The Constitution was created in order to protect natural rights that exist outside of any government, and does not grant or establish any rights themselves, but merely imparts negative rights and limitations on the government.
You may think that an obvious statement, but I've been increasingly concerned at the education of the populace about the subject.
Also, the difference between positive and negative rights is an important one not enough are aware of.
This is what makes America, despite its flaws, what Christopher Hitchens called "the last revolution to stand a chance", and to this day is the basis for what I consider true American exceptionalism that distinguishes us from other countries such as the UK.
I'd go further than that; I'd say that the difference is strongly downplayed in political and educational contexts because so much Government overreach is predicated upon people not knowing, or not caring, about the difference.
Also, even people who /do/ understand, often don't care. Because if they did, they'd have to concede that many Federal programmes in the US are unconstitutional, that is, they involve powers not explicitly delegated to the Federal Government by the Constitution.
And folks want their FCC, FDA and Obamacare, so they let it slide ...
Instead, be proud about keeping American ideals alive :)
Only UK can spy on Brits, on US can spy on Americans etc.
This is probably the single most misunderstood point in the whole surveillance debate.
The point was that the US was NOT allowed to spy on its own citizens, (UK too) and they got around that by spying on each other and sharing information. That was revealed in the months after the the initial Snowden leaks.
The UK changed the law (Investigatory Powers Act) to allow itself to spy on and hack its own citizens.
Countries are completely allowed to spy on their own citizens (in accordance with their own laws). They are also allowed to spy on foreigners (in accordance with their own laws, which typical have few protections for foreigners).
5-EYES is an agreement between certain countries to NOT spy on people from those other countries, and instead agree to freely exchange intelligence, and respond to each others requests etc.
For example, if a suspected terrorist on a GCHQ operation turns out to be American (or Australian etc), GCHQ are NOT allowed to intercept their phone. It must be done by the NSA who have to get a warrant in accordance with the US Constitution and US laws etc.
Without going into detail, I know this from experience.
Clapper was questioned by congress about whether data on a Americans was swept up in the dragnet, and Clapper (lying) said no, not wittingly.
Likewise, GCHQ were found to be acting illegally, hence the IPA that enshrined what they were already doing into law.
> 5-EYES is an agreement between certain countries to NOT spy on people from those other countries
If this is the case, then based on those leaks, it looks like both the US and UK broke this agreement. None of this makes any sense based on what you just told me.
5-EYES countries agree to not "target" each others citizens, i.e. to actually hack their devices or listen to their phones.
---
GCHQ's bulk collection of metadata was ruled legal but they had failed to provide some information to the surveillance watchdog, which is why the watchdog retrospectively ruled a period of it's operation (7 years) unlawful.
It did not become lawful after IPA, it was always allowed (rightly or wrongly), they just failed to provide sufficient information about the programme to the watchdog. IPA didn't pass until 2016, well after the programme had been ruled lawful under existing laws.
P: Clapper lied.
Q: RIPA was signed into law to make GCHQ collection legal.
P -> Q: ???
The declassified portion of the UK USA agreement [1] doesn't actually mention spying on other members' citizens, as the purpose of the agreement was to establish the scope of shared information during the Cold War.
The prohibitions on collection were made during subsequent agreements and aren't declassified. Some countries have additional restrictions, such as prohibiting other members from collecting metadata; all prohibit collection of actual message content.
Of course, a country could defy the agreement and existing treaties, and collect. I haven't seen any evidence of this in the Snowden leaks though.
1. https://www.nsa.gov/news-features/declassified-documents/uku...
That reminds me that there are still people who deny the holocaust or the fact that the Earth is not flat.
I want to hear more about your interesting take on reality.
I think first you might be misunderstanding positive and negative rights. Positive rights are rights that are asserted onto others. Negative rights are rights an individual has that others may not violate. The principles of the enlightenment and individualist freedom and liberty require negative rights as part of natural law, such as what John Locke called the first right, the right to self defense.
So, the importance of a system of government that primarily Madison, but others as well, took a great deal of time to research by combing through the history of government so as to "form a more perfect union." is that they realized that assertion of positive rights is often in opposition to negative rights, and that for a truly free and open society it would need to be based on negative rights. Of course implementation was not and is not perfect, but they were trying to design a system that would get better over time by encouraging freedom and liberty.
In essence, America is the only country truly founded on the principles of the enlightenment and individual liberty and natural rights. This is why the British fought so hard to continually undermine us even after the revolution. Liberty is a threat to monarchy, tyranny, despotism and oligarchism around the world because it inspires people and solves problems.
