
House Votes to Renew Surveillance Law, Rejecting New Privacy Limits - aaronbrethorst
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/11/us/politics/fisa-surveillance-congress-trump.html
======
rektide
As Wyden[1] points out, Congress has nearly no information on what impact the
FISA program has. How many Americans are targeted already? The military
refuses to answer Congress. How many emails & other collections are swept up?
The military refuses to answer to Congress.

This bill explicitly allows it's use directly against Americans and declares
which circumstances the FBI & other agencies need to use warrants and where
these agencies will now be permitted warrantless access to FISA collections.

"Abouts" collection has a direct means to being permitted again. Ever use the
word Benghazi in an email? Ok, all your communication might be wiretapped from
now on. If the FBI ever wants to investigate you for something non terrorism
related, something totally unrelated to Benghazi? No problem. Maybe- in some
cases- they MIGHT need a warrant.

Just Security had a great writeup[2]. This bill is a travesty, especially
given that Congress has again and again asked for some information to inform
them about how FISA is being used already, and the military has stonewalled
and stonewalled and stonewalled. That congress would radically expand these
powers, let them now directly target Americans, and would allow the FBI &
others access to this program, after being continually rebuffed, AND would
make this program unable to be challenged in court- it's the pinnacle of
madness. It's complete dereliction of duty by congress, and one of the saddest
moments of cowardice in the US Governments history that we'd stoop so low.

[1] [https://www.thecipherbrief.com/column_article/dont-pass-
surv...](https://www.thecipherbrief.com/column_article/dont-pass-surveillance-
legislation-dark#.WlX-vO2BQqo.twitter)

[2] [https://www.justsecurity.org/50801/house-intelligence-
commit...](https://www.justsecurity.org/50801/house-intelligence-committees-
section-702-bill-wolf-sheeps-clothing/)

~~~
dingaling
> The military refuses to answer Congress.

Pedantically the NSA, FBI and CIA are not 'military'

The DIA, NRO and NIMA are.

~~~
keldaris
That's not quite right, the NSA is a DoD agency and the highest ranking
civilian in it is the Deputy Director. The Director of the NSA is a military
officer also in charge of USCYBERCOM.

The FBI and the CIA are indeed civilian agencies (though the CIA has some
caveats there).

~~~
dmix
It might be semantics but NSA being a national defence organization, under the
same parent umbrella which forks to Army/Navy/Airforce/Marines, I believe it's
fair to lump them in with the 'military':

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/73/Do...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/73/DoD_Organization_March_2012.pdf/page1-800px-
DoD_Organization_March_2012.pdf.jpg)

The NSA play(ed) a very large role in modern military deployments overseas,
especially in the middle east and africa with their targeting systems.

The best counterpoint is the bill Obama passed before leaving office,
expanding the data sharing between agencies and the more general significant
expansion of scope of the NSAs activities in recent years to involve plenty of
domestic and civilian issues (beyond politics) including supporting the
efforts on the War on Drugs, DHS, and FBI activities.

------
bgentry
55 House Democrats, including Pelosi, voted against the USA Rights Act
amendment that would have substantially limited the surveillance against US
citizens. 65 House Democrats ultimately voted in favor of this bill and giving
the Trump admin more unchecked surveillance powers.

[https://twitter.com/gzornick/status/951501089047764992](https://twitter.com/gzornick/status/951501089047764992)
[http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2018/roll016.xml](http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2018/roll016.xml)

~~~
CWuestefeld
Every time this comes up, I'm again surprised how many people expect that
Democrats will somehow have better policy for privacy.

Folks, it ain't so. The Democrats won't protect us in this regard any more
than the Republicans will.

~~~
ep103
The parent comment literally shows that Democrats protect us for privacy more
than Republicans do.

125 Democrats voted to add privacy protections, 55 did not.

By Contrast

58 Republicans voted to add privacy protections, 178 did not.

By definition, that means Democrats were better about privacy protections.

Stop peddling this both-parties-are-the-same nonsense. Its amazing this can
even be said with a straight face during the Trump administration.

