Hacker News Reader

Comment by superuser2 | Hacker News Reader

If the NSA's domestic spying is illegal, it's only on a technicality. Congress explicitly authorizes it, and the Supreme Court explicitly finds that the 4th amendment doesn't protect 3rd party records. I'm sure it's violated some specific regulations here and there, but on the whole, spying on everything everyone says and does is not illegal.

Which is insane. It absolutely should be.

View on HN

The 3rd Party Doctrine made sense when you were physically handing something to somebody else or whispering something in somebody else's ear. In today's world, its interpretation is ludicrously antiquated.

Unfortunately, I don't forsee Congress doing much to solve this any time soon.

Fortunately. Only battles hard-fought are valued. If congress caved for a few years until this blew over, nothing would really change. And ultimately only strong client-side communication schemes (encryption+identity+etc) will solve the problem. Which is something that has a cost people must bear but that they will not if they don't understand the issue.

TL;DR - If congress made it "illegal" it wouldn't change anything. That they refuse to, will change everything.

Also, the third-party doctrine is sort of a recognition of the right the blow the whistle on crimes you see. It's not even (generally) a bad thing. It's only our government's too-cozy of a relationship with too much of the industry that means it's not whistle-blowing but twisted-arm leaks.

It doesn't matter if the actions of the government are (by some technicality we wouldn't accept from a five-year old) legal, if we don't want that behavior anyways.

Government rules by the mandate of the people. And we don't owe it a n-year mandate, or the completion of a grand plan, or trust, etc. When it steps out of line it is illegitimate despite its "legality" in its own laws.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com