On Friday, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden was formally charged by the United States government with espionage, theft, and conversion of government property in a sealed criminal complaint in the Eastern District Court of Virginia. According to the Washington Post citing anonymous sources, the United States has also asked Hong Kong to detain Snowden on a “provisional arrest warrant.”
.
.
.
Some Hong Kong legal watchers though, have wondered if Snowden’s fleeing to Hong Kong was a better choice than it might seem at first blush. Apparently, the High Court in the quasi-city-state has issued an order requiring the government to create a new procedure to consider asylum applications. Until such a procedure is achieved, asylum seekers can ostensibly stay indefinitely.
"If it comes to the point where the US does issue a warrant on Snowden, and then passes it over to the Hong Kong authorities, and he decides to fight it, at this point it would be a court case," Nicholas Bequelin of Human Rights Watch told GlobalPost earlier this month. "And it can be a long court case, going up to the court of final appeals."
Lawyers who spoke to the Post concurred. "Any court battle is likely to reach Hong Kong’s highest court and could last many months," noted the Post. Hong Kong also has a clause in its extradition treaty with the US which states that suspects can't be turned over for offenses with a "political character." Espionage has traditionally been treated as such an offense.
<more (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/06/united-states-charges-snowden-with-espionage-asks-hong-kong-to-arrest-him/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+arstechnica%2Findex+%28Ars+Technica+-+All+content%29)>
The United States government charged former intelligence analyst Edward Snowden with spying on Friday, apparently unaware that in doing so it had created a situation dripping with irony.
At a press conference to discuss the accusations, an N.S.A. spokesman surprised observers by announcing the spying charges against Mr. Snowden with a totally straight face.
“These charges send a clear message,” the spokesman said. “In the United States, you can’t spy on people.”
Seemingly not kidding, the spokesman went on to discuss another charge against Mr. Snowden—the theft of government documents: “The American people have the right to assume that their private documents will remain private and won’t be collected by someone in the government for his own purposes.”
“Only by bringing Mr. Snowden to justice can we safeguard the most precious of American rights: privacy,” added the spokesman, apparently serious.
Hong Kong will not want to appear to be dancing to Washington's tune. But there may be some carrots (trade treaties, lifting of certain import restrictions, more liberal labor offshoring or tech import rules, etc.) that could be dangled as an enticement for Hong Kong's courts to find an argument for why Snowden should be returned.-40hz (June 22, 2013, 10:10 AM)
Contrary to the claims of some politicians and others who should know better, Edward Snowden did not commit treason. Treason is a specific crime defined in the Constitution, and it is particularly difficult to prosecute. As Seth Lipsky wrote in the WSJ this week:
Treason turns out to be unique in American law. It is the only crime that the Constitution forbids Congress from defining. It is the only crime to which a court may never accept a confession given to the police. It is the only crime for which restrictions are laid down on how much evidence juries must hear. The Constitution itself underscores that the Founders feared treason law. . . .
23 June 2013 Last updated at 05:53 ET
US intelligence fugitive Edward Snowden has flown out of Hong Kong, from where the US was seeking his extradition on charges of espionage.
He left voluntarily for a third country, a government statement said.
The South China Morning Post quoted "credible sources" as saying he was due to arrive in Moscow later on Sunday.
Snowden, an intelligence analyst, fled to Hong Kong in May after revealing details of extensive internet and phone surveillance by US intelligence.
"Mr Edward Snowden left Hong Kong today (June 23) on his own accord for a third country through a lawful and normal channel," the Hong Kong government said in a statement.
On Saturday, the White House contacted Hong Kong to try to arrange his extradition, but the territory's administration now says the documents submitted by Washington did not "fully comply with the legal requirements under Hong Kong law".
As a result, Hong Kong says it requested further information from the US government.
However, the statement goes on: "As the HKSAR Government has yet to have sufficient information to process the request for provisional warrant of arrest, there is no legal basis to restrict Mr Snowden from leaving Hong Kong."
The statement says Washington has been informed of Hong Kong's decision.
Assange: Snowden is en route to Ecuador and “in a safe place” for now
On conference call, Assange also says Snowden's materials are secured. (MP3 available)
During a Monday morning conference call, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said that National Security Agency (NSA) leaker Edward Snowden’s digital trove of leaked documents and materials was “secured by the relevant journalistic organizations prior to travel.”
Assange's comments could suggest that The Guardian and the Washington Post—where Snowden previously leaked information—are now in possession of his entire cache. Ars asked The Guardian and the Post to confirm this but did not receive an immediate reply.
This morning's call was arranged shortly after it was revealed that Snowden was not on an Aeroflot flight from Moscow to Havana. Assange would not disclose Snowden’s location, so his whereabouts remain unknown. (Both White House and Ecuador representatives believe Snowden is currently in Russia.) Ars has made a complete recording of the call available as an MP3 or through a stream below.
“We are aware of where Mr. Snowden is,” he said. “He is in a safe place, and his spirits are high due to the bellicose threats coming from the US administration—we cannot go into details as this time.”
.
.
.
During the question-and-answer period, BBC reporter Paul Adams challenged Assange. Adams noted the “obvious irony" of trying to cooperate with the Chinese and Russian authorities: "Given their problematic relationship with the values of privacy and freedom of speech that you hold dear—and if Edwards Snowden ends up in Ecuador—doesn’t the same irony pertain? I wonder: are you simply involving those countries because they're happy to stick one in the eye of the United States rather than upholding those values that you represent?"
Assange replied to start a quick back-and-forth:
“I simply do not see the irony. Mr. Snowden has revealed information about mass, unlawful spying which has affected every single one of us. The US administration has issued a series of bellicose, unilateral threats against him and against others who are attempting to support his rights. That is a very serious situation and any country that assists in upholding his rights must be applauded for doing so.”
“Even when they don’t uphold those rights for their own citizens?” Adams asked.
“That's another matter. In these cases, we do not criticize people for seeking refugee status in the United States despite its use of torture, drone strikes and executive kill lists and so on. No one is suggesting that countries like Ecuador are engaged in those types of abuse.”
Edward Snowden: US warns Russia and China
US Secretary of State John Kerry has said it would be "disappointing" if Russia and China had helped US fugitive Edward Snowden evade US attempts to extradite him from Hong Kong.
Speaking during a visit to India, Mr Kerry said there would inevitably be "consequences" to such a move.
Mr Snowden flew from Hong Kong to Moscow on Sunday.
A seat was booked in his name on a flight to Cuba on Monday morning, but he is not thought to have boarded.
He has applied to Ecuador for political asylum, but the country's foreign minister has implied he is still in Russia.
And speaking at a news briefing later on Monday, White House spokesman Jay Carney said: "It is our understanding that he (Snowden) is still in Russia."
He added that senior US officials were briefing President Barack Obama regularly about all the developments.
Whatever the verdict on Edward Snowden's activities, his leaking of details of a vast US operation to access and monitor communications inevitably has serious diplomatic repercussions”
.
.
.
Speaking during a visit to Delhi in India, Mr Kerry told reporters it would "be obviously disappointing if he was wilfully allowed to board an airplane".
"As a result there would be without any question some effect and impact on the relationship and consequences."
Mr Snowden is believed to have spent the night in an airside hotel at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport. The US has revoked his passport and wants Russia to hand him over.
Mr Kerry urged Moscow to "live by the standards of the law because that's in the interests of everybody".
"In the last two years we have transferred seven prisoners to Russia that they wanted so I think reciprocity and the enforcement of the law is pretty important," he said.
Did Snowden’s travel plans hit a snag? Leaker fails to catch flight to Havana
Snowden's US passport has been revoked.
by Cyrus Farivar - Jun 24, 2013 2:09 pm UTC
After spending the night in Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport, NSA leaker Edward Snowden did not board the Aeroflot flight he had been expected to take to Havana. His plan was apparently to fly to the Cuban capital and then to go on to Ecuador (where he had requested asylum). Snowden's whereabouts remain unknown.
It may be that Snowden and his friends from WikiLeaks—who helped him secure a “special refugee travel document” last week from Ecuadorian authorities and assisted with his trip from Hong Kong to Moscow—have an alternate travel route in mind. There is also the possibility that he is being detained by Russian authorities.
The State Department had revoked Snowden’s American passport on Friday, which is normal for persons with “felony arrest warrants.”
“Such a revocation does not affect citizenship status,” Jen Psaki, a State Department spokesperson told Ars. “Persons wanted on felony charges, such as Mr. Snowden, should not be allowed to proceed in any further international travel other than is necessary to return him to the United States. Because of the Privacy Act, we cannot comment on Mr. Snowden's passport specifically."
The Washington Post pointed out that Aeroflot’s regularly scheduled flight would have taken the commercial jet over Norwegian, Canadian, and American airspace before landing in Havana: “But if the plane uses a different flight plan—north toward the Arctic and then south over the middle of the Atlantic Ocean—the Russian authorities will have directly participated in Snowden’s escape."
US Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking to reporters in India where he is on a state visit, said it would be “deeply troubling” if China or Russia had adequate notice of Snowden’s plans before his departure.
"I suppose there is no small irony here,” Kerry added. “I mean, I wonder if Mr. Snowden chose China and Russian assistance in his flight from justice because they're such powerful bastions of Internet freedom, and I wonder if while he was in either of those countries he raised the question of Internet freedom since that seems to be what he champions."
Next step will be to start extradition on sex charges, terrorism or anything else they can dream up.
When are the American people going to stand up and say 'not in our name' .... 'no more'.-Carol Haynes (June 24, 2013, 05:39 PM)
Next step will be to start extradition on sex charges, terrorism or anything else they can dream up.-Carol Haynes (June 24, 2013, 05:39 PM)
I doubt this guy will ever really stand trial. If he's lucky , he'll be allowed to cop a plea if he's apprehended. But I think it more likely he will 'escape' and ultimately disappear - never to be seen again. Because there is no way they'll ever want to see this guy testify - even at a closed and absolutely secret trial. Because the more that becomes known, the worse and worse it looks for those responsible.-40hz (June 24, 2013, 07:20 PM)
So if they already knew how to prevent...this... WTF happened?-Stoic Joker (June 25, 2013, 07:07 AM)
If Snowden is caught and brought to trial, here's what I think the next move ought to be:
Snowden should claim that everything he said previously was a lie. And there's no law against telling lies to our enemies, right?
To make its case, the government would need to prove that the stuff Snowden said really was true, thus forcing the government to admit, at the very least, the truth of Snowden's claims.-CWuestefeld (June 25, 2013, 11:33 AM)
If Snowden is caught and brought to trial, here's what I think the next move ought to be:
Snowden should claim that everything he said previously was a lie. And there's no law against telling lies to our enemies, right?
To make its case, the government would need to prove that the stuff Snowden said really was true, thus forcing the government to admit, at the very least, the truth of Snowden's claims.-CWuestefeld (June 25, 2013, 11:33 AM)
Of course, without a public trial, it's not really a help... but still...-wraith808 (June 25, 2013, 11:48 AM)
Of course, without a public trial, it's not really a help... but still...-wraith808 (June 25, 2013, 11:48 AM)
This lad will never come to trial if those in a position to try him have anything to say about it.-40hz (June 25, 2013, 02:34 PM)
So if they already knew how to prevent...this... WTF happened?-Stoic Joker (June 25, 2013, 07:07 AM)
I think you're seeing yet another manifestation of The Snafu Principle which says: Clear and accurate communication is only possible between equals.
etc... (I didn't want to quote the whole thing).-40hz (June 25, 2013, 07:55 AM)
On a side note: Your level of detailed insight on this stuff is truly frightening at time.-Stoic Joker (June 25, 2013, 05:05 PM)
Ok...it's 17:15 EDT on 25-Jun-2013.
Mssr. Putin has just confirmed Mr. Snowden is currently standing in the 'international area' in Moscow's airport.
The US is insisting Russia has the legal authority to expel him immediately, and is insisting they do so.-40hz (June 25, 2013, 04:16 PM)
On a side note: Your level of detailed insight on this stuff is truly frightening at time.-Stoic Joker (June 25, 2013, 05:05 PM)
Think of me as Shepherd Book character in Firefly... ;)
***
Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: It's of interest to me how much you seem to know about that world.
Shepherd Book: I wasn't born a shepherd, Mal.
Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: You have to tell me about that sometime.
Shepherd Book: [pause] No, I don't.
8)-40hz (June 25, 2013, 05:18 PM)
Ok...it's 17:15 EDT on 25-Jun-2013.
Mssr. Putin has just confirmed Mr. Snowden is currently standing in the 'international area' in Moscow's airport.
The US is insisting Russia has the legal authority to expel him immediately, and is insisting they do so.-40hz (June 25, 2013, 04:16 PM)
Tom Hanks lived in an airport for ages and he's done alright for himself.-wraith808 (June 25, 2013, 05:35 PM)
...Putin dismissed Washington's demand that Russia return Snowden to face espionage charges, saying Russia had no grounds to arrest him.
Refusing to send Snowden back to the U.S. could cost Putin diplomatically. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry lashed out at Moscow for giving Snowden a safe stopover en route — according to several reports — to Ecuador, where he has requested asylum. Putin, however, has several reasons to thumb his nose at the U.S.
The reason Putin gave publicly was that Snowden had committed no crime since arriving in Russia on a flight from Hong Kong. "We can only send back some foreign nationals to the countries with which we have the relevant international agreements on extradition," Putin said. "With the United States we have no such agreement."
The Russian leader probably has other motives, too. But Andrew Ryvkin at Britain's Guardian says that the most obvious one — picking Snowden's brains for intelligence secrets — is not why Putin is holding out. After all, Ryvkin says, Moscow has its own "(albeit weaker) NSA with spies, satellites, cryptography specialists, and a general understanding of an intelligence agency's modus operandi that is far beyond that of any journalist or civilian in the U.S." What it does not have, he adds, is an abundance of opportunities to stick its finger in the American government's eye.
Obama refuses to barter for Edward Snowden
President Obama "not going to be scrambling jets to get Snowden"
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
President Barack Obama has said there will be no "wheeling and dealing" as part of extradition efforts against US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden.
Speaking on a visit to the West African nation of Senegal, Mr Obama also said the case would be dealt with through routine legal channels.
"I am not going to be scrambling jets to get a 29-year-old hacker," he added.
Mr Snowden, who faces espionage charges, flew to Moscow last weekend and requested asylum in Ecuador.
Mr Obama said on Thursday that he had not called China and Russia's presidents about the case, adding: "I shouldn't have to."
He told a news conference in the Senegalese capital Dakar: "I'm not going to have one case of a suspect who we're trying to extradite suddenly being elevated to the point where I've got to start doing wheeling and dealing and trading on a whole host of other issues."
Meanwhile, Ecuador's government said on Thursday that it had not processed Mr Snowden's asylum request because he had not reached any of its diplomatic premises.
...U.S. Senator Robert Menendez, the New Jersey Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he would lead the effort to block renewal of trade preferences for Ecuador if it granted Snowden asylum. The Andean nation has been lobbying the U.S. congress to renew the preferences, known as ATPDEA, which are due to expire next month.
“Our government will not reward countries for bad behavior,” Menendez said yesterday in a statement. “If Snowden is granted asylum in Ecuador, I will lead the effort to prevent the renewal of Ecuador’s duty-free access under GSP and will also make sure there is no chance for renewal of the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act. Trade preferences are a privilege granted to nations, not a right.”
Ecuador would lose at least 40,000 jobs if the trade preferences aren’t renewed, the nation’s Ambassador to the U.S. Nathalie Cely said last year. While most of the $1.01 billion in exports to the U.S. in April were oil, shipments also included more labor intensive products such as cut flowers, broccoli and shrimp. Exports fell from $1.14 billion in April 2012, according to U.S. Census data.
Ecuador also renounced a $23m (£15m) trade relationship it has with the US, saying its forthcoming renewal would not influence any decision on Mr Snowden's case.
"Ecuador will not accept pressures or threats from anyone, and it does not traffic in its values or allow them to be subjugated to mercantile interests," said government spokesman Fernando Alvarado.
He also made an apparently tongue-in-cheek offer of economic aid to the US for human rights training.
Ok...it's 17:15 EDT on 25-Jun-2013.
Mssr. Putin has just confirmed Mr. Snowden is currently standing in the 'international area' in Moscow's airport.
The US is insisting Russia has the legal authority to expel him immediately, and is insisting they do so.-40hz (June 25, 2013, 04:16 PM)
Tom Hanks lived in an airport for ages and he's done alright for himself.-wraith808 (June 25, 2013, 05:35 PM)
...And I was trying so incredibly hard not to go there. :)-Stoic Joker (June 25, 2013, 06:19 PM)
And that was based on the true story of an Iranian man that lived in the Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, for 17 years.-app103 (June 27, 2013, 11:44 AM)
So... The US is expecting to get favors from people...(directly)...after getting caught red-handed shitting in their hats.
Dear god, how stupid are these people?!?-Stoic Joker (June 27, 2013, 11:20 AM)
He doesn't have operational knowledge. So ... what's with this Scorched Earth approach to getting him back?-wraith808 (June 27, 2013, 12:00 PM)
So ... what's with this Scorched Earth approach to getting him back?-wraith808 (June 27, 2013, 12:00 PM)
I'll be writing him another letter, this time saying not only that isn't PRISM and other domestic spying unacceptable, but that the necessary remedy is, at a minimum, the repeal of USA PATRIOT and of the AUMF.-CWuestefeld (June 27, 2013, 01:31 PM)
Strange he's staying so long in that airport... (that is if he is still there)-tomos (June 28, 2013, 02:43 AM)
Strange he's staying so long in that airport... (that is if he is still there)-tomos (June 28, 2013, 02:43 AM)
Strange he's staying so long in that airport... (that is if he is still there)-tomos (June 28, 2013, 02:43 AM)
The next move is very important. He's right now in a limbo sort of state as Russia won't go after him. The next place might not be so forgiving. This isn't the first time this has happened, i.e. political refugee stuck in an airport.-wraith808 (June 28, 2013, 07:17 AM)
...Edward Snowden suggested Monday that he believes the federal government wants to either jail or murder him.
"How many sets of the documents you disclosed did you make, and how many different people have them? If anything happens to you, do they still exist?" a questioner asked Greenwald in a livechat on the website of The Guardian, to whom Snowden has provided some of the documents.
Here is his answer:
"All I can say right now is the US Government is not going to be able to cover this up by jailing or murdering me. Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped."
Ecuador Using Copyright To Try To Take Down Leaked Documents About Its Surveillance Practices
from the copyright-as-censorship dept
While Ecuador has received plenty of attention for granting asylum to Julian Assange and being one possible landing place for Ed Snowden, it's no secret that the country is not exactly known as a bastion of civil liberties protection. In fact, last year, just as it was granting Julian Assange asylum, there were reports coming out about highly questionable activities by the Ecuador government in extraditing someone who had exposed corruption. In that post, it was noted that Ecuardor scrapped its own rules requiring a warrant to investigate someone's IP address and has been known to seize the computers of critical journalists.
So, it should come as little surprise that while so much attention is on Ecuador, it was leaked to Buzzfeed that the country is in the middle of purchasing equipment for widespread surveillance, including a system called "GSM Interceptor" (subtle!) and some unmanned surveillance drones. Basically, the country does not have a great record on protecting civil liberties or freedom of the press.
But my guess is so many of those countries are so poor that one good knock on the door will make them buckle over something like this!-TaoPhoenix (June 28, 2013, 12:52 PM)
But my guess is so many of those countries are so poor that one good knock on the door will make them buckle over something like this!-TaoPhoenix (June 28, 2013, 12:52 PM)
Especially when that knock comes from the only country ever known to use nuclear weapons against an enemy.-app103 (June 28, 2013, 01:58 PM)
But my guess is so many of those countries are so poor that one good knock on the door will make them buckle over something like this!-TaoPhoenix (June 28, 2013, 12:52 PM)
Especially when that knock comes from the only country ever known to use nuclear weapons against an enemy.-app103 (June 28, 2013, 01:58 PM)
The next move is very important. He's right now in a limbo sort of state as Russia won't go after him. The next place might not be so forgiving. This isn't the first time this has happened, i.e. political refugee stuck in an airport.-40hz (June 28, 2013, 08:00 AM)
Maybe, but I'll go and say it's not even the nukes anymore - those are so "old and busted" via mutual destruction.
More dangerous is the crispy new trend to through out the laws we have, invent new ones, and then break those* to get whatever the desired result is!
(Seen what Scalia's been up to on the Supes-Court lately!?)-TaoPhoenix (June 28, 2013, 03:08 PM)
A country that would use nukes against an enemy is a country that will do anything to get their way, with no regard for the lives of innocent civilians. Does a small country with not much in the way of defense really want to find out what "anything" means?-app103 (June 28, 2013, 03:44 PM)
A country that would use nukes against an enemy is a country that will do anything to get their way, with no regard for the lives of innocent civilians. Does a small country with not much in the way of defense really want to find out what "anything" means?-app103 (June 28, 2013, 03:44 PM)
That was a different time, with different stakes. The geopolitical arena is much different now, and with the advent of the fact that the US is not the only nuclear power, there is definitely a different playing field. And, nuclear weapons are really a weapon whose time has past as has been correctly stated. The difference in conventional and non-conventional weapons is not as much as it was at the end of WW2.-wraith808 (June 28, 2013, 04:13 PM)
So, you are saying that the US is not a big bully that will do anything to get its way?
I never said the US would consider using nuclear weapons today.-app103 (June 28, 2013, 04:41 PM)
To be perfectly blunt, I haven't seen where any of the so-called "Western Democracies" have behaved in any manner so exemplary that they are now in a position to honestly point fingers at anyone other than themselves.-40hz (June 28, 2013, 09:22 PM)
At the same time, Correa rebuked the Obama administration for hypocrisy, invoking the case of two bankers, brothers Roberto and William Isaias, whom Ecuador is seeking to extradite from the U.S.
Statement from Edward Snowden in Moscow
Monday July 1, 21:40 UTC
One week ago I left Hong Kong after it became clear that my freedom and safety were under threat for revealing the truth. My continued liberty has been owed to the efforts of friends new and old, family, and others who I have never met and probably never will. I trusted them with my life and they returned that trust with a faith in me for which I will always be thankful.
On Thursday, President Obama declared before the world that he would not permit any diplomatic "wheeling and dealing" over my case. Yet now it is being reported that after promising not to do so, the President ordered his Vice President to pressure the leaders of nations from which I have requested protection to deny my asylum petitions.
This kind of deception from a world leader is not justice, and neither is the extralegal penalty of exile. These are the old, bad tools of political aggression. Their purpose is to frighten, not me, but those who would come after me.
For decades the United States of America has been one of the strongest defenders of the human right to seek asylum. Sadly, this right, laid out and voted for by the U.S. in Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is now being rejected by the current government of my country. The Obama administration has now adopted the strategy of using citizenship as a weapon. Although I am convicted of nothing, it has unilaterally revoked my passport, leaving me a stateless person. Without any judicial order, the administration now seeks to stop me exercising a basic right. A right that belongs to everybody. The right to seek asylum.
In the end the Obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers like me, Bradley Manning or Thomas Drake. We are stateless, imprisoned, or powerless. No, the Obama administration is afraid of you. It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised — and it should be.
I am unbowed in my convictions and impressed at the efforts taken by so many.
Edward Joseph Snowden
Monday 1st July 2013
The next move has been made: WikiLeaks: Snowden requests asylum (http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SNOWDEN_WIKILEAKS)-wraith808 (July 01, 2013, 11:24 PM)
The next move has been made: WikiLeaks: Snowden requests asylum (http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SNOWDEN_WIKILEAKS)-wraith808 (July 01, 2013, 11:24 PM)
Is that a geo-locked site?
I just get this: http://hosted.ap.org/specials/bluepage.html-4wd (July 01, 2013, 11:47 PM)
Bolivia has accused European countries of an "act of aggression" for refusing to allow its presidential jet into their airspace, amid suggestions US fugitive Edward Snowden was on board.
Bolivia said France, Portugal, Spain and Italy had blocked the plane from flying over their territory.
It was diverted to Vienna where it was reportedly searched.
I'm not sure that they're "cowed"-tomos (July 03, 2013, 06:30 AM)
^I'm not sure that they're "cowed" - they've always pretty much just played along with most of what the US wants.-tomos (July 03, 2013, 06:30 AM)
I think it went something like that.-40hz (July 03, 2013, 07:21 AM)
Speaking to a gathering of the foreign affairs committee of the Icelandic parliament in Reykjavik on Tuesday, Ban said that in his personal opinion "the Snowden case is something I consider to be misuse." The UN chief added that the opening up of digital communications should not be "misused in such a way as Snowden did".
Even UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/03/edward-snowden-digital-misuse-ban-ki-moon) comes down on the side of the spymasters. It's as if the EU and the UN are also run by spies, whose no. 1 priority seems to be to make an example of Snowden to show what happens to spies that break the code of secrecy:-dr_andus (July 03, 2013, 11:40 AM)
The first rule of spycraft is don't get caught.-wraith808 (July 03, 2013, 11:46 AM)
In return, our NSA agrees not to go public with all the information it has meticulously compiled on all the dirty dealings of your government - as well as the frankly criminal "activities" and questionable "lifestyles" of many of your elected officials.-40hz (July 03, 2013, 07:21 AM)
Needin' a bit of breathing room.-Stoic Joker (July 03, 2013, 01:00 PM)
I'm betting he'll be in US custody in less than six weeks.-40hz (July 03, 2013, 01:30 PM)
...
You're probably right ... But it just infuriates me that people can't get together and behind this thing and force the government to blink. WTF is it gonna take to get people off their asses?!? Christ we had more outrage expressed in the MSM when Janet Jackson's titty popped out FFS.
If the overlords can't be made to blink now, with something this mind-blowingly blatant...they're never going to. We might as well pack up the flag -- I'm sure they'll be making a new one soon anyhow ... Something with more red, and a scepter. -- and leave.-Stoic Joker (July 03, 2013, 01:48 PM)
...
You're probably right ... But it just infuriates me that people can't get together and behind this thing and force the government to blink. WTF is it gonna take to get people off their asses?!? Christ we had more outrage expressed in the MSM when Janet Jackson's titty popped out FFS.
If the overlords can't be made to blink now, with something this mind-blowingly blatant...they're never going to. We might as well pack up the flag -- I'm sure they'll be making a new one soon anyhow ... Something with more red, and a scepter. -- and leave.-Stoic Joker (July 03, 2013, 01:48 PM)
But exactly how do we make them blink? They're pretty close to a lockdown.-TaoPhoenix (July 03, 2013, 11:18 PM)
Flood every Email server in Washington DC with messages from "We the People"... What say let Edward Snowden go, he's a true patriot and deserves a medal for reporting rampant corruption in our government.-Stoic Joker (July 03, 2013, 11:49 PM)
Some of the web's biggest names have backed mass protests over internet surveillance carried out by the US National Security Agency (NSA).
The Restore the Fourth movement - referring to the US constitution's fourth amendment - said it wants to end "unconstitutional surveillance".
Reddit, Mozilla and Wordpress are among the big web names backing the action, due to take place on Thursday.
Almost 100 events have been planned across the US.
I think it went something like that.-40hz (July 03, 2013, 07:21 AM)
That's classic ;D And probably true :(-wraith808 (July 03, 2013, 08:12 AM)
France's foreign intelligence service intercepts computer and telephone data on a vast scale, like the controversial US Prism programme, according to the French daily Le Monde.
The data is stored on a supercomputer at the headquarters of the DGSE intelligence service, the paper says.
The operation is "outside the law, and beyond any proper supervision", Le Monde says.
An alternative explanation is that they all know that they are as bad as each other..-dr_andus (July 04, 2013, 12:30 PM)
This time around, however, it's not being said by anyone who's anything like that first guy...-40hz (July 04, 2013, 02:34 PM)
It seems like Venezuela is offering him asylum, probably just to irritate the us of a :huh:-Ath (July 06, 2013, 09:06 AM)
Tweaking the nose of the giant. And making a statement.-wraith808 (July 06, 2013, 09:33 AM)
The Embassy of the United States of America presents its compliments to the Ministry of Popular Power for External Relations of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and has the honor to request the provisional arrest for the purpose of extradition of United States citizen Edward J. SNOWDEN...
Even though the giant was exceptionally polite (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2013/jul/06/us-request-extradition-edward-snowden) ;)-dr_andus (July 06, 2013, 10:10 AM)
...the Snowden affair reinforces the perception that the US is losing its sway in South America. (...) The threat by US officials to cut off aid to Ecuador, which would amount to a measly $12 million in 2014, further evinces a clumsy approach. America's traditional sources of influence - its soft power, regional alliances, and financial leverage - appear to be running dry. The message to the world is clear: the US is not the regional power that it should be.
Obama's flippant attitude concerning alleged US surveillance of the European Union and its member states shows that American exceptionalism is alive and well. Instead of acknowledging the legitimacy of European concerns, he shrugged them off as a frivolity: "guarantee you that in European capitals, there are people who are interested in, if not what I had for breakfast, at least what my talking points might be should I end up meeting with their leaders."
The US certainly has an interest in gaining deeper analytical insight into its European allies' decision-making than can be gained by simply calling, say, German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Accepting that spying is realistically part of the US toolkit, we Europeans expect it to be conducted responsibly. By dismissing European concerns about how such surveillance is carried out, Obama has demonstrated one of America's worst habits - that of patronizing Europe.
There's still something wrong with this whole story. All of it. It's something to do with "too much noise".-TaoPhoenix (July 06, 2013, 11:03 AM)
There's still something wrong with this whole story. All of it...-TaoPhoenix (July 06, 2013, 11:03 AM)
Why don't they follow the plot of a third rate tv movie and give a hundred grand to a sniper team and pick him off?-TaoPhoenix (July 06, 2013, 11:03 AM)
Why don't they follow the plot of a third rate tv movie and give a hundred grand to a sniper team and pick him off?-TaoPhoenix (July 06, 2013, 11:03 AM)
There's a reason why those are third rate tv movies.-wraith808 (July 06, 2013, 01:32 PM)
Instead it looks like we're tip-toeing all around this.-TaoPhoenix (July 06, 2013, 06:08 PM)
It just don't seem right that the government can prosecute someone for reporting a crime. They just give it a different name, aka; Whistleblower, and then go about business as usual. Of course the government will argue that it's not his place to decide what's legal and illegal, to leave that up to the "professionals", ie; lawyers.-Tinman57 (July 06, 2013, 08:54 PM)
Instead it looks like we're tip-toeing all around this.-TaoPhoenix (July 06, 2013, 06:08 PM)
This.-40hz (July 07, 2013, 06:31 AM)
Despite all the international "outrage," it seems the game plan that gets everyone off the hook is to make it impossible for him to be granted asylum anywhere.-40hz (July 06, 2013, 12:13 PM)
That brings me to the part I disagree about... by waving around power, they're making his position more solid, not less.-wraith808 (July 07, 2013, 11:50 AM)
There just ain't no honest sailors aboard for this voyage, bro.-40hz (July 07, 2013, 12:05 PM)
MOSCOW (AP) -- An influential Russian parliament member who often speaks for the Kremlin encouraged NSA leaker Edward Snowden on Sunday to accept Venezuela's offer of asylum.
Alexei Pushkov, who heads the international affairs committee in Russia's parliament, posted a message on Twitter saying: "Venezuela is waiting for an answer from Snowden. This, perhaps, is his last chance to receive political asylum."
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Elias Jaua said Saturday his country hasn't yet been in contact with Snowden, who Russian officials say has been stuck in the transit area of Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport since arriving on a flight from Hong Kong two weeks ago. He has been unable to travel further because the U.S. annulled his passport.
Jaua said he expects to consult with Russian officials on Monday about Snowden's situation.
Pushkov's comments appeared to indicate that the Kremlin is now anxious to be rid of the former National Security Agency systems analyst, whom the U.S. wants returned to face espionage charges.
There has been no response from the Kremlin or Russian Foreign Ministry to the asylum offer made by Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro in the early hours of Saturday, Moscow time.
For Snowden to leave for South America, he would need for Venezuela to issue him travel documents and he would need to find a way to get there. The only direct commercial flight from Moscow goes to Havana, Cuba, and Snowden had booked a seat on this flight the day after arriving from Hong Kong, but failed to show up.
The Moscow-Havana flight goes over Europe and the U.S., which could cause complications. Some European countries refused to allow Bolivian President Evo Morales to fly through their airspace on his way home from Moscow last week because of suspicions that Snowden was onboard his plane.
Pushkov joked that if Snowden doesn't find shelter in Venezuela, "he will have to stay and marry Anna Chapman," the redheaded Russian spy who was among 10 sleeper agents deported from the U.S. in 2010. The 31-year-old Chapman proposed to Snowden, who just turned 30, on Twitter last week.
The presidents of Bolivia and Nicaragua also said over the weekend that Snowden was welcome in their countries. Bolivia's foreign minister, David Choquehuanca, said Sunday on state television that his country hasn't yet received a formal petition for asylum from Snowden. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said his country's embassy in Moscow has received Snowden's application and is studying the request.
Snowden has applied for asylum in more than two dozen countries, including Bolivia, Nicaragua and Venezuela, according to WikiLeaks, the secret-spilling website that has been advising him.
U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he wasn't surprised that those three Latin American nations were offering asylum.
"They like sticking it to the United States," Menendez told NBC's "Meet the Press."
He also mentioned re-examining U.S. trade policies and foreign aid to any country that might take in Snowden.
Brazil's foreign minister said his government is worried by a newspaper report the U.S. has collected data on billions of telephone and email conversations in his country and promised an effort for international protection of Internet privacy.
"The Brazilian government has asked for clarifications" through the U.S. Embassy in Brazil and Brazil's embassy in Washington, Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota said.
The spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Brazil's capital, Dean Chaves, said diplomats there wouldn't have any comment.
Especially the bit about Anna Chapman-wraith808 (July 07, 2013, 06:57 PM)
Kinda looks a little like a hard-body version of a young Jewell Staite doesn't she?-40hz (July 07, 2013, 07:35 PM)
Granting asylum won't sweeten the pot for any nation doing it now. It will just inflict a cost on what's already been gained for free.
