Report: NSA Has Access to Skype, SkyDrive; MSFT Responds

[JPNpower]

What's concerning to me is that I see no mention of warrants above. So long as they have a warrant, the NSA should be able to access data (and the warrant should be publicly discoverable). But if they don't, then Microsoft needs to quit screwing around with our property.

You see, they have some court to give them freebe warrants. Don't know what its called but CATS say that it is called FISA. This brings me to reply to his early comment, (and one by somebody else). You claim that the NSA is obviously breaking laws and the constitution. For better or worse, they do not, and follow it well. Remember, this is created by some plotting fellas in the government. So, they have created a system that complies with laws. First of all, the constitution and most laws have no affect once warrants are issued. Your arguments revolve around the assumptions that FISA is not a valid court. However, it is, strictly speaking. Thus you cannot use arguments based only on laws and constitutions for your case.

Finally, please please , stop calling people names and attacking them. It makes your argument a lot less convincing, and makes readers waste their time reading this garbage.

 

[alextheblue]

What's concerning to me is that I see no mention of warrants above. So long as they have a warrant, the NSA should be able to access data (and the warrant should be publicly discoverable). But if they don't, then Microsoft needs to quit screwing around with our property.

MS, Google, Facebook, etc. aren't the guilty parties in this particular case. You need to look to the Feds to find the people responsible on this one. When the NSA and other government agencies request info, they have no choice in the matter. Either you turn over the data in a timely fashion, or you face the government's wrath and they obtain the data later anyway (by force of law). At any rate, MS looks at all requests for information, as the article says. The headline makes it sound like MS is doing it for kicks or something, you have to read the article to actually understand what's happening.

If you followed Candidate Obama before he was elected, you would think he was going to fight to repeal parts or possibly all of the PATRIOT Act. Quite the opposite, as with most of his claims and empty promises. Remember his speech about how Bush's runaway spending was unpatriotic and irresponsible? Yeah he hasn't said a PEEP about our debt since he got elected, and for good reason. Same thing with out of control government spying. It was bad under Bush, and it's worse under Obama.

 

[alextheblue]

If that local sheriff decided that he would shoot you, he would, regardless of what laws or his superiors say.

The difference is that when you get to high levels of power in at the Federal level, they are so powerful that there's almost no wrongdoing that will get them in trouble - they're all but impervious to harm. Even if you do get "fired" because you got caught doing something wrong, they just put you in a different position of power somewhere else.

It would be more like the Sheriff robbed someone's house, but the only witnesses are his loyal Deputies, and the entire Sheriff's Office is complicit - the investigators run a fake investigation, tamper with evidence and either "can't catch the criminal" or they implicate someone else and make them look guilty.

 

[nerrawg]

NERRAWG, I'll clarify my comment now. cat man, I'll reply to you later, since you wrote so much, I need time to read.

The NSA has the potential to collect corporate information as you say. They can take top secret information and sell it off to others. This is if they become that corrupt. However, do you seriously think that this can happen on a large scale without anybody realizing? Your local sheriff has the potential to shoot you dead today, but you're probably pretty confident that he won't. Why? He has access to a pistol wherever he goes! Thus, this kind of corruption probably won't happen.

Also, if, against all odds, it did happen, your proposed regulation won't help at all. If that local sheriff decided that he would shoot you, he would, regardless of what laws or his superiors say. A better example would be the IRS. That agency is regulated extremely tightly due to the fact that it deals with people's taxes. However, as you know, corruption did happen, and the Tea Party people suffered. However unlikely it is, when corruption does happen, you're not going to stop it.

Finally, the NSA isn't going to stay unregulated for long. If you think republicans, the (now unpopular) government, and the judicial system are going to let this go with a smile, you are very wrong. It probably will take a couple months, but action will happen I'm sure.

Thanks for clarifying, I think I understand the point you are trying to make now. I agree that corruption can and will happen regardless of oversight and countermeasures, but I am ok with that. Your example of the IRS is good because while it illustrates your point, it also illustrates mine. When wrongdoing was discovered in the IRS it wasn't a crime for the persons who uncovered it to disclose the information. No one got up and started arguing that whoever uncovered this corruption in the IRS put US Homeland security at risk or that they should be prosecuted. No laws were present that could protect those corrupt members in the IRS from the public learning about their actions. The same goes for any corrupt sheriff or law enforcement officer. However, due to the Espionage act of 1917, the NSA is different.

Lets take you example of the sheriff: If the sheriff is the NSA and the sheriff decides that killing me is top secret and in the interest of national security, then what? ... Well, say there was actually no good reason to kill me, or better yet that the sheriff killed me for really really bad reasons, what happens if anyone else figures this out? Under the Espionage act they are barred from telling anyone else. If they do tell anyone, regardless of the fact that the sheriff committed a crime, they go to jail, potentially for treason. That is the law.

