I'm old enough to remember that time the Obama administration requested Edward Snowdens private SSL keys from Lavabit, because it would have opened up every email from every single user. So the owner nuked everything and was held in contempt of court. He was forbidden from talking about it for months too. Don't give too much unprecedented power to the government. It doesn't matter who the president is. They've all done some net-evil that feeds power to the next guy, and the next guy, until it's too late.
Despite all its other warts, the FISA court is (A) an actual judicial-branch court (B) created by legislation and (C) the justices cannot be removed on direct Presidential whim.
In contrast, "administrative warrants" are more like an executive-branch manager writing a memo, where an unscrupulous President could get them removed in a day for not writing the "right" memos.
You’re comparing apples and oranges. These administrative warrants are very limited in scope. They are closer to the subpoenas that even ordinary civilian lawyers can send third parties in the course of litigation. They don’t give the government the power to bust into Google’s data center. The target has to respond or else challenge the warrant in court, but ordinary civilian subpoenas function the same way.
That's not at all what I've been hearing from reports of people getting these. They find that they're not at all targeted. They frequently don't even know who the target is. The officers get asked for a warrant and they might produce a bullshit piece of paper which is really just a memo.
Anyway, it's not "me" comparing these alleged apples and oranges, I am replying deep in a thread of other people making these comparisons.
That’s the same as the subpoena I could send you if you had information relevant to a litigation. And you have to give it to me or else go to court to quash the subpoena. But the key difference with judicial warrants is that judicial warrants can be enforced immediately while subpoenas and administrative warrants require the cooperation of the target or else going to court to enforce the subpoena.
Sorry, it's pretty clear that you like what ICE does and you're working backwards with what you think is a legal argument that justifies it. What ICE is reportedly doing has absolutely nothing in common with a lawful subpoena.
I do like ICE, but this point about administrative warrants is a rant I’ve been doing since the Obama administration. The only thing new is that these tactics are now being used for immigration enforcement.
Ah, you must not be American. At least over here--the subject of the news post--that belief would be considered pro-dictatorship nonsense.
The US Federal government has different branches, and only certain branches have certain powers. This is widely known because we teach this to US children before they are 14 years old, sometimes aided by literal cartoons.
These "warrants" are not at all equivalent, the same way that a President cannot dream up and declare a "law" (even if he calls it that) because only Congress may make those.
The constitution does not give the judicial branch the exclusive power of issuing warrants. Having certain exclusive powers doing mean every action can only be exclusively done by them. Each branch has an obligation to adhere to the constitution.
The president only nominates them. The Senate confirms. Until the obama administration, judges required a supermajority of the senate to confirm, but a gop minority were filibustering all his nominees. So he asked the senate to remove the filibuster for judges. It was really the only use of the filibuster that made sense. Most democracies have independent commissions. Perhaps they all do now...
In a two party system, no one wants to get rid of the loopholes. Those currently in power don't think their opponents will have the opportunity to use it, and those not in power want to use it later when they finally get to be in power.
Check out the two parties wanting the Line Item Veto thinking only their side would be able to use it yet horrified to see the other side use it.
I had an account at the time! He gave the govt the key, handwritten on paper, to stall for time so he could delete everything. I wish every admin had that sort of integrity.
He had a followup project, magma (https://github.com/lavabit/magma), that was supposed to be a secure email alternative. It's a shame it never took off.
It clearly does as your comment was very pointed towards Obama but fails to mention Trump once. I'm curious as to why that would be? Are you ignoring the massive amount of funding that ICE/DHS has received to invade cities of the President's opponents to crush dissent? Or maybe the threats of face scanning to be put on a "domestic terrorist" list? I don't recall Obama doing those things. A common pattern I'm seeing during this admin is: good things are attributed directly to Trump, but bad things are the government having too much power that his predecessors can be blamed for.
Because it distracts from the point I'm making. Our founding fathers setup this country a certain way, and along the way we left the different branches of government to assume new powers without any amendments, and now we're surprised that they're walking all over the constitution? This problem extends beyond the current administration. It will only get worse before it gets better.
Remember, someone FAR WORSE can run for president, someone far worse can absolutely win. Don't make the assumption that your current least favorite administration will be as worse as it gets, because that is how you wind up giving that future administration the keys to the kingdom.
No it doesn't. If you're saying Obama did <bad thing> then explaining how the things Trump is doing are related is helpful. In this case, I don't see how them going after Snowden for stealing classified info (to be clear I support what he did) is the same as DHS going after meanies on Reddit for speaking out against ICE. One is using the intelligence apparatus for a plausible national security threat and the other is using them to crush dissent. Very big difference.
