
Edward Snowden: Saving Us from the United Stasi of America - harrisonpowers
http://www.ellsberg.net/archive/edward-snowden
======
paganel
For once I'll avoid Godwin's law and link instead to this:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_58](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_58)

> The article was used for the imprisonment and execution of many prominent
> people, as well as multitudes of nonnotable innocents. (...) Article 58 of
> the Russian SFSR Penal Code was put in force on 25 February 1927 to arrest
> those suspected of counter-revolutionary activities.

So the point is that even in Soviet Russia people were sent into the Gulag
based on written laws and going through the legal system, so I'd say that the
US Government's reply that "it's all legal! it has gone through the courts"
doesn't mean a thing as long as said laws are against the spirit of the US
Constitution.

And I'd say that's the gist of it, the current laws are against the spirit of
the original fundamental law of the United States. As long as its current
citizens are ok with that (no mass protests etc) then I'd say there's nothing
that the minority can do (if it matters I'm not from the US)

~~~
graycat
> I'd say there's nothing that the minority can do (if it matters I'm not from
> the US)

No, not at all. The situation is still all well within the US Constitution in
the sense of want people "can do". In particular, as I will outline, there is
a very fast, simple solution well within what "the minority can do".

Background: In the US Federal Government, there are three branches, executive
(e.g., headed by the president), the legislative (i.e., Congress), and the
judicial (with the Supreme Court).

In the case of the Snowden leaks, the actions Snowden was objecting to were by
the executive branch which (more or less) was following laws passed by the
legislative branch and signed into law by the executive branch. So far so
good, that is, within the Constitution. Note that the judicial branch is not
involved in passing or signing such laws and so far has not been involved in
this whole matter.

But looking at the laws and what the executive branch did that Snowden
revealed, a "minority" might conclude that the Constitution was violated.
Really, still, so far so good because it's not up to the legislative or
executive branch to determine if the Constitution was violated. It's been
common throughout US history for the legislative branch to pass laws and the
executive branch to sign and use those laws but later the US courts, usually
including the US Supreme Court, to find that the laws were "unconstitutional"
and strike them down.

So for what a "minority can do" in this case? Sure: Bring a law suit in the
judicial branch where the suit claims that the Constitution, e.g., First or
Fourth Amendment, was violated. Typically the case (I don't know the details
of the process) makes it to the US Supreme Court. For the role of a
"minority", in principle only one person need bring the case.

We should guess that people highly concerned with the situation leaked by
Snowden will bring such cases. So, we will look for the ACLU and the EFF. But
now we also see that Google is bringing a case. The legal costs for bringing a
case might be significant, but there are plenty of organizations and
individuals with much more than enough money to pay for those costs. Likely
cases will be brought.

My guess is that much of the relevant laws will be struck down.

So, why has the judicial branch or the Supreme Court not yet struck down the
relevant laws? Because they don't do that; instead, there has to be a legal
case brought.

In all of this, the Supreme Court will act very cautiously. And in principle
there is nothing important to keep them from acting quickly.

Net, so far the US Constitution is working just as intended. No riots in the
streets are needed yet. We just need for some cases to be brought. That the
laws mandated a lot of secrecy may have helped slow the bringing of cases, but
likely Google, Microsoft, and some individuals have plenty of 'legal standing'
to bring suitable cases.

So far the legislative branch passed some laws. They can do that. The laws can
later be found to violate the Constitution and even then we don't line up the
people in Congress who passed the laws and shoot them. Similarly for the
executive branch: Once Congress has passed a law, the executive branch can
sign it and use it.

Net, there is only one branch that can say if a law is constitutional or not,
the judicial branch, and so far apparently no suitable case has been brought
and the judicial branch has yet to speak.

Indeed, I have a letter drafted to my members of Congress but have not sent it
because the letter really just claims that the relevant laws were
unconstitutional, and for the members of Congress such claims are nearly
irrelevant.

Net, we just need a suitable case in the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court will
have no difficulty at all understanding all the relevant issues, and that
court has plenty of ability to slap down laws passed by Congress and signed
and used by the executive branch. Slapping down unconstitutional laws is much
of just why the Supreme Court is there, and they are 100% fully aware of that
point.

Some of the recent appointees to the Supreme Court are quite 'liberal', but
nearly always they are plenty bright and will see the constitutional issues in
the activities Snowden described with crystal clarity and intense concern.

The fight over the constitutionality of the relevant laws is not nearly over
and, indeed, has yet to begin but apparently is about to begin. Don't bet on
those laws coming out whole.

In particular the Constitution says nothing about violating the Constitution
with secret orders of the executive branch based on wacko laws and approved by
a secret 'court' of persons appointed by a member of the judicial branch with
secret oversight by committees of Congress. Maybe the people who dreamed up
this wacko nonsense thought that they were clever, but they were not: What
they constructed has nothing to do with the Constitution, and the Supreme
Court will have no difficulty at all seeing this point.

If the Supreme Court strikes down the laws, they will be gone -- out'a here.
And that's just the way the Constitution says the process is supposed to work.

We're a government of laws, not men: What matters are the laws, not what
Presidents Bush and Obama say, what General Alexander says, what the FISA
'court' says, or what the Intelligence committees of Congress say. Instead
what matters here is what laws the Supreme Court says are constitutional.

