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Obama Can’t Confirm If Courts Ever Rejected Spying Requests

164 points by marcieoum 13y ago

bmelton 13y ago
The number of requests is not, as Obama asserts, "surprisingly small". It is probably smaller than it ought to be, and in light of the NSA's recent admission that they've tapped warrantlessly, that's probably the explanation. Regardless, here's their record, and they certainly aren't disapproving much. https://epic.org/privacy/wiretap/stats/fisa_stats.html https://epic.org/privacy/wiretap/stats/fisa_stats.html If there's a reason that Obama can't confirm it (beyond that he just doesn't know), it's because it is believed that the FISC acts differently than other warrant-granting entities in that at least usually, when it denies a request, it also then provides guidance on how to refile the request in a way that it might be approved. Regular courts will do this on procedural errors, but not as a matter of course. In all likelihood, the 11 denials the FISC has issued over the past 34 years were likely all later converted to approvals with their guidance.
- CWuestefeld 13y ago
  Don't we have evidence why the number of requests is "surprisingly small"? All this time we assumed that the requests would refer to individuals who were under suspicion. But the Verizon order tells us differently. Here we've got one, giant request for "every call that passes through Verizon". It's a huge amount of spying being done, all carried on the back of one (or a handful) of blanket requests.
  - bmelton 13y ago
    As I understand it, that's possible, but the 'metadata' requests aren't routinely surveyed because they don't capture 'enough' data to constitute something that would require a warrant. To put it in more real world terms, it takes a warrant for me to go into your house and listen to what you're doing, but I am perfectly free to sit outside your house and watch your comings and goings without one. I believe (but do not know) that the current interpretation of the metadata requests is being treated like this, where the NSA simply feels that no warrant is required. Your argument however, probably holds more weight because, at the least, you would very much hope that Verizon and company wouldn't be handing over data without some kind of warrant, even with a 'strong suggestion' from the feds.
deleted 13y ago
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FSEA 13y ago
For reference, one FISA request can be an entire company's user-base. "Direct access" is direct enough when a majority of content can be accessed real-time, much of it back stored for "direct accessing" later using non obvious relationship awareness analysis. Citation: Much of HN's top listings the past few days. Go read.
yaakov 13y ago
Obama: > You have my telephone number connecting with your telephone number. There are no names. There is no content in that database...At no point is any content revealed because there’s no content that...the FBI — if, in fact, it now wants to get content; if, in fact, it wants to start tapping that phone Snowden (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/17/edward-snowden-nsa-files-whistleblower http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/17/edward-snowden-n...): > If I target for example an email address, for example under FAA 702, and that email address sent something to you, Joe America, the analyst gets it. All of it. IPs, raw data, content, headers, attachments, everything. Notice how Obama only talks about the phone metadata DB, and a process for getting data from companies about "non-US persons" (Google, etc) based on "essentially a warrant" (not the same thing as a warrant, though). Snowden's allegations are starting to become much wider than the original Verizon DB and PRISM systems. And I don't think that we are going to see Obama address them and deny them directly any time soon.
- angersock 13y ago
  One wonders how we score intermediate foreign mail servers or proxies for the purpose of determining tappability.
- brown9-2 13y ago
  The quotes you have highlighted are discussing two different things. Obama is referring to the phone metadata database. Snowden is referring to what an analyst sees after an email address is targeted, meaning that an active surveillance process has been started for that specific email address and that the email provider has begun to provide access. So of course these two statements are different, because they are talking about different things. The operative phrase in Snowden's statement is "If I target", which should be read as "after I start data collection for an email address...".
crispycret 13y ago
Best article I have read in a while. It's tragic comedy how they get a way with it. I mean i tried asking a group of friends what they thought, to learn they don't know what the fuck PRISM is! It usually goes. "No one cares about, what the government does, your just weird." I'm anti social so the only time I hangout with them is when I'm stoned. So I can see why I'm weird to the average teenager, but to not know about the government being caught spying on us, makes it seem like they were never really caught unless your on 4chan or reddit... Fuck it...
- FSEA 13y ago
  Is it anti-social to not want to hang out with people who don't care much for fair and just systems of governance?
- fragsworth 13y ago
  It's questionable that they are "getting away with it". The implications of what they've done are incredibly vast and damning. Not to mention, persistent - people now know everything they type on their computer is handed over to the government. That doesn't go away, no matter how much the media might want to ignore the subject. I'd actually be surprised if they completely get away with it. At least a few people will be in trouble over this whole thing. Lots of civil rights organizations are organizing lawsuits over this as we speak.
  - spikels 13y ago
