6 ms·

New NSA Documents Shine More Light into Black Box of Executive Order 12333

255 points by mo 12y ago

freddealmeida 12y ago
I certainly don't understand why any such authority can be given.
- efoto 12y ago
  EO 12333 (http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/executive-order/12333.html http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/execut...) is in place since 1981 - one of the peaks of the Cold War. In this context one can justify the provisions of the EO. But regardless of the context, any bureaucrat would prefer ubiquitous surveillance. It's up to the concerned citizens to insist on their constitutional rights and press the government to restrict spying on their own people.
freddealmeida 12y ago
I certainly don't understand why any such authority can be given.
npkarnik 12y ago
Extralegal power has always been a mainstay of the federal government. For 20th century examples, the FBI was notorious for monitoring and blackmailing Civil Rights leaders (associating the movement with communism), especially MLK. Japanese internment during World War II was authorized by FDR's executive order 9066. There is literally no legal basis for most of the NSA's activity. But there is plenty of extra-legal handwaving that justifies the NSA's behavior...executive orders, "secret court" FISA rulings, all culminating in the use of this intelligence to assassinate and indefinitely detain/torture those (citizens and noncitizens alike) who are a "continued and imminent threat" to the United States. "Slippery slope" arguments used to seem weak and contrived. But I honestly can't help but feel we've reached pretty close to the bottom of that slope. In the sense that I feel like our government just kind of makes stuff up as it goes along and only occasionally responds well to the strongest forms of shame.
- afarrell 12y ago
  I don't know why "slippery slope" arguments are considered a logical fallacy. It is a property of human institutions that movement in some direction makes movement further in that direction more likely. Saying it will definitely happen is still fallacious, but saying it won't make it more likely seems to ignore human tendencies in both individual and group decision-making.
  - afarrell 12y ago
    One amusing non-example of this: legal far marriage in MA led to legal sibling marriage in MA. I've heard the claim that legalizing gay marriage would lead to legalizing incestuous marriage. I strenuously doubt that it would lead to an actual conscious choice to do so. The arguments against incestuous relationships (that they are likely to be abusive due to power dynamics and the inability to separate families via devorce) are totally separate from the arguments against gay relationships (I cannot actually think of any non-specious ones) It is amusing to note that Massachusetts, has a law making it illegal to marry your sibling, parent, child, etc. so long as they are the opposite gender as you. When in 2004 gay marriage became legal, the law this failed to prohibit same-sex marriage between blood relatives. This wasn't a policy decision by anyone: The legislature simply failed to update the code.
    - lukifer 12y ago
      I find it funny that the obvious gay marriage slippery-slope is seldom discussed by its opponents: polygamy and group marriage, which have far more potential for societal impact than gay marriage ever could. I suspect this is at least partially due to the tendency of old-school religious affiliation among the small number of practicing polygamists, which the conservative "values voters" are uncomfortable associating with, even indirectly. (Not claiming marriage equality would lead to plural marriage; just surprising how seldom it's brought up, relative to nonsense about marrying dogs.)
      - ams6110 12y ago
        It is brought up frequently, in the debates I've heard.
alandarev 12y ago
But it seems to be absolutely OK to spy on all the people who use Celsium?
- kbart 12y ago
  Yeah, all I've seen in this article was "Americans, americans, americans..". I though we have already found out that NSA is a world wide problem and, among other adversary effects, poses a serious threat to literary break Internet into regional networks, not that "NSA is bad because it listens to the phone calls of americans".
  - tehmaco 12y ago
    The only people who can make the NSA stop/change the way it functions is Americans though.
    - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
      Apparently not Americans - because we have no actual vote in how they're run. Congress doesn't either. So that leaves the Executive branch - which comes down to 1 (one) American.
      - lukifer 12y ago
        I can't back this up, but I would lay odds that the influence the NSA/CIA has over the President is far greater than the reverse (and that this has been true for decades, regardless of who sits in the chair).
    - alan_cx 12y ago
      Im with you in spirit, but the US partly gets away with all this because other countries not only support them, but aid them. Prime sorry example, UK and GCHQ. Cant help thinking that if a lot of US allies simply said no, something might change. If the international community stood up to the US Gov, Americans themselves might then ask more question about the internal working. Sadly here in the UK, Im vaguely sure we out do the US in terms of privacy invasion. So, I'll have a Coke and a smile and......
justcommenting 12y ago
John Napier Tye tried to change these policies and practices before resigning from the State Department earlier this year. His story is spine-chilling for anyone who cares about these issues and is well worth reading in full, e.g.: "Before I left the State Department, I filed a complaint with the department’s inspector general, arguing that the current system of collection and storage of communications by U.S. persons under Executive Order 12333 violates the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. I have also brought my complaint to the House and Senate intelligence committees and to the inspector general of the NSA." http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/meet-executive-order-12333-the-reagan-rule-that-lets-the-nsa-spy-on-americans/2014/07/18/93d2ac22-0b93-11e4-b8e5-d0de80767fc2_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/meet-executive-order-...
- higherpurpose 12y ago
  Yet the administration keeps saying with a straight face that all of the mass surveillance they are doing is "perfectly legal", all while trying to hide it even happens, or trying to dismiss cases against them in Courts through bogus ways.
  - DanielBMarkham 12y ago
    It's almost like "we'll just keep repeating this over and over again until you news guys leave us alone. After all, this is old news, right?" Dangerous stuff.
  - justcommenting 12y ago
    The opening paragraphs of the above-linked piece make this shockingly clear: "The speech was about the impact that the disclosure of National Security Agency surveillance practices would have on U.S. Internet freedom policies. The draft stated that “if U.S. citizens disagree with congressional and executive branch determinations about the proper scope of signals intelligence activities, they have the opportunity to change the policy through our democratic process.” But the White House counsel’s office told me that no, that wasn’t true. I was instructed to amend the line, making a general reference to “our laws and policies,” rather than our intelligence practices. I did." Especially for a public servant working on internet freedom issues, I can't imagine how Tye must have felt. Tye's story really made one of Snowden's initial remarks concrete to me: "..but if you realize that that's the world that you helped create....you realize that you might be willing to accept any risk, and it doesn't matter what the outcome is, so long as the public gets to make their own decisions.." I hope that the courage of John Napier Tye will inspire others.
matt_morgan 12y ago
It's election day in the US. Please join the ACLU https://www.aclu.org/secure/become-freedom-fighter-join-aclu https://www.aclu.org/secure/become-freedom-fighter-join-aclu and remember that we can make this an issue to which politicians must be sensitive.
- coldpie 12y ago
  I noticed this year that almost every article I read about court cases that I care deeply about were either defended or brought by either the ACLU or the EFF. Then I started a monthly donation to both. Both organizations are doing a lot of good work.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

