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Congressman requests subpoena of NSA’s White House, IRS phone logs
- na85 13y agoFirst time in a long while that I wholeheartedly support the Republicans.
- notimetorelax 13y agoAudacity of this action made me laugh.
- abtinf 13y agoHe should also request a subpoena for all of the associated metadata, which probably includes location tracking information. That way, we know if any of the involved parties met in secret. The what-do-they-have-to-hide argument is nonsense, but I have no sympathy; the government has brought this on itself.
- abtinf 13y agoAlso, I wonder how long it will be until we see the first civil case that tries to subpoena this information. Say, a nasty divorce where one of the parties is trying to prove cheating. Or industrial espionage. And think of all the criminal cases this would be useful for - price fixing schemes, anti-trust cases, and on and on. The uses for a massive store of location information boggle the mind.
- cmaggard 13y agoYou only had to wait -1 days. http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/crime/fl-phone-records-fisa-broward-20130612,0,5434900.story http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/crime/fl-phone-record... HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5872348 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5872348
- ryguytilidie 13y agoI don't understand the logic here. It won't be interesting at all. Someone will try to subpoena the info, they will be denied, end of story. The NSA will never give this data away ever, I bet they would destroy it, or pretend to destroy it, before giving it away.
- ChuckMcM 13y agoThe logic is complex but useful to understand. Stockman is making a point. His point is that arbitrarily collecting this data is bad. He is perhaps guessing that there will be phone calls between the IRS and the Whitehouse, even if the President didn't know anything about it the staff would be chatting. That linkage, as ephemeral as it is, will make them look bad, it will take time to defend it will cost them votes. It would be better if this capability didn't exist at all. So the logic is that while the program is 'secret' to only part of the Government then that part can use it to carry out their agenda unchecked, but when the whole government can use it, well it becomes more of a liability than an asset. Part of the beauty of the system we've set up is that it allows the government to fight with itself and keep itself (more) honest. Stockman is working that angle. So in the ideal case, the Obama administration will realize just how dangerous this system is when it can be used to smear/threaten/harass non-criminals [1]. And they will come up with some rationale for shutting it down. [1] "Gee, isn't the electronic subscriber number [ESN] of your Chief of Staff repeatedly going over to that place where we just busted a prostitution ring? Were they part of that investigation?" kinds of things.
- jaynos 13y agoActually, he knows it'll be rejected and he then gets to say "Well, they obviously have something to hide!" The whole IRS non-scandal will get a little more daylight.
- option_greek 13y agoThrough out these arguments during past week, the one thing that bothered me most was that some people supported NSA spying saying they have nothing to hide. I seriously don't understand how they can say that. I wonder if this can be attributed to lack of understanding about data mining considering that most of these comments are on non-tech websites.
- yogo 13y agoThat's mostly ignorance, and as you said a lack of understanding. The people that really understand know that this is the tried and true statement for any invasion of privacy. Wire tapping has been around for quite a while now, and it would be safe to assume most mobsters are not on the phone discussing business right now.
- angersock 13y agoOy vey, a bunch of trolls trolling trolls. I wish that politics hadn't turned into this sort of nonsense; this makes a very sensible concern into a tool of politics.
- abtinf 13y agoEverything the government does is, by definition, political. You can't wish away the politics an on-going mass surveillance program; you can only avoid initiating the program in the first place.
- jlgreco 13y agoI would argue that, for now, this is an "enemy of my enemy...." situation.
- angersock 13y agoIt is a damned shame, then, that we have no friends in Congress.
- jlgreco 13y agoAye, the best we can hope is that they all turn cannibal and consume each other.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- drzaiusapelord 13y agoThen repeal the fucking Patriot act. This is partisan garbage from the GOP trying to pin everything on Obama. Congress could end all this stuff right now if they choose to. Obviously, they are choosing political grandstanding and loudmouth politics.
- jlgreco 13y ago> Then repeal the fucking Patriot act. Uh... if I could, I would? I know it is partisan garbage. It is partisan garbage from people I hate, targeting people I hate. I hope they both mortally injure each other. When my enemies fight, you will have to excuse me for finding the silver lining. I have no faith in the GOP, and do not expect them to attempt to repeal the Patriot Act. Expecting that is not being realistic.
