
More on the NSA Commandeering the Internet - qubitsam
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/08/more_on_the_nsa.html
======
goatforce5
I know nothing of Lavabit, but let's say he did comply with the order and then
months or years later the company simply isn't profitable and he needs to shut
it down. Could he shut it down then? Or would he suddenly find himself hosting
lots of paid government accounts - enough to make it financially viable? (But
define viable... Does "I'm not pocketing $1m/year from this business, so I
don't care any more. Turn it off!" count?)

Could he sell the business? If so, at what point does the new owner get to
find out they have extra non-negotiable obligations to the government?

~~~
devx
That's why the government is paying the companies to access the data. So it's
much easier for companies to just comply with the order. The carrot and the
stick.

~~~
hga
Well, the government is paying for some degree of predigestion of the data.
The alternative for the company is having a government black box installed in
their machine room doing who knows what....

------
api
"Once they do that, you no longer control that part of your business. You
can't shut it down. You can't terminate part of your service. In a very real
sense, it is not your business anymore."

Totalitarianism.

------
outside1234
I feel like we've identified this problem to death.

I think now the real question is, as an internet community, what are we going
to do about it?

Are we going to build something that 'routes around' this? Are we going to
protest? Or are we just going to keep identifying the problem and complaining
about it on Twitter?

I'm not saying that I'm not one of those people too - I'm just saying we need
to start thinking about action and not identification.

I'm hoping that's the next article Bruce writes.

~~~
legutierr
It seems to me that the only way to bring about real policy change in the US
is to organize politically. If you can deliver votes in November, then you can
get things done.

Part of the problem is that other than the EFF and ACLU, there isn't really a
"privacy lobby" in the US. And neither of these organizations are effective in
shaping election outcomes.

What is needed is something like the 2nd-ammendment lobby or the "Family
Values" lobby--one that not only talks about policy, but one which also
rewards allies and penalizes enemies at the ballot box. The way that the NRA
and the Christian Coalition do it is through grass-roots organizing, and a
massive donor base that they basically direct in a centralized manner, which
puts them in an unassailable negotiating position on Capital Hill.

~~~
hga
Don't look at the "Family Values" lobby, they get lip service but no serious
favorable actions in return for their votes. One reason they're fading away
(the main other one is that Carter's attacks on their schools are a distant
memory).

The concept of the applying the lessons of the 2nd Amendment lobby was
extensively discussed here:
[http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6185138](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6185138)

Here's the contents of my top comment, which I think frames the concept well:

"Until we have _specific_ , actual, real privacy _atrocities_ I can't see this
effort getting the traction of any of the groups you've specified. Labor had
company towns and less but still specifically abusive employers, with plenty
of specific people maimed or killed in unsafe workplaces or labor actions.
Environmentalists had deformed children from Japanese industrial mercury
dumping, and, oh, the Cuyahoga River _catching on fire_. Gun grabbers have
killed, maimed, or otherwise grossly abused thousands of people _and that
continues to this day_.

"What _specific_ incidents, with victims most will empathize with, can the
privacy effort point to?"

~~~
pkinsky
Martin Luther King was spied on and blackmailed by the FBI. It's a bit dated,
but a good place to start.

[http://news.firedoglake.com/2013/01/21/the-fbi-wrote-a-
lette...](http://news.firedoglake.com/2013/01/21/the-fbi-wrote-a-letter-to-
martin-luther-king-telling-him-to-commit-suicide/)

~~~
hga
Oh, there's a whole bunch of pre-Church Committee, especially J. Edgar Hoover
(died a few years before the former) ... incidents, but the current
authorities can and will say they aren't like those abusive folks 4 decades
ago.

And in e.g. the case of MLK they were famously unsuccessful. I claim you need
_atrocities_ committed upon "victims most will empathize with"; the latter
excludes "rioting hippies" and the like, especially after the Weather
Underground and company started bombing and killing people.

E.g. I was _just_ past the threshold of becoming politically aware when this
happened:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterling_Hall_bombing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterling_Hall_bombing)
and it shocked and appalled the nation.

~~~
rdl
It's interesting what external events are formative. For me, it was the SSC
being cancelled (thus, wanting to be in private business and then funding
science vs. government-funded big science at risk always to Congress), the
MOVE bombing in a nearby city (learning that even a black mayor can be racist,
as well as incompetent), and Challenger ("perfect systems aren't", kind of the
Rumsfeld thing).

------
ericd
Wow, I didn't realize that the lavabit guy had been threatened with
prosecution for opting out of continuing his business. That makes me
incredibly angry. The sheer audacity of it is baffling.

~~~
lisper
Many people do not realize how bad things have gotten. (They have gotten very,
very bad.) That is a big part of the problem.

------
avoutthere
The idea of a National Security Letter, a device which strips the recipient of
several basic human rights, is so blatantly unconstitutional that it should
have never been allowed to exist at all, let alone persist as long as it has.
It's a device straight out of the Cold War east bloc.

