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Those of you who want a political answer to this surveillance problem should pay attention when these things happen. This is your system, in a nutshell. The leg

by noarchy 13y ago

Those of you who want a political answer to this surveillance problem should pay attention when these things happen. This is your system, in a nutshell. The legislators, judges, law enforcement officials, etc, are all in on this. Don't wait for the president or prime minister to change things. That won't happen. You'll have to take your security into your own hands to the greatest extent possible. This will including learning to adapt once your government inevitably outlaws your favourite means of protecting your security and privacy.

sanderjd 13y ago
This actually looks more like the system working to me. There are now two important judges who disagree in their interpretation of the issue. The system failed when this was kept secret such that it could not be ruled on by the legal system (and I don't believe a "secret court" is a part of a "legal system"), but now that it is being ruled on, it's expected and proper that judges may disagree.
- arca_vorago 13y ago
  Please keep in mind the very actions being described themselves have implications of undermining the entire judicial system, up to and including the SCOTUS. It's easy to say, "Well, yeah it was shitty they hid it from us, but now the courts will all take care of it as they do, and I'm sure SCOTUS won't rule wrongly, no no, they would never do that." but if you ignore the fact that there are allegations that judges are largely appointed based on the ability for the appointee to control via various methods including blackmail and bribery. I'll let you follow the implications from there, but I'm afraid this situation is much more serious than you seem to realize.
chris_mahan 13y ago
I've reached the conclusion that in order to receive constitutional protection of "my papers", they need to be "on paper". So, I essentially don't put anything on the internet, or even on my computer, unless I'm comfortable with it being on the internet, permanently (meaning until my great-grandchildren retire, in 120 years). for reference, the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." I would like to think that "papers" in the text would also refer to electronic documents, but alas that seems to not be the case. This is one of those cases where the saying "In Theory, Practice and Theory are the same, but in practice they're not." seems to fit.
- rayiner 13y ago
  You're setting up and knocking down a strawman. Its not a matter of electronic documents versus paper. A USB key in your desk drawer is protected as much as a stack of paper documents. This was not a controversial issue. Courts have treated electronic documents uniformly with paper ones for a long time with little fanfare. The relevant issue is where these documents are located, and whether it's reasonable to have a privacy interest in documents transmitted in plain text over the internet. As an analogy: if you leave your physical papers in someone's garage, you cannot invoke the 4th amendment if the police find those documents otherwise lawfully. It's not reasonable for you to claim a privacy interest in documents over which someone else has unrestricted control. That's the nature of an electronic document "in the cloud." Countless people have access to that document, at the service provider and also at intermediate routing nodes. If you use Google or Facebook, that information is even routinely scanned for advertising purposes. That's the nature of the internet. It's built on routing plain text information between unrelated nodes. Treating this information that is physically not private as "logically private" is a social fiction based on trusting service providers. That's the question courts are faced with. Not whether electronic documents enjoy 4th amendment protection (they clearly do), but whether to indulge the fiction that documents which are as a factual matter not private should nonetheless be treated as private for 4th amendment purposes. There might be good reason to do that. There might also be good reason to stop short of fully endorsing the current status quo, and requiring service providers to make certain privacy guarantees in order for documents on their systems to enjoy 4th amendment protections.
  - chris_mahan 13y ago
    How do I know my computer is not compromised? How do I know the files on my cell phone are not compromised? We've already established the NSA is not acting within the constraints of law. That's what Snowden revealed. One cannot rely on the law (the constitution or any other) to gain safety from government spying.
    - rayiner 13y ago
      > We've already established the NSA is not acting within the constraints of law. What we've established is that the NSA is acting enough within the constraints of the law that different courts disagree as to the legality of its actions.
codex 13y ago
Does this mean I should buy a gun? You sound just like the NRA.
- noarchy 13y ago
  You think encouraging the use of technologies that protect privacy is akin to NRA rhetoric? Or is it that I don't believe in relying on government to protect privacy? We'll have to agree to disagree.
InclinedPlane 13y ago
You're not going to get a political solution without widespread political action. Talk about it, make it an issue that is just as important as anything else at the polls. Make other people understand the importance of the issue as well. If gay marriage and pot legalization can become real, serious issues that the electorate cares passionately about then so can surveillance and the extension of essential liberty onto the internet.
- noarchy 13y ago
  Gay marriage and pot legalization haven't done anything to diminish the power of the State. If anything, they've done the opposite, by introducing even more controls into certain areas of our lives. But leaving that aside, I think that governments find our privacy to be a much greater threat to their power than who they decide can get married, or what they decide people can smoke. I think that going after the surveillance state cuts much closer to the heart of their power.
Joeboy 13y ago
I think that's a false dichotomy. You're not going to get mainstream technical fixes, or keep them legal and secure, without engaging in a fair amount of politics. There are plenty of misfires and misguided efforts in both the political and technical spheres, but that doesn't mean either sphere should be dismissed in its entirety.
- noarchy 13y ago
  If some people want to spend their time and energy on political pursuits, they're free to do so. I won't try to stop them, but I will be happy to both discourage them and to not join them in such pursuits. This isn't like trying to get the government to allow the plebes to smoke pot, or something similarly-unthreatening to their power. Though I am sure that governments would be happy to legalize your privacy, in exchange for broad regulations on how much they'd like to allow you to have at a given moment (meaning, none whatsoever when it really counts).
rtpg 13y ago
Maybe you should try to be less myopic on these things when paying attention though. Historically both the judicial and the legislative system have slowly pushed back on unchecked executive privilege. Before FISA, the executive could basically spy on any foreigner for any reason without any reason given to the other branches. Congress pushed back, putting into place the Senate Intelligence committee. The problem isn't that all branches are in on it, it's that they aren't. There isn't communication between the three branches, so when the gory details get revealed ,be it Hoover's FBI antics, Nixon's abuses, or now, the NSA's eagerness, other branches fight back. If you look at laws regarding privacy historically, there's a general tendency for more, not less. One step back doesn't invalidate a whole system.
- lukifer 13y ago
  Past performance isn't necessarily predictive of future results. Big data is entirely unprecedented in world history.
- noarchy 13y ago
  We're in a new era of surveillance, where Nixon's abuses look like schoolyard pranks compared to what governments are doing today. Even the excesses of Hoover's FBI can't touch what is being done now. Considering how little (read: next to nothing) was done about those past excesses, it won't shock me to see nothing at all done about those conducted in the present-day. We've seen legislatures, presidents, and courts all lining up on the same page, with more than enough rubber-stamping to go around. Creating oversight bodies means another set of rubber stamps.

