Month: June 2013

Fooling ourselves

by digby

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Just because you have nothing to hide doesn’t mean you don’t need privacy

by digby

I urge anyone who is the least bit confused about the issues we’ve been discussing this week-end to read this extremely thoughtful meditation called “Why you should care about privacy even if you have nothing to hide” by law professor Daniel Solov from Georgetown University. I can’t do it justice by synthesizing it, but suffice to say that it takes the premise that so many have evoked in the past few days (perhaps even silently to themselves) “I’ve got nothing to hide” and deconstructs it.

This is just a very short excerpt which doesn’t give the full flavor of the piece, but I thought it was a particularly interesting insight:

The Orwell metaphor, which focuses on the harms of surveillance (such as inhibition and social control), might be apt to describe government monitoring of citizens. But much of the data gathered in computer databases, such as one’s race, birth date, gender, address, or marital status, isn’t particularly sensitive. Many people don’t care about concealing the hotels they stay at, the cars they own, or the kind of beverages they drink. Frequently, though not always, people wouldn’t be inhibited or embarrassed if others knew this information.

Another metaphor better captures the problems: Franz Kafka’s The Trial. Kafka’s novel centers around a man who is arrested but not informed why. He desperately tries to find out what triggered his arrest and what’s in store for him. He finds out that a mysterious court system has a dossier on him and is investigating him, but he’s unable to learn much more. The Trial depicts a bureaucracy with inscrutable purposes that uses people’s information to make important decisions about them, yet denies the people the ability to participate in how their information is used.

The problems portrayed by the Kafkaesque metaphor are of a different sort than the problems caused by surveillance. They often do not result in inhibition. Instead they are problems of information processing—the storage, use, or analysis of data—rather than of information collection. They affect the power relationships between people and the institutions of the modern state. They not only frustrate the individual by creating a sense of helplessness and powerlessness, but also affect social structure by altering the kind of relationships people have with the institutions that make important decisions about their lives.

Privacy is a precious human commodity. A necessity actually. The question is, how does it change us and our relationship to our world to lose it?

To me, the idea of having my life examined by strangers, putting together a “profile” of me by combining details of various trails I leave behind in this world, whether virtual or real, without my permission is chilling, particularly when it’s the government that is doing it, even as an abstract exercise. How can I trust this vast entity to not make a mistake, to not use this information in some way that will end up hurting me? It would be so easy. Too easy.

It’s not that I am hiding anything. It’s that I know how simple it is to put together disparate strands of a persons life to make it look as if they are someone they are not. And when it’s people with the full force and power of the United States government who are doing it, it changes how I see such principles as the bill of rights. It becomes a mere concept, not something solid that I reflexively rely on in the way I conduct my life as an American. It’s a small change that may not mean anything in itself. But as the article points out, it’s the accumulation of those small changes that eventually leads to a very different society than the one we have.

Please read this piece if you care about the issue (or even wonder why you should.)

“Rethinking the 4th Amendment”

by digby

Nothing to see here folks, move along

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.”
Americans learned about one upshot of NSA’s philosophy this week when Washington acknowledged two of its subsequent surveillance programs: One that tracks the phone records of millions of Americans and one that accesses the servers of several major Internet companies, including Facebook, Google and Apple. The revelations were first reported by Britain’s Guardian newspaper and the Washington Post.

NSA’s memo continued: “Make no mistake, NSA can and will perform its missions consistent with the Fourth Amendment and all applicable laws. But senior leadership must understand that today’s and tomorrow’s mission will demand a powerful, permanent presence on a global telecommunications network that will host the ‘protected’ communications of Americans as well as the targeted communications of adversaries.”

The quotes around “protected” appear in the original document.

Here’s a link to the memo.

They may not have succeeded in “rethinking” the 4th Amendment (at least officially) but it’s fairly clear they feel that all that old fashioned “due process” stuff is a relic because of the new technology. That reminds me of Joe Klein insisting that we need to privatize social security because everything’s done on computers nowadays. In his case, it’s just mindless drivel. I expect that the NSA might have a more nefarious goal.

In any case, the NSA, like all bureaucracies, wants more tools, more resources, more power to do its job. And they got them. But just because they think they need it, doesn’t mean they really do. And from what we can gather about the private contracting business that feeds all this surveillance technology, the personal incentives are obvious: there’s a lot of money to be made. If we have to give up one little archaic amendment to the bill of rights well — price of doing business, amirite?

In fact, the corporate jargon in that document is overwhelming(even including the term “clients” and “customer set” which one might once have assumed were better known as “the taxpayers” or maybe even “citizens.”) Since this came from the most secret departments in the government, I think that’s very, very telling.