------
leokun
Several months ago that tone would have sounded conspiracy crazed nutty. But
post-Snowden and given that it's schneier, it's sad to realize we've come to
realize how bad the situation is. I'm still inclined to not change any actions
on my part because I'm not worried about being under surveillance. I'm neither
interesting, nor engaged in anything interesting. However, I would like it if
the spying were reduced to remove the bulk tapping of the internet.

~~~
betterunix
"I'm neither interesting, nor engaged in anything interesting"

You are missing a word: _yet_. You are not interesting _yet_. You might become
interesting some time in the future, and discover that what you thought were
uninteresting conversations today can be used against you. Here is a famous
example:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Fisher_%28lawyer%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Fisher_%28lawyer%29)

~~~
hga
The problem is the National Lawyers Guild _was_ a notorious Communist front.
If you have _any_ doubt, this line in their Wikipedia entry is utterly
damning:

" _Following the Nazis ' invasion of the Soviet Union, the Guild gave its
support to President Roosevelt's wartime policies, including that of Japanese
American internment._"

Would people say the same if Ficher's "youthful indiscretion" if he'd worked
for a Nazi front after, say, _Kristallnacht_? (See the above quote, they
wouldn't have between 23 August 1939 and 22 June 1941.) Was it _that_
difficult for Ficher avoid working for a cause dedicated to the violent
overthrow of the US government and the liquidation of its "capitalist" classes
including the wealthier farmers?

------
dllthomas
It's too bad the NSA didn't want to spy on Google Reader...

~~~
jonknee
Maybe they did...

------
xradionut
"That was before the Patriot Act and National Security Letters. Now,
presumably, Nacchio would just comply. Protection rackets are easier when you
have the law backing you up."

Reminds me of this old chestnut:

Q: Why does the government prosecute the Mafia?

A: They don't want any competition.

------
lifeisstillgood
I still cannot see any solution, other than total loss of privacy for all. If
the NSA records were made publically accessible, then its a new Nash
Equilibrium, but one where no-one has power by dint of secrecy.

But other than that, regulation? Even if it worked in the US would the Chinese
or Russians agree?

I think perhaps its all or nothing.

------
drcube
> To be fair, we don't know if the government can actually convict someone of
> closing a business.

The Thirteenth Amendment makes it pretty clear you can't force a person to
work, unless they've been convicted of a crime. There may be an argument that
he violated the NSL, but that's not the same thing.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteenth_Amendment_to_the_Un...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution)

~~~
hga
I really wonder if that would directly apply. The most relevant case law I'm
familiar with didn't use it, although that was complicated by the Feds
requiring state government agents to do things:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printz_v._United_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printz_v._United_States)

------
jbuzbee
You read where companies cannot divulge that fact that they have received a
NSL? What if they all started reporting that they did NOT receive a NSL? Then
when the reporting stopped, you could draw your own conclusions. Wouldn't work
for large companies that might get them frequently, but would be an option for
the smaller ones like Lavabit.

~~~
epistasis
By stopping reporting that, they have divulged that they received a letter. So
once you receive one, in order to avoid prosecution, you need to keep your
notification up as a continuous lie.

~~~
yebyen
No way. You can be compelled by the courts to actively perpetuate a lie? I
don't think so.

The deal with the warrant canary is the guy signs a new message every (day?),
actively affirming that he hasn't been served with any such secret warrants.

What if he gets tired of it? Same with running the business? You can't be
compelled to work forever, neither for free or otherwise.

~~~
coldtea
> _No way. You can be compelled by the courts to actively perpetuate a lie? I
> don 't think so._

Sure you can. For one, what about people pleading guilty, when they are not,
just because their case looks bad and they want to avoid a trial that can put
then in jail for decades and get a plea bargain?

That's actually encouraged by the DAs.

~~~
yebyen
I hadn't considered that at all. You are right, I have heard of this before.
That one is even under oath.

------
genecavanaugh
I think everyone is missing the most important point, the one that history
teaches. The enormous power surveillance brings (not the least being the fact
that a little "creative editing", ala the Nazis, will allow <anyone> to become
both interesting and guilty of <something>). With that much power, even if
<bad stuff> is not happening now, it will happen sooner or later; and then it
will be too late!

------
anxiousest
I agree that it's ultimately a policy issue that needs to be mended by
congress, what I disagree with is the needless "dig" at companies that store
and analyze large amounts of data, as if that somehow is invalid conduct. The
problem is the government demanding access to that data, not that the data is
there in the first place.

~~~
Lagged2Death
_...what I disagree with is the needless "dig" at companies that store and
analyze large amounts of data, as if that somehow is invalid conduct._

The argument against building systems to amass huge databases of personal
information has always been that the very existence of such systems would
almost inevitably lead to abuse, through inappropriate expansion of the
collection activity and through inappropriate uses of the resulting database.
It's simply too tempting a target to leave unmolested.

From that point of view, storing and analyzing large amounts of data _is_
"invalid conduct."

Current events are just history proving this out yet again.

~~~
7952
Arguably the collection of large amounts of private data is a fundamental
property of the internet and impossible to avoid. In a world of government
back doors into hardware and software the difference between cloud and local
is an increasingly mute point for most people; making privacy a technical
improbability. If any connected device can be accessed how can invalid conduct
ever be avoided?

~~~
wpietri
The fundamental property of the internet is connection. Everything else is in
how we use it.

The fundamental property of land is spatial relation. Using that, you can
build a town of little houses, where everybody has a modest and equal helping
of privacy. You can build a giant open agora, where everybody can see
everybody's business. Or you can build a panoptic prison:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon)

