
Congressman requests subpoena of NSA’s White House, IRS phone logs - tectonic
http://stockman.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/stockman-requests-subpoena-of-nsa-s-white-house-irs-phone-logs
======
DanielBMarkham
This is structurally brilliant. All of those complaining about hypocrisy or
partisanship are missing the point.

Ignore the specific issue. The critical question this raises is this: if, as
the administration says, the NSA needs all this data to find terrorists, who
gets to say what it's used for or not? Ignore the entire privacy argument. If
the executive branch is keeping records on all of this stuff, is it also
claiming unique and sole access to it?

Because if they are, anybody with a brain can see the problem. In fact, the
partisanship of the Congressman spells it out in clear relief. Just picture
that guy as the next president. If you give that much power to the executive
and they alone make the decision how to use it, then by definition such
information will be used for political purposes. Who gets to decide what is so
evil that requires this special, and extra-constitutional, treatment?
Everybody doesn't want terrorists, but how about supporting congressional
investigations? Helping wrongly-accused people get out of jail? Divorce
proceedings? Civil cases?

Are we going to have a system of law and order where certain evidence is
presented or not solely depending on the decisions of the executive branch?

What this shows is that this NSA data thing just isn't bad, it's bad on
multiple levels. It completely breaks the way our constitutional government is
supposed to operate. Even if somehow the political weasels in DC get away with
keeping the lid on it, the criminal and Congressional cases alone are going to
cause a nightmare. Can you imagine how Congress is going to act if some pet
cause of theirs could have been supported by evidence NSA refused to release?
How criminal defendants are going to react if, years later, they learn that
the government was holding exculpatory information?

And it's just going to go on, and on, until they finally open it all up. Then
there'll be a hell-storm.

ADD: And I'm willing to bet 20 bucks that part of the data NSA is collecting
is the location tracking information from our cellphones. (accurate to within
50 meters). Can you imagine the number of places in the rest of government
operations where such information would be useful?

~~~
hindsightbias
> location tracking information from our cellphones.

Here's what a smart congressperson would ask: "Director Clapper, on April
15th, 2009, there were large protests around the country. Did your agency
request cellular meta data covering that day?"

It's likely obfiscated by the telco as I understand it, but imagine that
freakout.

We could pull our batteries out in 2003, but we don't have that feature
anymore.

~~~
CamperBob2
Your phone doesn't emit any signals at all when turned off. If it did, people
from the FAA to every geek with a spectrum analyzer at work would be screaming
bloody murder.

~~~
beambot
Can the phone be made to receive while "powered off" \-- even sporadically?

They wouldn't want to tip their hand re:transmission capabilities. They'd
probably only activate the capability on-demand, and only for high-value
targets (ie. by sending a special packet to be received by the "powered off"
handset). It's sorta like turning your phone into a listening "bug" while
powered on... you wouldn't want to constantly stream data and tip your hand --
you'd only activate the capability when there is a strong likelihood of a
valuable conversation occurring.

~~~
marshray
It probably wouldn't take noticeable power to run voice-activated microphone
audio compression and storage. Then the recorded audio could be transmitted
later when the battery was back in.

~~~
CamperBob2
Any attempt to do stuff like that will still require a clock signal somewhere.
That clock will be noticed. An attempt to do it in the analog domain with no
synchronous logic would be even more apparent to anyone who studies the
internals of the phone.

In short, no, it ain't gonna happen. It would show up on Bunnie Huang's blog
one day and there would be blood in the streets the next.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
I'm looking at my phone and the power button is conspicuously not a toggle
switch. You press the same button to turn it off as to turn it on. That means
the phone has to have some logic enabled (even when it's "off") to distinguish
whether closing the circuit on that button is supposed to turn the device on
or turn it off (or wake up the screen or lock the device etc.)

Is it so hard to imagine part of that logic including the mobile phone
equivalent of wake-on-lan?

