keep in mind that the people who work at these companies are geeky engineer types, which means they very likely feel just as strongly about all this as anyone
What type do you think work at the NSA? The few NSA vets I've known fit the geeky engineer mold pretty well.
don't you think that everyone's on the lookout for any symptoms of monitoring?
They may be well aware that monitoring capabilities exist, in fact that's not even surprising. Phone companies have had monitoring/bugging capabilities for years. It's perfectly legitimate if it's only used pursuant to a proper warrant. But knowing that these capabilities exist, and knowing exactly how they're being used are two different things. Do the few techies that handle it even see the warrants, or are they just told "this is legit - do it". Or maybe the government has some remotely controlled ability to monitor without bothering company personnel. That's a perfect "hear no evil, see no evil" approach. "Gosh, the government told us it would only be used for legitimate lawful purposes, who wouldn't trust the government?"
The idea of a giant dragnet that monitors everybody may be nonsense, but it doesn't mean the government can't monitor anybody it chooses.
On the eve of Obama's meeting with President Jinping, any conversations about Chinese espionage is going to be quite embarrassing.
That's it! The Chinese found out about this through their hacking, and leaked it to the press to avoid complaints about their hacking. Is there anything like a Pulitzer Prize for conspiracy theories?
if the government has the ability to do deep packet inspection at the ISP or backbone level couldn't they see the negotiation of encryption keys between client and server and decrypt the data?
Using a generator to acquire electricity is viewed as being less reliant on the outside world than, say, getting it from the power grid.
I don't understand that one, since the generator fuel (usually diesel or gasoline) also has to come from the outside world. However, considering some of the mineral rights they have, Amish Petroleum might be right around the corner.
Apparently many Slashdotters remember the civics and history lessons taught in those subversive and supposedly poor American schools. Either Bennett doesn't, or he is being very coy. Alternatively he was fishing for material, in which case he's got enough for a treatise.
An excellent point, and not just a theoretical one. It's not unusual for someone appearing as a witness (and remember you can be compelled to be a witness) to take the 5th on certain questions. Otherwise they'd probably lie about everything. It certainly wouldn't serve to discover the truth in the trial where they are a witness, and "they could be convicted of perjury" is not a convincing argument. The perjury charge could be less than what they're taking the 5th about, and perjury can be notoriously difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.
In this case the files had been seen, the file were illegal and hence he at that point should be found guilty unless he can prove himself innocent!
I agree, so why isn't the government doing that? Either the CP they supposedly found isn't very incriminating, or someone wants a test case to further erode the 5th amendment. Undoubtedly Truth, Justice and the American Way are on their side, because only Richard Stallman and other terrorists use encryption.
These kinds of things always strike me as a little annoying, because the person asking usually has already made up their mind, and will structure the rules to ensure there is no possible way to answer their question. Much like the old (and foolish) "no proof of evolution" argument, you just can't win even if you should, so why play?
You can cite plenty of evidence for evolution - you just cant' force someone to believe it or even consider it evenhandedly.
More importantly though, I agree with you about the structure of the question and the rules, but the correct approach (at least if you're an argumentative sonofabitch like me) is to point out the errors and assumptions, or how it's structured to arrive at a predetermined conclusion, or doesn't ask all the right questions. For example, the 4th criterion is flawed (the 1st is similarly flawed, but I'll use the 4th as an example).
The "benefit" can't be something that exists separately from the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. I've had it suggested to me that without the Fifth Amendment, the police would just beat people into confessing. But of course the right not to be beaten by the police is separate from the right to remain silent.
This assumes that there are protections aside from the 5th that will be just as effective as the combination of those protections and the 5th. It's a theoretical assumption and not borne out by history. You have to appreciate that the Bill of Rights weren't written as a theoretical exercise, but based on a long history of actual government abuses. Most of the rights exist not because otherwise government could theoretically abuse its powers, but because in the past it actually had abused its powers. Moreover the people who wrote the Bill of Rights were pragmatists who realized than in reality it often wasn't enough to say "you can't do that". To be effective you should, where practicable, reduce incentives for doing the wrong thing.
