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NSA Rejecting FOIA Requests by US Citizens

266 points by jmtame 13y ago

zobzu 13y ago
I, for one, believe that this kind of tactic is detrimental to the country in the long run. Their objective is clear and a "legitimate" even thus not "ethical" attempt to protect "the country". However, this only works for a while. While nobody sympathize with your cause anymore, the artificial barriers and protection are useless, as information will leak literally everywhere, since everyone wants to you see you fall. This seems to be a common way for countries to fall after reaching their apex.
andridk 13y ago
What bothers me most is that Americans can actually file these petitions and receive answers. What about Europeans (and others) who have been spied on by a foreign state? Not so long ago, this would've been considered an act of war, to spy on your allies on such a grand scale. The sad part is, that our governments or either in on it, or running their own spy programs. I really don't feel like I am living in a "free world" any more.
- deleted 13y ago
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- JulianMorrison 13y ago
  Welcome to reality. The truth is that there never has been a "free world". But the upside of that is that people who struggle to "get it back" are approaching closer now than at any previous point to creating it.
- alan_cx 13y ago
  The obvious question is you why you believed were living in a free world while the US was kidnapping and torturing foreigners, while threatening countries by telling them they'd be bombed back in to the stone age? I do very much agree with your points, but I don't understand why this issues is a tipping point. Since I began to understand politics, I have been as wary and skeptical of the US government as I have been impressed by the good achievements of the US. I've not believed in the idea that the US leads any sort of free world for years. Or, if you are honest, is this the first issue that you feel affects you? Were you confident that you wouldn't be rendered, bombed or drone struck? But now you can be sure the NSA have your data and that it might actually matter? If so, Im not judging you in any way. Its just I think a lot of people are possibly in that boat too, and it also might highlight why still a most people seem to dismiss this. They think it isnt or wont be a problem for them. What has been blown for me by all this is the notion of freedom of speech. While we in Europe seem to have given that up, I used to think the US hadn't.
  - clicks 13y ago
    For me, this actually was the tipping point. In social groups I hung out I was usually the guy who'd defend America on numerous accounts, but in the last few weeks I've been bombarded by a load of information which I find to be truly chilling. By the way, it is interesting to note how we separate our past history from our active perceptions of the place. America's early history is not too bright -- we did some of the most batshit evil stuff you could think of: genocide of Red Indians, slavery (which to me when I really sit down and think deep about, sometimes, seems worse than just killing a person -- it's fucking killing the very dignity and respect every human being is owed, it's depriving them of any and all pleasures to life). I don't think we've made much amends for it -- the cycle of poverty still persists for a lot of African American folks, there are rather few social programs that really try to help them in meaningfully substantive ways. There are folks alive to this very day who faced system institutional racism from our government. We did some pretty evil stuff during and after the Cold war too -- someone linked this in another post yesterday: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentation_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentatio... -- this one truly shocked me: Researchers in the United States have performed thousands of human radiation experiments to determine the effects of atomic radiation and radioactive contamination on the human body, generally on people who were poor, sick, or powerless. It has suddenly become a lot more uncomfortable for me living in America in these few weeks after some reading (especially as I'm actually a foreigner to this land -- I escaped a different country through asylum some while back). It is apparently completely uncontroversial that United States experimented on poor people with radioactive contamination... how do I know the US won't poison me with some biological weapon as an experiment, or because I'm currently unemployed (and thus poor)?
    - alan_cx 13y ago
      Thanks for that. I understand your position a lot better now. Interesting that you chose to escape to the US. So, its not like you had negative feeling form the start, in fact, the exact opposite. The US represented not just freedom, but perhaps life for you, perhaps too your family. So, I guess it must be quite hard for you to have to re-evaluate that. For me, the jarring thing is that for years I was able to sit here in the UK claiming some sort of moral superiority and intelligent of policy/thought. I suppose that deep down I know that was BS, but in this spying think I feel we are actually worse. To be honest, the tow post 9/11 wars were a huge dent, but this is twisting the knife as it were.
- buro9 13y ago
  You haven't been living in a free world for a while. You just hadn't realised. I've just posted another story that I felt illustrates this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6001546 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6001546 It's the story of Andrew Feldmar, of something legal in a different time and place being deemed illegal today by a different country, and the consequences. I remember reading that in 2007 and having it dawn on me that we are not living in a free world. We've been living in an age of innocence and naivety, we should've woken up a while ago, but are only slowly beginning to now.
- cmdkeen 13y ago
  It's just simply not true that it would be considered an act of war - quite the opposite it was known that everyone was up to it. The UK had a intelligence asset in the German finance ministry during the 90s according to Richard Tomlinson. When he was going around Europe after his falling out with the SIS (the real MI6) Germany offered him residence if he gave up the person. France was perfectly willing to give him a home in return for information. Now what there has been a long tradition of is bad things happening to those engaged in espionage. There's a reason conventions on conflict exempt spies, agents provocateurs and franc-tireurs from decent treatment. The more modern examples would be the downing of the US EP-3E on Hainan Island, the USS Pueblo, the USSR trying to sink NATO submarines in their territorial waters. You were never living in a free world if you term it to be being immune to the actions of a power if it decided to turns its attentions to you. The question is will any foreign power ever actually care about you? And if it did what would it do? Because this is where the cassus belli part comes it - your safety is pretty guaranteed. Britain has after all gone to war over a ship captain's ear historically. Italy more recently stood up the USA over the rendition of its suspects. Foreign governments spy to collect information to their own advantage, not to affect your life individually.
