HardOCP News
[H] News
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The Supreme Court has refused to hear a NSA-challenging case brought by the Electronic Privacy Information Center. Too bad we can't get the NSA to "refuse to hear" our phone conversations. 
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Supreme Court Blocks Challenge To NSA Phone Tracking
- Thread starter HardOCP News
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Madoc
Gawd
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No surprise here: the government protects itself.
National Security is an excuse if that's what it's used for. But it's a reality as well and don't be so stupid to think it isn't. The hard part is figuring out if there is really a wolf or not.
It's funny, the NSA was founded November 4, 1952 (61 years ago). Before I joined the Army and signed up to be an Intel type I had never even heard of it, the FBI sure, the CIA, of course, but not the NSA. Then a movie came out in '98 called Enemy of the State, Gene Hackman and Will Smith. Super Spook movie, kinda neat, painted the NSA as this totally secret doesn't exist organization like "I could tell you who we are, but I'd have to kill you" type. Of course the NSA doesn't have "operatives" like secret agent types, that's not their business and they have no need. But that's the kind of picture Hollywood painted of the NSA. Today people believe the NSA is all about National Security and especially they must be after terrorists. Looking for terrorists is maybe 10%, naa, more like 5% of their workload. The rest is listening to everything going on in every country in the world, Governments, Military, Businesses, everything. They look at the world and break it all down and come up with what we need to know and how can we learn what it is, then they go after the answers. That's how we stay ahead of the competition.
If you think it's strange or over the top keep in mind, the business world is starting to copy them. They call it Corporate or Business Intelligence. It is the application of modern Intelligence Disciplines to the business world and it's a hot job market. Today you might be worried that the NSA is reading your email, like they give a damn what you have to say in your email. But I'd be more worried about the Corporations and I am not just talking Google and Apple, or Verizon or General Dynamics or Raytheon. I would be worried about all of them all the way to General Mills, Johnson & Johnson, HASBRO even.
So if you think the big thing the NSA does is that they protect us from Terrorists, OK. But you might as well know that it's only the smallest part of what they do and they do alot.
Mass spying on the citizens of the world is not what we as a nation should be engaged in. It is absolutely morally wrong. The NSA harms more than it helps by engaging in supermassive survelillance.
idk, i just wish we could get back to the time where everyone knew they were being watched but didn't care and the government made it a point to not get caught doing it and we all lived happily ever after.
like it or not the world is full of shitty people who want to do shitty things to each other. someone has to be mucking through that shit getting the lay of the land.
my biggest concern is i have zero faith in any of the fucks in washington giving two shits about 'us'. 'we' don't fucking matter to them anyone, nay we are a problem and or threat and that is the problem as i see it.
heatlesssun
Extremely [H]
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Yeah, this was mostly a procedural issue here. This isn't over by a long shot though the whole court of jurisdiction is going to be a very interesting issue.
The good old days they were limited by budget. So their spying was more judicious and focused on target that would yield immediate fruit. But then they got a blank check and the main form of restraint went away.
If they really need this much spying to do their job they're doing something wrong. We didn't have this much broad sweeping when we were spying on and being spied on by a major organized super power.
CreepyUncleGoogle
Supreme [H]ardness
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Um, stop using a cell phone or maybe stop thinking the goverment cares about what you're doing. You'd only worry if you thought you had something to hide anyhow.
S
shade91
Guest
This. Since Obama there is now only a single branch of government and no longer three separate but equals. At least the dems were fine with telling Bush to f*** off from time to time. Me thinks the Obama admin found some serious dirt on Justice Roberts.
Exactly. This doesn't mean the Supreme Court will never hear the case!
It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished. But if innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, perhaps to die, then the citizen will say, "whether I do good or whether I do evil is immaterial, for innocence itself is no protection," and if such an idea as that were to take hold in the mind of the citizen that would be the end of security whatsoever.
