NSA Rejecting FOIA Requests by US Citizens
dailykos.com
dailykos.com
We need to make crypto easier, we need to provide tools everyone can use. It's our responsibility to educate the masses. Otherwise we're just as antisocial as the governments.
If that succeeds, you still think encryption will be legal? (without support from the government (read: backdoor enabled))
In any case, foreign hackers are still going to be after your data. It's insane that we don't have easy routine encryption of communications and data storage.
And even if encryption were to continue, next thing you know, we will hear about other technologies. Some crazy BIOS back doors, exploits, or chip-level garbage.
To my mind, this is a legal issue more than a techical one. We shouldn't have to play cat-and-mouse with our government to protect our privacy. They need to be reined in legally, and all of this nonsense made punishable by law.
To my knowledge, every government in the world has some sort of state secrets program. If you are against this, then that is at least consistent. But it makes no sense to say that the NSA should be releasing classified information under FOIA.
Do you not see a problem with this?
Perhaps a lawsuit would be able to accomplish what you suggest. I have no idea.
Most of the specifics here are still under wraps (who's being targeted, what specific patterns they search, etc) so the programs are still in pretty good shape. It's far too early to throw in the everyone-knows-everything-already towel. What's maddening is that the leaks on Capitol Hill are exactly the same, criminally, but are usually pre-filtered, pro-US and condoned by the Administration.
Imagine if these were nuclear secrets. You would prefer it to be unclear so that replicating groups would not feel confident jumping into a nuclear project.
Obviously since we are talking about something that may violate Amendment 4, things ought to be a bit different. Probably not from a declassification standpoint, but rather from a legislate-this-out-of-existence standpoint.
So, you have an exception that says "classified material is exempt". Fair enough. But, you then turn around and call everything classified. Not fair enough.
There is virtually no limit to what can be justified if you were to follow this line of reasonng.
Not so long ago, this would've been considered an act of war, to spy on your allies on such a grand scale. The sad part is, that our governments or either in on it, or running their own spy programs.
I really don't feel like I am living in a "free world" any more.
I do very much agree with your points, but I don't understand why this issues is a tipping point. Since I began to understand politics, I have been as wary and skeptical of the US government as I have been impressed by the good achievements of the US. I've not believed in the idea that the US leads any sort of free world for years.
Or, if you are honest, is this the first issue that you feel affects you? Were you confident that you wouldn't be rendered, bombed or drone struck? But now you can be sure the NSA have your data and that it might actually matter?
If so, Im not judging you in any way. Its just I think a lot of people are possibly in that boat too, and it also might highlight why still a most people seem to dismiss this. They think it isnt or wont be a problem for them.
What has been blown for me by all this is the notion of freedom of speech. While we in Europe seem to have given that up, I used to think the US hadn't.
By the way, it is interesting to note how we separate our past history from our active perceptions of the place. America's early history is not too bright -- we did some of the most batshit evil stuff you could think of: genocide of Red Indians, slavery (which to me when I really sit down and think deep about, sometimes, seems worse than just killing a person -- it's fucking killing the very dignity and respect every human being is owed, it's depriving them of any and all pleasures to life). I don't think we've made much amends for it -- the cycle of poverty still persists for a lot of African American folks, there are rather few social programs that really try to help them in meaningfully substantive ways. There are folks alive to this very day who faced system institutional racism from our government.
We did some pretty evil stuff during and after the Cold war too -- someone linked this in another post yesterday: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentatio... -- this one truly shocked me:
Researchers in the United States have performed thousands of human
radiation experiments to determine the effects of atomic radiation and
radioactive contamination on the human body, generally on people who were
poor, sick, or powerless.
Interesting that you chose to escape to the US. So, its not like you had negative feeling form the start, in fact, the exact opposite. The US represented not just freedom, but perhaps life for you, perhaps too your family. So, I guess it must be quite hard for you to have to re-evaluate that.
For me, the jarring thing is that for years I was able to sit here in the UK claiming some sort of moral superiority and intelligent of policy/thought. I suppose that deep down I know that was BS, but in this spying think I feel we are actually worse. To be honest, the tow post 9/11 wars were a huge dent, but this is twisting the knife as it were.
It's an interesting idea that a country (that is, the people living in a certain country) should have some kind of "original sin" for things that happened before they were born. Ask a German how they feel about that idea. Even so, there is nothing special about the United States in the respects that you mentioned. Learning about history is the antidote to that belief.
