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When the NSA Shows Up At Your Internet Company
Frosty Piss writes "When people say the feds are monitoring what people are doing online, what does that mean? How does that work? When, and where, does it start? Pete Ashdown, CEO of XMission, an internet service provider in Utah, knows. He received a Foreign Intelligence Service Act (FISA) warrant in 2010 mandating he let the feds monitor one of his customers, through his facility. He also received a broad gag order. Says Mr. Ashdown, 'I would love to tell you all the details, but I did get the gag order... These programs that violate the Bill of Rights can continue because people can't go out and say, This my experience, this is what happened to me, and I don't think it is right.' In this article, Mr. Ashdown tells us about the equipment the NSA installed on his network, and what he thinks it did."
The company, a comparative midget with just 30,000 subscribers, cited the Fourth Amendment in rebuffing warrantless requests from local, state and federal authorities, showing it was possible to resist official pressure says it all http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/09/xmission-isp-customers-privacy-nsa
Wonder what the consequences of that would be? Do two skeevy acts add up to a good act?
You can't contest these FISA orders because even acknowledging them is a federal crime.
First rule of FISA: Don't talk about FISA
The NSA's corrupt and unethical activities have shown a bright light on the blackened and burned out husk of our ethics within the justice system. Which is to say, there really aren't any left to speak of.
The law has absolutely nothing to do with right or wrong anymore. It's just a prescription for what is allowed and isn't, not whether you should or shouldn't. It's not unlike owning a gun; By itself, it's harmless. Put it someone's hands, and what they do with it can be catastrophic. Laws are just tools. It's what is done with them we need to look at.
So far, I'm not encouraged by what I am seeing those tools used for. Perhaps its time to take them away, until they can learn to handle them responsibly.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
They were probably monitoring http://www.maddox.xmission.com if you think about it.
Most gag order statutes have been voided for being unconstitutional.
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What the NSA is actually doing is blatantly ignoring our bill of rights. These gag orders are not legal because they are not constitutional, regardless of what the NSA insists.
I would like them to see them -- and the court officials that go along with their little scheme, pay for their crimes against humanity (and yes, that's what it actually is). Hilarious that this organization has become the very monster it was created to destroy: a terrorist network.
What if the contract had a clause that said services would be terminated with no notice and no explanation if we receive a lawful warrant to participate in monitoring said customer?
Sort of canary?
As this article is published, Ashdown sees... a cloud forming outside his window. Checking to see if it will rain, he sees a group of black helicopters silently approaching his house. They land and a group of heavily armed agents surround the place including the doors, windows, balconies and roof. He experiences a power failure, and on attempting to call the power company, he finds the phone dead. The cell phone is also giving zero bars, even though the tower is right across the street. Heard by his neighbours: " Hey who are you! What are you dong.... Ooowww! Hey tazers hurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrzzzzzzzzzzzzzzttttttttttttt
You may be required to cooperate with their investigation, but space in a data center is not free, and the electricity certainly isn't, either. If they're taking what's yours, they should pay fair market value, and that includes space, power, cooling, and such.
it is about time for companies to start standing against the NSA. as long as what they do keeps being a secret to the population, we will never be able to get a lawsuit in front of the supreme court. companies need to stand up enmasse and say screw the NSA. then, when they start getting sanctions and stuff for standing against the NSA, they start a class action lawsuit against the american government. at this point, they will get infront of the supreme court eventually and we might actually get our rights back.
is that the government is typically their single largest customer. Kind of tough to risk that much revenue.
Not defending the big providers, but admitting to reality.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
So, in TFA he said he was not allowed to make a copy of the order, but just take some notes about it. His attorney said it was legitimate . . . how?
I mean, you can't take a copy yourself to a secret court to ask them if they authorized it. You could call up a number that they give you, but what does that prove? And the whole damn thing is supposed to be secret, so that nobody knows nothing anyway.
Does anyone know how this works?
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
I don't understand this article clearly. If he's not allowed to refer to it, why is he writing about it now? Did the gag order expire?
I see from the Guardian article that he ran for Senate in Utah, but lost to Orren Hatch. Too bad.
National Security Letters, which are similar, result in a lot of difficulty challenging the gag order without violating the gag order.