I'm guessing the German constitution was designed by the Allies post-WW2 primarily as a way to control the country via complex bureaucratic layers that ignore these principles. Once someone asserts positives rights over anothers negative rights it becomes so completely subjective that it is an easily corrupted process, at least in theory thats how I would see it play out, but I don't know much about German law (even though I have visited). So, you tell me, how corrupted is the German constitution and/or law?
The trick in America is lawyers figured out ways to whittle things down via bad precedent, and due to corruption of all three branches, the media and education system has been training the populace to forget the fact that the government can not and does not grant any rights. Rights must exist outside of government, and the government is formed to protect those rights and for very little purpose other than that. That is why America is floundering currently. By sacrificing it's principles for a super-hardcore realpolitik it has undermined it's own bedrock foundation.
The last president that tried to stand up to this though never left Dallas.
Indeed, my first interpretation was that negative rights meant the same as limitations, but after doing some reading later on (after having already replied), I noticed that they weren't the same thing at all.
The German constitution starts with a set of basic human rights - most if not all are negative rights. And only afterwards does it regulate the structure of the state and other aspects which sometimes overlap with these basic rights (like the death penalty would probably be in conflict with article 1 of the constitution anyway - but I guess better be explicit about it). Also included is a law that prohibits changing these basic rights - even if you had complete control of the legaslative branch you wouldn't be able to for example abolish freedom of opinion (or any of the other basic rights). Resistence against anyone that seeks to destroy the democratic order is also codified (although seemingly it is unclear at what point in time one can start to intervene; armed resistence is believed to be covered when appropriate though).
> In essence, America is the only country truly founded on the principles of the enlightenment and individual liberty and natural rights.
Not to be too negative here, but that sounds like pure propaganda to me.
> I'm guessing the German constitution was designed by the Allies post-WW2 primarily as a way to control the country via complex bureaucratic layers that ignore these principles.
It wasn't designed by the allies (although they did have a huge influence on it and had to agree to it), but by a German comittee that was tasked with designing a new constitution that should prevent a rise of another authoritarian regime. While it might have been possible to do so without involving the principles of enlightenment, individual liberty and natural rights, they are the corner stones of constitution I would say. And if one looks closely one can see that parts are heavily inspired by the US system (like strong federalism). In my opinion (as a German, so certainly to be taken with a large grain of salt) the German constitution as we have it now, is better suited to protect liberties than the US one (since it is essentially one with training wheels after the previous one didn't work out so well because the population wasn't quite on board with this democracy thing yet).
> Once someone asserts positives rights over anothers negative rights it becomes so completely subjective that it is an easily corrupted process, at least in theory thats how I would see it play out, but I don't know much about German law (even though I have visited). So, you tell me, how corrupted is the German constitution and/or law?
The basic rights of the constitution are deemed more important than any other law and in fact form the foundation for the whole legal system. And to ensure laws cannot conflict with the constitution (for long anyway) we have the constitutional court (like the supreme court in the US), which can kill any law it deems unconsitutional (lower courts can dismiss cases too if it is obvious, but those descisions are non-binding for other courts).
As for normal law - our constitutional court is doing a pretty good job of killing laws that violate the constitution (including the law regulating how federal elections are performed which benefited the currently governing party slightly - nowhere near as bad as in the US though). Compared to what I hear about the US I would say we are still doing quite well over here. However we also have a different legal system in general to the one in the US - legal precedent is not binding in our system for example.
> Rights must exist outside of government, and the government is formed to protect those rights and for very little purpose other than that.
I fully agree with the first part and would like to point out that mentioning those natural rights before the state in the constitution does send a pretty strong signal what's of larger importance. Mentioning the state first and then only later having the natural rights (like the constitution of the Weimar republic does) makes them, at least to me, seem like an afterthought..
But are they, really?
There's a parallel phenomenon in political behavior that's ably explained in Brian Caplan's The Myth of the Rational Voter.
You could practice really rigorous security culture and avoid creating any digital footprint worth talking about in the first place, but then you'd be socially isolated to a degree that was economically disadvantageous (economically meaning in multiple contexts besides purely fiscal). And to the degree that you can be socially connected, inferences could still be made about you through the behavior of your friends.
As a crude example, recall that Osama bin Laden's hiding place was determined to be interesting because there was physical traffic of people and goods to the residence, but an uncharacteristic lack of electronic communication for the neighborhood it was situated in. What kind of house has a bunch of people living there and regular visitors, but not internet or phone service?
Finally, people have different kinds of risk calculus. Many people know that they're subject to such surveillance and the ramifications that follow from it, but choose to be who they are anyway despite the risks, on the theory that they'd rather live on their feet than die on their knees.
I laughed and pointed out that I'm not a teen and am quite familiar with my rights. They were visibly disappointed and told me that I was kicked out of Kansas and that I'd be arrested if I ever went back to Kansas. I giggled again but left and they followed me to the interstate slipway.
