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The US did have a case on tracking patron records from a library. The National Security Letter aspect was taken to court and then dropped once in open court.
Some details at:
Librarians' NSL Challenge
https://www.aclu.org/national-...
Federal Judge Finds National Security Letters Unconstitutional, Bans Them (03.15.13)
http://www.wired.com/threatlev...

Gawd. No, they fucking do not.

Of course they don't. The police do that. The NSA just requests the records when they need them.

"Transit zone" != "Constitution-Free Zone"

See here for map and details.

FYI, ~80% of Americans live in the Constitution-Free Zone.

Here's a few revelent articles: Phone companies already record and log all 'meta-data' and have for decades. Law enforcement have had full access to it through court-orders, warrants, etc. Generally, information is kept by phone companies for a period up to or a minimum of 3 years.

http://gizmodo.com/5795861/how... ("How the police get your phone records" written, 2011)

https://www.aclu.org/blog/tech... ("How Long Is Your Cell Phone Company Hanging On To Your Data?", 2011): this article covers cell phone only. Generally information is saved for 1 year minimum, but some carriers save it longer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...

https://www.aclu.org/blog/tag/...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

Considering we already have 2 people (that I know of, probably more) in jail for thoughtcrime*? I think we can safely say the constitution is now a worthless piece of paper. Also more than 174 million Americans live in the constitution free zone thanks to PATRIOT they can have any and all rights ignored because they are near a border. Finally according to a friend in the state crime lab because the distribution laws in most states were modeled after the drug distribution laws (you can decide whether by malice or pure lazy) which completely ignores the fact that physical rules don't work with bits and bytes it really doesn't matter if like Tor or Freenet you have ZERO access, or that the bits are encrypted, because the bits "changed hands" like a dope deal YOU ARE GUILTY and until/unless the laws are rewritten to take the fact they aren't physical objects into account anybody that runs Tor exit nodes or Freenet at all is looking at decades to life in prison with pretty much no way to defend yourself because hey, the bits did "change hands" from user A to user B at your router which is in your house, that is all that's needed.

*.- The first is the guy who wrote the "pro pedo" book, no pics, no evidence he had ever done anything other than put his thoughts on the subject on paper which if that isn't the very definition of thoughtcrime i don't know what is, the other is a guy that was busted at the border with a "thought diary" his therapist told him to keep, again no pics, no evidence he had done anything other than write his dreams and fantasies down onto paper. I guess you better not write in your diary about that hot dream you had unless you start it off with "I carded her and she was 21" to keep from going to jail,huh?

If there is enough evidence for arrest, then there is enough evidence TO GET A GODDAMN WARRANT. Does the Fourth Amendment mean nothing to ANYONE anymore?

Unfortunately it no longer applies to the majority of Americans.

That's why you have to be specific. "I do not consent to any search. Am I free to leave?"

Good luck with asserting your rights to police officers in the US. Here's an example. All they need is probable cause> which they can create. Of course that's if you're not part of the 66% of Americans living in the constitution free zone. If you're part of the 66%, then police don't even need probable cause as you aren't being protected by the fourth amendment.

I'd love to hear the SCOTUS side with the people on this, but I fear it would only be symbolic.

They are already worse than China in terms of some of the human rights. After all, they destroyed one such right, right to privacy already. And they are doing it while accusing China of possibly doing it.

So that particular bridge has been burned down long, long ago.

And if you think that CIA doesn't use the "lest something happens to your family" just as much as other intelligence agencies, I have land on the moon to sell you.

We lost our Fourth Amendment rights already. Our government is working hard to eliminate our second amendment rights. We also lost our sixth amendment rights to the patriot act. In fact, complaining about the losses is risky business in light of the rights we no longer have...

Also see ACLU : Constitution Free Zone and watch this

I had this question as well - does this apply only at the actual border or does it apply within the 100-mile constitution-free zone that extends inward from the border?

https://www.aclu.org/national-security_technology-and-liberty/are-you-living-constitution-free-zone

Phone numbers are listed in things like telephone books. NSA (and other intelligence agencies; let's not forget about the rest of them) have been ingesting telephone directories, business cards, public records, FB pages, ad nauseum into massive databases for many years so that a new name/number/address/email etc can be matched to known correlates.

Even metadata consisting only of Cell numbers are available to the NSA because they have access to all the carriers records as well.

Even a "Burner" phone is traceable in the US.

There is no such thing as "metadata", and there hasn't been for a long time.

