
Judge Deals a Blow to N.S.A. Data Collection Program - daegloe
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/10/us/politics/judge-deals-a-blow-to-nsa-phone-surveillance-program.html
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justcommenting
The world is a better place because Edward Snowden helped create an enabling
environment for transparency, accountability, and civil society monitoring of
programs that make the world less safe and less free.

Perhaps even more importantly, I hope this public ruling will make it more
difficult for any of us to tell our grandchildren that _we didn 't know_[0]
about serious things going seriously wrong.

0\. e.g. "And, at that moment, I really realised that it was no excuse that I
had been so young. I could perhaps have tried to find out about things."

~~~
verbin217
Well... As the guy that did all of that let me tell you: it's futile. I knew
back when Bill Binney came forward. It was all documented or otherwise
obvious. From this I've learned something. People are HEAVILY biased towards
the version of the "truth" that lets them do what they want. Like whatever
they were doing before you started talking about this shit. lol. The WANT
comes first for them. Then when you complain about all of this they assume the
same of you. The actuality of anything is irrelevant. They assume you _must_
WANT for it to be true. Then infer that you must necessarily be the kind of
person who's WANT is to escape society. A loser. You hemerage status by
talking about any of this. So you shut up. Honestly I don't think you did
anything wrong... But also, I don't know what right is anymore.

~~~
eric-hu
> it's futile

I agree. I've mostly (99.999%) given up on participating in American politics
for the betterment of society.

> People are HEAVILY biased towards the version of the "truth" that lets them
> do what they want.

I just have to point out that by taking the stance that you and I are taking,
we're doing the same. I'm biased towards the version of truth that lets me
live as we want. In other words, I _could_ massively disrupt my life as
Snowden did, and that actually might make a difference. However, I convince
myself that it wouldn't, so I can just work, make money, and pursue my usual
definition of happiness.

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Nadya
Due to the nature of such surveillance - there is little oversight over what
is actually being done. Which means there is no promise _anything_ is being
done. As a citizen, is there any way for me to know for certain or must I have
faith my government is working how it claims to work? I'll explain...

[Begin conspiracy theory]If a judge marks it unconstitutional or not or
forbids them from doing it doesn't necessarily mean that the NSA stops. That
only works if you have faith in your government.

A government set to maintain its own power, after being outed by a
whistleblower, would seek to save face. Have judges "ban acts of surveillance"
and distribute that knowledge to the general public while secretly maintaining
the actions behind the curtains. With a smaller, more loyal/contained group to
prevent future whistleblowers. [/End conspiracy theory]

If it is found that the NSA continued to keep/records phone records after
being "forbidden from doing so" \- _who_ would be held responsible? Would it
be the head of the NSA? Head of the specific surveillance department in charge
of the program? How would they be "punished"? How would the government insure
it doesn't happen again? Who provides oversight of the NSA, _outside_ of the
NSA?

~~~
staunch
James Clapper's congressional perjury will probably make the history books as
an example of modern corruption. For a crime committed against the very core
of American democracy, the press gave him a pass and the president gave him a
promotion.

Maybe he blackmailed everyone using NSA data...

[http://www.hasjamesclapperbeenindictedyet.com/](http://www.hasjamesclapperbeenindictedyet.com/)

~~~
tempodox
> _Maybe he blackmailed everyone using NSA data_

Even if he didn't, it's only a question of time until the NSA starts
blackmailing everyone with NSA data.

~~~
junto
I'm not American, so your politics are largely irrelevant to me, but as an
American I would find it probably worth looking at Obama's stance on bulk
surveillance over time. Has he flip-flopped?

If so, either he was persuaded by evidence of its effectiveness in preventing
terrorist attacks on the US, or maybe he was persuaded by evidence of its
effectiveness after being shown his last 10 years of internet searches,
presented on a CD, lying next to the duplicate sitting in an envelope marked
"To the Editor, New York Times".

~~~
caligastia
If you live on Planet Earth, American politics are relevant to you, as
distasteful as that thought might be.

------
onewaystreet
> 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._

~~~
mtgx
Well, for what it's worth, he did say that bulk collection is
unconstitutional, didn't he? Doesn't that mean the USA Freedom Act is now wide
open to lawsuits, too?

~~~
jessaustin
Thank heavens NSA have already redefined "collect" to _exclude_ saving all the
things in their database.

~~~
jeff_marshall
This "newspeak" with regard to government activity (and the intelligence
apparatus especially) bothers me. It enables soundbites where government
officials can say things like "no, we don't collect X", with essentially no
real repurcussions by the other (legislative, judicial) branches of government
that are supposed to keep them in check.

You can see some discomfort with this status quo in some of the questions that
people like Senator Wyden pose to officials from the executive branch, but
unless you already have the secret decoder ring (which CNN and their ilk at
least pretend to not have) you miss the point entirely if you just follow the
popular news. This makes it easy to gain popular support for agencies like the
NSA since topics like this are of minor interest to most of the voting base,
and most people won't dig deep enough to see what they really mean when they
say things like that.

I really hope that we get something equivalent to the Church commision in the
next decade or so to mitigate the potential damage that could result from our
current intelligence apparatus, but I'm not too hopeful. I feel like the
information that Snowden provided was our best chance for that, but I don't
see enough popular support to convince our elected representitives that it's
in their best interests.

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kbart
_" partly blocked the National Security Agency’s program that systematically
collects Americans’ domestic phone records in bulk"_

That's such a small, and arguably not the most important part, of NSA's
wrongdoings -- collecting contacts, metadata, movement, _all_ unencrypted
Internet activity is much more potentially dangerous and damaging imho. Still,
it's nice to see even a small step to the right direction.

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tomohawk
If any law enforcement officer want to see what someone is up to, they can
just ask one of the big metadata aggregators such as Google to see what
they've been doing on the internet.

The move of this phone metadata from NSA to private telcos doesn't make these
records less accessible, it makes them more so. It puts them in the same
category as our other online metadata records held in private hands.

I don't get how people are all freaked out about NSA having these records but
don't seem to worry that law enforcement will now have even better access.

Until they change the legal definition of "search and seizure" to include
metadata held by third parties, I don't see any reason to celebrate.

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chris_wot
The fact that a court overruled the original decision in a technicality really
means they know the whole damned program is wrong and they were stalking
whilst the program was being shutdown.

These coward judges don't want to make a precedent. At least there are brave
judges still left!

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AdmiralACK
Colour me a cynic, but I doubt this will curb their activities.