At the eff, they talk about national security letters. They have made some progress in challenging the gag orders, but this is years later. The recipient of this gag order would likely not have even been able to get it into court before they had already removed it 9 months later.
The OP was served with a FISA warrant, which is apparently more rare and somewhat different. I don't know much about these, but the eff has some info here.
He is absolutely right that we shouldn't have secret courts issuing secret laws. Temporary gag orders are fine but they should expire rapidly and then what happened be subject to public scrutiny. Faretta v. California talked about how many of our laws for trial procedure and rights in the constitution evolved from a reaction against the Star Chamber. The core idea of the Star Chamber was secrecy to deal with defendants who were too powerful to be tried openly for fear the the realm could not control the impact, and we have decided to replicate this in full.
There are not stupid forced gag orders in Canada. If some government official asks to install unknown equipment on a private companies network, the company can effectively say "go fuck yourself", and the courts will back the company.
That's not to say it doesn't happen because of corruption and bribes and general shadiness with all the big ISPs, but it's not universal among companies, and no can force small ISPs to comply.
Fuck America is screwed up.
These programs that violate the Bill of Rights can continue because people can't go out and say, This my experience, this is what happened to me, and I don't think it is right.' I
Actually, they can. The British were within their legal right to tax the Colonies. The NSA isn't even within that right. What he really means to say is more like, "I don't think I have enough friends to start a revolution and form a stable 2nd Republic yet".
He will get made an example of if he pushes this any further. Or his business will suffer 'inconveniences'.
If you had read the article you'd notice that getting paid is an option. He wasn't interested, he wanted their shit out of data center ASAP.
Was I the only one who misread the title as "When the NSA Shows Up As Your Internet Company"?
I always wondered, if people are not allowed to talk about this stuff, can't they just go to Mexico and tell people there?
Maybe you need a datacenter with 380V plugs only. Also, they should connect their equipment.
As is described in the article, they will happily pay that. However this particular ISP was against profiting in any way from monitoring their customer
Normal people worry me!
Ask Eric Snowden, I hear he has some experience with this very thing.
The ONLY reason Snowden is not a resident of GITMO, is the US can't invade Moscow Airport.
If he was in a less powerful country, like Panama, for example, he would already be in custody.
Times have changed somewhat, Butch Cassidy....Mexico, or Canada, are no longer safe havens to escape the US.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
There is absolutely [a] need for secrecy when you are dealing with a criminal investigation. You don’t want to tip off criminals being monitored. But you can’t say, “You can never talk about this ever, for the rest of your life.”
The criminals may never know exactly how they were caught. Some of the tapped information may come out but the authorities may have enough other evidence derived from this tap not to reveal all their methods. The better criminals know how they are being monitored the better the criminals can avoid the monitoring.
As to being a benign web site, the actual site may have noting to do with the criminal activity. It may just be a transit point for communications between criminals and the authorities are after those communications.
As for the tap being on 9 months; there are criminal investigations that take years to gather enough information on enough people to take down an organization.
As for the Bill of Rights and the Fourth Amendment in particular;
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
By law A FISA warrant is a warrant and therefore the Amendment has not been violated. How exactly is the Fourth Amendment violated?
The FISA court should be a public court, and documents should be sealed for a set period of time, [to] let people audit the actions later.
I disagree. When one make public who and how someone else it being watched it it makes the suspects more difficult yo watch in the future. Maybe this investigation didn't gather enough for a conviction but the next one might. I may agree if the set period was 30 years or so but that is not what you seem to be talking about.
Say whatever you want to say, and demand a jury trial if they want to punish you for it. The great lesson of the fall of the Soviet Empire is that the people outnumber the thugs, and the thugs' power depends entirely on the people's obedience.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Nicholas Merrill stood up to this before, and even gave a talk at 27C3 about it. It's seriously worth watching .
Favourite quote? Paraphrased somewhat: "If I say something wrong about the gag order, I go to jail or 10 years; if those in power get it wrong in front of congress, they just say sorry."
All your ghosts are just false positives.
...because people like Pete Ashdwon are pussies of the highest order - placing their own profit above civil liberties. Fuck this guy, he went along with it and didn't even bad an eye. He's just as guilty as the NSA.
