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NSA memo pushed to 'rethink' 4th Amendment
The National Security Agency pushed for the government to “rethink” the Fourth Amendment when it argued in a classified memo that it needed new authorities and capabilities for the information age.
The 2001 memo, later declassified and posted online by George Washington University’s National Security Archive, makes a case to the incoming George W. Bush administration that the NSA needs new authorities and technology to adapt to the Internet era.
In one key paragraph, NSA wrote that its new phase meant the U.S. must reevaluate its approach toward signals intelligence, or “SIGINT,” and the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure.
“The Fourth Amendment is as applicable to eSIGINT as it is to the SIGINT of yesterday and today,” it wrote. “The Information Age will however cause us to rethink and reapply the procedures, policies and authorities born in an earlier electronic surveillance environment.”
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/nsa-memo-4th-amendment-92416.html
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Recursion
(56,582 posts)An interesting quote in that report:
"Signals intelligence is in a crisis. ... Over the last fifty years ... In the past, technology has been the friend of NSA, but in the last four or five years technology has moved from being the friend to being the enemy of Sigint. The media of telecommunications is no longer Sigint-friendly. It used to be. When you were doing RF signals, anybody within range of that RF signal could receive it just as clearly as the intended recipient. We moved from that to microwaves, and people figured out a great way to harness that as well. Well, we're moving to media that are very difficult to get to.
Encryption is here and it's going to grow very rapidly. That is bad news for Sigint ... It is going to take a huge amount of money invested in new technologies to get access and to be able to break out the information that we still need to get from Sigint."
NB that this was before 9/11.
Laelth
(32,017 posts)-Laelth
FarCenter
(19,429 posts)Of course, the big problem is IP communications, which, oddly enough, was developed with DARPA support. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.
cprise
(8,445 posts)IMO, it is a necessary juxtaposition to the excellent quote you posted.
We've come a long way...
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)
reformist2
(9,841 posts)cascadiance
(19,537 posts)He/she seems to feel that the constitution protects corporations as "persons" and that the movetoamend.org effort is flawed there as well.
Don't understand what those people are doing here on this forum. Keeping us "in check"?
JoeyT
(6,785 posts)Usually they're running around screaming about how everyone that disagrees with them is a paid plant employed by the Republican party. Eye. Row. Knee.
frylock
(34,825 posts)but they definitely aren't liberals, by any stretch.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)in neoAmerica.
AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)
uponit7771
(90,370 posts)frylock
(34,825 posts)are you now supporting bush, or was this just an instinctive knee-jerk reaction in order to protect Obama?
Maedhros
(10,007 posts)Is Ron Wyden a "winger" too?
I would accept rational rebuttal of Greenwald's positions on the NSA, but just throwing out a slur doesn't cut it.
AzDar
(14,023 posts)woo me with science
(32,139 posts)They are attempting to normalize the step-by-step elimination of the Constitution.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022981711
Don't entertain this garbage.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022981567
xiamiam
(4,906 posts)thanks so much for posting this. .this is THE issue...
AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/07/obama-china-targets-cyber-overseas?guni=Network
The Fourth Amendment, of course, does not apply to Internet communications and data stored on computers in foreign countries.
As part of NSA's re-thinking of the Fourth Amendment, how soon will NSA employees conclude that the Fourth Amendment doesn't apply to Internet communications and data stored on our computers?
While re-thinking the Fourth Amendment, have they already done so?
How do you know, for example, that your financial data safe? Can we be sure that all this snooping is only for politicial purposes?
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Not to please the security state, but to bring it up to speed with modern technology.
Stuff like corporate ownership of metadata as a business record is completely outside what was understood by the 4th amendment framers. So, one is left with policy arguments dressed up as interpretation arguments.
cascadiance
(19,537 posts)too... to correct the language in it to apply to today's world, much as movetoamend.org wants to update our constitution to keep the PTB from abusing it like they had the spirit of the 14th amendment in similar fashion to give corporations rights they shouldn't have, just like others now are exploiting the fourth amendment not being written to directly address the modern virtual world as well.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022971235
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)of our data being held by corporations--they need to be able to tell the government to buzz off.
cascadiance
(19,537 posts)... as well.
I understand perhaps some people thinking that it is pragmatic to keep at least two competing entities to keep it from being a complete fascist police state where there is no control over dissemination of our private information. But corporations abuse our privacy through their claim of "ownership" of our private data in virtual space too in many ways that I'm just as concerned about as I am the government having similar access.
