{"id":38539,"date":"2013-08-22T10:34:48","date_gmt":"2013-08-22T16:34:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/08\/22\/who-watches-the-watchmen.html"},"modified":"2013-08-22T10:34:48","modified_gmt":"2013-08-22T16:34:48","slug":"who-watches-the-watchmen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/08\/22\/who-watches-the-watchmen.html","title":{"rendered":"Who watches the Watchmen?"},"content":{"rendered":"
And what good does it do to have Watchmen-watchers watching, when the only thing they can watch is what the Watchmen … choose to show them?<\/p>\n

Reshared post from +Yonatan Zunger<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

This article gets straight to the point of why a secret court like FISA, no matter how well-run, can never be an effective check on the intelligence community. Mark Rumold of the EFF says it best:\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis opinion illustrates that the way the court is structured now it cannot serve as an effective check on the NSA because it\u2019s wholly dependent on the representations that the NSA makes to it. It has no ability to investigate. And it\u2019s clear that the NSA representations have not been entirely candid to the court.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

Because the government appears before this court ex parte,<\/i> with no opposing counsel in the room, there is nobody with the motivation and ability to determine whether the intelligence agencies are being at all truthful with the court. The court itself can't do this; it's not an investigative agency. But private parties can't do this either (despite some suggestions I've seen flying about the Internet); to investigate requires legal powers to do so, such as subpoena, and the standing to present evidence of wrongdoing before a court and demand redress.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is one of the many reasons why no ex parte<\/i> court system, no matter what its intentions, can ever act as a meaningful check against the operation of an organization. If there is to be any meaningful restraint on these organizations, even the most basic rule of law, it has to come in the form of review by an adversarial party, judged by a neutral court.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n \n <\/div>\n

Secret Court Rebuked N.S.A. on Surveillance<\/a>
\n A 2011 ruling held that the N.S.A. had violated the Constitution for several years by gathering tens of thousands of domestic communications unrelated to terrorism.\n <\/p>\n

View this post on Google+<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And what good does it do to have Watchmen-watchers watching, when the only thing they can watch is what the Watchmen … choose to show them? Reshared post from +Yonatan Zunger This article gets straight to the point of why a secret court like FISA, no matter how well-run, can never be an effective check … Continue reading “Who watches the Watchmen?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":38563,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/08\/24\/who-watches-the-watchmen-2.html","url_meta":{"origin":38539,"position":0},"title":"Who Watches the Watchmen?","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 24-Aug-13 11:08am","format":false,"excerpt":"Really, this is any surprise? \u00a0Any time any organization collects information on people, there will always be employees of that orgnization (usually the folks sitting at the terminals each day, but not always) who will sift through that information to see what it says about their current significant other. Or\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":50530,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/07\/so-maybe-now-we-can-have-a-debate-about-nsa-data-collection.html","url_meta":{"origin":38539,"position":1},"title":"So maybe now we can have a debate about NSA data collection","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 7-May-15 10:31am","format":false,"excerpt":"A federal appellate court has ruled that the NSA's interpretation of the PATRIOT Act \u00a7215 is incorrect, and it can't vacuum up the metadatda for every phone call in the US willy-nilly.Now, I have little doubt that if the NSA goes back to Congress and asks them, when PATRIOT is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":44155,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/08\/05\/using-winston-smith-as-a-court-recorder.html","url_meta":{"origin":38539,"position":2},"title":"Using Winston Smith as a court recorder","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 5-Aug-14 4:54pm","format":false,"excerpt":"But of course we must let the US Government secretly edit transcripts of open court testimony, because otherwise the terrorists will have won!Yeesh.This is one reason, by the way, I support the EFF.Reshared post from +Electronic Frontier FoundationUNSEALED: the US asked for permission to secretly alter public record of a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":132944,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/28\/movie-review-watchmen-2009-2.html","url_meta":{"origin":38539,"position":3},"title":"Movie Review: "Watchmen" (2009)","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 28-Feb-17 12:17pm","format":false,"excerpt":"This remains an iconic comic book adaptation, despite Zack Snyder's best efforts to scrub away any nuance or critique of the genre from Alan Moore's original. I find my rating of the film continues to drop down over the years -- I still like it, but the creative flaws become\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/watchmen_ver19_xlg5B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/watchmen_ver19_xlg5B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/watchmen_ver19_xlg5B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":134767,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/19\/watchmen-coming-back-hbo-series.html","url_meta":{"origin":38539,"position":4},"title":"“Watchmen” is coming back as an HBO series","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 19-Sep-17 5:24pm","format":false,"excerpt":"That's just crazy enough that it might work. I'm actually pretty fond of the Zack Snyder movie adaptation in a number of ways, from its efforts to capture the actual artwork in cinematic form, to its' high production values. But it's also got some limitations due to the short run\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Watchmen-Nightowl-Comedian.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":39284,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/10\/21\/and-meanwhile-also-back-at-the-nsa.html","url_meta":{"origin":38539,"position":5},"title":"And meanwhile, also back at the NSA","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 21-Oct-13 10:34pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Dianne Feinstein never met an intelligence program she didn't like. Which is why it's ironic that her impassioned claims about how Congress needed to reauthorize the FISA Amendments Act because of all the cases that its wiretapping had been critical on .... may be the basis for dragging it back\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38539\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}