U.S. is spying on its citizens and others

[Jeff M]

Most Americans understand that if their country is going to start wars all over the world then it needs to keep itself safe by spying on Americans as well as the rest of the world. However, this becomes another opportunity for the rabid right to scream at Obama as if he's a Muslim himself and part of a plot to bring more chickens home in revenge attacks.

They just don't yet understand that the crime has it's consequences in a heightened awareness of the need to know what every American is saying to another. Even their bedrooms must no longer be a safe haven for terrorists! Make that out of bounds for eavesdropping and that's the first place Al Quaida will go to make their plans.

This simply and obviously calls for more guns now in order to protect themselves against their own government. Cuz the second mendmunt perdiktud this!

[Michael Hardner]

Saying "this or that" in the english language is in no way asserting that "this" and "that" are the same. Check your linguist.

Here's your original quote:

"I thought you were advocating giving the government the power to sieze information from private telecomms (either metadata, or content..."

I thought that your statement assumed that my advocacy of either metadata or content is roughly in the same moral ballpark.

if you are advocating the ability to search for words and phrases you are advocating the wholesale warehousing of all the data

If that`s true then I don`t advocate the ability to search for words and phrases, but I don`t follow your explanation here.

No they dont. The government has no database with all financial transactions.

Are you sure ? They certainly track transactions over a certain value. And what about metadata ?

And I suspect theres almost nothing the government could do that would outrage you as long as they alledged some kind of altruistic motive.

And here you go again, making inferences about me personally. Please desist. It's tiresome and I have no interest in indulging your guesses and suspicions about my character.

There IS no "new level of threat". Theres different threats but historically we are as safe as we ever have been.

I disagree. 9/11 is a new level of threat, in my opinion. This is another qualitative argument, though, which I'm reluctant to engage you in given your penchant for imagining the motives of security officials (ie. hating freedom) or making inferences myself being some kind of complicit dupe.

theres nothing "sinister" about their intentions.

Did you not say that they hate freedom ? Is that altruistic ?

and I would hazzard to guess that a "Nation of Hardners" would have allowed these things decades ago.

Unfortunately, you live in a nation where there is at least one Hardner. I don't think that the powers that be hate any of our freedoms - the factors that govern the large forces in life are rather more mundane and understandable on that level.

You'll have to be more dispassionate in your arguments, and less willing to ascribe evil, if you want to convince this Hardner - and the many more that have to be convinced.

[Michael Hardner]

You asked:

If there is fraud with these tax havens, and I suspect there is, then like everything else, if there is enough evidence, get a warrant.

What kind of warrant gives the Canadian tax authorities the right to pry offshore ?

[bush_cheney2004]

What kind of warrant gives the Canadian tax authorities the right to pry offshore ?

Warrant was issued by the 99% to catch the 1% not paying their "fair share" of taxes.

[GostHacked]

What kind of warrant gives the Canadian tax authorities the right to pry offshore ?

This is already getting off topic, would be best to get back to it.

[dre]

Did you not say that they hate freedom ? Is that altruistic ?

I already told you that was a play on words. Not sure why you bring that up over and over again. Do I have a healthy suspicion of government and the things they do? Sure! That is our most important duty as citizens! Youre not just supposed to have faith... vigilance is required which is why we have constitutional frameworks, the courts, privacy commisions, ombudsmen etc.

You'll have to be more dispassionate in your arguments, and less willing to ascribe evil, if you want to convince this Hardner - and the many more that have to be convinced.

It would be impossible for anyone to more dispassionate than I have been. And I didnt ascribe evil to anyone. Its almost like you arent even reading. I specifically said I dont think theres anything sinister about law enforement and government wanting more power. Its just what they do. If I was a cop and I suspected somebody had something illegal in their house, it would drive me nuts that the law prevented me from compelling a search on the spot. And if I COULD compell a search on the spot, I would probably solve an awful lots of crimes way more easily and efficiently.

I disagree. 9/11 is a new level of threat, in my opinion. This is another qualitative argument, though, which I'm reluctant to engage you in given your penchant for imagining the motives of security officials (ie. hating freedom) or making inferences myself being some kind of complicit dupe.

