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NSA (partially) Declassified
Lally Singh writes "Posted yesterday on the National Security Archives was the NSA's "Transition 2001" report, prepared as an introductory report for President Bush (II)'s incoming administration. "The largest U.S. spy agency warned the incoming Bush administration in its 'Transition 2001' report that the Information Age required rethinking the policies and authorities that kept the National Security Agency in compliance with the Constitution's 4th Amendment prohibition on 'unreasonable searches and seizures' without warrant and 'probable cause,' according to an updated briefing book of declassified NSA documents posted today on the World Wide Web.""
The 4th clearly wasn't tough enough. It is simply all to esay to make up phony causes "like the war on drugs", like "catching terrorists" as an excuse to do anything they want. The 4th should have been much more demanding, and demanded harsh punishment for those who do anything that has the effect of weakening it.
Before anyone points out that now we'll find out the truth about the infamous NSAKEY in Windows or some dirty little secrets of Bush administration, I would like to remind you that according to Bruce Schneier "algorithms from the NSA are considered a sort of alien technology: They come from a superior race with no explanations."
Isn't that quote from the days when cryptography research was still behind the classified organizations?
The most important implication of declassifying NSA would be a better understanding of the mysterious rationale of many of NSA decisions in crypto algorithms, because even many aspects of DES remain a mystery to this day.
What?! Which aspects would these be?
So please stop the explosion of crackpot conspiracy theories and focus on the most important issue: cryptoanallysis.
That would be "cryptanalysis." Also, that statement doesn't make any sense.
Freedom is never "won". It's not a battle that you fight, win, and from then on people can enjoy the victory.
It's always, ALWAYS hanging by a thread.
Every generation will have to keep fighting for it, over and over, until the end of time.
Those who look at things like Nazism as freak accidents are only fooling themselves. Oppressive governments are the rule, not the exception in history. People are easily convinced, either quickly in harsh circumstances, or in slow, careful and quiet measures in good times, to at first not care about others, and then not care about themselves.
Even if you're lucky enough to live in a country whose founding is based on some good ideals, you've still got to realize, that country will spend the rest of its history struggling to get anywhere near living up to those ideals.
I find it interesting that with all of the flag waving, and beating of drums to "protect America", we never hear urgent discussion of the greatest threat this country has ever faced.
If blowing up a building is terrorism, surely attempting to evicerate the Constitution and sacrificing every thing that makes the U.S. worth protecting is high treason!
If the terrorists goal is to destroy the American way of life, what does that say about those federal agencies and Congresscritters that are so anxious to dismantle the principles of the American way of life?
If terrorism is the deliberate creation of fear in the civillain population to further a political goal, what does that say about DHS's perminant orange alert telling us to be afraid.
What does the fact that I wonder if I should post this anonymously say?
Hey, it's ok officer, I shot him with a hand gun, not a rocket launcher.
good argument.
The accellerating attacs on civil liberties and human rights, in particular under Bush II, are very worrysome. The new General Attorney is the very same man that wrote in a memorandum that the Geneva Convention is obsolete when it come to "the war on terror". That torture could be done. Who are now the bad guys? It's sure is getting confusing :
...let's keep in mind that the NSA exists for a reason, and that reason is important.
/. tends to drift into Pollyanna-land where the only thing we have to fear is those 'debbils' in government that want to take our freedoms away. No. Let's keep our priorities straight and remember that while overzealous policemen certainly need to be disciplined and corrected, they are STILL the "good guys" as long as you are realistic and remember the really BAD alternatives out there.
In the same sense that tinfoil-hatters are constantly alert to the possibilty that "they are watching us", the NSA exists because there are countries and organizations and individuals whose interests ARE inimical to the United States. It shouldn't have to be said this shortly after the Cold War, or even Sept 11, but the security agencies of the United States have a serious and IMPORTANT function.
Do they go overboard? Once in a while, no question they exceed their mandate, usually from an overzealous interpretation of their duties. Yes, it's important to find a careful compromise between secrecy and oversight REQUIRED by a free society.
However, I think occasionally
-Styopa
The NSA warned Bush that action must be taken to protect the 4t amendment.
..
Bush then passed the Patriot Act, with effectively suspends the 4th amendment (and 6th).
And the American people said
"thank you thank you! please take more of my inaliable rights away from me so I can feel safe from the enemies my government makes for itself!"
The average american decided it was ok to allow their fellow citizens to be arrested and held without charge, without being allowed to see a lawyer or even notify family. As long as the thousands of citizens that were now being abused was not them personally, then who cares.
When really, they should have carried out their own Constitutional Responsibility to fight for those rights to the point of overthrowing Bush.
But the average american stopped thinking they need to act on their responsibilities a few decades ago when suing everyone for any stupid reason became the norm.