~~~
CamperBob2
_Is it so hard to imagine part of that logic including the mobile phone
equivalent of wake-on-lan?_

Yes. You don't have to power up the cellular transceiver to poll a power
button. That's usually handled by a dedicated power-management chip with
few/no other capabilities (and an internal clock in the kHz range at most, I'd
expect.)

~~~
XorNot
Also you don't need to poll a power button - it's perfectly possible to build
a momentary switch which would connect a circuit long enough to turn on a FET
to the battery, which could then be monitored by digital logic to use the same
connection to power off.

------
elwin
Many of the comments here are complaining about the partisanship of this
request. I think such complaints are shortsighted.

Yes, it's annoying that the representative is trying to make the
administration look bad and further his own party. But political embarrassment
and partisan show victories are exactly what motivates politicians to do
things. These partisan actions are the kind of actions the Obama
administration will notice.

Or he could remain neutral and abstract and introduce a hastily written bill
that purports to solve the problem, like Rand Paul. And nothing will happen.

The partisan political system responds to partisan political incentives. To
see many interesting examples, try studying the period leading up to the
American Civil War.

~~~
Steko
So prosecutorial/investigator overreach is ok, as long as it's not against
hackers, got it.

The NSA looking at your phone logs is a huge illegal fishing expedition but
fishing expeditions are ok when done to trump up charges to impeach the
president. Got it.

~~~
woah
You seem to be missing the blatantly obvious fact that the president himself
authorized this program, and as such, is one of the only people who deserves
to be snooped on under it (in contrast to a member of the public who was kept
in the dark about it).

------
abtinf
He should also request a subpoena for all of the associated metadata, which
probably includes location tracking information. That way, we know if any of
the involved parties met in secret. The what-do-they-have-to-hide argument is
nonsense, but I have no sympathy; the government has brought this on itself.

~~~
abtinf
Also, I wonder how long it will be until we see the first civil case that
tries to subpoena this information. Say, a nasty divorce where one of the
parties is trying to prove cheating. Or industrial espionage.

And think of all the criminal cases this would be useful for - price fixing
schemes, anti-trust cases, and on and on.

The uses for a massive store of location information boggle the mind.

~~~
ryguytilidie
I don't understand the logic here. It won't be interesting at all. Someone
will try to subpoena the info, they will be denied, end of story. The NSA will
never give this data away ever, I bet they would destroy it, or pretend to
destroy it, before giving it away.

~~~
ChuckMcM
The logic is complex but useful to understand. Stockman is making a point. His
point is that arbitrarily collecting this data is bad. He is perhaps guessing
that there will be phone calls between the IRS and the Whitehouse, even if the
President didn't know anything about it the staff would be chatting. That
linkage, as ephemeral as it is, will make them look bad, it will take time to
defend it will cost them votes. It would be better _if this capability didn 't
exist at all._

So the logic is that while the program is 'secret' to only part of the
Government then that part can use it to carry out their agenda unchecked, but
when the whole government can use it, well it becomes more of a liability than
an asset. Part of the beauty of the system we've set up is that it allows the
government to fight with itself and keep itself (more) honest. Stockman is
working that angle.

So in the ideal case, the Obama administration will realize just how dangerous
this system is when it can be used to smear/threaten/harass non-criminals [1].
And they will come up with some rationale for shutting it down.

[1] "Gee, isn't the electronic subscriber number [ESN] of your Chief of Staff
repeatedly going over to that place where we just busted a prostitution ring?
Were they part of that investigation?" kinds of things.

~~~
jaynos
Actually, he knows it'll be rejected and he then gets to say "Well, they
obviously have something to hide!" The whole IRS non-scandal will get a little
more daylight.

------
kunai
I hate how something as interesting as this is ruined by partisanship and
egocentric control-freakism. Why is this Congressman pushing the blame on
Obama solely? He is part of the problem, and it's this "us vs. them" attitude
in government that never lets us have any progress at all. Instead of trying
to advance his party or career, he should have used this opportunity to
illustrate how NSA and IRS should both be surveyed equally if the spying is
justified.

But, no. He's just being a Grade-A politician, trying to claw at the
Democratic party and trying to make an example out of them. I have lost
respect for what he is trying to accomplish, if not because it's shameful and
disgusting.

Before anyone accuses me of left-right bias, I support third-party efforts and
am independent.

