Verizon required to give ALL call data to NSA (2 Viewers)

[SaintsInDome2006]

Here was how the votes went down in the Senate

Grouped By Vote Position

...

Not Voting - 1 Graham (R-SC)

Graham didn't vote he has the temerity to run for president.

 

[The Commish]

I'm not sure that's the case. There are, at least theoretically, good reasons to conceal certain threats from the public- especially those involving WMDs of any kind.

But even assuming you guys are correct and we haven't stopped anyone yet, that doesn't necessarily mean we won't ever need this. My whole life in a Southern California people have been warning that we need to be prepared for the big earthquake. It's never happened, but that doesn't mean it won't.

I didn't say we haven't stopped anyone. What I said was the benefit from it vs what was paid for it (both in stepping on our rights and actual monetary cost) aren't balancing out. And quite frankly, given the cost, "we might need it one day" isn't even a conversation starter to a system of this sort for me.

OK.

IMO, the monetary costs are irrelevant. If it can be proven that this sort of program saved lives (or if it could reasonably be argued that it could save lives) then money is really no object.

The cost to liberty, though, is another issue entirely.

I could get on board with the bold if some stats were attached....will never be on board with the "what it might be able to do" angle. That's how we get trillions of dollars in debt.

 

[timschochet]

Saints, regarding your question about how Hillary will answer this: the breakdown of the vote makes it pretty easy for her. She'll simply say she supports the changes to the bill. Then let the Republicans fight it out. This won't become an issue for her.

 

[The Commish]

Here was how the votes went down in the Senate

Grouped By Vote Position

...

Not Voting - 1 Graham (R-SC)

Graham didn't vote he has the temerity to run for president.

Graham is really an embarrassment to the human race. If there was ever evidence that "survival of the fittest" isn't real, it would be Lindsay Graham and the people who vote for him.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

Saints, regarding your question about how Hillary will answer this: the breakdown of the vote makes it pretty easy for her. She'll simply say she supports the changes to the bill. Then let the Republicans fight it out. This won't become an issue for her.

Well I was being somewhat facetious, I mean like the TPP Hillary sees no reason to tell us what she thinks of the Patriot Act, however the point was:

Hillary destroyed her metadata, all of it, including the public metadata, yet I'm guessing...

- Hillary thinks your personal metadata should be disclosed to the government

- while she thinks her public data should be kept private.

 

[whoknew]

Again, the FBI and the NSA have admitted that mass collection hasn't led to stopping any terrorism. The President's review board said:

“We have not identified a single instance involving a threat to the United States in which the telephone records program made a concrete difference in the outcome of a counterterrorism investigation,” said the report, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post. “Moreover, we are aware of no instance in which the program directly contributed to the discovery of a previously unknown terrorist plot or the disruption of a terrorist attack.”

But you know what the Patriot Act has done? Help the FBI use bull#### tactics in the war on drugs. Sneak and Peak warrants used overwhelmingly in drug war.

This is all a bunch of fear mongering bull#### to make it easier for the FBI and NSA to spy on American citizens.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

Again, the FBI and the NSA have admitted that mass collection hasn't led to stopping any terrorism. The President's review board said:

“We have not identified a single instance involving a threat to the United States in which the telephone records program made a concrete difference in the outcome of a counterterrorism investigation,” said the report, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post. “Moreover, we are aware of no instance in which the program directly contributed to the discovery of a previously unknown terrorist plot or the disruption of a terrorist attack.”

But you know what the Patriot Act has done? Help the FBI use bull#### tactics in the war on drugs. Sneak and Peak warrants used overwhelmingly in drug war.

This is all a bunch of fear mongering bull#### to make it easier for the FBI and NSA to spy on American citizens.

Another thing to be aware of is that the NSA, while military, also plays a very political role in advising the president and executive branch directly.

Even if people felt that the data was being collected for important military purposes now, you have to realize that whether it's this administration or one 50 years from now some executive or his/her staff will one day seek to use the data for internal political purposes, and no when that happens it most likely will not be disclosed.

 

[RCon]

So basically, new name, same game? NSA will continue doing exactly what it's been doing all along.

 

[tom22406]

The NSA's Second Coming


Americans have acquired a fondness for worlds of make-believe. Torture was done by "a few bad apples." Or, we must await the "verdict of history" to judge how our invasion of Iraq turned out. Or, America is besieged by hordes of crazed Islamist terrorists scaling the walls and dedicated to surpassing the horror of 9/11. Or, The Sniper salvaged American dignity and self-respect from that tragic fiasco. Or, that it was a brilliant CIA and valiant Seals who avenged a righteous America by storming Abbottabad to assassinate an infirmed old man in his bed.
This last is one of the threads of make-believe woven into the fabricated narrative about the Congressional psycho-drama this past week over electronic spying on Americans. That engrossing campfire tale has our noble representatives struggling to find the path of Solomonic wisdom that walks a tightrope between security and liberty. We awaited in suspense to see if the perilous feat would reach its goal. We agonized at word of the NSA being forced by obedience to the Law to shut down its all-seeing networks -- thereby, for a few hours, leaving America exposed to the diabolical schemes of the bearded devils. The White House warned that we are playing "Russian roulette" with the country's very survival. No one pressed the question of all six chambers in fact being uncharged.

That all makes for one awesome production. Doubtless there will be a film adaptation immortalized in a script by Bob Woodward. Something like that will happen -- even though it is a concocted yarn whose meaning has been twisted and whose significance has been vastly inflated. For the truth is that what Congress did, and what it did not do earlier, changes very little -- and nothing of cardinal importance. The main effect is to give the impression of change so as to release pressure for reform that might really be meaningful. The base truth is that everything that counts remains the same. To entrench and to legitimate a system of massive surveillance that undercuts our privacy while doing nothing to secure our well-being.

Let's look at the false notes struck by this narrative.

Matters of Fact

1. The so-called restrictions on bulk data collection apply only to telephone calls. All else is exempted: emails, Internet searches, social media, and info regarding each that is retained in our communicating devices.

2. The restrictions on real-time surveillance of telephone calls can be overcome by the granting of a warrant by the FISA upon request by NSA, FBI, Justice Department, CIA -- not to speak of local authorities. That Court, over the past eight years, has refused only 11 of 33,900 requests. The judges, by the way, are handpicked by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts who has jumped into the policy arena by declaring himself strongly opposed to any tightening of restrictions on how the court operates or on the NSA's methods. The FISA court's attitude toward government spying on Americans has been generous to the extreme. Former lead judge of the FISA Court, John D. Bates, has campaigned vigorously on behalf of the status quo. He even objected to the extra workload of requiring that courts approve all national security letters, which are administrative subpoenas allowing the F.B.I. to obtain records about communications and financial transactions without court approval.

3. The specified targets may be organizations, groups and networks as well as an individual. In practice, that means each grant of surveillance power may authorize comprehensive electronic spying on hundreds or thousands of citizens.

Currently the NSA is overwhelmed by the billions of communications they register and try to catalogue each week. Long-term data retention only makes sense if there is a project afoot to exploit it systematically in order to control, to suppress, to penalize. There is no such Big Brother plan in place or on the horizon. NSA operations fortunately have instead been conceived and managed by fantasists and bureaucratic empire builders -- as is demonstrated by Edward Snowden's leaks of their immense target list and their major intelligence failures.

4. The terms of the warrants allow for a two-step "hop" from the identified target to others whose suspect communications emerge from the initial combing.