I've not gotten a FISA, but for FBI wiretaps, they *do* pay you. Or were you just guessing without having even trying to determine the answer? Someone else even said TFA says they were offered payment.
Learn to love Alaska
I recognized them because I use them for my cygwin distribution mirror.
The NSA engage in TOTAL surveillance. When a smaller company arises with significant customer traffic that cannot be compromised elsewhere, the NSA (with assistance from other government agencies), fakes (although 'fake' isn't the right word, when the NSA is actually fully authorised by its particular 'star chamber') warrants and the like, and installs total surveillance equipment under the excuse of monitoring a given target.
The 'gagging' orders do some of the work, but if the owner of the company chooses to have too big a mouth, he/she will experience the usual 'very nasty accident' that leaves the person dead, or in prison for a long time.
For you sheeple that still don't get it- here's the clue. Think of your government as Al Capone (although, in reality, Capone would be a saint in comparison). Al Capone demands total control, and complete intelligence. He prefers to make arrangements with people, but if that proves impossible, or if lessons need to be taught, there is no limit to his potential anger.
When 'Al Capone' turns up, and under some laughable excuse states he needs to 'bug' your equipment, you say "Yes sir, fine sir". The more people that bend over, the more the reputation of 'Al Capone' grows, and the more people expect to bend over in the future.
Google and Microsoft do NOT bend over. Google is actually an R+D division of the NSA. Microsoft is a willing full blown partner. Bill Gates sits at the same table as 'Al Capone', and frequently suggests new ways for increasing surveillance of the sheeple.
The worse it gets, the worse it gets. You are talking about a system with full blown positive feedback. In the first instance, the elite never guessed the sheeple would be so willing to bend over and take what was proposed. The success of the TSA changed that attitude. If the American sheeple would put up with the TSA, they would accept ANYTHING.
The power of the NSA comes from a 'Star Chamber' (go do some Google research, you sheeple). 'Star Chambers' exist to be HIGHER than any written set of laws. 'Star Chambers' are careful to include representatives of all powerful groups, regardless of who the sheeple currently think they have elected. There must be no independent powerful dissent against the ruling or operation of 'Star Chambers'.
The justification the 'Star Chamber' system is always that the well-being of a nation is too important to leave to the vagaries of a political system that meets the current needs of the sheeple. The 'Star Chamber' system is supposed to ensure continuity regardless of the current figurehead stooges that the sheeple think are their current leaders. Sorry, you sheeple reading this, you can NEVER vote the power of the 'Star Chamber' out of office. You are allowed to passively empower your masters, of course, but you are never allowed to choose them.
What ordinary people CAN do is to say "enough is enough" when it comes to a total surveillance society. Your masters DEMAND total surveillance, but in truth it is still a luxury they can live without. In your own daily life fight against the wrongs. Reject the Xbox One and Google Glass. Insist your school and school district throw out Bill Gates' children database system - a system Gates hides under a shell company called inBloom, a name Gates chose because it is a pedophile pun (pedophiles refer to their child victims as innocent flowers in first bloom).
Voting doesn't work (not voting does work if the numbers voting fall low enough- forcing a change to the system). You cannot change things top down, no matter what those elite-serving media pundits scream at you in their "good citizens vote" campaigns. However YOU can change things bottom up. Be empowered in your own little world. Push back and encourage others to do the same.
I understand the need for gag orders so the person being investigated doesn't hear that they're being monitored, but they need to have a reasonable expiration date at which time all may be disclosed.
If we had a functioning justice system in this country, and a population fully aware of and prepared to defend our rights, this kind of thing would go like this:
"Hello, 911 emergency. What is your emergency?"
"Hi, I've just made a citizen's arrest. The perp came in here posing as a federal officer, but he couldn't even recite the oath when he was looking down the barrels of my shotgun." I disarmed him and hog-tied him. The press is on the way, could you send a deputy over here to pick him up, or should I bring him in to the jail?"
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Indeed, what is the fair market value for smearing excrement on the Constitution? $50/month?
Facilitating doesn't mean it needs to be free.
