Congressman requests subpoena of NSA’s White House, IRS phone logs

http://stockman.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/stockman-requests-subpoena-of-nsa-s-white-house-irs-phone-logs

by tectonic • 13 years ago

472 155 13 years ago

stockman.house.gov

na852• 13 years ago

First time in a long while that I wholeheartedly support the Republicans.

notimetorelax• 13 years ago

Audacity of this action made me laugh.

na852• 13 years ago

Agree. The irony of the "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" statement being turned around on the government was delicious.

abtinf5• 13 years ago

He should also request a subpoena for all of the associated metadata, which probably includes location tracking information. That way, we know if any of the involved parties met in secret. The what-do-they-have-to-hide argument is nonsense, but I have no sympathy; the government has brought this on itself.

abtinf5• 13 years ago

Also, I wonder how long it will be until we see the first civil case that tries to subpoena this information. Say, a nasty divorce where one of the parties is trying to prove cheating. Or industrial espionage.

And think of all the criminal cases this would be useful for - price fixing schemes, anti-trust cases, and on and on.

The uses for a massive store of location information boggle the mind.

cmaggard• 13 years ago

You only had to wait -1 days.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/crime/fl-phone-record...

HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5872348

ryguytilidie• 13 years ago

I don't understand the logic here. It won't be interesting at all. Someone will try to subpoena the info, they will be denied, end of story. The NSA will never give this data away ever, I bet they would destroy it, or pretend to destroy it, before giving it away.

abtinf5• 13 years ago

HN wont let me reply to a comment below this one, but to address it:

Yes, the NSA will deny the request. And with any luck, we can have push this into a case in front of Supreme Court before the end of next year.

option_greek• 13 years ago

Through out these arguments during past week, the one thing that bothered me most was that some people supported NSA spying saying they have nothing to hide. I seriously don't understand how they can say that. I wonder if this can be attributed to lack of understanding about data mining considering that most of these comments are on non-tech websites.

yogo• 13 years ago

That's mostly ignorance, and as you said a lack of understanding. The people that really understand know that this is the tried and true statement for any invasion of privacy. Wire tapping has been around for quite a while now, and it would be safe to assume most mobsters are not on the phone discussing business right now.

angersock2• 13 years ago

Oy vey, a bunch of trolls trolling trolls.

I wish that politics hadn't turned into this sort of nonsense; this makes a very sensible concern into a tool of politics.

abtinf5• 13 years ago

Everything the government does is, by definition, political. You can't wish away the politics an on-going mass surveillance program; you can only avoid initiating the program in the first place.

jlgreco3• 13 years ago

I would argue that, for now, this is an "enemy of my enemy...." situation.

angersock2• 13 years ago

It is a damned shame, then, that we have no friends in Congress.

drzaiusapelord2• 13 years ago

Then repeal the fucking Patriot act. This is partisan garbage from the GOP trying to pin everything on Obama.

Congress could end all this stuff right now if they choose to. Obviously, they are choosing political grandstanding and loudmouth politics.

vinhboy• 13 years ago

This maybe sound cynical, but I am impressed they actually found a Republican who hasn't been in politics for like 15+ years to run with this charade.

So no one can blame him for all those years of supporting the patriot act and the likes.

Well played.

Apocryphon• 13 years ago

It's been like this since the days of Rome. This isn't a criticism, quite the contrary; I'm saying this sort of grandstanding is Classical.

jstalin• 13 years ago

To "bring it home," so to speak, he should request all NSA data on phone calls to and from Congressmen. Nothing makes politicians more angry than applying their rules for everyone else to themselves.

abtinf5• 13 years ago

I think you meant it as snark, but I think is brilliant. We know that congress has ongoing insider trading issues with the companies they regulate - lets get some transparency! If they have nothing to hide, they have nothing to fear.

jholman• 13 years ago

Yeah, but that necessarily pits him against other Congressfolks. Stockman VERSUS EVERYBODY!!!!

The move as-he-played-it is smarter, right? He's inviting other Congressfolks to join him in making political hay by trolling the executive branch. He's saying to Issa "someone should be embarrassed about this.... would you like to be embarrasser or embarrassee?"

