7 ms·

There’s a Secret Patriot Act, Senator Says (2011)

140 points by cheese1756 13y ago

cheese1756 13y ago
It's pretty interesting to look at the NSA leaks in hindsight, especially with an eye towards the foreshadowing and warning signs that exist today for the countless programs we don't know about. Take a look at this too, from a year ago: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/06/nsa-spied/ http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/06/nsa-spied/
- mabhatter 13y ago
  But NSA leaks are TREASON, no matter how small. This isnt even military level treason, this is death in a cold ditch treason. To maintain operational discipline they have to kill him... Very horribly. This only shows that the premiere spying organization has been ruined from reckless expansion and mission creep. They are hiring SPIES that are pretending to be police... The NSA's charter is signals intelligence. If its a signal, they are EXPECTED to read it, if its encrypted, they are EXPECTED to crack it. Doesn't matter who it's from or to. Advances in computers gave generated more electronic personal communication, and more ability to spy and collect it. The problem comes back to the patriot act and the his guided idea that the NSA was supposed to SHARE its intel. The problem is that the NSA as spies are looking for things that are ILLEGAL for police to look for, they are looking for things that cause blackmail and treason... Bad gambling debts, family medical problems, cheating politicians and executives, religious extremists in people's families... The things that give terrorists and spies leverage over honest people that have access to the government and can be used for blackmailing them into illegal activities. Regular police have no business with that kind of info, and they have no concept of using it with restraint, they just hurt people with it.
rdl 13y ago
I suppose Wyden/Paul 2016 isn't really feasible, but it would be a good way to solve issues of governmental overreach.
- hrkristian 13y ago
  They'd get some tens of thousands of votes from 4chan, that's for sure. Until you realise most of them can't vote from being underage and/or foreigners. Oh nevermind.
  - tokenizer 13y ago
    I was a little upset at your post, until I realized I was pissed AND from Canada... So are any Americans actually upset about this, or do us foreigners care more about your country than you guys do?
    - Vivtek 13y ago
      Trust me, plenty of us are pissed while still being from the United States - not that the media will ever tell you that.
    - noarchy 13y ago
      Being in Canada, too, I think people here are just as apathetic as those in the US over things like this, maybe even more so. I don't trust CSEC to not be spying on me any more than I'd trust NSA.
      - tokenizer 13y ago
        You're right. And it'll definitely have to be looked into (I haven't looked into it yet to be honest). The main issue I have with the NSA debacle isn't the act, which you could argue is mainstream, it's the procedures. It should require a warrant to even access someone's data. It should never be monitored of stored without suspicion, and it should be left to a court warrant in plain view not in a secret court. Going with that, I'll have to research our procedures up here.
- tokenizer 13y ago
  I'd love to see people try get this going. Call it, the bipartisan party!
ambassador451 13y ago
If only the mainstream media would stop parroting government lies, then I think we the people could rise up and stop the NSA. It's going to take intelligent people like us on the internet to finally stop Pax Americana from oppressing our freedoms.
- Amadou 13y ago
  This is what happens when you don't parrot the government lies (from a previous HN article): http://www.thenation.com/article/174851/strange-case-barrett-brown http://www.thenation.com/article/174851/strange-case-barrett... The espionage-industrial complex is on the order of a $50 billion/year industry. That kind of money buys a lot of ignoring american ideals.
  - InclinedPlane 13y ago
    Don't peddle this bullshit. There is a more than strong enough case of government abuse of power and wrongdoing, there's no need to make allusions to shadowy conspiracies that kill people without leaving any evidence. It weakens the argument rather than strengthening it. Stand on the facts, the facts are more than good enough.
    - Amadou 13y ago
      I don't know where you got "allusions to shadowy conspiracies that kill people" from. I posted (a) a story about a reporter being very publicly persecuted for investigative reporting unfriendly to the government status quo and (b) referred to the quite well established fact that money tends to make people forget their ideals.
- frozenport 13y ago
  Hi welcome to HN, I see you haven't made many posts. I am wondering if you could compare how life in Pax Americana with life in Russia or China. I am myself from Russia and can say that Americans enjoy significantly more freedom in the real world.
jgreen10 13y ago
Seems like there are two options here: 1. Define laws mathematically 2. Fight corruption Not sure which one is easier.
- InclinedPlane 13y ago
  #1 is not possible, so....
  - jcromartie 13y ago
    Why not?
    - thurn 13y ago
      Human language & behavior are not Turing-recognizable.
    - samolang 13y ago
      "As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality." - Albert Einstein
    - InclinedPlane 13y ago
      No system of ethics can be 100% perfectly self-consistent in a mathematical sense. And no legal system can remove ambiguity from human interactions, there will always be fuzzy gray areas which require subjective interpretation. Consider something very straightforward such as the notion that using violence is never allowed except in utmost self-defense. Firstly, it's not possible to determine the circumstances of an event without doubt. Secondly, it's similarly difficult to determine intent and motivation, being internal to the human mind, which means that it's impossible to prove in every case whether or not a perceived attacker actually meant to hurt or kill someone and whether or not someone alleged to be defending themselves perceived such a threat and acted only to defend themselves. And going back to the first point, even if violence were completely outlawed it would be difficult in many cases to rule out an accidental cause of death vs. an intentional cause. There's simply no way to divorce justice from subjective judgment (of both the facts and the intent). Additionally, the attempt to divorce the law from society, to make it a separate edifice independent of human beings, is itself a very dangerous idea. To the extent that such a thing is possible it would mean the ability to mold mankind into whatever form you desired, through the force of external law.
