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Hugh G. Rectum
Mar 1, 2011

Wow I had no idea this thread had been restarted, why the hell is the last post on the 11th? The last thread had more than a hundred posts a day about this, not including Fishmech replies. Let's get this poo poo train rolling again, shall we?

First up: Dianne Feinstein's Bragging About NSA Surveillance Program May Finally Result In It Being Declared Unconstitutional

Majority Decision posted:

...if the Government intends to use or disclose information obtained or derived from a §1881a acquisition in judicial or administrative proceedings, it must provide advance notice of its intent, and the affected person may challenge the lawfulness of the acquisition.... Thus, if the Government were to prosecute one of respondent-attorney’s foreign clients using §1881a-authorized surveillance, the Government would be required to make a disclosure.... In such a situation, unlike in the present case, it would at least be clear that the Government had acquired the foreign client’s communications using §1881a-authorized surveillance.

So if we use these amazing new surveillance powers, we'll tell defendants. Everyone agrees this is reasonable, and in the previous thread it was argued vehemently by some that this decision made it all a-ok above the board totally normal surveillance.

Dianne Feinstein posted:

I've asked the staff to compile arrests that have been made in the last four years in America on terrorist plots that have been stopped. And there are 100 arrests that have been made since 2009 and 2012. There have been 16 individuals arrest just this year alone. Let me quickly just review what these plots were. And some of them come right from this program. The counterterrorism come and the information came right from this program. And again, if Members want to see that they can go and look in a classified manner.

[proceeds to list out eight "examples" of terrorism arrests -- two with names, six are just general descriptions of plots]

... and it goes on and on and on. So this has worked. And you know, as the years go on, the intelligence becomes the way to prevent these attacks. Now that the FBI has geared up a national security unit, they've employed 10,000 people and information gained through programs like this, through other sources as well, is able to be used to prevent plots from happening. So in four years 100 arrests to prevent something from happening in the United States, some of which comes from this program. So I think it's a vital program.

Well what have we here? A Senator on the intelligence committee who has direct knowledge of these things makes a really big claim about the programs efficacy. See you guys? The system works, we totally stopped some terrorists by reading everyones phone logs. That must mean that in the court records the government had to have revealed the collection of this data to the defense and that the collection was ruled lawful, right? Well, lets just go through the records and take a quick look. We even have names so the cases are even easier to find! Hey, wasn't the reason that the Supreme Court said Amnesty International couldn't bring their case was because they couldn't prove that anyone had actually been a victim? Oh wait....

quote:

In a prosecution in Federal District Court in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., against two brothers accused of plotting to bomb targets in New York, the government has said it plans to use information gathered under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, or FISA, which authorized individual warrants. But prosecutors have refused to say whether the government obtained those individual warrants based on information derived from the 2008 law, which allows programmatic surveillance.
So at this point either Virelli lied to the supreme court, the NSA lied to Virelli, or US prosecutors are full of poo poo. Virelli's actions seem to discount the first option

quote:

Mr. Verrilli sought an explanation from national security lawyers about why they had not flagged the issue when vetting his Supreme Court briefs and helping him practice for the arguments, according to officials.

The national security lawyers explained that it was a misunderstanding, the officials said. Because the rules on wiretapping warrants in foreign intelligence cases are different from the rules in ordinary criminal investigations, they said, the division has long used a narrow understanding of what “derived from” means in terms of when it must disclose specifics to defendants.
They must have gotten this definition from a dictionary without the word "gullible" in it. How will the establishment reconcile this seemingly incongruous set of facts?

quote:

Notwithstanding that she was speaking in support of reauthorization of Title VII of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Senator Feinstein did not state, and she did not mean to state, that FAA surveillance was used in any or all of the nine cases she enumerated, including Mr. Daoud's case, in which terrorist plots had been stopped. Rather, the nine cases the Chairman sumamrized were drawn from a list of 100 arrests arising out of foiled terrorism plots in the United States between 2009 and 2012 compiled by the staff from FBI press releases and other public sources.

:allears:

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Hugh G. Rectum
Mar 1, 2011

Aurubin posted:

Anyone wonder why Google is encrypting internal data at a much faster clip than the rest of the affected companies? Trade secrets? My cynicism prevents me from saying respect for civil liberties, considering how their business model works.

They were also personally insulted by the NSA with a god drat smiley. I'd imagine they want to return the favor and turn it into a little frowny face on the next set of slides.

Hugh G. Rectum
Mar 1, 2011

Aurubin posted:

Alan Rusbridger, the editor of The Guardian, testified today before the Home Affairs Select Committee today, and Keith Vaz asked him, "Do you love this country?" While this is certainly one of the most sensational things said, having reviewed the transcript, there was little of substance asked or answered. In the previous iteration of this thread there was a lot of scoffing at the potential for McCarthyesque proceedings, but come on, this is straight out of the "Find the Commie" handbook.

I can't help but notice that all the naysayers have stopped posting entirely at this point.

Hugh G. Rectum
Mar 1, 2011

size1one posted:

The attacks couldn't be prevented but they could have been caught much earlier using cellphone location data. The attacks (DC sniper at least) were spread out far enough that they would likely have been identified by the 3rd or 4th shooting.

Yeah but here's the thing, they didn't. That means the programs aren't working. It's really pretty simple if you stop making poo poo up.

Hugh G. Rectum
Mar 1, 2011

And the poo poo has officially begun to roll downhill. CBP Detained a US Citizen and Quizzed her about private emails

quote:

According to Dr. Von Der Haar’s complaint, armed CBP officers detained both her and Mr. Papatheodoropoulos, took them into separate rooms, and stood blocking the exit door while they interrogated Dr. Von Der Haar about, “the nature of her relationship with Mr. Papatheodoropoulos … the contents of email messages that Dr. Von Der Haar and Mr. Papatheodoropoulos had sent each other … [and] if she and Mr. Papatheodoropoulos were having sexual relations.”

The only question is did the NSA proactively forward these emails to the DHS for investigation or did the DHS request them from the NSA. Maybe the DHS has their own little baby fourth amendment violation program going on.

Hugh G. Rectum
Mar 1, 2011

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Clearly, outsourcing data collection to Target is a great idea. Excuse me, not target, private phone companies. Obviously there is no danger to the public from this proposal.

Well in theory the phone companies already have all this data since they need it for billing purposes. Not that there's no room for abuse but it's not anything new.

Hugh G. Rectum
Mar 1, 2011

I wonder what would happen if you made a big microwave reflector and put it in front of one of those protestor microwaves.

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Hugh G. Rectum
Mar 1, 2011

Dr.Caligari posted:

These two are the most alarming to me. You could permanently ruin an innocent persons reputation/life using these.. And what could that person say? "I didn't do it"? "The government did it"?

Thats hosed.

To be fair spoofing email is actually insanely easy to do.

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