
The FBI tracking your browsing history without a warrant might be the beginning - nicedicerice
https://cybernews.com/news/the-fbi-monitoring-your-browsing-history-without-a-warrant-might-just-be-the-beginning/
======
programmarchy
If this is true, the silver lining is that it could become an albatross around
the Patriot Act; spying on browser history is not a defensible means of
preventing terrorism without absurd arguments.

But hold up. Has anyone read the bill?

I haven't read the full text of the bill, but reading the summary [1], parts
of the bill actually sound positive to me:

> The Federal Bureau of Investigation may not seek certain FISA-authorized
> orders to obtain (1) call detail records on an ongoing basis, (2) a tangible
> thing where a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy and a warrant
> would typically be required, or (3) cellular or GPS location information.

> In applications for certain FISA-authorized orders to obtain information or
> conduct surveillance, the applicant must certify that the Department of
> Justice (DOJ) has received any information that might raise doubts about the
> application. The bill imposes additional requirements on FISA-authorized
> orders targeting a (1) U.S. person, or (2) federal elected official or
> candidate.

> The bill increases criminal penalties for violations related to electronic
> surveillance conducted under color of law or false statements made to the
> Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA court).

> The bill broadens the criteria for when a FISA court decision shall be
> declassified and requires the declassification review and release of such
> opinions within 180 days of an opinion being issued.

> The bill broadens the FISA court's authority to appoint an amicus curiae (an
> outside party that assists in consideration of a case) and expands such
> amici's powers, such as the power to ask the court to review a decision.

> Each agency that submits applications to the FISA court shall appoint an
> officer responsible for compliance with FISA requirements.

Looking at the full text of the bill, I can't find where there is
authorization for tracking browser history without a warrant. Can anyone
pinpoint that in the actual text of the bill?

[1] [https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-
bill/6172](https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/6172)

~~~
jhelphenstine
After reviewing the summary, full text, and the article, I also missed the
authorization for tracking browser history without a warrant.

After making the claim, the article mostly seems an opinion piece; there
doesn't seem to be a substantiation of the lede.

As an aside, Cybernews is a new resource to me; while the author of the
article seems a well-established technology writer, Cybernews itself is absent
a masthead. All I could discern is that it's governed by the laws of the
Republic of Lithuania; not much else to go on wrt their values, opinion
stance, etc.

------
winslow
It's clear that the government(s) haven't had people's interest for quite a
while now. It's nice for us to vote and protest but we need to take things
into our own hands as those forms have yielded little results.

We need to build things and use software that are privacy first.

Such as:

    
    
      DuckDuckGo  
      Firefox  
      Signal (actually secure messaging unlike whatsApp)  
      Linux OS  
      TOR  
      Librem 5, is a great open sourced secure phone example
    

What are some additional things we should be building or looking to build?

~~~
vanusa
Many upvotes on this, please.

Political and moral aspects aside - the sooner we can start reasonably and
effectively counteracting this stuff (if only on an individual basis, to
start) - the better.

BTW the sister comment to this one also seems helpful:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23259653](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23259653)

------
tenebrisalietum
> law enforcement agencies such as the FBI and CIA can continue to look
> through the browsing history of American citizens without the need for a
> warrant.

I'm always curious what the heck does this mean _exactly_.

\- Do they seize your computer and literally copy the browser history from
any/all installed browsers?

\- Do they ask your ISP to pipe DNS requests from your IP to them?

\- Do they wiretap your line or cellular connection and basically do a `tshark
$SUSPECT_WAN_IFACE | grep HTTP > browsing-history.txt`?

\- Is this really a request to Google or other FAANG company for activity
history on those platforms?

What does "look through browsing history" even mean?

~~~
shadowgovt
In the case of the laws discussed in this article, the FBI can gain access to
the logs of one's ISP (or VPN provider) without a warrant. So they can trace a
suspect's TCP traffic without any duty to notify anyone they're doing so.

~~~
tenebrisalietum
So why would my ISP be logging every or even any TCP packet coming out of my
modem? I watch Netflix at full 4K and that consumes about 3GB an hour.
Multiplied by the 50,000 in my neighborhood and it seems pricey.

Some things I would be expecting them to log are DNS requests, DHCP leases,
and access to ISP sites.

~~~
hnta142356
initial TCP connection. obviously they wouldn't log every TCP packet in an
established connection.

~~~
Red_Leaves_Flyy
They could though. Data storage is cheap and consumers can't generate enough
fluff to cause an overflow. They probably don't for 95% of internet traffic.
It's the outliers that get the most scrutiny.

------
Jah6Aihe
Here is what I do myself to avoid surveillance culture, in case anyone find it
useful.

