Google Asks Government For More Transparency, Other Groups Push Back Against NSA

Nerval's Lobster writes "In an open letter addressed to U.S. attorney general Eric Holder and FBI director Robert Mueller, Google chief legal officer David Drummond again insisted that reports of his company freely offering user data to the NSA and other agencies were untrue. 'However,' he wrote, 'government nondisclosure obligations regarding the number of FISA national security requests that Google receives, as well as the number of accounts covered by those requests, fuel that speculation.' In light of that, Drummond had a request of the two men: 'We therefore ask you to help make it possible for Google to publish in our Transparency Report aggregate numbers of national security requests, including FISA disclosures—in terms of both the number we receive and their scope.' Apparently Google's numbers would show 'that our compliance with these requests falls far short of the claims being made.' Google, Drummond added, 'has nothing to hide.'" Another open letter was sent to Congress from a variety of internet companies and civil liberties groups (headlined by Mozilla, the EFF, the ACLU, and the FSF), asking them to enact legislation to prohibit the kind of surveillance apparently going on at the NSA and to hold accountable the people who implemented it. (A bipartisan group of senators has just come forth with legislation that would end such surveillance.) In addition to the letter, the ACLU sent a lawsuit as well, directed at President Obama, Eric Holder, the NSA, Verizon and the Dept. of Justice (filing, PDF). They've also asked (PDF) for a release of court records relevant to the scandal. Mozilla has also launched Stopwatching.us, a campaign to "demand a full accounting of the extent to which our online data, communications and interactions are being monitored." Other reactions: Tim Berners-Lee is against it, Australia's Foreign Minister doesn't mind it, the European Parliament has denounced it, and John Oliver is hilarious about it (video). Meanwhile, Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who leaked the information about the NSA's surveillance program, is being praised widely as a hero and a patriot. There's already a petition on Whitehouse.gov to pardon him for his involvement, and it's already reached half the required number of signatures for a response from the Obama administration.

Comments

Glad to see some real pushback

[GodfatherofSoul]

Keep writing your Congressmen AND your local media outlets. Actually, write a letter, email it again, then call and leave a brief message about the same topic. And, make it clear that you will vote them out on that issue. They do cave in when they think their jobs are on the line.

Re:Glad to see some real pushback

[dunng808]

David Drummond got it just right. I do think wide scale monitoring should stop, but shedding some light on what really is happening is necessary to gain the voter's trust.

Big Government is more than just government. These are people, with agendas, who will abuse their power to achieve their personal objectives, wrapped in a shroud of doing what's right for the country. Then there is political party affiliation, where too often people are loyal to the point of treading on their opponents rights. Big Government puts power in the hands of individual people, and that is where it is abused.

Re:Glad to see some real pushback

[girlintraining]

They do cave in when they think their jobs are on the line..

But they aren't. Everyone in every national-level election for the past twenty years has had their campaign paid for by the same people, often these same people (and groups) sponsored both candidates. And when they leave Congress, they'll have a job waiting for them with one of those groups... on one condition: They don't listen to you or your concerns.

The most we get anymore now from public outrage is this -- open letters that basically say "Nothing is wrong and we're working to fix it as quickly as possible!"

Re:Glad to see some real pushback

[meta-monkey]

And remember...they didn't do anything illegal, and it's only bad if it's illegal.

Re:Glad to see some real pushback

[Greyfox]

It's just because they got caught. We were all screaming about Carnivore back in the 90's and no one listened. The histronics associated with the realization that various TLAs are listening to all communications are disingenuous at best or the result of really, really bad journalists at worst. This story is not a story. It was a story two decades ago.

Re:Glad to see some real pushback

[houghi]

And YOU should write. Do not let companies defend your rights, because they are not interested in them.
Do not say later: we didn't know.

Re:Glad to see some real pushback

[Charliemopps]

David Drummond got it just right.

David Drummond got it completely wrong. He's either openly lieing or an idiot. The NSA doesn't have to let Google know they are taking data from them. If the NSA thinks they have the legal authority, they'll just plant their own DBAs at google, give themselves API access and run whatever queries they want against their data anytime they want. It's not like Google could tell given the amount of transactions they're likely seeing in a day. Likely the only reason Google ever sees a FISA request is because the data needs to be used in court.

There is an active and concerted effort to play down what's actually happened here. Remember that the united states spends 80 BILLION dollars on intelligence a year. They have several data centers that dwarf even Google in size. They pull more power than most large cities to run them. Do you really think this is limited to a few thousand or even hundred thousand data requests per year? The feds have access to all the data... from every large company... they are storing it, querying it, and likely doing all of this without a court order. Our government is completely out of control, this has to stop, and it's up to them to prove they've limited their surveillance, it's not up to us to trust them.

Re:Glad to see some real pushback

[Anonymous Coward]

Big Government is more than just government.

  “Collection directly from the servers of these U.S. Service Providers: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube [and] Apple.” (NSA Presentation)

In the US, your problem is that you have fascism, not big government.