Charge them for:
1. Access to installations
2. Hours spend by your engineers
3. Make them sign a responsibility notice for any damage to your infrastructure
4. Electricity
5. Network access within your infrastructure
I'm Xmission customer for 18 years and they are the best. They always notified subscribers of any interruptions of the service even if it happened for 5 minutes in the middle of the night, decribing what went wrong and what have they done to prevent similar problems in the future.
And I still drive with Pete Ashdown sticker on the back of my car since he ran for the US Senate - but it is not easy do win for a Democrat in one of the most Republican states.
Look, you can go along with the law and the courts or maybe you should try out your protest in China. See how you like them apples!
Hello, NSA?
Remember that box we put in our server room for you a couple of weeks back? Well last night, four heavily armed masked men broke into our facility and held our techs at gunpoint while they removed your box. When they left, all we heard was the sound of their helicopter. It was night, so we didn't see anything. I think they had Russian accents.
We would have filed a police report, except we are not supposed to discuss the details of you activities with anyone.
Have gnu, will travel.
That target's web services are hosted in 'The Cloud'. That box you plugged into their Ethernet port? A few hours later, we copied their image to a VM halfway across the country. For load leveling purposes, of course. We'd be happy to unplug and FedEx your equipment to the new location. But we can't guarantee that the account won't have hopped half a dozen times between now and then.
... they leave with pallets of stuff- they leave us pallets of money. Great guys.
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
Dear AC.
You are being recruited by the intelligence services due to your deep insights into the Trayvon Martin case. You will provide us with assistance and your personal insights into the politics and evidence surrounding this incident.
However, for purposes of national security, we will be placing a gag order on all of your communications regarding this case. You will not be allowed to divulge the scope of your knowledge, or the content of our communications in any matter regarding Trayvon Martin or Barak Obama.
Thank you for your support in making this country a safer place.
Have gnu, will travel.
they pay a lot more than fair market value, why do you think AT&T and Verizon have been jizzing themselves with glee to get all over the warrantless wiretaps? lots of pork spending there
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
From the article:
It is a public court where the documents are sealed for a set period of time. It just happens that they refer to that seal as classified, but all classified documents are classified for a set period of time. See the Executive Order governing classified information for all the details (especially Section 1.5: Duration of Classification).
...see a possible 3rd Amendment issue with this? Can the Federal Government force you to quarter a digital proxy of a federal agent? Too big a stretch?
The subject of my comment is a direct quote from the website. I'm curious as to why the author believes a "guns and ammo" website would warrant this type of surveillance. It seems everywhere you look these days the left is looking to encroach on our rights as American citizens (the provider is based in Utah). The irony here is that the main point of the article seems to be that this type of surveillance is an invasion of someone's privacy and at least an inconvenience to the provider.
Utah as a state votes 2:1 for Republican candidate, but in Salt Lake City alone it is about 50/50. And Rocky - when Bush's war was going on and he personally was visiting SLC, Rocky organized anti-war event. I was trying to imagine mayor of Moscow (city where I lived so far most part of my life) greeted Mr. Putin in a similar way.
Yes, it's similar in the US. Local courts routinely rule that an ACTION was illegal because it was unconstitutional - that a specific search was illegal, for example. In those cases, they are ruling that one cop was wrong. It's far less common that they strike down a LAW, such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. To do so, they are overruling Congress, the people's elected representatives. The courts rightfully show more deference to the carefully considered acts of Congress than to in-the-moment decisions by one cop.
But seriously, I agree with you. The US has always had an interest in perpetuating attacks against their citizens.
For those that disagree, grow the fuck up and read history.
The founding fathers wrote that they tried to create a system in which greed and other human failings would end up resulting in good. The Consitution is designed that way. The principle is sound, as shown by our economic system. (ppeople are greedy and want "stuff". Society wants work done, investment made, and educated people. Set up system where greed results in investment, education, and hard work.)
A Constitutional example is balance of power.
Congress critters are power hungry. So are presidents. So they set it up where one of the best ways for a president to gain power is by taking it from Congress, and Congress can get power by taking it from the president. Each politician's quest for power takes it from other politicians, so it keeps them balanced, avoids dictatorship.