27 July 2012, to be precise: linky [redacted PDF].
I'll post a link to the unredacted version if I can find a non-walled URL.

I don't think pulling people over for research is a reasonable use of police power. Actual enforcement, maybe, but not for research.

It started with 'sobriety checkpoints' and 'Are you a citizen' roadblocks in the Constitition Free Zone within 100 miles of our borders. We used to mock the USSR over 'papers please' and now we do it ourselves. This is not going to end well.

I suppose you believe Hoover didn't blackmail either Kennedy. https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security-technology-and-liberty/prospect-blackmail-nsa

Take a gander at this: https://www.aclu.org/meet-jack-or-what-government-could-do-all-location-data

Except that when collected in bulk, the metadata reveals your data. A few examples:

"Consider the following hypothetical example: A young woman calls her gynecologist; then immediately calls her mother; then a man who, during the past few months, she had repeatedly spoken to on the telephone after 11pm; followed by a call to a family planning center that also offers abortions. A likely storyline emerges that would not be as evident by examining the record of a single telephone call."

"The phone records indicating that someone called a sexual assault hotline or a tax fraud reporting hotline will of course not reveal the exact words that were spoken during those calls, but phone records indicating a 30-minute call to one of these numbers will still reveal information that virtually everyone would consider extremely private."

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/08/in-aclu-lawsuit-scientist-demolishes-nsa-its-just-metadata-excuse/

https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/2013.08.26_aclu_pi_brief_and_declarations.pdf

http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~felten/testimony-2013-10-02.pdf

Well, people are beginning to think about actual political action. OMFG!!! Those ACLU people and other freedom weirdos might get actual support if someone doesn't take charge of the narative.

The U.S. Constitution has absolutely fucking nothing to do with this because it didn't happen in the United States.

Are you suggesting it would if he had been in the USA?

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone
And: https://www.aclu.org/free-speech/free-speech-under-fire-aclu-challenge-protest-zones

Minor quibble, but I think simply saying "constitution free zones around the border" is a dramatic understatement since only the government thinks of the border of something as one hundred fucking miles from the actual edges of the US. Most Americans live in constitution free zones.

The Sixth Amendment says otherwise. Defendants have the right to a speedy trial.

As New York is within 100 miles of a border, coast, airport or child under the age of 19, the Constitution can and is safely ignored.

a) Have actually proven that this is not some 'cook something up to to get our ultra conservative readers their daily dose of outrage over their morning coffee' type story made up by a right wing rag.

I can't speak to the specific case, but if you think civil forfeiture is a figment of the right-wing imagination, you're dangerously ignorant about how the government operates.

It's been going on for decades, under both Democratic and Republican leadership. Basically, the state or federal government uses an obscure legal doctrine under which it accuses your property of a crime. Your property doesn't have the same due process and presumption of innocence rights you do, so it usually lose the case. You have to sue the government to get it back. You can guess how well that usually goes.

https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/easy-money-civil-asset-forfeiture-abuse-police

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/civil-asset-forfeiture

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2010/02/take_the_money_and_run.html

http://fear.org/victimindex.html

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/08/12/130812fa_fact_stillman

http://www.forbes.com/2011/06/08/property-civil-forfeiture.html

The GPS trackers are peanuts. Every squad car has a camera and a computer that reads every license plate it passes. It stores all of this in a massive database. They track EVERY care on the road with this. If you pass a cop, your position just got logged. They literally know where just about everyone is or was at any time unless you head way out in the country.

https://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty-national-security/virginia-state-police-used-license-plate-readers

We're probably about 10yrs away from the government knowing your position at all times via license plate scanning on cars, along roadways and monitoring stations that read cellphone wifi data. Not to mention the likelihood of GPS being required in cars to track "Millage" for "Tax purposes. The surveillance state is here, they are watching you. 1984 was a joke compared to what our children will face.

I know plenty of people who have been arrested. I have been arrested, detained, charged, the whole nine yards. I also know plenty of people who work in law enforcement. If anything, enforcement is too lax. It takes many, many, many encounters with law enforcement before someone ends up in prison. Even the drug crimes that everyone complains about (and do not get me wrong, I am not a fan of the war on drugs) usually end up with a series of slaps on the wrist, probation, community service, etc. Prison is often times a last resort, not in the least because of the costs involved in incarcerating someone.

Anecdotes are meaningless.