255 points by mo 12y ago

freddealmeida 12y ago

I certainly don't understand why any such authority can be given.

efoto 12y ago
EO 12333 (http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/executive-order/12333.html http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/execut...) is in place since 1981 - one of the peaks of the Cold War. In this context one can justify the provisions of the EO. But regardless of the context, any bureaucrat would prefer ubiquitous surveillance. It's up to the concerned citizens to insist on their constitutional rights and press the government to restrict spying on their own people.

freddealmeida 12y ago

I certainly don't understand why any such authority can be given.

npkarnik 12y ago

Extralegal power has always been a mainstay of the federal government. For 20th century examples, the FBI was notorious for monitoring and blackmailing Civil Rights leaders (associating the movement with communism), especially MLK. Japanese internment during World War II was authorized by FDR's executive order 9066. There is literally no legal basis for most of the NSA's activity. But there is plenty of extra-legal handwaving that justifies the NSA's behavior...executive orders, "secret court" FISA rulings, all culminating in the use of this intelligence to assassinate and indefinitely detain/torture those (citizens and noncitizens alike) who are a "continued and imminent threat" to the United States. "Slippery slope" arguments used to seem weak and contrived. But I honestly can't help but feel we've reached pretty close to the bottom of that slope. In the sense that I feel like our government just kind of makes stuff up as it goes along and only occasionally responds well to the strongest forms of shame.

afarrell 12y ago
I don't know why "slippery slope" arguments are considered a logical fallacy. It is a property of human institutions that movement in some direction makes movement further in that direction more likely. Saying it will definitely happen is still fallacious, but saying it won't make it more likely seems to ignore human tendencies in both individual and group decision-making.
- afarrell 12y ago
  One amusing non-example of this: legal far marriage in MA led to legal sibling marriage in MA. I've heard the claim that legalizing gay marriage would lead to legalizing incestuous marriage. I strenuously doubt that it would lead to an actual conscious choice to do so. The arguments against incestuous relationships (that they are likely to be abusive due to power dynamics and the inability to separate families via devorce) are totally separate from the arguments against gay relationships (I cannot actually think of any non-specious ones) It is amusing to note that Massachusetts, has a law making it illegal to marry your sibling, parent, child, etc. so long as they are the opposite gender as you. When in 2004 gay marriage became legal, the law this failed to prohibit same-sex marriage between blood relatives. This wasn't a policy decision by anyone: The legislature simply failed to update the code.
  - lukifer 12y ago
    I find it funny that the obvious gay marriage slippery-slope is seldom discussed by its opponents: polygamy and group marriage, which have far more potential for societal impact than gay marriage ever could. I suspect this is at least partially due to the tendency of old-school religious affiliation among the small number of practicing polygamists, which the conservative "values voters" are uncomfortable associating with, even indirectly. (Not claiming marriage equality would lead to plural marriage; just surprising how seldom it's brought up, relative to nonsense about marrying dogs.)
    - ams6110 12y ago
      It is brought up frequently, in the debates I've heard.