1\. I always use local apps rather than webservices if possible. I use only
free software, built from source, to be sure there's no tracker in it (I would
love to find a way to whitelist which apps can access the network, but I
haven't found a way for that yet). There's almost always a way to perform a
task locally.

2\. I have a copy of wikipedia, using kiwix (through kiwix-serve). My default
search engine is my local wikipedia's one. It's insane the amount of answers
you can get to common questions simply with a local copy of wikipedia

3\. I always install documentation for the libraries I download. I have `go
doc` running locally, always install ruby gems with ri and rdoc, set the
gentoo's `doc` use flag to have C libraries documentation locally. Most of the
time, there's just no need to go to the web for API documentation.

4\. I made myself a rss client similar to rss2mail that will fetch rss feeds
and mail items to me. When sending a mail, the rss client makes a http request
to the full article url and add it to the mail as attachment. Then I read my
content in mutt, having lynx dumping the html content as plain text (through
`lynx -dump`). So I read all the content offline, and nobody can tell what I
read. I have my own smtp server so that I disclose the least information
possible.

5\. when I have to use the web, this is first through a text browser through
tor (I use a modified version of elinks, but I guess lynx would do just as
well). This makes sure I only download the html page I want to look at, while
running the least possible tracking stuff.

6\. when it's not enough, I have a chromium build, in which I have disabled
javascript and images by default. I use chromium rather than firefox because
it allows me to load extensions from sources. I have such extensions to enable
javascript and images if needed, but this is the ultimate recourse.

7\. I use my own local dns resolver. I don't know why people don't do that
more, it's actually really simple. bind9 resolver works out of the box, you
just install bind9, change /etc/resolv.conf to point to 127.0.0.1, and that's
it.

8\. if I post online (like now), I make a different account every time I post,
using always a different email address. This allows to prevent profiling from
public posts.

9\. and of course, I'm actively researching everything related to the p2p web,
like dat, ssb and cabal.

So basically, I took the red pill.

~~~
goatinaboat
_I would love to find a way to whitelist which apps can access the network,
but I haven 't found a way for that yet_

Ironically this is very easy on W10 and OSX. But you can do it on Linux with
AppArmor.

~~~
0fcf8d3559a64c
I don't suppose you have any pointers on how to make that a reality in
Ubuntu/Debian? I too would be very interested in being able to configure
whitelist only network connections.

~~~
rmrfstar
The linux desktop security model is severely broken [1]. Just use Qubes if you
want to control access to resources without losing your mind.

[1] [https://forums.whonix.org/t/fixing-the-desktop-linux-
securit...](https://forums.whonix.org/t/fixing-the-desktop-linux-security-
model/9172)

------
specialagent
At one point in time, we used to universally celebrate people like Professor
John Raines, who broke into FBI offices to steal documents related to
COINTELPRO. He 'evaded capture' and was an American hero. [0]

Yesterday, Judicial Watch published the DoJ's release of the electronic
communication from 7/31/2016, where FBI agent Peter Strzok opened Crossfire
Hurricane. [1, 2] Despite the magnanimity of the disclosure, there's very
little press coverage of the document that began the investigation of the
President and subsequently, the former Director of the Defense Intelligence
Agency who happened to be in a personal feud with the outgoing President. To
be clear, Gen. Flynn should be criticized for certain actions but all of
Washington D.C. participates in them (e.g. technology transfers to
authoritarian countries, consulting, lobbying).

I'm biased against the FBI because I saw how "special agents" and US Attorneys
treated my friends in the 90s. Curious minded, non-malicious teenagers (!!)
had their lives destroyed by aggressive, unethical and unintelligent FBI
agents. I'll never accept nor forgive the tactics used by FBI agents,
prosecutors and the federal courts against teenage kids. We have all become
targeted by tactics created for the Mafia and international terrorists -- it's
been normalized.

[0] [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/17/obituaries/john-
raines-84...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/17/obituaries/john-
raines-84-who-evaded-capture-in-an-fbi-break-in-dies.html)

[1] [https://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-
content/uploads/2020/05/JW-...](https://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-
content/uploads/2020/05/JW-v-DOJ-reply-02743.pdf)

[2] [https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-
releases/declassificatio...](https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-
releases/declassification-spyoperation)

~~~
lern_too_spel
In what way should the magnanimity of a disclosure affect it's coverage? What
does it mean for a disclosure to be generous?

------
duxup
I don't buy into the end times doom and gloom here, some of it downright
hysterical.

I do think there are serious issues and the scale of government reach into our
lives has expanded dramatically with technology.

I hope we see a sort of eventual awakening to what the scale of potential
abuse is and we see more rights extended into the long neglected digital
space. The law moves slow (too slow in this case) and it is time it picks up
the slack.

