Interesting People mailing list archives
more on Who they are spying on
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 16:51:09 -0400
Begin forwarded message: From: h_bray () globe com Date: June 9, 2006 4:35:24 PM EDT To: Eric Rachner <eric () mostly harmless org> Cc: dave () farber net, ip () v2 listbox com Subject: Re: [IP] more on Who they are spying onI'm tempted to pack it in. It appears that a substantial percentage of the members of this list quite sincerely believe that we're in no danger. In essence, they want the US government to do little or nothing about Islamist terrorism. And with those who think this way, there's really not much to
talk about. For the rest, I thought it might help to focus on one controversial intelligance tool--data mining. I wanted to ask--to what extent shouldcops and spies be permitted to mine databases in order to identify possible
bad guys? Which databases should they be permitted to use? Which databases should be closed to them, if any? Should they have access to personally-identifiable information without a warrant? Hiawatha Bray Eric Rachner <eric () mostly harmless.org> To dave () farber net, h_bray () globe com 06/09/2006 04:30 cc
PM ip () v2 listbox comSubject
Re: [IP] more on Who they are spying on
It just seems to me that the debate over this issue has mostly consisted of hand-wringing about our loss of liberties. It's a legitimate concern, but there's something else at stake too, and this story reminds us what it is.
The trouble with this debate is that certain people keep trying to re-frame it, quite disingenuously, as a question of liberty versus security. Baleful hints to the contrary, that "something else" which is at stake here is not our security. It is the integrity of a government whose executive branch operates outside the law, exempt from any oversight by the legislative or judicial. - Eric Begin forwarded message:
Begin forwarded message: From: h_bray () globe com Date: June 7, 2006 1:00:21 PM EDT To: dave () farber net Subject: Re: [IP] more on Who they're spying on Well, yes. But here's where rubber meets road. It'd be darn near impossible to investigate this kind of network if you had to get probable cause-based warrants at every turn. Often, you have no idea why somebody is calling someone else, or being called by them. So you can't tell a judge what you expect to find. But if you can check who's calling who--even if you don't know what they're saying--you can extract pattern data that'll give you some serious clues. This is what the government's been doing, and catching hell for. And although the story doesn't say so, it's a good bet that this technique helped them roll up these thugs. So do we really want the government to be barred from doing this? Or if we want to put it under more intensive oversight, how do we manage that without crippling the operation? It just seems to me that the debate over this issue has mostly consisted of hand-wringing about our loss of liberties. It's a legitimate concern, but there's something else at stake too, and this story reminds us what it is. Hiawatha Bray David Farber <dave () farber net> To 06/07/2006 12:32 ip () v2 listbox com PM cc Subject Please respond to [IP] more on Who they're spying on dave () farber net
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