Here is one hypothetical scenario. The NSA requests approval from the FISA court to collect the communications of the Arab-American Civil Rights League on the grounds that it suspects some dubious characters have been using its facilities. Over a period of months (if there a restriction on the duration of electronic surveillance under FISA rules), they register 1,000 communications. Using 'first hop' privileges they identify 250 persons whose own communications they wish to tap. Using "second hop" privileges they next identify a total of 1,500 more people whose communications they wish to tap. That makes a total of 2,700 persons whose telephone calls they are monitoring and storing. Each year, the NSC requests warrants from the FISA courts about 500 times. Hence, we can project more than 1 million telephone numbers now under surveillance for an indefinite period of time. For we should further note that once an official investigation is begun the records acquire the status of legal documents in a judicial or quasi-judicial proceeding.

5. There is an exemption for on-going investigations. The Patriot Act's Section 224, its "grandfather clause", allows active investigations that began prior to midnight on Monday to continue using the expired programs.They number in the thousands given the hyper-activism of our security agencies in identifying subjects for their attentions in order to justify vast capabilities and vast budgets. Those broadly cast investigations can go on for years. And all of this is secret.

6. Central to this week's political drama was the NSA's domestic Metadata collection program. The law now requires that telecommunications companies -- not the government -- hold onto the data stores. The act provides a 180-day window to make that transition, which effectively ends the current program. This is a distinction without a difference. Those companies have cooperated routinely with the Intelligence agencies -- recent backtracking and protestations notwithstanding. It is hard to imagine turning down an "urgent" request for access -- with or without a warrant. Once inside the system, the NSA or other agency will be free to do some rummaging.

7.The NSA coordinates its spying closely with Intelligence agencies of the four other English-speaking countries that participate in "Five Finger" alliance: the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Their data sharing does not stop at that acquired by legal means. They do each other favors by relying on a partner to circumvent domestic restrictions in any one of them. There are credible reports that NSA has assisted Britain's GCHQ in this respect. Both have assisted the German NBD in spying on German targets- as has been revealed within the past few weeks. Therefore, the significance of last week legislation is undercut by this close collaboration.

8. Sponsors of the Freedom Act trumpet a supposed breakthrough insofar as it mandates some small transparency from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. It vaguely affirms that the Court will be required to declassify a few of its tightly held opinions. Those are opinions explaining why a warrant request is approved -- as they automatically are. There is no reason to expect any great revelations. After all, the essence of the FISA Court's reasoning is well known. We live in dangerous times -- as witness 9/11; the government assures us that there is compelling evidence of dangerous persons on the prowl and plots afoot; the classified information upon which that assessment is made is persuasive -- even though we have been granted only a glimpse of a brief summary; this Court cannot take on itself the responsibility of overriding the professional judgment of our public servants and thereby put at risk the security and well-being of the American people; blah-blah, blah. Judge Bates reflects the reigning philosophy of the FISA court in warning that greater public disclosure of unclassified summaries of court rulings would "likely to promote confusion and misunderstanding" among the likes of you and me.

9. The new legislation also allows the judges to appoint a "friend of court" to argue on behalf of privacy concerns. This does not mean that there will be adversary proceedings or a systematic examination of the case for a warrant. It simply means that there may be designated persons available to remind the FISA judges that privacy considerations should be taken into account in their deliberations. For all that is worth, they might as well prepare a form letter that is emailed to the Court every time that a request arrives on their computers.

10. Without public notice or debate, the Obama administration has expanded the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance of Americans' international Internet traffic to search for evidence of malicious computer hacking, according to classified N.S.A. documents released this week by Edward Snowden. In mid-2012, Justice Department lawyers wrote two secret memos permitting the spy agency to begin hunting on Internet cables, without a warrant and on American soil, for data linked to computer intrusions originating abroad -- including traffic that flows to suspicious Internet addresses or contains malware, the documents show. Who decides what sites are suspicious on the basis of what criteria?

11. United States Intelligence agencies have multiple, redundant methods for acquiring bulk data or specific data. They also have multiple legal justifications, however contrived they might be; those justifications are extremely difficult to challenge in the federal courts who have pretty much neutered themselves on these types of security issues. Where top officials, including the President, feel it necessary, they have few qualms about skirting the law.

12. There is not a single documented instance wherein bulk data collection, or its variants, has resulted in stymying a terrorist plot in the United States. When questioned before Congressional Committees, Clapper and then NSA chief General Keith Alexander claimed that there were 56 cases. That number quickly dropped to six, then "one or two," then one. That supposed case referred to the notorious pseudo-plot of a Corpus Christi used car salesman being approached by an anonymous Iranian agent to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador to Washington -- such information as exists having in fact been derived from conventional sources. Boston and Ft. Hood slipped under the misdirected and ill-conceived dragnet.

Conclusion: The record of 15 years tells us that Meta data collection has zero value in keeping Americans safe.

Matters of Philosophy

The debate about privacy and surveillance has the presumed need to strike a balance between "security" and civil liberties as its pivot. Those who argue that Fourth Amendment guarantees are not liable to attenuation or limitation because of circumstance are judged to be absolutists. For the overwhelming majority of commentators, some concessions to exigent conditions are recognized. We hear endless reiteration of the proposition that we must "balance security and liberty." Even distinguished law professors from prestigious law schools tell us that.* But it is a false dichotomy -- in two respects. For one thing, there is no evidence that transgression on our liberties makes us safer -- as noted. More fundamentally, unlawful and/or unconstitutional conduct is unlawful and unconstitutional whatever the supposed motivation and purpose. That is the essence of a rule-bound system -- a system of law that delimits the valid, acceptable actions of individuals -- including public officials. Expedient need is not accepted as grounds for murdering someone -- even if you suspect him of harboring designs to kidnap your child. Hunger is not an acceptable excuse for mugging somebody and stealing their purse. Motivation may be acknowledged as a mitigating factor when it comes to meting out punishment. The illegality of the act itself is not obviated, though. If searches and seizures without warrant are legally proscribed, then it should make no difference that General Clapper of the NIO, or Admiral Rogers of the NSA, or Mr. Brennan of the CIA -- or Mr. Obama in the White House -- thinks that it would be a good idea to violate the law and/or Constitution. That sort of rationalization marks the road to autocracy and the subordination of law to individual will. It means wounding democratic government as we know it.

Belief that the United States is in grave and imminent danger from serious terrorist attack is the cornerstone premise holding up the massive edifice of our Intelligence apparatus. To acknowledge that this rendering of reality is groundless is to cut the ground from under the pervasive view that extraordinary measures to protect the United States' security are imperative. For the promoters of draconian surveillance, this is tantamount to a silver bullet that stops in its tracks the momentum -- political, intellectual -- pushing toward building the security state. As William Pitt warned us:

"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human liberty. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."

The United States Freedom Act does not trouble Intelligence agency leaders. They have widely assumed, as admitted in private statements, that the compromise provisions merely create a few procedural inconveniences that could be circumvented or neutralized by exploiting loopholes - no more than speed bumps. None of the Agency's core activities would be significantly affected. So there is no reason for anyone in the intelligence agencies to sweat the small stuff: a shift in the number of days the NSA can retain the sweepings of Metadata collection; or whether the data should be held at their storage lock-up or the one across the street protected by a bicycle lock and owned by a very accommodating neighbor? And who's checking, anyway -- the FBI? the FCC?

We have created a monster. A Great White Whale that rapaciously stalks the electronic seas devouring all within reach regardless of species or nutritional value.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-brenner/the-nsas-second-coming_b_7535058.html

 

[The Commish]

Such bull####

 

[tom22406]

And here we go

Obama lawyers asked secret court to ignore public court's decision on spying



The Obama administration has asked a secret surveillance court to ignore a federal court that found bulk surveillance illegal and to once again grant the National Security Agency the power to collect the phone records of millions of Americans for six months.

The legal request, filed nearly four hours after Barack Obama vowed to sign a new law banning precisely the bulk collection he asks the secret court to approve, also suggests that the administration may not necessarily comply with any potential court order demanding that the collection stop.