~~~
vuln
The last President was a Democrat and he sure didn't care about American's
Privacy even though he used it on his campaign trail to get elected... Please
don't act like _only_ Republicans do this...

From my comment down thread

>Unfortunately Obama almost quadrupled funding to these agencies[1].
Throughout his administration he allowed the Alphabet boys to try and steal
more american's data without warrants (See FBI v Apple and the FBI attempting
to get access to your browser history with out warrants)[2][3]. Obama even
EXPANDED surveillance on his way out of office[4]. Obama also said he was pro
whistle blowers we all know what happened to Chelsea.

[1] [https://www.wsj.com/articles/surveillance-in-the-obama-
era-1...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/surveillance-in-the-obama-
era-1496683972) [2] [https://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/29/apple-vs-fbi-all-you-
need-to...](https://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/29/apple-vs-fbi-all-you-need-to-
know.html) [3] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
security/fbi-w...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbi-
wants-access-to-internet-browser-history-without-a-warrant-in-terrorism-and-
spy-
cases/2016/06/06/2d257328-2c0d-11e6-9de3-6e6e7a14000c_story.html?utm_term=.48131f786a8d)
[4] [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/01/obama-expands-
surveill...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/01/obama-expands-surveillance-
powers-his-way-out)

~~~
lern_too_spel
The FBI did not need a warrant to search that phone. The owner (the shooter's
employer) gave them permission.

Obama didn't expand surveillance on his way out (several surveillance programs
stopped under his watch, including both email and phone metadata collection).
You're confusing an authorization to share information, which allowed a more
thorough investigation into Russian meddling, with authorization to collect
new data.

Your first link doesn't support your claim that Obama quadrupled funding
because that didn't happen.
[https://fas.org/irp/budget/](https://fas.org/irp/budget/)

And we all know that Obama released Manning over the objections of our current
President.

~~~
acct1771
You're confusing an excuse with a reason.

------
nimbius
This has been a can kicked for many a mile. First bush, then obama, and now
trump. The undocumented and largely ignored effect of FISA is that it is
quietly driving cryptography to unprecedented levels of adoption. OpenPGP is
part of Yubikey now, granting the average user HSM level security for their
encryption for less than $50. Google has increased their cipherstrength and
offers several multifactor solutions as well as foreign agent attack warnings
for journalists. GPG offers curve25519 in light of just the implication of
poisoned NIST primes. Signal sidesteps bugged SMS in favour of a hardened PFS
channel of OTR deniable communication in video, voice and text. Letsencrypt is
working to blanket the world in affordable, quick, and easy crypto for any
site desired. Finally, tor's many exploits have been patched, and the
protocols weaknesses have given way to more secure tools like i2p.

The government is largely focusing on iPhone at this point, and why not. Apple
is an easy target to beat on for the woes of late stage capitalism and
unchecked foreign policy, however any modern consumer tech company worth their
salt has seen the writing for quite some time. Encrypt, and make sure you're
out of the loop entirely.

~~~
ballenf
I take no solace in typical cryptography as it does nothing to hide most
metadata. Who I talk to, when, how often (and the same for websites visited)
is _way_ more sensitive in the collective than the contents of any single one
of those interactions.

Signal type apps hide both and are valuable, but without widespread adoption
is meaningless to most people.

I'm not against any of the progress you cite, but so long as people can be
targeted based on metadata they are at risk. Once targeted, it becomes child's
play to bypass the encryption that most people employ, whether through social
engineering or side channel attacks (beyond Spectre-type) or governmental
requests/threats to cloud providers.

~~~
cryptonector
Crypto does nothing to prevent rubber hose attacks. And as you note, it is
very difficult to prevent traffic analysis, that being the only thing the
government really needs to find what it's looking for anyways.

------
filoeleven
This is bad news.

