Another day, another drip:
The National Security Agency may have read your communications, albeit under limited circumstances.
That seems to be the takeaway of a newly-released letter from Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. to noted NSA skeptic Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.
“There have been queries, using U.S. person identifiers, of communications lawfully acquired to obtain foreign intelligence by targeting non U.S. persons reasonably believed to be located outside the U.S. pursuant to Section 702 of FISA,” Clapper wrote in a March 28 letter to Wyden.
Wyden and Colorado Democratic Sen. Mark Udall offered a scathing joint response to Clapper’s letter.
“Senior officials have sometimes suggested that government agencies do not deliberately read Americans’ emails, monitor their online activity or listen to their phone calls without a warrant. However, the facts show that those suggestions were misleading, and that intelligence agencies have indeed conducted warrantless searches for Americans’ communications using the ‘back-door search’ loophole in section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act,” the two senators wrote. “Today’s admission by the Director of National Intelligence is further proof that meaningful surveillance reform must include closing the back-door searches loophole and requiring the intelligence community to show probable cause before deliberately searching through data collected under section 702 to find the communications of individual Americans.”
Wyden had questioned Clapper about the communications collected under section 702 of FISA at an open hearing of the Intelligence Committee back in January, although Clapper was careful to avoid tipping his hand in that setting.
BUT HEY- SAFETY COMES AT A PRICE, AMIRITE?
Ash Can
Go home, John, you’re drunk.
Omnes Omnibus
Is there any reason now that you aren’t drinking that you need to phrase your NSA related post in a way designed to create a Greenwald/Snowden fight? There are real issues that are worth discussion, and you have a forum where such a discussion could happen. Betty Cracker tried it once and it worked out rather well.
AxelFoley
Fuck Snowden and his supporters.
Keith G
John, haven’t you heard? Only dudebros care about this crap.
4th Amendment rights are for suckers.
billB
A huge shout out to my Senator, Mr. Ron. He is a brave hero for our times. AND clapper et al, do not ‘accidently’ poison him, as you will get an ARAB SPRING in the deal.
coin operated
Don’t let the few hundred documents he’s illegally released ruin your fanboi crush…please!!!
scav
It has become rather impossible to say anything non-“personality” related about the subject. Dull.
El Caganer
This was from a letter from DNI Clapper to a US Senator, not from a stolen classified document. Eddie Snowden’s name doesn’t appear anywhere in the article. Yet this post will still generate 10,000,000 comments about Snowden. Jesus Christ it must be a slow night in WV.
Mandalay
@John Cole: Heh. Within the first six posts the responses to this news are….
Forget the wingnuts – we have met the enemy and he is us.
Betty Cracker
I believe the reforms Obama proposed would put a stop to the back-door search loophole. What are the chances Congress will act on the proposed reforms?
Omnes Omnibus
@scav: It would have be easy. Title the post anything that didn’t mention Snowden or Greenwald. At least then, if some brought them up, it is the commenters’ fault. Cole wants to provoke a GG/SG fight. He doesn’t want a discussion of the issues.
? Martin
Um, what does this have to do with Snowden?
Wyden has been rightfully going after the NSA since at least 2011 – long before anyone heard of Snowden.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
That may be because some of us will point out again that Cole voted for NSA overreach — twice — by voting for Bush. And yelling at those of us who knew better isn’t going to change that.
RobertDSC-Power Mac G5 Dual
Clapper and Snowden should hang from the same rope. Snowden first.
JoyfulA
I’ve been wearing a “Repeal the PATRIOT Act” T-shirt for, what, a decade now?
Let’s just do it!
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker: This post will never yield an answer to that. As I noted above, you are the only FPer here who has addressed this topic and tried to have a reasoned discussion about it.
scav
@Omnes Omnibus: Rather exactly. The fanboism, purity–polishing and flogging of personality is the enemy of addressing the actual subject. Sad as the locals could generally be counted upon to have rather intelligent and varied takes on things.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: Perhaps you should take a step back. There is a lot of commentary from you on this in the archives. If I remember correctly, you don’t particularly care about the government having your metadata since corporations have it as well.
Me, I have consistently said that the government should not have access to phone records or anything like them without a warrant.
the Conster
I’ve said this before here recently, and I’ll say it again, but this time LOUDER: THE IMPORTANCE OF THIS ISSUE TO THE QUALITY OF LIFE FOR MOST HUMAN BEINGS LIVING RIGHT NOW FALLS SOMEWHERE AFTER PEAK OIL AND BEFORE ALIEN ABDUCTIONS.
I’m still waiting to hear the gory details of how the NSA is worse than our local killing rapey police.
The NSA is going to always do what they’ve been organized to do because they can, no matter what they tell us or Congress – they’re doing what they know to do, no matter who we elect. The words ‘Edward Snowden’ has become as meaningless as ‘Obamacare’, except to flash as a gang sign. Snowden’s a failing up traitory dipshit who is hiding behind that mook PUTIN. Just stop, John.
Eric U.
this Snowden worship always has a certain, unstated, anti-Obama flavor to it for me. Maybe I’m wrong about that, but I’m pretty sure that if Gore had won in 2000 we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
Tiny Tim
So do we like warrantless surveillance? Hard to keep track.
Omnes Omnibus
@the Conster: Any diminution of the Fourth Amendment affects all of us.
