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They're not committing crimes against the American people. Not one American has been found who has been demonstrably harmed by any NSA program. Without harm,

by codex 13y ago

They're not committing crimes against the American people. Not one American has been found who has been demonstrably harmed by any NSA program. Without harm, there no criminal act. That said, something can be unlawful without being criminal.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
dchichkov 13y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden
- ewoodrich 13y ago
  How was Snowden harmed by an NSA program? He's admitted to committing a federal offense and therefore cannot return to the US or countries with an extradition treaty without appearing in federal court. That's pretty "standard" judicial proceedings, no need for NSA powers.
  - dchichkov 13y ago
    If not for NSA program Snowden would very likely still be living happily and productively, with his family, here in the US.
dragonwriter 13y ago
> They're not committing crimes against the American people. Not one American has been found who has been demonstrably harmed by any NSA program. Without harm, there no criminal act. Criminal acts, in general, don't require harm (some specific crimes may involve a harm as a required element, but that is not generally the case -- generally, crimes exist to prevent harm, but that does not mean a harm must be realized for a crime to occur), and, in any case, depriving the American people of the popular sovereignty by exercising the power of government inconsistent with the constraints in which it is granted by the people through the Constitution is, in and of itself, a harm.
gareim 13y ago
The Palmer raids in the early 1900s arrested more than 10,000 people. Of that, 3,500 of them were held indefinitely. Almost all of them were innocent people. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, 1,200 Muslims were arrested. Some were beaten (this is according to the Justice Department's own Inspector General of the time). Hundreds were held for months. Absolutely none of them were found to be with al-Qaeda. These are just two examples of MANY. You know what's scary? The spying that the NSA, FBI, and CIA do gets people put on lists. There are lists of people to arrest in the event of an attack. Hoover of the FBI had something like 70,000 people on a list during the era of Communism fear. The vast majority of those people were innocent of any crime. Over the past century, these lists have been kept openly and kept secretly when different administrations denounced them. But they have been kept (at the FBI at least. Hoover hid them illegally). Letting the NSA spy on us and treating us as if we were assumed criminals before innocent is a terrible way to waste away your fundamental rights. And the scary thing is we wouldn't even have known that we were being spied on for sure unless Snowden said something. These are crimes against the American people. You can't tell me that the FISA court not rejecting any warrants is a good thing. Out of tens of thousands of requests, not one gets rejected? That is a failure of the checks and balance system our founding fathers set up. THAT is definitely a crime against the American people.
- angersock 13y ago
  And because of how fucked-up the system is, when they come to pick you up, any number of minor things during that encounter ("Fuck you pig, where's the warrant?", running, etc.) can escalate into resisting arrest, disturbing the peace, or assaulting an officer, and then magically you're in the system "for real" and screwed.
  - res0nat0r 13y ago
    Probably shouldn't be telling cops to fuck off then?
    - Karunamon 13y ago
      1st amendment says otherwise.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
skore 13y ago
> Not one American has been found who has been demonstrably harmed by any NSA program. First they came for some foreigners and I did not speak out - because I was an American.
amirmc 13y ago
You don't know that. There may be many but due to parallel construction, the source of investigations is obfuscated. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction
adventured 13y ago
Fortunately you're wrong. Violating my constitutionally guaranteed liberties is the harm in fact. Eroding the protections I'm guaranteed, for example against general search warrants, is causing me immediate harm. What is the harm? Something that belongs to me has been taken from me against my will, through the use of coercion, intimidation and force.
ajays 13y ago
"Not one American has been found who has been demonstrably harmed by any NSA program." As an American, how would I know? It is against the law to read my mail; but if the government has been secretly reading my mail without my knowledge, then by your logic (and I use that word lightly here) I have not been harmed, since I didn't know about it? Do you even know the meaning of the word "rights" ? My rights have been violated; I don't have to demonstrate harm.
thinkmassive 13y ago
They've been providing tips to the FBI for years: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/01/new-documents-nsa-provided-2-3-daily-tips-to-fbi-for-at-least-3-years/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/01/new-documents-nsa... They've also been providing tips to the DEA: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/dea-and-nsa-team-intelligence-laundering https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/dea-and-nsa-team-intel... How is subverting due process by engaging in parallel construction not a crime against US citizens?
malandrew 13y ago
They've undermined the Constitution and Bill of Rights. I'd argue that they've harmed every American by doing so. Harm doesn't just have to be physical or economic. They can harm the liberties of Americans granted by those documents.
arca_vorago 13y ago
" Not one American has been found who has been demonstrably harmed by any NSA program." Of course, this statement heavily relies on what you mean by "demonstrably" and "harm". What is the standard of proof you would require to demonstrate harm? As you say it, it sounds like one of those terms that you can forever pushback against and say "but X didn't demonstrate harm sufficiently". The most likely harm that I would consider widespread would be the chilling effect. For example, Chris Hedges and others tried to sue the gov for the NDAA's chilling effect, but once they got to court it was thrown out because they had "no standing". So it's pretty obvious that you can't say that a court ruling on something demonstrates harm, because the courts themselves are part of the harm occurring. As a matter of fact, I bet I could have a pretty good claim that the NSA program has harmed me. I am an Iraq combat vet with PTSD, and happened to be someone who has talking about the NSA doing this stuff since the early 2000's. At my last meeting with the VA, I specifically stated that I was concerned at the confidentiality of my talks due to their being entered in an electronic system that I suspected the NSA and other three-letters would have access to. Therefore I quit my PTSD treatment because I felt I could not trust the VA system or any claims of doctor-patient confidentiality. I actually asked the doc to make sure she typed that into the system so that in the future I could use it as evidence if the need ever arose. I'm doing fine now mostly of my own volition, but what I think about is how many other vets had the same gut feeling and kept their problems hidden and suffered greatly for it? This is only one example that I think is pretty concrete.

