I'm starting to think more and more that beyond this being a US Constitution issue, it's a human rights issue, and we should fight to ban all such spying internationally. Yes, I realize how hard that that may be to achieve, and how long it would probably take, but we need to do it because it's the right thing for humanity, not because it's easy or hard, just like everyone is fighting for gay marriage all over the world, and have fought for free speech, and so on.
We should be doing this. The United States' organic law is based on natural rights. Defined as the innate right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Our rights do not come from the Bill of Rights. If the US repealed or diminished the Fourth Amendment then we'd have the Right of Revolution to alter or abolish said government based on the organic law. (Many people will disagree with this saying the US organic law has no constitutional force.)
Every human being has the natural right to privacy regardless if they are a US citizen. It's sad and ironic that the US Government claims that foreigners have no natural rights. There should be a global agreement where countries respect the innate rights of all human beings and if not, are punished.
This is the worst aspect of globalization -- the refutation of "sacred and undeniable" rights.
UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS - Article 12.
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
> No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
> Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
The public is not acquiescing in surveillance. It is simply rare for the mainstream media to report on this critically (or at all -- note the lack of front-page coverage of this story in the New York Times), an appalling development given the extension of this surveillance apparatus to targeting journalists.
With that in mind, it is worth noting that the two authors of this piece are NOT professional journalists, although what they report could and should easily have been put together by actual staffers.
> note the lack of front-page coverage of this story in the New York Times
NYT front page on June 20, 22, 24, 25, 26 -- five out of the past 7 days. Plus a front page mention on June 23. I know you don't mean your comment literally, but I think there's been a lot of coverage. There's some criticism that the stories of late tend to focus more on Snowden, but his part of the story is the only thing that's had material developments in the past week.
> - note the lack of front-page coverage of this story in the New York Times
1. As of right now, the story is linked to on the front page in the Opinion box since this is an opinion piece and not a news piece. If you want opinion as news, I refer you to Fox News or Buzzfeed or Upworthy.
2. The story of the NSA surveillance was front page on the NY Times when it broke and for about a week or two after.
3. The Mainstream media has been reporting on this consistently, both on the Snowden drama and the actual substance of his leaks.
It's sad to see both longer-time and newer users running around with this chicken little reddit-level bullshit. The mods seem to be complicit in it so oh well. The upside is that I waste less time here.
The blowback from this mess could very soon be more severe than everyone might think. I expect several foreign countries to ban American tech company operations in their jurisdictions.
The bans in the foreign nations could easily stem from foreign business owners pressuring their politicians to ban American-operated companies under the guise of national security, privacy, and anti-American-power-mongering, but their real motivation will be to gain market share. Their politicians can easily make it into a win-win for everyone involved - the politicians (campaign contributions), the local businesses (market share), and the population, who wouldn't mind seeing a global anti-America movement.
Thou doth jest. Most western countries are lap-dogs to the US, and almost certainly exchange spying data with the US so that they don't breach their own privacy laws.
This will have little impact with US allies.
> I expect several foreign countries to ban American tech company operations
That will probably not happen.
But what will happen, and have a small but ultimately significant effect, is that American companies will lose some contracts, by the narrowest of margins in a decision... contracts they would otherwise have won by a narrowest of margins... due to the fallout from the NSA surveillance scandal.
Please talk to people who lived under oppresive regimes (former Eastern Block) and see for yourself what it meant to live in a society of paranoia, snitching, informants, secret service, fake patriotism etc.. embedded IN every aspect of social life (work, neighbours EVEN families).
Americans can't grasp this because they never experienced it, that's why you need to talk to people who did, otherwise your children will be sorry.
"...The two programs violate both the letter and the spirit of federal law."
"We may never know all the details of the mass surveillance programs, but we know this: The administration has justified them through abuse of language, intentional evasion of statutory protections, secret, unreviewable investigative procedures and constitutional arguments that make a mockery of the government’s professed concern with protecting Americans’ privacy. It’s time to call the N.S.A.’s mass surveillance programs what they are: criminal."
