I have read so many articles over the past week about various bills and efforts to further them or block them and I have no idea what's going on at this point. I still read this and do not understand.
> the Senate voted on Tuesday to curtail the federal government’s sweeping surveillance
> the passage... will lead to the reinstatement of government surveillance efforts
Did we stop the surveillance? Did we continue it? Is this really going to do anything at all to change the culture of mass collection? Who is counting this as a win? Who is against this and who is for this?
Great questions. USA Freedom has some reforms, and shifts the collection to the telcos rather than the NSA. Then again it largely keeps the current regime in place (which makes it a win for the NSA), and it misses out on a lot of potential improvements. Some privacy and civil liberties organizations supported it; EFF and ACLU neither supported nor opposed it.
Unfortunately, more aggressive reforms -- like the Surveillance State Repeal Act -- weren't on the table; and there was a lot of concern that the Senate would further weaken it. So given the makeup of the House and Senate, passing the House version unmodified after a sunset was probably the best outcome. ACLU's Jameel Jaffer says "This is the most important surveillance reform bill since 1978, and its passage is an indication that Americans are no longer willing to give the intelligence agencies a blank check."
While the sunset doesn't actually have any long-term effect, IMHO it's still symbolically important: it meant that the usual tactics of "engineer a last-minute crisis" didn't work this time. And because of Rand Paul, it's actually going to be an issue in the GOP Presidential campaign -- which is huge. [Sanders voted against it as well, saying it was too weak.]
So on the whole I'd say it's a win for reformers ... a small win, admittedly, and tinged with disappointment that even after Snowden we couldn't do better. Still, it's a long term battle. And frankly it's been a while since we've had even a small win.
Technology users everywhere should celebrate, knowing that the NSA will be a little more hampered in its surveillance overreach, and both the NSA and the FISA court will be more transparent and accountable than it was before the USA Freedom Act.
It’s no secret that we wanted more ...
Even so, we’re celebrating. We’re celebrating because, however small, this bill marks a day that some said could never happen—a day when the NSA saw its surveillance power reduced by Congress. And we’re hoping that this could be a turning point in the fight to rein in the NSA....
I suppose it's too much to ask that we actually congratulate the people that represent us on doing something positive. Maybe we could all dial the cynicism back a bit too.
Its technically a win, but in reality its a victorious battle that has likely cost us the war. Now everyone who voted for this anemic pile of shit can go back to his/her constituents and brag about how they fought the tyranny of the NSA. This "victory" is going to prevent a more meaningful reform bill from gaining any traction in the future. Meanwhile, the NSA gets >99% of what they want.
What would be an acceptable level of data collection in your opinion? I've heard a lot about what people think is wrong, but what would the intelligence landscape look like if you had your way? Has the EFF stated what they would find acceptable?
I like the way it worked before the Patriot Act: want to search someone's property? Get a warrant. Want to tap someone's phone? Get a warrant. Want to collect whatever private information? Get a warrant with the target's name on it.
Maybe. That's one of the problems, that the NSA is trying to get everything that hasn't explicitly been labeled as private to be considered public - from phone metadata to emails stored in the cloud.
Although that said, they read ALL emails, and have said [0] that they require no authorization or warrant to listen to your calls, read your text messages, and read your email. So no, without explicit reigning in, those things the GP lists are not all as they once were.
The NSA does not need a warrant to track people outside the USA which is more or less it's job. It can then trade that information with a foreign governments for there collection of US suspects without a warrant.
From 1946: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UKUSA_Agreement "For example, the British newspaper The Independent reported back in 1996 that the U.S. National Security Agency "taps UK phones" at the request of the British intelligence agency MI5, thus allowing British agents to evade restrictive limitations on domestic telephone tapping.[53]"
I believe you that the NSA might provide intelligence to its partners about foreign nationals that those partners could not lawfully collect themselves.
I'm wondering if NSA can actually procure intelligence about US citizens from its partners.
It's a well established rule that private party's can hand the U.S. government information of there own free will without issue. The issue is the government can't request specific information, but a wink wink system of bulk data sharing should be perfectly legal.
Beyond that point, I have no idea if there is some exemption that lets them request specific information.
Nowhere in that article does it appear that GCHQ actually asked NSA to tap UK citizens' private communications. Is it buried under one of the other links?
Instead it appears that NSA had gathered data relating to UK citizens (under NSA's existing legal authorities) and that the GCHQ then asked for that data to be shared with it.
