Here we go again!

[Handley_Page]

The US House of Representatives has passed a measure aimed at limiting the NSA's ability to access personal data and conduct surveillance.

The House on Thursday voted to approve an amendment to the 2015 Department of Defense Appropriations Act (H.R. 4870) seeking to prevent warrantless collection of data from government databases as well as the tampering with equipment for surveillance.

The whole article can be found HERE.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Yeah, that'll stop 'em. *wink, wink, nod, nod, Bob's your uncle*

 

[Blind_Justice]

I'll believe that once the black van parking on the opposite curb has left.

 

[PayDay]

Yeah. Seems they have no choice but to attack the $$ because the appeals court ruled in favor of the data collection, and it will take a while before it hits the Supreme Court.

6/6/2014

Earlier this week a federal judge in Idaho upheld the National Security Agency’s (NSA) dragnet surveillance of phone metadata.

In his decision, Judge B. Lynn Winmill indicated that his decision could have gone another way had he not considered himself bound to confine his opinion to guidelines set out in current Supreme Court decisions.

Had he felt free from such fetters, Winmill may have ruled against the program which he reckons likely violates the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee of freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures.

Despite his apparent misgivings, however, Judge Winmill held that the ruling in*Smith v. Maryland*applies to the case he was called to consider.

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnew...olds-nsa-phone-data-collection-despite-doubts

 

[PayDay]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-big-data-chicago-20140621,0,2219153,full.story

BTW, This doesn't start or stop with the NSA.
What about corporations & other forms of government?

 

[StrangeLife]

Most people misinterpret the way this works and thus over-estimate the impact of these minor legal adjustments. They are essentially without effect.

The problem is, that the NSA don't consider the data "collected" until somebody actually looks at it. Therefore they can continue to record and save everything regardless of what limits are put on them - because they aren't actually "collecting" the data. They are only "preserving" the data for possible collection sometimes in the future.

It's all in the semantics...

 

[PayDay]

Most people misinterpret the way this works and thus over-estimate the impact of these minor legal adjustments. They are essentially without effect.

The problem is, that the NSA don't consider the data "collected" until somebody actually looks at it. Therefore they can continue to record and save everything regardless of what limits are put on them - because they aren't actually "collecting" the data. They are only "preserving" the data for possible collection sometimes in the future.

It's all in the semantics...

Yup, and backed for the most part by aspects of the 'Patriot' Act, which was approved by both Dems and Reps.

...and 'technically' the bulk data collection is not illegal, even after they look at it.

 

[sr71plt]

Most people misinterpret the way this works and thus over-estimate the impact of these minor legal adjustments. They are essentially without effect.

The problem is, that the NSA don't consider the data "collected" until somebody actually looks at it. Therefore they can continue to record and save everything regardless of what limits are put on them - because they aren't actually "collecting" the data. They are only "preserving" the data for possible collection sometimes in the future.

It's all in the semantics...

Who told you that? Sounded good when you made it up? It's not true. All of NSA's production statistics start with a figure for collection--which is before it's read/translated. And until it's read/translated, it's meaningless as a threat to anyone anyway.

 

[StrangeLife]

Who told you that? Sounded good when you made it up? It's not true. All of NSA's production statistics start with a figure for collection--which is before it's read/translated. And until it's read/translated, it's meaningless as a threat to anyone anyway.

It was told to me by DOD SOP for internal intelligence and has been in effect since 1982. More specifically...

C2.2. EXPLANATION OF UNDEFINED TERMS

C2.2.1. Collection. Information shall be considered as "collected" only when it has been received for use by an employee of a DoD intelligence component in the course of his official duties. Thus, information volunteered to a DoD intelligence component by a cooperating source would be "collected" under this procedure when an employee of such component officially accepts, in some manner, such information for use within that component. Data acquired by electronic means is "collected" only when it has been processed into intelligible form.

Notice the last sentence in particular. What it means is, that as long as the data isn't printed out, shown to somebody on a screen or listened to it has not been "collected," even if it's stored on a disk somewhere.

In 1982 this was not an issue because storage was expensive and the internet was not a vital part of our infrastructure. But today the NSA can - and do - collect every single bit of data traffic for storage. When asked by congress they only report the amount they have actually looked at, which is of course a fraction of the total.

You might also have noticed a big "hole" in the regulations: A computer can search data without showing it to anybody. Meaning that even though they only "collect" (look at) a fraction of the data they store, they can can still search the entire database. Only the result of the search is "collected."

 

[sr71plt]

Thanks. That's certainly news to me (who was around about there off and on after 1982), but it looks like you're clearly right.