~~~
stfu
Politics is not about reasonable arguments. It is about building momentum for
a cause.

Both, the harassment of political opponents by the IRS as well as the NSA spy
policies were run under President Obama's leadership.

He is as personally responsible for these things - just as much as is
President Bush was for the Iraq war. Both are extremely resistant to admit any
wrong doings except for some half hearted apologies without any consequences.

I am all for bashing partisanship when it is based on making mountains out of
molehills (in my view the Benghazi story was one of these). But the IRS and
NRA cases demonstrate that the United States under the presidency of Obama is
using intimidation tactics and intensive surveillance mechanisms that are up-
to-par with paranoid third world dictatorships.

His line of _If he [President Obama] has nothing to hide he has nothing to be
afraid of._ is exactly hitting home on the hypocrisy of the Obama
administration that once campaigned on transparency and accountability.

~~~
AmericanOP
IRS scandal wasn't a scandal. The only evidence the WH was involved are
partial transcript (cherry-picked) vague quotes from junior staffers
(literally: "told by a supervisor that "Washington, D.C., wanted some
cases."), while the true source of the audits has been identified as decidedly
not-Obama: [http://news.yahoo.com/conservative-republican-irs-staffer-
ta...](http://news.yahoo.com/conservative-republican-irs-staffer-takes-credit-
tea-party-150337890.html). All of this is completely ignoring the completely
legitimate reasons for auditing these clearly political groups in the wake of
Citizens United.

Just like how Fast & Furious was in no way a scandal, but a symptom of
Arizona's lack of gun laws. Law enforcement was unable to arrest or even
restrict people linked to cartels as they purchased weapons- the best they
could do was keep track of serial numbers. There was no gun running, but that
didn't stop Republicans from fabricating another 'scandal:'
[http://www.thenation.com/blog/168673/facts-get-way-gops-
fast...](http://www.thenation.com/blog/168673/facts-get-way-gops-fast-and-
furious-investigation#axzz2W8TQ9U44)

Even this article should clue you in to Issa's obvious political theater for
his base.

Obama sucks at fighting misinformation, but he is certainly not a dictator.

~~~
crusso
_The only evidence the WH was involved_

High level officials stonewalling and taking the fifth don't give me a lot of
confidence that we've discovered from where the effort was directed. A Special
Prosecutor is really needed.

 _Obama sucks at fighting misinformation, but he is certainly not a dictator_

Yes, the countless times that he told us that "if Congress doesn't act, I
will." The number of issues like immigration where DHS is extra-counting at-
the-border stops as deportations and then explicitly not enforcing the
immigration laws. The NSA and AP issues stepping all over basic rights.

Good thing he doesn't have the complete power of a dictator.

~~~
AmericanOP
Lois Lerner taking the 5th is another conservative bad-faith argument. She
submitted written responses to inquiry prior to her taking the 5th, proclaimed
her innocence in no uncertain terms, and then even after invoking the
privilege against self-incrimination nonetheless gave testimony as to her
previous answers that were part of the hearing record and which covered the
very issues the committee was considering.
[http://legalinsurrection.com/2013/05/house-irs-hearings-
live...](http://legalinsurrection.com/2013/05/house-irs-hearings-live-
streaming-lois-lerner-to-plead-5th/)

Her innocence has never been questioned. But conservative media play the clip
on loop, acting like she didn't testify to presumably hide information (and
she still testified!)

"If Congress doesn't act, I will" is another bad faith argument. I implore you
to watch the clip from where that quote originated:
[http://www.politico.com/multimedia/video/2013/02/state-of-
th...](http://www.politico.com/multimedia/video/2013/02/state-of-the-
union-2013-act-on-climate-or-i-will.html)

Just read the quote and tell me how it can be construed as executive
overreach: "I urge this Congress to pursue a bipartisan, market-based solution
to climate change, like the one John McCain and Joe Lieberman worked on
together a few years ago. But if Congress won’t act soon to protect future
generations, I will. I will direct my Cabinet to come up with executive
actions we can take, now and in the future, to reduce pollution, prepare our
communities for the consequences of climate change, and speed the transition
to more sustainable sources of energy."

\--

Please understand why rational people don't respond to conservative talking
points: [http://cboye.wordpress.com/2010/01/27/bad-faith-
arguments/](http://cboye.wordpress.com/2010/01/27/bad-faith-arguments/)

