I'm just curious here, and please don't take this as any kind of rebuttal or attack on anybody in particular, but I'm curious about where people are drawing their own personal lines. At what point does the NSA overstep its bounds and invade privacy or weaken security to an unacceptable degree?
My personal lines are a bit complex, but basically boil down to the NSA intentionally obtaining / retaining protected information about American Citizens or people within the US without a properly issued warrant (FISA or otherwise). I'm pretty pragmatic on the topic, in that I think perfect privacy would be cool, but it's not really workable.
So...Bush warrantless wiretaps bad. PRISM ok. Spying on foreign politicans / diplomats good. Spying on foreign companies / prominent businessmen questionable, and should be subject to significant oversight to make sure the information being properly used for National Security reasons, not giving American companies a competitive advantage.
I'm just curious here, and please don't take this as any kind of rebuttal or attack on anybody in particular, but I'm curious about where people are drawing their own personal lines. At what point does the NSA overstep its bounds and invade privacy or weaken security to an unacceptable degree?
COINTELPRO is a good example of where the line was crossed. But when you look at that, what you had was actual government opposition to legal action - agents provocateur, counterintelligence, the whole nine yards.
The thing is that privacy is something dangerous in both extremes. Too little privacy is harmful, but so is too much - privileging privacy over the welfare of people is a very good way to allow abuse to continue.
That wired article is a perfect indictment of for-profit journalism. Anyone who has "coded a packet injector in a matter of hours", should know this is about as revelatory as writing the "DoD weaponizes metal tubes" But I'm sure it got them the clicks they were looking for.
I'm just curious here, and please don't take this as any kind of rebuttal or attack on anybody in particular, but I'm curious about where people are drawing their own personal lines. At what point does the NSA overstep its bounds and invade privacy or weaken security to an unacceptable degree?
COINTELPRO is a good example of where the line was crossed. But when you look at that, what you had was actual government opposition to legal action - agents provocateur, counterintelligence, the whole nine yards.
The thing is that privacy is something dangerous in both extremes. Too little privacy is harmful, but so is too much - privileging privacy over the welfare of people is a very good way to allow abuse to continue.
How does my privacy endanger you? Additionally, from the nature of your statement I take it that you are generally opposed to the 4th amendment? If there is no warrant describing the places to be searched and the things to be seized I should have all of the privacy imaginable at all times.
I'm just curious here, and please don't take this as any kind of rebuttal or attack on anybody in particular, but I'm curious about where people are drawing their own personal lines. At what point does the NSA overstep its bounds and invade privacy or weaken security to an unacceptable degree?
COINTELPRO is a good example of where the line was crossed. But when you look at that, what you had was actual government opposition to legal action - agents provocateur, counterintelligence, the whole nine yards.
The thing is that privacy is something dangerous in both extremes. Too little privacy is harmful, but so is too much - privileging privacy over the welfare of people is a very good way to allow abuse to continue.
How does my privacy endanger you? Additionally, from the nature of your statement I take it that you are generally opposed to the 4th amendment? If there is no warrant describing the places to be searched and the things to be seized I should have all of the privacy imaginable at all times.
If you're planning a violent action your privacy endangers everyone. The problem of course is that we cannot know who is planning violence or other crimes and simply violate their privacy.
As for the rest, i am not sure why; when he explicitly says he is for getting warrants and explicitly against not getting warrants you would think he was against the 4th amendment.
WRT: "at all times" good god no. Do you know what public space means?
I'm just curious here, and please don't take this as any kind of rebuttal or attack on anybody in particular, but I'm curious about where people are drawing their own personal lines. At what point does the NSA overstep its bounds and invade privacy or weaken security to an unacceptable degree?
COINTELPRO is a good example of where the line was crossed. But when you look at that, what you had was actual government opposition to legal action - agents provocateur, counterintelligence, the whole nine yards.
The thing is that privacy is something dangerous in both extremes. Too little privacy is harmful, but so is too much - privileging privacy over the welfare of people is a very good way to allow abuse to continue.
How does my privacy endanger you? Additionally, from the nature of your statement I take it that you are generally opposed to the 4th amendment? If there is no warrant describing the places to be searched and the things to be seized I should have all of the privacy imaginable at all times.
Because, despite what you might believe, you are not an island. Your actions do have impact beyond your own sphere. And you should not get a free pass to impact others.
And I do believe in the Fourth Amendment. But I also believe that it's not a tool to use to put one above the law, like we are seeing with Lavabit.
I'm just curious here, and please don't take this as any kind of rebuttal or attack on anybody in particular, but I'm curious about where people are drawing their own personal lines. At what point does the NSA overstep its bounds and invade privacy or weaken security to an unacceptable degree?
COINTELPRO is a good example of where the line was crossed. But when you look at that, what you had was actual government opposition to legal action - agents provocateur, counterintelligence, the whole nine yards.
The thing is that privacy is something dangerous in both extremes. Too little privacy is harmful, but so is too much - privileging privacy over the welfare of people is a very good way to allow abuse to continue.
How does my privacy endanger you? Additionally, from the nature of your statement I take it that you are generally opposed to the 4th amendment? If there is no warrant describing the places to be searched and the things to be seized I should have all of the privacy imaginable at all times.
