It seems that I did not recommend this article on MemeStreams. Of the various things that have been written about this Snowden controversy, this is one of the best, for two reasons:

1. It does not take a black and white view of the issue. It clearly explains that, on the one hand, some of the information disclosed likely harms national security without illuminating anything substantive from a civil liberties standpoint, while, on the other hand, some of the information disclosed likely has little impact on national security but does illuminate significant civil liberties issues.

2. It demonstrates that well informed observers of FISA and the NSA were unaware that all call records were being sucked up domestically. Various defenders of this program have argued that everyone knew this was going on and it was all authorized. This article represents a challenge to that assertion.

More importantly, the story, and the leak of the FISA Court order that underlies it, do reflect something significantly new concerning a claimed authority about which the public was not previously informed. Specifically, it reveals that the government was using a particular section of FISA—known as Section 215—as a way of accessing not just specific items about specific persons on a case-by-case basis, but also as a means to create giant datasets of telephony metadata that might later be queried on a case-by-case basis. As we move into the age of Big Data, it may not be surprising that the government would want to have authority to generate such a database; we all recall the Total Information Awareness initiative, after all. But it is surprising to learn both that the government thinks it already has this authority under Section 215, and still more so that the FISA Court agrees and that members of Congress know this as well.

NSA spying scandal: One leak more damaging than other | New Republic

Over the past year, there have been a number of headline-grabbing legal changes in the US, such as the legalization of marijuana in CO and WA, as well as the legalization of same-sex marriage in a growing number of US states.

As a majority of people in these states apparently favor these changes, advocates for the US democratic process cite these legal victories as examples of how the system can provide real freedoms to those who engage with it through lawful means. And it’s true, the bills did pass.

What’s often overlooked, however, is that these legal victories would probably not have been possible without the ability to break the law.

Moxie Marlinspike :: We Should All Have Something To Hide

Mr. Snowden may have left Hong Kong, or be on his way out. Nevertheless, because he has shared, even briefly, in the legal uncertainties Hong Kongers have experienced since 1997, his case might at least draw greater international attention to the precarious state of individual freedoms here.

Hong Kong, a Strange Place to Seek Freedom - NYTimes.com

The American people have the right to expect straight answers from the intelligence leadership to the questions asked by their representatives.

Senator Wyden Calls For Hearings Over Intelligence Officials Lying To Congress | Techdirt

Normally, one would think that a communication that has been intercepted and stored in a government database as “collected.” But the government’s definition of what it means to “collect” intelligence information is quite different than its plain meaning.

Under Department of Defense regulations, information is considered to be “collected” only after it has been “received for use by an employee of a DoD intelligence component,” and “data acquired by electronic means is ‘collected’ only when it has been processed into intelligible form.”

In other words, the NSA can intercept and store communications in its data base, then have an algorithm search them for key words and analyze the meta data without ever considering the communications “collected.”

The Government's Word Games When Talking About NSA Domestic Spying | Electronic Frontier Foundation

The Administration actually uses very particular definitions of words that are vastly different from how ordinary people interpret them and how they're normally defined.

The NSA’s Word Games Explained: How the Government Deceived Congress in the Debate over Surveillance Powers | Electronic Frontier Foundation

If you measure democratic liberties by the willingness of the population to fight for them, than at least for now, Hong Kong remains a rare and inspiring model...

But Hong Kong, for all its constraints, still illustrates what it means to be a democratic society. In other words, governments alone do not protect basic freedoms. People do.

I miss Hong Kong.

Edward Snowden in Hong Kong, Where Free Speech Is a Constant Fight | New Republic

Before the capability was made public, it _likely_ wouldn't
have been used against mere political nuisances, at least not without
the additional cost of creating a solid pretext for the resulting
intelligence. But now this deterrent is gone: the burden of utter secrecy
is reduced. And if these programs are not eliminated, greatly curtailed,
or made moot, we can expect them to be employed much more freely.

This is an important point. I would add that a lot of people who might want to use the data in this database couldn't because they didn't know that it existed. Can any court in the land issue a court order subpoenaing records from this database? If so, its going to become a massive liability.

[liberationtech] Why we can't go back to business as usual post-PRISM.

In his press conference on Friday, President Obama described the massive collection of phone and digital records as "two programs that were originally authorized by Congress, have been repeatedly authorized by Congress". But Congress has never specifically authorized these programs, and the Patriot Act was never intended to allow the daily spying the Obama administration is conducting.

This abuse of the Patriot Act must end | Jim Sensenbrenner | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

In the wake of the court ruling last March, the government cannot continue simply to follow rulings by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees on the merits of an asylum claimant’s case, as it has always done until now.

The Court of Final Appeal ruled that the government must independently determine the validity of asylum claims, but the authorities have devised no system for doing so. Legislation setting up such a system would take “months if not years,” says Young, and any administrative plan the government instituted before a law was passed would be subject to challenge in the courts.

“Short of a criminal group getting to him, I think he is safe here,” Young adds.

Edward Snowden: Why the NSA whistleblower fled to Hong Kong - CSMonitor.com