UK law is incredibly surveillance-friendly compared to the USA so I'd be surprised if there were even a reason for GCHQ to ask NSA to do surveillance on GCHQ's behalf; GCHQ could much more easily do it directly.
But NSA-sourced data could still be useful for GCHQ, which would make sense that GCHQ asks for it when it's been collected, for the same reason Germany's BND was found to be sharing data with NSA (in BND's case, because they wanted NSA to share their own data with BND).
No data should be collected without a warrant, this look so much like how communist countries during cold war were spying on its own citizens. What makes it even worse is that thanks to advanced technology far more information can be collected about us.
In your world, are police officers allowed to call in license plate numbers to see if the car of the person they just pulled over is registered to an escaped armed criminal? May the government tune radios to public airwaves? Or is it just electronic communications which are special?
Anything a normal person would assume is private should be treated that way.
License plates? That's why they are for, you register your car with DMV or similar institution in your country for the sole purpose of matching you with the car.
So keeping database of all license plates that match drivers, perfectly ok, but scanning automatically license plates and building map of your daily routes, that is going too far. Where I frequent is my private business.
Public airwaves? Yes, the keyword is "public", assuming the communication is not encrypted. If it is encrypted then it means it should be private.
Criminals can use encryption? Doesn't matter, it is still private. If we allow to go that route, next thing you know we will have implants in our heads transmitting what we are thinking.
“Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.” -- Benjamin Franklin
pretty sure he meant any data obtained via methods which would be illegal for a private citizen to utilize should require a warrant. So no national security letters or breaking into secure facilities to place taps ect.
> pretty sure he meant any data obtained via methods which would be illegal for a private citizen to utilize should require a warrant.
Oh, so the solution is easy then; just make tapping phones legal for everybody again! It might also make those guys with their police scanners happy.
While we're at it, they can bring back party lines for landline telephone use and save some money, or let weev out of prison, and in the meantime the NSA and FBI can gobble up all of our communications.
I think that all types of personal information, even metadata, should require a warrant in order to collect it. A warrant issued by the normal legal system, as opposed to a secret court.
As far as the landscape of intelligence. That's a very good question. The NSA is an incredibly large organization with a wide variety of projects. I think for the most part the organization's mission is pretty noble. I just also happen to think that they went off the rails at some point and started doing misguided, counterproductive things that should be illegal.
I don't have an entire plan drawn out for the restructuring of the NSA, but I do think that Bruce Schneier made some very sensible suggestions for true reform.
This is a much more interesting question than the one that usually gets asked, IMO.
I'd be okay with mass collection of metadata, as long as searches through that data had to be limited, audited, and focused on a specific topic for a specific active investigation. And if there were a trustworthy access control and auditing process to make sure there were no more LOVINT leaks, and none of that bullshit that the FBI pulled on MLK jr.
However, I don't think I would trust any agency to not find a way around that, in time. The power is too great, it's too tempting, and administrations change. Therefore, in our real world, I don't support mass un-targeted perpetual data collection, at all.
The only real long-term solution is to keep moving toward decentralization and encryption everywhere, making it close to impossible for anyone to conduct mass or targeted surveillance. Even if we assume the NSA (U.S. National Security Agency) follows orders, there are still 190+ other NSAs (Nation-State Actors) doing their own thing - not to mention the private and quasi private entities running the infrastructure. If someone can peep, someone will peep.
The founding fathers took care of that one for the EFF and the rest of us. Get a warrant. Get a warrant before rummaging around in people's digital effects. Here's the Supreme Court from last term: " A decade ago officers might have occasionally stumbled across a highly personal item such as a diary, but today many of the more than 90% of American adults who own cell phones keep on their person a digital record of nearly every aspect of their lives."
By the way the same question applies to the intelligence agencies. What level of freedom is acceptable in their opinion. I've heard a number of easily disprovable talking points in favor of continued expansion of this full-employment-act for intelligence "analysts," but what would people's ability to freely express themselves look like if the intelligence community had its way?
See my comment above. It's not "symbolically a good thing"--the intelligence community wanted this. It just expands their powers. It's only symbolic effect is that now, the average American not paying attention, actually things that we've made reform and can stop caring about it. This is a fucking sad day. I'm disappointed in everyone who is saying this is anything but a terrible thing.
I may be wrong but didn't the House actually want to pass a rather strong version of the USA Freedom Act and then the House Committee drastically watered it down before sending it to the Senate?