~~~
gknoy
> My guess is that much of the relevant laws will be struck down. > If the
> Supreme Court strikes down the laws, they will be gone -- out'a here.... >
> What matters are the laws, not what Presidents ... say.... Instead what
> matters here is what laws the Supreme Court says are Constitutional.

I wish I shared your optimism.

I sincerely hope that the laws will get struck down, but I also fear that the
classified nature of many things that touch this will lead the courts to say
that we can't show we have standing, and therefore decline to rule on the
constitutionality.

More importantly, what matters is NOT just what the laws say, but whether the
government follows them! The core issue here is that we believe the laws and
constitution are NOT being followed, and that the government feels that What
the King Does Is Legal. That was Nixon's claim, and in effect is what the Bush
administration claimed re: treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. This time
around, the fact that it's being done by the NSA with the President's
permission allows them to claim that the classified nature of nearly
everything at stake here means we should trust them.

Getting the laws overturned will be a HUGE first step, though, and you laid
out in excellent detail things that we citizens can (and should) do and
expect.

~~~
jacoblyles
Part of the NSA's surveillance program was already found to be illegal and the
executive branch _classified the court 's ruling:_

[http://blog.rongarret.info/2013/06/court-finds-nsa-
surveilla...](http://blog.rongarret.info/2013/06/court-finds-nsa-
surveillance.html)

How screwed up is that?

~~~
aznjons
I had no idea about this issue, thanks for the link! Looks like the FISC
overruled the executive branch's argument about classifying the ruling. Kudos
to the EFF.

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/public-first-secret-
co...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/public-first-secret-court-grants-
eff-motion-consenting-disclosure)

Honestly, what does the executive branch hope to accomplish by classifying the
ruling that it was illegal? It sounds like everyone already knows what the
ruling was even if the documents themselves are classified. Seems like a weak
measure that makes them look worse, that they are willing to exercise the
power to hide things (a power one would hope would be used responsibly) even
in cases where it doesn't seem to help their goals in a meaningful way? Am I
missing something here?

~~~
graycat
> Am I missing something here?

No. Money is the mother's milk of politics, and secrecy is the favorite
dessert of bureaucracies.

Much of why W, Obama, etc. want the Patriot Act is to have power to catch the
bad guys so that they, W, Obama, etc., won't get blamed. Indeed if a president
doesn't defend the Patriot Act, the NSA, etc. and there is another Boston
bomber, then some people will try to sell the charge that "The president is
soft on terrorism." So, a president will want to defend the Patriot Act, etc.
right up until the Supreme Court strikes down the act. Then a president will
say that he did all he could to protect us against the bad guys, and the part
of government soft on terrorism was the Supreme Court or just say that the
Supreme Court showed us what we have to do to defend the Constitution.

A politician wants to avoid chances that opponents could say that the
politician was to blame. Generally politicians get an A+ in CYA.

Generally the hope that a politician will be more responsible is a well
informed citizenry making their opinions heard. That's why here on HN I'm
putting out there that my view is that we need to protect the Constitution;
the Patriot Act, etc. and the NSA have been trashing the Constitution; it's
not worth trashing the Constitution to catch Boston wackos with pressure
cookers; so, let's get the NSA, etc. back within the Constitution and
otherwise do what we can with Boston police, the FBI, etc. about Boston
wackos. Indeed, the Russians told us that the Boston bombers were dangerous
wackos, and still we didn't do enough.

One more point is that so far a few wacko Muslims have caused us to suffer
over 4000 deaths among our soldiers, tens of thousands of serious casualties
among our soldiers, blow ballpark $3 trillion (net present value) of our
money, and trash the Constitution. We've taken a sucker punch. We need to find
some ways to get more security per unit of effort.

------
alan_cx
What I wonder is at what point words like stasi become reasonable or
acceptable.

OK, I don't like what is happening, and almost day by day thing happen that I
feel are pushing the west, led by the US, more and more towards something
highly controlled and not in any way free. Liberty is slowly being eroded, and
I genuinely feel that is a true statement objectively. Right now, words like
stasi, fascist, etc are an exaggeration, but used by people who see it going
that way. They use such words to warn, but we all know those words do not
really stand up objectively.

So, what is the tipping point, what has to happen for such words to actually
apply? Or is it merely a case of presentation? If society, superficially,
doesn't look like old Nazi Germany, is that enough for a majority to be
content, even if underling that is something deeply nasty?

