Hackers to NSA chief: Read the Constitution | Hacker News Reader

Hackers to NSA chief: Read the Constitution

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67 pointsferdo46 comments

Personally, I'm sick and tired of "OMG! SHARIA LAW!" being used as the excuse to spy on all of us. The same demagoguery was used by the Nazis (using Jewish law) as the basis for their depredations.

> "Why do so many countries want to attack us?" the person asked.

> The general replied that America stands in the way of them reaching their objective, which is to force everybody to comply with sharia law.

> "They want to attack us because we're bombing them!" shouted another person, to much chuckling from the audience.

And General Alexander should get a costume that doesn't make him look like one of the Love Boat crew.

I doubt most "terrorists" even care about sharia law. A crew of terrorists is basically a crew of thugs and gangsters who want money and power. The so-called sharia ideology is just propaganda to get new recruits. Good example was Abu Zarqawi the Jordanian gangster who went to Iraq to fight for AQIM. He lived like Tony Montana and certainly didn't give a shit about sharia law. He was only interested in making cash G money and running the streets with his coke and guns in Baghdad.

Another example is Boko Haram in Nigeria, who's leader dressed up like Tupac in some photos and cruised around in a Mercedes while denouncing the west. He recruited through prison breaks releasing drug dealers and other gangsters in exchange for membership.

And General Alexander should get a costume that doesn't make him look like one of the Love Boat crew.

Cheap ad hominems only detract from the actual arguments to be made. Ad hominems that focus on an individual's clothing are especially weak, given the average attire of a programmer.

Alexander could have worn business or business casual attire to this event, but he chose wear official military garb to a non-military event in order to cloak his arguments with official authority.

As I've argued elsewhere, the amount of political authority "Emperor Alexander" has managed to accumulate, and the unquestioning treatment he has received in congress and elsewhere, are signs of weakening in the republican system.

I don't think it was to cloak his arguments with official authority. I think what he was trying to do is use the blackhat conference as an open forum between the technology experts/hackers and the government. He had to have balls to wear that uniform in front of thousands of outraged people. I may not agree with what the NSA is doing, but you have to respect the man for talking at that conference especially in that uniform.

Costumed popinjays have proven far more dangerous in history than those that make fun of them.

General Alexander isn't worried about social niceties. I won't worry about them either when expressing my opinions about him and his peers.

> America stands in the way of them reaching their objective, which is to force everybody to comply with sharia law.

That just can't be.

Coming from a supposedly educated man who was also granted enormous power is immensely frightening. It's just not possible, circumstances like these will ultimately lead to the destruction of the country.

My jaw dropped when I read that line. I thought that line was just used by the crazy nutballs on Fox news. I honestly had no idea that was a literal justification used by people in power. Crazy.

I hate it when i find myself agreeing with a reductio ad hitlerum, esp when its in response to an argument based on the same kind of fallacy, but i do.

I also hate using reductio ad hitlerum, so imagine my confusion in finding it pertinent.

I actually agree that that's exactly the jihadists' objective. However, it's silly to say that this can be achieved with random acts of terrorism.

1) 9/11 2) ??? 3) Sharia law!

> "Why do so many countries want to attack us?" the person asked.

That's the 1 uncomfortable question that is at the center of the whole mess.

It's literally the vicious circle. The problem is, there are people who have an enormous financial interest in keeping this going.

To understand what I mean, look at the scale of the budget that's being distributed (both the absolute and the relative values): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_...

This was heavily discussed yesterday [1], where tptacek had a great comment [2], which is well worth a read. Anyone interested in watching the talk can head over to Youtube [3].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6135833

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6136338

[3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvVIZ4OyGnQ

Scary the naivete of a U.S. general who would make such a comment about shari'a. If he really believes such nonsense our defense strategy against Al-Qaeda will be similarly uninformed. The scary thing is that these beliefs are probably widely held amongst high-level U.S. military leaders. If you were to ask them what shari'a law is, they wouldn't have the slightest idea.

We have to stop pretending like there is literally zero difference between passive data collection and actively spying on someone.

We also have to stop pretending like being investigated is the same as being found guilty.

All this "read the Constitution" talk begs the initial question - what kind of risk are we okay with accepting when we ask for our privacy? Or to flip the question around, what are we getting in return for giving up our privacy, and is it worth it?

Frankly, we don't know right now, because no one's telling us (and being honest about it). I just want more information and less PR spin...

If the difference between passive spying and active spying is 'WHERE ssn='XXX-XX-XXXX', I don't think your 'difference' argument holds any water.

Why not? One makes no effort to identify each individual unless probable cause presents itself, and the other is when probable cause already exists and a warrant is granted.

It's watching a place vs. watching a person. How is that not "different"?

It's not watching a place, it's watching a platform/utility with fine-grained categorization and structure of information.

I'd compare it to holding the ebola plague in a research facility without publicly providing the safety measures that we put in place to protect the virus from getting out. Do you know how many scientists would be up in arms?

The only difference here is that we are dealing with computers which are usually publicly connected no matter what..and if the government has this information, who says hackers aren't going to be able to steal parts of the DB or query it? The very act of having this info, categorized, is just ghastly..and Orwellian.

Lots of stuff wrong with what you've written, and I don't have time to address everything, but I'll give you a short list:

* You're begging the question by asserting it's the Ebola virus. The question is whether or not it's dangerous and by calling it a deadly virus you're asserting it is as a given. Logical fallacy.