US officials confirmed last week that they would ask the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court – better known as the Fisa court, a panel that meets in secret as a step in the surveillance process and thus far has only ever had the government argue before it – to turn the domestic bulk collection spigot back on.

Justice Department national security chief John A Carlin cited a six-month transition period provided in the USA Freedom Act – passed by the Senate last week to ban the bulk collection – as a reason to permit an “orderly transition” of the NSA’s domestic dragnet. Carlin did not address whether the transition clause of the Freedom Act still applies now that a congressional deadlock meant the program shut down on 31 May.

But Carlin asked the Fisa court to set aside a landmark declaration by the second circuit court of appeals. Decided on 7 May, the appeals court ruled that the government had erroneously interpreted the Patriot Act’s authorization of data collection as “relevant” to an ongoing investigation to permit bulk collection.

Carlin, in his filing, wrote that the Patriot Act provision remained “in effect” during the transition period.

“This court may certainly consider ACLU v Clapper as part of its evaluation of the government’s application, but second circuit rulings do not constitute controlling precedent for this court,” Carlin wrote in the 2 June application. Instead, the government asked the court to rely on its own body of once-secret precedent stretching back to 2006, which Carlin called “the better interpretation of the statute”.

The second circuit court of appeals is supposed to bind only the circuit’s lower courts. But the unique nature of the Fisa court – whose rulings practically never became public before whistleblower Edward Snowden’s revelations – has left ambiguous which public court precedents it is obliged to follow.

“While the Fisa court isn’t formally bound by the second circuit’s ruling, it will certainly have to grapple with the second circuit’s interpretation of the ‘relevance’ requirement. The [court] will also have to consider whether Congress effectively adopted the second circuit’s interpretation of the relevance requirement when it passed the USA Freedom Act,” said Jameel Jaffer, the deputy legal director of the ACLU, which brought the lawsuit the second circuit decided.

The second circuit did not issue an injunction stopping the bulk collection. It deferred to the then-ongoing congressional debate over the USA Freedom Act, citing legislation as the more appropriate mode of relief. The ACLU, now confronting a potential return of bulk surveillance via the Fisa court, is considering seeking an injunction in the appropriate federal district court should the Fisa Court grant the government surveillance request.

Yet Carlin’s request to the Fisa court suggested the Obama administration would not consider the second circuit the last word – and might seek to challenge the injunction.

Carlin told the Fisa court that the government was “considering its litigation options in regard to the second circuit’s opinion”, which would have to mean a challenge before the US supreme court.

Carlin added in a footnote: “In the event an injunction of some sort were to issue by the district court, the government would need to assess, in light of the nature and scope of whatever injunction the district court issued, its ability to carry out authority granted under an order issued by this court.”

But the Fisa court must first decide whether the new bulk-surveillance request is lawful.

On Friday, the conservative group FreedomWorks filed a rare motion before the Fisa court, asking it to reject the government’s surveillance request as a violation of the fourth amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures. Fisa court judge Michael Moseman gave the justice department until this coming Friday to respond – and explicitly barred the government from arguing that FreedomWorks lacks the standing to petition the secret court.

“The only federal appeals court to have considered this surveillance concluded, after very careful analysis, that it’s unlawful. It’s disturbing and disappointing that the government is proposing to continue it,” said Jaffer, of the ACLU.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/09/obama-fisa-court-surveillance-phone-records

 

[The Commish]

I don't think there is a single thing that I could be told about this topic that would surprise me....not one. I am 100% confident Obama's lawyers aren't the first and I KNOW they won't be the last.

 

[RCon]

So basically, new name, same game? NSA will continue doing exactly what it's been doing all along.

I'll go ahead and say I nailed it here.

 

[Slapdash]

So basically, new name, same game? NSA will continue doing exactly what it's been doing all along.

I'll go ahead and say I nailed it here.

I, for one, am shocked.

 

[The Commish]

So basically, new name, same game? NSA will continue doing exactly what it's been doing all along.

I'll go ahead and say I nailed it here.

One day, you'll be on your pulpit preaching about water being wet.....the sky's the limit in this one

 

[Slapdash]

NSA Spying Is Going to Cost the Tech Sector Much More Than We Thought

NSA surveillance is going to cost the U.S. tech sector a lot more than originally thought.

The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a Washington, D.C. -based think tank that advocates for policies that nurture technology innovation, has released a new report in which it raises its previous estimate of how much surveillance by the U.S. intelligence community could cost U.S. tech companies.

In 2013, the non-partisan group estimated that the NSA-related revelations stemming from Edward Snowden’s 2013 leak would scare away foreign customers in the cloud computer sector to the tune of as much as $35 billion in business. The new report says that figure is too low, and that the economic reverberations will “likely far exceed” that initial $35 billion estimate, although the report wasn’t more specific on a final figure.

American tech companies saw a slump in sales after Snowden set off a chain of disclosures that revealed the widespread nature of U.S. surveillance, such as the PRISM program that gave the intelligence community access to private online communications.

According to the report, U.S. companies — including IBM, Microsoft, and Cisco — all saw drops in their sales in China after reports that said the NSA program built backdoors into encryption products. The report says many countries are now looking to enact — or have already enacted — tougher policies for American tech companies operating on their soil. Russia, for example, has enacted laws that require companies to store data domestically. And a new Chinese regulation established this January forces tech companies to submit to audits and build encryption keys in their products.

“When historians write about this period in U.S. history it could very well be that one of the themes will be how the United States lost its global technology leadership to other nations,” the study’s authors Daniel Castro and Alan McQuinn wrote.

 

[Slapdash]

Cory Doctorow: The NSA are not the Stasi

 

[tom22406]

If Clinton can store classified emails on a private server, then bring home Snowden

Hillary Clinton might not have broken any laws, but then again, one can breach security protocol and endanger national security simply by making unwise decisions. The former secretary of State's desire to have a private server (for the sake of "convenience") has overshadowed much of the presidential election coverage, without any benefit to the nation, with the Clinton campaign debating security agencies over the definition of classified or unclassified material.

Edward Snowden did break the law, but his actions resulted in a national dialogue about domestic surveillance and forced "needed transparency" — in the words of James Clapper, director of national intelligence — within the shadowy world of domestic spying. Furthermore, while he leaked a tremendous amount of intelligence, the "Top Secret" emails located in the private server of a secretary of State (if indeed Clinton's server didn't have adequate protection) could easily have gotten into enemy hands; it's feasible that North Korean hackers would have an easier time breaking into a private server than a government server.
We now know the extent of America's domestic spying programs because of Snowmen's transgressions and what he did can't legally be defined as treason. His actions weren't motivated by payment from an American enemy, like Aldrich Ames or Robert Hanssen, and when viewed objectively, the end result of his actions could easily be seen as patriotic. In reality, he's a whistleblower who broke the law and no more a threat to national security than when Henry Kissinger claimed Daniel Ellsberg was "the most dangerous man in America" who "must be stopped at all costs."

Yes, Snowden leaked secrets willingly, but Clinton might have leaked secrets simply from knowing too little ("Like with a cloth or something?") or too much about how to hide correspondence from colleagues and government servers. For a defense, Clinton recently stated, "I did not send classified material, and I did not receive any material that was marked or designated classified."

With each passing day, however, these declarations become overshadowed by a growing mountain of evidence indicating that security protocol was breached, even if such behavior was allowed by the State Department. First, Clinton's attorney handed over her email server and thumb drive to the FBI, which is currently investigating the security of Clinton's private email setup. Second, dozens of Clinton's emails were classified from the start, or "born classified," as a former Information Security Oversight Office director noted, so the Clinton campaign can't make the excuse that intelligence agencies retroactively classified intelligence.