Now, I'm not saying that the NSA is going to go out killing people, I don't believe that and frankly they don't have to because they can ruin peoples lives in other ways. The problem is that a corrupt few at the top could potentially break a lot of other laws and become very profiteering as I have exemplified before. If that happens, then the problem is that currently no one inside or outside can whistleblow effectively without the threat of prosecution and imprisonment.

So far this hasn't been a big problem because the 3 major agencies keep eachother somewhat in check, but if the NSA can spy on all of them with impunity then things become dangerous.
It also hasn't been a problem because, despite the huge increases in surveillance capacity and power, the NSA and the other agencies have been very open among their employees and with eachother about what they are doing at any time.

The consequences of Snowden's actions will no doubt be contributing to the worsening of the situation, as Phillip Mudd and others have already eluded to. The NSA can no longer trust low and mid level operatives with the big picture so we are heading to a place were only a select few at the very top will know what the NSA is really doing. The mid and low tier analysts will not be able to understand their role at all, just like Bletchley Park was during WWII. This is fine if you are fighting an external enemy like the Nazi Reich, but not when the situation is like it is today when there is no great enemy that we truly face, i.e. nothing to keep us on the strait and narrow focused on doing the right thing. This is why Bletchley Park was shut down after the war, Britain drew down the scale of its intelligence apparatus because frankly it didn't need it inspite of the Cold war and it would therefore be a waste of money with a large potential for corruption. Don't be fooled by all the hype about Al Queda threats and other terrorists., sure they do pose some threat but nothing that require near the amounts of money and infrastructure we have put up in the last decade in the name of Homeland Security. Statistically, E. coli, toddlers, swimming pools and slippery bathtubs play a far greater threat to the lives of Americans, not to even get started on the real big health hazards like cancer or antibiotic resistant bacteria or cars lol. Best case it is all wastefull "Security Theatre"... the worst case scenario I don't really even want to think about...

 

[catswold]

Nerrawg, your argument seems to be, because someone will commit a crime, there is no reason to pass a law against it. That is an untenable and irrational argument, so I hope I am mistaken.

If for no other reason, further regulation and stricter, more draconian laws would at least provide a means of charging and punishing those who are found guilty of this unconstitutional action.

Human nature being what it is, corruption will occur in any system where those involved and those who hold ultimate power fail to do their jobs and exercise due diligence. That is no reason not to make every effort possible to prevent such excursions into excess.

Part of our problem is that we have allowed the politicization of our system of justice, bringing political philosophy into a realm that is supposed to be absolutely blind to any cause or agenda. Thus we have judges who owe their jobs and futures to the very people making requests for warrants and we have judges who make decisions, not on what the Constitution says, but what they wish or believe it should say.

According to the 4th Amendment, warrants that lack probable cause, are not "warrants" at all.

 

[acadia11]

Back_by_demand, it has never happened to the extent and expanse that it has under the Obama Administration. Under previous administrations, it has always been carefully focused and limited. The revelations by Snowden show that these efforts exploded under Obama's ministrations. He and his team may or may not have directed it's implementation, but it has been clear from day one that both Obama and AG Holder have real contempt for the Constitution and the protections therein contained.

It was wrong and I criticized it under Bush, both before and after that portion of the PATRIOT Act was amended to provide for FISA supervision.

It remains wrong and deserving of criticism under Obama . . . more so because of the gross expansion that occurred under his watch, and for the hypocrisy of his repeated loud attacks against the Bush Administration for doing precisely what Bush was doing and more.

What is Obama doing that is more? Patriot Act was created under Bush by congress, Dick Cheney created the programs Snowden leaked. What is the more?

This goes back to my point the uproar over the programs has nothing to do with rights, it has to do with we need to something to get Obama and quench our belief that this guy is out to get us, even, though Obama neither created the patriot or the Prism and Tempora programs. Moreover, when did Obama criticize them certainly not when he was running in 2008, he did criticize as a freshman Senator the Patriot Act in 2006. But there is nothing illegal about it, nor is their anything illegal about the tech that the NSA has.

Snowden didn't show isht, please, stop, just stop ... now, you talk about honesty but you can't even have an honest fact based discussion about these programs or their creation, please cite this explosion under Obama??? Cite source and what was changed, be specific.

Weren't you guys criticizing Obama , that he had nothing to do with getting Osama, because, he just kept Bush Security policies and Bush should get credit. Like I said ... the discussion is really your dislike of Obama so cut the B.S.