The question "what's the philosophical argument that you shouldn't have to answer 'Yes' or 'No' if the police ask if you committed the murder?" is silly. The author even admitted it was philosophical. Pragmatists don't much care about that, because in reality lots of murderers say "I didn't do it". The way to prove they lied is to convict them at at trial, but after that what's the difference whether they lied? Perhaps if there was some way to magically ensure someone isn't lying (torture certainly doesn't do that) you could argue the 5th was a serious impediment. Since you can't, it's not.
It's one thing to have a "no torture" rule and quite another to enforce it effectively. It's like leaving $1M unguarded and saying "but there is a law against theft". That's true, but I'd still rather put the money in a safe. The 5th reduces the incentive to torture a confession out of somebody. It was a big problem in the 17th century, and I don't buy the argument that it's not an issue now because the 17th century was a long time ago. Many types of government abuse date to ancient times, and absent guarding against them, can and ultimately will be used again. Many abuses we don't worry much about nowadays precisely because they have been guarded against for a long time. I don't worry much about catching bubonic plague, but if a case crops up (it still exists in the US in prairie dog populations) I'm all in favor of a quarantine.
While "torture" sounds melodramatic, it doesn't have to mean stretching somebody on a rack. I'm not reflexively anti-police, but police brutality can and does occur. Suppose some crooked cops beat a confession out of somebody. They're smart enough not to leave marks. The defendant lodges a complaint. Who is going to believe the word of somebody convicted of CP? Alternatively they could drop put the defendant in jail for refusing to use the encryption key, and let the crime he is accused of "leak out" to the other inmates. Jailhouse "justice" can be worse than anything
This AC drek got a +1 instead of a -1? I guess no mod system is perfect. Sounds like a typical Slashdot "I know I'm right, so I don't have to make an argument or provide evidence. Do your own research." It's a kindergarten argument from people unwilling or unable to debate.
Worse, it has little to do with law school, where they talk mostly about the interpretation and application of laws. Whether those laws should exist is a policy debate.
What next, articles about the cruel dilemma of Christian Scientists who are dying of disease because their religion discourages them from seeing doctors?
Please tell me you see the difference between an act of nature (disease) and a system created by the government (courts). I don't know exactly what the solution is, but to say that the government can't, where practicable, make accommodations for people's deeply held religious belief is nonsense. It certainly has no basis in history or what most people would consider reason and justice. The phrase "oath or affirmation" is in the Constitution because Quakers have a religious objection to oaths. Did you think that "Sundays excepted" got in there because that's when people had barbeques? What about exemptions from military service or allowing some religious groups to use peyote?
In any event, it's really not something anybody should be concerned with. The Amish have the right to take advantage of the courts, and the right to choose not to use them. If their belief system says don't use the courts, well that's too bad but it's a burden they've placed on themselves.
While we're at it, let's take those "oath or affirmation" lines out of the Constitution. An oath should be good enough for anyone. If Quakers can't serve in office because they won't take an oath, that's a burden they've placed on themselves.
Anyone that believes we should grant this government MORE power (e.g. to deal with "climate change", to get more involved with healthcare, to regulate free speech or to limit firearms freedom) needs to pay attention to stories like this and then spend some serious time examining their beliefs.
While we're at it, let's not give the government the power to build roads or have law enforcement. The idea that the best way to limit the power of government is to deprive it as much as possible of all powers is a simplistic libertarian notion. You can have a government that is not at all involved in healthcare but is an even worse surveillance state than we have now. Before the Civil War we had a government that was not at all involved in health care but enforced the Fugitive Slave Act. Get the difference?
