Judge: Give NSA Unlimited Access to Digital Data

[DamianTV]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2855776/judge-give-nsa-unlimited-access-to-digital-data.html


The U.S. National Security Agency should have an unlimited ability to collect digital information in the name of protecting the country against terrorism and other threats, an influential federal judge said during a debate on privacy.

“I think privacy is actually overvalued,” Judge Richard Posner, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, said during a conference about privacy and cybercrime in Washington, D.C., Thursday.

“Much of what passes for the name of privacy is really just trying to conceal the disreputable parts of your conduct,” Posner added. “Privacy is mainly about trying to improve your social and business opportunities by concealing the sorts of bad activities that would cause other people not to want to deal with you.”

Congress should limit the NSA’s use of the data it collects—for example, not giving information about minor crimes to law enforcement agencies—but it shouldn’t limit what information the NSA sweeps up and searches, Posner said. “If the NSA wants to vacuum all the trillions of bits of information that are crawling through the electronic worldwide networks, I think that’s fine,” he said.

...

What an asshole.

Overvalued? Sure, a small group of dominiant corporations can make lots of money if only peoples privacy somehow disappeared.

Conceal bad activities? "Bad" is a subjective terms. Might as well say "Jews" should not value their privacy, ever. Now replace "Jew" with "Muslim" or "Brown Person" or "Gay". Yup, they are all "Bad" people. Might as well help those people start "concentrating" on what is really important too, by putting em in "Concentration Camps".

Congress shouldnt limit? Um, Congress is the opposite of Progress. Just be sure to sacrifice all your Citizens for the benefit of the Government. That always works out so well for the Citizens.

I love my Country, but the people who occupy high positions in its Government are self serving morons.

[ZENemy]

Power that is held by violence will only be removed by violence.

[Anti Federalist]

Let me start with you, Judge.

[muh_roads]

Terrorism, terrorism, terrorism. We will hear this excuse for the rest of our lives. Anyone that goes along with this Judge's mentality needs to grow a pair of balls and stop being a pussy.

[DamianTV]

Let me start with you, Judge.

Agree.

Oh, look at that, he did something that someone else could disagree with! Kiddie porn! Gun shaped pizza! Wrong religion! Wrong skin color! Put your own damn self under the microscope first there Judge.

Ending privacy will create more conflicts than anything else on this planet because of how many differences of opinions we all have.

---


Terrorism, terrorism, terrorism. We will hear this excuse for the rest of our lives. Anyone that goes along with this Judge's mentality needs to grow a pair of balls and stop being a pussy.

The idiot judge is trying to remind us of why we need him to tell us what to think. Be afraid of : <insert scary thing here> because you are told to be afraid, which makes people gather together in fear and cry out to protect us from what ever Big Bad Wolf they point the finger at this week or this generation. Previous generations were told to fear "Jews / Nazis". This generation we have "Terrorists" and "Brown People". Very soon the finger will switch the label of "Terrorist" to anyone who is not asleep enough to blindly swallow their fearmongering practices.

Privacy gives one the ability to keep their mouths shut and prevent conflicts. But that is not what they are interested in. They are interested in telling us why we need them so much; to protect them from Boogeyman of the Week, and that makes us dependant and controllable, not Free and Independant and Peaceful.

[rg17]

We need to arrest that scumbag Judge for violating the Constitution!

[tod evans]

Just in case someone happens to stumble across this fine individual;


http://www.law.uchicago.edu/files/imagecache/sidebar-image/image/Posner,%20Richard%2008-10.jpg

[muh_roads]

Just in case someone happens to stumble across this fine individual;


http://www.law.uchicago.edu/files/imagecache/sidebar-image/image/Posner,%20Richard%2008-10.jpg

I'll be happy when the majority of old people die off. They are just too set in their ways. Millennials can be converted, but old people are simply terrible so long as they are on the receiving end of the government teat.

Sorry old libertarians & anarchists, but your brethren are a non-stop freedom cock-block.

[Weston White]

Setting aside the privacy issue for a moment, isn’t the much grander issue concerning from where did they acquire this newly enumerated power to vacuum up anything, whatsoever?

[Acala]

Unfortunately, Posner is a highly-respected scholar. He isn't just another jackass in a robe. I'm actually suprised at this comment.

[DamianTV]

We need to arrest that scumbag Judge for violating the Constitution!

Arrests just furthers the violance because it does not correct the true underlying issue; Ignorance. This Judge is flat out Ignorant. He probably has absolutely no idea what it feels like to be truly persecuted for something he has zero control over. Its that kind of information that gets people killed.

Ignorant? Definitely.
Criminal? Dubious.