While the Clinton campaign has vehemently defended against sending or receiving classified information that was always deemed classified, Reuters explains that "the details included in those 'Classified' stamps — which include a string of dates, letters and numbers describing the nature of the classification — appear to undermine this account."

Most importantly, Clinton did indeed receive classified information on an unprotected (or at least a network not protected by government security) server. According to a recent New York Times article, Clinton's server housed classified and Top Secret emails:

A special intelligence review of two emails that Hillary Rodham Clinton received as secretary of state on her personal account — including one about North Korea's nuclear weapons program — has endorsed a finding by the inspector general for the intelligence agencies that the emails contained highly classified information when Mrs. Clinton received them, senior intelligence officials said. ...

But the special review — by the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency — concluded that the emails were "Top Secret," the highest classification of government intelligence, when they were sent to Mrs. Clinton in 2009 and 2011. ...

I. Charles McCullough III, the inspector general for the intelligence community, found the two emails containing what he determined was "Top Secret" information in the course of reviewing a sampling of 40 of Mrs. Clinton’s work-related emails for potential security breaches.

Therefore, while Clinton claims not to have sent or received classified information, The New York Times reports that both the CIA and the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency found that her emails contained "highly classified" and Top Secret (one regarding North Korea's nuclear program) information. In addition, Top Secret emails were found in a sample of just 40 emails, and there were over 60,000 emails on private server Wired deemed a "security fail."

It's important to note that while 30,490 of Clinton's emails were handed over to the State Department, Clinton and her team deleted 31,830 emails without any oversight, and the emails she disclosed to the government will be made public every two months. Yes, it was legal for her to delete these private emails, but nobody knows if they were truly private, or if she deleted even more sensitive information than the data already found by intelligence agencies thus far.

The fact that such information was stored on a private server, without government protection, is bizarre enough. However, the revelation that both Bill and Hillary Clinton paid a former aide to manage her email setup is even more peculiar. According to CNN, Bryan Pagliano was paid to manage the server of America's secretary of State:

Hillary and Bill Clinton personally paid the State Department staffer who managed their private email server, a spokesman for Clinton's campaign confirmed on Saturday. ...

Pagliano, an IT specialist, informed Congress through his lawyer earlier this week that he will invoke the Fifth Amendment.

According to Clinton supporters, there's nothing wrong with using a private server as secretary of State, or receiving classified information on that server, since Hillary Clinton is obviously trustworthy and wouldn't knowingly compromise national security.

But who vetted the people Clinton paid to manage her private server? Most importantly, why do supporters of Clinton simply assume that nothing nefarious could have been contained within the 31,830 emails deleted unilaterally by her and her staff, or that nobody has hacked her private email setup? That's a tremendous amount of trust being given to the former secretary of State, even though most Americans don't find her trustworthy.

If polls are any indication of why Snowden should be treated in the same manner as Clinton, let's compare how both are viewed by the American public. According to HuffPost Pollster, 55 percent of registered voters according to CNN have an "unfavorable" view of Clinton. Yahoo! writes that "More Americans distrust Hillary Clinton than trust her" and according to CNN, 57 percent of Americans say she is "not honest and trustworthy." In 2016, these trust issues have extended to swing states, and Quinnipiac University finds that voters in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania believe Clinton is "not honest and trustworthy."

In contrast, a Pew Research report explains that Snowden's overall impact on a large percentage of Americans has been positive:

Young adults are significantly more supportive than their elders of Edward Snowden and his leaks of classified details of the National Security Agency's telephone and internet surveillance programs, a new Pew Research Center/USA TODAY survey finds.

57% of 18- to 29-year olds said the leaks have served rather than harmed the public interest — almost exact mirrors of the 65-and-over age group.

Younger people believe Snowden served the country by disclosing domestic spying practices, while nobody believes Clinton served the country by using a private server and potentially compromising "classified" information. Yet, Clinton is deemed worthy of the presidency while many voters view Snowden to be a traitor.

Furthermore, Ron Fournier in National Journal summarized the Snowden debate by stating the following:

Love him or hate him, we all owe Snowden our thanks for forcing upon the nation an important debate. But the debate shouldn't be about him. It should be about the gnawing questions his actions raised from the shadows.

It's true that regardless of one’s view of Snowden, most people agree that there's a national debate attributed to Snowden breaking the law and leaking intelligence files.

Hero or traitor, Snowden fostered a critical debate in our country. Clinton simply engaged in the unprecedented act of owning a private server and using it while classified and Top Secret information flowed through its channels. If Clinton can store classified and Top Secret emails on her private server, apologize on Facebook for doing so and claim no laws were broken (therefore nullifying the issue of various breaches of security), and then simply expect to win the presidency, then such trust and leniency should also be afforded to Snowden. The intelligence community should grant Edward Snowden clemency and bring him home, especially in light of the fact that we now have a presidential candidate who truly believes there was nothing wrong with owning a private server as secretary of State.

Edward Snowden has done a lot more good for America by breaking the law than Hillary Clinton did by being "above board" — as Clinton has termed it — with her private email server. If many voters are simply fine with a private server being used for "convenience" while possibly inadvertently jeopardizing U.S. intelligence, then the least we owe Snowden, for bringing the issue of domestic spying to the forefront of the American consciousness, is a ticket back home.

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/254153-if-clinton-can-store-classified-emails-on-a-private

 

[tom22406]

Snowden: I'd go to prison to return to U.S.

LONDON (AP) -- Edward Snowden says he has offered to return to the United States and go to jail for leaking details of National Security Agency programs to intercept electronic communications data on a vast scale.

The former NSA contractor flew to Moscow two years ago after revealing information about the previously secret eavesdropping powers, and faces U.S. charges that could land him in prison for up to 30 years.

Snowden told the BBC that he'd "volunteered to go to prison with the government many times," but had not received a formal plea-deal offer.

He said that "so far they've said they won't torture me, which is a start, I think. But we haven't gotten much further than that."

In an interview broadcast Monday on the BBC's "Panorama" program, Snowden said he and his lawyers were waiting for U.S. officials "to call us back."

Earlier this year, former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said a plea deal with Snowden was a possibility.

Snowden's revelations about the NSA, Britain's GCHQ and other intelligence agencies set off an international debate about spies' powers to monitor personal communications, and about the balance between security and privacy.

Critics say his disclosures harmed the ability of the United States and its allies to fight terrorism. FBI deputy director Mark Giuliano told the BBC that Snowden was a traitor.

"The question is, if I was a traitor, who did I betray?" Snowden said. "I gave all of my information to American journalists and free society generally.

"I have paid a price but I feel comfortable with the decisions I've made," he added. "If I'm gone tomorrow, I'm happy with what I had. I feel blessed."

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_BRITAIN_EDWARD_SNOWDEN?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-10-05-13-50-39

 

[The Commish]

Snowden: I'd go to prison to return to U.S.

LONDON (AP) -- Edward Snowden says he has offered to return to the United States and go to jail for leaking details of National Security Agency programs to intercept electronic communications data on a vast scale.

The former NSA contractor flew to Moscow two years ago after revealing information about the previously secret eavesdropping powers, and faces U.S. charges that could land him in prison for up to 30 years.

Snowden told the BBC that he'd "volunteered to go to prison with the government many times," but had not received a formal plea-deal offer.

He said that "so far they've said they won't torture me, which is a start, I think. But we haven't gotten much further than that."

In an interview broadcast Monday on the BBC's "Panorama" program, Snowden said he and his lawyers were waiting for U.S. officials "to call us back."

Earlier this year, former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said a plea deal with Snowden was a possibility.

Snowden's revelations about the NSA, Britain's GCHQ and other intelligence agencies set off an international debate about spies' powers to monitor personal communications, and about the balance between security and privacy.

