Drudge: Spy satellites watch Americans from space

In article , Scott Lowther
wrote:

David M. Palmer wrote:

Meanwhile the Bush administration is arguing that you don't have an
expectation of privacy unless you are hermetically sealed, alone, in a
small lead box--in which case it requires a vague suspicion on the part
of the President to provide legal justification for a colonoscopy.
(The technical term is 'backdoor warrant'.)


No, the technical term is "settled law."

....
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/script...=442&invol=735
....
(b) Petitioner in all probability entertained no actual
expectation of privacy in the phone numbers he dialed, and even if he
did, his expectation was not "legitimate."

A decision that was so abhorrent that even Congress decided to protect
people's privacy with the Pen Register Act
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/h...1_18_10_II_20_
206.html

....no person may install or use a pen register or a trap and trace
device without first obtaining a court order under [extremely minimal
requirements for court rubberstamping*] or [FISA]**.

*Basically making a claim that there is a criminal investigation; and
saying who it's against and who's phone is to be monitored.
Requirements that the current program as reported couldn't even meet.

** Which the Bush admin. didn't bother with either, as far as is known.


For comparison, before the Pen Register Act, what the Bush
administration is doing would be no more an unconstitutional invasion
of privacy than the following:

A comprehensive network of cameras covering every square inch of public
space (including any part of your home that can be seen through your
windows from any piece of land that you don't personally own), keeping
a detailed record of everything you do and everywhere you go from the
moment you step out your front door in the morning to when you return
in the evening, with a very few exceptions.

At a touch of a button, anyone connected with the government (in any
way, from Homeland Security to the local schoolboard, to the Saudi
Enforcers of Public Morals under an exchange agreement) can see where
you went, what you bought at the dirty book store, what church you
attended, how long you spent in the confessional (although the contents
of your confession are still private, as long as you keep your voice
down) and every other aspect of your public life.

After all, you don't have any reasonable expectation of privacy if you
insist on doing things in public.

It won't make us any safer, but it will inconvenience the terrorists to
the extent that they'll have to draw the shades before making their
bombs.

--
David M. Palmer (formerly @clark.net, @ematic.com)

In article ,
says...
Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:

No, the problem isn't to refuse we're at war. The problem is that many us
value our freedoms as well as our lives.

As do I. But I don't place zero value on my life.

And I don't place zero value on my freedoms. Really, proving probable
cause to a court isn't that big a burden for the FBI (look at their
success record in getting FISA warrants approved), so it is reasonable
to hold the NSA and the Administration to this same Constitutionally-
mandated standard.

Yes, even in a time of war.
--
Kevin Willoughby lid

In this country, we produce more students with university degrees
in sports management than we do in engineering. - Dean Kamen

In article ,
says...
If these leakers, who seem to be more at war with the
administration

Maybe the leakers took an oath to "preserve, protect and
defend the Constitution of the United States"?


than with the people who are actually trying to kill us,
were so brave, they would openly go to the papers, and not hide behind
anonymity.

Would you like to explain that to Ambassador Wilson? He openly went to
the papers, and it cost his wife her job, and cost the United States a
brass-plate (CIA-cover) corporation apparently researching Iran's
nuclear capabilities. Not that the US has any need for information about
Iraq...
--
Kevin Willoughby lid

In this country, we produce more students with university degrees
in sports management than we do in engineering. - Dean Kamen

In article ,
says...
Kevin Willoughby wrote:
Have you read the Fourth Amendment recently? Unwarranted / unreasonable
searches are clearly in violation of this amendment.

Yes.

And so? Do you think that the Supreme Court hasn't read the
Constitution?

The Supreme Court hasn't commented on the NSA's data mining of phone
call data.
--
Kevin Willoughby lid

In this country, we produce more students with university degrees
in sports management than we do in engineering. - Dean Kamen

Kevin Willoughby wrote:
In article ,
says...

If these leakers, who seem to be more at war with the
administration


Maybe the leakers took an oath to "preserve, protect and
defend the Constitution of the United States"?


There're whistleblower laws to allow them to bring things like that forward.


than with the people who are actually trying to kill us,
were so brave, they would openly go to the papers, and not hide behind
anonymity.


Would you explain that to Ambassador Wilson? He openly went to
the papers

And lied. At least according to the Senate Intelligence Committee.

(Henry Spencer) wrote:

:In article ,
:Fred J. McCall wrote:
::...Seems to me that the records of who you called don't belong to you.
::Uh, so? That doesn't mean they are public information. The people who do
:wn them can still have a legal obligation to keep them confidential...
:
:They can, but can you point to a piece of law that says that they do?
:
:Others have already identified specific laws requiring warrants for the
:release of records of calls. It's obscure but established law.

You're confusing things. The law requires a warrant for the
government to USE a 'pen trap'. However, I don't see how this
prohibits the purchase of commercially available data.

::...marketers can get hold of a lot more intimate things.
::Sometimes, and sometimes not. That doesn't mean they -- or random
::government agencies -- are entitled to get *this* particular type of
::information.
:
:Well, yes, it largely does. If the information is publicly available...
:
:This information isn't publicly available. There's a difference between
:something that might perhaps be available to a clever and unscrupulous
:marketer, and something that's available to the *public*. It's not public
:information unless it's available (legally) to anyone (perhaps after
ayment of a suitable fee or after undertaking significant effort).

But it's still commercially available. Nobody has said the government
collected this data.

If I private citizen illegally enters and find evidence of a crime,
the government is allowed to act and the evidence, even though
collected in a way that would be illegal for the government to use, is
legally admissible.

Same thing here. The government didn't request the data be collected.
They merely asked for existing data.

