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Comment by dylangs1030 | Hacker News Reader

I don't mean to be cynical, but a mere petition is just the tip of the iceberg.

This is a government agency that is commiting widespread breach of privacy. A petition will not be respected. It's an OK start, but it will be essentially meaningless.

If you want results, riot in the streets. Civil disobeience. Historical actions and movements that achieve some measure of peace.

The ease of an action corresponds to what it can achieve. Do you want change? Show the government how badly you want it. Fight for your rights. Don't just click a link.

They've demonstrated they don't care for the voice of the people. So change the domain to something they do care about.

View on HN

A more effective list of tactics (for the long term):

1. poison databases; feed bogus information to surveillance systems at all levels, do this as a matter of course, make it pop culture.

2. build darknets: for instance wifi nodes disconnected from the internet that multiple communities use as a dropbox and rendezvous point ( a linux box, a solar cell, some git magic (or UUCP/Usenet for the old school feel ), and you have something that exists beyond the knowledge of the network ) for extra kicks confine it to only a few locations and times. Or build entire networks air-gapped from the internet; wire your neighborhood and make your own media.

3. If everybody's an informant, make a game of it. Rat out your enemies to the authorities, better yet rat out the informants as rabble rousers...

4. Get serious; break into secret databases, copy them and spread them around.

5. Identify effective advocates of the national security state and neutralize them. But only the effective ones. If you're doing the job right the 10 people within the NSA who are politically adept and technically competent should be in jail for child pornography by this time next year. Any mid-level member of the intelligence community who isn't regularly getting hit with bogus charges and stupid anonymous pranks is probably grossly incompetent.

6. If you know anyone who works in the intelligence community, shame them socially; ask them why they are making the USA into East Germany.

7. Occupy

8. Free your mind, and your ass will follow.

Good idea. Overwhelm the system with the keywords they're flagging.

i.e., bomb. pentagon. drop-point. fertilizer. sarah jessica parker.

Their systems are probably smarter than grep, by now.

What (jihad) are you (allah) talking (semtex) talking about (thermite) dude? That is the worst (white house ) plot or plan I've ever heard in my (uranium) life. I can C4 myself that this plot is not "the bomb", as they say. This needs to bake, or should I say "pressure cooker" a little bit longer before we explode it on people. If we (hack secure systems) find useful (enriched) data and share it (hack the planet) with the people who really need it( secure, classified, NOFORN) we won't let them trash our rights. Trust your techolust.

This didn't help with the phone logging system.

Just curious, how old are you?

I think I know what point you are trying to make and I just have to say that it is very sad that passion and the belief that we can change something is associated with youthful naivete

I personally have the opposite impression.

(Not that this whole age discussion is relevant at all, I must add.)

I suggest everyone get a copy of The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress and read it. It's a fun read, and is a really good basic outline for how to dismantle a tyrannical regime from the ground up.

How to dismantle a tyrannical regime if you have the support of an omnipresent computer system they trust with absolutely everything.

You mean, like the internet?

If you want results, riot in the streets. Civil disobeience. Historical actions and movements that achieve some measure of peace.

Do you have any backups for that? I mean, any historical proof that rioting will make change?

You know, Tunisia went on a relatively peaceful revolution and now we have less freedom and more problems/unemployment. It's even worse for countries where the revolution is violent.

Having lived that experience, I'll be against rioting/civil disobedience any time and for any cause.

Want to make change? Educate people. nothing else.

Revolution in France in 1789. We don't learn history in school for nothing I hope.

That made change.

Not necessarily the DESIRED change, but it certainly changed things!

That brought Democracy. Which is closer to what people wanted at that time : A country ruled by the people.

Let's not forget that it brought us something even more beautiful : The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_the_Rights_of_Ma...

It also brought us Napoleon. And dictatorship. The guillotine. Many wars. More executions. The identification of the political right vs the political left. And on, and on, and on.

The world was certainly changed. Not always for the better.

I'm sure there are some exceptions -- but most advances in the world can often be advances for both "good" and "evil". Or to put it another way - political or technological change doesn't overcome human nature

True. But the French Revolution went wrong at breakneck speed in a lot of ways. And France's history since has been rather tumultuous. (How many different forms of government have they officially had?)