Poopyman
@Omnes Omnibus: You oughta know the drill by now. Cole checks in at his blog in the late evening, drops a turd he thinks will keep the proles riled up until Anne Laurie shows up around 3:00 or 4:00, and wanders off to walk the dogs.
I’m going to bed.
Omnes Omnibus
@Eric U.: Okay, is Snowden or his motives germane anymore? The information is out there. Now what? I say we reign in the security apparatus. OTOH, this is not inconsistent with prosecuting Snowden. His justifications can be used as mitigation.
the Conster
@Omnes Omnibus:
Knock yourself out worrying about that for all of us. As a woman and mother of daughters, I’ve got other concerns.
Omnes Omnibus
A lack of response carries a message.
Emerald
@Eric U.: Gore DID win in 2000.
Omnes Omnibus
@the Conster: Thank you for your condescension. You don’t give a shit about Fourth Amendment issues? Do you want your grandchildren to be patted down for birth control pills? The shit is interrelated. OTOH, never mind. Obviously, I am an a dudebro who doesn’t care about your issues.
dopey-o
@the Conster:
You don’t know whether the NSA is worse than our local police. No one knew the extent of J. Edgar Hoover’s transgressions. With the appearance of Snowden, we begin to see some of the NSA’s questionable activities. It doesn’t matter whether I luv Snowden or hate his guts, he presented the truth. We are waiting to find out how much of the truth he has revealed. I don’t need to see / hear / know anything more about Snowden. He is now irrelevant to any discussions about Snowden.
A Humble Lurker
Yes. You are. Now go sleep it off.
Omnes Omnibus
@the Conster: You know what? Fuck you, Rights are rights. Support rights or don’t. I know my my choice.
Betty Cracker
@Omnes Omnibus: Some dudebro cited “a potential loss of international trust in U.S. firms [and]…the credibility of our commitment to an open, interoperable, and secure global Internet” as possible results of NSA overreach. That would be President Dudebro, in a speech urging Congress to adopt his proposed reforms.
amk
gobinment is ebil. and the white butthurt never stops.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
The government looking at my metadata is not high up on my list of civil liberties concerns, no. I am more concerned with the civil liberties implications of the government sticking a probe in my vagina before I’m allowed to access perfectly legal health care.
Interestingly, you seem to be going a direction I was thinking might happen while I was having dinner: one of the reasons the Snowden story has blown up so much is that this is one of the first civil liberties violations that most white guys can picture happening to them. Stop and frisk? Sure, that’s bad. Forcing a vaginal probe before an abortion can be performed? I condemn that. The government looking at your metadata? That’s the first one that you can picture happening to yourself. Not to your friend, or your wife/girlfriend/sister, but to you.
Me, I’ve had a vaginal probe before (for legitimate medical reasons) and it was horrible. I can easily picture how fucking horrible it would be to be subjected to one by the government because I’ve experienced it. For you, it’s pretty academic. But metadata? You have metadata. So that small infringement on your civil liberties registers as huge, because it’s the first one that touches you personally.
Jane2
@Omnes Omnibus: It only becomes a fight when the usual suspects show up to repeat their b.s. for the 23948734th time with as much fervor as the first time.
the Conster
@Omnes Omnibus:
Thank you for setting me straight. I really don’t know how I’ve managed every day without being schooled about the importance of the 4th amendment. Please accept my sincere apology that I didn’t bow to your superior insight right away and let you put words in my mouth that you think I should have/
Jane2
@Mnemosyne: One concern doesn’t preclude the other.
John O
Considering the technological realities of the context of #4, it STILL couldn’t be any clearer.
You go, OO.
John O
Also, too, anyone who thinks the gov. is only collecting “metadata” is either willfully stupid or not paying attention. It’s actually embarrassing.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: If you want to make a hypocrisy accusation, make it. Provide links. I have a very stringent view of what the Fourth Amendment should allow.
And fuck you. I don’t support any kind of vaginal probing, The suggestion that I do is abhorrent. I would ask you to retract the comment or apologize.
Betty Cracker
@Mnemosyne: But aren’t those civil liberties concerns (vaginal probes, stop and frisk) also due to diminishment of 4th Amendment protections? I don’t see those concerns as separate; they’re all of a piece. So is the fact that employers can make me piss in a cup.
John O
@Betty Cracker:
This. Thank you.
Cain
I can appreciate the leaks. I’m not particularly surprised by them. I know they were doing all of those things anyways. The difference is that we got NSA letter head on them. Putting pressure on the NSA to stop all the shitty spying is a good thing.
I don’t really give a shit about how it gets revealed. I used to care that Snowden might be slightly traitorous and maybe it was some ego trip thing. But now I don’t give a shit, the leaks are good and it will put pressure on Obama to bring the NSA and the CIA to heel. These guys have been using 9/11 to go all out spying on peace protestors and others and creating dossiers on them.
Fuck those guys.
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker: Thank you. I was trying to say that. It didn’t take. Probably my fault.
John O
Our government knows who Angela Merkel is blowing.
Comrade Dread
Yes, I can totally see why you’d drag up Snowden when this had nothing to do with him.
Omnes Omnibus
@Cain: Exactly. At this point, does it matter who did what and why? What is our government doing and should it be doing it are the only important questions.
Comrade Dread
Yes, I can totally see why you’d drag up Snowden when this had nothing to do with him.
