Privacy, Government, Surveillance, and You.

The only thing that still surprises me is that people are shocked to discover that organizations (government or otherwise) dabbles in such things.

Personally I've moved past indignant shock in bittersweet vindication.

@Fighteer: "The IRS did not specially target the Tea Party." I think you are in error there. The IRS specifically targeted political groups based on their names, including "Tea Party". Here.

The names, of course, are a reference to the political beliefs of the groups in question, it's not clear to me what connection that could have to tax fraud.

I would hope that it is clear that the IRS should not be allowed to conduct tax investigations in a biased way based on political beliefs.

edited 11th Jun '13 10:18:51 AM by demarquis

What I mean is that they targeted a wide variety of groups applying for 501(c)3 status, not just Tea Party affiliated ones. The search terms they used were meant to identify groups with political affiliations. You aren't legally allowed to be tax exempt if 50% or more of your funds are used for non-charitable work, and political activity isn't permitted in that category. So it's entirely appropriate for the IRS to examine these groups to make sure that they comply with the law. In fact, it's their duty to do so.

They also examined left-leaning groups, but the news isn't making a big deal of it because it doesn't fit the "scandal" narrative. There is no impropriety here.

edited 11th Jun '13 11:01:20 AM by Fighteer

The applications were for 501(c)4 status, where some politicking is allowed as long as the organization's primary focus is social welfare.

And it really has fuck-all to do with the thread topic.

Sorry, you'll forgive if I get those symbol salad strings mixed up. And we probably should transplant that to the Politics thread.

If a long series of obvious political groups pop up in rapid succession trying to fraudulently claim tax exemption as a charity, and the vast swath of them say "Tea Party" or "Patriot", it'd honestly be pretty stupid for the IRS not to specifically be looking for those as red flags.

While handled clumsily, they were ultimately targeting people trying (and, mind, succeeding) to commit actual, concrete fraud. It doesn't really qualify as the kind of thing we're afraid PRISM and such enable them to do.

ACLU is suing the Obama Admin over surveillance.

If the NSA hasn't compromised the server that email bounces from, then they can't tell who you sent the email to. Let me put it this way, it's really hard for the NSA to track an email service that isn't knowingly cooperating with it.

And if they are?

Then the whole thing is fucked, obviously. Then they can just hand them everything, ergo why I said you would need said internet provider to be overseas in a country that wouldn't play ball, say if the folks behind The Pirate Bay set up an email infrastructure.

With the type of audience they have, I could see TPB or a similar group making a good profit with such a service. Or the developers of Tor.

edited 11th Jun '13 5:02:51 PM by Barkey

Thanks.

Here's another summary, this one by the LA Times.

"He revealed to the Guardian and the Washington Post a top secret order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, requiring Verizon Business Network to make all its records available to the government. He also revealed the existence of two government snooping programs. One, called PRISM, claims that tech companies have given the government unprecedented, direct access to data generated by their users."

"Theoretically, the government is targeting communications that flow from foreign targets through U.S. servers. However, the Post reported, there is no way to know how many Americans have been inappropriately swept up in terror investigations by these tools."

"I think we can agree that both corporate and government surveillance is a problem."

Actually, I don't agree. The fact of gathering information is ethically and morally neutral. What matters is what it's used for and whether there is legal authority to do it.

I disagree. I have a right to keep certain information about myself private, an no one has a right to acquire it without my approval, regardless of what purpose they have in mind.

You have such rights as are provided by law and convention. Do we really need to get into that debate?

I don't know. Laws and convention can be unjust. When so, they should not be blindly supported.

You can't hold up an arbitrary standard and declare it to be The Way Things Should Be. That's not how the world works. What, precisely, is the line you draw as to what information should be absolutely proof against collection or subpoena? Why?

During non-emergencies, unless given probable cause that I am involved in some criminal activity, there is no information about me that the government should be routinely collecting, with the exception of that information necessary for the completion of my duties as a citizen, such as tax information.

There's nothing arbitrary about that, it's the conventional approach in Anglo-Saxon legal tradition.

edited 11th Jun '13 7:03:05 PM by DeMarquis

How to use the internet and avoid Prism.

By a certain definition, the entire Western world has been operating in a "state of emergency" for decades, most especially since the September 11 attacks. The argument goes that there is a compelling national security interest in examining private records for evidence of terror-related activity. What's particularly interesting is that this appears to be a uniquely bipartisan issue, with members on both sides of the aisle for and against it. Before terror, it was Communism. Before Communism, it was Nazis.

And while you're at it, I run a tinfoil hat business that accepts bitcoin.

edited 11th Jun '13 9:12:42 PM by Fighteer

Let's say you send a letter through the U.S. Post Office. Now suppose a Post Office worker uses the old "hold the envelope up to a light" trick to see what the letter inside says, without actually opening the envelope. Is that currently legal or illegal?

I don't think he meant that any information should be subpoena proof, but his argument seems to be that it shouldn't be pre-collected already, and that you should be aware of any subpoena against you immediately and not after the fact.

Out in the real world, the law requires a warrant to invade your privacy like that. A warrant cannot be obtained without probable cause for that warrant. What PRISM is is essentially carte blanche issuing a mass wiretapping warrant for every single American, with absolutely zero probable cause. This is ethically wrong, and a complete double standard to what has always applied in the real world. It's essentially if there was a warrant out that let the government open your mail and not read it, but copy it, save it in a file on you, and then put it back in a new envelope and send it on its way. Out in the real world, that would be called out for being absolutely wrong, and a violation of our civil right to privacy.

I don't give a fuck about "the needs of national security". I give a fuck about the ethics of this as they relate to legal precedent, and as a clear sign that the law in regards to digital information and property needs to be written to catch up to the real world.

edited 11th Jun '13 10:13:54 PM by Barkey

Well I'm both threadhopping and coming in after the story has settled down a bit.

A poll suggests 56% of Americans are okay with PRISM. That's disheartening.

I also see several very strange views on the subject. The first is that many are not concerned about tyranny because of the sheer amount of information is possible to trawl through. Okay, so they're relying on incompetence and inefficiency to block oppression? :/

Then I see the same problem as with corporations and "Big Data". Most of the data, if not all, that is being collected is almost entirely useless. All terror cells and various domestic militant groups already protect themselves from basic mass-collection surveillance long before the Internet even existed. Gangsters and their "don't talk business in the car" rule. Terrorists who use codewords for everything that they do. What exactly are heuristics supposed to do when each threat has an individual encoding system?

The fact is that normal policing work, requiring warrants and determining probable cause are also excellent policing tools for stopping domestic terrorism. They ignore useless data and low-chance threats and they allow resources to concentrate on real problems. Take Boston Marathon Bomber. He was ignored because he didn't fit a racial profile. Great work.

Only one kind of person can be targeted by PRISM and that's normal people.

edited 12th Jun '13 1:23:27 AM by breadloaf

Article from The BBC: US surveillance: Trading secrecy for public trust?

edited 12th Jun '13 3:12:09 AM by Greenmantle

http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/08/cooperation-methods-protected-innocents-from-prism/

I saw this linked on a different link that was mentioned earlier in the thread, and thought it might be useful.