alandarev 12y ago

But it seems to be absolutely OK to spy on all the people who use Celsium?

kbart 12y ago
Yeah, all I've seen in this article was "Americans, americans, americans..". I though we have already found out that NSA is a world wide problem and, among other adversary effects, poses a serious threat to literary break Internet into regional networks, not that "NSA is bad because it listens to the phone calls of americans".
- tehmaco 12y ago
  The only people who can make the NSA stop/change the way it functions is Americans though.
  - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
    Apparently not Americans - because we have no actual vote in how they're run. Congress doesn't either. So that leaves the Executive branch - which comes down to 1 (one) American.
    - lukifer 12y ago
      I can't back this up, but I would lay odds that the influence the NSA/CIA has over the President is far greater than the reverse (and that this has been true for decades, regardless of who sits in the chair).
  - alan_cx 12y ago
    Im with you in spirit, but the US partly gets away with all this because other countries not only support them, but aid them. Prime sorry example, UK and GCHQ. Cant help thinking that if a lot of US allies simply said no, something might change. If the international community stood up to the US Gov, Americans themselves might then ask more question about the internal working. Sadly here in the UK, Im vaguely sure we out do the US in terms of privacy invasion. So, I'll have a Coke and a smile and......

justcommenting 12y ago

John Napier Tye tried to change these policies and practices before resigning from the State Department earlier this year. His story is spine-chilling for anyone who cares about these issues and is well worth reading in full, e.g.: "Before I left the State Department, I filed a complaint with the department’s inspector general, arguing that the current system of collection and storage of communications by U.S. persons under Executive Order 12333 violates the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. I have also brought my complaint to the House and Senate intelligence committees and to the inspector general of the NSA." http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/meet-executive-order-12333-the-reagan-rule-that-lets-the-nsa-spy-on-americans/2014/07/18/93d2ac22-0b93-11e4-b8e5-d0de80767fc2_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/meet-executive-order-...

higherpurpose 12y ago
Yet the administration keeps saying with a straight face that all of the mass surveillance they are doing is "perfectly legal", all while trying to hide it even happens, or trying to dismiss cases against them in Courts through bogus ways.
- DanielBMarkham 12y ago
  It's almost like "we'll just keep repeating this over and over again until you news guys leave us alone. After all, this is old news, right?" Dangerous stuff.
- justcommenting 12y ago
  The opening paragraphs of the above-linked piece make this shockingly clear: "The speech was about the impact that the disclosure of National Security Agency surveillance practices would have on U.S. Internet freedom policies. The draft stated that “if U.S. citizens disagree with congressional and executive branch determinations about the proper scope of signals intelligence activities, they have the opportunity to change the policy through our democratic process.” But the White House counsel’s office told me that no, that wasn’t true. I was instructed to amend the line, making a general reference to “our laws and policies,” rather than our intelligence practices. I did." Especially for a public servant working on internet freedom issues, I can't imagine how Tye must have felt. Tye's story really made one of Snowden's initial remarks concrete to me: "..but if you realize that that's the world that you helped create....you realize that you might be willing to accept any risk, and it doesn't matter what the outcome is, so long as the public gets to make their own decisions.." I hope that the courage of John Napier Tye will inspire others.

matt_morgan 12y ago

It's election day in the US. Please join the ACLU https://www.aclu.org/secure/become-freedom-fighter-join-aclu https://www.aclu.org/secure/become-freedom-fighter-join-aclu and remember that we can make this an issue to which politicians must be sensitive.

coldpie 12y ago
I noticed this year that almost every article I read about court cases that I care deeply about were either defended or brought by either the ACLU or the EFF. Then I started a monthly donation to both. Both organizations are doing a lot of good work.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]