 

[acadia11]

Acadia11, you show your ignorance in your last comment. They’re not accessing “records,” medical or otherwise, they can know that you are seeking aid simply by following your phone call patterns and that in itself is dangerous knowledge.

They don't have to be investigating every individual, you see these days, we have these things called "computers." Computers are really, really good at categorizing data: they can do things like make a blanket search for everyone who called a suicide hotline and have the computer highlight those individuals for extra scrutiny by government decision-makers, or attach a flag on those folks and others who have sought a psychologists or psychiatrists help for a condition like depression so that they are suddenly declared ineligible to own a firearm . . . as they have done en masse to many veterans.

They care, because that type of information can be used in the processing of health insurance claims under Obama care and the so-called “Death Panels” (Independent Payment Advisory Boards). They are already using that sort of information, we saw an example of the type of influence that sort of information can have in the recent dust-up over the case of that little girl in Philadelphia with cystic fibrosis.

It was solely because of the huge dust-up made by opponents of Obamacare that Kathleen Sebelius succumbed to the public pressure and stepped in to make a waver.

People won’t even be aware they are being discriminated against, because they have some designated “untreatable” or “not cost effective to treat” disease or mental disorder.

You are terrible naïve, at least your comments imply so. Perhaps you are perfectly comfortable with the policies of the current administration and have no fear that they will abuse the information they acquire, what happens with the next administration? What happens when someone you don’t trust is elected President? You still going to sit there and pretend life is still a bowl of cherries? If so, you are more naïve than I originally estimated.

And finally, I reject and point out your, typical for your sort, straw man argument. I don’t believe that “some mystical government is out to get me,” I just understand the very principles and abuses which led our Founding Fathers to write a Constitution which explicitly prohibits the sort of activity you seem to bask in. Clearly you understand nothing about the intent of our Founding Fathers or what the Constitution says.

Also, the pattern isn't to figure out that you called a psychiatrist , moron .. it's to create relationship maps between people, ie discover cells in an otherwise amorphous blob of data. The system it self can't figure out anything but in conjunction with other DB's of known terrorist watch list, you could create relationship maps of people, and then discover cells.

It was a math problem and tech developed in Universities. Being as you can then take a known person of interest and then take a relationship map of that person allows you create hot spots, or view potential "cells".

Couple that with the patriot act and rolling wire taps you get yor probable cause, and you get to investigate the next person in the map.

The system itself isn't to figure out that you called your psychiatrist it's actually to be more precise in figure out who to investigate. The government has no interest in going through mounds of data, it's simply too much, but it would like to reduce the search into persons of interest and then open wider investigations of that person which are more traditional. Like say a wire tap of their phone, or sniffing their e-mail or targeting their specific data. At which point if need be they can also issue a warrant.

It's actually pretty genius and technologically savvy way of reducing the chatter, i.e you calling your psychiatrist from being any interest. But feel free to offer a more genius way of identifying an otherwise amorphous enemy in a timely fashion that you could actually prevent or capture whoever you need to.

 

[nerrawg]

Nerrawg, your argument seems to be, because someone will commit a crime, there is no reason to pass a law against it. That is an untenable and irrational argument, so I hope I am mistaken.

If for no other reason, further regulation and stricter, more draconian laws would at least provide a means of charging and punishing those who are found guilty of this unconstitutional action.

Human nature being what it is, corruption will occur in any system where those involved and those who hold ultimate power fail to do their jobs and exercise due diligence. That is no reason not to make every effort possible to prevent such excursions into excess.

Part of our problem is that we have allowed the politicization of our system of justice, bringing political philosophy into a realm that is supposed to be absolutely blind to any cause or agenda. Thus we have judges who owe their jobs and futures to the very people making requests for warrants and we have judges who make decisions, not on what the Constitution says, but what they wish or believe it should say.

According to the 4th Amendment, warrants that lack probable cause, are not "warrants" at all.

Hi Catsworld. No that is not what I was arguing at all (although it might be what JPN is arguing), to the contrary what I was arguing is that despite the fact that passing laws against corruption won't prevent all corruption from happening we should still do it. Not only should we pass laws against it and uphold the laws we already have in place, but I believe it is equally important that we have independent oversight over the action of powerful organisations like the NSA, or at least the option for people to whistleblow about criminal activity in these organisations without the fear of breaking prosecution under the Espionage Act. That was my point.

 

[catswold]

Also, the pattern isn't to figure out that you called a psychiatrist , moron .. it's to create relationship maps between people, ie discover cells in an otherwise amorphous blob of data. The system it self can't figure out anything but in conjunction with other DB's of known terrorist watch list, you could create relationship maps of people, and then discover cells.

