[HN Gopher] Pentagon surveilling Americans without a warrant, Se...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Pentagon surveilling Americans without a warrant, Senator Wyden
       reveals
        
       Author : jbegley
       Score  : 400 points
       Date   : 2021-05-13 18:06 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.vice.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.vice.com)
        
       | forgithubs wrote:
       | I don't support that kind of surveillance.
       | 
       | That said, are they really in illegality ? Can I buy this type of
       | localization data as a private individual ?
       | 
       | If so, then they don't need a warrant, am I right ?
        
         | tclancy wrote:
         | There are plenty of things a private citizen can do that a
         | government entity cannot.
        
       | anonymousisme wrote:
       | What about the practice of letting our five eyes partners collect
       | on Americans, and then obtaining the laundered intel products?
        
       | croes wrote:
       | That's why all this data collection in the web is a bad idea. Not
       | only by FAANG but any developer who helps in creating this data.
        
         | jtdev wrote:
         | I think U.S. based developers need to create something akin to
         | the CCC in Germany to combat the clear abuse of privacy that
         | many developers are now engaging in on a daily basis.
         | 
         | https://www.ccc.de/en/club
         | 
         | I know... the CCC has been the target of infiltration and
         | compromise in various ways throughout history, but that's a
         | reality of standing up to abusive power.
        
           | croes wrote:
           | I would have thought something like that already existed in
           | the USA. So there is one point where Germany has a head start
           | in IT.
        
       | billytetrud wrote:
       | Unsurprising, but still disappointing. Actually I'm glad someone
       | is trying to hold them accountable. It seems silly tho that we
       | need to pass a law to uphold what's already written into the
       | constitution. It highlights that the constitution only has teeth
       | in some legal contexts, primarily where a court case is being
       | heard on a citizen being prosecuted. Conditionality seems to not
       | have any bearing on preventing agencies from violating the
       | constitution or stopping them when they're found out, nor
       | punishing those responsible for the violation.
        
         | babesh wrote:
         | Surveillance is a form of power. Power does not give up power.
         | 
         | Law is enforced via power. When it meets a greater power then
         | the law is contravened.
         | 
         | Look at the US and how it broke international law to force a
         | plane down that it thought had Snowden.
        
           | edoceo wrote:
           | Huh, TIL..
           | 
           | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incide.
           | ..
        
             | fanatic2pope wrote:
             | Assange deliberately leaking false information is a very
             | interesting admission.
        
               | tpmx wrote:
               | Given the extreme asshattery history of Assange, it seems
               | just as probable that he was mostly trying to get some
               | attention with guesses and then later claimed that it was
               | a deliberate disinformation campaign.
        
               | TheTester wrote:
               | Unless you are quite rich and powerful, saying that what
               | Assange has done is mostly "asshattery" is dishonest, yes
               | he has had flukes but consider the mental state of
               | someone being prosecuted and hunted by the most powerful
               | and corrupt people in our planet, mostly what Assange has
               | done s good and denying and calling him an asshat is
               | dishonest and shows a clear bias on your part
        
               | tpmx wrote:
               | _Unless you are quite rich and powerful, saying that what
               | Assange has done is mostly "asshattery" is dishonest_
               | 
               | Why do you think it wouldn't be dishonest if I were quite
               | "rich and powerful"?
        
               | jhayward wrote:
               | > _mostly what Assange has done s good_
               | 
               | No, colluding with the GRU to create false documents
               | interfering with the US Presidential election, resulting
               | in the disaster that was Trump's election can not, in any
               | sense, be called 'good'.
        
               | tpmx wrote:
               | For the record: That's not what I wrote about above.
        
               | CrazyPyroLinux wrote:
               | More Trump Derangement Syndrome spotted!
        
               | cema wrote:
               | Did he really collaborate?
        
               | [deleted]
        
           | maybelsyrup wrote:
           | 1000x this. It's so unusual to talk plainly about power, but
           | that's really what it's all about.
        
           | splithalf wrote:
           | Would you prefer no laws?
           | 
           | Seems we benefit from them no?
        
             | tclancy wrote:
             | Not everyone + you is "we". Lots of people are hurt by bad
             | laws; your appreciation for your government's laws tends to
             | correlate to how much money or clout you have. Mainly
             | because it allows you to ignore them.
        
             | Slow_Hand wrote:
             | Parent post isn't arguing against the existence of laws.
             | They're illustrating that laws have limits and can be
             | overcome by entities that wield enough power.
        
               | splithalf wrote:
               | Look at the post above yours. Yes, some want to make the
               | case that laws on the whole are essentially oppressive.
               | Whether of not foucault made that case precisely, or
               | whatever, is totally irrelevant if it's what most people
               | actual mean, viz that laws are the tools by which the
               | powerless are oppressed.
        
             | kmonsen wrote:
             | That is one of the largest straw men I have ever seen.
        
           | slibhb wrote:
           | Law is primarily about voluntary submission, not power. A law
           | that is followed only as long as it is enforced is not much
           | of a law and is unlikely to last.
           | 
           | In terms of your broader point, something about restricting
           | the authority of a law-giving entity via the law seems
           | paradoxical. An example of this paradox is the fact that it's
           | difficult to have standing to sue the government over an
           | illegal spying program that is classified.
           | 
           | The best we seem to be able to do is the future-government
           | holding the past-government accountable.
        
             | pmiller2 wrote:
             | > Law is primarily about voluntary submission, not power.
             | 
             | Let me know how that works out for you, k? I can assure you
             | that although state power ultimately comes from the people,
             | the state most definitely will enforce its laws against
             | you, should you break them. That is, unless you're rich and
             | powerful enough to afford the best lawyers and a handful of
             | legislators.
        
               | shkkmo wrote:
               | It may have been a bit overstated, but the core point is
               | solid.
               | 
               | One of the main reasons the war on drugs failed is a lack
               | of voluntary submission. Pure enforcement, even with the
               | progressive strengthing of enforcement powers, was simply
               | unable to stop drugs being widely available in the USA.
               | 
               | Our society runs on trust and voluntary submission to the
               | rule of law. If either of those went away in a signifant
               | fashion, the our legal system and society in general
               | would cease to function in it's current form.
        
               | pmiller2 wrote:
               | Except you have it backwards. The "War on Drugs" came
               | about as a way for the state to exert power over youth
               | and minorities.
               | 
               | > "The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House
               | after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black
               | people," former Nixon domestic policy chief John
               | Ehrlichman told Harper's writer Dan Baum for the April
               | cover story published Tuesday.
               | 
               | > "You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't
               | make it illegal to be either against the war or black,
               | but by getting the public to associate the hippies with
               | marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing
               | both heavily, we could disrupt those communities,"
               | Ehrlichman said. "We could arrest their leaders. raid
               | their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them
               | night after night on the evening news. Did we know we
               | were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."
               | 
               | https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-
               | rich...
               | 
               | From that perspective, the drug war makes perfect sense,
               | and was a _spectacular_ success, not in terms of
               | submission, but in terms of control.
        
