NSA finally admits to spying on Americans by purchasing sensitive data

Violating Americans’ privacy "not just unethical but illegal," senator says.

See full article...

 

[jdawgnoonan]

This is about as shocking news as when Snowden said it. Or the Patriot Act was passed. Or when it was revealed the FBI spied on civil rights movement leaders. Or the era of the red scare. Or when the FBI was first formed. Or...

(Seriously, just knowledge of recent history makes any off this unsurprising. There's a reason the far right exists)

Not to say it's not worth publicly pointing out, again I guess. But these organizations basically operate on the edge or outside the laws and the constitution itself. You can't really fight a legal battle against an appointment that doesn't, hasn't, and was created from the onset to not care about the law. This is an issue that will never be resolved without a massive redoing of the government itself, and considering that they are part of the government, that means there's no peaceful means of resolution. All peaceful measures will be about as effective as convincing the PRC to stop spying on it's citizens by talking to them. Even if Congress magically passed a law and didn't care about likely blackmail these organizations carry on some senators (and that's probably plenty on the Republican side), they'll always find a way around it. Heck just off the top of my head, they'll probably just increase reliance on the 7 eyes members.

This is a battle long ago lost civically. If you want any semblance of privacy from the government as an American, it'll be your responsibility, and it'll likely draw more scrutiny anyway. Heck, they never even got punished for their just recent escapade of secret service deleting messages for example.

Accept the comfort of peace under the ever gazing eye, or be willing to sacrifice everything to scratch at a castle. That's all there is left - and considering they spy on expats, likely there is no escape, until death of yourself or of your social life.

Edit: you can downvote the pessimism all you want - things will still be as they are 10 years from now as they have been the last 50+. See you next time in the perennial "person in government points out terrible thing that was obviously happening, organization admits it's true, and then nothing happens or things get worse". Feel free to give a solution that'll lead to something that might eventually work, but we know deep down the truth.

Thank you for plainly stating the truth, regardless of the downvotes.

 

[Jupitor13]

How much would it cost to buy their data from a data broker?

Buy it, DOX those Mfers.

 

[VividVerism]

ArsTech Mood:

Bad Elom Nusk tweet:

Government buying your search history & Spending habits:

What the hell part of "ArsTech" are you reading, where the majority or even a significant minority are even remotely supportive of government use of data broker data? It certainly isn't this thread. The tone of this comments thread is overwhelmingly against the government in this.

 

[VividVerism]

ERIC SNOWDEN !!

Who?

Did you mean Edward? Or is this supposed to be the giveaway that you're attempting satire?

 

[kkeane]

Not doing it now won't prevent a future Trump from starting it up again the moment they come into office. The thing to do is to shut down the data brokers to start with. But regardless of how possible that is, the reason not do it is because it is the sort of thing a free society shouldn't do. Despots are going to despot regardless.

Absolutely. We just don't have to hand them the tools on a silver platter. They may still get the tools they "need" eventually, but at least it will take more time, effort, and will be harder to hide.

 

[kkeane]

What was the point of fighting for better privacy back in 2007? Seems all the work I did as a young man along with like minded people was undid by big money and now their children seem super oblivious now that anyone (including the government) can buy your information.

On private citizens purchasing info: I was recently a victim of this in 2022/23 when a bunch of videogame goldfarmering nerds were unhappy I was bringing unwanted attention to their activities. They threatened my father and my workplace, and some weasel from some other country got jailed because of it, I'm still waiting for the rest of his "friends" to follow.

Better protection for privacy were needed years ago. IMO its now too late.

Agreed, the best time to fix such things would have been yesterday. The second best time is now.

And, BTW, some things did change for the better after Snowden first made the public aware - the Internet is now pretty much fully encrypted, and the NSA had to give up on trying to collect most Internet traffic.

Not enough, of course.

 

[kkeane]

Remember, that a (D) at the end of a politician’s name means they care about you.

Unfortunately, no. It's very much bipartisan. One of the worst offenders was Dianne Feinstein. And you'll find some of the most reasonable positions among the otherwise horrible right-wingers.

 

[Hezio]

Well, you elect representatives that will hold power accountable. If those representatives don’t exist in your district, you become that representative. Or help the person that does, in some small way.

Ignoring cases of extreme gerrymandering aside - the issue here is you - or any normal person - becoming that representative. The rules are stacked against you, the common person, from being a representative, and it's always been that way. It was literally designed to be that way - the USA never put populous politics into the governing system, and most of what we have today has only come through in only about the last century. Only that now, they exchanged the civil roadblocks with financial ones.

How many people do you know would fight tooth and nail to try to improve the government and fight corruption? Now, out of those people, how many can also afford to take months off work in order to campaign, AND would either already have enough money to squeek by through in person campaigning, or manage to also raise enough money for a grassroots campaign?

