[HN Gopher] No new boss at NSA until it answers questions on buy...
___________________________________________________________________
No new boss at NSA until it answers questions on buying location,
browsing data
Author : dddavid
Score : 298 points
Date : 2023-12-02 12:18 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theregister.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theregister.com)
| tomohawk wrote:
| How about passing a law explicitly covering the kind of
| information being collected and sold as actually being private,
| and against the law to share with anyone without a warrant?
| cm2187 wrote:
| Intelligence agencies' very role is to break laws.
| konschubert wrote:
| I think they are explicitly exempt from certain laws. This
| doesn't mean they are above the law.
|
| And maybe they break the law and keep getting away with it.
| But this doesn't mean that's how they are meant to work.
| 9dev wrote:
| An intelligence agency's role is gathering intelligence on
| malevolent entities that threaten a country in some way. Not
| more, not less--but their role certainly isn't breaking laws
| per se, or amassing data on the general public to engage in
| pre-policing. No matter how much certain parties may advocate
| for that, a democracy cannot exist in a surveillance state,
| and anyone convinced of that has lost democratic legitimacy.
| cm2187 wrote:
| They equally gather information on friendly democracies,
| bribe or blackmail people, hack computers, they are
| involved in trade negotiations, watch what all the parties
| are doing in civil wars, etc. It's not a good guys vs bad
| guys, good vs evil thing. They are a limited exception to
| democratic governments abiding to the rule of law. They are
| hired thugs, "our thugs". And I am not disputing that they
| are necessary. Just that it is a bit naive to think people
| whose job it is to break laws all day long will abide to
| another law. That's why they tend to be scandals rich
| organisations.
| 9dev wrote:
| What is considered malevolent is obviously dependent on
| the perspective, but we cannot accept agencies without
| any oversight or control, that will always lead to a
| shadow government. Which leads me to my point: we need to
| be extra vigilant when it comes to the mandate of
| intelligence agencies.
| OfSanguineFire wrote:
| Gathering information on friendly democracies, or
| watching what all the parties are doing in civil wars, is
| not a violation of US law. Espionage between states is
| rarely a violation of the law of the state that is doing
| the espionage. The "friendly democracies" on which the US
| spies, are in turn gathering information on the states
| they consider friendly democracies.
| insickness wrote:
| That's not true at all. Intelligence agencies can't just do
| whatever they want. They are beholden to the people just like
| every other government agency. They can be granted power to
| do things that ordinary people can't, but that doesn't mean
| they are above the law.
| umanwizard wrote:
| Yes they can do whatever they want and no they're not
| beholden to anyone. When has the NSA ever been held
| accountable for their illegal spying on US citizens?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| They're beholden to Congress _funding_ them, if nothing
| else.
| adhesive_wombat wrote:
| Indeed. Being granted exclusive powers that would otherwise
| be illegal must always be given the respect it deserves:
| use of powers only when and as far absolutely necessary and
| reporting of and punishment of transgressions, intentional
| or not.
|
| There is nothing more morally corrosive than a law
| enforcement agency betraying the trust represented by their
| powers.
| cedws wrote:
| The NSA has literally broken laws, lied about it, and
| gotten away with it.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Technically not, they just had secret courts rubber stamp
| for them.
|
| In the most technical sense it's legal though of course
| it subverts the entire idea of the justice system by
| having a court in your pocket.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| Wrong.[1][2] And what law and court do you believe
| authorized James Clapper to lie to Congress?
|
| [1] https://www.vox.com/2015/5/7/8567089/nsa-patriot-act-
| ruling
|
| [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
| security/nsa-b...
| krapp wrote:
| They can and they do. Look at the history - they routinely
| kidnap, torture, assassinate, spy on citizens, support all
| kinds of illegal activity and make unscrupulous deals with
| terrorists and tyrants. Every now and then they slip up and
| the government has to pretend to give a damn and they go
| through a show of righteous anger and then once the heat is
| off and constituents are satisfied the intelligence
| agencies go right back to doing what they were doing
| anyway.
|
| The government doesn't _want_ intelligence agencies reined
| in by anything but American interests. They want those
| agencies to be free do commit whatever evil is deemed
| necessary to further those interests, laws and Constitution
| be damned. The NSA is still spying on everyone. The CIA
| still runs torture camps around the world. Nothing changes.
| Snowden didn 't change anything. Assange didn't change
| anything. Wyden isn't going to change anything.
|
| The ability of the American people to hold their government
| to account in any meaningful way is a facade. Americans
| live under the oligarchy of corporations and the military
| industrial complex, not any kind of functional democracy.
| The American people, despite their guns and breathless
| evocations of the Founding Fathers, are not in control.
| kube-system wrote:
| I think the parent is referring to foreign law. Which all
| intelligence services break as a part of their purpose, to
| spy.
|
| Although that statement is just an oversimplification of
| the situation. The government should follow domestic law
| even if it breaks foreign law by design.
| phkahler wrote:
| To the extent that maybe it is, it should be other countries
| laws. Nobody has the authority to grant such law breaking
| permission (without a warrant). When you break the rules
| establishing a system, you no longer have that system, but a
| free for all.
|
| The US constitution in particular aims to protect the people
| from government overreach. See the original amendments and
| read them in that light.
| cm2187 wrote:
| Even from a pure legalistic point of view, US laws have
| extraordinary extra territorial reach. I believe if a bribe
| occurs between two foreigners in a foreign country, the
| mere fact that they used USD for payment brings it within
| US jurisdiction. And certainly if a US citizen is involved.
| gred wrote:
| My guess is that this will probably require a Constitutional
| Amendment to shore up the fourth amendment (call it 4A++).