I must say that whenever I was in a position to ask for intell from NSA (primarily in the 1985-86 time frame on arms control), they never could find it.

 

[PayDay]

So the Supreme Court ruled that cell phones cannot be searched or modified unless there is an actual emergency, like terrorism, so any unwarranted searches are illegal.

They haven't released (or I haven't found it yet) the opinion or brief relating to it, and I have no idea how it will effect/affect the meta data stuff, but an unwarranted search of a cell phone is now wrongdoing.

This is cool because you cannot accuse a state or federal agent/agencies of wrongdoing until wrongdoing has first been proven.

This decision would have happened with or without Snowden. What he did had no bearing on the S.C. decision.

...and then this:

http://news.yahoo.com/eyes-experts-...-155438514.html;_ylt=AwrBJR6_tKlTmmkA5w_QtDMD

While many of Snowden's revelations dealt with the mass monitoring of communication as it flows across the globe, Hacking Team brags about more aggressive forms of monitoring that let authorities turn people's phones and laptops into eavesdropping tools.

Hacking Team's chief spokesman, Eric Rabe, dismissed the reports as consisting of a lot of old news. Hacking Team's ability to break into iPhones and BlackBerrys is "well known in the security industry," he said in an email.

"We believe the software we provide is essential for law enforcement and for the safety of all in an age when terrorists, drug dealers and sex traffickers and other criminals routinely use the Internet and mobile communications to carry out their crimes," he said.

Rabe invoked Hacking Team's customer policy, which says the company sells only to governments which it screens for human rights concerns. A company-established panel — whose membership Rabe declined to specify — checks out every potential client. While Hacking Team realizes that its software can be abused, the policy says the company takes "a number of precautions to limit the potential for that abuse."

Those precautions haven't prevented copies of Hacking Team's malicious software from being used to target more than 30 activists and journalists, according to a tally maintained by Citizen Lab, a research group based at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs.

 

[PayDay]

unanimous.

"The fact that technology now allows an individual to carry such information in his hand does not make the information any less worthy of the protection for which the Founders fought,” Chief*Justice John G. Roberts Jr.*wrote for the*unanimous court.

“Our answer to the question of what police must do before searching a cell phone seized incident to an arrest is accordingly simple— get a warrant.”

Justices even said police cannot check a cellphone’s call log, saying even those contain more information that just phone numbers, and so perusing them is a violation of privacy that can only be justified with a warrant.

The chief justice said cellphones are different not only because people can carry around so much more data — the equivalent of millions of pages of documents — that police would have access to, but that the data itself is qualitatively different than what someone might otherwise carry.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news...rrantless-cell-phone-searches/#ixzz35fLlUyMa*

 

[StrangeLife]

So the Supreme Court ruled that cell phones cannot be searched or modified unless there is an actual emergency, like terrorism, so any unwarranted searches are illegal.

But once again it all comes down to semantics.

I know several police departments that routinely perform a total forensic extraction from phones seized as part of an arrest - even for traffic violations and misdemeanors. As long as they don't actually examine the data, they haven't "searched" the phone yet.

 

[PayDay]

But once again it all comes down to semantics.

I know several police departments that routinely perform a total forensic extraction from phones seized as part of an arrest - even for traffic violations and misdemeanors. As long as they don't actually examine the data, they haven't "searched" the phone yet.

Sure, but that cannot be considered evidence in a court of law without a warrant, even if they do illegally examine it.

...which is the point. Those police departments that you know of are now breaking the law. Why don't you turn them in?

 

[PayDay]

So apparently all Snowden did was break the law and commit treason since no one was doing anything wrong in the first place?

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/03/w...cks-nsa-program-that-taps-internet-in-us.html

The federal privacy board that sharply criticized the collection of the phone records of Americans by the National Security Agency has come to a starkly different conclusion about the agency’s exploitation of Internet connections in the United States to monitor foreigners communicating with one another abroad.

That program, according to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, is largely in compliance with both the Constitution and a surveillance law that Congress passed six years ago.

The board, which Congress made an independent agency in 2007 and became fully operational around the time that Edward J. Snowden began releasing a trove of N.S.A. documents, concluded that the agency largely abided by the rules set out by Congress as it gathered the communications of foreigners, a process that necessarily swept in some emails and phone calls involving American citizens.

 

[StrangeLife]

I like the word "largely" in this context. Next time I get pulled over for speeding I'll try saying...


"Though you did catch me doing 110 officer, my speed is largely under the legal limit."


... and I'm sure he will let me off with a warning.