If that is true then it's most disappointing. Couldn't the House members have done something about that (just calling for a replacement of the Committee members, I guess?). The House Committee doing something like that sounds quite undemocratic, because the House Representatives passed a significantly different bill and then these "middle-men" intervened to kill it.
This year, the House Intelligence Committee worked with the administration, the intelligence community, and privacy advocates to come up with a compromise "USA Freedom" that everybody could live with. The House Judiciary Committee wanted to strengthen it but was concerned that would lead to the compromise falling apart and so didn't amend. The House then passed it, fairly overwhelmingly (although 50ish representatives who voted against wrote a letter to the Senate saying it should be stronger). All the amendments failed in the Senate, so they passed it as well.
And yeah, it's really disappointing. The leadership in both the House and Senate has a huge amount of control over what bills make it to the floor, and they defer to the Intelligence committees (who tend to overwhelmingly support the NSA) so the cards are strongly stacked against reformers. And this isn't just a party-line issue; when the Democrats were in control, it was a very similar dynamic.
I think that aside from the reforms that were left on the table, it's another step to be exlicit about what's allowed and what isn't. For the past 14 years, the view from within the executive was that if no one has said one way or the other, let's just do it until we get caught. Now, we're zeroing in on an explicit set of rules and parameters so there's less ambiguity.
You are confused because NYT headline is straight up false.
Nothing was even curtailed, the only difference is that now the NSA has some massive permanent power to get the exact same meta data as before but now it puts the burden on telecoms to keep it.
Zero of the existing programs that Snowden revealed to the world have been ended as a result of this bill passing.
Yep. Secret courts stay, data collection stays, nothing has changed. Well, one thing has changed. They've raised the bar yet again for becoming a telecommunications company...
This is what is known as a public/private partnership. The private organization is paid to be a mercenary for the government. Of course mercenaries are much more ethical and are much less likely to do unethical things for government money vs government employees. /s
Indeed - the "surveillance as a business model" corporations finally got their letter of marque.
It is a very nice arrangement. Google/Facebook/telcos/etc get an official justification to continue their piracy of personal data ("we are only saving what the government requires us to save"). Meanwhile, the government gets to get all the data they want without a warrant: they simply give the appropriate corporation a wink and nudge and corporation volunteers the data.
This bill codifies the bulk collection of metadata for the first time. It gives power to the deeply corrupt telecoms, and is very similar to CISPA in its philosophy.
But there's one important point: even though this reform is a complete and utter falsehood, it was caused by the programs Snowden brought to light.
If Snowden hadn't come forward as a whistleblower, none of this would have happened. So while this bill is a failure, it is a massive vindication for Snowden.
This bill demonstrates the massive need for whistleblower reform. This fight isn't over. But we can still win it.
Snowden managed to codify the bulk collection of metadata, help enshrine a bunch of other legal authorities, and burned international cooperation against actual bad guys to the ground in the process. But somehow this all vindicates him? I thought the ends were supposed to justify the means?
Fine. We'll pardon him for the illegal program. And then convict him for the thousands of perfectly-legal programs, after we welcome him back.
In the meantime, we should also take steps to ensure that whistleblowers understand the difference between whistleblowing and holding the voting and non-voting public hostage just to advance their own political agenda.
Yeah, I seriously want to taboo the word "reform." Half the legislature wants to actively import poor foreigners to vote for them, the other half wants to seal us in a hermetic bubble. Everyone agrees we want reform, why can't the lazy legislators give it to us?
No, the surveillance didn't stop; it's just fucking doublespeak. One of the circuit courts declared that PATRIOT section 215 doesn't actually authorize the bulk collection. So, the NSA stopped giving a shit about PATRIOT. The FREEDOM act re-authorizes it with new loopholes/etc., namely that specific warrants are now required against specific persons, but it specifically defines that "person" also means "corporation", so they can get a "specific warrant" against "all of Verizon". There's a bit more transparency, but not enough. So, now the programs can continue, but they might need to be shifted around a bit. But it effectively authorizes mass surveillance on the American public to continue, even more directly than 215 had previously authorized it. I'll give you a clue about how painfully fucking obvious this whole thing was:
- Feinstein supported it; need I say more?
- It's called FREEDOM, and we all know that means its anything but, just like PATRIOT.
- Rand Paul was the only one opposing it.
- The NSA was fine with PATRIOT expiring and FREEDOM being enacted.
