Several of the programs Snowden revealed are authorized under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act. The 2008 law was scheduled to sunset on December 31, but in a last-ditch effort Thursday, Congress extend its authority through January 19.
The Trump administration, meanwhile, believes that the authorization doesn't really expire until April, leaving lawmakers several months to either reform or strengthen the provision. Hanging in the balance is the legal framework the government largely relies on to conduct mass surveillance of foreigners, and Americans who communicate with them. Which makes it all the more concerning that the fight over Section 702's future has taken place largely in the dark.
Source : Congress Is Debating Warrantless Surveillance in the Dark
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Snotnose on Monday December 25 2017, @04:26AM
If you could pry the Sheeple's eyes from FB and Christmas stuff for a couple minutes and tell them exactly what these laws were used for then, well hell. Let's be honest here. A) You ain't gonna pry the Sheeple's eyes from FB; and B) If you did they wouldn't care with the attitude of "if you're not doing anything wrong...."
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday December 25 2017, @04:50AM (1 child)
All animals are equal but some are more equal than others
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Monday December 25 2017, @08:07PM
Yeah. Probably the best way to say this and a very relevant reference.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 25 2017, @05:31AM (19 children)
Let's not be silly about this.
It is 100% the job of our intelligence agencies to gather all the info they can, subject only to the budget and to the protection that our 4th constitutional amendment provides to US citizens.
Pick a random foreign nationality. Pick a random method of transferring or storing information. Pick a random bit of info. Getting that info is a job requirement unless there is something else more cost-effective.
Every nation must do likewise, and they do. If this truth is something you can't accept, then you aren't mature enough to vote in national elections or have any meaningful opinion on matters of national importance.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 25 2017, @05:45AM (3 children)
That job isn't in the Constitution. I don't want to pay people to do that job. We won't get nuked because of ignoring the actions of foreign individuals. The information gathered is useful to wage economic warfare on behalf of the elites and not much else.
It's a waste of money that will only be turned against us. Rather than the mature adult in the room you pretend to be, you are just another caged sheeple.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 25 2017, @06:26AM (2 children)
Well, not that the US does this much actually... you're thinking of China or France. I wish we would do this; we're getting beat up and not fighting back. But if we did:
Suppose you are a very non-elite factory worker at an American company that makes heavy equipment. Australian mining companies need haul trucks. They could buy from companies in Korea, Japan, Germany.... or from a US factory like the one you work at. Your job is more secure if your company wins the contract to supply haul trucks.
It's even better if your company makes a nice profit. Yes, the elites will benefit, but they don't get all the benefit. Being at a profitable company is just nicer: better perks, better raises, less fear of layoffs, etc.
So the ideal from your very non-elite perspective is that your company charges the maximum amount that won't kill the deal. You'd benefit from your government spying on the buyer and on each competitor, then giving that data to your employer.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Monday December 25 2017, @09:07AM (1 child)
What you are describing is industrial espionage. There is a time and place and a market for that king of thing. And, it's illegal.
That doesn't address the issue at hand though. The issue at hand is spying on individual, private citizens, who are not involved in Secret Agent crap, NOT involved in industrial espionage, NOT selling corporate or national secrets to the highest bidder, NOT involved with a terrorist group - need I go on? Your attitude seems to be that, because one person in xxx thousand might be a terrorist, that justifies spying on ALL persons. I believe that your paranoia has made you to sick to function properly in any decent society.
Depending on which threats you are talking about, I have a response.
Threat A: primarily from China, in their determination to dominate the US economically, militarily, and politically, we aren't fighting back because our "leaders" have sold us out.
Threat B: Terrorism, primarily Islamic terrorism, is such a threat because our leaders don't know what the hell they are doing. Air strikes, tanks, and drones have their uses, but they don't win hearts and minds. Our clumsy use of those weapons create more enemies, each time we use them. If we understood the enemy, and fought that enemy intelligently, we might win.
Threat C: Globalism, again we've been sold out. We have no leaders who are willing to fight globalism, because they are personally getting rich off of helping foreigners to steal our wealth.
This country probably won't fight back, and certainly not fight back intelligently, so long as corporations and elected officials are making money off of the attacks. Read, military industrial complex. MIT has zero incentive to actually WIN the war on terror, because it is so profitable. It is in their interest to extend that war into the next century, and beyond.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 25 2017, @10:52PM
The concept of international law is a lie. Might makes right.
Even if you do pretend that the UN matters... there are 5 countries with a veto. Those 5 countries can do whatever they wish.
BTW, it's Threat A, which is inherently tied to Threat C. China routinely conducts industrial espionage. Given that they won't stop, we're stupid to not return the favor. There are smaller players too: France has openly admitted to industrial espionage. Cuba does it with a focus on biotech.
(Score: 5, Informative) by stormwyrm on Monday December 25 2017, @06:41AM (10 children)
The late Senator Frank Church [youtube.com] had understood full well all about this surveillance, as far back as 1975:
Emphasis added. But we actually getting any kind of real supervision in the use of this surveillance technology as Senator Church said is essential to prevent tyranny from becoming total in America? At the rate things are going, it seems we have already gone and crossed over that abyss from which there is no return.