Does anyone know if the opening paragraph thanking Issa is sincere or snark? I don't know what Issa's record/politics have been.

muyuu• 13 years ago

Using their rhetoric, if they have nothing to hide they don't have to be worried.

doki_pen• 13 years ago

If anyone shouldn't have a right to privacy, it would be public officials.

peterwwillis2• 13 years ago

This is basically exactly the reason why this kind of warrantless spying should be illegal. Politicians can use their position to go on fishing expeditions and publicly persecute whoever they wish with flimsy reasoning.

johngalt3• 13 years ago

Nixon shouldn't have had to turn over his tapes?

Let me guess, you feel that situation was somehow different. For reasons other than each president's political affiliation?

nrb2• 13 years ago

Difference being that Nixon ordered the tape recorders be installed. He was not compelled by anyone to record his conversations and they were recorded with his permission.

peterwwillis2• 13 years ago

Nixon was the President, whose particular office recorded phone calls because a previous President made it standard practice. For him alone.

The White House and the IRS are large organizations with many employees, none of whom have 'tapes' of their calls, except POTUS.

There was no warrant required to make those tapes. POTUS is a special case. This guy wants every record of every communication by every staffer of both the White House and the IRS. This is going much much farther, and for seemingly no reason whatsoever. The Senator is basically suggesting the interns were part of a conspiracy, so we should find out what they had to hide.

If, for example, one person at either the White House or IRS was a closeted homosexual, and unwarranted recordings proving that are made public, the person's life could be ruined. All because some douchebag Senator wanted an unnecessarily broad fishing expedition for political reasons.

But yes, Nixon should have had to turn over the tapes, because there was already clear evidence he had something to hide. That's why we're supposed to issue warrants - if there is due cause.

skwirl• 13 years ago

He wants to clear any doubt that this information is being used for political purposes by using it for political purposes.

23david• 13 years ago

Game on.

dfc• 13 years ago

Its too bad that it was requested by someone with so little name recognition that "Congressman requests" is a better headline than "Rep. Stockman(R) requests"

joering2• 13 years ago

Haven't seen such a check-mate in government affair in a long time.

Unfortunately NSA does not have to answer to anyone, including congressman requests. Its their data, per se, and they are not compelled to share with anyone. Sure they will have to set aside large chunk for upcoming lawsuits (that will be paid from your taxes anyways), but other than that ist not a big deal.

NSA stands beyond anyone's power to subpoena. Think Eric Holter being requested to investigate... Eric Holter. Good luck with that.

eloisius• 13 years ago

NSA does not have to answer to anyone, including congressman requests

Do you mean officially or de facto? I was under the impression that no one was above congressional subpoena.

Domenic_S• 13 years ago

Congressman: <hard question>

NSA rep: "That's a matter of national security, I can't answer you."

mh-• 13 years ago

I was under the impression that no one was above congressional subpoena.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_privilege

[..] members of the executive branch to resist certain subpoenas and other interventions by the legislative and judicial branches of government.

ChuckMcM3• 13 years ago

Not exactly, the NSA has to come to Congress to get their budget appropriations approved. No budget, no money. It provides a useful check against them.

meepmorp2• 13 years ago

Yeah, the NSA's budget is at exactly zero risk from this entire story, or this little sideshow in particular.

If you think otherwise, you're kidding yourself.

kunai• 13 years ago

I hate how something as interesting as this is ruined by partisanship and egocentric control-freakism. Why is this Congressman pushing the blame on Obama solely? He is part of the problem, and it's this "us vs. them" attitude in government that never lets us have any progress at all. Instead of trying to advance his party or career, he should have used this opportunity to illustrate how NSA and IRS should both be surveyed equally if the spying is justified.

But, no. He's just being a Grade-A politician, trying to claw at the Democratic party and trying to make an example out of them. I have lost respect for what he is trying to accomplish, if not because it's shameful and disgusting.