Give me some evidence the CIA or the NSA are attempting to control anything about internal American politics, control people's lives, the outcomes of political processes or even innocent individuals lives or even anything like business outcomes. Because without that you have no case that they are a nefarious force in our lives.
Wow. Are you at all familiar with the U.S. Constitution, the philosophy behind it, or the centuries of history of abusive practices that it was designed to prevent? Even if you could prove that the things you list weren't happening, it would still be wrong. The Constitution was written by people who understand that if government powers can be abused, they will be abused. Those people were realists, not cynics. They based the limits on government in the Constitution not on some pie-in-the-sky theories, but on personal experiences with government abuses and centuries of history with them.
Civil society runs on the fact that people do not WANT to do evil things...
Great, then we can rely on that principle and get rid of all those pesky laws, including our organic law.
For someone who is happy and proud to be an American, you have remarkably little appreciation for the Bill of Rights. "Life is good right now" ain't enough. The Fourth Amendment isn't just window dressing. It was written against a long history of government abuses. Abuses that might not affect you at this very moment, but very dangerous abuses nonetheless. While we could argue like wannabee Constitutional scholars about whether this is technically a violation of the 4th, there can be no doubt that it's a gross violation of the ideas behind it. If this technology had existed in the 18th century, this use of it would have been banned by the Bill of Rights.
I'm free to go anywhere I want, profess my beliefs, and vote for those candidates I believe in. And all the while I'm not being harassed by any kind of government organization
Probably true for the vast majority of Americans right now, but are you so ignorant of history that you've never heard of surveillance being used to harass and suppress dissent? There have been many such abuses in history, including this country's history, but you might want to start with a fellow named Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement.
The NSA and the CIA are rogue states within the state
What reason is there to believe that? Absent evidence to the contrary, I believe this is under the control of our elected officials. Put the blame where it belongs.
You are a fool for trying to turn this into a partisan argument. Both parties are happily wiping their asses with the Constitution, and it's hard to find anyone here who doesn't understand that. Your partisan nonsense is exactly the sort of diversion that these politicians find useful.
If this doesn't make you angry, upset and outraged, what will? Most of you will have relatives that fought and died to fight the evil of fascism in the Second World War.
An excellent point. It almost struck me as wrapping yourself in the flag at first, but really it's not. "Fought and died for our freedoms" is something I heard often, starting in grade school. I hope it's not complete bull. We could really use some WWII and other vets saying "this is not what I fought for".
The most effective thing I read back when an anti-flag burning amendment was the hot topic, was a letter in a local paper from a WWII vet. He had serious creds - airborne and did 3 major jumps, including D-Day. If he didn't risk his neck for this country I don't know who did. His statement was very simple. "I didn't fight for the flag, I fought for what it stands for".
NSA reporting increasingly relies on PRISM” as its leading source of raw material, accounting for nearly 1 in 7 intelligence reports.
But are those reports anything useful? Data is cheap, especially these days. Finding useful information is as difficult as ever, perhaps more so because of the flood of data. It wasn't a lack of data that kept 9/11 from being prevented, it was the failure of FBI headquarters to listen to their own field offices.
My prediction is that, even though these programs are now being widely reported on, there will be crickets chirping after it's asked what useful information they have obtained. I won't believe it's because that information is sensitive, as government never fails to crow about the wonderful things they've done.
Just to make my position clear, I don't think these programs are justifiable no matter what useful information is collected. However, a failure to collect useful information adds insult to injury, and renders moot any debate about whether this is an acceptable tradeoff.
Is there any chance that this and the Verizon metadata will cause real outrage, by which I mean by enough citizens to have some political effect? I honestly don't know, but at least some part of me hopes it will. Please discuss. I know much of the "discussion" will be the usual rants, but some folks might add real thought or insight.
Slashdot Mirror
keep in mind that the people who work at these companies are geeky engineer types, which means they very likely feel just as strongly about all this as anyone
What type do you think work at the NSA? The few NSA vets I've known fit the geeky engineer mold pretty well.
don't you think that everyone's on the lookout for any symptoms of monitoring?
