SECTION 702 — T.E.N. Liberty Shield

5 min readApr 20, 2024

Section 702 — Domestic attack

Section 702 is a key provision of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 that permits the government to conduct targeted surveillance of foreign persons located outside the United States, with the compelled assistance of electronic communication service providers, to acquire foreign intelligence information.

Additional Info: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/04/bad-amendments-section-702-have-failed-now-what-happens-next

Why does it matter to American’s and the rest of the world

It expands the powers of the US government to compel individuals and companies to assist the NSA in surveillance of targeted individuals. It goes beyond prior initiatives compelling platform or communication service providers (google, horizon, etc) to apply to any “service providers” who have access to digital data through various means of data acquisition or transfer. Plumbers, Cleaners, Retail, and other businesses which might obtain or manage data via emails, or accounting software, or messaging; can be forced to assist in secret by handing over information.

There are several red-flags related to the potential for abuse of power, and selection of targets. Additionally, the data processing pipeline is complex and involves a large number of organizations and counter-parties for functions such as approval, analysis, compliance, and audit. Regardless of the intent — the likelihood of encroaching on civil liberties and opening vectors of attack/abuse is higher than most Americans wish to tolerate.

Valid Targets

Non-U.S. persons,
Located abroad,
Who are expected to possess, receive, or communicate foreign intelligence information

Invalid Targets

U.S. persons, regardless of location
Any person located inside the U.S.
A foreign person located abroad for the purpose of targeting a U.S. person or person inside the U.S. with whom the foreign person is communicating (often called “reverse targeting”)

Section 702 Data Pipeline https://www.dni.gov/files/icotr/Section702-Basics-Infographic.pdf

The Real Issues

No doubt Americans deserve to be safe, and the idea of civic duty and cooperation is one entrenched in the DNA of patriotism. A nation of individuals ready to face all enemies at home and abroad in bravery, honor, and blood would eagerly send over a hard-drive or email folder… if and when it mattered or was called for.

What we have here though is an attack on the constitution and amendments. Honest citizens are being asked to give up digital sovereignty so that potentially unelected arms of office, and unchecked domestic powers can serve to weaken the foundation of civilian autonomy that keeps straight the path of American destiny.

Unpacking the rightful fears of such encroachment inevitably leads to a fundamental question of TRUST. It is not enough for a governing body to propose and enforce a power imbalance on its people which exposes further ability to marginalize civil liberties. History is wrought with these failed experiments. For an amendment to be fair and just one reduction in counter-measure must be followed by an equally effective establishment of another which serves to create an equilibrium between the people and the government.

The government must PROVE it will act in exactly the manner justified by its stated purpose and rationale.

In the case of Section 702 this would be a mechanism or invisible hand to enforce:

target selection
data minimization
data expiry
access control
transparent audit and report

Where this mechanism is not provided for the people, it must be aquired and brought to arms BY THE PEOPLE.

Compliant Resistance & A Record of Account

Compliant Resistance is a mechanism to rebalance subjugation. It involves following a stated mandate if necessary, by complying with the associated request or demand; yet simultaneously asserting an equal counter-force against the initiating parties. This counter-force is enacted by following:

Compliance of absolute minimization — the people will perform to exactly and only exactly that which was stated and justified as required.
Conformance of absolute maximization — the government will adhere to each and every; check, balance, and promise without any freedom to deviate from the agreement.

In the past, such an act of compliant resistance was infeasible, complex or considered hypothetical, such that a proposal of a just agreement between government and citizens would be hard to demand.

With today’s current technology, now is the time to rise to the occasion and speak to your delegate, senator, or representative should Section 702 be fully enacted.

It’s time to enact a TEN Liberty Shield: Compliant Resistance utilizing transparent encrypted accounting and conformance using blockchain technology and Trusted Execution Environments.

TEN (Decentralized Confidential Computing): Liberty Shield Projects

The Encrypted Network (TEN) is a blockchain Layer 2 which allows absolutely private and secure enclaves to compute on sensitive data and emit results without even the system operators/owners being able to view or modify the data.

What this enables is two fold:

Exact/minimal compliance where required. Private citizens, businesses, or services can send demanded data as requested. The TEN contract (code logic) will force minimization by discard any additional features, text, topics, and data not in the scope of the legal request BEFORE it is available for query. The blockchain enables a TX receipt for the submitter which no government can modify or delete or fail to acknowledge. The data is then encrypted at rest.
Exact/maximal conformance forever. The TEN contract grants no access to data stores by analysts or systems without an associated digital signed authorization, and then only allows the queries permitted by the scope approved by law, or relevant signing authority. The Enclave/TEE is capable of answering specific queries based on logic, without exposing the underlying data. For instance, “does the conversation on 11/12/09 involve a man discussing x about location y?” Using programmatic predicates and various other NLP, Semantic, and Logical operations it possible to enforce boundaries on interactions without leaking underlying data.

Other extensions can be enabled to protect the interest of both parties, such as revelation periods (programmatically enabling transparency at some future point in time for certain types of information), upgradable contract/logic to enable more complex/accurate/safe querying and data locking mechanisms. Even staking and event triggers which create instant and executable deterrents for attempting to breach agreements.

TEN is not the only platform capable of these measures, it is just one of the most suitable and tuned (the fundamental design decisions have been battle tested in government, industry, and permission-less spaces).

Whatever your fist, spear, or manner of arms its everyone’s duty to band together and protect our information, and our freedom!