- jstalin 13y agoTo "bring it home," so to speak, he should request all NSA data on phone calls to and from Congressmen. Nothing makes politicians more angry than applying their rules for everyone else to themselves.
- abtinf 13y agoI think you meant it as snark, but I think is brilliant. We know that congress has ongoing insider trading issues with the companies they regulate - lets get some transparency! If they have nothing to hide, they have nothing to fear.
- jholman 13y agoYeah, but that necessarily pits him against other Congressfolks. Stockman VERSUS EVERYBODY!!!! The move as-he-played-it is smarter, right? He's inviting other Congressfolks to join him in making political hay by trolling the executive branch. He's saying to Issa "someone should be embarrassed about this.... would you like to be embarrasser or embarrassee?" Does anyone know if the opening paragraph thanking Issa is sincere or snark? I don't know what Issa's record/politics have been.
- muyuu 13y agoUsing their rhetoric, if they have nothing to hide they don't have to be worried.
- doki_pen 13y agoIf anyone shouldn't have a right to privacy, it would be public officials.
- peterwwillis 13y agoThis is basically exactly the reason why this kind of warrantless spying should be illegal. Politicians can use their position to go on fishing expeditions and publicly persecute whoever they wish with flimsy reasoning.
- johngalt 13y agoNixon shouldn't have had to turn over his tapes? Let me guess, you feel that situation was somehow different. For reasons other than each president's political affiliation?
- nrb 13y agoDifference being that Nixon ordered the tape recorders be installed. He was not compelled by anyone to record his conversations and they were recorded with his permission.
- johngalt 13y agoI guess I don't understand how this is different. Are you taking the position that the NSA gathers data without Obama's permission? Nixon chose to wiretap the White House so he's fair game. Obama wiretaps the entire country and he's not?
- nrb 13y agoI made no reference to Obama, I was speaking to the point that people whose communications would be included in this subpoena are not in the same position that Nixon was in when he knowingly and approvingly recorded his communications. Logs of all communication on the private lines of the IRS and White House employees could expose some very embarrassing or otherwise "culturally sensitive" activities that have absolutely nothing to do with the intent of this subpoena. To repeat the point made by peterwwillis: "Politicians can use their position to go on fishing expeditions and publicly persecute whoever they wish with flimsy reasoning."
- peterwwillis 13y ago
- skwirl 13y agoHe wants to clear any doubt that this information is being used for political purposes by using it for political purposes.
- 23david 13y agoGame on.
- dfc 13y agoIts too bad that it was requested by someone with so little name recognition that "Congressman requests" is a better headline than "Rep. Stockman(R) requests"
- joering2 13y agoHaven't seen such a check-mate in government affair in a long time. Unfortunately NSA does not have to answer to anyone, including congressman requests. Its their data, per se, and they are not compelled to share with anyone. Sure they will have to set aside large chunk for upcoming lawsuits (that will be paid from your taxes anyways), but other than that ist not a big deal. NSA stands beyond anyone's power to subpoena. Think Eric Holter being requested to investigate... Eric Holter. Good luck with that.
- eloisius 13y ago> NSA does not have to answer to anyone, including congressman requests Do you mean officially or de facto? I was under the impression that no one was above congressional subpoena.
- Domenic_S 13y agoCongressman: <hard question> NSA rep: "That's a matter of national security, I can't answer you."
- mh- 13y ago> I was under the impression that no one was above congressional subpoena. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_privilege https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_privilege [..] members of the executive branch to resist certain subpoenas and other interventions by the legislative and judicial branches of government.
- ChuckMcM 13y agoNot exactly, the NSA has to come to Congress to get their budget appropriations approved. No budget, no money. It provides a useful check against them.
- meepmorp 13y agoYeah, the NSA's budget is at exactly zero risk from this entire story, or this little sideshow in particular. If you think otherwise, you're kidding yourself.
- kunai 13y agoI hate how something as interesting as this is ruined by partisanship and egocentric control-freakism. Why is this Congressman pushing the blame on Obama solely? He is part of the problem, and it's this "us vs. them" attitude in government that never lets us have any progress at all. Instead of trying to advance his party or career, he should have used this opportunity to illustrate how NSA and IRS should both be surveyed equally if the spying is justified. But, no. He's just being a Grade-A politician, trying to claw at the Democratic party and trying to make an example out of them. I have lost respect for what he is trying to accomplish, if not because it's shameful and disgusting. Before anyone accuses me of left-right bias, I support third-party efforts and am independent.