Because, despite what you might believe, you are not an island. Your actions do have impact beyond your own sphere. And you should not get a free pass to impact others.
And I do believe in the Fourth Amendment. But I also believe that it's not a tool to use to put one above the law, like we are seeing with Lavabit.
Due process. If you only believe in it when people are using it the way you want, you don't believe in the fourth amendment. You're paying lip service to it, nothing more.
Riddle me this, could this power to monitor my activities be used to stifle dissent and free speech the same way it could also be used to prevent me from harming others?
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jmcdonaldI voted, did you?DC(ish)Registered Userregular
Which in particular isn't happening? Automated data collection and cross-referencing? That's happening.
The NSA trying to obfuscate the truth about their activities? That's part of their charter - operating in secret requires a certain amount of necessary obfuscation.
That leaves one point of contention: whether the referenced activities are illegal. I grant you that the collection and storage of phone call metadata and other records relating to Internet communications could be legal, given arbitrarily broad interpretations of Smith, FISA, and the PATRIOT Act. To quote former NSA analyst John Schindler, "NSA has platoons of lawyers, and their entire job is figuring out how to stay within the law and maximize collection by exploiting every loophole." That doesn't necessarily mean that a less charitable judicial review wouldn't find them illegal; or that they shouldn't be illegal.
So, where does our monitoring of international leaders fall within that argument?
The Fourth Amendment bits have been a dog and pony show to give a bare justification for the leaking of information on legitimate NSA actions because some people have a Stimsonial disgust with intelligence gathering. Most of the outcry, especially as of late, has been that the NSA is doing the job for which it is designed and tasked to do, and that it does so quite well - a good portion of Chancellor Merkel's ire is most likely due to the fact that the NSA completely clowned German intelligence.
Further, if you're really scared of automated data collection, you should be more concerned about private companies. If you think the NSA has platoons of lawyers, just wait until you see Google Legal.
Regardless of how much data Google has on me, they are unlikely to arrest and imprison me, so I don't know if I agree that we should be more concerned about corporate data collection. Perhaps as concerned, for different reasons. I agree with the idea that the argument against surveillance should be broadened in scope to encompass both state and private actors.
The challenge I have with this is twofold:
1. If Google collects your data and discovers you're doing some illegal shit, they will absolutely turn you in. So yes, indirectly they absolutely have the ability to lead to your arrest.
2. If you're not doing illegal shit, it seems awfully presumptuous to assume that some state actor will "arrest and imprison" you based on the aforementioned surveillance activities.
The balance of your post I agree with.
I mostly agree with your first point.
The problem I have with your second point is that the definition of "illegal shit" varies widely depending on government policy, often encompassing expressions of dissent.
I think the current surveillance situation is disturbing largely because it is a fusion of corporate and state data collection.
Not to be a douche here, but (under the assumption you reside in the US) I'm going to call some shenanigans on your "dissent" position without some pretty significant citations backing that up. No slippery slope arguments, no "well it has happened in the past..." arguments. Actual bonified fact.
I do reside in the US. I grant that the US government is not currently forcefully quelling domestic dissent, at least not on such a scale as it has historically. But I don't see why "it happened often in the past, and could happen in the future" is an invalid argument. If we acknowledge the tendency of state and corporate actors to engage in suppression of dissent, and we acknowledge that the hybrid state-corporate surveillance system could be used to aid (greatly aid, in my opinion) in such suppression, shouldn't we be wary of allowing such an expansion of the system?
Is there some reason to believe that the US government is now unable or unwilling to forcefully suppress dissent on a large scale? From my perspective, the relative lack of large scale dissent in the US in recent decades is the primary reason for the relative absence of blatant oppression.
This argument comes up fairly frequently, so as long as we're speaking historically:
There is a correlation between rights erosion and oppressive governments, but historically speaking the correlation is that it happens rapidly rather than gradually - in the twentieth century, the vast majority of oppressive governments (key examples include China, USSR, and North Korea) were installed by popular revolution who rapidly enacted policies of suppression when the came to power. Even those that fell into genocide following democratic elections, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, followed the same rapid pattern (in that instance it was a mere 16 months between the elections and the first major paramilitary attack). In modern history, there appears to be no evidence that improvements in intelligence and information gathering leads to suppression of dissent (although it has certainly happened in reverse).
Oppressive governments have used a number of innocuous (or even beneficial) tools to great effect over the years - from railroads to radiotransmitters to census reports. Hell, people even complained that the Domesday Book was used to extract money from tenants. Any tool, in the hands of a willing actor, can be used to fairly devastating effect. While it is certainly true that an oppressive government could use Google's or Facebook's data to kick down doors and drag off dissidents, if the government has reached that point then what is stopping them from kicking down down Google's doors and taking their servers before kicking down other doors and dragging off dissidents? Do we expect that introducing a constitutional amendment to prevent government agencies from matching two different databases will prevent an oppressive government from coming to power (it wont), or prevent said oppressive government from ignoring the constitution while it slaughters its own populace (ditto).
The problem with the hypothetical "an oppressive government could use this tool in the future" is not the tool, but the oppressive government. Which is why I would encourage everyone to vote and write to their representatives whenever possible.
Here's the answer to your question literally four pages back!