               | anaerobicover wrote:
               | The original publication was at Harper's Magazine, not
               | CNN, but this infamous quotation has dubious provenance
               | and veracity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ehrlichm
               | an#Drug_war_quote
        
               | slibhb wrote:
               | Though you seem to think otherwise, nothing in your post
               | contradicts anything I wrote.
        
               | SR2Z wrote:
               | The state is rarely capable of enforcing the law on more
               | than a small minority of lawbreakers because enforcing
               | the law is expensive.
               | 
               | If there's a busy road where people are routinely
               | speeding, the state is actually incapable of pulling
               | every single speeder over and ticketing them. Instead,
               | the state relies on setting reasonable speed limits and
               | scaring drivers with the prospect of fines.
               | 
               | This isn't a personal philosophy as much as it is a
               | statement of truth: it's really expensive to enforce
               | laws.
        
               | alisonkisk wrote:
               | We now have speed cameras and semi automatic citations.
        
               | reader_mode wrote:
               | >the state is actually incapable of pulling every single
               | speeder over and ticketing them.
               | 
               | a) technology exists where you can just record license
               | plates and send speeding tickets automatically - which is
               | a nice prallel for mass surveilance tech - it makes large
               | scale enforcement much cheaper
               | 
               | b) you don't really need to enforce on everyone, a high
               | deterrant + random enforcement creates strong incentives
               | against doing something (ie. making examples)
        
               | pmiller2 wrote:
               | You don't think selective enforcement is about exertion
               | of power?
        
           | markus_zhang wrote:
           | The real problem is that ordinary people do not have power
           | and (secretly) they do not want power.
        
           | ultrastable wrote:
           | as a great man said, "Political power grows out of the barrel
           | of a gun"
        
         | WalterBright wrote:
         | The Constitution is just a piece of paper. It is powerless if
         | people ignore it.
         | 
         | It's the same with presidents, kings, and dictators. If people
         | just stopped doing what they said, they become nothing.
         | 
         | There's an incident in Soviet history where Stalin was sure
         | they were coming to arrest and execute him. He was shaking and
         | completely powerless. But they were just coming to affirm his
         | power.
         | 
         | The Arab Spring came about because people stopped following
         | orders.
         | 
         | When Nixon was on his way out, the military decided to not
         | follow his orders (so I've read).
         | 
         | The US will end when people just decide Constitution
         | Shmonstitution.
         | 
         | Gun control is neither here nor there for me personally, but
         | what greatly concerns me is if the Bill of Rights is ignored
         | wrt the 2nd Amendment, then what about the rest of the Bill of
         | Rights? Is that next?
        
           | brobdingnagians wrote:
           | This reminds me of the tension between the Confucians and the
           | Legalists in ancient Chinese Philosophy; as well as Etienne
           | de La Boetie with his [1] Discourse on Voluntary Servitude.
           | 
           | The Legalists believed that if you had good laws then the
           | rest would take care of itself. They "advocated government by
           | a system of laws that rigidly prescribed punishments and
           | rewards for specific behaviours. They stressed the direction
           | of all human activity toward the goal of increasing the power
           | of the ruler and the state."[2]
           | 
           | But the Confucians, particularly Mencius, pointed out that
           | good men would create the good laws; while bad men would
           | corrupt good laws. The laws were important for the ordering
           | of society but insufficient. i.e. : "The sage-kings of
           | antiquity are a model, but one cannot simply adopt their
           | customs and institutions and expect to govern effectively
           | (4A1). Instead, one must emulate the sage-kings both in terms
           | of outer structures (good laws, wise policies, correct
           | rituals) and in terms of inner motivations (placing ren and
           | yi first). Like Confucius, Mencius places an enormous amount
           | of confidence in the capacity of the ordinary person to
           | respond to an extraordinary ruler, so as to put the world in
           | order." [3]
           | 
           | To borrow from the Confucians; the Constitution is a product
           | of good men and good laws to help protect goodness and order
           | in society, but without good men to continue to have a living
           | embodiment of the principles, it is still just a law that can
           | be corrupted or ignored.
           | 
           | A beautiful quote from Etienne that you reminded me of is
           | this, where he advocates to simply stop supporting tyrants:
           | "Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do
           | not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him
           | over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you
           | will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has
           | been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in
           | pieces."
           | 
           | Tyrants only have power because people choose to follow.
           | 
           | [1] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Discourse_on_Voluntary_Ser
           | vit...
           | 
           | [2] https://www.britannica.com/topic/Legalism#:~:text=The%20L
           | ega....
           | 
           | [3] https://iep.utm.edu/mencius/
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | rootusrootus wrote:
           | > It is powerless if people ignore it.
           | 
           | Indeed we just had a bit of a lesson in the recent past which
           | showed exactly how dependent our country is (and probably
           | most other countries as well) on shared values and tradition.
           | The Constitution isn't all-powerful as a piece of paper, its
           | real power is as an idea.
        
             | Frost1x wrote:
             | The real power is consensus in an idea. Hopefully that idea
             | is good but ultimately, you need critical mass to accept an
             | idea or reject it.
             | 
             | If people in the US really want to grab back power to the
             | citizens of this country it can be done (peacefully even).
             | All it really takes is a large enough consensus of voters
             | to upend all the garbage we're being subjected to. The
             | issue is that the consensus is more difficult to reach due
             | to the scale of the US voter population combined with
             | tactics like gerrymandering and overall difficulty of
             | orchestrating movements to support ideals most people seem
             | to support (which isn't oppressing a minority unless we
             | classify power and wealth hungry individuals as a protected
             | minority which we currently seem to do).
             | 
             | Reaching consensus amongst citizens is far far more
             | difficult these days, giving an edge to those already
             | sitting in positions of concentrated power with fewer
             | players, lending itself more likely to reach a consensus.
             | It doesn't help that those in power actively try and divide
             | the general voter population and set us against one another
             | making it even more difficult to reach a consensus.
        