- baddox 13y agoWelcome to politics. I've been burned several times having a political conversation where it appears I'm in agreement with the other guy, only to realize later that the other guy only "agrees" with me because what I'm saying happens to make his side look good.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- mtgx 13y agoI know what you're saying, but ever since this started, I immediately thought of Nixon and Watergate. This scandal deserves to be as big as Watergate, so then we should see everything, and all docs related to this should be declassified. Enough of this "we should know everything about you, but you can't know anything about us - so trust us".
- shardling 13y agoWatergate was unambiguously targeting rival political parties. That's why it was such a big deal. Nothing that's come to light so far is on that type of level. No matter how strongly you think the government is overstepping its bounds, it's at least possible for reasonable people to think they were justified.
- forgotAgain 13y agoRegardless of the aim of his request it does server a public good. It shows that this type of data, once collected, will never be limited to a specific usage. It's too tempting a thing and humans are too weak to resist the siren call.
- alohamora 13y agoAnd now, we start using call logs to investigate non-terrorist crimes? Politics aside, this is what everyone's actually worried about. If there were some magical guarantee from the good fairy of civil liberties that broad surveillance could only ever be used to stop terrorism, it would be far, far less troublesome. The problem is using surveillance for any crime one wants to investigate.
- rjeaster 13y agoThe point is as long as the data is there it can be abused. A law saying that it cannot be accessed except in terrorism related cases is effectively meaningless because it could still be accessed illegally in secret, or the law could change in the future.
- saalweachter 13y agoI'm confused: couldn't this information be requested directly from the phone companies?
- njharman 13y ago‘If Obama has nothing to hide he has nothing to fear,’ says Stockman That is a soundbite I would love to hear repeated ad nauseum. Replacing Obama with every politician, CEO, and 3-letter agency head.
- redthrowaway 13y agoGiven that the NSA is not a troop of Boy Scouts telling scary stories around a camp fire, I'd be somewhat surprised if they're monitoring the White House's communications in an attempt to be able to say "the terrorist's call is coming from inside the White House".
- elwin 13y agoThat's the problem with logging everything. Unless they deliberately filter out all the data coming from the White House, they have it, even though having it is only useful for their political opponents.
- obviouslygreen 13y agoDevil's advocate: This is a feature, not a bug, and it's working as intended. If the NSA wants to be able to track and review evidence of or relating to the most potentially-harmful events that could affect the US, the most influential people in the country -- the snakes and weasels that run it -- are in the best position to cause or enable harm by betraying confidence, so their communications are the most vital to monitor.
- LoganCale 13y agoIf you read the recent Wired article on Keith Alexander, the NSA director, he has made it clear he wants the NSA monitoring and storing everything to monitor "cyberthreats". So it figures they'd be monitoring the White House as well if that's their justification.
- jackpirate 13y agoI'd bet all this data has been/is used in granting people security clearances and discovering where leaks are coming from.
- brown9-2 13y agoJust what this debate needs, useless grandstanding.
- mncolinlee 13y agoIt's a Catch-22. If he gets the data, he will use the long and numerous phone conversations between the IRS and the White House to infer the administration is guilty. However, it proves nothing. If he doesn't get the data, he will argue it is because the President personally ordered the crimes and is hiding it. He won't get the data. The NSA won't want their databases and valuable time used to perform discovery in every lawsuit from now until eternity. He will exploit the NSA's "Need to Know" policy simply to make Obama look nefarious.
- Goladus 13y agoHowever, it proves nothing. That would be for others to judge. He won't get the data. He doesn't want the data. He wants to make a point about the importance of privacy. He wants to appear as if he is standing up for his constituents in the face of overreaching NSA surveillance since obviously Obama is not.
- rfugger 13y agoI would say a subpoena from the Congress of the United States should be more difficult to brush off than one from a regular court case. But why should the information not be available to the courts, really? Why should people not have access to information that can be used to defend themselves? Doesn't this open up a big legal loophole for defendants to argue that NSA data proves their innocence, but since the government won't make it available, their charges must be dismissed? That's the brilliance of this request -- it highlights how the government's asymmetric access to information can be used against it: "Since you know everything, you must be able to prove my case for me... Oh, you won't? Then you're obviously persecuting me." With absolute knowledge comes absolute power, but with absolute power for some comes absolute victimhood and therefore sympathy for the rest.
