA warrants)... and automates part of that process. What it doesn't do is insert NSA as a wiretap into all their systems's traffic, as that's not what FISA compliance needed in the first place.
- DannyBee 13y ago
  "In the US, gag orders may compel silence but to my knowledge may not compel private citizens to claim they are not under a gag." This is correct. There is a difference between people lying, compelling silence, and being forced to lie. The government can force people to be silent, be it upcoming raids, targets of investigations that they don't want tipped off, etc. I know of zero legal authority that allows the government to force people to actively lie. If anyone here does, i'd love to see it. There is in fact, authority that the government cannot compel false or misleading statements. None that i'm aware of in the national security context, but this actually comes up quite a bit in the abortion context. For example, Casey vs. Planned parenthood and others make it very clear the government cannot compel you to speak misleading information. Opinions argue about what is false and what is misleading, but that is clearly not an issue here.
  - jedbrown 13y ago
    Does this imply that a personalized canary similar to [1] asserting that no information had been disclosed effectively makes it possible for a company to notify a user promptly (by discontinuing the daily canary)? Or would the court rule that discontinuing the canary is communication, thus requiring the company to continue updating the personalized canary after disclosing information about that person, despite the canary now being a direct lie? [1] http://www.rsync.net/resources/notices/canary.txt http://www.rsync.net/resources/notices/canary.txt
StavrosK 13y ago
> Google continuing to deny that their is a dragnet is not evidence that their is no dragnet. Of course it is. It's not proof, but it's evidence. It shifts the probability towards "there is no dragnet" by some amount. Maybe it's not significant, but it's there.

by cracell 13y ago

jmillikin 13y ago

> If there was a dragnet it is very likely that they > legally are not allowed to admit it as per terms of > the court order. In the US, gag orders may compel silence but to my knowledge may not compel private citizens to claim they are not under a gag. > The NSA, Congress or the Executive branch need to > detail the level of access and the form of access > that the NSA has to Google's information in order > to clear Google's name. Just to be clear: you believe that Google's press release is untrustworthy, but you would trust an NSA press release about the extent of NSA surveillance?

cracell 13y ago
An NSA release that is confirmed by another party such as Senator Wyden, Rand Paul, ACLU or EFF. Realistically I'm not sure what the NSA would share with anyone that could be conclusive. But a logical explanation of how the NSA gets into data without corporate cooperation and that explanation matching up with the timeline presented on the one slide would be a great start. For instance, you could argue that the PRISM timeline is simply showing once the NSA had filters in place to identify and capture general internet traffic headed to and from those specific companies. But this has a large hole in that why would Google, a company who's search queries would be highly valued, come so far after Microsoft on the timeline. So an explanation that addresses the large questions like that. As opposed to the current situation which is a credible leak that makes Google look very bad, an executive branch that is defending the information in the leak as being legal and Google flat out denying any involvement.
- aniket_ray 13y ago
  I think you're conflating two different issues. The government was defending intercepting emails and getting phone records. The government too never claimed that they can access data from web companies.
- mpyne 13y ago
  Of course the company would have to cooperate to make PRISM work, but I think you're missing what PRISM is meant to do on the company end. It takes what the company was doing manually before PRISM (complying with NSLs and FISA warrants)... and automates part of that process. What it doesn't do is insert NSA as a wiretap into all their systems's traffic, as that's not what FISA compliance needed in the first place.
DannyBee 13y ago
"In the US, gag orders may compel silence but to my knowledge may not compel private citizens to claim they are not under a gag." This is correct. There is a difference between people lying, compelling silence, and being forced to lie. The government can force people to be silent, be it upcoming raids, targets of investigations that they don't want tipped off, etc. I know of zero legal authority that allows the government to force people to actively lie. If anyone here does, i'd love to see it. There is in fact, authority that the government cannot compel false or misleading statements. None that i'm aware of in the national security context, but this actually comes up quite a bit in the abortion context. For example, Casey vs. Planned parenthood and others make it very clear the government cannot compel you to speak misleading information. Opinions argue about what is false and what is misleading, but that is clearly not an issue here.
- jedbrown 13y ago
  Does this imply that a personalized canary similar to [1] asserting that no information had been disclosed effectively makes it possible for a company to notify a user promptly (by discontinuing the daily canary)? Or would the court rule that discontinuing the canary is communication, thus requiring the company to continue updating the personalized canary after disclosing information about that person, despite the canary now being a direct lie? [1] http://www.rsync.net/resources/notices/canary.txt http://www.rsync.net/resources/notices/canary.txt

StavrosK 13y ago

> Google continuing to deny that their is a dragnet is not evidence that their is no dragnet. Of course it is. It's not proof, but it's evidence. It shifts the probability towards "there is no dragnet" by some amount. Maybe it's not significant, but it's there.