13 ms·

"Mr. President, no one is saying you broke any laws, we're just saying it's a little bit weird you didn't have to." –John Oliver of the Daily Show on the NSA s

by Amadou 13y ago

"Mr. President, no one is saying you broke any laws, we're just saying it's a little bit weird you didn't have to." –John Oliver of the Daily Show on the NSA spying scandal

tptacek 13y ago
It is. But when you make that observation, you should be aware that the weirdness dates back into the 1800's (at least); metadata surveillance was litigated in the dawn of the telegram era.
- devx 13y ago
  Maybe it's time for a new Constitution amendment then. In a world where surveillance is so pervasive, and so potentially dangerous, the laws should be updated, if the old ones aren't sufficient to provide people the privacy they need in a democracy.
  - glasz 13y ago
    would only work if you, the people, would make the laws. but since that's not the case anymore all these clueless law makers would shoot themselves in the foot.
    - JWLong 13y ago
      It was never the case.
      - glasz 13y ago
        there you go...
    - antsar 13y ago
      More like shoot us in the foot. They will surely have been incentivised by the relevant parties to leave gaping loopholes allowing said relevant parties to continue doing what they're doing.
      - glasz 13y ago
        already going on. practically no difference.
  - baconner 13y ago
    An amendment would be nice though I'd settle for a lesser law to resolve these issues as well. Whatever can get it done. Seems to me there are a number of legal bugs where our laws fall apart at scale. The 2nd amendment is all well and good (my opinion) but arms tech scaled way beyond anything imaginable at the time and some line needed to be drawn on what qualified. Privacy law is having a similar issue as society shifts all its important data to digital storage and into third parties. Who could've imagined that centuries past? As a programmer it makes me wonder what the common anti patterns of law are.
  - ihsw 13y ago
    The impact of unchecked surveillance, like bad security, is impossibly difficult to quantify until shit hits the fan long enough for it to inconvenience people. Furthermore it's simple and easy to dismiss serious problems as exceptions to the rule, for example Snowden was branded as "very smart" after there were claims that a "high school dropout" evaded NSA's internal security systems and successfully escaped to Hong Kong. If there are egregious violations of privacy and freedom then we won't be seeing the admissions of guilt/reform, but instead we'll be seeing recriminations and diversions. There needs to be punitive measures in place to deter that kind of negligence and recklessness, in addition to the punishment for actual violations. Rehabilitation and recidivism are very serious issues that need to be focused on, especially because those who disregard privacy will do so on an ideological level -- it's part of their personal belief system.
- tjr 13y ago
  This is one of the things that surprised me the most. After reading about the Snowden documents this summer, I did some historical reading on the topic. I was amazed at the lengthy progression of surveillance in the U.S., and as a result, I am no longer amazed at the Snowden documents. It's all business as usual. (I'm not convinced, though, that it's all okay... there seems to be both real and potential abuse in the system.)
  - steveklabnik 13y ago
    I recently found this wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_mass_surveillance_disclosures#Origins_of_clandestine_surveillance_in_the_United_States_.281919.E2.80.9378.29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_mass_surveillance_disclosu...
- Natsu 13y ago
  Our ability to exploit metadata has grown by leaps and bounds since the 1800s. What was possible then and what is possible now are two different things entirely. It's simply not possible any more, except via face-to-face chat, to communicate with someone without turning over some metadata (or possibly data) to a 3rd party. Letter? Envelope gets scanned. Calls? Logged and your location is tracked to boot. Internet? Tapped. What's left?
  - cschneid 13y ago
    If you're in public, you have no expectation of privacy. So as cameras and facial recognition roll out further, you won't be able to go to another person's house to do that face-to-face without the metadata being created anyway.
    - nitrogen 13y ago
      In public, people instinctively have an expectation of privacy. If you started following people around with a video camera and microphone (or even just started staring at every passerby in the eye without breaking eye contact), you'd get a lot of unhappy reactions. Having ubiquitous automated surveillance is effectively the same as having someone follow everybody around with a camera and microphone, so the public's reaction to the latter should be used to determine policy with regard to the former.
      - saraid216 13y ago
        That's not what privacy is. The lack of privacy in public spaces is such because it's unreasonable to have an expectation of privacy. Until we're all cyborgs and have our vision automatically filtered, it's unreasonable to expect that you will remain unseen when walking through a public park. The lack of privacy in public spaces is based on the ubiquity. If you followed someone around, the issue isn't a violation of privacy. It's harassment: the singling out of an individual for exceptional behavior. If you plant a camera and watch everyone, then it becomes a lot more OK. (Still arguably not, but you'd get far fewer "unhappy reactions".)
rayiner 13y ago
Third party doctrine cuts deep. See Couch v. US, 409 U.S. 322, 335 ("there can be little expectation of privacy where records are handed to an accountant..."). For example, all the prosecuting of banks and big corps that the Daily Show cheers on depends quite heavily on investigators having access to third-party accounting and financial records. The doctrine might need to be reformed, but it's a monumental task touching many areas and longstanding practices.
- icebraining 13y ago
  For example, all the prosecuting of banks and big corps that the Daily Show cheers on depends quite heavily on investigators having access to third-party accounting and financial records. Aren't those records of companies, not of people?
  - jhart3333 13y ago
    In case you forgot. Corporations ARE people.
    - icebraining 13y ago
      Even a light reading of the Corporate personhood page on WP would have told you that the issue is much more complex than that knee-jerk reaction. For example, the courts ruled they can't invoke the Fifth.
      - jhart3333 13y ago
        forgot to insert sarcasm tags
ensignavenger 13y ago
I think there were laws broken, though. It is my understanding that the NSA was restricted to spying on foreign targets, and not supposed to be collecting data of any sort on Americans domestic phone calls. Of course, the laws a purposefully kept complex and plenty of loopholes are snuck in, so I may be missing somthing.