               | bobthechef wrote:
               | > If people in the US really want to grab back power to
               | the citizens of this country it can be done
               | 
               | This can go either way, of course. We're sort of in
               | between a rock and hard place. American oligarchs are
               | guiding the country toward a 21st century brand of
               | serfdom. The tyranny of the mob doesn't seem like a
               | better alternative. You might expect the so-called
               | Benedict Option to succeed, much like it did in the so-
               | called Dark Ages.
               | 
               | > The issue is that the consensus is more difficult to
               | reach due to the scale of the US voter population
               | combined with tactics like gerrymandering and overall
               | difficulty of orchestrating movements to support ideals
               | most people seem to support (which isn't oppressing a
               | minority unless we classify power and wealth hungry
               | individuals as a protected minority which we currently
               | seem to do).
               | 
               | These same oligarchs also employ psychological warfare to
               | divide and occupy the populace. For example, all the
               | recent race conflict? A total fabrication because the
               | establishment is feeling the heat and the pressure of
               | rising awareness. Racial conflict is a dependable tactic
               | that has worked before. Sexual liberation is another form
               | of political control. Get people addicted to porn and
               | masturbation, unleash sex from the confines of marriage,
               | divorce it from its procreative end, and you have a mass
               | of people staring at their genitals and obsessing over
               | orgasms as if it were the rapture (hilariously and
               | tragically enough, rates of sexual intercourse are
               | dropping and rates of ED in men are rising). Similar
               | things can be said of the other cardinal vices. Whip up
               | envy and people are kept busy envying each other. All
               | this makes them easier to control. A man has as many
               | masters as he has vices. That's why "sexual liberation"
               | is such an oxymoron. "Sexual enslavement" is more
               | fitting. The legalization of drugs is likely another
               | weapon in the oligarchic arsenal. Get people doing drugs
               | instead of facing their problems, growing in reason and
               | virtue (and therefore freedom), and repairing the ills of
               | the culture beginning with themselves. Get them to escape
               | into myriad diversions, entertainment, and bullshit
               | causes. Whip up emotions and sensationalize. Have then at
               | each other's throats in the throes of wrath. Where two
               | are fighting, a third profits.
               | 
               | > Reaching consensus amongst citizens is far far more
               | difficult these days,
               | 
               | And why is that? Because the cultural and civilizational
               | underpinnings of the West are disintegrating. So many
               | things that to so many seemed so minor have been the thin
               | ends of a wedge. Over time, they weakened the principles
               | and the tradition that marked their continuity. The
               | withering of classical education means that tradition, in
               | practice, became reduced to mere convention, leaving
               | people vulnerable to revolution and moral corruption. It
               | means you have no defense against the unfolding of the
               | consequences of liberal philosophy and modernism which
               | now puts you in the defensive position.
               | 
               | > It doesn't help that those in power actively try and
               | divide the general voter population and set us against
               | one another making it even more difficult to reach a
               | consensus.
               | 
               | And there it is. Libido dominandi, the lust for power.
        
           | tick_tock_tick wrote:
           | The 2nd Amendment is always a great point in these kind of
           | debates if any other right had half as many restrictions on
           | it people would be on the streets. Requiring an ID to vote is
           | viewed as completely unacceptable by many but the very same
           | people think it's perfectly reasonable to require it for
           | other rights.
        
             | anaerobicover wrote:
             | The right of voting is more essential, however, it is the
             | _sine qua non_ of all the others. If we fall down to the
             | point where guns are required to indeed defend the rights,
             | they functionally are not existing any more.
        
         | mc32 wrote:
         | We gotta thank the Bush admin for this. Obama had the opp to
         | make things right, but passed and instead gave them a wink.
         | Trump was never going to act against these interests even if
         | he'd wanted to given all the other aspects he was embroiled in.
         | And now Biden. No way is he going to buck the establishment.
         | Unfortunately Ron Paul nor anyone like him will make it into
         | office to dismantle this surveillance-industrial complex.
        
           | jtdev wrote:
           | Uhhhh... Obama doubled down on this bullshit.
        
           | HideousKojima wrote:
           | >Trump was never going to act against these interests even if
           | he'd wanted to given all the other aspects he was embroiled
           | in.
           | 
           | Yet another person completely unaware that Trump let the
           | Patriot Act expire:
           | https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/27/politics/house-vote-
           | fisa/inde...
           | 
           | Can't say I'm surprised, the left didn't want to make huge
           | news about it because it made Trump look good (and the
           | establishment left supports the Patriot Act), and the right
           | establishment/military supports the Patriot Act as well so
           | they didn't want to raise a hubbub about it.
        
             | howenterprisey wrote:
             | Just in case anyone sees that and thinks it was due to any
             | sort of principles or concerns about mass surveillance, a
             | quote from the article: "Thank you to our GREAT Republican
             | Congressmen & Congresswomen on your incredibly important
             | blockage last night of a FISA Bill that would just
             | perpetuate the abuse that produced the Greatest Political
             | Crime In the History of the U.S., the Russian Witch-Hunt.
             | Fantastic Job!"
        
               | koolba wrote:
               | Who would have a better understanding of the issue at
               | hand than someone who's campaign was spied on by
               | political operatives leveraging FISA powers?
        
               | throwaway8581 wrote:
               | Umm, orange man bad.
        
           | HumblyTossed wrote:
           | Don't you mean Ron Wyden and not Ron Paul?
           | 
           | Otherwise you're pretty much spot on.
        
             | adventured wrote:
             | They mean making it into the White House I believe. Ron
             | Paul would certainly attempt to dismantle it, and he'd fail
             | miserably (he'd never win election to begin with though).
             | 
             | The larger confusion on the part of the parent is thinking
             | the President is in charge of much of anything or has the
             | power to dismantle any of these deep state perma structures
             | that have been built up in the post WW2 era; these are
             | structures that survive any given administration,
             | regardless of political agenda, and which nobody really
             | dares to challenge. That includes the always expanding
             | spying systems and military industrial complex. Any
             | President that tries it will be burned out of DC every
             | which way possible. Instant lame duck, crippled by their
             | own party, on the outs with the news media (which is
             | entirely a pet of the deep state), lambasted coming and
             | going, tripped up in staged scandals set up by deep state
             | opponents in the FBI or CIA, probably get impeached a few
             | times for relatively trivial things (vs, say, starting wars
             | in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya that got a million plus
             | people killed; you know, things you should actually get
             | impeached for). The President is more of a token figurehead
             | today than not.
        
               | atatatat wrote:
               | > he'd never win election to begin with though
               | 
               | How do you persevere in the face of this type of media
               | blacklisting?
               | 
               | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMdrwhDoZjQ
        
               | mygoodaccount wrote:
               | Am i missing something? How does the video demonstrate
               | "blacklisting"? It looks like the feed cut out.
        
               | adventured wrote:
               | I didn't watch your link (I rarely follow stray YouTube
               | links). However regarding Ron Paul, I don't envy what he
               | has endured in his lifetime from moronic opponents on
               | both sides of the political aisle. The YouTube video of
               | him being harangued & attacked by zombie anti-drug
               | zealots on the Morton Downey Jr show is enough to feel
               | sorry for him for a lifetime.
               | 
               | Persevere, though? Anyone that dares to tell the truth
               | today is begging for a blacklisting. That's what building
               | the big tech censorship systems is all about (which will
               | be America's version of the great firewall), being able
               | to dictate what the supposed truth is for any given topic
               | at any given moment in time. It's a martyrs game, telling
               | the truth, I assume Ron Paul has known that for a long
               | time.
        
               | nobody9999 wrote:
               | >Persevere, though? Anyone that dares to tell the truth
               | today is begging for a blacklisting.
               | 
               | Indeed. Liz Cheney's fate[0] is a great example of that.
               | 
               | [0] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/05/
               | 12/liz-...
        
               | vlan0 wrote:
               | Yep. We saw it with Andrew Yang as well. Either being
               | left out completely, or media outlets taking about 'him'
               | without actually saying his name.
        
               | NotSammyHagar wrote:
               | I'm skeptical of this media blackout. I heard lots of
               | people talking about this, he was on podcasts, I saw him
               | interviewed. Look at how much discussion there is about
               | him running in NYC. I think it was much more that there
               | were a whole lot of credible people running and there
               | wasn't enough air in the room for him to get much. I saw
               | every losing group complain of the election being stolen
               | from them in some way, Warren, Sanders, Yang.
        