Increasingly long prison sentences, which have been adopted by many states over the past 20 years, have had a negligible effect on reducing crime rates. There is little evidence that higher incarceration rates result in lower crime rates in the first place.

In fact, more than half of all people released from prison return within three years.

One reason for this is that imprisonment, especially for lengthy sentences, destabilizes individuals, families and entire communities, which can create a dangerous recipe for higher crime rates.

Incarceration and related costs have quadrupled over the past 20 years and now account for a staggering 1 out of every 15 state discretionary fund dollars.

By 2007, states spent more than $44 billion on incarceration and related expenses, a 127% jump from 1987. Over this same period, spending on higher education rose just 21%, while the national prison population tripled.

Incarceration and related costs are the 2nd fastest growing category of state budgets; 90% of this spending goes to prisons.

By 2011, continued prison growth is expected to cost states an additional $25 billion.

Further reading:

In contrast, when examining crime rates, the percent of population that is imprisoned, and the recidivism rate in Nordic countries, the statistics demonstrate that Nordic penal systems are more successful at deterring future criminal activity when compared to the U.S. (Walmsley, 2008). The Nordic approach to punishment, the setup of their prisons, and the public perception of the purpose of the penal system are fundamentally different than the US. For example, when Norway implemented the prison model used in Denmark, Finland, and Sweden, the prison population dropped from 200 per 100,000 people in 1950 to 65 per 100,000 people in 2004 (Von Hofer, 2007). Similarly, an experimental Dutch prison was created to minimize costs and increase inmate success following release, where inmate rights are of paramount concern and the ultimate goal is to teach offenders that their choices have consequences, both good and bad (Kenis, Kruyen, Baaijens, & Barneveld, 2010). Though each Nordic countryâ(TM)s (i.e., Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark) laws and prison policies vary slightly, as a whole the Nordic penal system deviates from that of other countries with higher rates of incarceration and recidivism, resulting in more favorable outcomes for the rehabilitation and education of offenders.

You can believe that corporal punishment and long term prison sentences are the best option. Or you can do some cursory research. It's up to you.

Forget all this half-assed farting around.

Just return the law to the state it was before the 2005 Brand X SCOTUS ruling that neutered network neutrality.

Pretty much the entire Act as it currently stands. There's a lot of vaguely-worded clauses that grant nearly limitless authority and do not require disclosure of the reasons for many police actions. It would be relatively easy to stitch together what is being given up by these politicians from other parts of the Act and have yourself a new Franken-agency.

By removing permissions to do those things?
How does that get stitched into another agency?
You removed the permission, and you add a whole bunch of shall nots, so that there is nothing left to stitch.

Most of these things that you object to, limitless authority, gag orders, etc are the spawn of section 215.

This is the first of 12 such bills waiting in the wings.
This bill probably doesn't go near far enough, but Section 215 is one of the most dangerous sections of the entire law. Any amount of crippling that can be done to it is long overdue. I don't trust Sensenbrenner to do enough, and I hope his efforts aren't a sop to divert attention with the appearance of doing something.

Point taken. I guess this sums it up (from the horses mouth): https://www.aclu.org/free-speech/aclu-and-citizens-united

" Over the past decade Texas has convicted 51 people of voter fraud, according the state's Attorney General Greg Abbott. Only four of those cases were for voter impersonation, the only type of voter fraud that voter ID laws prevent.
Nationwide that rate of voter impersonation is even lower.
Out of the 197 million votes cast for federal candidates between 2002 and 2005, only 40 voters were indicted for voter fraud, according to a Department of Justice study outlined during a 2006 Congressional hearing. Only 26 of those cases, or about .00000013 percent of the votes cast, resulted in convictions or guilty pleas. "
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/voter-fraud-real-rare/story?id=17213376

And yet I'm sure you think having to wait 3 days to purchase a lethal weapon is a burdensome and onerous infringement on your 2nd amendment rights.

The US is using its national intelligence agencies to obtain intelligence on terrorists trying to kill people.

Yes, and obtaining intelligence on political movements like Occupy Wall Street.

The intelligence agencies themselves don't have police powers.

Oh? What's that you say? TFA is about warrantless surveillance undertaken by the FBI, which is the federal agency with explicit domestic police powers.

The suspect in this case is accused of assisting a terrorist group.

Under the USA PATRIOT Act, providing "material support" to a terrorist group can be as simple as expressing support for it. And having a terrorism suspect browse your web site is enough to spark a secret investigation of your organization which scares away many of the donors who keep it in operation.