- eli 13y ago
  Anyone can file a federal FOIA request; you don't have to be a US citizen.
- aclevernickname 13y ago
  You're living in a Free World. Have you read the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights? Those are the ones you need to enforce, alongside your Intellectual Property rights ( to your likeness, voice samples, and output). Take them to the International Criminal Court. but _you_ have to sue. As a person with rights that can be prejudiced.
softbuilder 13y ago
This isn't really that surprising, offensive, or disappointing. I wouldn't expect them to divulge specific data just because it was discovered that they were collecting it. In fact it could be a really, really bad idea. The best outcome here is to get them to stop collecting the data. Neckbeards sending FOIA requests isn't serving any purpose.
- scottshea 13y ago
  "Neckbeards sending FOIA requests isn't serving any purpose." Could you be more judgmental? Whomever is sending these requests, shaving habits aside, may not adhere to your premise that 'The best outcome here is to get them to stop collecting the data'. It could very well be that they just want to know what has been collected on them.
  - otisfunkmeyer 13y ago
    Negativity is easier than sending FOIA requests. QED.
  - softbuilder 13y ago
    >It could very well be that they just want to know what has been collected on them. Sophistry. He says he can think of nothing that would require monitoring. So he's protesting. Nothing wrong with that, just be honest about it. IIRC there was at least one website set up to automate FOIA requests to the NSA after the Snowden info came out. Why is this guy's story special? It isn't. Why is this even a story? I'm appalled by the NSA activity, I support Snowden, and I want change, but this story is designed to agitate for political effect and nothing more.
- deleted 13y ago
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Sharlin 13y ago
Sending a FOIA request is probably a nice way of guaranteeing you will be given some special attention from now on, even if they didn't have a file of you beforehand.
- mathgladiator 13y ago
  Perhaps, but perhaps we should have a bunch of different types of people making these requests to add some noise to their filters.
  - mb0 13y ago
    I imagine most of the people who have sent FOIA requests are people who take their privacy seriously. Regular people don't 1) know that they can do this, 2) know the procedure for filing a request, 3) don't have time to do it, or think that they don't have enough time. Maybe a campaign could be organized to have hundreds or thousands of of regular people send requests. Get the required paperwork setup in an easy template, organize free postage for the letters, people just have to provide some basic information, sign a sheet of paper, and provide a return address. A lot more unrest would build up if the NSA refused to give information to more people, and their refusals could become big news.
    - mathgladiator 13y ago
      Are they required to response, and if so, what are the ramifications for failing this? This is one of those things that I feel, in my heart, should be organized.
      - AaronI 13y ago
        They have 20 days to respond to the initial request. If they don't respond, the first step should be to submit an administrative appeal to the FOIA contact for the agency. They have 20 days to respond to your appeal. If that appeal is denied or you still don't get a response, you can file a lawsuit in your nearest US District Court (the statue of limitations is 6 years). The agency will respond to the complaint, and you'll know whether it's worth your time to pursue it.
tls 13y ago
In short: Entropy. Facebook, Microsoft, (admittingly have handed this information with ease), etc.... what we know is too much for you to handle so for your own protection and the protection drafted by a few is what now jurisdicts what we can and can not say. We (our govt / those granted amnesty ) can no longer divulge information. What is key and what is troubling everyone since the jump is what 'they' are going to do with this information, and what 'they' have been doing. For a lot of you it is easy hyphothesis what a person can do with this information, for instance it has made Mark a billioninaire and countless others rich. It would be a sad state to see this information fall into the wrong hand(s), so it is my hope that someone somewhere makes the decision that no one goverment should be privy to it for the true sake of this freedom we so vicariously fight for.
pivnicek 13y ago
"Trust us" will never be good enough. Not when accused are not able to know the charges against them. Not when you can be held indefinitely without judicial recourse. Not when prosecutors demand ludicrous sentences for accessing a public API. Not when the executive has the apparently legal ability to assassinate opponents without oversight. No. Sorry, there can be no trust in such an arrangement. You want trust? Don't have secret courts.
- mtgx 13y ago
  What's even their reasoning for having the Court secret? That terrorists will threaten them or attack them? Come on, that has the be the fear every single judge has to live with, and I think a normal judge who has to decide on a drug lord's case has a lot more to fear than some random terrorists, just because they agree to letting the NSA spying on everyone. I think being secret has a lot more to do with them being able to abuse the laws, and not letting the public know about it. There's no good reason to keep the FISA Court secret.
  - Myrmornis 13y ago
    Surely the point is to prevent knowledge of their activities from being public because it would be helpful to adversaries?
    - revscat 13y ago
      Unfortunately, it seems that the public are the adversaries.
  - Amadou 13y ago
    The court was created during the cold war. It has basically been repurposed for the war on terror. The original foe had sophisticated intelligence agencies and keeping the rulings secret was at least a plausible argument in the spy-vs-spy mindset of the era. But the war on terror involves a handful of college kids and peasants. They don't have anything more than the ability to do google searches. Joe Paranoid doesn't need confirmation from guys like Snowden, he just assumes the worst and goes from there. The massive secrecy around the war on terror (there are now over 4 million active clearances, nearly 1.5 top-secret clearances, that's twice the population of DC) is an artifact of the cold-war regulations that provides little to no tactical advantage but practically eliminate oversight.
Svip 13y ago
