Mike Rogers: You Can't Have Your Privacy Violated If You Don't Know About It
from the say-what-now? dept
We already wrote a bit about yesterday's House Intelligence Committee hearing concerning NSA surveillance. There were two sections to it: the first three hours were the top government spooks and lawmakers, and then the last half an hour or so involved three pundits outside of government (though with former government credentials). At the very very end of that, there was an absolutely incredible exchange between Intel Committee Chair Rep. Mike Rogers and law professor Stephen Vladeck (the only panelist the entire day who expressed concerns about what the NSA was doing). You have to watch the exchange to believe it, but it ends with Rogers insisting that "you can't have your privacy violated if you don't know your privacy is violated, right?" Vladeck immediately disagreed and Rogers seemed to find it astounding that anyone could agree, suggesting that it would upend the law. Watch the exchange:Rogers: I would argue the fact that we haven't had any complaints come forward with any specificity arguing that their privacy has been violated, clearly indicates, in ten years, clearly indicates that something must be doing right. Somebody must be doing something exactly right.This is kind of astounding. According to Mike Rogers, you can apparently violate his privacy, so long as he doesn't know about it. How is it that such a person is supposedly in charge of oversight of the intelligence community? He honestly believes that as long as the NSA spies on people privately, their privacy isn't violated?
Vladeck: But who would be complaining?
Rogers: Somebody who's privacy was violated. You can't have your privacy violated if you don't know your privacy is violated.
Vladeck: I disagree with that. If a tree falls in the forest, it makes a noise whether you're there to see it or not.
Rogers (astounded): Well that's a new interesting standard in the law. We're going to have this conversation... but we're going to have wine, because that's going to get a lot more interesting...
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Filed Under: house intelligence committee, mike rogers, privacy, stephen vladeck
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New Standard?
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what about SCOTUS?
I bet the EFF is going to love quoting Rogers today.
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Re: New Standard?
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Did that Rogers just invoked Murphy's law?
someone will get some dirt from his private life... without him knowing it...
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Re: Did that Rogers just invoked Murphy's law?
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Re:
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Too Much Credit
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Re: Too Much Credit
Which is the really incredible aspect of all this.
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Re: Re: Too Much Credit
Furthermore, it is a good question if a person with so seriously vested economic interests on one side of an issue should be able to hold as high a position in political oversight of said issue! He will be unable to hold an opinion without vested interests to him in far too few matters to effectively hold the responsibility.
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Re: Too Much Credit
I only had to listen to 3 minutes of that guy to realize he's a double talking shape shifting liar. He knows exactly what he's saying and where his lies are and how to use language to manipulate. That's the professional politicians do and it's all very intentional. He could do it in his sleep.
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Politician... Duh...
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In his shocking quest to protect the totalitarian path the US is heading he is open breaches for serious attacks against him.
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Re:
It's not like the murdered person is upset about it now, they're dead, they can't hold a grudge. If nobody (still living) was ever affected, then you never committed a crime.
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Pardon the French (we're not still spying on them right), but holy shit.
My interpretation of the law (and I'm assuming the standard interpretation) is if you break the law you're guilty of breaking the law, even if no one notices. However, you're only penalized if someone catches you and proves it in the court of law. Just because you aren't penalized doesn't make the act right though...
I'm reading Rogers say, "Yes I know the NSA's actions go against the law, but it hasn't been proven illegal cause no one can prove it, so it's legal." That very clearly is an us against them attitude where you have to be secretive and selective to maintain control and that's everything a democracy isn't. If we have a leader with that mindset, there should be things in place to remove said person from any sort of power immediately before they do anything to take power from the public!
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Re:
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“Just give me a one-armed economist.” President Harry S. Truman
http://americanenergycrisis.blogspot.com/2008/05/just-give-me-one-armed-economist.html
“Give me a one-armed economist!” That was the exasperated plea of former U.S. President Harry Truman in the late 1940s. Truman grumbled that whenever his economists advised him, they would inevitably say, “On the one hand…but, on the other…,” accounting for the ambiguities of economic indicators.
The Nobel-Prize-winning Irish playwright, G. Bernard Shaw, said, “If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion.”
http://www.cotton247.com/article/2649/the-economists-tea-leaves-say
In the real world, "economists" are pretty much universally despised.
Mike claims to have a college degree in economics, can't ya tell?
04:13:24[f-170-6]
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Re: “Just give me a one-armed economist.” President Harry S. Truman
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Re: “Just give me a one-armed economist.” President Harry S. Truman
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Re: Re: “Just give me a one-armed economist.” President Harry S. Truman
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A new hero is born
Sorry, could you repeat that? I couldn't hear you over the raucous applause from all these Peeping Toms.
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Re: A new hero is born
"Don't think about that too long, or BLOOD will shoot out your NOSE!"
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Don't Get Caught...
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Re: A new hero is born
What an asshat.
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so let me get this straight
good thing the NSA uses paradoxal zen questions to make loopholes in the law.
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Not comprehend his point LIKE A FOX!!! He's stumping. His points are laced with ad homs and false dichotomies.
He's already told the american public "Lokk, shut up this is fine, stop complaining." This is just more of the same.
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Incompetency like yours far exceeded what I expected from you.