911 is a single event in a foreign country that happened over a decade ago and theres absolutely no indication that the government having access to a gigantic blob of metadata for the emails of 300 million people would have prevented it. Futhermore, you could use this justification for virtually ANYTHING from recording all our phonecalls, to opening all of our envelopes and packages in the mail.

Youre proposing that we give the government the right to invade the privacy of EVERYONE without judicial oversight to keep them honest, over an event that could have been prevented with a four hundred dollar metal cockpit door. Theres all kinds of common sense security measures that can reduce the threat of terrorism, without greenlighting the broad surveillance of private communications.

And I dont think you are a complicit dupe... I just think your trust in government is naive, and your understanding of whats involved here is elementary.

And here you go again, making inferences about me personally. Please desist. It's tiresome and I have no interest in indulging your guesses and suspicions about my character.

Im just carrying your own statements to their logical conclusion. Suggesting the government maintain a database that allows them to mine private communications for keywords without judicial oversight puts you in a pretty extreme camp (thats goes even further than what the NSA is accused of doing), and shows that you place very little value on privacy. Most of the "personal inferences" in our exchange are your repeated attempts to characterize me as being overly passionate and emotional zealot about this issue which could not be further from the truth. Ill desist if you will I guess.

In fairness it seems like you have backed off on the warehousing/content mining idea which was the most radical of your ideas.

Unfortunately, you live in a nation where there is at least one Hardner. I don't think that the powers that be hate any of our freedoms - the factors that govern the large forces in life are rather more mundane and understandable on that level.

Well clearly the powers that be dont like our right to privacy otherwise they wouldnt be trying to sneak through legislation giving them access to our email. But Iv already explained why personal freedom and privacy is a problem for governments and police... it makes their job harder.. of course they dont like that. Take a look at how governments around the world behave when citizens arent protected by the courts and a nice fat swath of constitutional rights.

If that`s true then I don`t advocate the ability to search for words and phrases, but I don`t follow your explanation here.

Why? It was an extremely simple and straighforward explanation. You need to the data in its entirety to build the index. Pick up your favorite book, and look at its index... Now contemplate building that index... without the book. Get it now? Or picture building a search system for this forum that did not have access to the database of posts...

Indexes work by tokenizing the terms in a body of text and putting them into a binary tree. No body of text... no tokens to index.

Edited June 13, 2013 by dre

[Michael Hardner]

I already told you that was a play on words. Not sure why you bring that up over and over again.

Sorry - I didn't see that. If you had said it seriously, I would believe that it undercuts your argument. I accept the retraction.

911 is a single event in a foreign country that happened over a decade ago and theres absolutely no indication that the government having access to a gigantic blob of metadata for the emails of 300 million people would have prevented it.

Right. Anyway, it is a different level of threat, as I said. This new stuff you're bringing up, I will address as such:

1) It happened over 10 years ago, acknowledged. In a different country... which is the same country we're talking about (again) in this thread.

2) There's no indication that surveillance prevents such things, but it stands to reason. Also, they wouldn't be able to release evidence because that in itself would undercut security.

Futhermore, you could use this justification for virtually ANYTHING from recording all our phonecalls, to opening all of our envelopes and packages in the mail.

Yes, you could, and we can have that discussion once that's proposed I suppose.

Youre proposing that we give the government the right to invade the privacy of EVERYONE without judicial oversight to keep them honest, over an event that could have been prevented with a four hundred dollar metal cockpit door.

Yes. The next event could be over something cheaper and easier than a metal door. Also, the term 'invasion of privacy' is values laden, as in "terrorist" vs "freedom fighter".

We're talking about finding the common line between freedom/security remember ? You're dispassionate remember ? My point of view on this isn't any more about invading peoples' rights than yours are, unless of course you're trying to paint my views as unreasonable.

Theres all kinds of common sense security measures that can reduce the threat of terrorism, without greenlighting the broad surveillance of private communications.

Yes, there are. Also, we can hope that terrorism stops. There are lots of things that could happen, or could be done. Targeted searches and metadata are two more of those things that could be done.

And I dont think you are a complicit dupe... I just think your trust in government is naive, and your understanding of whats involved here is elementary.