| insickness wrote:
| It won't. There are already laws in place, like the
| California Consumer Privacy Act, which governs how user data
| is handled.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| California law never supercedes federal law unless it's
| even more strict.
| phkahler wrote:
| And HIPPA.
| nathanaldensr wrote:
| *HIPAA
| umanwizard wrote:
| The NSA doesn't follow the law, so why would that matter?
| tempodox wrote:
| And when questioned, they lie to courts and Congress with
| impunity.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Clapper and Brennan should absolutely be in jail. Instead,
| they are still treated as respectable authorities by our
| media.
| rtpg wrote:
| People say this but probably underestimate how much the NSA
| at least pretends to follow the letter of the law compared to
| intelligence services in almost any other nation on the
| planet.
|
| Them following the law is entirely downstream from Congress
| doing things like what Wyden is doing. Their existence is
| predicated on congressional satisfaction, and many
| congresspeople are at least fellow travellers to the
| practical frustrations many people on this site have with the
| NSA. It's never enough, but it's _something_.
|
| Meanwhile plenty of countries just have their intelligence
| services tucked away, out of the spotlight, and with barely
| any legal framework to bind them.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| These data are probably legally collected and sold, as
| mentioned in page 573 of the terms and conditions users have
| agreed with.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| > ... as mentioned in page 573 of the terms and conditions
| users have agreed with
|
| Except that it's not how EULA do work. If it's made illegal
| by law (which GP suggess), then lawyers writing these EULAs
| can write anything they want in fineprint: it's not
| superseding the law.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| You can't make this blanket illegal. For example, if you
| buy something online, the seller will need to share your
| address with the delivery company, unless they do the
| delivery themselves, with is impractical most of the times.
| So you can make laws regarding the transfer of personal
| information, but these are bound to be really complicated,
| just look at GDPR.
| beAbU wrote:
| But that's not the same? The online retailer is /giving/
| my address to the courier. Without it the retailer nor
| the courier will be able to give me the service/product
| I'm paying for.
|
| I think it's perfectly fine to make -reselling- of
| personal data blanket illegal. Since it's my data, I
| might have consented to giving the data to someone for
| some purpose. However, they absolutely have no implied
| consent that they can sell that data to someone else, no
| matter what their EULA says. If they want to sell it,
| then I need to get a dividend of that sale revenue, since
| it's my data.
|
| This is not a physical good that's changing owners. It
| will always be irrevocably linked to /me/. That's what
| makes it valuable. So the owner of that data will forever
| and always be me, no matter who "bought" it. Exactly the
| same way that buying a digital game does not make me an
| owner of that copy, but merely the owner of a perpetual-
| yet-revokable license to play the game on my sanctioned
| console.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| So, take any service that connects buyers to sellers:
| eBay, Craigslist, AirBnB, realtors, etc... They are
| essentially in the business of trading personal data, so
| that the buyer and seller can get in contact and complete
| the transaction. It is even more obvious in dating
| sites/apps.
|
| ...but that's not the same you might say. That's right,
| but how do you put that into law? You need actual rules,
| "don't be evil" is not enough. There are hundreds of
| cases where sharing personal data is "right" and
| expected, and hundreds of cases where it is "wrong". You
| want to allow the "right" usage and ban the "wrong"
| usage. And then you have lobbies trying to explain why
| they are on the right side and their opponents are on the
| wrong side, and then you will have lawyers who are really
| good at finding loopholes, and in the end, what you get
| is something like GDPR with all its complexities. You
| can't really escape it.
| pessimizer wrote:
| These examples are no good. It's unnecessary to put into
| law that if someone explicitly hires you to share
| particular information with some set of people, you're
| allowed to. You're not only allowed to, you're _required_
| to, because that 's the business arrangement you've made.
|
| You're making an "it's all so complicated" argument, but
| not pointing out any actual occasion in which it might be
| complicated.
|
| > There are hundreds of cases where sharing personal data
| is "right" and expected, and hundreds of cases where it
| is "wrong".
|
| This is as close to a direct citation of the law of
| averages that I've seen in a long time.
|
| > And then you have lobbies trying to explain why they
| are on the right side and their opponents are on the
| wrong side,
|
| "Everybody is going to complain anyway..."
|
| > lawyers who are really good at finding loopholes
|
| The problem is lobbyists that are very good at adding
| loopholes.
|
| > in the end, what you get is something like GDPR with
| all its complexities. You can't really escape it.
|
| When you want to pass a law limiting what companies can
| do with data without the user's consent, but don't really
| want to limit what companies are doing in any way, you
| end up with weird, baroque definitions of data and
| consent.
|
| If you're never willing to risk profits, or to make
| certain businesses completely unsustainable, then every
| regulation must come accompanied with either a trivial
| method for large enough companies to ignore it, or must
| be paired with a completely unrelated regulatory
| giveaway.
| user3939382 wrote:
| I'd be surprised if they're "buying browsing data" instead of
| just having a tap on all major ISPs and siphoning everything off
| directly, or compelling ISPs to do this with NSLs.
| bilekas wrote:
| This. There is no need to purchase data, and also maybe a
| loophole legally when there is no need for a warrant when the
| traffic is passing through.
| bearjaws wrote:
| Why create new problems (that will cost you lawyer money) when
| you can just buy the data?
| password4321 wrote:
| They get the data either way and it's all taxpayer funded.
| NemoNobody wrote:
| They buy it so someone else has theoretically done all the
| nasty stuff to get it - they just take advantage of the
| opportunity.
|
| Truthfully, the NSA should know at least as much about me as
| Google, or I don't know why it exists.