Before anyone accuses me of left-right bias, I support third-party efforts and am independent.

baddox• 13 years ago

Welcome to politics. I've been burned several times having a political conversation where it appears I'm in agreement with the other guy, only to realize later that the other guy only "agrees" with me because what I'm saying happens to make his side look good.

mtgx• 13 years ago

I know what you're saying, but ever since this started, I immediately thought of Nixon and Watergate. This scandal deserves to be as big as Watergate, so then we should see everything, and all docs related to this should be declassified.

Enough of this "we should know everything about you, but you can't know anything about us - so trust us".

shardling3• 13 years ago

Watergate was unambiguously targeting rival political parties. That's why it was such a big deal.

Nothing that's come to light so far is on that type of level. No matter how strongly you think the government is overstepping its bounds, it's at least possible for reasonable people to think they were justified.

danielweber• 13 years ago

Opposition parties are essential for clawing at the scandals of the other side. You can't count on them for "truth," but that doesn't make them useless.

shailesh• 13 years ago

"I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians."

- Charles de Gaulle

dpearson• 13 years ago

This subpoena has nothing to do with PRISM; it's really more of an effort to link the White House to the IRS targetting of conservative groups (which was apparently just an agent running amok).

Ultimately, though, there's the classic adage about the president: "The buck stops here." If Obama was aware of PRISM (which I have to believe he did), then he also had the choice of stopping it. The same is true of the IRS scandal. Even if he did not (unlike Nixon) direct the programs, knowing about them and not stopping them (again, if true; I really don't know) is tantamount to running them.

drzaiusapelord2• 13 years ago

This is congress. They could repeal the patriot act and be done with it and start passing laws to limit the NSA's power. Oh right, instead the GOP will pin this on the president for short-term gain while we all suffer from long-term loss.

Goladus2• 13 years ago

Why is this Congressman pushing the blame on Obama solely?

He's a republican, and Obama set himself up for this by defending the NSA.

krapp• 13 years ago

You might as well dispense with the latter half of that sentence.

stfu3• 13 years ago

Politics is not about reasonable arguments. It is about building momentum for a cause.

Both, the harassment of political opponents by the IRS as well as the NSA spy policies were run under President Obama's leadership.

He is as personally responsible for these things - just as much as is President Bush was for the Iraq war. Both are extremely resistant to admit any wrong doings except for some half hearted apologies without any consequences.

I am all for bashing partisanship when it is based on making mountains out of molehills (in my view the Benghazi story was one of these). But the IRS and NRA cases demonstrate that the United States under the presidency of Obama is using intimidation tactics and intensive surveillance mechanisms that are up-to-par with paranoid third world dictatorships.

His line of If he [President Obama] has nothing to hide he has nothing to be afraid of. is exactly hitting home on the hypocrisy of the Obama administration that once campaigned on transparency and accountability.

AmericanOP4• 13 years ago

IRS scandal wasn't a scandal. The only evidence the WH was involved are partial transcript (cherry-picked) vague quotes from junior staffers (literally: "told by a supervisor that "Washington, D.C., wanted some cases."), while the true source of the audits has been identified as decidedly not-Obama: http://news.yahoo.com/conservative-republican-irs-staffer-ta.... All of this is completely ignoring the completely legitimate reasons for auditing these clearly political groups in the wake of Citizens United.

Just like how Fast & Furious was in no way a scandal, but a symptom of Arizona's lack of gun laws. Law enforcement was unable to arrest or even restrict people linked to cartels as they purchased weapons- the best they could do was keep track of serial numbers. There was no gun running, but that didn't stop Republicans from fabricating another 'scandal:' http://www.thenation.com/blog/168673/facts-get-way-gops-fast...

Even this article should clue you in to Issa's obvious political theater for his base.

Obama sucks at fighting misinformation, but he is certainly not a dictator.

Daniel_Newby• 13 years ago

I hate how something as interesting as this is ruined by partisanship ...

There's a good chance the NSA leak is a gambit by Hillary Clinton's faction to attack the administration.

You know, like the IRS leak.

Anyway, they are all just responding to incentives. American culture has degenerated into soviet-style communism, which means central committees frittering away resources on intelligence catfights and insane megaprojects. The American people are getting the government they deserve, and they're getting it good and hard.

cscurmudgeon• 13 years ago

Didn't Obama have this big us vs them attitude during 2008?

ironic_ali• 13 years ago

change you can believe in.