Typical of your sort of dishonest debater, you can't avoid using an ad hominem and you repeatedly raise these straw man arguments--either you lack the ability to comprehend what you are reading, or you are simply attempting to change the subject, because you know you're wrong.

I never asserted that the program was intended to " to figure out that you called your psychiatrist." I said that that specific information could easily be gleaned from the metadata they were gathering and one would have to be pathetically naive, or intentionally ignorant, to assume that what could be done will never be done.

It was a math problem and tech developed in Universities. Being as you can then take a known person of interest and then take a relationship map of that person allows you create hot spots, or view potential "cells".

Couple that with the patriot act and rolling wire taps you get yor probable cause, and you get to investigate the next person in the map.

The system itself isn't to figure out that you called your psychiatrist it's actually to be more precise in figure out who to investigate. The government has no interest in going through mounds of data, it's simply too much, but it would like to reduce the search into persons of interest and then open wider investigations of that person which are more traditional. Like say a wire tap of their phone, or sniffing their e-mail or targeting their specific data. At which point if need be they can also issue a warrant.

If that was what was occurring, you'd be right, but it's not--thus once more proving you don't have a clue as to what you are discussing. The system isn't looking only a "persons of interest," they seized MILLIONS of phone records.

As for "the system," it can figure out whatever those who run it tell it to figure out, whether that is a person's link to terrorists, or the number of times you called your psychiatrist or your proctologist.

You assume that just because the stated intention is to detect enemies, that is the sole purpose to which it can be put or will be put. You assume that just because the government isn't supposed to use the information in the manner I describe, it won't. Both assumptions are naive and dangerous and only a fool would so delude himself into that belief.

It's actually pretty genius and technologically savvy way of reducing the chatter, i.e you calling your psychiatrist from being any interest. But feel free to offer a more genius way of identifying an otherwise amorphous enemy in a timely fashion that you could actually prevent or capture whoever you need to.

It's a useful technique, I just insist that all such actions be done in accordance with the Constitution. I am not so terrified of terrorist attacks that I am willing to abandon my right to privacy (or any of my other rights) for an illusion of security.

You do realize that all of this nonsense did not enable them to stop the Boston Marathon Bomber, the Fort Hood shooter, the Little Rock bomber, the Madison Square Garden bomber, the shoe bomber, or the Christmas bomber. It didn't even stop the Wall Street Bomber, or the New York Subway bomber--the NSA claim is false.
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/06/no-nsa-spying-did-not-prevent-a-terror-attack-on-wall-street.html

 

[PedanticNo1]

Linked at the bottom of this article, I just found it kinda funny:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/microsoft-windows-7-nsa-backdoor,9130.html

 

[catswold]

What is Obama doing that is more? Patriot Act was created under Bush by congress, Dick Cheney created the programs Snowden leaked. What is the more?

This goes back to my point the uproar over the programs has nothing to do with rights, it has to do with we need to something to get Obama and quench our belief that this guy is out to get us, even, though Obama neither created the patriot or the Prism and Tempora programs. Moreover, when did Obama criticize them certainly not when he was running in 2008, he did criticize as a freshman Senator the Patriot Act in 2006. But there is nothing illegal about it, nor is their anything illegal about the tech that the NSA has.

Snowden didn't show isht, please, stop, just stop ... now, you talk about honesty but you can't even have an honest fact based discussion about these programs or their creation, please cite this explosion under Obama??? Cite source and what was changed, be specific.

Weren't you guys criticizing Obama , that he had nothing to do with getting Osama, because, he just kept Bush Security policies and Bush should get credit. Like I said ... the discussion is really your dislike of Obama so cut the B.S.

Here's a source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order

"The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing." [emphasis added]

and another: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2013/jun/06/verizon-telephone-data-court-order

Check out the date of that order.

All of this information has been available on the internet and easily accessible . . . for those who aren't intentionally looking the other way . . . if you aren't ignoring the facts and striving desperately to protect the Obama Administration from any criticism.

BAM! There you go. It is a huge expansion--millions of phone records under a blanket warrant.

The only "BS" floating around here is your intense and dishonest to protect the Obama Administration from any negative stories at all. Your entire line of attack has been nothing by a typical liberal effort to obfuscate, twist, and excuse--combined with personal attacks and straw man arguments.

It is clear just how uninformed and ignorant you are about the Constitution, the FISA Act, the NSA scandal, and the Obama Administration.

Oh yeah, and I'm still waiting for you to explain where you came up with the absurd argument that there isn't any right to privacy. That should be really amusing.

 

[catswold]

What's concerning to me is that I see no mention of warrants above. So long as they have a warrant, the NSA should be able to access data (and the warrant should be publicly discoverable). But if they don't, then Microsoft needs to quit screwing around with our property.