just2n 13y ago
I have a few thoughts after reading this article: 1. This (re: citizens violating classified laws or legal interpretations) is definitely a situation where any sane judge/jury would find against the ignorantia juris non excusat principle, so I don't expect the use of any of this to hold up in any court, ever, not just because its effects are potentially unconstitutional. And any judge worth the wood upon which they sit would dismiss any evidence presented that has been gathered as a result in that it wasn't obtained with a legal warrant, or in any manner that is constitutional. 2. This is massive amounts of ammunition for conspiracy theorists, especially truthers. Let me give it a try: 9/11 was an inside job, orchestrated by the US government under the Bush administration as a false flag operation in order to to get the Patriot Act passed with plans to classify interpretations which would give the government over-reaching powers to violate the constitutional rights of citizens to the point of being able to create a Stasi state. 3. Why don't we demand impeachment if Obama re-authorizes any part of the Patriot Act, obviously knowing about classified secret interpretations which have already been found to be unconstitutional (re: classified findings)? The congress has the ability to decide whether or not the President has committed a "high crime", and I'm fairly certain this fits the historical meaning of that term.. knowingly and willingly violating the constitutional rights of every US citizen, a constitution which the president is sworn to defend (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_office_of_the_President_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_office_of_the_Presiden...).
- shadowfiend 13y ago
  Wait… The Patriot Act is passed and reauthorized by Congress first. So you're suggesting that if Congress passes a reauthorization, and Obama signs it, then that same Congress should go back and impeach him? This seems… Unlikely… The Patriot Act is a law. The buck stops at Congress. They passed it the first time. They reauthorized the parts of it that are still around the subsequent times. Trying to redirect the blame to the administration, which has, by the way, done plenty of things wrong, is a misunderstanding of the system and a distortion that does no one any favors. When we concentrate responsibility in the executive, we support the concentration of power in the executive, as well. The Patriot Act is Congress's responsibility. And unless we send a strong signal as a nation, from sea to shining sea, to our representatives, that its powers are no longer acceptable (if, indeed, they ever were), nothing will change substantively. Congress is where the blame lies, no matter which administration the act was passed under or which administration it's being administered under now. Congress, Congress, Congress. They pass the laws, no matter whether or not the administration helps write them.
graycat 13y ago
IANAL, so help! So, as in the OP, suppose I'm in business, and the FBI knocks at my door and says that they want all the data in my server farm. I say, "Just a minute while I contact my lawyer". Then I turn to the FBI and say, "My lawyer says we'll see you in court. I've got to get back to work. Be seeing you.". So, in court, the FBI lawyers tell the judge that they are due the data in my server farm because of a double secret, triple top secret, national security, national command authority, black law that can't be talked about because the first rule of black law is never talk about the rules of black law. Then the judge says what? This is a joke, right? Or, get out'a here. Or. you can take your double-triple nonsense back to your FBI HQ funny farm and use it for intellectual self abuse, but you've got nothing more to do here or with the defendant. That's the way it would work, right? Or, maybe as in the OP there are some double-triple secret laws, but as soon as the FBI wants to use one to get all the data in my server farm, we go to court, and the judge starts laughing, right?
- mcguire 13y ago
  "I say, 'Just a minute while I contact my lawyer'." Wouldn't it be amusing if, by revealing the request to an outside, third-party, your lawyer, you were in violation of the requirements of the request and had therefore committed a criminal act? "...because of a double secret, triple top secret, national security, national command authority, black law..." Of course, the judge is privy to the law and the government's evidence, even if you and your defense counsel are, regrettably, not. But he, naturally, can be trusted to understand the gravity of the situation and act in a fair, impartial manner with regards to the laws of this nation, right? You poor bastard.
  - graycat 13y ago
    Sounds like I will need to program a big red button for my server farm: I see a knock at the door with an FBI badge and then push the big red button. Boom -- my Web site starts putting up circulating arrows indicating an over busy condition; the last of my data for an incremental backup gets encrypted and shipped, in pieces, but with considerable redundancy, to 10 undisclosed, secure, foreign locations; and all the data on my server farm is erased by being written over. Then I open the door with the FBI guys! Or, I have a really nice looking server farm, totally neat and squeaky clean, behind nice, spotless glass walls, with doors controlled with finger print scanners. So, I let the FBI in to that glass house and let them have all the data. When they come back the next week and demand the private key for the RSA encryption, I object and delay but finally give in and let them have the key. Meanwhile, there are some optical fibers running to a hidden basement of a run down, ugly, old building where the real server farm is! When the FBI/NSA/CIA/DHS decrypts the data they got, all they see is "Mary had a little lamb.". Meanwhile, back at the farm, everything's been moved to Iceland with backup sites in Switzerland, the Cayman Islands, etc. And I'm out'a here on my private plane/yacht/submarine, whatever, to my own undisclosed, secure, foreign location. Then my Web site goes live again! Unfortunately such things may not be entirely a joke.
malandrew 13y ago
If I were Wyden, I would just pen an entire new bill that describes exactly what is going on already and send it to the Congress to be voted on. I would be the best way to publish what is happening. Everything in the bill could be written in the future tense, so it can't be seen as declassifying what is going on in the present.