AJ007• 13 years ago

The problem with secret executive orders, secret courts, secret decisions, secret rulings, secret spying, secret actions taken as the result of the spying -- is that the public, and elected officials, don't know what the hell is going on. A closed society is one where paranoia is both frequent and justified. Dictators spy on their opponents, execute them, and quickly imagine new enemies. Eventually no one trusts anyone.

I would suggest that the best way to understand what is going on is to imagine that, but rather than a single individual as dictator, instead a large group of individuals suffering from fear & paranoia.

When we think that the NSA is spying on terrorists, then we assume that the NSA is using judgement and discretion, focusing on a narrow vertical of individuals. That is certainly what I believed in the past. When it is disclosed that it goes far beyond terrorists, collects deep meta data on the entire US population while logging all electronic communication on a group of a million or so, our imaginations run wild -- and justifiably so.

newnewnew• 13 years ago

Sometimes I wish we had a king back. It would be more honest and less corrupt.

forgotAgain• 13 years ago

Regardless of the aim of his request it does server a public good. It shows that this type of data, once collected, will never be limited to a specific usage. It's too tempting a thing and humans are too weak to resist the siren call.

alohamora• 13 years ago

And now, we start using call logs to investigate non-terrorist crimes? Politics aside, this is what everyone's actually worried about.

If there were some magical guarantee from the good fairy of civil liberties that broad surveillance could only ever be used to stop terrorism, it would be far, far less troublesome.

The problem is using surveillance for any crime one wants to investigate.

rjeaster• 13 years ago

The point is as long as the data is there it can be abused. A law saying that it cannot be accessed except in terrorism related cases is effectively meaningless because it could still be accessed illegally in secret, or the law could change in the future.

saalweachter• 13 years ago

I'm confused: couldn't this information be requested directly from the phone companies?

njharman• 13 years ago

‘If Obama has nothing to hide he has nothing to fear,’ says Stockman

That is a soundbite I would love to hear repeated ad nauseum. Replacing Obama with every politician, CEO, and 3-letter agency head.

redthrowaway• 13 years ago

Given that the NSA is not a troop of Boy Scouts telling scary stories around a camp fire, I'd be somewhat surprised if they're monitoring the White House's communications in an attempt to be able to say "the terrorist's call is coming from inside the White House".

elwin3• 13 years ago

That's the problem with logging everything. Unless they deliberately filter out all the data coming from the White House, they have it, even though having it is only useful for their political opponents.

obviouslygreen2• 13 years ago

Devil's advocate: This is a feature, not a bug, and it's working as intended. If the NSA wants to be able to track and review evidence of or relating to the most potentially-harmful events that could affect the US, the most influential people in the country -- the snakes and weasels that run it -- are in the best position to cause or enable harm by betraying confidence, so their communications are the most vital to monitor.

LoganCale• 13 years ago

If you read the recent Wired article on Keith Alexander, the NSA director, he has made it clear he wants the NSA monitoring and storing everything to monitor "cyberthreats". So it figures they'd be monitoring the White House as well if that's their justification.

jackpirate• 13 years ago

I'd bet all this data has been/is used in granting people security clearances and discovering where leaks are coming from.

brown9-2• 13 years ago

Just what this debate needs, useless grandstanding.

mncolinlee• 13 years ago

It's a Catch-22.

If he gets the data, he will use the long and numerous phone conversations between the IRS and the White House to infer the administration is guilty. However, it proves nothing.

If he doesn't get the data, he will argue it is because the President personally ordered the crimes and is hiding it.

He won't get the data. The NSA won't want their databases and valuable time used to perform discovery in every lawsuit from now until eternity. He will exploit the NSA's "Need to Know" policy simply to make Obama look nefarious.

Goladus2• 13 years ago

However, it proves nothing.

That would be for others to judge.

He won't get the data.

He doesn't want the data. He wants to make a point about the importance of privacy. He wants to appear as if he is standing up for his constituents in the face of overreaching NSA surveillance since obviously Obama is not.

rfugger• 13 years ago

I would say a subpoena from the Congress of the United States should be more difficult to brush off than one from a regular court case. But why should the information not be available to the courts, really? Why should people not have access to information that can be used to defend themselves? Doesn't this open up a big legal loophole for defendants to argue that NSA data proves their innocence, but since the government won't make it available, their charges must be dismissed?