America has died at the hands of its own people. Welcome back to 1930's Germany.
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
The House of Representatives did. The US Senate did by a margin 98-2 or similar. Even John Kerry voted for it and never went back to vote against it.
Kinda like the Kyoto Accords - they went down in the US Senate 95-0.
Hell, the US declaration of war against Japan after Pearl Harbor had more opposition.
That's well-documented, and horrific. It also has nothing to do with detainees in Afghanistan.
If I was a soldier there and someone was laughing about blowing up cafe's full of children promising he will one day do it again, you know I might just beat him to death too, on accident
Well, then I'm glad you're not a soldier there. Not for high ideals, but because it makes ME less safe.
Torture produces bad intelligence. People will say anything to make it stop.
Public knowledge that we torture and kill prisoners is also a fine recruitment tool for terrorists.
Rack one up for gullible Slashdot readers who moderated this guy's B.S. as interesting, I guess as B.S. goes it is interesting, but it is B.S. or a troll. I'll let half of this obnoxious grand standing go but these deserve some attention:
"1) The NSA is the most likely to be concerned about "unreasonable searches and seizures" and other Bill of Rights issues. The FBI and CIA routinely take the "extreme circumstance" route and use common loopholes to justify citizen and non-citizen monitoring. I would argue, however, that I have yet to see an ill-intented abuse of their power."
You must be working a technicality, like you haven't physically "seen" the abuse but the DOD, NSA, FBI and CIA have all engaged in well documented and proven abuses of their powers over the years. They haven't been nailed lately but that is only because we are living in, for all practical purposes, a one party state, and the Republican's especially since 9/11 has been literally letting these agencies get away with murder. For example the Pentagon last week investigated itself and amazingly found itself innocent of ordering or condoning torture, though there are documented cases of varying degress of torture going on across the globe, far to widespread to be rogue national gaurdsmen. When abuse is this wide spread in the military either the chain of command is ordering or condoning it, or there is massive deriliciton of duty in the chain of command, the officers and civilian leadership, in letting it happen on such a large scale.
When you say something this blatantly and provably false it so undermines your credibility, we can safely assume the rest of your post is either a troll or B.S. too.
"2) Members from all branches of the Department of Defense are active Slashdot readers and contributers. They just never talk about what they do and some use "Tor" to post from work."
Not sure I follow why they anyone in the DOD would be using Tor to post to this silly little web site. Not like anyone on Slashdot is tracking their IP address. If someone is using Tor from a DOD facility with DOD's blessing, and posting on Slashdot or anywhere else, it tends to suggest they must be part of the DOD's rapidly growing propaganda machine, so you can't believe a thing they say. I have no doubt people from all branches of government read and post here, SO WHAT. If they post anything controversial or sensitive, from a government facility, they are just begging to be fired. I'm sure the DOD can read everything they are posting, and Tor isn't going to make any difference. Not sure I've ever read any post on Slashdot that rose to a level of importance the DOD would ever care.
"5) There is one member of the CIA that is single-handedly responsible for saving us from the plan devised by Jose Padilla. Unfortunately, they will never get the credit they deserve. It only took one person to say, "Why is this American talking with Abu Zubaydah twice?"."
Whatever Padilla was planning, if anything, wasn't nearly as dangerous as the precedent being set by the Bush administration in how they've abused his most basic civil liberties in arresting and detaining indefinitely, in isolation in a military brig in South Carolina. The Bush administration is seeking, through Padilla, to establish a precedent where the executive branch can arrest any American citizen, anywhere and deprive him or her of all of the most basic constitutional protections we thought we had in this country. In particular American citizens have a right to an attorney, a right to be charged, and a right to a speedy trial, and to be imprisoned only if found guilty by a jury of their peers. If Padilla is guilty of something, charge him, prove it, get a conviction or let him go.
The Supreme Court, spineless politicians that they are have passed on hearing his case on technicalities leaving this precedent in place for two years. A federal judge a week or two ago ruled the executive branch has NO constitutional authority to arrest, and hold in ind
@de_machina
Anybody who understands the historical context of the Geneva Convention would agree that it is obsolete. Read the bloody document, then come back and participate in the discussion.
I read it. It's not obsolete. It's only called "obsolete" by certain people who want to justify their "need" for systematical torture.
The Geneva Convention was designed for exactly the kind of crisis that we face, namely large-scale conflicts where a lot of people are threatened by certain forces. While it wasn't specifically written for the case of terrorism, its teleological ideas of human rights hold up, and it's the duty of democrat (as in "believes in the democratic system", not as in the political party) to rise up against a government pulling human rights through the dirt, for a very unspecific "war on terror" with badly defined targets.
Make no mistake, times will come where the US government will be punished for their self-righteousness they currently show to the world.
A monkey is doing the real work for me.