> “The Intelligence Committee’s bill disregards the Constitution and common
> sense by granting the government the authority to search Americans’
> communications without first obtaining a warrant,” Schuman told The
> Intercept. “Not only does this turn the purpose of the foreign surveillance
> law on its head, transforming it into a domestic surveillance tool, but it
> places activists, minorities, and everyone else at the mercy of President
> Trump and Attorney General Sessions, who have made clear their disregard for
> legal constraints and democratic norms.”

[https://theintercept.com/2018/01/09/nsa-surveillance-fisa-
se...](https://theintercept.com/2018/01/09/nsa-surveillance-fisa-
section-702-reauthorization-fbi/)

------
epmaybe
I had a discussion with my mother regarding surveillance and privacy and how
they relate to safety. I feel like she understands that surveillance when used
in a nefarious manner can be detrimental to individual freedoms, but is pro
surveillance regardless. This is because she believes that the benefits of
keeping others safe outweighs the potential for misuse.

How can I help her understand why people fight for privacy?

~~~
tabeth
When has an average American been severely and personally harmed from
surveillance? If you can't answer that without caveats then you have no chance
of convincing her in my opinion.

In other words, you have to prove that the harms of surveillance outweigh the
nebulous sense of protection an average person already has regarding
survillance.

It's trivial to come up with examples of how survillance is good for an
average person in regular life - - see public camera catching criminals, dash
cams, etc.

~~~
bluGill
[cynic] The public camera catching a random criminal doens't really matter to
me unless that criminal actually stole from me.[/cynic]

Fortunately we don't have to look to that. More than once the public road
surveillance cameras have aided my decision to work from home. They have also
helped me decided to take/not take an alternate route around bad traffic.

Those are real benefits to surveillance that help me. I understand your
worries, and they are real. However there are also benefits that you cannot
discard.

~~~
seanp2k2
>public

This is a big part of the difference between traffic cameras and unchecked
surveillance of individuals.

------
coldcode
The President actually tweeted two incompatible positions this morning. Guess
they picked the one they wanted.

~~~
tootie
His opposition to this bill is based on nonsense, but it would be wonderfully
ironic if he used it as the basis for veto.

~~~
jonny_eh
He'd never veto anything, he'd have to read the bill to veto it.

~~~
cavanasm
You seem to have been downvoted, possibly for how quippy your comment is, but
there's some indication that this reasoning isn't far off. Earlier this week
Trump made clear during his televised immigration policy meeting that he would
sign anything Congress actually sent him, which seems like a very odd position
to take when you consider that immigration was Trump's signature campaign
issue.

~~~
cryptonector
It's easy to say "I'll sign anything you send me" if you're certain they will
be unable to send anything. It is risky, sure, because the unexpected can
happen. The next day he also gave a summary of the meeting that was very
different from what attendees thought. The meeting was a made-for-TV moment,
so you should take it in with lots of salt.

~~~
brewdad
The day Trump starts vetoing bills sent to his desk is the day 25th Amendment
proceedings hit full stride.

~~~
cryptonector
Can you explain? (I don't mean the 25th Amendment.)

~~~
cavanasm
I believe parent post means that Republicans will stop protecting Trump the
instant Trump decides not to pass their legislation, since they have control
of Congress, and Mike Pence is an establishment dream president.

~~~
cryptonector
That seems facile. I don't believe it. I guess we'll see.

------
corpMaverick
Let's say a state actor decides to cyber attack the US or allies. We want
every person, gobernment or economic entity to be secure.

A state actor can do more widespread damage than what we gain by catching some
terrorists.

Precisely for national security, we need good security in every entity.

~~~
willstrafach
FISA/702 is also used to trace/analyze cyber attacks, it is not just for
counter-terrorism.