::...It's quite legal for your
::employer to monitor conversations on your office phone... but a cop who
::does it without a warrant is in big trouble if he's found out. (And if he
::asks your employer to, and the employer does, *both* are in big trouble --
::acting at his request makes the employer an "agent of the government" and
::subject to the same rules.)
:
:The only real reason this is different is because your employer owns
:your office phone.
:
:Nope. Note the second part of what I said -- even though he owns the
hones, there are some legal limits on what he can do with that power.

Like what?

:But we're not talking about phone eavesdropping, so that hardly seems
:an appropriate explanation for treating WHO you call (rather than what
:you say, which would be phone eavesdropping) any differently than
:which web sites you visit.
:
:You missed my point (although I admittedly worded it poorly): the reason
:why the two are different is that there is well-established law for the
hone system -- including limits on release of call records -- while the
:legal situation for the net remains vague.

No, there is no limit on RELEASE of call records (that I saw). There
is a prohibition with regard to the government asking for such
information to be specifically collected on individuals without a
warrant. But that's not what's purportedly happened.

--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn

"jonathan" wrote in message
. ..

"Scott Hedrick" wrote in message
.. .

"jonathan" wrote in message
news
That really isn't the issue. It's that these are secret agencies

If they were *secret*, you wouldn't know about them.


The nickname for the NSA is 'No Such Agency'~

Can't be very secret if you are so intimate you know the nickname.

David M. Palmer wrote:

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/script...=442&invol=735


...


(b) Petitioner in all probability entertained no actual
expectation of privacy in the phone numbers he dialed, and even if he
did, his expectation was not "legitimate."



A decision that was so abhorrent that even Congress decided to protect
people's privacy with the Pen Register Act
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/h...1_18_10_II_20_
206.html

...no person may install or use a pen register or a trap and trace
device without first obtaining a court order under [extremely minimal
requirements for court rubberstamping*] or [FISA]**.

*Basically making a claim that there is a criminal investigation; and
saying who it's against and who's phone is to be monitored.
Requirements that the current program as reported couldn't even meet.

** Which the Bush admin. didn't bother with either, as far as is known.



"Oh, this isn't about justice Mr. Hart.... this is about the law."
The Paper Chase
Be very concerned when those two concepts start to diverge.

Pat

Well, you address an interesting point. There is a technical
solution, that is some sort of trustworthy addressing scheme that's
independent of prosecutors and so forth. Storing everything scrambled
and then using keys available from the trustworthy agency do decode it
would be one way, but I'm sure there are likely better ways. Beyond
the technology there is the nature of society that itself is
trustworthy. This requires a sociological solution that does not exist
at present, and may never exist in our lifetimes.

With the assasination of Kennedy and our invasion of Vietnam following
the Gulf of Tonkin, the ensuing alienation of young people in that era,
there came a deep distrust of government that has only grown since
then, peaking with Nixon's impeachment and declining only after Clinton
was successfully tarred as a no-count philanderer (with copious help
from Clinton himself!(watch the Phildelphia Story with Katherine
Hepburn, Cary Grant and James Stewart - especially the conversation
Katherine has with her philandering father to see how people in the
1930s truly feel about the subject without the effects of attack
journalism)) and the diefication of the actor Ronald 'raygun' Reagan
(who as President of the Screen Actor's Guild did quite a lot of
philandering himself! lol) In any case, the military's growing control
of the global information environment following Vietnam has becomd
nearly total with the result that it seems quite reasonable to believe
the government might fake information to 'solve' crimes.

This concern can be addressed somewhat by technical cleverness. It
cannot be reversed however without some sort of organizing principle
that permeates all society and changes people's hearts. Sort of like
living in a town where no one locks their doors because the thought of
needing a lock on one's door doesn't even enter anyone's mind. The
moment that is lost, it is difficult or impossible to regain.

So, we are very much on a slipperly slope with no easy way back.

Those who believe we never set foot on the moon would gleefully take
your idea a step further Pat. They'd say we could fake the launching
of a super-duper satellite network and convince everyone such a network
exists. Then, we could use the download center, and image processing
center to fabricate evidence as needed. That would have the same
effect without all the cost.

In many ways we are a culture in decline. Otherwise your suggestion
wouldn't be understandable to most. But it IS EASILY understandable to
all, and that's the point, even if no one buys it.

About the x-ray vision thing, the satellite network need not have it.
The satellite network, if its ever developed, would only be an adjunct
to a far greater intelligence gathering network, which would include
creating a mirror of all the CATV, cell phone, telephone, fax,
financial transactions, legal transactions, and internet traffic - and
sift through that for patterns of activity and attaching each data
stream to each individual. Then, modelling the individual's personality
based on the data stream produced and predicting that person's future
traffic patterns. This would be done for all people simultaneously.
This could be added to with a multi-billion dollar program that would
do deep psychological profiling of all criminals - not to improve or
change them - but to understand them, how they think, and then model
them, and find those people out in society who are close to them in
their innermost thoughts. We could then enter phase 2, which would do
longitudinal studies of the entire population, which would give us how
memes and ideas play on one another to create changes over time. Then,
in phase 3, we could arrest people right at the moment of committing a
crime. And when we got very good at it, we might even push it at the
urging of a latter day Ann Coulter who would ask why wait if 100% of
the criminals have this pattern of activity blah blah blah... push it
to the point of arresting people we could predict would commit a crime
at some point in the future with near certainty. Then finally phase 5,
the reaction of society to the efficient eradication of the
contribution of all those folks to society who are efficiently
identified with the resulting disruption of things, and things getting
progressively worse - even while the system that was going to fix
everything works better and better. As we learn that the fault is in
ourselves, not our systems.