
Body scanner ruling could squelch NSA domestic spying - declan
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57589640-38/body-scanner-ruling-could-squelch-nsa-domestic-spying/
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jdp23
Speaking of body scanners and the TSA, we're in the last week of the court-
ordered comment period. If you haven't commented yet, please do!

[http://tsacomments.net/](http://tsacomments.net/) and
[http://www.talesfromthe.net/jon/?p=3462](http://www.talesfromthe.net/jon/?p=3462)
have more

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epoxyhockey
You can also file comments via FAX at (202) 493-2251 or by mailing them to

Docket Management Facility U.S. Department of Transportation 1200 New Jersey
Avenue SE West Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140 Washington, DC 20590-0001

If you are faxing or mailing your comments, make sure to include the docket
number TSA-2013-0004.

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ChuckMcM
Programmers as lawyers, "Hey here's a puzzle for you, create and argument
using the rules as written by these words, which blocks an activity by this
group." Priceless.

I do know that when ADA first passed there was a huge blowup at one of the
agencies because the spacing between rows of servers didn't meet the minimum
standard for wheelchair access, and they were being told they had to spread
out the servers by an additional 6" and subsequently remove one row of them. I
expect they came up with some sort of clever workaround.

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simcop2387
I'd guess smaller wheelchairs.

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adventured
This article is far too naive. The NSA is more than willing to operate on an
extra-legal basis, as they have been for decades. A ruling on body scanners
will not - under any circumstances - squelch NSA domestic spying.

It would require a change top to bottom in the government's entire approach to
privacy, from the President to the lowest ranking agents. We have a government
that has set itself up from an intelligence position of violating privacy
without any regard to the consequences. They're not going to suddenly do a 180
and stop, no matter what one ruling says. It's also a massive cost in time and
dollars to change out of their approach now, they will not do it willingly.

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declan
As the author of the article, I'm generally accused of being too cynical, so
it's a delight to see an accusation from the other side.

I generally agree with you on one point, at least. If you believe the NSA is
"more than willing to operate on an extra-legal basis" \-- they certainly did
during the Bush administration -- then the only way to change thing is have a
new president who is willing to look into suspected abuses and file criminal
charges against .gov employees who go too far. The problem is that those
people would have been given legal immunity by the outgoing administration, so
it's only a prospective remedy, not a retrospective one.

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mpyne
While I'm impressed at seeing "sea lawyering" done by civilians for once, I'm
going to admit that I fail to see how a program that the public didn't know
about and didn't notice (since otherwise we wouldn't say Snowden blew the
whistle) could possibly be said to "substantively affect the public".

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declan
The Verizon FISA court order would be the evidence. I suppose that the groups
filing this petition (and likely to litigate eventually) would claim that
Americans can be substantively affected in terms of 4A and privacy harms even
in the absence of knowledge.

Not an exact analogy, but if the FBI got a secret court to issue a secret
order to secretly search everyone's house in a city looking for people doing
Evil Thing X, and nobody knew about it until much later, would that
presumptively illegal search be something that "substantively affect[ed] the
public?"

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mpyne
I like the thought, but I personally wouldn't call a change in knowledge alone
a substantive effect, there would have to be some concrete effect IMHO as
well. E.g. if I was able to take those phone records and somehow benefit at
the stock market by it that could be said to have substantively affected the
public, but it would be hard for me to see "knowing a bunch of specific calls
were made" as that by itself.

And if the NSA is doing their job near-properly any actual substantive effect
would have occurred to the _non-U.S._ public, which I can't imagine that the
Act in question was envisioned to cover.