~~~
crusso
_I implore you to watch the clip_

What do you mean "the clip"? He's said it over and over and over while playing
a game of "catch me if you can" where he goes beyond the authority that he is
supposed to have. He is supposed to enforce DOMA. He is supposed to enforce
on-the-books immigration laws. He was not supposed to unilaterally declare
congress out of session to make recess appointments. He does this crap every
opportunity he gets and the media just navel gazes.

------
jstalin
To "bring it home," so to speak, he should request all NSA data on phone calls
to and from Congressmen. Nothing makes politicians more angry than applying
their rules for everyone else to themselves.

~~~
abtinf
I think you meant it as snark, but I think is brilliant. We know that congress
has ongoing insider trading issues with the companies they regulate - lets get
some transparency! If they have nothing to hide, they have nothing to fear.

------
joering2
Haven't seen such a check-mate in government affair in a long time.

Unfortunately NSA does not have to answer to anyone, including congressman
requests. Its their data, per se, and they are not compelled to share with
anyone. Sure they will have to set aside large chunk for upcoming lawsuits
(that will be paid from your taxes anyways), but other than that ist not a big
deal.

NSA stands beyond anyone's power to subpoena. Think Eric Holter being
requested to investigate... Eric Holter. Good luck with that.

~~~
eloisius
> NSA does not have to answer to anyone, including congressman requests

Do you mean officially or de facto? I was under the impression that no one was
above congressional subpoena.

~~~
Domenic_S
Congressman: _< hard question>_

NSA rep: _" That's a matter of national security, I can't answer you."_

------
mncolinlee
It's a Catch-22.

If he gets the data, he will use the long and numerous phone conversations
between the IRS and the White House to infer the administration is guilty.
However, it proves nothing.

If he doesn't get the data, he will argue it is because the President
personally ordered the crimes and is hiding it.

He won't get the data. The NSA won't want their databases and valuable time
used to perform discovery in every lawsuit from now until eternity. He will
exploit the NSA's "Need to Know" policy simply to make Obama look nefarious.

~~~
rfugger
I would say a subpoena from the Congress of the United States should be more
difficult to brush off than one from a regular court case. But why should the
information not be available to the courts, really? Why should people not have
access to information that can be used to defend themselves? Doesn't this open
up a big legal loophole for defendants to argue that NSA data proves their
innocence, but since the government won't make it available, their charges
must be dismissed?

That's the brilliance of this request -- it highlights how the government's
asymmetric access to information can be used against it: "Since you know
everything, you must be able to prove my case for me... Oh, you won't? Then
you're obviously persecuting me."

With absolute knowledge comes absolute power, but with absolute power for some
comes absolute victimhood and therefore sympathy for the rest.

~~~
visarga
Even if now it is only NSA and a few multinationals that have mass
surveillance data, in the future the number of entities collecting an trading
privacy data will increase 1000 fold.

Then we'll get into a stalemate - we all know about everyone. Nobody will be
able to use such information if they are not completely clean AND their
family/associates too. Otherwise, they are blackmail targets too.

Whatever information you generate: speech, messages, GPS logs, social network
(with whom you communicate, by any means) it will be intercepted. The only way
to maintain privacy will be to keep things into your head.

------
na85
First time in a long while that I wholeheartedly support the Republicans.

~~~
notimetorelax
Audacity of this action made me laugh.

~~~
na85
Agree. The irony of the "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" statement being
turned around on the government was delicious.

~~~
jredwards
It's been on its head since day one, really. The NSA is coming after Snowden
for violating their privacy.

------
forgotAgain
Regardless of the aim of his request it does server a public good. It shows
that this type of data, once collected, will never be limited to a specific
usage. It's too tempting a thing and humans are too weak to resist the siren
call.