    NYT columnist Maureen Dowd recently described a supposed political strategy in a recent column: “It’s not true, it’s not true, it’s not true, it’s old news.” If you can delay and delay and delay until the outrage disapates you just might be able to get away with something outrageous. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/12/opinion/sunday/dowd-when-myths-collide-in-the-capital.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/12/opinion/sunday/dowd-when-m...
  - Domenic_S 13y ago
    Like they get away with Guantanamo? "Enhanced interrogation"? Still being in the middle east? No-knock warrants? Please. This is the System. Nobody of any consequence will go to jail, because the System writes its own rules. That probably sounds a little tin-hatty, but face it, you're counting on the Government to properly regulate the Government, while waving TERR'STS and AL'QAEDA and an American flag. It's not going to happen. Eventually it will happen, but today is not that day.
malandrew 13y ago
The question I want to see asked is: "Obama, in the course of your day, you and your staff probably interact with many foreign diplomats and other persons which this system is likely to classify as 51% likely to be foreign. On top of that, the content of those conversation, depending on the topic at hand, is likely to include words that would trigger an alert. With this in mind, do you think it is acceptable that those in the NSA, many of whom may have a differing political affiliation than you, can read any correspondence flagged for review? Furthermore, how can any member of congress operate from a position of equality if they cannot have confidence that their communications could fall into the hands of their compatriots across the aisle that may have a different agenda?" If the answer to those questions included a filter that excluded all members of the executive, legislative and judicial, the obvious follow up question would be, "Why are members of congress allowed this right, but not the citizens of this country?" I would also take comments he made on the Wikileaks Manning trove and present them as counterpoints to any rebuttal he has. I don't remember anything verbatim, but I remember him specifically addressing the importance of American diplomats being able to be secure in their communications to be able to carry out the roles for which they were appointed. This exact same argument can be applied to every single elected representative of the people and every official appointed by a duly elected representative.
- aetimmes 13y ago
  I believe Snowden has gone on record saying that members of Congress are exempt from NSA spying.
  - malandrew 13y ago
    Are all the staffers of those members of congress and the counter-parties with whom they interact also exempt? If you know someone's address book, you can spy on them while maintaining the appearance of spying on others.
- brown9-2 13y ago
  Do you really think that the NSA isn't sensitive to not being seen as spying on Congress or the President? That would be an obvious scandal that any moron would be smart to avoid.
spikels 13y ago
Obama is almost certainly the best spoken US President in 50 years. But when asked a simple, straightforward yes or no question: "But has FISA court turned down any request?" We get this answer: "The — because — the — first of all, Charlie, the number of requests are surprisingly small… number one. Number two, folks don’t go with a query unless they’ve got a pretty good suspicion." Just blather, incoherence and grasping at straws. C'mon man you went to Columbia and Harvard Law, you give speeches almost every day - you can do better. How about "yes", "no" or "I don't know" next time.
- javert 13y ago
  The inarticulate, chopped-up sentences are one thing. But he's always been really big on the doublespeak, in my opinion.
- thaumasiotes 13y ago
  The inarticulate, chopped-up sentences are just an artifact of the article's author purposefully being nasty to Obama. Everybody talks like that; it's just not quoted as a matter of course.
  - MDCore 13y ago
    I think it makes more sense to say the author is writing it like that to show that Obama was stumbling with his words in response to a "yes/no/I don't know" question. That's useful information that I appreciate the author conveying.
    - thaumasiotes 13y ago
      The problem here is that that information is being conveyed solely through contentless innuendo. You can expect the same level of disfluency from a softball "How awesome is your new program?" "So awesome" Q&A session. People only think this transcript shows Obama stumbling with his words because they aren't aware that printed media cleans up the natural disfluencies that occur in speech. This transcript looks highly unusual, but that isn't because Obama's false starts and stops are unusual (they aren't). It's because it's unusual for them to be printed in a quote. Thus, the conclusion that the author is malicious. An attack on Obama for refusing to answer the question is fine. An attack on him for speaking like a normal person in a spoken interview makes no sense.
Qantourisc 13y ago
What surprises me the most is Americans never stopping and wondering about people outside the US. This is why I never used a lot of services inside the US, and the few I have I will remove over time.
- eru 13y ago
  Most are happy to buy "Made in the USA." and bash economic immigrants. Just because they were born on the wrong side of the border. Not unique to the USA, though.
deleted 13y ago
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tsotha 13y ago
It's amazing how little this guy knows.
weland 13y ago