This sort of illustrates the striking difference between the American intelligence programmes and the European ones. While the Europeans are not necessarily better, they are at least public and - yes - you can request the information if you so please (of course, you cannot ask them to remove it). I am not advocating the European logging of internet traffic, but I will give them the very least credit they deserve: Being public. The Swedish FRA, the Danish Logningsbekendtgørelse, the German Vorratsdatenspeicherung, etc.; while bad themselves, they are at least public knowledge.
- tobiasu 13y ago
  Voratsdatenspeicherung has nothing to do with the secret services. It is a tool for the police they can access with a warrant. The BND is not complaining that this is currently ruled unconstitutional, they are simply not affected.
  - Svip 13y ago
    I apologise for the wrong wording. I merely meant to say they are in the same category, i.e. collecting data on 'everyone' and only making use of it later.
    - tripzilch 13y ago
      But at least it's not under the blanket term of "terrorism" :)
- zobzu 13y ago
  Actually some EU programs will reply to you that no data exist "to their knowledge", while data actually does exist. At least the NSA ain't lying. :P
  - clicks 13y ago
    > At least the NSA ain't lying Sorry, wrong. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYgkjczoBYk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYgkjczoBYk It appears to be highly likely that were it not for the recent leaks, NSA would have just outright lied and told you that they had no data on you.
downandout 13y ago
In case you didn't read the whole letter, it basically tells him that the government makes the rules, that the rules say that these widely-publicized programs are classified, and that if he wants to know what they have on him he can f@@k off. We should be outraged by these responses, but not particularly surprised. They are taking the only stance they can take: you found us out, but you can't do anything about it. The only thing that we can do is assume that every electronic communication we make is being monitored, stored, and analyzed, and conduct ourselves accordingly.
- linohh 13y ago
  If we conduct ourselves accordingly, the NSA wins.
  - downandout 13y ago
    I meant that we should secure our communications, not that we should kneel to our dark overlords.
    - linohh 13y ago
      Which is perfectly acceptable. However, we're computer experts. Most of us know how to encrypt. The common man doesn't. If we (the experts) go on the digital lam, the NSA still wins, because they get the common man. We need to make crypto easier, we need to provide tools everyone can use. It's our responsibility to educate the masses. Otherwise we're just as antisocial as the governments.
      - jfolny 13y ago
        Well said, well said indeed.
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
      - tjoff 13y ago
        "We need to make crypto easier, we need to provide tools everyone can use." If that succeeds, you still think encryption will be legal? (without support from the government (read: backdoor enabled))
linuxhansl 13y ago
Add usually "national security" is used to trump everything. How convenient for government agencies to hide behind this.
aclevernickname 13y ago
Oh man, this is easy. They denied his request because there was no confirmation that they did or did not have information. send a "Hi how are you" letter to the NSA chief, naming him as a party, with an affidavit stating that the NSA does, in fact, have information on you. Give him 10 days to rebut it. Then give him a second letter, acknowledging his fault/acquiescence to the affidavit. then 10 days after that, send a third notice cementing his agreement to the affidavit's truth. THEN you go do a FOIA request. Include your paperwork with the FOIA request. They can't refuse, because they'd have to contradict your private agreement with the NSA Chief first. if they do refuse, you now have legal recourse in (Secret) courts, because the NSA will now be proven to have obstructed process.
- pennig 13y ago
  Child's play, really.
  - aclevernickname 13y ago
    as my prof once said: "it ain't as easy as 1-2-3, but it is as easy as 1-2-3-4-5-6".
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
wittysense 13y ago
I wish all the best for the U.S., but this country has only presented fear and obstacles to my family, and demands loyalty, recognition. I am a Citizen of the World, and it will be strictly incidental should I corroborate with the U.S. in any way. I bring peace and sharing — But I will not be lied to, and I will not be coerced into a lifestyle not of my choosing, and I will not be intimidated. I deserve better. The United States has driven me to a life of constant fear, fear not based in delusion but in the severe mismanagement of its society. Daily I find myself at the mercy of its community, whose fear shake the seat of my soul: beliefs of technological domination, spying, etc. I will no longer provide free consultation, on doorsteps or coffeeshops; nor will I abide the complaints of American peoples. Of this decaying society (U.S.), its peoples will manically accuse anarchism or even the grossest fictions, due to an untrained intellect. Of this decaying society (U.S.), its people must find someone to blame — at which point anarchism becomes indistinguishable from treason. The United States has mismanaged not only its government; it has injected a venom against intimacy, intelligence, and true investigation. I cannot trust the United States to secure my freedom of intimacy, freedom of intelligence, nor can I trust its integrity or investigation. I find it disrespectful to myself and undermining to my initiatives to qualify my identity with "U.S. Citizen." In any event, most people who look at me assume I do not speak English. You cannot coerce someone into looking like an American, and a majority of Americans only look at me with abjection or fear since I have "wild" dreadlocks, which to them look unkept. In many cities, I am heckled on the street with terms like "nigger" and "faggot"; and in polite society, potential peers are taken aback at my personal history ("You can't REALLY be from there!") or even the mere fact that I am a trained philosopher and Web developer. In many ways I look like a "primitive" man largely on account of very matured dreadlocks, and this society is simply too naive, sexually repressed to allow for people who look like Russell Brand to walk the streets: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADJhErmJuoQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADJhErmJuoQ. Every one of my days in public with you Americans reminds me of that interview. Even yesterday some square approached me to ask if rolling up one pant-leg was a "new fashion thing." I will not be trapped in a country of style-vultures-spies-after-our-personal-brands XOR complaint-ridden-poverty-stricken. I deserve better.
- wavefunction 13y ago