Critics say his disclosures harmed the ability of the United States and its allies to fight terrorism. FBI deputy director Mark Giuliano told the BBC that Snowden was a traitor.

"The question is, if I was a traitor, who did I betray?" Snowden said. "I gave all of my information to American journalists and free society generally.

"I have paid a price but I feel comfortable with the decisions I've made," he added. "If I'm gone tomorrow, I'm happy with what I had. I feel blessed."

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_BRITAIN_EDWARD_SNOWDEN?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-10-05-13-50-39

Given what we know about our government and it's officials, it's sad this guy has to be in hiding.

 

[tom22406]

Second Circuit Refuses to Stop NSA's Telephone Records Program

It’s been a rough few weeks for legal challenges to NSA surveillance. First, a federal district court in Maryland dismissed a lawsuit brought by the ACLU challenging the NSA’s Upstream surveillance of the Internet backbone. Then, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals refused to grant the ACLU a preliminary injunction against the NSA’s bulk telephone records program, despite having previously found that the program was illegal. Essentially washing its hands of the case, the court refused to even consider the ACLU’s arguments that the phone records program is unconstitutional because the program will stop in its current form at the end of November.
Back in May, the ACLU won a landmark victory when the Second Circuit declared the government’s interpretation of Section 215 of the Patriot Act—the law used to justify the NSA’s mass collection of Americans’ telephone records—was “unprecedented and unwarranted.” However, the court didn't rule on the constitutionality of the program and refused to grant a preliminary injunction at that time, deeming it “prudent to pause to allow an opportunity for debate in Congress that may (or may not) profoundly alter the legal landscape.” That debate resulted in the passage of the USA Freedom Act, which prohibits the use of Section 215 for bulk telephone records collection. The catch is that this section of USA Freedom does not go into effect until the end of this month, and in the meantime the government believes it can continue collecting telephone records in bulk. In June, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) agreed that it’s business as usual until then.

This prompted the ACLU to renew its attempt to stop the illegal phone records program immediately. The group argued that it was not clear that Congress had intended for the program to continue and, more important, that it is unconstitutional. The Second Circuit did not reach the ACLU’s constitutional arguments in May because it ruled that the program was not authorized under Section 215, although it did note serious “constitutional concerns.” Now that the statute has been amended by USA Freedom, however, those concerns are unavoidable.

Or so it would seem. In the new ruling, the Second Circuit used the “vexing” nature of these constitutional questions as a reason to avoid deciding on a preliminary injunction:

We agree with the government that we ought not meddle with Congress’s considered decision regarding the transition away from bulk telephone metadata collection, and also find that addressing these issues at this time would not be a prudent use of judicial authority. We need not, and should not, decide such momentous constitutional issues based on a request for such narrow and temporary relief. To do so would take more time than the brief transition period remaining for the telephone metadata program, at which point, any ruling on the constitutionality of the demised program would be fruitless.
This is disappointing for several reasons. First, although appellate courts are notoriously slow, the ACLU’s motion for a preliminary injunction has been pending for nearly four months, and it is settled that cases presenting alleged harm to constitutional rights are among the most urgent. Second, the court’s conclusion that a constitutional analysis would be “fruitless” ignores that the government will retain the records it has already collected after the program ends, presenting an indefinite and ongoing harm. On this question, the appeals court remanded to the district court, which only delays the final adjudication of the question further. Finally, there is a value in deciding whether the collection of records is a violation of the Constitution. The old telephone records program may be ending, but the government raises the same arguments about why it is constitutional in many settings, and it’s time we had a definitive rule.

At EFF, we’ve had our own share of delay in our cases dealing with NSA surveillance. We were in court last month, arguing that our appeal in Jewel v. NSA should be go forward, and we’re still waiting for a hearing in First Unitarian v. NSA. We'll keep fighting.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/10/second-circuit-refuses-nsas-stop-telephone-records-program

 

[The Commish]

This isn't surprising to anyone anymore, right?

 

[tom22406]

This isn't surprising to anyone anymore, right?

Not in the least bit,still just wanted to keep anybody still following this updated.

 

[The Commish]

This isn't surprising to anyone anymore, right?

Not in the least bit,still just wanted to keep anybody still following this updated.

They are trying really hard to make people lose interest in this...really hard.

 

[Bonfire]

This isn't surprising to anyone anymore, right?

Not in the least bit,still just wanted to keep anybody still following this updated.

Doing good work here tom, appreciate reading the articles here and people should be more informed and upset about this, thanks-

 

[tom22406]

Judge Deals a Blow to N.S.A. Data Collection Program

WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Monday partly blocked the National Security Agency’s program that systematically collects Americans’ domestic phone records in bulk just weeks before the agency was scheduled to shut it down and replace it. The judge said the program was most likely unconstitutional.

In a separate case challenging the program, a federal appeals court in New York on Oct. 30 had declined to weigh in on the constitutional issues, saying it would be imprudent to interfere with an orderly transition to a replacement system after Nov. 29.

But on Monday, in a 43-page ruling, Judge Richard J. Leon of United States District Court for the District of Columbia wrote that the constitutional issues were too important to leave unanswered in the history of the program, which traces back to after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and came to light in 2013 in leaks by Edward J. Snowden, the former intelligence contractor.


“With the government’s authority to operate the bulk telephony metadata program quickly coming to an end, this case is perhaps the last chapter in the judiciary’s evaluation of this particular program’s compatibility with the Constitution,” he wrote. “It will not, however, be the last chapter in the ongoing struggle to balance privacy rights and national security interests under our Constitution in an age of evolving technological wizardry.”

Under the program, the N.S.A. has been collecting Americans’ phone records in bulk from telephone companies. It uses the data to analyze social links between people to hunt for hidden associates of terrorism suspects.

Judge Leon specifically ordered the N.S.A. to stop collecting phone records for one customer of Verizon: a lawyer in California and his law firm. But he did so, he wrote, knowing that the Justice Department had said that blocking the collection of just one person’s records might require shutting down the entire program because it would be technically difficult to screen him out.

The Justice Department said it was reviewing the decision but had no comment about whether it would appeal the injunction. Reuters reported on Monday that the N.S.A. had sent a memo to Congress saying that testing of the replacement system had begun.

The program began based on a unilateral claim of executive power by President George W. Bush. In 2006, the Justice Department persuaded the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to begin issuing orders for the program under an interpretation of a provision of the U.S.A. Patriot Act that permits collection of business records relevant to a national-security investigation.

In June 2013, Mr. Snowden leaked one such order to a subsidiary of Verizon. After substantial debate, Congress in June enacted the U.S.A. Freedom Act, which banned bulk collection under the Patriot Act after Nov. 29, and established a system under which the bulk data will stay with the phone companies but the N.S.A. can swiftly access it.

Revelations of the program set off lawsuits challenging it as illegal on statutory and constitutional grounds. In December 2013, Judge Leon ruled that it was most likely unconstitutional but issued no order, permitting the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to review his ruling.

But a week later in a different case, a federal judge in New York ruled that the program was legal. The federal appeals court in New York eventually ruled that the program was not based on a legitimate interpretation of the Patriot Act, but sidestepped the constitutional question.

Judge Leon’s ruling that the bulk collection of calling records most likely violated the Constitution was novel because in 1979, the Supreme Court held that call logs or metadata — records showing who called whom and when, but not the content of what they said — was not protected by the Fourth Amendment.

Its ruling turned on the notion that people have no reasonable expectation of privacy for information they reveal to a third party, and they expose whom they are calling to phone companies. That case, however, involved one criminal suspect’s calls over several days, not call records of everyone in the country and the storage of them for five years.