------
redthrowaway
Given that the NSA is not a troop of Boy Scouts telling scary stories around a
camp fire, I'd be somewhat surprised if they're monitoring the White House's
communications in an attempt to be able to say "the terrorist's call is coming
from _inside the White House_ ".

~~~
elwin
That's the problem with logging everything. Unless they deliberately filter
out all the data coming from the White House, they have it, even though having
it is only useful for their political opponents.

~~~
obviouslygreen
Devil's advocate: This is a feature, not a bug, and it's working as intended.
If the NSA wants to be able to track and review evidence of or relating to the
most potentially-harmful events that could affect the US, the most influential
people in the country -- the snakes and weasels that run it -- are in the best
position to cause or enable harm by betraying confidence, so their
communications are the most vital to monitor.

------
peterwwillis
This is basically exactly the reason why this kind of warrantless spying
should be illegal. Politicians can use their position to go on fishing
expeditions and publicly persecute whoever they wish with flimsy reasoning.

~~~
johngalt
Nixon shouldn't have had to turn over his tapes?

Let me guess, you feel that situation was somehow different. For reasons other
than each president's political affiliation?

~~~
peterwwillis
Nixon was the President, whose particular office recorded phone calls because
a previous President made it standard practice. For him alone.

The White House and the IRS are large organizations with many employees, none
of whom have 'tapes' of their calls, except POTUS.

There was no warrant required to make those tapes. POTUS is a special case.
This guy wants every record of every communication by every staffer of both
the White House and the IRS. This is going much much farther, and for
seemingly no reason whatsoever. The Senator is basically suggesting the
interns were part of a conspiracy, so we should find out what they had to
hide.

If, for example, one person at either the White House or IRS was a closeted
homosexual, and unwarranted recordings proving that are made public, the
person's life could be ruined. All because some douchebag Senator wanted an
unnecessarily broad fishing expedition for political reasons.

But yes, Nixon should have had to turn over the tapes, because there was
already clear evidence he had something to hide. That's why we're supposed to
issue warrants - if there is due cause.

~~~
socillion
"all records of every phone call made from all public and private telephones
of all IRS personnel _to_ all public and private telephones of all White House
personnel."

It's not every single phone call, only the ones from the IRS to the White
House.

------
njharman
‘If Obama has nothing to hide he has nothing to fear,’ says Stockman

That is a soundbite I would love to hear repeated ad nauseum. Replacing Obama
with every politician, CEO, and 3-letter agency head.

------
doki_pen
If anyone shouldn't have a right to privacy, it would be public officials.

------
angersock
Oy vey, a bunch of trolls trolling trolls.

I wish that politics hadn't turned into this sort of nonsense; this makes a
very sensible concern into a tool of politics.

~~~
jlgreco
I would argue that, for now, this is an "enemy of my enemy...." situation.

~~~
angersock
It is a damned shame, then, that we have no friends in Congress.

~~~
jlgreco
Aye, the best we can hope is that they all turn cannibal and consume each
other.

------
alohamora
And now, we start using call logs to investigate non-terrorist crimes?
Politics aside, this is what everyone's actually worried about.

If there were some magical guarantee from the good fairy of civil liberties
that broad surveillance could only ever be used to stop terrorism, it would be
far, far less troublesome.