This certainly isn’t a localized tactic. I recall discussion of videographers printing statutes and employing them when threatened about recording police activity in public spaces. The frightening aspect (to me) is that some law enforcement officers genuinely appear to believe that they have authority that they don’t have.
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2017/04/gresham...
https://www.aclu.org/news/aclu-portland-police-reach-settlem...
They'd just been almost totally destroyed by a tornado and I happened to be just a little ways away. So, lacking anything better to do, I bought some work clothes and went to help move rubble.
I was leaving the State and decided I'd nap for a few hours. I didn't feel like getting a hotel so I slept in the car. It turns out, I was sleeping in a factory parking lot and the people who came in to open it called the police - or so the cops said. It probably didn't help that I was in manual labor clothing, I'm not white, and I was in a new BMW. I probably looked like a drug dealer. That's still not an excuse.
Not to worry, I didn't let it reflect on the nice people of Kansas. But, after I'd spent a couple of weeks just giving my time to those in need, their cops harassed me and told me that I was banned from their State. I haven't been back but that's just coincidental.
I know this does happen sometimes now. What happens when saying "I don't have a facebook account" becomes a significant enough indicator that your're hiding your past?
I've heard stories of people at airport customs attempting to enter a country and having to try explain to the customs officers their lack of web presence or social media posts that they would otherwise use to corroborate and back up their intent for travel.
Demanding a social media identity or password is a great idea if you want to paint a huge target on your back for a discrimination lawsuit.
Said social media account will contain a lot of information about whether or not you are a member of a protected class. Good luck proving that you didn't use it in your hiring decision.
If I still cared enough about writing software I'd probably do a startup around some of this. Instead I'm writing SF about it.
I would act the in the same manner you would as well, it's not worth working for a company if they don't have some very basic principles and it's a huge red flag. If they don't respect your privacy in the interview, they probably wont respect it in day to day business. But just like you explained we have to be careful because there's a lot of people who don't really have a choice, especially in today's job market here in Australia; a lot of people would have to decide between privacy and their ability to pay the power, rent, food, etc.
> Your digital exhaust is unique hence it identifies. Pooling everyone's digital exhaust also characterizes how you differ from normal. Privacy used to be proportional to that which it is impossible to observe or that which can be observed but not identified. No more -- what is today observable and identifiable kills both privacy as impossible-to-observe and privacy as impossible-to-identify, so what might be an alternative? [...] Privacy will be [...] the effective capacity to misrepresent yourself.
> Misrepresentation is using disinformation to frustrate data fusion on the part of whomever it is that is watching you. Some of it can be low-tech, such as misrepresentation by paying your therapist in cash under an assumed name. Misrepresentation means arming yourself not at Walmart but in living rooms. Misrepresentation means swapping affinity cards at random with like-minded folks. Misrepresentation means keeping an inventory of misconfigured webservers to proxy through. Misrepresentation means putting a motor-generator between you and the Smart Grid. Misrepresentation means using Tor for no reason at all. Misrepresentation means hiding in plain sight when there is nowhere else to hide. Misrepresentation means having not one digital identity that you cherish, burnish, and protect, but having as many as you can. Your fused identity is not a question unless you work to make it be. Lest you think that this is a problem statement for the random paranoid individual alone, let me tell you that in the big-I Intelligence trade, crafting good cover is getting harder and harder and for the exact same reasons: misrepresentation is getting harder and harder. If I was running field operations I would not try to fabricate a complete digital identity, I'd "borrow" the identity of someone who had the characteristics that I needed for the case at hand.
OPSEC is hard. You leak incredible amounts of data, and modern analysis techniques reveal a lot more than most people realize.
Re: your secondary identity - how do you plan on obfuscating the changeover events so the usage times (and/or network entry/exit times) of your secondary identity are not the inverse of when you use your primary identity? I recommend ZOZ's talk "Don't fuck it up!"[2] for a better sense of just how hard is to do proper OPSEC in the modern age of surveillance.
We reveal so much more about ourselves than we could ever imagine. If you use, or used Reddit, Snoopsnoo [1] is a site that uses incredibly primitive language parsing to build a profile on users based on what they've voluntarily submitted. And again I have to emphasize that is using very primitive parsing. It's disconcerting how much we reveal when an algorithm is able to rapidly and effectively piece it together.
Now when enter the government that data can be cross matched against other meta-data to nail down your identity to a very small segment, if not outright match it. And then we get into things like language analysis. I make some token effort to anonymity, but my wife has mentioned she often knows its me posting before seeing the username. And I can do the same for other people I know well. No idea what we're picking up on, but it's a task that machine learning would be phenomenally well suited to do - and do better than we do. And then there are things like more explicit dialect issues. This [2] is a quiz based on American dialects. Again it is phenomenal how much your vocabulary, which undoubtedly you view as 'proper', actually reveals your location. Our very language is not only a finger print but also a geo-tracker.