That's the brilliance of this request -- it highlights how the government's asymmetric access to information can be used against it: "Since you know everything, you must be able to prove my case for me... Oh, you won't? Then you're obviously persecuting me."

With absolute knowledge comes absolute power, but with absolute power for some comes absolute victimhood and therefore sympathy for the rest.

visarga2• 13 years ago

Even if now it is only NSA and a few multinationals that have mass surveillance data, in the future the number of entities collecting an trading privacy data will increase 1000 fold.

Then we'll get into a stalemate - we all know about everyone. Nobody will be able to use such information if they are not completely clean AND their family/associates too. Otherwise, they are blackmail targets too.

Whatever information you generate: speech, messages, GPS logs, social network (with whom you communicate, by any means) it will be intercepted. The only way to maintain privacy will be to keep things into your head.

davidrudder• 13 years ago

I'm torn. On one hand, this is delicious irony. On the other hand, the Republicans have used any pretence to tell us that the President is a terrorist, Muslim, non-American, bad guy of any sort. There is no way to satisfy this request without it becoming another hyperbolic, red-faced accusation-fest.

I heard a Republican say "there have been so many scandals directed at the President, and he's managed to dodge all of them. He can't be innocent of all of them!" It shocked me because it was an argument for "guilty until proven innocent." My response was "there have been so many accusations, all baseless, that you have to start wondering about the truthfulness of those making the accusations. Isn't it time we just started ignoring all of these so-called scandals?"

I'm at that point now. I can't take the NSA thing seriously because I've heard the boy cry "wolf!" too many times.

elwin3• 13 years ago

Many of the comments here are complaining about the partisanship of this request. I think such complaints are shortsighted.

Yes, it's annoying that the representative is trying to make the administration look bad and further his own party. But political embarrassment and partisan show victories are exactly what motivates politicians to do things. These partisan actions are the kind of actions the Obama administration will notice.

Or he could remain neutral and abstract and introduce a hastily written bill that purports to solve the problem, like Rand Paul. And nothing will happen.

The partisan political system responds to partisan political incentives. To see many interesting examples, try studying the period leading up to the American Civil War.

resu_nimda• 13 years ago

There are a lot of idealists here. They know that's how the system works. They're not complaining because they think this partisanship will be ineffective, they're complaining because it's depressing and inhibits meaningful social progress.

Even though in this particular instance the partisanship is aligned with (y)our goals, it's rather frustrating to know that this guy doesn't actually give a shit about the matter like we do, he just wants to score points in this BS game.

bhb916• 13 years ago

"...it's rather frustrating to know that this guy doesn't actually give a shit about the matter like we do, he just wants to score points in this BS game."

Wait. How do you know that? Isn't it possible and actually likely that he gives a shit AND wants to score political points? After all, what good is supporting a cause if you don't use it to score political points?

jeremyjh• 13 years ago

I agree. Its really short-sighted to dismiss it as partisan. The partisanship can be considered a lever to get his own party on-board with this. He seems to be intentionally and graphically demonstrating the risks of this sort of surveillance.

davesque4• 13 years ago

It's not short-sighted at all. The man is an extremist. It only takes a little bit of investigation to see that. He is not interested in the issue at hand. He only cares as far as he can use it to make his enemies look bad.

Honestly, I cannot believe the number of comments I am seeing here that ignore this fact, as though anyone who agrees with the notion that the NSA programs are bad should be trusted.

Steko• 13 years ago

So prosecutorial/investigator overreach is ok, as long as it's not against hackers, got it.