Interesting, but not at all controversial, especially here.
But my theory is that if people are left comfortable enough, they won't question authority. Even when we hear of torture, corruption it's almost always happening to someone we don't know or have a hard time sympathizing with. The assumption is, if I am not doing anything wrong, why should I worry?
I am not a terrorist, I am not a criminal. But the real issue is that we don't live in a system governed by laws. We live in a system controlled by people and by all accounts, very greedy people. So the definition of "wrong" comes in to play.
What warrants "them" to take away your "freedom of speech" or "freedom to privacy"? Are you a drug smuggler, terrorist, child-pornographer, movie pirate or just someone who failed to account for a 5000 dollars on your last tax return?
Who gets to decide? It's not the people, that's for sure!
I've just posted another story that I felt illustrates this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6001546
It's the story of Andrew Feldmar, of something legal in a different time and place being deemed illegal today by a different country, and the consequences.
I remember reading that in 2007 and having it dawn on me that we are not living in a free world.
We've been living in an age of innocence and naivety, we should've woken up a while ago, but are only slowly beginning to now.
The UK had a intelligence asset in the German finance ministry during the 90s according to Richard Tomlinson. When he was going around Europe after his falling out with the SIS (the real MI6) Germany offered him residence if he gave up the person. France was perfectly willing to give him a home in return for information.
Now what there has been a long tradition of is bad things happening to those engaged in espionage. There's a reason conventions on conflict exempt spies, agents provocateurs and franc-tireurs from decent treatment.
The more modern examples would be the downing of the US EP-3E on Hainan Island, the USS Pueblo, the USSR trying to sink NATO submarines in their territorial waters.
You were never living in a free world if you term it to be being immune to the actions of a power if it decided to turns its attentions to you. The question is will any foreign power ever actually care about you? And if it did what would it do?
Because this is where the cassus belli part comes it - your safety is pretty guaranteed. Britain has after all gone to war over a ship captain's ear historically. Italy more recently stood up the USA over the rendition of its suspects. Foreign governments spy to collect information to their own advantage, not to affect your life individually.
I am not advocating the European logging of internet traffic, but I will give them the very least credit they deserve: Being public. The Swedish FRA, the Danish Logningsbekendtgørelse, the German Vorratsdatenspeicherung, etc.; while bad themselves, they are at least public knowledge.
In many recent rulings we Germans have the impression that the Verfassungsgericht has defended and also slightly extended our basic law (Grundgesetz) against the politicians and in favour of people's rights. This gives the Verfassungsgericht high respect.
Sorry, wrong. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYgkjczoBYk
It appears to be highly likely that were it not for the recent leaks, NSA would have just outright lied and told you that they had no data on you.
How do I do this?
The Danish Logingsbekendtgørelse does not have that functionality, as they claim the data to be non-identifiable and requires a warrant. I do not know what the FRA rules are.
Although, honestly, I doubt the intelligence agencies would give you a truthful response. Only ministries are required to do so.
[0] http://www.zeit.de/datenschutz/malte-spitz-data-retention/
So, people would know because if it wasn't so, such a secret is simply too difficult to keep. Citizens have to work in the intelligence positions, too.
No. Sorry, there can be no trust in such an arrangement. You want trust? Don't have secret courts.
I think being secret has a lot more to do with them being able to abuse the laws, and not letting the public know about it. There's no good reason to keep the FISA Court secret.
But the war on terror involves a handful of college kids and peasants. They don't have anything more than the ability to do google searches. Joe Paranoid doesn't need confirmation from guys like Snowden, he just assumes the worst and goes from there.
The massive secrecy around the war on terror (there are now over 4 million active clearances, nearly 1.5 top-secret clearances, that's twice the population of DC) is an artifact of the cold-war regulations that provides little to no tactical advantage but practically eliminate oversight.
Clearances simply represent that someone was screened for access to national security information within the past 5/10/15 years. They are not all actively in use, and due to compartmentalization even the active ones do not mean that they are actually doing work that involves national security.
For instance, the cook on a submarine? He has a SECRET clearance since he may come across information of that classification in the course of his duties, but frying eggs and standing "sump" watch does not mean he is personally oppressing the populace. :P
Likewise, merely having a clearance doesn't eliminate oversight. That depends entirely on the job being done, and in any event has a simple answer: Just give whoever is providing oversight equivalent clearances.