East Germany's secret police had both an intelligence function and police powers.

The FBI, Secret Service, Drug Enforcement Agency, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, at least, are agencies with police powers and intelligence operations. Heck, even the NYPD is in on the deal.

Their primary purpose was to keep the East German Communist party in power.

Given that NSA snooping hasn't indisputably foiled even a single terrorist plot, and the FBI instigated virtually all of the "terrorist" plots they've busted, I have to wonder what is the primary purpose of these agencies. Surely not to intimidate political dissidents!

You could be arrested and imprisoned for such things as making jokes about the nation's leadership, wanting to form a new political party,

Here in the U.S., they've at least figured out that making jokes about the leadership is essentially harmless and does nothing to erode their power. If people started to rise up to challenge them, we might see that change; the architecture of oppression is in place. As for forming a new political party, it does no harm to talk of it, because it's essentially impossible due to the laws in most areas which protect the two incumbent parties.

being a member of an unapproved church,

Like a mosque?

trying to leave the country without permission (could get you shot on the spot)

It won't get you shot, but you apparently can't leave without permission. The U.S. apparently has more finesse than East Germany did.

and many other possible infractions.

There are plenty of other infractions that'll get you in trouble, like walking while black,

They're already in the back seat with license plate scanners, speed and red light cameras as well as toll tag devices that allow you to be tracked, all with varying degrees of protection and retention policies for the data. The ACLU has been trying to dig into this further and frankly, it's a mess and there's no consistency on policy. In some areas there's no policy, so presumably anybody could get information and they'll keep it forever. So while they're not tracking you moment to moment a determined police force could follow you via your patterns and information they already have without using a GPS.

The 4th Amendment needs its own unyielding ideologically pure NRA type organization because if there are no limits on government power, eventually it will start brutalizing people.

Hello, this is the ACLU calling, how can we help you?
*BEEP*
Howdy, this is the EFF, how can we help you?

You don't think America can do it better? Why do you hate America?

The same government that thinks you don't have privacy rights for your prescription medication? Is this a trick question? Of course, I don't think America can do it better.

If this is the case, why is it that most of these articles use phrases like "many of them belonging to Americans"? If it doesn't matter, why is the point made? The answer, of course, is that it does matter. That is, it matters to American law. For reference, see https://www.aclu.org/nsa-surveillance-procedures and highlight the word "Americans".

Speaking as a non-American, I think it shouldn't matter whether I'm American, Austrian, or Azerbaijani. We're all human and we all have the same rights. I find it offensive when I read these articles and there's always the "including Americans" tagged onto the article headline, like somehow it's OK if it's done to non-Americans. I realize it wouldn't be much different if any other country had been caught with their pants down. It's just that in this case it's the US (again).

There are plenty of reasons to go after low hanging fruit. The Rockefeller drug laws started almost all of this nonsense 40 years ago. Our government is run by large corporations who exploit an exploding prison population (e.g., modern-day slaves) for fun and profit: https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/bankingonbondage_20111102.pdf. Anyone who used SilkRoad is at risk of becoming one of those slave. Fact. Don't like it? Don't give corporations any more money than you have to and vote.

Obviously he is aware that the right belongs to...the defendant. Obviously an individual right can have a negative effect on society.

I fail to see where the right to not self-incriminate obviates a net negative effect on society. Please expound.

I suspect that you already know this, but I'll say it anyway because I like to hear myself talk. It makes me feel important.

I find your honesty refreshing.

The fact that you need to use the word "net" in the statement shows that there is some amount of good and some amount of bad that need to be calculated.

Not particularly; I use the term "net" because speaking in gross terms, one can make something that is actually innocuous seem detrimental. To me, net in this case means "once all is said and done, does it or does it not affect society in an objectively negative way?"

Not to say you don't have a point: In the words of H.L. Mencken (quoted elsewhere in the thread as well), "The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all."

It is "obviously" bad for society that guilty people sometimes get away with illegal activities (at least I hope it is obvious). It is also bad that innocent people sometimes are convicted of crimes that they did not commit. The "right to silence" makes it easier for the guilty to be acquitted - which is "bad" for society, but at the same time it makes it harder for the innocent to be convicted - which is "good" for society. To decide if the "net" result is good or bad we as a society need to decide what value each of those outcomes are and make a judgement based on that. Unfortunately it is hard to decide how much each of the outcomes is "worth", and then also take into account the larger effects on society that either outcome might have (if EVERYONE is fearful of talking to the police, that is probably a negative outcome for example). All of these calculations have different outcomes depending on time and place (different societies and communities within them can have different values of importance placed on these factors, and different reactions to similar or different situations).

