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A federal appeals court in New York will hear oral argument on Tuesday in the ACLU's lawsuit fighting for the public's right to know the legal justifications for government spying.
The Freedom of Information Act suit seeks the release of secret memos written by government lawyers that provided the foundation for the warrantless surveillance of Americans' international communications. In essence, these memos serve as the law that governs the executive branch. By withholding them, the government is flouting a core principle of democratic society: The law must be public.
The memos cover the government's legal interpretations of Executive Order 12333 [(EO 12333)], which was issued by President Ronald Reagan in 1981. It's the primary authority under which the NSA [(National Security Agency)] conducts surveillance, and it encompasses an array of warrantless, high-tech spying programs. While much of this spying occurs outside the United States and is ostensibly directed at foreigners, it nonetheless vacuums up vast quantities of Americans' communications. That's because in today's interconnected world, communications are frequently sent, routed, or stored abroad — where they may be collected, often in bulk, in the course of the NSA's spying activities.
For example, the NSA has relied on EO 12333 to collect nearly 5 billion records per day on the locations of cell phones, as well as hundreds of millions of contact lists and address books from email and messaging accounts. It also intercepted private data from Google and Yahoo user accounts as that information traveled between those companies' data centers located abroad.
Related: DOJ Made Secret Arguments to Break Crypto, Now ACLU Wants to Make Them Public
(Score: 5, Insightful) by pkrasimirov on Wednesday December 05 2018, @01:22PM (16 children)
-- Commisioner Pravin Lal, Alpha Centauri
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 05 2018, @01:41PM
The Man In Black: We are men of action. Lies do not become us.
Count Rugen: Well spoken, sir.
The Man In Black: I see you have six fingers on your right hand. Someone was looking for you.
--William Goldman
--The Books of Bokonon
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 05 2018, @06:51PM (13 children)
yay! random fictional quotes from fictional characters, that's really insightful
srsly, its like you don't even understand the point of quotes versus just using your own words to say what you believe
(Score: 2, Touché) by khallow on Wednesday December 05 2018, @11:46PM (12 children)
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 06 2018, @05:28AM (8 children)
khallow, yet again with the alt-facts rationalizing lying and deceit as long as it supports his alternate reality
your bubble must be awfully comfortable
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 06 2018, @07:17PM (7 children)
I was merely discussing where a lot of quotes come from, perhaps even a majority. Not I who tried to turn it into something political.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 06 2018, @09:09PM (6 children)
Lol, the entire premise of your "explanation" was something political because your explanation was total bullshit and you would have never made it unless you were enthralled by the quote in question. You think you are a clever genius, but you are just pathetically transparent and utterly predictable.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 06 2018, @09:59PM (5 children)
What was bullshit about it? Do a little research on any famous quote that supposedly came from a dead speaker and more often than not, it came from somewhere else often many decades after the alleged speaker's death. I guess the US is famous for it with so many of its leaders and other famous people attributed with all kinds of stuff.
George Washington didn't chop down the cherry tree or say that government was a fearsome master and dangerous servant. Abraham Lincoln didn't prophecy [snopes.com] that corporations would be scary or that he'd be shipping Ulysses Grant's favorite brand of whiskey to the rest of his generals so they'd fight better.
What I find really bizarre is your assertion that my post was somehow "political". You got brain rot.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 06 2018, @10:04PM
Sorry, I misread the thread. I refer to the stupid claim of "alt-facts" when a cursory researching of quotes indicates misquoting or even making things up is a problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 07 2018, @11:23AM (3 children)
You just answered your own question. This premise of yours is just autofellatio. That's NOT how it works. Well, it is how it works if you spend most of your time in the stupid part of the internet. Which you clearly do. But in the real world, no, that's not what happens "more often than not."
As the actual quote from Anaïs Nin says, “We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 07 2018, @04:16PM (2 children)
They were making up [pothos.org] quotes for classical Greek and Roman notables. One reference for the tales of Alexander weeping goes back to the early 17th century, almost four centuries ago. Folks the internet wasn't around all that long.
Take a chill pill or something.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 07 2018, @04:48PM (1 child)
You don't understand do you? Yes there have always been people making quotes. ITS IS NOT THE NORMAL CASE. Just like there have always been people murdering. But murder is no the normal case. Capiche? You utter dumbfuck.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 07 2018, @05:00PM
Why in the world are you still ranting? I haven't done a scientific study of this, but it is true.
I found out the hard way when I decided to put some cool quote into some post which I had heard when I was a teenager. Looked it up and it was a fake quote. Same thing happened a few days later with a different quote. It's happened a bunch since. Now, you can type into your favorite search engine, said famous person's name and "apocryphal", and find many of these things.
People like to make up shit because it makes their writing more interesting to the reader. It's not them spinning the quote, it's Albert Einstein or Emperor Caligula. Then once it's done, people recycle the quote without questioning where it came from, except sometimes to attribute it to someone else.
Unlike murder, this is commonplace. You'll just need to get over this.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 07 2018, @11:41AM (2 children)
I still can't get over how well that perfectly sums up your entire personality.
You prefer 100% fabrications over truth because they are "cool." This is just a remarkable self-own.
Today, more than any other day, you have become your callow namesake.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 07 2018, @04:30PM (1 child)
A quote's origin doesn't make it a fabrication or truth. It is a saying that provides insight independent of who allegedly said it, when they allegedly said it, or under what circumstances they allegedly said it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 07 2018, @04:57PM
If the origin doesn't matter, then why bother citing an attribution? Huh? See my first post in this thread, the one you responded to. Here, I will explain for you because you are such an utter dumbfuck that you clearly are incapable of figuring it out and probably incapable of understanding too, but what the hell. The reason people make an attribution is in order to lend weight to the analysis that the quote makes. Any idiot can string together a bunch of words and come up with something pseudo-intellectual. You do it all the time. Attribution is a way of saying "its not just my opinion, its the opinion of somebody who has a valid claim to insight." Attributing a quote to a fictional character does not make the quote any more authoritative. And a false attribution is literally a lie intended to steal the qualifications of the fake author. But hey, its a "cool" quote so that's all that matters. You fucking idiot.
(Score: 5, Informative) by PinkyGigglebrain on Wednesday December 05 2018, @06:51PM
Good to know I'm not the only one who took those words to heart.
I've been using a paraphrase of that line as my sig for almost 20 years :)
Here is the full text from the game:
"As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against
tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last loose their grip on information flow will soon burst with
freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide
into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
-- Commissioner Pravin Lal, "Librarian's Preface"
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."