
NSA revelations only 'the tip of the iceberg,' says Dem lawmaker - shill
http://thehill.com/video/house/305047-dem-rep-lawmakers-learned-significantly-more-about-surveillance-programs-in-nsa-briefing
======
ck2
" _if somebody else is going to step up_ "

You're a freaking congressperson sworn to represent the people of the united
states.

If something bad is being done, it's YOUR responsibility to "step up" not
someone else's.

BTW what the hell is with the NSA calling it the "Black Star" \- is that some
sick joke about the death star destroying worlds? So the rebels took out the
death star with the exhaust port - does that mean the Black Star can be taken
offline by the A/C units?

~~~
willvarfar
What she heard at the briefing would be illegal for her to divulge.

By telling us that 1) Snowdon is true, 2) Snowdon was a very small cog and
doesn't realise the extent of it all, she's going further than all others at
that briefing, and hopefully encouraging more whistleblowers to step up (and
ruin their own lives).

~~~
ajb
There are some constitutional protections on speech by congressmen in the
course of their duties, see
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_or_Debate_Clause](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_or_Debate_Clause)

~~~
lambda
Yes, but it has an exception for treason and felonies, and disclosing
classified information may count as at least a felony, if not treason.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Yes, but it has an exception for treason and felonies

There are two separate parts:

1\. While they are attending a session they can't be arrested, and

2\. They can't be held accountable in any other forum based on the content of
any speech or debate in either House.

The exception for for treason, felonies, and "breach of peace" applies to the
_first_ ; the second, is an _absolute, unqualified_ immunity, and, as applied
by the Supreme Court, applies to all "legislative acts", which includes quite
a bit that is not physically on the floor during a general session of the
House.

------
mokus
What concerns me most about this whole situation isn't even the surveillance,
though I think that's pretty abhorrent. It's the fact that something so
stupendous has been done without any kind of public debate - despite the fact
that anyone with two brain cells to rub together can't help but see would at
least be a strongly polarizing issue.

From this article it sounds like there hasn't even been much of a secret
debate. If they won't consult the people about such an explosive issue, the
least they could do is consult their elected representatives. Instead, they
just did it, and now they want to sweep it all under the rug and tell us "we
thought really hard about it and we decided it was OK - and after all,
TERR'ISTS!". I have a sinking feeling that it'll work, though, and that this
debate will not really happen anyway since most people don't seem to care.

~~~
anigbrowl
There was an extensive public debate about the Patriot act at the time of its
passage, and the security proponents won. It's past time that we had another
one, but anyone over about the age of 30 who wasn't aware of this wasn't
paying attention.

~~~
adventured
It was opportunistically passed 45 days after 9/11\. Very few Americans were
in an even semi-rational position to understand or debate the nature of the
Patriot Act. The only public discussion was a small minority of people
thinking about the future implications, and the other radical majority that
was reacting based on fear / emotion (and the lawmakers that passed it were
counting on that, otherwise they would have waited a lot longer to pass it).

~~~
anigbrowl
True, but so what? that's how things are in a democracy. I keep pointing out
that a great many people simply do not share the concerns of privacy and civil
liberties advocates, and people keep responding that the public is too
uneducated or doesn't really understand. The reality is that a lot of people
understand the implications just fine but they simply don't agree with the
minority viewpoint. So they're foolish and short-sighted, but it'll be a cold
day in hell before that changes.

~~~
tripzilch
> True, but so what? that's how things are in a democracy.

Using fear and emotion of a recent disaster to push an otherwise controversial
law really has nothing to do with democracy. Any type of government would use
this technique because it's so easy.

And you should demand your government to be _better_ than that. I know I do.
Even if you don't believe they'll listen (fair enough), the moment you stop
complaining and bitching about it, is the moment you're saying "well, okay
then, if you persist, I give up".

Additionally, I expect _human beings_ to be bound by more than just laws or
constitutions, but also by ethics, a will to stand up for what's right and
against what's wrong. That's why governments and corporations are not persons.
But you are, and as soon as you say "I'm okay with this because it's
legal/constitutional", without being able to argue why it is also _right_ (in
your opinion, we can still disagree about this, but that's another matter
entirely), you fail that test.