  You sound as close-minded as some of the people you're railing against. A square? What does "an American" look like? I look pretty "normal" or at least my outward appearance is intentionally low-key and non-descript. For me it is the internal that is important though someone who puts a high priority on external ornamentation as an indicator of personality and character would never know if you just went by my external appearance.
ringmaster 13y ago
When you write an authentication system with username and password you never display an error like "that password is incorrect", because then the attacker knows that the username is a valid one. Why does everyone here assume that it's a vast conspiracy when, if they returned everything they had on you, it would be a giant red flag to anyone who was denied that they were being explicitly monitored? The only way to guarantee secrecy for records that should rightfully be secret (whether you agree with the collection methods or not) is to deny everyone's request.
shmerl 13y ago
So, NSA became a state within a state with no democratic oversight whatsoever. Is anyone surprised that they crave more and more power?
revelation 13y ago
I'm confused. The NSA has basically unlimited powers under the premise that it does not spy on US citizens. So if US citiziens ask what data the NSA has on them, what other legal answer could there be other than 'none'? And what secrets would be revealed in that answer, given that the NSA has been mandated not to spy on US citiziens?
- twoodfin 13y ago
  The NSA can intercept US citizens' international communications under roughly the same theory that allows customs officials to search you at the border without probable cause.
eli 13y ago
I agree with the NSA here. Any data they give you about yourself would necessarily tell you what sort of data collection methods they use, which would make it harder to collect data about anyone.
- Asparagirl 13y ago
  That's a feature, not a bug.
davidp 13y ago
I'm no fan of the recent fourth amendment violations, but the NSA's response is actually reasonable here given its proper mission. Re-read this section, but imagine the requester was asking for information on whether the NSA had collected information about his communications and movements during his recent trip to China: Any positive or negative response on a request-by-request basis would allow our adversaries [China] to accumulate information and draw conclusions about NSA's technical capabilities, sources, and methods. Our adversaries are likely to evaluate all public responses related to these programs. Were we to provide positive or negative responses to requests such as yours, our adversaries' compilation of the information provided would reasonably be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security. This is completely accurate. If the NSA actually responded to these requests, it would be trivial for an adversary (e.g. China) to probe the extent and nature of the information the NSA collects, just by having their agents regularly file FOIA requests. My main problem with these programs is the lack of oversight and any kind of public controls to prevent abuse by bad actors. I don't mind when judges issue warrants to gather private information; that's oversight, with a level of public visibility eventually involved. Warrants are accounted for right there in the fourth amendment. But these programs are known, thanks to Edward Snowden, to have shoddy controls over individual analyst access to the information. That alone reveals an institutional bias inside the NSA against respecting citizens' privacy; if they treated it as a really big deal then Snowden wouldn't have been able to gain access to individual information as he has claimed. Consequently I have little faith that justice would be served on analysts or departments who use the information for their own purposes, and that's the core problem for me. We know the FBI treated Martin Luther King as a potential terrorist. If the NSA's information had been available to them, why wouldn't they have asked for it, formally or otherwise, if there were no negative consequences? What does that mean for political activism given today's more tightly integrated Department of Homeland Security?
- fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
  The Glomar Response is getting a little tiresome given that nearly everyone is now aware of the surveillance program. WRT China, the NSA has had a listening post inside China, in cooperation with the Chinese, ever since shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran. While the missions are different, it should leave no doubts in the minds of the Chinese intelligence people as to the technical capabilities of the NSA. Between that and the fact that the Chinese are no slouches themselves in communications (their public communications infrastructure is vastly larger than in the US), or in spying on their citizens. I doubt the Chinese have much to learn from these press releases.
anuraj 13y ago
In spite of the outrage, where is the occupy NSA, occupy washington movements? States are not going to reduce surveillance - they have the power and means to do so - and would like to perpetuate the same. Want to preserve your privacy? "Come on!Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!"
- orthecreedence 13y ago
  Did you attend the Restore the 4th protests on July 4th? That's the main movement right now to fight back.
gwu78 13y ago
It's for your own protection, Mr. Kafka, unless of course it's for someone else's protection.
herbig 13y ago
I received the same rejection letter to my request. What's the point of being able to request it if they can arbitrarily reject it?
thezach 13y ago
I'm going to play devils advocate... if the NSA released what information they collect on me seeing that information might show more details on the manner that they collect the data. If more details on the manner that they collect data were to become public then the people the NSA should be targeting such as Al Queda and foreign countries might develop techniques to stop us from monitoring them. The argument about we know it exists so tell us more because we already know its there really does not add up. I know that Obama's limo has some really cool protective measures, but you know very well that they won't tell me what they are or what they are not. Theres a reason for it.
- innguest 13y ago
  Security through Obscurity? I thought we disliked that.
mikeash 13y ago
We're posting and upvoting links to dailykos.com on HN now? Flagged for linking to blogspam on a site filled with nonsense. Is it that hard to click the "Originally published at" link? http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2013/07/06/nsa-rejecting-every-foia-request-made-by-u-s-citizens/ http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2013/07/06/nsa-rejecting-e...
- rhizome 13y ago
  Flagged for linking to blogspam on a site filled with nonsense. Yet medium.com links are still OK.
- ics 13y ago
  David Harris-Gershon is a writer for both blogs. They were published to both sources on the same day. He is also following comments on the Daily Kos post, which is obviously targeted to a broader audience. I agree that original sources are best, but in this case there is no value lost.