While I agree, these are merely the exceptions. Sure, things can go great and well (after a long period of time). However, the following needs to be taken into account

1. The fatalities and economic losses

2. The high possibility that the power goes to the wrong hand.

3. The good possibility that the power doesn't change hands and we are stuck with even less freedom.

4. Revolutions make the country very vulnerable which is an opportunity for enemies.

Small and secure changes are better in my opinion. Revolutions have a high risk of going wrong.

If you asked me 3 years later, you'll get a different response. Having lived through this so-called Arab spring, I have now a very conservative view for revolution.

If you've got a really bad dictator, or an entrenched feudal system, then a revolution is probably worth it. If not, you'll probably end up with a dictator, and there's a chance they won't be so benevolent.

There's genuine problems with US Democracy. The lack of a good voting system (preferential, or better still - acceptance voting) means a stable two-party system.

Statistically, protest actions can be beneficial, as long as they don't go too far. No politician wants angry people on the streets. Media tends to cover it. It's a good way for a minority of people to have a huge impact (for better, or worse, depending on whether you support what the protesters want).

The problem is, a lot of protests are pretty much zero sum movements. They are things which half the people want, and half the people don't want (environmental protection, gun rights, gay marriage). A protest for something which would be popular, but most people don't really think about could be more useful.

Wasn't that the one that introduced Robespierre and the Reign of Terror, and then later another despot? Sure, Napoleon was talented and introduced the civil code, but it was still another example of the guy with the biggest stick making the rules.

They were uneducated people who went through a system that only valued rich and well connected people. What did you expect?

Take lessons from the past, and APPLY them to your context.

I'm not saying that rioting and killing Obama is the solution. I'm saying that using the government's tools (petitioning) against them is ridiculous. You have to show people you're angry, you have to show your entire country you're angry and you want things to change, laws to change, the system to change. You have to take a real stand.

EDIT : As I mentioned in some other comment. The revolution brought us Democracy, which later spread across all Europe, and brought us the beautiful Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen which is used everywhere in the world as standards (not always respected though). I believe the revolution was the most beautiful part of France history. Napoleon was our anger which was still resonating years after the Monarchy. We're calm people now.

You can take a stand without violence.

You can take a stand without destruction.

Hell, ask Snowden if he would rather have organized online action to protest, or people in the street beating other people...

In the short term, maybe. But in the long term, it was a catalyst that forced reforms (and further upheavals) across the whole continent; it was a large stick to carry at each negotiating table for freedoms, human rights and so on.

In the same way, the Russian Revolution eventually generated Stalinism and brought suffering to the Soviet block, but it was a tremendous inspiration (and often brought material help) to workers' rights movements in many other countries, de facto creating the "social Europe" we currently enjoy (or used to).

EDIT: it's also funny to see these comments on American websites. Hello, your country was built by an armed revolution that was as nationalistic in practice as it was universalistic in inspiration. As certain modern philosophers from the Five Boroughs used to say, "you gotta fight for your right to party" :)

I'd recommend reading Fatal Purity if you want to understand just how evil the French Revolution really was - even the architects became its victims in huge numbers. The terror is not something I would wish on any country, and it is no way comparable to the American revolution in scope or brutality, that and the Russian revolution are fascinating periods but great examples of why revolution often ends in disaster for the countries involved, and frequently ends in dictatorship.

The Russian revolution started relatively peacefully, moved on to a brutal civil war, and then to draconian dictatorship (under Lenin) in just a few short years, then in 21 the resulting wars and disastrous economic policy caused a famine that killed 6 million people before NEP was introduced. And that was well before Stalin began to terrorise the country. Again, I think you're romanticising events which were nasty, brutish, and mostly harmful in their effects.

I'd argue European socialism (the social Europe we currently enjoy) evolved more from the evolution of liberal democracy and liberal capitalism in a peaceful society than from Marxism - many of the things Marx & Engels criticised have been peacefully removed (child labour, alienation of workers from means of production, lack of unions etc). Granted the UK and other European nations have other problems, but let's not forget how far we came peacefully, and how much of a set back to civilisation war and revolution really are.

Thanks for the info.

You might want to also check out The Anatomy of Revolution - it details the broad life cycles revolutions succeed through. It concludes that revolutions are overall detrimental to lasting change in a society. The American Revolution is discussed in order to explain why it turned out atypically.