Thus it is possible that having the "right to silence" could have a net negative effect on society. The fact that there are fully functional human societies that do not have this right enshrined in their legal systems should act as a counter example to the extreme position that lack of such a right would be completely catastrophic - but of course none of these societies are the same as the USA in every other respect beyond the "right to silence".

To me, regardless of banter and bloviations, it all boils down to Blackstone''s Formulation: "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer," for the suffering of that one individual is an affront to justice, and therefore society, as a whole. Therefore, having the out provided by the 5th, regardless of whether or not it is invoked by guilty parties, is a net positive.

I mean, when you think about the implementation, it's much better IMO to live in a country with a presumption of innocence and a right to not self incriminate, than to live somewhere that the government can beat the living shit out of you until you say what they want you to say.

To make a real study for it, we could randomly assign half the counties across the USA to being "5th Amendment Free" zones and see how things work out over a few decades. Maybe we should do the same thing with each of the amendments....

You mean they still let you guys plead the 5th in the Constitution-Free Zone? That's a surprise, considering.

Police officers are themselves civilians. Even if the militarization of the police has gotten way out of hand, they are still civilians. It is telling that they try to put themselves above citizens by pretending that they are not also civilians. If we let them pretend long enough, the distinction might become real.

https://www.aclu.org/blog/tag/militarization-police

uhm, the Prosecutors have pushed for and received broad, sweeping laws from Congress and the States that allow them to "crack down on crime." The problem is as the net has gotten bigger, there are cases everywhere where small fish get caught up and suffer tortuous charges for very petty things. That's how our Liberals and Conservatives in the country can sleep better at knight knowing that their jack-booted law enforcement is on the case. I had to hire an attorney a few years ago for my son because he decked a kid in school who'd taken a swing at him. He was facing a misdemeanor assault charge with up to a $4000 Fine and 6 months in jail. This was at 14 and happened because the schools are now treating petty incidents as crimes and it's happening all over the country because of the war on drugs and zero-tolerance policies. It's a direct result to make our schools "safe." https://www.aclu.org/racial-justice/arrested-futures-criminalization-school-discipline-massachusetts-three-largest-school

It doesn't make them safe and schools all over the country now resemble prisons in terms of their policies and on-site police to enforce bullshit. It's a great lesson to teach our youth. How about breaking your arm for leaving crumbs on the ground? Doodling on your desk? Flying a paper airplane?

Yet, you want more laws to reign in prosecutors? We have enough laws and enough police all wearing their swat gear and bullet proof vests all supplied with funds from the DHS. While we were sleeping, this nation became a Police State and from your rights on the street to the prosecutors the deck is stacked against you and while we fault the Prosecutors here, which they should be, we also have to remember that if there wasn't a set of laws on the book that they could charge him with there wouldn't be a problem. The CFAA is overly broad and needs to be changed, narrowed or eliminated but the risk here is that we could get worse legislation by that band of Retards on Capitol Hill. http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/hackers_hell_many_want_to_narrow_the_computer_fraud_and_abuse_act/

Swartz is one case, he at least had visibility. Think of all those souls in Prison who had a public defender and a plea deal lessening the charges or the duration of the sentence possibly faced. That's the game, build a case so big that if you go to trial the Prosecution by leveraging these vague laws will try to throw the book at you and put you away forever. That's why Aaron took the route he did, a big case, felony charges, years and years in prison and the Prosecution had the tools to do it. He should have put his faith in a Jury and the Legal Process and fought, instead he died and everybody is still debating it but not really doing anything about it. Why? Because we've become accustomed to all these new broad laws and powers we put in the hands of our government. That's so we're taking an active part in stopping crime. Crime is bad, so let's give the police and the prosecutors the tools they need to fight crime. The problem is broad-scoped laws can be used against you even though you send one too many e-mails or encourage to your members to do so.