Now, after you find this person, who also must be in decent health of course, they have to go up against either an incubant who is funded by the millions through dark money and can advertise literally everywhere and has an army of paid people to campaign for them, along with existent name recognition and possibly even major media outlets dedicated to helping them and fighting you / your person, all to maybe win a seat in the lower house (because let's face it, getting to the upper house senate straight from stage 1 is even less likely).

Now, let's say this legendary being that may or may not happen once every decade or so, maybe in a handful of states if lucky, does make it to the lower house and writes an actually guys privacy bill. Great, now they just have to hope the fascists don't have control of either of the houses - one of which I'd like to add contains a max of 2 senators per state that just contain more moose than people who have the same voting power as 2 other senators who may be from a state with populations greater than multiple countries combined. And assuming the planets, comets, solar systems, and galaxies align and you also have a president who is not a fascist at the time (or corporatist or similar) who would also support your bill, only then might it get passed.

Only to then possibly be squashed anyway by the currently very fascist supreme court that's appointed for life and isn't elected by the people by some bullshit excuse citing some obscure religious text from the 1600s or something.

So sure, what you say is a possible solution. Just like a meteorite shower just happens to strike a good deal of fascist politicians and the NSA headquarters is also a possible solution.

Alternatively, you and maybe 10 others can go to a local Walmart, hypothetically purchase a non-descript metallic projectile emitting device for a few hundred, practice a bit, and wait for the right moments, and then eliminate the roadblocks directly through some mysterious unspecified means. It'll also get very little done, but in the time frame of less than half a year, would get far, far more done than your proposal while also having better odds of succeeding than winning the lottery (I'm not making that up - you have better odds of winning the lottery as a normal, common person than winning ANY senate seats).

So despite your optimism, I remain very much doubtful that your proposal would change the system of surveillance that exists and has only increased over the centuries.

The best bet is your rulers simply have a change of hear- sorry, can't even really say that seriously.

Of course, you could also elect the very few who would do everything they can to do such things as actually push to create a decent privacy law or 2 that, by some miracles, made it through the system. Like Bernie Sanders, who literally fucking had a Disney princess moment even happen to him during a major speech, if that wasn't enough of a sign. But the usual fellow enlightened centrists - yes, even here on Ars - will then just collectively decide nah, they won't succeed, because they're too "left wing" (and then go on to complain no politician wants to pass a privacy law) and enact a self fulfilling prophecy by not voting for said person. I expect the exact same reaction if AOC also runs.

 

[maxoakland]

Edit: you can downvote the pessimism all you want - things will still be as they are 10 years from now as they have been the last 50+. See you next time in the perennial "person in government points out terrible thing that was obviously happening, organization admits it's true, and then nothing happens or things get worse". Feel free to give a solution that'll lead to something that might eventually work, but we know deep down the truth.

Being pessimistic is completely pointless. What value do you derive from expending energy telling other people to stop caring about something that's a huge issue? Is it just nice to be able to convince yourself you're doing the right thing by doing nothing about what bothers you? Or is it something else?

Pessimists also would've said there was no point for America to break from Britain because everything would be the same either way. But that's obviously not true, even though America has plenty of flaws

Our job is always to fight to make things better than they are today. Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose. But people like you who give up before you even try are a special waste

 

[IPunchCholla]

Ignoring cases of extreme gerrymandering aside - the issue here is you - or any normal person - becoming that representative. The rules are stacked against you, the common person, from being a representative, and it's always been that way. It was literally designed to be that way - the USA never put populous politics into the governing system, and most of what we have today has only come through in only about the last century. Only that now, they exchanged the civil roadblocks with financial ones.

How many people do you know would fight tooth and nail to try to improve the government and fight corruption? Now, out of those people, how many can also afford to take months off work in order to campaign, AND would either already have enough money to squeek by through in person campaigning, or manage to also raise enough money for a grassroots campaign?

Now, after you find this person, who also must be in decent health of course, they have to go up against either an incubant who is funded by the millions through dark money and can advertise literally everywhere and has an army of paid people to campaign for them, along with existent name recognition and possibly even major media outlets dedicated to helping them and fighting you / your person, all to maybe win a seat in the lower house (because let's face it, getting to the upper house senate straight from stage 1 is even less likely).

Now, let's say this legendary being that may or may not happen once every decade or so, maybe in a handful of states if lucky, does make it to the lower house and writes an actually guys privacy bill. Great, now they just have to hope the fascists don't have control of either of the houses - one of which I'd like to add contains a max of 2 senators per state that just contain more moose than people who have the same voting power as 2 other senators who may be from a state with populations greater than multiple countries combined. And assuming the planets, comets, solar systems, and galaxies align and you also have a president who is not a fascist at the time (or corporatist or similar) who would also support your bill, only then might it get passed.