But rather than throw a fit I would recommend folks look to join / help
organizations like the EFF ([https://www.eff.org/](https://www.eff.org/)) and
so forth.

~~~
shadowgovt
There are serious issues with the scale of everyone's reach into everyone's
lives, thanks to the location-destroying effect of modern bidirectional peer-
to-peer anonymously-routed communications technology.

The government, like everyone else, from corporations to individuals, is
trying to keep up and to figure out what it all means.

------
badrabbit
Will this give them permissiom to sift through data collected over the years
(as I understand it isn't a mere extension of PATRIOT?). After this and EARN
IT, I guess banning VPNs and requiring app/device backdoors legally is next?

Can you guys believe this, it's like somene turned the tables ,this stuff
normally happens after a legitimate gov. is overthrown by the CIA. They do
this to hold on to power.

My opinion: hen they require using real name/ID online, it's game over, it
becomes metastatic. I wish fellow Americans knew to be scared of war and
social collapse. This is what America's enemies want.

------
Eagleflight
This disrespect to our privacy has been going on for a while now, but it good
to see that people still care about it and are trying to inform us. Hopefully
our privacy respecting products outside the jurisdiction of USA will not bend
over to the FBI.

------
12xo
Dont worry. People will get very upset on Facebook and Twitter. All while
they'll install a new app without reading what it does or who its from...

------
caribousoup
Isn't it common to assume that everything connected to the internet is
illegally monitored, recorded, and exploited to the fullest extent?

After Snowden, how could anyone not be aware of this? You see the director of
the NSA blatantly, and provably, lying under oath. Multiple whistleblowers
saying this stuff has been going on for almost two decades. These agencies
operate outside of the law already... regardless of what any legislation
states they are, or are not, allowed to do.

Isn't this already obvious? Not in a conspiratorial paranoid sort of way, but
I mean, just look at the world pragmatically. Maybe I lost all faith years
ago, but this is not surprising to me in the least.

All you can really do is look out for yourself, if you have the technical
know-how, and understand what to avoid doing. In an ideal world you don't
solve problems like this, you solve them through public policy, not
technological workarounds. But we don't live in an ideal world... most of the
public is unequipped to discuss the gradual, invisible, insidious undermining
of their civil liberties through ever-present opaque technologies.

------
brenden2
Firefox (or OSs) should add a feature that randomly makes requests to a bunch
of unrelated websites just to mess up their data collection and render it
useless. This can only work if it's widely deployed.

~~~
mywittyname
Authorities will either look at the source code, compel the authors to explain
how it works, push their own changes for the code in question, or just
empirically monitor the random behavior and build models to filter such noise.

~~~
CyanBird
This is not a matter of "fix everything pill" tho, but a fight where we have
to erode and degrade their capabilities, this is an arms race, you don't just
stop fighting because the other side has got better weapons and systems, you
develop your own gorilla capabilities

------
spacephysics
The only way to combat this is to continue researching methods of securing
data before transit, through cryptography (until that too, is outlawed), and
researching communication schemes that obfuscate the meta data/sender-
receiver.

What about Tor? Tor’s known to be compromised by the NSA, (as well as much of
the internet backbone) so it’ll be interesting if such research comes to
fruition soon-ish.

Politically we can try electing officials and such, but it seems even the most
promising candidates are too tempted by lobbying groups’ deep pockets.

Hopefully emerging decentralized tech will enable us to more easily hide our
tracks, since even with end to end encryption, they can still get the meta
data and track where you’ve been. (I understand being decentralized doesn’t
necessarily mean the data in transit can’t be traced, but I think we need a
decentralized system before we can realistically work on the aforementioned
problem)

------
dorkandstormy
The scary takeaway here, in my opinion, is the draconian measures the US is
expanding while everyone is too busy worrying about COVID-19 to notice.

The very tactics that "taking the red pill" support. The NYT does it some
justice with extensive background information—which the author of this
article, it seems, doesn't consider.
[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/19/technology/elon-musk-
tesl...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/19/technology/elon-musk-tesla-red-
pill.html)

------
morganaWHITE
looks like governments really enjoy stripping us of our liberties once our
attention is directed somewhere else - be it terrorist attacks or global
pandemics. we shouldn't lose sight of what's important to us or else the
people in power will take it away!

------
Spellman
Note that this isn't new. This has been going on since the PATRIOT act + FISA
was in place.

The only news is that a recent amendment to curtail this power failed in the
Senate 59-37.

------
ethagnawl
Despite the tenuous connection to freedom/enlightenment/whatever that this
article tries to make and what Grimes will (probably) try to tell the world,
Elon Musk was (almost certainly) referring to something very specific and
wholly unrelated when he tweeted that.

------
dorkandstormy
The scary takeaway here is the draconian measures the US is expanding while
everyone is too busy worrying about COVID-19 to notice.

The very same tactics that "taking the red pill" support. The NYT examines
that misguided tweet with extensive background information (which the author
of this article, it seems, doesn't consider).
[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/19/technology/elon-musk-
tesl...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/19/technology/elon-musk-tesla-red-
pill.html)

He also apparently considers shutting down digital public services in one of
the most hard-hit metropolitan areas with dick picks and memes as "hope."

------
LarryDarrell
I can't even imagine how muted the Civil Rights era would have been had the
FBI had this power back then.