Now, you might be thinking that means the whole public can't provide oversight that way, and you'd be right. But remember the division of responsibility rule: If everyone is responsible for providing oversight on something, then no one is responsible for oversight. It's easy for evil to lurk in plain sight when everyone thinks that someone else is responsible for spotting it.
Yes, that is correct, there are a small number of people who have clearances purely for mechanical reasons, like janitors and such. However, it is useful to recognize that the total number of clearances is at roughly the same level as at the peak of the cold war. When the enemy was entire countries, not a few thousand guys living in caves.
RE: secrecy
I was referring to the FISA court's secrecy being an artifact of the cold war, not the secrecy every single classified program. There is no reason beyond inertia and the ease that comes with lack of accountability for the FISA court to be so secretive. However, I am stunned by the leap of logic it requires to say that public knowledge results in no oversight.
Is that what I actually said?
The intent is clear - to reference the "division of responsibility rule" in this context and then deny the obvious intent is disingenuous. "I didn't say public knowledge results in no oversight, I was just randomly pointing out that if everyone is responsible than no one is responsible. Just throwing that out there, your conclusions are your own."
That doesn't have to mean another government office, it can mean something like the EFF, ACLU, or some other non-profit dedicated to performing that function on behalf of the people.
Simply making the glass transparent has no value if no one looks through it. If we as people don't setup some form of oversight or advocacy (and just wait for someone else to do it) then it doesn't matter how transparent the government is.
"If not now, when; if not me, who?"
Their objective is clear and a "legitimate" even thus not "ethical" attempt to protect "the country".
However, this only works for a while. While nobody sympathize with your cause anymore, the artificial barriers and protection are useless, as information will leak literally everywhere, since everyone wants to you see you fall.
This seems to be a common way for countries to fall after reaching their apex.
send a "Hi how are you" letter to the NSA chief, naming him as a party, with an affidavit stating that the NSA does, in fact, have information on you. Give him 10 days to rebut it. Then give him a second letter, acknowledging his fault/acquiescence to the affidavit. then 10 days after that, send a third notice cementing his agreement to the affidavit's truth.
THEN you go do a FOIA request. Include your paperwork with the FOIA request. They can't refuse, because they'd have to contradict your private agreement with the NSA Chief first. if they do refuse, you now have legal recourse in (Secret) courts, because the NSA will now be proven to have obstructed process.
Flagged for linking to blogspam on a site filled with nonsense.
Is it that hard to click the "Originally published at" link? http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2013/07/06/nsa-rejecting-e...
Yet medium.com links are still OK.
Any positive or negative response on a request-by-request basis
would allow our adversaries [China] to accumulate information
and draw conclusions about NSA's technical capabilities, sources,
and methods. Our adversaries are likely to evaluate all public
responses related to these programs. Were we to provide positive
or negative responses to requests such as yours, our adversaries'
compilation of the information provided would reasonably be expected
to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security.
My main problem with these programs is the lack of oversight and any kind of public controls to prevent abuse by bad actors. I don't mind when judges issue warrants to gather private information; that's oversight, with a level of public visibility eventually involved. Warrants are accounted for right there in the fourth amendment.
But these programs are known, thanks to Edward Snowden, to have shoddy controls over individual analyst access to the information. That alone reveals an institutional bias inside the NSA against respecting citizens' privacy; if they treated it as a really big deal then Snowden wouldn't have been able to gain access to individual information as he has claimed. Consequently I have little faith that justice would be served on analysts or departments who use the information for their own purposes, and that's the core problem for me.
We know the FBI treated Martin Luther King as a potential terrorist. If the NSA's information had been available to them, why wouldn't they have asked for it, formally or otherwise, if there were no negative consequences?
What does that mean for political activism given today's more tightly integrated Department of Homeland Security?
WRT China, the NSA has had a listening post inside China, in cooperation with the Chinese, ever since shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran. While the missions are different, it should leave no doubts in the minds of the Chinese intelligence people as to the technical capabilities of the NSA. Between that and the fact that the Chinese are no slouches themselves in communications (their public communications infrastructure is vastly larger than in the US), or in spying on their citizens. I doubt the Chinese have much to learn from these press releases.
This is one of those things that I feel, in my heart, should be organized.
I wouldn't even begin to count on it though, and I find Sillicon Valley depressive for that. All the unchecked progress and ad-driven, you-are-the-product business models are fueling surveillance efforts to no end, but why would they be inconvenienced in taking a stand and giving something back?
No need to be depressed yet--though I do understand your sentiments.