Dear God, it's like I'm a kid again. I didn't grow up in the US; when I was a kid, we didn't have this kind of interviews on TV. For one thing, most of the TV shows they aired was propaganda, and it was so utterly boring most of us didn't bother. The newspapers, on the other hand, carried propaganda along with the news, so you kindda had to read it, too, if you were to know what's happening. The smarter folks could even read between the lines. This one struck the most sensible chord: > And what that does is that does not apply to any U.S. person. Has to be a foreign entity. Entities. Not individuals, not groups, but entities. If you're an American citizen, you're cool. If you're a foreign entity, you're preeeetty much either a ladybug or a human, either way, it's pretty much the same thing. This was Communist speak for non-Communist (to be fair, it was the twisted kind of Soviet-inspired Communism). We had communist workers and teachers and housewives, but foreign elements. Our country had communist friends but the democratic entities weren't that friendly. This defensive depersonalization makes it very easy to strip away ethics. Butchering unarmed civilians sounds a lot more horrifying than annihilating non-combatant, but dangerous entities. > The — because — the — first of all, Charlie, the number of requests are surprisingly small… number one. Number two, folks don’t go with a query unless they’ve got a pretty good suspicion. This sounds very much like the kind of conversation that, at some point, was taking place between Soviet representatives and representatives of various other subordinated, but somewhat nasty countries of the Soviet block. It's the kind of stuff that was handed out to us during the talks about the Warszaw pact. Is it true that the Soviet Union has supreme command of all troops and can invade any territory, even that of its allies? Well, no, I mean, it wouldn't be an invasion. It's a trade-off we have do for our freedom: should the Revolution be abandoned in any of the member countries, the allied countries should intervene to restore the right values. That is why the Soviet Union has to have representatives at all levels, must be informed of every decision. It's one of those things we must concede for democracy -- we need to entrust our freedom to people who can protect it. Words like freedom, democracy, values and way of life were freely thrown in -- ours was the land of the brave and free, unlike that of the oppressed working-class friends living in imperialist, totalitarian states. I shivered a bit when I read this. Edit: BTW, just to practice my reading-between-the-lines muscle, my guess is that a) FISA hasn't turned down any request yet and b) the requests were summarily "reviewed" and approved, through a short process that should give legal backing. In other words, FISA isn't there to actually review the requests, it's there simply in order to fill in the paperwork that's needed in order to make the whole thing seem legitimate. In the early days of the regime, we had something similar to this, too. The curious dudes submitted a request to a committee of representatives of the people -- the request was basically a form which said that the following people have highly suspicious activities that can be a threat to the security of our people, to the Revolution and the communist way of life we have so hardly fought for (actual fucking words!) and was recommended to be placed under surveillance. These were signed pretty much in bulk -- the representatives of the people usually signed a big list at the bottom. Later on, this was eventually dropped: complaining about paperwork was useless, and after a few years it became obvious complaining about paperwork was so dangerous that when it was no longer required, no one dared do anything about it.
captn3m0 13y ago
>What I can say unequivocally is that if you are a U.S. person, the NSA cannot listen to your telephone calls, and the NSA cannot target your emails … and have not. So I'm screwed as a non-US citizen, and so are the 2.5billion people using the internet outside of US purview. Now I'm seriously considering a switch to safer alternatives.
hooande 13y ago
The reason that FISA warrant requests have such a high acceptance rate is because a federal prosecutor wouldn't ask for one unless they were certain it would be approved. They don't have to file a request every time a federal agent wants a warrant. They have the option to say "You need to gather more evidence". They say a good trial lawyer won't ask a witness a question without knowing what the answer will be. FBI lawyers know the law and they know the judges, they won't just take shots in the dark when it comes to obtaining warrants. It's like asking why you have a 100% approval rate for your bank card purchases. If you know that you don't have enough money, you won't try to buy something. Keep in mind that it's difficult to become a federal prosecutor and the job attracts intelligent people. The kind of lawyer that you see advertising on the side of a bus or a local DA trying to make a name for herself will try to push the envelope to get as much as they can. But high level corporate or government lawyers rarely sign their names to anything that isn't legally rock solid. I just saw the Obama interview and he only hinted at this answer. As a Harvard trained lawyer he understands the system, but as POTUS he can't always be candid.
- MichaelGG 13y ago
  >But high level corporate or government lawyers rarely sign their names to anything that isn't legally rock solid. So magically, these "high level" people stop trying to overreach? Suddenly they're struck with a respect for privacy and law? That's simply not credible. Feds regularly abuse seizure laws[1], why would you possibly think they're more restrained elsewhere? I'd expect a reasonably high acceptance rate, especially if they're allowed to pick judges sympathetic to them. But a rate approaching zero should set off red flags. 1: e.g. http://www.wbur.org/2013/01/24/tewksbury-motel-foreclosure http://www.wbur.org/2013/01/24/tewksbury-motel-foreclosure
- eatitraw 13y ago
  Not just high acceptance rate, but 100% acceptance rate(or close to it). Why fucking bother about courts at all? Just let them obtain the information they want without any hassle: they are professional and know the law.
- TheCondor 13y ago
  That's the opium.... We don't know if the requests are good or bad. We have no way of reasoning about the approval rate other than looking to other courts, which suggest that it's impossibly high. We simply don't know but we wish. Alternatively, if you were the judge and presented with something, perhaps something you might think about rejecting and they say there is a pending threat and they think this guy might blow something up what would you do then? Knowing your decision likely would never be made public... At the very least they could make these decisions all go public after five years or something. The other counter argument here is that if everybody involved really takes it seriously, they are really looking out for our safety and really trying hard, shouldn't somewhat zealous agents try to overreach? Never a single case simply based upon religion or someone's nation of origin? Unless they just listen in anyways... In which case FISA is even more of a sham.