Suzanne
Love that this became another fucking Snowden thread. Snoooore. Maybe it’s time for a hobby besides Being Needlessly Inflammatory. Like basketweaving. Or tai chi. Cole and maclaren should try it together,
Omnes Omnibus
Honestly, this kind of post is pathetic. Cole did not try to say anything original. He posted a link to an article and then connected a word or two that act as triggers. John, I have and will disagree with you many issues, but this is a bit sad.
Mandalay
@Comrade Dread:
This has everything to do with Snowden. Without his leaks this story would not exist.
the Conster
@Betty Cracker:
The way to keep your employer from making you piss in a cup is to form a union or make wages higher, and the way to stop vaginal probing is to make sure Republicans aren’t elected locally. Regulating the NSA is not even in my top ten of possible things we can actually do to reverse the ratchet on those things.
FlipYrWhig
Seems like Clapper is saying that when the NSA got information about foreign intelligence targets that were connected in some way to Americans, they followed those leads and looked into the Americans. They’re specifically not supposed to do that, correct? That’s a problem.
But it’s still a leap from “the NSA may have read some Americans’ communications,” which seems to be true here, to “the NSA may have read YOUR communications,” as written, which has overtones of “the call is coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE!” I think we can talk about why it’s wrong or unlawful without adding this element where we figure it’s happening to ourselves, or everyone, or whatnot.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mandalay: You really are the kind of idiot that would focus on Snowden, rather than the information.
Suzanne
@Omnes Omnibus: I really do not understand this cult of Snowden. Libertarians seem to have this tendency toward hero worship. Ironic, that.
SatanicPanic
Just for the record- the NSA and CIA have too much power, I don’t want them checking my phone email, whatever. Glenn Greenwald, Julian Assange and Edward Snowden are clowns. There are other rights that are maybe more important but these are very important too. I don’t feel like fighting about any of this. Kumbaya my lord kumbaya ohhh lord kumbaya
John O
@Suzanne:
Nobody with a functional brain gives a shit about Snowden, except as a human being.
different-church-lady
Congratulations, Cole: you’ve made your readers dumber for an evening.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suzanne: I really don’t care about Snowden. I care about Fourth Amendment violations.
Mandalay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Cole titled the thread “God Damn You, Edward Snowden” and a poster did not seem to understand why, so I pointed out that Snowden’s revelations were the reason that the story Cole posted ever happened. That’s all. I didn’t focus on Snowden at all.
You have real anger management issues, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you are drunk right now.
There really is something wrong with you. You’ve already posted “Fuck you” to two women in this thread just because you disagree with their views. You spend your life on BJ picking fights with other posters over nothing in thread after thread.
You are a pathetic lonely loser, and constantly acting like a board bully. If you don’t like what other people post just ignore them.
ruemara
@Omnes Omnibus: You just bitched that Mem can’t have another opinion because she’s more concerned about business metadata. Jesus. If you’re calling for a sane discussion, then dismissing the other aspect of data collection which we really need to discuss also, then you need to grab a mirror.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mandalay: And there you are focusing on ephemera rather than things that are important.
Betty Cracker
@the Conster: I’m virtually certain NSA overreach will never personally affect me, but the point is, if you don’t care when the 4th Amendment is undermined in one scenario, you’re tacitly consenting to its diminution in other situations.
I’m not religious – in fact, I hold most religions in contempt, but I can appreciate the importance of religious protections under the 1st Amendment and understand that infringement on religious freedom threatens my freedom, even though I have zero use for religion.
Mandalay
@ruemara: Exactly. I’m sick of his shit. He stinks out thread after thread because he is constantly angered and offended by the comments and opinions of posters which differ from his own, or don’t measure up to his precious standards.
Omnes Omnibus
@ruemara: Any chance that you can find me posting in favor of anyone keeping anything?
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m not suggesting that you support it. I’m saying that it’s not personal for you. It is not anything that would ever happen to you, unless you get a sex change operation at some point.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mandalay: If you have something to say to me, go ahead and say it. Okay, I will probably dismiss it because I think you have the analytical ability of a tree frog. It is based on past experience. But please do express your opinion
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: Lots of things are not personal for me in the way you suggest, and yet, I care about them.
Anne Laurie
New thread upstairs, if anyone wants to talk!
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Caring is not the same as being personally affected. I care about stop and frisk, but I know that it will never, ever happen to me. There’s a certain level of safety with that. I know on some level that, if I wanted to, I could stop caring, and it still would never happen to me.
Since you don’t seem to be a heavy pot smoker, I still think that this is probably the first civil liberties violation that you can picture happening directly to you. It’s about as likely as me moving to Virginia and then requiring an abortion, but it’s possible. IMO, that’s what is making the difference.
ETA: Not “making the difference” specifically for you, but this is why all of the white dudes are suddenly freaking out all over the internet. This could happen to them. It’s not an academic question like stop and frisk or vaginal probes are.
YellowJournalism
@Omnes Omnibus: I think the “Snowden supporters” can get like that, too. (Not you.) It seems like each side is trying to justify their feelings that they’re “betrayed” by the other side not caring enough about each other’s pet issue. I can be against vaginal probes (Scary, painful procedure I’ve had done twice.), and I can be concerned about the NSA’s overreach. I can think Greenwald is an asshole and Snowden’s a prick talking about how horrible the USA is while hiding in Russia, but I can be thankful that the information was released at all and hope it leads us down a better path.