Re:Glad to see some real pushback

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Then there is political party affiliation, where too often people are loyal to the point of treading on their opponents rights.

I want to comment on this point specifically because what you wrote is a common misunderstanding of such events. Their political opponents are just collateral damage - they are treading on the right of the citizenry to have a fair and representative government. Such actions are a crime against all of us regardless of party affiliation because they are essentially an attack on the democratic process itself.

Re:Glad to see some real pushback

[Frobnicator]

And remember...they didn't do anything illegal, and it's only bad if it's illegal.

That is where it gets tricky.

It is easy to jump to conclusions, but just like any other technical field, you need to pay attention to the legal details.

Technically what they did is legal. It is a loophole that has been in place for two centuries, ever since the Bill of Rights came into effect.

Police found early on that they cannot compel the person to give up their own records, so they went for business records on the people. For example, if you want to get evidence of tax evasion you don't audit the individual, you get their bank records and other business records. The individual's own records are of very little value to the government. Other examples are your credit report (it is not your data, it is the credit bureau's data), and medical history (it is not your data, it is the hospital's data). They followed the legal steps to compel businesses to give up information about you.

In that respect, they did follow the law. The spy organizations went to the courts, got a court order demanding business records, and executed the order. The codified law allows those requests, and the individual requests are legal. Congress knew about it, they made it legal. The courts knew about it, they have ruled on it many times. The spy agencies knew about it, they helped craft the laws. That is the law, and they followed it.

So leads to the difficulty.

Collecting some records is normally fine. That is how government has operated for two centuries now: Go to the courts, get a rubber stamp, get data from a business. For example, phone records may tie you (or your phone) to a crime. Police get a court's rubber stamp, get the record of an individual call from the phone company and proceed with their investigation. This is a long-established acceptable pattern.

The law allows for collection of all kinds of data. Collecting all records in aggregate CAN mean something different than individual records. Collecting every record means you CAN track associations and assembly (First Amendment) and your general security (Fourth Amendment). It is a little shaky because they didn't directly interfere with the rights of the individual. The aggregate data MAY be used that way. But just because something CAN happen and MAY be done, but so far nobody can PROVE they were used to actually violate either set of constitutional rights.

Without that proof, this is a very broad but still perfectly legal demand for data. Hence the difficulty under the law.

Although I can easily argue that mass collection of data violates the First and Fourth, I am unable to draw a line between where obtaining some records is legal (and it needs to be legal for the system to work) and where it is enough that it violates the constitution. That line needs to be figured out.

Re:Glad to see some real pushback

[Anonymous Coward]

David Drummond got it just right. I do think wide scale monitoring should stop, but shedding some light on what really is happening is necessary to gain the voter's trust.

Why should that be necessary? All that should be needed is a single judge to say that general warrants are unconstitutional. In the opinion, the judge could note that general warrants were one of the causes of the Revolutionary War. The judge could go on and say that the Virginia Declaration of Rights expressly forbid general warrants, which was then used to inspire the 4th Amendment. The judge would finally say that anybody who used general warrants should be tarred and feathered, just like the Founding Fathers would have done. Finally, the judge would note that fundamental freedoms are not subject to the whim of voters. This is why we have a Constitution.

Re:Glad to see some real pushback

[VortexCortex]

Soooo... In other words, we should trust our government.... to always be doing bad in everything they do.

I completely agree. How about this: Science. They make a claim some bill is good for us, we actually test the hypothesis and either keep or repeal the acts and laws if they are not beneficial, i.e. if there's no appreciable difference, then they get repealed because: Less rules = easier to understand system. We need to do this for every law on the book. Seems like what we need is science. I would start with three lettered agencies, followed by copyrights and patents. We have Zero evidence that they are beneficial. It would be irresponsible to continue running the wold on untested unproven hypotheses.

Re:Glad to see some real pushback

[postbigbang]

I'm not sure where you got "trust our government" out of that, but there'll be no clean sweep of anything. There will be kicking and screaming and feet dragging and lots of weird jingoistic aphorisms kicked around for a while.

Then it will continue, perhaps slightly hobbled. I'm not saying that I agree that it should continue, rather, the reality is you're up against very serious money and lots of misguided do-gooders here.

The worst problem: people now mistrust their governments more than ever. Transparency is in the crapper. It's not like we geeks didn't realize this was likely decades ago, rather, it's the revelation that once again, our worst fears are realized-- by our own paid officials.

Re:Glad to see some real pushback

[multi io]

The question I've been asking myself is this: Snowden claims that he could "get your emails, passwords, phone records, credit cards", i.e. that NSA analysts can tap into pretty much any communication and read pretty much any mail that anyone sends. If that's true, why didn't he prove that to the Guardian people before he blew his cover? If I imagine I was someone who could read anyone's mail at will, and I wanted to expose myself to an outside reporter, the least I would do is show that reporter some emails that he wrote to his wife last week, or something. Just to prove my allegations.