Thanks for the recommendation, looks interesting. My other favourite book in this area is To the Finland Station, of course the NSA knows that already as I bought it on Amazon :)

European socialism owes more to the threat of Stalinism than we like to admit; western governments were forced into improving conditions for their working classes mostly by the threat of civil unrest, while leftist parties and unions benefited enormously from their soviet connections - both in motivational and economic terms. As soon as the USSR disappeared, now-unchecked European elites promptly started renegotiating workers rights, pushing salaries down in real terms pretty much across the whole of Europe; public services were dismantled and sold off, and welfare benefits were slashed. Leftist parties have lost most of their economic independence and are now captive to established interests, so their policies are all over the place. Of course there are other elements influencing this state of things, but the post-89 trend is quite clear and has a lot to do with the disappearance of an armed contingent of "reds" on the horizon, like it happened with the Space Race.

I know my history well enough, I'm not denying that revolts often (but not always) result in weak political structures which are prone to collapse in the short term; you only need to look at the current wave of Middle-Eastern "springs" for confirmation - from Tunisia to Egypt, in practical terms they're now worse-off than under their dictators. Still, they play a often necessary role in putting the fear of consequences in the heart of established elites who would otherwise refuse to change; places like Saudi Arabia are now grudgingly considering improving conditions of their women, for example.

European socialism owes more to the threat of Stalinism than we like to admit; western governments were forced into improving conditions for their working classes mostly by the threat of civil unrest

With respect I completely disagree with this - the reforms to working conditions and the state of our societies in Europe which have happened since Engels wrote 'The conditions of the working classes in England' or Marx 'Capital' have improved because of gradual progress in western democracies introduced because of peaceful protest and people working within the democratic process, on things like mandatory schooling, no child labour, minimum wages, right to assembly, health services, benefits etc. That's a far longer time-frame and was not influenced by the USSR, either in funding western political groups or acting as a sort of bogieman for western governments.

I disagree that revolutions and the attendant violence and destruction are necessary or useful in deposing tyranny, quite often they produce the opposite effect, as the two examples you initially brought up show.

When Marx and Engels wrote their books many "western democracies" didn't even exist, so they weren't responsible for any progress made until the end of WWII. Democracies themselves didn't come to be "peacefully": most European kings had to be forcefully deposed one way or another, after they refused substantial reforms for almost 150 years since the French Revolution (in fact, they spent most of the XIX century actually restricting individual freedoms and ramping up censorship powers). Until WWI, there had been almost no progress in many continental countries on universal suffrage, which of course resulted in no progress on all the other subjects you mention. The period between wars was politically very lively but certainly not peaceful nor "within the democratic process": every country had its fair share of events where police or army would indiscriminately shoot at protestors, strikes would get violent, and so on. The political frameworks born from WWII were then characterised, in most Western European countries, by schemes that basically reproduced the Cold War disposition, with a varying degree of direct dependence of local leftist parties from Moscow. The presence of a well-equipped "hard left" made it possible for softer alternatives to thrive: the Overton window was anchored by the Soviet State on one side.

The only country where you can try and talk of a continuous peaceful development is post-Cromwell Britain, which is why this country is still, in many ways, the less socialist of the lot (and getting less so by the day, I could add). Still, the influence of Soviet ideals was so strong even in this land, that there was stuff like the Cambridge Five, something that today is completely unconceivable.

Violent revolutions are not always necessary, but they can (and did) provide inspiration for wider movements.

And a few years later they made Napoleon an emperor and he went on a spree of military conquest across the whole of Europe. Great example.

After a brief period of show trials and bloodletting.

It could be argued that the French Revolution effectively ended its cycle in 1870 with the Third Republic, after two more upheavals (1830, 1848), two emperors and a few less powerful kings. The country ended up a lot better than it was at the beginning, and grew tremendously on almost all counts.

Also, it was one of the most interesting periods for arts and litterature ever to occur. Great example indeed

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_civil_unre...

Boston Tea Party?

First you say this:

Do you have any backups for that? I mean, any historical proof that rioting will make change?

Then you say this:

Want to make change? Educate people. nothing else.

Your teachers must have omitted teaching you about the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War protests. And those are only two examples where protesting and rioting actually made a huge difference.

The Civil Rights movement used peace tactics, non-violence and Ghandian ethics. The Vietnam war protests were largely peaceful, except when e.g. government soldiers attacked college students at Kent State. @csomar is correct that changing peoples minds and following nonviolent tactics can effect change-- although not always matching everyone's expectations

The Vietnam war protests were largely peaceful, except when e.g. government soldiers attacked college students at Kent State.

With some significant exceptions, like the Weather Underground (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_Underground).