Did I ever said it was helpful or are you just putting words in my mouth? When I was 18 I emptied my bank account to fly my cousins to the US from Venezuela. I was making scraps per hour at the time mind you. But by all means put words in my mouth.
All this goes back before Obama, but my point was that literally the president in charge is irrelevant, they should not have this type of power to bypass the other branches of government, neither should other branches.
Nobody remembers Bush doing anything specific the way we all here remember Lavabit. Lavabit and Snowden were very deeply discussed here on HN.
> Did I ever said it was helpful or are you just putting words in my mouth?
No, I think you're misreading. I said it would be helpful instead of distracting.
> Nobody remembers Bush doing anything specific the way we all here remember Lavabit
Yes, that's what I'm saying: you're extremely biased and it shows. In one stroke, you simultaneously say that unchecked intelligence apparatus is too powerful (true) and that Obama, specifically, did a bad thing that the goverment (hand wavey deflection) is merely taking advantage of now with no criticism of the current admin. It comes across like you're just a partisan hack who wants to dunk on Obama. There's no substance here. At least this time you mentioned Bush who started all of this, but still no mention of he who shall not be named.
> When I was 18 I emptied my bank account to fly my cousins to the US from Venezuela
What does that have to do with anything we're talking about now?
You're freeing this administration from any blame. No system of governance can resist a sufficiently powerful authoritarian push. If the Democratic Party is to share part of the blame, it's in the fact that it is completely bought by special interests and thus unwilling to push pack against the Republicans. But don't be mistaken, this is entirely on Republicans, both their corrupt politicians and stupid voter base who cheer on their rights being trodden upon, as long as the other side suffers more.
You are putting words in my mouth and taking away from my point. I equally blame the previous administration for leaving a privacy invasive apparatus, as stated by others here this goes back to the Patriot Act.
> I equally blame the previous administration for leaving a privacy invasive apparatus, as stated by others here this goes back to the Patriot Act.
I was talking about Bush administration. I don't know a lot about that time period since I was just a teenager during that administration and didn't care about politics back then, but I vividly remember Obama because I've always been passionate about not having the government spying on citizens, and a free and open web. Everything wrong with social media we set ourselves up for.
Edward Snowden had stolen the most sensitive classified secrets from The United States Intelligence Community and Donald Trump is looking to squash dissent of his attempts to nullify the Constitution and establish a dictatorship.
I get what you're saying, but please have some perspective. the two things are not even remotely similar.
To be fair, those sensitive secrets included secret, unconstitutional, dragnet surveillance programs targeting american citizens, and the fact that the director of national intelligence had perjured himself during congressional hearings on those programs.
Less than 1% of what Snowden took and leaked pertained to domestic surveillance programs, The rest was intelligence capabilities and sources and methods.
But that's besides the point. There is a real argument that the U.S. government, in trying to catch Snowden, was protecting national security. There is no such argument with Trump.
No, it was retribution. The info was already out there when they were going after him. Even if he stayed in the US and was captured, it still wouldn't have "stopped" anything.
> The info was already out there when they were going after him.
This was of course not known at the time. The only thing that was known is that a single individual was responsible for the greatest breach of classified secrets in the nation's history, and that individual was still at large.
How does that change or affect the point I'm making?
> This was of course not known at the time. The only thing that was known is that a single individual was responsible for the greatest breach of classified secrets in the nation's history, and that individual was still at large.
If Snowden hasn't moved quickly, he wouldn't have been able to leak any of it.
What he did, grab it all, then give it to reputable journalists, was the correct option to be able to inform the public of massive intelligence dragnets targeting civilians that the government was lying about.
> If Snowden hasn't moved quickly, he wouldn't have been able to leak any of it.
How does stealings sensitive materials not related to domestic surveillance improve his odds of successfully leaking information and fleeing the country?
What they did to snowden was illegitimate but at least they had the cover that he was an insider that had signed a contract with the government. They are going after random ass people expressing a 1A opinion now. Legally very different ballgames even though both dissenters are correct to voice their opinions and knowledge and should not have been pursued for objecting to extravagant government wrongdoing.
> I get what you're saying, but please have some perspective. the two things are not even remotely similar.
Snowden sacrificed a comfortable life, his friends, and family to tell the American people they were being lied to. He exposed things that people SHOULD HAVE gone to prison for. Snowden is a hero, period.
