Snowden's Constitution vs Obama's Constitution | Hacker News Reader

Snowden's Constitution vs Obama's Constitution

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172 pointshonzzz36 comments

The OP is (mostly) a sober analysis of the constitutional issues raised by automatic mass surveillance. Whether one agrees or disagrees, it's (relatively) high-quality content that an informed author put some serious effort into. As far as Snowden articles go it is surely in the upper percentiles of HN-appropriateness. How about we follow its lead here and focus on the content [1]?

The author's main point is that the Supreme Court has interpreted the word "reasonable" in the Fourth Amendment ("unreasonable searches and seizures") to mean "what ordinary citizens find reasonable". In other words, the meaning of the constitution here is supposed to fluctuate with public opinion. That's interesting, and something I've never heard before. Is this a standard view? Or has the author improvised it?

[1] Does not count: lurid speculation about what the government would like to do to Snowden; blatant trolls that degrade the discussion intentionally.

I think one probably wants to be careful about phrases like "supposed to fluctuate", because it's a stretch to say that the framers wrote the 4th Amendment expecting technology and social mores to continually redefine the meaning of the 4th Amendment over time. It's often more profitable to examine what precise concern animated the language and then project that concern across time.

Another way to look at the "reasonableness" requirement is that it's a deliberate constitutional punt to the judiciary; the word "reasonable" begs for judicial interpretation.

But no, I don't think the author of this post invented that interpretation of the 4th Amendment, and I think that interpretation leads to a sensible place in these circumstances.

Think about the massive diplomatic fallout the US government risked yesterday with getting all those countries to deny airspace to the President of Bolivia until his jet ran out of fuel and they could stop-and-frisk his sovereignty.

They want Snowden bad, like terrifyingly bad. He will never see the light of day if they get their hands on him. His trial will have even less coverage than Mannings's (zero) and he'll be held naked in an isolated concrete cell somewhere and force fed ensure to "teach all the other analysts a lesson" - you obey or you will become a walking corpse.

I think that what they really want is to send a message to some other potential leaker in the future to "think twice before you leak".

I think we should be careful with speculating about horrifying consequences of leaking illegal activities of the government to the press - we don't want to help them spread fear (assuming we want to know the truth). Who knows... maybe Snowden's act will really help expose and stop unconstitutional activities of US government and Snowden will overcome the bleak reality that he is living right now and live the rest of his life celebrated as a hero.

I think anyone in the position to leak things truly damaging now already knows sufficient fear.

Spreading the word about their inhuman practices against those who would attempt to do the right thing now serves the other goal: illustrating to people why leaking is more important than ever.

Remember, there are still hundreds of NSA sysadmins going to work every day, post-Snowden, processing this data collected on innocent people (Americans included). It's not like they didn't know before that leaking stuff would be the end of their life as they know it. We need to show them that it's the end of everyone's life as they know it if they don't; that is, to get them to question the validity of their mission in the first place.

It's about showing them the true character of just what they're protecting with their silence.

At this point I think Snowden was forced to reveal his identity and details of his existence to add credibility to his claims and documents. With these things verified further sysadmins would be capable of leaking documents and data anonymously without it being overlooked as fake.

He made a sacrifice to people looking to do leaks and hopefully good will come of it in the long run.

Hundreds sysadmins?

I think tens of thousands, if not more. Thats whats worrying and horrifying about all this for me at least. There is a whole organization, a structure, a culture of people whos job is illegal and immoral activities, they know and they still continue doing it as Snowden said many of them are authoritarians - perhaps even feeling pleasure from having that power.

NSA is a big employer, and it took what 5-6 years for one leaker?

Surely the NSA has a pretty thorough screening process that you have to go through before you're allowed to work there.

Also, when you think of the consequences of leaking ( basically giving up your life in the USA) I'd guess most people would think twice about it and go with the pragmatic option, the same way that most of the population is ok with the NSA's actions as long they protect us from the terrorists.

You are right, and it is demoralizing for any future leaker.

Something can be done about the whole mess, its not all lost, but not unless a majority is on board, and it doesnt seem to be, majority seems to be fine with it and seem to be fine with living in fear or threats of fear.

Its like, if a few officers or groups of soldiers in Whermacht or SS begin to question and disobey their orders to run the Einsatz-gruppe or concetratipn camps... some few tried, they got killed or their lives destroyed.