- visarga 13y agoEven if now it is only NSA and a few multinationals that have mass surveillance data, in the future the number of entities collecting an trading privacy data will increase 1000 fold. Then we'll get into a stalemate - we all know about everyone. Nobody will be able to use such information if they are not completely clean AND their family/associates too. Otherwise, they are blackmail targets too. Whatever information you generate: speech, messages, GPS logs, social network (with whom you communicate, by any means) it will be intercepted. The only way to maintain privacy will be to keep things into your head.
- hnpubescent 13y agoSomeone should nuke the US for the sake of freedom.
- davidrudder 13y agoI'm torn. On one hand, this is delicious irony. On the other hand, the Republicans have used any pretence to tell us that the President is a terrorist, Muslim, non-American, bad guy of any sort. There is no way to satisfy this request without it becoming another hyperbolic, red-faced accusation-fest. I heard a Republican say "there have been so many scandals directed at the President, and he's managed to dodge all of them. He can't be innocent of all of them!" It shocked me because it was an argument for "guilty until proven innocent." My response was "there have been so many accusations, all baseless, that you have to start wondering about the truthfulness of those making the accusations. Isn't it time we just started ignoring all of these so-called scandals?" I'm at that point now. I can't take the NSA thing seriously because I've heard the boy cry "wolf!" too many times.
- elwin 13y agoMany of the comments here are complaining about the partisanship of this request. I think such complaints are shortsighted. Yes, it's annoying that the representative is trying to make the administration look bad and further his own party. But political embarrassment and partisan show victories are exactly what motivates politicians to do things. These partisan actions are the kind of actions the Obama administration will notice. Or he could remain neutral and abstract and introduce a hastily written bill that purports to solve the problem, like Rand Paul. And nothing will happen. The partisan political system responds to partisan political incentives. To see many interesting examples, try studying the period leading up to the American Civil War.
- resu_nimda 13y agoThere are a lot of idealists here. They know that's how the system works. They're not complaining because they think this partisanship will be ineffective, they're complaining because it's depressing and inhibits meaningful social progress. Even though in this particular instance the partisanship is aligned with (y)our goals, it's rather frustrating to know that this guy doesn't actually give a shit about the matter like we do, he just wants to score points in this BS game.
- bhb916 13y ago"...it's rather frustrating to know that this guy doesn't actually give a shit about the matter like we do, he just wants to score points in this BS game." Wait. How do you know that? Isn't it possible and actually likely that he gives a shit AND wants to score political points? After all, what good is supporting a cause if you don't use it to score political points?
- obviouslygreen 13y agoIsn't it possible and actually likely that he gives a shit AND wants to score political points? Possible? Absolutely. Likely? That's impossible to know without knowing him and his motivations, and I would not call it a reasonable assumption given the generally self-serving state of US politicians (most others as well, but in this case they're the most relevant).
- will_brown 13y agoGood not only should the IRS phone records and their contents be released, but the phone records of all of Congress and their contents should be released, especially vis-a-vis congress and lobbyists and/or special interest groups. Starting with the Congressman making the request, all his communications should be opened up to the public for public scrutiny. This is called transparency and I like it, further the whereabouts via GPS tracking of all of Congress should be released cross referenced with the GPS location of all known special interest groups and lobbyists. Of course I want mine kept private, because I am a private citizen, not a public official.
