"A warrant that says 'allow us to get all the data on everyone in the country, with no specific targets'."
So far, no evidence has been produced to support your assertion. In fact, all evidence in the leaked documents, official statements, etc. suggest the exact opposite: warrants are served that allow investigators to make specific searches, with oversight processes to try to reduce the number of US citizens' data included in the search.
In other words: prove your claim. Cite something other than a Reddit or HN comment from a tinfoil hat-fitting specialist.
Collected but not "seized", and then not searched at all without a warrant? Those records?
On a side note it's fascinating how the government has taken the 'digital piracy' logic of "I didn't steal it, the guy I copied it from still has their copy!" and re-arranged that to apply to digital data on a person. I'm not sure whether to cringe or be impressed...
is there really a difference ? i mean if the cops copy your hardrive , what is it ? collecting or seizing ? just because they dont actually look into it is ok ? I agree about your your piracy point , you are spot on ,which show how twisted the government is. They are just legal hackers, that's what they are, but they'll sue you if you do the same.
Well I think the point is that when the 4th Amendment was written seizure actually did mean that they took your crap. You had your papers, then you didn't.
Even if they were going to copy your work that would be a "search" as some government agent would have to copy that paperwork.
Things are different now, so that's one of the things we as a society need to figure out is how much the 4th Amendment is different to match.
That's a different program, and the US Supreme Court has already ruled on the legality of collecting the "metadata" that it's gathering, without a warrant. It's far less controversial than the PRISM program, which is what is being discussed here.
> It's far less controversial than the PRISM program, which is what is being discussed here.
Is it, though? The widespread Verizon metadata gathering is what I'm most concerned with right now. It, too, was whistleblown by Snowden.
> the US Supreme Court has already ruled on the legality
I understand this program to be ruled unconstitutional by the Foreign International Surveillance Court, albeit with the findings suppressed by the justice department for "national security" reasons.
I thought this was the stuff Senators Wyden and Udall were briefed on and aghast about, but unable to explain to the American people.
? Maybe I'm missing something, but you should re-read carefully http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-record... and see if you still think the same... by the way that news story was built on information leaked by Edward Snowden. So, in my opinion, that's why he's an American hero because he directly responded to people like you to provide real proof that, yeah, things are really bad right now, worse than almost everyone thought (except for us tinfoil hat types).
That's not PRISM. That's the other program revealed last week. The warrantless collection of phone number "metadata" has also been ruled legal by the Supreme Court, whereas the legal basis for PRISM has never been reviewed by SCOTUS.
Which leads me to an important aside: how much of the outrage being vented here comes from people who don't even know that these are two different programs? Take everything you read here with a huge block of salt.
I know the difference between the two. My point was that the Verizon collection of data very clearly was for the entire customer base of their major subsidiary. Also this 'metadata' has a staggering amount of information, like geocodes, dialed and received numbers, potentially content of SMS, downloaded apps, sites visited, etc. Further if this subsidiary controlled any Internet backbone (which I have no idea if that's the case), the implications are huge.
Edward Snowden's rationale for leaking this info is that people never realized that collection of metadata of phone records and PRISM and other programs had gone so far. Maybe SCOTUS ruled on some of this, but the public never realized the implications, largely because it's all protected by top secret classification.
I used the Verizon story in my comment because those implicated in PRISM said in their carefully crafted PR messages that their warrants were for specific subjects and unlike Verizon's vast dragnet. Anyhow, as other have pointed out, it's not hard to draft a specific warrant for the narrow group of 'every US user 13 years or older' which is what I'd presume PRISM involved. Also, the slides leaked for the PRISM stories showed that PRISM was the improvement on older collection techniques of essentially splicing Internet backbone cables.
Agreed on taking replies here with a grain of salt.
"I know the difference between the two. My point was that the Verizon collection of data very clearly was for the entire customer base of their major subsidiary."
Again, though...that program is legal. It's not even a controversial point (unlike with PRISM). From what I know of it, the rationale for the supreme court decision that says mass collection of metadata is legal is fairly well established, has a long judicial precedent, etc.
Yes, Snowden's rationale seems to be forthright. He's bothered by the implications of surveillance on this kind of scale. And I get it -- hell, I even agree. But most of the commentary I've been seeing on HN is just embarrassingly uninformed (or misinformed).
"it's not hard to draft a specific warrant for the narrow group of 'every US user 13 years or older' which is what I'd presume PRISM involved."
All of the public information about PRISM has explicitly said that information can only be obtained when one party to the conversation is a foreign national. I've read nothing to suggest that broad warrants of the sort you describe are any more legal than before.
Regarding the point I made on warrants for broad groups, remember that it's been leaked (or who knows, publicly admitted probably), that the NSA considers collection of data to be distinct from analysis of data. And that mere collection doesn't require cause/warrant. What needs to be leaked are how they define all those terms... and if there's any commonplace rule-bending. Who's to say that between the collection of data and the analysis, they don't then go and get warrants to analyze based on their work separating out what data they already had warrants for? What about computerized analysis (is that technically 'collection' to the NSA)? There's all sorts of room for abuse when you have this absolutely massive set of data and secrecy protecting almost every aspect of the operation.
Granted, IANAL, but I have worked as an engineer in In-Q-Tel funded companies, text analysis, and search. Nothing I'm saying is any reflection or representation of anyone I've worked for and is only my ill-informed, zany, personal opinion.
> Anyhow, as other have pointed out, it's not hard to draft a specific warrant for the narrow group of 'every US user 13 years or older' which is what I'd presume PRISM involved.
Can you really get a warrant that broad? I assumed PRISM still entailed warrants issued on a user-by-user basis.
I love all the doublespeak around this issue but "warrant-based" is a new one. I'm pretty sure that does NOT mean a warrant specifically naming each person whose information was collected. Or does it?
You need a lawyer to translate anything our leaders (biz, gov or other) say. It's all form with very little substance. If you thought you heard something definitive you almost certainly misunderstood.
"I'm pretty sure that does NOT mean a warrant specifically naming each person whose information was collected. Or does it?"
Nobody (here) knows. This conversation is more heat than light in part because people are spouting all sorts of uninformed nonsense just to perpetuate their theatrical sense of outrage.
What I've read so far suggests that there's some sort of FISA-related oversight of the "reports" generated by PRISM. It sounds like analysts can do queries based on certain rules that are designed to include only conversations with foreign participants, but to get detailed information they need to go through a FISA court.
Honestly, though...you can't tell much of anything from the documents that have been leaked. Most of the details you see people discussing here are speculation, or worse.