Fatal bug throughout the whole `stack'?
Are these lawyered authors actually telling us the rudder is gone and the entire hull rotten?
The whole thing as implemented now definitely needs better accountability and oversight to call it a program that befits the public service. But I don't know about the rudder being gone (or what you mean by that exactly).
"Let’s turn to Prism: the streamlined, electronic seizure of communications from Internet companies." OK, good so far, PRISM does indeed streamline and automate the process...
"... Prism is further proof that the agency is collecting vast amounts of e-mails and other messages — including communications to, from and between Americans."
??? PRISM was the one thing I stopped being worried about as soon as I figured out what it was. The government has always been able to subpoena a third-party for records pursuant to an actual investigation, and even Google seemed to be satisfied with the idea that specific PRISM requests have been legal (even if they forced NSA to get a real warrant first).
Other things may indicate NSA is hoovering emails like a Mob boss hoovering blow but PRISM isn't one of them. PRISM has to be turned on to acquire data, unlike other NSA SIGINT this one's not actually magic.
I'm kind of disappointed by the opinion piece because if they only took efforts to be factual they would probably be able to make a much more persuasive case (e.g. by bringing up Carnivore or 641A-style data interception instead of a system that queries specific individual users one-at-a-time).
So from Wikipedia, Boundless Informant uses 504 separate DNR (electronic surveillance program records) and DNI (metadata) collection sources known as SIGADs. In a 30-day period, they collected 3 billion data elements from within the US from these SIGADS.
And the PRISM document says it is the "the number one source of raw intelligence used for NSA analytic reports". Doesn't that mean that PRISM is the majority source of those 3 billion data elements?
And why did Page, Zuckerberg and Apple say they never heard of PRISM? Perhaps I am wrong but it's somewhat confusing!
HN's own PRISM apologist. You haven't figured out what PRISM is, you don't have a clue. But when, otherwise very conservative (by this I mean "less likely to fly off the handle") individuals start getting up in arms, you should realize this is probably a big deal. But then, you probably do realize it.
It's criminal and people should go to prison. When we talk about locking people up forever because they're a threat to society, I can't think of a better example than this.
Yes, it is time to call the N.S.A.’s mass surveillance programs what they are: Both criminal - and a betrayal of the people of the United States of America.
This post makes a similar argument to my blog post[1] from earlier this week - that PRISM is simply criminal - although my analysis focused on why this made Snowden immune to charges as a whistleblower.
I agree that it's time to take the US government to task over this. How does that happen? A civil suit, a private prosecution?
[+] [-] mtgx|12 years ago|reply
http://torrentfreak.com/file-sharers-have-right-to-anonymous...
I'm starting to think more and more that beyond this being a US Constitution issue, it's a human rights issue, and we should fight to ban all such spying internationally. Yes, I realize how hard that that may be to achieve, and how long it would probably take, but we need to do it because it's the right thing for humanity, not because it's easy or hard, just like everyone is fighting for gay marriage all over the world, and have fought for free speech, and so on.
[+] [-] dram|12 years ago|reply
Every human being has the natural right to privacy regardless if they are a US citizen. It's sad and ironic that the US Government claims that foreigners have no natural rights. There should be a global agreement where countries respect the innate rights of all human beings and if not, are punished.
This is the worst aspect of globalization -- the refutation of "sacred and undeniable" rights.
[+] [-] aubergene|12 years ago|reply
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml#a12
[+] [-] h0w412d|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sk00byd00|12 years ago|reply
> Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
https://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/
[+] [-] chaz|12 years ago|reply
This is an inaccurate distraction in your comment.
[+] [-] awesomifier|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] trevelyan|12 years ago|reply
With that in mind, it is worth noting that the two authors of this piece are NOT professional journalists, although what they report could and should easily have been put together by actual staffers.