What exactly am I 'trusting' government to do ? The only difference in trust between you and I is that you initially said that they have ostensibly evil motives, which I thought you retracted now. Did you ? I'm giving them access to meta data and targeted searches but not whole conversations - what is there for me to not trust ?

In fairness it seems like you have backed off on the warehousing/content mining idea which was the most radical of your ideas.

I'm really not sure about this idea that you can't do a search on the data without having all the data. But, honestly, if I'm wrong then I'm wrong. I'm really not interested enough in this topic to try to delve down into how the database would work.

My thinking is analogous to: if you wanted to know what websites contain the terms "target search" - I could do the search for you and return you the list of databases. You get the index information without having all the information.

[dre]

Sorry - I didn't see that. If you had said it seriously, I would believe that it undercuts your argument. I accept the retraction.

Right. Anyway, it is a different level of threat, as I said. This new stuff you're bringing up, I will address as such:

1) It happened over 10 years ago, acknowledged. In a different country... which is the same country we're talking about (again) in this thread.

2) There's no indication that surveillance prevents such things, but it stands to reason. Also, they wouldn't be able to release evidence because that in itself would undercut security.

Yes, you could, and we can have that discussion once that's proposed I suppose.

Yes. The next event could be over something cheaper and easier than a metal door. Also, the term 'invasion of privacy' is values laden, as in "terrorist" vs "freedom fighter".

We're talking about finding the common line between freedom/security remember ? You're dispassionate remember ? My point of view on this isn't any more about invading peoples' rights than yours are, unless of course you're trying to paint my views as unreasonable.

Yes, there are. Also, we can hope that terrorism stops. There are lots of things that could happen, or could be done. Targeted searches and metadata are two more of those things that could be done.

What exactly am I 'trusting' government to do ? The only difference in trust between you and I is that you initially said that they have ostensibly evil motives, which I thought you retracted now. Did you ? I'm giving them access to meta data and targeted searches but not whole conversations - what is there for me to not trust ?

I'm really not sure about this idea that you can't do a search on the data without having all the data. But, honestly, if I'm wrong then I'm wrong. I'm really not interested enough in this topic to try to delve down into how the database would work.

My thinking is analogous to: if you wanted to know what websites contain the terms "target search" - I could do the search for you and return you the list of databases. You get the index information without having all the information.

Yes, you could, and we can have that discussion once that's proposed I suppose.

We had that discussion a long time ago, and people and the government, and the courts decided that the government does have the need to violate privacy in limited cases, but that they cannot be trusted to manage it themselves without supervision from the courts. We have struck the best balance between security and privacy that has ever been struck. We are among the most safe if not the most safe, and we are among the most free if not the most free.

Something has to be broken before we spend billions of dollars, and surrender some our rights to fix it.

What exactly am I 'trusting' government to do ? The only difference in trust between you and I is that you initially said that they have ostensibly evil motives, which I thought you retracted now. Did you ? I'm giving them access to meta data and targeted searches but not whole conversations - what is there for me to not trust ?

You have to trust the government to not misuse the data, you have to trust the government to set up the system in affordable way (it cost them billions just to create an index of 20 million guns never mind hundreds of billions of electronic emails, mobile calls, etc), you have to trust the government not to use this as an incremental step to even more intrusive citizen eaves dropping, you have to trust the government to not use the information for political reasons, you have to trust the government (which likes like a sieve at all levels) not to inadvertantly lose or leak senstive information.

All the things nobody in their right mind would trust the government to do, which is exactly why we have the warrant system, and judicial supervision.

Furthermore (and I wrote a paper on this recently), one of the greatest risks of this kind of activity is that the government will actually lose the access it already has. Right now people on the internet feel relatively safe... so they have the same types of conversations they might have in private. This means that once the government has done some basic law enforcement work they can get a warrant to read emails, and monitor electronic communications. A ton of crimes have been solved and prevented in this manner, everything from foiling terrorist plots, to busting child pornography and human trafficing rings.

But once people feel like their internet communications are not secure, then they will simply make them secure. They will start encrypting their communications, and services will spring up offering encypted communications. Then nobody can get the content... not the ISP, not the telecomm, not packet sniffers, or wire snoops. Then the government will be completely shut out.

