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As you know from past debates around here, I've never been one to view the Constitution as a static document that can be applied based on "plain language" or "original intent", but rather that it has to constantly be evaluated and interpreted as the world changes. I think we need to re-assess how the 4th Amendment applies to modern day digitial communications, and that part of that analysis has to consider the balance between security and privacy concerns in modern times, yes. I do not mean to suggest even remotely that I think security concerns should always trump privacy concerns. But I think the balance has to be considered.
So now after the leak of documents Obama said pretty much the same thing "we need a balance between security and privacy/liberty". Does it trouble you at all that they are going to likely aggressively go after the person who made the debate possible ? Or do you think that there was going to be actual debate/consideration to privacy concerns without this latest revelation ?
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Champagne for breakfast and a Sherman in my hand !
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The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.
George Orwell, 1984
In the midst of all this furor, there has been an obvious fact that seems to have gone under the radar ... that the US seems to think its perfectly fine to go into the servers of private companies and extract any data it chooses concerning non-US citizens. They aren't even trying to hide or cover that up. In fact it's being willingly used as a justification and excuse for the program.
They just openly admit to spying and infringing the privacy of any and all non-US citizens. This was bound to have repercussions. Will be interesting to see if this leads anywhere. The EU has been uncompromising with going after mega companies who overstep the mark or fail to comply with their court orders (Microsoft in particular). Will they show the same balls against the US Government ... I suspect not.
Well for years we've been openly killing non US citizens, so I think their loss of privacy is a minor consideration.
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Champagne for breakfast and a Sherman in my hand !
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The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.
George Orwell, 1984
Ah yes ... the dropbox excuse. Even if that were true, that just means the companies themselves openly handed over all the data knowingly without any unique court order.
But it's not true ... you should have looked at all the slides ... "Collection directly from the servers of these US companies". This slide also clearly distinguishes between what they call Upstream (indirect) and PRISM (direct).
I'm still a bit skeptical that the NSA conducts "collection directly from the servers of these US companies" as you've noted. It stems from my knowledge of Silicon Valley companies pathological desire to protect their proprietary technologies. Those article somewhat dispute the direct collection claim that you've posited.
The federal government has secretly taken information on foreigners overseas for years from companies like Google, Facebook and Apple, the director of national intelligence confirmed.
I'm still a bit skeptical that the NSA conducts "collection directly from the servers of these US companies" as you've noted. It stems from my knowledge of Silicon Valley companies pathological desire to protect their proprietary technologies. Those article somewhat dispute the direct collection claim that you've posited.
The federal government has secretly taken information on foreigners overseas for years from companies like Google, Facebook and Apple, the director of national intelligence confirmed.
I think the guilty nature of the response of these companies tells everything. They all released similar repudiations at first, in fact almost identical in some instances, some even went as far as denying all knowledge of these programs. I believe several of the firms didn't even bother releasing statements. And since then ... nothing. A wall of silence.
If they were really innocent, at least one firm would have been screaming innocence from a soap box ... especially given the hypocrisy. They knew ... maybe only a tiny few knew on a "need to know basis" ... but they knew.
It also helps set some context for why companies like Facebook have been so cavalier and uncaring when it comes to private data security. They know there is no real privacy, it's just a facade ... a marketing tool ... a way to reassure us sheeple.
Apparently this guy's salary was $122K, not 200K. 200K is maybe what Booz was billing the NSA, which is a sweet profit margin for the company where Clapper came from...
A comment from one of the most red-meat gun-toting conservatives I know
The more the details come out, the less concerned I'm becoming about this NSA program. And I think this douche who ran to the press with these copied papers is a wanna-be Martyr who hilariously ran to China while protesting invasion of privacy and loss of freedoms. Lulz.
The program was deemed legal, it has oversight amongst all 3 branches of Government, and there was no way to have any of the information accessed on a more personal level without having a Warrant granted by a special FISA judge. And the program basically uses metadata that is already available via communication companies in the US.
It's not perfect, and yes a little concerning, but I don't think it's worth shutting down. And this Snowden clown didn't even leak anything that showed illegal activity, he just leaked things that he didn't like according to his own personal view of things. Sorry, but that's not a justifiable rationale to spill our nation's secrets.
Yeah right ... because gun totting 'freedom' loving gun nuts are true guardians of civil liberties and individual freedom. Don't make me laugh. They are exactly the demographic who will simply ignore their own hypocrisy.
Yeah right ... because gun totting 'freedom' loving gun nuts are true guardians of civil liberties and individual freedom. Don't make me laugh. They are exactly the demographic who will simply ignore their own hypocrisy.