               | Judgmentality wrote:
               | > I saw every losing group complain of the election being
               | stolen from them in some way, Warren, Sanders, Yang.
               | 
               | The irony of this statement is you see it as evidence of
               | there being no conspiracy, but I see it as exactly the
               | opposite. Maybe everyone complaining about the same
               | problem means the problem is real?
        
               | atatatat wrote:
               | Bingo.
               | 
               | Easiest mainstream evidence is treatment of candidates in
               | debates -- which, reminder, are operated entirely
               | by...basically whoever in academia or media.
        
               | NotSammyHagar wrote:
               | I don't believe that. First, a pres. in their second term
               | can do it without fear of electoral repercussions to
               | themselves. And these days there's so much made up stuff
               | that half the country believes that it wouldn't make any
               | real difference in the big picture.
               | 
               | There was the
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee after all.
               | The people that benefit from the current situation would
               | be against changing it of course. But I agree it's
               | extremely unlikely to be changed. I think the reason is
               | that most federal elected politicians have a comfort with
               | what these groups are doing that gives them a sense that
               | we need these things. Something like "we are doing a
               | terrible amount of spying on americans but it's
               | protecting us". Plus they get campaign donations from the
               | military industrial and spying complexes. And not much
               | attention is given to the fact that a dishonorable leader
               | could use this to start blackmailing opponents and maybe
               | even ultimately control the population. Fortunately we
               | haven't ever come close to a leader like that, ha ha.
        
           | CWuestefeld wrote:
           | Yes, blame GWB. But I'm not sure why you're giving a pass to
           | Obama, Trump, and Biden. Their failure to address it is every
           | bit as bad as anything that was (presumably) set up under
           | Bush.
        
         | clairity wrote:
         | i'd go one step further and prohibit our government from
         | surveilling any non-governmental foreigner without an auditable
         | warrant, and strictly prohibit corporations with heavy
         | sanctions from sharing any non-governmental surveillance with
         | the government whatsoever (on top of existing privacy laws of
         | course). the government should be in service, not in command,
         | of the people.
        
           | c3534l wrote:
           | The government only has the powers granted to it by the
           | constitution. If the power for the executive to unilaterally
           | conduct searches was not given to it, then it doesn't have
           | it. Just because it doesn't say the government can't surveil
           | foreigners doesn't mean they can - it has to specifically say
           | the government is granted the right to surveil foreigners.
           | And there's really very little reason to think that a power
           | never granted to the government in the first place in the
           | case of Americans was actually, somehow in secret, granted in
           | the cases of non-Americans.
        
             | salawat wrote:
             | Note: military surveillance should notcross with Law
             | Enforcement surveillance.
             | 
             | They are two different things in the eyes of the judiciary.
             | 
             | The military can get away with surveillance under the
             | mandate of defending the United States from all threats,
             | foreign and domestic.
             | 
             | The product of that surveillance, however, is not
             | permissible as far as I know in a court of law unless it's
             | specifically UCMJ.
             | 
             | Not a lawyer though. If one is around willing to enlighten
             | us on this odd question, it'd be much obliged.
        
             | clairity wrote:
             | i'd also generally agree with this, but not everyone does,
             | so let's spell it out more clearly, even if somewhat
             | redundantly.
        
             | ncmncm wrote:
             | Government exercises exactly the powers it claims and is
             | not restrained from exercising. E.g., the US Constitution
             | does not grant the Executive branch the power to torture
             | prisoners taken without due process. Instead, persons
             | nominally overseen the Executive branch exercise those
             | powers exactly until they are exposed and stopped.
             | 
             | The main use of surveillance is, _always and everywhere_ ,
             | extortion. We see this daily among local, state, and
             | federal police, abusing it to coerce the public to become
             | informants; among prosecutors to coerce false admissions of
             | guilt; and among spooks to convert formerly free
             | individuals to "assets", and to enforce silence about
             | abuses. It is used to coerce judges to issue unjust orders
             | and decisions, to coerce witnesses to remain silent, and to
             | coerce elected officials to vote against the interest of
             | their constituents, or even to step down from an elected
             | position or not to seek re-election. It is used to coerce
             | awarding contracts or custom to undeserving suppliers, or
             | to coerce lower prices in services sold.
             | 
             | Coercion need not be based on surveillance of the person
             | coerced; it can come from surveillance of parents,
             | siblings, offspring, friends, business partners, customers,
             | service providers.
        
             | andred14 wrote:
             | The 2020 election is proof that currently what is written
             | in the constitution does not matter
        
           | tsimionescu wrote:
           | The text of the US constitution explicitly talks about the
           | rights of people, not citizens - so I would argue that the
           | constitution itself has always prohibited this.
           | 
           | However, there is a long history of interpreting 'people' to
           | mean specific groups - from only white people to only
           | citizens.
        
             | rayiner wrote:
             | > The text of the US constitution explicitly talks about
             | the rights of people, not citizens - so I would argue that
             | the constitution itself has always prohibited this.
             | 
             | No, it talks about "the people." As in the preamble: "We
             | the People of the United States."
             | 
             | > However, there is a long history of interpreting 'people'
             | to mean specific groups - from only white people to only
             | citizens.
             | 
             | Playing with the interpretation of "people" has never been
             | a mechanism for excluding people from constitutional
             | protection. For example, the 3/5ths clause states as
             | follows:
             | 
             | > Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned
             | among the several States which may be included within this
             | Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall
             | be determined by adding to the whole Number of free
             | Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of
             | Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all
             | other Persons
             | 
             | It refers to enslaved people as "persons." The Fugitive
             | Slave clause likewise refers to a "person held to service
             | or labour."
        
               | sophacles wrote:
               | The first half of your post contradicts the second half
               | of your post.
        
           | xinniethepooh wrote:
           | 'Any non-governmental foreigner' includes the vast number of
           | non-official-cover spies sent by other nations. The
           | government is to serve the people, but it must balance the
           | fact that other world powers and enemy nations are seeking to
           | undermine the nation.
        
             | clairity wrote:
             | then get a warrant since spying is probable cause. but no
             | warrant, no surveillance. and the warrant should be
             | reviewable/challengeable by more than a secret/military
             | court. transparency and balance of power are crucial to
             | maintaining a service (rather than a domineering)
             | orientation.
             | 
             | also, foreign governments in general spy with non-cover
             | agents not to undermine our (US) government secretly, but
             | to get an edge for their own power and prestige.
             | undermining activities usually happen either with
             | government agents for high secrecy operations (like
             | stuxnet) or relatively openly if obscurely
             | (disinformation/propaganda campaigns).
             | 
             | the long-running encroachment against our liberties has
             | been largely due to fundamental
             | misgivings/misunderstandings like 'everyone is out to get
             | us'. those are the same impulses that led us to
             | performative responses to a pandemic rather than relatively
             | minimal but targeted federal action (e.g., honest
             | information dissemination and financial support for r&d and
             | the at-risk/marginalized).
        