What we can learn from Snowden is that he is one of the few heroes among us, and that we are already too deep in the shit to do anything about it, as is obvious to the lengths the USA would go just to catch him, a sysadmin who showed a few powerpoints to a a few journalists.

Its DDR all over again.

Google has less than a thousand SREs AFAIK, and I would guess that they have at least an order of magnitude more computers than NSA (more probably 3-5 orders of magnitude).

As for analysts, several thousand, perhaps up to a dozen, makes sense.

This never worked in real life. I mean, we have examples of similar behavior in the communist block where the Party practically killed thousands with our without bothering with mock processes. In the end some other guys will rise and give a big fuck-you to an oppressive government.

Wait, what are we talking about here - will US go so low as to be likened to an oppressive gov, or is it one???

The message they are sending is not:

  "think twice before you leak"

but:

  "prepare multiple exit strategies before you leak"

And to think that some people were suggesting that Snowden should've just "followed the proper channels" or surrender himself to the US government after that.

What people who say that don't understand is that there is no "fairness" when you anger an authoritarian/abusive government that has little regard for laws, and even the Constitution.

And I agree he'd be treated even worse than Manning. Good thing Obama "reluctantly" kept passing the NDAA's indefinite detention clause for the past 2 years (and he will do it again at the end of this year if he's not stopped - well Congress, too), so they can keep him in prison as long as they want without even a trial for the next few years.

"State has right to its secrets and will bully countries to punish those that expose them. Citizens on the other hand don't need privacy, cause if you're not doing anything bad you don't need to hide".

> They want Snowden bad, like terrifyingly bad.

So, assume `he git got'. The leak machinery seems to be unstoppable -with ES involved or no- which I believe to be the biggest threat, and the propaganda benefit of torturing ES or a disappearance act, to me only appears so much more massive diplomatic and domestic fallout and blowback rage, perhaps not biblical, but try Viet Nam global massive protests, blocking Interstates, Autobahn, breaking things. With all the world's record size protests surfacing concurrently, this ES mess could really escalate systemic-wide and (more) head of states changing.

I see a sit down coming among all global surveillance heads, and collectively they will reach a mutual intel sharing `hierarchy', leading to international abuse and distrust, while in the mean time, it will only get worst for our own 4th Amendment and the rest of the world's basic human rights.

One of the few things preventing the complete power grab is the "free" Internet. It is now easy to undestand why there is such a push from government to "censor" and control the Internet... As of now they are trying to slip indirect means to do it... Imposing stiff fines and punishments for breaking complicated and vaguely worded regulations and statues they are trying to pass (soap, crisps, etc). It's an effort to silence dissent and once the people can't easily and effectively communicate, then organized protests become very difficult... Which is part of the goals and plans.

Edit: vague statutes and regulations allow for prosecutor discretion and overreach. We need to wipe the books... We have way too many "laws".

Think about the massive hysteria whipped up by people such as yourself prior to knowing the facts. Hysterical claims which, as the day progresses, are being shown as absolute BS. The claim that these countries denied airspace: false. The claim that these airspace denials caused the plane to run out of fuel: false (it apparently had a malfunction that made the pilots unsure of the fuel levels, but planned refueling was the canary islands.) So, what is the next lie up on your plate for today?

<sarcasm> Yes , and the planet earth is in the middle of the universe </sarcasm>

What do you think those countries will say ? ... oh yeah, we force the plane to land and denied it our airspace, unless they allow us to check if Snowden is onboard ! I guess , we shall see this disinformation campaign more and more as time goes...

So who, other than the Bolivians who have a great deal to gain by exaggerating the event, are providing any independent verification of the claims being made? Oh yeah, no one.

France denied the claim that they denied the plane entering their airspace; did France deny the claim that they denied landing?

How could they deny landing when the plane encountered problems over Austria and turned back to land. Seriously, look at a map...

don't forget pres signing statements:

http://www.coherentbabble.com/listBHOall.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signing_statement#Signing_state...

Presidential signing statements don't have the force of law. They're predictive of how an administration will use the discretion granted to it by the law and the Constitution, and sometimes (for instance in Bush 2's case) predictive of ways in which the administration will exceed its authority, but the reality is that the Executive can't "fill in the blanks" on laws unless the Legislature authorizes that.

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