I think he should be removed from office, but not with violence. Maybe give him a Jew Tattoo and send him back to Nazi Germany, then he will understand the value of privacy is not to protect criminals from the law, it is to prevent the Law itself from becoming criminal in and of itself, which is exactly where we are today.

[The Free Hornet]

The net neutrality campaign began in 2002 and the proponents hope to cement oversight at all network levels in the name of neutrality. Too convenient.

[kcchiefs6465]

He isn't just another jackass in a robe.
I'd disagree.

[HOLLYWOOD]

Have some time? Go watch the movie Eagle Eye to get a temperature on this Judicial Douche Bag

Another Zionist sleeper agent-provocateur based in the American cesspools of 'Controlled Corruption and Marxism'; New York, NY & Chicago, IL What a menace on vetting this authoritarian and look who this clown idolizes... Progressives and killers of the 1st amendment, plus he supports Nationalism & Police State.

https://readtiger.com/wkp/en/Richard_Posner

http://kwout.com/cutout/m/a8/qc/36t_bor.jpg


Richard Posner

(https://readtiger.com/wkp/en/Richard_Posner)

Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (https://readtiger.com/wkp/en/United_States_Court_of_Appeals_for_the_Seventh_Cir cuit)


In office
August 1, 1993 – August 1, 2000


Preceded by
William Bauer (https://readtiger.com/wkp/en/William_Joseph_Bauer)


Succeeded by
Joel Flaum (https://readtiger.com/wkp/en/Joel_Martin_Flaum)




Born
Richard Allen Posner
January 11, 1939 (age 75)
New York City (https://readtiger.com/wkp/en/New_York_City), New York (https://readtiger.com/wkp/en/New_York), U.S. (https://readtiger.com/wkp/en/United_States)


Spouse(s)
Charlene Posner


Alma mater (https://readtiger.com/wkp/en/Alma_mater)
Yale University (https://readtiger.com/wkp/en/Yale_College)
Harvard University (https://readtiger.com/wkp/en/Harvard_Law_School)


Posner's judicial votes have always placed him on the liberal wing of the Republican Party
(https://readtiger.com/wkp/en/Richard_Posner)

Posner's top judicial influences are the American jurists Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (https://readtiger.com/wkp/en/Oliver_Wendell_Holmes,_Jr.) and Learned Hand (https://readtiger.com/wkp/en/Learned_Hand).
https://readtiger.com/wkp/en/Oliver_Wendell_Holmes,_Jr.
https://readtiger.com/wkp/en/Learned_Hand

O.W. Holmes, "particularly for his "clear and present danger (https://readtiger.com/wkp/en/Clear_and_present_danger)" opinion for a unanimous Court in the 1919 case of Schenck v. United States"
(https://readtiger.com/wkp/en/Schenck_v._United_States)L. Hand (https://readtiger.com/wkp/en/Schenck_v._United_States), (https://readtiger.com/wkp/en/Schenck_v._United_States) "supported (https://readtiger.com/wkp/en/Schenck_v._United_States)New Nationalism (https://readtiger.com/wkp/en/New_Nationalism). He ran unsuccessfully as the Progressive Party (https://readtiger.com/wkp/en/Progressive_Party_%28United_States,_1912%29)'s candidate"

[kcchiefs6465]

Wow. It takes a particular type of asshole to idolize Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

[HOLLYWOOD]

Wow. It takes a particular type of asshole to idolize Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.yeah how bout that? Speak out against a phony war perped by the Banksters-Zionists, telling the truth and you're a threat for handing out fliers and you need to be imprisoned for a decade. So now, the US government used their "JUST-US" system to get a Orwellian proven track record judge to rubber-stamp the NSA spying on everyone without warrants.

The more you dig into this Judicial Posner, the dirtier he gets.


Monday, May 15, 2006

Richard A Posner - A Domestic CIA - WSJ

Wall Street Journal
A Domestic CIA
We need a spy agency that operates inside the U.S.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008379
BY RICHARD A. POSNER
Monday, May 15, 2006 12:01 a.m.

Assuming that Michael Hayden is confirmed as CIA director, the agency will be in strong hands--especially if, as rumored, Stephen Kappes is appointed his deputy. General Hayden is the nation's senior intelligence officer (his current boss, John Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, is a career diplomat rather than an intelligence professional). Mr. Kappes, a former director of the operations (human intelligence) division of the CIA, is highly respected throughout the intelligence community. These appointments will not "recenter" the beleaguered Central Intelligence Agency, which is being squeezed from three sides: The Defense Department, the FBI and the director of national intelligence are all encroaching on functions once securely within the CIA's domain. But with luck, Messrs. Hayden and Kappes can prevent a further erosion of the agency's standing, restore morale and take care that the CIA performs its core functions competently.