| ilc wrote:
| The NSA doesn't need to know what Google knows. It needs to
| know things beyond what Google knows.
|
| It may have less information overall. But that information
| may be of much higher value.
|
| It is not much data to know how other countries are
| encrypting their political or military data. And the amount
| of data in there may not be that high.
|
| The value is... tremendous. Bulk data collection, gives an
| overall picture. But the details that make it real, that's
| the secret sauce of the NSA and CIA.
| forward1 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A
| sgift wrote:
| > This won't guarantee answers, however. It does mean the NSA
| will either need to satisfy Wyden's request, or Congress will
| need to hold a procedural vote to push through the confirmation.
|
| So, the most probable outcome is that this will delay the process
| for a few weeks at most until congress just pushes it through. At
| least it shines a bit light on the whole charade. Not that it
| makes much of a difference for me, since I'm not an US citizen,
| but imho the easiest and best solution would be to stop private
| companies from gobbling up and selling private data. But that
| would mean going against companies and we can't have that now,
| can we?
| jerpint wrote:
| This is very likely common practice by many other governments
| master-lincoln wrote:
| what makes you think so?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| The United States is this limited government, with strict
| limits on what it's allowed to do.
|
| Yeah, I know. It hasn't worked out that way. But do you
| think other governments, starting with fewer restraints,
| are doing _less_ than the US? Or _more?_
|
| I could see saying that the US is doing it in higher
| volume, because it's got more money to spend on government
| excess.
| suoduandao2 wrote:
| Incentives are a factor too though. The us needs to hold
| a mostly voluntary empire together, that requires a lot
| more intrigue than the average country.
| bannedbybros wrote:
| >voluntary empire
|
| lmao ycomb.
| suoduandao2 wrote:
| I mean relative to other empires in history. Maybe the
| Persian one comes close, maybe. I don't like living in a
| client state but I'm under no illusions things would be
| better under the British or Spanish
| Terr_ wrote:
| That makes me think of something I saw on HN yesterday
| [0] where the author was saying that a private right of
| action to sue in the courts was an important part of
| offloading power away from the US government proper.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38480187
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| In this case, I don't believe the NSA actually broke the
| law. They purchased data that was on the open market. You
| don't need a court order to collect data when it's *that*
| convenient.
|
| The buried lede here is: why is it legal to resell that
| data in the first place. (Hint: because it makes
| Intelligence Community's job 100x easier). This ultimatum
| for answers is simply theatre.
| roamerz wrote:
| >Yeah, I know. It hasn't worked out that way.
|
| This is where the writers of the Constitution missed the
| boat a little. With all of their smarts they probably
| could have written something in there to hold accountable
| those who would have any part in enacting a rule or law
| the violates the Constitution. Not a simple task at all
| but a worthwhile addition IMHO.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Doesn't mean we need to accept it here.
| ixwt wrote:
| > So, the most probable outcome is that this will delay the
| process for a few weeks at most until congress just pushes it
| through.
|
| Tell that to all of the high ranking military positions that
| Senator Tuberville is still holding up months later.
| tssva wrote:
| The reason Tuberville has been able to hold up the military
| confirmations is the large number and frequency of them. If
| there isn't unanimous consent the process of approving each
| individually would leave the Senate with no time to do
| anything else. If they want to move forward a single
| appointment through the process that can be done in a few
| weeks.
|
| The Democrats may even try to use this to gain more support
| for the temporary rule change needed for mass approval of the
| military confirmations. They can say it isn't a partisan
| effort because they will use the rule change to override the
| hold of a Democrat.
| api wrote:
| > But that would mean going against companies and we can't have
| that now, can we?
|
| Exactly. Surveillance capitalism is orders of magnitude more
| invasive than the NSA and does not answer to anyone.
| Regulations don't even really work because they can just
| offshore anything shady or do it through fly by night data
| brokers.
| master-lincoln wrote:
| But private companies do not have the legal option to invade
| your home or use physical force on you.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| You just made me wonder if those smart TVs have the ability
| to packet sniff what's going on on the Wi-Fi networks in
| the homes in which they're installed.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Some IOT devices definitely do scan your network
| automatically to look for other compatible members of the
| ecosystem.
| rolph wrote:
| from wikipedia
|
| "HDMI Ethernet and Audio Return Channel Introduced in
| HDMI 1.4, HDMI Ethernet and Audio Return Channel (HEAC)
| adds a high-speed bidirectional data communication link
| (HEC) and the ability to send audio data upstream to the
| source device (ARC). HEAC utilizes two lines from the
| connector: the previously unused Reserved pin (called
| HEAC+) and the Hot Plug Detect pin (called HEAC-).[51]:
| SSHEAC-2.1 If only ARC transmission is required, a single
| mode signal using the HEAC+ line can be used, otherwise,
| HEC is transmitted as a differential signal over the pair
| of lines, and ARC as a common mode component of the
| pair."
|
| HDMI Ethernet Channel (HEC)
|
| HDMI Ethernet Channel technology consolidates video,
| audio, and data streams into a single HDMI cable, and the
| HEC feature enables IP-based applications over HDMI and
| provides a bidirectional Ethernet communication at 100
| Mbit/s.[43] The physical layer of the Ethernet
| implementation uses a hybrid to simultaneously send and
| receive attenuated 100BASE-TX-type signals through a
| single twisted pair."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI
|
| --------------------------------------------------
|
| This gives me the impression that packet sniffs, and many
| other operations have been in play since HDMI 1.4,
|
| possibly a subscription based desktop as a service, or
| game console as a service, could distribute this way, and
| leech off local LAN gateway, for heavy loads.