They may be well aware that monitoring capabilities exist, in fact that's not even surprising. Phone companies have had monitoring/bugging capabilities for years. It's perfectly legitimate if it's only used pursuant to a proper warrant. But knowing that these capabilities exist, and knowing exactly how they're being used are two different things. Do the few techies that handle it even see the warrants, or are they just told "this is legit - do it". Or maybe the government has some remotely controlled ability to monitor without bothering company personnel. That's a perfect "hear no evil, see no evil" approach. "Gosh, the government told us it would only be used for legitimate lawful purposes, who wouldn't trust the government?"
The idea of a giant dragnet that monitors everybody may be nonsense, but it doesn't mean the government can't monitor anybody it chooses.
On the eve of Obama's meeting with President Jinping, any conversations about Chinese espionage is going to be quite embarrassing.
That's it! The Chinese found out about this through their hacking, and leaked it to the press to avoid complaints about their hacking. Is there anything like a Pulitzer Prize for conspiracy theories?
You don't trust Lauren Weinstein?
An obvious plant.
I have to think at least some of these billionaires would say hold on, and buy a half hour block of TV that evening to have a chat with America.
And put themselves out of business? Not likely.
if the government has the ability to do deep packet inspection at the ISP or backbone level couldn't they see the negotiation of encryption keys between client and server and decrypt the data?
Doesn't work w/ public key encryption.
Using a generator to acquire electricity is viewed as being less reliant on the outside world than, say, getting it from the power grid.
I don't understand that one, since the generator fuel (usually diesel or gasoline) also has to come from the outside world. However, considering some of the mineral rights they have, Amish Petroleum might be right around the corner.
Apparently many Slashdotters remember the civics and history lessons taught in those subversive and supposedly poor American schools. Either Bennett doesn't, or he is being very coy. Alternatively he was fishing for material, in which case he's got enough for a treatise.
An excellent point, and not just a theoretical one. It's not unusual for someone appearing as a witness (and remember you can be compelled to be a witness) to take the 5th on certain questions. Otherwise they'd probably lie about everything. It certainly wouldn't serve to discover the truth in the trial where they are a witness, and "they could be convicted of perjury" is not a convincing argument. The perjury charge could be less than what they're taking the 5th about, and perjury can be notoriously difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.
In this case the files had been seen, the file were illegal and hence he at that point should be found guilty unless he can prove himself innocent!
I agree, so why isn't the government doing that? Either the CP they supposedly found isn't very incriminating, or someone wants a test case to further erode the 5th amendment. Undoubtedly Truth, Justice and the American Way are on their side, because only Richard Stallman and other terrorists use encryption.
These kinds of things always strike me as a little annoying, because the person asking usually has already made up their mind, and will structure the rules to ensure there is no possible way to answer their question. Much like the old (and foolish) "no proof of evolution" argument, you just can't win even if you should, so why play?
You can cite plenty of evidence for evolution - you just cant' force someone to believe it or even consider it evenhandedly.
More importantly though, I agree with you about the structure of the question and the rules, but the correct approach (at least if you're an argumentative sonofabitch like me) is to point out the errors and assumptions, or how it's structured to arrive at a predetermined conclusion, or doesn't ask all the right questions. For example, the 4th criterion is flawed (the 1st is similarly flawed, but I'll use the 4th as an example).
The "benefit" can't be something that exists separately from the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. I've had it suggested to me that without the Fifth Amendment, the police would just beat people into confessing. But of course the right not to be beaten by the police is separate from the right to remain silent.
This assumes that there are protections aside from the 5th that will be just as effective as the combination of those protections and the 5th. It's a theoretical assumption and not borne out by history. You have to appreciate that the Bill of Rights weren't written as a theoretical exercise, but based on a long history of actual government abuses. Most of the rights exist not because otherwise government could theoretically abuse its powers, but because in the past it actually had abused its powers. Moreover the people who wrote the Bill of Rights were pragmatists who realized than in reality it often wasn't enough to say "you can't do that". To be effective you should, where practicable, reduce incentives for doing the wrong thing.