Friend, if you followed Snowden's saga at all, you would know that those events don't need to be similar to be relevant to the discussion at hand. In other words, just because you have a problem with Trump, does not mean the two issues are not connected.
It's the standard we're discussing. It's what Donald Trump's DHS is doing right now and the Snowden comparisons are irrelevant and imo a bad faith attempt at trying to muddy the waters.
Stop both sides-ing everything the Trump administration does to give them more oxygen to operate.
One more try, what did Obama in terms of abusing his police state targeting American citizens that even approached what we are seeing with ICE, the FBI, etc. right now.
Hmm. You are putting me in quite a pickle, but I can't tell if you are being serious or not. Obama was almost literally Bush 2.0, but with better PR and media coverage.
Fuck man. Here is a short list of how he explictly expanded police state that impacted actual American citizens ( and not random criminal aliens ICE picks up ):
- Targetted killing of US citizen without a trial via drone strike ( Anwar al-Awlaki )
- Signed 2012 NDAA with 'indefinite detention' provisions
- Extended Patriot ACT in 2011
- Re-authorized FISA in 2012
- Defended post-Snowden NSA metadata collection
- Seized reporter's property in leak investigation
edit: - 'fast and furious' which effectively created a problem, which at best can be considered reckless if not planned and pretty evil if actually intended to work the way it did
Seriously man, unless you literally just started observing politics, you may want to reconsider your high horse stance.
> Targetted killing of US citizen without a trial via drone strike ( Anwar al-Awlaki )
This was in a literal war zone against a man who literally declared war on the United States.
> Signed 2012 NDAA with 'indefinite detention' provisions
Didn't answer my question. This law targeted terrorists, not mothers of two, driving home from dropping their kids off at school.
> Extended Patriot ACT in 2011 - Re-authorized FISA in 2012
Didn't answer my question.
> Defended post-Snowden NSA metadata collection
Didn't answer my question.
> Seized reporter's property in leak investigation
This appears to be an actual leak investigation done by the DOJ. I don't recall these journalists being arrested, denied a lawyer, etc. I can't find any evidence that this was a legitimate leak investigation done in accordance with the law.
> 'fast and furious'
Reminder, we are talking about domestic surveillance and illegal detainment for political purposes.
Donald Trump has over 6,000 habeas corpus violations working their way through the court system in America right now. Obama had < 10 in 8 years. He is detaining U.S. citizens without cause, without explanation, and subjecting them to torturous conditions.
Your attempt to say both sides are the same is clearly an attempt to sound intelligent like you're above the discourse. You're not.
See... this is kinda how I know you have a political axe to grind. You are not arguing principles, which makes your outrage.. shall we say less potent. You are arguing your favorite outcome.
Allow me a quick rewrite of your breathless response in a more reasonable language.
<< This was in a literal war zone against a man who literally declared war on the United States.
Was he targeted? Was he targeted willfully? Was he target ted willfully, while administration knew he was an American citizen? When did they know it? Did they stop their plans once they did?
And that is before we get into: do you stop being a citizen when president says so? Seems pretty apt given how we are about to cover Good.
<< Didn't answer my question. This law targeted terrorists, not mothers of two, driving home from dropping their kids off at school.
You are apparently cool with president determining, who the terrorists are. If so, ICE shooting a mother of two ( who was clearly not watching those two kids m ind you ) is just an expansion of powers Obama gave himself. Thanks Obama!
<< Didn't answer my question (x2).
You can barely answer yours. (x2)
<< I can't find any evidence that this was a legitimate leak investigation done in accordance with the law.
I literally laughed. Try harder. Maybe consult an llm? Maybe all those arguments about AI effectively being here already because the floor is so low are not that far fetched.
<< Reminder, we are talking about domestic surveillance and illegal detainment for political purposes.
Sigh, we are talking about what we are talking about. It is cute that you think you can control this conversation though. In a way, it is almost like watching a toddler walking for the first time. Don't get me wrong, it is adorable, but it doesn't change much.
> See... this is kinda how I know you have a political axe to grind.
> Allow me a quick rewrite of your breathless response in a more reasonable language.
The fact that you won't just reply point by point and want to spin up a self-important narrative tells me everything I need to know about this interaction.
> Was he targeted? Was he targeted willfully? Was he target ted willfully, while administration knew he was an American citizen? When did they know it? Did they stop their plans once they did?