Indeed much of the violence in Vietnam war protests turns out to have been instigated by FBI agent provocateurs. Most of the violence of the era was perpetrated by the forces against change.

much of the violence in Vietnam war protests turns out to have been instigated by FBI agent provocateurs.

Oddly like many — if not most — of the "terror plots" that have been "stopped" over the past however many years, that...

As another example, the U.S. is actually on its second government, not its first.

After the American Revolution we setup a government under the "Articles of Confederation". To put it bluntly, this new government sucked and was useless.

A convention was held to suggest improvements for the Articles; they decided instead to do it over again and propose a government that could actually stand the test of time.

The framers of this new Constitution then had to convince the rest of the country to adopt this different form of government. In the process of this debate and feedback it was decided to further specify Amendments that became known as the Bill of Rights to satisfy some reluctant states.

All of this happened peacefully.

The United States of America peacefully transitioned to its second form of government on March 4, 1789.

It hasn't been all peaceful, all the time, after ratification, but it should be in my opinion. We've managed to achieve so much as a nation with non-violent resistance and protest, there's no reason not to do that here to push for transparency.

Some political scientists would say we're actually on our third or fourth.

The third U.S. republic was created after the Civil War, with the passage of Constitutional amendments that made the Federal government unambiguously superior in power to the governments of the states.

The fourth U.S. republic was created during the Progressive Era, with the creation of the "regulatory state" in which significant authority over economic matters was delegated from Congress and the courts to regulatory agencies in the Executive Branch. This system evolved gradually over the years (with the biggest changes coming through Roosevelt's New Deal and Johnson's Great Society) into the system we live in today.

The changes wrought by the Civil War were unfortunately quite violent, but all the other changes have been peaceful, as you note. Our ability to reinvent our democracy in this fashion is a big part of why the Constitution has survived so long -- we can change how we govern ourselves in big ways without having to tear it up and start anew.

Ain't going to happen, because PRISM simply doesn't make the lives of 99+% people significantly worse. People riot when there's high unemployment, because that has a big impact on their daily lives. We don't have enough info about PRISM to correctly evaluate what impact does it have on our lives.

Pretty much every place that ever one it's independence did so through violence or the threat of violence (yes, India very much included).

This is foolish. Non-violent protest is how the Civil Rights movement and Martin Luther King, Jr. forced better law, Gandhi did the same and freed India from the British empire. And today we're much more networked and able to communicate directly, P2P, without the media or government as message passer. Our system works remarkably well, considering how poorly it works ;) Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater- these government agencies can be reined in, they live on government budgets every year just like the rest of government. It is the End of privacy, and that's okay.. But as an aside, I reckon surveillance equipment should also gaze back at the Police State itself. Google glass and Steve Mann's ideas about "sousveillance" will hopefully continue to evolve, they're all much smarter people than me. Every gov official should be under 24-7 video and email surveillance ;). i think a good rule is, the more power you have the more you have to be spied on constantly by the people.

Actually, the national security budgets are remarkably insulated from the rest of the government, and there is plenty of evidence that the CIA at the very least, has not been shy about creating other sources of income to fund it's off the books activities.

But yes, transparency should go up as well as down.

I didn't realize that NSA funding was harder to nil out! I guess because the Pentagon gets their budget and then can do what they want with it? I'm sure strings could be attached to the Pentagon's budget though.

Upvoting your comment here too, though. Thank you.

I think non-violent protests only work when the state (or entity you are protesting against) is forced to negotiate. By that I mean all these non violent protests occured at a time during violent protests. Martin Luther King Jnr was given negotiating power because the State preferred a non violent entity over the black panthers and other militaristic groups.

If there is no threat of repercussion, why would any entity bother negotiating with you?

Because non-violent protesters can be a pain in the neck, too. You don't need to hit someone to really piss him of.

In some cases, just following the rules to the letter can be annoying enough to make the powers that be change things.

But yes, having some real threat as a backup has tremendous benefits. 'Nice government you have here; it would be a pity of something happened to it' works better of you have that.

Civil disobedience is a subset of nonviolent protest. The point is you actually have to do something that forces the state's hand. Not sit at home and sign a petition.

For example shutting down a city's infrastructure indefinitely via mass-scale physical sit ins is likely to be much more effective than signing an internet petition. Labor strikes en masse are likely to be much more effective than signing an internet petition. _INSERT_REAL-WORLD_ACTION_HERE_ is likely to be much more effective than signing an internet petition.