And some of us who post more on subjects like abortion, women’s rights, and pets do so because we feel more comfortable with our understanding of the subjects. I don’t think we’re through getting everything we need to know about this situation to have an opinion more than great concern and a little outrage that it took someone like Snowden for some people to finally listen to what others have been saying for years about the NSA and other policing bodies.
RandomMonster
So glad JC couldn’t resist setting something on fire this evening. Plenty O’ Dudebro, You Must Hate GG Because He’s Gay, and America Fuck Yeah for everybody!
Betty is the only rational, nuanced FPer on this whole subject. Helps that she actually has a sense of humor, too.
ruemara
@Omnes Omnibus: Don’t get pissy with me. I’m saying that talking about both is conducive to talking about the situation. At no point did I put words in your mouth and I am surprised that you’re taking an attack stance on people who at no point attacked you. I may agree with your initial statement, but you’re jumping down Mem’s throat, Conster’s and working on mine. No dice.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne:Since you haven’t, as it appears, paid any attention my positions on any Fourth Amendment issues over time, you may have come to certain conclusions. Your conclusions are probably wrong.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
So other than the NSA stuff, which civil liberties issues are you personally affected by? Not I know someone who was stopped and frisked but a situation where it happened to you, personally.
Omnes Omnibus
@ruemara: I apologize for being pissy with you. I am sorry for doing that; it was uncalled for.
At the same time, people who I perceive as dismissing certain Constitutional rights to promote others need to be called out. Trading voting for searches? Fuck that. One should be able to vote and be immune from warrantless searches.
Cain
@SatanicPanic:
The problem is that too many people are focusing on these guys being clowns and not enough on what matters. Government spying. Let’s not be focusing on Greenwald and his merry men. Let’s be focused on what the government is doing right now and get them to back off. Every time we focus on Greenwald and spending time flaming him, we’re wasting energy that should be focused on the true issue.
Cain
@Mnemosyne:
It may not happen to you, but it might happen to someone you might have a strong emotional bond with.
? Martin
@Mandalay:
Based on what?
That was Wyden in 2012, a year before Snowden leaked anything. So we’ve had a number of Senators working on this for some time before Snowden leaked anything, and the suggestion was already there in 2012 from Wyden that this was taking place.
Snowden didn’t reveal anything that led to this from Clapper. They’ve been submitting answers to Wyden for years. The only thing that changed is that you guys started paying attention to what he’s doing when Snowden showed up. But Snowden didn’t start a process that wasn’t ongoing. He didn’t provide any evidence to lead to this outcome. I suppose we could hand him the bully pulpit, but I think it had a lot greater impact on his fan club than it did on Wyden or Clapper.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: I am affected by the violation of the rights of any person.
Do you want me to say that something bad has happened to me? Should I tell the story of when I was sexually harassed? It really doesn’t matter because things like what happened to me are so uncommon, And if not, I don’t have a skin in the game? I have a niece who is a brilliant and talented person. I want her to have every opportunity to be as successful as her talents allow her to be. I want the same for my nephew as well.
Ripley
Go home, John, everyone is drunk.
Morbo
@Anne Laurie: No one in this thread wants to talk; self-righteously yell past the person you’re discussing this with like the rest of us, dammit!
burnspbesq
So the NSA did what it was specifically authorized and directed by Congress to do.
Here are your winnings,
Captain ReynaudSenator Wyden.John Cole
Not that anyone will care, but I opposed the Patriot Act because I recognized it as the same bullshit that the security state tried to ram through during the Clinton admin after OK City, only on steroids. But, you know, whatever.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
That’s like me saying I am Trayvon Martin because I was upset by his murder.
Do you really not get that people are more strongly affected by things that either have happened to them personally or that they can picture happening to them personally than they are by an abstract notion of a violation of rights that happens to someone else?
I want my mixed-race nephew and niece to have a good life unmarred by racism. That doesn’t mean that I am personally affected by racism in my everyday life, except possibly at second hand if I witness something that happens to them. But no one is refusing to give me a job interview based on what race they think I am.
? Martin
@Omnes Omnibus:
But the problem in this case is that the violation is only hypothetical. If nobody is aware of an act, was there a violation? Who would have standing to sue here? Nobody can provide any evidence that they were ever affected, and that’s a problem.
Hypothetically, someone could be sneaking into your bedroom right after you fall asleep, chaining you to your bed so you cannot leave, and then a moment before you wake up, sneaking in and removing the chain. Hypothetically, that could have happened last night. Were your rights violated? If someone became aware of that then yes, obviously. But if nobody was aware of that? That’s hard to say. We can’t even determine whether or not it happened, and you are completely unaware of it.
And that’s why I have a hard time elevating this over, well, any rights violation that people *are* aware of, and there’s an endless supply of those. Those clearly have an impact on people. They injure people constantly and I want that injury to end. But this? I see no injury.
That said, I think this is a very bad thing for the government to be doing because trust in government is a very important thing to protect, and this calls that trust into question in a way that I think exceeds whatever benefits come from it – mainly because of so many bad acts that preceded it. I’m not kidding when I say that we’d be better off losing a 9/11s worth of innocent citizens if people would fully trust the government again – they’d sign up for ACA, get vaccinated, wear seat belts, stop smoking, and a 1000 other things. We’d save immeasurably more lives from that than from stopping a 9/11. However I think that denying people voting rights does more harm, not only in their trust in government but also in direct injury to individuals. And I think a mountain of other problems rise well above this one. The legality of the program is iffy, but I blame Congress just as much for leaving that door too far open. In spite of Wydens good work here, Congress has done fuckall to change the law.
