
Trying to Keep the Internet Safe from Warrantless NSA Surveillance - maxt
https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/trying-keep-internet-safe-warrantless-nsa-surveillance
======
jMyles
Very nice. Nothing new here, but this is a great summary to share with people
who are less familiar with internet architecture and want to get up to speed
with this particular facet of (seemingly illegal) surveillance.

However, I want to quickly point out one omission in the discussion of the
risks of allowing this kind of activity to continue:

If the NSA is effectively spying on everybody who communicates with a server
outside the US, it is trivial for them (or another government agency) to
_fabricate_ traffic (presumably child pornography) in order to target someone.

The ACLU (and others similarly positioned to criticize this conduct) always
rightly point to the risks to journalists and human rights activists of having
their communications intercepted and accurately portrayed, but what about the
ease of lying about it in order to target dissidents?

This seems like an obvious vector and deserves more attention and discussion.

~~~
devoply
If it were legal you could call it unconstitutional. The point is do not want.
But really Google is so much worse than the NSA. We can't do anything about
Google though. He's like an uninvited guest to every party. And now we have
Microsoft to contend with as well.

~~~
Fnoord
> We can't do anything about Google though.

Yes, we can! Don't use Google, or use certain settings in the applications
which enhance your privacy. The default settings are not always the best
settings for the user.

Don't use Google Search. Use a search engine which respects your privacy such
as the scraper DuckDuckGo (DDG).

Don't use Gmail. Use an e-mail provider which doesn't scan through your
e-mail. Where you got IMAP access. Use a device where you can use GPG. Or use
alternative methods of communication.

Don't use Google Maps. Use a maps application which respects your privacy such
as OpenStreetMap or (arguably) Apple Maps.

Don't use Google Fit. [...]

And so on, so forth. Ask yourself the following: do I _really_ need this? The
answer is often: "not really."

You have the option to use neither. If the choice is Android or iOS you pay
more for iOS devices but your privacy generally suffers less. [Ignoring the
option of dumbphones] there's a third option: _don 't take your phone with
you._ It is a _choice_ to take your Android or iOS device with you. Among
others, Bruce Schneier wrote about this in his book Data And Goliath.

~~~
smokeyj
But you can't avoid google analytics..

~~~
chimeracoder
> But you can't avoid google analytics..

That's the easiest to avoid. Ghostery, or a simple edit to your /etc/hosts
file.

The problem is that tracking is much more pervasive, and there are many more
ways you can be tracked that are much harder to block than Google Analytics.

~~~
smokeyj
What about for iOS? Sure there's more pervasive methods, but I doubt any are
as ubiquitous as GA. My ghostery plugin shows GA for nearly every website I
visit.

~~~
detaro
I thought iOS browsers' adblockers can at least do domain-based blocking,
which is enough for the typcial GA case?

------
awqrre
Meanwhile: Obama Opens NSA’s Vast Trove of Warrantless Data to Entire
Intelligence Community, Just in Time for Trump [1]

1\. [https://theintercept.com/2017/01/13/obama-opens-nsas-vast-
tr...](https://theintercept.com/2017/01/13/obama-opens-nsas-vast-trove-of-
warrantless-data-to-entire-intelligence-community-just-in-time-for-trump/)

~~~
newsat13
Yeah, I hate it when this starts out with Trump bashing. Obama is much more
guilty. I am not an american, so I don't exactly understand what the term
'liberal' means. Spying on your own people without warrant?

More discussion here -
[https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/5o1ovy/with_only...](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/5o1ovy/with_only_days_until_donald_trump_takes_office/)