Judge Leon argued that changing technological capabilities had brought call records into the ambit of Fourth Amendment protections. But last summer, an appeals court overturned his ruling on a technicality: There was not enough evidence that the plaintiffs in the case — including Larry Klayman, the conservative legal activist — had their calls collected by the program. Mr. Klayman was a not a customer of the Verizon subsidiary in the order Mr. Snowden leaked.

The appeals court sent the case back to Judge Leon, who suggested to Mr. Klayman that he add a plaintiff who was a customer of the Verizon subsidiary. He did so: J.J. Little, a trial lawyer in California, and his law firm.

Judge Leon issued the injunction on Monday for Mr. Little’s records, not Mr. Klayman’s.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/10/us/politics/judge-deals-a-blow-to-nsa-phone-surveillance-program.html?_r=0

 

[tom22406]

Everyone knew this was coming

In wake of Paris attacks, legislation aims to extend NSA program

The proposed bill would extend bulk collection of phone metadata to January 2017

A U.S. senator plans to introduce legislation that would delay the end of the bulk collection of phone metadata by the National Security Agency to Jan. 31, 2017, in the wake of security concerns after the terror attacks last Friday in Paris.

Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, believes that the termination of the program, scheduled for month-end under the USA Freedom Act, “takes us from a constitutional, legal, and proven NSA collection architecture to an untested, hypothetical one that will be less effective.”

The transition will happen in less than two weeks, at a time when the threat level for the U.S. is “incredibly high,” he said Tuesday.

The move by Cotton may not get enough support in the Senate as the USA Freedom Act was passed with broadbased support and the backing of the administration of President Barack Obama. But it also comes at a time when the U.S. government and politicians are looking for ways to tighten surveillance, including possibly to find a way around the encryption of communications by many technology companies.

The NSA’s controversial program for the bulk collection of domestic phone call records was granted a three-month extension to Nov. 28 for the last time in August under the new rules.

The USA Freedom Act, approved as law in June, placed curbs on the bulk collection program by leaving the phone records database in the hands of telecom operators, while allowing only a targeted search of the data by the NSA for investigations.

While some provisions of the Act took effect immediately upon enactment, the ban on bulk collection of call records allowed for a 180-day transition of the program.

Besides delaying the NSA reform, the “Liberty Through Strength Act,” to be proposed by Cotton, aims to make permanent “lone wolf” and “roving wiretap” provisions under the USA Patriot Act. Roving wiretap allows NSA to get a warrant from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court without being tied to a specific device or mode of communications or naming the person tracked, while the “lone wolf” provision allowed the agency to get a warrant to monitor electronically a non-US person without proving he is part of a terror group.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3005990/security/in-wake-of-paris-attacks-legislation-aims-to-extend-nsa-program.html

 

[The Commish]

Everyone knew this was coming

In wake of Paris attacks, legislation aims to extend NSA program

The proposed bill would extend bulk collection of phone metadata to January 2017

A U.S. senator plans to introduce legislation that would delay the end of the bulk collection of phone metadata by the National Security Agency to Jan. 31, 2017, in the wake of security concerns after the terror attacks last Friday in Paris.

Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, believes that the termination of the program, scheduled for month-end under the USA Freedom Act, “takes us from a constitutional, legal, and proven NSA collection architecture to an untested, hypothetical one that will be less effective.”

The transition will happen in less than two weeks, at a time when the threat level for the U.S. is “incredibly high,” he said Tuesday.

The move by Cotton may not get enough support in the Senate as the USA Freedom Act was passed with broadbased support and the backing of the administration of President Barack Obama. But it also comes at a time when the U.S. government and politicians are looking for ways to tighten surveillance, including possibly to find a way around the encryption of communications by many technology companies.

The NSA’s controversial program for the bulk collection of domestic phone call records was granted a three-month extension to Nov. 28 for the last time in August under the new rules.

The USA Freedom Act, approved as law in June, placed curbs on the bulk collection program by leaving the phone records database in the hands of telecom operators, while allowing only a targeted search of the data by the NSA for investigations.

While some provisions of the Act took effect immediately upon enactment, the ban on bulk collection of call records allowed for a 180-day transition of the program.

Besides delaying the NSA reform, the “Liberty Through Strength Act,” to be proposed by Cotton, aims to make permanent “lone wolf” and “roving wiretap” provisions under the USA Patriot Act. Roving wiretap allows NSA to get a warrant from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court without being tied to a specific device or mode of communications or naming the person tracked, while the “lone wolf” provision allowed the agency to get a warrant to monitor electronically a non-US person without proving he is part of a terror group.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3005990/security/in-wake-of-paris-attacks-legislation-aims-to-extend-nsa-program.html

This program did such a wonderful job in preventing the Paris attacks....it needs to stay around

 

[tom22406]

Everyone knew this was coming

In wake of Paris attacks, legislation aims to extend NSA program

The proposed bill would extend bulk collection of phone metadata to January 2017

A U.S. senator plans to introduce legislation that would delay the end of the bulk collection of phone metadata by the National Security Agency to Jan. 31, 2017, in the wake of security concerns after the terror attacks last Friday in Paris.

Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, believes that the termination of the program, scheduled for month-end under the USA Freedom Act, “takes us from a constitutional, legal, and proven NSA collection architecture to an untested, hypothetical one that will be less effective.”

The transition will happen in less than two weeks, at a time when the threat level for the U.S. is “incredibly high,” he said Tuesday.

The move by Cotton may not get enough support in the Senate as the USA Freedom Act was passed with broadbased support and the backing of the administration of President Barack Obama. But it also comes at a time when the U.S. government and politicians are looking for ways to tighten surveillance, including possibly to find a way around the encryption of communications by many technology companies.

The NSA’s controversial program for the bulk collection of domestic phone call records was granted a three-month extension to Nov. 28 for the last time in August under the new rules.

The USA Freedom Act, approved as law in June, placed curbs on the bulk collection program by leaving the phone records database in the hands of telecom operators, while allowing only a targeted search of the data by the NSA for investigations.

While some provisions of the Act took effect immediately upon enactment, the ban on bulk collection of call records allowed for a 180-day transition of the program.

Besides delaying the NSA reform, the “Liberty Through Strength Act,” to be proposed by Cotton, aims to make permanent “lone wolf” and “roving wiretap” provisions under the USA Patriot Act. Roving wiretap allows NSA to get a warrant from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court without being tied to a specific device or mode of communications or naming the person tracked, while the “lone wolf” provision allowed the agency to get a warrant to monitor electronically a non-US person without proving he is part of a terror group.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3005990/security/in-wake-of-paris-attacks-legislation-aims-to-extend-nsa-program.html

This program did such a wonderful job in preventing the Paris attacks....it needs to stay around

And now with this attack I think this shows exactly how flawed this really is.Both of the attackers under the radar but were still under the umbrella of the NSA at full strength and in reality the only thing that went away is the phone records part,the rest is still intact and failed to flag these people.

 

[The Commish]

It's absurd to think this "system" would be used as the gov't was suggesting in an attempt to explain it away. We said this early in the thread, yet here we are. Very little good will ever come of this. That's the reality.

 

[Slapdash]

Yep. We have to live under constant, but ineffective surveillance

 

[tom22406]

Agree with both of you.The fear mongering going on is very strong though both in the media and with certain politicians.

I've already heard we are less safe,the NSA has been gutted but the most damaging words I'm hearing are the cries for the encryption backdoors.

 

[The Commish]

Agree with both of you.The fear mongering going on is very strong though both in the media and with certain politicians.

I've already heard we are less safe,the NSA has been gutted but the most damaging words I'm hearing are the cries for the encryption backdoors.

The backdoor pleas are absolutely despicable IMO. I've lost track of all those asking for / demanding them. Hope Bernie's not one of them...can't imagine he is.