This document was generated under George W. Bush. And it’s possible that the Obama administration has secretly made sure that this sort of “re-think” does not happen. But the secrecy involved in all this requires more trust in government than is remotely healthy in a democracy. Why, it’s even possible that it’s led an otherwise honest and forthright administration might end up enforcing Kafkaesque processes designed to keep the public from knowing what it has a right to know.

Update:

Repeat for the reading impaired: this happened under George Bush. President Obama may have ensured that this was deep sixed forever for all we know. The complaint is that the NSA is a huge agency with a lot of competing incentives which, like all bureaucracies, will seek to enhance its power. It is why we should be careful about doing it.

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Word to the wise: think very clearly about everything Dianne Feinstein says

by digby

It often makes little sense. Exhibit A from Marcy Wheeler this morning:

[T]his is absolutely batshit crazy.

FEINSTEIN: Well, of course, balance is a difficult thing to actually identify what it is, but I can tell you this: These programs are within the law. The [Section 215] business records section is reviewed by a federal judge every 90 days. It should be noted that the document that was released that was under seal, which reauthorized the program for another 90 days, came along with a second document that placed and discussed the strictures on the program. That document was not released.

So here’s what happens with that program. The program is essentially walled off within the NSA. There are limited numbers of people who have access to it. The only thing taken, as has been correctly expressed, is not content of a conversation, but the information that is generally on your telephone bill, which has been held not to be private personal property by the Supreme Court.

If there is strong suspicion that a terrorist outside of the country is trying to reach someone on the inside of the country, those numbers then can be obtained. If you want to collect content on the American, then a court order is issued.

So, the program has been used. Two cases have been declassified. One of them is the case of David Headley, who went to Mumbai, to the Taj hotel, and scoped it out for the terrorist attack. [my emphasis]

Dianne Feinstein says that one of the two plots where Section 215 prevented an attack was used (the other, about Najibullah Zazi, is equally batshit crazy, but I’ll return to that) is the Mumbai attack.

What’s she referring to is tracking our own informant, David Headley.

And it didn’t prevent any attack. The Mumbai attack was successful.

Our own informant. A successful attack. That’s her celebration of success 215′s use.

Think about it. She actually went on TV to brag about the efficacy of a massive sweeping program that apparently was needed to track one of our own informants about a successful terrorist attack. This is why we all need to be willing to give up our 4th Amendment rights to keep our communications private from the government without probably cause. Seems like a bit of a blunt instrument to me — one that doesn’t work all that well.

Marcy has some other speculation that’s quite intriguing about whether or not we’re actually in the process of expanding this program in light of the Boston Bombings.

“Oversight” — oy.

A profile in courage

by digby

The leaker reveals himself to the world:

The individual responsible for one of the most significant leaks in US political history is Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA and current employee of the defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden has been working at the National Security Agency for the last four years as an employee of various outside contractors, including Booz Allen and Dell.

The Guardian, after several days of interviews, is revealing his identity at his request. From the moment he decided to disclose numerous top-secret documents to the public, he was determined not to opt for the protection of anonymity. “I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong,” he said.

Snowden will go down in history as one of America’s most consequential whistleblowers, alongside Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning. He is responsible for handing over material from one of the world’s most secretive organisations – the NSA.

In a note accompanying the first set of documents he provided, he wrote: “I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions,” but “I will be satisfied if the federation of secret law, unequal pardon and irresistible executive powers that rule the world that I love are revealed even for an instant.”

Read on. It’s an amazing story, like something out of a spy novel.

I’m already hearing people speculate about his commie ties and other truly stupid stuff. But I’ve got to believe that going public is potentially his best protection. It’s hard to know if the public will support this fellow, but considering what he’s done I’m going to guess he’s more comfortable being out in the open than in the shadows.

Please go to the site to see the video of his interview, which is fairly amazing. Whistleblowers are often an odd lot. You have to be to take on the powerful like this. I know that I would never in a million years have the balls to do what he has done. Except for his amazing bravery, he seems surprisingly normal.

Update: By the way, those who are also blithely claiming that Glenn Greenwald can never return to the United States or his home in Rio now are confirming why we should be concerned about all this. Last I heard we still have a First Amendment that protects both Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press. If we believe in those things we should believe that it absolutely protects Greenwald and allows him to travel freely in his own country. If it doesn’t we have bigger problems than this NSA spying.

James Clapper and the Iraqi WMD

by digby

Jonathan Schwarz reminds us all of this piece of evidence that will naturally make you all trust the judgment, integrity and leadership of our Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, who has spent the last few days assuring everyone that the revelations of massive spying on Americans without their knowledge or consent is vitally necessary:

THE STRUGGLE FOR IRAQ: WEAPONS SEARCH; Iraqis Removed Arms Material, U.S. Aide Says
By DOUGLAS JEHL
Published: October 29, 2003

The director of a top American spy agency said Tuesday that he believed that material from Iraq’s illicit weapons program had been transported into Syria and perhaps other countries as part of an effort by the Iraqis to disperse and destroy evidence immediately before the recent war.