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] chaz|12 years ago|reply
NYT front page on June 20, 22, 24, 25, 26 -- five out of the past 7 days. Plus a front page mention on June 23. I know you don't mean your comment literally, but I think there's been a lot of coverage. There's some criticism that the stories of late tend to focus more on Snowden, but his part of the story is the only thing that's had material developments in the past week.
http://www.nytimes.com/images/2013/06/26/nytfrontpage/scan.p... (et al)
[+] [-] tkahn6|12 years ago|reply
1. As of right now, the story is linked to on the front page in the Opinion box since this is an opinion piece and not a news piece. If you want opinion as news, I refer you to Fox News or Buzzfeed or Upworthy.
2. The story of the NSA surveillance was front page on the NY Times when it broke and for about a week or two after.
3. The Mainstream media has been reporting on this consistently, both on the Snowden drama and the actual substance of his leaks.
It's sad to see both longer-time and newer users running around with this chicken little reddit-level bullshit. The mods seem to be complicit in it so oh well. The upside is that I waste less time here.
[+] [-] res0nat0r|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] fragsworth|12 years ago|reply
The bans in the foreign nations could easily stem from foreign business owners pressuring their politicians to ban American-operated companies under the guise of national security, privacy, and anti-American-power-mongering, but their real motivation will be to gain market share. Their politicians can easily make it into a win-win for everyone involved - the politicians (campaign contributions), the local businesses (market share), and the population, who wouldn't mind seeing a global anti-America movement.
[+] [-] rustynails|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] D_Alex|12 years ago|reply
That will probably not happen.
But what will happen, and have a small but ultimately significant effect, is that American companies will lose some contracts, by the narrowest of margins in a decision... contracts they would otherwise have won by a narrowest of margins... due to the fallout from the NSA surveillance scandal.
[+] [-] janlukacs|12 years ago|reply
Americans can't grasp this because they never experienced it, that's why you need to talk to people who did, otherwise your children will be sorry.
[+] [-] andrewljohnson|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mtgx|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] anigbrowl|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] e3pi|12 years ago|reply
"We may never know all the details of the mass surveillance programs, but we know this: The administration has justified them through abuse of language, intentional evasion of statutory protections, secret, unreviewable investigative procedures and constitutional arguments that make a mockery of the government’s professed concern with protecting Americans’ privacy. It’s time to call the N.S.A.’s mass surveillance programs what they are: criminal."
Fatal bug throughout the whole `stack'?
Are these lawyered authors actually telling us the rudder is gone and the entire hull rotten?
[+] [-] mpyne|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mpyne|12 years ago|reply
"... Prism is further proof that the agency is collecting vast amounts of e-mails and other messages — including communications to, from and between Americans."
??? PRISM was the one thing I stopped being worried about as soon as I figured out what it was. The government has always been able to subpoena a third-party for records pursuant to an actual investigation, and even Google seemed to be satisfied with the idea that specific PRISM requests have been legal (even if they forced NSA to get a real warrant first).
Other things may indicate NSA is hoovering emails like a Mob boss hoovering blow but PRISM isn't one of them. PRISM has to be turned on to acquire data, unlike other NSA SIGINT this one's not actually magic.
I'm kind of disappointed by the opinion piece because if they only took efforts to be factual they would probably be able to make a much more persuasive case (e.g. by bringing up Carnivore or 641A-style data interception instead of a system that queries specific individual users one-at-a-time).
[+] [-] dram|12 years ago|reply
And the PRISM document says it is the "the number one source of raw intelligence used for NSA analytic reports". Doesn't that mean that PRISM is the majority source of those 3 billion data elements?
And why did Page, Zuckerberg and Apple say they never heard of PRISM? Perhaps I am wrong but it's somewhat confusing!
[+] [-] flyinRyan|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] logn|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rhizome|12 years ago|reply
http://froomkin.tumblr.com/post/54026897885
[+] [-] w_t_payne|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tehwalrus|12 years ago|reply
I agree that it's time to take the US government to task over this. How does that happen? A civil suit, a private prosecution?
[1] http://joe-jordan.co.uk/blog/2013/06/tinker-tailor-whistlebl... (hacker news comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5945185 )
[+] [-] whiddershins|12 years ago|reply