~~~
anigbrowl
Governments and corporations are just agglomerations of persons, who act with
varying ethical standards. Treating them as monolithic entities leads on
astray into all sorts of fallacies.

As for my own ethical position, I think the US needs a constitutional
amendment that creates an explicit right to privacy, rather than an inferred
one. But I also think the head of the executive branch is bound to serve
conflicting imperatives regarding defensive issues, and that it's foolish to
expect government actors to tie their hands hands in fulfilling that mandate.

------
joeguilmette
It sounds like this congressman is begging for another leak.

I smell blood. And a republican president in 2016. It looks like this is going
to be Obama's big theme for his second term. Like LBJ, he inherited a shitty
situation and made it much worse, and thus lost out for credit on all of his
domestic work.

We'll see, but I don't see any easy out for Obama. Ironically the only thing
saving him is that the conservatives really love these policies, and the
liberals, who should be at his throat for this, really can't because he's part
of their club. Lucky duck.

~~~
joshwa
Actually, the latest Gallup poll[1] showed (and this was a surprise to me)
that Republicans disapprove of these policies way more than Democrats do:

    
    
        Party      app   disapp
        ----------------------
        Democrats   49%    40%
        Independent 34%    56%
        Republicans 32%    63%
        
        All         37%    53% 
    
    

[1] [http://www.gallup.com/poll/163043/americans-disapprove-
gover...](http://www.gallup.com/poll/163043/americans-disapprove-government-
surveillance-programs.aspx)

~~~
tunesmith
This has got to be mostly because of which party is in the white house right
now. I think the numbers would be more than flipped if we had a Republican
president.

~~~
biff
Agreed. Looking at a 2006 Gallup poll regarding warrantless wiretapping, it
was 80%/16% Republicans, 42%/53% Independents, and 27%/69% Democrats
(approve/disapprove).

([http://www.gallup.com/poll/20887/public-divided-whether-
wire...](http://www.gallup.com/poll/20887/public-divided-whether-wiretapping-
justified.aspx))

------
bambax
> _The briefing was meant to convince lawmakers that the surveillance programs
> are legal and necessary in fighting counterterrorism_

First, I don't think you want to fight counterterrorism, but, rather,
terrorism?

And second, what's with this business of "legal and necessary"? It doesn't
matter if it's "necessary", it doesn't matter if it's really really super
useful, it doesn't matter if it's very efficient. The only thing that matters
-- that should matter, in a democracy -- is whether it's legal and
constitutional.

The moment you let "efficiency" step over legality you let the beast loose,
and the results are drone killings and surveillance programs.

Drone killings are a hundred million times worse than surveillance, BTW, and
somehow make less of a scandal.

~~~
redthrowaway
>And second, what's with this business of "legal and necessary"? It doesn't
matter if it's "necessary", it doesn't matter if it's really really super
useful, it doesn't matter if it's very efficient. The only thing that matters
-- that should matter, in a democracy -- is whether it's legal and
constitutional.

Well, no. The Constitution is not the be-all and end-all of governance, nor
does it forbid all possible onerous behaviours. The position of the USG is
that what the NSA engages in is constitutional. Even if that were the case,
that wouldn't make it a good idea-- _unless it were necessary_. You could
implement a 1000% tax on beer and it would be perfectly legal and
constitutional, but would also need to be somehow necessary in order for it to
be justifiable.

Even _if_ what the NSA is doing is deemed constitutional, that doesn't mean
it's right or a good idea. In order for that to be the case, it'd also have to
have a strong claim of necessity.

~~~
bambax
That's what I meant. First we need to see if it's legal, and THEN whether it's
useful / serves any kind of purpose with any kind of efficiency.

The problem is, "necessity" or "usefulness" are used as substitutes for
legality.

"Well, it's not, technically, one hundred percent legal, but look at how well
it works in fighting [terrorism|pedophilia|some other big cause that gets
people all worked up without actually threatening anyone in any statistically
meaningful way]".

~~~
DanBC
> "Well, it's not, technically, one hundred percent legal, but look at how
> well it works in fighting [terrorism|pedophilia|some other big cause that
> gets people all worked up without actually threatening anyone in any
> statistically meaningful way]"

Uh, paedophillia is statistically significant. The wider issue of child abuse
(physical, emotional, sexual abuse or neglect) means that about 5 children a
day die in the US from abuse-related causes.