It's time that the American public took back it's government and removed the Democrats and Republicans or at least took the approach of voting out all the incumbents. That's your last bastion of hope here folks because if you don't you'll get the same bunch of retards being re-elected over and over again and since they don't fear the voter, they'

I agree with most of your points but there's still the issue of public data sets that the governments either provide for a fee or are required to provide open access to by law. For example in most states when you buy a car, your state's department of motor vehicles will sell that information to anybody willing to pay for it. Oklahoma and Ohio ando other states for example sells residents personal data, along with your birth dates etc. to pretty much anyone to generate revenue. In most cases you can't opt out. Now if you take one of those anonymized data sets, like the census which includes economic and other demographic data it's pretty easy to tag somebody by name, what your home is worth, how much you make and so on. That's not conspiracy theory it's a fact and companies like Spokeo and Intelius make a lot of money mining public information that anybody can access for a nominal fee. Another area of big concern are license plate scanners which effectively catch every license plate they can, not just scofflaws with parking tickets or criminals and the data collected on your movements. Since it's local government agencies keeping that data, they know who you are. If you carry a cell phone along with that I could take that anonymous data and correlate your position from what the GPS tracked license plate scanner says and come up with a very, very close approximation of your location and what you do day in and day out. The problem is most of these enabling technologies are both a blessing and a curse and where your data privacy is concerned it' as you point out, like living in a small town where everybody knows your business. The problem is you don't know who's doing the talking behind your back or what they're talking about where you're concerned. Marketing is one thing but having my government track me just because I'm going about my daily, lawful routine is only 1 degree of separation from a totalitarian state. Cheap access to data and better and better mining techniques and algorithms are making this all possible, it's just that our legislators have either not kept up with it or have ignored our privacy in lieu of padding the coffers of the state or in the Federal governments case the "War on Terror" which also now means "The War on Drugs" ... and "The War on you."

The only way to stop it is to start enacting a privacy bill of rights and start to hold the assholes in the Federal and State Governments accountable for keeping your private data truly private. The NSA needs to be abolished, completely; there is no level of public trust that can be re-attained by an agency of guys thinking that they're James T. Kirk.

That's a common argument that is told to conservatives to convince them that the ACLU is an evil liberal organization who should be hated. It was, as you point out, originally created to defend Communists from unconstitutional harassment, but that had a lot to do with the fact that Communists and people with communist ideas were unconstitutionally targeted by the US government from about 1880 until about 1990.

Some examples of causes the ACLU has helped protect their civil rights:
- National Socialist Party of America.
- Westboro Baptist Church
- atheist Michael Newdow
- NAMBLA
- Anyone who drives
- Anyone who wants to be able to view adult images on the Internet
- Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KT)
- An ISP that didn't want to spy for the government

I think the totalitarian sickness Schneier describes goes well beyond the NSA. Computers and especially mobile devices are becoming creepy, for lack of a better word, even without government intervention. They are the prying eyes in your house Harriton High School Used Laptop Webcams To SPY On Students At Home, they are following your every move Government Location Tracking: Cell Phones, GPS Devices, and License Plate Readers, they are keeping tabs on what you like and don't like Mapping, and Sharing, the Consumer Genome (featured on slashdot yesterday, itself a thinly veiled phishing scam IMHO). Although subject to government abuse, none of the "services" highlighted in those links were instigated by the government. Just yesterday I was innocuously checking for prices for various professional training seminars on Google, and on cue my Email inbox started overflowing with unsolicited offers. On some days, I want to throw my smartphone in the trash and unplug my computer from the internet and only plug it back in when I need to access the SVN repository.

So Kudos to Bruce Schneier for addressing his call to the engineering community, but now it begs a question: aren't engineers, including those outside the NSA/DEA/FBI, somewhat responsible for creating this creepy user experience? I don't think they're suddenly going to wake up one day and fix it; a significant subset has embraced the creepiness and fundamentally doesn't understand why it might be a problem for others.

Warrant? They don't need no stinking warrant. They can do what ever they want have it justified in one of a hundred ways from "War on Drugs" to "you live 100 miles from the border", or the the nebulous "probable cause".

They could just say that you are a 'terrorist' and all is forgiven because 9/11.

ACLU doesn't defend 2nd Amendment cases because their resources are limited and the NRA is there & well-funded for just that purpose.

WRONG The ACLU does not defend 2nd Amendment rights because they do not believe it is an individual right. The believe it is a collective right of the states to have a national guard.

From www.aclu.org: the ACLU has long taken the position that the Second Amendment protects a collective right rather than an individual right.

"You do know that all amendments are not equals,"

When it comes to the first 10 amendments, I know no such thing. Because, in fact, it isn't true. All of the first 10 Amendments have equal status in law and in principle.