266 points by jmtame 13y ago

zobzu 13y ago

I, for one, believe that this kind of tactic is detrimental to the country in the long run. Their objective is clear and a "legitimate" even thus not "ethical" attempt to protect "the country". However, this only works for a while. While nobody sympathize with your cause anymore, the artificial barriers and protection are useless, as information will leak literally everywhere, since everyone wants to you see you fall. This seems to be a common way for countries to fall after reaching their apex.

andridk 13y ago

What bothers me most is that Americans can actually file these petitions and receive answers. What about Europeans (and others) who have been spied on by a foreign state? Not so long ago, this would've been considered an act of war, to spy on your allies on such a grand scale. The sad part is, that our governments or either in on it, or running their own spy programs. I really don't feel like I am living in a "free world" any more.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
JulianMorrison 13y ago
Welcome to reality. The truth is that there never has been a "free world". But the upside of that is that people who struggle to "get it back" are approaching closer now than at any previous point to creating it.
alan_cx 13y ago
The obvious question is you why you believed were living in a free world while the US was kidnapping and torturing foreigners, while threatening countries by telling them they'd be bombed back in to the stone age? I do very much agree with your points, but I don't understand why this issues is a tipping point. Since I began to understand politics, I have been as wary and skeptical of the US government as I have been impressed by the good achievements of the US. I've not believed in the idea that the US leads any sort of free world for years. Or, if you are honest, is this the first issue that you feel affects you? Were you confident that you wouldn't be rendered, bombed or drone struck? But now you can be sure the NSA have your data and that it might actually matter? If so, Im not judging you in any way. Its just I think a lot of people are possibly in that boat too, and it also might highlight why still a most people seem to dismiss this. They think it isnt or wont be a problem for them. What has been blown for me by all this is the notion of freedom of speech. While we in Europe seem to have given that up, I used to think the US hadn't.
- clicks 13y ago
  For me, this actually was the tipping point. In social groups I hung out I was usually the guy who'd defend America on numerous accounts, but in the last few weeks I've been bombarded by a load of information which I find to be truly chilling. By the way, it is interesting to note how we separate our past history from our active perceptions of the place. America's early history is not too bright -- we did some of the most batshit evil stuff you could think of: genocide of Red Indians, slavery (which to me when I really sit down and think deep about, sometimes, seems worse than just killing a person -- it's fucking killing the very dignity and respect every human being is owed, it's depriving them of any and all pleasures to life). I don't think we've made much amends for it -- the cycle of poverty still persists for a lot of African American folks, there are rather few social programs that really try to help them in meaningfully substantive ways. There are folks alive to this very day who faced system institutional racism from our government. We did some pretty evil stuff during and after the Cold war too -- someone linked this in another post yesterday: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentation_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentatio... -- this one truly shocked me: Researchers in the United States have performed thousands of human radiation experiments to determine the effects of atomic radiation and radioactive contamination on the human body, generally on people who were poor, sick, or powerless. It has suddenly become a lot more uncomfortable for me living in America in these few weeks after some reading (especially as I'm actually a foreigner to this land -- I escaped a different country through asylum some while back). It is apparently completely uncontroversial that United States experimented on poor people with radioactive contamination... how do I know the US won't poison me with some biological weapon as an experiment, or because I'm currently unemployed (and thus poor)?
  - alan_cx 13y ago
    Thanks for that. I understand your position a lot better now. Interesting that you chose to escape to the US. So, its not like you had negative feeling form the start, in fact, the exact opposite. The US represented not just freedom, but perhaps life for you, perhaps too your family. So, I guess it must be quite hard for you to have to re-evaluate that. For me, the jarring thing is that for years I was able to sit here in the UK claiming some sort of moral superiority and intelligent of policy/thought. I suppose that deep down I know that was BS, but in this spying think I feel we are actually worse. To be honest, the tow post 9/11 wars were a huge dent, but this is twisting the knife as it were.
buro9 13y ago
You haven't been living in a free world for a while. You just hadn't realised. I've just posted another story that I felt illustrates this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6001546 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6001546 It's the story of Andrew Feldmar, of something legal in a different time and place being deemed illegal today by a different country, and the consequences. I remember reading that in 2007 and having it dawn on me that we are not living in a free world. We've been living in an age of innocence and naivety, we should've woken up a while ago, but are only slowly beginning to now.
cmdkeen 13y ago
It's just simply not true that it would be considered an act of war - quite the opposite it was known that everyone was up to it. The UK had a intelligence asset in the German finance ministry during the 90s according to Richard Tomlinson. When he was going around Europe after his falling out with the SIS (the real MI6) Germany offered him residence if he gave up the person. France was perfectly willing to give him a home in return for information. Now what there has been a long tradition of is bad things happening to those engaged in espionage. There's a reason conventions on conflict exempt spies, agents provocateurs and franc-tireurs from decent treatment. The more modern examples would be the downing of the US EP-3E on Hainan Island, the USS Pueblo, the USSR trying to sink NATO submarines in their territorial waters. You were never living in a free world if you term it to be being immune to the actions of a power if it decided to turns its attentions to you. The question is will any foreign power ever actually care about you? And if it did what would it do? Because this is where the cassus belli part comes it - your safety is pretty guaranteed. Britain has after all gone to war over a ship captain's ear historically. Italy more recently stood up the USA over the rendition of its suspects. Foreign governments spy to collect information to their own advantage, not to affect your life individually.
eli 13y ago
Anyone can file a federal FOIA request; you don't have to be a US citizen.
aclevernickname 13y ago
You're living in a Free World. Have you read the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights? Those are the ones you need to enforce, alongside your Intellectual Property rights ( to your likeness, voice samples, and output). Take them to the International Criminal Court. but _you_ have to sue. As a person with rights that can be prejudiced.