| injeolmi_love wrote:
| The big tech companies are not private; they are public
| companies that rely on state force to maintain their
| monopolies. Just as an example, intellectual property laws
| rely on the state for enforcement.
| ericmay wrote:
| Idk. I like having property rights and so naturally that
| will extend to others _and_ their homes and businesses
| else they won't respect my property rights.
|
| Leveling such a broad criticism against "big tech
| companies" isn't helpful, especially when you personally
| (along with every American) is categorically guilty of
| the same.
| injeolmi_love wrote:
| There's limits to property rights even among the most
| extreme voluntaryist political philosophers. Rothbard, a
| famous anarchocapitalist, wrote extensively about why
| property rights don't extend to slaveowners.
|
| Unlike private households and businesses, public
| companies only exist due to licenses from the state.
| These include limitation on liability, protection for
| many types of property, and much, much more. The
| protections even extend to securities regulations; since
| public companies aren't privately owned, there is a
| misalignment between incentives of owners and managers.
| The state sides with the owners by using force on
| managers to prevent them from acting in their own self
| interest, and instead to act on behalf of the shareholder
| public.
|
| The NAP cannot extend to public companies as they are not
| privately owned and can only exist when granted rights by
| the state. A lot of work has been done by libertarians on
| the topic of how monopolies are formed; it's not due to
| private markets.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Bigtech is not the main threat. They are the new kids on
| the block. There is no shortage of privately held data
| brokers that will provide data to intelligence services.
| They've been doing it since before the Internet existed.
| generic92034 wrote:
| Yet.
| yterdy wrote:
| They can use the cops against you. Ask Kim Dotcom (whatever
| else you think of him).
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| That wouldn't happen without power delegated from the
| government. We leave capitalism and free enterprise
| behind when that happens, yet still insist on using the
| same terms to label the consequences.
|
| See also patent trolls, predatory DRM and copyright
| enforcement, and (often) the creation and maintenance of
| harmful monopolies.
| yterdy wrote:
| The government's power is delegated by the people (and,
| in particular, people with influence, i.e., money). The
| power of corporations to direct government force is
| therefore inextricable from the power of corporations
| writ large, and that is derived wholly from unrestrained
| or improperly-restrained capitalism/enterprise. The
| government loses the power to abuse the public so
| intensely when corporations lose the power to abuse
| government, at least within a capitalist framework.
| injeolmi_love wrote:
| Capitalism has always been a creature of the state. Kings
| gave licenses to private individuals to invest, operate,
| and run public companies. Nowadays it's more complex but
| the first step to create any public company is still to
| apply for a license. Power and money have always flown
| both ways. I suggest you look into the Muscovy Company.
| Created in 1555 as the first joint stock company, it was
| highly influential politically and relied on its
| political connections to earn profits. Nothing has
| changed in this regard for corporations since.
| kube-system wrote:
| For profit companies ultimately sell to anyone with money.
| Profit maximization ensures that if private companies can
| collect the data, everyone who wants it will have it.
| ben_w wrote:
| Unless so empowered by the state.
|
| Most of them don't want to, and let the police and the
| bailiffs do that kind of thing for them in the relatively
| rare cases it matters, just like any other form of
| contracting or outsourcing.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| > Not that it makes much of a difference for me, since I'm not
| an US citizen
|
| The NSA exists to spy on non-citizens, so it affects you more.
| nehal3m wrote:
| I'm not sure that's the case. The first line of the article
| reads: Is the NSA buying up Americans' location and browsing
| data?
|
| That's what's blocking instatement of a new director, so no,
| it won't have any effect on the data collected on foreigners.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| Americans are Constitutionally guaranteed a right to
| privacy in the home, among other rights, and that's what
| the NSA is hung up on.
|
| The NSA spying on foreigners, who enjoy no protections from
| the Constitution, is part of its intended agenda.
| phpisthebest wrote:
| While what you say is true in practice, it is based on a
| completely incorrect reading of the constitution by the
| US Court system
|
| The constitutional prohibitions should be applied to all
| government actions no matter where they are in the world,
| not just the land that is the US, as such the government
| prohibition on search should apply to all government
| agencies world wide. In short if it illegal for the NSA
| to spy on someone in Michigan, it should be illegal for
| them to Spy on them in Spain.
|
| It is very strange that this prohibition applies to all
| persons while with in the borders of the US, and also
| applies to US Residents living aborad, but magically some
| how does not applies to non-citizens outside the US.
|
| When in reality The Constitution does not apply to people
| at all, it does not grant me or any one else rights, it
| is a document where we the people surrender some of our
| power, some or our natural rights to the government for a
| limited purpose.
|
| Somehow we have flipped this script, to where the
| constitution lays out what the government "cant" do,
| instead of that intention of providing a very limited
| list of things the government can do, of which is
| prohibited from all other activity
| bane wrote:
| As a matter of ethics and morality you're probably not
| wrong. As a matter of law it's important that there is a
| distinction because it would cut both ways. Saying U.S.
| law that restricts the behavior of the United States
| Government should apply globally also implies that U.S.
| law in all other respects should apply globally.
|
| I mean, we'd appreciate your income tax, but you might
| not like all the gun ownership.
| phpisthebest wrote:
| I am American, and 10000000% support the right to private
| gun ownership. I believe we should have less not more gun
| control
|
| >> also implies that U.S. law in all other respects
| should apply globally.
|
| No it does not imply that at all, again you are reversing
| the position I am talking about. In fact US Law probably
| applies too much to other nations via International Trade
| Agreements to other nations already.
| bane wrote:
| Why doesn't it?
