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hammock

Is it legal for the CIA to spy on American citizens?

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Does legality matter to the CIA?

What entity could bring meaningful complaints against them?

See for example [0]

[0]https://www.brown.edu/Research/Understanding_the_Iran_Contra...

Summing punishment across all of history would probably total an upscale automobile, zero prison.

That example is the government prosecuting the government for harming the governments interests. Thats not accountability, its infighting.

Accountability would be punishment for crimes against the American people and structural changes that prevent it from happening again.

Congress could defund them or perhaps even shut the whole org down. But I have to imagine a congressman that starts snooping around what the CIA is up to will almost certainly end up mired in mysterious controversy, accusations of malfeasance, etc.

Indirectly, yes. They can use foreign intel agencies to spy on Americans; they can use third parties (Twitter, Facebook, cellular networks, your cars, and all data brokers) to spy on you, thanks to the third-party doctrine.

This is one of the astounding loopholes revealed by Snowden's revelations.

The US government could not spy on Americans without a warrant. But they convinced themselves that mass surveillance was legal as long as the USA did not search their own database on Americans without a warrant. And making the whole thing available to other https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes was also OK.

So analysts in England got all the data. And nothing about UK law says that THEY can't do searches on Americans. So they do. And if they find anything, they can give the USA an affirmation that they know that person X is up to no good and crime Y is likely to turn up if they do a search of A, B and C. That affirmation is sufficient under the 4th amendment to get a search warrant from a judge. Armed with said search warrant, the USA can now search the database, verify what they are told, and then they have probable cause under which they can take further actions.

And so they convinced themselves that by simply outsourcing the initial search, they could conduct unlimited surveillance on Americans and still have satisfied the letter of the Constitution.

Was that a Snowden revelation? Isnt it the whole point of the five eyes to skip over local law?

This wasn't even a Snowden revelation. James Bamford, Dana Priest and William Arkin had a steady stream of articles and books about all the 5 eyes stuff, way before Snowden's case.

That they could spy on Americans was not a Snowden revelation.

The scale of information that we delivered to them for this purpose, was.

> The US government could not spy on Americans without a warrant.

Reagan's EO12334 suspends the 4A for people subject to background investigations for government work. They have an entire domestic surveillance apparatus to monitor such people. Once in place it's easy to extend that to everyone else.

I mean, the FBI once blackmailed MLK -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_suicide_lette...

There was also a lot of uproar about abuses back in the 1970s.

Question was about the CIA. The two are not the same.

I'm just pointing out that federal agencies have done much worse, so it should not be terribly surprising if they're caught doing bad things.

Strong disagree. It should always be surprising, and the people that designed and uphold the systems that allow for this should be held accountable. The world does not lack agency.

I'd agree with you that it should be surprising. I don't think it is, but it definitely should be.

Well, they're both shit

Saying yes is the same poor argument as "the 2nd amendment was only intended for weapons from the 18th century" and "the 1st amendment doesn't include communication over telegraph, or radio waves." It would basically be "security from unwarranted search and seizure doesn't extend to cameras and the internet."

Bruh introducing unconstitutional evidence is so 20th century. Parallel construction is the hot new thing and bypasses those pesky issues.

That is what a strict originalist reading of the Constitution would conclude - the same reading that decided the Constitution doesn't support a right to privacy because the word "privacy" doesn't appear anywhere in the document, and that the Second Amendment can only be interpreted under the rules of 18th century English. Either we believe the Constitution is a living document and that the context of modern society matters in its interpretation, or we don't and that only what was comprehensible to the specific minds of the Founding Fathers in their time, place, idiom and cultural context is legitimate. Since we've clearly decided as a society that originalism wins out, we should stop being hypocrites about it and accept the consequences in totality.

General relativity was unknown to the founders, so GPS is unconstitutional? I can dig it

Well an originalist reading has not concluded that.

Are an originalist? Why purport that they believe something that they do not, when you yourself dont believe in the thing you're purporting either?

Obviously that reading isn't sufficiently originalist, merely another example of radical judges making up laws out of thin air.

The text of the Constitution says what it says plainly, and obviously the Founding Fathers meant for it to say exactly what I read.

> The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects ...

Ha! See that? _Papers_. Guess these electronic records are free game!

No, this is specifically prohibited in the original charter. However, on multiple occasions, they’ve either violated the charter or weaseled around it, including recently: https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-and-h...

In practice yes. In theory, no way. What is the 4th amendment if not protection against spying without a warrant?

> The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

"parallel construction" and third-party doctrine are two loopholes wrt 4A.

Loopholes ultimately built upon government agents willingness to commit perjury when questioned about the truth.

The people who sign affidavits don't commit perjury, because the people who sign affidavits and those who lead parallel construction are at least two links apart. The way it happens like this: X tells Y to look out for A's vehicle on I-15. Y calls another agency to check on A's vehicle. Now another agent C from another agency leads the investigation. X is totally out of picture in these prosecutions.

They are not loopholes. They are convoluted processes designed to obscure their illegality, providing those who enable such a grotesque violation with plausible deniability and blame dispersion.

To what I imagine was everyone’s surprise, no one in the US really cares about 4a anymore. Nothing has changed since Snowden (in fact, the powers have managed to convince vast swaths that Snowden is the bad guy!), and it is pretty common knowledge that 4a is out the window with parallel construction and asset forfeiture…but it all still keeps churning.

Five Eyes makes the official legality moot.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes

The pigeons released in the US were Five Eyes, not American?

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