If the state knows that it can violate its subjects with the worst backlash being an internet petition, guess what -- the state will continue violating its subjects indefinitely.

I think you misunderstood me. I didn't mean we should be violent. I specifically said civil disobedience because I meant non-violent protest.

> Non-violent protest is how the Civil Rights movement and Martin Luther King, Jr. forced better law

The was Malcolm X though. The threat of militant and violent backlash was there and served like a booster for the non-violent factions. Otherwise look at Occupy movement. How many bankers are in jail? None. There _has_ to be a background and credible threat to the system so it would consider the peaceful alternative as a pretty good deal.

In all fairness, the Occupy movement didn't have direction, leaders, an agreed set of goals.. - in short any of the things needed to turn that energy into change.

There were things here and there that many seemed to agree on - but it was not nearly focused enough to matter. I think if it were accompanied by any kind of violent protests, the people in general would have completely turned on it - and without legitimate goals, I think rightly so.

Its not comparable to Civil Rights, imho. That was a moral imperative with clear, legitimate, practically implementable goals. There was moral high-ground, general sympathy among the people, and a roadmap (e.g. extend the rights to us that are extended to everyone else). I'd love to see something similar for the modern age of privacy violation or holding gov't officials accountable - but I haven't seen it yet.

This is not true. There were plenty of things that were university desired from the Occupy movement (e.g. bankers in jail). But since it was purely peaceful it was ignored, sniped and smeared until it finally unraveled. The same thing would have happened to Gandhi and MLK Jr. had it not been for violent groups working at the same time.

I understand, but "bankers in jail" is hardly focused, specific, or practically implementable. Which bankers - on what charges? And under what precedent? Did they want new laws set? If so, was there an agreed upon Bill or at least a roadmap to support? I casually followed the movement, and other than 'overturn Citizens United', did not find myself able to glean from the protests such information. Likely there were many people like msyelf whom, after reading up and finding (subjectively deemed) insufficient substance, simply stopped following it. Were violence added to the mixture, I'd not have felt more sympathetic to a movement I perceived to have no practical goals.

Im playing a bit of devil's advocate here, but I think followers of Civil rights movements, with relative ease, would be able to answer similar questions. I sympathize with the energy behind the Occupy movement, but like most people I'm not sure what to do about it - who or what to support, and how to act. And that, imho, is why the Occupy movement fizzled.

>Were violence added to the mixture, I'd not have felt more sympathetic to a movement I perceived to have no practical goals.

Occupy needed to remain peaceful, no doubt about it. But without a large alternative group that wasn't afraid to use violence, Occupy was always going to be marginalized away. They had coherent messages. You and most people don't know them because they were bottled up, discredited and shut down. Exactly what will happen to any peaceful movement.

Personally, I think there's still time for a peaceful alternative though: we all need to start getting directly involved in politics.

>This is foolish. Non-violent protest is how the Civil Rights movement and Martin Luther King, Jr. forced better law, Gandhi did the same and freed India from the British empire.

What ridiculous nonsense. King would have gone nowhere had it not been for the Black Panthers blowing shit up (he even mentioned "the blast heard round the world" in one of his speeches, so he knew this). Likewise Gandhi would have just been ignored or killed had it not been for courageous revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh.

The truth is, a proper revolution requires violence (or the threat of it) and a peaceful side. The violent part is requires to force actual change and the peaceful side is needed so the targeted party have someone to give the power over too. The British empire would never have handed the reigns to someone like Bhagat Singh. But once Singh and co had made holding onto India simply not worth it, they gladly stepped back and claimed it was because of Gandhi. This way, the next time they're doing some awful the people will hopefully think they can be like Gandhi and they would be free to just ignore/kill them.

Governments don't want people to understand just how effective violence actually is (if violence isn't effective why do governments use it so much and try to maintain a monopoly on it?) because they don't like to lose.

Just to be clear, which law was it that you think they broke?

I'd happily agree what the NSA did was just as wrong as, say, making it to easy to get mortgages. But the law and morality don't always agree.

"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."

Exactly. This is THE law in America. Not some crap that the congress du jour baked up

PRISM, as described, is a warrant-based program. But you're right...we shouldn't let facts get in the way of a proper angry mob.

A warrant that applies to everyone, and is not based on probable cause, quite clearly violates the Fourth Amendment.

Take a look at this comment of mine.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5850851

A warrant that says "allow us to get all the data on everyone in the country, with no specific targets".