[1] - https://www.snoopsnoo.com/ [2] - http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/12/20/sunday-review/...
As someone who doesn't know much about American dialogue, do people over there really use similar wording? Or is the quiz just coming up with random answers because it has no clue what to suggest?
Anyway I'm not that impressed it had me down as either coming from Providence (because I pronounce mary, marry and merry different), or Santa Rosa or San Jose (because I'd never heard of a drive through liquor store which actually seems a mental idea, from a UK perspective). I know it's not supposed to work on me but there's a massive distance between the first and last two places based solely on one data point.
Makes me wonder how this would fare in a smaller country like the England or Scotland, etc.
Friends and family might have a hard time tracking your discrete secondary identities, but your ISP or facebook might see it very transparently.
It of course won't work well against police, who can look up the VPN provider, ask who's paying for it, and it's mostly enough to find you.
Forums: often the need for a separate identity arises from the need to join a particular forum frowned upon by your peers or superiors. Same for audience. That is, if you want a different persona and not a sock puppet to support your "main" persona.
Timing: this is also solvable if you want to.
For example, "okay, so you have one account exclusively post hard core right-wing arguments in the early morning, and then your second account posts left-wing arguments in the mid-afternoon."
At that point, what's the point? :-)
All these three personalities need not be connected in any way, nor need they contradict each other in what they say. They are just for different and unrelated facets of one's life.
Possible? Maybe. Easy? No.
And about style. Mirimir only writes in English. I draw on my experience working with Americans, including many from the South. My meatspace identity never uses English online.
I suppose someday they might implement features to try to detect and filter out that kind of thing, but then it will time to abandon the platform totally.
(Also, creating secondary identities is easy on paper, but IME segregating myself like that and presenting a fake persona takes a psychological toll. Perhaps others are more adept at it.)
Me, I enjoy having multiple personas :) I also enjoy writing about this stuff: https://www.ivpn.net/privacy-guides/online-privacy-through-o...
Mirimir is a rather unique name, Google turns up a lot of results which seem to be you, so it’s not hard to see what mirimir is interested in. I’d assume ad networks also have a pretty good profile on mirimir too.
I’m sure there’s more to you than just mirimir, but it’s probably a big part of who you are so what does this really gain? Your real name isn’t revealed, but that’s just another persona. Potential employers won’t find you are interested in opsec through Google, but I’d assume you work in that field anyway. I’d guess having the choice of what to reveal is an advantage, but it’s very easy then to reveal too much so that personas could be put together (e.g. Steve who is the friend of another persona on Facebook, comments on mirimirs article).
Maybe people aren’t going to come across your non-work interests in (e.g.) steampunk or painting dragon pictures, but so what? For most people that is part of who they are, and they don’t care to hide it. Maybe if you have something to hide this is a good idea, but I’d say most people don’t (given how many post private details of their life online).
Personally I use my real name online. I’ve considered switching to pseudonyms to make it harder for casual people to stalk me, but at the end of the day I’ve already revealed so much that it’s not going to help much, and there isn’t anything I feel the need to hide.
Yes, Mirimir is rather unique. There's that South American woman, and a travel agency in Iran. But still, yes. I picked it because "мир и мир". And name recognition is intentional.
Indeed, Mirimir is a big part of my online presence. I've worked hard on that persona, for some years. And it occasionally gets me into interesting stuff, even some consulting work.
My meatspace identity is distinguished from Mirimir in three important ways. First, I rarely use English. Second, I don't work on OPSEC, or display any interest in anything related to that. Third, I don't have much of a public online presence. All of my professional work is private, as required by clients. And my social life stays just about totally in meatspace.
The rest of my online activity goes through nested VPN chains, routed through the main VPN. So it's only the final VPNs in those chains that see anything except throughput patterns.
I routinely have several workstation VMs running, each connecting through its own VPN chain. So, while I'm drafting posts for HN or whatever, I'm typically doing stuff in other VMs. It's pretty much like most people do with apps in multiple windows, or SSH logins, or whatever.
And Tor. I've never connected directly to Tor. I only connect through nested VPN chains, at least three deep. So yes, I consider Tor use to be a serious risk.
In this regard, you might well be one of the very few 0.000000001% for whom that statement might be true.
What is remarkable is the absolute lack of oversight over the sharing of this sensitive data with foreign governments and law enforcement, but especially with so-called "industry partners". And that there don't appear to be any legal penalties for its misuse.