The official, James R. Clapper Jr., a retired lieutenant general, said satellite imagery showing a heavy flow of traffic from Iraq into Syria, just before the American invasion in March, led him to believe that illicit weapons material ”unquestionably” had been moved out of Iraq.

”I think people below the Saddam Hussein-and-his-sons level saw what was coming and decided the best thing to do was to destroy and disperse,” General Clapper, who leads the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, said at a breakfast with reporters.

He said he was providing a personal assessment. But he said ”the obvious conclusion one draws” was that there ”may have been people leaving the scene, fleeing Iraq, and unquestionably, I am sure, material.” A spokesman for General Clapper’s agency, David Burpee, said he could not provide further evidence to support the general’s statement.

Yes, excellent judgment there, no agenda whatsoever. You can certainly see why he was promoted.

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Reprise: Top Secret America

by digby

Slow start this morning so I’ll put this up again to give some background on why people should be concerned about our surveillance state: the Frontline documentary called Top Secret America:

Watch Top Secret America – 9/11 to the Boston Bombings on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

I just think that we have accepted what it is the government says we need to do without questioning how much money it costs, without questioning whether it’s effective or not. And in part we’ve done that because we’ve accepted the secrecy that surrounds it all.— Dana Priest

I know a lot of people think that because Glenn Greenwald is reporting the latest leaks that it must somehow be tainted. Is Dana Priest also tainted? How about James Risen? Marcy Wheeler? Spencer Ackerman? Jeff Merkley?

Personalizing this is absurd. This isn’t about George W. Bush or Barack Obama or Glenn Greenwald. It is about our bipartisan national security/surveillance state.

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The biggest picture of all

by David Atkins

The universe is an unfathomable expanse. John Aravosis talks about the recent news item that our universe has over 100 billion galaxies with over 100 billion stars each in them:

It’s also why, even though I’m not convinced there’s anything near us, I am convinced that we’re not alone. Having said that, it’s been theorized that even if we aren’t alone, it’s not entirely clear that another civilization would be nearby, at our equal stage of development (so that we could communicate electronically), or that the other civilizations would even exist at exactly the same time that we exist – meaning, something existed a long time ago, died off, we existed, then we die off, then another civilization peaks somewhere else.

And let’s not even get into the problem that the immense distances pose. We could receive a signal from a distant civilization, but it might have been sent a million years ago. Would they even still exist, let alone even if they did, what would they be like after a million years of civilization?

Anywhere this video about the Hubble telescope, and the Ultra Deep Field, got me thinking of these matters. I’ve always loved astronomy. And these kind of videos reignite that passion for me, big time

John then posted this classic video of the Hubble deep field:

I’m with John 100%. I have always loved astronomy. I love being reminded of the immensity and scope of the universe. I love being reminded of how petty, small, and unimportant all our problems are, and how insignificantly tiny is the entirety of human history. I love the idea that as much as we have discovered about the universe and its laws, our understanding is still in its bare infancy.

I also love the idea that every culture as it exists today will likely be destroyed and forgotten, and that all that matters is the advancement of our understanding the universe, and our adherence to basic moral principles of truth, justice, and equal rights. I love that the passage of time and greater connectivity will hopefully eradicate ignorance, fundamentalism, inequality and suffering from every corner of the globe in which they fester. I hope that one day we will discover and communicate with other intelligent life beyond our system, and they will in turn impart to us the wisdom of their longer experience and insight into not only the physical sciences, but moral philosophy as well. I love the idea that even if humanity wrecks itself on the shores of time, some other race on some other planet still carries forward the torch. And I hold out hope that it is not the fate of intelligent species to destroy themselves, or that if it is in some cases, that some intelligent race out there is watching us and will intervene on our benighted behalf to stop us before it’s too late.

I believe that humanity is struggling with old problems that will hopefully become as obsolete as heredity kingship, feudalism and primogeniture are today, and that the thievery and unsustainability of multinational corporations will tomorrow be as quaint and appalling as high seas piracy and slavery are today.

My only regret is that I the atoms in my body may be scattered as stardust before I manage to see that day.

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The Prey: I’m not creeping you out, am I?

Yes Virginia, the government has lied before about spying on citizens

by digby

The revelations of this week reminded me of this story I wrote about back in the Bush years — when most liberals were united in their opposition to these programs even as the congress did its usual rubber stamping in a “time-o-war.” Then, as now, it was all about “balance.”