- John Adams
- John Adams
I could answer that but the answer is a State Secret.
http://www.cracked.com/article_20705_5-ways-u.s.-democracy-more-rigged-than-you-think.html
Yup, everything is Obamas fault... So tell me, wtf are the republicans doing then? Sorry but that is a bunch of BS. Both parties are responsible for this, and it started long before Obama was in office. You think anything would be different with another puppet.. I mean president? That's funny....
Well, just because they have the capability doesn't mean they do it, no matter what these media types say, no one has shown one once of proof that they actually do what the media wants you to think they do. By working for Army Military Intelligence I learned a lot about the NSA, and that was before the internet existed. They already had a massive world wide operation and that hasn't changed at all except now they also have internet communications on their plate. Just like today's news says here and here.
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/11/19/21532122-nsa-reported-its-own-violations-to-intelligence-court-in-2009-files-show?lite
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/official-releases-what-appears-to-be-original-court-file-authorizing-nsa-to-conduct-sweeps/2013/11/18/194522b6-50a7-11e3-9e2c-e1d01116fd98_story.html
But if you really want to know more, research all of this, read it for yourself, don't just listen and except what other people are paid to feed you.
http://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/191-press-releases-2013/964-dni-clapper-declassifies-additional-intelligence-community-documents-regarding-collection-under-section-501-of-the-foreign-intelligence-surveillance-act-nov
Godmachine
[H]F Junkie
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All I can muster to say .. is UGH.
I find this comment hilarious. So you don't actually have a clue what they currently do now on the internet behind closed doors since they're under protection from real (real) oversight. I'm sure they break laws daily myself. Call it intuition.
This one too. How could they? Walk in and demand the truth? Oh wait...
It's hidden because it's under 'a matter of national security'. What? Almost everything! Duh.
S
shade91
Guest
The republicans? They're a bunch of infighting morons. Don't for a second think I'm part of the 9% who is approving of the current CONgress.
Well you're spewing the same BS they do that everything is Obamas fault....
I'm no fan of the NSA, but to say that spying on citizens, governments, etc. from other countries is morally wrong may be correct, but it still is done and has been done for millenia. This is nothing new. The harm or objection is that it is spying on its own citizens which is more reprehensible than on the international stage. I don't care if other countries and those citizens and leaders get spied on, but don't do it to your own and shit in your own back yard. Now, that might be naive and wishful thinking, but I'm still on the fence on whether the NSA has done any harm outside of shaking the confidence of the American public that the 4th Amendment is truly dead and being kicked still by what they do.
However, that said, the NSA does their supermassive intelligence gathering probably better than any other agency in the world and I think that might be what is pissing other countries off. They can't do what we can. American Ingenuity at it's finest, but it's a double edged sword and we are seeing what the other side of the blade looks like.
sliverjazz
Gawd
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The flaw in that is that it is used in conjunction with laws and techniques passed that narrow what is something a person should be thinking is worth hiding and when you turn around one day it will be yourself that the finger is pointed at.
InorganicMatter
[H]F Junkie
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There's no dirt on Roberts, he's simply a Bushian. Their idea of judicial "restraint" is maximal deference to Congress and the President. While Roberts is common identified to be on the same "side" as the other Supreme Court conservatives, he is nothing at all like the truly conservative Reaganite justices (Scalia, O'Connor).
Interest read on this here:
http://www.volokh.com/2013/09/19/generational-divide-judicial-restraint-reaganites-libertarians/
Don't lay this at the NSA's feet. It was Edward Snowden who stole thousands of files and doesn't have a clue what they are or how they fit together, and between him and completely unethical media scabs they are trying to see what they can pull from those thousands of files that they can use to "suggest" how the NSA is abusing their responsibility. That and hundreds, maybe thousands, who would rather believe it then not, and perpetuate the fallacies and inaccuracies leaping to false conclusions of what means what. In short, so many want to believe it's all true and they really don't want to believe that the people who are abusing them are the media.
Oh that old get in line, stay in line good boy, don't ever get out of line..argument again..
For starters..anyone who is trying to shape, change society/status quo. They all have something to hide and a right to total privacy. Like everyone should. But does not with the NSA/Internet in it's current form.