John Cole
I’m also opposed to vaginal probes against someone’s will, if that matters. Think we’ve been pretty clear about that on the website, too.
But what do I know, I voted for Bush.
Mnemosyne
@John Cole:
And yet you still voted for Bush in 2004. So, yeah.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that you converted and all, but it gets a little tiresome to be lectured about what my priorities are supposed to be as a liberal when I’ve never voted for a Republican in my life.
Mandalay
@? Martin:
He did.
Wyden was asking the right questions before the Snowden revelations, but he had been stonewalled. Snowden provided the evidence that has forced Clapper to come clean.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
And since I have to go to bed soon, I’ll add a little balm: it is necessary and important for people who are not personally affected by an issue to stand up for it. There were quite a few white people who risked their lives for civil rights — and some who died — even though they were not personally affected by segregation.
But I do think that at least some of the extra internet vehemence on this issue is because it’s one that staid, middle-class white guys can finally envision as something that could personally affect them.
John Cole
@? Martin: I was paying attention to Wyden and this for years. And this statement is completely wrong:
No, what changed was Snowden releasing documents to journalists, who then vetted them, and then carefully released the details of the security state’s perfidy. If you think any of Wyden and Udall’s efforts would have gathered the same sort of attention without the Snowden revelations, well, you just haven’t paid attention to Wyden and Udall being cock-blocked for years.
But hey, I’m just a crazy dudebro trolling about white people issues, so what the fuck do I know?
eemom
Well, like I’ve said before, no matter how long my dreary lifestyle keeps me away from this place….I’m always home.
Half-assed, zero-thought, troll-bait post from Cole. Reasoned argument in response from those few who do, in fact, value shit like reasoned thought. Knee jerk assholery in response…..and then last but not least
Dayum, but I’ve been missing out.
John Cole
@Mnemosyne: Thank goodness you are going to bed. Get some sleep and re-read some of the nonsense you have spewed here.
Mandalay
@burnspbesq:
Indeed. I see Wyden talking about closing “a loophole”, but I don’t see him alleging that Clapper’s crew were doing this illegally.
Mnemosyne
@John Cole:
Everything I said to Omnes goes double for you. Good night.
Mandalay
@John Cole:
Exactly.
danielx
Because hey, if you haven’t done anything wrong you don’t have anything to worry about! Unless, of course, you’re someone to whom somebody at the NSA or another three letter agency has a reason to dislike or a motive to blackmail. And with that….
@Mnemosyne:
Your point is a very valid one, and I agree with you – invasive medical procedures – to wit, vaginal probes – without consent are a gross violation of the Fourth Amendment, not to mention felony rape according to state law. However…every violation of the Fourth Amendment is a cause for concern, because every such violation is justified in the name of the greater public good and welfare…as defined by courts and legislators. State legislatures wouldn’t be passing laws mandating transvaginal probes if the ground hadn’t already been prepared (and approved by the Supremes, natch) through decisions permitting bodily invasion in the name of prosecuting the War On Americans…er, Drugs. Every violation becomes the excuse and foundation for another violation, and another, and another…
But hey, since you weren’t a drug user or trafficker,,,if you heard about it at all, it was pretty academic at the time, right? It didn’t personally affect you, after all. Just like that poor bastard in New Mexico who was subjected to two X-rays, two digital probes of his anus, three enemas, and a colonoscopy, none of which discovered the slightest trace of the drugs that police claim to have thought he was hiding inside himself? You’re not a doper or a lowlife, so it shouldn’t be as much of a concern for you, right?
Metadata collection alone – although anybody at this point who seriously believes that’s all the NSA collects probably also believes in the tooth fairy – is not nearly as personally injurious or invasive as a forced transvaginal probe. However…and this is very definitely on a personal level – to say that such a probe is academic to Omnes – or me, because I’m male – I find disingenuous at best and downright insulting at worst, because it could very well happen to a friend/wife/daughter. I would be infuriated on their behalf – or yours, and I don’t even know you – and to suggest otherwise, simply because of my gender, is absurd. It is, in point of fact, complete horseshit and a strawman argument worthy of a Republican, and the more I think about it the madder I get.
According to your logic…my likelihood of developing breast cancer is much lower than yours, ergo it’s less of a concern and/or academic to me. Does that mean it’s academic or not a concern to me? Um, no, I know people it’s happened to. You can’t get prostate cancer, it can’t happen to you. If it manifested in your father/husband/son/significant other, I daresay that illness would would become pretty goddamned non-academic to you fairly quickly. Capiche? You get my drift here?
The point, if it needs to be made, in regard to NSA dragnet collection of all electronic communications written, verbal or graphic (let alone metadata), which is their stated goal…is simply this:
It is none of the government’s fucking business what I say, write, record or transmit unless I have done something wrong. I don’t want to hear any shit about how much information retailers, or banks, or commercial list vendors have collected on me – I can avoid a lot of their data collection practices by buying at retail establishments and paying cash as much as possible, if I so choose. Their data collection practices compared with those of the NSA constitute another major league strawman argument, inasmuch as those entities don’t have the power to arrest me or to define what constitutes a crime. The Patriot Act, among other laws, gives DOJ minions a great deal of latitude in defining what amounts to a crime and it’s very easy for such minions (like John Yoo) to justify whatever the government wants to do. That’s quite bad enough without even considering said minions using their powers unjustly for completely political and/or personal motives.