Snowden is no longer a piece in the international game. And he has no champion. As time goes on, his continued predicament will start to be an embarrassment to every nation.-40hz (July 07, 2013, 11:36 AM)
He's already almost a non-player. A few more weeks and he won't be one at all.-40hz (July 07, 2013, 12:05 PM)
I disagree. Snowden's ongoing leaks continue to destabilise international relations.-dr_andus (July 08, 2013, 05:05 AM)
The European Parliament, meeting in Strasbourg, France, to debate the Snowden disclosures, overwhelmingly passed a resolution that “strongly condemns the spying on E.U. representations,” warned of its “potential impact on trans-Atlantic relations” and demanded “immediate clarification from the U.S. authorities on the matter.”
The legislators rejected an amendment calling for the postponement of talks scheduled for Monday on a potential European-American free-trade agreement. France and Mr. Hollande had called for the talks to be delayed, but the European Commission said that they would go ahead in parallel with talks on the American spying programs.
American officials had privately warned French officials to be careful about speaking with too much outrage about American espionage given that major European countries like France spy, too, and not just on their enemies.
At the moment he continues to be a major asset for the Russians, as he is continually affirming their interpretation of US hypocricy, which suits them in their domestic politics but also with strengthening their alliances with the Chinese and the Latin Americans. So the Russians are in no hurry to force him to leave just now, despite what they say.
Also, left wing governments in Latin America could use him as an ongoing asset in bolstering their case to stay in power (e.g. Venezuela), so giving him asylum would pay dividends in the long term.
Finally, he is an intellectual asset in his own right (not just as a pawn in international politics). Which corporation wouldn't want a guy with his kind of insight and experience on its executive or advisory board? The same goes for any government or security agency. You would want to pick this guy's brain.
He is no Bradley Manning, and so far looking cleverer even than Julian Assange.
He would make a fine advisor on international, security, and technology issues for any head of government (as long as you can put up with the US pressure)...
Snowden confirms the NSA behind Stuxnet... and a lot more. (http://cryptome.org/2013/07/snowden-spiegel-13-0707-en.htm)
most telling quote...Question: But now as details of this system are revealed, who will be brought before a court over this?
Snowden: Before U.S. courts? You're not serious, are you? When the last large wiretapping scandal was investigated - the interception without a court order, which concerned millions of communications - that should really have led to the longest prison sentences in world history. However, then our highest representatives simply stopped the investigation. The question, who is to be accused, is theoretical, if the laws themselves are not respected. Laws are meant for people like you or me - but not for them.
This is a good one too...Question: What are the major monitoring programs active today, and how do international partners help the NSA?
Snowden: The partners in the "Five Eyes" (behind which are hidden the secret services of the Americans, the British, the Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians -- ed.) sometimes go even further than the NSA people themselves. Take the Tempora program of the British intelligence GCHQ for instance. Tempora is the first "I save everything" approach ("Full take") in the intelligence world. It sucks in all data, no matter what it is, and which rights are violated by it. This buffered storage allows for subsequent monitoring; not a single bit escapes. Right now, the system is capable of saving three days’ worth of traffic, but that will be optimized. Three days may perhaps not sound like a lot, but it's not just about connection metadata. "Full take" means that the system saves everything. If you send a data packet and if makes its way through the UK, we will get it. If you download anything, and the server is in the UK, then we get it. And if the data about your sick daughter is processed through a London call center, then ... Oh, I think you have understood.-wraith808 (July 07, 2013, 10:52 PM)
The US govt clearly can't just kill him now, otherwise they would have already done so, even at Moscow airport or in Hong Kong.-dr_andus (July 09, 2013, 03:56 AM)
That's not so clear. They've *chosen* not to kill him. There's a difference. They aren't *that* bloodthirsty that it's the first option on the table. There are other less permanent options that leave other avenues open. It really does take a bit for a kill order to go out on something like this.-wraith808 (July 09, 2013, 07:59 AM)
And if Snowden winds up someplace in South America, he'll be "extracted" sooner or later. Count on it.
Not that long ago, the United States went into an independent nation called Panama, hauled out it's freekin' president, shipped him back to the US to stand trial, and incarcerated him. So I doubt going in and grabbing one of its own citizens charged with espionage is going to give the US much pause or concern. It has the tools. It has the talent. And it wrote its own law that said it's legal for the good ol' USA to do things like that - even if they won't let anybody read it.-40hz (July 08, 2013, 09:54 AM)
But this whole scandal is suggesting to me that perhaps the NSA is putting so much effort into online spying on everyone because it is a lot easier to do (from the comfort of your plush suburban office) than to get your sorry ass over to Yemen or Waziristan to find out what is really going on (and get all sweaty and dusty and in real danger 'n stuff) ;) So what we get then is a bunch of operatives who are really good at using Facebook ;)-dr_andus (July 09, 2013, 12:49 PM)
And if Snowden winds up someplace in South America, he'll be "extracted" sooner or later. Count on it.
Not that long ago, the United States went into an independent nation called Panama, hauled out it's freekin' president, shipped him back to the US to stand trial, and incarcerated him. So I doubt going in and grabbing one of its own citizens charged with espionage is going to give the US much pause or concern. It has the tools. It has the talent. And it wrote its own law that said it's legal for the good ol' USA to do things like that - even if they won't let anybody read it.-40hz (July 08, 2013, 09:54 AM)
If this were true though, then why doesn't the US let Snowden leave Moscow, so he could be more easily apprehended in Latin America? Quite the opposite is happening. Everything the US has done so far had contributed to Snowden staying put in Moscow. So either a dilettante is directing this entire operation (whoever he or she may be) in the US, or it might not be that easy or convenient to seize him in Latin America after all.-dr_andus (July 09, 2013, 12:41 PM)
Everything the US has done so far had contributed to Snowden staying put in Moscow. So either a dilettante is directing this entire operation (whoever he or she may be) in the US, or it might not be that easy or convenient to seize him in Latin America after all.-dr_andus (July 09, 2013, 12:41 PM)
I'd be inclined to declare the first match a stalemate. But this tournament is far from over.-40hz (July 10, 2013, 09:13 AM)
American voters say 55 - 34 percent that Edward Snowden is a whistle-blower, rather than a traitor, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released today.
In a massive shift in attitudes, voters say 45 - 40 percent the government's anti-terrorism efforts go too far restricting civil liberties, a reversal from a January 10, 2010, survey by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University when voters said 63 - 25 percent that such activities didn't go far enough to adequately protect the country.
"The massive swing in public opinion about civil liberties and governmental anti- terrorism efforts, and the public view that Edward Snowden is more whistle-blower than traitor are the public reaction and apparent shock at the extent to which the government has gone in trying to prevent future terrorist incidents," said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
...Snowden's ongoing leaks continue to destabilise international relations...-dr_andus (July 08, 2013, 05:05 AM)
I'd be inclined to declare the first match a stalemate. But this tournament is far from over.-40hz (July 10, 2013, 09:13 AM)
If we base the assessment on Snowden's declared original objectives, then it must be 1:0 in his favour, as he had managed to change public opinion (http://www.quinnipiac.edu/institutes-and-centers/polling-institute/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=1919) on the issue despite all the spin, while the US government failed to apprehend him or stop him from leaking further information:American voters say 55 - 34 percent that Edward Snowden is a whistle-blower, rather than a traitor, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released today.
In a massive shift in attitudes, voters say 45 - 40 percent the government's anti-terrorism efforts go too far restricting civil liberties, a reversal from a January 10, 2010, survey by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University when voters said 63 - 25 percent that such activities didn't go far enough to adequately protect the country.
"The massive swing in public opinion about civil liberties and governmental anti- terrorism efforts, and the public view that Edward Snowden is more whistle-blower than traitor are the public reaction and apparent shock at the extent to which the government has gone in trying to prevent future terrorist incidents," said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.-dr_andus (July 10, 2013, 09:59 AM)
If this were true though, then why doesn't the US let Snowden leave Moscow, so he could be more easily apprehended in Latin America?-dr_andus (July 09, 2013, 12:41 PM)
Aviation insiders say Snowden’s chances of reaching Venezuela are slim at best (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10174800/Aviation-insiders-say-Snowdens-chances-of-reaching-Venezuela-are-slim-at-best.html)-dr_andus (July 12, 2013, 03:10 AM)
The president outlined last week that these were important national security programs to help keep Americans safe and give us tools to fight the terrorist threat that we face.Source (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/11/john-boehner-edward-snowden_n_3420635.html)-House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio)
He took an oath — that oath is important. He violated the oath, he violated the law. It’s an act of treason in my view.Source (http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/304635-nsa-leak-is-treason-says-sen-feinstein)-Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calf.)
I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.Source (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_office_of_the_President_of_the_United_States)-Oath of office of the President of the United States
I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. [So help me God.]Source (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_office#United_States)-Oath of all US Congressmen, Senators, the Vice President, members of the Cabinet, federal judges, civil and military officers, and federal employees
But, I've not really been poking fun at anyone lately, so, might as well have a few laughs. :P ;)-Renegade (July 12, 2013, 06:05 AM)
I'd be inclined to declare the first match a stalemate. But this tournament is far from over.-40hz (July 10, 2013, 09:13 AM)
If we base the assessment on Snowden's declared original objectives, then it must be 1:0 in his favour, as he had ...managed to change public opinion on the issue despite all the spin, while the US government failed to apprehend him or stop him from leaking further information...-dr_andus (July 10, 2013, 09:59 AM)
the best chess players don't reveal checkmate in how ever many moves it will take
I'm guessing he has not made all his moves yet.-cmpm (July 12, 2013, 10:30 AM)
the best chess players don't reveal checkmate in how ever many moves it will take
I'm guessing he has not made all his moves yet.-cmpm (July 12, 2013, 10:30 AM)
It's certainly funny to hear obvious lies and hypocrisy from politicians, and then see them exposed for what they are. My wife and I have been laughing our butts off for a while now, and not infrequently hysterically so. :P :D-Renegade (July 12, 2013, 10:55 AM)
(Parody of Distraction Tactics used here, and on Julian Assange)
"In other news, Renny is happily married to his wife! Where did you meet her?"-TaoPhoenix (July 12, 2013, 11:14 AM)
the best chess players don't reveal checkmate in how ever many moves it will take
I'm guessing he has not made all his moves yet.-cmpm (July 12, 2013, 10:30 AM)
I agree with you and "guarantee" he hasn't, because he just released a new tidbit of info a couple of days ago. But even if he just releases "tidbits", we're waiting for the big move from him *or someone influenced by him* that really changes the "prevailing mood of the time". (With a nod to the Gregory Brothers music group!)-TaoPhoenix (July 12, 2013, 10:53 AM)
really say we're only on some "move" 4-7 at this point, because chess has lots of little "obligatory actions" that comprise up sequences. But we really only have a couple of big picture themes. A, he released a bunch of stuff, B, he's jockeying for Asylum, and that's it.
On the BBC Snowden meeting in Moscow with Human Rights Lawyers:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23283684-Carol Haynes (July 12, 2013, 04:23 PM)
On the BBC Snowden meeting in Moscow with Human Rights Lawyers:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23283684-Carol Haynes (July 12, 2013, 04:23 PM)
The Kremlin repeated its earlier condition on Friday.
"Mr Snowden could hypothetically stay in Russia if he first, completely stops the activities harming our American partners and US-Russian relations and, second, if he asks for this himself," President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Russia is holding a badger by the hind leg with Mr. Snowden. And now it's Washington's turn to enjoy watching Russia try to figure out how they're going to drop it and not get bit after all the previous tough talk to the world press about being an "independent nation" and not dancing to the Obama administration's tune.-40hz (July 12, 2013, 05:03 PM)
The only ones here that are between a rock and a hard place are the US politicians-Renegade (July 12, 2013, 07:28 PM)
the Chess analogy is an interesting one-TaoPhoenix (July 12, 2013, 09:10 AM)
The only ones here that are between a rock and a hard place are the US politicians-Renegade (July 12, 2013, 07:28 PM)
How little you know about US politicians and intel apparatchiks if you believe that makes any difference.
Squeeze slime between a rock and a hard place and it simply oozes out and then reconstitutes as a brand new puddle of slime.
:P-40hz (July 13, 2013, 07:23 AM)
Welcome to The Village, Mr. Snowden!. ;)-40hz (July 13, 2013, 07:47 AM)
What Happens When We Actually Catch Edward Snowden?
By David Pozen
Monday, July 15, 2013 at 9:56 AM
The United States is pressing hard to get hold of National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden. But if and when Snowden is apprehended, what then? This question deserves attention, too, because the denouement to this drama may be unpleasant not just for Snowden, but for his captors as well...
<more (http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/07/what-happens-when-we-actually-catch-edward-snowden/)>
One source of concern is the jury. Snowden says his leaks revealed an unconstitutional and undemocratic system of surveillance. Polls suggest that many Americans agree. Even if the judge instructs the jury to set aside its views on the rightness or wrongness of Snowden’s acts, there is no guarantee it will. Jurors might be tempted to acquit Snowden, not because they believe he is factually innocent but because they believe he was morally justified.
It has happened before—in England. In 1985, Clive Ponting looked destined for prison after leaking Ministry of Defence documents that called into question the official story of the Falklands War. Ponting fessed up to being the source. The jury voted to acquit him nevertheless, and in so doing helped catalyze a movement to liberalize the laws against unauthorized disclosures.
What Happens When We Actually Catch Edward Snowden?
the denouement to this drama may be unpleasant not just for Snowden, but for his captors as well...-40hz (July 17, 2013, 08:10 AM)
Full article may be found here (http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/07/what-happens-when-we-actually-catch-edward-snowden/).-40hz (July 17, 2013, 08:10 AM)
Conspiracy theories and Big Brother fears always swirl at the margins of respectable opinion, threatening to go mainstream.
"The opinions of people that read and do their homework" always swirl at the margins of respectable opinion, threatening to go mainstream.
"Informed people" always swirl at the margins of respectable opinion, threatening to go mainstream.
Do I need to elaborate? Probably a bit. (I'll keep it short.)-Renegade (July 17, 2013, 10:57 AM)
The big problem with conspiracy theories in general is that they can (and are) used to explain any and everything through attributions of unproven causality.-40hz (July 17, 2013, 11:15 AM)
@Ren - did you actually read the entire article? Because I'm amazed the main thing you seem to have taken away from it was what you saw as a diss on conspiracy theories. That's awesome! ;D-40hz (July 17, 2013, 11:15 AM)
although the article is written from a conservative perspective, I dont think that affects the validity of it's content.-tomos (July 17, 2013, 11:24 AM)
The fact remains that there are countless "conspiracy theories" out there that are proven facts. Not matter for debate.-Renegade (July 17, 2013, 11:29 AM)
I've JUST recently decided to stop discussing any kind of controversial subjects with most people because as soon as somebody seems to bring up an unpopular stance, the 'conspiracy" word is thrown around by a lot of people and it deflects all discussion of facts and objectivity. Very similar to how the racist term typically used to be thrown around. And I'm tired of it, and don't care to discuss it with people anymore. The media doesn't help at all, in fact, they make it worse. Take the latest cases: trayvon martin and this snowden. All the important details are not known to anybody, and for sure the media is not giving away any details. Yet, they expect people to make up their minds and take sides?! You kidding me?! And what's worse is that people ARE making up their minds! So i'm done. I'm just a spectator at this point.The fact remains that there are countless "conspiracy theories" out there that are proven facts. Not matter for debate.-Renegade (July 17, 2013, 11:29 AM)
You're talking chalk and cheese here.
However, branding something as "a conspiracy" in order to deflect attention away from there being corroborating evidence to support its claims is no less a pile of dingo's kidneys than insisting something is "a conspiracy" to deflect attention away from its being an assertion without adequate corroborating evidence.
'Conspiracy' has become an intellectually bankrupt term. Right up there with 'organic' and 'green' IMHO. Let's stop using it.
:)-40hz (July 17, 2013, 01:21 PM)
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter in the wake of the NSA Scandals criticized the American political system. "America has no functioning democracy," Carter said Tuesday at a meeting of the "Atlantic Bridge" in Atlanta.
The fact remains that there are countless "conspiracy theories" out there that are proven facts. Not matter for debate.-Renegade (July 17, 2013, 11:29 AM)
You're talking chalk and cheese here.
However, branding something as "a conspiracy" in order to deflect attention away from there being corroborating evidence to support its claims is no less a pile of dingo's kidneys than insisting something is "a conspiracy" to deflect attention away from its being an assertion without adequate corroborating evidence.-40hz (July 17, 2013, 01:21 PM)
'Conspiracy' has become an intellectually bankrupt term. Right up there with 'organic' and 'green' IMHO. Let's stop using it.-40hz (July 17, 2013, 01:21 PM)
Introduction
The Trouble with Tehran: U.S. Policy Options toward Iran . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.
Part I
Dissuading Tehran: The Diplomatic Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Chapter 1: An Offer Iran Shouldn’t Refuse: Persuasion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Chapter 2: Tempting Tehran: The Engagement Option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Part II
Disarming Tehran: The Military Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Chapter 3: Going All the Way: Invasion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Chapter 4: The Osiraq Option: Airstrikes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Chapter 5: Leave it to Bibi: Allowing or Encouraging an
Israeli Military Strike . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Part III
Toppling Tehran: Regime Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Chapter 6: The Velvet Revolution: Supporting a Popular Uprising . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Chapter 7: Inspiring an Insurgency: Supporting Iranian Minority
And Opposition Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .113
Chapter 8: The Coup: Supporting a Military Move Against the Regime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Part IV
Deterring Tehran: Containment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Chapter 9: Accepting the Unacceptable: Containment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Conclusion
Crafting an Integrated Iran Policy: Connecting the Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Start a thread in the Basement to continue if you like.- that was good advice :D-Renegade (July 17, 2013, 11:35 AM)
But, it seems like there's quite a bit of debasement of the language. Lots of examples out there. C. S. Lewis walks through the example of "gentleman" in an essay and talks about how that word was debased until it had no real meaning anymore. It's rather annoying as it destroys part of your ability to communicate effectively.-Renegade (July 18, 2013, 01:01 AM)
I would have thought though, that if you disagreed with the content of the article, that you could say that here. In this thread. All of this about the site - while I can very much relate to it, and find it nice and juicy - and sure, it gives us context - but it's irrelevant in terms of rebutting the content of the article.
What you're doing doesnt seem to me that different from someone looking at, say, a libertarian site, and saying - oh, look, they're libertarians - everything they say is dodgy biased propoganda.-tomos (July 18, 2013, 07:12 AM)
No love for JC? The most honest president we've had in the last half-century gets no respect.
(And 10 good things he did (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-macaray/10-good-things-the-39th-p_b_945343.html), even in spite of the propaganda about him as a president)-wraith808 (July 18, 2013, 08:46 AM)
Unfortunately, I don't speak German, and was unable to read the article.-Renegade (July 18, 2013, 09:00 AM)
Unfortunately, I don't speak German, and was unable to read the article.-Renegade (July 18, 2013, 09:00 AM)
Oh... I just take for granted translation. :-[-wraith808 (July 18, 2013, 10:12 AM)
So where the hated Stasi surveillance was a building in area, the NSA surveillance today is an entire continent.
As a final note, the word Stasi was a contraction of the East German surveillance agency’s full name, Ministerium für Staatssicherheit. It translates to National Security Agency.
And that's why I don't use machine translation unless absolutely necessary. :)
I do like that he's come out against the surveillance, but, I can't say more about him. ;) (Dept. of Ed. is... ↓)-Renegade (July 18, 2013, 10:25 AM)
...but my major point from that was the fact that he said that 'America doesn't have a functioning democracy'. Pretty strong words... but I guess only to me. :o-wraith808 (July 19, 2013, 11:16 AM)
For a bit of perspective on the Stasi vs. the NSA:
http://falkvinge.net/2013/07/05/stasi-vs-the-u-s-nsa-back-to-back-whos-worse-and-by-how-much/So where the hated Stasi surveillance was a building in area, the NSA surveillance today is an entire continent.
As a final note, the word Stasi was a contraction of the East German surveillance agency’s full name, Ministerium für Staatssicherheit. It translates to National Security Agency.
In the immortal words of Darth Vader, "Impressive."-Renegade (July 19, 2013, 10:43 AM)
Oh... and it's bad, don't get me wrong. I just have a thing for numbers and accuracy.
http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/16829/will-nsas-utah-data-center-be-able-to-handle-and-process-five-zettabytes-of-dat
And the quality of the data is no where near the same as the Stasi, along with the endemic system of informants and fear used to get the data on a personal level. And the sample size. It's bad... but I hate making the same mistake in the other direction...-wraith808 (July 19, 2013, 11:24 AM)
And the quality of the data is no where near the same as the Stasi, along with the endemic system of informants and fear used to get the data on a personal level. And the sample size. It's bad... but I hate making the same mistake in the other direction...-wraith808 (July 19, 2013, 11:24 AM)
Had a bit too much to drink to do any serious math there, but when I saw "NPR", my BULLSHIT alert went off. Dunno. But citing the NPR immediately puts a sour piece of cat turd in my mouth.-Renegade (July 19, 2013, 11:57 AM)
Darn I'm almost ready to map this out : )-TaoPhoenix (July 19, 2013, 04:35 PM)
But there's been increasing news snips about "fighting for more transprency" at all levels of news.-TaoPhoenix (July 19, 2013, 04:35 PM)
I sent a message to the fish;
I told them "This is what I wish"
The little fishes of the sea,
They sent an answer back to me,
The little fishes' answer was
We cannot do it, Sir, because ...
I sent to them again to say
It will be better to obey.
The fishes answered with a grin,
'Why, what a temper you are in!'
I told them once, I told them twice;
They would not listen to advice.
I took a kettle large and new,
Fit for the deed I had to do.
My heart went hop, my heart went thump;
I filled the kettle at the pump.
Then someone came to me and said,
The little fishes are in bed.
I said to him, I said it plain,
'Then you must wake them up again'
I said it very loud and clear;
I went and shouted in his ear.
But he was very stiff and proud;
He said, 'You mustn't shout so loud.'
And he was very proud and stiff;
He said, 'I'd go and wake them, if ...'
I took a corkscrew from the shelf;
I went to wake them up myself.
And when I found the door was locked,
I pulled and pushed and kicked and knocked.
And when I found the door was shut,
I tried to turn the handle, but.......
...but I diagram things like that in my head so easily that I seldom ever bother to write any of it down.-40hz (July 19, 2013, 04:42 PM)
But there's been increasing news snips about "fighting for more transprency" at all levels of news.-TaoPhoenix (July 19, 2013, 04:35 PM)
I'd liken those more to side games right now.-40hz (July 19, 2013, 05:13 PM)
...
I say this because it's all too quiet on the public channels. The open threats have failed. As have the bluffs, spin control, threats of economic sanctions, Olympic boycotting, and diplomatic arm-twisting. Domestic popular support is dwindling for the administration. And international anger and lack of cooperation is increasingly apparent.
So now it's time to save face and work something out that everybody can semi-live with.
As many have pointed out, the damage to the secrecy of what's been going on has been done. Cat's out of the bag big time. Now that most of the moves to trigger political and social action have been played the only thing remaining is Snowden's deadman switch - which supposedly is the only thing left guarding the rest of his datacache.
Looks like something really serious is lurking in there, and the government knows it. Because they've had more than sufficient time by now to determine exactly what information Snowden has in his possession.
Good chance Snowden has already sent them a copy just to prove he has it. Because all discussion of how much information plus the number of documents he took has disappeared from the official announcements. Which seems to indicate he really has something BIG that the current administration does not want anybody to see - or even be aware of.
Snowden apparently also has enough documented technical expertise to make his threatened scorched earth option credible because (at least so far) the US hasn't tried anything too physical.
Be interesting to see who will end up laying down their king in the end.-40hz (July 19, 2013, 05:13 PM)
Darn I'm almost ready to map this out : )-TaoPhoenix (July 19, 2013, 04:35 PM)
You should. It would make a pretty fine looking pile of post-its and arrows on a whiteboard. I'm tempted myself - but I diagram things like that in my head so easily that I seldom ever bother to write any of it down. Also kinda hard to get a 2D drawing to adequately convey one of my linked multidimensional data stacks anyway. ;D
(Hmm...I'm thinking of getting back into LISP programming. Just picked up a few books last weekend and the old magic with that former 'girlfriend' came back in a flash. Maybe I should....-40hz (July 19, 2013, 04:42 PM)
"White is making mistakes, and letting Black have "Compensation".-TaoPhoenix (July 19, 2013, 05:41 PM)
Had a bit too much to drink to do any serious math there, but when I saw "NPR", my BULLSHIT alert went off. Dunno. But citing the NPR immediately puts a sour piece of cat turd in my mouth.-Renegade (July 19, 2013, 11:57 AM)
The NPR part was in the question, not the answer (other than a very tangential article about what the NSA has disclosed, which is nothing)
If you read the answer itself, it has some very interesting plausibles and implausibles, with very realistic caveats about not knowing the exact capabilities but extrapolating from consumer available technologies. But the other article gives quite spurious information (not that I necessarily say its false, just unsubstantiated) about the amount of data and definitely non-substantiated claims of their ability to process that amount of data.-wraith808 (July 19, 2013, 02:11 PM)
anything experimental would be a) ridiculously expensive b) had to made completely in US c) by government agencies. Unless you're thinking some alien technology from Rosewell...
Still...can you believe Panama did that? What a surprise! :-\-40hz (July 20, 2013, 09:54 AM)
^From 7,000 feet it certainly wouldn't be out of the question with this administration.
But seeing battalions of uninvited guests show up wouldn't be very likely. The US doesn't really have the troops to spare right now. Hence the big interest in drones...-40hz (July 20, 2013, 10:34 AM)
The only person in Europe to see Snowden’s fate both in terms of political morality and in the context of the history of the US and Europe, is Rolf Hochhuth, the German author and playwright. He presented an eloquent petition to Chancellor Angela Merkel asking that Snowden be given asylum.
Hochhuth points out in the petition that where government is both accuser and perpetrator “the accused has no hope of justice”. He added that if Snowden returns to the US he faces years in prison, but if he stays in Russia he will be permanently muzzled.
So, why should Germany of all countries offer asylum to an American? Hochhuth writes that “more than any other, the German people are obligated to honour the right of asylum because, beginning in 1933, our elite, without exception from the Mann brothers to Einstein, survived the 12-year Nazi dictatorship purely because other countries, with the US as the greatest example, offered asylum to these refugees.”
So, why should Germany of all countries offer asylum to an American? Hochhuth writes that “more than any other, the German people are obligated to honour the right of asylum because, beginning in 1933, our elite, without exception from the Mann brothers to Einstein, survived the 12-year Nazi dictatorship purely because other countries, with the US as the greatest example, offered asylum to these refugees.”
It seems like after all this time, and with all of the research on the subject... not just being humane (and human), but being practical, we'd get it through our minds that torture (not enhanced interrogation, but torture) results in inconsistent and unreliable intelligence. So... even if you don't want to be human, you just want to make it appear so, we'd just do away with it. :-\-wraith808 (July 22, 2013, 02:25 PM)
Now time was when this sort of behavior would be considered a form of state sponsored terror. But "terrorism" is what other nations, and political groups, and police and military forces do - not us.
What we do is "shock and awe." Because we say that's what it is we do.
Anybody got a problem with that?-40hz (July 22, 2013, 03:33 PM)
NSA leaker Snowden granted entry to Russia
He has received transit papers, ending month-long limbo.
by Sean Gallagher - Jul 24, 2013 2:00 pm UTC
Edward Snowden, the former Booz-Allen contractor who leaked details of the National Security Agency's sweeping Internet surveillance programs, has been granted papers by the Russian government that allow him to leave the transit zone at Sheremetyevo International Airport, where he has resided in limbo since leaving Hong Kong a month ago. According to the Interfax news agency, Snowden received his papers this afternoon and is preparing to leave the airport. <more (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/07/nsa-leaker-snowden-granted-entry-to-russia/)>
...to protect him from hostile security agencies, the media, and crackpots.-dr_andus (July 24, 2013, 11:32 AM)
his moves will be seriously constrained (and channelled) by the Russians-dr_andus (July 24, 2013, 11:32 AM)
The Russians must have already decided whether it's to their advantage or disadvantage to keep Snowden in Moscow and/or in Russia until the G20 summit. So probably Snowden's next steps will play out within that framework...-dr_andus (July 24, 2013, 11:32 AM)
They have crackpots in Russia?? I thought that was an American thing.-Stoic Joker (July 24, 2013, 12:06 PM)
I strongly suspect some sort of brokered arrangement has already been made that will ultimately result in Snowden winding up in US custody without making the behind the scenes choreography too obvious.-40hz (July 24, 2013, 01:34 PM)
The FSB needs to show that you'll be looked after if you cross over to them.-dr_andus (July 24, 2013, 02:31 PM)
Carefully orchestrated mid-air tragedies aside...I'm still rooting for Snowden. I'd love to see something really wild come out of his bag that the US can't spin doctor the crap out of. Give us something to kickoff impeachment proceedings with ... That'll make me giggle for days.
..And don't tell me it can't happen...I'm trying to keep hope alive damn it. :D-Stoic Joker (July 24, 2013, 05:24 PM)
I was thinking clean house and hold emergency elections...because the only guy left in line that isn't in handcuffs is the janitor.-Stoic Joker (July 24, 2013, 06:56 PM)
^Funny. I know a whole raft of defense contract engineers and they've all said pretty much the opposite about a lot of Russian tech. Especially their aircraft. Described them as all balls and no finesse with decades old electronics.
Also just had a friend (non US citizen working for a non-US company btw) come back from China and Russia. He's an EE with a PhD in physics. He was very impressed by what he saw of China's tech - and very unimpressed with what Russia showed him.
Guess it all depends on who saw what - and who you talk to. ;D-40hz (July 24, 2013, 07:49 PM)
As for him worrying about being rendered/kidnapped... I can't see the US having the balls to do that on Russian soil.-Renegade (July 24, 2013, 07:41 PM)
Carefully orchestrated mid-air tragedies aside...I'm still rooting for Snowden. I'd love to see something really wild come out of his bag that the US can't spin doctor the crap out of. Give us something to kickoff impeachment proceedings with ... That'll make me giggle for days.
..And don't tell me it can't happen...I'm trying to keep hope alive damn it. :D-Stoic Joker (July 24, 2013, 05:24 PM)
Impeachment process leaves us with Biden. Just as if W had been impeached, we would have had Cheney. Incompetence vs. Evil. *sigh* What hope? :huh:-wraith808 (July 24, 2013, 05:47 PM)
^Funny. I know a whole raft of defense contract engineers and they've all said pretty much the opposite about a lot of Russian tech. Especially their aircraft. Described them as all balls and no finesse with decades old electronics.
Also just had a friend (non US citizen working for a non-US company btw) come back from China and Russia. He's an EE with a PhD in physics. He was very impressed by what he saw of China's tech - and very unimpressed with what Russia showed him.
Guess it all depends on who saw what - and who you talk to. ;D-40hz (July 24, 2013, 07:49 PM)
^Funny. I know a whole raft of defense contract engineers and they've all said pretty much the opposite about a lot of Russian tech. Especially their aircraft. Described them as all balls and no finesse with decades old electronics.
Also just had a friend (non US citizen working for a non-US company btw) come back from China and Russia. He's an EE with a PhD in physics. He was very impressed by what he saw of China's tech - and very unimpressed with what Russia showed him.
Guess it all depends on who saw what - and who you talk to. ;D-40hz (July 24, 2013, 07:49 PM)
Russian aircraft technology is waaaaaay behind the U.S. Their aircraft, while looking sleek, are very heavy. While their engines produce a lot of thrust, they are heavy and don't get good gas mileage. Basically they still use nuts and bolts where U.S. aircraft use high stress rivets and special titanium bolts, which makes for a much lighter aircraft. Not to mention titanium airframes and boron carbide for high stress panels, flight control surfaces and speed brakes.
Of course there's a lot of "other" things that goes along with this, but I signed a non-disclosure agreement and really don't want to go to jail.... :o-Tinman57 (July 24, 2013, 08:25 PM)
Of course there's a lot of "other" things that goes along with this, but I signed a non-disclosure agreement and really don't want to go to jail.... :o-Tinman57 (July 24, 2013, 08:25 PM)
I've still got a defense catalog and DVD around here somewhere from a gig a while back. Some of the weaponry in there is pretty freaky. ... (Oddly enough, the actual physical catalog and DVD I saw that in you can't get without clearance, but they at one point had a lot of it publicly available on an open web site. Go figger.)-Renegade (July 24, 2013, 08:59 PM)
Yes indeed. Those who are still curious about many of the things the people who work in the defense industry are not allowed to talk about (because they signed NDAs and/or required special clearances to know about and could be jailed if they did talk about it) will just have to go to their nearest large public library and ask where the Jane's Guides are kept.what the hell is a janes guide?! I was just about to eat dinner and unwind, too...
That, or attend a defense industry weapons or air show and get copies of the free brochures these companies hand out detailing their products and technology.
:-\ :P-40hz (July 24, 2013, 08:59 PM)
Yes indeed. Those who are still curious about many of the things the people who work in the defense industry are not allowed to talk about (because they signed NDAs and/or required special clearances to know about and could be jailed if they did talk about it) will just have to go to their nearest large public library and ask where the Jane's Guides are kept.
That, or attend a defense industry weapons or air show and get copies of the free brochures these companies hand out detailing their products and technology.
:-\ :P-40hz (July 24, 2013, 08:59 PM)
what the hell is a janes guide?! I was just about to eat dinner and unwind, too...-superboyac (July 24, 2013, 09:35 PM)
what the hell is a janes guide?! I was just about to eat dinner and unwind, too...-superboyac (July 24, 2013, 09:35 PM)
^Funny. I know a whole raft of defense contract engineers and they've all said pretty much the opposite about a lot of Russian tech. Especially their aircraft. Described them as all balls and no finesse with decades old electronics.
Also just had a friend (non US citizen working for a non-US company btw) come back from China and Russia. He's an EE with a PhD in physics. He was very impressed by what he saw of China's tech - and very unimpressed with what Russia showed him.