by noarchy 13y ago

sanderjd 13y ago

This actually looks more like the system working to me. There are now two important judges who disagree in their interpretation of the issue. The system failed when this was kept secret such that it could not be ruled on by the legal system (and I don't believe a "secret court" is a part of a "legal system"), but now that it is being ruled on, it's expected and proper that judges may disagree.

arca_vorago 13y ago
Please keep in mind the very actions being described themselves have implications of undermining the entire judicial system, up to and including the SCOTUS. It's easy to say, "Well, yeah it was shitty they hid it from us, but now the courts will all take care of it as they do, and I'm sure SCOTUS won't rule wrongly, no no, they would never do that." but if you ignore the fact that there are allegations that judges are largely appointed based on the ability for the appointee to control via various methods including blackmail and bribery. I'll let you follow the implications from there, but I'm afraid this situation is much more serious than you seem to realize.

chris_mahan 13y ago

I've reached the conclusion that in order to receive constitutional protection of "my papers", they need to be "on paper". So, I essentially don't put anything on the internet, or even on my computer, unless I'm comfortable with it being on the internet, permanently (meaning until my great-grandchildren retire, in 120 years). for reference, the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." I would like to think that "papers" in the text would also refer to electronic documents, but alas that seems to not be the case. This is one of those cases where the saying "In Theory, Practice and Theory are the same, but in practice they're not." seems to fit.