Only to then possibly be squashed anyway by the currently very fascist supreme court that's appointed for life and isn't elected by the people by some bullshit excuse citing some obscure religious text from the 1600s or something.

So sure, what you say is a possible solution. Just like a meteorite shower just happens to strike a good deal of fascist politicians and the NSA headquarters is also a possible solution.

Alternatively, you and maybe 10 others can go to a local Walmart, hypothetically purchase a non-descript metallic projectile emitting device for a few hundred, practice a bit, and wait for the right moments, and then eliminate the roadblocks directly through some mysterious unspecified means. It'll also get very little done, but in the time frame of less than half a year, would get far, far more done than your proposal while also having better odds of succeeding than winning the lottery (I'm not making that up - you have better odds of winning the lottery as a normal, common person than winning ANY senate seats).

So despite your optimism, I remain very much doubtful that your proposal would change the system of surveillance that exists and has only increased over the centuries.

The best bet is your rulers simply have a change of hear- sorry, can't even really say that seriously.

Of course, you could also elect the very few who would do everything they can to do such things as actually push to create a decent privacy law or 2 that, by some miracles, made it through the system. Like Bernie Sanders, who literally fucking had a Disney princess moment even happen to him during a major speech, if that wasn't enough of a sign. But the usual fellow enlightened centrists - yes, even here on Ars - will then just collectively decide nah, they won't succeed, because they're too "left wing" (and then go on to complain no politician wants to pass a privacy law) and enact a self fulfilling prophecy by not voting for said person. I expect the exact same reaction if AOC also runs.

Ok. Well I feel good doing my little bit to try and make the world better, luckily I don’t need to be my state or national rep, because they are trying to do the right things. I do help when asked though.

 

[IPunchCholla]

You're being down voted because while everyone is outraged the shackles come covered in velvet and few are is serious about changing that status as it would require protests and civil disobedience which is too inconvenient for most.

Protests and social disobedience have their place, but real change is made by participating. The bare minimum is showing up to vote. Politicians aren’t an alien species. There just people trying to get stuff done. I’m not very electable since I’m too far left, but I share ideas and participate in the process as it is a way to push things the way I would like to see them go.

Power is showing up. Now that wee unionized, we have a large lobbying presence at the state level thanks to our national affiliate. We’ve been making huge strides in making improvements in just the three years of our existence.

Decisions are made by those that show up. Pick a cause and show the fuck up.

 

[Bownse]

This is about as shocking news as when Snowden said it. Or the Patriot Act was passed. Or when it was revealed the FBI spied on civil rights movement leaders. Or the era of the red scare. Or when the FBI was first formed. Or...

(Seriously, just knowledge of recent history makes any of this unsurprising. There's a reason the far right exists)

Not to say it's not worth publicly pointing out, again I guess. But these organizations basically operate on the edge or outside the laws and the constitution itself. You can't really fight a legal battle against an appointment that doesn't, hasn't, and was created from the onset to not care about the law. This is an issue that will never be resolved without a massive redoing of the government itself, and considering that they are part of the government, that means there's no peaceful means of resolution. All peaceful measures will be about as effective as convincing the PRC to stop spying on it's citizens by talking to them. Even if Congress magically passed a law and didn't care about likely blackmail these organizations carry on some senators (and that's probably plenty on the Republican side), they'll always find a way around it. Heck just off the top of my head, they'll probably just increase reliance on the 7 eyes members.

This is a battle long ago lost civically. If you want any semblance of privacy from the government as an American, it'll be your responsibility, and it'll likely draw more scrutiny anyway. Heck, they never even got punished for their just recent escapade of secret service deleting messages for example.

Accept the comfort of peace under the ever gazing eye, or be willing to sacrifice everything to scratch at a castle. That's all there is left - and considering they spy on expats, likely there is no escape, until death of yourself or of your social life.

Edit: you can downvote the pessimism all you want - things will still be as they are 10 years from now as they have been the last 50+. See you next time in the perennial "person in government points out terrible thing that was obviously happening, organization admits it's true, and then nothing happens or things get worse". Feel free to give a solution that'll lead to something that might eventually work, but we know deep down the truth.

you said it better. I was simpy going to say, “In other news. Water is wet?”

 

[Bownse]

who'd you rather trust? these 3 letter teams or your neighbor stockpiling ammo, weapons and buying body armor?

or some sleazy Facebook, Apple, google, amazon indexing service with profitability as its only true reason to exist?

I’d trust my neighbors more than some alphabet bureaucrats.

