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discntnt_irny_srcsm

(18,470 posts)
Tue Aug 20, 2013, 12:47 PM Aug 2013

The surveillance quagmire

The National Security Agency/Central Security Service (NSA/CSS) leads the U.S. Government in cryptology that encompasses both Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) and Information Assurance (IA) products and services, and enables Computer Network Operations (CNO) in order to gain a decision advantage for the Nation and our allies under all circumstances.


The PRISM program is the latest of many surveillance programs to come to light as problematic. As technology advances (as it has from snail mail to telegraph to radio to telephone...) there will be advances in surveillance and these will be met by probably undue trust by private citizens. Incidents of what have later been determined as unconstitutional breaches of privacy are not hard to find.

The other programs like MAINWAY, Fairview, STELLARWIND and others back to ECHELON have used computers to correlate information gathered by various means. Wullenweber antenna arrays are spread over the globe and information from Snowden has revealed that telecoms provide info directly to the government.

The growing technology that makes easier the task of correlation of metadata such as call records and some details of text/email content with other data possibly including visual surveillance (maybe involving the NRO) begs for oversight with published understandable standards.

Not to go deep into conspiracy land here but there is a history of government surveillance programs by agencies with black budgets that weren't even acknowledged as existing.

Are new laws clarifying the 4th Amendment needed?

If so, what restrictions are reasonable?
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The surveillance quagmire (Original Post) discntnt_irny_srcsm Aug 2013 OP
The whole issue of the Bill of Rights needs to be revisited-- Jackpine Radical Aug 2013 #1
The changes needed discntnt_irny_srcsm Aug 2013 #3
The "particularity requirement" discntnt_irny_srcsm Aug 2013 #2
An update: discntnt_irny_srcsm Aug 2013 #4

Jackpine Radical

(45,274 posts)
1. The whole issue of the Bill of Rights needs to be revisited--
Tue Aug 20, 2013, 01:34 PM
Aug 2013

but I wouldn't want to have it happen in the present political environment, where, from the Supreme Court to the White House, there are no friends of civil liberty to stand up for its provisions.

The 1st has been twisted beyond recognition by a succession of rulings from Kennedy/Valeo to Citizens United so that it has become a plaything and privilege of the wealthy.

The 4th has been virtually destroyed by a series of events beginning with no-knock drug laws to the NSA's new Vatican in the Desert.

Things will not be made better if we give them an excuse to throw the whole mess out (except for the Second, of course) in one overarching shot.

discntnt_irny_srcsm

(18,470 posts)
3. The changes needed
Tue Aug 20, 2013, 01:43 PM
Aug 2013

The 4th vs the drug war just seems like such no-brainer of a problem. Why are issues like this and surveillance so polarizing?

discntnt_irny_srcsm

(18,470 posts)
2. The "particularity requirement"
Tue Aug 20, 2013, 01:37 PM
Aug 2013

This requirement decided applicability to current search warrants.

In response to the much-hated general writs, several of the colonies included a particularity requirement for search warrants in their constitutions when they established independent governments in 1776; the phrase "particularity requirement" is the legal term of art used in contemporary cases to refer to an express requirement that the target of a search warrant must be "particularly" described in detail. Several years later, the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution also contained a particularity requirement that outlawed the use of writs of assistance (and all general search warrants) by the federal government. Later, the Bill of Rights was incorporated against the states via the Fourteenth Amendment, and writs of assistance were generally proscribed.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writs_of_assistance

discntnt_irny_srcsm

(18,470 posts)
4. An update:
Thu Aug 22, 2013, 12:08 PM
Aug 2013
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/27/nsa-data-mining-authorised-obama

The documents indicate that under the program, launched in 2001, a federal judge sitting on the secret surveillance panel called the Fisa court would approve a bulk collection order for internet metadata "every 90 days". A senior administration official confirmed the program, stating that it ended in 2011.

The collection of these records began under the Bush administration's wide-ranging warrantless surveillance program, collectively known by the NSA codename Stellar Wind.

...

But while that specific program has ended, additional secret NSA documents seen by the Guardian show that some collection of Americans' online records continues today. In December 2012, for example, the NSA launched one new program allowing it to analyze communications with one end inside the US, leading to a doubling of the amount of data passing through its filters.

...

In reality, it is hard to distinguish email metadata from email content. Distinctions that might make sense for telephone conversations and data about those conversations do not always hold for online communications.
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