Guess it all depends on who saw what - and who you talk to. ;D-40hz (July 24, 2013, 07:49 PM)
Russian aircraft technology is waaaaaay behind the U.S. Their aircraft, while looking sleek, are very heavy. While their engines produce a lot of thrust, they are heavy and don't get good gas mileage. Basically they still use nuts and bolts where U.S. aircraft use high stress rivets and special titanium bolts, which makes for a much lighter aircraft. Not to mention titanium airframes and boron carbide for high stress panels, flight control surfaces and speed brakes.
Of course there's a lot of "other" things that goes along with this, but I signed a non-disclosure agreement and really don't want to go to jail.... :o-Tinman57 (July 24, 2013, 08:25 PM)
Dunno. This was about 17 years ago, so that was then...
I remember they described an SU (IIRC) fighter that could hover while oriented vertically, fall backwards then fly upside down. (I don't recall the model number or if they'd mentioned it.) Kind of like this:
1)
------>
2)
stop, hover & flip
3)
<------
They'd seen it in defense videos and claimed that there wasn't anything in the west that approached the maneuverability of that particular jet.
But it really does depend on who you talk to. A lot of stuff is not very well known, and then you have things like that one general alluded to - god only knows what he was talking about. (I forget the reference - perhaps someone else knows.)
I've still got a defense catalog and DVD around here somewhere from a gig a while back. Some of the weaponry in there is pretty freaky. e.g. There's a type of rifle/rocket/grenade launcher in it designed to kill people that have taken cover behind something or that are in a foxhole. The projectile simply explodes overhead, killing everything underneath. I forget the details. (Oddly enough, the actual physical catalog and DVD I saw that in you can't get without clearance, but they at one point had a lot of it publicly available on an open web site. Go figger.)-Renegade (July 24, 2013, 08:59 PM)
I remember they described an SU (IIRC) fighter that could hover while oriented vertically, fall backwards then fly upside down. (I don't recall the model number or if they'd mentioned it.) Kind of like this:
1)
------>
2)
stop, hover & flip
3)
<------
They'd seen it in defense videos and claimed that there wasn't anything in the west that approached the maneuverability of that particular jet.-Renegade (July 24, 2013, 08:59 PM)
you'd want the most advanced Russian aircraft in a dogfight.-wraith808 (July 24, 2013, 09:45 PM)
Discuss as you will.-TaoPhoenix (July 25, 2013, 06:34 PM)
you'd want the most advanced Russian aircraft in a dogfight.-wraith808 (July 24, 2013, 09:45 PM)
Speed has its place in air combat. But most of the consensus on modern air warfare has pretty much relegated dogfighting to the dustbin of military history. As was noted, when it comes to modern long-range weaponry and satellite/ground coordinated tac-intel and support, being fastest no longer matters. Having the best "eyes," being the stealthiest, and having the longest striking range will outweigh raw speed every time. The original stealth fighter (the F117 Nighthawk) was only capable, by design, of subsonic flight. And it didn't much matter. [Note: According to official reports, in the thousands of combat operations conducted between 1984 and the Nighthawk's retirement in early 1992, there has only been one incident where of an F117 was shot down, and a (disputed) second incident where an F117 was seriously damaged by enemy fire.]-40hz (July 25, 2013, 09:15 PM)
But that would do you no good, because the Russian aircraft wouldn't get close enough where that would make a difference. Engagement range for US aircraft far outstrips the same for Russian aircraft in general.-wraith808 (July 24, 2013, 09:45 PM)
As was noted, when it comes to modern long-range weaponry and satellite/ground coordinated tac-intel and support, being fastest no longer matters.-40hz (July 25, 2013, 09:15 PM)
what the hell is a janes guide?! I was just about to eat dinner and unwind, too...-superboyac (July 24, 2013, 09:35 PM)
It's THE defense magazine. http://www.janes.com/ Every 14 year-old boy needs a subscription. :P-Renegade (July 24, 2013, 09:43 PM)
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said in a letter sent to the Russian minister of justice this week that the United States would not seek the death penalty against Edward J. Snowden, and would issue him a passport immediately so he could travel back to the United States. (...)
“We believe these assurances eliminate these asserted grounds for Mr. Snowden’s claim that he should be treated as a refugee or granted asylum, temporary or otherwise”
...And ^that^ was today's watersports report! :D-Stoic Joker (July 26, 2013, 11:54 AM)
The American FBI and Russian FSB security services are "in talks" over US fugitive Edward Snowden, according to the Russian president's spokesman.
However, Dmitry Peskov repeated Russia's position that it would "not hand anyone over".
^No...the Russians wouldn't just hand him over. But they said nothing about not selling him back. :-\-40hz (July 26, 2013, 01:42 PM)
^No...the Russians wouldn't just hand him over. But they said nothing about not selling him back. :-\-40hz (July 26, 2013, 01:42 PM)
I remember they described an SU (IIRC) fighter that could hover while oriented vertically, fall backwards then fly upside down. (I don't recall the model number or if they'd mentioned it.) Kind of like this:
1)
------>
2)
stop, hover & flip
3)
<------
They'd seen it in defense videos and claimed that there wasn't anything in the west that approached the maneuverability of that particular jet.-Renegade (July 24, 2013, 08:59 PM)
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/su-37.htm-wraith808 (July 25, 2013, 08:53 PM)
you'd want the most advanced Russian aircraft in a dogfight.-wraith808 (July 24, 2013, 09:45 PM)
Speed has its place in air combat. But most of the consensus on modern air warfare has pretty much relegated dogfighting to the dustbin of military history. As was noted, when it comes to modern long-range weaponry and satellite/ground coordinated tac-intel and support, being fastest no longer matters. Having the best "eyes," being the stealthiest, and having the longest striking range will outweigh raw speed every time. The original stealth fighter (the F117 Nighthawk) was only capable, by design, of subsonic flight. And it didn't much matter. [Note: According to official reports, in the thousands of combat operations conducted between 1984 and the Nighthawk's retirement in early 1992, there has only been one incident where of an F117 was shot down, and a (disputed) second incident where an F117 was seriously damaged by enemy fire.]-40hz (July 25, 2013, 09:15 PM)
ast I heard the SU37 wasn't even in production. Either way, they're trying to play "catch-up" with the F22, F23 and the Joint Task Fighter, which not only have vectoring thrust, but are also stealthy. The F35 JTF also comes in a V-STOL model that can take off and land like a helicopter.-Tinman57 (July 26, 2013, 09:38 PM)
Obama Promise To 'Protect Whistleblowers' Just Disappeared From Change.gov
from the not-the-change-we-were-looking-for dept
The folks from the Sunlight Foundation have noticed that the Change.gov website, which was set up by the Obama transition team after the election in 2008 has suddenly been scrubbed of all of its original content. They noted that the front page had pointed to the White House website for a while, but you could still access a variety of old material and agendas. They were wondering why the administration would suddenly pull all that interesting archival information... and hit upon a clue. A little bit from the "ethics agenda":
Protect Whistleblowers: Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled. We need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in performance. Barack Obama will strengthen whistleblower laws to protect federal workers who expose waste, fraud, and abuse of authority in government. Obama will ensure that federal agencies expedite the process for reviewing whistleblower claims and whistleblowers have full access to courts and due process.
Yeah. That statement seems a bit embarrassing at the very same time Obama's administration is threatening trade sanctions against anyone who grants asylum to Ed Snowden. Also... at the same time that we get to see how whistleblower Bradley Manning's "full access to courts and due process" will turn out. So far, it's been anything but reasonable, considering that the UN has already condemned Manning's treatment as "cruel and inhuman." And people wonder why Snowden left the country...
I saw that a while ago- that's the reason that they don't classify him a 'whistleblower' :-\-wraith808 (July 27, 2013, 09:46 AM)
...
Yeah. That statement seems a bit embarrassing at the very same time Obama's administration is threatening trade sanctions against anyone who grants asylum to Ed Snowden. Also... at the same time that we get to see how whistleblower Bradley Manning's "full access to courts and due process" will turn out. So far, it's been anything but reasonable, considering that the UN has already condemned Manning's treatment as "cruel and inhuman." And people wonder why Snowden left the country...-40hz (July 27, 2013, 07:36 AM)
ast I heard the SU37 wasn't even in production. Either way, they're trying to play "catch-up" with the F22, F23 and the Joint Task Fighter, which not only have vectoring thrust, but are also stealthy. The F35 JTF also comes in a V-STOL model that can take off and land like a helicopter.-Tinman57 (July 26, 2013, 09:38 PM)
No... that was a reply to ren's talk about the most maneuverable Russian fighter. But even going back, they're trying to catch up in terms of avionics more than anything else. Which is what decides those things in most engagements these days.-wraith808 (July 26, 2013, 10:42 PM)
@T0Man - Mea culpa - got careless with the dates. :-[
FWIW, Wikipedia is citing the maximum speed and cruise speed as both at .92 Mach, and citing the USAF as its source for the specs. Seemed odd to me that both speed specs were the same, but I'm no expert. You might want to go in and do an edit. :)
Had a fighter jock who first saw action around the end of Viet Nam tell me that by the end of that war it was pretty obvious dogfighting was over. He told me at the speeds the fighters were moving even back then it was already becoming impractical. And on a head to head pass, all other factors being equal, whoever fired first usually won. So the name of the game became more to sneak up and shoot first rather than go mano a mano with an enemy pilot. He said once the new "smart" weapons systems and support from E-6B Looking Glass aircraft and satellite recon all came online, it then got down to who had the best technology. He said his feeling was the fighter pilots were slowly becoming highly trained delivery boys whose main role was to cart the new weapons around until you were close enough to let them off the leash so the "chip-brain" inside them could decide what to do next.
Said he was glad he got out when he did, which was right after Desert Storm. (He's a bit crazy IMHO, but he's still a great guy.) ;D-40hz (July 26, 2013, 11:00 PM)
The F35 JSF?!?!
The term alone is already becoming more and more "dirty". That plane is a lot like Google actually...that plane is already so long in beta that alternative fighter planes are already taken out of commission because they themselves already become too old.
I think that plane was intended to replace the F16 in the Dutch air-force for more than 10 years now, each plane costing almost twice as much as initially specified by the manufacturer. Only last week the first one is delivered to see if it up to the task.
If you would ask me (and I know that no-one did) that plane is either too advanced for its own good or aeronautical engineers are not as good as they once were.
Day late, dollar short anyone?-Shades (July 26, 2013, 11:18 PM)
So Obooboo now says he's into the whistleblower system-Tinman57 (July 27, 2013, 08:01 PM)
So Obooboo now says he's into the whistleblower system-Tinman57 (July 27, 2013, 08:01 PM)
Next he will be saying he wants Snowden to come home to receive a medal ...-Carol Haynes (July 28, 2013, 03:45 AM)
No, they want him to come home, and will not seek the death penalty. Oooh.... :o :huh: :-\Any time a politician makes a point of telling you what he isn't doing it's because he doesn't want to talk about what he is doing.-wraith808 (July 28, 2013, 09:40 AM)
No, they want him to come home, and will not seek the death penalty. Oooh.... :o :huh: :-\-wraith808 (July 28, 2013, 09:40 AM)
No, they want him to come home, and will not seek the death penalty. Oooh.... :o :huh: :-\-wraith808 (July 28, 2013, 09:40 AM)
With all the other attacks on the Constitution, I think the ban on "cruel and unusual punishment" might fall one day too. I had it all worked out a while back... so you could give people "unusual" punishments simply by declaring them "not cruel proportional to the crime".-TaoPhoenix (July 28, 2013, 11:10 AM)
This makes for endless comedy skits - going all clockwork orange on someone and making them watch Barney repeats!-TaoPhoenix (July 28, 2013, 11:10 AM)
^^ Woohoo for Snowden! I'm still crossing my fingers for him. Buddy has balls the size of the moon!+100 - I'd like to see all of Washington DC humiliated so badly they're collectively forced to step down ... Or off the plank...either is fine.-Renegade (August 01, 2013, 10:37 AM)
Or off the plank...either is fine.-Stoic Joker (August 01, 2013, 11:43 AM)
Or off the plank...either is fine.-Stoic Joker (August 01, 2013, 11:43 AM)
OFF THE PLANK! OFF THE PLANK! MY VOTE IS FOR OFF THE PLANK!!!!!!!-Renegade (August 01, 2013, 11:48 AM)
The decision is backed by almost twice as many Russians as those against it and those who view Snowden’s role as positive outnumber negative assessments three to one. While the case risks derailing U.S.-Russian relations, it gives Putin a chance to rally support at home and deflect attention from his own human-rights record...
“His main propaganda message domestically will be that things are similar everywhere: the CIA and the FBI violate human rights just like everybody else.”
Putin, who used Russia’s oil-powered wealth accumulation to build support for his 13-year rule, is facing an economy that threatens to slide into recession.
While Russia lacks the economic power that China or the West wield, it strives to be treated as an equal and the Snowden affair gave Putin an opportunity to show that...
Returning Snowden to the U.S. “would undermine Russia’s bid to promote globally an image of a major geopolitical player offering an alternative to the western-dominated world.”
The U.S. refusing to allow Snowden to seek asylum in a third country left Russia with little choice.
While Putin himself was taken hostage by the events to a certain extent and the decision to grant Snowden asylum is “absolutely irrational” from the perspective of international relations, Russia “decided to make use of Snowden” to put pressure on the U.S. “The pressure is to show that we weren’t born yesterday." “That’s the Russian sentiment on everything, whether it’s Iran, Syria or relations with China.”
But senior State Department officials said they don't expect the meeting to be canceled because the U.S. wants to address with the leaders a "broad range of topics that are important to U.S. national security interests," including Afghanistan.
Officials say that the U.S. can push Moscow only so far without jeopardizing U.S. interests in other areas. The U.S. needs Russia to help keep pressure on Iran over its nuclear program, including maintaining sanctions, for example. "We can't go overboard," a senior administration official said.
Thursday's development caught many in the administration by surprise, an administration official said.
- ECYM
EVERY CALL YOU MAKE
Every call you make
And every thought you take
Every truth you break, every right you take
They are watching you
Every text each day
Every word you say
Every sound you play, and saved this day
They are watching you
Oh, can't you see
You must submit to me?
And make no mistake
With every thought you take
Oh, With every call you make
Every friend you make
Every line you break
Every nick you fake, every name you create
They are watching you
Today, Snowden's gone without a trace
They are busy inventing an espionage case
He's got four LapTops which can't be replaced
They keep begging Snowden, Snowden please
Snowden Please
Oh, can't you see
They belong to me?
Now N. S. A. aches
With every thought he takes
With every call you make
Every point he makes
Every lie he breaks
Every truth he awakes, make no mistake
They are watching you
Every plan you make, every call you make
Oh, they are watching you
They are watching you
They are watching you
They are watching you
The cynic in me (like how I did that renegade?) is screaming that the Russians just wanted to have the hold card in their hand at this point...-wraith808 (August 01, 2013, 12:32 PM)
Video to see:- ECYM
EVERY CALL YOU MAKE...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loSlVXtZj8s-Tinman57 (August 01, 2013, 08:07 PM)
And it's a brilliant move on the Russians' part because there is not all that much the US can do about it. Cancel Obama's visit? It would just call further attention to the cause of that cancellation, which is again the NSA, spying on US citizens etc., etc. Bad PR move.
Plus the US seems to need Russia more (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323681904578641610474568782.html) than the other way round:But senior State Department officials said they don't expect the meeting to be canceled because the U.S. wants to address with the leaders a "broad range of topics that are important to U.S. national security interests," including Afghanistan.
Officials say that the U.S. can push Moscow only so far without jeopardizing U.S. interests in other areas. The U.S. needs Russia to help keep pressure on Iran over its nuclear program, including maintaining sanctions, for example. "We can't go overboard," a senior administration official said.-dr_andus (August 01, 2013, 07:25 PM)
The Sheremetyevo chapter may be over, but the saga itself will continue. Already, there have been calls by US congressmen that Russia should be held accountable for granting Snowden asylum. There is also little doubt that US president Barack Obama will now cancel his planned trip to Moscow in September.
With Snowden, the Kremlin did the moral thing – and the moral thing also happened to be the only thing the Kremlin could do in this instance. Essentially denied safe passage to Latin America, Snowden was marooned, and letting him languish in Sheremetyevo indefinitely would have dented the Kremlin's credibility at home and abroad.
In recent years, Moscow has excelled at snubbing Washington over anything it could, but the Snowden situation was different from the start. It prompted unusually cautious words from Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, who said that Snowden could remain in Russia provided he would do no more damage to the US government, which Putin referred to as the Russian government's partner.
Other prominent members of the government have pointed out that Russia was left with little choice in the matter. The head of the State Duma committee on international affairs, Alexei Pushkov, said: "Even though Obama said that he wouldn't ground a plane over some '29-year-old hacker', they trapped Snowden after they grounded the Bolivian president's plane."
"Any other decision would have meant that Russia would lose face," deputy Vyacheslav Nikonov told Kommersant. "If we didn't give Snowden asylum, no one would take us seriously – and the Americans would be the first to do this."
It seems that others are looking at it in a totally different way (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/02/edward-snowden-russia-little-choice).The Sheremetyevo chapter may be over, but the saga itself will continue. Already, there have been calls by US congressmen that Russia should be held accountable for granting Snowden asylum. There is also little doubt that US president Barack Obama will now cancel his planned trip to Moscow in September.-wraith808 (August 02, 2013, 11:12 AM)
With Snowden, the Kremlin did the moral thing – and the moral thing also happened to be the only thing the Kremlin could do in this instance.-wraith808 (August 02, 2013, 11:12 AM)
The Obama administration is choosing its words much more carefully. They obviously need to show their displeasure, but cutting planned talks would hurt the US administration more than the Russians. It would be a win for Republicans vs. Obama administration, not US v. Russia.-dr_andus (August 02, 2013, 11:52 AM)
The Snowden crisis is a way for Obama to avoid another icy summit with Putin, political analyst Lilia Shevtsova said.
“Canceling a one-on-one meeting with Putin is an optimal way out of the situation,” Shevtsova, a senior researcher with Moscow Carnegie Center, said. “Russia’s granting Snowden temporary refuge offered Obama a welcome chance not to be involved in yet one more meeting with Putin, but without really any constructive agenda to discuss.”
Hmmm...
Obama cancels Moscow meeting with Putin over Snowden (http://rt.com/news/obama-putin-snowden-meeting-176/)
Russia says Obama hurting himself by canceling summit over Snowden (http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-russia-obama-summit-edward-snowden-20130807,0,1171308.story)-wraith808 (August 07, 2013, 06:19 PM)
It seems to me it's another +1 to Snowden. Obama seems to be making the moves that Snowden wanted him to make, which is strategically not a situation you want to be in as a US President...-dr_andus (August 10, 2013, 06:08 PM)
How is he making the moves that Snowden wanted him to make? I think that's reading a bit much into Snowden and what he wanted, other than a discussion on the matter. The move with Russia had little to do with Snowden's stated goals, nor with the information released- other than tangential. It was to avoid a conversation that he didn't want to have, and now has a very good excuse to back out of, and snub the Russians in the process, before the G20 summit.-wraith808 (August 10, 2013, 06:24 PM)
Russia responded by saying it is “disappointed” by the move, with Putin’s aide Yury Ushakov adding that the situation showed the US “is still not ready to build relations with Russia on an equal footing.” It is “clear” that the decision is related to Snowden, he said, reminding that the US for its part has repeatedly refused Russia’s past extradition requests.
As for Obama cancelling a trip because he feels uncomfortable talking to Putin or that there is nothing to agree on - I don't buy it. There is Syria, there is Iran, there is Afganistan, nuclear disarmament etc., etc. Loads of very urgent issues on which Obama can only make progress if he talks to Putin.-dr_andus (August 11, 2013, 03:55 AM)
So this is all puppet theater. Since there is no breakthrough they can announce, it's better to not have a public get together at all, rather than announce the meeting was a failure and yielded nothing.-40hz (August 11, 2013, 11:09 AM)
On the other hand, Obama is a much weaker leader domestically (not having a control over congress). He was supposed to have much bigger sway internationally, but it doesn't seem to be happening, especially by not being able to communicate with another major powerful leader directly.This is exactly what I consider the big problem with Obama. It's not a question of his intentions so much as his lack of experience playing DC politics and inclination to avoid rocking the boat. I tend to believe he has a lot of good ideas but lacks the temperament for leadership necessary to turn them into policy. In fact I would go so far as to say people like James Clapper, Eric Holder, and Joe Biden are actually the primary policy makers in the Obama administration.-dr_andus (August 11, 2013, 11:22 AM)
Since I can't seem to get the embedding code correct (maybe just my browser) here's a direct link to the Frontline page:-Vurbal (August 11, 2013, 02:15 PM)
The Review Group will assess whether, in light of advancements in communications technologies, the United States employs its technical collection capabilities in a manner that optimally protects our national security and advances our foreign policy while appropriately accounting for other policy considerations, such as the risk of unauthorized disclosure and our need to maintain the public trust.
Talk about the fox guarding the hen house ... Yeish!I don't actually mind that so much - aside from being pissed that somebody like Ed Snowden continues to be persecuted for living up to his responsibility as a citizen and human being. At this point these idiots aren't fooling anyone but themselves. I'm not saying there aren't people who believe them, but those are pure idealogues who can't admit the truth to themselves.-Stoic Joker (August 13, 2013, 06:35 AM)
Public Concern Over NSA Spying Increasing Rapidly As Congress Discovers Their Constituents Care About This Issue
The Obama administration announced last month via blog post that the president was unilaterally suspending ObamaCare's employer mandate—notwithstanding the clear command of the law. President Obama's comments about it on Aug. 9—claiming that "the normal thing [he] would prefer to do" is seek a "change to the law"—then added insult to constitutional injury. It also offers a sharp contrast with a different president who also suspended the law...
As long as the government kept them convinced there was a monster hiding in the closet waiting attack they were too scared not to believe. As soon as they looked in the closet and saw the NSA instead that's who they're afraid of.-Vurbal (August 13, 2013, 04:26 PM)
...
A photograph of President Barack Obama is bracketed by red panels that say "Truth Is Treason" and "Big Brother Is Watching."
Last month the group posted three ads inside the Pentagon Metro stop, encouraging workers with access to classified information to "expose unconstitutional actions."
The Pentagon ads enraged some workers, including one man interviewed by WJLA-TV. "[Snowden] should be crucified," the man said.
But they obviously had zero suspicion that David was associated with a terrorist organization or involved in any terrorist plot. Instead, they spent their time interrogating him about the NSA reporting which Laura Poitras, the Guardian and I are doing, as well the content of the electronic products he was carrying. They completely abused their own terrorism law for reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism: a potent reminder of how often governments lie when they claim that they need powers to stop "the terrorists", and how dangerous it is to vest unchecked power with political officials in its name.
This is obviously a rather profound escalation of their attacks on the news-gathering process and journalism. It's bad enough to prosecute and imprison sources. It's worse still to imprison journalists who report the truth. But to start detaining the family members and loved ones of journalists is simply despotic. Even the Mafia had ethical rules against targeting the family members of people they felt threatened by. But the UK puppets and their owners in the US national security state obviously are unconstrained by even those minimal scruples.
"David Miranda, partner of Guardian interviewer of whistleblower Edward Snowden, questioned under Terrorism Act (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/18/glenn-greenwald-guardian-partner-detained-heathrow)."
...This whole "free press" and "free speech" thing is just a thing of the past.-dr_andus (August 18, 2013, 04:49 PM)
"David Miranda, partner of Guardian interviewer of whistleblower Edward Snowden, questioned under Terrorism Act (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/18/glenn-greenwald-guardian-partner-detained-heathrow)."-dr_andus (August 18, 2013, 04:49 PM)
Glenn Greenwald: detaining my partner was a failed attempt at intimidation
The detention of my partner, David Miranda, by UK authorities will have the opposite effect of the one intended
...
They completely abused their own terrorism law for reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism: a potent reminder of how often governments lie when they claim that they need powers to stop "the terrorists", and how dangerous it is to vest unchecked power with political officials in its name.
This is rather long, so I won't post a quote, but it's a list of non-stop surveillance insanity:
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/08/you-wont-believe-whats-going-on-with-government-spying-on-americans.html-Renegade (August 18, 2013, 10:28 PM)
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter … in the wake of the NSA spying scandal criticized the American political system. “America has no functioning democracy,” Carter said Tuesday at a meeting of the “Atlantic Bridge” in Atlanta.
"There was a heads up that was provided by the British government, so this was something we had an indication was likely to occur."
The White House declined to comment on whether Mr Miranda's name was on a "watch list" maintained by the US Transportation Security Administration.
It also declined to comment on whether the US was given access to Mr Miranda's laptop or anything on the laptop.
"I will be far more aggressive in my reporting from now. I am going to publish many more documents. I am going to publish things on England too. I have many documents on England's spy system. I think they will be sorry for what they did," Greenwald, speaking in Portuguese, told reporters at Rio's airport where he met Miranda upon his return to Brazil.
"They wanted to intimidate our journalism, to show that they have power and will not remain passive but will attack us more intensely if we continue publishing their secrets," he said.
British government officials ordered the destruction of hard drives at the Guardian offices in London that purportedly contained information relating to NSA leaker Edward Snowden, Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger has revealed.
They took the action even though Rusbridger explained it was pointless, he said. The Guardian's NSA reporting is written, stored and edited in New York, he told them, and journalist Glenn Greenwald, the lead reporter on the story, lives in Brazil.
The officials from GCHQ, Britain's equivalent of the NSA, were apparently unaware of the concept of information in the cloud – and seemed satisfied that they had been able to destroy something tangible. "'We can call off the black helicopters,' joked one as we swept up the remains of a MacBook Pro," Rusbridger wrote on the Guardian website.
PM 'told Heywood to warn Guardian' (http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/uk/pm-told-heywood-to-warn-guardian-29514651.html)-wraith808 (August 20, 2013, 11:47 PM)
She went on: "We have a very clear divide in this country, and I think that's absolutely right, between the operational independence of the police and the policy work of politicians. I as Home Secretary do not tell the police who they should or should not stop at ports or who they should or should not arrest. I think it's absolutely right that that is the case, that the police decide who they should stop or not and whether they should arrest somebody or not. That's their operational independence. I'm pleased that we live in a country where there is that separation."
With Glenn Greenwald’s partner being harassed by security forces at Heathrow, the last warning bell for totalitarianism has chimed. For upwards of a decade, activists of the Pirate Party have been warning that laws that are marketed to the public as being “against terror” or “against child pornography” are so vague and so full of exceptions to due process that they don’t make sense if they’re not actually targeted at creating a totalitarian society. With family members of reporters taken away for detention and harassment, the last warning bell has gone off – there will not be another bell before they come for me and you.
Haha!
We have the next move (sorta) from Snowden's side in this game!
"EFF Victory Results in Release of Secret Court Opinion Finding NSA Surveillance Unconstitutional
Update: In response to EFF's FOIA lawsuit, the government has released the 2011 FISA court opinion ruling some NSA surveillance unconstitutional."
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/eff-victory-results-expected-release-secret-court-opinion-finding-nsa-surveillance
So then the "U Word" is among the highest in the land. It's all blah-blah, then appeal-blah, then another-appeal-blah, and then when the U-Word shows up the Judiciary goes all sudo-don't-do-that.
Stating the obvious, one reason this is big news, (and a nice move - is this a Discovered Knight Fork?), is that not only is
A: the action (some of it) U-Word, but
B: the court actually had a shred of decency, but then the exec branch's secrecy tried to hide it.
C. your choice here
See, they've been wiggling around (hiding the opinion), but it's *reeeeaaaallly* hard to *overturn* the U-Word. (It DOES happen, but far from easily, and never this quick.)
So now we're at the dangerous part, of "So, the U-Word is here. But Nat-Sec blah blah, we'll ignore the ruling".
Comments? Countermoves from Gov?-TaoPhoenix (August 22, 2013, 02:09 AM)
Update: In response to EFF's FOIA lawsuit, the government has released the 2011 FISA court opinion ruling some NSA surveillance unconstitutional.-TaoPhoenix (August 22, 2013, 02:09 AM)
Update: In response to EFF's FOIA lawsuit, the government has released the 2011 FISA court opinion ruling some NSA surveillance unconstitutional.-TaoPhoenix (August 22, 2013, 02:09 AM)
:huh: ...So...isn't that the same FISA court that was giving - Instead of Just Saying No.. - them the warrants to do the sneaky unconstitutional stuff in the first place?-Stoic Joker (August 22, 2013, 06:43 AM)
Update: In response to EFF's FOIA lawsuit, the government has released the 2011 FISA court opinion ruling some NSA surveillance unconstitutional.-TaoPhoenix (August 22, 2013, 02:09 AM)
:huh: ...So...isn't that the same FISA court that was giving - Instead of Just Saying No.. - them the warrants to do the sneaky unconstitutional stuff in the first place?-Stoic Joker (August 22, 2013, 06:43 AM)
It's still better than a kick in the balls, which is all we've been getting so far...-Renegade (August 22, 2013, 07:10 AM)
Update: In response to EFF's FOIA lawsuit, the government has released the 2011 FISA court opinion ruling some NSA surveillance unconstitutional.-TaoPhoenix (August 22, 2013, 02:09 AM)
:huh: ...So...isn't that the same FISA court that was giving - Instead of Just Saying No.. - them the warrants to do the sneaky unconstitutional stuff in the first place?-Stoic Joker (August 22, 2013, 06:43 AM)
It's still better than a kick in the balls, which is all we've been getting so far...-Renegade (August 22, 2013, 07:10 AM)
Bummer ... I was hoping I had/was missing something. But it does at least imply a glimmer of a conscience on FISA's part.-Stoic Joker (August 22, 2013, 08:01 AM)
Update: In response to EFF's FOIA lawsuit, the government has released the 2011 FISA court opinion ruling some NSA surveillance unconstitutional.-TaoPhoenix (August 22, 2013, 02:09 AM)
:huh: ...So...isn't that the same FISA court that was giving - Instead of Just Saying No.. - them the warrants to do the sneaky unconstitutional stuff in the first place?-Stoic Joker (August 22, 2013, 06:43 AM)
It's still better than a kick in the balls, which is all we've been getting so far...-Renegade (August 22, 2013, 07:10 AM)
Bummer ... I was hoping I had/was missing something. But it does at least imply a glimmer of a conscience on FISA's part.-Stoic Joker (August 22, 2013, 08:01 AM)
Well, as it was all done in secret, we don't know just how bad things are. The FISA court might not be as complicity in the criminality as we're guessing. Who knows? They've not released any of what they've done yet, and we're only getting a tiny glimpse into the crimes they've committed. It might not be all that bad on the court's part... (Perhaps I'm just being naive and hopeful... dunno - we'll see [or we won't].)-Renegade (August 22, 2013, 08:16 AM)
Update: In response to EFF's FOIA lawsuit, the government has released the 2011 FISA court opinion ruling some NSA surveillance unconstitutional.-TaoPhoenix (August 22, 2013, 02:09 AM)
:huh: ...So...isn't that the same FISA court that was giving - Instead of Just Saying No.. - them the warrants to do the sneaky unconstitutional stuff in the first place?-Stoic Joker (August 22, 2013, 06:43 AM)
...Since the constitution is out the window...-Stoic Joker (August 22, 2013, 12:45 PM)
So now that "We know that they know that we know that they know that we know" etc, the U-Word is here, so they could still be nasty enough to nuts-kick it like Renny likes to say, but they *can't un-do it*.-TaoPhoenix (August 22, 2013, 03:52 PM)
12 year-old NSA spying system revealed that catches 75 percent of US Internet traffic (http://www.abine.com/blog/2013/12-year-old-nsa-spying-system-revealed-that-catches-75-percent-of-us-internet-traffic/)
August 21st, 2013 by Sarah A. Downey
NSA companiesLooks like the NSA lied.
The Wall Street Journal’s Siobhan Gorman and Jennifer Valentino-Devries broke the story this morning that the NSA’s systems can access about 75% of all Internet traffic in the US. Not only that, but it can save the content of emails and Internet phone calls sent from one US citizen to another.
The revelation contradicts previous NSA statements, including some by NSA Director James Clapper, that the NSA doesn’t intercept the actual contents of emails and other communications, and that the NSA doesn’t intercept purely domestic (US to US) traffic.
The surveillance programs, with whimsical code names including “Blarney, Fairview, Oakstar, Lithium and Stormbrew,” collect and filter information directly from US telecommunications companies, including AT&T and Verizon. Major companies like Cisco, Boeing, and Juniper provide the gear to build the systems.
Similar to PRISM, the spying program Edward Snowden revealed that lets government analysts access data from web companies like Google and Facebook, these programs only work because they integrate directly with wireless and Internet providers. Once again, private companies are demonstrated to power the surveillance that feeds the government.
Clapper NSA memeThe government can spy on people “reasonably believed” to be outside the US, which is a low legal bar and easy standard to meet. But NSA officials admit that many of the communications they intercept and store are actually between US citizens, and thousands of other serious surveillance errors happen each year.
The program is largely secret and regulates itself. Civil rights and privacy activists argue that the NSA should have better, more public oversight.
The fallout from 2013′s “Summer of Snowden” has been widespread. Analysts estimate that newfound distrust in US data companies will cost $180 billion, although privacy companies like us and DuckDuckGo have seen major growth in the number of people using our tools. President Obama’s approval rating has dropped, especially among young voters between 18 and 29. Last week, the President announced plans to reform NSA programs to better protect privacy.
On a final note, you can’t stop the NSA from tracking you, but you can make it harder. Here’s how.
Press reports based on an article published in today’s Wall Street Journal mischaracterize aspects of NSA’s data collection activities conducted under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The NSA does not sift through and have unfettered access to 75% of the United States’ online communications.
The following are the facts:
--Media reports based upon the recent Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article regarding NSA’s foreign intelligence activities provide an inaccurate and misleading picture of NSA’s collection programs, but especially with respect to NSA’s use of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
--The reports leave readers with the impression that NSA is sifting through as much as 75% of the United States’ online communications, which is simply not true.
--In its foreign intelligence mission, and using all its authorities, NSA "touches" about 1.6%, and analysts only look at 0.00004%, of the world’s internet traffic.