The problem is using surveillance for any crime one wants to investigate.

~~~
rjeaster
The point is as long as the data is there it can be abused. A law saying that
it cannot be accessed except in terrorism related cases is effectively
meaningless because it could still be accessed illegally in secret, or the law
could change in the future.

------
will_brown
Good not only should the IRS phone records and their contents be released, but
the phone records of all of Congress and their contents should be released,
especially vis-a-vis congress and lobbyists and/or special interest groups.
Starting with the Congressman making the request, all his communications
should be opened up to the public for public scrutiny.

This is called transparency and I like it, further the whereabouts via GPS
tracking of all of Congress should be released cross referenced with the GPS
location of all known special interest groups and lobbyists. Of course I want
mine kept private, because I am a private citizen, not a public official.

------
robomartin
We have a political system in which the only way to win is to destroy your
opposition, discredit them, shame them, find hidden dirt and upstage them in
media clips. The ignorant voting masses are manipulated daily by our partisan
media (all sides) and they mindlessly vote across party lines as they are
told.

If any of you were living in this political jungle you would have to resort to
the same tactics in order to get anywhere and climb the ladders. You would
engage in the kinds of analytics and optimizations that would lead you to
quickly conclude that the issues don't matter as much as showing the ignorant
masses --who's support you need-- how righteous you are against the other
side, no matter which side of the isle you inhabit.

That is the problem with the devolution of our political system. It's not
about issues. It's not about rational consideration of mutually beneficial
ideas. It's not about long term planning. It's not about fiscally sound
policy. It's not about stopping to fuck with the rest of the world to focus on
our internal needs. No, it's about the next six months, year, two or four
years and the elections we have to win for the party. It's bullshit and it is
exactly what is sinking this great nation.

Regrettably, this mess has also created a positive feedback loop that, with
every passing moment, makes the problem worst. This is what scares me about
where we have been, where we are and where we are going. I am far from a
political strategist, but I don't see this self-correcting until we suffer a
truly catastrophic set of failures that cause people to wake up to the
realities of what we have created.

It's like the three hundred pound overweight man who can't stop eating until
he gets to 600 pounds and then has a revelation. How do you get from 300 to
600 pounds and not realize you are killing yourself? How do you keep making
the same flawed decisions? One pizza slice at a time. One lie at a time. One
excuse at a time. Looking the other way a million little times. Ignoring the
need for the "fiscal balance" of food intake, exercise and caloric needs.
Talking about fixing it and not really doing anything about it. Put another
way: Death by a thousand cuts.

As a country we are probably well past the analogy of a 600 pound man who is
dangerously overweight. We are on our way to 1200 pounds. The problem is the
feedback loop. Nothing can stop it until the machine breaks. Or so it seems.

------
skwirl
He wants to clear any doubt that this information is being used for political
purposes by using it for political purposes.

------
dfc
Its too bad that it was requested by someone with so little name recognition
that "Congressman requests" is a better headline than "Rep. Stockman(R)
requests"

------
_k
I wonder if we can ask for something similar in Europe. I live in Belgium and
the government is snooping. Not on a similar scale. But it does happen without
a warrant. It's all legal because the changed the constitution. I'm not sure
what can be done about it. It might be against the EU constitution. I don't
really know where to start. But I do want to stop it.

------
salimmadjd
As much as I hate these types of partisanship maneuvers, but this one may have
a positive consequence. Bringing up the reality and dangers of widespread
eavesdropping.

Now can we subpoena conversation between the VP, Cheney's office regarding the
Valerie Plame or other fabrication about the Iraq war. Oh wait, I forgot.
Democrats left their spine in a 70s time capsule.

------
23david
Game on.

------
saalweachter
I'm confused: couldn't this information be requested directly from the phone
companies?

------
genwin
The actual letter requests the "records of every phone call". That should
include the conversations, not just the logs.

Of course this is grandstanding (but I support). The House Government Reform
and Oversight Committee will simply ignore the request.

------
drawkbox
Would have been nice if both a Democrat and Republican could have requested
this as statesmen. I am not sure there are any left. I love this though. A
group of R's and D's would be even better.

------
balabaster
Has anyone seen the movie The Net? I can't help but keep being reminded that
this is what's going on and it's only a matter of time before it starts
becoming obvious to the public.

------
brown9-2
Just what this debate needs, useless grandstanding.

------
davidrudder
I'm torn. On one hand, this is delicious irony. On the other hand, the
Republicans have used any pretence to tell us that the President is a
terrorist, Muslim, non-American, bad guy of any sort. There is no way to
satisfy this request without it becoming another hyperbolic, red-faced
accusation-fest.

I heard a Republican say "there have been so many scandals directed at the
President, and he's managed to dodge all of them. He can't be innocent of all
of them!" It shocked me because it was an argument for "guilty until proven
innocent." My response was "there have been so many accusations, all baseless,
that you have to start wondering about the truthfulness of those making the
accusations. Isn't it time we just started ignoring all of these so-called
scandals?"

I'm at that point now. I can't take the NSA thing seriously because I've heard
the boy cry "wolf!" too many times.