~~~
zwieback
For me it would be when people disappear. Being spied on is one thing but
being afraid of getting arrested is another.

I grew up in Western Germany and visited the East several times. Living in the
US now I have to say that it feels an order of magnitude "freer" than either
of the Germanies of my youth. However, I'm very concerned about the NSA thing.

~~~
_ak
As they say in Germany, "Wer sich nicht bewegt, spürt seine Fesseln nicht."
(who doesn't move doesn't feel his manacles)

~~~
PavlovsCat
_My dear,

Have you noticed how those who move, move fast? And those who don’t, just
stand still; motionless?

Yes, you can go ahead and rant to me about how an object in motion stays in
motion, and how an object at rest stays at rest. But, I think there’s more to
this than physics.

I think those in motion have seen something the others have not; their
imprisonment.

While those who do not move, do not notice their chains.

Truly yours, Rosa Luxemburg_

------
sentenza
Fun fact: The NSA actually requested data that was collected by the STASI in
East Germany.

[http://www.microsofttranslator.com/bv.aspx?from=de&to=en&a=n...](http://www.microsofttranslator.com/bv.aspx?from=de&to=en&a=netzpolitik.org/2013/erschreckende-
statistik-geheimdienste-und-polizei-nutzen-stasi-akten-auch-amerikanische-
behorden-wie-die-nsa/)

German original:

[https://netzpolitik.org/2013/erschreckende-statistik-
geheimd...](https://netzpolitik.org/2013/erschreckende-statistik-
geheimdienste-und-polizei-nutzen-stasi-akten-auch-amerikanische-behorden-wie-
die-nsa/)

~~~
weinzierl
Just yesterday the former Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Archives and
civil rights activist Johannes Gauck met with Barack Obama.

~~~
Argorak
To clarify for those that don't know: Gauck is now the president of Germany,
so he didn't meet Obama because of his history.

Also, his first name is Joachim.

------
adaml_623
I've got an answer for all the people who say, "I've got nothing to hide".

That might be true but you would have to be naive to think that the
information that could be gathered from these NSA activities would not be
misused by people.

Imagine an up and coming politician. Squeaky clean but was friends with a few
people who got prosecuted for drug dealing. Those useful NSA phone records
could easily lead to the press asking the young idealist if he often hung
around with drug users. Irrelevant and potentially career ending.

Civil rights campaigners who could be accused of having an affair because of
call records.

A journalist investigating a corrupt politician... is he a terrorist
sympathizer... comb through the records.

You may have nothing to hide but often the people trying to improve your
country for the better and root out corruption and crime will be more
vulnerable to this. Because the corrupt individuals in positions of power will
not respect the laws and procedures and will use this information for evil.

Thoughts?

~~~
swombat
The second problem with "nothing to hide" is that it's really "nothing to hide
based on today's laws". Laws change. Things become illegal or looked down upon
that were previously just fine. What you did with a peaceful conscience today
could be used to throw you in jail in 20 years.

The third problem is that due to the complexity of the penal code, this is
already the case. You have already done stuff in the last 10 years, that you
didn't think was illegal, but somewhere in the tens of thousands of pages of
the penal code someone can find a reason to throw you in jail if they have
enough information about you. As Richelieu put it, "If you give me six lines
written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them
which will hang him." \- the NSA has billions of lines about you. They can
hang you a million times over.

~~~
lifeformed
Everyone keeps saying that everyone has committed a jail-able offense if you
just look hard enough, but no one has any examples. I'm not denying that it's
true, I just have no response if someone says, "like what?"