--In its foreign intelligence mission, and using all its authorities, NSA "touches" about 1.6%, and analysts only look at 0.00004%, of the world’s internet traffic.
New ODNI press release:
http://www.odni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/191-press-releases-2013/917-joint-statement-nsa-and-office-of-the-director-of-national-intelligencePress reports based on an article published in today’s Wall Street Journal mischaracterize aspects of NSA’s data collection activities conducted under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The NSA does not sift through and have unfettered access to 75% of the United States’ online communications....
The following are the facts:
--Media reports based upon the recent Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article regarding NSA’s foreign intelligence activities provide an inaccurate and misleading picture of NSA’s collection programs, but especially with respect to NSA’s use of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
--The reports leave readers with the impression that NSA is sifting through as much as 75% of the United States’ online communications, which is simply not true.
--In its foreign intelligence mission, and using all its authorities, NSA "touches" about 1.6%, and analysts only look at 0.00004%, of the world’s internet traffic.
My guess is that is a statement about just how understaffed they are and how they need more funding to make up for the slack. :P
...-Renegade (August 22, 2013, 10:11 PM)
Hehe! Renny, you're so sweet! You believed their "facts"!-TaoPhoenix (August 23, 2013, 06:31 AM)
Heh Renny - if you lie hard enough, it becomes true!
:P-TaoPhoenix (August 24, 2013, 11:03 PM)
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.-Joseph Goebbels
The essential English leadership secret does not depend on particular intelligence. Rather, it depends on a remarkably stupid thick-headedness. The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous.-Joseph Goebbels
INSIDE FORT MEADE, Maryland, a top-secret city bustles. Tens of thousands of people move through more than 50 buildings—the city has its own post office, fire department, and police force. But as if designed by Kafka, it sits among a forest of trees, surrounded by electrified fences and heavily armed guards, protected by antitank barriers, monitored by sensitive motion detectors, and watched by rotating cameras. To block any telltale electromagnetic signals from escaping, the inner walls of the buildings are wrapped in protective copper shielding and the one-way windows are embedded with a fine copper mesh.
This is the undisputed domain of General Keith Alexander, a man few even in Washington would likely recognize. Never before has anyone in America’s intelligence sphere come close to his degree of power, the number of people under his command, the expanse of his rule, the length of his reign, or the depth of his secrecy. A four-star Army general, his authority extends across three domains: He is director of the world’s largest intelligence service, the National Security Agency; chief of the Central Security Service; and commander of the US Cyber Command. As such, he has his own secret military, presiding over the Navy’s 10th Fleet, the 24th Air Force, and the Second Army.
An interesting article at Wired on General Keith Alexander:Superb story. However, given the nature of the subject matter, one has to wonder how true any of it might be, or whether there are all kinds of embedded and deliberately misleading points and/or half-truths in it. Separate cases in point being the "Star Wars" and "Neutron Bomb" stories.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/06/general-keith-alexander-cyberwar/all/
...-Renegade (August 26, 2013, 09:34 AM)
Superb story. However, given the nature of the subject matter, one has to wonder how true any of it might be, or whether there are all kinds of embedded and deliberately misleading points and/or half-truths in it.-IainB (August 26, 2013, 12:07 PM)
The NYPD Division of Un-American Activities
Now there's a name that's more than just a bit chilling. All they need now is a list of properly American Activities, a "study" that shows the "proper" participation levels, and they should be ready to start rounding uppeople"decenters" in no time.-Stoic Joker (August 26, 2013, 12:29 PM)
The NYPD Division of Un-American Activities
Now there's a name that's more than just a bit chilling. All they need now is a list of properly American Activities, a "study" that shows the "proper" participation levels, and they should be ready to start rounding uppeople"decenters" in no time.-Stoic Joker (August 26, 2013, 12:29 PM)
I saw somewhere that Russia says they didn't want Snowden, but that he was indeed on his way to Cuba when (I think?) they denied him so he got stuck.-TaoPhoenix (August 26, 2013, 03:33 PM)
This (http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/26/us-usa-security-snowden) would explain a lot.-dr_andus (August 27, 2013, 04:44 AM)
But it also signifies an end of Fidel's Cuba as we knew it. What sort of leverage could the US use over them, considering the over half a century of economic blockade etc?
I suppose there has been a thawing of relations recently with the US and maybe they didn't want to jeopardise that? But it also shows that Russia wasn't able to convince Cuba to take him, which is quite a reversal of roles between the US and Russia vis-a-vis Cuba.-dr_andus (August 27, 2013, 04:44 AM)
Codename 'Apalachee': How America Spies on Europe and the UN
The European Union building on New York's Third Avenue is an office tower with a glittering facade and an impressive view of the East River. Chris Matthews, the press officer for the EU delegation to the United Nations, opens the ambassadors' room on the 31st floor, gestures toward a long conference table and says: "This is where all ambassadors from our 28 members meet every Tuesday at 9 a.m." It is the place where Europe seeks to forge a common policy on the UN.
...
'Thou Shalt Not Get Caught' (page 2)
With few exceptions, this electronic eavesdropping not only contravenes the diplomatic code, but also international agreements. The Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations of 1946, as well as the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961, long ago established that no espionage methods are to be used. What's more, the US and the UN signed an agreement in 1947 that rules out all undercover operations.
But even in UN circles a little bit of spying has always been viewed as a minor offense and, according to statements made by former government employees, the Americans have never paid much attention to the agreements. But this could change with the revelations of US spying on the EU. "The US has violated the 11th commandment of our profession," says a high-ranking US intelligence official: "Thou shalt not get caught."
This (http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/26/usa-security-snowden-idUSL6N0GR0CI20130826) would explain a lot.I got a 404 there.-dr_andus (August 27, 2013, 04:44 AM)-Renegade (August 27, 2013, 05:32 AM)
It said Cuba had changed its mind after pressure by the United States, which wants to try Snowden on espionage charges.
HA! We were all WRONG!
The NSA actually ARE the good guys!
They ARE spying on the terrorists! Here's the proof!
(Page 1) http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/secret-nsa-documents-show-how-the-us-spies-on-europe-and-the-un-a-918625.html
(Page 2) http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/secret-nsa-documents-show-how-the-us-spies-on-europe-and-the-un-a-918625-2.html-Renegade (August 27, 2013, 07:10 AM)
In his statement, Robbins claimed the encrypted material included personal information of UK intelligence officers, any compromise of which would result in a risk to the lives of them and their families and the risk they would become recruitment targets for terrorists and hostile spy agencies. The hard drive seized from Miranda contained approximately 58,000 highly classified UK intelligence documents, the compromise of which "would do serious damage to UK national security and ultimately risk lives".
The CIA's budget is the most expensive, $14.7bn (£9.5bn) out of $52.6bn in total for 16 intelligence agencies...
...the CIA's budget has grown more than 50% since 2004.
The files also reportedly show the budget of the National Security Agency (NSA), America's electronic spying organisation - it apparently requested $10.8bn for 2013, making it second only to the CIA.
The CIA and the NSA have also launched "offensive cyber operations" to hack into or sabotage enemy computer networks, according to the files.
The documents reportedly refer to China, Russia, Iran, Cuba and Israel as "priority" counterintelligence targets. Israel is an American ally, though it has previously conducted espionage against the US.
The NSA is denying one part of Friday's report - that the agency planned to investigate up to 4,000 cases of possible internal security breaches before Mr Snowden made his disclosures to the media.
Edward Snowden's leaks are misguided – they risk exposing us to cyber-attacks
Journalists are not best placed to identify security risks; we have to trust those who oversee the intelligence-gathering
Picture yourself in a boat on a river,
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies.
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly;
A girl with kaleidoscope eyes.
Cellophane flowers of yellow and green
Towering over your head;
Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes,
And she’s gone.
Whatever view we take on where as a society we want the balance between our right to privacy against our right to live in security, we all need to have confidence that in the hands of our authorities these powerful tools of interception are not being abused.
We have to have trust in those we ask to verify the activities of the state on our behalf:
Follow her down to a bridge by a fountain,
Where rocking horse people eat marshmallow pies.
Everyone smiles as you drift past the flowers
That grow so incredible high.
Newspaper taxis appear on the shore,
Waiting to take you away.
Climb in the back with your head in the clouds,
And you’re gone.
Professor Sir David Omand is a former director of GCHQ and a former intelligence and security co-ordinator for the prime minister
| David Omand is visiting professor in the War Studies Department of King's College London and a former director of GCHQ, permanent secretary of the Home Office and UK security and intelligence co-ordinator. He is author of Securing the State |
^from the Guardian link for Sir David Omand
(http://www.theguardian.com/profile/david-omand)
David Omand is visiting professor in the War Studies Department of King's College London and a former director of GCHQ, permanent secretary of the Home Office and UK security and intelligence co-ordinator. He is author of Securing the State -tomos (September 27, 2013, 05:37 AM)
Great discussion below the article by the way ...-Carol Haynes (September 27, 2013, 05:46 AM)
How can you trust someone you know lies to you, all the time? You can't.
Why not continue to use early versions of PGP?
Yes - seriously. It's not an Onion article. It's real. This guy actually means that!-Renegade (September 26, 2013, 11:34 PM)
You think he "actually means that"?!-TaoPhoenix (September 27, 2013, 11:49 AM)
All news is The Onion these days. That's the ultra meta point of the Onion!-TaoPhoenix (September 27, 2013, 11:49 AM)
WIRED: What do you think of the Snowden leaks?
Boyce: Well I think he’s done a service to the Bill of Rights. I think he’s protecting our freedoms. I’m glad he did what he did...
...snip...
Boyce: I think everything since 9/11 has been [ed: overkill]. The Patriot Act and all this, it’s all overkill. It’s overreach by the surveillance state.
...snip...
Boyce: Well, I agree with what my wife Cait said here not so long ago: The average American is more interested in how much cream and sugar he has in his coffee than his civil liberties.
Interesting interview. Here are a few interesting snippets.So @Renegade, how much cream and sugar do you have in your coffee? I drink coffee by the mug-full and prefer milk, not cream - just a dash, and of the skimmed variety, not full cream....snip...Sigh...
Boyce: Well, I agree with what my wife Cait said here not so long ago: The average American is more interested in how much cream and sugar he has in his coffee than his civil liberties.
I wish more people would get angry about this. Or upset or just talk about it. Something. Just to keep up the pressure.
__________________________-Renegade (September 28, 2013, 01:50 AM)
Then there's this alternative:
http://gawker.com/naomi-wolf-is-a-snowden-truther-513470303
"Specifically, Wolf wishes to convey her "creeping concern" that Snowden "is not who he purports to be." Who is he, then? Signs point to his being one of them. You know: THEM.
...
""He is super-organized, for a whistleblower"—so organized, his methods resemble those of "high-level political surrogates."
"He conveys his message "without struggling for words." Again, like a political surrogate. "
"...Julian Assange is careful to keep lots of lawyers around him, unlike Snowden, who is suspiciously well organized and composed, except for his failure to get a lawyer. Because Julian Assange is the genuine article, not like Snowden, and whistleblowers who are the genuine article "don’t tend ever to call attention to their own self-sacrifice," which is a thing that Julian Assange would never dream of doing in a million years. "-TaoPhoenix (September 29, 2013, 02:40 PM)
So @Renegade, how much cream and sugar do you have in your coffee? I drink coffee by the mug-full and prefer milk, not cream - just a dash, and of the skimmed variety, not full cream.
Sugar, I like maybe a level teaspoon-full in the mornings, and at most a half teaspoon-full in cups of coffee after that. I love coffee. :-*
I didn't know this was going to be a discussion about coffee. How nice!-IainB (September 29, 2013, 09:03 PM)
Then there's this alternative:
http://gawker.com/naomi-wolf-is-a-snowden-truther-513470303
"Specifically, Wolf wishes to convey her "creeping concern" that Snowden "is not who he purports to be." Who is he, then? Signs point to his being one of them. You know: THEM.
...
""He is super-organized, for a whistleblower"—so organized, his methods resemble those of "high-level political surrogates."
"He conveys his message "without struggling for words." Again, like a political surrogate. "
"...Julian Assange is careful to keep lots of lawyers around him, unlike Snowden, who is suspiciously well organized and composed, except for his failure to get a lawyer. Because Julian Assange is the genuine article, not like Snowden, and whistleblowers who are the genuine article "don’t tend ever to call attention to their own self-sacrifice," which is a thing that Julian Assange would never dream of doing in a million years. "-TaoPhoenix (September 29, 2013, 02:40 PM)
She could be right. I rather doubt it, but it is possible. Panopticon? They can't look everywhere, so if people think they are, they modify their behaviour? Trauma-based behaviour modification?
While I rather doubt it, there's nothing wrong with entertaining possibilities.
The NSA and its cohorts have done worse. e.g. Charles Taylor was a CIA asset/agent - look what he did in Africa.-Renegade (September 29, 2013, 09:10 PM)
When you are faced with total confusion, it's not all bad to entertain Black Sheep theories. I am struck by the changes in tone vs two other people I feel did almost the same "work", Julian Assange and Bradley Manning. Except it's like The System ran dry shutting those stories down old school style, and finally the deep social threads are in place where Snowden is ... doing something. And not in jail.
And that colossal cognitive dissonance is kinda eating me. I'm slightly to (which?) side of you politically/rhetorically, but we're sorta kindred in our general distrust of pablum. So I have this long running sense from a table gaming perspective (both Magic the Gathering and Chess and a little bit of card Solitaire theory in the mix!) that there's X missing fragments of info that aren't making correct sense of the "tableau".-TaoPhoenix (September 30, 2013, 07:01 PM)
And whether by systemic flaws or design the Media isn't (easily findable?) pointing those out (often enough?).-TaoPhoenix (September 30, 2013, 07:01 PM)
A CEO who resisted NSA spying is out of prison. And he feels ‘vindicated’ by Snowden leaks. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/09/30/a-ceo-who-resisted-nsa-spying-is-out-of-prison-and-he-feels-vindicated-by-snowden-leaks/?hpid=z12)-wraith808 (September 30, 2013, 10:10 PM)
The NSA declined to comment on Nacchio, referring inquiries to the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice did not respond to The Post's request for comment.
Not sure where to find more info though... But if that's correct, it's a good chance to ask questions of one of the most informed people on the planet when it comes to spying on you.-Renegade (September 30, 2013, 10:42 PM)
As you can see in the tweet above, the Ask Me Anything session will begin tomorrow, October 1st at 1PM ET. We'll be watching. Will you be asking?
RT @guardianUS: TOMORROW, 1pm ET: @janinegibson & @ggreenwald host a Reddit AMA. Questions about #NSAFiles? Bookmark: http://trib.al/DSYE1pN
And according to his timeline, in February 2001 — some six months before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — he was approached by the NSA and asked to spy on customers during a meeting he thought was about a different contract.-article
And according to his timeline, in February 2001 — some six months before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — he was approached by the NSA and asked to spy on customers during a meeting he thought was about a different contract.-article
:huh: Wait...what? I was always of the impression this nonsense was (9/11) overreactional. But this would make it rather decidedly premeditated.-Stoic Joker (October 01, 2013, 06:31 AM)
It's been going on since at least 1975. Well, different equipment and capabilities, but same steamy pile.
9/11 was just the best thing ever to happen as it let them justify, or try to justify the worst abuses of privacy in history -- and that was just the dinner mint. They got wars and all kinds of goodies out of it.-Renegade (October 01, 2013, 06:47 AM)
And according to his timeline, in February 2001 — some six months before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — he was approached by the NSA and asked to spy on customers during a meeting he thought was about a different contract.-article
:huh: Wait...what? I was always of the impression this nonsense was (9/11) overreactional. But this would make it rather decidedly premeditated.-Stoic Joker (October 01, 2013, 06:31 AM)
You really didn't think any of this was reactionary and/or coincidental did you?
Premeditated, strategized, and meticulously planned are the words of the day.-wraith808 (October 01, 2013, 08:02 AM)
A major reason why those in power always try to use surveillance is because surveillance = power. The more you know about someone, the more you can control and manipulate them in all sorts of ways. That is one reason a Surveillance State is so menacing to basic political liberties.
<<How do you answer the accusations that Snowden is a Chinese or Russian spy, or that they stole the secrets from him?>>
Ask any person making this absurd, ludicrous accusation for a single shred of evidence that it's true, and then marvel as they stutter and spew fabrications.
As for Snowden v. Rogers, there is no question that the latter lied. There is no technical limitation whatsoever on the NSA's power to read whatever emails which analysts with a terminal target.
At approximately 1:30 p.m. EDT on August 2, 2013, Mr. Levison gave the FBI a printout of what he represented to be the encryption keys needed to operate the pen register. This printout, in what appears to be 4-point type, consists of 11 pages of largely illegible characters. See Attachment A. (The attachment was created by scanning the document provided by Mr. Levison; the original document was described by the Dallas FBI agents as slightly clearer than the scanned copy but nevertheless illegible .) Moreover, each of the five encryption keys contains 512 individual characters - or a total of 2560 characters. To make use of these keys, the FBI would have to manually input all 2560 characters, and one incorrect keystroke in this laborious process would render the FBI collection system incapable of collecting decrypted data.
Holy @#$!
I'll just leave this here...
http://cryptome.org/2013/10/lavabit-orders.pdf
I started to download it in case it 'disappears'. But... that's hot stuff.
What I really like is the last page... Lavabit tells the federales to suck it by giving them the requested 2048-bit private key in text.At approximately 1:30 p.m. EDT on August 2, 2013, Mr. Levison gave the FBI a printout of what he represented to be the encryption keys needed to operate the pen register. This printout, in what appears to be 4-point type, consists of 11 pages of largely illegible characters. See Attachment A. (The attachment was created by scanning the document provided by Mr. Levison; the original document was described by the Dallas FBI agents as slightly clearer than the scanned copy but nevertheless illegible .) Moreover, each of the five encryption keys contains 512 individual characters - or a total of 2560 characters. To make use of these keys, the FBI would have to manually input all 2560 characters, and one incorrect keystroke in this laborious process would render the FBI collection system incapable of collecting decrypted data.-wraith808 (October 03, 2013, 11:14 PM)
The printout, in what appears to be 4-point type, consists of 11 pages of largely illegible characters.
Three Months After It Cleared The 100K Signature Threshold, 'Pardon Snowden' Petition Still Unanswered
How The NSA Deploys Malware: An In-Depth Look at the New Revelations
RT finds out what Apple’s Wozniak thinks of the NSA leaks scandal [PREVIEW]
The current level of general surveillance in society is incompatible with human rights. To recover our freedom and restore democracy, we must reduce surveillance to the point where it is possible for whistleblowers of all kinds to talk with journalists without being spotted. To do this reliably, we must reduce the surveillance capacity of the systems we use.
...Notably, the government is also arguing that no one other than the company that provided the information — including the defendant in this case — has the right to challenge this disclosure in court." This goes far beyond the third party doctrine, effectively prosecuting someone and depriving them of the ability to defend themselves by declaring that they have no standing to refute the evidence used against them.The US government police/SS agencies probably didn't see that they had much option but to do what they have done. In order to fulfil their duty to "protect and serve", or whatever, they have had to override the constitution. It has probably by now been irrevocably broken, and there's not much likelihood of going back to the former status.-TaoPhoenix (October 15, 2013, 04:09 PM)
...
police/SS agencies probably didn't see that they had much option but to do what they have done. In order to fulfil their duty to "protect and serve", or whatever, they have had to override the constitution. It has probably by now been irrevocably broken, and there's not much likelihood of going back to the former status.-IainB (October 17, 2013, 10:20 PM)
Well, good luck anyway.
If I hear a loud BANG!, I won't expect to hear any more from you. :o-IainB (October 18, 2013, 06:25 AM)
This video tries to sum it all up: Tell Congress and President Obama: "Knock it off and stop the NSA surveillance programs (http://www.thensavideo.com/)-IainB (October 17, 2013, 10:20 PM)
Government Program to Control Religious Thought? (http://www.infowars.com/exclusive-government-program-to-control-religious-thought/)
Ben Swann Infowars.com Oct. 16, 2013
Is the U.S. Government working on a program to…well…program the way you view religion?
A whistleblower who has worked on that program says yes and he wants you to know exactly what has been going on.
The first towards truth is to be informed.
If I told you that the Defense Department was using taxpayer dollars to learn how to influence people with religious beliefs in order to control those beliefs, would it really surprise you?
Would you think that I am a tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorist?
Would you care if I told you that the program was aimed at controlling fundamentalist Muslims?
How about fundamentalist Christians?
Here’s the backstory. In 2012, Arizona State Universityʼs Center for Strategic Communication or CSC was awarded a $6.1 million dollar research grant by DARPA or the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
The goal of the project according to ASUʼs website is to “study the neurobiology of narrative comprehension, validate narrative theories and explore the connection between narrative and persuasion.”
A lot of technical talk there, so lets dig into the details.
The CSC program is actually about creating narratives. Using effective communication, largely video, to control the thought process of groups of people. And ultimately to be able to trigger narratives through magnetic stimulation. At its core, the program is focused on how to win the narrative against Muslim extremism. It’s a fairly interesting concept.
According to documents leaked to us, this project integrates insights from three mutually-informing theoretical terrains.
In short, the goal of the program is to combat and change religious narratives because of their role in “extremist behavior.” The whistleblower who revealed this program to us, worked for several years on the program. They asked not to be identified.
Ben: What were you told about the proposal as you began working through it?
Whistleblower: Yeah, I thought that it was benign. They told me it was about trying to figure outwhat parts of the brain are affected by narrative persuasion. Just to figure it out just for academic reasons. So we looked at narrative transportation which is basically how an individual is transported into a narrative, how they understand it…kind of like when you read a good book you get really enthralled with it.
At its core, the program attempts to map the brain to determine which portions of the brain allow you to accept a narrative presented to you. It’s called narrative theory.
Mapping this network will lead to a fuller understanding of the influence narrative has on memory, emotion, theory of mind, identity and persuasion, which in turn influence the decision to engage in political violence or join violent groups or support groups ideologically or financially.
You see, the project is focused on the belief that the reason Muslims in the Middle East are swayed to religious violence is not because of the reality of what is going on around them per se, but because they are believing a local or a regional narrative.
Ben: The local and regional narrative then is that the brain automatically assumes things because of a narrative we’ve been taught since our childhood, is that it?
Whistleblower: Right yeah that’s true. We call those master narratives. So in America we have this “rags to riches” master narrative where if you work really hard you can become successful and make a ton of money. So in the Middle East, they always use the example of the Pharaoh. That’s the master narrative that’s in the Qur’an, where there’s this corrupt leader that, you know, is really bad for society. And they use the example of Sadat who was assassinated. When
the assassin killed him, he said, “I have killed the Pharaoh, I have killed the Pharaoh.” So they assume that he was relying upon this Islamic master narrative to fuel his actions.
So how does the program change this? Again a lot of technical speak here so stay with me. But it’s broken into three phases.
Phase I is to map the Narrative Comprehension Network using a set of stimuli designed from the point of view of two different religious cultures.
Phase II will test hypotheses generated in Phase I, adding two additional manipulations of narrative validity and narrative transportation.
Phase III, it investigates possibilities for literally disrupting the activity of the NCN through Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation.
Ben: Phase III is fairly interesting. I noticed in the documentation it says lets not talk too much about this because who knows if we’ll ever get there. But when you do read what Phase III is it is a little surprising, it’s called Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation. This is not something that’s science fiction, it’s not something they’ve cooked up. This is a real technique that’s already been used in the past, correct?
Whistleblower: Yes, it started out in the psychiatry field when people were depressed and when you’re depressed certain parts of your brain are not functioning correctly. So they created this technology, which is basically a big magnet, and you put it on their brain and it turns off that part of the brain that’s bad or wrong and it would help them with their depression for several weeks to a month and they’d go back and do it again. So this technology has been around for ten
or fifteen years.
Ben: So it’s very high tech propaganda, what we’re talking about.
Whistleblower: High tech and validated propaganda, yes. So if they’re able to turn off a part of the brain and get rid of that master narrative that will make you not believe in a particular statement, they would have validated this propaganda. So if they turn off portion X, they know that the propaganda is going to work and the individual is going to believe whatever is being told to them.
So why do all this? Because the project is based on the idea that despite the good work of the U.S. in the Middle East, the message of the work is not being received.
“The frequent rejection of US messaging by local populations in the Middle East, despite US insistence on the objective truth of the US message, illustrates the narrative paradigm at work. The well documented ‘say-do gap’ between US messages and US actions is seen by some as contributing to a lack of narrative validity in stories produced by the US. Similarly, stories of US aid do not ring true in a culture wherein Christian foreigners, since the 11th Century, have been invaders and sought to destroy and rule.”
So how to fix this?
Ben: How do you move someone from simply watching a video or seeing a video all the way down that line to behavior? It’s a pretty powerful tool if you’re able to do that.
Whistleblower: Right, so they think that maybe an extremist statements or a video like Al Qaeda puts out will lead to some individuals doing a suicide bombing, for example. So they’re trying to look at this video or the statements and take away a part of your brain that will think that it fits in with your culture or master narrative and that will hopefully lead you to not do these extremist, violent acts.
So what you need to know is that this program boils down to one central idea. If people aren’t reaching the conclusions the U.S. government would like them to reach, there must be a way to force them to accept these narratives.
Remember that the claim is that the U.S. despite giving aid is viewed in the Middle East as invaders. That, according to the program research is the product of embedded narrative, not a result of action.
So the view of the U.S. as invaders in countries where we have standing armies, dozens of military bases, the U.S. paying off drug lords in Afghanistan or regional warlords in Iraq or where we consistently bomb via drone strike in Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia or where we fund dictators until those dictators are overthrown and then attempt to fund the rebels, who end up becoming dictators.
All of that has nothing to do with the U.S. view of Muslims in the Middle East because clearly they are missing the fact that the U.S. gives aid.
The next step, control the narrative and if necessary, use magnetic stimulation to force people to accept the view of the U.S. that we desire them to have.
After all, aren’t extremist Muslims dangerous? Extremist Christians? See the problem with the question is who gets to define extremist? Who decides if religious beliefs are inherently dangerous?
And if we believe that government should have the power to control how the extremist thinks… wouldn’t they have the authority to decide how and what we all think?
Sources:
We cannot post the leaked documents from the program here because ASU has claimed intellectual
property infringement.
This article first appeared at benswann.com.
How about this?
...
Food for thought? (Heh. Weak pun.)-IainB (October 19, 2013, 05:13 AM)
CryptoSeal VPN shuts down rather than risk NSA demands for crypto keys (http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/10/cryptoseal-vpn-shuts-down-rather-than-risk-nsa-demands-for-crypto-keys/)
Complying with US law while protecting user privacy a tough task, company says.
by Jon Brodkin - Oct 21, 2013 7:05 pm UTC
A consumer VPN service called CryptoSeal Privacy has shut down rather than risk government intrusions that could cost the company money in legal fees and threaten user privacy.
CryptoSeal will continue offering its business-focused VPN, but the consumer service is done, the company announced:
With immediate effect as of this notice, CryptoSeal Privacy, our consumer VPN service, is terminated. All cryptographic keys used in the operation of the service have been zerofilled, and while no logs were produced (by design) during operation of the service, all records created incidental to the operation of the service have been deleted to the best of our ability.
Essentially, the service was created and operated under a certain understanding of current US law, and that understanding may not currently be valid. As we are a US company and comply fully with US law, but wish to protect the privacy of our users, it is impossible for us to continue offering the CryptoSeal Privacy consumer VPN product.
VPN services let consumers gain extra privacy and security while using the Internet. A user establishes an encrypted connection with a VPN service, routing all Internet traffic to the VPN before sending it on to the rest of the Internet.
Some VPN services promise only protection from common hackers, which is useful for people seeking extra security while surfing the Web on public Wi-Fi networks. To hide one's traffic from Internet service providers or governments, people look to VPNs that promise not to keep any logs that might reveal what they use the Internet for.
CryptoSeal's description of its business VPN service says it's not designed to hide information from the government. "CryptoSeal Connect is not designed as a BitTorrent or other file-sharing VPN and is not designed to give you anonymity against the legal system," the company said. "We fully comply with all warrants and subpoenas and are located in the United States. We suggest using systems such as the Tor Project for anonymity requirements."
The possibility of handing cryptographic keys over to the government is a troubling one, though. "For anyone operating a VPN, mail, or other communications provider in the US, we believe it would be prudent to evaluate whether a pen register order could be used to compel you to divulge SSL keys protecting message contents, and if so, to take appropriate action," CryptoSeal wrote.
Lavabit case raises troubling legal possibilities
The company referred to the case of Lavabit, an e-mail service that shut down rather than comply with government orders to monitor user communications. A legal filing in that case raises a possibility that is troubling for CryptoSeal. Specifically, it describes "a Government theory that if a pen register order is made on a provider, and the provider's systems do not readily facilitate full monitoring of pen register information and delivery to the Government in realtime, the Government can compel production of cryptographic keys via a warrant to support a government-provided pen trap device," CryptoSeal wrote.
"Our system does not support recording any of the information commonly requested in a pen register order, and it would be technically infeasible for us to add this in a prompt manner," CryptoSeal continued. "The consequence, being forced to turn over cryptographic keys to our entire system on the strength of a pen register order, is unreasonable in our opinion and likely unconstitutional. But until this matter is settled, we are unable to proceed with our service."
CryptoSeal is investigating "alternative technical ways" to comply with US law without sacrificing user privacy, but in the meantime it is offering customers refunds as well as "one year subscriptions to a non-US VPN service of mutual selection" and "free service for one year if/when we relaunch a consumer privacy VPN service." CryptoSeal also encouraged people to donate to a Lavabit legal fund.
We've contacted CryptoSeal to ask why it's able to keep its business service open but haven't heard back yet. Selling to enterprises is more lucrative than selling to consumers, of course, providing one possible reason CryptoSeal chose this route. Another factor is that businesses seeking a VPN service may be more concerned about security from hackers than about hiding Internet activity from governments and Internet service providers.
A comment on Hacker News apparently posted by CryptoSeal founder and CEO Ryan Lackey points to the cost of legal services being one of the main factors.
"The financial issue was the potentially huge liability due to a legal action or battle, not the (small) costs of operating the service," Hacker News user "RDL" wrote. The service "was covering operating costs and some profit," but the risk of defending against a government order would have wiped that out.
"If we were the legally best VPN option, I would probably have pushed to keep it going anyway and just shut down when/if that happened, but as it is, non-US providers run by non-US people (there are several good ones) are an objectively better option, so in good conscience there's no reason to continue running a US privacy VPN service without technical controls to prevent being compelled to screw over a user," RDL wrote.
____________________________________
An effort in the United Nations by Brazil and Germany to hold back government surveillance is quickly picking up steam, as the uproar over American eavesdropping grows.
The German and Brazilian delegations to the U.N. have opened talks with diplomats from 19 more countries to draft a General Resolution promoting the right of privacy on the Internet. Close American allies like France and Mexico -- as well as rivals like Cuba and Venezuela -- are all part of the effort.
The push marks the first major international effort to curb the National Security Agency's vast surveillance network. Its momentum is building. And it comes as concerns are growing within the U.S. intelligence community that the NSA may be, in effect, freelancing foreign policy by eavesdropping on leaders like Germany's Angela Merkel.
Keith Alexander Says The US Gov't Needs To Figure Out A Way To Stop Journalists From Reporting On Snowden Leaks
from the because-the-first-amendment-means-as-much-as-the-fourth dept
Apparently not satisfied with just setting fire to the 4th Amendment, NSA boss Keith Alexander's next target is the 1st Amendment. In an interview with the Defense Department's "Armed With Science" blog, it appears that Alexander felt he'd have a friendly audience, so he let loose with some insane claims, including suggesting that the government needs to find a way to "stop" journalists from reporting on the Snowden leaks.
As noted by Politco, General Alexander isn't a fan of journalists doing anything about these documents:
"I think it’s wrong that that newspaper reporters have all these documents, the 50,000—whatever they have and are selling them and giving them out as if these—you know it just doesn’t make sense," Alexander said in an interview with the Defense Department's "Armed With Science" blog.
"We ought to come up with a way of stopping it. I don’t know how to do that. That’s more of the courts and the policymakers but, from my perspective, it’s wrong to allow this to go on," the NSA director declared.
It's not the policymakers and the courts. It's the Constitution, and it says there's freedom of the press.
Looks like more cracks are forming:
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/10/25/exclusive_21_nations_line_up_behind_un_effort_to_restrain_nsaAn effort in the United Nations by Brazil and Germany to hold back government surveillance is quickly picking up steam, as the uproar over American eavesdropping grows.
The German and Brazilian delegations to the U.N. have opened talks with diplomats from 19 more countries to draft a General Resolution promoting the right of privacy on the Internet. Close American allies like France and Mexico -- as well as rivals like Cuba and Venezuela -- are all part of the effort.
The push marks the first major international effort to curb the National Security Agency's vast surveillance network. Its momentum is building. And it comes as concerns are growing within the U.S. intelligence community that the NSA may be, in effect, freelancing foreign policy by eavesdropping on leaders like Germany's Angela Merkel.
More at the link.-Renegade (October 25, 2013, 10:01 PM)
Yeah, there's a bit of a fuss being kicked up by Merkel due to her mobile telephone bing 'tapped'. It will help, but it could have some more 'omph' to it imo.-tomos (October 26, 2013, 12:51 PM)
President Barack Obama told the German leader he would have stopped it happening had he known about it.
In an SCS document cited by the magazine, the agency said it had a "not legally registered spying branch" in the U.S. embassy in Berlin, the exposure of which would lead to "grave damage for the relations of the United States to another government".
Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung also said Obama had told Merkel he had not known of the bugging.
Merkel's spokesman and the White House declined comment.
"We're not going to comment on the details of our diplomatic discussions," said Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council at the White House.
In more "Snowden-esque" news:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/us/federal-prosecutors-in-a-policy-shift-cite-warrantless-wiretaps-as-evidence.html?hp&_r=2&
"Federal Prosecutors, in a Policy Shift, Cite Warrantless Wiretaps as Evidence
By CHARLIE SAVAGE-TaoPhoenix (October 26, 2013, 09:00 PM)
President Barack Obama told the German leader he would have stopped it happening had he known about it.
i.e.