That's not much of a warrant that respects the 4th amendment.

"A warrant that says 'allow us to get all the data on everyone in the country, with no specific targets'."

So far, no evidence has been produced to support your assertion. In fact, all evidence in the leaked documents, official statements, etc. suggest the exact opposite: warrants are served that allow investigators to make specific searches, with oversight processes to try to reduce the number of US citizens' data included in the search.

In other words: prove your claim. Cite something other than a Reddit or HN comment from a tinfoil hat-fitting specialist.

Obama has publicly acknowledged that phone records are being collected en masse.

In his own words: http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/06/07/transcript-what-oba...

That's a different program, and the US Supreme Court has already ruled on the legality of collecting the "metadata" that it's gathering, without a warrant. It's far less controversial than the PRISM program, which is what is being discussed here.

> It's far less controversial than the PRISM program, which is what is being discussed here.

Is it, though? The widespread Verizon metadata gathering is what I'm most concerned with right now. It, too, was whistleblown by Snowden.

> the US Supreme Court has already ruled on the legality

I understand this program to be ruled unconstitutional by the Foreign International Surveillance Court, albeit with the findings suppressed by the justice department for "national security" reasons.

I thought this was the stuff Senators Wyden and Udall were briefed on and aghast about, but unable to explain to the American people.

Do you understand this differently?

Collected but not "seized", and then not searched at all without a warrant? Those records?

On a side note it's fascinating how the government has taken the 'digital piracy' logic of "I didn't steal it, the guy I copied it from still has their copy!" and re-arranged that to apply to digital data on a person. I'm not sure whether to cringe or be impressed...

is there really a difference ? i mean if the cops copy your hardrive , what is it ? collecting or seizing ? just because they dont actually look into it is ok ? I agree about your your piracy point , you are spot on ,which show how twisted the government is. They are just legal hackers, that's what they are, but they'll sue you if you do the same.

Well I think the point is that when the 4th Amendment was written seizure actually did mean that they took your crap. You had your papers, then you didn't.

Even if they were going to copy your work that would be a "search" as some government agent would have to copy that paperwork.

Things are different now, so that's one of the things we as a society need to figure out is how much the 4th Amendment is different to match.

? Maybe I'm missing something, but you should re-read carefully http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-record... and see if you still think the same... by the way that news story was built on information leaked by Edward Snowden. So, in my opinion, that's why he's an American hero because he directly responded to people like you to provide real proof that, yeah, things are really bad right now, worse than almost everyone thought (except for us tinfoil hat types).

That's not PRISM. That's the other program revealed last week. The warrantless collection of phone number "metadata" has also been ruled legal by the Supreme Court, whereas the legal basis for PRISM has never been reviewed by SCOTUS.

Which leads me to an important aside: how much of the outrage being vented here comes from people who don't even know that these are two different programs? Take everything you read here with a huge block of salt.

I know the difference between the two. My point was that the Verizon collection of data very clearly was for the entire customer base of their major subsidiary. Also this 'metadata' has a staggering amount of information, like geocodes, dialed and received numbers, potentially content of SMS, downloaded apps, sites visited, etc. Further if this subsidiary controlled any Internet backbone (which I have no idea if that's the case), the implications are huge.

Edward Snowden's rationale for leaking this info is that people never realized that collection of metadata of phone records and PRISM and other programs had gone so far. Maybe SCOTUS ruled on some of this, but the public never realized the implications, largely because it's all protected by top secret classification.

I used the Verizon story in my comment because those implicated in PRISM said in their carefully crafted PR messages that their warrants were for specific subjects and unlike Verizon's vast dragnet. Anyhow, as other have pointed out, it's not hard to draft a specific warrant for the narrow group of 'every US user 13 years or older' which is what I'd presume PRISM involved. Also, the slides leaked for the PRISM stories showed that PRISM was the improvement on older collection techniques of essentially splicing Internet backbone cables.

Agreed on taking replies here with a grain of salt.

> Anyhow, as other have pointed out, it's not hard to draft a specific warrant for the narrow group of 'every US user 13 years or older' which is what I'd presume PRISM involved.

Can you really get a warrant that broad? I assumed PRISM still entailed warrants issued on a user-by-user basis.

"I know the difference between the two. My point was that the Verizon collection of data very clearly was for the entire customer base of their major subsidiary."

