
Double Secret Surveillance - sethbannon
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/16/us/double-secret-surveillance.html
======
analyst74
Ease and scale of surveillance was more a result of technical improvement, and
if history has shown us anything, technical advancement can only be delayed,
not stopped.

Now take a step back, the problem with mass surveillance is that it gives
disproportionate power to those who have access to it over those who don't.

So instead of banning surveillance, which would be futile, it'll be much more
practical to call for transparency, so the power generated by surveillance
data is not concentrated to the select few.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
I agree. I think there's no putting the genie back in the bottle, and
pretending that we can somehow control this is a fool's game that only fools
would believe.

The only way forward is for everybody to be guaranteed the same access. What's
good for the goose is good for the gander. Create a level playing field, and
watch innovation take off as people try to gather their lives back together.

~~~
nitrogen
Advocates of a totally transparent society seem to be forgetting that there
are significant reasons for privacy other than embarrassing personal details
-- espionage, extortion, kidnapping, burglary, identity theft, blackmail, and
more all become vastly simpler to execute and harder to prosecute when
everyone knows everything about everyone, except the aforementioned criminals
who know how not to leave a trail.

~~~
redxaxder
A society with a massive surveillance dragnet that everyone has access to is
not necessarily totally transparent.

Public access to the dragnet data would make it easier to evade the dragnet.

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bediger4000
It just goes to show that evidence gathered through this sort of system is
just used to prosecute, and never to refute chages.

Dragent surveillance is only good for guilt by association. It's un-American,
in that a defendant can't face accusers (it's SEKRIT!), and in that there's no
previous suspicion.

Fruit of an evil tree, in deed.

~~~
cobrausn
As an aside, I think this is the first time in a while I read 'un-American'
and didn't roll my eyes, even though I don't actually know if being able to
face your accuser in court is actually an American original idea.

~~~
s_q_b
It actually goes all the way back to common law and the trial of Sir Walter
Raleigh, and was later enshrined in the Sixth Amendment.

During the trial of Sir Raleigh, the prosecution moved affidavits for its
witnesses into evidence, without giving the accused the right to cross-examine
those that had made the affidavits.

Raleigh, conducting his own defense, objected on the grounds of hearsay. He
was overruled, since the prosecution anticipating this attack brought the
prosecution under Norman civil law, which allows for hearsay.

It was a large scandal at the time, an emblem of the state exerting arbitrary
power. It marked legal thinking for generations, eventually leading to the
American Sixth Amendment.

~~~
visarga
The history of the Amendments is fascinating. I've had a good Wikipedia read.

~~~
s_q_b
It really is. When you look into the history, you realize that most of the
Amendments arose from specific abuses of the law by the British state, and are
really an attempt to permanently protect rights that already existed at common
law.

------
Spearchucker
Articles like this lead me to think that _really_ ridding ourselves of
surveillance is not unlike getting the sugar back out of a cup of coffee.

~~~
tokenadult
Controlling pervasive surveillance may end up a lot like controlling nuclear
weapons--we can't uninvent the technology, and no one country has a monopoly
on the technology, so the whole international community has to be united in
the cause of preventing the most dreaded outcomes. Any break in solidarity may
lead to proliferation of spying of a kind we never imagined.

~~~
pcrh
It may not be impossible to "uninvent" the technology of pervasive
surveillance, but it is possible to forbid governments from doing it. The
government is, although it seems naive to say this these days, there for the
people, not for itself. If the people do not want to be constantly monitored,
they shouldn't be. Commercial organizations can also be restricted in what
information they can legally gather, should we choose to make that the case.

~~~
a3n
As I understand the Fourth Amendment, they're _already_ forbidden. But I'm
merely an unsophisticated citizen, not a sophisticated and motivated
government lawyer.

Given that they're already forbidden ... now what?

~~~
pcrh
Simple: create a government department whose prime duty is to protect the 4th
amendment. They would seek out and shut down any scheme that is illegitimately
collecting personal information.

The technology exists, it can be done.

Edit: the whole Chicken Little "the genie is out" scaremongering is defeatist
garbage. No people more than HN readers know that the effort required to
collect and parse all the information flowing through the internet is not
trivial. It is easy to stop since only well-funded outfits can do it.

~~~
uptown
"It is easy to stop since only well-funded outfits can do it."

And you think depriving the government - particularly the department of
defense - of tax dollars is "easy"?

~~~
pcrh
I meant it is easy technologically. Having a government department that
thwarts the wishes of the population is a political problem, not a technical
one.

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DanielBMarkham
This analysis is great as far as it goes, but the problem is even deeper than
that. The government very well may be sitting on _exculpatory_ information in
its archives that it does not see fit to release because of "National
Security" issues.

So it's not just that the government promised not to use this information as
part of the people's case without recourse and then did anyway, it's that the
government is selectively using this information in ways that are actively
detrimental to ongoing criminal cases being fought by defense attorneys.

You can't just pick and choose, whether you're the one prosecuting or you're
the one providing information for the defense. Once we allow the government to
pick and choose which information gets released in which trials, the entire
judicial system becomes more of a farce than it already is.

We have seriously damaged the structure of the country.

~~~
tantalor
Source? Generally exculpatory evidence must be shared. Why is this evidence
any different?

------
mtgx
> "In a prosecution in Federal District Court in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.,
> against two brothers accused of plotting to bomb targets in New York, the
> government has said it plans to use information gathered under the Foreign
> Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, or FISA, which authorized individual
> warrants. But prosecutors have refused to say whether the government
> obtained those individual warrants based on information derived from the
> 2008 law, which allows programmatic surveillance."

This _exactly_ what I feared, and I thought would happen. They're using the
information gathered from the mass spying as "evidence" for _probable cause_
to get individual warrants. This is the worst case scenario becoming real.
They're doing fishing expeditions with the mass spying apparatus and then
"legally" obtain the warrants to prosecute people.

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cdvonstinkpot
I get a paywall.

~~~
bediger4000
Look it up in google by title ("Double Secret Surveillance") then follow the
nytimes.com link.

For some reason, NY Times doesn't paywall requests coming in from Google.

Wait - did I just violate the DMCA's anti-circumvention provision?

~~~
foobarqux
If you want your articles to be listed in Google News you have to provide free
access to something like 5 articles a day for similar reasons to why cloaking
is prohibited.