[Michael Hardner]

We had that discussion a long time ago, and people and the government, and the courts decided that the government does have the need to violate privacy in limited cases, but that they cannot be trusted to manage it themselves without supervision from the courts. We have struck the best balance between security and privacy that has ever been struck. We are among the most safe if not the most safe, and we are among the most free if not the most free.

I'm not sure what we're debating on this point now. You said "you could use security to justify... something" and I agree, you can use security to justify things.

You have to trust the government to not misuse the data, you have to trust the government to set up the system in affordable way (it cost them billions just to create an index of 20 million guns never mind hundreds of billions of electronic emails, mobile calls, etc), you have to trust the government not to use this as an incremental step to even more intrusive citizen eaves dropping, you have to trust the government to not use the information for political reasons, you have to trust the government (which likes like a sieve at all levels) not to inadvertantly lose or leak senstive information.

Well, I don't trust the government to do any of those things - it may indeed happen - so hopefully I'm not naive.

[bush_cheney2004]

Well, I don't trust the government to do any of those things - it may indeed happen - so hopefully I'm not naive.

Government leaks and loses sensitive information all the time, partly because there is so much of it that is easily stored and distributed electronically. Common criminals are not exactly quaking in their boots at the prospect of government law enforcement being able to collect, analyze, and prosecute cases with NSA prowess.

[dre]

I'm not sure what we're debating on this point now. You said "you could use security to justify... something" and I agree, you can use security to justify things.

Well, I don't trust the government to do any of those things - it may indeed happen - so hopefully I'm not naive.

I'm not sure what we're debating on this point now. You said "you could use security to justify... something" and I agree, you can use security to justify things.

Well, I don't trust the government to do any of those things - it may indeed happen - so hopefully I'm not naive.

And what about my prediction that internet surveillance will just make terrorists and criminals start encrypting communications, so that the government will no longer even be able to get at the content with a warrant... meaning it will make us "less" safe.

I'm not sure what we're debating on this point now. You said "you could use security to justify... something" and I agree, you can use security to justify things.

I'm not sure what we're debating on this point now. You said "you could use security to justify... something" and I agree, you can use security to justify things.

Well... you seem to be suggesting that some sort of national dialog is required about trading some privacy for security and giving the government some new powers, and that a balance must be struck between privacy and security. Im saying that balance has already been struck, and that the police want new eavesdropping capabilies for the exact same reason they would have wanted to wire tap phone calls without a warrant 30 years ago.

Well, I don't trust the government to do any of those things - it may indeed happen - so hopefully I'm not naive.

But the course of action you are "sort of" advocating means you have to trust them to do all those things.

[ReeferMadness]

It's a sideshow for the entertainment of Canadians who can see through their ridiculous games.

I'm not sure how you see it as a sideshow. Canadians using services where the servers reside in the US (which includes Google, Facebook, and a whole truckload of other online services, including Maple Leaf Web ) are having their privacy routinely and egregiously invaded by a government over which they have no control or say. (And no, I'm not talking about Harper, despite the obvious similarities).

Even if you just send an email, it is likely to be routed through the USA. And since we're not US citizens, we have far less protection.

We should all be outraged. But this type of nonsense has become so commonplace, who has the energy?

[ReeferMadness]

It's ironic that the USA seems to have become one of the world's foremost invaders of privacy. It was Ben Franklin who said "Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither". Those words seem prescient at the moment.

[bush_cheney2004]

It's ironic that the USA seems to have become one of the world's foremost invaders of privacy. It was Ben Franklin who said "Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither". Those words seem prescient at the moment.

Ben Franklin's oft repeated quote is taken out of context. Franklin was speaking about a situation involving the ruling Penn family in 1755:

The words appear originally in a 1755 letter that Franklin is presumed to have written on behalf of the Pennsylvania Assembly to the colonial governor during the French and Indian War. The letter was a salvo in a power struggle between the governor and the Assembly over funding for security on the frontier, one in which the Assembly wished to tax the lands of the Penn family, which ruled Pennsylvania from afar, to raise money for defense against French and Indian attacks. The governor kept vetoing the Assembly’s efforts at the behest of the family, which had appointed him. So to start matters, Franklin was writing not as a subject being asked to cede his liberty to government, but in his capacity as a legislator being asked to renounce his power to tax lands notionally under his jurisdiction. In other words, the “essential liberty” to which Franklin referred was thus not what we would think of today as civil liberties but, rather, the right of self-governance of a legislature in the interests of collective security.