 

[The Commish]

Plenty, if not more so, fear mongering going on on the other side of this topic too. And i despise fear mongering. Just like any other political issue like borders, guns, etc there is absolutely no reason we can't find a sane middle ground other than the far right and far left whack jobs getting in the way.

The "sides" of this topic are government vs citizens. For the most part politicians aren't battling with each other in any meaningful way. They are ignoring it, not wanting to poke the bear and lose their jobs.

 

[tom22406]

Plenty, if not more so, fear mongering going on on the other side of this topic too. And i despise fear mongering. Just like any other political issue like borders, guns, etc there is absolutely no reason we can't find a sane middle ground other than the far right and far left whack jobs getting in the way.

The "sides" of this topic are government vs citizens. For the most part politicians aren't battling with each other in any meaningful way. They are ignoring it, not wanting to poke the bear and lose their jobs.

A few of them are sticking to what they believe in.Sanders and Paul for instance will not budge on this issue and have been called to the carpet because of it.Christie,Rubio,Bush and Graham the loudest of those calling for more surveillance and saying if you don't go along with that line of thinking you are making the country less safer.

I would be very interested to hear what this "sane" middle ground is though?

 

[skol asylum]

Yeah i realized after i posted that i shouldn't have because i didn't want to spend time arguing the issue. It just frustrates me that everything is so black and white to people on these issues. The comment that it is government vs people is telling. Newsflash, the government is supposed to be for the people by the people. Too many demonize our government and want to just drown it in a bath tub instead of fix it. Just stop with the black helicopter paranoia and instead support a middle ground approach that gives the government tools to promote public safety while protecting individual rights. I've said it before...metadata collection and review can be done with checks and balances. I'm not sure why that is so shocking to some people.

 

[The Commish]

Plenty, if not more so, fear mongering going on on the other side of this topic too. And i despise fear mongering. Just like any other political issue like borders, guns, etc there is absolutely no reason we can't find a sane middle ground other than the far right and far left whack jobs getting in the way.

The "sides" of this topic are government vs citizens. For the most part politicians aren't battling with each other in any meaningful way. They are ignoring it, not wanting to poke the bear and lose their jobs.

A few of them are sticking to what they believe in.Sanders and Paul for instance will not budge on this issue and have been called to the carpet because of it.Christie,Rubio,Bush and Graham the loudest of those calling for more surveillance and saying if you don't go along with that line of thinking you are making the country less safer.

I would be very interested to hear what this "sane" middle ground is though?

There isn't a middle ground because our politicians won't do what it takes to create it, so we are left to choose between it running or it not. My preference is that it be shut down. In it's current form not only is it a violation of our privacy but it's an incredible waste of money and it's not working. Ideally, I suppose we could have a system with enough transparency and data retention rules that would make it a little palatable for some, but there will always be those tinfoil hat guys who don't want it to exist at all.

 

[tom22406]

Yeah i realized after i posted that i shouldn't have because i didn't want to spend time arguing the issue. It just frustrates me that everything is so black and white to people on these issues. The comment that it is government vs people is telling. Newsflash, the government is supposed to be for the people by the people. Too many demonize our government and want to just drown it in a bath tub instead of fix it. Just stop with the black helicopter paranoia and instead support a middle ground approach that gives the government tools to promote public safety while protecting individual rights. I've said it before...metadata collection and review can be done with checks and balances. I'm not sure why that is so shocking to some people.

My position is that I'm not against surveillance as long as it's done with a warrant.I seriously don't think that is too much to ask.The bulk collection has also been proven to be very ineffective which also bothers me.

Do you consider that not a sane position?

I did find it funny you blast people for demonizing the government but then do so yourself in the next sentence to those who don't support this so called middle ground.

 

[The Commish]

Yeah i realized after i posted that i shouldn't have because i didn't want to spend time arguing the issue. It just frustrates me that everything is so black and white to people on these issues. The comment that it is government vs people is telling. Newsflash, the government is supposed to be for the people by the people. Too many demonize our government and want to just drown it in a bath tub instead of fix it. Just stop with the black helicopter paranoia and instead support a middle ground approach that gives the government tools to promote public safety while protecting individual rights. I've said it before...metadata collection and review can be done with checks and balances. I'm not sure why that is so shocking to some people.

I'm all for fixing our government....the statement isn't telling you what you think it is. In this specific case, I'm not commenting on how things are suppose to be or how I want them to be. I'm talking about how they are. This isn't about paranoia. This isn't about conspiracy theories. This is about how our government is working at the moment. We can talk about how things are suppose to be until we're blue in the face, but few in Washington are on board with doing the work necessary to make things work as they're suppose to. That's the reality. Until we have people there who want to get us back to that, there's no point in talking about these sorts of matters in terms of "what's suppose to happen".

 

[RCon]

Yeah i realized after i posted that i shouldn't have because i didn't want to spend time arguing the issue. It just frustrates me that everything is so black and white to people on these issues. The comment that it is government vs people is telling. Newsflash, the government is supposed to be for the people by the people. Too many demonize our government and want to just drown it in a bath tub instead of fix it. Just stop with the black helicopter paranoia and instead support a middle ground approach that gives the government tools to promote public safety while protecting individual rights. I've said it before...metadata collection and review can be done with checks and balances. I'm not sure why that is so shocking to some people.

What is this middle ground approach you advocate?

 

[Slapdash]

Two observations from the GOP debate tonight:

• The discussion of what programs the NSA and government has available shows that the scope and actual details revealed by Snowden is not at all part of the debate or public consciousness. They are talking about very narrow capabilities while meanwhile advocating pretty extreme polices such as sabotaging encryption.
• It seems there is an arguement being made that getting rid of privacy is even more important than immigration in terms of security. That is a bit confusing as privacy rights are much more important in the Constitution than any rights for immigrants. Immigration is a good thing and people like Trump are going too far for sure. But I'm not nearly as concerned about the moral issues with that than tramping on our rights. Both are using the same familiar boogeyman.

 

[The Commish]

Two observations from the GOP debate tonight:

• The discussion of what programs the NSA and government has available shows that the scope and actual details revealed by Snowden is not at all part of the debate or public consciousness. They are talking about very narrow capabilities while meanwhile advocating pretty extreme polices such as sabotaging encryption.
• It seems there is an arguement being made that getting rid of privacy is even more important than immigration in terms of security. That is a bit confusing as privacy rights are much more important in the Constitution than any rights for immigrants. Immigration is a good thing and people like Trump are going too far for sure. But I'm not nearly as concerned about the moral issues with that than tramping on our rights. Both are using the same familiar boogeyman.

This attitude really knows no political bounds. It's been cultivated by just about everyone in Washington minus a few select people who have been labeled "crazy" by their peers. It's pretty startling to see this attitude

 

[timschochet]

<p>

Two observations from the GOP debate tonight:

• The discussion of what programs the NSA and government has available shows that the scope and actual details revealed by Snowden is not at all part of the debate or public consciousness. They are talking about very narrow capabilities while meanwhile advocating pretty extreme polices such as sabotaging encryption.
• It seems there is an arguement being made that getting rid of privacy is even more important than immigration in terms of security. That is a bit confusing as privacy rights are much more important in the Constitution than any rights for immigrants. Immigration is a good thing and people like Trump are going too far for sure. But I'm not nearly as concerned about the moral issues with that than tramping on our rights. Both are using the same familiar boogeyman.

When you wrote "even more important" if you mean by that to Republican voters I would disagree. Immigration is much more on their radar than this issue. This issue is important to progressives and libertarian types who are in opposition, and Hawks who are strongly in favor. But I don't think most Americans are paying attention one way or the other.

