Yeah, it's not like the U.S. can get a top-secret blanket order for call records of everyone in the country or anything. /s

>The U.S. has strong legal protections against unreasonable search and seizure

i don't think these protections apply to the people outside of US. The same way whatever laws China has wouldn't apply to for example the people in US, ie. outside of China.

Also it reminded about that typical arrangement when UK spies on the people inside US at the request of US government and vise versa in order to workaround those domestic legal protections.

That last part doesn't happen: it's part of the intelligence agreements not to do that.

The snowden leaks, 4 years ago, offer proof that this happened, and you still deny it?

Officials of the BND admitted it in a parliamentary hearing, too.

What proof did Snowden show of this?

I don’t have his documents on hand, but I’d instead recommend you read the transscripts of the NSA-Untersuchungsausschuss of the German Bundestag, which investigated the NSA and BND affairs. They’re official government documents, and are transscripts of people testifying under oath.

The head of the BND stated that the BND did not record any information about Germans, and the NSA did not record any information about Americans, but that the BND shared whatever it collected about Americans with the NSA, and in reverse.

None. People refuse to let this myth die, yet cannot provide any evidence. It is very strange.

Would you have thought of all Snowden revealed by yourself if he hadn't?

That agreement is to not to spy on each other against each other's will. That is completely different from spying on each other's domestic targets at each other's request/will to workaround domestic no spying and privacy protections laws.

Explain how anyone would think that works. You can't get around the 4th amendment by directing someone else to violate it.

UK spying on US citizens doesn't violate US Constitution and the 4th in particular which naturally applies only to US government and the people on US soil. And thus they do it that way. UK obviously has all the rights to listen, record, etc on telecommunications of all of the foreigners, including US people on US soil as long as the traffic leaves the US (and even if not - i don't think they bother to pay attention to such a small detail as long as they are doing it from comfortable office in London :).

>Explain how anyone would think that works.

US government lawyers explained how torture is legal. Compare to that, the circumventing of the 4th by means of allies doing the actual spying ... i'd be surprised if they even bothered to explain it away.

Sure but the US also has a very broad definition of "reasonable", where just about any kind of information you share through or with a business is a "business record" and doesn't require a warrant.

Not to mention the blanket surveillance, use of Stingrays without a warrant and near total lack of privacy law.

The US might not be as _bad_ as China but it's still far from _good_.

Those protections apply only to US citizens: the 4th amendment doesn't apply to foreigners. US ‘authorities’ arrogated to themselves the right to siphon the data and metadata of people around the world for this exact reason.

This means that based on the current applied interpretation of the norms, there are two classes of people: those who ‘deserve’ rights, and have them, and those who do not. And if you are a foreigner, you do not.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

No, the Fourth Amendment applies to non-citizens, even those who are in the US illegally.

> The court ruled in Almeida-Sanchez v. United States (1973) that all criminal charge-related elements of the Constitution's amendments (the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and the 14th) such as search and seizure, self-incrimination, trial by jury and due process, protect non-citizens, legally or illegally present.

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/immigration/255281-yes...

(I am not an expert and would appreciate a better source or explanation.)

Thank you for the clarification.

This is still limited to people on us soil :/

A great example of how reasonable is this when you need to unlock your phone, laptop, etc. at the US border and hand it over. I guess we have a very different definition of reasonable.

> The U.S. has strong legal protections against unreasonable search and seizure

> The U.S. has strong legal language against unreasonable search and seizure which is usually ignored when inconvenient for the various intelligence and law enforcement agencies.

Fixed that for you.

San Bernardino did demonstrate this to some degree, but I could easily have imagined that event pushing Congress to pass some pretty draconian legislation if the FBI hadn't found an alternate path into the phone, things got pretty heated with that one. I'd go as far as to say the surprisingly tough public stance Tim Cook took against the government's position was pretty unusual too.

I would be worried about what would happen if a similar highly public spat over an encryption issue happens under the current US administration - it's abundantly clear that the politics of this issue and the facts are not in alignment, Trump would doubtless adore the publicity of it. At any rate, I'd imagine San Bernadino is almost certainly not the last time this is going to be a national political issue, in the USA or elsewhere.

This of course pales in comparison to China though.

> The U.S. has strong legal protections against unreasonable search and seizure

So long as you stay the hell away from an airport...

Yeah, unless you're in the constitution-free zone within what is it, 100 miles of a port?

patriot act is rather broad for ensuring strong legal protections.