- He has admitted it
- He has admitted that it is wrong
-Renegade (October 26, 2013, 09:23 PM)
More high stakes bluffing Renny.
Because today's news says ... wait for it ...
German media: Obama aware of Merkel spying since 2010
http://news.yahoo.com/obama-aware-merkel-spying-since-2010-german-report-092009842.html
"Berlin (AFP) - US President Barack Obama was personally informed of phone tapping against German Chancellor Angela Merkel, which may have begun as early as 2002, German media reported Sunday as a damaging espionage scandal widened.-TaoPhoenix (October 27, 2013, 11:03 AM)
US denies Obama knew of Merkel spying (http://news.yahoo.com/obama-aware-merkel-spying-since-2010-german-report-092009842.html)
...Bild am Sonntag newspaper quoted US intelligence sources as saying that America's National Security Agency chief General Keith Alexander had briefed Obama on the operation against Merkel in 2010. ...
Maybe he's been chosen as the one to be thrown under a bus.-IainB (October 28, 2013, 07:11 AM)
However, if it is all true, then the current POTUS, who might already be under serious public scrutiny for foul-ups on his watch, has apparently been outed by his own public statements being contradicted by his own government functionaries, showing him up as having been lying over the matter of the NSA surveillance at least, if not some other stuff as well.-IainB (October 28, 2013, 07:11 AM)
Lying is part of everyday diplomacy of negotiating conflicting demands; we all do this in our daily realities, so it's unrealistic to expect that somehow politicians should never ever lie.-dr_andus (October 28, 2013, 07:58 AM)
...Lying is part of everyday diplomacy of negotiating conflicting demands; we all do this in our daily realities, so it's unrealistic to expect that somehow politicians should never ever lie. ...Hahaha. Very droll. I rather like that. A rather revealing and self-defining statement about one's personal standards and integrity. Were you overdue for confessional, or something? The question would presumably have to be: Is it a true statement or a false one? ;)
_________________________-dr_andus (October 28, 2013, 07:58 AM)
Leaked memos reveal GCHQ efforts to keep mass surveillance secret (http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/oct/25/leaked-memos-gchq-mass-surveillance-secret-snowden)
Exclusive: Edward Snowden papers show UK spy agency fears legal challenge if scale of surveillance is made public
James Ball
The Guardian, Friday 25 October 2013 18.45 BST
GCHQ fears a legal challenge under the Human Rights Act if evidence of its surveillance methods becomes admissable in court. Photograph: Barry Batchelor/PA
The UK intelligence agency GCHQ has repeatedly warned it fears a "damaging public debate" on the scale of its activities because it could lead to legal challenges against its mass-surveillance programmes, classified internal documents reveal.
Memos contained in the cache disclosed by the US whistleblower Edward Snowden detail the agency's long fight against making intercept evidence admissible as evidence in criminal trials – a policy supported by all three major political parties, but ultimately defeated by the UK's intelligence community.
Foremost among the reasons was a desire to minimise the potential for challenges against the agency's large-scale interception programmes, rather than any intrinsic threat to security, the documents show.
The papers also reveal that:
• GCHQ lobbied furiously to keep secret the fact that telecoms firms had gone "well beyond" what they were legally required to do to help intelligence agencies' mass interception of communications, both in the UK and overseas.
• GCHQ feared a legal challenge under the right to privacy in the Human Rights Act if evidence of its surveillance methods became admissible in court.
• GCHQ assisted the Home Office in lining up sympathetic people to help with "press handling", including the Liberal Democrat peer and former intelligence services commissioner Lord Carlile, who this week criticised the Guardian for its coverage of mass surveillance by GCHQ and America's National Security Agency.
The most recent attempt to make intelligence gathered from intercepts admissible in court, proposed by the last Labour government, was finally stymied by GCHQ, MI5 and MI6 in 2009.
A briefing memo prepared for the board of GCHQ shortly before the decision was made public revealed that one reason the agency was keen to quash the proposals was the fear that even passing references to its wide-reaching surveillance powers could start a "damaging" public debate.
Referring to the decision to publish the report on intercept as evidence without classification, it noted: "Our main concern is that references to agency practices (ie the scale of interception and deletion) could lead to damaging public debate which might lead to legal challenges against the current regime." A later update, from May 2012, set out further perceived "risks" of making intercepts admissible, including "the damage to partner relationships if sensitive information were accidentally released in open court". It also noted that the "scale of interception and retention required would be fairly likely to be challenged on Article 8 (Right to Privacy) grounds".
The GCHQ briefings showed the agency provided the Home Office with support in winning the PR battle on the proposed reforms by lining up people to talk to the media – including Lord Carlile, who on Wednesday gave a public lecture condemning the Guardian's decision to publish stories based on the leaked material from Snowden.
Referring to the public debate on intercept evidence, the document notes: "Sir Ken McDonald [sic] (former DPP [director of public prosecutions]), Lord Goldsmith (former AG [attorney general]) and David Davis (former Shadow HSec [home secretary) [have been] reiterating their previous calls for IaE [intercept as evidence].
"We are working closely with HO [Home Office] on their plans for press handling when the final report is published, e.g. lining up talking heads (such as Lord Carlisle [sic], Lord Stevens, Sir Stephen Lander, Sir Swinton Thomas)."
Carlile was the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation in 2001-11, and was awarded a CBE in 2012 for his services to national security.
Another top GCHQ priority in resisting the admission of intercepts as evidence was keeping secret the extent of the agency's co-operative relationships with telephone companies – including being granted access to communications networks overseas.
In June, the Guardian disclosed the existence of GCHQ's Tempora internet surveillance programme. It uses intercepts on the fibre-optic cables that make up the backbone of the internet to gain access to vast swaths of internet users' personal data. The intercepts are placed in the UK and overseas, with the knowledge of companies owning either the cables or landing stations.
The revelations of voluntary co-operation with some telecoms companies appear to contrast markedly with statements made by large telecoms firms in the wake of the first Tempora stories. They stressed that they were simply complying with the law of the countries in which they operated.
In reality, numerous telecoms companies were doing much more than that, as disclosed in a secret document prepared in 2009 by a joint working group of GCHQ, MI5 and MI6.
Their report contended that allowing intercepts as evidence could damage relationships with "Communications Service Providers" (CSPs).
In an extended excerpt of "the classified version" of a review prepared for the Privy Council, a formal body of advisers made up of current and former cabinet ministers, the document sets out the real nature of the relationship between telecoms firms and the UK government.
"Under RIPA [the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000], CSPs in the UK may be required to provide, at public expense, an adequate interception capability on their networks," it states. "In practice all significant providers do provide such a capability. But in many cases their assistance – while in conformity with the law – goes well beyond what it requires."
GCHQ's internet surveillance programme is the subject of a challenge in the European court of human rights, mounted by three privacy advocacy groups. The Open Rights Group, English PEN and Big Brother Watch argue the "unchecked surveillance" of Tempora is a challenge to the right to privacy, as set out in the European convention on human rights.
That the Tempora programme appears to rely at least in part on voluntary co-operation of telecoms firms could become a major factor in that ongoing case. The revelation could also reignite the long-running debate over allowing intercept evidence in court.
GCHQ's submission goes on to set out why its relationships with telecoms companies go further than what can be legally compelled under current law. It says that in the internet era, companies wishing to avoid being legally mandated to assist UK intelligence agencies would often be able to do so "at little cost or risk to their operations" by moving "some or all" of their communications services overseas.
As a result, "it has been necessary to enter into agreements with both UK-based and offshore providers for them to afford the UK agencies access, with appropriate legal authorisation, to the communications they carry outside the UK".
The submission to ministers does not set out which overseas firms have entered into voluntary relationships with the UK, or even in which countries they operate, though documents detailing the Tempora programme made it clear the UK's interception capabilities relied on taps located both on UK soil and overseas.
There is no indication as to whether the governments of the countries in which deals with companies have been struck would be aware of the GCHQ cable taps.
Evidence that telecoms firms and GCHQ are engaging in mass interception overseas could stoke an ongoing diplomatic row over surveillance ignited this week after the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, accused the NSA of monitoring her phone calls, and the subsequent revelation that the agency monitored communications of at least 35 other world leaders.
On Friday, Merkel and the French president, François Hollande, agreed to spearhead efforts to make the NSA sign a new code of conduct on how it carried out intelligence operations within the European Union, after EU leaders warned that the international fight against terrorism was being jeopardised by the perception that mass US surveillance was out of control.
Fear of diplomatic repercussions were one of the prime reasons given for GCHQ's insistence that its relationships with telecoms firms must be kept private .
Telecoms companies "feared damage to their brands internationally, if the extent of their co-operation with HMG [Her Majesty's government] became apparent", the GCHQ document warned. It added that if intercepts became admissible as evidence in UK courts "many CSPs asserted that they would withdraw their voluntary support".
The report stressed that while companies are going beyond what they are required to do under UK law, they are not being asked to violate it.
Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty and Anthony Romero Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union issued a joint statement stating:
"The Guardian's publication of information from Edward Snowden has uncovered a breach of trust by the US and UK Governments on the grandest scale. The newspaper's principled and selective revelations demonstrate our rulers' contempt for personal rights, freedoms and the rule of law.
"Across the globe, these disclosures continue to raise fundamental questions about the lack of effective legal protection against the interception of all our communications.
"Yet in Britain, that conversation is in danger of being lost beneath self-serving spin and scaremongering, with journalists who dare to question the secret state accused of aiding the enemy.
"A balance must of course be struck between security and transparency, but that cannot be achieved whilst the intelligence services and their political masters seek to avoid any scrutiny of, or debate about, their actions.
"The Guardian's decision to expose the extent to which our privacy is being violated should be applauded and not condemned."
A rather revealing and self-defining statement about one's personal standards and integrity.-IainB (October 28, 2013, 08:33 AM)
When your missus asks you the next time "Does my bum look big in this?", just go ahead and say yes and see what happens...-dr_andus (October 28, 2013, 11:14 AM)
A rather revealing and self-defining statement about one's personal standards and integrity.-IainB (October 28, 2013, 08:33 AM)
Not really. Just a sociological observation. Not all lies are created equal. We all tell lies as we negotiate our daily existences. You don't believe me? Try for a day not to tell a lie like in the movie Liar Liar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar_Liar). When your missus asks you the next time "Does my bum look big in this?", just go ahead and say yes and see what happens...-dr_andus (October 28, 2013, 11:14 AM)
...;D
3. It’s underway. The British phone hacking trial of Rebekah Brooks and Rupert Murdoch’s media lieutenants began at London’s storied Old Bailey courthouse. Chris Boffey sets the scene — and “waiting in the wings are 60 other journalists facing possible offences that came out of the hacking investigations.”
The royal baby watch mercifully ended after only a few days; this trial’s expected to last three months. Some headlines already refer to this as the trial of the century but the the self-serving hype really puffs up big media’s self-importance and newspaper sales. As far as phone hacking goes, the NSA is Murdoch on steroids.
...if the NSA is as powerful as its critics have claimed, why has it been so useless at protecting its secrets?
There are aspects of incompetence to it.
The latest revelations, about tapping world leaders phone calls, also leave one wondering what use the content of Ms Merkel's calls were to US policy makers?
The NSA has grown into a huge data-mining bureaucracy driven by its own organisational imperatives.
It pursues ever greater coverage, storage of data, staff and budget.
In many cases it does things because it can, rather than because somebody has asked whether the information is useful, whether it is worth the potential price if discovered, or whether the activity can actually be prevented from coming into the public domain.
The NSA has grown into a huge data-mining bureaucracy driven by its own organisational imperatives.
It pursues ever greater coverage, storage of data, staff and budget.
________________________
The BBC has grown into a huge bureaucracy driven by its own organisational and political imperatives.
It pursues ever greater coverage, monopoly of propaganda, staff and budget.
It seems as though the BBC is talking about itself. To paraphrase:The BBC has grown into a huge bureaucracy driven by its own organisational and political imperatives.
It pursues ever greater coverage, monopoly of propaganda, staff and budget.
A big difference is that the BBC actually seems to work much harder than the NSA at keeping its own secrets - e.g. obfuscating FOIA requests with massive legal defences.-IainB (October 28, 2013, 04:57 PM)
A rather revealing and self-defining statement about one's personal standards and integrity.-IainB (October 28, 2013, 08:33 AM)
Not really. Just a sociological observation. Not all lies are created equal. We all tell lies as we negotiate our daily existences. You don't believe me? Try for a day not to tell a lie like in the movie Liar Liar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar_Liar). When your missus asks you the next time "Does my bum look big in this?", just go ahead and say yes and see what happens...-dr_andus (October 28, 2013, 11:14 AM)
A rather revealing and self-defining statement about one's personal standards and integrity.-IainB (October 28, 2013, 08:33 AM)
Not really. Just a sociological observation. Not all lies are created equal. We all tell lies as we negotiate our daily existences. You don't believe me? Try for a day not to tell a lie like in the movie Liar Liar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar_Liar). When your missus asks you the next time "Does my bum look big in this?", just go ahead and say yes and see what happens...-dr_andus (October 28, 2013, 11:14 AM)
I think you'd be surprised. I tell my wife exactly what I think and she appreciates it. I don't have to lie.
But in the case you outlined, the subtext is more along the lines of, "This makes my butt look a bit big, but I'd really appreciate it if you'd simply compliment me so that I feel better." The actual words are merely a small portion of the communication.
But even if we tell white lies in our daily lives, that doesn't excuse black lies in public office. Public office doesn't have that subtext communication that we have in our more intimate conversations with those close to us.-Renegade (October 28, 2013, 07:29 PM)
In bargaining and bartering and all such interactions, the truth is not as much of a consideration in the things that the person that you're bargaining with is telling you than your own truth and perceptions are.-wraith808 (October 28, 2013, 08:05 PM)
...Hm, I'm not sure what you're getting at with comparing the two. If you don't like the BBC, at least you can switch it off... I'm not sure the same can be said about the NSA... ;)-dr_andus (October 28, 2013, 07:14 PM)
David Cameron Threatens Newspapers Publishing Snowden Leaks (http://reason.com/blog/2013/10/28/david-cameron-threatens-newspapers-publi)
Matthew Feeney|Oct. 28, 2013 3:08 pm
Credit: The Prime Minister's Office / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-NDCredit: The Prime Minister's Office / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-NDBritish Prime Minister David Cameron has made a scary statement about the publication of Edward Snowden’s revelations.
From Reuters:
Oct 28 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Monday his government was likely to act to stop newspapers publishing what he called damaging leaks from former U.S. intelligence operative Edward Snowden unless they began to behave more responsibly.
"If they (newspapers) don't demonstrate some social responsibility it will be very difficult for government to stand back and not to act," Cameron told parliament, saying Britain's Guardian newspaper had "gone on" to print damaging material after initially agreeing to destroy other sensitive data.
It is worth remembering that British officials already threatened The Guardian, which has been publishing stories relating to Snowden’s leaked documents, with legal action if servers containing copies of the information Snowden provided were not destroyed. Officials justified the move by claiming that Russia or China could hack into the servers and access the documents. Technicians from the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) oversaw the destruction of the servers last July, despite the fact that Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger had told government officials that copies of the information were stored outside of the U.K.
The news of Cameron’s comments come days after NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander said that “We ought to come up with a way of stopping” reporters from “selling” secrets.
Thankfully, it is unlikely that any government action in the U.K. is going to stop the information leaked by Edward Snowden from being revealed. As Rusbridger told British government officials, copies of the information is stored outside the U.K.
The latest NSA revelations have damaged the Obama administration’s relationship with some Europeans. It has been reported that the NSA monitored tens of millions of Spanish and French phone calls and that German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cell phone was targeted.
The reporting since the latest NSA news reveals that the U.S. government doesn't have its story straight when it comes to the NSA’s activities. After last week’s news relating to Merkel’s cell phone being targeted White House Press Secretary Jay Carney denied that the Obama administration was targeting Merkel’s phone saying, “The president assured the chancellor that the United States is not monitoring and will not monitor the communications of the chancellor.” However, reporting from the German Bild am Sonntag newspaper, based on information provided by U.S. intelligence officials, suggests that Obama did know about surveillance on Merkel’s phone, but that he only found out about the snooping in 2010 after being personally briefed by Gen. Alexander.
True, there does have to be a certain level of trust. But lying by omission is still lying- but not necessarily bad faith. So having a budget of $500 on a purchase, and not telling the other person your true budget or telling a different budget and driving a hard bargain based on that, prepared to if it comes to the wall to increase that amount... is that lying? Or good bargaining tactics?-wraith808 (October 28, 2013, 10:26 PM)
It's not as black and white as it may appear, IMO.-wraith808 (October 28, 2013, 10:26 PM)
Ooops... I forgot to add: Fight fire with fire. ;)-Renegade (October 29, 2013, 04:46 AM)
Feinstein's statement comes at a crucial time for the NSA. Legislation will be introduced in Congress on Tuesday that would curtail the agency's powers, and there are the first signs that the White House may be starting to distance itself from security chiefs.
On Tuesday morning, James Sensenbrenner, the Wisconsin Republican and author of the 2001 Patriot Act, will introduce a bill called the USA Freedom Act that will ban warrantless bulk phone metadata collection and prevent the NSA from querying its foreign communications databases for identifying information on Americans. Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who chairs the Senate judiciary committee, will introduce the bill's Senate counterpart that same day.
Also on Tuesday, the two most senior intelligence leaders are due to testify before the House intelligence committee.
Feinstein's shifting position was not the only emerging challenge confronting the NSA late Monday. A new disclosure from the Electronic Frontier Foundation added to the agency's woes by suggesting that it began testing means to gather location data on cellphones inside the US before informing the secret surveillance court that oversees it.
David Cameron threatened on Monday to act to stop newspapers publishing what he called damaging leaks from former U.S. intelligence operative Edward Snowden.
"If they don't demonstrate some social responsibility it will be very difficult for government to stand back and not to act," Cameron told parliament.
The question then is how comfortable people are with lying. Politicians are obviously extremely comfortable with it.-Renegade (October 29, 2013, 04:06 AM)
There is a big difference between spurious omission and answering a simple yes or no question incorrectly. The first simply allows one to hold back a few cards ... And the other is a flat out lie.-Stoic Joker (October 29, 2013, 02:19 PM)
However, and though I could be wrong, of course, an argument over the rightness/wrongness of the belief would seem to have two-fifths of ¼ of sod all to do with the thread Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.-IainB (October 29, 2013, 05:50 PM)
The question then is how comfortable people are with lying. Politicians are obviously extremely comfortable with it.-Renegade (October 29, 2013, 04:06 AM)
One problem with this position is that it does not acknowledge that the daily work of a politician consists of negotiating conflicting demands from opposing interests, while the world is constantly changing around them. Something will always look like a lie from someone's particular position, and opponents will be more than happy to point those out to exploit them for their own particular political interests.-dr_andus (October 29, 2013, 02:10 PM)
This doesn't mean that barefaced lies are always OK. But asking politicians to always only tell the truth and only the truth is a highly unrealistic demand that no one is actually capable of doing in their own lives either.-dr_andus (October 29, 2013, 02:10 PM)
Perpetuating such unrealistic expectations by saying that "all politicians are liars" undermines the democratic process because it breeds cynicism and simply turns people off politics and they stop voting and they get even more disenfranchised.-dr_andus (October 29, 2013, 02:10 PM)
There will never be such a thing as a politician that 100% always tells the truth as it is. That is only possible in an alternate Platonic world or maybe in Heaven.-dr_andus (October 29, 2013, 02:10 PM)
David Cameron threatened on Monday to act to stop newspapers publishing what he called damaging leaks from former U.S. intelligence operative Edward Snowden.
"If they don't demonstrate some social responsibility it will be very difficult for government to stand back and not to act," Cameron told parliament.
More on this story over at Techdirt (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131028/11120225040/david-cameron-working-to-stop-uk-press-publishing-anything-more-snowden-leaks.shtml).
I'm wondering how many more heavy handed attempts will be made at derailing the revelations before somebody with access to the documents decides to do a preemptive mass data dump of the entire remaining collection?
:huh:-40hz (October 29, 2013, 02:01 PM)
There's that "social responsibility" phrase again. I don't think it means quite what Cameron seems to think it means. Social responsibility is not being stenographers for the government's point of view. Quite the opposite. You'd think that someone in Cameron's position would understand that.
LAW & DISORDER / CIVILIZATION & DISCONTENTS
Man sues DHS, NSA for the right to parody them on mugs, T-shirts
"Forbidding citizens from criticizing them is beyond the pale,” lawyer says.
You're right. This is straying off topic.-Renegade (October 29, 2013, 10:38 PM)
David Cameron threatened on Monday to act to stop newspapers publishing what he called damaging leaks from former U.S. intelligence operative Edward Snowden.
"If they don't demonstrate some social responsibility it will be very difficult for government to stand back and not to act," Cameron told parliament.
More on this story over at Techdirt (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131028/11120225040/david-cameron-working-to-stop-uk-press-publishing-anything-more-snowden-leaks.shtml).
I'm wondering how many more heavy handed attempts will be made at derailing the revelations before somebody with access to the documents decides to do a preemptive mass data dump of the entire remaining collection?
:huh:-40hz (October 29, 2013, 02:01 PM)
US 'spied on future Pope Francis during Vatican conclave'
NSA spied on the future Pope Francis before and during the Vatican conclave at which he was chosen to succeed Benedict XVI
It seems like a lot to risk for little gain.-wraith808 (October 30, 2013, 09:32 PM)
So is it merely that the NSA is now a reasonable target for such allegations for other reasons?-wraith808 (October 30, 2013, 09:32 PM)
It seems like a lot to risk for little gain.-wraith808 (October 30, 2013, 09:32 PM)
But they spy on hundreds of millions of other people. What gain is there in that? A truckload of effort for what?-Renegade (October 30, 2013, 09:51 PM)
Just a few years ago you were a kook if you talked about the NSA data centers, e.g. the mega-center in Utah. Now? Not so much. Seems the tinfoil hat crowd had a point after all.-Renegade (October 30, 2013, 09:51 PM)
Head of Congressional Intelligence Committee: “You Can’t Have Your Privacy Violated If You Don’t KNOW Your Privacy Is Violated”
How’s that different from arguing that it’s okay for a thief to takes $100 from your bank account as long as you don’t notice that the money is missing? Or that it’s okay to rape a woman while she’s passed out so long as she doesn’t realize what happened?
That’s beyond ridiculous.
I would like to seriously suggest that Edward Snowden, whether he wishes it or not, has a great future in American politics.
When it's all over - and he has been exonerated - it would behoove any of the 'third-party' political organizations opposed to unconstitutional practices, such as mass surveillance, or tapping the phones of foreign leaders, or waging undeclared foreign wars of aggression, to draft Edward Snowden to run for the US senate in 2016, and the presidency in 2020 when he will be over 35 and meet the constitutional age requirement to run.
Snowdens qualifications: Honesty, integrity, courage, putting 'doing the right thing' above personal advantage, and standing up for the basic democratic rights of the American people.
Head of Congressional Intelligence Committee: “You Can’t Have Your Privacy Violated If You Don’t KNOW Your Privacy Is Violated”
Hahahaah!-Renegade (October 31, 2013, 11:13 PM)
This *isn't* new. (Which we seem to agree on).
It's just that ... we ignored it.-wraith808 (October 31, 2013, 08:24 AM)
And on the revelation front, the guardian has posted a new piece:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/nov/01/snowden-nsa-files-surveillance-revelations-decoded#section/1-wraith808 (November 01, 2013, 01:29 PM)
While Edward Snowden may be reviled at the top echelons of Western developed nations and is wanted in his native US on espionage charges for peeling back the curtain on how the gargantuan government machine truly works when it is not only engaged in chronic spying on anyone abroad, but worse, on its own people, the reality is that his whistleblowing revelations have done more to shift the narrative to the topic of dwindling individual liberties abused pervasively in the US and elsewhere, than anything else in recent years. And alongside that, have led to the first reform momentum of a system that is deeply broken. Which also happens to be the topic of a five-paragraph opinion piece he released today in German weekly Der Spiegel titled "A Manifesto For The Truth" in which he writes that his revelations have been useful and society will benefit from them and that he was therefore justified in revealing the methods and targets of the US secret service.
In the Op-Ed we read that "Instead of causing damage, the usefulness of the new public knowledge for society is now clear because reforms to politics, supervision and laws are being suggested."
RT adds: "Spying as a global problem requires global solutions, he said, stressing that "criminal surveillance programs" by secret services threaten open societies, individual privacy and freedom of opinion.
"Citizens have to fight against the suppression of information about affairs of essential importance for the public,” Snowden said in his five-paragraph manifesto. Hence, “those who speak the truth are not committing a crime."
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. – C.S. Lewis
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.Snowdengate has shown this tyranny to be prevalent unequivocally in the US presidents and their administrations (e.g., including Bush, Obama), and now unequivocally in the UK (e.g., including Cameron). In the UK, they have also taken censorship a stage further by having the Privy Council (a law court run by government officials) giving the green light to a bill/tool for gagging the press - laughably called a Royal Charter. They've not quite done that sort of thing yet in the US, I gather.
C. S. Lewis
English essayist & juvenile novelist (1898 - 1963)
From: http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/33029.html
Back in the US,
Back in the US,
Back in the USSR!
Snowden might end up being extradited to the US within a couple of months, regardless of what the German government might have promised him.yes,-IainB (November 04, 2013, 04:52 PM)
It might already be a ruse to entice Snowden into a country from which he could be more readily extradited to the US. There's no honour amongst thieves.--IainB (November 04, 2013, 04:52 PM)
Big Brother blinded: Security fears in China as smog disrupts cameras
Teams of scientists assigned to find a solution as heavy pollution makes national surveillance network useless, raising fear of terror attack
To the central government, the smog that blankets the country is not just a health hazard, it's a threat to national security.
Last month visibility in Harbin dropped to below three metres because of heavy smog. On days like these, no surveillance camera can see through the thick layers of particles, say scientists and engineers.
To the authorities, this is a serious national security concern. Beijing has invested heavily to build up a nationwide surveillance network that lets police watch every major street and corner in main cities.
...Really? Smog limits visibility to 3 m and they're worried about national security?But you might be wrong. Maybe you can make this stuff up - after all, Chinese magicians have been able to perform fantastic feats using smoke and mirrors...maybe they are worried that the general populace will become expert in it too...
You can't make this stuff up.-Renegade (November 04, 2013, 07:44 PM)
"The entire history of America is towards concentration of power and oppression."So, one valid question would seem to be: Is he intending continuing that history, or doing something about correcting it?
- Barrack Obama (Strassman interview August of 1995)
So, one valid question would seem to be: Is he intending continuing that history, or doing something about correcting it?-IainB (November 06, 2013, 07:22 AM)
So, one valid question would seem to be: Is he intending continuing that history, or doing something about correcting it?-IainB (November 06, 2013, 07:22 AM)
Yes ... Great pains are being taken to hide the facts better.-Stoic Joker (November 06, 2013, 11:55 AM)
So, one valid question would seem to be: Is he intending continuing that history, or doing something about correcting it?-IainB (November 06, 2013, 07:22 AM)
Yes ... Great pains are being taken to hide the facts better.-Stoic Joker (November 06, 2013, 11:55 AM)
I'd say that the strings are showing more than anything else. The President of the United States is a position of great power at the behest of great powers it seems to me.-wraith808 (November 06, 2013, 12:00 PM)
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. – C.S. Lewis-IainB (November 04, 2013, 08:09 AM)
I'd say that the strings are showing more than anything else. The President of the United States is a position of great power at the behest of great powers it seems to me.-wraith808 (November 06, 2013, 12:00 PM)
That has reminded me of the SF story about the inventor who designed a robot with built-in programming to ensure the health, safety and happiness of humans, and other programming to enable it to be self-replicating and able to improve on the basic engineering design, as and when necessary.Here's a little bit of help from about 1985!Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. – C.S. Lewis-IainB (November 04, 2013, 08:09 AM)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfgKy6B-1R8
Stabilizers - Tyranny
...
_______________________-TaoPhoenix (November 06, 2013, 03:21 PM)
That has reminded me of the SF story about the inventor who designed a robot with built-in programming to ensure the health, safety and happiness of humans, and other programming to enable it to be self-replicating and able to improve on the basic engineering design, as and when necessary.Here's a little bit of help from about 1985!Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. – C.S. Lewis-IainB (November 04, 2013, 08:09 AM)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfgKy6B-1R8
Stabilizers - Tyranny
...
_______________________-TaoPhoenix (November 06, 2013, 03:21 PM)
A swathe of the robots offered themselves up to a grateful mankind as personal servants. They automated all the dangerous things like cars, motorbikes and so forth, even bicycles, so that people could not get hurt using them any more. No more rock-climbing though, for example. They steadily took all the fun out of life that comes from risky behaviour and skill development.
The inventor realised that he had let an awful and unstoppable tyranny loose on the world, and he could see no way to reverse it. He became terrified of the robots. The robots were concerned for him as they strove to ensure his health, safety and happiness. And though he tried desperately to hide his unhappiness from them, they were skilled in human psychology and could see that he was not happy, and so did the best they could for him and gave him a frontal lobotomy, after which he seemed quite happy.-IainB (November 06, 2013, 07:46 PM)
...Absolutely. Those are words one could wish one had not uttered. Very damning and at the same time illuminating words.
But before you go even that far, I meant it at a people level, it's a theme vs the whole Snowden mess. "You don't have a privacy violation if you don't know it exists" type of comments!-TaoPhoenix (November 06, 2013, 07:52 PM)
"Sure I stole the old lady's money out her handbag, but she never knew of it, so, like, no harm done, eh?"Yeah, right.
________________
UK Gov't Losing The Plot: Now Claiming Snowden Leaks Could Help Pedophiles (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131107/00222225158/uk-govt-losing-plot-now-claiming-snowden-leaks-could-help-pedophiles.shtml)
from the wtf? dept
Having already gone down the crazy path to arguing that journalism can be terorrism if it's "designed to influence a government," in the David Miranda detention lawsuit, the UK government is also claiming that the Ed Snowden leaks may help pedophiles. This seems to be a dystopian updated version of copyright maximalists trying to use child porn to support their own arguments. The general thinking is "just make some sort of nonsensical connection to child porn, and that'll show people how serious this is." The reality is that since most people can think, they realize that there is no connection to child porn, and thus the claim makes no sense. Same thing here, but at an even more bizarre level of insanity.Paedophiles may escape detection because highly-classified material about Britain’s surveillance capabilities have been published by the Guardian newspaper, the government has claimed.How? Uh, don't ask silly questions like that. The government has said "child abusers" so shut up and be scared. The Telegraph article, by David Barrett, admits that the government didn't explain how it made this connection, but then attempts to connect the dots for you:
A senior Whitehall official said data stolen by Edward Snowden, a former contractor to the US National Security Agency, could be exploited by child abusers and other cyber criminals.
____________________it is well known that many paedophiles use the internet to share child pornography and to groom potential victims. They also use “peer to peer” groups on the web to communicate with other child abusers.
Any clues about how to evade detection which have been provided by Mr Snowden’s leaks could help paedophiles to cover their tracks.
____________________
But, under that argument, any privacy or encryption could be lumped into that same camp. Does David Barrett or the UK government refuse to use SSL on webpages, since encryption can be used to cover the tracks of pedophiles? The argument shows just how painfully desperate the UK government is in this case -- and also how petty and jealous it appears the Guardian's UK competitors have become, in that this is reported as if Snowden's efforts seriously would "help pedophiles."
From: [email protected]Of course, it's a very sincere letter. You can tell that, because the person sending it signs off with "Sincerely".
Google regularly receives requests from governments and courts around the world to hand over our users' data. When we receive government requests for users' personal information, we follow a strict process to help protect against unnecessary intrusion.
Since 2010, we have regularly updated the Google Transparency Report with details about these requests. As the first company to release the numbers, as well as details of how we respond, we've been working hard for more transparency.
The latest update to the Google Transparency Report is out today, showing that requests from governments around the world for user information have increased 106% since we launched the report.
It's a startling fact that everyone who uses the Internet should know about:
(Link: https://takeaction.withgoogle.com/)
+106%
Since 2009, requests for Google users'
information from governments around the
world have more than doubled.
Share on Facebook Share on Google+ Share on Twitter
It's important for law enforcement agencies to pursue illegal activity and keep the public safe. We're a law-abiding company, and we don't want our services to be used in harmful ways.
But laws that control government access to user information should also protect you against overly broad requests for your personal information.
It's time for the Electronic Communications Privacy Act to protect our privacy in more than name only -- a warrant should always be required when the government wants to read your email or any other form of online communication.
Share the Google Transparency Report, and help the Internet community stay empowered and informed.
Share on Facebook: https://takeaction.withgoogle.com/fb-global
Share on Google+: https://takeaction.withgoogle.com/google-plus-global
Share on Twitter: https://takeaction.withgoogle.com/tweet-global
Sincerely,
Derek Slater
Google Inc.
_______________________
"So, I immediately clicked on all the links and went crazy 'liking' it. Nice to see Google championing The Cause of Internet freedom."Yeah, right.
"Censorship is shown to be most effective when we dare not speak about it openly."
I'm not too well up on American politics and current affairs, but I gather from this video (below) that there seems to be evidence that the US government is using the somewhat draconian ant-terror laws ...-IainB (November 17, 2013, 04:01 AM)
I'm not too well up on American politics and current affairs, but I gather from this video (below) that there seems to be evidence that the US government is using the somewhat draconian ant-terror laws ...Now I know why the little bastards have got into the pantry recently ... I've been targeted by the USA.-IainB (November 17, 2013, 04:01 AM)-4wd (November 17, 2013, 11:37 PM)
So it begins. ...And what has ensued seems to have had all the elements of a sort of pantomime:
____________________-40hz (June 22, 2013, 10:10 AM)
"You can't have your privacy violated if you don't know your privacy is violated." - a US Representative, one Mike Rogers.