The NSA looking at your phone logs is a huge illegal fishing expedition but fishing expeditions are ok when done to trump up charges to impeach the president. Got it.

detst• 13 years ago

It's not as if the president is an uninterested party. He very much supports the NSA, is in a position of power on the matter and if he's got nothing to hide then he has nothing to worry about, right?

elwin3• 13 years ago

No, I don't think the request is a brilliant idea, and I hope the investigation doesn't ask for the records of anyone's private phone numbers without some more justification. My point was that instead of dismissing it as partisan nonsense, we should see it as a skillful tactic that might accomplish something.

woah2• 13 years ago

You seem to be missing the blatantly obvious fact that the president himself authorized this program, and as such, is one of the only people who deserves to be snooped on under it (in contrast to a member of the public who was kept in the dark about it).

marshray6• 13 years ago

Yes, transparency for the government, privacy for the individual.

I'm fully in support of phone call data between government offices and high-level government officials being available for review by Congress.

davesque4• 13 years ago

As _delirium pointed out, just look at the Twitter feed:

https://twitter.com/SteveWorks4You

It's pretty obvious where this guy stands. Here's one of my favorites:

"House told us to secure windows because of flash floods. On the third floor. On a Hill. Same government claims it can predict climate change"

We don't need people like this chiming in on this issue.

recursive• 13 years ago

How is your favorite example even relevant? I'm not seeing the connection.

will_brown• 13 years ago

Good not only should the IRS phone records and their contents be released, but the phone records of all of Congress and their contents should be released, especially vis-a-vis congress and lobbyists and/or special interest groups. Starting with the Congressman making the request, all his communications should be opened up to the public for public scrutiny.

This is called transparency and I like it, further the whereabouts via GPS tracking of all of Congress should be released cross referenced with the GPS location of all known special interest groups and lobbyists. Of course I want mine kept private, because I am a private citizen, not a public official.

salimmadjd• 13 years ago

As much as I hate these types of partisanship maneuvers, but this one may have a positive consequence. Bringing up the reality and dangers of widespread eavesdropping.

Now can we subpoena conversation between the VP, Cheney's office regarding the Valerie Plame or other fabrication about the Iraq war. Oh wait, I forgot. Democrats left their spine in a 70s time capsule.

robomartin• 13 years ago

We have a political system in which the only way to win is to destroy your opposition, discredit them, shame them, find hidden dirt and upstage them in media clips. The ignorant voting masses are manipulated daily by our partisan media (all sides) and they mindlessly vote across party lines as they are told.

If any of you were living in this political jungle you would have to resort to the same tactics in order to get anywhere and climb the ladders. You would engage in the kinds of analytics and optimizations that would lead you to quickly conclude that the issues don't matter as much as showing the ignorant masses --who's support you need-- how righteous you are against the other side, no matter which side of the isle you inhabit.

That is the problem with the devolution of our political system. It's not about issues. It's not about rational consideration of mutually beneficial ideas. It's not about long term planning. It's not about fiscally sound policy. It's not about stopping to fuck with the rest of the world to focus on our internal needs. No, it's about the next six months, year, two or four years and the elections we have to win for the party. It's bullshit and it is exactly what is sinking this great nation.

Regrettably, this mess has also created a positive feedback loop that, with every passing moment, makes the problem worst. This is what scares me about where we have been, where we are and where we are going. I am far from a political strategist, but I don't see this self-correcting until we suffer a truly catastrophic set of failures that cause people to wake up to the realities of what we have created.

It's like the three hundred pound overweight man who can't stop eating until he gets to 600 pounds and then has a revelation. How do you get from 300 to 600 pounds and not realize you are killing yourself? How do you keep making the same flawed decisions? One pizza slice at a time. One lie at a time. One excuse at a time. Looking the other way a million little times. Ignoring the need for the "fiscal balance" of food intake, exercise and caloric needs. Talking about fixing it and not really doing anything about it. Put another way: Death by a thousand cuts.

As a country we are probably well past the analogy of a 600 pound man who is dangerously overweight. We are on our way to 1200 pounds. The problem is the feedback loop. Nothing can stop it until the machine breaks. Or so it seems.

DanielBMarkham• 13 years ago

This is structurally brilliant. All of those complaining about hypocrisy or partisanship are missing the point.

Ignore the specific issue. The critical question this raises is this: if, as the administration says, the NSA needs all this data to find terrorists, who gets to say what it's used for or not? Ignore the entire privacy argument. If the executive branch is keeping records on all of this stuff, is it also claiming unique and sole access to it?