"... and that people have the right to prefer some over others, right"

Certainly. But that has nothing to do with my point.

The ACLU says this:

"The Second Amendment provides: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Given the reference to "a well regulated Militia" and "the security of a free State," the ACLU has long taken the position that the Second Amendment protects a collective right rather than an individual right. For more information, please read our statement on the Second Amendment."

And yet... political and legal history, including notes from our Founders as well as common law, all establish that this is simply not true. The right to bear arms -- as recently re-affirmed by the Supreme Court a couple of years ago -- is an INDIVIDUAL right. There is really no question as to this. It is made clear both by the historical record and the highest court in the land. Therefore, they base their position on a lie, and it IS hypocritical.

I did not say they had no right to take that position. What I stated was that it makes them hypocrites. It does.

That is admittedly better than how the NRA counts to 10... 2.

You do grasp that the National Rifle Association has a rather more narrowly defined mission than the American Civil Liberties Union, right?

I've never understood comments like yours--the NRA defends other civil liberties incidental to the exercise of the 2nd (for example, their support of Citizens United was an instance of supporting the first amendment as a means of supporting the second). The ACLU is supposed to stand for ALL civil liberties. It self describes itself thusly: The ACLU is our nation's guardian of liberty, working daily in courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country. It's lack of support--indeed, it's hostility toward-- the second amendment is in complete opposition to its stated goals (largely because of its identification as a "right wing" issue).

I don't like some of the things that the ACLU does, but in general I see them as a force for "good." The reason I won't support them is their hypocrisy on this issue. The reasoning they use to claim the 2nd amendment is a "collective right" can be applied to any other right enjoyed by "the people," and that's downright dangerous.

Please note, that I don't believe the ACLU needs to be out there defending gun rights cases--given their broad mission, I don't think this would be the best use of their resources. But a simple statement along the lines of, "we support the right of the people to keep and bear arms, and refer those seeking our assistance to one of the many single issue organizations in this area" would go a long way toward bringing gun owners back into the fold.

In 2006, the ACLU of Washington State joined with a pro-gun rights organization, the Second Amendment Foundation, and prevailed in a lawsuit against the North Central Regional Library District (NCRL) in Washington for its policy of refusing to disable restrictions upon an adult patron's request. Library patrons attempting to access pro-gun web sites were blocked, and the library refused to remove the blocks...

In light of the Supreme Court's Heller decision recognizing that the Constitution protects an individual right to bear arms, ACLU of Nevada took a position of supporting "the individual's right to bear arms subject to constitutionally permissible regulations" and pledged to "defend this right as it defends other constitutional rights".[298] Since 2008, the ACLU has increasingly assisted gun owners recover firearms that have been seized illegally by law enforcement.

wiki Even more relevant and recently, they opposed creating a national database of background checks this year, evidently because of medical information.

The point is: of course the authorities know that TrueCrypt can have a hidden partition. Therefore, they throw you in jail until you produce two working passwords. So you better be prepared to hand over two passwords, or your trip will last a bit longer than expected.

You seem to be laboring under the impression that you would have some sort of rights that would prevent that sort of thing, that they'd need some sort of proof of something? Not if you're in the constitution-free zone, where most Americans live.

The opinion and order explains that in detail.

https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/latif_v_holder_opinion_and_order.pdf

1. Right to Travel

Plaintiffs contend the government has deprived them of their protected liberty interest in travel. In Kent v. Dulles, 357 U.S. 116 (1958), the Supreme Court held “[t]he right to travel is part of the ‘liberty’ of which the citizen cannot be deprived without due process of law under the Fifth Amendment.” Id. at 125.

As noted by the Ninth Circuit, “the [Supreme] Court has consistently treated the right to international travel as a liberty interest that is protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.” DeNieva v. Reyes, 966 F.2d 480, 485 (9th Cir. 1992)(emphasis added)(citing Aptheker v. Sec’y of State, 378 U.S. 500, 505-08 (1964), and Califano v. Aznavorian, 439 U.S. 170, 176 (1978)). In DeNieva the plaintiff brought a claim under 42 U.S.C. 1983 after her passport was seized by government officials. The Ninth Circuit held the plaintiff had a right under the Fifth Amendment to travel internationally, and that right could not be deprived without a post-deprivation hearing. 966 F.2d. at 485.