If it's really true that the NSA essentially has random access to any Gmail/Apple/MS mail, this means that they either have a direct back door into Google's datacenters, or they're intercepting the communication at some backbone routers (which would probably imply a considerable additional load on the routers' CPUs, and they would have to have the private key to Google's server certificate (or the signing certificate, if they were to perform MITM attacks) -- I think it's well-nigh impossible to do those things in secret for a large number of connections and for an extended period of time). Frankly, I have a hard time believing that this is really what's going on.

Re:Glad to see some real pushback

[meta-monkey]

Because the line is a general versus specific warrant. The founding fathers did not want the king's men able to, under orders from the king, kicking in door after to door to see if you're doing anything wrong. So you need a specific warrant from a judge. "We have probable cause to believe this named guy is doing this illegal thing and so we're going to search this place for this object."

And the judge can't just rubber stamp it because when the evidence obtained via the warrant is used in the trial, if the warrant was obtained or used improperly, the evidence can be thrown out. That stamp is a safeguard for the citizen, and a check on the power of government, because executive officers (police) who either seek or use warrants improperly are liable to be fired.

But this is not that. This is a general warrant. This is "all phone records," not just "phone records of terror suspect Abdul from time A to time B."

And there's several ways to use this data, all of which are horrible in a "free" society.

1) The precedent is set. No judicial oversight is required to be declared an "enemy combatant." Holder has informed us that "due" process is required, but that is not necessarily a judicial process. A process of the President deciding "that guy's an enemy combatant" exists (by saying so), so that's all legal. And once you're an enemy combatant, you can be detained indefinitely, tortured, and executed (via drone), even if you're a US citizen. And nobody will give a shit, and it will all be legal.

2) Via the spying, "legal" metadata or "illegal" actual data, they identify you as an undesirable. Perhaps you're actually engaged in something illegal they'd like to stop. A whisper to an FBI agent, "hey, watch that guy." Then the FBI gets a legal warrant, busts you, and the fact that they knew to start watching you because of the super secret NSA spying is unknown and basically irrelevant.

3) Same as 2, but perhaps you're just a political dissident or a critic of the administration or the NSA. Or maybe you cut an NSA agent off in traffic. Who knows. Since everything is now illegal, you're always doing something wrong. They just have to find it, and since they know everything you've done, everywhere you've been, everyone you've talked to, everything you've bought and everything you've sold and every picture of your dick you've texted. What to do what to do...arrest you for violating the terms of use of a website via the CFAA like Aaron Schwartz? Audit your taxes like a Tea Partier? Reveal your affair to your wife? Make your boss aware of how much time you're spending on Slashdot? Somebody could ruin your life in all sorts of ways. Those ways might be "illegal" but how would you know that's how or why you were ruined?

It is point and click tyranny.

Re:Glad to see some real pushback

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

> This story is not a story. It was a story two decades ago.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't take the opportunity to fix the problem. Who cares if the shit is fresh, its still shit that needs to be flushed out.

Re:Glad to see some real pushback

[MickLinux]

Or that they have gotten CPU manufacturers to add back doors there, or that Google IS NSA, or that they arepretty much able to bully whom they want --and do (remember Paulson bullying the president of Bank of America into doing what was good for Paulson, against his fiduciary responsibilities to shareholders), or that the NSA can crack the strong encryption that we have.

Honsestly, I don't think that last is likely: it is too hard compared to the others. But I named only a few of many possibilities.

What's the worry? Carnivore was as bad when we were growing up. Worry should be reserved for things you can do something about.

See, Snowden's big mistake was not having step 2 in place: 1) reveal all the horrible things being done by the wicked, 2)??+ 3) freedom, justice, and the American way.

But to get there from here, you can't just have ought tos and shoulddas. And to wrest power from an evil organization like the NSA takes organization and greater evil. So if you succeed, all you are left with is greater evil. You can't get there from here.

So whistleblowing is no good. It doesn't work. Nor does revolution, or civil disobedience... take a lesson from The Rise And Fall of the Roman empire. When Rome fell, no slave revolt did it. Rather, the Roman Senate in a normal gesture of magnanimity, voted to feed the Vandals and then voted to contract the job to a corrupt Senator who was supposed to steal most of the money. Idiot stole it all,, and the vandals came into Rome looking for the promised food.as they left, the slaves went with them rather than starve, and Rome's economy...

Stopped.

So much for Rome.

Honestly, just wait it out. And forget the whistleblower protection laws. They're a low tech version of the honeypot.

Meanwhile, though, yeah, I stillwent over to whitehouse.gov and signed both petitions: Snowden AND Manning.

Re:Glad to see some real pushback

[c0lo]

Soooo... In other words, we should trust our government.... to always be doing bad in everything they do

Not necessarily. The healthy position is: never trust a government to do the right thing - always keep them in check. This is how the democracy works and the only chance to maintain a working democracy (this is why govt secrecy is bad). If you think it's expensive or dangerous, you are welcome to try the lack of democracy.

Note the difference to: always trust them to do the wrong thing - so let's throw a riot or a revolution every time they do something/anything.

Facebook and Google and the NSA

[bl968]

I have been thinking about the claims by Facebook and Google that no government agencies have direct access to their servers, and that is likely quite correct.