The question "what's the philosophical argument that you shouldn't have to answer 'Yes' or 'No' if the police ask if you committed the murder?" is silly. The author even admitted it was philosophical. Pragmatists don't much care about that, because in reality lots of murderers say "I didn't do it". The way to prove they lied is to convict them at at trial, but after that what's the difference whether they lied? Perhaps if there was some way to magically ensure someone isn't lying (torture certainly doesn't do that) you could argue the 5th was a serious impediment. Since you can't, it's not.
It's one thing to have a "no torture" rule and quite another to enforce it effectively. It's like leaving $1M unguarded and saying "but there is a law against theft". That's true, but I'd still rather put the money in a safe. The 5th reduces the incentive to torture a confession out of somebody. It was a big problem in the 17th century, and I don't buy the argument that it's not an issue now because the 17th century was a long time ago. Many types of government abuse date to ancient times, and absent guarding against them, can and ultimately will be used again. Many abuses we don't worry much about nowadays precisely because they have been guarded against for a long time. I don't worry much about catching bubonic plague, but if a case crops up (it still exists in the US in prairie dog populations) I'm all in favor of a quarantine.
While "torture" sounds melodramatic, it doesn't have to mean stretching somebody on a rack. I'm not reflexively anti-police, but police brutality can and does occur. Suppose some crooked cops beat a confession out of somebody. They're smart enough not to leave marks. The defendant lodges a complaint. Who is going to believe the word of somebody convicted of CP? Alternatively they could drop put the defendant in jail for refusing to use the encryption key, and let the crime he is accused of "leak out" to the other inmates. Jailhouse "justice" can be worse than anything
This AC drek got a +1 instead of a -1? I guess no mod system is perfect. Sounds like a typical Slashdot "I know I'm right, so I don't have to make an argument or provide evidence. Do your own research." It's a kindergarten argument from people unwilling or unable to debate.
Worse, it has little to do with law school, where they talk mostly about the interpretation and application of laws. Whether those laws should exist is a policy debate.
Your right to demand a warrant for the cops to come in and search your house is very much tied to your right to not have to answer their questions.
How? I'm not even saying I necessarily disagree with you. I don't know because you haven't explained your argument.
What next, articles about the cruel dilemma of Christian Scientists who are dying of disease because their religion discourages them from seeing doctors?
Please tell me you see the difference between an act of nature (disease) and a system created by the government (courts). I don't know exactly what the solution is, but to say that the government can't, where practicable, make accommodations for people's deeply held religious belief is nonsense. It certainly has no basis in history or what most people would consider reason and justice. The phrase "oath or affirmation" is in the Constitution because Quakers have a religious objection to oaths. Did you think that "Sundays excepted" got in there because that's when people had barbeques? What about exemptions from military service or allowing some religious groups to use peyote?
In any event, it's really not something anybody should be concerned with. The Amish have the right to take advantage of the courts, and the right to choose not to use them. If their belief system says don't use the courts, well that's too bad but it's a burden they've placed on themselves.
While we're at it, let's take those "oath or affirmation" lines out of the Constitution. An oath should be good enough for anyone. If Quakers can't serve in office because they won't take an oath, that's a burden they've placed on themselves.
Anyone that believes we should grant this government MORE power (e.g. to deal with "climate change", to get more involved with healthcare, to regulate free speech or to limit firearms freedom) needs to pay attention to stories like this and then spend some serious time examining their beliefs.
While we're at it, let's not give the government the power to build roads or have law enforcement. The idea that the best way to limit the power of government is to deprive it as much as possible of all powers is a simplistic libertarian notion. You can have a government that is not at all involved in healthcare but is an even worse surveillance state than we have now. Before the Civil War we had a government that was not at all involved in health care but enforced the Fugitive Slave Act. Get the difference?
