4 ms·

I tend to agree. From what we've seen so far, one has to assume the NSA does not really care about the legal status of its activities. As we say in Germany: Leg

by krylon 12y ago

I tend to agree. From what we've seen so far, one has to assume the NSA does not really care about the legal status of its activities. As we say in Germany: Legal - illegal - Scheißegal. They may rename the program, shuffle it to so other branch of their organisation, but I don't think they are going to stop. (Another problem, of course, is that they would have a very hard time proving they stopped, even if they did. If they just said, "yeah, we're sorry, won't happen again", who would believe them?)

deciplex 12y ago
> Another problem, of course, is that they would have a very hard time proving they stopped, even if they did. If they just said, "yeah, we're sorry, won't happen again", who would believe them? This is a good argument for abolishing the NSA. As an institution it has completely lost credibility with any reasonable member of the electorate - it is hopelessly naive to believe what they say. Perhaps it can be redeemed with a sustained program of vigorous oversight (over-vigorous, really), but failing that it needs to be abolished and replaced by a new organization with a different charter and most of the influential members of the NSA absent from the levers of power. Of course, neither of these things are likely to happen with the electorate in the state it's currently in.
rayiner 12y ago
> From what we've seen so far, one has to assume the NSA does not really care about the legal status of its activities. To the contrary, what we have seen so far is that the NSA has structured its activities around well-defined legal principles: No privacy interest in things crossing the border -> tapping cross-border fiber cables but not purely domestic ones. No privacy interest in information held by third parties -> sending third-party subpoenas instead of directly tapping companies' networks. No privacy interest in phone metadata -> collecting phone metadata. Inapplicability of the 4th amendment to foreign nationals not on U.S. soil -> filtering out purely domestic communications.
- throwawayaway 12y ago
  > No privacy interest in information held by third parties -> sending third-party subpoenas instead of directly tapping companies' networks really? https://plus.google.com/+MikeHearn/posts/LW1DXJ2BK8k https://plus.google.com/+MikeHearn/posts/LW1DXJ2BK8k
  - rayiner 12y ago
    If you follow the links in the article: > We do not know exactly how the NSA and GCHQ intercept the data, other than it happens on British territory.
    - throwawayaway 12y ago
      Please give me the url that contains that text string in the body, because I can't find it. I followed those links. I did find this though(directly tapping companies networks in the past): In 2011, when the FISC learned that the NSA was using similar methods to collect and analyze data streams — on a much smaller scale — from cables on U.S. territory, Judge John D. Bates ruled that the program was illegal under FISA and inconsistent with the requirements of the Fourth Amendment. [0] [0] http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-infiltrates-links-to-yahoo-google-data-centers-worldwide-snowden-documents-say/2013/10/30/e51d661e-4166-11e3-8b74-d89d714ca4dd_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-in...
      - rayiner 12y ago
        http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/11/04/how-we-know-the-nsa-had-access-to-internal-google-and-yahoo-cloud-data http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/11/04...
        throwawayaway 12y ago
        Thank you. It would appear that collection under the MUSCULAR program relies on UK fibre links. Given previous, I'm going to assume they still do routinely collect data between US data centres on fibre links - but that's only an assumption. No supporting evidence. For the same reason, and previous behaviour, given no evidence to the contrary - thinking that they don't is only an assumption too.
cmurf 12y ago
The loss of trust is what I think is most damaging.

by krylon 12y ago

deciplex 12y ago

> Another problem, of course, is that they would have a very hard time proving they stopped, even if they did. If they just said, "yeah, we're sorry, won't happen again", who would believe them? This is a good argument for abolishing the NSA. As an institution it has completely lost credibility with any reasonable member of the electorate - it is hopelessly naive to believe what they say. Perhaps it can be redeemed with a sustained program of vigorous oversight (over-vigorous, really), but failing that it needs to be abolished and replaced by a new organization with a different charter and most of the influential members of the NSA absent from the levers of power. Of course, neither of these things are likely to happen with the electorate in the state it's currently in.

rayiner 12y ago

> From what we've seen so far, one has to assume the NSA does not really care about the legal status of its activities. To the contrary, what we have seen so far is that the NSA has structured its activities around well-defined legal principles: No privacy interest in things crossing the border -> tapping cross-border fiber cables but not purely domestic ones. No privacy interest in information held by third parties -> sending third-party subpoenas instead of directly tapping companies' networks. No privacy interest in phone metadata -> collecting phone metadata. Inapplicability of the 4th amendment to foreign nationals not on U.S. soil -> filtering out purely domestic communications.

throwawayaway 12y ago
> No privacy interest in information held by third parties -> sending third-party subpoenas instead of directly tapping companies' networks really? https://plus.google.com/+MikeHearn/posts/LW1DXJ2BK8k https://plus.google.com/+MikeHearn/posts/LW1DXJ2BK8k
- rayiner 12y ago
  If you follow the links in the article: > We do not know exactly how the NSA and GCHQ intercept the data, other than it happens on British territory.
  - throwawayaway 12y ago
    Please give me the url that contains that text string in the body, because I can't find it. I followed those links. I did find this though(directly tapping companies networks in the past): In 2011, when the FISC learned that the NSA was using similar methods to collect and analyze data streams — on a much smaller scale — from cables on U.S. territory, Judge John D. Bates ruled that the program was illegal under FISA and inconsistent with the requirements of the Fourth Amendment. [0] [0] http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-infiltrates-links-to-yahoo-google-data-centers-worldwide-snowden-documents-say/2013/10/30/e51d661e-4166-11e3-8b74-d89d714ca4dd_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-in...
    - rayiner 12y ago
      http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/11/04/how-we-know-the-nsa-had-access-to-internal-google-and-yahoo-cloud-data http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/11/04...
      - throwawayaway 12y ago
        Thank you. It would appear that collection under the MUSCULAR program relies on UK fibre links. Given previous, I'm going to assume they still do routinely collect data between US data centres on fibre links - but that's only an assumption. No supporting evidence. For the same reason, and previous behaviour, given no evidence to the contrary - thinking that they don't is only an assumption too.

cmurf 12y ago

The loss of trust is what I think is most damaging.