
George W. Bush Made Retroactive N.S.A. ‘Fix’ After Hospital Room Showdown - uptown
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/us/politics/george-w-bush-made-retroactive-nsa-fix-after-hospital-room-showdown.html
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zaroth
Somehow I don't remember reading about the "hospital room showdown" in the
past. Incredibly fascinating to read about the legal gymnastics performed by
G.W. and Cheney's lawyer, and exactly when and where the words "collect" and
"acquire" got their peculiar meanings. Impressive how much Ashcroft and Yoo
were channeling Nixon a la "When the President does it, it is not illegal."
The Executive branch "displacing" Federal law is not the separation of powers
I remember learning as a kid. Is there any chance that theory could ever
actually see scrutiny at the Supreme Court?!

Nice to know there was at least someone at Justice finally ready to walk out
based on NSA bulk collecting email and phone records. But how exactly was the
program "curbed" in order to avert the threat of "mass walkouts"? Is it not
safe to assume that bulk meta-data collection of email, phone, payments,
license plates, facial recognition, phone triangulation, etc. persist and in
fact are only mounting in coverage, accuracy, and post-processing?

I suppose the last territory to cover is beam-forming microphones with high
accuracy far-field voice recognition in crowded environments. The technology
certainly exists in the lab at this point, I would assume only a few years ago
from mass-deployment and collection. Of course, relax, conversations are only
"acquired" when they searched, so our leaders can happily testify that
American's every outside conversation isn't actually being "collected" in full
searchable text form in Utah.

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pdkl95
Frontline covered the "hospital room showdown" in their documentary they
published last year, "United States Of Secrets"[1]. Their web video player has
a bookmark called "Concerns at the Justice Department" for the part about the
"showdown", though the entire video (and part 2!) is worth watching.

[1] [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/united-states-of-
sec...](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/united-states-of-
secrets/#united-states-of-secrets-%28part-one%29)

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jdp23
Excellent reporting. We already knew that Jack Goldsmith, Jim Comey, and
others saw John Yoo's legal analysis as flawed, which lead to the hospital
room showdown -- see [1] for Comey's dramatic Senate testimony in 2007. Now
it's revealed that the NSA was going beyond what was authorized, and
collecting data on purely domestic calls.

Bush responded by saying this collection was authorized, and in fact had been
all along. Reading between the lines, it may well have been this that led to
the threat of a mass resignation that caused Bush to back down.

[Of course after a brief period of legal head-scratching they found theories
to approve most if not all of the questionable activities. So while on the one
hand the hospital confrontation was people dramatically standing up for the
rule of law, on the other hand those same people are generally in favor of
mass surveillance, just done in a lawful way. You can especially see this with
Jim Comey, now running the FBI and spreading fear about how we need encryption
back doors to keep intelligence agencies from "going dark".]

BTW Jack Goldsmith blogs about national security law at Lawfare [2]. I
disagree with him on several core points but his analysis is very crisp and
always worth reading.

[1] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2007/05...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2007/05/15/AR2007051500864.html)

[2] [https://lawfareblog.com/](https://lawfareblog.com/)

~~~
jdp23
Looking back at this Julian Sanchez article from 2013 [1] (after a Snowden
leak related to the hospital conversation), he had already zeroed in on the
issue.

"The interception of phone and e-mail content was clearly electronic
surveillance, but it was (in theory) limited to targets within the scope of
the AUMF (which allowed the president to “determine” who had “aided” the 9/11
perpetrators). The bulk collection of phone records was not limited, but it
also wasn’t “electronic surveillance” as defined by FISA. The bulk collection
of Internet metadata, however, was both plainly “electronic surveillance” and
also too broad to shoehorn into the language of the AUMF."

So this latest story is just official confirmation.

[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/07/what-the-
ashcroft...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/07/what-the-ashcroft-
hospital-showdown-on-nsa-spying-was-all-about/)

~~~
zaroth
Reading that it does seem like just official confirmation.

"The [resignation] threat became moot after an Oval Office meeting March 12
with Bush, Comey said. After meeting separately with Comey and Mueller, Bush
gave his support to making changes in the program, Comey testified. The
administration has never disclosed what those changes were."

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seibelj
Does anyone honestly believe that the government doesn't collect every single
email, phone call, message, credit card transaction, etc. or have the
capability to query a database to get it if needed?

You need to accept that the war is already lost. When you are doing something
that needs to be protected, use end to end crypto. And buy things in cash

~~~
enqk
Without a fight even encryption and things like paying in cash will be danger.

I take an european example: France recently banned paying sums of cash above
1000EUR in a commercial transaction.

Ref: [http://www.connexionfrance.com/1000-euro-cash-payment-
limit-...](http://www.connexionfrance.com/1000-euro-cash-payment-limit-france-
september-money-laundering-17068-view-article.html)

~~~
redblacktree
What the hell? How does a Frenchman sell a personal vehicle then? I wouldn't
trust a check...

I just recently sold a vehicle for $7,800 in cash. It's insane to me that that
could be considered illegal.

~~~
enqk
I saw in some official reference that the limit applies to business
transactions with a professional.

For a person to person transaction they say there is no limit, as long as a
bill is recorded if amounts > 1500e.

In France, there's a special kind of certified check that persons can use for
large transactions where the amount is pre-debited and the check comes
directly from the Bank itself.

~~~
redblacktree
I think you're talking about a "cashier's check" which we have in the US too;
the problem is that these can be forged, and the bank will still accept it as
a deposit. What many people don't know, is that when the check fails to clear,
the depositor is liable for the missing funds, not the forger.

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drivingmenuts
Sadly, there is no court high enough to haul the sons-a-bitches up in front of
to face the justice they so richly deserve.

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mixmastamyk
For the chilling tale of this and all the background, watch "the U.S. Of
Secrets," a Frontline production on the PBS site and also currently on
Netflix. So good you'll even feel a bit sorry for the Man...