Snowden has done us all a service in bringing all these issues up as a matter for discussion and debate. I don’t have to like him to perceive that, nor do I have to like Greenwald – I very much admire much of his earlier writing on constitutional issues, but he’s shown himself to be a vicious self-promoting sonofabitch. Doesn’t mean he doesn’t have some valid points. Snowden may well have committed treason, while at the same time sincerely feeling himself to be a patriot. The definition of treason, as with terrorism, depends very much on who’s doing the defining. As far as the British were concerned, all of our much-revered Founding Fathers were traitors and candidates for hanging in 1776 and if they’d been able to lay hands on them would have hung many of them. Hey, it’s an example – I’m not saying Snowden is a modern day Franklin, or Jefferson, or Adams, nor yet Thomas Paine.
different-church-lady
@Ripley: I’m not drunk. (And don’t think I’m not pissed off about that.)
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Mandalay:
Please read this. Please tell me when it was published.
different-church-lady
@eemom: So, what’s it like having a life?
? Martin
@John Cole: And since Wyden and Udall were working on this, did Snowden approach them with this information? He clearly had an ally in Congress that could have used this information without any of it being released to the Chinese or Russia. If his goal was to see policy change, he had a much more direct and less damaging avenue to pursue, but he didn’t take it. Why is that?
And since comparisons with Daniel Ellsburg are inevitable, Ellsburg did try and take it to Congress and got rebuffed. Okay, fine, then take it the media. There seems to be no evidence at all that Snowden attempted the right course of action.
different-church-lady
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Yeah, but nobody on the left was smashing each other over the head with Nerf bats back then, so it doesn’t count.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@different-church-lady:
Nor, at that point, did the left and the right agree upon who was the worst president ever.
Mandalay
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
This thread is about Section 702 of the of the FISA Amendments Act from 2011, so your link to an article from 2005 is irrelevant.
The details of Section 702 only became public because a leak from Snowden was published. Are you seriously arguing that the leak had no bearing on the letter that Clapper sent to Wyden last week?
cbear
@danielx: Preach it, brother (or bro, or dude)!!!
Seriously, well done.
This utter bullshit of “your views have no weight because you are not a) b) c) d) etc.” as preached by Mnemosyne and others here (which took root a few years ago with the appearance of a certain ex-FPer) is both infuriating and deadly stupid–and primarily serves as nothing more than a weak attempt by those too intellectually feeble to summon a worthy counter-argument to opposing viewpoints or opinions.
Beautiful.
Stupid, Gooper-like, and humorless ain’t no way to go through life.
Thanks
richard bittner
@JoyfulA: That would be an excellent move. Most people don’t realize that the secret courts were established more than 30 years before 9/11. Those who support the domestic up of NSAprism are “goose steppers” like those who populated the Munich beer halls in the 1920s. If you don’t support Edward Snowden’s defense of the Bill of Rights you are clueless and do not belong in this county…I suggest you move to rockyfucker’s island…the mass of plastics and garbage that is accumulating in the Pacific ocean.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Mandalay:
702 was part of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which was extended in 2012. 702 didn’t put a governor on domestic interception as much as it codified what was being done previously. The details of 702 were public knowledge as the FISA Amendments Act was passed through Congress- what was unknown to the general public were the details of the programs enabled by the Act.
What happened in 2011 was that the FISA court clarified which procedures being employed under the banner of 702 were constitutional and which weren’t. Parts of that ruling put the hammer down on minimization procedures, but other parts relaxed some of the domestic querying procedures.
Cassidy
Well this was another shitshow. Good job cat lady. Maybe you should stick to pictures of cats and talking about what you’re shoving down your gullet.
John S.
@Cassidy:
Cole doesn’t seem to grasp how causation works.
He voted for Bush twice, and helped enable the expansion of the security state. But deep in his heart he was against all that, so none of that is his fault.
But Snowden comes along and catapults himself onto the national stage by committing espionage against the security state, so any dismantling of it is credited to him.
The reason Cole was a good Republican for so long is because cognitive dissonance works for him.
Anton Sirius
@cbear:
This is a lie.
Anton Sirius
These threads can be useful for vetting my list of commentators whose opinions don’t seem to be very well thought-out and can be mostly ignored in the future.
That’s pretty much all they’re good for.
John S.
@Anton Sirius:
Sadly, Cole has added himself to that list. Not that this post really had any thought to it other than trolling the commentariat.
It’s a pretty stale formula around here: security theatre, Snowden, flame on.
Keith G
John Cole’s masterful gimmick at the top of the thread was to set up (in very short form) the argument that Snowden animus aside, we are learning many important things right now that an informed public in a democracy should be aware of. Yes we might have had these conversations later, but due to ES’s actions we are able to process them now.
Then came the commenters saying that it is wrong to focus on Snowden. Notice that vast amount of focus on Snowden is coming from those complaining about him (by about 4-1) So, yeah, who actually are the peeps who focus on Snowden?
Then come the darlings who project racial or gender issues on this topic., Fucking really? As if these important subjects don’t have real issues to explore.
And then there are those who use this as some type of Obama litmus test. That notion is so immature that it is not even worthy of exploration.