I'm just curious here, and please don't take this as any kind of rebuttal or attack on anybody in particular, but I'm curious about where people are drawing their own personal lines. At what point does the NSA overstep its bounds and invade privacy or weaken security to an unacceptable degree?
COINTELPRO is a good example of where the line was crossed. But when you look at that, what you had was actual government opposition to legal action - agents provocateur, counterintelligence, the whole nine yards.
The thing is that privacy is something dangerous in both extremes. Too little privacy is harmful, but so is too much - privileging privacy over the welfare of people is a very good way to allow abuse to continue.
How does my privacy endanger you? Additionally, from the nature of your statement I take it that you are generally opposed to the 4th amendment? If there is no warrant describing the places to be searched and the things to be seized I should have all of the privacy imaginable at all times.
Because, despite what you might believe, you are not an island. Your actions do have impact beyond your own sphere. And you should not get a free pass to impact others.
And I do believe in the Fourth Amendment. But I also believe that it's not a tool to use to put one above the law, like we are seeing with Lavabit.
Due process. If you only believe in it when people are using it the way you want, you don't believe in the fourth amendment. You're paying lip service to it, nothing more.
Riddle me this, could this power to monitor my activities be used to stifle dissent and free speech the same way it could also be used to prevent me from harming others?
Let me ask you this - do you think it is unfair that if you want to expand your house, you have to get varying permits and authorizations?
Whether you should have to get a permit IMHO is heavily context dependent. If you live out in the boonies and you're renovations are not likely to effect anyone then I think that's unfair. If you live in a typical suburban or urban neighborhood then it's fair. I think that to the extent that you're renovation is likely to effects others, that is the extent to which you should be required to go to government organizations to get permits for these things.
Whether you should have to get a permit IMHO is heavily context dependent.
So... unlimited privacy at all times with no exceptions except for all the times affected by context.
These are two different issues. If law enforcement organizations want to spy on me they can go to a judge and make their case. I want someone to have to look at the facts and say, "Yes, based on the evidence you presented, were going to let you invade this persons privacy on this specific occasion at this time to look for these specific things."
Whether you should have to get a permit IMHO is heavily context dependent.
So... unlimited privacy at all times with no exceptions except for all the times affected by context.
These are two different issues. If law enforcement organizations want to spy on me they can go to a judge and make their case. I want someone to have to look at the facts and say, "Yes, based on the evidence you presented, were going to let you invade this persons privacy on this specific occasion at this time to look for these specific things."
So if screaming and gun shots are heard from your home Friday night the police should wait until the court house is open on Monday morning to get a warrant?
Whether you should have to get a permit IMHO is heavily context dependent.
So... unlimited privacy at all times with no exceptions except for all the times affected by context.
These are two different issues. If law enforcement organizations want to spy on me they can go to a judge and make their case. I want someone to have to look at the facts and say, "Yes, based on the evidence you presented, were going to let you invade this persons privacy on this specific occasion at this time to look for these specific things."
Yes we have a court for this; Its called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. It was enacted by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in order to put a stop to all the things you are against
edit; What i am getting from this is that you don't believe in the 4th amendment; as you said
Due process. If you only believe in it when people are using it the way you want, you don't believe in the fourth amendment. You're paying lip service to it, nothing more.
Whether you should have to get a permit IMHO is heavily context dependent.
So... unlimited privacy at all times with no exceptions except for all the times affected by context.
These are two different issues. If law enforcement organizations want to spy on me they can go to a judge and make their case. I want someone to have to look at the facts and say, "Yes, based on the evidence you presented, were going to let you invade this persons privacy on this specific occasion at this time to look for these specific things."
And in the specific cases where you have a right to be secure in your possessions, that's exactly what happens.
But once you start striking out into the world at large, that ceases to be the case. Just because you tell me something does not confer any duty on me to protect your privacy.
Yeah, cause we totally should have secret courts that make secret rulings based on secret law, and make judgements based on secret evidence. The FISA court is nothing but a maple leaf on the emporer's naughty bits.
Yeah, cause we totally should have secret courts that make secret rulings based on secret law, and make judgements based on secret evidence. The FISA court is nothing but a maple leaf on the emporer's naughty bits.
You're not exactly invited to a regular, run of the mill search warrant request in the first place.
Yeah, cause we totally should have secret courts that make secret rulings based on secret law, and make judgements based on secret evidence. The FISA court is nothing but a maple leaf on the emporer's naughty bits.
You're not exactly invited to a regular, run of the mill search warrant request in the first place.
I may not be invited but when they come into my house I get to at least see the search warrant, and from that I can learn some information about what's going on. Additionally, the laws under which traditional search warrants are issued are known to lawyers and the public, the same cannot be said for much of what the FISA court does.
A properly issued warrant fits the definition of due process btw...
You may argue that FISA courts in particular lack oversight or whatever, but at the moment they are legitimate according to all three branches of government...as are their warrants.
So no due process arguments please. This isn't a completely settled matter, but the law and precedent pretty strongly support status quo.
Whether you should have to get a permit IMHO is heavily context dependent. If you live out in the boonies and you're renovations are not likely to effect anyone then I think that's unfair. If you live in a typical suburban or urban neighborhood then it's fair. I think that to the extent that you're renovation is likely to effects others, that is the extent to which you should be required to go to government organizations to get permits for these things.
