FBI's PRISM slurping is 'unconstitutional' – and America's secret spy court is OK with that Hopes that reform to the US government's mass surveillance infrastructure would yield real results have been dealt a blow after the opinion of a public advocate to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) was rejected. Amy Jeffress was asked to give her opinion on the FBI searching in the vast PRISM database for …
The tech industry beat Clipper in the 90s and will beat this too. The US economy is quite dependent on the tech industry for all its growth, and while politicians want to be seen to be doing "stuff" to stop terrorists, they aren't going to do something that the whole tech industry says will hurt US competitiveness and cause the center of the industry to leave Silicon Valley for a country with less crazy lawmakers.
Firstly no one is laughing secondly technical ability comes a poor second when already have a secret society who think act and are supported in their actions that they are for all intents and purposes totally beyond the reach of laws and decency.
Whilst the database makes this an El Reg story the actual implications for the respect of the rule of law are much more frightening.
if they have the technical ability
and you can bet your hide that if they don't have the technical ability they are working towards achieving the necessary technical ability.
Lately it seems that the only things the government are protecting are their jobs.
Well, unless you happen to live in China, France, UK, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Egypt, Lebanon, Myanmar, Iran, Cuba, Haiti, and so on, and so on.... Far too many governments out there have similar, if not worse, courts / governments. By no means am I condoning the US's actions, just pointing out that blatant violations of our human rights is much more wide-spread.
How sad is it that we have to resort to a "yeah, but we're still better than them" argument. I might have failed maths but I didn't fail as bad as that guy!
It's a race to 2nd to bottom. And with North Korea behaving as it does, there's still a lot of scope for slippage.
Those of us in other countries may laugh now, but you can bet your hide every government on the planet is doing similar things if they have the technical ability.
Technical ability has less to do with it than having a legal system that allows blatantly undemocratic (or, in the US case, unconstitutional) practices to continue unabated.
That's why I keep urging people to educate themselves about the laws applicable to their work. You don't have to become a lawyer, but for God's sake, educate yourself about the pitfalls in legislation or you will be caught out if you get between the State or law enforcement and data it wants, and they have no compunction to walk right over you if they think they can get away with it (or not, but take a chance anyway).
There is nothing wrong with law enforcement having powers, but they MUST go together with accountability and transparency or you should stop calling it democracy.
Technical ability has less to do with it than having a legal system that allows blatantly undemocratic (or, in the US case, unconstitutional) practices to continue unabated.
If you're referring to:
there was no statutory requirement that PRISM data only be used for foreign intelligence
Then I expect this is a feature, not a bug.
lol....democracy...the worst form of government...except for all the others. Should we resent the fact that the "government is spying on its own citizens"? Our tax dollars paid for the internet (DARPANET), and in essence, it's government property. If you choose to use it, you do so at your own risk, like I'm doing right now. I understand the arguments against a "Gestapo-state" - that's where this seems to be headed, "Minority Report", "1984", etc. "Hey, you paid my brother (DARPA) all this money to develop this amazing technology that allows you to communicate instantaneously over thousands of miles to people around the world, but I (US Government) reserve the right to know what you're doing with that technology." If you don't like the idea of the USG "overseeing" your activity using technology they developed (even if it was with your money), you may want to consider going back to snail mail. PS...they're watching that too. I hear a lot of this whinging about the invasion of privacy, and the fourth amendment. Be warned - expecting "privacy" in your use of the internet (specifically the web) is like expecting that the cops aren't going to be on public roads, checking license plates with expired tags.
Love, mom
Trump becomes president and all his businesses have access to that data... Every damn phone in the USA will be ringing 24/7 with obnoxious telemarketers, and it wont be long before blocking them will be made illegal or simply unpatriotic (unpatriotic according to the Don basicly means, you disagree with him so you have no rights or citizenship).
"Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court"
So a *Foreign* surveillance court is authorizing *domestic* surveillance and somehow it can do that?
I think FISA says the court can authorize surveillance of *Foreign* governments and agents of the *Foreign* government in the USA. So the FISC court itself has no standing to authorize purely domestic surveillance. Surely! Any appeals process it has, likewise is worthless side show.
It's not even a court, its an office of the executive that doesn't hear or cross examine evidence, it hears generic cases. More like a legal advisor to the president than a court. The sort of trick Theresa May is trying to use to bypass the right to judicial process, and the TPP lot are trying to give corporations sovereign law making powers.
Hoisted by their own petard but too far up their own intestines to realise it.
Unless, of course, "Foreign" just means "not one of us". Non-government, non-military = Foreign. The US "ruling elite" have created their own country located within the US although not the US. Like the Vatican to Italy. Except the Vatican has a distinct physical boundary.
Well when you have a country set up with the express purpose of making money, what do you expect from the rich and powerful.
The US was founded by slave traders and Scottish tobacco merchants hell bent on making money. All that crap about "land of the free, home of the brave" is spin designed to convince the labrourers to head the new colonies when they were first founded. The traders and tobacco merchants put the workers they convinced to head out there in search of a new life, plus the millions of poor, unfortunate Africans who had no choice in going there, to get into debt to the merchants. You need tools and you want the nice things that are only available from back home? Well you can have it on tick and work it off. The rich and powerful don't like we plebs and they need a way to ensure we're doing as we're told and stay put. Thus Prism is simply the latest in a long line of variations of keeping we plebs in line and beholden to our masters. Surfdom never really did die, it simply evolved.
Bush wasnt considered too bright and started off a lot of this with good intentions. Obama is considered better yet with will and purpose he allows and expands all of this. Someone has already pointed out that Trump may win and considers that to be bad, and look what he will have in his hands (personally I dont care who becomes president, this is too much regardless).
Then there are the usual rantings against gun ownership which often extends beyond keeping them out of the hands of criminals to accusing everyone of insane paranoia. Yet they seem to be on the ball when they distrust the very gov breaking their constitutional rights put in place to stop a gov from breaking their constitutional rights.
the US government was required to retain any data that may be evidence of a crime.
He then argued that as a result, it didn't make sense for the US government to be required to retain information on a crime and then not be able to search that database.
Any data could be evidence of a crime. Anything without any exclusion until sufficient time has passed to be useless information.
Most interestingly was the first comment about businesses trying to protect the people from the gov, yet seems at odds with people supporting the govs attacking business to steal more money the gov is not entitled to.
Well, anything could be evidence of a crime, couldn't it? Every humorous video of a kitten might have hidden information concerning some heinous terrorist plot. Storing only part of the information on the interwebs is really not enough! We should demand that the US government retain ALL data generated anywhere. There might be a slight storage problem, of course ......
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