People who do important things as often as not have noticeable flaws (damn that human condition). The NSA leaker crowd are such human beings. The individual “packets” of information they are providing are either accurate or not. That should be the only evaluative process that we are using.
John Cole just threw a bit of chum into the water to see which sharks would join the frenzy.
Ha…Now we know. Well actually, we always did.
cbear
@Anton Sirius: You’re either willfully ignorant, just plain stupid, or you haven’t been here very long. Pick one.
John S.
@Keith G:
Yes, we might have figured out how to stop tiger attacks later, but due to that rock I put out on my front lawn, we are able to stop them now.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Perhaps it’s Wyden we should be listening to and not those grand standers Snowden and Greenwald?
srv
@Mandalay: Is it any wonder John never wants to meet his commenters? Add to that:
People who’ve been here for years and have less than zero understanding of the guy.
Frankensteinbeck
I thought they were doing this already. The only way an American’s information gets searched is if it’s a contact with a foreign target who is already under investigation. That the rules allow them to backtrack by tracing a known contact’s communications to see which ones are with the foreign target is probably a step too far, but not exactly scary. I do tentatively agree that power should be taken away.
The NSA is still not reading your email. These leaks still don’t say the scary stuff you’ve been told they’re saying.
@Keith G:
I have to add something to your ‘evaluating whether the packets of data are accurate’. There is also ‘evaluating whether the packets of data have been described accurately.’ In a wide scale, maybe universal sense, they have not.
Cervantes
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Perhaps, perhaps — except that before certain revelations made by certain persons led to certain declassifications, Wyden and Udall weren’t able to say what they wanted to say! (Hilarious, I know.)
All this has been pointed out before, of course (see here for a recent example).
LAC
@Mnemosyne: I am giving you the slow starting “Rudy” clap. You hit the nail on the head with what you said. It is refreshing to see more of this pushback and less of old days where we get angry drunk post by Cole followed by dudebros angling to get on the metadata cross, washed down with either lengthy cut and paste paranoia from mcclaren or belligerent drunken rants by Corner Stone.
Oh, and I smiled at three year old in line to get a bagel. So I am a force for evil in Cole’s world. :-)
Cervantes
@? Martin:
Hmm … “The only thing that changed” … Yes, do see above.
Paul in KY
@John Cole: Good point about you voting for Bush (twice, I think) :-)
Cervantes
@Mnemosyne:
The NSA’s “Project ECHELON” began in the 1960s and has been controversial because of how it has targeted individuals and corporations. Would you say that anyone who voted for Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Bush 41, and Clinton also “voted for NSA overreach” — seven times?
Hmm … the Democrats listed above were together elected four times.
Cervantes
@the Conster:
Fair enough.
But now you’ve got me curious: As a woman and mother of daughters, what other aspects of the Constitution and Bill of Rights do you not worry about? Or is it just this one amendment?
Cervantes
@cbear:
Maybe not, but you have to give them credit for trying.
Cervantes
@danielx:
Exactly.
Say, you wouldn’t by any chance be a man and father of sons, would you?
different-church-lady
@Keith G:
And his motivation for doing this was why?
chopper
@Cervantes:
her point is that in this country there are a number of individual issues trying to chip away at the 4th amendment, but people only have so many fucks to give, so they prioritize. for some people, metadata just isn’t up there. for some people, rapey-killy cops are way bigger, or stop-and-frisk or vaginal probing (as mnem argued). that doesn’t mean they ‘don’t worry’ about the 4th amendment, obviously they do or they wouldn’t give a shit about those issues.
Cervantes
@chopper: No, I don’t think that’s what her point was. Notice what she was responding to:
To which she said:
See?
Mnemosyne
@danielx:
So do I — my mother died of breast cancer. But knowing someone who has or had cancer is not the same as undergoing chemotherapy or radiation yourself.
Both my father and my father-in-law had prostate cancer. I sympathized and worried, but I didn’t have to undergo surgery or multiple radiation treatments. I experienced my own suffering as someone who loved them and worried about them, but I’m under no illusion that my suffering as essentially a bystander was in any way comparable to theirs.
different-church-lady
@richard bittner: Now that’s just brilliant: a Nazi reference and a demand for a purge, in sequence, seemingly without irony. Almost savant-eque.
chopper
@Cervantes:
which was a response to her in the first place saying “I’m still waiting to hear the gory details of how the NSA is worse than our local killing rapey police.”.
she has bigger privacy concerns than metadata, so yes, that is her point.
see?
Cervantes
@chopper:
Your point? No, I do not.
But I did see this:
I’m guessing you either missed it or have no idea of its significance.
chopper
i get mnem’s point here, and i think some of it comes from the point of view of being a minority.
women and people of color have been disproportionately the victims of myriad privacy violations for a long time. white dudes haven’t and white men have never really been seen as being in their corner either. white male politicians, voted into office by a heavy contingent of white men, enable these violations. now there’s an issue that affects everyone, including white men and they turn to these same women and people of color and lecture them about how “dudes, this is really important! this is all about the 4th amendment. don’t you care about the 4th amendment?”.
many of the aforementioned women and people of color can be excused a little eye-rolling.
chopper
@Cervantes:
it’s quite simple. when it comes to the 4th amendment, she cares more about killing rapey police. when it comes to affecting quality of life, metadata is far down her list, and she thinks that’s true for most human beings. that’s what the commenter said right out the gate.
hence, she is prioritizing. prioritizing 4th amendment concerns to the point that one you think is way big isn’t big to her doesn’t mean she ‘doesn’t worry’ about the 4th amendment. it just means she has different priorities.
i don’t know how to explain it any more simply.
different-church-lady
What I love about being a liberal is how reliably we can have endless, pointless, screeching battles about who gets to be oppressed the most.