What’s more the “purchase [of] a little temporary safety” of which Franklin complains was not the ceding of power to a government Leviathan in exchange for some promise of protection from external threat; for in Franklin’s letter, the word “purchase” does not appear to have been a metaphor. The governor was accusing the Assembly of stalling on appropriating money for frontier defense by insisting on including the Penn lands in its taxes–and thus triggering his intervention. And the Penn family later offered cash to fund defense of the frontier–as long as the Assembly would acknowledge that it lacked the power to tax the family’s lands. Franklin was thus complaining of the choice facing the legislature between being able to make funds available for frontier defense and maintaining its right of self-governance–and he was criticizing the governor for suggesting it should be willing to give up the latter to ensure the former.

[xul]

They're not monitoring citizens. The computers are scanning data streams for patterns. They don't know who you are and don't care. They don't care who is cheating on their spouse or taxes, who is a pervert or crook. They're not looking for such things, and they will never have the resources to do so. If you're not planning on blowing anybody up you don't really need to fear your emails or posts will come to the attention of a human being.

"Blowing anybody up" is a perfect pattern of all these patterns.

Then the "computers", or most likely the spying softwares, begin to monitor Argus-es's (I suppose you are not the only "Argus" on internet) e-mails, facebook accounts, posts, .....

And then, if one of these Aagus-es happens to be a terro...lol...maybe just an Israel supporter who used to have word patterns like "terrorism", "attack", "Islamic", "al-Qaida", "Osama"....in his or her posts to prove how evil what he is against is , maybe the next step of the software is to bring all his or her personal stuff to the attention of a human being.

Edited June 15, 2013 by xul

[Michael Hardner]

And what about my prediction that internet surveillance will just make terrorists and criminals start encrypting communications, so that the government will no longer even be able to get at the content with a warrant... meaning it will make us "less" safe.

This reminds me of Toynbee's "challenge and response" model of history. You come up with a challenge to criminals and they find a way around it. It's helpful to understand this pattern when setting policy, I agree, because sometimes it doesn't make sense to continually try to solve the same problem.

Well... you seem to be suggesting that some sort of national dialog is required about trading some privacy for security and giving the government some new powers, and that a balance must be struck between privacy and security. Im saying that balance has already been struck, and that the police want new eavesdropping capabilies for the exact same reason they would have wanted to wire tap phone calls without a warrant 30 years ago.

Well, clearly the balance hasn't been struck as the whistleblower wants to start a dialogue about what is going on. Or at least, new technology has altered the balance and so we're in this conversation now.

But the course of action you are "sort of" advocating means you have to trust them to do all those things.

All I really "trust them" to do is to use the information for the prime reason that they're stating - for security, broadly. And it's not just trust that leads me to the decision to let them have more access to private information, it's an understanding of the larger issues at play with regards to security, politics etc. So I'm making my decision based on several points here.

As for whether they are going to make errors, or abuse the information to some degree - I don't trust that that will not happen but I believe that the risk is worth taking.

[Michael Hardner]

It was Ben Franklin who said "Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither".

Luckily we're not sacrificing liberty here.

Ben Franklin was a known facebooker, by the way, look it up so that right there proves that he would have been ok with storage of metadata.

[Michael Hardner]

Ben Franklin's oft repeated quote is taken out of context. Franklin was speaking about a situation involving the ruling Penn family in 1755:

That's fascinating. If true (can I have a link btw) this means that the quote is completely bent out of shape in its common use. But... what does it mean then ? Was he talking about balancing security with freedom from taxation ? Or...

[bush_cheney2004]

That's fascinating. If true (can I have a link btw) this means that the quote is completely bent out of shape in its common use. But... what does it mean then ? Was he talking about balancing security with freedom from taxation ? Or...