The picture may be brightening as far as foreign intelligence is concerned, but it remains dark with respect to domestic intelligence. In my forthcoming book, I explain why burying our principal assets for detecting terrorist plots that unfold within the U.S. in a criminal-investigation agency--the FBI--is unsound. We are the only major country that does this. The U.K.'s domestic intelligence agency, MI5, works closely with Scotland Yard, Britain's counterpart to the FBI. But it is not part of Scotland Yard.

The British understand that a criminal-investigation culture and an intelligence culture don't mix. A crime occurs at a definite time and place, enabling a focused investigation likely to culminate in an arrest and conviction. Intelligence seeks to identify enemies and their plans before any crime occurs. It searches for terrorist sleeper cells in the U.S. with no assurance of finding any. Hunting needles in a haystack is uncongenial work for FBI special agents. And so at the same time that the attorney general was testifying before Congress that the National Security Agency's intercepting some communications of U.S. citizens is essential to national security, leaks from inside the FBI revealed that special agents are disgruntled at having to chase down the leads furnished to them by NSA. FBI special agents--the bureau's only operations officers--want to make arrests, and so they zero in on animal-rights terrorists and ecoterrorists--people known to be committing crimes and therefore relatively easy to nail. These people are criminals and should be prosecuted, but as they do not endanger national security, prosecuting them should not be an intelligence priority.

Changing an institutional culture is difficult at best; in this case it may be impossible. Almost five years after 9/11, the horses of change at the FBI have left the paddock but are still short of the starting gate. At least $100 million spent on trying to equip the bureau with modern information technology adequate to its intelligence tasks has been squandered. Just eight months after the president forced a fiercely recalcitrant bureau to combine its intelligence-related divisions into a single unit (the "National Security Branch"), the unit's first and only director has resigned to become the security director of a cruise-ship line. The FBI's primary mission is and will remain fighting crime; and just as crime-fighters don't make good intelligence operatives, intelligence operatives don't make good crime-fighters. The FBI fears compromising its main mission by embracing its secondary one.

The objections to creating a U.S. counterpart to MI5 are shallow. The FBI notes that Britain has only about 50 police forces and the U.S. 18,000: How could a U.S. domestic intelligence agency staff 18,000 field offices? It couldn't, of course. But neither can the FBI, which has only 56 field offices and an attitude of hauteur toward local police. Some fear that a domestic intelligence agency would be a secret police, spying on Americans. But like MI5 (and its Canadian counterpart, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service), such an agency would have no powers of arrest, and no greater authority to "spy on Americans" than the FBI now does.

Domestic intelligence is vital because of the danger of terrorist attacks from inside the U.S., such as the 9/11 attacks, and controversial because it entails surveillance of Americans, and not just of foreigners abroad--hence the current controversies over domestic surveillance by the NSA and over the Defense Department's expanding role in domestic intelligence. Before the fifth anniversary of 9/11 rolls around, we need an agency (which the president could create by executive order, as he did the National Counterterrorism Center in August 2004) that, unhampered by either military or law-enforcement responsibilities, can begin to plug a gaping hole in our defense against terrorism.

Mr. Posner, a federal circuit judge and a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School, is the author of "Uncertain Shield: The U.S. Intelligence System in the Throes of Reform," which will be published next week by Rowman & Littlefield.

http://kwout.com/cutout/8/3j/f5/az8_bor.jpg (http://www.law.uchicago.edu/node/79/publications)
Richard A. Posner : Publications | University of Chicago Law School (http://www.law.uchicago.edu/node/79/publications)

[mosquitobite]

I'll be happy when the majority of old people die off. They are just too set in their ways. Millennials can be converted, but old people are simply terrible so long as they are on the receiving end of the government teat.

Sorry old libertarians & anarchists, but your brethren are a non-stop freedom cock-block.

They grew up under a constant fear of communism. Our children today grow up under the constant fear of terrorism.

[Occam's Banana]

They grew up under a constant fear of communism. Our children today grow up under the constant fear of terrorism.

The State Thrives on Fear (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?464507-The-State-Thrives-on-Fear)

[Origanalist]

I'll be happy when the majority of old people die off. They are just too set in their ways. Millennials can be converted, but old people are simply terrible so long as they are on the receiving end of the government teat.

Sorry old libertarians & anarchists, but your brethren are a non-stop freedom cock-block.

I hope you're right, but I'm afraid you're going to be severely disappointed.

