Given how politics and companies evolved, I actually trust those people in charge of XKEYSCORE systems more than ever. They may wear suits, but those people usually come from some military background, and have a sense of duty towards defending US, from threats both foreign and domestic, and historically have not really abused their powers no matter what the administration is. XKEYSCORE for example, wasn't really about hacking people, it was just about collecting mass metadata and building profiles, well within the legal system, and the blame should be on the companies that didn't provide privacy tools, because any big government could have build the same system.
Meanwhile, the anti anti-establishment Republican Party since 2016 who cried about big tech turned out to be the biggest pro-establishment fans, giving Elmo an office in a white house and Zucc bending a knee to avoid prosecution.
With these new systems, Id rather have smart people who only work in US defensive forces because of a sense of duty (considering they could get paid much more in the private sector) in charge.
Unfortunately, there are far too many examples of those very people abusing these tools. They shot the "sense of honor and duty" argument point blank just for allowing these things to exist in the first place.
If what you say is true, there would have been more than one honorable person to step up and say "hey, wait a minute." In the case of XKEYSCORE, there was precisely one, and he's basically been marooned in Russia for over a decade (and funny enough, XKEYSCORE still exists and is likely still utilized in the exact same way [1]).
Never underestimate the effect the threat of character destruction—and by extension, loss of income—will have on even the most honorable person's psyche. In situations involving matters like these, it's always far more likely that the "pressure" will be ratcheted up until the compliance (read: keep your mouth shut) rate is 100%.
> far too many examples of those very people abusing these tools.
Name one. And not about some agency collecting data, or targeting a foreign national with suspected ties to terrorist, all which are within the bounds of the law. I want to hear an example where a US citizen, fully innocent, who was targeted for no reason what so ever for someone for personal gain.
You can't. Because it doesn't happen. Even in the report that you linked (which I know you didn't read btw), it literally states the multitude of guardrails in place for using XKEYSCORE.
>If what you say is true, there would have been more than one honorable person to step up and say "hey, wait a minute." In the case of XKEYSCORE, there was precisely one, and he's basically been marooned in Russia for over a decade
Here is a pro tip: anytime you hear or read about Bad Big Brother Government, ask yourself why should the person reporting it be given the benefit of the doubt and not the government. People took a lot of what Snowden said as gospel, despite him being technically wrong on a lot of stuff, all because its "cool" to be anti big brother, no matter what the actual truth is.
IRS Targeting [3] (misuse of technology to unfairly target political opponents)
Stellar Wind [4] (related to XKEYSCORE)
DCSNet [5]
ECHELON [6]
Project Shamrock [7] (an oldie but telling of the culture of intelligence agencies and collusion with private business)
Hepting v. AT&T [8] (hilarious because the outcome was that the government just changed the rules to give retroactive immunity to data providers)
> And not about some agency collecting data, or targeting a foreign national with suspected ties to terrorist, all which are within the bounds of the law.
When “bounds of the law” can be extended to be any U.S. citizen (and I can just fill in “suspected terrorist ties” in the “why” column [9]), then there aren’t really any bounds. The entire point is that these data collection programs and databases shouldn’t even exist.
> I want to hear an example where a US citizen, fully innocent, who was targeted for no reason what so ever for someone for personal gain.
I can’t (unless you’d count the admission of error in the surveillance of Carter Page [10]) because they created a shadow court (FISC or “FISA Court” in the 70s) to push through surveillance warrants on their own terms [see 9]. There’s zero requirement to publicly report any surveillance (or its outcome) authorized under a FISA-granted warrant.
This further highlights the problem: American citizens are supposed to just blindly trust entities that not only have unlimited access to our information if they want it, but also have a court with judges that will push through surveillance warrants (see stats on the number of approved warrants vs. those rejected or requiring amendment)?
And that document I linked? You’re right, I skimmed it. My point with sharing that was that a system that shouldn’t even exist still does and is still being used under the rule of the FISA court, not the greater U.S. Justice System.
The report itself is covered in redactions. It’s clearly a (arguably weak) case of plausible deniability (my own speculation—you can call me an idiot but I think that’s the more intelligent position, here). I’m all for patriotism and protecting the country, but not under the pretense that all Americans be made into de-facto criminals and unwillingly submit (without recourse) to limitless surveillance because they hypothetically, possibly, maybe could potentially have ties to “terrorists.”
>because they created a shadow court (FISC or “FISA Court” in the 70s) to push through surveillance warrants on their own terms [see 9]. There’s zero requirement to publicly report any surveillance (or its outcome) authorized under a FISA-granted warrant.
When you start excusing the lack of evidence for conspiracy with more conspiracy, you are too far lost in the sauce.
Note how you automatically assume that just because its a shadow court, it MUST be corrupt. Or that the US citizens being targeted have done nothing wrong, and are being targeted solely because some c-suit wants them to be.
Consider that all of your ideas have this inherent bias of government being bad. If you are capable, eliminate this bias, and think through logically on why you may want to have a FISA court, and why you may want the power to target US citizens.
>American citizens are supposed to just blindly trust entities that not only have unlimited access to our information if they want it, but also have a court with judges that will push through surveillance warrants (see stats on the number of approved warrants vs. those rejected or requiring amendment)?