- salimmadjd 13y agoAs much as I hate these types of partisanship maneuvers, but this one may have a positive consequence. Bringing up the reality and dangers of widespread eavesdropping. Now can we subpoena conversation between the VP, Cheney's office regarding the Valerie Plame or other fabrication about the Iraq war. Oh wait, I forgot. Democrats left their spine in a 70s time capsule.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- robomartin 13y agoWe have a political system in which the only way to win is to destroy your opposition, discredit them, shame them, find hidden dirt and upstage them in media clips. The ignorant voting masses are manipulated daily by our partisan media (all sides) and they mindlessly vote across party lines as they are told. If any of you were living in this political jungle you would have to resort to the same tactics in order to get anywhere and climb the ladders. You would engage in the kinds of analytics and optimizations that would lead you to quickly conclude that the issues don't matter as much as showing the ignorant masses --who's support you need-- how righteous you are against the other side, no matter which side of the isle you inhabit. That is the problem with the devolution of our political system. It's not about issues. It's not about rational consideration of mutually beneficial ideas. It's not about long term planning. It's not about fiscally sound policy. It's not about stopping to fuck with the rest of the world to focus on our internal needs. No, it's about the next six months, year, two or four years and the elections we have to win for the party. It's bullshit and it is exactly what is sinking this great nation. Regrettably, this mess has also created a positive feedback loop that, with every passing moment, makes the problem worst. This is what scares me about where we have been, where we are and where we are going. I am far from a political strategist, but I don't see this self-correcting until we suffer a truly catastrophic set of failures that cause people to wake up to the realities of what we have created. It's like the three hundred pound overweight man who can't stop eating until he gets to 600 pounds and then has a revelation. How do you get from 300 to 600 pounds and not realize you are killing yourself? How do you keep making the same flawed decisions? One pizza slice at a time. One lie at a time. One excuse at a time. Looking the other way a million little times. Ignoring the need for the "fiscal balance" of food intake, exercise and caloric needs. Talking about fixing it and not really doing anything about it. Put another way: Death by a thousand cuts. As a country we are probably well past the analogy of a 600 pound man who is dangerously overweight. We are on our way to 1200 pounds. The problem is the feedback loop. Nothing can stop it until the machine breaks. Or so it seems.
- DanielBMarkham 13y agoThis is structurally brilliant. All of those complaining about hypocrisy or partisanship are missing the point. Ignore the specific issue. The critical question this raises is this: if, as the administration says, the NSA needs all this data to find terrorists, who gets to say what it's used for or not? Ignore the entire privacy argument. If the executive branch is keeping records on all of this stuff, is it also claiming unique and sole access to it? Because if they are, anybody with a brain can see the problem. In fact, the partisanship of the Congressman spells it out in clear relief. Just picture that guy as the next president. If you give that much power to the executive and they alone make the decision how to use it, then by definition such information will be used for political purposes. Who gets to decide what is so evil that requires this special, and extra-constitutional, treatment? Everybody doesn't want terrorists, but how about supporting congressional investigations? Helping wrongly-accused people get out of jail? Divorce proceedings? Civil cases? Are we going to have a system of law and order where certain evidence is presented or not solely depending on the decisions of the executive branch? What this shows is that this NSA data thing just isn't bad, it's bad on multiple levels. It completely breaks the way our constitutional government is supposed to operate. Even if somehow the political weasels in DC get away with keeping the lid on it, the criminal and Congressional cases alone are going to cause a nightmare. Can you imagine how Congress is going to act if some pet cause of theirs could have been supported by evidence NSA refused to release? How criminal defendants are going to react if, years later, they learn that the government was holding exculpatory information? And it's just going to go on, and on, until they finally open it all up. Then there'll be a hell-storm. ADD: And I'm willing to bet 20 bucks that part of the data NSA is collecting is the location tracking information from our cellphones. (accurate to within 50 meters). Can you imagine the number of places in the rest of government operations where such information would be useful?
- hindsightbias 13y ago> location tracking information from our cellphones. Here's what a smart congressperson would ask: "Director Clapper, on April 15th, 2009, there were large protests around the country. Did your agency request cellular meta data covering that day?" It's likely obfiscated by the telco as I understand it, but imagine that freakout. We could pull our batteries out in 2003, but we don't have that feature anymore.
- drawkbox 13y agoWould have been nice if both a Democrat and Republican could have requested this as statesmen. I am not sure there are any left. I love this though. A group of R's and D's would be even better.
- _k 13y agoI wonder if we can ask for something similar in Europe. I live in Belgium and the government is snooping. Not on a similar scale. But it does happen without a warrant. It's all legal because the changed the constitution. I'm not sure what can be done about it. It might be against the EU constitution. I don't really know where to start. But I do want to stop it.
- genwin 13y agoThe actual letter requests the "records of every phone call". That should include the conversations, not just the logs. Of course this is grandstanding (but I support). The House Government Reform and Oversight Committee will simply ignore the request.
- balabaster 13y agoHas anyone seen the movie The Net? I can't help but keep being reminded that this is what's going on and it's only a matter of time before it starts becoming obvious to the public.