I'm interested in the possibility of working to set this up. This seems like a very very good idea. Nothing would be more glaring to me personally than to receive a letter back from the government saying I can't know what they have on me. I think many people would feel similarly.
But I think it will only work if it really is as easy as filling out a form or a fairly easy PDF/etc.
If so, perhaps something as simple as a nice domain and a pretty WP theme with some well-written copy could turn this idea to reality...
Any other takers?
The specific information required for a request varies by agency, as do any fees. Most of them now provide online forms on their sites.
While I was the FOIA/Privacy Act coordinator/liaison for one of the commands I was attached to while in the Navy, we generally accepted any form of written request, provided the person included their full name, postal address, phone number and a detailed enough description of the information they were requesting.
A presentation by an author publishing a book about the history of phone phreaking. The discussion is focused on his experience dealing with FOIA submissions. I found it informative as a real life explanation of the timeline for requests and how much is redacted.
The argument about we know it exists so tell us more because we already know its there really does not add up. I know that Obama's limo has some really cool protective measures, but you know very well that they won't tell me what they are or what they are not. Theres a reason for it.
Why does everyone here assume that it's a vast conspiracy when, if they returned everything they had on you, it would be a giant red flag to anyone who was denied that they were being explicitly monitored?
The only way to guarantee secrecy for records that should rightfully be secret (whether you agree with the collection methods or not) is to deny everyone's request.
What is key and what is troubling everyone since the jump is what 'they' are going to do with this information, and what 'they' have been doing.
For a lot of you it is easy hyphothesis what a person can do with this information, for instance it has made Mark a billioninaire and countless others rich. It would be a sad state to see this information fall into the wrong hand(s), so it is my hope that someone somewhere makes the decision that no one goverment should be privy to it for the true sake of this freedom we so vicariously fight for.
But I will not be lied to, and I will not be coerced into a lifestyle not of my choosing, and I will not be intimidated. I deserve better. The United States has driven me to a life of constant fear, fear not based in delusion but in the severe mismanagement of its society. Daily I find myself at the mercy of its community, whose fear shake the seat of my soul: beliefs of technological domination, spying, etc. I will no longer provide free consultation, on doorsteps or coffeeshops; nor will I abide the complaints of American peoples.
Of this decaying society (U.S.), its peoples will manically accuse anarchism or even the grossest fictions, due to an untrained intellect. Of this decaying society (U.S.), its people must find someone to blame — at which point anarchism becomes indistinguishable from treason.
The United States has mismanaged not only its government; it has injected a venom against intimacy, intelligence, and true investigation. I cannot trust the United States to secure my freedom of intimacy, freedom of intelligence, nor can I trust its integrity or investigation.
I find it disrespectful to myself and undermining to my initiatives to qualify my identity with "U.S. Citizen."
In any event, most people who look at me assume I do not speak English. You cannot coerce someone into looking like an American, and a majority of Americans only look at me with abjection or fear since I have "wild" dreadlocks, which to them look unkept. In many cities, I am heckled on the street with terms like "nigger" and "faggot"; and in polite society, potential peers are taken aback at my personal history ("You can't REALLY be from there!") or even the mere fact that I am a trained philosopher and Web developer. In many ways I look like a "primitive" man largely on account of very matured dreadlocks, and this society is simply too naive, sexually repressed to allow for people who look like Russell Brand to walk the streets: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADJhErmJuoQ.
Every one of my days in public with you Americans reminds me of that interview. Even yesterday some square approached me to ask if rolling up one pant-leg was a "new fashion thing." I will not be trapped in a country of style-vultures-spies-after-our-personal-brands XOR complaint-ridden-poverty-stricken. I deserve better.
A square? What does "an American" look like? I look pretty "normal" or at least my outward appearance is intentionally low-key and non-descript.
For me it is the internal that is important though someone who puts a high priority on external ornamentation as an indicator of personality and character would never know if you just went by my external appearance.
Could you be more judgmental? Whomever is sending these requests, shaving habits aside, may not adhere to your premise that 'The best outcome here is to get them to stop collecting the data'. It could very well be that they just want to know what has been collected on them.
Sophistry. He says he can think of nothing that would require monitoring. So he's protesting. Nothing wrong with that, just be honest about it. IIRC there was at least one website set up to automate FOIA requests to the NSA after the Snowden info came out. Why is this guy's story special? It isn't. Why is this even a story?
I'm appalled by the NSA activity, I support Snowden, and I want change, but this story is designed to agitate for political effect and nothing more.