What they do most likely have, is a tap point on Facebook's and Google's networks which can then snoop on all traffic between their servers and their users and visa versa then ship it off en masse to the NSA for processing and storage... So their statements while technically true, are still intentionally false and misleading.

It's been well known that the government has had these taps on the major phone company networks and the internet backbone for years.

Re:Facebook and Google and the NSA

[Synerg1y]

I read about this somewhere... they use a web crawler to get the PUBLIC data, private data requires court order, which is liberally given at the slightest suspicion of anything (remember that case w the teen girl and judge ordering her to give up her facebook password randomly?).

Also, the Utah datacenter was in the news a year or two ago, people didn't make a big deal of it then, even though it was correctly (now known) guessed that it would be used for mass surveillance.

They can just intercept everything else by hijacking an IX.

Re:Facebook and Google and the NSA

[bl968]

If that was the case then the NSA slides would not have listed both Google and Facebook as being onboard and partners in their PRISM system.

Re:Facebook and Google and the NSA

[CanHasDIY]

If that was the case then the NSA slides would not have listed both Google and Facebook as being onboard and partners in their PRISM system.

Unless that 'revelation' was intentional misdirection.

Re:Facebook and Google and the NSA

[Anonymous Coward]

They will continue to say 'no direct access' or whatever other prepared 'legal' bullshit re-definition of common sense they've cooked up.

They bottom line is that they are blatantly violating the constitution and directly offending virtually every single American in this country. This is a clear and present a danger to personal freedom as there can be.

Everyone should take an hour this weekend and use to the internet to see what their sitting reps and senators voted on atrocities like the Patriot Act, etc.

Vote these people out. Then demand that whomever takes their place repeal all of this garbage. Then we can move on to the bankers...

Re:Facebook and Google and the NSA

[meta-monkey]

"Of course we don't have direct access! Internets go through routers."

Re:Facebook and Google and the NSA

[vettemph]

And why does traceroute show that EVERYTHING I ever trace goes through Washington, Ashburn VA. or McLean VA.

  I usually use the 'mtr' command (linux). I've been seeing this for years and have always been suspicious about it.
  The FBI wants us to report suspicious activity in case of terrorists. Well, I find this suspicious.

Re:Facebook and Google and the NSA

[Curunir_wolf]

Actually, they don't need access to Google and Facebook data, they have direct access to all communications at the connection points.

Re:Facebook and Google and the NSA

[jdogalt]

this

we are not crazy. They are misleading us, and it gets insane when they feel so guilty that have to resort to these tactics.

Re:Facebook and Google and the NSA

[Charliemopps]

What they do most likely have, is a tap point on Facebook's and Google's networks

You're way over-thinking this. The NSA just sends their DBA's over to google with fake credentials. They get hired based on their stellar work history. Then they create accounts with full access to Googles APIs and hand them over to the NSA. The NSA can run any query they want against googles data. They can even CHANGE it. It would be a trivial thing to do and would only be noticed if the traffic was excessive. I doubt there's any query that Google would even bat an eyelash at given their size.

Re:Facebook and Google and the NSA

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

> Unless that 'revelation' was intentional misdirection.

Doubt it. This isn't cold war spy-vs-spy stuff with levels on levels and double and triple agents. The "enemy" is a bunch of random dudes with basically no espionage capability - the idea of al qaeda or even the muslim brotherhood infiltrating anything in the US is just patently absurd. There is no reason for internal NSA documents to contain misleading information because there is no one to mislead - they get to straight out lie in testimony to congress, that's more than enough misdirection to cover any plausible risk.

Re:Facebook and Google and the NSA

[highvista63]

There was an interview this morning on NPR with James Bamford where he claims the NSA has prisms installed on major fiber optic backbones to get their own duplicate direct feeds. So that's why they call the operation "Prism". See http://www.npr.org/2013/06/11/190601064/nsa-collects-massive-amounts-of-data-then-what.

Re:Facebook and Google and the NSA

[Anonymous Coward]

Vote these people out.

I'm getting tired of hearing this. We did "vote these people out" and got Barack Obama. The guy flat out lied. He lied about warrentless wiretaps. He lied about closing gitmo. He lied about ending the Iraq war. The solution isn't vote him out. The solution is throw him out. Impeach the son of a bitch.

Re:Facebook and Google and the NSA

[anagama]

Well, considering the Feds admitted it was true, I think we can drop this line of thought.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/07/clapper-secret-nsa-surveillance-prism

Re:Facebook and Google and the NSA

[kllrnohj]

You're way over-thinking this. The NSA just sends their DBA's over to google with fake credentials. They get hired based on their stellar work history. Then they create accounts with full access to Googles APIs and hand them over to the NSA. The NSA can run any query they want against googles data. They can even CHANGE it. It would be a trivial thing to do and would only be noticed if the traffic was excessive. I doubt there's any query that Google would even bat an eyelash at given their size.