~~~
leesalminen
Heh, that's funny. I am American and don't understand the meaning of the terms
"liberal" and "conservative" in our modern culture.

~~~
pharrlax
Ideology is basically meaningless. American politics is entirely tribalism.

The Democrats spent 8 years decrying the myriad ways the executive branch
violated the Constitution under George W. Then Obama takes power and basically
continues or expands nearly all of them, and with only a small handful of
exceptions, the Democrats stop caring and forget entirely.

The Republicans spend 8 years decrying overspending and the national debt
under Obama, even organizing an enormous 'Tea Party' movement predicated
around resistance to it. Then, as Trump is taking power, they rally around a
budget that will increase the national debt by 50%.

Ideology is an extremely loose set of guidelines that are only really adhered
to in a coherent way by a tiny handful of true believers (folks like Bernie
Sanders or Justin Amash). By and large, politics is purely about power -- once
you win, all that matters is erasing any past victories claimed by the other
party and then doing whatever will please your donors so you can win the next
time.

------
jjawssd
Obama is ultimately responsible for trying to ram an international Internet
surveillance mechanism into law
([https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp](https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp)) and giving
the NSA a free pass to conduct mass surveillance against American citizens
without a warrant. (New rules issued by the Obama administration under
Executive Order 12333 will let the NSA—which collects information under that
authority with little oversight, transparency, or concern for privacy—share
the raw streams of communications it intercepts directly with agencies
including the FBI, the DEA, and the Department of Homeland Security, according
to a report today by the New York Times.
[https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3283349-Raw-12333-su...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3283349-Raw-12333-surveillance-
sharing-guidelines.html))

------
RichardHeart
The copies the NSA keeps of your intellectual property are definitely not
piracy though.

------
bogomipz
>"To use a non-digital analogy: It’s as if the NSA sent agents to the U.S.
Postal Service’s major processing centers to conduct continuous searches of
everyone’s international mail."

It's worth noting that U.S. Post Office also records meta data of all snail
mail:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/03/us/postal-service-
confirms...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/03/us/postal-service-confirms-
photographing-all-us-mail.html)

The last paragraph in the above link being completely laughable if course.

------
gist
> and even invited Russia to hack the emails of his political opponent

For the 1000th time. He didn't (and it's amazing how often this gets repeated)
'invite' them. He said they should release the documents if they already had
them.

Note the story line and then the exact quote here:

[http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/trump-putin-no-
relatio...](http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/trump-putin-no-
relationship-226282)

"I hope you are able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing".

Is not "hack Hillary Clinton". It's "if you've hacked Hillary Clinton release
the emails". Key difference.

~~~
ch4s3
>For the 1000th time. He didn't (and it's amazing how often this gets
repeated) 'invite' them. He said they should release the documents if they
already had them.

The direct quote is as follows:

“I will tell you this, Russia: If you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find
the 30,000 emails that are missing,”

It's hardly a stretch to read this as an invitation, despite the later claims
of his handlers.

~~~
gist
> It's hardly a stretch to read this as an invitation

It's an interesting Rorschach test.

What would be fascinating is to do an experiment where someone didn't have an
emotional attachment to the issue and see how this is interpreted by different
parties.

For that matter do the same with this issue merely see what people who fell on
either side (or in the middle) thought.

------
intralizee
I'm curious to what HN crowd thinks about a question related to all this.

People are now under the assumption that US agencies are collecting all calls,
emails, anything electronic for all citizens as it's technically possible and
confirmation is slowly being revealed.

If a crime was committed to a citizen, how would said citizen legally make a
request for information the NSA or any agency has that would be useful as
evidence. Shouldn't all citizens be able to use what is being collected in
court as the government is for the people? How would a person in court go
about requesting anything if the possibility exists.

~~~
digler999
I know some people have already tried that and obviously failed. they just
pull the "security" card and say any information they have cannot be disclosed
in court because its a threat to national security. then they'd say those
matters can only be conducted in a secret court where everyone has "security
clearance", and oops - sorry plaintiff - you don't, so you're excluded from
your own trial.

This was part of what happened to Ladar Levison, owner of Lavabit which was
served with an NSL. He couldn't easily shop for a lawyer because he could only
contact lawyers that were authorized to handle top secret material. And he had
to appear at one specific court venue in Virginia even though he was from
Texas.

------
gagmaker
I'd less worry about NSA then character like googles Eric Schmidt. This one
will sell you in a blink of an eye for his own political hallucinations.

~~~
Esau
Yep - both him and Zuckerberg are awful people is you are about privacy.

------
schwag09
If you support this you should consider donating to Wikimedia or the ALCU:

[https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Ways_to_Give](https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Ways_to_Give)

[https://action.aclu.org/secure/donate-to-
aclu](https://action.aclu.org/secure/donate-to-aclu)

------
Bombthecat
I feel like it will just get worse and worse.

No turn back possible anymore.

Maybe in fifty or hundred years we can talk about it again. For now. It will
just get worse.

~~~
drinkjuice
If it will "just get worse" then there will be no "again".

Frankly, elsewhere people get jailed for speaking their mind, and you know
what some of them do? Speak their mind. We face pretty much no repercussions
other than it not being so fun to discuss it, some people pouting because it
holds up the mirror to their cowardice, so we.. don't? Nah. This is the _only_
way worms can get power, by giants lying down and falling asleep. So maybe
just don't.

------
YeGoblynQueenne
Is there anyway for us outside the US to stop the US government from spying on
our comms, when we message people inside the US?

------
sandworm101
Warrantless? Thats really splitting hairs. Warrants arent a problem for
national governments. The goal must remain protection against all surveillance
... full stop. There is no room for backdoors, even for those with warrants.

~~~
drinkjuice
push, meet shove.

[https://techcrunch.com/2013/07/06/tools-for-
treason/](https://techcrunch.com/2013/07/06/tools-for-treason/)

