NSA Terms and Conditions

""Suppose for example the president obtains intelligence that a nuclear bomb was planted ... right there in Washington, and the only way he was going to find out whether that was going to happen was to grab the person and interrogate him," Coppolino said in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. "Would that be in his constitutional authority? I would say so.""

This is called a standard arrest with standard warrant situations. If he has non-specific intelligence saying that there is a nuclear device planted in Washington, that does not give him a warrant to detain anybody, nor to use 'advanced interrogation practices'. This is a totally unexceptional 1776 arrest.

I am also dismayed at the very concept of 'secret detainment'. This principle is illegal even for non-Americans. The Constitution says "all men are created equal". This means that all humans are created equal, not only Americans. And as equal humans, they all are provided a copy of the American Bill of Rights and Constitution. Law enforcement is a matter of jurisdiction. Rights are international, and indeed global. All American law enforcement personnel and officials associated with the state and its legal and founding documents should make treaties and laws and agreements and use their full power to support these legal rights for all humans everywhere, according to the American Constitution.

All those detained have the right to habeas corpus. They have the right to ace their accusor. Non-military individuals, according to Geneva IV, meaning civilians who are forced to take up arms but whom haven't yet had time to form outfits, and not necessarily 'terrorists' planning to strike in a covert manner, such as those who were on the planes crashing into the WTC, regardless of their backers, and other bombers, are not militias. They are non-defending assault teams and are arguably paramilitary and can conceivably face court martials, although this should be taken on a case-by-case basis through a civil judge, who would decide the case's status as civilian or military with open evidence, and then the advanced trial would begin. Normally, plain law details whether the defendant is civilian or military, and this could probably best be described or decided by the UN or ICRC rather than a national government. Civilian resisters, such as those in groups in Iraq, are militias and cannot be detained except by Geneva IV.

Quite a quandary, how to try publicized terrorists in a secret court, or hold them secretly. Why should we do this? What possible wiretapping or intelligence advantages do we need to maintain and keep a secret? How long do secrets last? Not long. It is wrong to classify someone as a military agent just to keep your surveillance tactics a secret.

According to this report, state and private companies are planning to use microphones secretly embedded in cable boxes and other public goods since the late 1990's to spy on Americans.

We have excellent intelligence. We do not need to hide our intelligence abilities. They are so great that publicizing our intelligence abilities might have a more positive effect than hiding them. Eschelon has the ability to listen to any electronic communication on the globe. We could pick up a cell phone call on Jupiter. Literally. It's not a joke. We hear every cell phone call on earth if we want to. All radio attenae re-broadcast a low wattage of the signal they receive. We can use this to detect what radio station is being listened to on an estimated 'any radio anywhere'. We have advanced space probes. We use this technology on earth as well.

We can see through your luggage in color. We can see through your clothes in color. You can find a picture of your house online taken from a satellite. Some nations are collecting DNA samples and fingerprints of all humans. Your fiscal data is worldwide, profiles are being created. The entire web has been crawled and is continually examined by robots. Keylogging viruses are rampant and likely the tools of the state as well as data miners. Every piece of registered software has a backdoor that the FBI mandates in order to be licensed. Linux, being open-source, does not. Linux 2 won't either.

This and an array of additional intelligence practices can be publicized in a 'Don't Do Drugs' style campaign. "We can count your nasal cells. Don't plot against the state." Unfortunately, this is frightening. And illegal according to the 4th amendment. You may find that a survey is a search and any private data should not be broadcast through it. I do not even appreciate the publication of private property through Google Maps, although it is cool. The addresses could be publicized, since they are public residences, but satellite data is a technical violation of aerospace rights over private property, although arguably flying the satellite there is not.