| phpisthebest wrote:
| Because my comments were about limiting the US
| Government, not other governments.
|
| If the US Constitution would bar the NSA from spying with
| out probable cause on everyone, not just US Citizens,
| then that has absolutely zero bearing on if the EU wants
| to have gun control. I am not even sure how there is a
| connection to the 2 at all
| Dalewyn wrote:
| You are massively confused. The Constitution gives
| certain powers to the government at the pleasure of the
| governed (read: Americans) and affords protections to
| them while providing none to foreigners (read: those who
| aren't governed by the US government). Re-read what I
| said and re-read the Constitution too if you have time,
| the Constitution's protections and guarantees apply to
| individuals and whether they are American.
|
| In short, it is illegal for the NSA (or any part of the
| US government) to spy on Americans and legal to spy on
| foreigners, regardless of a given individual's location.
|
| We generally draw the line using physical location
| because keeping track of whether you ended up with info
| on an American while spying somewhere outside America,
| say France or Japan, is utterly impractical. That doesn't
| mean the legal lines are drawn like that, though.
| morkalork wrote:
| Is this the same line of reasoning that lead to things
| extraordinary rendition and black sites in GWOT? Non US
| citizens on non US land, thus the government can do
| whatever they want like detain people indefinitely and
| "enhanced interrogation"?
| orochimaaru wrote:
| Yes. Those people and lands involved in the act are
| outside the purview of the US judicial system. Keep in
| mind I'm not discussing the morality of this. Just that
| whatever happens there cannot be brought to court in the
| US.
| salawat wrote:
| Oh, it can. Fruitlessly, but it can. U.S. law covers all
| U.S. citizens, regardless of physical location. Just
| because you're in Mexico doesn't mean you have carte
| blanche to bribe or commit crimes. This is an explicit
| point ground into all Federal employees yearly.
|
| It's just that the operations in question will invoke
| "National Security" and "sovereign immunity" arguments
| sufficient to ensure the judiciary will either summary
| judgement the case. Or leave it conspicuously unreviewed.
|
| Or, at the end of the day, a Presidential pardon will be
| conferred at the appropriate/most convenient opportunity.
|
| Or actions will just be undertaken with the understanding
| that the participants will be operating deniably, in
| which case it is quite literally the Government
| unilaterally deciding that breaking the law is the only
| way.
| orochimaaru wrote:
| I can understand a federal employee being placed under
| this considering they are representing the US and said
| crimes are committed while acting on behalf of the US
| government. But does it extend to private citizens? If
| you commit crimes outside the US I don't think you can be
| tried for it in the US. You could be extradited to the
| place where you committed the crime. But I don't think
| the government can prosecute you in the US.
|
| So, I do get what you're saying. If it were federal
| employees directly participating they can be prosecuted
| in the US.But if this is done through a web of
| contractors it will be hard to prosecute.
| phpisthebest wrote:
| >> If you commit crimes outside the US I don't think you
| can be tried for it in the US.
|
| You can, on common example is Sex crimes, a US Citizen
| can (and have been) charged with violations of various
| sex crime laws for actives that occurred outside the US
| in courts INSIDE the US, even if the activity was not a
| crime in the nation the activity took place in. aka "Sex
| Tourism" [1]
|
| You can also be tried for Foreign crimes such as bribery
| in the US if you were bribing a Foreign official this
| applies to business as well as government.
|
| [1] https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ice-homeland-
| security-inve...
| Dalewyn wrote:
| >But does it extend to private citizens?
|
| Yes.[1][2]
|
| As far as the US is concerned, the Constitution is the
| supreme authority to which Americans can and will answer
| to and is protected by.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-
| Members%27_Pr...
|
| [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal
| _Court#U...
|
| [2]: "[Bolton] added that the U.S. would do everything
| 'to protect our citizens' should the ICC attempt to
| prosecute U.S. servicemen ..."
| NickC25 wrote:
| The NSA as it exists is essentially the government
| telling you the 4th Amendment is just for show. The NSA
| takes broad measures under the blanket of "national
| security" and through its 5 Eyes partners, can pretty
| much do as it pleases, either with US Citizens, or
| foreign citizens.
|
| EDIT: Former NSA directors have deliberately lied under
| oath to Congress about their activities and
| actions...with no penalty or rebuke. The NSA are above
| the law and constitution.
| dataflow wrote:
| > Americans are Constitutionally guaranteed a right to
| privacy in the home
|
| Not really. It's been inferred from the text by courts,
| but it's been a bit of a leap, and the Supreme Court can
| overturn the earlier interpretations at any time. "Many
| originalists, including most famously Judge Robert Bork
| in his ill-fated Supreme Court confirmation hearings,
| have argued that no such general right of privacy
| exists."
|
| [1] http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/
| rightof...
| barrysteve wrote:
| The NSA does not reveal what technology it uses or how
| they use it. Snowden _had to leak_ that information, for
| it to come to light.
|
| The public has no way of knowing if the NSA follows the
| law and the theoretically available technology for the
| NSA to use, means it's extremely unlikely they have
| restrained themselves from gazing into your private life
| at home.
| vasco wrote:
| Yes but that is a fact of life for anyone that isn't a US
| citizen, to live under the good will of the largest army in
| the world which forces policy, laws, war etc on everyone
| else. That our comms are spied on is "just another" thing.
|
| I'm actually pretty fond of the US, love to visit and the
| culture - but not realizing we're all just living under the
| US empire is a bit naive. The US does whatever it wants and
| everyone else just accepts. Basic things such as voting
| against the international criminal court and having law
| allowing it to invade The Netherlands if it ever prosecuted a
| US war criminal is a funny example, but there are many more.