 

[Hezio]

Being pessimistic is completely pointless. What value do you derive from expending energy telling other people to stop caring about something that's a huge issue? Is it just nice to be able to convince yourself you're doing the right thing by doing nothing about what bothers you? Or is it something else?

Pessimists also would've said there was no point for America to break from Britain because everything would be the same either way. But that's obviously not true, even though America has plenty of flaws

Our job is always to fight to make things better than they are today. Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose. But people like you who give up before you even try are a special waste

I mean, Americans ("West British"?) would at least have universal healthcare if they were still with the British. Or at least been a bit more left leaning like Canada, and better at geography /s

Being pessimistic about realistic expectations is useful. Bring optimistic about US surveillance is like being optimistic about the lottery, except you're more likely to win the lottery. There's no point in bothering with the issue, literally at all, because of his utterly hopeless it is, and instead focus on something that's actually more plausible. Yeah people can focus on more than one issue at a time, but there's also only 24 hours in a day. We as humans can only focus and put effort in so many things, it would be better to spend the limited amount of energy we have on something more important then trying to dismantle the surveillance system - like climate change, or getting internet to be a common carrier (I mean, the FBI is gonna get the info from them anyway. Might as well have y'all save some tax dollars and money on monthly internet instead). The ship on surveillance has long sailed. I mean hell it's sailed so far it's become a rocket ship and is now passed the moon. The better choice and now current president was literally one of the key figures behind the Patriot Act.

So you go ahead and bash your head against that wall. But you'll make much more difference focusing effort on many other things instead.

 

[thisisfine]

I mean, Americans ("West British"?) would at least have universal healthcare if they were still with the British. Or at least been a bit more left leaning like Canada, and better at geography /s

Being pessimistic about realistic expectations is useful. Bring optimistic about US surveillance is like being optimistic about the lottery, except you're more likely to win the lottery. There's no point in bothering with the issue, literally at all, because of his utterly hopeless it is, and instead focus on something that's actually more plausible. Yeah people can focus on more than one issue at a time, but there's also only 24 hours in a day. We as humans can only focus and put effort in so many things, it would be better to spend the limited amount of energy we have on something more important then trying to dismantle the surveillance system - like climate change, or getting internet to be a common carrier (I mean, the FBI is gonna get the info from them anyway. Might as well have y'all save some tax dollars and money on monthly internet instead). The ship on surveillance has long sailed. I mean hell it's sailed so far it's become a rocket ship and is now passed the moon. The better choice and now current president was literally one of the key figures behind the Patriot Act.

So you go ahead and bash your head against that wall. But you'll make much more difference focusing effort on many other things instead.

It is hopeless so do not bother trying is the propaganda I would pay people to repeat for my agenda. And I would employ others to threaten someone who does not listen to you. Cover all my bases and keep being rich and powerful while the useless idiots are distracted or threatened. Humans are such a predictable and easily manipulated species. A total waste of oxygen doing their best to ruin the planet as best they can.

 

[Eskimonster]

I hope the buyers of our data make use for it in a good way, it´s very creepy tho.

 

[Eriedreamer]

Most expensive spying intelligence operations of very conceived. A black hole into which $billions are poured. Connected to many other spying operations globally. At home ever growing surveillance of Americans every act. Somehow this monstrous Rube Goldberg machine missed September 11 Iraq Ukraine and Gaza just to mention a few. A cynic might think this is intentional... We are in trouble

 

[hpsgrad]

I mean, Americans ("West British"?) would at least have universal healthcare if they were still with the British. Or at least been a bit more left leaning like Canada, and better at geography /s

Being pessimistic about realistic expectations is useful. Bring optimistic about US surveillance is like being optimistic about the lottery, except you're more likely to win the lottery. There's no point in bothering with the issue, literally at all, because of his utterly hopeless it is, and instead focus on something that's actually more plausible. Yeah people can focus on more than one issue at a time, but there's also only 24 hours in a day. We as humans can only focus and put effort in so many things, it would be better to spend the limited amount of energy we have on something more important then trying to dismantle the surveillance system - like climate change, or getting internet to be a common carrier (I mean, the FBI is gonna get the info from them anyway. Might as well have y'all save some tax dollars and money on monthly internet instead). The ship on surveillance has long sailed. I mean hell it's sailed so far it's become a rocket ship and is now passed the moon. The better choice and now current president was literally one of the key figures behind the Patriot Act.

So you go ahead and bash your head against that wall. But you'll make much more difference focusing effort on many other things instead.

If we are to take your argument seriously, two things follow directly:
1. Representative government is necessarily a sham. The folks in charge of the surveillance can always get what they want anyway so they can always de facto rule, no matter the results of elections.
2. The argument should generalize to any subject with significant economic incentives misaligned with public interests/desires. So telling folks to focus their effort on something else is probably dishonest or pointless advice.

