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>James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, has acknowledged that the court found the NSA in breach of the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits u

by zeteo 13y ago

>James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, has acknowledged that the court found the NSA in breach of the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, but the Obama administration has fought a Freedom of Information lawsuit that seeks the opinion. Are you fucking kidding me? Let's take this incident to the most die-hard scaremonger out there and ask them how the hell is it in the interest of national security to hide it when government institutions are found guilty of breaching the Constitution?

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
CoffeeDregs 13y ago
Fully agreed. Further, let's assume that you were an every-man (as we all are) and had the ability to type anything into a magical console that spat out private details about US citizens. That would be an "unreasonable search and seizure", so you wouldn't do it, right? It's logged! How many of your fellow citizens would not do that search? But the NSA doesn't just hire anyone, so you have to assume the folks aren't exactly like your fellow citizens and they know they're being logged. But is your guess "0"? I've seen people delete ("sudo rm -rf /some-important-dir") critical bits of infrastructure when they knew logs were in place, so my guess is most certainly not zero. Note: I know some 3-letter-agency folks and they are very tight-lipped, so I don't want to suggest 3-letter-agency folks are not entirely trustworthy. But the NSA appears to have an incredible honey-pot and it't hard to imagine that no NSA analyst would have a taste. Note^2: the NSA should have internal honey-pots to catch analysts browsing their (girl|boy)friends and such, but I'd not be surprised to hear that they don't...
- malandrew 13y ago
  The thing is that they don't even need to do anything as obvious as that. They could simply eavesdrop on the communications of some important executive of a foreign enterprise with ADRs trading on a US Stock Exchange. The potential for abuse extends well beyond personal intrusions. The NSA could literally fund itself entirely by simply trading against the information they have access to.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - czr80 13y ago
    Tangentially, so could Google.
    - w_t_payne 13y ago
      From what I hear, so is Google.
      - glitchdout 13y ago
        With the whole "NSA has a GMail backdoor" and "Windows Phone YouTube app blocking" thing, I really don't wannna defend Google but... Baseless accusations like that will get you nowhere.
        danielsiders 13y ago
        With the NSA at least theoretically we have congressional oversight. The same can't be said for Google and most of the other companies we trust with our data. Their level of access may be comparable with the NSA but there are few if any legal protections or opportunities for oversight. If the same abuses were happening, they might never come to light. With the big companies, we might only ever be able to speculate.
        pyre 13y ago
        Google employees that become whistle-blowers don't have to face the same adversity as government employees that become whistle-blowers. It's also easier to sue Google than it is to sue agencies like the NSA.
        pyre 13y ago
        > Windows Phone YouTube app blocking Wasn't the issue that the app displayed the YouTube videos without the advertisements though, and this was against the Terms of Service?
joering2 13y ago
Stop complaining! We have the most open, most honest and most transparent administration since founding fathers! Here, first time ever you can find out who visit White House! http://youtu.be/OXWTdTnhebs?t=12s http://youtu.be/OXWTdTnhebs?t=12s EDIT: In case someone did not notice, I was being sarcastic. Here is more related clip: http://youtu.be/EpLWCvIZDuI?t=2m http://youtu.be/EpLWCvIZDuI?t=2m
codex 13y ago
Wrong. Overreaction. The DoJ plans to make the ruling available, but wants to redact it to remove classified information: https://www.eff.org/document/doj-status-report-re-releasing-fisa-court-opinion https://www.eff.org/document/doj-status-report-re-releasing-... Don't let my facts interrupt your rant, though.
- zeteo 13y ago
  BS. The document you link to indicates quite clearly that they had no intention of making it anything less than "top secret" after it was found unconstitutional: >in response to the unauthorized disclosure of classified information, the government has declassified certain information concerning intelligence collection pursuant to Section 702 >[the government] further provides notice [...] that it has determined it will release to Plaintiff a redacted version of the [FISC] opinion previously withheld [but requests a delay] It's only because the EFF requested it (after Snowden's disclosures) and fought for it in court that the finding of unconstitutionality will now be made public. Or rather, whatever parts the government decides to let go of.
  - codex 13y ago
    Yes, all of the FISA rulings are secret by default, but redacting a ruling to remove classified information is not the same as fighting a FOIA request.
    - drivebyacct2 13y ago
      That distinction would mean more if it didn't literally come on the heals of them explicitly trying to suppress the entire court decision.
    - aspensmonster 13y ago
      drivebyacct2 is hellbanned but I see no reason why this particular comment of his should be censored: >That distinction would mean more if it didn't literally come on the heals of them explicitly trying to suppress the entire court decision.
c0ur7n3y 13y ago
Didn't Clapper get up on stage and say emphatically there had been zero abuses? This guy's lies have lies.

