Lawmaker Who Said Snowden Committed Treason, Now On The Other Side Of Metadata Surveillance
from the karma dept
Rep. Aaron Schock is frequently referred to as a "rising star" in Congress, but this week, the Associated Press reported on a scandal involving Schock and his use of taxpayer and campaign funds for things like flights on private jets (owned by key donors) and a Katy Perry concert. Frankly, I think some of the "scandal" here is a bit overblown. But what struck me is part of how the AP tracked these details about Schock down:The AP tracked Schock's reliance on the aircraft partly through the congressman's penchant for uploading pictures and videos of himself to his Instagram account. The AP extracted location data associated with each image then correlated it with flight records showing airport stopovers and expenses later billed for air travel against Schock's office and campaign records.In short, the metadata brought Schock down. Of course, as we've been describing, anyone who says that we shouldn't be concerned about the NSA's surveillance of metadata, or brushes it away as "just metadata," doesn't understand how powerful metadata can be. As former NSA/CIA boss Michael Hayden has said, the government kills people based on metadata.
But it does seem noteworthy that Schock was one of those who claimed that Ed Snowden's leaking of how the NSA collected metadata on nearly everyone amounted to treason. I wonder if he still feels that way...
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Filed Under: aaron schock, campaign funds, metadata, taxpaywer funds
Companies: associated press, instagram
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Hypocrisy thy name is politician
Most likely, and in fact he'll probably just pull a Fienstien(or however her name is spelled), and throw a fit about having his personal data exposed like this, while continuing to see nothing wrong with the government doing the same thing to the public at large.
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Re: Hypocrisy thy name is politician
It seems to me that he really really values the government metadata collection system, and thinks that metadata is a really valuable commodity -- which is why he painted Snowden as treasonous, as his revelations gave away the game. He would likely see this use of metadata to track his movements as being supporting evidence of the damage Snowden did by revealing that the government was doing this.
Yeah; hypocritical to us, but if you think of the government as something that does whatever it can to keep us safe, and ignore the abuses, it makes a kind of twisted sense.
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Re: Re: Hypocrisy thy name is politician
And I think that everyone agrees with him on that point. If the metadata wasn't valuable and sensitive, nobody would care about the government scooping it all up.
His hypocrisy is in the discrepancy between him saying that government metadata collection isn't an invasion of privacy, except when he's become a victim of it. Then it is.
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Re: Re: Hypocrisy thy name is politician
No, hypocritical is not what I was thinking. Boneheadedly ignorant stoopid is more like it. Why is anyone listening to this person who's obviously just surfing the social milieu with nary a clue about all the tech. stuff his advisors natter on about?
Why are there so many of this sort extant nowadays?
I look forward to the day we can Google a person's YouPorn history. Let's get the nasty done with upfront, and we can then move onto more substantive issues.
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Re: Re: Hypocrisy thy name is politician
Damn. That was good.
Best laugh I've had this week in fact.
Keep up the great comedy stuff.
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Normal people will see any kind of corruption as willful and malicious. In most cases, though, it is a lot more grey. Perception is usually based on media coverage rather than the complete picture. As with any legal matter, the question becomes black or white when media are reporting on it.
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Re: Re:
And when people are thinking about the issue, even if the media aren't reporting on it. Most people are concerned with what they consider to be right and wrong. For most, there's only a slim band of grey separating those two things.
The law has no concern about right and wrong. Its only concern is whether or not the law was followed (according to whatever interpretation of the law that a judge can be convinced of).
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Re:
This is the same bullshit argument put forth by the IC.
Get. A. Warrant. Then collect.
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Re: Re:
This is not a "get a warrant" scandal. This is a "don't overshare" scandal. Or a "scrub your data beforehand" one.
Be good. If you can't be good, be careful. An adage to live by. An adage to get reelected by.
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Re:
- It changes your behavior
- It allows anyone retroactively to do data-analysis (Like for when the USA enacts Sharia-Law and looks for people who cheated on their husbands the last 20 years...).
- It's wholly, completely, incompatible with the state of law. And the state of law happens to be the basis for democracy. So it actually destroys democracy.