There’s all the odd fervor of your arguments here. You’re not trying to save anybody from something terrible, and it’s hard to believe a cynic cares about folks wasting their time on pointless hobbies, so there’s a real question about why you care so much. I’ve no idea, but I rather suspect you don’t either.

FWIW, YMMV, etc.

 

[mpotter1024]

Moultrie hits the problem nail on the head: this is all perfectly legal under the laws written by Congress about data privacy and the precedents entered by courts on data privacy.

Wyden needs to turn manufactured outrage into civil action to convince Congress to act. Call your representative.

Corporations have been doing it for decades. Nobody calls that spying. Is big data. So why is this spying? Is a hot button term. The NSA is in data collection and analysis to find bad guys. If the NSA had not been so hobbled by Congress they might have picked up the clues prior to 9/11. Now with the Gaza atrocities spawning a new Jihad for a generation now us not the time to hobble the NSA again.

 

[Euler0]

that "is equally available for purchase to foreign adversaries, US companies, and private persons as it is to the US government."

The real issue is that it's available for sale. The DoD should turn that around and say that data brokers are a threat to this country because adversaries could but data about Americans.

 

[VividVerism]

Most expensive spying intelligence operations of very conceived. A black hole into which $billions are poured. Connected to many other spying operations globally. At home ever growing surveillance of Americans every act. Somehow this monstrous Rube Goldberg machine missed September 11 Iraq Ukraine and Gaza just to mention a few. A cynic might think this is intentional... We are in trouble

Nobody missed the invasion of Ukraine coming. There were intelligence warnings about Russian troop movements and planning for months. Russia kept denying it of course...

 

[Hezio]

It is hopeless so do not bother trying is the propaganda I would pay people to repeat for my agenda. And I would employ others to threaten someone who does not listen to you. Cover all my bases and keep being rich and powerful while the useless idiots are distracted or threatened. Humans are such a predictable and easily manipulated species. A total waste of oxygen doing their best to ruin the planet as best they can.

Like I said, feel free to come up with a solution that doesn't involve essentially a civil war. A peaceful one. I've never seen one, and neither has one happened despite the issue existing for longer than we have been alive.

People unfortunately don't care enough about privacy to go to the only current possible solution. So no, I don't think it's a fight worth getting into, or doing anything about - because it's currently unwinnable.

But there's other fights that can be won, both peacefully and not if needed. And winning those could then potentially finally make those spying institutions vulnerable, and actually make it possible to finally abolish/reform these spy agencies.

But for that, like I said, first there's much more important things to focus on, like making sure y'all straight up don't fall into fascism for one thing. And after or during the, skirting the worst of the now occuring climate crisis. Because both of those will only strengthen the foothold of the 3 letter agencies.

You can use pessimism as an emotion, or as a tool to better cope with reality and make better decisions. Having an optimistic outlook on everything isn't healthy either - you'll just end up a deluded fool that wasted time and energy. Sometimes life just is shit, and there's nothing you can do about it. So at least focus on what can be done.

If you look at my really old comment history, you'll see I hate the US government and it's structures. You'll know that while I was there, I was part and helped start certain political movements. And you'll know that had I stayed there with my current health condition at the time, you would have certainly heard about me on the news, because little is more dangerous than the person who has lost everything and will be dying anyway.

If me, of all people, is saying it's pointless to fight a battle against x organization in the USA, it's because it's just true. I'm not dumb enough to not know violence is sometimes needed. I'd say for a very specific issue you can't vote on currently, it's probably the best solution as well. I'm more than willing to speak out and say that if the ballot box fails and the soap box fails, then the ammo box is the last resort left.

And despite that, even I'm saying there are no options when dealing with the spy network. I know you and others see it as a pessimistic take, but to me it's just the current reality. And reality is as much propaganda as the ocean tides are.

 

[Hezio]

Corporations have been doing it for decades. Nobody calls that spying. Is big data. So why is this spying? Is a hot button term. The NSA is in data collection and analysis to find bad guys. If the NSA had not been so hobbled by Congress they might have picked up the clues prior to 9/11. Now with the Gaza atrocities spawning a new Jihad for a generation now us not the time to hobble the NSA again.

Not being able to do anything about the NSA isn't a reason to empower it. If there's any possibility of actually hobbling it (and let me assure you, that's not what this senator is advocating for - he's only against the illegal collection of data by data brokers specifically) then it should be taken so that something can be done in the future. If anything, it only keeps getting more power.

Secondly, the war in Gaza s should never have been a direct US affair, and you didn't have to be a billion dollar spy agency to know that it would eventually happen considering the Israeli governments continued inhumane push into Gaza, and Netanyahu's corruption and past support of Hamas.