|
| And it also does good things for the world as well, it's not
| all good or all bad, but it is the largest empire in the
| world, with military bases all around, colonies all over the
| pacific, etc, we just don't talk about it like that usually.
| tareqak wrote:
| However, if a conversation happens between a citizen and a
| non-citizen , then that conversation is recorded and archived
| to storage for indexing and querying.
| slicktux wrote:
| Actually it would mean to go against the people...since
| corporations are people...and I mean that in a jurisprudence
| way. Being that is the case how could we limit a corporation,
| as non sentient entity, while still preserving individual
| liberty??
| joe_the_user wrote:
| I'm entire unfond of the NSA. The existence of secret agencies,
| especially on a large scale, make a mockery of democracy.
|
| At the same, government by congressional hobbling and sabotage
| also makes a mockery of democracy through agencies not ceasing
| bad behavior but rather a continuous war between congress and
| agencies being normalized in a way that makes agencies actually
| more autonomous from congress. The "Washington Monument
| Syndrome" is just one piece of the problematic situation [1].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Monument_syndrome
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| In a world where democracies have enemies, how do you not
| have govt secrets?
| eurebus wrote:
| Security through obscurity is inferior to security through
| transparency. Imagine if every interaction with the
| government; every contract, negotiation, communication was
| a matter of easily searchable public record.
|
| Try sneaking a little graft in there and get laughed at in
| public. It'd be great.
| nvy wrote:
| The reason the NSA conducts its activities in secret have
| little to do with "a little graft" and everything to do
| with the fact you don't show somebody you've broken their
| ciphers unless you _have_ to.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| If the NSA has broken them, they probably aren't the only
| ones. By keeping that a secret they're actually
| endangering national security.
| oyashirochama wrote:
| They won't show what they have access to and actively use
| against adversaries. They have "NSA approved cryptos"
| such as TACLANES hardware that other countries can use at
| government level with their own crypto bases. Civilian
| level encryption was never meant to be Government level,
| we were only lucky that AES and such was opened up by US
| law in the 1990s.
| matrix87 wrote:
| > Security through obscurity is inferior to security
| through transparency
|
| According to what exactly?
| marcus0x62 wrote:
| So if a foreign agent is providing us information about
| their government, that relationship should be in the
| public record? That seems like a really good way to
| ensure you have no human intelligence sources at all.
|
| We should reveal every detail about our military's
| weapons systems so our adversaries can more easily build
| countermeasures against them?
|
| It seems exceedingly unrealistic that any government,
| even a democracy, could keep no secrets at all and
| survive.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| yeah, this is a sideshow compared to just enforcing better
| privacy controls.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Or we could all try to stop giving them our data. Cookie
| hygiene, vpns, randomizing metadata, ad blockers, not using
| Facebook, using a secure OSs, Tor ... there are things we can
| do to make their life harder. And to anyone who thinks this
| futile: that's what _they_ want you to think.
| barrysteve wrote:
| Alienating yourself into a 'security' bubble while GCHQ is
| capturing ALL internet data and holding it for up to a year,
| is like trying to catch the bolted horse.
|
| It's over, privacy is dead and so is a private bedroom. We
| need physical answers to surveillance, electronics are
| totally ruined.
|
| Sooner or later we need off this planet, surveillance has
| trapped everybody.
| georgeg23 wrote:
| The main source that sells a continuous cross-platform civilian
| tracking dragnet (probably to the NSA) is Peter Thiel's company
| Palantir.
|
| Thiel is at the center of so much other sci-fi military
| industrial complex stuff, it's scary.
| georgeg23 wrote:
| Update, actually NSA is a confirmed customer.
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2015/01/11/leaked-palantir-doc-reveal...
|
| The company's name is derived from The Lord of the Rings where
| the magical palantiri were "seeing-stones," described as
| indestructible balls of crystal used for communication and to
| see events in other parts of the world
| goblinux wrote:
| The INSANE thing to me about naming your company Palantir
| after the artifact from Middle Earth is the story behind the
| seeing stones.
|
| By the Third Age - when the events of the Lord of the Rings
| take place - several of the Palantiri (plural) are lost. The
| danger of using the stones was twofold: 1) not all the stones
| were accounted for, you couldn't know who was listening in
| and 2) Sauron had one of the stones.
|
| A dark lord who wanted to rule the world in fire and ash and
| darkness had this surveillance tool and used it to corrupt
| the other known users of the seeing stones, Denethor and
| Sauroman. That was the plot structure of these stones. Aragon
| and Merry/Pippin were able to use them against Sauron, who
| thought the hobbits with Aragorn might be Frodo. But again,
| to me this shows the danger of making decisions based on
| spying technology. Sauron committed his forces against Gondor
| because his intel told him and it led to his eye being
| distracted from Frodo/Sam/Gollum sneaking over the mountains
| and into Mt. Doom.
|
| Why you would name your surveillance company after that is
| beyond me. To me it would be like getting aboard a plane run
| by Icarus airlines or naming the next big
| boat/plane/rocketship Titanic.
| gordian-mind wrote:
| This is just a nerdy reference to the activity of gathering
| intelligence.
|
| > But again, to me this shows the danger of making
| decisions based on spying technology.
|
| Having more information is rarely a bad thing for making
| decisions. So that was probably not the point.
| notpushkin wrote:
| > Having more information is rarely a bad thing for
| making decisions
|
| In some cases it leads to pretty bad things though:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overdiagnosis
|
| And more generally, the more information you gather, the
| more extraordinary processing you have to put in place to
| get anything useful out of it.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| > Having more information is rarely a bad thing for
| making decisions.
|
| It's a bad thing commonly enough that it has a name.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic
|
| The caution in the tale is that attention paid to what is
| known might distract from what is unknown.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| If your enemy (and the US seems to place absolutely
| everyone on this category nowadays) has the power to
| insert information at will into your spying device, it
| will always be much, much worse than useless.
| MSFT_Edging wrote:
| > Sci-Fi Author: In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as
| a cautionary tale
|
| > Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Torment
| Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don't Create The Torment
| Nexus
|
| https://twitter.com/AlexBlechman/status/1457842724128833538
| ?...