Example - A report (leaked to The Intercept) regarding Russian spearphishing:
[https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3766950/NSA-
Repor...](https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3766950/NSA-Report-on-
Russia-Spearphishing.pdf)

------
tzs
> The vote on Thursday was a victory for the Trump administration and the
> intelligence community, which opposed imposing major new curbs on the
> program, and for Republican leadership, including House Speaker Paul D.
> Ryan, who had blocked the House from an opportunity to consider a less-
> sweeping compromise package developed by the House Judiciary Committee. They
> gambled that faced with an all-or-essentially-nothing choice, a majority of
> lawmakers would choose the status quo — and won.

Normally if you do not like what a House member does there is not much you can
do unless you are in that member's district. In that case you can vote for
someone other than them.

In the case of Ryan, though, you _can_ do something even if you live in
another district. The majority party decides on who will be Speaker. If Ryan's
partly loses its majority Ryan goes back to being just an ordinary member of
the House, one of over 400. You can indirectly vote against Ryan's speakership
by voting against the candidate from his party in your district.

~~~
kbd
Except Pelosi and many Democrats voted for this as well...

~~~
tzs
So? As was mentioned in the excerpt from the article I quoted Ryan would not
allow the House to consider a compromise from the House Judiciary Committee.
How many of those Democrats would have gone for that compromise bill if that
had been on the table?

We need both privacy and surveillance. The harm from too little privacy tends
to manifest on a longer time frame than the harm from too little surveillance,
so when considering a good balance between the two is off the table it is
understandable one might go for the option that looks like it will be the
safest short term.

Pelosi is indeed quite aligned with Republicans on surveillance issues. If she
had been speaker she probably would have supported the current bill. But would
she have blocked consideration of the compromise, like Ryan did?

That seems much less likely, because despite Pelosi and a few other Democrats
being quite pro-surveillance the fact is that the party as a whole is quite a
bit less pro-surveillance than are the Republicans as a whole. She would have
had a harder time than Ryan keeping the compromise from being considered
because she would be going against the majority of her own party, unlike Ryan.

------
blackrose
> Mr. Trump, who is known to watch Fox News while he is tweeting, posted his
> tweet shortly after a Fox News legal analyst appealed directly to the
> president during a Thursday morning segment about the coming House vote. The
> analyst, Andrew Napolitano, turned to television cameras and said, “Mr.
> President, this is not the way to go.” He added that Mr. Trump’s “woes”
> began with surveillance.

lol.

But seriously we need someone in the oval office who feels strongly about
protecting the privacy of Americans (and everyone else!). Trump is just
another one in the line to rubber-stamp this. Not holding my breath though...

------
AnimalMuppet
OK, it passed the House. Now the fight moves to the Senate. Anybody have any
insight on whether it will fly through there, or whether there is a chance of
derailing it?

~~~
kej
I could maybe see Sen Wyden trying to stop it, he's been pretty good on things
like this lately, but I bet there are enough pro-surveillance Democrats
(Feinstein, etc.) to overcome any potential filibuster.

------
nullifidian
Can someone clear it up for me. How likely is it that my google searches are
being swept up and stored indefinitely, because I'm foreigner. I've disabled
google search history, though I doubt it will help. Similar question - do they
have a profile for every foreigner they can identify?

~~~
efoto
Google search uses HTTPS and, unless you personally is a target and/or your
devices are hacked, the content of your searches is not visible to anyone
except Google. Your citizenship doesn't matter.

~~~
nullifidian
They've tapped into google's internal networks in the past. I suspect they've
already regained the access.

Another matter is whether google really deletes accounts when asked, or really
doesn't store histories when asked. Because if the data is stored by Google,
when the time comes and the person becomes "interesting" for the US
establishment, they can rubber-stamp FISA court warrant and get this data.

~~~
efoto
1\. Google engineers took the challenge personally and there is no evidence
suggesting Prisma capabilities were regained. 2.I tend to agree in a sense
that it is rather difficult to delete all the data. But no more difficult,
than to find it later when requested by law enforcement.

------
JohnStudio
Curiosity is getting the best of me, and I figured HN is a good place to
scratch the itch.

