Surveillance Self-Defense | Hacker News Reader

Surveillance Self-Defense

ssd.eff.org

201 pointsericzawo18 comments

Kudos to the EFF for putting this together. I've been sending it out to less-technical friends as a reference and plan to use it as a resource to help teach activists & concerned citizens how to protect themselves (with an understanding that complete privacy/security is probably not possible). Newt Gingrich, a potenial member of a future Trump Cabinet, was making noises over the summer about restoring the House Committee on Un-American Activities[1], so I think the dangers of government surveillance and overreach are very real.

[1]: http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/14/politics/newt-gingrich-house-u...

Imagine what a neo-authoritarian President might do with the enormous surveillance capabilities the IT industry has created, and from which there is no practical opt-out.

That's why we have Constitution so that even allegedly neo-authoritarian presidents must follow its letter, if only the overreaching intelligence agencies respected it too. But no, they have their own secret interpretations of laws, secret courts, secret policies, and so on.

The other practical result is that a deviation from the Constitution can take a long time to correct.

Presidents have a poor track record with the Constitution. For example, the Constitution says only Congress can declare war, but that hasn't happened since WWII.

Yeah. They have been skirting that by using the "Supreme Commander in Chief" bs. So the president can happily mobilize the entire military without congress, I am not a fan of this.

There's also the "this isn't actually a war (waged against a sovereign nation), it's just counter-terrorism" angle.

The presidential powers act allows the Commander in Chief of the US armed forces (aka the president) to send the military anywhere in the world for up to 60 days so long as he notifies Congress within 48 hours of making the decision to do so. This was made law under the War Powers Resolution of 1973.

Then again, if you send the military somewhere hostile, in 60 days you've likely started a war regardless of what Congress thinks.

Am I missing something, or haven't they voted on it every time?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Resolution

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_war_by_the_Unit...

Your second link cleared confusion for me. Blogs and newspapers throw around contradictory statements like only Congress can declare war or that the President doesn't need Congressional approval to send troops, but they never explain the contradiction.

tl;dr: Wikipedia: The Constitution says "Congress shall have power to declare War". However, that passage provides no specific format for legislation declaring war. Many have postulated "Declaration of War" must contain that phrase as or within the title. Others oppose that reasoning. The courts have found that an authorization [by Congress] suffices for a declaration [in at least one case].

I don't think Wikipedia's version is entirely correct. I think generally the courts have refrained from getting involved; generally they don't want to be in the position of making national security decisions and defer to the President and Congress.

Also, it overlooks a major element, the War Powers Resolution, which IIRC was passed partionally in response to the Korean and Vietnam wars being fought without a declaration of war.

The Constitution is just a piece of paper. Unless individuals act on it. This is one of the biggest reasons Trump was a threat. Because of the record of his own words and behaviors.

So you've never heard of Nixon?

Why imagine? Isn't that what we've had for a decade or two?

Used to be a decent reference site until they destroyed it with horrid trendy web design.

It's unreadable, now.

Try reading it in a text-based browser like w3m.

https://ssd.eff.org/en/index

Just one click away.

I still get the same annoying layout with that link.

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