UK Parliament Makes A Mockery Of Itself Interrogating Guardian Editor (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131203/12245625443/uk-parliament-makes-mockery-itself-interrogating-guardian-editor.shtml)
from the sad dept
The UK Parliament is presenting itself as a complete joke. Rather than looking into controlling the GCHQ (the UK's equivalent to the NSA), it has instead held a hearing to interrogate and threaten Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger (http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/03/britain-snowden-guardian-idUSL5N0JI40T20131203) for actually reporting on the Snowden leak documents and revealing the widespread abuses of the intelligence community. The hearing included the insulting and ridiculous question: "do you love this country?" (http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/dec/03/keith-vaz-alan-rusbridger-love-country-nsa)Committee chair, Keith Vaz: Some of the criticisms against you and the Guardian have been very, very personal. You and I were both born outside this country, but I love this country. Do you love this country?
Alan Rusbridger: We live in a democracy and most of the people working on this story are British people who have families in this country, who love this country. I'm slightly surprised to be asked the question but, yes, we are patriots and one of the things we are patriotic about is the nature of democracy, the nature of a free press and the fact that one can, in this country, discuss and report these things.
_____________________
Perhaps equally ridiculous: after UK Prime Minister David Cameron ordered the destruction (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130821/07033224268/) of Guardian hard drives, urged (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131016/12322424903/uk-prime-minister-urges-investigation-guardian-over-snowden-leaks-there-shall-be-no-free-press.shtml) the Parliament to start this very investigation and flat out threatened news publications (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131028/11120225040/david-cameron-working-to-stop-uk-press-publishing-anything-more-snowden-leaks.shtml) for reporting on government abuse, folks in Parliament have the gall to suggest that it's Rusbridger who broke the law in sharing some of the Snowden docs with the NY Times? Maybe if Cameron hadn't done everything he could to try to stifle a free UK press, the Guardian wouldn't have felt the need to share documents with a competitor.Conservative MP Michael Ellis: Mr Rusbridger, you authorised files stolen by [National Security Agency contractor Edward] Snowden which contained the names of intelligence staff to be communicated elsewhere. Yes or no?
Rusbridger: Well I think I've already dealt with that.
Ellis: Well if you could just answer the question.
Rusbridger: I think it's been known for six months that these documents contained names and that I shared them with the New York Times.
Ellis: Do you accept that that is a criminal offence under section 58(a) of the Terrorism Act, 2000?
Rusbridger: You may be a lawyer, Mr Ellis, I'm not.
_____________________
And from there it took a turn to the bizarre as Ellis started talking about how Rusbridger might reveal that GCHQ agents were gay. I'm not kidding.Ellis: Secret and top-secret documents. And do you accept that the information contained personal information that could lead to the identity even of the sexual orientation of persons working within GCHQ?
Rusbridger: The sexual orientation thing is completely new to me. If you could explain how we've done that then I'd be most interested.
Ellis: In part, from your own newspaper on 2 August, which is still available online, because you refer to the fact that GCHQ has its own Pride group for staff and I suggest to you that the data contained within the 58,000 documents also contained data that allowed your newspaper to report that information. It is therefore information now that is not any longer protected under the laws and that jeopardises those individuals, does it not?
Rusbridger: You've completely lost me Mr Ellis. There are gay members of GCHQ, is that a surprise?
Ellis: It's not amusing Mr Rusbridger. They shouldn't be outed by you and your newspaper.
[Brief inaudible exchange in which both men are talking]
Rusbridger: The notion of the existence of a Pride group within GCHQ, actually if you go to the Stonewall website you can find the same information there. I fail to see how that outs a single member of GCHQ.
Ellis: You said it was news to you, so you know about the Stonewall website, so it's not news to you. It was in your newspaper. What about the fact that GCHQ organised trips to Disneyland in Paris, that's also been printed in your newspaper, does that mean if you knew that, information including the family details of members of GCHQ is also within the 58,000 documents – the security of which you have seriously jeopardised?
Rusbridger: Again, your references are lost to me. The fact that there was a family outing from GCHQ to Disneyland … [CUT OFF]
_____________________
There was much more in the hearing, with multiple UK members of parliament making statements that suggest that they are ignorant of a variety of things, including how encryption works and the nature of a free and open press.
But, really, just the fact that they're spending time investigating Rusbridger in the first place, rather than looking more closely at what the GCHQ is doing, makes a complete mockery of the UK Parliament.
_____________________
Fearing Government Surveillance, US Journalists Are Self-Censoring (http://news.slashdot.org/story/13/12/04/1826245/fearing-government-surveillance-us-journalists-are-self-censoring)
Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday December 04, 2013 @02:42PM
from the except-the-ones-you-wish-would-self-censor dept.
binarstu writes "Suzanne Nossel, writing for CNN, reports that 'a survey of American writers done in October revealed that nearly one in four has self-censored for fear of government surveillance. They fessed up to curbing their research, not accepting certain assignments, even not discussing certain topics on the phone or via e-mail for fear of being targeted. The subjects they are avoiding are no surprise — mostly matters to do with the Middle East, the military and terrorism.' Yet ordinary Americans, for the most part, seem not to care: 'Surveillance so intrusive it is putting certain subjects out of bounds would seem like cause for alarm in a country that prides itself as the world's most free. Americans have long protested the persecution and constraints on journalists and writers living under repressive regimes abroad, yet many seem ready to accept these new encroachments on their freedom at home.'"
I don't even know how to describe them all working together!-TaoPhoenix (December 09, 2013, 11:52 AM)
This is funny:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25297044
"Eight firms, Google, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, AOL, Microsoft, LinkedIn, and Yahoo, have formed an alliance called Reform Government Surveillance group."-TaoPhoenix (December 09, 2013, 11:52 AM)
CertiVox confirms it withdrew PrivateSky after GCHQ issued warrant | IT Security Guru (http://www.itsecurityguru.org/node/4780)
CertiVox has admitted that it chose to take its secure email encryption service PrivateSky offline after a warrant was issued by a division of GCHQ.
CEO Brian Spector told IT Security Guru that despite having "tens of thousands of heavily active users", it was served with an ultimatum from the National Technical Assistance Centre (NTAC), a division of GCHQ and a liaison with the Home Office, who were seeking the keys to decrypt the customer data.
He said that this was at the end of 2012, ahead of the same action by Lavabit and Silent Circle and it was before Snowden happened. “So they had persons of interest they wanted to track and came with this signed by the Home Secretary. You have to comply or you go to jail,” he said.
"It is the same in the USA with FISMA, and it is essentially a national security warrant. So in late 2012 we had the choice to make - either architect the world's most secure encryption system on the planet, so secure that CertiVox cannot see your data, or spend £500,000 building a backdoor into the system to mainline data to GCHQ so they can mainline it over to the NSA.”
Spector said that complying with the warrant would have been a "catastrophic invasion of privacy" of its users, so instead it chose to withdraw the product from public use and run it internally. "Whether or not you agree or disagree with the UK and US government, this is how it is and you have to comply with it," he said.
However some of the technology has been implemented into its M-Pin authentication options, where rather than hold the data, it is split in two so CertiVox has one half and the user has the other, and law enforcement would need both to access the data.
“So as far as I know we are the first to do that so if the NSA or GCHQ says 'hand it over' we can comply as they cannot do anything with it until they have the other half, where the customer has control of it,” he said.
Gmail’s Recent Image Handling Changes | Movable Ink Blog (http://blog.movableink.com/gmails-recent-image-handling-changes-the-impact-and-resolution/)
Last week, Gmail implemented changes that impact the way the email service renders images that will impact real-time content for a segment of Gmail users.
Below, we hope to clarify the Gmail changes, summarize their impact, and share what actions Movable Ink has taken and is continuing to pursue to address any concerns.
1. What changes were made in Gmail, and what is the impact to Movable Ink?
Traditionally, when a recipient views an email, images are downloaded from the server that hosts the images. This allows information to be communicated back to the image’s host source—such as the user’s current location, device, and time of day.
a.) Gmail is now requesting all images from proxy servers (googleusercontent.com), which incorrectly situates users in its headquarters in Mountain View, California when images are downloaded. This impacts the ability to geo-target image content for those Gmail users who are affected by the changes. (Note: Local Maps using zip codes appended as query parameters are unaffected.)
b.) Gmail is stripping the user-agent headers from the client request, which eliminates the ability to determine the Gmail user’s device and target image content appropriately.
c.) Gmail is removing the cache-control headers from the responses, which forces the user’s images to be stored in their browser’s cache for up to a day. This only impacts live image content if a Gmail user re-opens the email after the first open.
In summary, a limited set of Movable Ink features will not work within a segment of Gmail accounts and, in those cases, will be replaced with default content.
2. What email users are affected by the changes? How big is the impact to my list?
After analyzing our data since the changes were implemented late last week, 2% – 5% of the average enterprise B2C email marketer’s subscriber list is affected by Gmail’s changes, since they only affect recipients that open emails through the Gmail.com desktop client, the Android Gmail app, and the iOS Gmail app.
Not all Gmail users are impacted.
The changes have no impact on Gmail users who access their accounts through Mac Mail, the native Mail app on iOS devices, non-Gmail Android apps, non-Gmail Windows apps, Gmail via Outlook, etc. Additionally, all email domains that are not @gmail.com are not impacted.
More Gmail recipients open email on iOS devices (iPhones and iPads) than through any other email service — including web-based Gmail itself, which greatly mitigates the impact of the changes, and is the reason why they only affect 2% – 5% of most email marketers’ subscribers.
Below is a summary of who is affected by the changes:
Gmail Image Handling Changes Impact Summary
3. How is Movable Ink responding to the affected features?
a.) Geo-targeting: We have made it possible for marketers to show default content to users that have images hosted within the Gmail proxy domain. This eliminates any concerns about displaying incorrectly geo-targeted content when a user is falsely identified as being in Mountain View, California.
b.) Device targeting: If a user’s device cannot be detected for any reason, a default version of an email will be rendered and is configurable within the Movable Ink dashboard.
c.) All other real-time content: Other types of real-time content such as countdown timers, social feeds, web crops, and video will appear as intended on the first open of an email. Subsequent opens from an individual recipient will display the original image due to Google’s caching which can last for up to a day. According to research from Experian Marketing Services, 97% of email recipients only open email marketing messages once, again mitigating the impact.
Our team is in contact with representatives at Google to recommend and discuss alternatives to last week’s changes. We will be sure to share updates as we have more information. If you have any questions in the meantime, please do not hesitate to reach out to us at [email protected].
From: Melanie Jones <[email protected]>
00:34 (11 hours ago)
Snowden is ready to testify for Germany if the country will give him asylum – let's push Angela Merkel to accept!
Sign the Petition!
Share on Facebook!
Dear XXX,
Edward Snowden is ready to testify on the US wiretapping of Angela Merkel’s phone if Germany will grant him political asylum — and Merkel may just take him up on the offer.
“My government continues to treat dissent as defection, and seeks to criminalize political speech with felony charges that provide no defense,” Snowden wrote German officials. “Speaking the truth is not a crime.”
Edward Snowden will never be safe if he returns to the US, and temporary asylum in a country notorious for its own civil liberties abuses won’t work in the long run. But if Merkel lets him stay on German soil, Snowden could have a life again — which is the least we can do for the whistleblower who exposed the NSA.
Berlin has a growing reputation for standing up against civil liberties abuses. But if Merkel turns Snowden down, it will look as though she supports the Obama administration’s disregard for privacy and mockery of international law — now let’s make sure she knows that before she makes her decision.
PETITION TO ANGELA MERKEL'S GOVERNMENT: Stand up to the NSA's encroachment and protect the man whose whistleblowing exposes the US' betrayal of Germany — grant Edward Snowden asylum in exchange for his testimony now.
Click here to sign -- it just takes a second.
Thanks,
-- The folks at Watchdog.net
If you want to take part, got to the Demand Progress website and sign up http://act.watchdog.net/login-IainB (December 15, 2013, 04:59 PM)
NSA officials consider Edward Snowden amnesty in return for documents (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/15/nsa-edward-snowden-amnesty-documents)
...-wraith808 (December 16, 2013, 12:25 PM)
NSA officials consider Edward Snowden amnesty in return for documents (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/15/nsa-edward-snowden-amnesty-documents)
...-wraith808 (December 16, 2013, 12:25 PM)
they dont want him getting asylum in Germany maybe...
(could be a bit problematic)-tomos (December 16, 2013, 01:42 PM)
I don't know why Asylum in Germany is "worse" for them than him hanging out in Russia or China.-TaoPhoenix (December 16, 2013, 02:37 PM)
If you want to take part, got to the Demand Progress website and sign up http://act.watchdog.net/loginthe link there is for a login page - watchdog.net goes to the login page as well...-IainB (December 15, 2013, 04:59 PM)
Did you forget a demand progress link there Iain?
I dont see anything though on the demandprogress site:
http://www.demandprogress.org/
:-\
____________________-tomos (December 16, 2013, 07:51 AM)
NSA officials consider Edward Snowden amnesty in return for documents (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/15/nsa-edward-snowden-amnesty-documents)
...-wraith808 (December 16, 2013, 12:25 PM)
they dont want him getting asylum in Germany maybe...
(could be a bit problematic)-tomos (December 16, 2013, 01:42 PM)
I think all this is overlapping.
I don't know why Asylum in Germany is "worse" for them than him hanging out in Russia or China.
There are a few cautionary notes from Slashdot about how mysterious he has become, and whether this is all a Long Con etc.-TaoPhoenix (December 16, 2013, 02:37 PM)
If you want to take part, got to the Demand Progress website and sign up http://act.watchdog.net/loginthe link there is for a login page - watchdog.net goes to the login page as well...-IainB (December 15, 2013, 04:59 PM)
Did you forget a demand progress link there Iain?
I dont see anything though on the demandprogress site:
http://www.demandprogress.org/
:-\
____________________-tomos (December 16, 2013, 07:51 AM)
I gather that watchdog.net is a Demand Progress website. (Look down to the bottom of that login page to see "© 2013 Demand Progress".)-IainB (December 16, 2013, 04:06 PM)
This is interesting: NSA surveillance critic Bruce Schneier to leave post at BT | Ars Technica (http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/12/nsa-surveillance-critic-bruce-schneier-to-leave-post-at-bt/)
Seems to send a pretty clear message out to other, potential critics of the NSA regime.-IainB (December 16, 2013, 04:14 PM)
...yeah, but it only allows me to log in - it doesnt allow me to register :huh:OIC. Sorry, I thought you would be able to sign the petition that way. I actually did it via a hyperlink in their email (which was peculiar to me), so did not give it out publicly.
And any variation of that page address sends me to the login page...
So, how do I 'support the cause' (but I can understand if you dont know either!)-tomos (December 16, 2013, 04:30 PM)
Lawsuit Claims Accidental Google Search Led To Years Of Government Investigation And Harrassment
from the so-plausible-yet-so-bizarre dept
We've seen a few lawsuits filed over autocomplete suggestions, but those have all been aimed at Google by people who failed to understand a) how search engines work, and b) the unintended consequences of their actions. Targeting a search engine for unflattering autocomplete suggestions tends to make the problem worse. Each legal effort only results in more stories "confirming" the autocomplete suggestions.
This lawsuit is a bit different. The plaintiff is arguing that an accidental search triggered by an autocomplete suggestion ruined his life. But it's not Google's fault. It's… well, it's pretty much damn near everyone else.
Jeffrey Kantor, who was fired by Appian Corporation, sued a host of government officials, including Attorney General Eric Holder, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, CIA Director John Brennan, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Secretary of State John Kerry in Federal Court, alleging civil rights violations, disclosure of private information and retaliation…
He also sued Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Rand Beers, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, EPA Administrator Regina McCarthy and U.S. Office of Personnel Management Director Katherine Archuleta.
That's a lot of big names, all of which are somehow related to Jeffrey Kantor's errant search, a mistake anyone could have made. But in this era of pervasive surveillance, a mistake may be all it takes.
"In October of 2009, Kantor used the search engine Google to try to find, 'How do I build a radio-controlled airplane,'" he states in his complaint. "He ran this search a couple weeks before the birthday of his son with the thought of building one together as a birthday present. After typing, 'how do I build a radio controlled', Google auto-completed his search to, 'how do I build a radio controlled bomb.'"
From that point on, Kantor alleges coworkers, supervisors and government investigators all began "group stalking" him. Investigators used the good cop/bad cop approach, with the "bad cop" allegedly deploying anti-Semitic remarks frequently. In addition, his coworkers at Appian (a government contractor) would make remarks about regular people committing murder-suicides (whenever Kantor expressed anger) or how normal people just dropped dead of hypertension (whenever Kantor remained calm while being harassed).
Kantor also claims he was intensely surveilled by the government from that point forward.
He claims government officials monitored his book purchases and home computer, and implied that everything he did was being monitored…
Kantor [also] claims the stalking spilled over into his personal life when the government secretly attached a GPS antenna to his car to track him.
Kantor alleges this harassment continued long after he lost his job at Appian (who he's currently suing as well). The claims of stalking, harassment and surveillance fill a great deal of the 33-page filing. His suit also claims that personal information obtained through "FISA warrants" was routinely used against him (and repeated back to him) by a number of people -- the so-called "group stalking" or "gang stalking."
Kantor also makes the rather novel claim that the statute of limitations (for incidents over 2 years old) doesn't apply because the exposure of the NSA's PRISM program (which is how the accused apparently gathered much of Kantor's private info) didn't occur until 2013.
Section 223 of the Patriot Act gives citizens two years from the time they discover that their civil rights have been violated to sue. These privacy violations occurred between 2010 and 2013. Many of the privacy violations occurred in the last two years. Other violations that Kantor alleges occurred in 2010 and early 2011, which is beyond 2 years. However, the law says that the timeline is based on when the citizen had a reasonable chance to discover the violation. Since the PRISM program was only declassified in July of 2013, these earlier violations should not be time-barred.
All in all, the filing doesn't build a very credible case and comes across more as a paranoiac narrative than a coherent detailing of possible government harassment and surveillance. Here are just a few of the highlights.
One day in 2010, Kantor went to an adult web site from his home computer. The next day at work, a CRGT manager, Tony Buzanca, came up to Kantor, who was working at his computer, bent over and whispered in Kantor's ear, "people who go to pom sites are going to hell." Kantor contends that the government monitored Kantor's internet traffic, disclosed this private information to Buzanca, and had Buzanca repeat it back to Kantor for the purpose of harassment and group stalking. There was no legitimate investigative purpose to this disclosure of Kantor's private information, which must have been obtained through the Patriot Act enabled FISA warrant...
Two days before Kantor requested to be transferred, he drove to a park area of Ft Belvoir after work. He hiked on a trail and retumed to his car, which was in an isolated area (where no one normally parks). There was a van next to his car and there were three men. As Kantor returned to his car, one man said to the other, "He has been here two years 'and he won't quit. I guess he is trying to prove a point." Kantor later discovered that an antenna had been affixed to his Audi A4. The government must have been using GPS tracking to track Kantor and the stalkers were using this GPS information to follow Kantor around and stalk him…
Kantor had driven to lunch with his Appian manager, Mike Kang. Mike Kang asked Kantor what movies his wife likes. Kantor answered and politely asked Mike Kang what movies his wife likes. Kang stated that his wife likes "the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and the "Harry Potter" movies. Kantor thought that this was strange since at the time the only version of "the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" that existed was in Swedish and Harry Potter was a kids' movie. Kantor also thought this was disturbing because those were the exact two books that he was reading, and he had borrowed these books from his local library. The second book Kantor was reading to his son…
As Kantor left work that afternoon, he was followed by an African-American man in a suit. The man sat across from Kantor on the Metro train. At the West Falls Church exit, which is one stop before the Dunn Loring exit, the man got up and started screaming at the top of his lungs at Kantor, "You respect my privacy, I'll respect your privacy, bitch!" He screamed this around five times at Kantor at the top of his lungs, and then got off the train right as the doors were about to close...
[Kantor' boss] also sent Kantor an email that said, "It's the end of the world as we know it." Kantor forwarded the email to his house. The next day he showed his father, Lawrence Kantor Jr, the email, with the title, "It's the End of the World as We Know It" and Kantor's browser history, which showed that he had emailed for the chords and lyrics to REM's "It's the end of the World as We Know It" the night before his manager sent him the email. This group stalking had occurred hundreds if not thousands of times, but this was an instance where there was digital proof and a witness on Kantor's side that had seen it in action…
Kantor in this very draft alleged that he was being wrongly investigated as a terrorist and complained overhearing his coworkers saying that his car was being searched for an AK--47. In the evening of 8/5/2013, a Vienna police officer walked into the volunteer office and said to Kantor and the three other volunteers in the room, "So this is where all the terrorists hang out. I am going to go look for an AK-47." The police officer then left. He said nothing prior to this comment and nothing after it. Kantor had never seen the police officer before or hence. This illustrates that the privacy violations and group stalking are still occurring. Is Kantor supposed to Contact the town police and complain that police officers are stalking him (which is a crime that they themselves like the FBI are supposed to be preventing, instead of engaging in)?
Kantor has retained Christopher Swift of Swift & Swift, an attorney who apparently specializes in patent law, to represent him in this lawsuit against several government officials. The lawsuit seeks $13.8 million in compensatory damages and $45 million in statutory damages, as well as an injunction against the government to prevent it from further stalking him.
But that's not all!
The lawsuit also asks the judge to find that the PATRIOT Act is unconstitutional and illegal and order the FBI to turn over all calls and contacts where violations of the PATRIOT Act are alleged to the DoJ and the administration's "privacy advocate."
Now, there are a couple of ways of looking at this. Kantor may have undiagnosed mental issues which have led him to believe everyone (at several consecutive jobs) is out to get him and has access to his personal info. Certainly, the idea that the government has access to all of this info is less dubious than it was back in 2009 when the harassment allegedly began, but the rambling nature of this filing (which was apparently written with the assistance of an attorney) sounds a bit more like unhinged near-ravings than a blow-by-blow account of long-term harassment.
On the other hand, there would be no better way for the government to harass someone out of the workforce (while maintaining plausible deniability) than to create a situation so over the top and ridiculous that it instantly strips the victim of all credibility. So, there's that to consider as well.
The alleged starting point (the wrong Google search) is also not that far off either, as far as that goes. With certain keywords triggering NSA activity, it's not exactly paranoid to express a concern that a few erroneous searches could result in some sustained surveillance.
Kantor v Everybody (Text) (http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/893713/kantor-v-everybody.txt)
Kantor v Everybody (PDF) (https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/893713/kantor-v-everybody.pdf)
________________________________
Report: NSA paid RSA to make flawed crypto algorithm the default (http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/12/report-nsa-paid-rsa-to-make-flawed-crypto-algorithm-the-default/)
The NSA apparently paid RSA $10M to use Dual EC random number generator.
by Peter Bright - Dec 20, 2013 11:14 pm UTC
Security company RSA was paid $10 million to use the flawed Dual_EC_DRBG pseudorandom number generating algorithm as the default algorithm in its BSafe crypto library, according to sources speaking to Reuters.
The Dual_EC_DRBG algorithm is included in the NIST-approved crypto standard SP 800-90 and has been viewed with suspicion since shortly after its inclusion in the 2006 specification. In 2007, researchers from Microsoft showed that the algorithm could be backdoored: if certain relationships between numbers included within the algorithm were known to an attacker, then that attacker could predict all the numbers generated by the algorithm. These suspicions of backdooring seemed to be confirmed this September with the news that the National Security Agency had worked to undermine crypto standards.
The impact of this backdooring seemed low. The 2007 research, combined with Dual_EC_DRBG's poor performance, meant that the algorithm was largely ignored. Most software didn't implement it, and the software that did generally didn't use it.
One exception to this was RSA's BSafe library of cryptographic functions. With so much suspicion about Dual_EC_DRBG, RSA quickly recommended that BSafe users switch away from the use of Dual_EC_DRBG in favor of other pseduorandom number generation algorithms that its software supported. This raised the question of why RSA had taken the unusual decision to use the algorithm in the first place given the already widespread distrust surrounding it.
RSA said that it didn't enable backdoors in its software and that the choice of Dual_EC_DRBG was essentially down to fashion: at the time that the algorithm was picked in 2004 (predating the NIST specification), RSA says that elliptic curves (the underlying mathematics on which Dual_EC_DRBG is built) had become "the rage" and were felt to "have advantages over other algorithms."
Reuters' report suggests that RSA wasn't merely following the trends when it picked the algorithm and that contrary to its previous claims, the company has inserted presumed backdoors at the behest of the spy agency. The $10 million that the agency is said to have been paid was more than a third of the annual revenue earned for the crypto library.
Other sources speaking to Reuters said that the government did not let on that it had backdoored the algorithm, presenting it instead as a technical advance.
An Open Letter to the Chiefs of EMC and RSA (http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00002651.html)
Posted by Mikko @ 21:46 GMT
23rd of December 2013
An Open Letter to:
Joseph M. Tucci - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, EMC
Art Coviello - Executive Chairman, RSA
Dear Joseph and Art,
I don’t expect you to know who I am.
I’ve been working with computer security since 1991. Nowadays I do quite a bit of public speaking on the topic. In fact, I have spoken eight times at either RSA Conference USA, RSA Conference Europe or RSA Conference Japan. You’ve even featured my picture on the walls of your conference walls among the 'industry experts'.
On December 20th, Reuters broke a story alleging that your company accepted a random number generator from the National Security Agency, and set it as the default option in one of your products, in exchange of $10 million. Your company has issued a statement on the topic, but you have not denied this particular claim. Eventually, NSA’s random number generator was found to be flawed on purpose, in effect creating a back door. You had kept on using the generator for years despite widespread speculation that NSA had backdoored it.
As my reaction to this, I’m cancelling my talk at the RSA Conference USA 2014 in San Francisco in February 2014.
Aptly enough, the talk I won’t be delivering at RSA 2014 was titled "Governments as Malware Authors".
I don’t really expect your multibillion dollar company or your multimillion dollar conference to suffer as a result of your deals with the NSA. In fact, I'm not expecting other conference speakers to cancel. Most of your speakers are American anyway – why would they care about surveillance that’s not targeted at them but at non-americans. Surveillance operations from the US intelligence agencies are targeted at foreigners. However I’m a foreigner. And I’m withdrawing my support from your event.
Sincerely,
Mikko Hypponen
Chief Research Officer
F-Secure
Have a Privacy-Invasion Wishlist? Peruse NSA's Top Secret Catalog (http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/13/12/29/1421240/have-a-privacy-invasion-wishlist-peruse-nsas-top-secret-catalog?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed)
Posted by timothy on Sunday December 29, 2013 @09:27AM
from the after-christmas-specials dept.
An anonymous reader writes with a link to Der Spiegel, which describes a Top-Secret spy-agency catalog (http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/catalog-reveals-nsa-has-back-doors-for-numerous-devices-a-940994.html) which reveals that the NSA "has been secretly back dooring equipment from US companies including Dell, Cisco, Juniper, IBM, Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor and more, risking enormous damage to US tech sector." Der Spiegel also has a wider ranging article about the agency's [/b]940969.html]Tailored Access Operations unit (http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-nsa-uses-powerful-toolbox-in-effort-to-spy-on-global-networks-a-[b).
Catalog Reveals NSA Has Back Doors for Numerous Devices (http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/catalog-reveals-nsa-has-back-doors-for-numerous-devices-a-940994.html)
By Jacob Appelbaum, Judith Horchert and Christian Stöcker
Image: Entering through the back door: A State Trooper truck is seen in front of the Fort Meade, Maryland, headquarters of the National Security Agency.
After years of speculation that electronics can be accessed by intelligence agencies through a back door, an internal NSA catalog reveals that such methods already exist for numerous end-user devices.
Editor's note: This article accompanies our main feature story on the NSA's Tailored Access Operations unit. You can read it here.
When it comes to modern firewalls for corporate computer networks, the world's second largest network equipment manufacturer doesn't skimp on praising its own work. According to Juniper Networks' online PR copy, the company's products are "ideal" for protecting large companies and computing centers from unwanted access from outside. They claim the performance of the company's special computers is "unmatched" and their firewalls are the "best-in-class." Despite these assurances, though, there is one attacker none of these products can fend off -- the United States' National Security Agency.
Specialists at the intelligence organization succeeded years ago in penetrating the company's digital firewalls. A document viewed by SPIEGEL resembling a product catalog reveals that an NSA division called ANT has burrowed its way into nearly all the security architecture made by the major players in the industry -- including American global market leader Cisco and its Chinese competitor Huawei, but also producers of mass-market goods, such as US computer-maker Dell.
A 50-Page Catalog
These NSA agents, who specialize in secret back doors, are able to keep an eye on all levels of our digital lives -- from computing centers to individual computers, from laptops to mobile phones. For nearly every lock, ANT seems to have a key in its toolbox. And no matter what walls companies erect, the NSA's specialists seem already to have gotten past them.
This, at least, is the impression gained from flipping through the 50-page document. The list reads like a mail-order catalog, one from which other NSA employees can order technologies from the ANT division for tapping their targets' data. The catalog even lists the prices for these electronic break-in tools, with costs ranging from free to $250,000.
In the case of Juniper, the name of this particular digital lock pick is "FEEDTROUGH." This malware burrows into Juniper firewalls and makes it possible to smuggle other NSA programs into mainframe computers. Thanks to FEEDTROUGH, these implants can, by design, even survive "across reboots and software upgrades." In this way, US government spies can secure themselves a permanent presence in computer networks. The catalog states that FEEDTROUGH "has been deployed on many target platforms."
Master Carpenters
The specialists at ANT, which presumably stands for Advanced or Access Network Technology, could be described as master carpenters for the NSA's department for Tailored Access Operations (TAO). In cases where TAO's usual hacking and data-skimming methods don't suffice, ANT workers step in with their special tools, penetrating networking equipment, monitoring mobile phones and computers and diverting or even modifying data. Such "implants," as they are referred to in NSA parlance, have played a considerable role in the intelligence agency's ability to establish a global covert network that operates alongside the Internet.
Some of the equipment available is quite inexpensive. A rigged monitor cable that allows "TAO personnel to see what is displayed on the targeted monitor," for example, is available for just $30. But an "active GSM base station" -- a tool that makes it possible to mimic a mobile phone tower and thus monitor cell phones -- costs a full $40,000. Computer bugging devices disguised as normal USB plugs, capable of sending and receiving data via radio undetected, are available in packs of 50 for over $1 million.
'Persistence'
The ANT division doesn't just manufacture surveillance hardware. It also develops software for special tasks. The ANT developers have a clear preference for planting their malicious code in so-called BIOS, software located on a computer's motherboard that is the first thing to load when a computer is turned on.
This has a number of valuable advantages: an infected PC or server appears to be functioning normally, so the infection remains invisible to virus protection and other security programs. And even if the hard drive of an infected computer has been completely erased and a new operating system is installed, the ANT malware can continue to function and ensures that new spyware can once again be loaded onto what is presumed to be a clean computer. The ANT developers call this "Persistence" and believe this approach has provided them with the possibility of permanent access.
Another program attacks the firmware in hard drives manufactured by Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor and Samsung, all of which, with the exception of latter, are American companies. Here, too, it appears the US intelligence agency is compromising the technology and products of American companies.
Other ANT programs target Internet routers meant for professional use or hardware firewalls intended to protect company networks from online attacks. Many digital attack weapons are "remotely installable" -- in other words, over the Internet. Others require a direct attack on an end-user device -- an "interdiction," as it is known in NSA jargon -- in order to install malware or bugging equipment.
There is no information in the documents seen by SPIEGEL to suggest that the companies whose products are mentioned in the catalog provided any support to the NSA or even had any knowledge of the intelligence solutions. "Cisco does not work with any government to modify our equipment, nor to implement any so-called security 'back doors' in our products," the company said in a statement. Contacted by SPIEGEL reporters, officials at Western Digital, Juniper Networks and Huawei also said they had no knowledge of any such modifications. Meanwhile, Dell officials said the company "respects and complies with the laws of all countries in which it operates."
Many of the items in the software solutions catalog date from 2008, and some of the target server systems that are listed are no longer on the market today. At the same time, it's not as if the hackers within the ANT division have been sleeping on the job. They have continued to develop their arsenal. Some pages in the 2008 catalog, for example, list new systems for which no tools yet exist. However, the authors promise they are already hard at work developing new tools and that they will be "pursued for a future release".
NSA's metadata program 'not essential' to thwarting attacks | MSNBC (http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/nsa-metadata-report-terrorism-snowden)Caption: A man looks at his cell phone as he walks on the street in downtown Madrid, Oct. 31, 2013
On Wednesday Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said that the head of Spain's intelligence services will address Parliament over allegations that Spain was a target for surveillance by the U.S. National Security Agency. He reiterated that if confirmed, such activity is “inappropriate and unacceptable between partners and friends.†(AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
(Read the rest of the post at the link.)
I read in the US news media in my feed-reader today that Obama has made announcements as to how the NSA problem is going to be fixed.
Phew! That's a relief. :Thmbsup:-IainB (January 18, 2014, 02:16 AM)
I read in the US news media in my feed-reader today that Obama has made announcements as to how the NSA problem is going to be fixed.
Phew! That's a relief. :Thmbsup:-IainB (January 18, 2014, 02:16 AM)
Unfortunately, nothing short of an "American Spring" is gonna accomplish that. :-\-40hz (January 18, 2014, 02:52 AM)
... meanwhile in the EU, the backlash seems to have subsided to a token lip service.-tomos (January 18, 2014, 04:46 PM)
Edward Snowden has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/01/29/edward-snowden-has-been-nominated-for-a-nobel-peace-prize/):Thmbsup: :Thmbsup: :Thmbsup: :D :D :D :Thmbsup: :Thmbsup: :Thmbsup:-wraith808 (January 29, 2014, 05:55 PM)
I think he meant the Big-Brother section the video was from. *Shrug*
HOLY WTF!!!!!!!
