But what do I know? I'm just a schmuck who happens to believe normal people can read and interpret the constitution on their own.
Say you have 5 arrests warrants for members of a gang, you often can't arrest them all the once so here is where the "secret" comes into play when they are arrested and the arrest is maintained confidential for 24-48 hours depending on the jurisdiction.
This is done to prevent the rest from scattering into hiding as soon as the news of one or more of them getting arrested breaks, this also means they won't hold down somewhere and be ready for a fight, or even go and do something worse like take hostages in order to try to get out of dodge.
This also means that in some rights are withheld for the duration of the "gag order" like access to a phone or an attorney, however the police is not allowed to question or formally charge the subjects during that period either, so while there is some violation of rights it is not egregious.
A piece of paper and its surrounding political philosophy may empowering in theory but is decidedly not in practice. At the end of it all, it is the threat of adverse action, hopefully through re-election or worst-case through violence, that keeps power in check. The majority is too unwilling or too ignorant to oust those that are given the power to strictly enforce the philosophy, and thus the Constitution is emasculated.
To be fair, what if two people did that and disagreed?
This is a lot of obfuscation. What happened here? How did they smear him?
> From the external actions of the characters who oversee the legal professionals who are drafted into service in these secret systems, they definitely have their own, uh, interpretation of law and ethics.
I am friends with some ex-IC guys; from their stories they appear closed in rank more than police, and are indoctrinated to the point that they see themselves as the paladins of American values and democracy. In reality, they are usually only upholding the interests of the powerful, where corporate interest and political value coincide, and those with real power know and reinforce this. To see this is too much cognitive dissonance for the ones that aren't secretly there just because they get off on the power.
The paranoia and the power trip are good at reinforcing the "us vs. everyone" mentality that we know is pretty dangerous psychologically.
An infamous case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Mayfield
It performed under section 1021 of the original National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA 2012), which has been upheld as constitutional by an appellate court, a ruling which the supreme court declined to subsequently hear.
"Moreover, I want to clarify that my Administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens. Indeed, I believe that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a Nation. My Administration will interpret section 1021 in a manner that ensures that any detention it authorizes complies with the Constitution, the laws of war, and all other applicable law."
Hedges v. Obama did not affirm the constitutionality of that law, but rather that that plaintiff did not have a sufficient interest in that provision in order to ensure that they would present the best case that can be made, which is important because US Court's follow precedent. If you'd like to read more, look for the constitutional requirement of Standing.
There's no statute or authority or even articles at ACLU or in law journals I can find that suggest that federal law enforcement can detain US citizens without counsel in "secret arrests", or, for that matter, suspend habeas.
Obviously: they can do that. But it's a very big deal when they do. They had to back off charges from Jose Padilla because of how they mishandled that case.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization...
... under the NDAA "an American citizen can be detained forever without trial, while the allegations against you go uncontested because you have no right to see them"
https://lawfare.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/staging/2016/Mart...
EDIT: Yeah, Martin is not even being charged with unauthorized disclosure. Not ShadowBrokers, sorry to burst everyone's bubble.
(One or two documents had classified sections, which were labeled with small (c) marks. The document should have had big CLASSIFIED marks, but since it didn't, missing a (c) next to a paragraph is not an arrestable offense)
110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained Secret information at the time; and eight contained Confidential information, which is the lowest level of classification. Separate from those, about 2,000 additional e-mails were “up-classified”
https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/statement-b...
I want Hillary to win as much as the next reasonable person, but that doesn't mean she didn't mess up.
There were dozens of classified emails that were in fact classified at the time they were sent. Some of which were Top Secret. Some of which were even Special Access Programs.
Whether something is marked or not is actually irrelevant. Part of her responsibility and this contractor's responsibility under the clearance agreement is to identify classified content regardless of markings.
Really? So you can just delete all the classification labels and send the document to a yahoo account. Look no labels, so it is fine? You better ask your friendly Security Officer about that (actually don't you'll be highly suspicious doing that).
She had 10 or so TS/SCI satellite images in there. Other people would go to jail for that...
She deliberately set up her own separate server, that wasn't an oops I slipped, one doesn't accidentally stumble and end up with a separate email server. Then classified documents up to TS/SCI were found on that server. Imagine an NSA or NRO employee doing that.
"So yeah, Jim, I just set up my own work email server at my house, just send work email there". "Oh, you found some satellite images there? You think you got me, however, see, classification markings are not there so it's fine"
Partisan political actors are quick to redefine the problem as 'labeled as classified' and make claims about intentions, etc.
