I did not claim it was illegal in the post you replied to. I said it was 'wrong' and 'abusive'. I realize that you're a lawyer-in-training, but try to understand that legal acts can be immoral.
I'm not interested in what you think is immoral. Morality isn't a standard you can easily quantify and analyze. If you want to start talking about morality, good luck pinning down which set of morals to guide your decision making. If your only opposition to the law has nothing to do with legality or constitutionality, and only what you think is "right" or "wrong", then I don't have any interest in engaging it -- you're free to believe what you want. We'd have a more productive argument over whether or not chocolate or vanilla is the superior ice-cream flavor.
In a 2012 interview with Jon Stewart, Obama responds to Jon accusing him of not 'toning down' the surveillance. Obama responds with: "We have modified and built a legal structure and safeguards in place that weren't there before on a whole range of issues."
Silly us. We thought "no more illegal wiretapping of American citizens" meant and end to the wiretapping. What Obama meant was to make it legal. Not only make them legal, but put the guy who originally ordered the illegal wiretapping in charge of it. (Alexander) He even decries the NSLs that still continue.
The important point here is that even the current administration admits that it was illegal before Obama came in, which meant that the patriot act did not in and of itself make it legal according to Obama himself. Soysauceonrice isn't the only one who would love to know what kind of byzantine judo they used to make it 'legal'. I would certainly argue they ignored the spirit of the law in any case.
I've heard a lot of the complaints, and while I usually disagree with the knee-jerk conclusions, some of the complaints do have some merit. So for example, if the government wants to scoop up a bunch of metadata, they go to the FISA court and asks for the authority to do so. Naturally, the complaint would be, "well the government is the only one presenting their side of the story ! There isn't anyone to oppose them and give the judge an opposing viewpoint !"
Now, normally if joe-policeman wants to search your home for drugs, all he has to do is submit a signed-affidavit to a magistrate saying he got a tip from a CI somewhere, and that's usually enough for probable cause to issue the warrant. That's absolutely legal unless the policeman made up the CI. The normal run of the mill search warrant never required an opposing party, so that's why no one considered to have one for the FISA court. BUT, others will argue, the FISA court is SECRET ! and its very nature as a secretive court means that extra scrutiny is required, so EVEN IF an adversarial party isn't required for a normal search warrant, one should be required for the FISA court. And Obama has agreed, and they are attempting to implement such reform as we speak.
But I get the feeling that this isn't exactly what you want. It seems to me that you don't really care about reforming the system, you just want it gone. So explain it to me, would any reform or transparency ever be enough for you, or do you just want to scuttle the program altogether ? Is the issue really because these are
warrant lesswiretaps, or is it because you just hate a wiretap ?
Uh, me? Encryption is commonly employed; google turned it on by default just to do searches (if you're logged in) let alone email. Not even your ISP can see your searches or email. Using SSL is obviously an expectation of privacy. This is why the NSA is trying so hard to get backdoor access, because they can't get what they want through DPI (deep packet inspection) alone.
If peolpe expect phone calls to be private, then why not skype? email? IMs? Hell, how is a private facebook profile with a handful of people having access any different than a party line with the phone company? You're effectively arguing that communications using a computer are inherently less private 'just because'.
That's like saying it's not wiretapping if the feds tape record a landline and don't listen to it. You can claim that it is technically legal all you like, but don't be surprised when people are outraged over it. The abuse potential is off the charts.
You do not have a reasonable expectation to privacy on metadata. That's been settled decades ago. I guess the only thing that might change the analysis is you distinguish it by saying well it's not just ONE person's metadata, it's MILLIONS of people's metadata. But I don't see how a procedure that is legal when applied to 1 person is illegal because it was applied to many. Khalid posted a pretty good article from Volokh by a law professor that explained why. I'll link it again here.
http://www.volokh.com/2013/07/17/met...rds-databases/
That's just it though, much of the outrage stems from the inability to bring a case to the supreme court to test the law. Organizations such as the ACLU and EFF have tried, repeatedly. The DoJ proclaiming it all secret is making these laws immune to being challenged/tested. Incidentally this is why Snowden's revelations are a big deal, as they allow cases to move forward.
Nope. The lawsuits have already commenced.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/11/politi...urt-challenges.
And people suing the government to vindicate their constitutional rights in the current atmosphere of "war on terrorism" isn't new. They've even won some. For example, The Court in
Hamdi v. Rumsfeld(ironically, the same case that the administration cites to justify assassinating U.S. citizens without due process) ruled that a U.S. citizen, even if classified as an enemy combatant, must be given his constitutional right of due process.
Google doesn't have the power to jail me. Google doesn't have the data any other company has on me, which means a much less complete picture of my life. Furthermore, I know exactly what data Google has about me and can choose to limit what they get; I cannot say the same for the government. Google's motive is to make a profit by delivering targeted advertising; the government's motive is to look for people to imprison.
Your post has been mostly reasonable but this is the biggest turd statement here. YES the government has data on you, but they do not systematically dissect the information they have on millions of Americans. They do not have a TORRID box with all your favorite hobbies, where you work, how many pets you have. While the administration has to deal with jokers on these boards questioning their every move and have to actually get a warrant to search for the actual meat of an email's content, what checks does a company like google have ? Oh should I use my right as a consumer and go to Bing, or Yahoo ? But then what choice do I have if EVERYONE is doing it ? That's right, every major company out there that collects user data is actively combing through your data to learn every single detail about you to make an extra buck. Don't even try to sell me this line of bullshit. If you go online, your internet activity is exposed. If you have a cellphone and you watch a youtube video, that information is collected and analyzed. EVERYONE does it. Hell, they even sell your personal data to each other as if this information is a commodity like stock.
http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/01/tech...vacy/index.htm
And lets change your statement about the parties' motivations a little bit, shall we ? The government collects your data not to jail you, but to protect your ass from the next terrorist attack. Someone already said that everyone is already a lawbreaker regardless if we knew it or not. So if the government only wants to imprison you, what the fuck are they waiting for ? It doesn't mater how jaded you are, or how much you hate the government or disagree with their tactics. If you can't at least admit that the government's motives are for the protection of their citizens (regardless of whether you think their actions actually justifiable) then you have no credibility.
Private companies collect, dissect, and disseminate your data to boost their stock price and appease stockholders, and doesn't answer to anyone. WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE ?
You realize that the 'brouhaha' is because
the DEA are the guys who are hiding the source of the evidence? Or is selling drugs now a terrorist act?
Yea, the DEA are the ones fudging with the data. I don't get the point you're making here. If you're telling me that the NSA is sharing the data gathered from the metadata scoop, then you're wrong. If the NSA is sharing data they got from a normal legally sanctioned wiretap, where's the problem ?