They have "warrants," it's just that the warrants they have been getting for these blanket sweeps of phone data don't meet the standards set by the Constitution in the 4th Amendment. A warrant may only be issued upon "probable cause, with an Oath or affirmation." The warrants the NSA has been obtaining are blanket warrants covering millions of people the vast majority of whom are not suspected of any wrongdoing.

If people being spied upon are not even suspected of wrongdoing, then by definition, there can be no "probable cause."

 

[smeezekitty]

"He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither." --Usually attributed to Benjamin Franklin.

 

[DryCreamer]

The Constitution is a list of rules and amendments that tell THE GOVERNMENT what it cannot do, not what free citizens are allowed to do. It's built to limit the government, that's its purpose. A couple weeks ago I read a report from an FBI talking head who said that following the Constitution was a hassle and took to much time to accomplish, so sometimes they 'skirted' the rules to 'protect' us, but you gotta understand something, the Constitution is built to protect us from the government, because we are free, not at the mercy of our leaders. They are at the mercy of us.

 

[mapesdhs]

Never trust anything published by the Brady people, their hyperventilating crusade to destroy the 2nd Amendment protected, inherent rights of all law-abiding American citizens clouds their ability to reason and leads them to a constant campaign of lies.

😀 I have to laugh, as that's just such a load of cliched tosh. Well, feel free to continue convincing
yourself of such lunacy, while your friends, family, children, etc. carry on enduring the daily slaughter
that is guns in the US. Your nation has more children shot each year than the total number of people
shot annually in Europe, yet somehow that's perfectly ok. You can wibble all you like about campaign X
being biased, blah blah, it doesn't change the figures: thirty thousand a year, more than half of them
suicides. I'd like to see you stand by watching for just one night in a typical emergency unit, such as
the one in LA which the army uses for training personnel before they head abroad. Ask the surgeons
what they think as they pull out bullet after bullet, hour after hour. You're living in a freakin' dream
world, a nation whipped up to hysteria about the risks of terrorism, while a 9/11-equivalent toll in
lives happens every month from something regarded by people like you as perfectly acceptable.
What hypocritical nonsense. The rest of the world looks on in bewilderment.

2nd ammendment, yak yak; it wasn't written by people who could have envisaged private citizens
being able to own weapons as lethal as an AR15, or 10 year old girls being given staggeringly powerful
handguns as birthday presents which they call 'pinky' (recent BBC TV news item, from Texas IIRC).

I have no problem with govts dealing with terrorism issues with extreme prejudice, eg. drone strikes.
I'm sure there are many I saw in the south tower in 9/11/2000 who are gone, so my views on
those events are probably somewhat stronger than most Brits would relate. But if you remotely care
about the numbers, about saving lives, then it's the wrong focus entirely. Your nation has a 9/11 in
unnecessary death every 5 weeks and more than 2.2 million people in jail; you really think that's
what the founding fathers had in mind? Sheesh...

Ian.

 

[nerrawg]

Acadia11, you show your ignorance in your last comment. They’re not accessing “records,” medical or otherwise, they can know that you are seeking aid simply by following your phone call patterns and that in itself is dangerous knowledge.

They don't have to be investigating every individual, you see these days, we have these things called "computers." Computers are really, really good at categorizing data: they can do things like make a blanket search for everyone who called a suicide hotline and have the computer highlight those individuals for extra scrutiny by government decision-makers, or attach a flag on those folks and others who have sought a psychologists or psychiatrists help for a condition like depression so that they are suddenly declared ineligible to own a firearm . . . as they have done en masse to many veterans.

They care, because that type of information can be used in the processing of health insurance claims under Obama care and the so-called “Death Panels” (Independent Payment Advisory Boards). They are already using that sort of information, we saw an example of the type of influence that sort of information can have in the recent dust-up over the case of that little girl in Philadelphia with cystic fibrosis.

It was solely because of the huge dust-up made by opponents of Obamacare that Kathleen Sebelius succumbed to the public pressure and stepped in to make a waver.

People won’t even be aware they are being discriminated against, because they have some designated “untreatable” or “not cost effective to treat” disease or mental disorder.

You are terrible naïve, at least your comments imply so. Perhaps you are perfectly comfortable with the policies of the current administration and have no fear that they will abuse the information they acquire, what happens with the next administration? What happens when someone you don’t trust is elected President? You still going to sit there and pretend life is still a bowl of cherries? If so, you are more naïve than I originally estimated.

