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It'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

It'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 ago
However, 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 ago
I 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 ago
  Even 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.

Goladus 13y ago

However, 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 ago

I 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 ago
Even 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.