 

[tom22406]

Kudos to the USA Today for this editorial

Hang up on NSA phone tracking: Our view

The Editorial Board11:08 p.m. EST December 15, 2015
Panic over San Bernardino is no reason to resurrect government snooping.
Within days of the murder of 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif., by Islamic State sympathizers, a number of Republican senators are moving to resurrect a truly bad idea. Once again, they want to allow the National Security Agency to sweep up the phone records of virtually all Americans.

The once-secret "metadata" program, which a federal appeals court found amounted to “sweeping surveillance” of Americans’ data in “staggering” volumes, ended in November, four days before the San Bernardino massacre. Now, some of the program’s supporters are playing on the fears created by the California attack to try to bring the intrusive program back to life.

In fact, the program had been operating for nine years before Syed Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, murdered 14 people at a holiday party. It was operating when they were married, when she came to the U.S. and when, according to news reports, Farook had contacts with six people whom federal authorities had scrutinized for possible terrorism ties.

The metadata program — first revealed in 2006 by USA TODAY and confirmed in 2013 by fugitive NSA leaker Edward Snowden — apparently picked up none of it. That's neither a black mark on the program nor a reason to think its absence for a few days contributed to the attack.

Even so, a measure to put the old program back in operation at least until early 2017 is being pushed by Republican senators, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, John McCain of Arizona and Marco Rubio of Florida, who’s seeking the Republican presidential nomination.


At Tuesday night’s GOP debate, Rubio argued that the metadata program was “a valuable tool we no longer have at our disposal” and warned that a failure to prevent a future attack “better not be” because the NSA couldn’t quickly access this kind of data. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie agreed it ought to be restored. Both ignore reality.

Reviving the program would take the country back to the panicked weeks after 9/11, when Congress gave the intelligence community all sorts of secret surveillance tools involving phone data, cellphones and emails. When the program was publicly confirmed in 2013, it created a furor. A federal judge said it was likely unconstitutional. President Obama vowed to end it. In June, Congress approved a compromise alternative by a healthy bipartisan majority.

The alternative still allows the NSA to check metadata — the number you called, when you called and how long you talked — with two key changes. It must get a court order first and get the data from telephone companies. The big difference: The NSA cannot vacuum up masses of data and keep them in-house.

History demonstrates that once such government collections start, they are hard to contain and are prone to abuse. The mere existence of such a database can reveal a lot, including whether you call a psychiatrist, an abortion clinic, a lover, a criminal defense lawyer, a political organization or a house of worship. While there have been no reports of abuse, it's not hard to imagine a future president, with the paranoid tendencies of a Richard Nixon, misusing such tools against political enemies and journalists.

Foes of the new arrangement insist that the government will have access to less data. But the director of national intelligence said the volume of records is "greater," and FBI Director James Comey told Congress he also expects more to be available. Previously, the government did not have access to records from all companies, and some mobile phone records had been out or reach. Now, all companies must comply with orders seeking records.

Did the previous, much debated program keep America safe? The NSA's reply was to exaggerate its benefits. Officials first claimed it helped disrupt more than 50 "potential terrorist events" since 9/11. Then the claim was it had "made a contribution" in 12 cases.

Exaggeration raises questions not only about this program but also about the intelligence community's credibility. Too many times in recent years, intelligence officials have either failed to assess a crucial situation accurately — foremost whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 — or been caught misleading the public.

Before charging off to recreate an intrusive program that two years of questioning, study and compromise put to rest, politicians might want to beef up the visa background checks that missed Malik's postings on social media supporting violent jihad. They might also give the new metadata system a chance. Winning the war against terrorism requires not only preventing attacks but also protecting America's values.

USA TODAY's editorial opinions are decided by its Editorial Board, separate from the news staff. Most editorials are coupled with an opposing view — a unique USA TODAY feature.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/12/15/phone-metadata-nsa-san-bernardino-terrorists-attacks-isil-editorials-debates/76337140/

 

[Slapdash]

<p>

Two observations from the GOP debate tonight:

• The discussion of what programs the NSA and government has available shows that the scope and actual details revealed by Snowden is not at all part of the debate or public consciousness. They are talking about very narrow capabilities while meanwhile advocating pretty extreme polices such as sabotaging encryption.
• It seems there is an arguement being made that getting rid of privacy is even more important than immigration in terms of security. That is a bit confusing as privacy rights are much more important in the Constitution than any rights for immigrants. Immigration is a good thing and people like Trump are going too far for sure. But I'm not nearly as concerned about the moral issues with that than tramping on our rights. Both are using the same familiar boogeyman.

When you wrote "even more important" if you mean by that to Republican voters I would disagree. Immigration is much more on their radar than this issue. This issue is important to progressives and libertarian types who are in opposition, and Hawks who are strongly in favor. But I don't think most Americans are paying attention one way or the other.

What I mean by that is that there is much more a consensus that privacy rights need to be curtailed in the name of security. Both across parties and within the GOP. Whereas, on immigration there are large differences of opinion across those groups as to whether security is sufficient to curtail that form of liberty.

It just seems bizarre to me since the rights and liberties of current citizens should probably take precedence. At least conceptually (granting that some don't consider NSA a violation of privacy....which you know my thoughts on).

 

[Slapdash]

Two observations from the GOP debate tonight:

• The discussion of what programs the NSA and government has available shows that the scope and actual details revealed by Snowden is not at all part of the debate or public consciousness. They are talking about very narrow capabilities while meanwhile advocating pretty extreme polices such as sabotaging encryption.
• It seems there is an argument being made that getting rid of privacy is even more important than immigration in terms of security. That is a bit confusing as privacy rights are much more important in the Constitution than any rights for immigrants. Immigration is a good thing and people like Trump are going too far for sure. But I'm not nearly as concerned about the moral issues with that than tramping on our rights. Both are using the same familiar boogeyman.

This attitude really knows no political bounds. It's been cultivated by just about everyone in Washington minus a few select people who have been labeled "crazy" by their peers. It's pretty startling to see this attitude

Certainly was not calling out the GOP here. In particular, Democrats are the ones my second point is focused on. Was just so damn depressing to hear that from so many voices. Snowden has been ignored.

 

[timschochet]

I can agree with that Slapdash. I will also add that you and a few others here have given me a lot of pause on this issue. I haven't come around to your way of thinking- yet- but I'm closer. You've given me stuff to consider.

I think there is less consensus on the immigration issue because its economic, easier for people to understand, and frankly because there's a racial element involved.

 

[The Commish]

Certainly was not calling out the GOP here. In particular, Democrats are the ones my second point is focused on. Was just so damn depressing to hear that from so many voices. Snowden has been ignored.

Agreed....no one wants to spend their political capital on this issue. It's putting themselves above us as their constituents. If there was ever an example of "both sides" playing a particular card (in this case the "fear" card) this would be it. It's embarrassing.

 

[Doug B]

Kudos to the USA Today for this editorial

Hang up on NSA phone tracking: Our view

The Editorial Board11:08 p.m. EST December 15, 2015

Panic over San Bernardino is no reason to resurrect government snooping.
Within days of the murder of 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif., by Islamic State sympathizers, a number of Republican senators are moving to resurrect a truly bad idea. Once again, they want to allow the National Security Agency to sweep up the phone records of virtually all Americans.

The once-secret "metadata" program, which a federal appeals court found amounted to “sweeping surveillance” of Americans’ data in “staggering” volumes, ended in November, four days before the San Bernardino massacre. Now, some of the program’s supporters are playing on the fears created by the California attack to try to bring the intrusive program back to life.

What makes them think the program ended in November? Call me cynical, but they've got to be still doing pretty much the same stuff.

 

[timschochet]

I'll admit that when Cruz and Rubio started arguing about this issue last night and who was for what bill, I couldn't make heads or tails out of it.