> it's 'do I have faith in all future forms of government who will have access to this data'

And even this assumes that the government can and will protect the data from the various bad actors who want it, something they have absolutely failed to do on multiple occasions.

> Everyone who's not terribly worried about privacy always uses the line 'if you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about'

The right way to reply to that is: not everything that's legal must be public.

You probably don't want the rest of the world to see you poop, or pick your nose, or listen to every word you say. Almost everyone has things they'd be embarrassed to disclose to other people.

if you're not doing anything wrong, a government that is doing something wrong may not like it

I have seen what happens with garbage-in/garbage-out in databases, so this kind of stuff terrifies me. I often think of a case where we had a person listed twice in our database, with same address, birthday, etc, only thing different was gender, and last 2 digits of SSN were transposed..

After we 'fixed' the issue a few times, they BOTH showed up to our office.

Both Named Leslie, born on same day, a few small towns apart, same last name and home phone since they had been married. Back then, SSN were handed out by region sequentially, so one had the last two digits 12 and the other 21.

Does anyone ever actually use that line? Most people will argue that the trade off in privacy is worth it for security.

That is, if you frame your argument such that you believe people don’t understand the trade off it allows you to not engage with the fact they just disagree with your conclusion.

Everyone who's not terribly worried about privacy always uses the line 'if you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about'

The people who say "I'm not doing anything wrong, so I have nothing to hide" simply don't understand that it's not their call.

> but my line of thinking is not 'do i trust the government' it's 'do I have faith in all future forms of government who will have access to this data'

This is how I view privacy as well. You never know who will be in power and who will access that information in the future with ill intent.

This line of thinking kept me away from the Mpls ICE protests. All of the people that protested had their face, phone, and license plate recorded and documented.

I’m not even afraid of being persecuted by the current administration, it’s the possibility of a much worse administration in the future that gave me pause.

"If you have money in your pocket you always have something to worry about."

DOGE != DODGE

They may have dodged, ducked, dodged the rules while they DOGE'd their way through the government, but not sure if they used RAM trucks while they did it

Secret laws, secret courts... Jeez, man.

Probably the actual classified artifact is an NSA policy document that details the NSA's own interpretation of the law and thus forms part of its governance.

As someone that worked in an illegal industry (urban pharmaceuticals), you need to appear normal and hide your crimes. If you just hide your crimes, you stick out and become a target.

Plausible deniability is harder than just total protection.

Immunity from prosecution, maybe, but not immunity from consequence. I can’t imagine congressional leadership would think of it as a good look—and isn’t the “need to know” based on the congressperson’s role? For example don’t they brief only congresspeople in specific roles on specific matters, like the so-called “Gang of Eight” on intelligence matters? [0]

It feels a little like keeping the filibuster around: maybe technically it’s within their power to change the norm, but once unilaterally spilling secrets becomes The Done Thing, it’s hard to imagine it wouldn’t spin out into a free-for-all.

For all the mud that gets slung around, I think congresspeople really don’t get there without some kind of patriotic instinct, some kind of interest in the United States’ ongoing functioning. And I certainly can’t imagine they’d keep getting access to new secrets after pulling something like that, one way or the other…

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_of_Eight_(intelligence)

I think it's going to be more about how many people have access to the surveillance who might use it for needless things or personal reasons, at a large scale.

You'd be surprised, I know IT managers with 20 years experience who ( probably incorrectly) think otherwise.

I hope we get someone as good as he is when he retires. Waves from Bend.

Wyden is a vote I cast without issue.

He is one of the few that is actually looking into Epstein bank accounts movements.

It's my understanding that a single senator can't just filibuster anything they want unless the conditions are right. It depends on a few different factors and requires the bill to be brought to the floor for debate, which itself would require cooperation from the majority leader. That's not likely to happen.

If you're solo you have to actually stand up and talk still it seems. (And even then a 60+ person majority can vote to close the debate on you) Nobody has done it solo for more than 24 hours or so. Presumably at that point you're about ready to keel over.

He needs 40 other Senators to agree with him; 60 votes can close debate and stop a filibuster.

I think he is a reflection of the broader libertarian streak of Oregonians.

Source: am Oregonian.

That's not what the quote is referring to directly (the title is a bit misleading):

"In fact, when it is eventually declassified, the American people will be stunned that it took so long and that Congress has been debating this authority with insufficient information"

You are correct that the American populace has normalized this already. The fact that this is done without congressional oversight is indeed stunning. Or at least it would have been a decade or two ago.

> Would any of these reveals actually be "stunning",

Everyone knew the NSA spied on everyone, yet Snowden leaks were truly stunning, because no one had evidence of the sheer scale of what the NSA (and collaborators) were engaged in. Wyden Siren was already firing off about that many years beforehand, before we knew the actual truth, so considering his record, I'm also skeptical it'll be "truly shocking" for the average HN tech-nerd, but for the general public, to have evidence of what the government does? Probably will be "stunning", but the one who lives will see.

HN readers won't be surprised, but I don't think that's who he is talking about.

Most Americans have this kind of thing tuned out, that have bigger issues in their lives.

I wouldn't be surprised by it, but "they're actually using all of the above, laundered through some extra steps, to provide leads to state and local LEO" would probably get people pissed off.

Don't forget backdooring or interfering with multiple cryptography standards, at least Dual_EC_DRBG and RSA.

Or backdooring most major microprocessors (tpm).

Etc?

> Would any of these reveals actually be "stunning", frankly I've assumed the worst for so long that the response will be more like "wow, that all they're doing?"

You’re far more cynical than the typical citizen, who Ryder is addressing.