by Amadou 13y ago

"Mr. President, no one is saying you broke any laws, we're just saying it's a little bit weird you didn't have to." –John Oliver of the Daily Show on the NSA spying scandal

tptacek 13y ago

It is. But when you make that observation, you should be aware that the weirdness dates back into the 1800's (at least); metadata surveillance was litigated in the dawn of the telegram era.

devx 13y ago
Maybe it's time for a new Constitution amendment then. In a world where surveillance is so pervasive, and so potentially dangerous, the laws should be updated, if the old ones aren't sufficient to provide people the privacy they need in a democracy.
- glasz 13y ago
  would only work if you, the people, would make the laws. but since that's not the case anymore all these clueless law makers would shoot themselves in the foot.
  - JWLong 13y ago
    It was never the case.
    - glasz 13y ago
      there you go...
  - antsar 13y ago
    More like shoot us in the foot. They will surely have been incentivised by the relevant parties to leave gaping loopholes allowing said relevant parties to continue doing what they're doing.
    - glasz 13y ago
      already going on. practically no difference.
- baconner 13y ago
  An amendment would be nice though I'd settle for a lesser law to resolve these issues as well. Whatever can get it done. Seems to me there are a number of legal bugs where our laws fall apart at scale. The 2nd amendment is all well and good (my opinion) but arms tech scaled way beyond anything imaginable at the time and some line needed to be drawn on what qualified. Privacy law is having a similar issue as society shifts all its important data to digital storage and into third parties. Who could've imagined that centuries past? As a programmer it makes me wonder what the common anti patterns of law are.
- ihsw 13y ago
  The impact of unchecked surveillance, like bad security, is impossibly difficult to quantify until shit hits the fan long enough for it to inconvenience people. Furthermore it's simple and easy to dismiss serious problems as exceptions to the rule, for example Snowden was branded as "very smart" after there were claims that a "high school dropout" evaded NSA's internal security systems and successfully escaped to Hong Kong. If there are egregious violations of privacy and freedom then we won't be seeing the admissions of guilt/reform, but instead we'll be seeing recriminations and diversions. There needs to be punitive measures in place to deter that kind of negligence and recklessness, in addition to the punishment for actual violations. Rehabilitation and recidivism are very serious issues that need to be focused on, especially because those who disregard privacy will do so on an ideological level -- it's part of their personal belief system.
tjr 13y ago
This is one of the things that surprised me the most. After reading about the Snowden documents this summer, I did some historical reading on the topic. I was amazed at the lengthy progression of surveillance in the U.S., and as a result, I am no longer amazed at the Snowden documents. It's all business as usual. (I'm not convinced, though, that it's all okay... there seems to be both real and potential abuse in the system.)
- steveklabnik 13y ago
  I recently found this wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_mass_surveillance_disclosures#Origins_of_clandestine_surveillance_in_the_United_States_.281919.E2.80.9378.29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_mass_surveillance_disclosu...
Natsu 13y ago
Our ability to exploit metadata has grown by leaps and bounds since the 1800s. What was possible then and what is possible now are two different things entirely. It's simply not possible any more, except via face-to-face chat, to communicate with someone without turning over some metadata (or possibly data) to a 3rd party. Letter? Envelope gets scanned. Calls? Logged and your location is tracked to boot. Internet? Tapped. What's left?
- cschneid 13y ago
  If you're in public, you have no expectation of privacy. So as cameras and facial recognition roll out further, you won't be able to go to another person's house to do that face-to-face without the metadata being created anyway.
  - nitrogen 13y ago
    In public, people instinctively have an expectation of privacy. If you started following people around with a video camera and microphone (or even just started staring at every passerby in the eye without breaking eye contact), you'd get a lot of unhappy reactions. Having ubiquitous automated surveillance is effectively the same as having someone follow everybody around with a camera and microphone, so the public's reaction to the latter should be used to determine policy with regard to the former.
    - saraid216 13y ago
      That's not what privacy is. The lack of privacy in public spaces is such because it's unreasonable to have an expectation of privacy. Until we're all cyborgs and have our vision automatically filtered, it's unreasonable to expect that you will remain unseen when walking through a public park. The lack of privacy in public spaces is based on the ubiquity. If you followed someone around, the issue isn't a violation of privacy. It's harassment: the singling out of an individual for exceptional behavior. If you plant a camera and watch everyone, then it becomes a lot more OK. (Still arguably not, but you'd get far fewer "unhappy reactions".)

rayiner 13y ago

Third party doctrine cuts deep. See Couch v. US, 409 U.S. 322, 335 ("there can be little expectation of privacy where records are handed to an accountant..."). For example, all the prosecuting of banks and big corps that the Daily Show cheers on depends quite heavily on investigators having access to third-party accounting and financial records. The doctrine might need to be reformed, but it's a monumental task touching many areas and longstanding practices.

icebraining 13y ago
For example, all the prosecuting of banks and big corps that the Daily Show cheers on depends quite heavily on investigators having access to third-party accounting and financial records. Aren't those records of companies, not of people?
- jhart3333 13y ago
  In case you forgot. Corporations ARE people.
  - icebraining 13y ago
    Even a light reading of the Corporate personhood page on WP would have told you that the issue is much more complex than that knee-jerk reaction. For example, the courts ruled they can't invoke the Fifth.
    - jhart3333 13y ago
      forgot to insert sarcasm tags

ensignavenger 13y ago

I think there were laws broken, though. It is my understanding that the NSA was restricted to spying on foreign targets, and not supposed to be collecting data of any sort on Americans domestic phone calls. Of course, the laws a purposefully kept complex and plenty of loopholes are snuck in, so I may be missing somthing.