rayiner 13y ago
You're setting up and knocking down a strawman. Its not a matter of electronic documents versus paper. A USB key in your desk drawer is protected as much as a stack of paper documents. This was not a controversial issue. Courts have treated electronic documents uniformly with paper ones for a long time with little fanfare. The relevant issue is where these documents are located, and whether it's reasonable to have a privacy interest in documents transmitted in plain text over the internet. As an analogy: if you leave your physical papers in someone's garage, you cannot invoke the 4th amendment if the police find those documents otherwise lawfully. It's not reasonable for you to claim a privacy interest in documents over which someone else has unrestricted control. That's the nature of an electronic document "in the cloud." Countless people have access to that document, at the service provider and also at intermediate routing nodes. If you use Google or Facebook, that information is even routinely scanned for advertising purposes. That's the nature of the internet. It's built on routing plain text information between unrelated nodes. Treating this information that is physically not private as "logically private" is a social fiction based on trusting service providers. That's the question courts are faced with. Not whether electronic documents enjoy 4th amendment protection (they clearly do), but whether to indulge the fiction that documents which are as a factual matter not private should nonetheless be treated as private for 4th amendment purposes. There might be good reason to do that. There might also be good reason to stop short of fully endorsing the current status quo, and requiring service providers to make certain privacy guarantees in order for documents on their systems to enjoy 4th amendment protections.
- chris_mahan 13y ago
  How do I know my computer is not compromised? How do I know the files on my cell phone are not compromised? We've already established the NSA is not acting within the constraints of law. That's what Snowden revealed. One cannot rely on the law (the constitution or any other) to gain safety from government spying.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    > We've already established the NSA is not acting within the constraints of law. What we've established is that the NSA is acting enough within the constraints of the law that different courts disagree as to the legality of its actions.

codex 13y ago

Does this mean I should buy a gun? You sound just like the NRA.

noarchy 13y ago
You think encouraging the use of technologies that protect privacy is akin to NRA rhetoric? Or is it that I don't believe in relying on government to protect privacy? We'll have to agree to disagree.

InclinedPlane 13y ago

You're not going to get a political solution without widespread political action. Talk about it, make it an issue that is just as important as anything else at the polls. Make other people understand the importance of the issue as well. If gay marriage and pot legalization can become real, serious issues that the electorate cares passionately about then so can surveillance and the extension of essential liberty onto the internet.

noarchy 13y ago
Gay marriage and pot legalization haven't done anything to diminish the power of the State. If anything, they've done the opposite, by introducing even more controls into certain areas of our lives. But leaving that aside, I think that governments find our privacy to be a much greater threat to their power than who they decide can get married, or what they decide people can smoke. I think that going after the surveillance state cuts much closer to the heart of their power.

Joeboy 13y ago

I think that's a false dichotomy. You're not going to get mainstream technical fixes, or keep them legal and secure, without engaging in a fair amount of politics. There are plenty of misfires and misguided efforts in both the political and technical spheres, but that doesn't mean either sphere should be dismissed in its entirety.

noarchy 13y ago
If some people want to spend their time and energy on political pursuits, they're free to do so. I won't try to stop them, but I will be happy to both discourage them and to not join them in such pursuits. This isn't like trying to get the government to allow the plebes to smoke pot, or something similarly-unthreatening to their power. Though I am sure that governments would be happy to legalize your privacy, in exchange for broad regulations on how much they'd like to allow you to have at a given moment (meaning, none whatsoever when it really counts).

rtpg 13y ago

Maybe you should try to be less myopic on these things when paying attention though. Historically both the judicial and the legislative system have slowly pushed back on unchecked executive privilege. Before FISA, the executive could basically spy on any foreigner for any reason without any reason given to the other branches. Congress pushed back, putting into place the Senate Intelligence committee. The problem isn't that all branches are in on it, it's that they aren't. There isn't communication between the three branches, so when the gory details get revealed ,be it Hoover's FBI antics, Nixon's abuses, or now, the NSA's eagerness, other branches fight back. If you look at laws regarding privacy historically, there's a general tendency for more, not less. One step back doesn't invalidate a whole system.

lukifer 13y ago
Past performance isn't necessarily predictive of future results. Big data is entirely unprecedented in world history.
noarchy 13y ago
We're in a new era of surveillance, where Nixon's abuses look like schoolyard pranks compared to what governments are doing today. Even the excesses of Hoover's FBI can't touch what is being done now. Considering how little (read: next to nothing) was done about those past excesses, it won't shock me to see nothing at all done about those conducted in the present-day. We've seen legislatures, presidents, and courts all lining up on the same page, with more than enough rubber-stamping to go around. Creating oversight bodies means another set of rubber stamps.