<p>do you think all terrorists speak to each other only in person?</p>
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<p>this is absolutely, 100%, not true. You cannot “just encrypt” something and make it invisible.</p>
<p>You realize the predecessors of the people working these issues today devised methods to fly a plane to catch film in mid-air that was DROPPED FROM A SATELLITE IN SPACE??? More than 50 years ago! Feel free to read about the CORONA program… very impressive.</p>
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<p>you know that google knows everything you do on the internet, right? And do you understand that metadata of your letter has never been private? I think calmom already explained some about metadata.</p>
<p>Just what essential liberty was Franklin referencing? I hardly think he was talking about privacy and I think would be amused to see that the quote is conjured up in so many situations.</p>
<p>soccerguy-yes I’m aware and I get that point. I was just wondering if there is anything I do on the internet that would be protected at the same degree as the information on a letter, inside of an envelope. I don’t understand why tampering with the mail is a federal offense, but apparently google owns everything that passes through their wires. Must be computer law that is over my head.</p>
<p>Google is a private company that offers free services. They have terms of use and a privacy policy policy posted on their site; both are subject to change at any time. Even if they violated their own rules, a user of the free service probably would have no recourse – any first year law student can tell you that a contract without consideration is not binding. (Off topic, but that’s why I opted for a paid subscription news reader service, after Google pulled the plug on the program that millions of us had come to rely heavily on in our daily work).</p>
<p>You’ll find that section 2511 specifically authorizes Google to supply data pursuant to the provisions of FISA. The law has been on the books in its present form since 2008. It is not news nor is it secret. (The content and scope of individual FISA requests is secret, but the provisions about the law have been known for years).</p>
<p>If you don’t like this, then write to your representative in Congress about your concerns and the changes you would like in the law.</p>
<p>Spoke to the person yesterday whose relative worked for the NSA. International calls were computer monitored for targeted words. Like it or not. Not sure how they would know who is/isnt a US citizen, but non us citizens were fair game for further monitoring. There was also something about suspicion of someone not being a US citizen with 51% probability, but I forget the details. But US citizens calls were electronically monitored too.</p>
<p>Two senators on the Senate Intelligence Committee questioned the remarks about the monitoring program preventing lots of attacks. Don’t SIC members have access to this information? They are willing to take information privately too. There’s going to be a closed door session on this - perhaps SIC members will get more details.</p>
<p>They are skeptical about NSA claims on the two publicly released cases because further information came out that surveillance by another country contributed far more than the NSA surveillance program. It seems to me that the CIA and NSA would be better off working with Congress instead of talking to the public.</p>
<p>cartera, I’m not a constitutional scholar, but I would think that when Google hands over the contents of my emails to the government, that’s a violation of my protection against being searched without probable cause. I consider that to be a violation of an “essential liberty.” I’m not talking about metadata, but actual contents of personal communications.</p>
<p>But Google would not hand over the contents of your email to the government without a warrant. There is no evidence that they have done so, and they have made it very, very clear that it is their policy not to do so. A warrant, by definition, is issued upon a court finding of probable cause. </p>
<p>However, as I noted: they are a private company. When you type an email onto their system, you are entrusting your private message to a private third party. The 4th amendment protects the rights of people to be secure in “their persons, houses, papers, and effects.” When you entrust something to a 3rd party, then whatever it is that you have entrusted may be leaving that zone of protection. </p>
<p>Let’s say hypothetically you rent a storage unit and put a bunch of your personal payers in a the unit, and then fall behind on your payments to the owner of the storage unit. The owner of the unit sends a notice of termination, and then when you don’t pay, eventually takes back the units and removes the boxes with your papers with it, and for whatever reason, turns those boxes over to the police. The police start rummaging through the paperwork, discover evidence of criminal activity, and then come to arrest you. You move to suppress the evidence on 4th amendment grounds. I think you’d lose in court, because even though the papers were originally yours, you would have placed them in a spot outside the protected zone. </p>
<p>I think things get very shaky in the realm of use of services provided for free on the internet. Google, Facebook and the others have demonstrated over they will unilaterally change their privacy policies and terms of service from time to time. They are under no legal obligation, except to the extent provided by the laws that regulate the business they are in. You might want to study the statutes I cited above in depth to get a sense of the scope of your protection. Keep in mind that a statutory protection is not the same as a Constitutional protection.</p>
<p>This. I think people tend to get more fearful when they’re talking about secretive organizations like the CIA and the NSA. The NSA is an organization bound by US law, comprised of US citizens also bound by US law. </p>
<p>The burden of proof is not on soccerguy to prove that NSA doesn’t violate the law. That’s silly. The burden of proof is to show an instance where NSA violates the law. Snowden hasn’t done that and neither has anyone here.</p>
<p>^I don’t understand. “The burden of proof” isn’t a constant. It falls on whomever we decide it falls on. In our legal system, for example the burden of proving a crime is on the accuser. </p>
<p>This isn’t a trial, so we as opposing parties in a debate can set our own parameters. We can either say it makes more sense to judge NSA surveillance only after we show that every act that every employee takes is legal, or we can say that it makes more sense to determine whether there is evidence of any wrongdoing. Since thousands of actions have been taken by NSA employees in the few minutes it has taken me to write this message, I reiterate that the former is silly.</p>