by codex 13y ago

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

dchichkov 13y ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden

ewoodrich 13y ago
How was Snowden harmed by an NSA program? He's admitted to committing a federal offense and therefore cannot return to the US or countries with an extradition treaty without appearing in federal court. That's pretty "standard" judicial proceedings, no need for NSA powers.
- dchichkov 13y ago
  If not for NSA program Snowden would very likely still be living happily and productively, with his family, here in the US.

dragonwriter 13y ago

> They're not committing crimes against the American people. Not one American has been found who has been demonstrably harmed by any NSA program. Without harm, there no criminal act. Criminal acts, in general, don't require harm (some specific crimes may involve a harm as a required element, but that is not generally the case -- generally, crimes exist to prevent harm, but that does not mean a harm must be realized for a crime to occur), and, in any case, depriving the American people of the popular sovereignty by exercising the power of government inconsistent with the constraints in which it is granted by the people through the Constitution is, in and of itself, a harm.

gareim 13y ago

The Palmer raids in the early 1900s arrested more than 10,000 people. Of that, 3,500 of them were held indefinitely. Almost all of them were innocent people. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, 1,200 Muslims were arrested. Some were beaten (this is according to the Justice Department's own Inspector General of the time). Hundreds were held for months. Absolutely none of them were found to be with al-Qaeda. These are just two examples of MANY. You know what's scary? The spying that the NSA, FBI, and CIA do gets people put on lists. There are lists of people to arrest in the event of an attack. Hoover of the FBI had something like 70,000 people on a list during the era of Communism fear. The vast majority of those people were innocent of any crime. Over the past century, these lists have been kept openly and kept secretly when different administrations denounced them. But they have been kept (at the FBI at least. Hoover hid them illegally). Letting the NSA spy on us and treating us as if we were assumed criminals before innocent is a terrible way to waste away your fundamental rights. And the scary thing is we wouldn't even have known that we were being spied on for sure unless Snowden said something. These are crimes against the American people. You can't tell me that the FISA court not rejecting any warrants is a good thing. Out of tens of thousands of requests, not one gets rejected? That is a failure of the checks and balance system our founding fathers set up. THAT is definitely a crime against the American people.

angersock 13y ago
And because of how fucked-up the system is, when they come to pick you up, any number of minor things during that encounter ("Fuck you pig, where's the warrant?", running, etc.) can escalate into resisting arrest, disturbing the peace, or assaulting an officer, and then magically you're in the system "for real" and screwed.
- res0nat0r 13y ago
  Probably shouldn't be telling cops to fuck off then?
  - Karunamon 13y ago
    1st amendment says otherwise.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

skore 13y ago

> Not one American has been found who has been demonstrably harmed by any NSA program. First they came for some foreigners and I did not speak out - because I was an American.

amirmc 13y ago

You don't know that. There may be many but due to parallel construction, the source of investigations is obfuscated. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction

adventured 13y ago

Fortunately you're wrong. Violating my constitutionally guaranteed liberties is the harm in fact. Eroding the protections I'm guaranteed, for example against general search warrants, is causing me immediate harm. What is the harm? Something that belongs to me has been taken from me against my will, through the use of coercion, intimidation and force.

ajays 13y ago

"Not one American has been found who has been demonstrably harmed by any NSA program." As an American, how would I know? It is against the law to read my mail; but if the government has been secretly reading my mail without my knowledge, then by your logic (and I use that word lightly here) I have not been harmed, since I didn't know about it? Do you even know the meaning of the word "rights" ? My rights have been violated; I don't have to demonstrate harm.

thinkmassive 13y ago

They've been providing tips to the FBI for years: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/01/new-documents-nsa-provided-2-3-daily-tips-to-fbi-for-at-least-3-years/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/01/new-documents-nsa... They've also been providing tips to the DEA: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/dea-and-nsa-team-intelligence-laundering https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/dea-and-nsa-team-intel... How is subverting due process by engaging in parallel construction not a crime against US citizens?

malandrew 13y ago

They've undermined the Constitution and Bill of Rights. I'd argue that they've harmed every American by doing so. Harm doesn't just have to be physical or economic. They can harm the liberties of Americans granted by those documents.

arca_vorago 13y ago

" Not one American has been found who has been demonstrably harmed by any NSA program." Of course, this statement heavily relies on what you mean by "demonstrably" and "harm". What is the standard of proof you would require to demonstrate harm? As you say it, it sounds like one of those terms that you can forever pushback against and say "but X didn't demonstrate harm sufficiently". The most likely harm that I would consider widespread would be the chilling effect. For example, Chris Hedges and others tried to sue the gov for the NDAA's chilling effect, but once they got to court it was thrown out because they had "no standing". So it's pretty obvious that you can't say that a court ruling on something demonstrates harm, because the courts themselves are part of the harm occurring. As a matter of fact, I bet I could have a pretty good claim that the NSA program has harmed me. I am an Iraq combat vet with PTSD, and happened to be someone who has talking about the NSA doing this stuff since the early 2000's. At my last meeting with the VA, I specifically stated that I was concerned at the confidentiality of my talks due to their being entered in an electronic system that I suspected the NSA and other three-letters would have access to. Therefore I quit my PTSD treatment because I felt I could not trust the VA system or any claims of doctor-patient confidentiality. I actually asked the doc to make sure she typed that into the system so that in the future I could use it as evidence if the need ever arose. I'm doing fine now mostly of my own volition, but what I think about is how many other vets had the same gut feeling and kept their problems hidden and suffered greatly for it? This is only one example that I think is pretty concrete.