* I'd like to know where you got the information that the collected surveillance data is fully processed, even being used in its entirety, or that it's "fine grained". If you have information that hasn't yet been released, I recommend you be careful. See what happened to Snowden?

* What do you mean "computers which are usually publicly connected no matter what"? Are you saying that when a computer is connected to a router, the data it transmits is public information?

* What would hackers do with my location data, exactly? The fundamental problem that privacy solves is that the government would use your private data to cause you legal trouble. Hackers have no such luxury, and while they could steal your money or identity, that's a constant risk for the government, anyway. We already trust the US government with tons of our personal information, and yes, it could get hacked. It does get hacked, and yet somehow we're still here.

* 1984 is fiction. It does not, in any way, shape, or form have any influence or predictive powers on the future outcome of events. It's a good story, but it's as useful as Harry Potter is at telling us how our society is going to transform.

Lots of stuff wrong with what you've written:

* I made an analogy, of course it isn't a virus - it's information that would have the possibility to wreak havoc if in the wrong hands.

* Nothing has happened to Snowden yet other than being made an enemy of the state. The fact that he is alive is somewhat of a testament to how much he hasn't released.

* Nothing of the sort, don't twist my words. Computers are notoriously hard to localize when connected to any network at all, local included. The CIA hacked the firmware of Iranian centrifuges through a massive widespread worm on _all_ computers that were later connected to the nuclear facilities network. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet)

* Your location data is a tiny bit of the information that is stored. Phone records, internet usage by downloads and web sites visited, text messages, etc.. are all being logged by the NSA.

* It's a work of excessive circumstance, it serves to show an extreme -- give you what would result once steps cross bounds, and don't recede.

My problem isn't necessarily with what's happening, it's the secretiveness surrounding it, and the "trust us" attitude that pervades the organization. That is not acceptable. As someone shouted, "how are we supposed to trust you if we don't even know what you're doing?"

This is hilarious! The Constitution? Paper constitutions aren't worth the paper they are printed on. They are an Americanism. Before the American paper Constitution, constitutions were exactly what the word signified - the structure of a ruling system. And a Constitution always becomes a small-c constitution even apart from the amendment process. Notice the actual result of the New Deal legislation. The rise the administrative state. Agencies that make, execute and judge on rules. Legislative bills that are shells for bureaucrats to fill (Dodd-Frank, PPACA, etc). NONE of these things are authorized by the "Constitution." Please note that I haven't opined on whether I think this development is positive or negative. I do think that is a secondary matter to the importance that smart people such as the HN audience _understand_ the real structure (small-c constitution) of America is only tenuously related to the big-C Constitution.

Okay downvote away gentlemen!

Technically, I believe it's parchment, not paper.

If hackers aren't receptive to an argument that the description of a system is not necessarily how the system functions, there's no way we're not absolutely fucked.

Instead of calls to "Read the Constitution", what we really need are calls to "Enforce the Constitution" !!

The government and the NSA are still run by Americans. Which means that those Americans are still at fault for breaking the constitution and feeling above the law.

There are many Americans that are still selling their souls to the NSA in order to provide for their families. More programmers are replacing Snowden and more are still being hired. Why? Because government is buying away our freedoms through greedy Americans and corporations. If you want to cut down the NSA spying, the recipe is very simple: stop taking the money and talent from the government. If your employer is constantly submitting RFPs to the government, quit. If you get excited that your company has any "big contracts" with the government, quit.

Take away the talent and end the greed for the easy government money. The choice is, as it always has been, our choice.

There is an even better choice. Take the job (and money) but hack the system so it no longer works (but still appears to).

USA, where people are afraid to heckle.

I would rather put it like this:

USA, where people already are afraid to heckle.

It is probably the alarming symptom of the advanced level of fear instilled in the people.

Please explain how it's at all useful to heckle?

Heckling is probably the lowest form of displaying your disagreements with the person doing the talk.

Heckling is one of the oldest forms of political dissent. If one can't handle heckling, one shouldn't be a politician or any kind of public figure.

That doesn't make it acceptable / useful as per my question.

It's very useful. We're still talking about it.

So much Grandstanding in the media makes me roll my eyes after a while.

I think it was probably instructive for the hackers to analyze the General attempting to do social-engineering.

I may not agree with the guy but I am impressed by him. He had the balls to go on stage in front of a crowd of people who could be aggressive, and presented his case. Not sure how well it was, since I wasn't there. However, that takes courage.

A group of hackers is not physically intimidating in the slightest, so what's to admire? I would have admired him if he had apologized and resigned.

Not to mention that if you are head of the worlds most powerful intelligence agency, how much does courage even have to come into play?

He most likely had an armed escort, unlike his opponents.

What is he going to do? Shoot at people on a live video feed for being mean to him.

That's not really the point to having an armed escort, is it?

I'm not sure I follow your point then. Could you elaborate?

The man showed up to a civil affair in military garb and most likely, though we don't know, had some kind of muscle with him.

His point is already made without firing a shot at the hoi-polloi.

You're joking, but would that surprise you at this point?

"They elected me to lead not to read" - Rainier Wolfcastle

heckling at a speech with hilariously irrelevant quips isn't really conducive to anything, no matter if you agree with how the NSA does things or not.

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