NSA has direct access to tech giants' systems for user data, secret files reveal

NSA Chief Seeks More Data From Private Sector in Sharing Offer.

-- Tom

 

Not a criminal act.

Child porn is a criminal act.

Both are criminal acts, along with verbal threats of harm.

There is nothing illegal about lying (unless one is under Oath in front of a judicial body). It is perfectly legal in most states to lie to police, but it is illegal to lie to federal investigators. In both cases it is best not to even talk to them at all.

A call to arms to overthrow the government. It is a criminal act, but it appears to be hard to actually get anyone convicted for it unless overt acts of violence were actually carried out. I doubt that a lone individual who says "down with the government" is going to be convicted for it today (again, unless there was an actual conspiracy involved).

Not a criminal act.

Huh?

We could get into a *long* debate about this, but I will just say that I disagree. It is true that the law has yet to "catch up" to the Internet. Most Internet legislation was written in the late 1980's (specifically regarding who owns e-mail).

But to make an analogy comparing the Internet to a national park or highway is wrong. My car on the highway is still my car. My wallet in my pocket (when I walk in a public park) is still my wallet. A cop, for instance, cannot, without probable cause, do a cavity search of my person just because he feels like it. Likewise, my data on the Internet should still be my data even if the "pipes" are not owned by me specifically. What I choose to share with google should be between me and google and what I post on Facebook should be between me and Facebook (or whoever else I allow to see it). If the police want it, they should have to provide a warrant just like they do in the "physical" world.

There are plenty of investigation techniques that can bypass the need to read *everyone's* Internet data. I mean how do you think NSA/CIA operated decades ago? What NSA wants to do today is collect everything and then try to find a needle in the haystack. Sorry, but that's not how our system of laws were setup. Local police can't just go door to door searching every house on the block because they hope to catch someone doing something illegal. No, they need a targeted warrant.

You mention a few things: Drug trafficking, child exploitation, terrorism. As for drugs, it doesn't concern me as I think the drug laws are a bit silly. As for child porn, there are many ways to catch such people without having to open up all of our communications (undercover agents is one good way). Terrorism is a joke -- you have more of a chance of being struck by lightening than being killed by terrorists. Moreover, even with this massive NSA spying apparatus, they failed to catch the most recent terrorist act on U.S. soil -- the Boston bombers. They also apparently failed to detect the recent Kenyan mall attackers. So much for finding that needle in the haystack, eh?

 

I agree with just about everything that you say, except for the "government" bits. We (everyone) need new models for government that respect both individual and local autonomy, and also mediate conflict at larger scales. What we have now, with a few minor exceptions, just doesn't work, and is hopelessly corrupted.

TLAs throughout history have always striven to intercept all communication channels: conversation, couriers, mail, telegraph, teletype, telephone, radio, etc. What's new are technologies for efficiently storing and analyzing intercepted data.

 

Senator Feinstein Admits the NSA Taps the Internet Backbone

The blog article provides more links to the subject.

 

Feds Targeted Snowden’s Email Provider the Day After NSA Whistleblower Went Public.

-- Tom

 

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that every limitation on the First Amendment to the Constitution has to come in the form of a criminal offense. It does not, nor did I ever say that it did. Thus, if I were to intentionally make false claims about you, it would not be a sufficient defense in a civil litigation for defamation that I claim immunity under the First Amendment. The Courts, through common law precedent, would likely hold that the First Amendment does not protect me when I make intentionally false statements amounting to slander. That is not to say that I would go to jail, as I likely would not, yet I might still owe you financial restitution.

You seem to understand the boundaries of "Free Speech" where criminal prosecution might be warranted, but fail to appreciate the significance in civil litigation. In the copyright example, if the principle of Free Speech was boundless, then I could copy any work that I wanted, when I wanted, and the government would have no recourse... as they would be limiting my Freedom of Speech by enforcing another's copyright. In the area of commercial speech, there are quite a few limitations on "Free Speech"... one cannot advertise an illegal product, one cannot use false or deceptive statements in advertising, nor can one make misleading statements about competitors' products. Even when advertising is truthful, the government can pass many laws about the boundaries of commercial speech (i.e., FDA can regulate medical advertising, State's can regulate advertising for legal services, etc).

All of the areas that I mentioned have been brought up in court cases in which the boundaries of "Free Speech" were debated. That was the point; not that the speaker would or would not go to jail.