The NSA is not nor will ever be your friend. I doubt they would be even if you were part of the club. You forget they decide who "the bad guys" are.

 

[Hezio]

If we are to take your argument seriously, two things follow directly:
1. Representative government is necessarily a sham. The folks in charge of the surveillance can always get what they want anyway so they can always de facto rule, no matter the results of elections.
2. The argument should generalize to any subject with significant economic incentives misaligned with public interests/desires. So telling folks to focus their effort on something else is probably dishonest or pointless advice.

There’s all the odd fervor of your arguments here. You’re not trying to save anybody from something terrible, and it’s hard to believe a cynic cares about folks wasting their time on pointless hobbies, so there’s a real question about why you care so much. I’ve no idea, but I rather suspect you don’t either.

FWIW, YMMV, etc.

1) is only true as long as the corrupt are the ones in power. You can't blackmail someone who isn't a hypocrite as easily after all. If you don't think Republicans are mostly a sham, boy do I have news for you. And currently, there's a significant amount of them in power. Yes, support of the spying agencies is currently bipartisan, but that's because you mostly have only 2 right wing governments. However, if somehow you can get more people to vote Democrat (in particular those who vote Republican to vote for the more right leaning Democrats), you can slowly pull back the Overton window to the center, allowing an actual left wing party to exist and gain more power. You also have less corruption, which then means less power such spy agencies may have on government. Yes, representative government is and will remain a sham as long as people keep voting for the cons (double meaning in that word on this case). And that isn't even getting into the sham supreme court, which has a less clear peaceful solution, but the only thing certain is that those in power that are not compromised should do is begin to ignore the court, since it is without doubt illegitimate (at least 2 of those justices should have no power as it has been revealed they lied under oath after all).

2) I'm sorry to tell you this, but yeah, when it goes to financial interests, the conclusion you came to is just most likely true. This isn't just my opinion on the matter, But something that has been studied and shown. (PDF viewing link of the study).

That being said, it's not hopeless, as a follow up study show that at least the middle class has it's interests represented almost half the time at least. Of course, it's also in part because a good deal of said interests just happen to align with the what the rich want as well, but at least with very, very big issues, sometimes public pressure manages to make a small dent, such as with some smaller financial campaign laws. And sure, even the rebuttal admits the lower class is basically unrepresented completely by Congress, but at least for certain issues there's still very effective things one can do, even if they are less civil and peaceful.

And that's the main difference between tackling things like the FBI/NSA/ETC and the oligarchy and corporations. You can actually, if necessary, violently oppose a corporation and achieve results, even as a single person if needed.

You can't do that with the spy organizations. Not only is it harder to rally support against them, because most people don't care about privacy loss because it doesn't feel invasive or uncomfortable, but neither direct civil or uncivil actions (save for the most extreme of extremes) are really effective because they also carry massive firepower and are allowed to wield it rather easily as well. It's second in difficulty of taking down, with the first being the military, and that's because they are in part a militaristic division of government.

Unlike the military however, their impregnable castle lies on a raised foundation. A very strong, very solid one, but a raised one nonetheless. And that foundation is the government itself - more specifically , the laws they create or abolish, and the control they also (technically at least) have on the agencies. Erode that foundation just enough with a lot of time and effort on fighting the corruption in government (and the climate crisis as well, because that's happening now and is tied to said corruption anyway), and the day meet finally come when their created foundation is eroded enough for a castle wall to collapse or at the very least crack. Then it'll be worth the effort to severely weaken, if not entirely eliminate, some of said agencies.

But that won't be next month, or next year, or maybe even the next decade. Look how long civil rights took to get to where it is today - over a century. And even then it's not perfect and liable to regression, and has already began to slide back. And still, even civil rights only became possible when the foundation of racism and bigotry was first eroded, and that too took a civil war to achieve. Until that war, even individual or small group violent acts failed at breaking those chains. It always takes an extraordinary measure to do it the fast way, and most are not willing to do that, especially when most can't see the chains and the cuffs are covered in velvet.

 

[Shavano]

Not to say it's not worth publicly pointing out, again I guess. But these organizations basically operate on the edge or outside the laws and the constitution itself. You can't really fight a legal battle against an appointment that doesn't, hasn't, and was created from the onset to not care about the law. This is an issue that will never be resolved without a massive redoing of the government itself, and considering that they are part of the government, that means there's no peaceful means of resolution. All peaceful measures will be about as effective as convincing the PRC to stop spying on it's citizens by talking to them. Even if Congress magically passed a law and didn't care about likely blackmail these organizations carry on some senators (and that's probably plenty on the Republican side), they'll always find a way around it. Heck just off the top of my head, they'll probably just increase reliance on the 7 eyes members.