He's a government defense contractor who hates event he oxygen Obama breathes.
l really liked the circular reasoning employed in that article – Snowden should have known what the NSA was doing and not joined if he didn’t agree with it, while at the same time it is a crime for anyone to say what the NSA is doing – so how could he be expected to know the extent of their spying ?
Also trying to legitimize the NSA spying on Americans by saying that it was approved by congress. Not mentioning, however, that the NSA has repeatedly lied to congress about their spying activities (see links below)
And of course labeling him a traitor for disclosing classified info. So if the government does something unethical or illegal and classifies it then it is wrong to expose it ? Oh yeah, I remember that is consistent with prosecuting the whistleblower who exposed U.S. torture. So obeying the government becomes always good and disobedience is always evil. Hmmm....
Basically that is probably a convincing article if you’ve already made up your mind and don’t want to question the goodness of the U.S. government. Just keep buying their story as they continue to spy on U.S. citizens and criminalize journalism.
Sen. Wyden: Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?
Director Clapper: No sir.
It does not.
Not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertantly perhaps collect, but not wittingly.
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Rep. Johnson: Does the NSA intercept Americans’ cell phone conversations?
Director Alexander: No.
Google searches?
No.
Text messages?
No.
Amazon.com orders?
No.
Bank records?
No.
What judicial consent is required for NSA to intercept communications and information involving American citizens?
Within the United States, that would be the FBI lead. If it were a foreign actor in the United States, the FBI would still have to lead. It could work that with NSA or other intelligence agencies as authorized. But to conduct that kind of collection in the United States it would have to go through a court order, and the court would have to authorize it. We’re not authorized to do it, nor do we do it.
Long ago, I stopped believing the fiction of pathological liars like Admiral Clapper. We're dealing with sociopaths at the upper echelons of the power pyramid, which is a natural occuring phenomenon among our species. That's the primary reason the 2nd amendment was created, in to explicitly deal with these miscreants when they continue on their predictable domination tour. Make no mistake they're coming, which explains their elaborate surveillance grid, the mass ammunition purchases and the littany of federal grants being forcefed to local police departments. Abdul the camel jockey isn't the real threat.
Yeah right ... because gun totting 'freedom' loving gun nuts are true guardians of civil liberties and individual freedom. Don't make me laugh. They are exactly the demographic who will simply ignore their own hypocrisy.
There are so-called gun toting "patriots" who have an unhealthy fascination with the "security" state and will defend it's glaring faults to their last breath. That's life long conditioning for you.
He's a government defense contractor who hates event he oxygen Obama breathes.
And what is that supposed to prove? It's not like the constitutional arguments have anything to do with the gun debate anyway. The second amendment is an archaic leftover of a bygone age.
So a fringe member / employee of the of a private firm who relies on the expansion of military expenditure and the instruments of state control, especially the widespread privatization of the US's intelligence services (which I'm shocked is not a bigger debate) in order to justify not only his job but also his very existence joins in the ostracisation and vilification of a whistleblower who revealed hard evidence of one of the most disturbing and serious infringement of civil individual liberties in the entire history of Liberal Democracy.
At the end of last year British ministers agreed to pay more than £2m to the family of Sami al-Saadi, a prominent Libyan dissident abducted with the help of MI6 and secretly flown to Tripoli where he was tortured by the security police of the former dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
Having sought for years to avoid Gaddafi's agents, al-Saadi was forced on board a plane in Hong Kong with his wife and four young children in a joint UK-US-Libyan operation.
Saadi flew to Hong Kong with his wife and children. They were not met by any British officials but were detained by Chinese border guards over alleged passport irregularities, held for a week and then despatched to Tripoli, where all of them were initially imprisoned. Saadi was held and tortured for years.
CIA correspondence with Libyan intelligence, found in the spy chief Moussa Koussa's office in Tripoli by Human Rights Watch, states:
We are … aware that your service had been co-operating with the British to effect [Saadi's] removal to Tripoli … The Hong Kong government may be able to co-ordinate with you to render [Saadi] and his family into your custody.
"We don't work directly with the NSA or any other program in order to proactively give any user information to anyone," Zuckerberg said at a shareholder's meeting. "No one has ever approached us to do anything like that, like what was reported...No agency has any direct access to our servers."
"None of these agencies have any kind of direct access where they can plug into our servers and get information. We push back to protect the security and privacy of all of our users' information."
I guess the NSA just imagined they had direct access to your servers for years Mark. Lying bastards the lot of them.
i don't get why you keep harping on the "direct access to the servers" angle here, johnny. unless you mean after obtaining a court order. it seems pretty clear that the NSA *doesn't* have a direct conduit into the servers - they can only access it by court order.
"Instead of all of this energy and effort directed at the war to end drugs, how about a little attention to drugs which will end war?" Albert Hofmann
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