140 points by cheese1756 13y ago

It's pretty interesting to look at the NSA leaks in hindsight, especially with an eye towards the foreshadowing and warning signs that exist today for the countless programs we don't know about. Take a look at this too, from a year ago: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/06/nsa-spied/ http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/06/nsa-spied/

mabhatter 13y ago
But NSA leaks are TREASON, no matter how small. This isnt even military level treason, this is death in a cold ditch treason. To maintain operational discipline they have to kill him... Very horribly. This only shows that the premiere spying organization has been ruined from reckless expansion and mission creep. They are hiring SPIES that are pretending to be police... The NSA's charter is signals intelligence. If its a signal, they are EXPECTED to read it, if its encrypted, they are EXPECTED to crack it. Doesn't matter who it's from or to. Advances in computers gave generated more electronic personal communication, and more ability to spy and collect it. The problem comes back to the patriot act and the his guided idea that the NSA was supposed to SHARE its intel. The problem is that the NSA as spies are looking for things that are ILLEGAL for police to look for, they are looking for things that cause blackmail and treason... Bad gambling debts, family medical problems, cheating politicians and executives, religious extremists in people's families... The things that give terrorists and spies leverage over honest people that have access to the government and can be used for blackmailing them into illegal activities. Regular police have no business with that kind of info, and they have no concept of using it with restraint, they just hurt people with it.

rdl 13y ago

I suppose Wyden/Paul 2016 isn't really feasible, but it would be a good way to solve issues of governmental overreach.