People who live way the christ out in the boonies cause more problems then most. They're likely to go "well I'll just start cutting down this half-acre of national park that backs onto my property".
Or in Australia, the opposite - they buy a bunch of land claiming to understand the bushfire risks, and then we have to go rescue them when it turns out they don't.
Basically, the individual doesn't have enough situational awareness to know how much they do or don't affect people.
And you still haven't explained how the police should be able to stop people actively committing crimes on private property without a warrant.
Since after all according to you there is no reason at all ever to search a person's property without a warrant.
Am I to assume that where your going with this is that because I'm on the internet or using an electronic communications device that gives intelligence agencies probable cause?
Per the building permit example...there is always the possibility that you will someday have guests or attempt to sell your home.
Obtaining permits and having code inspections ensures that other people aren't put at risk, not just yourself...even if you live in the middle of nowhere. Or that your shitter isn't draining into the cities water supply or something.
Yeah, cause we totally should have secret courts that make secret rulings based on secret law, and make judgements based on secret evidence. The FISA court is nothing but a maple leaf on the emporer's naughty bits.
You're not exactly invited to a regular, run of the mill search warrant request in the first place.
I may not be invited but when they come into my house I get to at least see the search warrant, and from that I can learn some information about what's going on. Additionally, the laws under which traditional search warrants are issued are known to lawyers and the public, the same cannot be said for much of what the FISA court does.
And you still haven't explained how the police should be able to stop people actively committing crimes on private property without a warrant.
Since after all according to you there is no reason at all ever to search a person's property without a warrant.
Am I to assume that where your going with this is that because I'm on the internet or using an electronic communications device that gives intelligence agencies probably cause?
No you could just explain your statement here:
If there is no warrant describing the places to be searched and the things to be seized I should have all of the privacy imaginable at all times.
You say that you should have unlimited privacy if there is no warrant. By that reasoning police without a warrant should not be able to enter private property on the suspicion of a serious crime being committed.
And the thing is either you believe that or you said something you don't actually agree with in practice.
Also, thinking that I'm trying to get you to say something that would give the government probable cause to bust down your door is not only insulting but fucking insane.
And you still haven't explained how the police should be able to stop people actively committing crimes on private property without a warrant.
Since after all according to you there is no reason at all ever to search a person's property without a warrant.
Am I to assume that where your going with this is that because I'm on the internet or using an electronic communications device that gives intelligence agencies probably cause?
No you could just explain your statement here:
If there is no warrant describing the places to be searched and the things to be seized I should have all of the privacy imaginable at all times.
You say that you should have unlimited privacy if there is no warrant. By that reasoning police without a warrant should not be able to enter private property on the suspicion of a serious crime being committed.
And the thing is either you believe that or you said something you don't actually agree with in practice.
If you hear screaming that's a different category of thing. That is an emergency situation. What I am talking about is what intelligence agencies regularly do in the course of business to obtain information.
My problem is the current state of affairs where it seems that the process for getting a warrant is being subverted so that the intelligence agencies can monitor peoples activities for arbitrary reasons and in an indiscriminate manner.
If you hear screaming that's a different category of thing. That is an emergency situation. What I am talking about is what intelligence agencies regularly do in the course of business to obtain information.
This all seems to come back to my observation that a lot of objection is founded on a healthy level of "there's really no threats to national security".
If you hear screaming that's a different category of thing. That is an emergency situation. What I am talking about is what intelligence agencies regularly do in the course of business to obtain information.
My problem is the current state of affairs where it seems that the process for getting a warrant is being subverted so that the intelligence agencies can monitor peoples activities for arbitrary reasons and in an indiscriminate manner.
Right, so when I said
So... unlimited privacy at all times with no exceptions except for all the times affected by context.
It was entirely accurate. You've just decided that anyone who disagrees with your personally approved context clearly doesn't believe in the fourth amendment.
If you hear screaming that's a different category of thing. That is an emergency situation. What I am talking about is what intelligence agencies regularly do in the course of business to obtain information.
This all seems to come back to my observation that a lot of objection is founded on a healthy level of "there's really no threats to national security".
It's not that I don't think there are threats. In fact I am sure that because of our drone killings that there are more threats than ever. I just think that we should have a lot of skepticism as to how much any of this is making us safer, and that when the benefits are not clear we should err on the side of liberty.
I'm just curious here, and please don't take this as any kind of rebuttal or attack on anybody in particular, but I'm curious about where people are drawing their own personal lines. At what point does the NSA overstep its bounds and invade privacy or weaken security to an unacceptable degree?
Whether you should have to get a permit IMHO is heavily context dependent. If you live out in the boonies and you're renovations are not likely to effect anyone then I think that's unfair. If you live in a typical suburban or urban neighborhood then it's fair. I think that to the extent that you're renovation is likely to effects others, that is the extent to which you should be required to go to government organizations to get permits for these things.
Sorry, but this is complete goose shit. Even out in the boonies, you are still probably on the grid. Utility systems don't have an unlimited capacity. How much more water will that new bathroom need? How much electricity or gas will be used to heat and cool the larger space? What about waste water, even if you are completely off the grid, an overburdened septic system can affect groundwater. The local authority needs to know these things before you pull permits, and you have to pull permits because it does affect the community at large.