           | coliveira wrote:
           | The US government has a history of requesting extraordinary
           | powers for extraordinary situations and never give them back.
           | All the modern surveillance apparatus had its beginning
           | during WW2. When the war was over, instead of pacifying the
           | world, they immediately switched to create a cold war against
           | a former ally to justify an even more expensive surveillance
           | apparatus. With the end of former Soviet Union, instead of
           | dismantling the surveillance industry, they started to create
           | new enemies around the world, so people would be coerced to
           | keep them employed against the interests of the population.
        
             | Spooky23 wrote:
             | Yes. The Stalinist Soviet regime were innocent, peace-
             | living victims.
        
         | baybal2 wrote:
         | In other news:
         | 
         | - More than 120 retired generals and admirals wrote to Biden
         | appearing to back a false election conspiracy and questioning
         | his mental health - https://www.businessinsider.com/former-
         | generals-admirals-let...
         | 
         | - An open letter by former officers calling the president a
         | "Marxist" dictator is a greater threat to U.S. democracy than
         | the ouster of Liz Cheney. -
         | https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/05/12/joe-biden-military-revo...
         | 
         | - Over 120 retired generals and admirals signed on to a letter
         | falsely claiming the 2020 election was stolen in a move other
         | veterans say erodes democratic norms. -
         | https://sofrep.com/news/retired-officers-question-2020-elect...
         | 
         | 30 Brigadiers, 16 Lietenant Generals, 42 Major Generals.
         | 
         | In any other normal country, at this stage people will call a
         | military putsch brewing an inevitability.
        
         | fredgrott wrote:
         | it is often stated that locks are not for honest people, but to
         | keep dishonest people out.
         | 
         | can be applied to US constitution as additional laws needed not
         | for those who WANT to uphold the US constitution but those who
         | want to violate it.
         | 
         | Most of you probably already saw a Michigan-congress rep submit
         | a bill to violate the US constitution by trying to force
         | twitter posters to register with Michigan to post facts because
         | he wanted to prevent others from outing him in the form of fact
         | checking.
        
           | vernie wrote:
           | Isn't it the other way around?
        
           | danans wrote:
           | > it is often stated that locks are not for honest people,
           | but to keep dishonest people out.
           | 
           | The saying goes the other way: "Locks are for honest people",
           | implying that criminals aren't deterred by locks, and will
           | just break a window if they want to get in.
        
         | mywittyname wrote:
         | > It seems silly tho that we need to pass a law to uphold
         | what's already written into the constitution.
         | 
         | The constitution only grants or limits power of various
         | branches of government, it doesn't prescribe punishments for
         | breaking the rules. That's a job of Congress (or courts, for
         | civil cases).
        
           | 0xbadcafebee wrote:
           | Even if the Constitution _did_ prescribe punishments (what 's
           | a law without enforcement? wishful thinking.), everyone seems
           | to think that just because there's some lines in the
           | constitution that the matter is settled. We've been debating
           | the constitution _since it was written._ We need laws to be
           | tested in order to find out if they can or should be changed,
           | or if we need to do something else.
        
         | phkahler wrote:
         | >> It seems silly tho that we need to pass a law to uphold
         | what's already written into the constitution.
         | 
         | The argument is probably pretty simple. These companies will
         | sell your data to anyone for the right price, why would a
         | government agency be any different. It's probably not a search
         | or seizure, just a purchase between parties that don't even
         | include any specific member of the public.
         | 
         | First congress needs to make all this data selling and trading
         | illegal, then we'll see how the government goes about obtaining
         | it and weather that's legal or not. But too many lobbyists
         | represent companies that make a ton of money on it, and of
         | course these agencies would prefer to just purchase the data
         | "legally", so I'm not terribly optimistic.
        
       | java-man wrote:
       | "not wittingly"
       | 
       | [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEh-l_G1Gcs
        
         | throwkeep wrote:
         | Body language experts must have had a field day with that.
        
         | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
         | Can't watch because I am at work but the NSA conducts foreign
         | surveillance. If a foreign target talks to a US citizen that's
         | "unwittingly" surveiling a US citizen.
         | 
         | Do you believe that it's alright for the NSA to conduct
         | surveillance on foreign threats?
        
           | Mediterraneo10 wrote:
           | > Do you believe that it's alright for the NSA to conduct
           | surveillance on foreign threats?
           | 
           | It is one thing for the NSA to conduct surveillance on
           | foreign _threats_ , but I have always been uncomfortable with
           | the suggestion that the NSA is perfectly entitled to vacuum
           | up the communications of ordinary, perfectly harmless foreign
           | individuals because "the protections of the American
           | Constitution don't apply to foreigners". The American
           | Constitution is largely a product of 18th-century natural-law
           | arguments, and so you would think that case can be made that
           | all human beings are endowed by their Creator with a right to
           | privacy regardless of their citizenship.
        
           | MikeUt wrote:
           | But the NSA _did_ collect data on hundreds of millions of US
           | citizens, knew about it, and _lied about it to congress and
           | the US people_. That is the exact opposite of  "unwittingly".
           | That is the action of a domestic threat that has escaped
           | democratic and even government control.
           | 
           | > "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions
           | or hundreds of millions of Americans?" He responded, "No,
           | sir." Wyden asked "It does not?" and Clapper said, "Not
           | wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently,
           | perhaps, collect, but not wittingly."
           | 
           | > The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the
           | Guardian, requires Verizon on an "ongoing, daily basis" to
           | give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its
           | systems, both within the US and between the US and other
           | countries: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-
           | phone-reco...
        
           | totalZero wrote:
           | A conversation that includes a single US person should be
           | privileged more than a conversation between non-US persons.
        
           | maybelsyrup wrote:
           | > Do you believe that it's alright for the NSA to conduct
           | surveillance on foreign threats?
           | 
           | I like this question, but I think there's a better one: "do
           | you believe it's alright for the NSA to _exist_? "
        
             | xinniethepooh wrote:
             | I like this question, but I think there's a better one: "do
             | you think there is no legitimate threat that the NSA
             | addresses?"
        
           | ErikVandeWater wrote:
           | Are you saying that the NSA has a different definition of
           | wittingly than the standard definition of wittingly?
           | 
           | If you have a bug placed on someone's purse and they talk to
           | others, you are wittingly surveilling them. Unwittingly would
           | imply it was not foreseen that others would be spied on (e.g.
           | placing a wiretap on the wrong phone number).
        
           | auiya wrote:
           | > Do you believe that it's alright for the NSA to conduct
           | surveillance on foreign threats?
           | 
           | Whether anyone believes it's okay to do or not is irrelevant,
           | the NSA is charged to conduct foreign intelligence
           | surveillance by US law, and does so accordingly.
        
           | Nasrudith wrote:
           | Calling it unwitting is as lame an excuse as "I was suveiling
           | the middle school locker room walls to prevent graffiti with
           | hidden cameras when I recorded twenty-five terabytes of
           | undressing minors. Therefore no crime was committed by
           | shipping it over interstate lines to third parties for back
           | up."
           | 
           | They knew exactly what they were doing every step of the way.
        