Eg: All journalists and activists..
The list of people with something to hide is massive.
ANYONE with tools to see EVERYTHING will abuse it.
Not only that should they be able to have that ability in the first place? Snowden did not think so..
The NSA and the Canadian version of it which is just as bad if not worse has to go.
Or needs super massive oversight and shoulder watching and transparency. They can still "protect" us from the so called "bad guys" even wide open to the public.
I don't have anything to hide. But I don't want anyone with or to have the ability to find out or check up on me though limitless power either.
Even Batman destroyed his total surveillance machine
Retronym
[H]F Junkie
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Hi, NSA.
You really should disabuse yourself of this idea, it will not happen in our lifetimes, no way.
See, you got this idea that the NSA is something new, but the NSA was formed 61 years ago. The listened that was broadcast or transmitted through the air for all this time. Only with the advent of the internet did they begin to look at that as well because it became a communications medium for worldwide business, governments, and organizations.
Prior to the Internet the NSA had the same capability to listen to anything that they had authority and responsibility to listen to. There has always been the potential for abuse, there has always been oversight, there are always individuals who do something they shouldn't, and the organization has always done a reasonable job of looking out for us. It's not until that last 10 years or so that people have started to get these ideas that big brother is on them and in the last year, with Snowden's treachery, that people have become so unreasonably obtuse about something that must be in place. It must, we can't not do what the NSA does. The problem is not that the NSA is wrong, it's that the media will not stop stiring the pot and people just refuse to listen when others explain what is and is not true. I have been trying for weeks right here and I sure don't see many saying "Hey, he might be right". Instead all I see is this same idea that the NSA is doing something wrong and they are not doing anything wrong, not legally, not even unethically.
I will caveat this with one thing that I did see that was, even to me, probably unethical and just felt wrong. They asked for some encryption keys awhile back and according to the article it looked like the request was some blanket request and not specific to an individual target. That sounded wrong, it also sounded out of character, but if the report was accurate, then I think it was wrong.
It's just odd to me that a Senator asks the DIRNSA a question about whether the NSA can read the contents of people's email and the NSA says that if the FBI requests the information from the NSA, and if the target is a US Person and the FISA Court approves the action, then yes, otherwise, no. The NSA doesn't originate any of the requests to the FISA Court, all of the requests are in response to other agency requests. That's because the NSA does not chase terrorists nor do they chase criminals, political dissidents, activists, or anyone. The NSA is not law enforcement, they are not action people. The NSA is and only ever has been, electronic spooks. They do what they have been quietly and faithfully doing for over 60 years, since before I was born.
The NSA does not deserve what the media and public has been throwing at them.
The Federal Reserve and income tax were formed 100 years ago. They need to die, as well. Age is not a reason to keep things around. DHS needs to be fucking flattened.
S
shade91
Guest
LOL. A dose of your own medicine for being amongst the "Bush's fault" crowd.
Yes unfortunately it has confused the hell out of conservatives who think they'll back them and liberals who think Roberts will back conservatives.
Currently, they exist to monitor as much of the world's communications as possible, including the private communications of the citizens they are supposed to serve. Like any organization given a mission and power, they have grown out of control and need to be restrained. If they resist giving up that power, then there remains one alternative: destruction.
Now, what you're going to say is some variant of "keep us protected from the terrorists", which means nothing to 99% of people in this country because we'll never encounter terrorism from the people originally implied. However, that doesn't even matter, because now American citizens commit terror-related acts on a daily basis thanks to the ever-increasing language of the Patriot Act. Ultimately, the goal of creating the spectre of "terrorism" in people's minds is the same goal as every other nation that has focused on it - quashing dissent...and in today's interconnected world dependent on communication, the man listening to the hidden microphone calls all the shots.
We need to be protected from our own government more than we need to be protected from others. Those who benefit from government will never admit to this past meaningless lip service.
If I have to relay major news stories of the last few months, our conversation isn't very worthwhile.