hrkristian 13y ago
They'd get some tens of thousands of votes from 4chan, that's for sure. Until you realise most of them can't vote from being underage and/or foreigners. Oh nevermind.
- tokenizer 13y ago
  I was a little upset at your post, until I realized I was pissed AND from Canada... So are any Americans actually upset about this, or do us foreigners care more about your country than you guys do?
  - Vivtek 13y ago
    Trust me, plenty of us are pissed while still being from the United States - not that the media will ever tell you that.
  - noarchy 13y ago
    Being in Canada, too, I think people here are just as apathetic as those in the US over things like this, maybe even more so. I don't trust CSEC to not be spying on me any more than I'd trust NSA.
    - tokenizer 13y ago
      You're right. And it'll definitely have to be looked into (I haven't looked into it yet to be honest). The main issue I have with the NSA debacle isn't the act, which you could argue is mainstream, it's the procedures. It should require a warrant to even access someone's data. It should never be monitored of stored without suspicion, and it should be left to a court warrant in plain view not in a secret court. Going with that, I'll have to research our procedures up here.
tokenizer 13y ago
I'd love to see people try get this going. Call it, the bipartisan party!

ambassador451 13y ago

If only the mainstream media would stop parroting government lies, then I think we the people could rise up and stop the NSA. It's going to take intelligent people like us on the internet to finally stop Pax Americana from oppressing our freedoms.

Amadou 13y ago
This is what happens when you don't parrot the government lies (from a previous HN article): http://www.thenation.com/article/174851/strange-case-barrett-brown http://www.thenation.com/article/174851/strange-case-barrett... The espionage-industrial complex is on the order of a $50 billion/year industry. That kind of money buys a lot of ignoring american ideals.
- InclinedPlane 13y ago
  Don't peddle this bullshit. There is a more than strong enough case of government abuse of power and wrongdoing, there's no need to make allusions to shadowy conspiracies that kill people without leaving any evidence. It weakens the argument rather than strengthening it. Stand on the facts, the facts are more than good enough.
  - Amadou 13y ago
    I don't know where you got "allusions to shadowy conspiracies that kill people" from. I posted (a) a story about a reporter being very publicly persecuted for investigative reporting unfriendly to the government status quo and (b) referred to the quite well established fact that money tends to make people forget their ideals.
frozenport 13y ago
Hi welcome to HN, I see you haven't made many posts. I am wondering if you could compare how life in Pax Americana with life in Russia or China. I am myself from Russia and can say that Americans enjoy significantly more freedom in the real world.

jgreen10 13y ago

Seems like there are two options here: 1. Define laws mathematically 2. Fight corruption Not sure which one is easier.

InclinedPlane 13y ago
#1 is not possible, so....
- jcromartie 13y ago
  Why not?
  - thurn 13y ago
    Human language & behavior are not Turing-recognizable.
  - samolang 13y ago
    "As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality." - Albert Einstein
  - InclinedPlane 13y ago
    No system of ethics can be 100% perfectly self-consistent in a mathematical sense. And no legal system can remove ambiguity from human interactions, there will always be fuzzy gray areas which require subjective interpretation. Consider something very straightforward such as the notion that using violence is never allowed except in utmost self-defense. Firstly, it's not possible to determine the circumstances of an event without doubt. Secondly, it's similarly difficult to determine intent and motivation, being internal to the human mind, which means that it's impossible to prove in every case whether or not a perceived attacker actually meant to hurt or kill someone and whether or not someone alleged to be defending themselves perceived such a threat and acted only to defend themselves. And going back to the first point, even if violence were completely outlawed it would be difficult in many cases to rule out an accidental cause of death vs. an intentional cause. There's simply no way to divorce justice from subjective judgment (of both the facts and the intent). Additionally, the attempt to divorce the law from society, to make it a separate edifice independent of human beings, is itself a very dangerous idea. To the extent that such a thing is possible it would mean the ability to mold mankind into whatever form you desired, through the force of external law.

just2n 13y ago

I have a few thoughts after reading this article: 1. This (re: citizens violating classified laws or legal interpretations) is definitely a situation where any sane judge/jury would find against the ignorantia juris non excusat principle, so I don't expect the use of any of this to hold up in any court, ever, not just because its effects are potentially unconstitutional. And any judge worth the wood upon which they sit would dismiss any evidence presented that has been gathered as a result in that it wasn't obtained with a legal warrant, or in any manner that is constitutional. 2. This is massive amounts of ammunition for conspiracy theorists, especially truthers. Let me give it a try: 9/11 was an inside job, orchestrated by the US government under the Bush administration as a false flag operation in order to to get the Patriot Act passed with plans to classify interpretations which would give the government over-reaching powers to violate the constitutional rights of citizens to the point of being able to create a Stasi state. 3. Why don't we demand impeachment if Obama re-authorizes any part of the Patriot Act, obviously knowing about classified secret interpretations which have already been found to be unconstitutional (re: classified findings)? The congress has the ability to decide whether or not the President has committed a "high crime", and I'm fairly certain this fits the historical meaning of that term.. knowingly and willingly violating the constitutional rights of every US citizen, a constitution which the president is sworn to defend (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_office_of_the_President_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_office_of_the_Presiden...).

