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Comment by samstave | Hacker News Reader

The weird invasive thought I keep having is if Snowden could, if at all, be a limited hang-out-OP/MISO (PsyOp) to gauge just how much the public would accept.

There have been enough revelations to see that the NSA got to keep what it is in entirety; mission accomplished.

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This is definitely tinfoil hat territory. Some very high level people in the intelligence community may lose their jobs or (if things go very well) face charges in the next year or two. If the whole Snowden affair is an inside job then those high level people must have been ignorant of it since they would never accept the personal risk of the shitstorm that has resulted.

Yeah, I mean just look how afraid Clapper was of lying, completely knowingly, to the Senate under oath. He must really be afraid of putting himself out there as the threat to his personal freedom is far too great.

Tinfoil hat territory was granted statehood a while back, in case you weren't paying attention. I don't understand your willingness to underestimate our government's abilities to mislead the public.

Well there have been reports already about changes: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/16/us-usa-nsa-transit...

That's one of the most thought-provoking comments I've seen in some time. Some of the revelations involving spying on allies seem pretty harmful...Either a lot of nations were in on the operation or a big risk was taken in conducting it the first place. Further, why would they include information on spying on allies if they just wanted to gauge the reaction on domestic surveillance?

>Further, why would they include information on spying on allies if they just wanted to gauge the reaction on domestic surveillance?

A global psyop; it was a show of complete dominance?

The government could have used Special Administrative Measures (SAMs) to keep the Snowden documents out of the papers in the USA, sending the Secret Service round to collect any 'inappropriate' documents.

With a 'D-Notice' to effect the same in the UK and coupled with the usual soft measures - threaten to take away press passes from journalists (and their papers) - the whole lot could have been kept out of the papers.

The fact that these measures have not been used means that this was a limited hang out - or - that the Obama administration just does not know how to use the law as well as the Bush administration.

The only reference I see to "Special Administrative Measures" involves communication with prisoners: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_administrative_measure

Even articles in publications like "Reporters' Committee for the Freedom of the Press" refer to this phrase as a thing for prisoners: http://www.rcfp.org/browse-media-law-resources/news-media-la...

So it's unclear what you're talking about.

From context it seemed as though he were using the phrase as a euphemism for extrajudicial procedures.

(read: black bag jobs, rubber hose decryption, and even piscine sleep therapy)

The fact is that the Obama administration seems to have been kept out of the compartment on a number of programs; which is not surprising, but very naughty.

Much in the way that the NSA can bend the law to collect everything, the government can bend the law to use SAMs for whatever they want. You could say that any of the NSA revelations could affect some on-going case that has yet to be brought to court in Guantanamo, e.g. knowledge that a given prisoner's communications being intercepted could prejudice the case. The details of exactly how that might work out could be kept secret under terms of the SAM.

It's still pretty unclear what you're suggesting, but: if the federal government starts trying to bend the rules against the papers the old saying about making an enemy out of someone who buys ink by the barrelful becomes highly relevant.

Most of us concerned with civil liberties feel like those sorts of court cases and issues go underreported. Start sending federal agents to reporters in order to "collect any inappropriate documents" and kill stories and things will get messy quick.

If you're the administration and you are aware of something you don't want the papers to have, you take them to court. (which is messy enough)

Or, more cynically, that Snowden is a plot to eradicate expectation of privacy everywhere.

From Smith V. Maryland.

"If the Government were suddenly to announce on nationwide television that all homes henceforth would be subject to warrantless entry, individuals thereafter might not in fact entertain any actual expectation of privacy regarding their homes, papers, and effects."

FYI: Smith V. Maryland is the justification the FISA courts have used to argue surveillance is legal. It argues, in a nutshell, that when you route phone calls through a telecom you are forfeiting your expectation of privacy, and therefore your fourth amendment rights.

I am concerned that the surveillance industry may be trying to establish the legal precedent that because everyone knows about the surveillance, it is legal. This is a paradoxical argument: the logic would effectively be that if they told everyone they were doing it ahead of time, it would be illegal, but since they told everyone after the fact it is legal.

Now, I'm not a lawyer. This is my laymans understanding of the issue and I don't really have the body of knowledge regarding expectation of privacy to adequately discuss this. These are just the things that, as a layman, I am currently afraid of.

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