I'm saying this as if this was Russia and he was a Russian infosec guy, I wouldn't put it past the NSA TAO to go do just that.
The biggest change might simply be that they need to start doing unambiguous good or their workers will keep leaking stuff.
Didn't James Earl Jones address this idea in "Sneakers"?
"We're the US government: we don't do that sort of thing!"
http://observer.com/2016/08/the-real-russian-mole-inside-nsa...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/01/world/europe/wikileaks-jul...
Here's his house: https://www.google.com/maps/place/7+Harvard+Rd,+Glen+Burnie,...
Yes, it's not cryptographic-level security, but it raises the costs of an attack. In the real world, that matters.
Also consider that not all attacks are spy-vs-spy. This could be a case of 'keeping honest people honest', i.e.: making it sufficiently difficult to dissuade the majority of political activists and/or protesters. This is the same reason why padlocks are a thing.
In the year of pokemon go players everywhere? And even then, who cares about a person with a mobile phone? We're a good decade after anyone is a "strange man" when taking photos anywhere. You don't even have to show yourself. Just order a cab and go through that street without stopping.
> dissuade the majority of political activists and/or protesters
I'm not convinced. The only thing the blurring did was prove that this is the interesting house, rather than a name coincidence. What is that supposed to dissuade me from if I was already going to go there and do something potentially illegal?
https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=4%20harvard%20road%...
On account of (a) unjust governments being more likely to abuse power than just ones, (b) unjust governments are more dangerous than unjust actors and (c) the belief that just governments are plausible, I would say "more".
If you live under an unjust government, their curtailed power is a plus. If you live under a just government, your threat profile from unjust governments is decreased. The threat from unjust actors may increase, but that is a fair trade-off per (b).
Additional: Abuse is seductive. Abuse from power is absolutely seductive.
Collecting attack weapons, but letting your defense rot is a strategy which might work in computer games.
Apparently they do it anyway.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/pr/government-contractor-cha...
I also understand that some people think that no one should have this power and want to stop it. I wish that, if you feel this way, you renounce your citizenship and find another country that acts as you believe they should and just leave the other country alone, unless you feel they are threatening you or those you love and you must do something about it, and even then only if can do something to help in a way that won't hurt anyone now or in the future. Yes, I know it's not always that easy.
But, if you live in a country, through your taxes and your citizenship, you pay for and are recipient of the work of people whose job it is to protect us and all other citizens of your country. And if you didn't know how they defended you, you do now. It isn't always pretty, to say it lightly.
I don't want people to do bad things in the name of good or defense. It'd be better if every country had a large number of grown up boy scouts to protect that country in the most honorable way possible. But, we have what we have. Sure go ahead- expose it if you want, but the more you harm it, the more you'll end up with a group of people that are even more secretive and do things even worse to try to ensure that security. I really don't want that to happen. Things need to get better instead!
Many in the US say that we need to protect people from themselves, and then criticize or harm those trying to protect us. Why?
I used to be much more paranoid and just group people into the "trying to hurt me" bracket. But I grew up. I realized that almost everyone in the world I meet wants to do good or at least has a motivation to try to accomplish something they believe is right.
So, only some of it. The rest was up to date then. And the old stuff is helpful for figuring out how they think.
> "For the N.S.A., which spent two years and hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars repairing the damage done by Mr. Snowden, "
Sure sounds like a plausible candidate considering what Shadow Brokers were touting.
http://observer.com/2016/08/the-real-russian-mole-inside-nsa...
This would explain how the Russians ended up with the source code for TAO's toys.
That's ludicrous. You'd be an idiot to ever suggest that the NSA wasn't penetrated at any given time somewhere by some foreign power's own spy agency. Design for the failure that's going to happen, not the perfection that never will.
He knows his stuff. And he's dismissive and rude. The former forgives the latter, for me.
http://news.yahoo.com/feds-identify-suspected--second-leaker...
"he stole and disclosed highly classified computer codes developed to hack into the networks of foreign governments"
"different in nature from Mr. Snowden’s theft"
What's next, NYtimes, calling people "rats" for reporting a homicide?
It's one thing to call attention to warrantless wiretapping and unconstitutional practices. It's an entirely different thing to take and distribute the source code of a tool used to access foreign government systems. The former is illegal the latter is literally the reason why the NSA was created.
And — also — not whistleblowing, because nothing he has alleged is illegal.
Thats not whistleblowing.
the US Government is playing a different game right now. Play time is over.