[puppetmaster]

I'll be happy when the majority of old people die off. They are just too set in their ways. Millennials can be converted, but old people are simply terrible so long as they are on the receiving end of the government teat.

Sorry old libertarians & anarchists, but your brethren are a non-stop freedom cock-block.

Yes but everyone gets old and does the same shit to the next generation. There will just be more of your gen doing the screwing in the name of fear.

[Occam's Banana]

Glenn Greenwald smashes this one out of the park:

What Bad, Shameful, Dirty Behavior Is U.S. Judge Richard Posner Hiding? Demand to Know.
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/12/08/bad-shameful-dirty-secrets-u-s-judge-richard-posner-hiding-demand-know/
Glenn Greenwald (08 December 2014)

Richard Posner has been a federal appellate judge for 34 years, having been nominated by President Reagan in 1981. At a conference last week in Washington, Posner said (http://www.law.georgetown.edu/news/press-releases/cybercrime-2020-the-future-of-online-crime-and-investigations.cfm) the NSA should have the unlimited ability to collect whatever communications and other information it wants: “If the NSA wants to vacuum all the trillions of bits of information that are crawling through the electronic worldwide networks, I think that’s fine.” The NSA should have “carte blanche” to collect what it wants because “privacy interests should really have very little weight when you’re talking about national security.”

His rationale? “I think privacy is actually overvalued,” the distinguished jurist pronounced. Privacy, he explained, is something people crave in order to prevent others from learning about the shameful and filthy things they do:


Much of what passes for the name of privacy is really just trying to conceal the disreputable parts of your conduct. Privacy is mainly about trying to improve your social and business opportunities by concealing the sorts of bad activities that would cause other people not to want to deal with you.

Unlike you and your need to hide your bad and dirty acts, Judge Posner has no need for privacy – or so he claims: “If someone drained my cell phone, they would find a picture of my cat, some phone numbers, some email addresses, some email text,” he said. “What’s the big deal?” He added: “Other people must have really exciting stuff. Do they narrate their adulteries, or something like that?”

I would like to propose a campaign inspired by Judge Posner’s claims (just by the way, one of his duties as a federal judge is to uphold the Fourth Amendment). In doing so, I’ll make the following observations:

First, note the bargain Judge Posner offers, the one that is implicitly at the heart of all surveillance advocacy: as long as you make yourself extremely boring and unthreatening – don’t exercise your political liberties, but instead, just take pictures of your cat, arrange Little League games, and exchange recipes - then you have nothing to worry about from surveillance. In other words, as long as you remain what Judge Posner is – an obedient servant of political and corporate power – then you have nothing to worry about from surveillance.

The converse, of course, is equally true: if you do anything unorthodox or challenging to those in power – if, for instance, you become a civil rights leader or an antiwar activist – then you are justifiably provoking surveillance aimed at you. That is the bargain at the heart of the anti-privacy case, which is why a surveillance state, by design, breeds conformity and passivity - which in turn is why all power centers crave it. Every time surveillance is discussed, someone says something to the effect of: “I’m not worried about being surveilled because I’ve chosen to do nothing that’d be interesting to the government or anyone else.” That self-imprisoning mindset, by itself, is as harmful as any abuse of surveillance power (in September, I gave a 15-minute TED talk (http://www.ted.com/talks/glenn_greenwald_why_privacy_matters) specifically designed to address and refute the inane “nothing to hide” anti-privacy rationale Judge Posner offers here).

Second, Judge Posner’s is the voice of unadulterated wealth, power and privilege talking. The distinguished judge - like all those of similar position and class – has all sorts of ways that his personal privacy is safeguarded: government-provided security, electronic gates that protect his home and office, a staff of people who work for him. It’s almost never the Judge Richard Posners of the world who are subjected to abusive surveillance, but rather actual dissidents, activists and members of marginalized and minority groups. That’s true even in the most tyrannical states: in Mubarak’s Egypt, it was the pro-democracy protesters in Tahrir Square targeted with violence, torture, and other forms of repression, not the loyal and corrupt judges who served Mubarak’s agenda. Servants of power are usually immune, or at least unmolested. So it’s always very easy for the Richard Posners of the world to dismiss concerns over privacy violations because they are typically not the ones targeted.

To see how power-based rather than principled Posner’s views are, consider what he said and did in a 2011 case (http://www.aclu-il.org/aclu-v-alvarez22/) - brought by the ACLU - where he mocked (http://jonathanturley.org/2011/09/19/posner-ridicules-right-of-citizens-to-film-police-in-seventh-circuit-oral-argument/) the idea that citizens have a First Amendment right to film the police. During Oral Argument, he immediately interrupted the ACLU lawyer arguing that citizens have this right, and the following exchange (http://bloglawblog.com/blog/?p=3448) occurred:


JUDGE POSNER: Once all this stuff can be recorded, there’s going to be a lot more of this snooping around by reporters and bloggers.
ACLU attorney Richard O’Brien: Is that a bad thing, your honor?
JUDGE POSNER: Yes, it is a bad thing. There is such a thing as privacy.