And finally, I reject and point out your, typical for your sort, straw man argument. I don’t believe that “some mystical government is out to get me,” I just understand the very principles and abuses which led our Founding Fathers to write a Constitution which explicitly prohibits the sort of activity you seem to bask in. Clearly you understand nothing about the intent of our Founding Fathers or what the Constitution says.

Also, the pattern isn't to figure out that you called a psychiatrist , moron .. it's to create relationship maps between people, ie discover cells in an otherwise amorphous blob of data. The system it self can't figure out anything but in conjunction with other DB's of known terrorist watch list, you could create relationship maps of people, and then discover cells.

It was a math problem and tech developed in Universities. Being as you can then take a known person of interest and then take a relationship map of that person allows you create hot spots, or view potential "cells".

Couple that with the patriot act and rolling wire taps you get yor probable cause, and you get to investigate the next person in the map.

The system itself isn't to figure out that you called your psychiatrist it's actually to be more precise in figure out who to investigate. The government has no interest in going through mounds of data, it's simply too much, but it would like to reduce the search into persons of interest and then open wider investigations of that person which are more traditional. Like say a wire tap of their phone, or sniffing their e-mail or targeting their specific data. At which point if need be they can also issue a warrant.

It's actually pretty genius and technologically savvy way of reducing the chatter, i.e you calling your psychiatrist from being any interest. But feel free to offer a more genius way of identifying an otherwise amorphous enemy in a timely fashion that you could actually prevent or capture whoever you need to.

Sure, metadata is great for not only the above mentioned profiling that that NSA and FBI conduct, but also for sociological research. If researchers were allowed to use this data we could greatly increase the efficiency of every public service. If business could access this data they could earn vastly larger profits from much more accurate models of demand and and advances in the psychology of marketing. Psychiatrists would benefit no-end from access to this metadata for research into mental health. The potential benefits go on and on and far out-weigh that offered by security services in terms of terrorism countermeasures. So...

What do you think would happen if any of these other groups asked for this metadata? What if they actually ASKED for it VOLUNTARILY (not taking it by force as the NSA has) and could show us irrefutable evidence of the benefits that it held for us, the citizens of the US?

Do you really think the public would say: YES! ... Do you think that a 2/3's majority would agree to this? What about even a 50% majority. Honestly mate, how do you think this would actually play out? What if they even randomized the information to protect privacy and provided transparent oversight of their action, ... and even better, publish their results for the whole public to see. What would happen???

Well, why don't you try googling the following:

Transparent, double blinded and confidential use of phone records for research

Find anything? I didn't, and I don't think it's because its would be such a popular idea.

Meanwhile the NSA and FBI have been outsourcing their intelligence material to private security contractors as if they were a private security firm themselves trying to profit from their own assets by whatever means possible, watch from 4:30:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvl0pWKaZ14

Check out 10:50 for the example typical of FBI intelligence, how Coca-cola pays Strafor for classified FBI intelligence on PETA.

There is a revolving door here - and once it gets out of the Govt.'s hands, where is the accountability?

 

[DryCreamer]

you really think that's
what the founding fathers had in mind? Sheesh...

The founding fathers believed that being a free man was much more important than being a safe man.

Safety will be taken from you whether you or free or not, so why not be free?

The idea the founding fathers were attempting to protect is that government does not, nor ever should, dictate or control how a man can act or what a man can do, and that owning weapons, even weapons just like the military uses, is as necessary to freedom as the right to assemble and the right to a trial by your peers with due process.

Dry

 

[someperson123]

nerrawg: "Democracy, when you get into the details of how it works as a system, requires privacy to function."

Actually, this is incorrect for two reasons. Firstly, the USA is not a democracy. It is a republic. Secondly, democracy in no way requires privacy. A direct democracy like that of ancient Greece was very public.

However, privacy is most certainly a psychological desire in our current society. Not just to people, but to governments and businesses alike. Business and governments regularly keep secrets from competitors/enemies to ensure future existence, and people do so aswell for similar motivations.

The point is to carefully distinguish between what is comfortable and what is necessary. Is the NSA spying on US citizens WITH a warrant comfortable? No. Necessary? Sadly, yes.

Mind you, if they are doing so WITHOUT a warrant, that is an entirely different matter...

 

[nerrawg]

you really think that's
what the founding fathers had in mind? Sheesh...

The founding fathers believed that being a free man was much more important than being a safe man.

Safety will be taken from you whether you or free or not, so why not be free?

The idea the founding fathers were attempting to protect is that government does not, nor ever should, dictate or control how a man can act or what a man can do, and that owning weapons, even weapons just like the military uses, is as necessary to freedom as the right to assemble and the right to a trial by your peers with due process.

