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> Indeed, the focus is clearly on personal things (house, person), not things possessed by third parties. You need to understand the context. People did not st

> Indeed, the focus is clearly on personal things (house, person), not things possessed by third parties. You need to understand the context. People did not store information about their private communications with third parties in 1776. Can you call AT&T and ask for someone else's records and get them? Why not? Things you wish to stay private do stay private unless a warrant is issued citing probable cause to violate your privacy.

rayiner 13y ago
> People did not store information about their private communications with third parties in 1776. People stored all sorts of private information with third parties in 1776. They had accountants and bookkeepers and suppliers and vendors, etc. > Can you call AT&T and ask for someone else's records and get them? Can you call up Ernst and Young and ask for someone else's accounting records? No, but the government can. The test isn't "things you wish to stay private." It's "reasonable expectation of privacy." It's an objective test, not a subjective one. And I find it very difficult to understand how anyone could have a "reasonable expectation" of privacy in information generated by a third party for its own use, that's exposed to god knows how many engineers and system administrators.
- samolang 13y ago
  The contents of my emails are exposed to "god know how many engineers and system administrators." I still think I have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" with regards to the contents of my emails. If you hire a cleaning lady and she has access to private letters in your home, does that mean you forfeit your reasonable expectation that those letters are private?
  - rayiner 13y ago
    People of course can disagree about what is "reasonable." I personally don't consider my e-mail private, not when a Google engineer has been caught stalking people through their GChats (http://gawker.com/5637234/gcreep-google-engineer-stalked-teens-spied-on-chats http://gawker.com/5637234/gcreep-google-engineer-stalked-tee...), and not when the whole business model is built on reading through those e-mails to serve advertisements. I consider that quite different than my cleaning lady incidentally having access to documents in my desk drawer.
- Silhouette 13y ago
  The test isn't "things you wish to stay private." It's "reasonable expectation of privacy." It's an objective test, not a subjective one. But if you're going to argue that this objectively means "reasonable expectation that your privacy will be respected in this case" rather than "reasonable expectation that your privacy should be respected in this case" then you have reduced any protection to something meaningless through circular logic. By this kind of argument, anyone can violate your privacy, in any way, for any reason, and it's all OK as long as they make sure you know it's happening.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > But if you're going to argue that this objectively means "reasonable expectation that your privacy will be respected in this case" rather than "reasonable expectation that your privacy should be respected in this case" then you have reduced any protection to something meaningless through circular logic. That's what the reasonable expectation of privacy test has always meant, so its not reducing it at all. Whether its meaningless or not, well, actual actions by government have been found to violate it, so its clearly not a null protection, even if it isn't what you'd prefer.
    - Silhouette 13y ago
      That's what the reasonable expectation of privacy test has always meant Obviously I disagree with you and rayiner over how ambiguous that phrase is, but that doesn't really matter. This entire HN discussion is about a call to change the situation, in particular, the current behaviour of the US government and the laws that the US government argues permit such behaviour. Arguing that something is OK because it's what the law currently says doesn't seem to advance that debate in any useful way.
      - rayiner 13y ago
        I don't disagree with the sentiment expressed by Sens. Udall, Wyden, etc. This (sub-) thread isn't about whether the surveillance program is "OK" but about this comment that spawned this thread: "Senators have to go to the press to try to stop the government from doing what clearly breaks the law." Most of the NSA programs that have been exposed to date are not "clear" violations of the law. They are attempts to operate at the boundaries of the law as currently understood, but they seem to reflect a genuine attempt to stay within those boundaries. Distinctions that people on Hacker News dismiss because they have a broad-based ideological opposition to surveillance, like "metadata versus data" or "U.S. persons versus foreigners" are in fact the operative markers delineating the bounds of the law. Merely following the law doesn't turn a bad idea into a good idea, or justify a program, but it does say something about whether people are acting in good faith. What doesn't advance the debate is saying that people in the government must be acting in bad faith because they are "clearly" violating the law, when in fact you just don't understand what the law is.

rayiner 13y ago

> People did not store information about their private communications with third parties in 1776. People stored all sorts of private information with third parties in 1776. They had accountants and bookkeepers and suppliers and vendors, etc. > Can you call AT&T and ask for someone else's records and get them? Can you call up Ernst and Young and ask for someone else's accounting records? No, but the government can. The test isn't "things you wish to stay private." It's "reasonable expectation of privacy." It's an objective test, not a subjective one. And I find it very difficult to understand how anyone could have a "reasonable expectation" of privacy in information generated by a third party for its own use, that's exposed to god knows how many engineers and system administrators.

samolang 13y ago
The contents of my emails are exposed to "god know how many engineers and system administrators." I still think I have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" with regards to the contents of my emails. If you hire a cleaning lady and she has access to private letters in your home, does that mean you forfeit your reasonable expectation that those letters are private?
- rayiner 13y ago
  People of course can disagree about what is "reasonable." I personally don't consider my e-mail private, not when a Google engineer has been caught stalking people through their GChats (http://gawker.com/5637234/gcreep-google-engineer-stalked-teens-spied-on-chats http://gawker.com/5637234/gcreep-google-engineer-stalked-tee...), and not when the whole business model is built on reading through those e-mails to serve advertisements. I consider that quite different than my cleaning lady incidentally having access to documents in my desk drawer.
Silhouette 13y ago
The test isn't "things you wish to stay private." It's "reasonable expectation of privacy." It's an objective test, not a subjective one. But if you're going to argue that this objectively means "reasonable expectation that your privacy will be respected in this case" rather than "reasonable expectation that your privacy should be respected in this case" then you have reduced any protection to something meaningless through circular logic. By this kind of argument, anyone can violate your privacy, in any way, for any reason, and it's all OK as long as they make sure you know it's happening.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > But if you're going to argue that this objectively means "reasonable expectation that your privacy will be respected in this case" rather than "reasonable expectation that your privacy should be respected in this case" then you have reduced any protection to something meaningless through circular logic. That's what the reasonable expectation of privacy test has always meant, so its not reducing it at all. Whether its meaningless or not, well, actual actions by government have been found to violate it, so its clearly not a null protection, even if it isn't what you'd prefer.
  - Silhouette 13y ago
    That's what the reasonable expectation of privacy test has always meant Obviously I disagree with you and rayiner over how ambiguous that phrase is, but that doesn't really matter. This entire HN discussion is about a call to change the situation, in particular, the current behaviour of the US government and the laws that the US government argues permit such behaviour. Arguing that something is OK because it's what the law currently says doesn't seem to advance that debate in any useful way.
    - rayiner 13y ago
      I don't disagree with the sentiment expressed by Sens. Udall, Wyden, etc. This (sub-) thread isn't about whether the surveillance program is "OK" but about this comment that spawned this thread: "Senators have to go to the press to try to stop the government from doing what clearly breaks the law." Most of the NSA programs that have been exposed to date are not "clear" violations of the law. They are attempts to operate at the boundaries of the law as currently understood, but they seem to reflect a genuine attempt to stay within those boundaries. Distinctions that people on Hacker News dismiss because they have a broad-based ideological opposition to surveillance, like "metadata versus data" or "U.S. persons versus foreigners" are in fact the operative markers delineating the bounds of the law. Merely following the law doesn't turn a bad idea into a good idea, or justify a program, but it does say something about whether people are acting in good faith. What doesn't advance the debate is saying that people in the government must be acting in bad faith because they are "clearly" violating the law, when in fact you just don't understand what the law is.