leoc 13y ago
> There is a second program called the 702 program. [...] It can only be narrowly related to counter-terrorism, weapons proliferation, cyber hacking or attacks A FISA 702 http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/110/hr6304/text http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/110/hr6304/text order (IANAL) authorises "the targeting of persons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States to acquire foreign intelligence information". In FISA http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-92/pdf/STATUTE-92-Pg1783.pdf http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-92/pdf/STATUTE-92-Pg178... section 101 "foreign intelligence information" is defined thus: (e) "Foreign intelligence information" means— (1) information that relates to, and if concerning a United States person is necessary to, the ability of the United States to protect against — (A) actual or potential attack or other grave hostile acts of a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power; (B) sabotage or international terrorism by a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power; or (C) clandestine intelligence activities by an intelligence service or network of a foreign power or by an agent of a foreign power; or PUBLIC LAW 95-511—OCT. 25, 1978 92 STAT. 1785 (2) information with respect to a foreign power or foreign territory that relates to, and if concerning a United States person is necessary to— (A) the national defense or the security of the United States; or (B) the conduct of the foreign affairs of the United States. Again IANAL, but it seems that just about any possible reason the US could have for going through a non-resident alien's GMail or Dropbox account could be waved through under (e)(2). Lockheed Martin would like to know all your business secrets? Of course this would benefit the national defense of the United States. Annoying EU politician holding out against whatever intellectual-property treaty the US government is pushing this year? Clearly the United States would be aided in the conduct of its foreign affairs by complete surveillance of his email and calendar, maybe even by tipping off some journalists about the affair he is having. (Again, I'm not saying here that anything much like this has happened, just suggesting that the "foreign intelligence information" requirement isn't going to prevent it from happening.) And it's not even clear to me that the FISC court has any requirement or ability to rule on whether the US government is staying within even this very generous "foreign intelligence information" requirement. On a FISA 702 certification the Government has to 702 (g)(2)(A) "attest that-- [...] '(v) a significant purpose of the acquisition is to obtain foreign intelligence information". Does this give the FISC any ability to inquire into the specifics, or is the government basically on Scout's honour in this? So I can't see any legal basis on which FAA 702 orders are restricted to being "narrowly related to counter-terrorism, weapons proliferation, cyber hacking or attacks". But I presume Pres. Obama isn't just lying here, so I assume that an executive decision has been made to that effect: that the NSA cube-farm workers who are grinding through routine counter-terrorist surveillance are under orders to so restrict themselves. But that would just be an administrative order, not a law actually binding on the government. So, at some level between the President and the desk-jockeys, the decision could be made at any time to revise or take away that restriction - or just to set it aside ad hoc at any time for any reason. I don't think it's even clear that the boys who handle industrial espionage and the like are covered by this order at all.
Mordor 13y ago
> I don’t think anybody says we’re no longer free because we have checkpoints at airports. Lies right there. It's difficult to call someone a liar because the scope is far reaching, beyond just one untruth or another. Would it be correct to say "Obama is a liar"?
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ChrisAntaki 13y ago
Then I can't support him.
fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
>Obama Can’t Confirm If Courts Ever Rejected Spying Requests That means either: Courts have not rejected any requests. or: The gov't has ignored [one or more of] the rejections.
CWuestefeld 13y ago
Apparently there has been at least one instance of the FISA court rejecting a request, but we're not allowed to know about it. From http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2013/06/justice-department-electronic-frontier-foundation-fisa-court-opinion http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2013/06/justice-department... the Justice Department was due to file a court motion Friday in its effort to keep secret an 86-page court opinion that determined that the government had violated the spirit of federal surveillance laws and engaged in unconstitutional spying. ... But in July 2012, Wyden was able to get the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to declassify two statements that he wanted to issue publicly. They were: - On at least one occasion the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court held that some collection carried out pursuant to the Section 702 minimization procedures used by the government was unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment. - I believe that the government's implementation of Section 702 of FISA [the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] has sometimes circumvented the spirit of the law, and on at least one occasion the FISA Court has reached this same conclusion.