           | etrabroline wrote:
           | Under the 4th amendment NSA is forbidden from collecting the
           | communications of US citizens without a warrant. Do you
           | disagree or think the constitution should be amended to
           | authorize that?
        
             | dragonwriter wrote:
             | > Under the 4th amendment NSA is forbidden from collecting
             | the communications of US citizens without a warrant.
             | 
             | Strictly by the text this is false in a couple respects:
             | 
             | (1) the text does not refer to or limit its provisions to
             | citizens _at all_.
             | 
             | (2) the text prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures,
             | not those without warrants (it also sets standards for
             | warrants, when they are issued.)
             | 
             | The Supreme Court has inferred from the juxtaposition of
             | the reasonableness requirement and warrant standards that
             | warrants are presumptively but not universally required for
             | reasonableness.
        
             | [deleted]
        
       | maybelsyrup wrote:
       | The thing I still can't fathom, all these years after Bush II and
       | then Snowden, is just how little human beings really care about
       | mass surveillance. Yeah, the Snowden leaks made a splash, but the
       | media cycle turned over a couple weeks later and everyone moved
       | onto other things.
       | 
       | It's like, if you're of a certain age, you had to read 1984 or
       | whatever in school. You'd think "well, no one would stand for
       | that sort of thing in real life!" Okay, so we don't live in
       | _that_ society, exactly, but time after time, we 're shown the
       | breadth of government surveillance and the reaction from the
       | broader public isn't to call for anyone's head on a pike -- it's
       | not even to vote anyone out!
       | 
       | Outside of little communities like this one, people don't give
       | much of a fuck. I guess that was Orwell's real point.
        
         | tsimionescu wrote:
         | I think most people would oppose it if the media were really
         | presenting it as an issue to keep in mind. However, most of the
         | people in the media are very much supporters of such powers, as
         | they are deep believers in the rightness of US institutions and
         | their 'fundamentally benign' nature. If you look at the media,
         | most are still in support of every single war America has ever
         | been in, with the only opposition being on matters of strategy
         | (e.g. "The US should have retreated from Vietnam earlier", not
         | "there was no defensible reason for the war in Vietnam, it was
         | just a blatant display of imperialism"). And I'm not talking
         | about Fox (who pride themselves on such views), but even the
         | most liberal papers or news channels.
         | 
         | Of course, they are very much opposed to such measures in other
         | countries, especially their enemies.
        
           | maybelsyrup wrote:
           | I think this is on point, and way underappreciated by the
           | non-hard-right in the US. People who vote Democrat tend to
           | think of "their" media institutions as objective or sincere,
           | and they're quick to forgive the litany of examples of
           | heinous shit the NYT or WP or CNN has pulled over the years -
           | salivating and fully turgid support for endless wars being
           | just the most obvious example.
        
             | tsimionescu wrote:
             | This video of CNN host Brian Williams referring to 'The
             | Beauty of our Weapons' has stuck with me as one of the most
             | bizarre examples of the prevailing pro-war attitude in the
             | 'left press':
             | 
             | https://twitter.com/i/status/850204332758716420
        
         | thanatos519 wrote:
         | Maybe 'Amusing Ourselves to Death' by Neil Postman will help
         | you fathom it; here's the forward:
         | 
         | https://www.tau.ac.il/education/muse/maslool/boidem/170forew...
        
         | treis wrote:
         | > Bush II and then Snowden, is just how little human beings
         | really care about mass surveillance.
         | 
         | I'm struggling to think of a single negative thing that I can
         | directly associate with mass surveillance in the US. Certainly
         | nothing bad has happened to me personally or anyone that I know
         | because of it. So no one cares because it doesn't impact
         | anyone's lives.
        
           | pope_meat wrote:
           | Here's one negative thing you can now associate with mass
           | surveillance.
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction
        
             | treis wrote:
             | I don't see that as a clearly negative thing. At worst it's
             | controversial and theoretically could lead to negative
             | things. But I don't see any concrete harm to associate with
             | that practice.
        
             | jackpirate wrote:
             | The problem is that most ordinary people view that as a
             | positive, not a negative.
        
         | sneak wrote:
         | I think most people don't care much about privacy for
         | themselves ("I have nothing to hide") and are happy to let
         | military intelligence daddy read their emails, as long as it
         | doesn't affect their life.
         | 
         | They remain ignorant of the fact that this means that people
         | who actually do need privacy for purposes of organization
         | against the harmful elements of the status quo (civil rights
         | leaders, labor leaders, political party upstarts, et c) will be
         | kneecapped by this for the remainder of the time the USA
         | exists.
         | 
         | It's a lack of imagination, really. The Long Now.
        
           | nobody9999 wrote:
           | >I think most people don't care much about privacy for
           | themselves ("I have nothing to hide") and are happy to let
           | military intelligence daddy read their emails, as long as it
           | doesn't affect their life.
           | 
           | I'd point out that the DoD is _purchasing_ this data from
           | private entities, not collecting it themselves.
           | 
           | As such, I'd say that it's less about _government_
           | surveillance specifically, and more about surveillance in
           | general.
           | 
           | Corporate surveillance is nothing new (Equifax/Experian/etc.
           | have been doing that for at least half a century) and those
           | folks collect, store and correlate enormously more data than
           | does the US government.
           | 
           | There is a massive effort by corporations to hide this sort
           | of data collection, which has been mostly successful.
           | 
           | Complaining about the government dipping into all that tasty,
           | tasty data is like blaming the child who was sickened by
           | stealing a cookie from a batch that was poisoned, then making
           | sure that the rest of the batch is fed to the intended
           | target.
           | 
           | That most folks are _just_ complaining about big, bad
           | government (which isn 't wrong, but just a tiny portion of
           | the larger issue), rather than the folks who are collecting,
           | correlating and using such data to their own advantage (of
           | which selling it to governments is just chump change) seems
           | rather silly and short-sighted.
        
             | sneak wrote:
             | Corporate data collection doesn't generally send the police
             | or military to your house when you sufficiently challenge
             | the status quo.
             | 
             | Corporations don't generally have guns or handcuffs that
             | they can use on arbitrary people. The state does, which is
             | why there's such a danger associated with them being able
             | to access the data.
             | 
             | Experian doesn't have a torture chamber. The Chicago PD and
             | the CIA do.
        
               | nobody9999 wrote:
               | >Corporations don't generally have guns or handcuffs that
               | they can use on arbitrary people. The state does, which
               | is why there's such a danger associated with them being
               | able to access the data.
               | 
               | And that makes it perfectly fine for corporations to do
               | so? Because they can't rough you up or arrest you?
               | 
               | Please.
               | 
               | As I said:                 ...complaining about big, bad
               | government (which       isn't wrong, but just a tiny
               | portion of the        larger issue)
               | 
               | My point (apparently, I wasn't explicit enough) was that
               | it's not _just_ governments that are the issue. What 's
               | more, if there were appropriate restrictions on
               | collecting and monetizing peoples' data, in this case the
               | DoD would have nothing to buy.
               | 
               | It's much easier (at least in the US) to restrain the
               | Federal government than hundreds (thousands?) of
               | corporations, regardless of their monopoly on the use of
               | force.
               | 
               | Railing against the government for compromising the
               | privacy of its citizens is absolutely appropriate. That
               | said, there is the much, much more widespread issue of
               | corporate surveillance that should _also_ be addressed.
        
