It's a shame this is the top post.
A National Security Letter absolutely cannot do anything like this. NSLs are such a weird HN boogeyman. Absolutely a violation of the first and fourth amendments, but they are administrative subpoenas. They cannot compel the kind of action you're talking about.
There are plenty of ways to twist interpretations of statute to try and make investigative and prosecutorial overreaches legal, but it's ridiculous how often these NSL posts get voted up to "educate" others on a subject the poster clearly hasn't even read up on themselves.
So yes, what he said is not only possible, but documented.
But that's not what I was talking about. An NSL is an administrative subpoena. It can compel you to turn over metadata about communications, for instance, which is absolutely a Fourth Amendment violation with what you can discern from modern "meta"data, but it can't compel you to turn over the content of those communications, and it certainly can't compel you to, for instance, alter the software on your customer's phone to allow easy intercept of all future communications.
That's a pretty bold claim to make without evidence that such things have already happened. 'May' doesn't cut it. Anything 'may' happen.
Cook was not served with a NSL, at least not one he "won a staring contest over"
Tim Cook, Apple, in the San Berandio Case was served with a standard, in the open, court order, not a NSL, not a FISA Court order... this was just a run of the mill public order.
Since the NSA will never admit they violated the constitution, no one can get discovery to prove they did, thus they will never be held to account.
The very Nature of "national security" and the ability of the government to literally make everything including the price they pay for a hammer a matter of "national security" and hide these things under the impenetrable cloak of that claim is a major damn problem.
As to the charge they have "disappeared" people, given we know 100% factually that the CIA perpetrated immoral renditions for the purposes of torturing people "legally" I fail to see why you do not believe other branches of the government did not follow the same play book
Hell they have admitted to executing US Citizens with out trial... I do not believe there is anything they will not do.
The claim was "US Govt.", NSA was only used in reference to law suits where they use national security to get cases tossed.
The US prefers to discredit people in the media as "terrorists" (or "gang members", etc) while throwing an unwinnable pile of charges at them to force a confession (aka "plea bargain"). This have the de facto result of keeping someone either in jail for a while or spending 100% of their time and money on defense.
Regardless of how it turns out, draconian probation requirements, pre-employment questions in the style of "have you been charged with a felony" and the arrest and/or criminal record are very effective at finishing the job of "disappearing" someone with unemployment and the social isolation that happens when someone's reputation is trashed. In many states, you can add long-term or permanent disenfranchisement.
The tactics everyone should be paying attention are closer to COINTELPRO, where key people are removed from potential positions of leadership or organization before they accumulate larger amounts of power. With a mass surveillance network and storage that lets you search through someone's past, parallel construction to remove someone on any kind of trumped up charge is easy.
Can you share an example of this happening to someone who works at a technology device manufacturer? Someone who was in a position to be aware of an NSL that they could spill the beans on?
It may be a coincidence that he happened to both refuse to help the NSA as well as commit a crime, but "insider trading" as an officer of a company is pretty hazy, especially if you have the NSA informing you that they're going to tank your company's stock if you don't comply.
> rstephenson2 11 hours ago | parent
Wait... Randall Stephenson, is that you?
That isn't the only industry that can be subject to a NSL. We are lucky to have any of the information at all; if you limit your search to very-specific categories, you risk finding areas that have less public data.
I would start here: https://www.aclu.org/cases/doe-v-holder
That case has nothing to do with discrediting someone as a terrorist or gang member, charging them with any crime, forcing a confession out of them, and really anything to do with criminal charges or jail time at all.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extrajudicial_killing#United_S...
People want to reject the idea their government is immoral, so they do...
The charge is not that they would be disappeared and no one would miss them...
Cite your source.
I am skeptical by relying on the "six degrees of separation" theory... I literally know nobody who has ever known anyone (etc) that has been "disappeared".
Then I fail to see what your point it, the entire point of "someone would notice" would imply that would be a deterrent to prevent or give pause to the US Government disappearing someone. This would necessitate people caring.
Further, in order for many many people to notice like you said, a good portion of them must care enough to spread that info.. Unless you are thinking the only people that would be disappeared would be someone like Tim Cook, or other High Level person, no it more likely would be some unnamed programmer, or researcher.. not a CEO of a Fortune 100 company who is of no actual value to the US Government.
>>Cite your source.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/09/23/mis...
>>I literally know nobody who has ever known anyone (etc) that has been "disappeared".
Are you saying people do not disappear.. Government connection not with standing? All of the missing persons world wide are simply false?
In The Puzzle Palace, Bamford describes how telegraph companies loaned paper records to federal intelligence services. How teletype companies loaned wire recordings, and later tapes. Mostly they relied on patriotism. Sometimes threats. International mail has always been subject to inspection.
[0] http://www.americaslibrary.gov/jb/reform/jb_reform_morsecod_... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dulles_Technology_Corridor
Funnily, 70% of the internet also goes through Frankfurt (DE-CIX, largest IX globally).
The 70% number is also the most commonly made up number for made up statistics, of which there are many.
Has this really happened? I know the chicago police got caught running domestic black sites but this would dwarf even that.
I absolutely believe this to be true, but we cant say it is true without evidence
EDIT: As pointed out below by kazinator, I suspect this to be true, I do not believe this to be true.
If you suspect something, there has to be a reason. You have a certain level of evidence to support a suspicion, a higher level to support a deeper suspicion, a lot more to support being "practically certain" and so on.
The role played by suspicion in a rational context is to justify a search for more information, or to justify some precaution being taken.
For example, the fact that the Earth is warming is a matter of fact, it's measurable that year on year the planet's temperature has increased. I don't need to believe it, it's observable. But the conjecture that it will continue warming is a belief - perhaps the models are entirely wrong and next year we will enter into a new ice age. You can't prove something will happen until it happens - maybe tomorrow Russell's Teapot will magically appear on the other side of the Sun, it's not a falsifiable claim.
I would say that a belief is a stronger conviction than a suspicion, but I don't think it necessarily implies ironclad proof.
Given a past record of bad behavior, I'm more than willing to believe in present abuses of state secret privileges. It's been rotten since it was created (US V Reynolds) and at this point the null hypothesis is that nothing has changed.
Is that not what I'm doing?
I believe it to be true, but I'm not saying it's absolutely true because I currently have no proof.
thanks
There almost certainly were NSLs served on the shooters' phone companies---about the most reasonable use of them one can imagine. They would not compel Apple to do a thing about a phone held by its owner, the City of San Bernadino.
I said a month ago or more that there are companies that do this and the FBI should just ask one. And moreover that these companies were beating down the FBI's door wanting to do it to prove themselves.