Like so many federal judges, Judge Posner recognizes rights only when they belong to agents of the state or the economic elite. When it’s ordinary citizens at issue, he snidely rejects any such protections. Of course, this is exactly backwards: those exercising public power (police officers) have a lower entitlement to privacy than private individuals. But power-servants like Judge Posner view only actors of the state and those who serve it (such as himself) as entitled to these prerogatives. That’s become the corrupt essence of the U.S. justice system (http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2013/03/glenn-greenwald-at-yale-on-americas-two.html), and it’s perfectly expressed by Judge Posner’s radically divergent views based on whose privacy is at stake.

Third, if Judge Posner really believes what he’s saying about privacy, and if it’s really true that he personally has nothing to hide – he just has some cat videos and some pictures of his grandkids – then he should prove that with his actions. Every day, he should publicly post online all of the emails he sends and receives, along with transcripts of his telephone and in-person conversations. Or just put a recording device in his office and on his person, and upload the full audio every day. He should also put video cameras in all the rooms in his home and office, and stream it live on the internet 24 hours a day. If there’s a specific reason for excluding a particular conversation – say, something relating to attorney/client privilege – he can post a log identifying the metadata of the withheld communications. If he agrees to this framework, I’d work hard on a campaign to raise the funds to do this, and have no doubt the money could be raised very quickly.

What possible objections could he have to any of this? After all, the Hon. Richard Posner has nothing to hide. He’s a good person. He does nothing shameful, corrupt, adulterous, or otherwise embarrassing – nothing constituting “the sorts of bad activities that would cause other people not to want to deal with [him].” Perish the thought. So why isn’t he doing this, or why wouldn’t he? A campaign to encourage him to agree to this system of transparency – to show he has the courage of his convictions – would, I think, be constructive. Anyone wishing to do so can submit that encouragement to him, and to argue for its virtue, by email or telephone, here (https://www.ca7.uscourts.gov/contact.htm#posner) or here (http://www.law.uchicago.edu/faculty/posner-r/).

UPDATE: Using his reasoning, Judge Posner, with regard to a trust account of which he’s the trustee, is “concealing the sorts of bad activities that would cause other people not to want to deal with [him].” Note how, in his 2010 Financial Disclosure Report (http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Richard-A-Posner-Financial-Disclosure-Report-for-2010.pdf), he tries to hide this information and keep it private (via Dave Maass (https://twitter.com/maassive/status/542027848471425024)):

https://prod01-cdn00.cdn.firstlook.org/wp-uploads/sites/1/2014/12/posner.png

What bad, shameful acts with regard to this trust account are being concealed? Unlike private individuals (whose privacy he disparages), Judge Posner holds a public trust, exercises vast public power. What justification is there for concealing this if there is not serious wrongdoing here?

[Occam's Banana]

Here is the "TED talk" Greenwald references in the article posted above:

Glenn Greenwald: Why privacy matter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcSlowAhvUk
TED (10 October 2014)

Glenn Greenwald was one of the first reporters to see — and write about — the Edward Snowden files, with their revelations about the United States' extensive surveillance of private citizens. In this searing talk, Greenwald makes the case for why you need to care about privacy, even if you’re “not doing anything you need to hide."


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcSlowAhvUk

[Occam's Banana]

Posner on Behalf of Whistle-Blowers
http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/posner-on-behalf-of-whistle-blowers/
Butler Shaffer (11 December 2014)

Given the firmness of Posner’s views opposing the idea of “privacy” – a concept that he imagines to be useful only to those seeking to hide illegal, immoral, or other embarrassing conduct – can we expect him to publicly support Chelsea Manning’s, Ed Snowden’s, Julian Assange’s, and Glenn Greenwald’s efforts to expose the hidden record of U.S. government officials and agencies? If individuals have no expectation of privacy – derived from a deeper understanding of the concept of private property – on what basis might the state insist upon not having its behavior exposed? Given that the conduct of the state is far more destructive than that of individuals [e.g., the capacity to start wars, assassinate people, etc. vs. the video-taped sexual practices, or distasteful phone calls] would the state’s claim to not having its publicly-damaging corruptions revealed? It’s nice that Boobus Americanus is finally provided open admissions of the self-serving nature of all political action.