Then, of course, there are the safety aspects. Now, granted, my experience was mainly with tract housing (is unincorporated Imperial County, CA boonies enough?), but we had to submit plans and calculations for everything, from the post-tension for the foundation to the truss calcs for the roof. We even needed approval for the grading plan, because that has an effect on runoff and flood control.
Even if you live on an otherwise deserted island and poop into a volcano, you still have to get permits for renovation; you are altering the value of the property, and the permit process will determine if it needs to be reassessed for taxes.
Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion.
- John Stuart Mill
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JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
I'm just curious here, and please don't take this as any kind of rebuttal or attack on anybody in particular, but I'm curious about where people are drawing their own personal lines. At what point does the NSA overstep its bounds and invade privacy or weaken security to an unacceptable degree?
My personal lines are a bit complex, but basically boil down to the NSA intentionally obtaining / retaining protected information about American Citizens or people within the US without a properly issued warrant (FISA or otherwise).
Word man, word.
Wait...why is the line there? Aside from the observation that the US is probably spying on non-US citizens within the US anyway and y'all are probably okay with it even without a warrant (embassies and such) I don't think a fair answer to the question is "I draw the line arbitrarily here!".
Why are you drawing the line there and not elsewhere? What exactly is the reason it's okay to spy on foreign citizens for shits and giggles but not on American Citizens?
Spying on foreign companies / prominent businessmen questionable, and should be subject to significant oversight to make sure the information being properly used for National Security reasons, not giving American companies a competitive advantage.
Why? They're as easy to spy on as anything else and spying on them gives you a huge bonus. If we're doing realpolitik it seems weird to consider this not okay.
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JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
I'm just curious here, and please don't take this as any kind of rebuttal or attack on anybody in particular, but I'm curious about where people are drawing their own personal lines. At what point does the NSA overstep its bounds and invade privacy or weaken security to an unacceptable degree?
When it breaks the law?
So when the law is changed to it being required that every citizen is monitored by camera 24/7 you'd be okay with it?
Whether you should have to get a permit IMHO is heavily context dependent. If you live out in the boonies and you're renovations are not likely to effect anyone then I think that's unfair. If you live in a typical suburban or urban neighborhood then it's fair. I think that to the extent that you're renovation is likely to effects others, that is the extent to which you should be required to go to government organizations to get permits for these things.
Sorry, but this is complete goose shit. Even out in the boonies, you are still probably on the grid. Utility systems don't have an unlimited capacity. How much more water will that new bathroom need? How much electricity or gas will be used to heat and cool the larger space? What about waste water, even if you are completely off the grid, an overburdened septic system can affect groundwater. The local authority needs to know these things before you pull permits, and you have to pull permits because it does affect the community at large.
Then, of course, there are the safety aspects. Now, granted, my experience was mainly with tract housing (is unincorporated Imperial County, CA boonies enough?), but we had to submit plans and calculations for everything, from the post-tension for the foundation to the truss calcs for the roof. We even needed approval for the grading plan, because that has an effect on runoff and flood control.
Even if you live on an otherwise deserted island and poop into a volcano, you still have to get permits for renovation; you are altering the value of the property, and the permit process will determine if it needs to be reassessed for taxes.
To add to this, someone with a well still impacts the overall water table in an area. Get enough people pulling from the same area and you start running into overdraft problems.
Also road capacity has to be considered as well. Sure someone might be far enough out in the boonies that the first road their driveway feeds out onto might be a dirt one because the traffic is so low. At some point they probably have to go onto another road and enough people in the boonies start using a road in high enough numbers to pave it and eventually, maybe having to have more than two lanes. Living in part of the country with civil war battlefields, this can become problematic when people insist on living near sites like Jackson Flank March (BTW it used to be a dirt road and there was lots of resistance to paving it for historic reasons, but the traffic on it got high enough, that they had to pave it).
There are also zoning restrictions, which are implemented for various reasons. Even though you have a reasonable expectation to privacy on your property, you still can't launch a mining operation on it, without a permit, even if it is in the middle of buttfuck nowhere and far away from the water supply.
I'm just curious here, and please don't take this as any kind of rebuttal or attack on anybody in particular, but I'm curious about where people are drawing their own personal lines. At what point does the NSA overstep its bounds and invade privacy or weaken security to an unacceptable degree?
My personal lines are a bit complex, but basically boil down to the NSA intentionally obtaining / retaining protected information about American Citizens or people within the US without a properly issued warrant (FISA or otherwise).
Word man, word.
Wait...why is the line there? Aside from the observation that the US is probably spying on non-US citizens within the US anyway and y'all are probably okay with it even without a warrant (embassies and such) I don't think a fair answer to the question is "I draw the line arbitrarily here!".
Why are you drawing the line there and not elsewhere? What exactly is the reason it's okay to spy on foreign citizens for shits and giggles but not on American Citizens?
Because it is an arm of the American government. The government offers protections and benefits to the citizenry that it does not provide to aliens. Likewise, there are benefits for all residents that do not extend to foreign citizens abroad. If you are a Swedish citizen, living in Sweden, the American Bill of Rights doesn't extend to you.
Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion.
I'm just curious here, and please don't take this as any kind of rebuttal or attack on anybody in particular, but I'm curious about where people are drawing their own personal lines. At what point does the NSA overstep its bounds and invade privacy or weaken security to an unacceptable degree?