by zeteo 13y ago

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

CoffeeDregs 13y ago

Fully agreed. Further, let's assume that you were an every-man (as we all are) and had the ability to type anything into a magical console that spat out private details about US citizens. That would be an "unreasonable search and seizure", so you wouldn't do it, right? It's logged! How many of your fellow citizens would not do that search? But the NSA doesn't just hire anyone, so you have to assume the folks aren't exactly like your fellow citizens and they know they're being logged. But is your guess "0"? I've seen people delete ("sudo rm -rf /some-important-dir") critical bits of infrastructure when they knew logs were in place, so my guess is most certainly not zero. Note: I know some 3-letter-agency folks and they are very tight-lipped, so I don't want to suggest 3-letter-agency folks are not entirely trustworthy. But the NSA appears to have an incredible honey-pot and it't hard to imagine that no NSA analyst would have a taste. Note^2: the NSA should have internal honey-pots to catch analysts browsing their (girl|boy)friends and such, but I'd not be surprised to hear that they don't...

malandrew 13y ago
The thing is that they don't even need to do anything as obvious as that. They could simply eavesdrop on the communications of some important executive of a foreign enterprise with ADRs trading on a US Stock Exchange. The potential for abuse extends well beyond personal intrusions. The NSA could literally fund itself entirely by simply trading against the information they have access to.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- czr80 13y ago
  Tangentially, so could Google.
  - w_t_payne 13y ago
    From what I hear, so is Google.
    - glitchdout 13y ago
      With the whole "NSA has a GMail backdoor" and "Windows Phone YouTube app blocking" thing, I really don't wannna defend Google but... Baseless accusations like that will get you nowhere.
      - danielsiders 13y ago
        With the NSA at least theoretically we have congressional oversight. The same can't be said for Google and most of the other companies we trust with our data. Their level of access may be comparable with the NSA but there are few if any legal protections or opportunities for oversight. If the same abuses were happening, they might never come to light. With the big companies, we might only ever be able to speculate.
        pyre 13y ago
        Google employees that become whistle-blowers don't have to face the same adversity as government employees that become whistle-blowers. It's also easier to sue Google than it is to sue agencies like the NSA.
      - pyre 13y ago
        > Windows Phone YouTube app blocking Wasn't the issue that the app displayed the YouTube videos without the advertisements though, and this was against the Terms of Service?

joering2 13y ago

Stop complaining! We have the most open, most honest and most transparent administration since founding fathers! Here, first time ever you can find out who visit White House! http://youtu.be/OXWTdTnhebs?t=12s http://youtu.be/OXWTdTnhebs?t=12s EDIT: In case someone did not notice, I was being sarcastic. Here is more related clip: http://youtu.be/EpLWCvIZDuI?t=2m http://youtu.be/EpLWCvIZDuI?t=2m

codex 13y ago

Wrong. Overreaction. The DoJ plans to make the ruling available, but wants to redact it to remove classified information: https://www.eff.org/document/doj-status-report-re-releasing-fisa-court-opinion https://www.eff.org/document/doj-status-report-re-releasing-... Don't let my facts interrupt your rant, though.

zeteo 13y ago
BS. The document you link to indicates quite clearly that they had no intention of making it anything less than "top secret" after it was found unconstitutional: >in response to the unauthorized disclosure of classified information, the government has declassified certain information concerning intelligence collection pursuant to Section 702 >[the government] further provides notice [...] that it has determined it will release to Plaintiff a redacted version of the [FISC] opinion previously withheld [but requests a delay] It's only because the EFF requested it (after Snowden's disclosures) and fought for it in court that the finding of unconstitutionality will now be made public. Or rather, whatever parts the government decides to let go of.
- codex 13y ago
  Yes, all of the FISA rulings are secret by default, but redacting a ruling to remove classified information is not the same as fighting a FOIA request.
  - drivebyacct2 13y ago
    That distinction would mean more if it didn't literally come on the heals of them explicitly trying to suppress the entire court decision.
  - aspensmonster 13y ago
    drivebyacct2 is hellbanned but I see no reason why this particular comment of his should be censored: >That distinction would mean more if it didn't literally come on the heals of them explicitly trying to suppress the entire court decision.

c0ur7n3y 13y ago

Didn't Clapper get up on stage and say emphatically there had been zero abuses? This guy's lies have lies.