I don't think that's accurate at all. I think by and large the NSA does obey the law, but the law has been intentionally written to allow them to do what Congress wants them to do. Congress has many tools in their toolbag, including simply legislating the agency out of existence, or zeroing out its budget.

 

[ardent]

Legality is rather questionable given the spirit of the 4th amendment. Unfortunately conservative judges will almost always decide in favor of cops, and the highest court in our country is extreme far right radicals who don't care about precedent, liberties, or the Constitution.

Your data is definitively not part of your curtilage when you put it on the internet. That is settled law. You have no expectation of, nor a right to, privacy when you've put it out on the internet. Just like anyone can take video or photo or record audio of you in public, the things you put out on the internet are functionally a matter of public activity.

From the perspective of how you'd go about addressing this, there are a handful of potential ways, but they all require Congress to draft and pass new legislation. For example, Congress can absolutely pass legislation that says that your data that is not posted to a publicly-facing platform (e.g. social media sites) is in fact part of your curtilage and benefits from all of the protections of the Fourth Amendment and anyone who wishes to sell data about you that is not publicly available must possess affirmative consent in writing not parcel or package to any other matter of consent (i.e. you can't make sale of user data an integral matter to access to an application, program, or service).

Senator Wyden grousing about US intelligence agencies using the same methods foreign intelligence does to gather data about persons of interest isn't very helpful in the long run unless/until he manages to rope Congress into acting.

 

[Jupitor13]

From the EFF, you can check your browser tracking/fingerprinting.

https://firstpartysimulator.org

Let me post and see if this link works…

 

[sd70mac]

These are true Americans trying to protect American from ALL enemies, foreign or domestic. They will use any tools they can get to to fulfill their sacred charge.

or to put in Darkest Dungeon terms.

"Worry not overmuch about your actions, your noble ends justify any of the means you may choose."

/s, I think, I don't even know anymore.

It’s probably what they tell themselves and anyone who asks them about the morality of their job.

 

[Elessedil]

Your data is definitively not part of your curtilage when you put it on the internet. That is settled law. You have no expectation of, nor a right to, privacy when you've put it out on the internet. Just like anyone can take video or photo or record audio of you in public, the things you put out on the internet are functionally a matter of public activity.

That seems to be a bit of a straw man to me, in that we are not talking primarily about data people “put on the internet” for all the public to see.

Your email messages, web search/viewing history, streaming content history, social media posts to friends only, phone calls, etc. are not public-facing information, and do have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

To legally get most of those things under a plain reading of the Fourth Amendment would require a warrant, probable cause, and an up-front description of what specific data (and only that data) LE would be looking for.

Unfortunately, some now hold that agencies are allowed to do by proxy/catspaw what they are explicitly prohibited-with-severe-consequences from doing directly, so agencies can just buy data that would otherwise require a warrant for them to see. That needs to change; using a private-party or foreign cutout as an intermediary should not void the requirement for a warrant when it comes to accessing private data of U.S. citizens IAW the Fourth Amendment.

 

[ardent]

That seems to be a bit of a straw man to me, in that we are not talking primarily about data people “put on the internet” for all the public to see.

Your email messages, web search/viewing history, streaming content history, social media posts to friends only, phone calls, etc. are not public-facing information, and do have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

To legally get most of those things under a plain reading of the Fourth Amendment would require a warrant, probable cause, and an up-front description of what specific data (and only that data) LE would be looking for.

Unfortunately, some now hold that agencies are allowed to do by proxy/catspaw what they are explicitly prohibited-with-severe-consequences from doing directly, so agencies can just buy data that would otherwise require a warrant for them to see. That needs to change; using a private-party or foreign cutout as an intermediary should not void the requirement for a warrant when it comes to accessing private data of U.S. citizens IAW the Fourth Amendment.

You fundamentally misunderstand the internet.

Your emails are public-facing information unless you actively encrypt them. I can sit and pull headers from a mail server and build a bunch of contact networks, or I can even pull unencrypted message bodies and read your email. If I own the mail server it is passing through, this is entirely legal. Literally any email sent is in public. If someone has your private key for encryption, or the software and time to crack it, they can read the message body of your encrypted emails. Because even if the message is encrypted, the headers are not.

Your search history is property of the search engine -- and browser -- (you did read the terms of service, didn't you?) and what they do with it is up to them.

Social media posts, regardless of the intended audience, are generally stored in a way that makes them accessible to scraping. The legality of that depends on whether you own the server hosting the site being scraped, purchased the rights to scrape that site, etc. I'll also note that virtually no social media platforms aside from Signal have terms of service that assure nobody except the approved parties will have access to your social media activities (with the big caveat being SMS is SMS -- which is why Signal stopped allowing SMS through the app).

