"NSA does not object to any lawful, peaceful protest."
Come on: is it possible that anyone has felt the need to write this seriously on the corporate web page of the NSA?
AMAZING.
I hope (but I do not know, they do not say) the NSA also does not object to free speech, to private property, to freedom of press, to freedom of economic initiative, to freedom of religion...
EDIT: Come to think of it, it is possible that they had internal conversations like what are we going to do with these people?. And then the chiefs said: "hey, we do not object to these demonstrations!".
Haha, yes. Their "We don't mind if you exercise your rights this time" attitude is unnerving.
Actually, it's pretty funny. What's the other option (besides not even acknowledging the demonstrations, which is the most sensical, I think)? Saying, "We strongly object to protests"? I would love to see them say something like that. It's almost like they think we care what they think of us, or maybe they are so delusional that they think they have the authority to call off a protest.
Or maybe they're getting at "We don't mind if you protest; while you do that, we'll carry on as usual. Your efforts are futile." That's not so funny.
It's hard for NSA to say anything without being attacked for it at the moment.
A few attempts at drafting a superior response led me to realize that, in the present situation, there's almost nothing NSA can say. If those in power were to admit that past actions were wrong and move forward to reduce the scope of surveillance, their opponents would crucify, imprison, and sue them.
For us to move forward, a little forgiveness would go a long way. We have to make change possible.
After all, NSA is doing exactly what the electorate has asked for: moved to prevent small groups and individuals domestic and abroad from taking actions that hurt and kill innocent civilians. Sweeping surveillance is a powerful tool to achieve that end. It's also a long-term structural risk for our society. We have to propose tools with similar performance, or get society to accept a small risk of attack.
When someone brings the first independently-developed biological, chemical, or nuclear weapons to bear in a coordinated attack, alternative defensive solutions and a civil libertarian populace can provide bulwarks to resist the temptation of always monitoring everyone. If surveillance is the only option, it will be used.
Everyone in the NSA swears to uphold the Constitution, not objecting to lawful, peaceful protests should be a no brainer that goes without saying[0]. Hopefully they post this on an internal bulletin board for their employees as well. It would have been nice if they had made a statement to the effect that they will not collect any information on people participating in the protests.
[0] First Amendment excerpt: "... the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances ..."
I doubt they can avoid hoovering people, protesters or not. Plus, even if they don't, other government groups may.
I would recommend turning off your phone before heading to a protest. Well before, maybe leave it at home even, as turning off your phone nearby to a protest may be just as noticeable as having your phone there.
> "NSA does not object to any lawful, peaceful protest."
I think you missed the key point of the verb "object": Whether they object or not is immaterial to whether they are going to mark the protesters for additional NSA scrutiny of phone calls or email.
This is how I read between the lines and understood their statement: The Fourth of July reminds us as Americans of the freedoms and rights all citizens of our country are guaranteed by our Constitution. Among those is freedom of speech, often exercised in protests of various kinds. NSA does not object to any lawful, peaceful protest but be advised that we will be monitoring your freedom of speech and anything you say or ever had said may be used against you in a secret court of law.
"We shall test your American citizenship by tossing a 1% loaded coin. If it shows tails, you are American, otherwise you are a foreigner and can be lawfully, legally, constitutionally, military and otherwise politically surveilled."
I think this is really one of the most important discussions we should be having as a society. What obligations ought we hold our government to as far as the rights of non-citizens? Right now the obligations of the government to non-citizens is likely very minimal (IANAL, But I'd love to hear a Constitutionalist's expert opinion on this front).
What limits ought we to establish on our government(s) with regard to the rights of citizens of other nations?
> Right now the obligations of the government to non-citizens is likely very minimal (IANAL, But I'd love to hear a Constitutionalist's expert opinion on this front).
I'm not an expert, but Constitutional Law 101 is that the Constitution generally has territorial scope. It reaches citizens, whether they are on U.S. soil or off U.S. soil, and non-citizens who are on U.S. soil. It makes intuitive sense: non-citizens in say Afghanistan don't have any protections under the Constitution, because the Constitution is an expression of U.S. law and U.S. law has no force in Afghanistan other than to U.S. citizens who are bound to it by virtue of their citizenship.