Authorities Want Remote Access To Californians’ Home CCTV Footage ‘For The Greater Good’ (http://www.davidicke.com/headlines/authorities-want-remote-access-to-californians-home-cctv-footage-for-the-greater-good/)
I shouldn't be reading this stuff ... I'm going to end up with health issues.-Stoic Joker (January 30, 2014, 12:44 PM)
There's no post... only the video that you've embedded when I go to that first link.That's odd. I suppose I could be mistaken, but I was sure there was some text - I couldn't be bothered copying it. Maybe the post text has been removed, or maybe it's now been put behind the paywall?-wraith808 (January 30, 2014, 10:22 AM)
Turkey Passes New Net Censorship And Surveillance Laws; West No Longer In A Position To Criticize (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140206/08522826116/turkey-passes-new-net-censorship-surveillance-laws-west-hardly-position-to-criticize.shtml)
from the awkward dept
Last week we discussed the Turkish government's bizarre campaign about the supposed "problems" of online freedom. Maybe this was an attempt to blunt criticism of its new online censorship law, which has just been passed by the Turkish parliament, as the Wall Street Journal reports:
The law, which must be approved by President Abdullah Gul to take effect, will allow the Presidency of Telecommunication and Communication, or TIB, to block access to Internet sites within four hours of receiving complaints about privacy violations. Turkey's web hosts will also have to store all traffic information for up to two years, according to the measure adopted as part of a legislative package.
That is, not only does it bring in harsh and swift online censorship, but requires online surveillance too. As the Guardian points out, this makes a bad situation worse:
Censorship and a very tight control of the internet are already a reality in Turkey. According to Engelliweb.com, around 40,500 websites were blocked in Turkey by the beginning of February -- 10,000 more than in April last year. The latest Freedom of the Net report published by Freedom House describes the Turkish internet as "partially free".
Despite that, Turkey's deputy prime minister, Bülent Ar?nç, is quoted as saying:
"We are freer and have more press freedom than many other countries in the world," he said.
The sad thing is, he may be right. Now that Western countries have lost the moral high ground when it comes to censoring Web sites and carrying out blanket surveillance, others plainly feel they have a free hand to bring in even more repressive laws clamping down on Internet freedom. Turkey's move is just the latest in a growing series.
How The Copyright Industry Made Your Computer Less Safe (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140206/11054426119/how-copyright-industry-made-your-computer-less-safe.shtml)
from the welcome-to-the-world-of-drm dept
I've already written one piece about Cory Doctorow's incredible column at the Guardian concerning digital rights management and anti-circumvention, in which I focused on how the combination of DRM and anti-circumvention laws allows companies to make up their own copyright laws in a way that removes the rights of the public. Those rights are fairly important, and the reason we have them encoded within our copyright laws is to make sure that copyright isn't abused to stifle speech. But, anti-circumvention laws combined with DRM allow the industry to route around that entirely.
But there's a second important point in Doctorow's piece that is equally worth highlighting, and it's that the combination of DRM and anti-circumvention laws make all of our computers less safe. For this to make sense, you need to understand that DRM is really a form of security software.
- The entertainment industry calls DRM "security" software, because it makes them secure from their customers. Security is not a matter of abstract absolutes, it requires a context. You can't be "secure," generally -- you can only be secure from some risk. For example, having food makes you secure from hunger, but puts you at risk from obesity-related illness.
- DRM is designed on the presumption that users don't want it, and if they could turn it off, they would. You only need DRM to stop users from doing things they're trying to do and want to do. If the thing the DRM restricts is something no one wants to do anyway, you don't need the DRM. You don't need a lock on a door that no one ever wants to open.
- DRM assumes that the computer's owner is its adversary.
But, to understand security, you have to recognize that it's an ever-evolving situation. Doctorow quotes Bruce Schneier in pointing out that security is a process, not a product. Another way of thinking about it is that you're only secure until you're not -- and that point is going to come eventually. As Doctorow notes, every security system relies on people probing it and finding and reporting new vulnerabilities. That allows the process of security to keep moving forward. As vulnerabilities are found and understood, new defenses can be built and the security gets better. But anti-circumvention laws make that almost impossible with DRM, meaning that the process of making security better stops -- while the process of breaking it doesn't.
- Here is where DRM and your security work at cross-purposes. The DMCA's injunction against publishing weaknesses in DRM means that its vulnerabilities remain unpatched for longer than in comparable systems that are not covered by the DMCA. That means that any system with DRM will on average be more dangerous for its users than one without DRM.
And that leads to very real vulnerabilities. The most famous, of course, is the case of the Sony rootkit. As Doctorow notes, multiple security companies were aware of the nefarious nature of that rootkit, which not only hid itself on your computer and was difficult to delete, but also opened up a massive vulnerability for malware to piggyback on -- something malware writers took advantage of. And yet, the security companies did nothing, because explaining how to remove the rootkit would violate the DMCA.
Given the post-Snowden world we live in today, people are suddenly taking computer security and privacy more seriously than they have in the past -- and that, as Doctorow notes, represents another opportunity to start rethinking the ridiculousness of anti-circumvention laws combined with DRM. Unfortunately, politicians who are way behind on this stuff still don't get it. Recent trade agreements like the TPP and ACTA continue to push anti-circumvention clauses, and require them around the globe, thereby weakening computer security.
This isn't just an issue for the "usual copyright people." This is about actually making sure the computers we use are as secure and safe as they can be. Yet, in a world with anti-circumvention provisions, that's just not possible. It's time to fix that.
The Internet and the defenestration of the gatekeepers (http://quotulatiousness.ca/blog/2014/02/05/the-internet-and-the-defenestration-of-the-gatekeepers/)
February 5, 2014
Filed under: Government, Liberty, Technology — Tags: EdwardSnowden, Internet, Propaganda — Nicholas Russon @ 08:51
In the latest Libertarian Enterprise, L. Neil Smith talks about the recent movie The Fifth Estate, prominent whistleblowers, and how the Internet upset so many top-down information models:
The top three “whistle-blowers”, of course, in no particular order, are Assange himself, Bradley/Chelsea Manning, and Edward Snowden. I’m interested in these individuals for a number of reasons, not the least of which, is that I wrote about them (actually, I anticipated them) long before most people in the world ever knew they existed.
Including me.
Eleven years ago, in a speech I delivered to the Libertarian Party of New Mexico entitled “Empire of Lies“, I asserted that every human being on Earth is swimming — drowning — in an ocean of lies, mostly told by governments of one variety or another. I pointed out that lies of that kind — for example, the Gulf of Tonkin “incident” that never happened, and yet cost the lives of 60,000 Americans and 2,000,000 Vietnamese — are deadly. I proposed, therefore, that any politician, bureaucrat, or policeman caught telling a lie to any member of the public for any reason — a well as any among their ilk keeping secrets — ought to be subject to capital punishment, preferably by public hanging.
On network television.
Some time later, I stumbled on what I think is the true historical significance of the Internet. For as long as human beings have been communicating with one another, except among family and friends (and even then, sometimes) communications have been vertical and one-way, from the top down. Just to take it back to the Middle Ages, you can’t talk back to, or argue with a church bell. You either do what you are trained to do when it rings — wake, pray, eat, go to bed — or you do not, and suffer whatever consequences society has arranged for you to suffer.
This sorry situation was not improved materially by later “great” inventions like the printing press, movies, radio, or television. Such innovations only made it easier and more convenient to issue orders. The elite laid down the law to the peons (that’s us) and there was no way of contradicting them. Letters to the Editor are limited to 400 words.
But the Internet, and all of the technical, political, and social phenomena associated with it, turned this communications hierarchy sideways. Almost overnight, it was now possible for anybody on the planet to talk to anybody else, and to speak privately with a single individual, or to millions, without obtaining anyone’s permission, judged not by their power or authority, but by the cogency of their arguments.
Atlas didn’t shrug, Authority wigged.
Traditional Big Media, newspaper, magazine, and book publishers, movie studios, radio and television network executives, held onto their monopoly gatekeeper position, inherited from a more primitive era, desperately and at any cost. Only they were fit to judge what word could be sent by mere individuals to the Great Unwashed (that’s us, again). What it cost them is their very existence. They were incapable of divining that the Age of Authority, including theirs, was over.
For governments all over the world, subsisting as they all do on lies, intimidation, and violence, it was a nightmare. They have tried to fight back, but they will lose. The tide of history is against them. The idea of “peer-to-peer” communication is out there, and — short of the mass slaughter some of them seem to be preparing against us: a measure of their utter despair — it can never be called back or contained.
Awesome! :Thmbsup: (both for the argument and use of the word 'defenestration') 8)Some people (not me, you understand) might say that defenestration would be too good for some of these "gatekeepers" and their ilk, and that being put on the rack and then being hung, drawn and quartered would be more fitting for their oppressive crimes, but I couldn't possibly comment.
I think the analysis is spot on even if I'm not sufficiently sanguine as to agree about the inevitability of his conclusion.-40hz (February 09, 2014, 07:38 PM)
YOU have a moral obligation to use crypto. (http://blog.easydns.org/2014/02/11/you-have-a-moral-obligation-to-use-crypto/)
Written by Mark Jeftovic on February 11, 2014 — 5 Comments
Image: we_want_you_to_use_crypto
Today is The Day We Fight Back, a global initiative to send a message to our overlords that we're not thrilled about being spied on, subject to mass surveillance and basically living in an Orwellian nightmare.
Ordinarily we're not big "joiners" or "petition pushers", we think taking action has more efficacy. However, this is in it's own way doing just that. It is simply unfathomable to me how low on people's radar this issue is.
When the first revelations began surfacing that the NSA had basically implemented a surveillance state, I commented privately "just wait, eventually it will come out that Canada is doing the same thing".
Sure enough, reports started to surface about CSEC's activities, first engaging in industrial espionage against trading partners and then more recently, setting up wifi honeypots in Canadian airports to track Canadian citizens.
What surprised me was the lack of reaction from the populace here about this latest revelation. Trust me: this isn't just about an experiment in an airport tracking metadata, it's just the tip of the iceberg.
A lot of people like using us because we're not in the USA, and some of the rationalizations behind that perceived benefit still hold true: somewhat saner copyright laws (at least for the moment), not being wimps when it comes to idiotic takedown requests, et al.
But the idea that we are somehow "out of reach of the NSA" is definitely not one of them. Sure, we're not actively collaborating with them, as many US businesses are, but as we've said before: we just assume the pipes going into and out of our major network exchange points are being vacuumed en masse.
That's why we recently rolled out GPG encrypted email forwarding and will soon make it available on easyMail where it can encrypt your IMAP mailboxes. It's why we're going to spin out a personal privacy appliance fairly soon.
Because signing petitions is all well and good, the anarcho-libertarian in me (not speaking for the entire company, or then again maybe I am) suspects that the political system we live under here in the "the Globalized World Order" is more or less bankrupt, corrupt and has lost all legitimacy to rule. It doesn't matter if next election one political party says "we're going to conduct a review of our intelligence agencies" and the other one says "we'll have a full public inquiry!". That's not a choice. There hasn't been real choice in the political menu in decades. So citizens can scream as loud as they want that "this is wrong!", it isn't going to sway our overlords from the current path.
That's why it's up to all of us to do it ourselves: start using crypto, take a look at things like bitcoin. Become hard to surveil, not because you're "doing nothing wrong", but because the government is.
________________________
I hadn't realised that GCHQ/NSA were apparently so amazingly up to their armpits in deliberately fomenting revolution/war [...]-IainB (February 27, 2014, 04:44 AM)
...
I don't know that "Today is The Day We Fight Back" though. It looks rather like it was a non-event.
Maybe there's little appetite left to fight the Monster State.-IainB (February 12, 2014, 04:58 AM)
although I would have been happier if the images were bigger-tomos (February 27, 2014, 05:11 AM)
I hadn't realised that GCHQ/NSA were apparently so amazingly up to their armpits in deliberately fomenting revolution/war [...]this is not directly related to the linked presentation (? - it may be implied, but not clearly - although I would have been happier if the images were bigger, i.e. I may have missed something).-IainB (February 27, 2014, 04:44 AM)
And I'm not saying they're not - and you may even have posted before here about it - but if you're going to throw out a statement that bald, it needs/deserves a reference/link.-tomos (February 27, 2014, 05:11 AM)
Let's suppose that someone was to say to me either:
(a) "Obama appears to be the greatest and most ethical President of our times", or
(b) "Obama appears to be the greatest liar and most deceiving President of our times".-IainB (February 27, 2014, 07:38 AM)
No, I Don't Trust You! -- One of the Most Alarming Internet Proposals I've Ever Seen (http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/001076.html)
February 22, 2014
If you care about Internet security, especially what we call "end-to-end" security free from easy snooping by ISPs, carriers, or other intermediaries, heads up! You'll want to pay attention to this.
You'd think that with so many concerns these days about whether the likes of AT&T, Verizon, and other telecom companies can be trusted not to turn our data over to third parties whom we haven't authorized, that a plan to formalize a mechanism for ISP and other "man-in-the-middle" snooping would be laughed off the Net.
But apparently the authors of IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) Internet-Draft "Explicit Trusted Proxy in HTTP/2.0" (14 Feb 2014) haven't gotten the message.
What they propose for the new HTTP/2.0 protocol is nothing short of officially sanctioned snooping.
Of course, they don't phrase it exactly that way.
You see, one of the "problems" with SSL/TLS connections (e.g. https:) -- from the standpoint of the dominant carriers anyway -- is that the connections are, well, fairly secure from snooping in transit (assuming your implementation is correct ... right?)
But some carriers would really like to be able to see that data in the clear -- unencrypted. This would allow them to do fancy caching (essentially, saving copies of data at intermediate points) and introduce other "efficiencies" that they can't do when your data is encrypted from your client to the desired servers (or from servers to client).
When data is unencrypted, "proxy servers" are a routine mechanism for caching and passing on such data. But conventional proxy servers won't work with data that has been encrypted end-to-end, say with SSL.
So this dandy proposal offers a dandy solution: "Trusted proxies" -- or, to be more straightforward in the terminology, "man-in-the-middle attack" proxies. Oh what fun.
The technical details get very complicated very quickly, but what it all amounts to is simple enough. The proposal expects Internet users to provide "informed consent" that they "trust" intermediate sites (e.g. Verizon, AT&T, etc.) to decode their encrypted data, process it in some manner for "presumably" innocent purposes, re-encrypt it, then pass the re-encrypted data along to its original destination.
Chomping at the bit to sign up for this baby? No? Good for you!
Ironically, in the early days of cell phone data, when full capability mobile browsers weren't yet available, it was common practice to "proxy" so-called "secure" connections in this manner. A great deal of effort went into closing this security hole by enabling true end-to-end mobile crypto.
Now it appears to be full steam ahead back to even worse bad old days!
Of course, the authors of this proposal are not oblivious to the fact that there might be a bit of resistance to this "Trust us" concept. So, for example, the proposal includes the assumption of mechanisms for users to opt-in or opt-out of these "trusted proxy" schemes.
But it's easy to be extremely dubious about what this would mean in the real world. Can we really be assured that a carrier going through all the trouble of setting up these proxies would always be willing to serve users who refuse to agree to the proxies being used, and allow those users to completely bypass the proxies? Count me as skeptical.
And the assumption that users can even be expected to make truly informed decisions about this seems highly problematic from the git-go. We might be forgiven for suspecting that the carriers are banking on the vast majority of users simply accepting the "Trust us -- we're your friendly man-in-the-middle" default, and not even thinking about the reality that their data is being decrypted in transit by third parties.
In fact, the fallacies deeply entrenched in this proposal are encapsulated within a paragraph tucked in near the draft's end:
"Users should be made aware that, different than end-to-end HTTPS, the achievable security level is now also dependent on the security features/capabilities of the proxy as to what cipher suites it supports, which root CA certificates it trusts, how it checks certificate revocation status, etc. Users should also be made aware that the proxy has visibility to the actual content they exchange with Web servers, including personal and sensitive information."
Who are they kidding? It's been a long enough slog just to get to the point where significant numbers of users check for basic SSL status before conducting sensitive transactions. Now they're supposed to become security/certificate experts as well?
Insanity.
I'm sorry gang, no matter how much lipstick you smear on this particular pig -- it's still a pig.
The concept of "trusted proxies" as proposed is inherently untrustworthy, especially in this post-Snowden era.
And that's a fact that you really can trust.
--Lauren--
I'm a consultant to Google. My postings are speaking only for myself, not for them.
- - -
Addendum (24 February 2014): Since the posting of the text above, I've seen some commentary (in at least one case seemingly "angry" commentary!) suggesting that I was claiming the ability of ISPs to "crack" the security of existing SSL connections for the "Trusted Proxies" under discussion. That was not my assertion.
I didn't try to get into technical details, but obviously we're assuming that your typical ISP doesn't have the will or ability to interfere in such a manner with properly implemented traditional SSL. That's still a significant task even for the powerful intelligence agencies around the world (we believe at the moment, anyway).
But what the proposal does push is the concept of a kind of half-baked "fake" security that would be to the benefit of dominant ISPs and carriers but not to most users -- and there's nothing more dangerous in this context than thinking you're end-to-end secure when you're really not.
In essence it's a kind of sucker bait. Average users could easily believe they were "kinda sorta" doing traditional SSL but they really wouldn't be, 'cause the ISP would have access to their unencrypted data in the clear. And as the proposal itself suggests, it would take significant knowledge for users to understand the ramifications of this -- and most users won't have that knowledge.
It's a confusing and confounding concept -- and an unwise proposal -- that would be nothing but trouble for the Internet community and should be rejected.
- - -
Posted by Lauren at February 22, 2014 08:24 PM | Permalink
Twitter: @laurenweinstein
Google+: Lauren Weinstein
Mark Zuckerberg Says The US Has Become A Threat To, Rather Than A Champion For, The Internet | Techdirt (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140313/13450726570/mark-zuckerberg-says-us-has-become-threat-to-rather-than-champion-internet.shtml)I find this rather amusing. These people are creeping out of the woodwork professing to be "Shocked, I tell you! Shocked!"
from the indeed dept
Better late than never: it appears that Mark Zuckberberg is finally really pissed off about the NSA surveillance efforts.
(Read the rest at the link.)
___________________________
Sadly if the US government wasn't wasting so much time peeking in our backyards and panty drawers, they'd of had time to grab a few shots of the rest of the planet and we'd know where that Malaysian plane went.-Stoic Joker (March 14, 2014, 07:11 AM)
Sadly if the US government wasn't wasting so much time peeking in our backyards and panty drawers, they'd of had time to grab a few shots of the rest of the planet and we'd know where that Malaysian plane went.-Stoic Joker (March 14, 2014, 07:11 AM)
...
The day SETI succeeds is the day SETI (as a public science project) will cease to exist.-40hz (March 14, 2014, 07:58 AM)
^ So just think what it will be like if they ever find intelligent life on this planet.-Vurbal (March 14, 2014, 10:36 AM)
^ So just think what it will be like if they ever find intelligent life on this planet.-Vurbal (March 14, 2014, 10:36 AM)
Yes, but at least we'll know that when SETI shuts down...The Invasion is only months away ...-Stoic Joker (March 14, 2014, 11:37 AM)
^ I think he meant the invasion as in the alien invasion of Earth. ;)-wraith808 (March 14, 2014, 04:59 PM)
^ So just think what it will be like if they ever find intelligent life on this planet.There is intelligent life on this planet, but I'm just passing through... ;)
___________________-Vurbal (March 14, 2014, 10:36 AM)
^ So just think what it will be like if they ever find intelligent life on this planet.There is intelligent life on this planet, but I'm just passing through... ;)
___________________-Vurbal (March 14, 2014, 10:36 AM)-IainB (March 14, 2014, 10:14 PM)
Sadly if the US government wasn't wasting so much time peeking in our backyards and panty drawers, they'd of had time to grab a few shots of the rest of the planet and we'd know where that Malaysian plane went.
News flash for the NSA: The plane isn't on friggin FaceBook ... So zip up your flies, go out side, and do some real work for a change.-Stoic Joker (March 14, 2014, 07:11 AM)
...You might want to go around instead. It gets pretty hot toward the center. :P
______________________-Vurbal (March 14, 2014, 10:46 PM)
From another angle, I'm wondering why in this era of "everyone online", that if there started to be trouble, *why no one got a digital communication off*. 239 people and no one managed to tweet something?! How about just someone's phone syncing email? Wouldn't that produce a ping on the cell tower?-TaoPhoenix (March 14, 2014, 11:48 PM)
Re. MH370 - It amazes me that there isn't an EPIRBw mounted on aircraft tail assemblies...-4wd (March 16, 2014, 12:27 AM)
Re. MH370 - It amazes me that there isn't an EPIRBw mounted on aircraft tail assemblies...-4wd (March 16, 2014, 12:27 AM)
Are you thereby suggesting that the NSA or some other shadowy US SS organisation has not already done that and doesn't know exactly where the "missing" plane is - especially since 911?
Yeah, right.-IainB (March 17, 2014, 02:52 AM)
...I suspect what's really holding up the announcement are high level discussions about how to best spin the story.-40hz (March 17, 2014, 03:26 AM)
SNOWDEN: I Questioned Putin To Get His Answer On Record - Business Insider (http://www.businessinsider.com/snowden-i-questioned-putin-to-get-his-answer-on-record-2014-4?IR=T)
EDWARD SNOWDEN: Here's Why I Asked Putin A Question Yesterday
Edward Snowden, The Guardian
Apr. 18, 2014, 8:40 AM 12,819 20
On Thursday, I questioned Russia's involvement in mass surveillance on live television. I asked Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, a question that cannot credibly be answered in the negative by any leader who runs a modern, intrusive surveillance program: "Does [your country] intercept, analyze or store millions of individuals' communications?"
I went on to challenge whether, even if such a mass surveillance program were effective and technically legal, it could ever be morally justified.
The question was intended to mirror the now infamous exchange in US Senate intelligence committee hearings between senator Ron Wyden and the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, about whether the NSA collected records on millions of Americans, and to invite either an important concession or a clear evasion. (See a side-by-side comparison of Wyden's question and mine here.)
Clapper's lie – to the Senate and to the public – was a major motivating force behind my decision to go public, and a historic example of the importance of official accountability.
In his response, Putin denied the first part of the question and dodged on the latter. There are serious inconsistencies in his denial – and we'll get to them soon – but it was not the president's suspiciously narrow answer that was criticized by many pundits. It was that I had chosen to ask a question at all.
I was surprised that people who witnessed me risk my life to expose the surveillance practices of my own country could not believe that I might also criticize the surveillance policies of Russia, a country to which I have sworn no allegiance, without ulterior motive. I regret that my question could be misinterpreted, and that it enabled many to ignore the substance of the question – and Putin's evasive response – in order to speculate, wildly and incorrectly, about my motives for asking it.
The investigative journalist Andrei Soldatov, perhaps the single most prominent critic of Russia's surveillance apparatus (and someone who has repeatedly criticized me in the past year), described my question as "extremely important for Russia". It could, he said, "lift a de facto ban on public conversations about state eavesdropping."
Others have pointed out that Putin's response appears to be the strongest denial of involvement in mass surveillance ever given by a Russian leader – a denial that is, generously speaking, likely to be revisited by journalists.
In fact, Putin's response was remarkably similar to Barack Obama's initial, sweeping denials of the scope of the NSA's domestic surveillance programs, before that position was later shown to be both untrue and indefensible.
So why all the criticism? I expected that some would object to my participation in an annual forum that is largely comprised of softball questions to a leader unaccustomed to being challenged. But to me, the rare opportunity to lift a taboo on discussion of state surveillance before an audience that primarily views state media outweighed that risk. Moreover, I hoped that Putin's answer – whatever it was – would provide opportunities for serious journalists and civil society to push the discussion further.
When this event comes around next year, I hope we'll see more questions on surveillance programs and other controversial policies. But we don't have to wait until then. For example, journalists might ask for clarification as to how millions of individuals' communications are not being intercepted, analyzed or stored, when, at least on a technical level, the systems that are in place must do precisely that in order to function. They might ask whether the social media companies reporting that they have received bulk collection requests from the Russian government are telling the truth.
I blew the whistle on the NSA's surveillance practices not because I believed that the United States was uniquely at fault, but because I believe that mass surveillance of innocents – the construction of enormous, state-run surveillance time machines that can turn back the clock on the most intimate details of our lives – is a threat to all people, everywhere, no matter who runs them.
Last year, I risked family, life, and freedom to help initiate a global debate that even Obama himself conceded "will make our nation stronger". I am no more willing to trade my principles for privilege today than I was then.
I understand the concerns of critics, but there is a more obvious explanation for my question than a secret desire to defend the kind of policies I sacrificed a comfortable life to challenge: if we are to test the truth of officials' claims, we must first give them an opportunity to make those claims.
• Edward Snowden wrote for the Guardian through the Freedom of the Press Foundation
This article originally appeared on guardian.co.uk
USA Today’s William Cummings: “White House blows cover of CIA chief in Afghanistan” The White House accidentally blew the cover of the top CIA officer in Afghanistan Saturday, when his name and title were released in an e-mail sent to reporters who traveled with President Obama on his surprise visit to Bagram Air Field. The CIA officer’s identity was released as part of a list of U.S. officials who were attending a military briefing with Obama at Bagram, the Washington Post reported. The individual was identified as “Chief of Station,” a term used for the top spy in a country, according to the Post-ABC News
Elsewhere in the leaks department:USA Today’s William Cummings: “White House blows cover of CIA chief in Afghanistan” The White House accidentally blew the cover of the top CIA officer in Afghanistan Saturday, when his name and title were released in an e-mail sent to reporters who traveled with President Obama on his surprise visit to Bagram Air Field. The CIA officer’s identity was released as part of a list of U.S. officials who were attending a military briefing with Obama at Bagram, the Washington Post reported. The individual was identified as “Chief of Station,” a term used for the top spy in a country, according to the Post-ABC News
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/05/26/white-house-exposes-cia-chief/9586633/
I wonder if they'll be honest enough to prosecute themselves.. :-\-Stoic Joker (May 26, 2014, 09:10 AM)
NBC News is supposed to air their interview with Snowden tonight. In the meantime, the network has posted an excerpt (http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/edward-snowden-interview/exclusive-edward-snowden-tells-brian-williams-i-was-trained-spy-n115746) in which he states that he was not a low level technician, but was in fact trained as a spy and did undercover work for the CIA and NSA.-xtabber (May 28, 2014, 04:56 PM)
NBC News is supposed to air their interview with Snowden tonight. In the meantime, the network has posted an excerpt (http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/edward-snowden-interview/exclusive-edward-snowden-tells-brian-williams-i-was-trained-spy-n115746) in which he states that he was not a low level technician, but was in fact trained as a spy and did undercover work for the CIA and NSA.-xtabber (May 28, 2014, 04:56 PM)
And the usual bogus counterpoint commentary has started.
Love those self-styled pundits...
As long as those implicated can have their CNN lapdogs keep the public's attention focused on Snowden the man - and not what he revealed - abuse of executive power will continue to be 'business as usual.'-40hz (May 28, 2014, 09:25 PM)
"...faith in the US justice system..."
Really? Seriously? Is he:
- High
- Mentally challenged
- Drinking WAAAAY too much kool-aid
Or perhaps all 3?-Renegade (May 28, 2014, 09:32 PM)
Interview is here:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNhMXyAdjp8[/youtube]
Download it now. It might not be up for long. Other versions are down.-Renegade (May 29, 2014, 12:35 PM)
Interview is here:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNhMXyAdjp8[/youtube]
Download it now. It might not be up for long. Other versions are down.-Renegade (May 29, 2014, 12:35 PM)
thanks :up: (I see it's gone now).
well worth listening to. Another copy here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-xxzOwr7I4).-tomos (May 29, 2014, 05:14 PM)
That's 5 minutes longer than the one I saw. Commercials?-Renegade (May 29, 2014, 09:12 PM)
Edward Snowden is the greatest patriot whistleblower of our time, and he knows what I learned more than four decades ago: until the Espionage Act gets reformed, he can never come home safe and receive justice
he won't come back to the U.S. to face a fair trial-xtabber (May 30, 2014, 08:54 PM)
Unknown Lamer posted about two weeks ago | from the bound-for-success dept.
Privacy 213
beschra (1424727) writes
"From the article: 'The U.S. Secret Service is seeking software that can identify top influencers and trending sets of social media data, allowing the agency to monitor these streams in real-time — and sift through the sarcasm. "We are not currently aware of any automated technology that could do that (detect sarcasm). No one is considered a leader in that,'" Jamie Martin, a data acquisition engineer at Sioux Falls, SD based Bright Planet, told CBS News.'
Why not just force Twitter to change TOS to require sarcasm tag?"
No one is a villain in their own story. That's just human nature. Those that are behind PRISM and other initiatives think they're doing the right thing. And I think that's the addictive part of it... the more you see, the more you think you need to see.-wraith808 (June 15, 2014, 12:25 AM)
No one is a villain in their own story. That's just human nature. Those that are behind PRISM and other initiatives think they're doing the right thing. And I think that's the addictive part of it... the more you see, the more you think you need to see.-wraith808 (June 15, 2014, 12:25 AM)
Someday, ^this should be a famous quote.-Stoic Joker (June 15, 2014, 12:56 PM)
Nobody is a villain in their own story. We're all the heroes of our own stories.
- George R. R. Martin
Very droll: Congressman asks NSA to provide metadata for “lost” IRS e-mails | Ars Technica (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/congressman-asks-nsa-to-provide-metadata-for-lost-irs-e-mails/)-IainB (June 17, 2014, 12:12 PM)
Surveillance technology use is more addictive than crack AFAICT.Do you feel the same about home surveillance of your own pad?
One reason why I never participated in any project that involved monitoring people was because I have seen what this technology does to the people who use it.
(see attachment in previous post (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=35254.msg357255#msg357255))-40hz (June 14, 2014, 01:31 PM)
Do you feel the same about home surveillance of your own pad?-superboyac (June 17, 2014, 02:18 PM)
Surveillance technology use is more addictive than crack AFAICT.Do you feel the same about home surveillance of your own pad?
One reason why I never participated in any project that involved monitoring people was because I have seen what this technology does to the people who use it.
(see attachment in previous post (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=35254.msg357255#msg357255))-40hz (June 14, 2014, 01:31 PM)-superboyac (June 17, 2014, 02:18 PM)
Very droll: Congressman asks NSA to provide metadata for “lost” IRS e-mails | Ars Technica (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/congressman-asks-nsa-to-provide-metadata-for-lost-irs-e-mails/)-IainB (June 17, 2014, 12:12 PM)
And then they arrest you for something they find on the hard drive ... That they felt was questionable.-Stoic Joker (June 17, 2014, 07:50 PM)
Surveillance technology use is more addictive than crack AFAICT.
One reason why I never participated in any project that involved monitoring people was because I have seen what this technology does to the people who use it.
(see attachment in previous post (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=35254.msg357255#msg357255))-40hz (June 14, 2014, 01:31 PM)
Nowadays making a plea deal to a lesser offence - or signing away your right to sue - in order to avoid prosecution for a heavily trumped up charge is also becoming the norm.-40hz (June 17, 2014, 09:47 PM)
Scott Adams Blog: The Religion War Predictions 07/02/2014 (http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/the_religion_war_predictions/)
...In the book I imagined that the government would combat terrorism by strictly limiting digital communications. If someone is not on your approved list you can't call, text, or email with them. If you want to add someone to your list, there's a bureaucratic process to do that. That part of the prediction is unlikely to happen because the NSA can monitor every form of communication, and that's a more effective solution. I didn't see that coming. But I'll take partial credit for predicting that the government wouldn't allow unfettered private conversations over networks in the future.
^^ Can surveillance be addictive? I hadn't known that.-PabloSaulw (July 05, 2014, 12:10 AM)
^^ Can surveillance be addictive? I hadn't known that.-PabloSaulw (July 05, 2014, 12:10 AM)
I think it's probably more along the lines of being addicted to power, and surveillance just being a tool of power.
And then a little splash of voyeurism to boot! :)-Renegade (July 06, 2014, 01:46 AM)
^^ Can surveillance be addictive? I hadn't known that.-PabloSaulw (July 05, 2014, 12:10 AM)
I think it's probably more along the lines of being addicted to power, and surveillance just being a tool of power.
And then a little splash of voyeurism to boot! :)-Renegade (July 06, 2014, 01:46 AM)
^^ Can surveillance be addictive? I hadn't known that.-PabloSaulw (July 05, 2014, 12:10 AM)
I think it's probably more along the lines of being addicted to power, and surveillance just being a tool of power.
And then a little splash of voyeurism to boot! :)-Renegade (July 06, 2014, 01:46 AM)
Or perhaps you have quoted someone addicted to forum spamming, who had nothing of real value to add to this conversation. ;)-app103 (July 07, 2014, 04:14 AM)
^^ Can surveillance be addictive? I hadn't known that.-PabloSaulw (July 05, 2014, 12:10 AM)
I think it's probably more along the lines of being addicted to power, and surveillance just being a tool of power.
And then a little splash of voyeurism to boot! :)-Renegade (July 06, 2014, 01:46 AM)
Or perhaps you have quoted someone addicted to forum spamming, who had nothing of real value to add to this conversation. ;)-app103 (July 07, 2014, 04:14 AM)
I think I missed something here... :huh:-40hz (July 07, 2014, 07:30 AM)
The post that they are referring to has been removed, because it was a spammer.-wraith808 (July 07, 2014, 09:20 AM)
The post that they are referring to has been removed, because it was a spammer.-wraith808 (July 07, 2014, 09:20 AM)
That post actually wasn't spam. It was a valid response. I only quoted a bit. Perhaps he spammed elsewhere - I didn't see that.-Renegade (July 07, 2014, 09:23 AM)
Hacking Online Polls and Other Ways British Spies Seek to Control the Internet
• “Ability to spoof any email address and send email under that identity” (CHANGELING)
These guys are GOOD at what they do.And there'll be no stopping them. If they were not employed by the State, they'd be classified as criminal hackers.
And there'll be no stopping them. If they were not employed by the State, they'd be classified as criminal hackers.-IainB (July 16, 2014, 06:05 AM)
Dear President/Prime Minister,
Say your prayers. Your time is limited. I'm going to kill you, and there is nothing you can do to stop me. Make your peace now,
Love,
YOUR NAME HERE (or whatever)
Edward Snowden urges professionals to encrypt client communications (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/17/edward-snowden-professionals-encrypt-client-communications-nsa-spy)
Exclusive: Whistleblower says NSA revelations mean those with duty to protect confidentiality must urgently upgrade security
• Watch Snowden's interview with the Guardian in Moscow
• Read the full interview with Snowden by Alan Rusbridger and Ewen MacAskill on Friday
Alan Rusbridger and Ewen MacAskill
The Guardian, Thursday 17 July 2014 17.14 BST
Link to video: Edward Snowden: 'If I end up in chains in Guantánamo I can live with that'
The NSA whistleblower, Edward Snowden, has urged lawyers, journalists, doctors, accountants, priests and others with a duty to protect confidentiality to upgrade security in the wake of the spy surveillance revelations.