164 points by marcieoum 13y ago

The number of requests is not, as Obama asserts, "surprisingly small". It is probably smaller than it ought to be, and in light of the NSA's recent admission that they've tapped warrantlessly, that's probably the explanation. Regardless, here's their record, and they certainly aren't disapproving much. https://epic.org/privacy/wiretap/stats/fisa_stats.html https://epic.org/privacy/wiretap/stats/fisa_stats.html If there's a reason that Obama can't confirm it (beyond that he just doesn't know), it's because it is believed that the FISC acts differently than other warrant-granting entities in that at least usually, when it denies a request, it also then provides guidance on how to refile the request in a way that it might be approved. Regular courts will do this on procedural errors, but not as a matter of course. In all likelihood, the 11 denials the FISC has issued over the past 34 years were likely all later converted to approvals with their guidance.

CWuestefeld 13y ago
Don't we have evidence why the number of requests is "surprisingly small"? All this time we assumed that the requests would refer to individuals who were under suspicion. But the Verizon order tells us differently. Here we've got one, giant request for "every call that passes through Verizon". It's a huge amount of spying being done, all carried on the back of one (or a handful) of blanket requests.
- bmelton 13y ago
  As I understand it, that's possible, but the 'metadata' requests aren't routinely surveyed because they don't capture 'enough' data to constitute something that would require a warrant. To put it in more real world terms, it takes a warrant for me to go into your house and listen to what you're doing, but I am perfectly free to sit outside your house and watch your comings and goings without one. I believe (but do not know) that the current interpretation of the metadata requests is being treated like this, where the NSA simply feels that no warrant is required. Your argument however, probably holds more weight because, at the least, you would very much hope that Verizon and company wouldn't be handing over data without some kind of warrant, even with a 'strong suggestion' from the feds.

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FSEA 13y ago

For reference, one FISA request can be an entire company's user-base. "Direct access" is direct enough when a majority of content can be accessed real-time, much of it back stored for "direct accessing" later using non obvious relationship awareness analysis. Citation: Much of HN's top listings the past few days. Go read.

yaakov 13y ago

Obama: > You have my telephone number connecting with your telephone number. There are no names. There is no content in that database...At no point is any content revealed because there’s no content that...the FBI — if, in fact, it now wants to get content; if, in fact, it wants to start tapping that phone Snowden (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/17/edward-snowden-nsa-files-whistleblower http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/17/edward-snowden-n...): > If I target for example an email address, for example under FAA 702, and that email address sent something to you, Joe America, the analyst gets it. All of it. IPs, raw data, content, headers, attachments, everything. Notice how Obama only talks about the phone metadata DB, and a process for getting data from companies about "non-US persons" (Google, etc) based on "essentially a warrant" (not the same thing as a warrant, though). Snowden's allegations are starting to become much wider than the original Verizon DB and PRISM systems. And I don't think that we are going to see Obama address them and deny them directly any time soon.

angersock 13y ago
One wonders how we score intermediate foreign mail servers or proxies for the purpose of determining tappability.
brown9-2 13y ago
The quotes you have highlighted are discussing two different things. Obama is referring to the phone metadata database. Snowden is referring to what an analyst sees after an email address is targeted, meaning that an active surveillance process has been started for that specific email address and that the email provider has begun to provide access. So of course these two statements are different, because they are talking about different things. The operative phrase in Snowden's statement is "If I target", which should be read as "after I start data collection for an email address...".

crispycret 13y ago

Best article I have read in a while. It's tragic comedy how they get a way with it. I mean i tried asking a group of friends what they thought, to learn they don't know what the fuck PRISM is! It usually goes. "No one cares about, what the government does, your just weird." I'm anti social so the only time I hangout with them is when I'm stoned. So I can see why I'm weird to the average teenager, but to not know about the government being caught spying on us, makes it seem like they were never really caught unless your on 4chan or reddit... Fuck it...

FSEA 13y ago
Is it anti-social to not want to hang out with people who don't care much for fair and just systems of governance?
fragsworth 13y ago
It's questionable that they are "getting away with it". The implications of what they've done are incredibly vast and damning. Not to mention, persistent - people now know everything they type on their computer is handed over to the government. That doesn't go away, no matter how much the media might want to ignore the subject. I'd actually be surprised if they completely get away with it. At least a few people will be in trouble over this whole thing. Lots of civil rights organizations are organizing lawsuits over this as we speak.
- spikels 13y ago
  NYT columnist Maureen Dowd recently described a supposed political strategy in a recent column: “It’s not true, it’s not true, it’s not true, it’s old news.” If you can delay and delay and delay until the outrage disapates you just might be able to get away with something outrageous. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/12/opinion/sunday/dowd-when-myths-collide-in-the-capital.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/12/opinion/sunday/dowd-when-m...
- Domenic_S 13y ago
  Like they get away with Guantanamo? "Enhanced interrogation"? Still being in the middle east? No-knock warrants? Please. This is the System. Nobody of any consequence will go to jail, because the System writes its own rules. That probably sounds a little tin-hatty, but face it, you're counting on the Government to properly regulate the Government, while waving TERR'STS and AL'QAEDA and an American flag. It's not going to happen. Eventually it will happen, but today is not that day.