shadowfiend 13y ago
Wait… The Patriot Act is passed and reauthorized by Congress first. So you're suggesting that if Congress passes a reauthorization, and Obama signs it, then that same Congress should go back and impeach him? This seems… Unlikely… The Patriot Act is a law. The buck stops at Congress. They passed it the first time. They reauthorized the parts of it that are still around the subsequent times. Trying to redirect the blame to the administration, which has, by the way, done plenty of things wrong, is a misunderstanding of the system and a distortion that does no one any favors. When we concentrate responsibility in the executive, we support the concentration of power in the executive, as well. The Patriot Act is Congress's responsibility. And unless we send a strong signal as a nation, from sea to shining sea, to our representatives, that its powers are no longer acceptable (if, indeed, they ever were), nothing will change substantively. Congress is where the blame lies, no matter which administration the act was passed under or which administration it's being administered under now. Congress, Congress, Congress. They pass the laws, no matter whether or not the administration helps write them.

graycat 13y ago

IANAL, so help! So, as in the OP, suppose I'm in business, and the FBI knocks at my door and says that they want all the data in my server farm. I say, "Just a minute while I contact my lawyer". Then I turn to the FBI and say, "My lawyer says we'll see you in court. I've got to get back to work. Be seeing you.". So, in court, the FBI lawyers tell the judge that they are due the data in my server farm because of a double secret, triple top secret, national security, national command authority, black law that can't be talked about because the first rule of black law is never talk about the rules of black law. Then the judge says what? This is a joke, right? Or, get out'a here. Or. you can take your double-triple nonsense back to your FBI HQ funny farm and use it for intellectual self abuse, but you've got nothing more to do here or with the defendant. That's the way it would work, right? Or, maybe as in the OP there are some double-triple secret laws, but as soon as the FBI wants to use one to get all the data in my server farm, we go to court, and the judge starts laughing, right?

mcguire 13y ago
"I say, 'Just a minute while I contact my lawyer'." Wouldn't it be amusing if, by revealing the request to an outside, third-party, your lawyer, you were in violation of the requirements of the request and had therefore committed a criminal act? "...because of a double secret, triple top secret, national security, national command authority, black law..." Of course, the judge is privy to the law and the government's evidence, even if you and your defense counsel are, regrettably, not. But he, naturally, can be trusted to understand the gravity of the situation and act in a fair, impartial manner with regards to the laws of this nation, right? You poor bastard.
- graycat 13y ago
  Sounds like I will need to program a big red button for my server farm: I see a knock at the door with an FBI badge and then push the big red button. Boom -- my Web site starts putting up circulating arrows indicating an over busy condition; the last of my data for an incremental backup gets encrypted and shipped, in pieces, but with considerable redundancy, to 10 undisclosed, secure, foreign locations; and all the data on my server farm is erased by being written over. Then I open the door with the FBI guys! Or, I have a really nice looking server farm, totally neat and squeaky clean, behind nice, spotless glass walls, with doors controlled with finger print scanners. So, I let the FBI in to that glass house and let them have all the data. When they come back the next week and demand the private key for the RSA encryption, I object and delay but finally give in and let them have the key. Meanwhile, there are some optical fibers running to a hidden basement of a run down, ugly, old building where the real server farm is! When the FBI/NSA/CIA/DHS decrypts the data they got, all they see is "Mary had a little lamb.". Meanwhile, back at the farm, everything's been moved to Iceland with backup sites in Switzerland, the Cayman Islands, etc. And I'm out'a here on my private plane/yacht/submarine, whatever, to my own undisclosed, secure, foreign location. Then my Web site goes live again! Unfortunately such things may not be entirely a joke.

malandrew 13y ago

If I were Wyden, I would just pen an entire new bill that describes exactly what is going on already and send it to the Congress to be voted on. I would be the best way to publish what is happening. Everything in the bill could be written in the future tense, so it can't be seen as declassifying what is going on in the present.