Dry

But owning weapons like the military uses is not free, not by a long shot. Try purchasing a mothballed Huey or any other piece of antiquated piece of military surplus materiel that was once used for combat and I think you will find they are highly regulated. While that is the case for outdated stuff, it is almost impossible to get your hands on the new stuff. Try purchasing modern jet engines or liquid cooled infrared cameras or chemical laser systems. All of this "dual-purpose" technology, much of it not a weapon in-of-itself is highly restricted, and rightfully so. This is not to mention actually modern weapon systems such as guided missiles, tanks, fighter jets ect. etc., all of which are impossible for the private individual to acquire through legal means. None of these restrictions however are currently threatening our Freedoms or our rights as private citizens. Unrestricted mass surveillance by the NSA is another matter however...

You are very right that Founding fathers viewed freedom above safety, as I do. However Freedom is not as dependent on arms as it is on an intelligent and aware populous with the courage and desire to protect its own Freedoms. The people are the most important part of the equation, even though arms may play a role, they are meaningless without the people's awareness and willingness to stand up for Freedom. Arguably, it is this very point that we are now seeing played out in the country and it is the people that are truly being tested, not our right to bear arms.

 

[nerrawg]

nerrawg: "Democracy, when you get into the details of how it works as a system, requires privacy to function."

Actually, this is incorrect for two reasons. Firstly, the USA is not a democracy. It is a republic. Secondly, democracy in no way requires privacy. A direct democracy like that of ancient Greece was very public.

However, privacy is most certainly a psychological desire in our current society. Not just to people, but to governments and businesses alike. Business and governments regularly keep secrets from competitors/enemies to ensure future existence, and people do so aswell for similar motivations.

The point is to carefully distinguish between what is comfortable and what is necessary. Is the NSA spying on US citizens WITH a warrant comfortable? No. Necessary? Sadly, yes.

Mind you, if they are doing so WITHOUT a warrant, that is an entirely different matter...

Firstly, you are correct in your assertion that the US is a republic, it is also a representative democracy, however I did not state "The US ... is a democracy", I merely stated that democracy requires the right to privacy to work effectively. I'm glad you brought up ancient Greece as an example because it is a great example to explore. Ancient Greece was the crucible of modern Western society and philosophy, and as such should really be required reading but I digress. The Greek experiments with direct democracies are actually great case and point examples of why democracy requires certain rights for privacy as well as protections for those who hold minority positions. Several examples of mobs bloodying the streets of Athens and other cities and public persecutions demonstrated that voting and political affiliations require legal protections and the right for individual privacy to function effectively and not become systematically exposed to extortion and corrupting influences. Such countermeasures were later implemented in Greek societies to stop the, then seemingly, perpetual cycle of democracy-tyrant-democracy-tyrant and so on. These implementations to allow for some privacy and balance worked so well that they were of course the first to be targeted by the next wannabe dictator.

As to your assertion of there being a warrant, I agree that I would be fine with specific warrants issued by the Federal court system. I am however, completely at odds with a all-encompassing, undefined "warrant" for 49% of US public's metadata and potentially more by FISA (which is no more a court of law than a dolphin is a fish, in as much that both find themselves underwater a lot of the time).

BTW, Bertrand Russell's A History of Western Philosophy provides an excellent synopsis for such studies.

 

[DryCreamer]

Ner,

Men are free by birth, by nature, and the Constitution merely limits the US governments ability to control its citizens. It really has nothing to do with guns or speak or trials, but 'they' had to specifically call certain things out because if they didn't, someone would start trying to impose on a human's ability to privately pursue life, liberty, and... property, er... happiness...

Funny thing about privacy... I would argue that privacy is the bedrock for ALL other freedoms, but privacy and the right to private property is a very western ideology, something that a lot of eastern countries haven't traditionally had in their culture. China's culture, for example, is based more on the community and how it is more important than the individual, where-as in most western areas, individual property is more the foundation of beliefs.

I think its evidence enough that it happens because people from the FBI have said that following the Constitution is 'inconvenient' and that's why they've created these government courts to fast track their ability to 'legally' sift Constitutionally protected data.

These people, we elected mind you, have created legal loop holes so they can skirt due process and still say "Hey, I haven't broken any laws..."

Laws they have the ability to write and ratify, no questions asked, under the guise of terrorism and banking on the fear of the public...

Dry

 

[nerrawg]

nerrawg writes:
> ... That is why we have never given this full authority to a single
> organisation in the history of our democracy - precisely because
> the founders knew such an act would effectively kill democracy itself-

You remind me of Toby and Sam from the West Wing: passionate about
and a broad understanding of the issues, well written, etc. If you're not
involved in political life, that would be a shame, as we need more people
like you in the system who really care.