softbuilder 13y ago

This isn't really that surprising, offensive, or disappointing. I wouldn't expect them to divulge specific data just because it was discovered that they were collecting it. In fact it could be a really, really bad idea. The best outcome here is to get them to stop collecting the data. Neckbeards sending FOIA requests isn't serving any purpose.

scottshea 13y ago
"Neckbeards sending FOIA requests isn't serving any purpose." Could you be more judgmental? Whomever is sending these requests, shaving habits aside, may not adhere to your premise that 'The best outcome here is to get them to stop collecting the data'. It could very well be that they just want to know what has been collected on them.
- otisfunkmeyer 13y ago
  Negativity is easier than sending FOIA requests. QED.
- softbuilder 13y ago
  >It could very well be that they just want to know what has been collected on them. Sophistry. He says he can think of nothing that would require monitoring. So he's protesting. Nothing wrong with that, just be honest about it. IIRC there was at least one website set up to automate FOIA requests to the NSA after the Snowden info came out. Why is this guy's story special? It isn't. Why is this even a story? I'm appalled by the NSA activity, I support Snowden, and I want change, but this story is designed to agitate for political effect and nothing more.
deleted 13y ago
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Sharlin 13y ago

Sending a FOIA request is probably a nice way of guaranteeing you will be given some special attention from now on, even if they didn't have a file of you beforehand.

mathgladiator 13y ago
Perhaps, but perhaps we should have a bunch of different types of people making these requests to add some noise to their filters.
- mb0 13y ago
  I imagine most of the people who have sent FOIA requests are people who take their privacy seriously. Regular people don't 1) know that they can do this, 2) know the procedure for filing a request, 3) don't have time to do it, or think that they don't have enough time. Maybe a campaign could be organized to have hundreds or thousands of of regular people send requests. Get the required paperwork setup in an easy template, organize free postage for the letters, people just have to provide some basic information, sign a sheet of paper, and provide a return address. A lot more unrest would build up if the NSA refused to give information to more people, and their refusals could become big news.
  - mathgladiator 13y ago
    Are they required to response, and if so, what are the ramifications for failing this? This is one of those things that I feel, in my heart, should be organized.
    - AaronI 13y ago
      They have 20 days to respond to the initial request. If they don't respond, the first step should be to submit an administrative appeal to the FOIA contact for the agency. They have 20 days to respond to your appeal. If that appeal is denied or you still don't get a response, you can file a lawsuit in your nearest US District Court (the statue of limitations is 6 years). The agency will respond to the complaint, and you'll know whether it's worth your time to pursue it.

tls 13y ago

In short: Entropy. Facebook, Microsoft, (admittingly have handed this information with ease), etc.... what we know is too much for you to handle so for your own protection and the protection drafted by a few is what now jurisdicts what we can and can not say. We (our govt / those granted amnesty ) can no longer divulge information. What is key and what is troubling everyone since the jump is what 'they' are going to do with this information, and what 'they' have been doing. For a lot of you it is easy hyphothesis what a person can do with this information, for instance it has made Mark a billioninaire and countless others rich. It would be a sad state to see this information fall into the wrong hand(s), so it is my hope that someone somewhere makes the decision that no one goverment should be privy to it for the true sake of this freedom we so vicariously fight for.

pivnicek 13y ago

"Trust us" will never be good enough. Not when accused are not able to know the charges against them. Not when you can be held indefinitely without judicial recourse. Not when prosecutors demand ludicrous sentences for accessing a public API. Not when the executive has the apparently legal ability to assassinate opponents without oversight. No. Sorry, there can be no trust in such an arrangement. You want trust? Don't have secret courts.

mtgx 13y ago
What's even their reasoning for having the Court secret? That terrorists will threaten them or attack them? Come on, that has the be the fear every single judge has to live with, and I think a normal judge who has to decide on a drug lord's case has a lot more to fear than some random terrorists, just because they agree to letting the NSA spying on everyone. I think being secret has a lot more to do with them being able to abuse the laws, and not letting the public know about it. There's no good reason to keep the FISA Court secret.
- Myrmornis 13y ago
  Surely the point is to prevent knowledge of their activities from being public because it would be helpful to adversaries?
  - revscat 13y ago
    Unfortunately, it seems that the public are the adversaries.
- Amadou 13y ago
  The court was created during the cold war. It has basically been repurposed for the war on terror. The original foe had sophisticated intelligence agencies and keeping the rulings secret was at least a plausible argument in the spy-vs-spy mindset of the era. But the war on terror involves a handful of college kids and peasants. They don't have anything more than the ability to do google searches. Joe Paranoid doesn't need confirmation from guys like Snowden, he just assumes the worst and goes from there. The massive secrecy around the war on terror (there are now over 4 million active clearances, nearly 1.5 top-secret clearances, that's twice the population of DC) is an artifact of the cold-war regulations that provides little to no tactical advantage but practically eliminate oversight.