My personal lines are a bit complex, but basically boil down to the NSA intentionally obtaining / retaining protected information about American Citizens or people within the US without a properly issued warrant (FISA or otherwise).
Word man, word.
Wait...why is the line there? Aside from the observation that the US is probably spying on non-US citizens within the US anyway and y'all are probably okay with it even without a warrant (embassies and such) I don't think a fair answer to the question is "I draw the line arbitrarily here!".
Why are you drawing the line there and not elsewhere? What exactly is the reason it's okay to spy on foreign citizens for shits and giggles but not on American Citizens?
Because it is an arm of the American government. The government offers protections and benefits to the citizenry that it does not provide to aliens. Likewise, there are benefits for all residents that do not extend to foreign citizens abroad. If you are a Swedish citizen, living in Sweden, the American Bill of Rights doesn't extend to you.
Umm, actually it sort of does, under any criminal proceedings. The Bill of Rights extends even to illegal immigrants for any criminal act, including terrorism. It's true that there are some rights reserved for citizens, examples being the right to vote, the right to hold most federal jobs and the right to run for some elected positions, but the Bill of Rights absolutely applies to non-citizens.
Minor clarification: there is a terrorism court where an immigrant (or non- citizen) suspected of and arrested for such a crime would likely not be given the chance to review the evidence against them. Otherwise, near as I can tell, they still have many rights.
Yeah, cause we totally should have secret courts that make secret rulings based on secret law, and make judgements based on secret evidence. The FISA court is nothing but a maple leaf on the emporer's naughty bits.
As others have pointed out, regular courts make "secret rulings" based on "secret evidence" during the normal course of warrant applications too - subjects aren't invited to attend the application submission. In terms of some of the comments regarding "secret law" - this is an inevitable result of the US Common Law system. That is, past court decisions are taken into account when considering warrant applications (i.e. "That application was approved, therefore this application should also be approved"). It is literally impossible not to have "secret law" without disclosing all the details of all warrant applications to the public. This disclosure aspect has also been addressed in previous versions of this thread, in that rather than dealing with US citizens or entities who implicitly respect US law, the NSA deals with non-US citizens or entities many of whom explicitly disrespect or are outside the jurisdiction of US law. It is a rare person who would argue that details of ongoing programs targeting militant organizations should be freely accessible.
Why are you drawing the line there and not elsewhere? What exactly is the reason it's okay to spy on foreign citizens for shits and giggles but not on American Citizens?
I think in this thread we possibly need to be a bit more specific using the term "spy" - there are varying degrees of data collection from passive (a call gets logged and is only ever accessed by a search engine, and even then only gets included for summary statistics) to active (someone plugging into a communication hub and "channel surfing" data feeds for shits and giggles). Similar to disclosure of programs, it is a rare person who would argue that channel surfing for shits and giggles is okay. But if the output of the call logging example is "We have noted a dramatic spike in phone calls from a region associated with a certain militant group" then I would ask you if you consider those two forms of spying equivalent? And if they are not equivalent, why are you drawing a line between them?
I'm just curious here, and please don't take this as any kind of rebuttal or attack on anybody in particular, but I'm curious about where people are drawing their own personal lines. At what point does the NSA overstep its bounds and invade privacy or weaken security to an unacceptable degree?
My personal lines are a bit complex, but basically boil down to the NSA intentionally obtaining / retaining protected information about American Citizens or people within the US without a properly issued warrant (FISA or otherwise).
Word man, word.
Wait...why is the line there? Aside from the observation that the US is probably spying on non-US citizens within the US anyway and y'all are probably okay with it even without a warrant (embassies and such) I don't think a fair answer to the question is "I draw the line arbitrarily here!".
Why are you drawing the line there and not elsewhere? What exactly is the reason it's okay to spy on foreign citizens for shits and giggles but not on American Citizens?
Because it is an arm of the American government. The government offers protections and benefits to the citizenry that it does not provide to aliens. Likewise, there are benefits for all residents that do not extend to foreign citizens abroad. If you are a Swedish citizen, living in Sweden, the American Bill of Rights doesn't extend to you.
Umm, actually it sort of does, under any criminal proceedings. The Bill of Rights extends even to illegal immigrants for any criminal act, including terrorism. It's true that there are some rights reserved for citizens, examples being the right to vote, the right to hold most federal jobs and the right to run for some elected positions, but the Bill of Rights absolutely applies to non-citizens.
Minor clarification: there is a terrorism court where an immigrant (or non- citizen) suspected of and arrested for such a crime would likely not be given the chance to review the evidence against them. Otherwise, near as I can tell, they still have many rights.
As a further clarification, a Swedish Citizen living in Sweden is subject to Swedish Law rather than US Law. The rights of non-citizens outside the US is rather hazy, and is the very reason Guantanamo was purposed for housing "enemy combatants" (although I believe the Supreme Court ruled that detainees could avail themselves of the majority of US rights in addition to habeus corpus). Internationally, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (of which the US is a signatory) merely says "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy" (emphasis mine). What constitutes "unlawful", especially with regard to non-US citizens living outside the US, has been subject to various debates (in popular culture this occasionally pops up in various legal procedurals where an immigrant has family outside the US). So it's not clear whether a Swedish Citizen living in Sweden can avail of the protections of the US Bill of Rights, or even if they can whether the same standard for "Due Process" would hold. It's certainly true that the NSA internal report on improper investigations flagged cases where a foreign national's mobile was being monitored overseas and was not discontinued when that mobile signal entered the US.