I think it's better to leave citizenship out, or focus on treating your own citizens. The rest should follow (this is also what Scahill says in the following story): American citizenship does not protect you from targeted assassination.
No, American citizenship does not great a blanket protection against being killed by the military while waging war against the U.S. It guarantees you nothing more and nothing less than "due process." What process is "due" (literally, "warranted") is an inherently context-sensitive question. What process is "due" to someone who spent a decade waging war against the U.S. while refusing to submit to the justice system of any country?
The trouble with making it context-sensitive like that is, how do you demonstrate that the person deserves the lower standard?
Your question is mis-phrased. It should be stated as, "What process is due to someone who is accused of spending a decade waging war against the US?"
It appears to be to be completely nonsensical to use the gravity of the accusations against a person to decide what kind of trial (or not) they should receive. The whole point of the trial is to find out whether the accusations are, in fact, true.
Don't ignore the teenager son who was also a victim, separately. No one in government has been willing to admit that this killing was anything other than intentional.
What justice is due for a 16-year old who grew up in Colorado and has an "unresponsible" father? Are some people classed as waging war by speaking? Are their children classed as combatants from the moment they turn six years old?
The secret court has no power to make judgments that affect individual rights and liabilities. The only one I am aware of, the FISA court, has only one power and that is granting or denying foreign surveillance warrants, a process that didn't require any sort of judicial involvement prior to FISA.
A much more simple explanation of the NSA statement is that press organizations asked for a statement in relation to the protests planned for today (one of which I will attend, as I have mentioned in recent Hacker News comments) and the NSA's press officers provided a statement. Nothing more, nothing less, nothing else. Yes, NSA officers, like all officers of the federal government, take oaths to uphold the United States Constitution. Most take those oaths very seriously and cherish the constitutional system of the United States. I will be out protesting in public this evening (and I don't care who knows that, as I am not afraid to express my opinions on public policy) to indicate my family's support for the Bill of Rights and desire that all NSA programs be overseen effectively by Congress and fully in accord with the law. That said, I don't begrudge the thousands of NSA employees the opportunity to join me in saying that all Americans have the right of peaceful protest and that is a right we can all cherish as Americans.
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How does that follow? I know the NSA is enemy number 1 around HN right now, but how does saying they don't object to lawful protests imply that if they did object to the lawful protests they would disrupt them somehow?
It's like me telling you that I don't object to you teaching your kids about any particular religion. When the hell did I even enter the equation? It's the implication that the right to protest might even have to be clarified that shows the NSA is either very presumptious about its authority or really is as politically motivated as we all like to think it is.
I'm growing increasingly concerned about the tone here in HN whenever something is posted about the NSA. This statement on July 4th demonstrations is essentially non-news. Why isn't it more likely that the NSA was getting a ton of media requests for a statement and decided to make it official that they wouldn't make a public objection to the protests? I'd like to see us (the HN community) continue to engage in thoughtful discussions, but the reactions I'm seeing right now are distractions from that. Let's not derail the conversation. Stick to facts where you can, request information where you don't have facts, and make your position known on what we would like to see our government(s) put in place to secure our freedoms and protect us. Let's not muddy the waters any further. Happy 4th.
Agreed. If the headline was "NSA refuses to comment on the Restore the Fourth protests", people would just comment that the NSA wasn't recognizing the protests, and that protesting would be useless, as the NSA would stick to their current attitude. I really don't know how the NSA could have responded better, besides actually promising to listen to the arguments of the protesters. It seems like a "damned if you do, damned if you don't"-type situation for the NSA. If one accepts that the NSA is /fundamentally/ flawed, which I doubt it is, nothing it says can change ones mind, including a public statement of it respecting people's rights to protest. The fact that it even has to release a statement though is good - it means that the NSA has realized that there is a backlash against their tactics.
I would like of course for the NSA to change some of its practices... but the amount of hate it is getting on HN is ridiculous.
