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Comment by vijayboyapati | Hacker News Reader

Funny how Alexander says he's read the Constitution, and implores the heckler to do the same. If one can read the Constitution and square the NSA's mass surveillance with the 4th amendment then one can square a circle. There really is no point in debating people like this on the technicalities of the Constitution. What they understand is power. He has it and we don't. He knows how to pull the levers that matter, and which Congressman and executive branch bureaucrats to lean on to make sure his bailiwick is not reduced by a single inch. The rest of us, sadly, are left flailing around hoping that pointing to a piece of paper is an effective check on evil.

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The NSA is filtering a public utility. The users of this utility choose what information they want to broadcast, and should do so with the full knowledge that this information is being bounced between dozens of routers every time it goes out, any one of which may be monitored by its owners. This information ultimately ends up at the destination IP address, whose owner is able to use this data in whichever manner he sees fit, including submittal of said data to a major governmental intelligence organization as occurs with PRISM.

The problem is that people foolishly assume that the plaintext packets they send online are private by default. As in real life, good privacy can only be assured by significant effort on the part of the communicants. Is it evil to observe something occurring on a public street corner? It is not different to observe something occuring on a public IP router.

That's a stretch. I don't expect privacy when I shout on the street corner; that's broadcasting. I do expect privacy when I send email, because that's totally bounded.

The postal system is a public utility. Should it be filtered? What we're arguing now is why one envelope is special. I put my communications in paper envelope and I'm protected, but when I put it in an SMTP envelope, I'm not. I'd like someone to rationalize that.

As far as I'm concerned, let's do it one way or another. Either protect email or start OCRing the post.

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6138355

>"The microphones in every nook and cranny are merely filtering a public good, the air. You should know that when you vibrate the air with your vocal chords to make the sound of words, you're willingly broadcasting information patterns in quadrillions of particles in the air. It's not our fault you're so stupid about your security."

Don't be dense. Letters are easily intercepted and read, but we still expect that the government is not doing so because the constitution forbids that sort of behavior and the judicial branch is supposed to protect us from it.

You're conflating privacy with security. Security requires encryption, etc... privacy exists in the absence of monitoring devices.

The proper analog is a letter v. a postcard. There is no reasonable expectation that the contents of a postcard will remain private -- the message is right there, and people will see it even accidentally. A typical plaintext packet is the same way. Stuffing your papers in a sealed envelope is analogous to passing your plaintext through an encryption algorithm.

If you are "vibrating the air" in public, then yes, you should realize that there could be a microphone nearby that records what you're saying (and in fact, in modern practice, there is a microphone on pretty much every person you see, any of which could be recording at any time).

The problem is people don't necessarily know know they're sending a postcard when they think they're sending a sealed envelope.

This is a great opportunity for education, then, correct? Tools have existed that would ameliorate this entire issue for a long time. We need to get people to start using them!

> The problem is that people foolishly assume that the plaintext packets they send online are private by default The NSA are trying to decrypt encrypted messages too though, tapping VPNs etc. It's not like they're just surveilling plaintext comms.

> people foolishly assume Yes those ignorant fools deserve everything they get for not being security enthusiasts, and for assuming good faith on the part of their government, right?

My understanding is that their Constitutional dodge is rooted in Scalia's originalism: the 4th says "papers", which means specifically physical pieces of paper, not phone calls or emails.

What I've been wondering about though, is the legal definition of "effects" (noun, not verb). That term seems very broad to me, and should include emails, but I'm not a lawyer.

They don't need a dodge, they just ignore the law or get new laws that circumvent previous laws. With little or no oversight this is easily accomplished. Especially since the group that requires oversight is gathering information and information is power.

This is nothing new, read up on J. Edgar Hoover with his wiretapping and files on almost everybody. Sometimes with White House knowledge and approval, sometimes without. All this while completely ignoring that quaint document down the street called the Constitution. Doing things like that is easy if you can hand over a note to someone that starts out "It'd be a shame if people found out about [insert criminal/embarrassing act here]." Information is power.

Oh, I agree. But they do successfully maintain the veneer. Regardless of how, the Supreme Court is complicit, and they engage in some tortured linguistic judo in the process.

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