All with usual "I am not an international lawyer" disclaimers, of course - I'm willing to be proven wrong if someone has further information.
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My personal lines are a bit complex, but basically boil down to the NSA intentionally obtaining / retaining protected information about American Citizens or people within the US without a properly issued warrant (FISA or otherwise). I'm pretty pragmatic on the topic, in that I think perfect privacy would be cool, but it's not really workable.
So...Bush warrantless wiretaps bad. PRISM ok. Spying on foreign politicans / diplomats good. Spying on foreign companies / prominent businessmen questionable, and should be subject to significant oversight to make sure the information being properly used for National Security reasons, not giving American companies a competitive advantage.
COINTELPRO is a good example of where the line was crossed. But when you look at that, what you had was actual government opposition to legal action - agents provocateur, counterintelligence, the whole nine yards.
The thing is that privacy is something dangerous in both extremes. Too little privacy is harmful, but so is too much - privileging privacy over the welfare of people is a very good way to allow abuse to continue.
How does my privacy endanger you? Additionally, from the nature of your statement I take it that you are generally opposed to the 4th amendment? If there is no warrant describing the places to be searched and the things to be seized I should have all of the privacy imaginable at all times.
If you're planning a violent action your privacy endangers everyone. The problem of course is that we cannot know who is planning violence or other crimes and simply violate their privacy.
As for the rest, i am not sure why; when he explicitly says he is for getting warrants and explicitly against not getting warrants you would think he was against the 4th amendment.
WRT: "at all times" good god no. Do you know what public space means?
Because, despite what you might believe, you are not an island. Your actions do have impact beyond your own sphere. And you should not get a free pass to impact others.
And I do believe in the Fourth Amendment. But I also believe that it's not a tool to use to put one above the law, like we are seeing with Lavabit.
Due process. If you only believe in it when people are using it the way you want, you don't believe in the fourth amendment. You're paying lip service to it, nothing more.
Riddle me this, could this power to monitor my activities be used to stifle dissent and free speech the same way it could also be used to prevent me from harming others?
Here's the answer to your question literally four pages back!
Seriously, did you even read the thread?
Let me ask you this - do you think it is unfair that if you want to expand your house, you have to get varying permits and authorizations?
So... unlimited privacy at all times with no exceptions except for all the times affected by context.
These are two different issues. If law enforcement organizations want to spy on me they can go to a judge and make their case. I want someone to have to look at the facts and say, "Yes, based on the evidence you presented, were going to let you invade this persons privacy on this specific occasion at this time to look for these specific things."
So if screaming and gun shots are heard from your home Friday night the police should wait until the court house is open on Monday morning to get a warrant?
Yes we have a court for this; Its called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. It was enacted by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in order to put a stop to all the things you are against
edit; What i am getting from this is that you don't believe in the 4th amendment; as you said
And in the specific cases where you have a right to be secure in your possessions, that's exactly what happens.
But once you start striking out into the world at large, that ceases to be the case. Just because you tell me something does not confer any duty on me to protect your privacy.
You're not exactly invited to a regular, run of the mill search warrant request in the first place.
I may not be invited but when they come into my house I get to at least see the search warrant, and from that I can learn some information about what's going on. Additionally, the laws under which traditional search warrants are issued are known to lawyers and the public, the same cannot be said for much of what the FISA court does.
You may argue that FISA courts in particular lack oversight or whatever, but at the moment they are legitimate according to all three branches of government...as are their warrants.
So no due process arguments please. This isn't a completely settled matter, but the law and precedent pretty strongly support status quo.
Since after all according to you there is no reason at all ever to search a person's property without a warrant.
People who live way the christ out in the boonies cause more problems then most. They're likely to go "well I'll just start cutting down this half-acre of national park that backs onto my property".
Or in Australia, the opposite - they buy a bunch of land claiming to understand the bushfire risks, and then we have to go rescue them when it turns out they don't.
Basically, the individual doesn't have enough situational awareness to know how much they do or don't affect people.
Am I to assume that where your going with this is that because I'm on the internet or using an electronic communications device that gives intelligence agencies probable cause?
Obtaining permits and having code inspections ensures that other people aren't put at risk, not just yourself...even if you live in the middle of nowhere. Or that your shitter isn't draining into the cities water supply or something.
Nobody is an island, regardless of where you are.
What if they only want to tap your phone?
No you could just explain your statement here:
You say that you should have unlimited privacy if there is no warrant. By that reasoning police without a warrant should not be able to enter private property on the suspicion of a serious crime being committed.
And the thing is either you believe that or you said something you don't actually agree with in practice.
If you hear screaming that's a different category of thing. That is an emergency situation. What I am talking about is what intelligence agencies regularly do in the course of business to obtain information.
My problem is the current state of affairs where it seems that the process for getting a warrant is being subverted so that the intelligence agencies can monitor peoples activities for arbitrary reasons and in an indiscriminate manner.