Because if they are, anybody with a brain can see the problem. In fact, the partisanship of the Congressman spells it out in clear relief. Just picture that guy as the next president. If you give that much power to the executive and they alone make the decision how to use it, then by definition such information will be used for political purposes. Who gets to decide what is so evil that requires this special, and extra-constitutional, treatment? Everybody doesn't want terrorists, but how about supporting congressional investigations? Helping wrongly-accused people get out of jail? Divorce proceedings? Civil cases?

Are we going to have a system of law and order where certain evidence is presented or not solely depending on the decisions of the executive branch?

What this shows is that this NSA data thing just isn't bad, it's bad on multiple levels. It completely breaks the way our constitutional government is supposed to operate. Even if somehow the political weasels in DC get away with keeping the lid on it, the criminal and Congressional cases alone are going to cause a nightmare. Can you imagine how Congress is going to act if some pet cause of theirs could have been supported by evidence NSA refused to release? How criminal defendants are going to react if, years later, they learn that the government was holding exculpatory information?

And it's just going to go on, and on, until they finally open it all up. Then there'll be a hell-storm.

ADD: And I'm willing to bet 20 bucks that part of the data NSA is collecting is the location tracking information from our cellphones. (accurate to within 50 meters). Can you imagine the number of places in the rest of government operations where such information would be useful?

hindsightbias• 13 years ago

location tracking information from our cellphones.

Here's what a smart congressperson would ask: "Director Clapper, on April 15th, 2009, there were large protests around the country. Did your agency request cellular meta data covering that day?"

It's likely obfiscated by the telco as I understand it, but imagine that freakout.

We could pull our batteries out in 2003, but we don't have that feature anymore.

discostrings• 13 years ago

We could pull our batteries out in 2003, but we don't have that feature anymore.

Many of us still do. Some of us still greatly prefer phones with a removable battery--I wouldn't buy a phone without one. Goodbye HTC, hello Samsung.

CamperBob27• 13 years ago

Your phone doesn't emit any signals at all when turned off. If it did, people from the FAA to every geek with a spectrum analyzer at work would be screaming bloody murder.

Myrth• 13 years ago

Good news for people with phones without removable battery: get a Faraday cage case for times when you want it to appear dead.

cpleppert• 13 years ago

>Are we going to have a system of law and order where certain evidence is presented or not solely depending on the decisions of the executive branch?

No, in the absence of a FISA order the information cannot be released. This isn't a legel dilemma at the moment(ethically certainly). There are almost certainly implied constitutional protections on the use of the data.

The only interesting exception would be if someone decided to waive their protections and petitioned the courts to grant access to their phone records. The courts may allow this as no constitutional rights would be violated and no else would have an interest in preventing this(except the Government possibly).

bane• 13 years ago

prediction: the collection won't stop, NSA will simply become an even better funded service bureau to provide evidence and information "for official use only", for random court cases etc...thus paving it's way for this kind of collection to become broadly socially acceptable

visarga2• 13 years ago

This works both ways. The people in power are being tracked, too, and if not, then it's another scandal.

rooshdi• 13 years ago

Bingo. If our government went to war over supposed weapons of mass destruction, how can we trust them with weapons of mass surveillance?

drawkbox• 13 years ago

Would have been nice if both a Democrat and Republican could have requested this as statesmen. I am not sure there are any left. I love this though. A group of R's and D's would be even better.

_k• 13 years ago

I wonder if we can ask for something similar in Europe. I live in Belgium and the government is snooping. Not on a similar scale. But it does happen without a warrant. It's all legal because the changed the constitution. I'm not sure what can be done about it. It might be against the EU constitution. I don't really know where to start. But I do want to stop it.

genwin• 13 years ago

The actual letter requests the "records of every phone call". That should include the conversations, not just the logs.

Of course this is grandstanding (but I support). The House Government Reform and Oversight Committee will simply ignore the request.

balabaster2• 13 years ago

Has anyone seen the movie The Net? I can't help but keep being reminded that this is what's going on and it's only a matter of time before it starts becoming obvious to the public.

Congressman requests subpoena of NSA’s White House, IRS phone logs

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