Cervantes
@chopper:
OK, sure, let’s look at history. Is it your impression that the Fourth Amendment was put in originally to protect “women and people of color” or to protect “white dudes”? On what ahistorical basis do you believe that concern for the Fourth Amendment is arising only “now there’s an issue that affects everyone, including white men”? This is incoherent.
Leaving that bit aside, there is certainly truth in what you say:
People (regardless of “race” or gender) have long been concerned about what powers we grant to government. Just in this country alone there have been hundreds of thousands of people of all sorts who made huge sacrifices to protect (never mind expand) civil liberties for everyone. People of all sorts have died for this. Turning the discussion into some sort of race- or gender-based eye-rolling contest aims at the wrong targets and misses the point entirely.
But go ahead, roll your eyes.
Cervantes
@chopper: OK, let’s leave it at that. (I see no reason to repeat myself.)
chopper
@Cervantes:
white dudes, of course. and while women and people of color were shit on every day, white dudes didn’t care at all until a policy actually affected them, at which point they would shout from the mountaintops about being oppressed. it’s the 4th amendment! this is huge! this is the constitutional issue of our times!
eventually this country in its wisdom decided that constitutional rights extended to women and people of color, but that white guy attitude changed only a little. it’s easy to ignore the problems of the people below you on the totem pole. [and let’s face it, for a long time (and still even up to today in ways) that decision was more on paper than in real life.]
so seeing a woman or a person of color talk honestly about how they put real privacy issues that directly affect their lives far above the government having copies of their phone metadata, i try to understand that point of view and avoid mansplaining what their real priorities should be, or accuse them of not giving a shit about privacy rights. they’ve been dealing with privacy violations their whole lives for the most part, privacy violations that i as a white dude will never or likely never have to face.
Omnes Omnibus
@chopper: My view, and I recognize that it is not shared by everyone, is that anything that chips away at the requirement of a warrant based on probable cause prior to a search is problematic. Things like metadata that aren’t of as immediate a concern as stop and frisk or forced ultrasounds are places where it is easier to get people to say “meh” as a Fourth Amendment precedent is set. There is a reason that the ACLU fights every battle every time – even over “silly” issues and for the rights of appalling people.
Someguy
@Mnemosyne: That may be because some of us will point out again that Cole voted for NSA overreach — twice — by voting for Bush and then Obama and yelling at those of us who knew better isn’t going to change that.
Fixed.
chopper
@Omnes Omnibus:
the ACLU may fight every battle every time, but regular folks tend to prioritize.
Omnes Omnibus
@chopper:
As is their right. OTOH, on Fourth amendment issues, I fit in the ACLU pattern. Referring back to your earlier phrasing, I chose to give a lot of my fucks to the issue.
chopper
@Omnes Omnibus:
do you understand why people who are actually affected by those sorts of violations listed upthread would tend to prioritize them over metadata?
it’s easy to treat metadata as roughly equal to, say, vaginal probing in terms of privacy when you’re a dude and the chances of you being forced to have a probe shoved up your hoo-hah against your wishes is zero.
Keith G
@chopper: But what is the need to prioritize when the only energy expended is typing on a keyboard or the energy of just thinking a little bit wider on this topic? It is not like we are asking themyou to decide which cause to contribute money to.
Cervantes
@chopper:
Straw.
What you will find above are statements to the effect that the Fourth Amendment stands — or should be made to stand — against both those incursions. Strengthening the Fourth helps in both those fights, and others.
chopper
@Cervantes:
actually, what you will find above are statements that if a woman prioritizes an issue that directly effects her far above something amorphous like metadata collection, it means they must not really worry at all about 4th amendment rights.
sounds goofy to me. “look, i know you’re concerned about privacy violations in your own life, but here’s what your priorities should be.”
Cervantes
@chopper: No, here’s what you said (that I called straw):
It could have happened above. I could have missed it. If I did miss it, show me.
chopper
@Cervantes:
people who spoke of prioritizing the issues and putting one above another were pilloried for it, to the point of being told that they obviously must not really worry at all about the 4th amendment. how is that not implying that these issues should instead be treated at the same level?
or are you guys saying it’s okay to prioritize these issues, “just not as much as you’re currently doing it”? if so, i’d like to know what the allowable prioritization level is.
John Weiss
@Someguy: I’m confused. You’d rather Cole voted for Romney? I wasn’t aware that there were other meaningful choices.
Ned Luddite
@Omnes Omnibus: Things like metadata that aren’t of as immediate a concern as stop and frisk or forced ultrasounds…
Well there you have it. You’re agreeing with the person you’re arguing with.
Ned Ludd
@Omnes Omnibus:
Well there you have it. You’re agreeing with the person you’re arguing with.
Thlayli
So this post has been up almost 24 hours, and not a single comment that explains:
how the NSA broke the law
how this fits the Greenwaldian hyperventilating “THE NSA IS IN YR BASE SURVEILLING YR DOODZ!!!1!” mindset
On the plus side, Cole has managed to refrain from saying anyone is “protecting Obama”. So that’s a start.