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Ok, I read your post and though "no way, there has to be an
| Icarus Airlines out there"... And well, I could find 2:
|
| https://airlinehistory.co.uk/airline/icarus-airlines/
|
| > Icarus Airlines, known as Greece's first airline, was
| formed in 1930 but went bankrupt within months
|
| That history seems fitting. And this one:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icaro_Air
|
| > Icaro Air was an airline based in Quito, Ecuador. Its
| main base was Mariscal Sucre International Airport, Quito.
|
| That one operated for 4 decades.
|
| If large space transporters ever become popular, there's no
| way there won't be a few named Titanic. People like those
| names, and the context doesn't hit as quickly as the awe.
| skummetmaelk wrote:
| Thiel is the closest we have to a comic book villain honestly.
| I find it incredible that he mostly manages to stay under the
| radar. Maybe it's just because all Musk's antics are easier to
| cover.
| wazer5 wrote:
| Also under-covered are that both Musk and Thiel are deeply
| involved in the Republican's plans for a new Strategic
| Defense Initiative.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Wyden for President.
| uncletammy wrote:
| I would quit my job tomorrow and move to Oregon to work on his
| campaign. No joke.
| willy_k wrote:
| Unfortunately, there's only one candidate over 70 with a real
| chance.
| Eumenes wrote:
| This guy is wrong about every single thing, except government
| surveillance/spying. Example, he supported the Israel Anti-
| Boycott Act (S.720) which criminalizes boycott and divestment
| activism by U.S. citizens against the State of Israel
| 0xDEF wrote:
| US law forbids US government contractors from complying with
| foreign state sanctions and boycotts against Israel.
|
| For example Lockheed Martin is not allowed to comply with
| Qatari and Turkish demands to boycott and sanction Israel.
|
| Private US citizens and companies who are not government
| contractors can boycott Israel as much as they want.
|
| You are probably confusing the law with some weird Texas law
| that also forbids government workers from boycotting Israel.
|
| The EU has similar laws forbidding EU companies with
| complying with US/Israeli sanctions against Iran.
| Eumenes wrote:
| In May 2017, Wyden co-sponsored the Israel Anti-Boycott
| Act, Senate Bill 720, which made it a federal crime,
| punishable by a maximum sentence of 20 years
| imprisonment,[88] for Americans to encourage or participate
| in boycotts against Israel and Israeli settlements in the
| occupied Palestinian territories if protesting actions by
| the Israeli government. The bill would make it legal for
| U.S. states to refuse to do business with contractors that
| engage in boycotts against Israel.[89]
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Wyden#Israel
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Wyden for NSA director.
| GartzenDeHaes wrote:
| Complete nonsense. My uninformed guess is that they aren't buying
| from some political crony, so the crony's friend in the congress
| or senate (Ron Wyden probably) is rattling some cages.
| yonaguska wrote:
| Ron Wyden has been pretty consistent in his opposition to
| overreach of the 4th branch of govt for his entire political
| career. I don't think he's grifting. I'm usually very
| pessimistic about this stuff.
| pbronez wrote:
| We are fortunate to have Wyden.
| yodon wrote:
| > My uninformed guess
|
| Your description of your own comment is quite likely the most
| self-aware statement I've ever seen here on HN.
|
| You would do well to read up on Ron Wyden's history, both as a
| senator and as a representative.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| Cronyism is when you fight for civil rights? What in the psyop
| is this argument
| 0xDEF wrote:
| [Deleted]
| bitvoid wrote:
| IIRC, FBI get a lot of their domestic surveillance data _from_
| the NSA.
| bananapub wrote:
| it is absolutely amazing that this plus the "military facilities
| being mapped via Strava data" etc never lead to a serious
| discussion about privacy in general in the US. why does the
| government allow this commercial database to exist at all?
| anticorporate wrote:
| The government allows commercial spying to exist so they can
| buy the data. They would have all sort of legal hurdles
| collecting this data themselves, but they don't have to bother
| with it when the corporations collecting it are doing the dirty
| work for them.
| worewood wrote:
| So it's like a canary: the senator has the answer but wants to
| make it public.
|
| If the answer was "no" then he wouldn't be pushing for it, so the
| answer is obviously yes, they are buying data of american
| citizens in bulk, warrantlessly
| bilbo0s wrote:
| Even if that's true, the mitigation is not to sell it.
|
| Even better, forbid its collection.
|
| This is all theater. The answers are obvious and easy to
| legislate. Simply forbid the practice of collecting the data in
| the first place. But they won't. The fact is they want these
| companies to collect and aggregate our data. But recently
| privacy advocates have been asking for a ban on that practice.
| So the corrupt politicians are trying to distract the general
| populace with privacy theater in a desperate and pathetic
| attempt to alter the public gaze.
|
| Enter this "no-action" on the NSA.
| spacephysics wrote:
| But I think there's additional layers at play here.
