Hacker News Reader

Comment by knd775 | Hacker News Reader

I guess I should have expected a number this high, but I didn't. 750-999 national security requests in half a year? Not warrants, but national security requests. That just seems insane to me.

View on HN

When national security requests come with built-in gag orders, little-to-no oversight, and are probably easier to issue/get than warrants (no pesky judges or explaining to do) why would one ever use a warrant again?

Low-level enforcers don't have easy access to such orders.

I'm not sure that high level enforcers should have easy access either, though. What's the old saying? Something like you rise to the level of your own incompetence?

yes. you can trust that only people who should have your data can get it :/

We don't know that. We do know that the FBI, NSA, and other federal agencies are overly anxious to support local law enforcement - by providing wartime hardware and weapons, as well as support in spying. We know local police patrols use Stingray devices, disrupting cell service and sweeping up private communications without a warrant - that's just a single instance.

We have no idea how easy it is for local law enforcement to pick up the phone and request "support" by having a NSL issued.

One could infer how difficult it would be to maintain secrecy as the number of privileged enforcers expands. The longer that secrecy is maintained, the less access probably exists to the privilege.

I'm comfortable assuming that my local beat officer probably can't signal to his superior to pull an NSL on me and start reading every piece of data my devices are streaming over TLS.

If NSRs are so easy to get and so powerful, why does anyone still bother getting warrants?

I suppose the question is - What is the scope of an NSL? Can it cover all subscriber data in a single request?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com