Numbers are difficult, but over 3 million reports (for over 6 million
children) are made every year in the US, and about 9% will be for sexual
abuse. (And about 90% of those will be where a child knows the offender in
some way.)

Very many people are harmed, sometimes severely, by paedophiles.

Please don't ever place paedophilia in the same category as 'nonsense
boogeymen' like terrorism.

~~~
GVIrish
I don't think anyone is trying to minimize the heinousness of child abuse. I
think the point being made is that just because a particularly technique may
be effective against a particular crime, doesn't mean that technique is
morally or legally right.

We could castrate everyone even accused of pedophilia and that would probably
discourage some amount of child sexual abuse, but clearly that wouldn't be
right. Similarly, we could forcibly commit everyone with a history of mental
illness in mental institutions and maybe that would've prevented Sandy Hook,
Aurora, and most recently the Santa Monica shooting. Yet, that wouldn't be
right.

In short, the ends don't justify the means. Usurping constitutional rights
because it would make it more convenient to fight terrorism is the worst
possible path we could take in dealing with the threat of terrorism.

------
jessaustin
If I had paid attention in junior high civics class, I might expect a _member
of Congress_ to correct egregious abuses of government power, once they had
been admitted by the actual abusive government officials. As in, I might have
thought she would take action, rather than obliquely wondering about who might
step forward next. If she doesn't have the power to fix this, who the hell
does?

~~~
uptown
Remember the part of this whole equation where a government with access to all
of this kind of information could use it in ways to convince or discourage its
people to act however they wanted?

~~~
jessaustin
Hahaha, like I said I didn't pay attention, but I seriously doubt the stars-
and-stripes gang at my local public school had ever even heard of public
choice theory, let alone taught it.

------
walru
I personally hope they out the amount of government paid shills on the
internet and any documentation as to their directive, such as how they 'slide'
topics off of popular social media sites or comment to quell a rising storm.

To that end, when are we going to get some more reputable people in
Washington? Why has it become the chore of the least of us to represent all of
us? Where are all the upstanding citizens that these jobs should be filled
with, rather than the lowest common denominator that's proliferated our house
and senate to this day?

I've run through all the possibilities I could think of, regarding solutions
to this mess, and the one that seems to come closest to reality is that we
need to start pushing for the formation of a new party. Only by the formation
of a new group, who has not yet been subjugated by the money powers that be,
will we be able to get out of this mess. These revelations are our best chance
to get such an initiative started, as those in a position of power are either
too cowardly or too bought to do so themselves.

~~~
mindcrime
_I 've run through all the possibilities I could think of, regarding solutions
to this mess, and the one that seems to come closest to reality is that we
need to start pushing for the formation of a new party._

We already have plenty of alternative parties. Depending on your political
leanings, they may or may not be appropriate to you, but there are groups like
the Libertarian Party, Green Party, Constitution Party, Worker's World Party,
Prohibition Party, Pirate Party, etc. Hell, there's even a "Modern Whig
Party".[1]

But a big part of the problem is the _mechanism_ by which we elect
representatives to our government. Most of the US uses single member district,
"first past the post" (FPTP) voting[2], which has a side-effect of tending to
create a "two party system"[3].

There are various initiatives around to push for the use of other voting
systems which are more favorable to 3rd parties, like Approval Voting[4],
Condorcet methods[5], Range voting[6], etc., but guess who typically sets the
standards for how elections are conducted? Yeah, officials (mostly Democrats
and Republicans) elected under the existing system! Talk about a "chicken or
the egg" problem. But this is one of the first things that needs to be
attacked, if we want a less corrupt, and more responsive government.

[1]:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_th...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_the_United_States)

[2]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-
post_voting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting)

[3]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law)

[4]:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_voting](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_voting)

[5]:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_method](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_method)

[6]:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Range_voting](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Range_voting)

~~~
ScottBurson
Part of the problem, as your post itself demonstrates, is an excess of choice:
once we've decided we need something better than plurality voting (PV, aka
FPTP), we have to pick a system. It becomes an engineering decision, and a
rather subtle one at that. I've long been partial to Approval Voting, but I
have to admit it has a clear disadvantage in actual use relative to PV:
because the total number of votes is no longer bounded by the total number of
voters, it gets much harder to detect fraud.

The point is, first, the relative merits of the various alternatives to PV are
debatable (and debated), and second, considerations apply beyond the
mathematical properties of the systems.

This is why, though I detest PV, I have little hope that a consensus will
emerge as to the best alternative -- at least not without a lot of
experimentation.

