Slashdot Mirror
NSA's Legal Win Introduces a Lot of Online Insecurity
Nerval's Lobster writes "The decision of a New York judge that the wholesale collection of cell-phone metadata by the National Security Agency is constitutional ties the score between pro- and anti-NSA forces at one victory apiece. The contradictory decisions use similar reasoning and criteria to come to opposite conclusions, leaving both individuals and corporations uncertain of whether their phone calls, online activity or even data stored in the cloud will ultimately be shielded by U.S. laws protecting property, privacy or search and seizure by law-enforcement agencies. On Dec. 27, Judge William H. Pauley threw out a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) that sought to stop the NSA PRISM cell-phone metadata-collection program on the grounds it violated Fourth Amendment provisions protecting individual privacy and limits on search and seizure of personal property by the federal government. Pauley threw out the lawsuit largely due to his conclusion that Fourth Amendment protections do not apply to records held by third parties. That eliminates the criteria for most legal challenges, but throws into question the privacy of any data held by phone companies, cloud providers or external hosting companies – all of which could qualify as unprotected third parties."
Obviously, if you don't want the NSA to read your data, make sure they can't read them. Make sure your data is not stored outside your control by someone who could at least in theory read it (like Lavabit). Make sure the data is not stored in the USA at all if you can avoid it.
Actually, we know they have used this information against Americans in American courts. We had a big story about it a while ago when the feds would call up a state agency and say X is going to happen at Y or something similar, you need to find a way of making it legit and capture them.
I think it was called creating a parallel construction where they know you have drugs in your car or something but pull you over for doing 1mph over the speed limit and search your car because "you were acting suspicious".
http://slashdot.org/story/13/08/05/168205/dea-program-more-troubling-than-nsa
Last I checked it said
anything NOT in the CONSTITUTION is up to the STATES, NOT the federal government. Perhaps you should try reading it again. I recommend you start with the 10th amendment to clear up your ill informed understanding of the constitution
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Freedom is more important than safety. Remember how this is supposed to be "the land of the free and the home of the brave"? No? Then perhaps you're too trusting of the government.
Or maybe you simply ignore parts of the Constitution that aren't your favorite. If you bother to read the constitution, you see entire sections devoted to the question of providing for the security of the United States. If fact you could make the very reasonable argument that freedom of the individual citizens was assumed and it was security, national defense, that had to be explicitly provided for. Many of the specific guarantees regarding various freedoms are not in the text of the main document itself, but are "add ons" in amendments. The main text of the document, the Constitution, is concerned with explicitly describing authority related to providing national defense and powers of the Federal government.
The simple fact is that various aspects of security and freedom are tied together. A nation that is conquered by a foreign invader will not be free. A nation that has a breakaway region faces enormous questions as to its fate. If lawlessness in your city is such that you have reasonable fear for your life or limb by leaving the building where you live, what true freedom do you have? If pirates are taking your citizens as slaves, you are failing to protect their freedom, and yet it isn't clear you would be troubled by that since ".... we have to take some risks. That's what happens when you're free." Would you protect the freedoms of American citizens, either protecting or freeing them from pirates? I have no confidence in that.
On the whole I find your argument "freedom is more important than safety" to be ill considered, at best, since most people I see making that claim here tend to resolve it towards the direction of "therefore we cannot tolerate steps taken to provide for security, at all," even if not explicitly stated.
Benjamin Franklin said, "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately." I think if we look closely at the arguments of those who claim we must only have freedom, and any steps towards security are too many, that they are in effect saying, "Hang the lot of you, but stay away from me." If there was a guarantee that they would be a "canary in the coal mine," the first to be hung to give the rest ample warning, it might be worth considering. But there is no such guarantee, so we must provide for both.
The Constitution of the United States
Article. I.
Section. 8.
To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress; ....
To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
Section. 9.
The Pri
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
The only people with horrible logic are those that support this type of surveillance. They also have an awful grasp of history and are disgustingly naive.