Of course some people live in "wouldn't it be great" land and keep passing laws that only work if everyone is highly moral. For example, they assume if you pass a law paying people who "can't find" work for three solid years, you and I will keep paying their bills for years, no-one will put off working just because we're paying their bills for them.
They pass laws putting government bureaucrats and politicians in charge of the most important, private things in our lives, and assume that not only will the government bureaucrats be good guys, they'll also be highly competent and do a good job. Those are the bad laws, in my opinion, because politicians are neither magnanimous nor highly competent.
Try the one-size-fit-all charge:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obstruction_of_justice
New Economic Perspectives
It started out sounding like an interesting article but I wanted to stop reading and write the guy off as an bigot and an idiot here ... "The customer they were monitoring was a particular website that was very benign. It seems ridiculous to me. It was beyond absurd. It wasn’t like a guns and ammo website."
Indeed, what is the fair market value for smearing excrement on the Constitution? $50/month?
What kind of excrement?
A big visible camera - and a smaller hidden one - at the entrance to your building with microphones, so you make sure that the identity of the agents is very public information when they present themselves at your front door. Reading out of the warrant at the time of reception as is legally acceptable, would probably blow the investigation as soon as it starts. We need to play legal games the same as they do.
1) The outside door is locked; no admission without identification. Any federal agent must present his warrant - not just id - to gain admission - which will be viewed by cameras that send the image overseas. 2) The warrant is not active until served. Therefore emailing all clients as soon as an agent states 'We are here to serve a warrant' is totally legitimate. 3) Make sure you have visible and invisible cameras at the front desk. Also a button on the desk that the receptionist presses as soon as a person declares themselves to be federal agent 4) An area of consecrated ground on which guns are banned on the way into the entrance hall. A sign warning that this is the case, with an arrest following immediately that the alleged federal agents enter the area. As they are under arrest, they are no longer legally entitled to serve the warrant, which can then be freely copied / distributed etc. 5) Control of the entry door is by a person located in a foreign jurisdiction.
When I read Leviticus and Deuteronomy, what struck me the most about them was how fair they were to the defendant. Modern liberals and even many conservatives roll their eyes and treat the Old Testament Law as barbaric, but in reality it was actually more advanced in protecting the defendant than our system. Nothing equivalent to a felony (that I can remember) in the Old Testament was convictable with less than two credible eye witnesses and the punishment for false testimony was to be punished according to the standard for the charges. That means anyone who bears false witness in a murder case is automatically going to be executed no matter the guilt or innocence of the defendant. The "testilying" cops of today would be mercilessly stoned to death under Old Testament Law and if the defendant could prove that the prosecutor knowingly brought their perjury into the case could possibly get the prosecutor executed as well.
I'd like to see that standard of perjury brought to our legal system and I'd also like to see the Old Testament's open court proceedings where more than one person can be convicted simultaneously in the same proceeding as well. Cases would take longer, but it would provide a lot of balance. For example, today a defense attorney would be allowed to bring charges against a testilying cop and have the jury consider the perjury charges during their deliberations.
At one point, I saw a stat saying that there about 600-700 laws in the Old Testament that cover the entire civil-criminal-religious legal life of ancient Israel. There are approximately 4,200 federal criminal acts one can commit. Many of these are not even genuine crimes but charges that can be used to get around the 8th amendment like "possession of a firearm while committing a drug crime." Really. Either you are actually committing a violent felony with said firearm or it's just a way of overcharging someone for a fact that is at best ancillary to the primary criminal act.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT2fQu50sMs
http://events.ccc.de/congress/2010/Fahrplan/events/4263.en.html
The importance of resisting Excessive Government Surveillance [27C3]
About "National Security Letters".
New things are always on the horizon
This one has better picture quality:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6xsv4azzpc
New things are always on the horizon
How about "Co-lo charges: $10,000 per day - discounted to $10 per day if you allow us to list you as a customer on a live data-center web cam". Other customers view web cam and see "Hmm, unlabelled box there - and no sane person will be willing to pay $10k per day for that to be co-loed: therefore NSA equipment". I wonder if that sort of thing would get around the "secrecy" side of things.