~~~
kgermino
Personally, I have fallen in love with run-off elections (not sure the
specific name) as used for electing the mayor in Chicago.

Basically, there is an officially non-partisan election in which anyone
qualified can be on the ballot. The vote is held, with everyone able to vote
for one person on the list. If there is a single winner (50%+1) then that
person is declared the winner and the election if over. If no-one gets a
majority of the votes the top 2 candidates face off in a run-off election
about 2 months later.

This allows everyone to vote for their preferred candidate in the general
election without 'wasting' their vote, but ensures that the eventual winner
was chosen by at least 50% of their constituents.

There's obviously some tweaks that can be made (for one, it doesn't _need_ to
be non-partisan) but I think it does a very effective job at avoiding some of
the party politics and the pandering to the base for the primary then moving
to the center you see in many elections.

------
ajays
So while on the one hand Congress, NSA, etc. are denying what Snowden is
claiming; on the other hand, they're calling him a traitor and guilty of
treason.

If he's lying, _how_ can he be guilty of "treason"? Don't you have to reveal
some classified (and truthful) info to be guilty of treason?

~~~
dragonwriter
No, you have to wage war against the United States or provide aid and comfort
to its enemies. Revealing true classified information, per se, is neither
necessary or sufficient for treason (one of the reason for the Espionage Act
and other laws criminalizing revealing secret defense info is that those acts
often won't meet the Constitutional standard for treason.)

------
LoganCale
So while the White House and the NSA are saying the claims so far from Snowden
are overblown and hyped up, Congress is saying there's far more going on than
has even been reported yet.

~~~
mindcrime
So, politics as usual, then?

~~~
wavefunction
Well, it's a Democratic congress person while we have a Democratic President,
so I don't think you can make that charge necessarily.

Certainly this authoritarianism is business as usual, but not the back-and-
forth in this case.

------
tsotha
If only we had an elected body with oversight authority and subpoena powers
that could make sure three letter agencies don't step out of bounds.

Nah, that's crazy.

------
wahsd
Imagine if you had a meeting scheduled at a place and when you arrived with
some unannounced parties it was already known who your compatriots were
because of your last calls and proximity to those phones prior to arrival.
Wouldn't that be crazy if that happened, just plain non-nonchalantly, without
any kind of checks or restrictions or restraints.

People are going to be lulled back into complacency by the same people who
have exhibited their absolute lack of trustworthiness. There is something
seriously wrong with the human condition as exhibited by the apparent inherent
trust placed in those who one should trust least. If one is willing to lie to
Congress with assurance of impunity, why would one ever tell the truth about
anything to anyone.

Hate to break it to people, America is under a dome of propaganda little
different than that of most other autocratic regimes, we simply are far more
sophisticated about it due to several unique circumstances. Ever wonder how
one could believe the propaganda in dictatorial regimes of the past and
present? Well, you are living it right now.

------
_k
The Guardian interviewed Snowden for an entire week. We've seen 10 minutes of
it.

------
Mordor
Obama is at liberty to divulge all anytime - the only free man in the US.
Perhaps he should resign?

~~~
mpyne
The President is not above the law either. He might have the authority to
declassify the material before he divulges it, but then he would have to be
personally convinced that the material poses no possible threat to national
security.

------
Hitchhiker
" Universal retention of provenance without commensurate universal commercial
rights would lead to a police/ surveillance state. Universal commercial
provenance can instead lead to a balanced future, where a middle class can
thrive with proportional political clout, and where individuals can invent
their own lives without being unduly manipulated by unseen operators of Siren
Servers. " [1]

[1] - Lanier, Jaron (2013-03-07). Who Owns The Future?. Penguin Books Ltd.
Kindle Edition.

------
EFruit
>The briefing was meant to convince lawmakers that the surveillance programs
are legal and necessary in _fighting counterterrorism_

The Government/NSA is now a terrorist group? Are they fighting themselves? Why
not just use the secret surveillance system called PRISM to discover that the
enemy has a secret surveillance system called PRISM?