This all seems to come back to my observation that a lot of objection is founded on a healthy level of "there's really no threats to national security".
Right, so when I said
It was entirely accurate. You've just decided that anyone who disagrees with your personally approved context clearly doesn't believe in the fourth amendment.
It's not that I don't think there are threats. In fact I am sure that because of our drone killings that there are more threats than ever. I just think that we should have a lot of skepticism as to how much any of this is making us safer, and that when the benefits are not clear we should err on the side of liberty.
When it breaks the law?
Sorry, but this is complete goose shit. Even out in the boonies, you are still probably on the grid. Utility systems don't have an unlimited capacity. How much more water will that new bathroom need? How much electricity or gas will be used to heat and cool the larger space? What about waste water, even if you are completely off the grid, an overburdened septic system can affect groundwater. The local authority needs to know these things before you pull permits, and you have to pull permits because it does affect the community at large.
Then, of course, there are the safety aspects. Now, granted, my experience was mainly with tract housing (is unincorporated Imperial County, CA boonies enough?), but we had to submit plans and calculations for everything, from the post-tension for the foundation to the truss calcs for the roof. We even needed approval for the grading plan, because that has an effect on runoff and flood control.
Even if you live on an otherwise deserted island and poop into a volcano, you still have to get permits for renovation; you are altering the value of the property, and the permit process will determine if it needs to be reassessed for taxes.
- John Stuart Mill
Word man, word.
Wait...why is the line there? Aside from the observation that the US is probably spying on non-US citizens within the US anyway and y'all are probably okay with it even without a warrant (embassies and such) I don't think a fair answer to the question is "I draw the line arbitrarily here!".
Why are you drawing the line there and not elsewhere? What exactly is the reason it's okay to spy on foreign citizens for shits and giggles but not on American Citizens?
Why? They're as easy to spy on as anything else and spying on them gives you a huge bonus. If we're doing realpolitik it seems weird to consider this not okay.
So when the law is changed to it being required that every citizen is monitored by camera 24/7 you'd be okay with it?
To add to this, someone with a well still impacts the overall water table in an area. Get enough people pulling from the same area and you start running into overdraft problems.
Also road capacity has to be considered as well. Sure someone might be far enough out in the boonies that the first road their driveway feeds out onto might be a dirt one because the traffic is so low. At some point they probably have to go onto another road and enough people in the boonies start using a road in high enough numbers to pave it and eventually, maybe having to have more than two lanes. Living in part of the country with civil war battlefields, this can become problematic when people insist on living near sites like Jackson Flank March (BTW it used to be a dirt road and there was lots of resistance to paving it for historic reasons, but the traffic on it got high enough, that they had to pave it).
There are also zoning restrictions, which are implemented for various reasons. Even though you have a reasonable expectation to privacy on your property, you still can't launch a mining operation on it, without a permit, even if it is in the middle of buttfuck nowhere and far away from the water supply.
Because it is an arm of the American government. The government offers protections and benefits to the citizenry that it does not provide to aliens. Likewise, there are benefits for all residents that do not extend to foreign citizens abroad. If you are a Swedish citizen, living in Sweden, the American Bill of Rights doesn't extend to you.
- John Stuart Mill
Umm, actually it sort of does, under any criminal proceedings. The Bill of Rights extends even to illegal immigrants for any criminal act, including terrorism. It's true that there are some rights reserved for citizens, examples being the right to vote, the right to hold most federal jobs and the right to run for some elected positions, but the Bill of Rights absolutely applies to non-citizens.
Minor clarification: there is a terrorism court where an immigrant (or non- citizen) suspected of and arrested for such a crime would likely not be given the chance to review the evidence against them. Otherwise, near as I can tell, they still have many rights.
I think in this thread we possibly need to be a bit more specific using the term "spy" - there are varying degrees of data collection from passive (a call gets logged and is only ever accessed by a search engine, and even then only gets included for summary statistics) to active (someone plugging into a communication hub and "channel surfing" data feeds for shits and giggles). Similar to disclosure of programs, it is a rare person who would argue that channel surfing for shits and giggles is okay. But if the output of the call logging example is "We have noted a dramatic spike in phone calls from a region associated with a certain militant group" then I would ask you if you consider those two forms of spying equivalent? And if they are not equivalent, why are you drawing a line between them?
ETA: As a further clarification, a Swedish Citizen living in Sweden is subject to Swedish Law rather than US Law. The rights of non-citizens outside the US is rather hazy, and is the very reason Guantanamo was purposed for housing "enemy combatants" (although I believe the Supreme Court ruled that detainees could avail themselves of the majority of US rights in addition to habeus corpus). Internationally, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (of which the US is a signatory) merely says "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy" (emphasis mine). What constitutes "unlawful", especially with regard to non-US citizens living outside the US, has been subject to various debates (in popular culture this occasionally pops up in various legal procedurals where an immigrant has family outside the US). So it's not clear whether a Swedish Citizen living in Sweden can avail of the protections of the US Bill of Rights, or even if they can whether the same standard for "Due Process" would hold. It's certainly true that the NSA internal report on improper investigations flagged cases where a foreign national's mobile was being monitored overseas and was not discontinued when that mobile signal entered the US.
All with usual "I am not an international lawyer" disclaimers, of course - I'm willing to be proven wrong if someone has further information.