The idea of explicitly stating that you aren't under a gag order has been addressed a few times, and I'm not sure it works - can you really not be forced to explicitly keep lying about it? After all, you'd have to lie in response to a direct question as well. Otherwise you could just tell your customers to regularly ask you about gag orders.
However, consider this: If you are not under a gag order, then it is not illegal to lie and say you are. (Except under oath.) Yet if you are under a gag order, saying you are would be illegal.
Thus, if you publically and untruthfully state (in messages or on your website) that you are under a gag order, then an actual gag order would force you to remove that statement. That removal then becomes the warning.
The gag order couldn't reasonably force you to tell people about it and not tell people about it.
They are not violating your Constitutional Rights. If they want to monitor you without a warrant, that is unconstitutional.
The constitution just says 'reasonable'.
200+ years of laws and court proceedings are what define this term.
Still, what seems reasonable to this citizen is:
The ISP is an affected third party, not the potential perp.
Seems like he should be in a stronger position.
I thought for a warrant to be valid, it needs to be served.
Which means the ISP should get a copy.
This means he gets to keep it.
But doesn't mean he can disclose it in public.
At least without legal peril.
Taking the warrant before the ISP has a chance to verify and challenge certainly seems unreasonable.
(This appear not to have happened in the article)
Taking the warrant after the execution limits the opportunity for audit, thoughtful study, and feedback to the court that issued it.
( I'd hope that this is unreasonable as well.)
But it seems he and his lawyer should be able to study it.
If he gets in trouble for doing the tap, there should be a way to use it in private for defense.
If he wished to verify the warrant, there should be a process, not dependent on the folks who brought it.
If the warrant would/did disrupt, then he should be able to talk to the judge who issued it to make sure they understand what they have asked for.
If those executing the warrant feel that the time taken to do the above, might cause the information they are trying to get to disappear,
then maybe the process should be to shutdown/secure the servers, watch in place but don't touch, have the talks, and then take what is agreed.
This might only extend the process a few hours assuming the judge and requesting party are on call.
If they are not on call, then those serving the warrant should leave and come back when they are.
It would seem that the definition of 'reasonable' needs some work in this area.
I have a 2U machine colocated in Venezuela. I am relatively certain the NSA will not be able to gain physical access to it there. Nevertheless, that did not stop me from also incorporating some physical security measures.
First, I installed a pager network receiver that must receive a correct boot key before my EFI firmware will boot. I basically send a page with the correct string of numbers for the given time of day (there is enough slack in my custom algorithm to handle latency in the delivery of the message), and the system will power up. I can also send a number of kill codes that will do anything from power it off to block-erase the SSDs (no platters in this one - they take too long to blank).
Second, there is a photodetector inside the case that runs off of a set of Lithium Thionyl-Chloride batteries that shuts off the power supply if light is detected inside the case. This circuit is also triggered on any loss of Ethernet link, or the insertion of any USB device (although that would be difficult since I destroyed all of the USB connectors on the motherboard before shipping it down there).
Third, there is an accelerometer that detects any movement of the case. If someone attempts to remove the chassis from the rack that it's in, it triggers the P/S kill switch. It has triggered a couple of times from being jarred, but that's a minor inconvenience.
All of the drives are encrypted, as well as the VHDs contained on them (second layer), and are unlocked via remote biometrics.
I feel like it's pretty secure from NSA spying.
If nobody is allowed to know what an FISA court order looks like, then how do you verify its authenticity? Somebody intent on corporate espionage would to well by creating an official looking FISA court order.
what you could do is have a small list of conditions that could cause no notice cutoff. Include "law enforcement directives" as one of those and you are gold.
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
Which pisses off newer congress critters who think they should have oversight, and they begin hearings. In the last 50 years, the president has been allowed to take too much power from Congress, though. Just last week Obama unilaterally decided to rewrite the health care law himself, which is absolutely the purview of Congress, not the president. That's absurd, and Congress has allowed that shift to happen.
At the same time, the voters have allowed, and sometimes demanded, that both Congress and the president far exceed their constitutional power, stripping that power from the states. The Consitution says most government functions should be handled at the state and local level, where citizens can more directly affect it. We've abdicated our role as citizens of our states by insisting that the federal government force our ideas on other states, and thereby move the power further away from the people.