Yes. Governments are not perfect, but they are absolutely required for societies to function. When the government is created, citizens give it rights that surpass individual rights, so that it can rule in various ways, including through force or surveillance, to keep society in order. Your life today, thats arguably better in US than for people in other countries, is a direct result of this system in work.
It's not a search if we don't find anything, and it's not a seizure if we charge the money with the crime. These are court approved arguments, so they must be correct interpretations.
Point is: modern bureaucrats have proven that they are absolutely willing to abuse power, even in the best of times when there is no real domestic political strife.
Given the technical nature of this forum, its absolutely mind boggling that people still don't understand what the surveillance programs were about.
If you want to use an analogy, its more along the lines of people living in houses and driving cars made out of pure glass that are completely see through, with faces blurred, and NSA just having a cameras around. If you are going to tell me that this is an abuse of power, its like an argument comparing US to absolute utopia.
Meanwhile, your argument has exactly the kind of legal ineptitude I'd expect on a technical forum. "The public square is everywhere so you never have any reasonable expectation of privacy" is an argument so bad that even the rubberstamp FISC courts didn't accept it, lol.
Good thoughts but as you point out about Elmo & Zucc, there is no way it stays with just the responsible people. It will also not be limited to protest. Just look at what Florida, Texas, and other states are doing about women's healthcare - any general agent worth its salt and with a bit of data will know about any woman's periods, pregnancies, miscarriages, and travel - which is being criminalized ....
From personal experience in the government contracting world with a TS/SCI clearance, I have a lot of faith in people in charge not letting bad actors abuse these sort of powers.
Less so than before these days, but still Id wager on them holding true to duty to defend the constitution.
For the national security agencies, I agree. Other than the incoming decapitation assault by the incoming administration who will install leaders based on loyalty to the executive and not competence and loyalty to constitution, most are very honorable.
The vector I worry about is the prosecutorial groups in the states getting hold of the data, either by purchasing it or by subpoena, and pursuing people based on what they find. Even if they only purchase public data, we can be sure some amoral developer will sell them tools to extract from multiple broad data sets info about periods, pregnancy, travel etc.
I'm reminded of the young woman living at home who started receiving postal mail about products for her pregnancy, and she hadn't even told anyone yet, including her parents. These 3rd parties had just inferred it from FB usage data. I'd bet real money that Texas and Florida will be trolling this data hard, and for far more nefarious purposes than merely selling some stuff.
We do know - that they demonstrably have abused their powers. I didn't realise it was possible to know about XKEYSCORE with no context or understanding of the Snowden leaks but GP seems to have missed that the "suits" "in charge of XKEYSCORE", the NSA, have repeatedly illegally wiretapped American citizens, to say nothing of the FISA abuses, Five Eyes, etc. Regardless of how you feel about the three-letter agencies' impacts on the rest of the world, the thought that anyone on Hacker News would consider these programs defensible is shocking.
Name one bad thing that happened to some innocent person because from XKEYSCORE.
I bet you don't even understand how XKEYSCORE works. NSA wasn't illegally wiretapping anyone with it. The whole surveillance program was simply massive data collection, with metadata tracing. It just so happens you can derive a lot of personally identifiable info from the metadata. And you can say thats bad, but then again people really don't give a shit about privacy in the sense that they aren't willing to forgo the comforts of modern apps and devices for actual privacy (for example, see reaction to Tik Tok ban)
On the flip side, we do have evidence of Russia meddling in US politics. We do have foreign nationals commit acts of terror on US soil. We do have Chinese spies and information leaks.
So yea, I consider these programs defensible, because I grew out of my high school libertarian phase, and realize that the world is a bit more complex than "suits in charge".
I sincerely hope one day your understanding of the history of American imperialism is increased along with the ability to clearly read my comment and you finally wonder how you could have ever believed in something so hypocritical.
If you think that XKEYSCORE is used to "wiretap", in the sense that someone goes out and hacks someone's computer or phone, you clearly don't know the tech enough to speak about it.
Which makes your first statement of abuse of power wrong.
My point was that you can't name a single case where someone, even through metadata collection, was targeted through abuse of power (i.e because of a personal reason unrelated to the law), which generally should make you at least question what you believe.
But instead, the way your brain works is that if it can't rationalize some evidence presented to the contrary, you automatically fall back on things that you know are bad, like "American Imperialism", however unrelated it may be. Much in the same way in which MAGA hypocrisy works, where anytime you present any evidence of corruption, the most common response is "well democrats are bad too".
I do wonder if this brainrot within people around the world, not just in US, is irreversible at this point.
I absolutely do not trust it, but AFAIK the military doesn't feed much intelligence to law enforcement on US soil. (We'll see if that's still the case in the near future.)
Meanwhile, the anti anti-establishment Republican Party since 2016 who cried about big tech turned out to be the biggest pro-establishment fans, giving Elmo an office in a white house and Zucc bending a knee to avoid prosecution.
With these new systems, Id rather have smart people who only work in US defensive forces because of a sense of duty (considering they could get paid much more in the private sector) in charge.