Svip 13y ago

This sort of illustrates the striking difference between the American intelligence programmes and the European ones. While the Europeans are not necessarily better, they are at least public and - yes - you can request the information if you so please (of course, you cannot ask them to remove it). I am not advocating the European logging of internet traffic, but I will give them the very least credit they deserve: Being public. The Swedish FRA, the Danish Logningsbekendtgørelse, the German Vorratsdatenspeicherung, etc.; while bad themselves, they are at least public knowledge.

tobiasu 13y ago
Voratsdatenspeicherung has nothing to do with the secret services. It is a tool for the police they can access with a warrant. The BND is not complaining that this is currently ruled unconstitutional, they are simply not affected.
- Svip 13y ago
  I apologise for the wrong wording. I merely meant to say they are in the same category, i.e. collecting data on 'everyone' and only making use of it later.
  - tripzilch 13y ago
    But at least it's not under the blanket term of "terrorism" :)
zobzu 13y ago
Actually some EU programs will reply to you that no data exist "to their knowledge", while data actually does exist. At least the NSA ain't lying. :P
- clicks 13y ago
  > At least the NSA ain't lying Sorry, wrong. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYgkjczoBYk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYgkjczoBYk It appears to be highly likely that were it not for the recent leaks, NSA would have just outright lied and told you that they had no data on you.

downandout 13y ago

In case you didn't read the whole letter, it basically tells him that the government makes the rules, that the rules say that these widely-publicized programs are classified, and that if he wants to know what they have on him he can f@@k off. We should be outraged by these responses, but not particularly surprised. They are taking the only stance they can take: you found us out, but you can't do anything about it. The only thing that we can do is assume that every electronic communication we make is being monitored, stored, and analyzed, and conduct ourselves accordingly.

linohh 13y ago
If we conduct ourselves accordingly, the NSA wins.
- downandout 13y ago
  I meant that we should secure our communications, not that we should kneel to our dark overlords.
  - linohh 13y ago
    Which is perfectly acceptable. However, we're computer experts. Most of us know how to encrypt. The common man doesn't. If we (the experts) go on the digital lam, the NSA still wins, because they get the common man. We need to make crypto easier, we need to provide tools everyone can use. It's our responsibility to educate the masses. Otherwise we're just as antisocial as the governments.
    - jfolny 13y ago
      Well said, well said indeed.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - tjoff 13y ago
      "We need to make crypto easier, we need to provide tools everyone can use." If that succeeds, you still think encryption will be legal? (without support from the government (read: backdoor enabled))

linuxhansl 13y ago

Add usually "national security" is used to trump everything. How convenient for government agencies to hide behind this.

aclevernickname 13y ago

Oh man, this is easy. They denied his request because there was no confirmation that they did or did not have information. send a "Hi how are you" letter to the NSA chief, naming him as a party, with an affidavit stating that the NSA does, in fact, have information on you. Give him 10 days to rebut it. Then give him a second letter, acknowledging his fault/acquiescence to the affidavit. then 10 days after that, send a third notice cementing his agreement to the affidavit's truth. THEN you go do a FOIA request. Include your paperwork with the FOIA request. They can't refuse, because they'd have to contradict your private agreement with the NSA Chief first. if they do refuse, you now have legal recourse in (Secret) courts, because the NSA will now be proven to have obstructed process.

pennig 13y ago
Child's play, really.
- aclevernickname 13y ago
  as my prof once said: "it ain't as easy as 1-2-3, but it is as easy as 1-2-3-4-5-6".
deleted 13y ago
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wittysense 13y ago

I wish all the best for the U.S., but this country has only presented fear and obstacles to my family, and demands loyalty, recognition. I am a Citizen of the World, and it will be strictly incidental should I corroborate with the U.S. in any way. I bring peace and sharing — But I will not be lied to, and I will not be coerced into a lifestyle not of my choosing, and I will not be intimidated. I deserve better. The United States has driven me to a life of constant fear, fear not based in delusion but in the severe mismanagement of its society. Daily I find myself at the mercy of its community, whose fear shake the seat of my soul: beliefs of technological domination, spying, etc. I will no longer provide free consultation, on doorsteps or coffeeshops; nor will I abide the complaints of American peoples. Of this decaying society (U.S.), its peoples will manically accuse anarchism or even the grossest fictions, due to an untrained intellect. Of this decaying society (U.S.), its people must find someone to blame — at which point anarchism becomes indistinguishable from treason. The United States has mismanaged not only its government; it has injected a venom against intimacy, intelligence, and true investigation. I cannot trust the United States to secure my freedom of intimacy, freedom of intelligence, nor can I trust its integrity or investigation. I find it disrespectful to myself and undermining to my initiatives to qualify my identity with "U.S. Citizen." In any event, most people who look at me assume I do not speak English. You cannot coerce someone into looking like an American, and a majority of Americans only look at me with abjection or fear since I have "wild" dreadlocks, which to them look unkept. In many cities, I am heckled on the street with terms like "nigger" and "faggot"; and in polite society, potential peers are taken aback at my personal history ("You can't REALLY be from there!") or even the mere fact that I am a trained philosopher and Web developer. In many ways I look like a "primitive" man largely on account of very matured dreadlocks, and this society is simply too naive, sexually repressed to allow for people who look like Russell Brand to walk the streets: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADJhErmJuoQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADJhErmJuoQ. Every one of my days in public with you Americans reminds me of that interview. Even yesterday some square approached me to ask if rolling up one pant-leg was a "new fashion thing." I will not be trapped in a country of style-vultures-spies-after-our-personal-brands XOR complaint-ridden-poverty-stricken. I deserve better.