               | sneak wrote:
               | There's a big difference between being under surveillance
               | because people want to manipulate you into giving them
               | money, and being under surveillance so that you can be
               | kidnapped at gunpoint to stop you from whatever it was
               | you were doing (even if it is all legal).
               | 
               | Corporate surveillance is bad, sure. But, even when
               | maximally bad, it doesn't pose that grave a threat to a
               | society's correct functioning.
               | 
               | When the state gets to use it for what is called "law
               | enforcement" (qualified because, for example, the
               | aforementioned CIA torture prisons, and MLK Jr was
               | targeted thus by the FBI, and sent threatening letters by
               | them as a result) the maximum danger from misuse is a
               | grave risk to a free society.
        
               | nobody9999 wrote:
               | >Corporate surveillance is bad, sure. But, even when
               | maximally bad, it doesn't pose that grave a threat to a
               | society's correct functioning.
               | 
               | Except it does. Especially in this case, since the
               | government purchased the data collected via corporate
               | surveillance. Or did you miss that part?
               | 
               | If the data hadn't been _collected_ via corporate
               | surveillance,the DoD would have nothing to buy, would
               | they?
               | 
               | We _can_ vote out of government those who would allow
               | violations of our privacy (whether or not we do so is a
               | different, but equally important discussion). We _cannot_
               | do so with corporations.
               | 
               | Given the circumstance in this case (the DoD _purchasing_
               | this data from private corporations rather than
               | collecting it independently), including corporate
               | surveillance in the discussion is critically important.
               | 
               | When one's paycheck depends on a not understanding
               | certain things, it's often difficult to get that person
               | to understand those things. Some food for thought,
               | friend.
        
           | kingTug wrote:
           | Not caring about privacy because you have nothing to hide is
           | like not caring about free speech because you have nothing to
           | say.
        
           | ultrastable wrote:
           | I think this might be overly pessimistic. imo more people
           | care about their privacy but feel powerless to affect change
           | than don't really care about it at all
        
         | derg wrote:
         | Honestly it could also be it's just hard to fathom the breadth
         | and scale. Easier to imagine someone opening your mail or
         | tapping your phone or otherwise physically interacting with
         | things you own over the government intercepting a request to
         | post a picture to facebook, for instance.
         | 
         | I think a fair number of people intuitively understand just how
         | massive the internet is and it's hard to conceptualize someone
         | or something sifting through the sand to find your few little
         | grains.
        
         | austincheney wrote:
         | That is why I find most interesting about social media
         | generally. Many people seem to care about government mass data
         | collection all the while voluntarily and intentionally
         | providing to private companies from which the government
         | purchases it. Having your cake and eating it too.
        
       | sneak wrote:
       | "We can't tell you if we are violating your constitutional rights
       | or not, because that's classified on the basis of national
       | security."
       | 
       | When the preservation of the formerly supreme law of the land is
       | made subordinate to the interests of the ruling military, I think
       | it is safe to say the american experiment is over.
       | 
       | I have long maintained that the US is basically a military
       | dictatorship. There are many examples, like the CIA hacking
       | congressional computers to cover up the fact that the CIA lied
       | under oath to congress. Snowden telling us that all of the large
       | US internet and web service providers have to spy on everyone,
       | citizens and not, without a warrant. And now this.
       | 
       | The US is not a free country today, if indeed it ever was.
        
       | ssklash wrote:
       | I knew before even reading that the senator would be Ron Wyden.
       | He's a treasure and the most tech-literate politician I know of.
       | Oregon is lucky to have him, and we could use a lot more like
       | him.
        
         | UncleOxidant wrote:
         | As an Oregonian I also strongly suspected that it was Ron Wyden
         | prior to opening the article. Oregon is fortunate to have two
         | good Senators (Wyden and Merkley).
        
         | nickysielicki wrote:
         | Respectfully, the most tech-literate politician is without a
         | doubt Thomas Massie, who went to MIT for both his undergrad in
         | electrical engineering and his masters in mechanical
         | engineering, who formed a decently successful startup working
         | on novel computer input mechanisms.
         | 
         | [1]:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Massie#Early_life,_educ...
        
           | ssklash wrote:
           | Fair enough. I think it would be more accurate to say that
           | Wyden is the most vocal and effective when it comes to tech-
           | related issues.
        
           | dzonga wrote:
           | reminds me of the politicians in my native country. very well
           | educated either lawyers, engineers or doctors. but idiots and
           | corrupt.
           | 
           | I would rather have a non degreed non corrupt politician.
        
             | seniorivn wrote:
             | that's a horrible choice to make, an honest idiot with
             | great power might bring a disaster without even knowing it.
             | 
             | I would prefer a highly competitive political system with
             | all sorts of different people as politicians, that has
             | little to none power to affect real people's lives without
             | consent
        
             | saiya-jin wrote:
             | There is some common perception that an educated person is
             | automatically a moral person. I can see why on average it
             | could increase chances a bit, but my life experience
             | contradicts this quite a bit. Upbringing, general
             | environment and society, the rewards morality brings bear
             | make much bigger impact. I would say even traveling the
             | world, especially the not-so-nice parts and meeting poor ie
             | via backpacking, has much bigger effect on personality than
             | education.
             | 
             | Just one example out of many - last weekend had long
             | conversation with very successful and very smart urology
             | surgeon here in Switzerland, where he repeatedly stated how
             | covid is great and godsend and mankind should be culled,
             | too bad that not more are dying from it etc.
             | 
             | The same person who in his early 30s is quite a bit
             | overweight, has type 3 diabetes, can't handle physical
             | effort, passed to his kid some genetic abnormality and if
             | he got covid he would probably have some serious issues.
             | 
             | I couldn't change his opinion a nanometer. A doctor.
             | Needless to say my faith in humanity decreased a bit on
             | that evening.
             | 
             | That and everybody has a price. Or almost everybody.
             | Definitely those that manage to get to top politics and
             | remain there for decades, it ain't for average joe and nice
             | honest folks in any way.
        
           | tclancy wrote:
           | Actions speak louder than CVs. That reads like an argument
           | from authority.
        
           | verall wrote:
           | And yet he is publicly against Net Neutrality and doesn't
           | believe in climate change. Tribal affiliation takes priority
           | over technical ability I guess.
        
             | adventured wrote:
             | Political affiliation doesn't have to be the factor there
             | at all. He can also think you're wrong about those topics -
             | in the counter positions to his views - and he can believe
             | his argument is strong and well supported, superior to the
             | arguments on the other side.
             | 
             | I've met a lot of very smart people in my lifetime that are
             | wrong about all sorts of prominent topics, despite being
             | well-read on the topics in question. Pick nearly any
             | subject and you can bet there are smart people on both
             | sides that will disagree, and some of them will bring very
             | potent arguments to the table even when they're wrong.
        