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 25 2017, @07:20AM
Even my so called 'liberal' parents, who were like the hippie equivalent of hipsters, have basically started saying 'if you don't have anything to hide...' or 'we're too old to worry about that'. At the same time they get offended when I suggest that maybe if they are no longer going to help make the system better they should be shoved in a vat with all the other old useless people and made into biodiesel, so they can fuel the next generation's carbon footprint, even though that is a very real and possible step from where we are now, if Germany's rise and fall from power are any indication. And keep in mind Germany had an incomplete surveillance state system, as did East Germany after them (although they and others were obviously quite effective in cementing social repression for the average person.)
And that doesn't get into conservative friends and family, who even if they didn't like Trump during the primaries are now talking as though he is the walking messiah, and still talking about how much worse things would be with Clinton and completely ignoring how much better or worse they could have been under other candidates. Quite a few of them were vehemently pro-Cruz for instance, because they essentially want America as a conservative evangelical christian state, even the ones who profess to be Libertarians choosing candidates more along party lines than along actual political beliefs.
America may be a ship that can be righted, but it will not be righted within my generation. And since I neither want to teach my children to skirt the laws, nor to bow down to an unjust authority, I intend to depart America soon, formally renounce my citizenship and do what is necesssary to build a nation my own children can be proud of. Because my parents, grandparents and ancestors immemorial have failed to do that in what remains of America.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 25 2017, @07:54AM (8 children)
You can have all sorts of trust and freedom and privacy and cooperation in a monocultural society. We've screwed the pooch on that one. We imported people who will always despise us. There goes the trust and freedom and privacy and cooperation. It was nice.
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Monday December 25 2017, @09:40AM (7 children)
I would argue about the monocultural state. I mean, that's what the white supremacists are all about. Take a look at Canada. They may not have things "right", but they've got them more right than we have. The problem in both countries is that we've overdone that diversity bullshit, and we're actively inviting enemies of Western civilization into our countries. Ban the Muslims, and a lot of thigs will start getting right. No, things won't get right within your generation, but maybe in about three generations. As long as we keep inviting enemies here to live, things can only get worse.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by FatPhil on Monday December 25 2017, @12:34PM (2 children)
Happy arrival of the asexual budding of the angry space fairy day.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 25 2017, @10:59PM (1 child)
There is exactly one major religion that is unable to ever have peace with any other religion. This one religion has conquest as a core belief. There can be no peace in the world for as long as this one religion exists.
There is the idea that there would be peace if everybody converted... but we have seen time and time again that subgroups declare each other to be false believers, and then the killing starts. There can be no peace for as long as this religion is upon the Earth.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday December 26 2017, @09:15AM
Society, education, and technology should advance so that members of all religions look at us and say "fuck this shit, I don't like being backward", in contrast to the current "Fuck those idiots, I'm proud to be different". Change from within, not without.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 25 2017, @12:35PM (3 children)
The problem is that "enemies" tend to also be friends depending on your timeline. The UK as obvious example.
If you're talking within 3 generations, we need to be worried about the Germans in WW1 and about 1/2 the countries in the world the US has bombed since then.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 25 2017, @02:03PM (2 children)
For about 1400 years now, Islam has never been the friend of any Christian, or of any Christian nation. For that matter they have never been the friend of any other religion, or any nation whose government was not Islamic. Muslims have no friends, outside of Islam.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday December 25 2017, @03:55PM
Not so. The greedy fossil fuel types love them some Muslims, or at least certain tribal groups of them like the Saudis.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @03:32AM
Hey moron, there are millions upon millions of Muslims that don't go in for the death and conquest. The children of these more moderate Muslims are even more moderate, to the point where I'd prefer them over some of the Christians in the world.
Mooooooronnnnnnnn.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Monday December 25 2017, @07:13AM
Any kind of mass surveillance is inevitably going to end up vacuuming up the communications of citizens due to how the Internet works, which is unconstitutional. That is one reason why it must not be allowed at all.
(Score: 2, Informative) by fustakrakich on Monday December 25 2017, @05:49PM (2 children)
the protection that our 4th constitutional amendment provides to US citizens
This is wrong. The 4th constitutional amendment, and the rest of the document for that matter, applies to American authority, not its victims.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 25 2017, @08:35PM
Yeah, but people like that probably don't care about foreigners at all, so expect that fact to be ignored.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @12:39AM
Various parts of the constitution apply differently. They can apply to:
a. citizens
b. people subject to jurisdiction (green card holders)
c. people merely present (illegal aliens)
d. people everywhere
Pretty much none of it applies to non-citizens who are outside the US.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 25 2017, @08:09AM
Well, If that flies, I believe bank robbery isn't really illegal. I'm sure the court will honor the precedent!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by krishnoid on Monday December 25 2017, @05:54PM
Isn't that just 'stalking'?