- "(2) SPECIFIC SELECTION TERM- The term 'specific selection term' means a discrete term, such as a term specifically identifying a person, entity, account, address, or device, used by the Government to limit the scope of the information or tangible things sought pursuant to the statute authorizing the provision of such information or tangible things to the Government.'."
- (2) UNITED STATES PERSON- The term `United States person' has the meaning given that term in section 101 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1801).
From FISA/50 U.S.C. 1801:
(i) “United States person” means a citizen of the United States, an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence (as defined in section 1101 (a)(20) of title 8), an unincorporated association a substantial number of members of which are citizens of the United States or aliens lawfully admitted for permanent residence, or a corporation which is incorporated in the United States, but does not include a corporation or an association which is a foreign power, as defined in subsection (a)(1), (2), or (3) of this section.
Get it now? Jesus, people are thick. All USA FREEDOM does is expand their powers with the illusion of reducing them. All the FREEDOM act supporters are tripping fucking balls, including the EFF. I will never again donate money to the EFF. I was surprised to see an enemy in an organization whom I thought was an ally.
Sadly even if the Patriot Act were wholly removed, which it wasn't, thanks to FISA we'd still have secret laws authorizing mass surveillance due to secret court rulings.
On one hand, the pro-surveillance folks think it goes too far in reducing the ability of the NSA to collect intelligence data. On the other hand, the anti-surveillance folks think that it doesn't go far enough, and would have much preferred the USA Freedom Act to not make it through the Senate (along with the existing lack of the Patriot Act's renewal). There aren't very many folks in the middle on this.
The compelling part is that the existing surveillance programs have yet to have a significant impact on fighting terrorism; while the pro-surveillance folks flail about on "well that's taken out of context blah blah blah", I think that alone is starting to make lawmakers wonder "well, if it's not actually preventing terrorism, then why does it exist?".
I think the main problem I'm having is that any law we pass won't change anything. If our government can't even follow our own constitution, how do we expect the NSA to start following the law re: spying on US citizens?
Actually, mass surveillance was stopped because Congress allowed section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act to sunset (finally!) which meant that the NSA could no longer maintain their legal fiction that justified their program.
Ironically they are going to restart the program because of the USA Freedom Act [1], which allows for a 180 day window within which to transition over to the new requirements.
The USA Freedom Act does a few things to prevent the NSA from doing what they have been doing:
Firstly, it modifies the part of the Patriot Act that allowed for free and unfettered access to business and personal documents (the "library records" provision") by changing FISA to only allow for a warrant to be granted if:
(i) there are reasonable grounds to
believe that the call detail records sought
to be produced based on the specific selection
term required under subparagraph (A) are relevant
to such investigation; and
(ii) there are facts giving rise to a
reasonable, articulable suspicion that such
specific selection term is associated with a
foreign power or an agent of a foreign power
(which is ironic, given this was ALWAYS the intent of FISA and I'd argue the original Patriot Act!)
It also makes sure that the NSA can't go on a fishing expedition - they have to have actual grounds to capture the information. They can't grab every single record now, because the requirement is now that the warrant has to show that they are only "using call detail records with a direct connection to such specific selection term as the basis for production of a second set of call detail records".
It's worse for the NSA now, because they said that they needed the records in perpetuity for data mining, because of the Act now says that they have to adopt "minimization procedures that require the prompt destruction of all call detail records produced under the order that the Government determines are not foreign intelligence information", and and they must "destroy all call detail records produced under the order as prescribed by such procedures."
There's more awesome stuff in the Act, but I gotta get to work.
Sadly, there seems to be a big difference between "determines are not foreign intelligence information" and "does not determine is foreign intelligence information." Oops, we didn't have the resources to verify that this wasn't a target, so we'll just keep it around until it's proven innocent.
Or am I just being paranoid? I don't really know anything about this.
> Did we stop the surveillance? Did we continue it?
Continued. Now companies just have to hand over their data to companies like fireye who will have legal immunity to handle our data and hand it off to the NSA.
The way I understand it, the patriot act superseded existing spy legislation. While the the patriot act was not written well, it what better than what it replaced. Now instead of further shaping of the patriot act, we have a more draconian preexisting law that allows the government to spy.
> the Senate voted on Tuesday to curtail the federal government’s sweeping surveillance
> the passage... will lead to the reinstatement of government surveillance efforts
Did we stop the surveillance? Did we continue it? Is this really going to do anything at all to change the culture of mass collection? Who is counting this as a win? Who is against this and who is for this?