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While I'm impressed at seeing "sea lawyering" done by civilians for once, I'm going to admit that I fail to see how a program that the public didn't know about

by mpyne 13y ago

While I'm impressed at seeing "sea lawyering" done by civilians for once, I'm going to admit that I fail to see how a program that the public didn't know about and didn't notice (since otherwise we wouldn't say Snowden blew the whistle) could possibly be said to "substantively affect the public".

asperous 13y ago
The NSA would say that it "substantively affected the public by protecting them". In fact, that would be interesting case if the NSA claimed to agree with you. Perhaps that is this case's intention. You see if the NSA claimed that it did not affect the public, then there would not be a tradeoff involved in violating privacy.
- mpyne 13y ago
  And then the NSA would claim that more people die from falling in bathtubs than due to terrorism, so that the beneficial effect of their efforts, while psychologically quite morale-boosting, is not actually a substantive effect. I guarantee they win your game of screwed-up logic. Just look at the contortions they're able to make to record phone calls without a warrant. ;)
declan 13y ago
The Verizon FISA court order would be the evidence. I suppose that the groups filing this petition (and likely to litigate eventually) would claim that Americans can be substantively affected in terms of 4A and privacy harms even in the absence of knowledge. Not an exact analogy, but if the FBI got a secret court to issue a secret order to secretly search everyone's house in a city looking for people doing Evil Thing X, and nobody knew about it until much later, would that presumptively illegal search be something that "substantively affect[ed] the public?"
- mpyne 13y ago
  I like the thought, but I personally wouldn't call a change in knowledge alone a substantive effect, there would have to be some concrete effect IMHO as well. E.g. if I was able to take those phone records and somehow benefit at the stock market by it that could be said to have substantively affected the public, but it would be hard for me to see "knowing a bunch of specific calls were made" as that by itself. And if the NSA is doing their job near-properly any actual substantive effect would have occurred to the non-U.S. public, which I can't imagine that the Act in question was envisioned to cover.
adventured 13y ago
The intentional violation of the 4th amendment by the government, has a very radical and substantive affect on the American public, both today and even more particularly in the future. The violation of my privacy has an affect on me, regardless of if I know about it: it illegally increases what the government knows about me, against my will and rights; current behavior / beliefs etc can be used against me in the future by a repressive government. Their knowledge base changes their behavior toward me (one way or another), thus an affect upon me. Simple black and white example: someone takes a dollar out of your bank account every day, but you fail to notice. Does that make it ok? Obviously not, and your freedom is a lot more valuable than a dollar bill. You might not have noticed, but you've lost something. Another simple black and white example: a law is passed committing me to slavery, but nobody ever comes around to actually enslave me, and in fact absolutely nothing changes - except in government codified documents, it directly states that I am a slave. Has that affected me? Yes, my understood status and rights as a human being have been completely altered. That is the most substantive affect possible, and the same is true about eliminating my right to be protected against warrantless search & seizure. There is little question that when the government alters what it regards to be my rights, thus how it views and treats me, that has a material affect upon my life now and in the future.

by mpyne 13y ago

asperous 13y ago

The NSA would say that it "substantively affected the public by protecting them". In fact, that would be interesting case if the NSA claimed to agree with you. Perhaps that is this case's intention. You see if the NSA claimed that it did not affect the public, then there would not be a tradeoff involved in violating privacy.

mpyne 13y ago
And then the NSA would claim that more people die from falling in bathtubs than due to terrorism, so that the beneficial effect of their efforts, while psychologically quite morale-boosting, is not actually a substantive effect. I guarantee they win your game of screwed-up logic. Just look at the contortions they're able to make to record phone calls without a warrant. ;)

declan 13y ago

The Verizon FISA court order would be the evidence. I suppose that the groups filing this petition (and likely to litigate eventually) would claim that Americans can be substantively affected in terms of 4A and privacy harms even in the absence of knowledge. Not an exact analogy, but if the FBI got a secret court to issue a secret order to secretly search everyone's house in a city looking for people doing Evil Thing X, and nobody knew about it until much later, would that presumptively illegal search be something that "substantively affect[ed] the public?"

mpyne 13y ago
I like the thought, but I personally wouldn't call a change in knowledge alone a substantive effect, there would have to be some concrete effect IMHO as well. E.g. if I was able to take those phone records and somehow benefit at the stock market by it that could be said to have substantively affected the public, but it would be hard for me to see "knowing a bunch of specific calls were made" as that by itself. And if the NSA is doing their job near-properly any actual substantive effect would have occurred to the non-U.S. public, which I can't imagine that the Act in question was envisioned to cover.

adventured 13y ago

The intentional violation of the 4th amendment by the government, has a very radical and substantive affect on the American public, both today and even more particularly in the future. The violation of my privacy has an affect on me, regardless of if I know about it: it illegally increases what the government knows about me, against my will and rights; current behavior / beliefs etc can be used against me in the future by a repressive government. Their knowledge base changes their behavior toward me (one way or another), thus an affect upon me. Simple black and white example: someone takes a dollar out of your bank account every day, but you fail to notice. Does that make it ok? Obviously not, and your freedom is a lot more valuable than a dollar bill. You might not have noticed, but you've lost something. Another simple black and white example: a law is passed committing me to slavery, but nobody ever comes around to actually enslave me, and in fact absolutely nothing changes - except in government codified documents, it directly states that I am a slave. Has that affected me? Yes, my understood status and rights as a human being have been completely altered. That is the most substantive affect possible, and the same is true about eliminating my right to be protected against warrantless search & seizure. There is little question that when the government alters what it regards to be my rights, thus how it views and treats me, that has a material affect upon my life now and in the future.