Are there any examples of crimes that many people have probably committed?
Maybe software piracy, but isn't that just a fine? And I hope that isn't the
only example.

~~~
286c8cb04bda
_> Are there any examples of crimes that many people have probably committed?_

Have you ever ordered anything off Amazon? Did you declare and pay the
appropriate use taxes for what you bought? Did you ever discuss with anyone
that buying things off Amazon meant there was no tax?

Depending on where you live, that's tax fraud and conspiracy to commit. If you
had the discussion over email or on a message board, then it's an inter-state
crime...

------
mtgx
As for the "potential" chilling effect of all the spying, you don't need to
theorize about whether it will happen or not. It's already happening:

[http://www.france24.com/en/20130619-us-seizure-journalist-
re...](http://www.france24.com/en/20130619-us-seizure-journalist-records-
called-chilling)

The 4th amendment is all but obliterated, and now this is how the 1st
amendment and the freedom of the press will be destroyed, too, by killing any
sort of investigative journalism left, and by prosecuting all leakers.

I used to think that Wikileaks and other such secure leaking is the _future_
of investigative journalism. If you believe the print media will die, and
blogging will take its place, then investigative journalism will die, too,
because I doubt many bloggers will go out and do that. So in a way Wikileaks
would serve as a "disruptive innovation" for investigative journalism.
Actually, most investigative journalism is only about finding "sources" that
are willing to leak stuff to them, anyway. Wikileaks is kind of a "user-
generated" investigative journalism/leaking, or _investigative journalism
2.0_.

But if the government is trying to kill both at once, then I'm not sure what's
left to uncover illegalities inside the government.

------
Spooky23
The fact that these conversations are happening is indicative that we do not
have a Stasi.

We have serious problems, as evidence by the unwillingness of any member of
Congress to really speak out on the issue, and the sheer scope and reach power
of this poorly regulated surveillance regime.

There's no gulag archipelago, but the tools used by repressive totalitarian
regimes are being built for other purposes, and many of us believe that these
tools are not compatible with a free and democratic society.

Let's focus on the real and stop running down the slippery slope.

~~~
pmichaud
I'm not so sure. Europeans stopped conquering and colonizing in favor of
economic colonialism, which is just as bad perhaps, but now with a veneer of
credibility. They are just doing business. Nevermind that the despot du jour
was installed by the CIA.

Similarly we can talk about NSA overreaches all we want, as opposed to the old
way of actually silencing the dissent. Great, except everyone is just talking,
they are probably continuing with impunity under a different program name.

~~~
Spooky23
In East Germany, this thread would likely have led to our arrest.

~~~
PavlovsCat
In a free country on the other hands, every last (healthy adult) citizen would
be able to think without employing sophistry, and to see woods despite the
trees.

------
mholkesvik
The NSA leak is troubling, yes. It is NOT comparable to the horrors of
communist authoritarianism - where 20 million people were killed, starved, or
simply disappeared. To me, this seems like a cheap shock tactic more common on
stations like Fox News where the labels "nazi" or "socialist" are thrown
around without thought. These words have deep historical roots and deep
meaning, and to use them in situations where it isn't appropriate is
trivializing. A government can be intrusive and overstep its bounds without
earning the label of 'Stasi'. We can have a conversation about the power and
role of government in this country without drawing these hyperbolic and
historically inaccurate parallels.

------
uptown
This whole thing has reminded me how prescient the movie "Sneakers" was.

"There's a war out there, old friend. A world war. And it's not about who's
got the most bullets. It's about who controls the information. What we see and
hear, how we work, what we think... it's all about the information!"

"The world isn't run by weapons anymore, or energy, or money. It's run by
little ones and zeroes, little bits of data. It's all just electrons."

~~~
sneak
From getting paid for pentesting to phreaking to the nick I've used for
fifteen+ years, that movie changed and shaped my life indelibly.

~~~
mindcrime
I missed it when it first came out, and only saw it for the first time about 2
years ago. I've probably watched it 20+ times since then. It really is a great
movie.

------
squozzer
The current uproar will do us no good unless we develop ways to either disrupt
the technology or protect ourselves from it.

Because even if we win this round, the state will find ways to bring these
programs back in some other guise. For example, the FISA courts were part of
the reforms that emerged from the abuses of the CIA and FBI during the Red
Scare and Civil Rights eras.

In other words, we need a technical Rosa Parks. Well, more like a million of
them.

------
gyardley
Is there _anything_ in this article, aside from an overblown metaphor in the
title, that hasn't been posted here fifty times in the last couple weeks?

~~~
toddmatthews
its written by
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg)

~~~
mpyne
So, no?

------
microcolonel
There is no hope if that's the extent of the “solution”, no meaningful work
will come in the form of more politics and oppression.

The only reasonable conclusion is that to stop the bloodshed and invasion, one
must stop supporting the oppressors.

You are quite literally paying many thousands of thugs to fly to the middle
east and support a paedophilic, incompetent, oppressive regime which directly
hurts people's lives. At home you're paying many more thousands to pick on
people carrying small amounts of plant trimmings, specifically targeted by the
colour of their skin. Those people are then sent to buildings and force fed in
contract-incestuous CEO-laden prisons with an economic incentive to cost more
money to their handlers.

Aggression is the problem, and paying people to use it against you, or anyone
else for that matter, is probably not going to help.

------
minikites
In all the talk about this, I haven't seen any proposed solutions. What is the
way out?

Stop all domestic surveillance? What about US Citizens in other countries?
What about foreign nationals inside the US?

Increase oversight? What about for rare unambiguous national security threats?
How can that be enforced?

And it sounds a lot like learned helplessness, but what is an individual
supposed to do?

~~~
xradionut
Don't cause waves, pay taxes.

