Judge endorses giving NSA unlimited access to digital information

[Guest]

As for the storing your private data in a locked box, how strong will that box need to be to keep your personal data safe?

Maybe we could take advice from a company that trusts it's own security systems to protect it's billion dollar assets collection and it's employees and customers personal details.

Yes, lets ask Sony!

2 Major hacks that we know of putting all that data into the public domain!

 

[wiyosaya]

Come on man!!!

If you disagree with the examples (or straw man arguments, or analogies, or whatever) then fine, but let's not get away from the point and start arguing about peeping tom laws and facebook.

See my above post for the point I was (clearly unsuccessfully) trying to make. If you want to discuss whether data that's collected could be accessed by the general public, then let's do that, but don't use my poor analogy as a means to ignore my point. Whether it was intentional or not.

My point was that you and everyone have protections that are based in the law regarding invasion of your privacy.

What you were saying as I saw it, and very badly yes I agree, is that we should just abandon any privacy right when it is the government invading our privacy? So, we should just abandon constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure? It might be construed that the fact that the government is retaining any personal data from their surveillance efforts that that, in itself, is seizure. Where there is no reason to suspect someone from whom that data is collected, then that sounds like unreasonable seizure to me, and, if there is some lawyer out there that is creative enough, that might be used as an argument that the governments collection and retention of data in this manner is unconstitutional.

But what is worse, as I see it, is that if we abandon those constitutional rights, how long will it be before we have something akin to Germanic efforts of the mid 1900s to dominate the world? As I see it, there are some people out there who do not realize the importance of those constitutional rights and start saying, oh, we can look the other way in this case. Pretty soon, there are no constitutional rights because people are all looking the other way and remaining tacit because it fits their definition of how the world should work just like this joker judge who seems to think that anyone who wants privacy must be up to some nefarious activity.

If you would prefer that someone like me does not jump all over bad arguments, perhaps it would help to think them through before posting them.

 

[cliffordcooley]

My point was that you and everyone have protections that are based in the law regarding invasion of your privacy.

What we have is nothing. That is if anyone is willing to face the consequences of breaking those laws, or the means to never be caught. It is hard to catch someone breaking the law when they are standing behind the law.

 

[MilwaukeeMike]

Where there is no reason to suspect someone from whom that data is collected, then that sounds like unreasonable seizure to me, and, if there is some lawyer out there that is creative enough, that might be used as an argument that the governments collection and retention of data in this manner is unconstitutional.

You're right.... we do and should have the freedom to not be searched by the govt. (The search and seizure thing has to do with being personally searched, as in your home, car or person, not your online profile, so extending it to your online activity might be a stretch, but lets not get into that...). But our freedoms have trade offs... we have the right to free speech and therefore the cops have to protect protesters, even when they're protesting against the cops. We have the right to association (you can hangout with whoever you like), which makes it illegal to restrict gang members from joining the armed forces. Each of these freedoms provides us with something we value in exchange for a tradeoff we're willing to live with.
That's where I believe data collection is different. For me personally, I don't care if my online activity is recorded in some huge database that no human will ever see if can help protect people. That's just me. Perhaps you value your online privacy over the possibility of protecting people, and that's fine... I can't tell you what to value. But I think it's misplaced.

But what is worse, as I see it, is that if we abandon those constitutional rights, how long will it be before we have something akin to Germanic efforts of the mid 1900s to dominate the world? As I see it, there are some people out there who do not realize the importance of those constitutional rights and start saying, oh, we can look the other way in this case. Pretty soon, there are no constitutional rights because people are all looking the other way

.

I notice you didn't say 'Nazi' because we both know that immediately discredits what follows it, but really... references to the ultimate extremes like that, or 1984 is pointless. If you really want to make a comparison you should use Saddam's Iraq or present day North Korea, since they were (and are) real examples of extreme govt control. Regardless, you shouldn't be worried about the US going in that direction. The proof occurred one month ago, when the American public pretty much unanimously stood up and voted against more of King Obamas overbearing govt control and congressional bypassing.

 

[plamya]

And the Church once endorsed the Inquisition, the Bible is used to subjugate women, people of a 'lesser God', enslavement was also justified by using this book, Operation Paperclip & Mongoose (Northwoods), IBM codified genocide, Biological experiments (Tuskegge experiment as well as Seventh Day Adventists being used as bio and chemical experiments) and the list goes on..When has government ever truly benefited humanity?