|
| Its less of the logistics of outlawing it, it seems this is
| more akin to "sunlight is the best disinfectant"
|
| I wouldn't be surprised if this senator doesn't have the
| backing or the political capital to pull this off
| successfully (just submitting legislature vs withholding
| appointment)
|
| I think anything that can be exposed to more mainstream
| viewers has a higher likelihood of getting "better" sooner.
| ("Better" being highly relative)
| salawat wrote:
| No. The Senator does not have the answer.
|
| They couldn't ask the question if they'd already signed the
| appropriate contracts on which access to SCI or other
| classified info is underpinned, If they had, asking the
| question would amount to a tacit disclosure.
|
| Other Senators who have signed those documents have confirmed
| as much. Once the IC gets burned by you, even if they don't
| press charges due to political impossibility, you don't get
| invited to those parties anymore.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| Wyden is on the Senate Intelligence Committee. As such, he is
| guaranteed by law to have access to all intelligence
| activities. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/about
| Passport4-Lurk wrote:
| > "Under certain circumstances, the President may restrict
| access to covert action activities to only the Chairman and
| Vice Chairman of the Committee, the Chairman and Ranking
| Member of the House Intelligence Committee, and the House
| and Senate leadership. By law, even in these rare cases,
| all Committee Members will be aware of such circumstances
| and be provided a "general description" of the covert
| action information that is fully briefed only to the
| leadership."
|
| I guess that depends on what "general description" means.
| Take Stellar Wind for example, as briefings were limited to
| the Gang of Eight. [1] I would like to know what the
| "general description" of that program was and what other
| members were informed of.
|
| [1]: https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/brief-history-
| programma...
| worik wrote:
| I am not a lawyer, let alone a constitutional scholar . But if I
| understand the fourth ammendment protects you USA from government
| unreasonable search.
|
| I say it a lot, the state is nolonger the main threat to your
| freedom. This data gathering, building detailed dossiers on AL,
| of us all, by faceless business operators is a genuine, immediate
| threat
|
| It must be stopped
| raincom wrote:
| For every amendment, there are 'loopholes': third-party
| doctrine [1] is a legally sanctioned loophole around 4A.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| > CUI is not classified information, as its name indicates, but
| it should, generally speaking, be protected with access controls
| and not widely disseminated. Wyden is clearly not a fan of this
| labeling, which he described as a "made up designation with no
| basis in law." CUI was created by an executive order from
| President Obama in 2010.
|
| This is the bigger problem. Classified documents have a mandatory
| declassification date that is only overridden in special
| circumstances. CUI can last indefinitely because it's an extra-
| legal construction designed to stay outside the classification
| system.
| c0pium wrote:
| That's untrue, they have a mandatory declassification review
| date. The review can push the date back effectively infinitely
| through further reviews. The special circumstances, as you call
| them, are that the reviewer deems that information needs to
| remain classified.
| goodluckchuck wrote:
| Classification doesn't derive it's legal existence from
| statute. It's the POTUS's inherent authority to maintain (and
| disclose) state secrets under the constitution and separation
| of powers doctrine. Congress has limited authority to regulate
| this executive power.
| ajross wrote:
| I think Wyden is great, and broadly support the aim here. But the
| specifics just don't work for me. I mean, the argument presented
| by the article is that this is a fourth amendment violation: the
| government is conducting an unreasonable search by buying
| personal data.
|
| But... sorry, that's batshit. Can there be _ANY_ definition for
| "reasonable" more apt than "available for legal purchase on the
| public market"? If we don't want this stuff for sale, we should
| pass a law and get it out of the market.
|
| Absent that, honestly? I think the NSA is one of the _least_
| threatening purchasers of this junk.
| hannasm wrote:
| It seems like the spirit of the 4th amendment could / should be
| applied to the corporations and big data brokers. The problem
| seems to be with how it's applied in practice, private entities
| are freely allowed to make insecure papers / effects (data) of
| their customers, claim it as their own property and then
| redistribute it.
|
| If that was happening with physical property instead of digital
| data I don't think anyone would be confused about the legality
| of it.
| jeffrallen wrote:
| Wyden is maybe the best politician to ever come from Oregon.
| Thank you, Ron.
| hereme888 wrote:
| You could say that I'm a "Republican", but I love reading
| articles where it's a Democrat doing things that are obviously
| correct. It shatters the divide that politics and media try to
| create.
|
| That's why, while party platforms are vastly different in core
| values, I don't care to be grouped into any party but my own
| beliefs, judging actions and people individually, not
| collectively.
| secfirstmd wrote:
| As a European in a country with complex multi-party coalitions
| and most people voting across the party system every couple of
| years. This comment is just so weird.
| appplication wrote:
| We don't have that luxury in the US. It's not that voters
| don't want it, it's that there is no feasible way to get
| there (without structural change to our voting system). Sure,
| US voters like the above comment have generally developed
| strong political identities to one of the two parties. But
| there is no chance for any third party under the current
| system. It allows for overwhelmingly entrenched party lines.
|
| Should you as a voter choose to vote for a third party
| candidate, you're basically voting against your second choice
| and for your last choice. "Voting for a third party is
| throwing away your vote" is a very real phenomenon, to the
| point here it is an actively exploited political strategy to
| promote third party candidates with overlapping views to your
| opponent to siphon off votes. See Russian interference
| promoting the Green Party in 2016 as an example.
|
| And sure you could wave your ideals around and say "but you
| absolutely must vote for what you think is right, that is how
| change happens". But in reality, under the US system that's
| how you end up ensuring the least palatable party (to you)
| ends up in power. There are thousands of elections every
| cycle, and we have overwhelming empirical evidence that third
| party candidates are completely inviable at basically all
| levels of government.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-12-02 23:01 UTC)