Again, though...that program is legal. It's not even a controversial point (unlike with PRISM). From what I know of it, the rationale for the supreme court decision that says mass collection of metadata is legal is fairly well established, has a long judicial precedent, etc.

Yes, Snowden's rationale seems to be forthright. He's bothered by the implications of surveillance on this kind of scale. And I get it -- hell, I even agree. But most of the commentary I've been seeing on HN is just embarrassingly uninformed (or misinformed).

"it's not hard to draft a specific warrant for the narrow group of 'every US user 13 years or older' which is what I'd presume PRISM involved."

All of the public information about PRISM has explicitly said that information can only be obtained when one party to the conversation is a foreign national. I've read nothing to suggest that broad warrants of the sort you describe are any more legal than before.

Regarding the point I made on warrants for broad groups, remember that it's been leaked (or who knows, publicly admitted probably), that the NSA considers collection of data to be distinct from analysis of data. And that mere collection doesn't require cause/warrant. What needs to be leaked are how they define all those terms... and if there's any commonplace rule-bending. Who's to say that between the collection of data and the analysis, they don't then go and get warrants to analyze based on their work separating out what data they already had warrants for? What about computerized analysis (is that technically 'collection' to the NSA)? There's all sorts of room for abuse when you have this absolutely massive set of data and secrecy protecting almost every aspect of the operation.

Granted, IANAL, but I have worked as an engineer in In-Q-Tel funded companies, text analysis, and search. Nothing I'm saying is any reflection or representation of anyone I've worked for and is only my ill-informed, zany, personal opinion.

I love all the doublespeak around this issue but "warrant-based" is a new one. I'm pretty sure that does NOT mean a warrant specifically naming each person whose information was collected. Or does it?

You need a lawyer to translate anything our leaders (biz, gov or other) say. It's all form with very little substance. If you thought you heard something definitive you almost certainly misunderstood.

"I'm pretty sure that does NOT mean a warrant specifically naming each person whose information was collected. Or does it?"

Nobody (here) knows. This conversation is more heat than light in part because people are spouting all sorts of uninformed nonsense just to perpetuate their theatrical sense of outrage.

What I've read so far suggests that there's some sort of FISA-related oversight of the "reports" generated by PRISM. It sounds like analysts can do queries based on certain rules that are designed to include only conversations with foreign participants, but to get detailed information they need to go through a FISA court.

Honestly, though...you can't tell much of anything from the documents that have been leaked. Most of the details you see people discussing here are speculation, or worse.

Did Spitzer or Petraeus have conversations with foreign participants?

I know for a fact is does not. Even with the traditional criminal warrant (say a mafia boss) they only need a warrant for ONE person on the call.

Playing Devil's advocate here.

The government position is that it isn't a search until they subject the data to analysis. Nor is it a seizure when you still have your data. Thus they draw a line between collecting data (making sure they have it) and actually searching it. Therefore broad data collection does not violate the 4th so long as they always get specific warrants before actually searching that data.

But how do we know that? There is no accountability. They do everything under secrecy. It might be different if we had a third-party, non-governmental agency verifying that they are not violating the 4th amendment.

Why have no accountability and no transparency if they were not going to violate our privacy? I'm flipping the "If you have nothing to hide" bit on them.

But even if there were oversight, the main issue is the potential for abuse. Having all that data in the hands of an entity that can imprison you is a pretty frightening idea. Sure, maybe they're following the rules now, but in desperate times, people can behave immorally and radically. Do not trust other human beings, even if they are under the umbrella of "government". Look at what evil humans have done in the last century alone and you'll agree that we should limit the potential for abuse as much as possible.

The government's position is that both Congress and the courts provide accountability here, and the reason for not being transparent is that they do not want the people who are being monitored to be aware of exactly what capabilities the USA does and does not have.

The rest of your argument is about reality as civil libertarians see it, and not how the government sees it. (Because, after all, they think that the briefing that Congress gets and the oversight of the FISA court is sufficient protection.)

Looking at telephone records is not a search under teh 4th amendment. See Smith v. Maryland. It's the Supreme Court that makes these determinations, and quoting the constitution without regard to how the SC has interpreted only shows that you haven't read article III properly.

That is a strong argument but I'd like to play devils advocate for a second.

First, "unreasonable" is a key word. Is the copying of data without any noticeable inconvenience to the citizen considered unreasonable? Another key word would be "seized", is copying considered seizing? Seizing is legally defined as the removal of property, one might argue that no seizure was ever made during this wiretapping.

