Meanwhile Huawei is supposedly actively created a workaround:
> U.S. officials say Huawei has built equipment that secretly preserves the manufacturer’s ability to access networks through these interfaces without the carriers’ knowledge.
The good guys have a non-transparent approval mechanism for permission which no one can audit. In reality, you have no basis for claiming it's an effective overall control mechanism because none of us can see most of the data. Further, there have been numerous documented cases of abuse like intelligence officials spying on their significant others, parallel reconstruction on cases where secret data shouldn't have been used, etc.
An administrative policy control where application of the control is handled by the people holding the data with 0 auditing by anyone outside the system is not a strict control. Do I trust American intelligence more than the Chinese government or Huawei? Definitely, but that does not let American intelligence off the hook or justify what they are doing with mass data collection.
Why would you trust American intelligence/law enforcement more than a foreign government (unless you have something to hide from that government, like if you are fostering unrest from abroad)?
There's not much reason for China to be interested in me, but there's lots of reasons I wouldn't want US law enforcement spying on me, since they are in a better position to make trouble for me.
While the US is not perfect and has executed a number of immoral/illegal projects, the world order under the US seems far superior to what a world order under China could be.
Which specific part of the Middle East are you thinking of with that little gem? I'm looking at Iran on a map and they are the last stable center amongst a sea of catastrophes from Syria to Afghanistan that all have the sticky fingerprints of American influence on them. The entire Arabian peninsula is a mess hold together only by US support and stands as a real-time embarrassment of all the rhetoric out of Washington in my lifetime.
Compared to that, what exactly is China likely to do that could be worse?
The US has a bunch of stuff they can be proud of, but nobody is going to (indeed nobody is) take them seriously when their ambassadors hand-wringing about the risks of foreign spies or foreign influence. The US has been doing whatever they feel like for decades with little regard for anyone else and they have not shown themselves to be particularly honourable when there are real stakes, like oil, on the table.
Please let the "FISA court is a rubber stamp" myth die already.
Not trusting the government is the entire point of large portions of the US constitution...
I think it's interesting how many people point to how we need to get back to the roots of constitutionalism, but also say "I never trust anything governments do or say".
If that's the case, why do you think the constitution will help you there? The document itself requires huge levels of trust.
That's not what I, or the person you are originally replying to is doing. Rather we would say something like "you are asking us to trust the government when it is bypassing or ignoring the checks and balances put into the constitution precisely because of issues like this". For a few examples:
Checks and balances are why the 6th amendment requires to a "speedy and public trial". Which the FISA courts are not providing. They are why the 6th amendment requires the accused to be informed of the "nature and cause of the accusation", which is regularly being violated by these secret proceedings by way of parallel construction.
You bring up the topic of warrants, but warrants (by the 4th amendment) must "upon probable cause [... describe] the place to be searched, and the person or things to be seized". From what little we have seen of the FISA proceedings, neither of those conditions are being respected.
You bring up the judicial branch, but the judicial branch is required (by article 3 section 2 of the constitution) to hear only cases and controversies, one sided proceedings that aren't even released publicly after the fact to be challenged are neither. This clause exists (I believe) precisely because one sided arguments lack the necessary checks and balances to reach a fair verdict
The first one, for example, is
> 1: The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.
I'm expressing a mainstream opinion at the least if not the majority. Being a more secret court doesn't make me feel more trusting.
To extrapolate all the abuses of the wider justice system to a highly specialized court whose only purpose is national security would be a mistake, in my opinion. It's such a specific purpose and such a specialized role, it's hard to say for certain.
The only thing we have to go off is the testimony and opinions of those who have experienced it. We have no other barometer or metric, everything else is hearsay.
You're not wrong, it's just not a strong argument.
The state is not a monolith. It’s barely top-down. It’s a collection of people in many different departments with their own ideals and relations. The people who decide what dictators to arms are NOT judges, nor come from the domestic judicial branch.
What prison forever without a trial? Are you talking about the few captured during war in Guantanamo? Again, this is not the judges running secret courts that ok FISA requests.
If you’ve ever worked in a large company, you’ll see the diversity of opinions, dominions, political battles, and generally chaos. And yet the public sees the output as unified, when the input was anything but. Now just imagine the government, far bigger in size, full of people that came from all kinds of backgrounds and ways — thru elections, normal job applications, the military, etc... from a variety of political backgrounds and moral standards.
I encourage you not to paint with such broad brushstrokes.
Or official policy on StingRays and stuff. Basically, telling investigators to lie to prosecutors and judges.
That's fine - you can go ahead and vote. There's an election coming up. Collectively, most Americans probably agree with the current use, and there are actual control and oversight by the Judicial system. Which is unlike China.
You do now:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/fbi-director-carter-...
Damned if you do, damned if you don't!
It could easily mean that they've developed a formula to ensure that they meet* the standards set by the FISA court.
Maybe every single one of them has some kind of magic phrasing that's technically true, but kinda bullshit if you're able to view it from a wider viewpoint. Maybe all it takes is to say that this person has a connection to known terrorists. The connection could be incredibly distant, but hey - there's a sworn statement from some analyst/agent/whomever saying that there's a connection.
Because the courts are secret, there's no opportunity for those outside the intelligence community to review things and see whether there are routine abuses or other questionable situations.
Maybe if there were more transparency, it would.