The news is that in a democratic society such as ours, the government shouldn't have to "not object" to people exercising their legally protected rights.
And, given the fact that many feel that the NSA, in particular, has been trampling those rights, their statement comes off as particularly egregious. In total, some may interpret this as the NSA claiming itself the arbiter of our rights: what it can do to us, and what we can do in response.
I would think the majority of IPs would be dynamic... If you're really worried about it, clone or spoof a new MAC address after powering off your modem. Then just power it on :p
Gulags were lawful. It's not doublespeak. The problem is not the NSA, it's the whole system.
If baseball isn't interstate commerce, but growing your own wheat is for your own consumption, you know the whole state is rotten to the core. There is no objectivity it's just do whatever you want and if you're powerful justify it later.
Excellent. I thought we were granted the right to protest by God, so at least we know the NSA isn't standing in the way of God. Hopefully they'll let us know if/when that changes and we can assist the NSA in their new set of goals.
I don't want to sound apologetic for the actions of NSA as a whole, and those who surely pressured them into those actions, and those that were aware of them but did not object, but I did take heart in the first sentence, "The Fourth of July reminds us as Americans of the freedoms and rights all citizens of our country are guaranteed by our Constitution."
I hope this is a sign that at least some people in the NSA recognize that what happened was an egregious breach of the spirit of our constitution, and the principle of government by public consent. It would be nice if it meant that some of NSA's members welcome, for their organization, public accountability, clear limits on power afforded to them, and recourse for pressure from other parts of the government to violate these things.
Regardless of whether this is just wistful thinking or not, we should continue to bring awareness to this issue, and take action.
I hope the form of this action will be public awareness, peaceful protests, crowd-funding representatives, and holding those elected representatives legally accountable for their campaign promises (because I do not see how we can have a representative democracy if the words of the representatives before they are elected are so divorced from their actions after).
I hope the result will be legal safeguards and public oversight to make sure that no federal agency can violate the constitution, and act against public consent, no mater how secret their mission.
(edited to include the bit about public awareness)
I don't think that most people who think about it believe that the NSA is evil. But what it is doing for ostensibly good reasons are actions that can be labeled as evil.
But the truth is, it does those activities because the White House says it should, and Congress is ok with it. The NSA will never not obey politicians.
You want change, write to your Congressional representatives. Write to the major party Committees, and tell them that you will only support and donate to candidates that explicitly seek to change the surveillance of Americans. Find your local party headquarters and your convention delegates, and have respect for privacy added to the party platform.
Protesting the NSA is good because it organizes people, but then they need to be targeted where they will have an effect. But any real change will come from the political process. The NSA doesn't object. The NSA also isn't going to change anything because of the protests.
> Okay. Great. Our rulers are going to allow us to protest. They're not even going to constrain us to a free speech zone. Thanks!
If "our rulers" were not going to allow protest, or to restrict the time place and manner, the vehicle for those restrictions wouldn't likely be the NSA anyway, so a statement that the NSA doesn't object is somewhat tangential.
NSA does not object to any lawful, peaceful protest.
Especially when it gives us an opportunity to build a geo-associational database of potential troublemakers cross-referenced with surveillance cam data, social media breadcrumbs and other applicable metadata sources.
Thank goodness the NSA clarified that peaceful protesting is A-OK with them. Since they have no respect for the 4th amendment it is heartening that they at least retain some respect for the 1st. Of course, the cynic in me realizes that an organization that shreds the 4th would really, really love the 1st, and indeed encourage people to communicate electronically AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE.
Without the first amendment how else would yesterday's banal conversations exist to implicate you in next decades' fortieth deadliest planned and thwarted attack?
Come on: is it possible that anyone has felt the need to write this seriously on the corporate web page of the NSA?
AMAZING.
I hope (but I do not know, they do not say) the NSA also does not object to free speech, to private property, to freedom of press, to freedom of economic initiative, to freedom of religion...
EDIT: Come to think of it, it is possible that they had internal conversations like what are we going to do with these people?. And then the chiefs said: "hey, we do not object to these demonstrations!".
Scary...