Second, the Bill of Rights was written over 200 years ago. During that time PHYSICAL searches and property seizures were the primary concern. Nobody could even fathom the concept of the Internet or the role it would play in today's society.

> Another key word would be "seized", is copying considered seizing? Seizing is legally defined as the removal of property, one might argue that no seizure was ever made during this wiretapping.

This reminds me of the copyright talks but obviously when it's citizens doing it, copying is stealing but when it's NSA, copying is not an issue because it does not remove anything ...

Exactly. The FISA court probably ok'd it, which makes it legal (as far as that goes).

A FISA court stamp doesn't give them some magical ability to suddenly ignore the 4th amendment.

This is false. The FISC found the NSA spying to be unconstitonal.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/government-says-secret...

"In a rare public filing in the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), the Justice Department today urged continued secrecy for a 2011 FISC opinion that found the National Security Agency's surveillance under the FISA Amendments Act to be unconstitutional. Significantly, the surveillance at issue was carried out under the same controversial legal authority that underlies the NSA’s recently-revealed PRISM program." [1]

[1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/government-says-secret...

That is a good argument. However, the NSA isn't breaking the law until the supreme court strikes down the FISA amendments, right?

I don't understand exactly what happens when a law is found unconstitutional. I can't imagine an analyst at the NSA would be retroactively charged with a crime, would they?

I'm not a lawyer, but I don't think that's correct. I believe they have to abide by the FISC ruling until a higher court rules in their favor. Obviously they don't want to take it to a higher court because then the public would find out. There's a reason why they are trying to keep the documents of the ruling a secret. Any lawyers here feel free to chime in.

Taxation without representation.

Personally, I think that anyone against this should show a civil disobedience by refusing to pay taxes.

I'd understand if you wanted to do additional actions that can help.

But signing this petition takes 30 seconds and is useful. I urge you to consider it.

Citation needed that it's even remotely useful because I've only ever seen evidence to the contrary.

> If you want results, riot in the streets. Civil disobeience.

How do you define "to riot", and "civil disobedience". They sound mutually exclusive to me.

A riot where you obey the authorities isn't much of a riot.

The 'civil' in 'civil disobedience' refers to disobeying the civil government, not disobeying politely.

And "to riot"?

> The ease of an action corresponds to what it can achieve.

Well put.

There is a survivorship bias when looking at the history of activism.

It looks like it takes extremely high effort to achieve anything worthwhile: look at what the labor and civil rights movements had to endure, for instance.

But, there are plenty of examples of other change that was achieved at lower cost. The environmental movement, for instance, generally did not face levels of institutional rejection and physical violence that labor and civil rights did. Why? Because they had a message that a broad swath of Americans could believe in. Regardless of party, ideology, or race, no one wants their kids to get sick from pollution.

So, the first steps in activism should be the easiest steps. They might work! And if they don't, having tried them creates the moral authority for more aggressive tactics.

Movements that jump straight to civic unrest are typically rejected by the broader American culture. Most people highly value law and order, and are only willing to tolerate departures when they think it's absolutely necessary.

If you want results, riot in the streets.

Talk is cheap. What sort of riot do you plan on participating in? The sort where you surround a government building, or the kind where you just trash whatever comes to hand?

There is certainly more you can do, specifically non-violent ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vk1XbyFv51k http://beautifultrouble.org/

True, but let us give them the chance to ignore yet another petition and truly prove to us that we as citizens have little say in the status quo in the government that is supposed to represent all its people. More fuel for the fire couldn't hurt eh?

Besides it's summer time…

How many more times do they need to prove this to us? "Well, I know he punched me in the face, kicked me in the balls and raped my girlfriend in front of me but I'm still not convinced he wants trouble".

I don't know, but is it better than just getting up and leaving, since that doesn't really address the reach of the issues that confront the world today?

You don't have to leave if you don't want to. But your choices are to do nothing (which includes meaningless actions like online petitions) or get directly involved in politics. At this point I'd say there is literally no one to vote for, so if you want to change things you'll need to run yourself. If enough of us do that we could make a change. I see literally no other possibilities at this point.

Or to sign petitions, organize protests, do outreach in the community or other more subversive things. Why put limits on what one can do due to the perceived (lack of) value others may give it?

Don't just click a link, but still click the link!

They are cunning and you should be above it.

Or use Bitcoin exclusively instead of the USD.

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