The link appears below. I read this history lesson years ago on another blog, and I am not sure we can dismiss the sentiment entirely in a broader context. But it was never written or uttered in the way that so many people do today, particularly post 9/11.

Franklin was speaking directly to the taxation issue for the immediate problems presented by the French and Indian War (Seven Years War in Canada I guess), and it predates the American Revolution by many years.

http://www.lawfareblog.com/2011/07/what-ben-franklin-really-said/

[GostHacked]

With regard to 9/11, none of this datamining would have stopped those terror attacks.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=91651&page=1#.UbtQhNjRh8E

U.S. intelligence officials warned President Bush weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks that Osama bin Laden's terrorist network might hijack American planes, but White House officials stressed the threat was not specific.

A White House official acknowledged to ABCNEWS that the information prompted administration officials to issue a private warning to transportation department and national security agencies weeks before the attacks. But, the official said the threat of a hijacking by bin Laden's al Qaeda organization was general in nature, did not mention a specific time or place and was similar to the variety of different terrorist threats U.S. intelligence monitors frequently.

[dre]

This reminds me of Toynbee's "challenge and response" model of history. You come up with a challenge to criminals and they find a way around it. It's helpful to understand this pattern when setting policy, I agree, because sometimes it doesn't make sense to continually try to solve the same problem.

Difference here is that the technology to do these is readily available and its already starting to happen.

Well, clearly the balance hasn't been struck as the whistleblower wants to start a dialogue about what is going on. Or at least, new technology has altered the balance and so we're in this conversation now.

No... all the whistleblower has shown us is that the government cant be trusted to follow the rules, and more legal protection for citizens is needed... not less.

All I really "trust them" to do is to use the information for the prime reason that they're stating - for security, broadly. And it's not just trust that leads me to the decision to let them have more access to private information, it's an understanding of the larger issues at play with regards to security, politics etc. So I'm making my decision based on several points here.

Your trust is misplaced... This is a government that used IRS data to go after political opponents. IF (and I say if because you sorta backed off on the radical data-mining/warehousing idea) the government had access to the content, that would mean they could read conversations between ANY two people they chose. Unimaginable power in the hands of people that have proven over and over again that they dont follow the rules, and people that have already been lying to congress (and citizens) about the existance of this program for years.

It would be no less naive to trust a fox to fix the holes in the fence around your chicken coup.

I don't trust that that will not happen but I believe that the risk is worth taking.

What makes the risk worth taking? We have not even established that there is a problem with the current system, or empirically demonstrated that theres any sort of elevated threat level.

Pretty dissappointing for a guy that normally espouses the importance of carefully collecting data to determine if a problem exists, and what the scope of it is, and what solutions might be effective. Not sure how you go from there, to giving government unimaginable and unprecidented power because there was a terrorist attack 15 years ago. Do you honestly think that terrorism would statistically even make the top 1000 list of things likely to cause Mike Harders death?

So since you are normally a "look at the data" type of dude, lets have a look!

The statistical chance of dying in a terrorist attack in the US is less than 1 in 20 million. In Canada its even lower.

To put that in perspective your chances of being struck by lightening are 71.42 times greater than being killed by terrorism.

Think about that for a minute... You have 71 times more chance of being struck by lightening than being killed by terrorism.

For some reason though, the subject of terrorism is immuned to the kind of rational, evidence-based analysis that we use to evaulate other threats. This is dangerous because we do really stupid things when we are irrational and frightened.... like setting up a minable database of private conversations to combat a 1:20000000 threat. Or spending 5 trillion dollars in response to 2000 thousand people dying. Or siezing the property of Japanese canadians and throwing them all in concentration camps.

The emotionalizing and hypbole around this issue, and the total absence of critical thinking has resulted in BY FAR the largest misallocation of resources in the history of the human race. The GWOT is the most expensive project ever undertaken by humans, in all of history, and it is almost completely in response to a couple of thousand unnatural deaths. Not to mention the GWOT itself has caused hundreds of times more innocent deaths than the origional event that sparked it.

Its all mind-numbingly stupid.

Edited June 14, 2013 by dre

[Michael Hardner]

Difference here is that the technology to do these is readily available and its already starting to happen.