I was pointing out how Trump is targeting and killing US citizens in America for peacefully protesting and your "both both sides do it!" attempt was a U.S. citizen literally fighting against the U.S. in a warzone.
>If so, ICE shooting a mother of two ( who was clearly not watching those two kids m ind you ) is just an expansion of powers Obama gave himself. Thanks Obama!
ICE had a specific mandate under Obama (and every other President) to go after only criminals. Trump perverted this mandate to form a militarized police force to attack democratic cities, killing protesters with no accountability.
We get it. You are above all this. You are too smart to think that either party is better than the other.
<< I was pointing out how Trump is targeting and killing US citizens in America for peacefully protesting and your "both both sides do it!" attempt was a U.S. citizen literally fighting against the U.S. in a warzone.
Huh? ICE is targeting illegal aliens. Protesters try to interfere ICE targeting illegal aliens.. you know their mandated duties and you are surprised at the results? For comparison, if I were to block FBI/DEA from conducting their operations by using a car, would that be acceptable from your perspective?
Naturally, the whole conversation is kinda silly, because if you know anything about this issue, then you know part of the reason 'sanctuary cities' are called that way is because local police is expected not to coordinate with ICE, which is kinda how the shitshow that you saw in twin cities is not a real issue in jurisdictions that follow federal law..
<< ICE had a specific mandate under Obama (and every other President) to go after only criminals.
And they did. Now, it certainly was something of a surprise how many are willing to protect criminals ( I am sorry, 'protect the community'. If Good actually stayed home and tended to her kids maybe she would have been alive today. But she chose badly. She should have chosen taking care of HER kids. ICE didn't do great, but I can't really fault them here.
<< You are too smart to think that either party is better than the other.
I am smart enough to distance myself. If you have any survival skills left in you, you should consider doing the same. I can't tell if you really believe the tripe you wrote, but it does not really matter. I said it before. The mood has shifted in ways you may have not noticed.
Overstaying your visa is a civil offense. Kidnapping and assaulting people who haven't even committed a misdemeanor is illegal and unconstitutional.
> Protesters try to interfere ICE targeting illegal aliens
Well in that case you could declare all protests as "interfering with police operations" thereby making illegal all protests and ohhhhh ok I get it.
You're not a "both sides" guy. You actively support this admin attacking the constitution and you're trying to make it look better by creating false equivalences instead of just owning what you support.
I'd have at least a little respect for you if you just owned it.
Whether you realize it or not, we have barely even started. Honestly, I will be amused if you can resist the temptation.
<< I'd have at least a little respect for you if you just owned it.
Pass, I have seen what your respect is worth.
<< You're not a "both sides" guy.
In a sense, I am worse. I a guy in the middle, who is starting to see you as a bigger problem than the illegal alien. Illegal alien can be deported, but I am not sure what can be done with that kind of world model.
<< Well in that case you could declare all protests
Do you get to protest DEA operation of disrupting local dealers? No? Then stop being silly with that weak counter.
<< Overstaying your visa is a civil offense.
And here we are. The siren song of the left. It is has the benefit of being true, but completely meaningless in context.
I had a longer argument, but I won't waste it on you, because you are giving me bumper stickers.
If it helps, I will leave you with one little nugget though. I am not sure what you think exactly, and I sure hope you are just a dumb kid, who simply didn't have a chance to see what real world looks like. Still, even if you are just a kid, whether you realize it or not, your stance does have consequences in real world and your immediate environment. If you do opt to champion those illegal aliens, who only committed civil offense, then you take responsibility for them. All of them. And don't worry, people, who don't will be sure to remind you of your commitments.
There's something particular sad about people that won't even admit to what they are in public. You know your right wing brand is toxic but you don't want to just be another cult member, so you pretend to be something else so your words will have more (or some) weight.
It's not working.
Have fun being the reason why the rest of your family hates Thanksgiving for the 10th year in a row.
<< There's something particular sad about people that won't even admit to what they are in public.
I don't want to beat the dead horse too much, but have you ever turned that inspection mechanism upon yourself? What did it see? Did it have to look away gasping at the impossible perfection of a celestial being? No? Odd.
You make me chuckle, which is the reason I am continuing in this fashion. Still, I am not even certain you understand what kind of conversation we are having now.
<< It's not working.
Oh, I don't know. Some seeds have clearly taken root.
<< Have fun being the reason why the rest of your family hates Thanksgiving for the 10th year in a row.
A lot of assumptions for such a short sentence. I will ignore it.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/03/lavabit-ladar-...