That would be damn near impossible. Do you really think Google has no security whatsoever on API access much less data access? I'm pretty sure if the new hire goes to the security team and says "hey, let me punch a hole in the network to the outside world for this API. Oh, and I need also need to approve this API to access all this data" they aren't just going to blindly say "sure thing, no problem!"

It should be illegal but isn't, that's the problem

[Faizdog]

One of the best comments was from John Oliver on the Daily Show. In response to Obama's defense that there is the FISA court overseeing this and that member's of congress are briefed, he said great, so it's not just one branch of government acting improperly, all 3 are! That's supposed to be better (me paraphrasing). It's not that these programs aren't illegal, it's the very fact that they aren't that's a problem! (Or aren't considered illegal by the government, many would argue they are illegal in sight of the Constitution).

I'm usually a big government, bleeding heart liberal, but not in the areas of governmental police powers (monitoring citizens, etc). Basically, if the government is helping it's citizens, I support that (healthcare, etc) but if it's looking at it's citizens to protect itself, I don't like that at all.

Here are 2 quotes that were on /. yesterday:
"The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government."
-Patrick Henry

"The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them."
Patrick Henry

Tech Industry, Take Note from the Gun Industry

[cervesaebraciator]

If you're concerned about customer pushback from this surveillance, support the EFF like the gun industry supports the NRA. May the EFF be as effective in defending our first and fourth amendment rights as the NRA is at going after any opposition to the second.

So how aren't they spying on US citizens?

[BUL2294]

Given everything that I've heard about PRISM over the past few days, I have one major question...

How do they know who is a US citizen and who isn't?

I don't remember being asked nor answering a "citizenship question" when signing up for GMail, Hotmail, Facebook, Skype, YouTube, etc. Is the NSA data matching names to (known) citizens and throwing out that data? Kinda tough to accurately do so for the "Bill Smiths" of the world, not all of which live in the US. Are they building a profile of everyone by address, thus assuming US residents are "citizens"? If I set up a fake Hotmail account as "Bubbles Sanchez" and say I live in Miami (and my ISP says I'm in Miami), does that make me and my data a "citizen" in the eyes of the NSA?

Or are they simply vacuuming up everything from these sites and TELLING US they're not looking at US citizens' data, simply because they don't have a decent way (let alone a fool-proof one) to tell who is a citizen or not?

Re:So how aren't they spying on US citizens?

[BUL2294]

Oh wait... According to John Oliver, if some NSA system gives me a 51% "foreignness" rating, I must be a foreigner and not a US citizen.

Well, I feel confident...

Re:So how aren't they spying on US citizens?

[BUL2294]

No, they don't. Sure, those born in the USA in a hospital and those who have passports are generally known. But there are people who don't know they even are American citizens, as they were born in a foreign country & had one parent who might dual-citizenship, yet have never set foot on American soil... I doubt the NSA knows those peoples' names & doubtful they're throwing out data associated with those people... I doubt the NSA knows unless the IRS comes knocking on those (unknown) citizens' doorsteps. (Happens to Canadians all the time...)

IIRC, one of the people who was supposed to be sent to Guantanamo a decade ago turned out to be a US citizen (by birth)--he even had no idea...

Re:So how aren't they spying on US citizens?

[Curunir_wolf]

How do they know who is a US citizen and who isn't?

Check out the Daily Show video and the clip they show from MS NBC, they're basically flipping a coin. 51% accuracy.

Re:So how aren't they spying on US citizens?

[cervesaebraciator]

You're getting the surveillance efforts mixed up--perfectly understandable given how fast this stuff's been coming out. He's talking about PRISM, a program whereby the NSA is able to obtain "email, video and voice chat, videos, photos, voice over IP conversations, file transfers, login notifications and social networking details." This is what the apologists would have you think does not cover everyone. You're thinking of the related FISA requests to Verizon, which covers more or less everyone.

Re:So how aren't they spying on US citizens?

[Patch86]

Are you implying that you're OK with your government massively invading MY privacy (as a UK citizen), as long as you're alright Jack? Nice to know that this isn't a moral issue of Orwellian abuse for you, but just a selfish desire to keep the thugs from your own front door.

I also hope you're OK with foreign governments returning the favour and monitoring your very move. Your definitely won't be complaining about having your rights violated if it's a British or Chinese agency reading your every email and logging your every phone call, right?

the next month

[hurfy]

Google recieves a record low number of nasty letters, only 50. One for Alabama, One for Alaska........

Not interested in more noninformative information.

meh, too lazy to write out the full rant

Re:Personally, I'm more worried about Google

[Trashcan Romeo]

What is the federal government going to do? Probably nothing... unless you do something stupid like expose its war crimes. [See: Manning, Bradley] What might one employee in the federal government whom you pissed off do with a record of all your web searches? Use your imagination.

Stasi

[gmuslera]

Germans aren't happy about it neither. Will demand explanations to Obama when he visits them next week.

Re:It should be illegal but isn't, that's the prob

[CanHasDIY]

One you missed:

"Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry." -- Thomas Jefferson

Petition

[DaMattster]

Just signed it. Took a set of brass balls for Snowden to do what he did and, yes, he is a real patriot for standing up for the civil rights and liberties of the American people.