How is that a difference ? It's exactly as expected.

What makes the risk worth taking? We have not even established that there is a problem with the current system, or empirically demonstrated that theres any sort of elevated threat level.

You're right - "we" haven't done that. I, on the other hand, am satisfied with my own risk assessment.

Pretty dissappointing for a guy that normally espouses the importance of carefully collecting data to determine if a problem exists, and what the scope of it is, and what solutions might be effective.

Unprecedented power - only because we're in a new area of unprecedented technology.

And just because we don't agree, it doesn't mean I haven't collected data.

The call for extreme rationality is really a separate discussion, since these decisions are never made on solely such a basis - but, rather, in the realm of politics. These examples happen all the time, such as in economics...

[dre]

You're right - "we" haven't done that. I, on the other hand, am satisfied with my own risk assessment.

Share your methodogy on that please.

I want to know what rational process lead you to believe all this is warranted for a threat that is statistically 71 times more remote than being struck by lightening.

How is that a difference ? It's exactly as expected.

Well I though your example was that criminals "might" find a way around a new law. In this case the workaround already exists and is becoming readily available.

Unprecedented power - only because we're in a new area of unprecedented technology.

Weve already been over this... The medium being used to communicate speech has no bearing on which type of speech needs to be monitored. Private conversations are private conversations whether they happen in your living room, on the phone, in a letter, or using two tin cans with a string tied between them. And the government already has all the access they need. They can see anything they want, they just have to show a valid legal reason. Perfect!

And just because we don't agree, it doesn't mean I haven't collected data.

Sweet! Share some... seems like it would highly relevant to this conversation.

The call for extreme rationality is really a separate discussion, since these decisions are never made on solely such a basis - but, rather, in the realm of politics.

Im not talking about a call for "extreme rationality" Im talking about the complete and total absense of meaningful analysis, rational thought, and critical thinking around a threat thats 71 times less likely than being struck by lightening.

Why when we talk about healthcare, do you go on and on about how important it is to gather and analyze data to determine if theres a problem and what the scope is, so we can determine a solution... But when we talk about terrorism you go directly from "911 happened" to "The government needs a searchable database of all our conversations".

Make no mistake about it though Mike, you are going to get your searchable database! And it will have the metadata and the content as well! You can take that to the bank. People like me are never going to win this argument because its like arguing with Christians about whether jesus exists. Millions of people just have a "feeling" about this... and it doesnt matter that its completely unsupported by any evidence or analysis.

We came extremely close to getting that database in Canada with the internet surveillance bill. Both content and metadata. Luckily in a rather suprising victory for common sense, and rational thought people actually noticed what was going on, and were not happy. The minister in charge of the bill tried to call us all "pedophile supporters" in order to whip us into line but it didnt work and they had to scrap the bill. But thats just a small victory in a war we are guaranteed to lose. They government will keep trying and at some point they will quietly sneak this through... probably by hiding it in a 10000 page education bill or something like that, and hoping nobody reads it.

Edited June 14, 2013 by dre

[GostHacked]

You're right - "we" haven't done that. I, on the other hand, am satisfied with my own risk assessment.

If you understood the technology and how information is gathered, you would not be satisfied with your current risk assessment.

Unprecedented power - only because we're in a new area of unprecedented technology.

Which would be more of a concern. The technology these people use are light years ahead of what the majority of people out there use.

The call for extreme rationality is really a separate discussion, since these decisions are never made on solely such a basis - but, rather, in the realm of politics. These examples happen all the time, such as in economics...

And the realm of politics rarely reflects reality. They are super pissed that this has been exposed and the general public made aware of.

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Dre

I will take to task the notion of this being balanced. Since the checks and balances are gone and they rely on a secret court to give secret warrants out on a secret program, how can one be confident that they are holding themselves accountable?

And in terms of balance, what kind of balance does a secret program offer? At first they tell us the program does not exist. Is this a case of lies to cover up lies? This is not balanced at all.

For an administration that was wanting to be open and transparent, sure won't say anything about it.

[G Huxley]

Canadians are being spied on too:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2013/06/12/f-communication-security-establishment-canada.html