             | someguydave wrote:
             | your tribe or his tribe?
        
             | vxNsr wrote:
             | And yet:
             | 
             |  _Massie operates a cattle farm in Garrison, Kentucky, with
             | his wife, Rhonda, and their four children.[153][154] They
             | live in a solar-powered home that Massie built
             | himself.[155][156] He is a Methodist.[157]_
        
           | totalZero wrote:
           | Thomas Massie is an example of what I like to call the
           | "tetazoo paradox": As a person gets more adept regarding
           | technology, their capacity to communicate with laypeople
           | about technology diminishes. The best advocates for tech
           | literacy are not the most tech-literate, but rather the ones
           | in the middle ground who are smart enough to understand the
           | technology and patient enough to communicate about it with
           | laypeople who are a few eureka moments behind.
           | 
           | We occasionally find wonderful people like Richard Feynman
           | who can sidestep this inverse relationship, but not
           | frequently.
        
         | jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
         | He's one of the very few politicians I support with little to
         | no reservations about him getting stuff really wrong. We are
         | indeed extremely proud to have him.
         | 
         | I know enough people wired into local politics that if he had
         | some huge hidden dark side, it'd be out there. He really is
         | pretty much what he puts out there.
        
       | freshair wrote:
       | Until high ranking government officials start getting very length
       | prison sentences for this sort of shit, I doubt it will ever get
       | better.
        
         | giantg2 wrote:
         | Why would they get a prison sentence for legally buying
         | information that the private sector can also buy?
        
           | topkai22 wrote:
           | Also with the legal precedent from the Supreme Court that
           | telecom metadata IS not protected by the 4th amendment? It is
           | NOT clear from the article that what is doing is legally
           | unconstitutional, as much as I might personally disagree with
           | the Judicial branch's current view.
        
           | Nasrudith wrote:
           | You can hire a PI legally. A police chief hiring a PI to
           | bypass warrant restrictions would rightfully be in deep shit
           | for it.
        
             | giantg2 wrote:
             | You seem to be implying that the PI has additional powers.
             | It's quite the opposite. Any search that a PI can _legally_
             | do can also be done by legally by the police. Police have
             | access to government sources of data that PIs do not, can
             | collaborate with other departments, and can detain people
             | (under the right circumstances).
             | 
             | The chief might get in trouble, but usually that has to do
             | with policies against using external resources or for
             | budget constraints.
        
       | boomboomsubban wrote:
       | I don't like how this article buries the important parts of this
       | story. There is good reason to think that this surveillance by
       | public info is legal currently, there was a court ruling stating
       | that's the case.
       | 
       | A law is necessary to codify that this practice is a violation
       | Fourth Amendment, and Wyden is currently one of a handful of
       | senators trying to get it passed.
       | 
       | The story eventually mentions this, but the beginning focus on
       | confidentiality makes it seem like they're hiding evidence of
       | their crime.
        
         | kemitchell wrote:
         | I'm not familiar with any such ruling. Which do you have in
         | mind?
        
       | auiya wrote:
       | So Wyden's issue is the DoD is buying access to these data sets
       | from private industry? I'm not sure there has been a court ruling
       | declaring this practice to be illegal, and it might very well be
       | legal depending on the dataset's coverage and what it's intended
       | use would be. The DoD's OGC are not stupid when it comes to these
       | sorts of matters, and surely they've had to weigh in on this
       | collection point already. I guess this is why Wyden is trying to
       | pass legislation for this practice to be illegal unless
       | explicitly directed by court order to do so? I'm betting the DoD
       | has already anticipated this and filters out the domestic traffic
       | they don't care about prior to ingest - I think they have to do
       | so by law anyway. So Congress can pass a law saying a court order
       | is needed first to buy these communications datasets, but the
       | FISC will continue to be a rubber stamp for the IC, and not at
       | all the friction barrier the legislators are hoping for. This
       | strikes me as posturing and nothing more.
        
       | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
       | This is about the DoD purchasing data from 3rd parties.
        
         | swiley wrote:
         | I wonder if this is why the anti trust action against
         | Apple/Google/Qualcomm has taken so long.
        
           | Nasrudith wrote:
           | Antitrust suits are slow and hard even when they are
           | legitimate and not publicity stunts or attempts to punish
           | enemies.
        
             | babypuncher wrote:
             | The lawsuits are usually against incredibly wealthy
             | corporations. It's best to make sure your case is air tight
             | before going up against the best lawyers money can buy.
        
       | epberry wrote:
       | We should all be grateful that Senator Wyden has been a champion
       | for these issues. I like to watch him in hearings and it's clear
       | he's one of the most well prepared questioners on issues of
       | privacy and liberty. To the staff of his office, if you're seeing
       | this comment section - thank you!
        
       | bsd44 wrote:
       | This is brand new information.
        
       | HDMI_Cable wrote:
       | The Third Party Doctrine is one of the things that is so
       | obviously out of date, and _needs_ to be changed. When so much of
       | our lives (to the point where it _is_ our lives) are online, why
       | is there no expectation of privacy?
       | 
       | --- [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine
        
         | Nasrudith wrote:
         | Because they wanted to take as much as they could without any
         | pesky constitutional rights getting in the way.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | sprkwd wrote:
       | This is my surprised face.
        
       | GartzenDeHaes wrote:
       | A warrant is not required for the government to purchase
       | commercial data products and there are plenty of legitimate uses
       | for this kind of data. Security analytics would seem to be an
       | obvious use case for netflow data, for example. Commercial
       | datasets are also used for address correction and standardization
       | and most government agencies routinely do.
        
         | tclancy wrote:
         | >there are plenty of legitimate uses for this kind of data
         | 
         | Who defines "legitimate" and why should that be an argument for
         | doing something that seems blatantly unconstitutional?
        
         | jtdev wrote:
         | This sounds like the definition of flimflam with a splash of
         | gaslighting...
         | 
         | flimflam: deceptive nonsense
        
       | SquibblesRedux wrote:
       | Regarding the DoD purchasing data from data brokers, I would much
       | rather first focus on laws or regulations that set legal
       | standards for the collection, sale, and other distribution of
       | personal information. For example, make the sale of personal
       | information to a government agency an act that requires posting
       | notice on a public register. Also, a hefty tax on the sale of
       | personal information would be nice to see.
       | 
       | I would focus on the collection and sale of personal information
       | first because it is often done without the informed consent of
       | the person to whom the information is associated.
        
         | grayfaced wrote:
         | If these data brokers are already selling this data, I'm not
         | going to get upset at the govt for buying it.
         | 
         | I want restrictions on EVERYONE buying my data. Not just one
         | entity.
        
           | nobody9999 wrote:
           | >I want restrictions on EVERYONE buying my data. Not just one
           | entity.
           | 
           | That's a start, but I'd prefer restrictions on EVERYONE
           | _collecting_ my data too.
        
       | sjaak wrote:
       | Land of the free, home of the surveilled.
        
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       (page generated 2021-05-13 23:00 UTC)