wavefunction 13y ago
You sound as close-minded as some of the people you're railing against. A square? What does "an American" look like? I look pretty "normal" or at least my outward appearance is intentionally low-key and non-descript. For me it is the internal that is important though someone who puts a high priority on external ornamentation as an indicator of personality and character would never know if you just went by my external appearance.

ringmaster 13y ago

When you write an authentication system with username and password you never display an error like "that password is incorrect", because then the attacker knows that the username is a valid one. Why does everyone here assume that it's a vast conspiracy when, if they returned everything they had on you, it would be a giant red flag to anyone who was denied that they were being explicitly monitored? The only way to guarantee secrecy for records that should rightfully be secret (whether you agree with the collection methods or not) is to deny everyone's request.

shmerl 13y ago

So, NSA became a state within a state with no democratic oversight whatsoever. Is anyone surprised that they crave more and more power?

revelation 13y ago

I'm confused. The NSA has basically unlimited powers under the premise that it does not spy on US citizens. So if US citiziens ask what data the NSA has on them, what other legal answer could there be other than 'none'? And what secrets would be revealed in that answer, given that the NSA has been mandated not to spy on US citiziens?

twoodfin 13y ago
The NSA can intercept US citizens' international communications under roughly the same theory that allows customs officials to search you at the border without probable cause.

eli 13y ago

I agree with the NSA here. Any data they give you about yourself would necessarily tell you what sort of data collection methods they use, which would make it harder to collect data about anyone.

Asparagirl 13y ago
That's a feature, not a bug.

davidp 13y ago

I'm no fan of the recent fourth amendment violations, but the NSA's response is actually reasonable here given its proper mission. Re-read this section, but imagine the requester was asking for information on whether the NSA had collected information about his communications and movements during his recent trip to China: Any positive or negative response on a request-by-request basis would allow our adversaries [China] to accumulate information and draw conclusions about NSA's technical capabilities, sources, and methods. Our adversaries are likely to evaluate all public responses related to these programs. Were we to provide positive or negative responses to requests such as yours, our adversaries' compilation of the information provided would reasonably be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security. This is completely accurate. If the NSA actually responded to these requests, it would be trivial for an adversary (e.g. China) to probe the extent and nature of the information the NSA collects, just by having their agents regularly file FOIA requests. My main problem with these programs is the lack of oversight and any kind of public controls to prevent abuse by bad actors. I don't mind when judges issue warrants to gather private information; that's oversight, with a level of public visibility eventually involved. Warrants are accounted for right there in the fourth amendment. But these programs are known, thanks to Edward Snowden, to have shoddy controls over individual analyst access to the information. That alone reveals an institutional bias inside the NSA against respecting citizens' privacy; if they treated it as a really big deal then Snowden wouldn't have been able to gain access to individual information as he has claimed. Consequently I have little faith that justice would be served on analysts or departments who use the information for their own purposes, and that's the core problem for me. We know the FBI treated Martin Luther King as a potential terrorist. If the NSA's information had been available to them, why wouldn't they have asked for it, formally or otherwise, if there were no negative consequences? What does that mean for political activism given today's more tightly integrated Department of Homeland Security?

fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
The Glomar Response is getting a little tiresome given that nearly everyone is now aware of the surveillance program. WRT China, the NSA has had a listening post inside China, in cooperation with the Chinese, ever since shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran. While the missions are different, it should leave no doubts in the minds of the Chinese intelligence people as to the technical capabilities of the NSA. Between that and the fact that the Chinese are no slouches themselves in communications (their public communications infrastructure is vastly larger than in the US), or in spying on their citizens. I doubt the Chinese have much to learn from these press releases.

anuraj 13y ago

In spite of the outrage, where is the occupy NSA, occupy washington movements? States are not going to reduce surveillance - they have the power and means to do so - and would like to perpetuate the same. Want to preserve your privacy? "Come on!Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!"

orthecreedence 13y ago
Did you attend the Restore the 4th protests on July 4th? That's the main movement right now to fight back.

gwu78 13y ago

It's for your own protection, Mr. Kafka, unless of course it's for someone else's protection.

herbig 13y ago

I received the same rejection letter to my request. What's the point of being able to request it if they can arbitrarily reject it?

thezach 13y ago

I'm going to play devils advocate... if the NSA released what information they collect on me seeing that information might show more details on the manner that they collect the data. If more details on the manner that they collect data were to become public then the people the NSA should be targeting such as Al Queda and foreign countries might develop techniques to stop us from monitoring them. The argument about we know it exists so tell us more because we already know its there really does not add up. I know that Obama's limo has some really cool protective measures, but you know very well that they won't tell me what they are or what they are not. Theres a reason for it.

innguest 13y ago
Security through Obscurity? I thought we disliked that.

mikeash 13y ago

We're posting and upvoting links to dailykos.com on HN now? Flagged for linking to blogspam on a site filled with nonsense. Is it that hard to click the "Originally published at" link? http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2013/07/06/nsa-rejecting-every-foia-request-made-by-u-s-citizens/ http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2013/07/06/nsa-rejecting-e...

rhizome 13y ago
Flagged for linking to blogspam on a site filled with nonsense. Yet medium.com links are still OK.
ics 13y ago
David Harris-Gershon is a writer for both blogs. They were published to both sources on the same day. He is also following comments on the Daily Kos post, which is obviously targeted to a broader audience. I agree that original sources are best, but in this case there is no value lost.