Indeed it is, and perhaps you may even be correct in saying that your data remains yours even when it traverses the Internet (highly debatable, but for the sake of argument a point I'm willing to concede). Rather the point is not, who owns the car or the data... it is are you entitled to complete anonymity? And the answer in the real world is definitely not. By law, you have to have a license plate on your car that identifies that white 2010 Ford Taurus as belonging to you, as opposed to some other guy with the exact some make and model. That's rather specific, isn't it? Society, through the laws it has passed, might have deemed it enough to just allow law enforcement to search vehicle registrations by make and model and tie it to a list of probable suspects. But, no, in virtually every industrialized country they have passed laws requiring license plates of some sort -- specifically tying actions to individuals. Do you not think that many in society believe that data packets themselves should perhaps come with a license plate of sorts? In many cases, the source IP address functions as such a "license plate" although it is far from infallible. You and your fellow privacy advocates appear to argue that the government has no right to track data, nor that they should be allowed to break encryption or force ISP's or VPN providers to divulge source IP / user mappings during a specific timeframe... yet why should there be a double-standard on "privacy" in this secondary world we call the Internet? There is no need for "probable cause" for anyone, cop or civilian, to read your license plate in the real world... they just can and do.

 

I make no claims about "rights", or what's "allowed" or not. That's clearly a waste of time, in my opinion.

What interests me is how to ensure privacy, not how to force anyone to give it to me.

 

N.S.A. Gathers Data on Social Connections of U.S. Citizens

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/us/nsa-examines-social-networks-of-us-citizens.html?_r=0

 

For US citizens: If you think the founding fathers (revolutionary terrorists by today's metric) would have been cool with this stuff, I want what you're smoking.

Probable Cause. The 4th isn't that hard to understand.

Also, Brandenburg v Ohio goes into the fact that you *can* advocate a whole bunch of nasty stuff. Unless it's very specific, and very imminent, you can say it.

PD

 

How NSA snooping secures profits for famed privacy pro (Q&A).

-- Tom

 

The Perils of Hacking Math.

-- Tom

 

This has been discussed. The application of the Fourth Amendment is not clear cut, and indeed current case law likely supports the position that it does not apply (at least to the phone metadata activity of the NSA). See this article -- Metadata, the NSA, and the Fourth Amendment: A Constitutional Analysis of Collecting and Querying Call Records Databases -- for what I believe is a balanced analysis...

Now the author goes on to discuss alternate theories about how it might apply... notably in regards to a mosaic theory...

And then he also proceeds to analyze the Fourth Amendment rights of the phone companies themselves. But, in short, the analysis is not as simple, nor obviously in favor of being applicable, as you seem to believe.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/30/nsa-files-edward-snowden-gchq-whistleblower

 

What's happening is a 'General Warrant' or 'Writ of Assistance'. There is no 'particularity requirement'. GW/WoA by the British are the defacto reason the 4thA was written. Courts and scholars can say what they want, the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798 say that when the courts screw up (as political appointees are oft to do), you Nullify. Jefferson was the sitting Vice President when he and Madison wrote them. I'm sure there were plenty of supporters for the 'Fugitive Slave Act' and Segregation as well. They were law and supported by court decisions and learned scholars...proof that 'legal' doesn't equal 'right'.

PD

 

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/1...sa_disclosures_says_its_former_privacy_chief/

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1nisdy/were_glenn_greenwald_and_janine_gibson_of_the/

 

'I don't trust Microsoft' after NSA disclosures

"'I don't trust Microsoft' after NSA disclosures says former privacy chief"

Caspar Bowden, who was Microsoft's European chief privacy advisor from 2002 to 2011, has said that he no longer trusts his former employer after the disclosures about its involvement in NSA surveillance schemes. ~ op cit

Open source is the way to go warns Bowden ~ The Register

 

Wow! Thanks That's a must-read IAmA!

 

This should have been obvious to anyone who has watched the evolution of Windows. It's pathetic that it takes revelations like prism, Snowdens leaks, etc, before people start looking past the advertizing, hype, planned obsolescense, vendor coercion, manipulation and weakening of standards, etc.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/01/glenn-greenwald-janine-gibson-reddit-nsa

 

ACLU: FBI has '20 separate records' for every adult and child in the USA

ACLU: FBI has '20 separate records' for every adult and child in the USA.

-- Tom

 

A German writer is banned from the US for criticizing the NSA.

-- Tom

 

Re: ACLU: FBI has '20 separate records' for every adult and child in the USA

I wonder if by the next national election anything would change for the better. If not USA is virtually guaranteed to be a police state.

 

NSA Now Claiming 'Terrorist Chatter' Leak By Unnamed Govt Officials 'More Damaging' Than All Of Snowden's Combined.

-- Tom