malandrew 13y ago

The question I want to see asked is: "Obama, in the course of your day, you and your staff probably interact with many foreign diplomats and other persons which this system is likely to classify as 51% likely to be foreign. On top of that, the content of those conversation, depending on the topic at hand, is likely to include words that would trigger an alert. With this in mind, do you think it is acceptable that those in the NSA, many of whom may have a differing political affiliation than you, can read any correspondence flagged for review? Furthermore, how can any member of congress operate from a position of equality if they cannot have confidence that their communications could fall into the hands of their compatriots across the aisle that may have a different agenda?" If the answer to those questions included a filter that excluded all members of the executive, legislative and judicial, the obvious follow up question would be, "Why are members of congress allowed this right, but not the citizens of this country?" I would also take comments he made on the Wikileaks Manning trove and present them as counterpoints to any rebuttal he has. I don't remember anything verbatim, but I remember him specifically addressing the importance of American diplomats being able to be secure in their communications to be able to carry out the roles for which they were appointed. This exact same argument can be applied to every single elected representative of the people and every official appointed by a duly elected representative.

aetimmes 13y ago
I believe Snowden has gone on record saying that members of Congress are exempt from NSA spying.
- malandrew 13y ago
  Are all the staffers of those members of congress and the counter-parties with whom they interact also exempt? If you know someone's address book, you can spy on them while maintaining the appearance of spying on others.
brown9-2 13y ago
Do you really think that the NSA isn't sensitive to not being seen as spying on Congress or the President? That would be an obvious scandal that any moron would be smart to avoid.

spikels 13y ago

Obama is almost certainly the best spoken US President in 50 years. But when asked a simple, straightforward yes or no question: "But has FISA court turned down any request?" We get this answer: "The — because — the — first of all, Charlie, the number of requests are surprisingly small… number one. Number two, folks don’t go with a query unless they’ve got a pretty good suspicion." Just blather, incoherence and grasping at straws. C'mon man you went to Columbia and Harvard Law, you give speeches almost every day - you can do better. How about "yes", "no" or "I don't know" next time.

javert 13y ago
The inarticulate, chopped-up sentences are one thing. But he's always been really big on the doublespeak, in my opinion.
thaumasiotes 13y ago
The inarticulate, chopped-up sentences are just an artifact of the article's author purposefully being nasty to Obama. Everybody talks like that; it's just not quoted as a matter of course.
- MDCore 13y ago
  I think it makes more sense to say the author is writing it like that to show that Obama was stumbling with his words in response to a "yes/no/I don't know" question. That's useful information that I appreciate the author conveying.
  - thaumasiotes 13y ago
    The problem here is that that information is being conveyed solely through contentless innuendo. You can expect the same level of disfluency from a softball "How awesome is your new program?" "So awesome" Q&A session. People only think this transcript shows Obama stumbling with his words because they aren't aware that printed media cleans up the natural disfluencies that occur in speech. This transcript looks highly unusual, but that isn't because Obama's false starts and stops are unusual (they aren't). It's because it's unusual for them to be printed in a quote. Thus, the conclusion that the author is malicious. An attack on Obama for refusing to answer the question is fine. An attack on him for speaking like a normal person in a spoken interview makes no sense.

Qantourisc 13y ago

What surprises me the most is Americans never stopping and wondering about people outside the US. This is why I never used a lot of services inside the US, and the few I have I will remove over time.

eru 13y ago
Most are happy to buy "Made in the USA." and bash economic immigrants. Just because they were born on the wrong side of the border. Not unique to the USA, though.

deleted 13y ago

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tsotha 13y ago

It's amazing how little this guy knows.