Has anyone done a study or solicited information from the government that
shows the impact of legislation such as FISA or better yet the Patriot ACT's
post provision sunset (what's left of the act) parts? Namely - hard numbers
that shows in a numerical fashion the fact based evidence to keep overt
invasions of privacy in check in the name of security.

Being from New York, I always try to question politicians here - more
specifically Gov. Cuomo on the quantifiable evidence that supports the SAFE
ACT's passage in our state - on such things, to have a better impact on things
that affect me regionally vs. worrying about broad stroke Federal things that
rarely do.

------
xir78
Turmp should be happy about this, it will be useful in cracking down on
citizens and opponents who criticize him.

~~~
knz
> Turmp should be happy about this

To be fair, Trump is hardly the the first President to seek renewal of such
laws.

> useful in cracking down on citizens and opponents who criticize him.

There were multiple reports about "Dark Side" yesterday -
[https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/dark-side-federal-
unit-...](https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/dark-side-federal-unit-feeds-
possibly-illegal-tips-to-local-cops-report-says/)

What could possibly go wrong.....

~~~
xir78
He opposed it according to the article.

~~~
knz
[https://www.npr.org/2018/01/11/577331402/ahead-of-hill-
vote-...](https://www.npr.org/2018/01/11/577331402/ahead-of-hill-vote-trump-
attacks-spy-bill-his-administration-supports)

"For the record, Trump's administration supports full reauthorization. In
fact, the White House issued a statement on Wednesday evening — hours before
Trump's tweet — restating its call for members of Congress to vote for its
continued use."

------
brndnmtthws
Thankfully the rules of math still apply and it's never been easier to use
encryption just about everywhere.

The question for me is: at what point will people begin to reject this farce
of a ruling elite that exists today?

------
clackanon
This shouldn't be any surprise to anyone. Congress gives lip service to
representing their constituents. In reality, the only people (and interests)
they represent are THEMSELVES.

------
znpy
USA, the land of the monitored.

------
Andersos
Privacy in the US is dead

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
Privacy in the world is dead (more precisely, dying), for all intents and
purposes. The technological cat that enabled its demise can't be put back into
the bag. Currently the problem is that certain classes of people have more
access to "private" information than others, but once that goes away society
will adapt to the new normal and look back with confusion at why we were so
concerned about not being able to hide things.

~~~
lurquer
Agreed. But, we're missing the point quibbling about search histories and
emails... That's nothing compared to what's coming. The data already exists to
track your every move. It's just a matter of consolidating and organizing it.
Right now, there is money to be made selling customer data for marketing and
the like. This keeps the repositories of our data from sharing with one
another.

But, soon, the economics will flip. And, there will be money to be made from
selling privacy. For instance, assume all credit card, phone, cable companies,
etc. pool their data. For a monthly subscription, this conglomerate will keep
your info (or parts of it) hidden. The default will be everything is knowable
about everyone, except for those who pay a fee to erase info from their
records.

Far more money to be made selling privacy than selling info. 4th amendment and
all the rest is moot. Our info is held by private international companies who,
eventually, will begin charging you to keep things hidden from others.

~~~
xixi77
It might be even worse. I actually doubt they'll allow you to get your info
deleted, even for a fee, unless forced by law: it would only be worth it for
them (as in, producing revenue that is a significant fraction of that they
would be getting from selling the data) if enough people bother, but in that
case, deleting their information would make the data a lot less attractive for
the potential buyers...

------
throwacide
someone needs to do independent audits in the form of a zero knowledge proof
to say “ok I understand why the wizards and warlocks are at battle”. Used to
be that we would say to ourselves, “we should consider It likely Obama flipped
once in office because he saw confidential stuff that would make you sick”,
which is a more cosmo view

------
mtgx
FFS New York Times, can you not make EVERY GOD DAMN ARTICLE about Trump and
distract everyone from the main issue here?

More than half of this article is about Trump's tweets. How about naming and
shaming all the Republicans and Democrats that voted to extend the
surveillance law instead?