Re:Petition

[chihowa]

Another poster used the word "quisling" to describe those who are falling all over themselves to defend the actions of the US government right now. I think that suits you well. You have been all over these articles in the last few days trying so hard to paint this twisted picture that the US government spying on its own citizens is a good and noble action. Exposing the treachery of our supposed representatives is what makes the United States stronger. Licking boots has never made one stronger.

Good!

[bogidu]

Tell them to get bent, Americans are citizens, not subjects!

Re:Good!

[cold fjord]

That's partially correct. Americans are citizens, but they are always subject to attack.

Re:It should be illegal but isn't, that's the prob

[udachny]

I'm usually a big government, bleeding heart liberal, but not in the areas of governmental police powers (monitoring citizens, etc). Basically, if the government is helping it's citizens, I support that (healthcare, etc) but if it's looking at it's citizens to protect itself, I don't like that at all.

- you, and others like you are the problem.

You gave the government its power to abuse the law, the Constitution, you gave the government ability to go above and beyond what is authorized by the Constitution to the government when you stand for things like 'helping citizens'.

The only way a government can really help citizens is by providing EQUAL TREATMENT UNDER LAW, which is where equal opportunities come from, which is what allows for maximum individual freedom. It is individual freedom that grows the economy by giving people incentives and removing barriers that prevent them from trying to get rich by building a better, cheaper product.

People are served best not by any government with growing powers, people are served best by other people trying to figure out how to serve people in the most efficient way possible by doing what people are actually interested in.

You are the root cause that created this problem, never a solution to anything.

Burn It

[KeensMustard]

Burn it in the only way you can. Write letters, protest at every opportunity, and in every forum.

Be polite if you can, but recognise that social graces have their place, and if need be, you might need to be rude. Don't let quislings tell you "it's for the safety/the family/the children" without confronting them. Don't let quislings tell you "it's the fault of KODOS" they are just trying to make this a different discussion they can control.

We've all felt helpless for far too long. I say "we" I'm not an american, but every western country has seen this creeping up on them. I'm not stupid enough to imagine that the NSA doesn't keep data on me if that serves some commercial or political advantage for some client. So we stand with you. You aren't helpless. The pen is still mightier than the sword.

Re:It should be illegal but isn't, that's the prob

[amicusNYCL]

One of the best comments was from John Oliver on the Daily Show.

His best line was something like "we're not accusing you of breaking any laws, we're just surprised you didn't."

He also pointed out how the FISA courts, which are there to oversee any surveillance requests, have literally never denied a request. That's some good rubber-stamping action there.

innocents will suffer the most

[jpc1957]

Innocent individuals identified as suspects are the biggest issue to me. For all those people that say there isn't any issue with any level of snooping if you don't have anything to hide, you are exactly who should be worried. The more data available to analyze, the more false positives will be identified. And the attitude now is we can't risk any potential terrorist falling through the cracks. Combine that with gag orders, security letters instead of warrants, sting operations, indefinite determent.. It's guaranteed that some very unlucky and completely innocent people will be going through hell for a long time.

Re:innocents will suffer the most

[meta-monkey]

Also, I'm sick of the word "snooping." This is not snooping.

Snooping is what you do when you're 8 and you look in your parents' closet for your Christmas presents.

Snooping is what you do when you ask around if the cute girl in school has a boyfriend and if she just "likes" you or if she "like likes" you.

This is spying. This is invading. This is tracking, watching, monitoring, recording everything you, your mom and your kid sister do and storing it forever.

And what's scarier than that revelation? CNN. I always knew the media in the US was "US centric." The reporters are Americans, so of course they're going to be more forgiving of stuff the government does to foreigners. But I rejected the "conspiracy theory" that what they report is dictated by the government, as they're for-profit companies. And they're lazy, so the horse race, talking heads reporting was just what lazy companies do.

But that's not the case here. If they're just lazy...fuck, this should be easy. Massive government scandal. McCarthy/Watergate/Pentagon Papers all rolled into one. A reporter and a news agency could make a career, an empire out of this! Don't journalism students want to be Bob Woodward?

And what's on the front page of CNN right now? I just looked. A picture of George W. Bush and a headline "Miss me yet?" about a poll. Another story "Second term blues for Obama." The same "hero or traitor?" op-ed everybody else has wherein "security experts" call him a traitor and then they find misspelled quotes from stoners about him, like, tellin' off the man and stuff, man.

"Hero or traitor? Who can say!" Ummmmm...you can, CNN. That's your fucking job. It is literally the divide and conquer bullshit from Goebbels. Confirmation that both parties are totally fine with spying on every American citizen, and that's "second term blues?" SECOND TERM BLUES?! Completely unconscionable, unconstitutional, straight-up evil actions at the highest levels of the land, and that's "the blues?" No, CNN, that's not the blues. "Aw, shucks, I missed the bus and spilled coffee on my shirt" is the blues. This shit...this shit is not the blues. And the cure for the blues is the poll on the other story about electing a Republican next time, because that'll fix it, right?