- It provides a database as a target for abuse (by the collectors themselves, AND by third-party hackers).
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Re: Re:
It is why i speak up, it angers me to no end that some folks presume they have such authority over others, and worse, that its already implemented with no human rights discussion whatsover,
Its like the proverbial gun to the head, the threat of force should you not consent to doing as they say if you think their doing a bad thing, all roads lead to force in this.........this thing here, with the surveilance, is the proverbial whip, discipline the animals until they do as their commanded under their own violition.........people behaving a certain way because they know theres fucking bastards out their who think they can survey everyone in everything as long as they fucking like........its boardering on freespech suppression, with plausible deniability because of its passive nature.......assuming they dont go beyond passive intimidation
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I could not disagree more. Just as with data, the mere collection of metadata is harmful even if that data is never looked at ever again.
Also, I strongly disagree with differentiating between payload data and metadata for these types of discussions. For privacy and security purposes, there isn't much of a difference.
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Im starting to understand these folks have a warped mind in this, that they believe that their doing good, something new, .............this is over simplifying it, but just because you can do it, doesnt mean you should.....especially when your shitting on everybodies rights by doing it......how does that look like, your boses are suppose to be the ones that protect our rights, if their not doing that, then what fucking worth are you........how does that look like, when you give yourselfs so much more authaurity then a single individual, and your NOT doing your job of protecting rights
Your suppose to be the last line of defence, whether to DEFEND a nation, or defending an individual, with individual resources against amoral companies WITH THEIR RESOURCES.......NOT turn into corporate government, theres to much corruption for trust in our respective governments.........you need to clean your house, THOUROUGHLY..........then MAYBE, just MAYBE, folks MIGHT, start THINKING, that you mean, REAL change
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Maybe when their on the wrong end of the barrel they might get an inclination of what it feels like, instead of simply toeing the line without any serious fucking critical thought whatsover.......and maybe start directing some of that empathy towards the people, should any exist, instead of the few you can benefit from personally
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Why does there have to be a reason, to exercise our freedom of speech? Those who are collecting our metadata (the alphabet soup crowd), don't have ANY reason to be doing it, other than their desire to do so. What gives them the right to collect and use our MD "because we wanna..", and yet, restricts us, or anyone else, from doing the same without justification?
Remember, they keep telling us that this collection of all things digital, is completely harmless, and that, despite there being no demonstrable need, they're just doing it for our own good. Shouldn't that go both ways?
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The reason legislators and the intelligence community are okay with spying on everyone is because they treat, and often legally, makes themselves immune to it. It means that even if they did care about unintended consequences, they'll never understand them, because they can't experience it.
The article was memorable because it related it to a design principle of having the people work with their own products to experience the quality first-hand. That way a better perspective is learned.
It has the snappy term of "dogfooding".
Congress and the IC really needs to eat their own dogfood. If they won't do it voluntarily, then maybe the public needs to do it for them.
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"How did this happen"
Number 2
"Metadata"
Shock
"Oh!Well how bad is it"
Number 2
"Not as bad as it could have been, we can deal with it i think"
Shock
"Ok, good! I'll pretend im ok with this, and reinforce the the bullshit i "believe" in, and who knows, maybe ill get some brownie points"
Number 2
"You're my idol"
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Assuming this is illegal ...
Was this guy unaware that airliners loaded with paying customers are monitored to death in the Americas? How can this story even be news?
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Virginia
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Headline
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"karma's a witch, who turns against her friends faster than her enemies."
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I think ya done the lady wrong and if she actually existed, would be deserving of an apology. I see her as demure and demanding only her due. Comply!
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Hoist by his own petard
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Libertarians can reject reality all you want but history shows how easy it is to influence a lawmaker.
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He billed the taxpayer for them, proving once again just how cheaply a politician can be bought.
As opposed to you commie freetards, or whatever you want to call yourself. Don't wave that Libertarian stick around if you haven't a clue what it means.
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Once again, I should point out...
We'd be better off with a Social Security number lottery.
Seriously.
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Shoe. Meet the other foot.
This is one of those times and it has made my day.
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