------
gfunk911
But according to Obama, everybody in Congress already knew everything

~~~
jessaustin
According to the polls I'm not supposed to trust Congress, but I do think most
of them know the content of their own minds better than Obama does. If a
particular Representative was too dense to understand the first presentation,
the officials should have dumbed it down and given it again. They report to
Congress, not the other way around.

------
dear
Snowden and reporters have been saying there will be more leaks over the next
few weeks to months.

------
mtgx
My guess:

1) they are _also_ listening to phone calls of Americans, despite what Obama
said

2) she may be referring to the fact that NSA can spy on Americans without
probable cause a week before deciding whether to ask FISC for a general
warrant or not, like Mike Arrington said [2]

3) the "upstream" part of the slide [1] sounded very similar to that AT&T room
from years ago, and they might be repeating that, with a slight twist

Steve Gibson from TWiT's Security Now had a theory yesterday [3] that they may
be doing something similar now (which is why they also called it "prism"/cable
splitter), but this time instead of getting all the data indiscriminately,
they get the data from where Google, Microsoft and others are hooking up with
the cable providers. This way they know exactly where it came from, so then
they can go and use NSL's and FISA orders to get that data on that individual
from Google and Microsoft.

[1] - [http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-
images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/20...](http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-
images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2013/6/8/1370710424658/new-prism-slide-001.jpg)

[2] - [http://uncrunched.com/2013/06/11/connecting-the-prism-
dots-m...](http://uncrunched.com/2013/06/11/connecting-the-prism-dots-my-new-
theory/)

[3] watch around 00:58 -
[https://twit.cachefly.net/video/sn/sn0408/sn0408_h264m_1280x...](https://twit.cachefly.net/video/sn/sn0408/sn0408_h264m_1280x720_1872.mp4)

~~~
dredmorbius
Obama's statement, strictly read, was very narrowly tailored: "Nobody is
listening to your telephone calls."

This doesn't mean they're not being collected, recorded, analyzed,
transcripted, read, or cross-corrolated.

Just that there isn't a listener assigned to each and every person in the
United States to listen to their phone calls.

As someone who's largely a supporter of Obama, I was instantly left cold by
his statement. It assured me of absolutely nothing.

------
beloch
The way Manning's trial has been handled and the way Snowdon's actions are
being responded to make the truth obvious. There's a lot more shady business
to be revealed and the U.S. government is scared as hell. They're absolutely
desperate to discourage further would-be whistle-blowers. Obama just got
caught in a rather public lie too. It doesn't sound like these Senators were
briefed on PRISM before Tuesday even though Obama said, "every member of
Congress has been briefed on this program". Honestly, if Americans will
impeach a president for lying about his extra-curricular cigar-related
activities, how can they let something like this slide?

~~~
DamnYuppie
Because he is black and we have lost the will to have open discussions about
anyone of that race. We have gone to far in that we now give people too much
special treatment for their gender or color of their skin.

Sadly if we had true equality this guy would be roasted....

~~~
riggins
we've had 4 years of people running around claiming that Obama wasn't born in
the US and that he's a secret Muslim sleeper agent based on him being black.
The claim that he isn't scrutinized because of his race is indefensible.

The reason Obama gets a pass is the same reason GWB got a pass on privacy
invasions. Its seen as part of the WoT so people tend to give the government
the benefit of the doubt. In general I think the populace is willing to give
the government a lot of latitude when they see something as part of a 'war'
effort.

~~~
DamnYuppie
Non of those were remotely credible. Yet the media continually treats him with
kid gloves.

~~~
riggins
_Non of those were remotely credible._

I agree that those claims weren't credible. I struggle to see how the fact
that absurd and derogatory claims got play in the press for 4 years supports
your claim that Obama gets special treatment because of his color. Seems more
like evidence against what you're claiming.

------
progman
Global surveillance with RFID

I heard rumors that many (if not all) citizens in the western world already
have RFID chips in clothes, shoes, bags etc. so that everyone could be tracked
right now.

I think that's not just a rumor. The question is not whether they use it but
how far they have come yet.

RFID chips are almost invisible tiny low power circuits which send a unique
digital code on request, and which work without battery via energy harvesting.
RFID is the perfect tool for global surveillance.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFID](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFID)