They're really complicit in feeding the red vs blue bullshit machine, when it would be easier, and more profitable to investigate the whole system.

My dad always told me, "never attribute to malice what's just as likely ignorance." I thought CNN and the MSM were just lazy and inept, but...this isn't lazy or inept. This is directed. There's no other explanation.

I want my mommy.

A Response?

[OverlordQ]

it's already reached half the required number of signatures for a response from the Obama administration.

You're expecting more than "We cannot comment on an ongoing criminal investigation."?

Your name has already been used!

[mha]

"Anonymous Coward" has already signed that petition. Maybe you should get a real name if you want to show support? ;-)

One

[asicsolutions]

The government should be all over this since they are going to the "give me all your data" model.
Google should soon safely be able to say: We got one FISA request last year.

Re:Sure, complain about it now.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not excusing the behavior. Those are your words. I'm nobody. You're paranoid.
This story is old, like I said, about a decade old.

The current media barrage includes the MSM. Lots of outrage is being manufactured. It's being spewed all over the social media landscape. All the earmarks of a social media manipulation campaign are here.

It's nice that you feel strongly about this issue, and it is a just cause. Just don't forget in your passion that you might be manipulated.

While it's nice that this is out in the open all of a sudden, people really should have being paying attention a decade ago. Instead they called me a terrorist lover and un-american. Today I shrug and say "Told you so".. And then you spit in my face when I tell you about the next way you're being conned. Oh well. I'm used to it.

If I were to guess at the real meaning of recent events.. I'd say it's an attempt to create a feeling of big govt paranoia and mistrust among conservatives. This, Benghazi (or however its spelled), the IRS non-story, are a planed sequence of events to attempt to rile up the teapartiers and company for the coming elections. Nothing more.

Serious Question: spoofed caller ID and NSA

[asicsolutions]

How well can the NSA determine the calls source?
I get telemarketer calls daily: "Pack your bags..."
Always spoofed caller ID from a VOIP indian call center.
The phone company can't seem to block these crap calls.
What's to stop someone from framing someone if they got a hold of a suspicious #.
Hate your spouse, spoof their # calling it. Hate your political opponent, do it to them.

Just curious.

Re:It should be illegal but isn't, that's the prob

[istartedi]

"If the citizens are not vigilant, I fear we shall be frequently misquoted" --George Washington

https

[jdogalt]

Actually, they don't need access to Google and Facebook data, they have direct access to all communications at the connection points [zerohedge.com].

umm... https dude

Re:https

[kllrnohj]

Google is using ECDHE for HTTPS. Unless NSA has been running an incredibly good MITM that nobody has detected and has never once had a single outage or issue, HTTPS to Google has been uncompromised since 2011.

Sadly more people aren't using ECDHE yet, though, so the same can't be said of most sites which could very well have compromised certs. Perhaps this can be used to help push ECDHE more broadly, although I kind of doubt anyone will really care, sadly.

Re:https

[secondhand_Buddah]

You are correct. They have access to the root certs. HTTPS using commercial PKI it totally accessible on the fly by US government surveillance agencies.

Re:https

[stewsters]

I don't understand, how would that protect them from someone stealing their private key?

Seriously, Do Something Part II

[Goboxer]

I actually made most of this comment in another post about the NSA but it bears repeating.

ACLU Petition to Stop Massive Government Spying Program

Please sign that petition. Or go through the EFF action page. Or Write your Representative or Write your Senators. They are easy enough to find. Seriously. If you aren't telling the people that represent you how wrong, awful, and downright unacceptable the NSA actions are they have no reason to stick their neck out to change it.

Nobody is asking you to fight a war, like previous generations of Americans have. Just sign a petition. Write a letter. It is that easy to improve this country. Whether you think that is true or not, remember that an outcry from a small group of people have altered politics before and it can happen again. The only thing preventing this country from getting better is silence.

Re:It should be illegal but isn't, that's the prob

[jdogalt]

you sound a little like the Ayn Randian Libertarian I was 20 years ago. I suggest you pay a little more attention to the intimacy that our relatively recent history with outright slavery, and subtler forms of exploiting those who in various large subsets of humanity, have had their freedom of speech severely curtailed with no recourse to any effective system of justice.

Not only do I think your final sentence borders on silly (that the person you are replying to is the 'root cause' of these woes), but I think you are generally wrong. Having social safety nets in place, amongst a system that is almost unavoidably quite leisse-fair predatory (predatory in the sense that some of the winners are completely content winning while directly profiting from some of the losers that they are clearly, directly, stifling the free speech or other rights of)- ... is a good idea.

Now, I do believe that charity should generally be voluntary. But giving a person shelter, food, and clothing, rather than watching them waste away in the elements, is not only a pleasant thing to do, but also overall net profitable to everyone who failed to see the better wisdom of putting forth the effort necessary to have those safety nets sufficiently in place that there is no demand for a governmental safety net.

Begging to tell the truth?