Phone calls are the only one on your list that gets complicated, because there is legislation making the content of phone calls private between the two parties being connected (and generally prohibiting operators from doing anything with the content of phone calls outside of certain law enforcement requirements e.g. subpoena, warrant, exigent circumstances, etc.). It is generally not legal to intercept phone calls (consult your local laws), and it is generally not legal interfere with phone calls by means of disconnection, scrambling or jamming. Again, because there is legislation.

In the absence of legislation that specifies what your rights to privacy are on the internet/at the various transport layers/online in general the courts have been forced to make use of existing precedents and noting where legislation specifically protects certain types of communication as private to establish the boundaries for internet privacy; which to be clear is far more similar to your rights in the forum (as in the public square, not the internet sites) than it is to telephonic communication.

All of this is, of course, utterly immaterial to the actual problem, which is foreign intelligence having the same access to this data. In a more perfect world, this sort of wholesale data brokerage would be illegal, the only way for the NSA to get your signals data would be through an allied intelligence organization's technical means (which has proper controls for USPER meaning you'd be back to "if you're not doing anything illegal..." which is definitely not our status quo), and thus your real privacy would be materially enhanced while denying potential adversaries access.

 

[The Sheep Look Up]

It’s probably what they tell themselves and anyone who asks them about the morality of their job.

That they can do the job indicates they're able to at least compartmentalize morality away. ACAB, for all values of C.

 

[Penguin Warlord]

Quite frankly, as crazy as it is to say, I think the DoD is somewhat right. Yes, the government should not be buying data on its citizens on a mass scale, but that's because noone should be able to. As long as that practice is legal, presumably bad actors will be doing so, and it only makes sense for at least someone in the government to also be buying that data to monitor it and figure out what bad actors might be doing with it.

This is fundamentally a failure of Congres to not protect citizens.

 

[Maltz]

The shame is that a lot of the public's ire about this situation (such as it is) is likely to miss the point. It's less that the NSA is buying all that information, and more that it's for sale in the first place. Somewhere around 2000, businesses came to believe they make more money by selling information about their customers than by considering that info a trade secret from their competitors. It's all been downhill from there.

 

[thedood04]

Yet another reason why I really don't care and wouldn't lift a finger if there was some threat to our federal government's existence.

But really I assume the government is trying to listen in on anything I do, and I'll throw in comments about how much the federal government sucks from time to time for those listening in.

 

[The Sheep Look Up]

Yet another reason why I really don't care and wouldn't lift a finger if there was some threat to our federal government's existence.

Maybe if the boot was coming off of your neck. Most scenarios in which what you've described comes to pass consist of "we're removing the old boot and replacing it with this much heavier one which we control".

 

[L0neW0lf]

I respect Ron Wyden as perhaps the last honest US Senator we have.

Unfortunately, I have zero faith in the NSA,FBI, or other government agencies to hold to any promise or agreement they make, even if that agreement is codified into law. If I don’t trust Congress itself to be accountable to United States law, how can I trust any organization they supposedly oversee?

 

[L0neW0lf]

What if the bought and paid for data helped to save American lives?

What if NSA data mining could have prevented 9/11 ... and in turn the fiasco Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq?

What if NSA data mining could have prevented Jan 6th? Those were domestic US citizens.

What if the FBI could remove the fig leaf and use data mining to prevent human trafficking and child pornography?


I don't understand why the Ars commentariat gets all huffy when the NSA collects data but doesn't seem to care when TikTok (and presumably the Chinese govt) does it.

You can “what if?” all day, then counterbalance it with the many bad things that have been done with such data, and you’ll never come out with an equation where the good outweighs the bad.

History has shown and proven that. And I care that TikTok does shitty things too -but I have at least some choice in TikTok (as in, I’ve chosen not to use it), and I have none when it comes to three-letter agencies using data on me.

 

[Veritas super omens]

I'm happy to have Wyden as my state representative, since he's continuously announcing the issues that the government would like to keep hidden, even if technically legal.

Me too.

 

[James_G]

Surely the issue here is not a three-letter agency buying data, but that there are businesses collecting and selling people's sensitive data.

And selling it to any business that shows interest. This is probably being framed as a three-letter-agency issue to get political support but they aren't the ones everyone should be worried about.

 

[ardent]

You can “what if?” all day, then counterbalance it with the many bad things that have been done with such data, and you’ll never come out with an equation where the good outweighs the bad.

History has shown and proven that. And I care that TikTok does shitty things too -but I have at least some choice in TikTok (as in, I’ve chosen not to use it), and I have none when it comes to three-letter agencies using data on me.

Sure you do. Same choice, just way more complex. You have to avoid using any services or products that sell your data to data brokers. Which is, to be clear, a number you can likely tally on two hands.