~~~
jimbob45
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_suicide_lette...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_suicide_letter)

Let's not pretend that things are materially worse than they were back then.
We certainly aren't blackmailing civil rights leaders into suicide anymore
within the FBI.

~~~
cwkoss
How do we know they aren't?

King letter only came to light because citizens stole it from an FBI office.
Maybe the FBI just has tighter security now.

~~~
ta17711771
Ding-ding-ding.

------
aiscapehumanity
Obfuscation tech (out-of-country) based proxy/vpn along with tor is a must.

~~~
programmarchy
Encrypted P2P web helps here (e.g. Beaker Browser / Hyperdrive, IPFS,
Filecoin, etc.) Adding tor could provide anonymity between peers.

------
trfhuhg
This is fine. Humanity has been descending into materialism to develop
intelligence for long time and is now crossing the midpoint. That's why there
are so many "ends justify the means" types around us. Soon the humanity will
start ascending back to finish the cycle and all those sociopaths will be
gone.

~~~
maerF0x0
I find your comment quite interesting, do you mind expanding on the "to
develop intelligence" and the "finish the cycle" parts?

------
BLKNSLVR
So the US, with its Constitution protecting the people from its Government, is
allowing this whilst also considering Edward Snowden a traitor?

It seems something has shifted 180 degrees since WW2, and the US Government
has quietly won the game where the goal was to shit on the entirety of the
history upon which it was built whilst, at precisely the same time, pointing
to the Constitution as the reason why "America is Great!"

You're fucked. At least China isn't pretending to be free.

If this is how law enforcement agencies are allowed to operate, how can you
expect citizens to respect any rule of law? The precedents are evaporating.

The West is dead, we're halfway through the transition to the next stage,
which just means history will repeat itself - but will be recorded in higher
definition so that maybe we'll learn it more thoroughly next time around.

~~~
nabnob
Let's not act like the United States was a shining example of freedom and
democracy before WWII, either. Slavery, destroying indigenous people and
taking their land, followed by oppressive laws targeting black and indigenous
people...

Liberal democracy is definitely a step forward from monarchy, but the freedoms
it offers have always been built on the oppression of many. It's no surprise
that the oppressive arm of imperialism, which has targeted the rest of the
world since WWII, would start to turn inwards and target US citizens.

~~~
tjpnz
Would it be going too far to suggest that the founding fathers never intended
for a full democracy in the first place? It makes for an interesting argument
when viewed in the context of the electoral college.

~~~
kazagistar
No, it's just historical fact that they feared mob rule and worked to try to
keep the uneducated masses out.

~~~
shadowgovt
Perhaps more accurately, they were of two minds about mob rule.

Jefferson believed in the idealized "happy yeoman farmer;" that common people,
allowed to seek their own fate, would make a better government. Virtue (as a
quasi-religious concept) dwelt in the heart of the aggregate public.

Adams believed in significant risks letting an uneducated mass of people
determine their own fate. He didn't have to dig too far into the history books
to find examples of why a government given over to the people tended to
devolve into rule by a strongman. Government of a virtuous people demanded an
elite who would be dedicated to the cause and educated to do it right.

The government built from people in these two camps of thought was a
compromise government intended to tame the catastrophic risk-factors of the
excesses of both scenarios.

------
maxminder
Awesome, now its official...you just plugin and you are doomed...

------
lern_too_spel
From the article: "law enforcement agencies such as the FBI and CIA can
continue to look through the browsing history of American citizens without the
need for a warrant."

There is no evidence that they have been doing this. The objection to Section
215 is that a FISA court could in theory say that they can, not that they are
already doing this.

It then links to an article about an amendment providing additional oversight
that mischaracterizes it as providing additional surveillance powers (there
are no additional surveillance powers in that amendment) that can be
politically abused.

In short, it's a sensationalist article from a blog with no editorial
standards.

~~~
JoeSmithson
Why is this downvoted? The article is so light on details it's difficult to
read.

Can someone provide a substantiation of the headline in concrete technical
terms?