weland 13y ago

Dear God, it's like I'm a kid again. I didn't grow up in the US; when I was a kid, we didn't have this kind of interviews on TV. For one thing, most of the TV shows they aired was propaganda, and it was so utterly boring most of us didn't bother. The newspapers, on the other hand, carried propaganda along with the news, so you kindda had to read it, too, if you were to know what's happening. The smarter folks could even read between the lines. This one struck the most sensible chord: > And what that does is that does not apply to any U.S. person. Has to be a foreign entity. Entities. Not individuals, not groups, but entities. If you're an American citizen, you're cool. If you're a foreign entity, you're preeeetty much either a ladybug or a human, either way, it's pretty much the same thing. This was Communist speak for non-Communist (to be fair, it was the twisted kind of Soviet-inspired Communism). We had communist workers and teachers and housewives, but foreign elements. Our country had communist friends but the democratic entities weren't that friendly. This defensive depersonalization makes it very easy to strip away ethics. Butchering unarmed civilians sounds a lot more horrifying than annihilating non-combatant, but dangerous entities. > The — because — the — first of all, Charlie, the number of requests are surprisingly small… number one. Number two, folks don’t go with a query unless they’ve got a pretty good suspicion. This sounds very much like the kind of conversation that, at some point, was taking place between Soviet representatives and representatives of various other subordinated, but somewhat nasty countries of the Soviet block. It's the kind of stuff that was handed out to us during the talks about the Warszaw pact. Is it true that the Soviet Union has supreme command of all troops and can invade any territory, even that of its allies? Well, no, I mean, it wouldn't be an invasion. It's a trade-off we have do for our freedom: should the Revolution be abandoned in any of the member countries, the allied countries should intervene to restore the right values. That is why the Soviet Union has to have representatives at all levels, must be informed of every decision. It's one of those things we must concede for democracy -- we need to entrust our freedom to people who can protect it. Words like freedom, democracy, values and way of life were freely thrown in -- ours was the land of the brave and free, unlike that of the oppressed working-class friends living in imperialist, totalitarian states. I shivered a bit when I read this. Edit: BTW, just to practice my reading-between-the-lines muscle, my guess is that a) FISA hasn't turned down any request yet and b) the requests were summarily "reviewed" and approved, through a short process that should give legal backing. In other words, FISA isn't there to actually review the requests, it's there simply in order to fill in the paperwork that's needed in order to make the whole thing seem legitimate. In the early days of the regime, we had something similar to this, too. The curious dudes submitted a request to a committee of representatives of the people -- the request was basically a form which said that the following people have highly suspicious activities that can be a threat to the security of our people, to the Revolution and the communist way of life we have so hardly fought for (actual fucking words!) and was recommended to be placed under surveillance. These were signed pretty much in bulk -- the representatives of the people usually signed a big list at the bottom. Later on, this was eventually dropped: complaining about paperwork was useless, and after a few years it became obvious complaining about paperwork was so dangerous that when it was no longer required, no one dared do anything about it.

captn3m0 13y ago

>What I can say unequivocally is that if you are a U.S. person, the NSA cannot listen to your telephone calls, and the NSA cannot target your emails … and have not. So I'm screwed as a non-US citizen, and so are the 2.5billion people using the internet outside of US purview. Now I'm seriously considering a switch to safer alternatives.

hooande 13y ago

The reason that FISA warrant requests have such a high acceptance rate is because a federal prosecutor wouldn't ask for one unless they were certain it would be approved. They don't have to file a request every time a federal agent wants a warrant. They have the option to say "You need to gather more evidence". They say a good trial lawyer won't ask a witness a question without knowing what the answer will be. FBI lawyers know the law and they know the judges, they won't just take shots in the dark when it comes to obtaining warrants. It's like asking why you have a 100% approval rate for your bank card purchases. If you know that you don't have enough money, you won't try to buy something. Keep in mind that it's difficult to become a federal prosecutor and the job attracts intelligent people. The kind of lawyer that you see advertising on the side of a bus or a local DA trying to make a name for herself will try to push the envelope to get as much as they can. But high level corporate or government lawyers rarely sign their names to anything that isn't legally rock solid. I just saw the Obama interview and he only hinted at this answer. As a Harvard trained lawyer he understands the system, but as POTUS he can't always be candid.

MichaelGG 13y ago
>But high level corporate or government lawyers rarely sign their names to anything that isn't legally rock solid. So magically, these "high level" people stop trying to overreach? Suddenly they're struck with a respect for privacy and law? That's simply not credible. Feds regularly abuse seizure laws[1], why would you possibly think they're more restrained elsewhere? I'd expect a reasonably high acceptance rate, especially if they're allowed to pick judges sympathetic to them. But a rate approaching zero should set off red flags. 1: e.g. http://www.wbur.org/2013/01/24/tewksbury-motel-foreclosure http://www.wbur.org/2013/01/24/tewksbury-motel-foreclosure
eatitraw 13y ago
Not just high acceptance rate, but 100% acceptance rate(or close to it). Why fucking bother about courts at all? Just let them obtain the information they want without any hassle: they are professional and know the law.
TheCondor 13y ago
That's the opium.... We don't know if the requests are good or bad. We have no way of reasoning about the approval rate other than looking to other courts, which suggest that it's impossibly high. We simply don't know but we wish. Alternatively, if you were the judge and presented with something, perhaps something you might think about rejecting and they say there is a pending threat and they think this guy might blow something up what would you do then? Knowing your decision likely would never be made public... At the very least they could make these decisions all go public after five years or something. The other counter argument here is that if everybody involved really takes it seriously, they are really looking out for our safety and really trying hard, shouldn't somewhat zealous agents try to overreach? Never a single case simply based upon religion or someone's nation of origin? Unless they just listen in anyways... In which case FISA is even more of a sham.