That is why the fourth amendment needs to have an update that not only restricts governments' "rights" to abuse our virtual world privacy rights, but also restricts private entities in how they use our virtual world private information as well in similar fashion to comply with the spirit of the fourth amendment as well. It's a tougher job to write laws that encompasses both arenas, but they need to both be dealt with, or such an amendment will be worked around through "government contracts", etc. to exploit the holes of corporations not being restricted with our private information. Part of me wonders if the leaving out of the word "natural" in front of persons in the 14th amendment was intentional to later allow the abuse of it for providing corporate personhood rights. We need to make sure that revising the 4th amendment doesn't have similar holes. We might not get another shot at revising it if we get one at all.
Copyright and patent laws have teeth in virtual space where it serves the elite's interests. We should be able to provide the same effort to make a practical solution work for protecting our privacy as well, even if we don't have a lot of 1% money behind doing this...
I'm not a lawyer, and as such not as well versed in legal speak as others are, but I'd like to think there are other lawyers out there on DU that share my perspective that want more clearer legal and to the point legal restrictions as opposed to preserving abusive laws in the interest of corporate entities supported by both parties, or wanting just a way to find obtuse ways of working around our current corrupt and complicated legal system. We need to take it back for us, and find lawyers that want to help us craft clear and strong legal frameworks to protect us and take on the elite's head on in their effort to keep the current f'd up system in place.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)of services.
cascadiance
(19,537 posts)That is the fundamental question. The fourth amendment was written at a time where our private information was in physical objects, etc. that we could keep on our own physical property, so that the ownership being our own (and not shared with a corporate entity) was far more clear then. But what was also clear was our founders' feelings that we as the owner of that physical property privately should be protected from others trying to invade that private space. They would want something today that would protect us individuals as "owners" of our private information.
We have complications of shared ownership of private information now, not only with the companies that house our private information online, but with those we communicate in private with through messaging, emails, phone calls, etc. It's a lot more complicated, and we need to be very careful not to open another can of worms if and when we change laws in this area, especially with an amendment, but we need to make sure that we as citizens are as much of the process that helps craft these laws as those either at the top of companies or the government doing so, as we will be the ones that get stepped on continually if we don't.
Earlier there were laws created to protect people's credit card numbers that were kept online by vendors who were taking them for online purchases, etc. As an engineer, I know of that effort, as after those laws were put in place, we had to prioritize encrypting that data we had with people's credit card numbers as many other web vendors did then. I even made sure that what didn't get missed was some log messages when database errors occurred that unencrypted CC numbers weren't being logged in the log files either. We need rules like this to make sure they get followed and that more and more holes that keep our privacy from being protected get shored up.
Should a Google, Facebook or Yahoo hiring manager be able to look at your private consumer-based online search history, email and messaging content, ad targeting information as a part of considering whether to hire you? Many of us now have to deal with that. That has nothing to do with government claiming the right to look at your private information, and everything to do with whether you have similar protections against abuse of your privacy by private entities as well. They already have more visibly been trying to subvert people's privacy by demanding many prospective employees or prospective university students to turn over their facebook passwords or the like. A decently updated fourth amendment would stop or at least control a lot of these issues in their tracks.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Billing records from doctors' offices, bank statements, etc.
I think the simpler answer may be in creating a property right on the part of the customer to that data.
cascadiance
(19,537 posts)... of how their private data is used when housed on external services. And it shouldn't be tweaked by some buried language in a book-long TOS contract that so many of us sign today without looking at it pragmatically, unless we have a day to do so.
I think that is why I would advocate that we need a technical task force that perhaps reports directly to citizens themselves, or at least not "owned" by government entities that are also "owned" by corporate interests now. Such a task force would be tasked with how to practically put together a set of rules with teeth in them, but are such so that they don't get in the way of the online world working effectively and in a safe manner. That's a tough question.
I as an engineer understand that, where I might have access to things I might need to fix data problems, etc., but at the same time I don't want to look at people's private information either and respect people's privacy as a fundamental priority. It's hard to make a good set of general rules that apply to all cases. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't try and hopefully come up with something that works well. The fundamental problem is that we haven't been "trying" hard enough for so long, some of that by design by the PTB that don't want restrictions on their abilities to have access to this information. If that equation can be dealt with, then perhaps we can get some people at least look at working on the right solutions that work for all of us.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)
forestpath
(3,102 posts)WillyT
(72,631 posts)
KansDem
(28,498 posts)And yet the Saudis still got through on 9/11?
Something to think about...
Rex
(65,616 posts)imo.
nradisic
(1,362 posts)Clapper perjured himself a few months ago, when being questioned by Sen. Wyden. He needs to be the first one to go and then just right down the line. This program is a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment and there's more. No mas...
marble falls
(57,447 posts)blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)the U.S. Constitution & Bill of Rights !!