Give me some evidence the CIA or the NSA are attempting to control anything about internal American politics, control people's lives, the outcomes of political processes or even innocent individuals lives or even anything like business outcomes. Because without that you have no case that they are a nefarious force in our lives.
Wow. Are you at all familiar with the U.S. Constitution, the philosophy behind it, or the centuries of history of abusive practices that it was designed to prevent? Even if you could prove that the things you list weren't happening, it would still be wrong. The Constitution was written by people who understand that if government powers can be abused, they will be abused. Those people were realists, not cynics. They based the limits on government in the Constitution not on some pie-in-the-sky theories, but on personal experiences with government abuses and centuries of history with them.
Civil society runs on the fact that people do not WANT to do evil things ...
Great, then we can rely on that principle and get rid of all those pesky laws, including our organic law.
I'm asking to provide some links showing evidence the acquisition of power is not in the best interests in the American public.
A link? Here ya go..
I'm free to go anywhere I want, profess my beliefs, and vote for those candidates I believe in. And all the while I'm not being harassed by any kind of government organization
Probably true for the vast majority of Americans right now, but are you so ignorant of history that you've never heard of surveillance being used to harass and suppress dissent? There have been many such abuses in history, including this country's history, but you might want to start with a fellow named Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement.
The NSA and the CIA are rogue states within the state
What reason is there to believe that? Absent evidence to the contrary, I believe this is under the control of our elected officials. Put the blame where it belongs.
You are a fool for trying to turn this into a partisan argument. Both parties are happily wiping their asses with the Constitution, and it's hard to find anyone here who doesn't understand that. Your partisan nonsense is exactly the sort of diversion that these politicians find useful.
When did Microsoft become a Silicon Valley company?
The fancy name for it is a metonym. BTW, do you have any thoughts on the US being a surveillance state, or is your concern limited to geography?
If this doesn't make you angry, upset and outraged, what will? Most of you will have relatives that fought and died to fight the evil of fascism in the Second World War.
An excellent point. It almost struck me as wrapping yourself in the flag at first, but really it's not. "Fought and died for our freedoms" is something I heard often, starting in grade school. I hope it's not complete bull. We could really use some WWII and other vets saying "this is not what I fought for".
The most effective thing I read back when an anti-flag burning amendment was the hot topic, was a letter in a local paper from a WWII vet. He had serious creds - airborne and did 3 major jumps, including D-Day. If he didn't risk his neck for this country I don't know who did. His statement was very simple. "I didn't fight for the flag, I fought for what it stands for".
NSA reporting increasingly relies on PRISM” as its leading source of raw material, accounting for nearly 1 in 7 intelligence reports.
But are those reports anything useful? Data is cheap, especially these days. Finding useful information is as difficult as ever, perhaps more so because of the flood of data. It wasn't a lack of data that kept 9/11 from being prevented, it was the failure of FBI headquarters to listen to their own field offices.
My prediction is that, even though these programs are now being widely reported on, there will be crickets chirping after it's asked what useful information they have obtained. I won't believe it's because that information is sensitive, as government never fails to crow about the wonderful things they've done.
Just to make my position clear, I don't think these programs are justifiable no matter what useful information is collected. However, a failure to collect useful information adds insult to injury, and renders moot any debate about whether this is an acceptable tradeoff.
Is there any chance that this and the Verizon metadata will cause real outrage, by which I mean by enough citizens to have some political effect? I honestly don't know, but at least some part of me hopes it will. Please discuss. I know much of the "discussion" will be the usual rants, but some folks might add real thought or insight.
what you see here are agencies that primarily Republicans (i.e. Hoover, Reagan, Bush x2) have erected
The NSA and the CIA were created by Truman. Plenty of blame for both parties.