IMO what's so sad is that the one nation in the world which fought for
its independence and as a result developed a solid constitution with
proper civilian rights (I mean the US of course) now seems to be so
happy to give up those rights as govt action erodes them step by step.

I'm reminded of WW2; one could argue most people in the early 1930s
didn't realise how important freedom was until it was taken away from
them and they then had to fight to get it back. Perhaps, having not been
affected so much internally by those events, the legacy in the US today
is that most Americans likewise don't realise how important what they
have really is; maybe it needs a domestic extremist political takeover or
some such event, and the resulting struggle to take the regime down,
to remind them. I hope not, but it increasingly looks that way. The cozy
consumer life dulls the senses, an idea which to me was the main point
of The Matrix (something most viewers failed to notice, awed as they
were by the special effects); it's an idea that's been brought to film
before, eg. John Carpenter's, "They Live".


Here's a relevant quote, appropriately from a famous American:

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin, Historical
Review of Pennsylvania, 1759.

I expect Mr. Franklin would be appalled by Prism and what it represents.

Ian.

Thanks Ian for your very generous compliments. Having read your comments I can also that I pretty much agree wholeheartedly with your analysis of the situation and that you also write very well. I also hope that it never comes to the WWII situation that you are reminded of, or the numerous other cases throughout history that are currently sounding the "alarm bells" among those who are aware of their history and what is currently going on. Best case scenario for me would be that people can all together use our newly granted "5th estate", i.e. the internet, to educate themselves, inform others and mobilise them into entirely non-violent action to oppose any potential breaches of our rights. This would lead to the best outcome and I am consistently inspired, whenever I look back at the Civil rights movement or the fall of the Berlin wall, with how the oppressed peoples in these situations dealt with their surroundings and circumstances and how their actions led to sustainable "CHANGE" in society that we now all benefit from.

All the Best,
Ner

BTW excellent quote!

 

[JPNpower]

Grr. comments broke on me for a while

 

[jojodadude]

Just use google's chat or talk. Problem solved. Screw Skype and their new video ads. If you decide to continue to use Skype here's a pro tip. Download the legacy install (pre-Microsoft) and use it ad free.

News flash: Microsoft isn't willingly working with the NSA. Google is in the same boat, and they're forced to cooperate too. NSA has access to Gmail, Google+, etc. If you didn't know that, you're a sucker.

First off I was attempting to help some users with a voice (skype) alternative when it comes to ads. 2nd, at this point I trust google a bit more than MS. At least their Chief Legal Officer helped shed some light.

"I’m not sure I can say this more clearly: we’re not in cahoots with the NSA and there’s is no government program that Google participates in that allows the kind of access that the media originally reported. Note that I say "originally" because you'll see that many of those original sources corrected their articles after it became clear that the PRISM slides were not accurate. Now, what does happen is that we get specific requests from the government for user data. We review each of those requests and push back when the request is overly broad or doesn't follow the correct process. There is no free-for-all, no direct access, no indirect access, no back door, no drop box."

Also check out google's page on government

 

[nerrawg]

I've been being a bit extreme in my responses, but you have as well. I am an auditor by career and come from a family of all attorney's (including my in-laws). Though there is concern for privacy in both of the aforementioned practices, none of us fear these recent reports. You are talking about the most extreme circumstances imaginable. If you were in a field such as this you would understand we do not keep our data/information on publically accessible networks. It would be insanely silly for any of our firms to use Skype, live.com, Skydrive, or anything similar with confidential information.

You are being sensationalist and it does not help anyone to act in a such a way. There is no evidence that any government agency is hacking private networks, which is where any of the information you are so concerned of being compromised is stored. Journalists, engineers, lawyers, accountants, all of us don't load critical data into social networks.

"GCHQ director Sir Iain Lobban referred to "industrial espionage" on an "industrial scale".

He added: "We started a couple of years ago thinking this was going to be very much about the defence sector but really it's any intellectual property that can be harvested."

MI5's unidentified head of cyber, told the programme: "There are now three certainties in life — there's death, there's taxes and there's a foreign intelligence service on your system".

Privately, the finger is pointed at China, though the country is not publicly accused — perhaps because of the difficulty in obtaining hard evidence in the cybersphere.

Trying to defend British companies and government departments from cyber attacks from potentially hostile powers is one thing. Targeting allies, presumably to obtain competitive or negotiating advantage, is quite another.

What value really is there in such activities? They certainly sit uneasily by Hayden's claim that US spy agencies do not steal secrets to make Americans rich."

Article in the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/defence-and-security-blog/2013/jul/01/gchq-nsa-eu

I think you can start to take things seriously and not be sensationalist when the director of GCHQ comes out and says this. I hope, as it appears, that he is as worried about this as we are.