[erroneus]

I'm sorry... but really? "Please, let us tell the truth?!" I can't say precisely when things went "too far" but I can definitely say that things have most certainly, and unquestionably, gone too far.

The fear this instills...

[Faizdog]

You know what's so scary about stuff like this? It's that it makes people afraid of what they will post and discuss. One absurd end of the spectrum is what I've heard Soviet Russia was sometimes like, people always afraid of what they said to whom.

I'm a naturalized US citizen. Due to my country of origin, I'm probably already on some watch list somewhere, despite the fact that I've never done anything remotely dangerous.
Now, I figure that give mes some points on some kind of a danger/threat scale.

This issue is something I care deeply about. Over the last few days, I've been hesitant about drawing attention to it and responding to it online/via electronic communications. I've posted on Slashdot about it, sent emails and texts to friends and relatives, posted about it on my Facebook status, submitted e-mailed letters to my congressional representatives through the EFF website, donated to the EFF and ACLU, read newspaper stories, articles, websites and commentaries, etc.

At each step, I've been afraid. What if being linked to this type of activity gives me more points on some kind of a danger scale? What if I cross a threshold? What if the government starts making my life difficult in subtle ways? Trouble flying? I am planning on marrying someone from my country of origin, what if my application to sponsor them for a greencard is denied? What if, what if?

That's the real trouble, this type of activity raises concerns and issues in people's daily lives. It creates a culture of fear. At the end of the day, I became a US citizen because I believe in the opportunity this country provides, and in the legal basis it was founded on, and the human rights it supposedly supports. I want to do whatever I can to support my country, and exercise my rights as a citizen to correct what I perceive are wrongs.

I'm really hoping that this advocacy doesn't hurt me in the future somehow. That's the real harm when government spies and tracks with a carte blanche, people who are doing nothing wrong but have much to lose are afraid.

Re:It should be illegal but isn't, that's the prob

[cold fjord]

One you missed:

"Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry." -- Thomas Jefferson

That doesn't really make any sense. I don't think any reasonable... make that any sane person would claim that individual citizens should be able to own nuclear weapons, nor for that matter arrest people and hold them for questioning. I'm not going to call that tyranny.

The "quote" is almost certainly apocryphal even if it is popular in certain political spheres.

Quotation: "Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry."

Variations: None known.

Earliest known appearance in print: No known appearances in print.[1]

Other attributions: None known.

Status: This quotation has not been found in any of the writings of Thomas Jefferson.

Donate to EFF

[opkool]

I just donated to the EFF.

Re:It should be illegal but isn't, that's the prob

[Anonymous Coward]

Moderators: modding down to 0 or -1 is supposed to be trolls and flamebait, not opinions you don't agree with.

Posting AC as I'm moderating. I modded the parent up and it's still at 0. I modded it up despite the fact that I vehemently disagree with everything in it, but it's not a troll or flamebait.

Re:It should be illegal but isn't, that's the prob

[hazah]

- USA used to have that before the mob broke it. It was cheap health care where people paid for most routine stuff out of pocket and 2 (two) dollars a month was one of the most popular health care insurance plans that provided catastrophic coverage. That's what provided cheap and sustainable health care without growing government in process, it actually was best in the world at the time before gov't cockroaches destroyed while the mob was cheering.

You need to get your head out of your ass and take a look around you. There is no incentive for *any* business to provide any actual health care with any degree of efficiency. They have all the incentive to continue to make profit off of you being sick. They need to sell you drugs, and paraphanalia on an on going basis for investors to be happy. You know... like all other businesses. Pharmaceuticals do come to mind

It's a funny thing that to work well, you need to have good health. It's a funny thing that those usually in poor health live in poor environments. Its a funny thing that people in poor environments are poor, can't work because of their poor health and can't afford any fucking insurance and can't even move away to minimize the damage. On second thought, it's a little sick that you'd even suggest making a buck off of something so vital.

And government, I mean a real government, the kind the constitution was supposedly describing, would be nothing but people wanting to stay in good health, and have incentive to fund it at a loss for it to stay that way. Did I mention that it's easier to work productively if you already have good health? You seem to flip this around. Sick or poor, work it off to pay for either food or shelter or your meds... this month. That works GREAT!

I guess you just hate children, and judge people based on class, not ability.

Re:It should be illegal but isn't, that's the prob

[kilfarsnar]

Fact: efficiency is no priority for governments, only growing power is priority and you don't grow power to reducing costs, you grow power by growing the apparatus around you.

But why doesn't that apply to business as well? From what I have seen, business (especially big businesses) wants to maximize profit any way they can. If they can do it without providing the best product, they will. If they can do it through anti-competitive practices, they will. If they can do it by offloading externalities onto others, they will.

Inefficiency is also not only the province of government. I have seen ridiculous inefficiency in many companies I have worked for. I see it every day in my current job and I do not work for the government. I know in theory that businesses should seek to maximize efficiency to maximize profit. But that requires that decision makers recognize and properly diagnose inefficiency, and then deal with it in an effective manner. And that is by no means a foregone conclusion.