Although Defendants do not dispute the United States Constitution affords procedural due-process protection to an individual’s liberty interest in travel, Defendants rely heavily on Gilmore v. Gonzales, 435 F.3d 1125 (9th Cir. 2006), and Green v. Transp. Sec. Admin., 351 F. Supp. 2d 1119 (W.D. Wash. 2005), to support their position that there is not a constitutional right to travel by airplane or to access the most convenient form of travel. In Gilmore the plaintiff challenged the government’s airline passenger identification policy as unconstitutional, alleging the policy violated his right to travel because he could not travel by commercial airline without presenting identification. The Ninth Circuit rejected plaintiff’s argument because “the Constitution does not guarantee the right to travel by any particular form of transportation.” 435 F.3d at 1136. The court also found the “burden” imposed by the challenged identification policy was not unreasonable. Id. at 1137. The plaintiffs in Green alleged they were innocent passengers without links to terrorist activity, but they had names similar or identical to names on the No Fly List and had been mistakenly identified by airport personnel as the individuals whose names appeared on that list. As a result, the plaintiffs were subjected to enhanced security screening. None of the plaintiffs ever missed a flight or were subjected to heightened screening for more than an hour. 351 F. Supp. 2d at 1122. The court denied the plaintiffs’ procedural due-process claim and held the plaintiffs did not have a right to travel throughout the United States “without any impediments whatsoever.” Id. at 1130.

The Court finds Green and Gilmore are distinguishable from this case for a number of reasons. These cases involve burdens on the right to interstate travel as opposed to international travel. Although there are perhaps viable alternatives to flying for domestic travel within the continental United States such as traveling by car or train, the Court disagrees with Defendants’ contention that international air travel is a mere convenience in light of the realities of our modern world. Such an argument ignores the numerous reasons an individual may have for wanting or needing to travel overseas quickly such as for the birth of a child, the death of a loved one, a business opportunity, or a religious obligation. In Ibrahim v. Department of Homeland Security the Northern District of California recently rejected an argument similar to the one made by Defendants here:

While the Constitution does not ordinarily guarantee the right to travel by any particular form of transportation

These problems were discussed in detail in the Opinion and Order.

https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/latif_v_holder_opinion_and_order.pdf

Many of these Plaintiffs cannot travel overseas by any way other than air because such journeys by boat or by land would be cost-prohibitive, would be time-consuming to a degree that Plaintiffs could not take the necessary time off from work, or would put Plaintiffs at risk of interrogation and detention by foreign authorities. In addition, some Plaintiffs are not physically well enough to endure such infeasible modes of travel.

Amayan Latif: Latif is a United States Marine Corps veteran and lives in Stone Mountain, Georgia, with his wife and children. Between November 2008 and April 2010 Latif and his family were living in Egypt. In April 2010 Latif and his family attempted to return to the United States. Latif was not allowed to board the first leg of their flight from Cairo to Madrid. One month later Latif was questioned by FBI agents and told he was on the No Fly List. Because he was unable to board a flight to the United States, Latif’s United States veteran disability benefits were reduced from $899.00 per month to zero because he could not attend the scheduled evaluations required to continue his benefits. In August 2010 Latif returned home after the United States government granted him a “one-time waiver” to fly to the United States. Because he cannot fly, Latif is unable to travel from the United States to Egypt to resume studies or to Saudi Arabia to perform a hajj, a religious pilgrimage and Islamic obligation.

How many of those countries have an NDAA and allow their citizens to be militarily imprisoned without a trial?

Once there is a need, there is a way to accomplish this in every country I know. The usual workaround is to rendite them or give them a mickey mouse trial.

How many of those countries have a "constitution free" zone that covers most of their population?

How many of those countries *have* a constitution, let alone one with any real world effect.

How many of those countries have continue to hold innocent prisoners cleared for release a la Gitmo?

The ones with that kind of needs have 'their' prisoners at Gitmo or the like.

How many of those countries have openly assassinated one of their citizens for engaging in protected speech?

Which countries do have protected speech to begin with? Really, the right of free speech is far less limited in many other countries. Usually it is that all speech is forbidden, except for a list of exceptions. Or that *speech* is ok, but anything printed (or online) it is no longer *speech* and needs approval (or someone they can throw in prison for publishing it).

You're either snarking the shit out of us, have limited to your travels to places like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, or have a terminal case of American Exceptionalism.

My counterarguments are based on Sweden.

The devil is in the details. The US has many freedoms other countries don't have. But also many problems (like with terrorists) that other countries don't have.