How Mark Klein told the EFF about Room 641A [book excerpt]
thereader.mitpress.mit.edu611 points by the-mitr 19 hours ago
611 points by the-mitr 19 hours ago
"With all due respect, Cindy, you don’t know if they are classified since they don’t have to have markings and can still be classified. Only we can tell. And if they are classified, you are likely in trouble."
That's awfully convenient. Impossible to check if something's classified, but you can still go to jail over it.
It's like a reverse get out of jail free card.
Do the other party have evidence against you? Declare classified documents and they go to jail instead of you.
Was it enforceable, or was it more like those emails where it is mentioned something on the lines of:
> "if you were not the intended recipient and you received it anyway and read it but you were not meant to, you can be prosecuted"
Let an LLM look at them ;)
In 2006?
If a link is submitted to HN and no one comments that you should use an LLM, is it even a real thread?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_a_tree_falls_in_a_forest_an...
"One big change impacting surveillance was clear: Prior to September 11, the U.S. had what could reasonably be called a “wall” separating foreign surveillance for national security purposes done by the NSA from domestic surveillance for law enforcement purposes done by the FBI."
It turns out that the above statement is not entirely correct. I was aware of this rule at the time (early 90's), and was very surprised to find that it had been routinely violated for at least a decade. Unlike Snowden, I kept this to myself because I had signed (many) NDAs with the US Government.
It is my understanding that the US Government set up a system, long, long ago, where the British would spy on Americans and then the British would supply the information to the NSA, thereby the NSA is not technically spying on American citizens.
Words mean nothing. They can be interpreted how ever they need to be interpreted by those in power.
australia and america have the same agreement. these countries may be dragons but live in fear of losing their hoard (borrowing that analogy from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47963204)
> australia and america have the same agreement
This has no basis whatsoever in Australian law.
Procuring someone else to do it on your behalf is still an offence under s 7(1) of the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 (Cth).
TELECOMMUNICATIONS (INTERCEPTION AND ACCESS) ACT 1979 - SECT 7
Telecommunications not to be intercepted (1) A person shall not:
(a) intercept;
(b) authorize, suffer or permit another person to intercept; or
(c) do any act or thing that will enable him or her or another person to intercept;
People need to know about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction as well. The technique is used to shield these secret programs by laundering the information they collect through plausible evidentiary chains.
> People need to know about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction as well.
The number of terrorists who have been caught because they were controlled by a police officer "because they ran a traffic light" (yeah, sure) is wild.
In the EU at some point after every single terrorist attack the terrorists' names were known because they had left their passports in a car they left at the scene. (yeah, sure again).
The really amazing thing is that they don't know the name of the terrorists right away: because the terrorists don't have the passport on themselves apparently. No: they all leave them in the last car they used.
Probably that, by now, terrorists see past terror attacks and think: "Oh, I'm supposed to have my passport with me, but then leave in the last vehicle I'll use before killing people".
In France we had a case where the government tried to bring terrorist charges against someone, the problem is that the police couldn’t materially have seen what they wrote in their report, because their car was too far and the timing didn’t line up correctly. Eventually the policemen invoked confidentiality rules against their mobile phones so that no accurate probing could be made. The judge threw away the terrorist charges anyways, because the facts didn’t warrant it. Since the police knew exact facts without being there, there is a high suspicion they used illegal spying on the people and tried to launder the data.
in 2002 I worked at an AT&T major datacenter and watched the NSA install all the black boxes in every rack, complete with a black curtain and armed guards while they did the project (St Louis). Before that it was still going on, it just wasnt so embedded like they did in 2002.
> Unlike Snowden, I kept this to myself because I had signed (many) NDAs with the US Government.
You say this like you are proud of it. Admittedly, I cannot say what I would do in that situation as I've never been in that situation, but I'd hope I'd have the fortitude to speak up on it. Having employees/contractors doing tasks that are illegal just because they came from the higher ups is no different than soldiers refusing illegal orders. Quitting would be the least of the moral options. Speaking up would be higher up the complicated options.
I'm not proud of it at all. The revelation was startling to me, and I was pretty unhappy about it. It was done in the name of "stopping bad people from doing bad things", but it was still illegal (at least in the white world).
Snowden had the same dilemma. He was asking the NSA lawyers about the legality of their programs, and he never got an honest answer.
Quitting would not have stopped the activity, and disclosing it would have subjected me to the same treatment that Snowden got.
(Years later, I heard an NSA program manager boasting that they would keep asking different government lawyers for an opinion on the legality of proposed programs until they got the answer they wanted. This was after Snowden's revelations.)
Pretty much everyone in CIA has a "ends justify the means" philosophy. It's easy to fall into that trap when you learn about all the devious things our enemies are doing.
Apparently EOs have been used to circumvent the constitution for quite a while.
It's easy for others to say, "oy, you coward, you should have blown the whistle" from the comfort their web browsers. For what it's worth, I had a security clearance in a previous job (not as high as yours, I'm sure) and I understand where you are coming from. I would have likely done the same as you. Especially with my career and the ability to provide for my family on the line.
It's probably different if you have a family, but I have quit jobs over moral implications no problem. Most people have pretty flimsy morals and will do anything to keep the money rolling in.
How do you know how many people would quit? Even if 99% of the US would refuse to work for the NSA, the last 1% would be plenty for the job.
Stopping the action is not the only reason to quit a job you deeply disapprove of. There's a related anecdote in the book Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. From my memory: a man working for the US embassy in Japan was unhappy and doing psychotherapy. The therapist was trying to see if his issues with his boss had something to do with his relationship to authority, digging into his relationship to his father, etc. Turns out, he was just in deep disagreement with the policies he had to enforce, and quitting solved the issue.
Quitting a job you think is harmful (or even maybe meaningless) can be good for yourself, in addition to the morality question.
Most people have no safety net and if the money stops rolling in their life is effectively ruined for several years
Most people in the world? Potentially, though I doubt the "life ruined for years" part holds for >50%.
Most people on HN? Definite no. Most people on HN who work in roles where they're exposed to such mass surveillance or other evil at scale (like Meta)? Absolutely not.
You'd be amazed at the number of people that live pay check to pay check. Even on here, I'd guess the number is higher than you'd expect. There are plenty of people in tech that do not live in SV or work for a FAANG. You're failing victim to the echo chamber if you think everyone here is a well paid bit banger
> You'd be amazed at the number of people that live pay check to pay check. Even on here, I'd guess the number is higher than you'd expect.
Well you don't have to live anywhere near paycheck to paycheck to be intimidated. If you're stonewalled from employment, you're in trouble unless you are so fabulously wealthy that you can afford to never work again.
- There are people with $1M+ salaries who live pay check to pay check. This is a choice. A lot of HNers fall under this category.
- A lot of people who are actually poor and live pay check to pay check aren't ruined for years if they lose their job. Because the nature of their work and lack of career usually means they're unstable and replaceable "commodity" jobs in the first place.
- Almost everyone who is in a position to be exposed to evil at scale as a tech worker, is among the top 5% earners in the world. I'm being very conservative there, it's likely top 1%.