SENATOR SAM ERVIN AND THE ARMY SPY SCANDAL OF 1970-1971: BALANCING NATIONAL SECURITY AND CIVIL LIBERTIES IN A FREE SOCIETY

Karl E. Campbell

“For the past four years, the U.S. Army has been closely watching civilian political activity within the United States.” So charged Christopher H. Pyle, a former intelligence officer, in the January 1970 edition of Washington Monthly. Pyle’s account of military spies snooping on law‑abiding citizens and recording their actions in secret government computers sent a shudder through the nation’s press. Images from George Orwell’s novel 1984 of Big Brother and the thought police filled the newspapers. Public alarm prompted the Senate Subcommittee on Consti­tutional Rights, chaired by Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina, to investigate. For more than a year, Ervin struggled against a cover‑up to get to the bottom of the surveillance system. Frustrated by the Nixon Administration’s misleading statements, claims of inherent executive powers, and refusals to disclose information on the basis of national security, the Senator called for public hearings in 1971 to examine “the dangers the Army’s program presents to the principles of the Constitution.”

Sam Ervin, the “ol’ country lawyer” from Morganton, intended his hearings to focus on the narrow topic of how the Army’s domestic surveillance of American civilians threatened civil liberties. He wanted to illustrate some “down home truths” about how the federal government should never trample on his beloved Constitution or endanger the privacy rights of individual Americans. But the Senator found himself engaged in an extended public debate with the Nixon administration over one of the central questions of the American political experience–a question that has recently taken on a renewed significance since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon–how to balance the constitutional rights of the individual with the national security needs of the state.

Read on for a great story, which was the beginning of the epic clash between Nixon’s imperial presidency and the congress. It was the skirmish first of many. But it put the Executive Branch on notice that it had gone too far.

This wasn’t an issue that the public cared deeply about, and I’m not even sure how much members of congress cared about it on the merits either. (Irvin obviously did.) But there were enough who did — and others that simply cared about congressional prerogatives —  to push back.

Rick Perlstein picks up the story in 1975, post-Watergate, post Vietnam when the press declared that nobody cared anymore about anything:

We have been here before.

In the fall of 1975, when a Senate select committee chaired by Frank Church and a House committee chaired by Otis Pike were investigating abuses of power by the CIA and FBI, Congresswoman Bella Abzug, the loaded pistol from New York (she had introduced a resolution to impeach Richard Nixon on her first day in office in 1971) dared turned her own House Subcommittee on Government Information and Individual Rights to a new subject: the National Security Agency, and two twin government surveillance projects she had learned about codenamed “SHAMROCK” and “MINARET.” They had monitored both the phone calls and telegrams of American citizens for decades.

At the time, even political junkies did not know what the NSA was. “With a reputed budget of some $1.2 billion and a manpower roster far greater than the CIA,” the Associated Press explained, it had been “established in 1952 with a charter that is still classified as top secret.” (Is it still? I’d be interested to know.) President Ford had persuaded Frank Church not to hold hearings on the matter. (Ford had something in common with Obama: hypocrisy. “In all my public and private acts as your president, I expect to follow my instincts of openness and candor with full confidence that honesty is always the best policy in the end,” he’d said in his inaugural address, the one where he proclaimed, “Our long national nightmare is over.”) So Abzug proceeded on her own. At first, when she subpoenaed the executives responsible for going along with the programs the White House tried to prevent their testimony by claiming the private companies were “an agent of the United States.” When they did appear, they admitted their companies had voluntarily been turning over their full records of phone and telegram traffic to the government at the end of every single day, by courier, for over forty years, full stop. The NSA said the programs had been discontinued. Abzug claimed they still survived, just under different names. And at that, Church changed his mind: the contempt for the law here was so flagrant, he decided, he would initiate NSA hearings, too.

Conservative members of his committee issued defiant shrieks: “people’s right to know should be subordinated to the people’s right to be secure,” said Senator John Tower. It would “adversely affect our intelligence-gathering capability,” said Barry Goldwater. Church replied that this didn’t matter if the government was breaking the law. (“Tell me about the time when senators used to complain when the government broke the law, grandpa!”) He called the NSA’s director to testify before Congress for the first time in history. Appearing in uniform, Lieutenant General Lew Allen Jr. obediently disclosed that his agency’s spying on Americans was far vaster than what had even been revealed to President Ford’s blue-ribbon commission on intelligence chaired by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller. He admitted that it was, technically, illegal, and had been carried out without specific approval from any president. But he declined to explain how it worked. And added that thanks to such surveillance, “we are aware that a major terrorist attack in the US was prevented.” He refused to give further details on that, either—as if daring the senators to object. What goes around comes around: did I mention that before?

Read on to see that the public didn’t really give a damn about all this either. (Well, the press decided they didn’t, anyway.)

But the congress pressed on and (temporarily) instituted some meaningful reforms. Do I think this will happen this time? I don’t know. But I hope so.

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