Your truly,
Anyone with any semblance of common sense
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I feel so much better knowing our elected officials need to go get drunk in order to talk about the impact of the laws they pass. Rogers must hang out with all of those NSA recruits who get drunk, wear costumes, and go sing karaoke after work. Mandatory drug and alcohol testing for all members of Congress, and the NSA, seems to be in order.
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“We can always count on the Americans to do the right thing, after they have exhausted all the other possibilities.”
This guy is just a flag waving, slogan spouting moron. Get him out of office!
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Now, though, I'm starting to get the impression that he's just a complete idiot. "Hurf durf, it's only a crime if you get caught! Hyuk hyuk hyuk!"
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At these hearings...
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And by the same reasoning. You can't have committed a crime if you don't know about it.
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Locations = association
We have this:
"Mr. Wyden pressed General Alexander about whether the N.S.A. had ever collected, or made plans to collect, bulk records about Americans’ locations based on cellphone tower data.
General Alexander replied that the N.S.A. is not doing so as part of the call log program, but that information pertinent to Mr. Wyden’s question was classified."
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/27/us/politics/senators-push-to-preserve-nsa-phone-survei llance.html
He later clarified it as a test done on phone location data. I don't believe that it was declassified, so I suspect the program still is classified, the 'test' is a deflection.
I believe NSA gets the phone metadata, not some filtered subset of the phone metadata that doesn't include the tower data. The telcos bend over backwards to do NSA bidding to keep legal immunity, they would just give them the full metadata.
From that data, of course location can be determined.
If you have a track of the location of people, then you can derive the associations, who's path mirrored who's path. Who is sleeping with who (colocation late at night). Who went shopping with whom, who had a meeting with who, etc.
That a powerful weapon against normal people.
I don't believe for a second General A, would have resisted the temptation to data mine location associations in secret.
So I think we have that revelation still to come.
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Really? No complaints huh? Then WTF are you doing having this inquiry. Did you think it was supposed to be a Tupperware party? And WTF do you think all those lawsuits filed by the ACLU and EFF were all about? Did you think they filed those just because they were bored and thought it would be fun? You don't think those weren't complaints? Mr. Rogers, you really need to take a restroom break. The shit you are full of is starting to ooze out your ears.
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Let's swap in some words and see if it changes it..
"You're not sleeping with a hooker if you don't know she's a hooker, right?"
"You're not infected with AIDS if you don't know you're infected, right?"
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Lets have some fun with this!
Peeping toms, eavesdropping, spying, document theft, being discriminated against for a job, or your Dr telling everyone about your health problems are only illegal if they get caught.
Sure in a general sense anything is only illegal if you get caught, but that is the law of criminals... are we sitting here seriously watching the very people placed to stop villainy, actively participating and excusing it?
This line of propaganda was invented to prevent "The People" from challenging these bastards. The very notion of bringing things to court sometime is to in fact "test" if people or an organization has overstepped their legal constraints. And when you are no longer allowed an avenue of "redress" against the government... its time to play hard ball.
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I can see it now..
NSA: We read it off an email you sent to a supplier about some late deliveries of things that can go boom
Terrorist: I wish to press charges for invading my privacy and also throw the evidence out of court because I caught them doing something illegal.
NSA: Its only Illegal if you get...oh...crap
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Re: I can see it now..
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Really?
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Epically Simpsonian Logic
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Riighhht.
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So... nothing wrong with hidden camera stalking?
... Mike Rogers, you're a creep.
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Does this aphorism apply elsewhere?
You can't have your patent violated if you don't know about it.
You can't have your copyright violated if you don't know about it.
You can't have your trademark violated if you don't know about it.
I like the sound of this, so I expect Rep. Rogers to introduce legislation to this effect.
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If I steal his grandmas jewelery, but he doesn't notice it's missing, then it's ok?
and so on?
I'd like to think that's now how laws work.
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WTF
Just because you don't realize something, doesn't mean it's not true.
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Re: WTF
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Yay!
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Let me get a closer look at that...
OK, so if I plant a camera in the women's changing room at the leisure centre then it's OK so long as nobody knows I've done it? Riiiiiiiiight.
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What a plan!
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Don't Tell Mike
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Rogers' new legal defense tactic
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Good News
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Not that he needs to know, of course.
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So ask him this
If the NSA installed a camera in his bedroom and watched him make love to his wife, but his wife didn't know about the camera, would her privacy had been violated? Would her privacy have been violated if the NSA had 500 staffers sit there and watch the video?
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Intelligence?
That way you won't know, which means you weren't shot.
Fair enough...
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Government persons remark.comment
Every so often someone in government says something so idiotic it should result in his/her instant removal.
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Whether or not he said what he meant or meant what he said, I don't know. But from his statements about the necessity of transparency, I feel it is meant that the NSA should be telling its Americans what data exactly is being analyzed and to what extent so that Americans can determine if their privacy is being violated.
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Re:
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chilling
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Mike Rogers
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Wireless cameras
Wireless transmission kit with button microcamera and portable receiver. A very wearable and concealable video-system solution.
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The integrated 2.4GHZ and 50mW transmitter it’s of small size too and woks for audio video transmission without delays, proving a valuable ally for video images in real time.
The kit, with audio video transmitter and DVR receiver, is powered by an internal battery that provides a range of over two hours continuously.
http://www.endoacustica.com/50mw-button-micro-camera.htm
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