leoc 13y ago

> There is a second program called the 702 program. [...] It can only be narrowly related to counter-terrorism, weapons proliferation, cyber hacking or attacks A FISA 702 http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/110/hr6304/text http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/110/hr6304/text order (IANAL) authorises "the targeting of persons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States to acquire foreign intelligence information". In FISA http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-92/pdf/STATUTE-92-Pg1783.pdf http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-92/pdf/STATUTE-92-Pg178... section 101 "foreign intelligence information" is defined thus: (e) "Foreign intelligence information" means— (1) information that relates to, and if concerning a United States person is necessary to, the ability of the United States to protect against — (A) actual or potential attack or other grave hostile acts of a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power; (B) sabotage or international terrorism by a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power; or (C) clandestine intelligence activities by an intelligence service or network of a foreign power or by an agent of a foreign power; or PUBLIC LAW 95-511—OCT. 25, 1978 92 STAT. 1785 (2) information with respect to a foreign power or foreign territory that relates to, and if concerning a United States person is necessary to— (A) the national defense or the security of the United States; or (B) the conduct of the foreign affairs of the United States. Again IANAL, but it seems that just about any possible reason the US could have for going through a non-resident alien's GMail or Dropbox account could be waved through under (e)(2). Lockheed Martin would like to know all your business secrets? Of course this would benefit the national defense of the United States. Annoying EU politician holding out against whatever intellectual-property treaty the US government is pushing this year? Clearly the United States would be aided in the conduct of its foreign affairs by complete surveillance of his email and calendar, maybe even by tipping off some journalists about the affair he is having. (Again, I'm not saying here that anything much like this has happened, just suggesting that the "foreign intelligence information" requirement isn't going to prevent it from happening.) And it's not even clear to me that the FISC court has any requirement or ability to rule on whether the US government is staying within even this very generous "foreign intelligence information" requirement. On a FISA 702 certification the Government has to 702 (g)(2)(A) "attest that-- [...] '(v) a significant purpose of the acquisition is to obtain foreign intelligence information". Does this give the FISC any ability to inquire into the specifics, or is the government basically on Scout's honour in this? So I can't see any legal basis on which FAA 702 orders are restricted to being "narrowly related to counter-terrorism, weapons proliferation, cyber hacking or attacks". But I presume Pres. Obama isn't just lying here, so I assume that an executive decision has been made to that effect: that the NSA cube-farm workers who are grinding through routine counter-terrorist surveillance are under orders to so restrict themselves. But that would just be an administrative order, not a law actually binding on the government. So, at some level between the President and the desk-jockeys, the decision could be made at any time to revise or take away that restriction - or just to set it aside ad hoc at any time for any reason. I don't think it's even clear that the boys who handle industrial espionage and the like are covered by this order at all.

Mordor 13y ago

> I don’t think anybody says we’re no longer free because we have checkpoints at airports. Lies right there. It's difficult to call someone a liar because the scope is far reaching, beyond just one untruth or another. Would it be correct to say "Obama is a liar"?

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ChrisAntaki 13y ago

Then I can't support him.

fnordfnordfnord 13y ago

>Obama Can’t Confirm If Courts Ever Rejected Spying Requests That means either: Courts have not rejected any requests. or: The gov't has ignored [one or more of] the rejections.

CWuestefeld 13y ago

Apparently there has been at least one instance of the FISA court rejecting a request, but we're not allowed to know about it. From http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2013/06/justice-department-electronic-frontier-foundation-fisa-court-opinion http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2013/06/justice-department... the Justice Department was due to file a court motion Friday in its effort to keep secret an 86-page court opinion that determined that the government had violated the spirit of federal surveillance laws and engaged in unconstitutional spying. ... But in July 2012, Wyden was able to get the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to declassify two statements that he wanted to issue publicly. They were: - On at least one occasion the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court held that some collection carried out pursuant to the Section 702 minimization procedures used by the government was unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment. - I believe that the government's implementation of Section 702 of FISA [the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] has sometimes circumvented the spirit of the law, and on at least one occasion the FISA Court has reached this same conclusion.