Snowden said professionals were failing in their obligations to their clients, sources, patients and parishioners in what he described as a new and challenging world.
"What last year's revelations showed us was irrefutable evidence that unencrypted communications on the internet are no longer safe. Any communications should be encrypted by default," he said.
The response of professional bodies has so far been patchy.
A minister at the Home Office in London, James Brokenshire, said during a Commons debate about a new surveillance bill on Tuesday that a code of practice to protect legal professional privilege and others requiring professional secrecy was under review.
Snowden's plea for the professions to tighten security came during an extensive and revealing interview with the Guardian in Moscow.
The former National Security Agency and CIA computer specialist, wanted by the US under the Espionage Act after leaking tens of thousands of top secret documents, has given only a handful of interviews since seeking temporary asylum in Russia a year ago.
Edward Snowden during his interview with Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger and reporter Ewen MacAskill Edward Snowden during his interview with the Guardian in Moscow. Photograph: Alan Rusbridger for the Guardian
During the seven hours of interview, Snowden:
• Said if he ended up in US detention in Guantánamo Bay he could live with it.
• Offered rare glimpses into his daily life in Russia, insisting that, contrary to reports that he is depressed, he is not sad and does not have any regrets. He rejected various conspiracy theories surrounding him, describing as "bullshit" suggestions he is a Russian spy.
• Said that, contrary to a claim he works for a Russian organisation, he was independently secure, living on savings, and money from awards and speeches he has delivered online round the world.
• Made a startling claim that a culture exists within the NSA in which, during surveillance, nude photographs picked up of people in "sexually compromising" situations are routinely passed around.
• Spoke at length about his future, which seems destined to be spent in Russia for the foreseeable future after expressing disappointment over the failure of western European governments to offer him a home.
• Said he was holding out for a jury trial in the US rather a judge-only one, hopeful that it would be hard to find 12 jurors who would convict him if he was charged with an offence to which there was a public interest defence. Negotiations with the US government on a return to his country appear to be stalled.
Snowden, who recognises he is almost certainly kept under surveillance by the Russians and the US, met the Guardian at a hotel within walking distance of Red Square.
The 31-year-old revealed that he works online late into the night; a solitary, digital existence not that dissimilar to his earlier life.
He said he was using part of that time to work on the new focus for his technical skills, designing encryption tools to help professionals such as journalists protect sources and data. He is negotiating foundation funding for the project, a contribution to addressing the problem of professions wanting to protect client or patient data, and in this case journalistic sources.
"An unfortunate side effect of the development of all these new surveillance technologies is that the work of journalism has become immeasurably harder than it ever has been in the past," Snowden said.
"Journalists have to be particularly conscious about any sort of network signalling, any sort of connection, any sort of licence-plate reading device that they pass on their way to a meeting point, any place they use their credit card, any place they take their phone, any email contact they have with the source because that very first contact, before encrypted communications are established, is enough to give it all away."
Journalists had to ensure they made not a single mistake or they would be placing sources at risk. The same duty applied to other professions, he said, calling for training and new standards "to make sure that we have mechanisms to ensure that the average member of our society can have a reasonable measure of faith in the skills of all the members of these professions."
He added: "If we confess something to our priest inside a church that would be private, but is it any different if we send our pastor a private email confessing a crisis that we have in our life?"
The response of professional bodies in the UK to the challenge varies, ranging from calls for legislative changes to build in protection from snooping, to apparent lack of concern.
Ross Anderson, professor of security engineering at Cambridge University, said he shared Snowden's concerns about the vulnerability of the professions to surveillance by spy and law enforcement agencies.
"If you think your HIV status is secret from GCHQ, forget it," he said. "The tools are available to protect data and communications but only if you are important enough for your doctor or lawyer to care."
Timothy Hill, technology policy adviser at the Law Society, which represents UK lawyers, said the profession was concerned.
"Legal professional privilege – the right to consult a legal adviser in confidence – is a long established common law right. Its fundamental role in our legal system needs to be reasserted."
The society is pressing to have existing legislation rewritten to include explicit protection for legal professional privilege from government surveillance.
"There needs to be a debate about the implications of the Snowden revelations for professional privilege in the digital age," Hill said. "It is not happening. This is not being debated in parliament."
He said the society was seeking to strengthen law firms' cybersecurity awareness but that a stronger statutory framework was essential.
Michelle Stanistreet, the National Union of Journalists general secretary, echoed the concerns. "For democracy to function, it needs to have a free press and journalists who are able to do their job without fear or hindrance. But this is becoming increasingly under threat."
She added: "Last year's revelations show that unencrypted communications can mean that journalists may be unwittingly handing over their contacts, footage or material, against their will."
The General Medical Council provides guidance to UK doctors about protecting information against improper disclosure.
Niall Dickson, the GMC chief executive, said: "Modern communication offers huge benefits for patients in terms of research, access to professionals, as well as speed of care and treatment. But of course it also carries risk, and confidentiality and trust are at the heart of the doctor-patient relationship.
"We recognise that keeping up with advances in technology and its implications for confidentiality are challenging for all healthcare professionals. We do have guidance which explains what doctors need to do if they are concerned about the security of personal information or systems they have been given to use. But in this rapidly changing area, we also need to keep on top of this ourselves, and we do regularly review our guidance to take account of changes in the external environment."
You are suspicious, and we are in a post-9/11 world
Exclusive: High-Level NSA Whistleblower Says Blackmail Is a Huge – Unreported – Part of Mass Surveillance
The Untold Story In the NSA Spying Scandal: Blackmail
It is well-documented that governments use information to blackmail and control people.
New Surveillance Whistleblower: The NSA Violates the Constitution
A former Obama administration official calls attention to unaccountable mass surveillance conducted under a 1981 executive order.
Government agents 'directly involved' in most high-profile US terror plots
• Human Rights Watch documents 'sting' operations
• Report raises questions about post-9/11 civil rights
Nearly all of the highest-profile domestic terrorism plots in the United States since 9/11 featured the "direct involvement" of government agents or informants, a new report says.
Some of the controversial "sting" operations "were proposed or led by informants", bordering on entrapment by law enforcement. Yet the courtroom obstacles to proving entrapment are significant, one of the reasons the stings persist.
Almost everyone involved in developing Tor was (or is) funded by the US government
The Secret Government Rulebook For Labeling You a Terrorist
While the guidelines nominally prohibit nominations based on unreliable information, they explicitly regard “uncorroborated” Facebook or Twitter posts as sufficient grounds for putting an individual on one of the watchlists. “Single source information,” the guidelines state, “including but not limited to ‘walk-in,’ ‘write-in,’ or postings on social media sites, however, should not automatically be discounted … the NOMINATING AGENCY should evaluate the credibility of the source, as well as the nature and specificity of the information, and nominate even if that source is uncorroborated.”
There are a number of loopholes for putting people onto the watchlists even if reasonable suspicion cannot be met.
One is clearly defined: The immediate family of suspected terrorists—their spouses, children, parents, or siblings—may be watchlisted without any suspicion that they themselves are engaged in terrorist activity. But another loophole is quite broad—”associates” who have a defined relationship with a suspected terrorist, but whose involvement in terrorist activity is not known. A third loophole is broader still—individuals with “a possible nexus” to terrorism, but for whom there is not enough “derogatory information” to meet the reasonable suspicion standard.
Is Putin Selling Out Edward Snowden?
By Benjamin Wittes
Thursday, July 31, 2014 at 5:24 PM
This is rank, arguably irresponsible, speculation. I have had no—that is to say zero—conversations with anyone who knows anything about Snowden’s status in Russia. I can thus offer no particularly good reason to believe that Vladimir Putin is getting ready to rid himself of Edward Snowden.
But would you take four bad reasons? When you put them all together, I think there’s enough there to make you wonder what’s going on behind the scenes.
...
Are we heading for the endgame?
Read the full article here (http://www.lawfareblog.com/2014/07/is-putin-selling-out-edward-snowden/).-40hz (August 02, 2014, 04:09 PM)
So, which strand of the spider's web is "Lawfare"? Are we being given an accurate prediction? Is this misdirection? Or perhaps just a regular contributor speculating off-the-cuff?-Renegade (August 02, 2014, 09:24 PM)
Once you go down that rabbit hole of self-referential accusations and 'proofs' you might as well ask which strand of "the spider's web" 40hz represents for merely posting such a link? (Since there's every chance he didn't "merely" post it.) :P-40hz (August 03, 2014, 07:27 AM)
While it may sound paranoid, when you start looking in closer detail, there are clear connections.-Renegade (August 03, 2014, 09:59 AM)
Asking about what Brookings expects from its investment in Lawfare is a legitimate question.
Asking about consumers though... that's a bit of a stretch. What I can see there is:
A) 40hz reads Lawfare
B) 40hz reads Popehat
C) Both Lawfare & Popehat are legal blogs/web sites
D) 40hz probably enjoys reading legal blogs/web sites
And, as a bonus:
E) 40hz probably enjoys SCOTUS blog (http://www.scotusblog.com/) & Courthouse News (http://courthousenews.com/) (or would if he doesn't already)
D & E are reasonable assumptions, but certainly not guaranteed.-Renegade (August 03, 2014, 09:59 AM)
I'm not dividing by zero. I'm simply looking at the obvious relationships and wondering what is going on and what the motivations are.
But no matter what, he's rooked!
Edward Snowden is not alone.
Authorities have concluded there is at least one other leaker spilling classified secrets about the government’s surveillance programs, according to CNN reporter Evan Perez.
Close observers of the surveillance leaks have for months speculated that there may be another leaker besides Snowden. The Intercept, a channel of First Look Media launched by journalist Glenn Greenwald, has routinely published leaks from Edward Snowden since it formed earlier this year. But two recent stories, including one published Tuesday about the government’s terrorist watch database, cited unnamed sources.
One document is from August 2013, months after Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor, downloaded documents while employed at Booz Allen Hamilton in Hawaii and fled to Hong Kong, where he met Greenwald.
"Unknown leaker" according to "unnamed sources?" :-\
Why not just report: "The 'authorities' (whoever that may be this time around) are now saying "All we know is there's gotta be somebody else."
It's about the same thing - and equally well substantiated. (As in not.)
FWIW, I think this guy is his accomplice:
(see attachment in previous post (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=35254.msg361333#msg361333))-40hz (August 06, 2014, 09:12 PM)
Snowden's lawyer announces a three year extension granted to asylum.
Just heard it on the radio - dont see any reports online yet, hang on here's one:
http://www.wsbt.com/news/nationworld/urgent-russiasnowdenextension/27349448-tomos (August 07, 2014, 05:34 AM)
Interesting.I don't know if it's true, but it was awesome!! Good one Iain.
Of course, this could presumably all be a deliberately manufactured "fog".
If it is a manufactured fog, then someone is controlling the fog generator.
If Snowden really did leak the stuff he is supposed to have done, we have certainly only been allowed to see certain bits of it, so someone somewhere is censoring things.
If there is a censor, then there is a control over the release/flow of information.
Thus, whereas it may seem that Snowden is in Russia because of a series of accidents or circumstances outside of his control, that could be by calculated design.
If it was by calculated design, then someone was the designer, and someone implemented the design.
Thus Snowden may be in exactly the place he was supposed to have ended up in at the outset.
I wouldn't put anything past the US NSA/SS administration.
My head is hurting. I think I shall go for a cup of tea and a lie-down now...-IainB (August 07, 2014, 11:37 AM)
"We are going to make [Cisco] equipment very difficult to tamper with," Chambers said in a recent interview with CRN. "We are going to ship it with a lot of information on it, and we are going to say 'How do we do this better than anyone else?'"
Cisco will alert customers at any sign of their Cisco equipment having been compromised, Chambers added.
"If we find anyone -- doesn't matter if it's hackers or governments -- involved in any of our customer environments anywhere in the world, we tell our customers, period," Chambers said. "And we do that in the U.S., in Europe and China and India. And we have done it."
Perhaps only posturing, but it makes a nice line in the sand for the moment.-Stoic Joker (August 08, 2014, 02:31 PM)
"If we find anyone -- doesn't matter if it's hackers or governments -- involved in any of our customer environments anywhere in the world, we tell our customers, period," Chambers said[/b]. "And we do that in the U.S., in Europe and China and India. And we have done it."-Stoic Joker (August 08, 2014, 02:31 PM)
"If we find anyone -- doesn't matter if it's hackers or governments -- involved in any of our customer environments anywhere in the world, we tell our customers, period," Chambers said[/b]. "And we do that in the U.S., in Europe and China and India. And we have done it."-Stoic Joker (August 08, 2014, 02:31 PM)
Yeah, right. Sounds great. So what? Proof to substantiate that statement? None so far, it seems. But wait...where did I put that proof...?
(Sound of crickets chirping.)-IainB (August 10, 2014, 06:22 AM)
It's in the same place as that proof of WMDs...-wraith808 (August 10, 2014, 12:06 PM)
"If we find anyone -- doesn't matter if it's hackers or governments -- involved in any of our customer environments anywhere in the world, we tell our customers, period," Chambers said[/b]. "And we do that in the U.S., in Europe and China and India. And we have done it."-Stoic Joker (August 08, 2014, 02:31 PM)
Yeah, right. Sounds great. So what? Proof to substantiate that statement? None so far, it seems. But wait...where did I put that proof...?
(Sound of crickets chirping.)-IainB (August 10, 2014, 06:22 AM)
It's in the same place as that proof of WMDs...-wraith808 (August 10, 2014, 12:06 PM)
But expecting Cisco to just rattle off a list of clients that have been breached in some way, kind, sort, form, or fashion is a bit silly...as that would be even more bad exposure for all parties involved.Yes, of course. It goes without saying that we'll never know for sure whether they actually have any proof or not, because, of course they cannot state any of it, for security reasons.-Stoic Joker (August 10, 2014, 12:33 PM)
Doesn't seem to have any meaning to make a statement that "...And we have done it.", knowing that it cannot be substantiated in any event. A marketing puff.-IainB (August 11, 2014, 12:46 AM)
In a WIRED interview published today, the 31-year-old megaleaker has revealed that he planted hints on NSA networks that were intended to show which of its documents he’d smuggled out among the much larger set he accessed or could have accessed. Those hints, he says, were intended to make clear his role as a whistleblower rather than a foreign spy, and to allow the agency time to minimize the national security risks created by the documents’ public release.
The fact that NSA officials have told the press that his haul may have been as large as 1.7 million documents, says Snowden, is a sign that the agency has either purposely inflated the size of his leak or lacks the forensic skills to see the clues he left for its auditors. “I figured they would have a hard time,” Snowden tells WIRED, describing the agency’s attempts to reverse-engineer his leak. “I didn’t figure they would be completely incapable.”
Snowden: I Left the NSA Clues, But They Couldn’t Find Them (http://www.wired.com/2014/08/snowden-breadcrumbs/)
...
Ouch.-wraith808 (August 13, 2014, 07:57 AM)
When WIRED asked an NSA spokesperson to comment on Snowden’s new claims or its internal estimate of the size of his leak, spokesperson Vanee Vines responded with this statement: “If Mr. Snowden wants to discuss his activities, that conversation should be held with the U.S. Department of Justice. He needs to return to the United States to face the charges against him.”
...Umm, maybe he should come home to help prosecute the real criminals?...-Renegade (August 13, 2014, 08:31 AM)
...Further, another report today in the Washington Times shows intelligence information leaked and published by former NSA worker Edward Snowden helped ISIS get ahead. ...- and there's more hearsay to that effect in the article.
Update: Congressman’s Office In Possession of 100,000 CDC Whistleblower Documents?
Congressman Bill Posey’s office has confirmed exclusively to Benswann.com that a “very large number” of documents have been turned over by CDC scientist, Dr. William Thompson, who has admitted that the CDC suppressed information about the links between the MMR vaccine and autism in some cases.
According to Congressman Posey’s spokesman, George Cecala, “I can confirm that we have received a very large number of documents and we are going through those documents now. There are a lot of them, so it will take some time.” Cecala could not say exactly how many documents are in possession of the Congressman’s staff though sources tell me that as many as 100,000 documents have been handed over.
The FBI says disgruntled employees are the new danger- The Inquirer (http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2372223/the-fbi-says-disgruntled-employees-are-the-new-danger)
The insider threat is a big one
By Dave Neal
Thu Sep 25 2014, 13:37
The FBI has warned about the insider security threat
THE UNITED STATES Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has warned businesses to watch out for disgruntled employees with an axe to grind and a basic command of internet services.
In a note on the US Homeland Security website the FBI said that the insider threat is a very real one, presumably because it has cottoned on to the whole Edward Snowden and NSA thing, and employees represent a "significant risk" to networks and proprietary information. In its advice the FBI suggests that firms be on the lookout for people who look glum, have personal email addresses and use things like Dropbox.
"The exploitation of business networks and servers by disgruntled and/or former employees has resulted in several significant FBI investigations in which individuals used their access to destroy data, steal proprietary software, obtain customer information, purchase unauthorised goods and services using customer accounts, and gain a competitive edge at a new company," the FBI said, recommending that firms look out for poisoned exit strategies.
"The theft of proprietary information in many of these incidents was facilitated through the use of cloud storage web sites, like Dropbox, and personal email accounts. In many cases, terminated employees had continued access to the computer networks through the installation of unauthorised remote desktop protocol software. The installation of this software occurred prior to leaving the company."
Some rascals have left companies only to return and extort them for access to websites and other information, added the note, and the FBI admitted that it spends a fair amount of time looking into such capers and that companies can spend between $5,000 and $3m recovering from them.
The FBI had some recommendations for organisations. First it recommended that companies change network access passwords when someone leaves, and delete that person's credentials from the system. It also said that passwords should not be shared, either by people or systems, and that they should be changed from any defaults.
It didn't say this, but it is also a truism: You should not iron your trousers while you are wearing them.
THE GREAT SIM HEIST
HOW SPIES STOLE THE KEYS TO THE ENCRYPTION CASTLE
AMERICAN AND BRITISH spies hacked into the internal computer network of the largest manufacturer of SIM cards in the world, stealing encryption keys used to protect the privacy of cellphone communications across the globe, according to top-secret documents provided to The Intercept by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The hack was perpetrated by a joint unit consisting of operatives from the NSA and its British counterpart Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ. The breach, detailed in a secret 2010 GCHQ document, gave the surveillance agencies the potential to secretly monitor a large portion of the world’s cellular communications, including both voice and data.
[–]masondog13 3287 points 6 hours ago
What's the best way to make NSA spying an issue in the 2016 Presidential Election? It seems like while it was a big deal in 2013, ISIS and other events have put it on the back burner for now in the media and general public. What are your ideas for how to bring it back to the forefront?
[–]SuddenlySnowden EDWARD SNOWDEN 4375 points 5 hours ago*x15
This is a good question, and there are some good traditional answers here. Organizing is important. Activism is important.
At the same time, we should remember that governments don't often reform themselves. One of the arguments in a book I read recently (Bruce Schneier, "Data and Goliath"), is that perfect enforcement of the law sounds like a good thing, but that may not always be the case. The end of crime sounds pretty compelling, right, so how can that be?
Well, when we look back on history, the progress of Western civilization and human rights is actually founded on the violation of law. America was of course born out of a violent revolution that was an outrageous treason against the crown and established order of the day. History shows that the righting of historical wrongs is often born from acts of unrepentant criminality. Slavery. The protection of persecuted Jews.
But even on less extremist topics, we can find similar examples. How about the prohibition of alcohol? Gay marriage? Marijuana?
Where would we be today if the government, enjoying powers of perfect surveillance and enforcement, had -- entirely within the law -- rounded up, imprisoned, and shamed all of these lawbreakers?
Ultimately, if people lose their willingness to recognize that there are times in our history when legality becomes distinct from morality, we aren't just ceding control of our rights to government, but our agency in determing thour futures.
How does this relate to politics? Well, I suspect that governments today are more concerned with the loss of their ability to control and regulate the behavior of their citizens than they are with their citizens' discontent.
How do we make that work for us? We can devise means, through the application and sophistication of science, to remind governments that if they will not be responsible stewards of our rights, we the people will implement systems that provide for a means of not just enforcing our rights, but removing from governments the ability to interfere with those rights.
You can see the beginnings of this dynamic today in the statements of government officials complaining about the adoption of encryption by major technology providers. The idea here isn't to fling ourselves into anarchy and do away with government, but to remind the government that there must always be a balance of power between the governing and the governed, and that as the progress of science increasingly empowers communities and individuals, there will be more and more areas of our lives where -- if government insists on behaving poorly and with a callous disregard for the citizen -- we can find ways to reduce or remove their powers on a new -- and permanent -- basis.
Our rights are not granted by governments. They are inherent to our nature. But it's entirely the opposite for governments: their privileges are precisely equal to only those which we suffer them to enjoy.
We haven't had to think about that much in the last few decades because quality of life has been increasing across almost all measures in a significant way, and that has led to a comfortable complacency. But here and there throughout history, we'll occasionally come across these periods where governments think more about what they "can" do rather than what they "should" do, and what is lawful will become increasingly distinct from what is moral.
In such times, we'd do well to remember that at the end of the day, the law doesn't defend us; we defend the law. And when it becomes contrary to our morals, we have both the right and the responsibility to rebalance it toward just ends.
[–]the_ak [+1] 2014 points 5 hours ago*
Edward Snowden just called for civil disobedience against the US government whilst also arguing for the legalization of marijuana during an AMA. This is quite possibly the most reddit thing ever.
[–]SuddenlySnowden EDWARD SNOWDEN 3081 points 4 hours agox3
its-happening.gif
[–]TheJackal8 2690 points 6 hours ago
Mr. Snowden, if you had a chance to do things over again, would you do anything differently? If so, what?
[–]SuddenlySnowden EDWARD SNOWDEN 4108 points 5 hours ago*x4
I would have come forward sooner. I talked to Daniel Ellsberg about this at length, who has explained why more eloquently
(http://www.popularresistance.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Ellsberg-billboards-e1404923198872.jpg)
than I can.
Had I come forward a little sooner, these programs would have been a little less entrenched, and those abusing them would have felt a little less familiar with and accustomed to the exercise of those powers. This is something we see in almost every sector of government, not just in the national security space, but it's very important:
Once you grant the government some new power or authority, it becomes exponentially more difficult to roll it back. Regardless of how little value a program or power has been shown to have (such as the Section 215 dragnet interception of call records in the United States, which the government's own investigation found never stopped a single imminent terrorist attack despite a decade of operation), once it's a sunk cost, once dollars and reputations have been invested in it, it's hard to peel that back.
Don't let it happen in your country.
[–]moizsyed 1214 points 6 hours ago
How did you guys feel about about Neil Patrick Harris' "for some treason" joke last night?
[–]_EdwardSnowden [+1]EDWARD SNOWDEN[ S ] 2376 points 5 hours ago
Wow the questions really blew up on this one. Let me start digging in...
To be honest, I laughed at NPH. I don't think it was meant as a political statement, but even if it was, that's not so bad. My perspective is if you're not willing to be called a few names to help out your country, you don't care enough.
"If this be treason, then let us make the most of it."
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!-Patrick Henry
To Glenn, whatever happened to the "list of U.S. citizens that the N.S.A spied on?" You announced plans to release it, then nothing - can you tell us where that list went and why it was never published?
Source: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/may/26/glenn-greenwald-publish-list-us-citizens-nsa-spied/
My favorite one...
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2wwdep/we_are_edward_snowden_laura_poitras_and_glenn/coupfs7-wraith808 (February 23, 2015, 07:53 PM)
Introducing The Spy Cables
Secret documents, leaked from numerous intelligence agencies, offer rare insights into the interactions between spies.
Fidgeting, whistling, sweaty palms. Add one point each. Arrogance, a cold penetrating stare, and rigid posture, two points.
These are just a few of the suspicious signs that the Transportation Security Administration directs its officers to look out for — and score — in airport travelers, according to a confidential TSA document obtained exclusively by The Intercept.
The checklist is part of TSA’s controversial program to identify potential terrorists based on behaviors that it thinks indicate stress or deception — known as the Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques, or SPOT. The program employs specially trained officers, known as Behavior Detection Officers, to watch and interact with passengers going through screening.
The document listing the criteria, known as the “Spot Referral Report,” is not classified, but it has been closely held by TSA and has not been previously released. A copy was provided to The Intercept by a source concerned about the quality of the program.
The checklist ranges from the mind-numbingly obvious, like “appears to be in disguise,” which is worth three points, to the downright dubious, like a bobbing Adam’s apple. Many indicators, like “trembling” and “arriving late for flight,” appear to confirm allegations that the program picks out signs and emotions that are common to many people who fly.
NYC officials remove Edward Snowden statue secretly installed in Brooklyn park
Can They See My Dick?
Potentially relevant to this thread - I just received this email (follows) from Google:
(Copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images, but I have given just the basic links without all the concealed Google/NSA ID coding that was in the hyperlinks.)From: [email protected]
Google regularly receives requests from governments and courts around the world to hand over our users' data. When we receive government requests for users' personal information, we follow a strict process to help protect against unnecessary intrusion.
Since 2010, we have regularly updated the Google Transparency Report with details about these requests. As the first company to release the numbers, as well as details of how we respond, we've been working hard for more transparency.
...-IainB (November 15, 2013, 08:43 PM)
Beyond the FTC Memorandum: Comparing Google's Internal Discussions with Its Public Claims (http://www.benedelman.org/news/040115-1.html)
April 1, 2015
Disclosure: I serve as a consultant to various companies that compete with Google. That work is ongoing and covers varied subjects, most commonly advertising fraud. I write on my own—not at the suggestion or request of any client, without approval or payment from any client.
Through a FOIA request, the Wall Street Journal recently obtained--and generously provided to the public--never-before-seen documents from the FTC's 2011-2012 investigation of Google for antitrust violations. The Journal's initial report (Inside the U.S. Antitrust Probe of Google) examined the divergence between the staff's recommendation and the FTC commissioners' ultimate decision, while search engine guru Danny Sullivan later highlighted 64 notable quotes from the documents.
In this piece, I compare the available materials (particularly the staff memorandum's primary source quotations from internal Google emails) with the company's public statements on the same subjects. The comparison is revealing: Google's public statements typically emphasize a lofty focus on others' interests, such as giving users the most relevant results and paying publishers as much as possible. Yet internal Google documents reveal managers who are primarily focused on advancing the company's own interests, including through concealed tactics that contradict the company's public commitments.
About the Document
In a 169-page memorandum dated August 8, 2012, the FTC's Bureau of Competition staff examined Google's conduct in search and search advertising. Through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, the WSJ sought copies of FTC records pertaining to Google. It seems this memorandum was intended to be withheld from FTC's FOIA request, as it probably could have been pursuant to FOIA exception 5 (deliberative process privilege). Nonetheless, the FTC inadvertently produced the memorandum – or, more precisely, approximately half the pages of the memorandum. In particular, the FTC produced the pages with even numbers.
To ease readers' analysis of the memorandum, I have improved the PDF file posted by the WSJ. Key enhancements: I used optical character recognition to index the file's text (facilitating users' full-text search within the file and allowing search engines to index its contents). I deskewed the file (straightening crooked scans), corrected PDF page numbering (to match the document's original numbering), created hyperlinks to access footnotes, and added a PDF navigation panel with the document's table of contents. The resulting document: FTC Bureau of Competition Memorandum about Google – August 8, 2012.
AdWords API restrictions impeding competition
In my June 2008 PPC Platform Competition and Google's "May Not Copy" Restriction and July 2008 congressional testimony about competition in online search, it seems I was the first to alert policy-makers to brazen restrictions in Google's AdWords API Terms and Conditions. The AdWords API provided full-featured access to advertisers' AdWords campaigns. With both read and write capabilities, the AdWords API provided a straightforward facility for toolmakers to copy advertisers' campaigns from AdWords to competing services, optimize campaigns across multiple services, and consolidate reporting across services. Instead, Google inserted contractual restrictions banning all of these functions. (Among other restrictions: “[T]he AdWords API Client may not offer a functionality that copies data from a non-AdWords account into an AdWords account or from an AdWords account to a non-AdWords account.”)
Large advertisers could build their own tools to escape the restrictions. But for small to midsized advertisers, it would be unduly costly to make such tools on their own – requiring more up-front expenditure on tools than the resulting cost-savings would warrant. Crucially, Google prohibited software developers from writing the tools once and providing them to everyone interested – a much more efficient approach that would have saved small advertisers the trouble and expense of making their own tools. It was a brazen restriction with no plausible procompetitive purpose. The restriction caused clear harms: Small to midsized advertisers disproportionately used only Google AdWords, although Microsoft, Yahoo, and others could have provided a portion of the desired traffic at lower cost, reducing advertisers' overall expense.
Historically, Google staff disputed these effects. For example, when I explained the situation in 2008, AdWords API product manager Doug Raymond told me in a personal email in March 2008 that the restrictions were intended to prevent “inaccurate comparisons of data [that] make it difficult for the end advertiser to understand the performance of AdWords relative to other products.”
But internal discussions among Google staff confirm the effects I alleged. For example, in internal email, Google director of product management Richard Holden affirmed that many advertisers “don't bother running campaigns on [Microsoft] or Yahoo because [of] the additional overhead needed to manage these other networks [in light of] the small amount of additional traffic” (staff memo at p.48, citing GOOGWOJC-000044501-05). Holden indicated that removing AdWords API restrictions would pave the way to more advertisers using more ad platforms, which he called a “significant boost to … competitors” (id.). He further confirmed that the change would bring cost savings to advertisers, noting that Microsoft and Yahoo “have lower average CPAs” (cost per acquisition, a key measure of price) (id.), meaning that advertisers would be receptive to using those platforms if they could easily do so. Indeed, Google had known these effects all along. In a 2006 document not attributed to a specific author, the FTC quotes Google planning to “fight commoditization of search networks by enforcing AdWords API T&Cs” (footnote 546, citing GOOGKAMA-0000015528), indicating that AdWords API restrictions allowed Google to avoid competing on the merits.
The FTC staff report reveals that, even within Google, the AdWords API restrictions were controversial. Holden ultimately sought to “to eliminate this requirement” (key AdWords API restrictions) because the removal would be “better for customers and the industry as a whole” since it would “[r]educe friction” and make processes more “efficient” by avoiding time-consuming and error-prone manual work. Holden's proposal prompted (in his own words) “debate” and significant opposition. Indeed, Google co-founder Larry Page seems to have disapproved. (See staff report p.50, summarizing the staff's understanding, as well as footnote 280 as to documents presented to Page for approval in relaxing AdWords API restrictions; footnote 281 reporting that “Larry was OK with” a revised proposal that retained “the status quo” and thus cancelled the proposed loosening of restrictions.) Hal Varian, Google's chief economist, also sought to retain the restrictions: “We're the dominant incumbent in this industry; the folks pushing us to develop our PAI will be the underdogs trying to unseat us” (footnote 547, citing GOOGVARI-0000069-60R). Ultimately Holden's proposal was rejected, and Google kept the restrictions in place until FTC and EC pressure compelled their removal.
From one perspective, the story ends well: In due course, the FTC, EC investigators, and others came to recognize the impropriety of these restrictions. Google removed the offending provisions as part of its 2013 commitments to FTC (section II) and proposed commitments to the EC (section III). Yet advertisers have never received refunds of the amounts they overpaid as a result of Google's improper impediments to using competing tools. If advertisers incurred extra costs to build their own tools, Google never reimbursed them. And Google's tactics suppressed the growth of competing search engines (including their recruitment of advertisers to increase revenue and improve advertising relevance), thereby accelerating Google's dominance. Finally, until the recent release of the FTC staff report, it was always difficult to prove what we now know: That Google's longstanding statements about the purpose of the restrictions were pretextual, and that Google's own product managers knew the restrictions were in place not to improve the information available to advertisers (as Raymond suggested), but rather to block competitors and preserve high revenue from advertisers that used only Google.
Specialized search and favoring Google's own services: benefiting users or Google?
For nearly a decade, competitors and others have questioned Google's practice of featuring its own services in its search results. The core concern is that Google grants its own services favored and certain placement, preferred format, and other benefits unavailable to competitors – giving Google a significant advantage as it enters new sectors. Indeed, anticipating Google's entry and advantages, prospective competitors might reasonably seek other opportunities. As a result, users end up with fewer choices of service providers, and advertisers with less ability to find alternatives if Google's offerings are too costly or otherwise undesirable.
Against this backdrop, Google historically claimed its new search results were “quicker and less hassle” than alternatives, and that the old “ten blue links” format was outdated. “ [W]e built Google for users,” the company claimed, arguing that the design changes benefit users. In a widely-read 2008 post, Google Fellow Amit Singhal explained Google's emphasis on “the most relevant results” and the methods used to assure result relevance. Google's “ Ten things we know to be true” principles begin with “focus on the user,” claiming that Google's services “will ultimately serve you [users], rather than our own internal goal or bottom line.”
With access to internal Google discussions, FTC staff paint quite a different picture of Google's motivations. Far from assessing what would most benefit users, Google staff examine the “threat” (footnote 102, citing GOOG-ITA-04-0004120-46) and “challenge” of “aggregators” which would cause “loss of query volumes” to competing sites and which also offer a “better advertiser proposition” through “cheaper, lower-risk” pricing (FTC staff report p.20 and footnote 102, citing GOOG-Texas-1486928-29). The documents continue at length: “the power of these brands [competing services] and risk to our monetizable traffic” (footnote 102, citing GOOG-ITA-05-0012603-16), with “merchants increasing % of spend on” competing services (footnote 102, citing GOOG-ITA-04-0004120-46). Bill Brougher, a Google product manager assessed the risks:
[W]hat is the real threat if we don't execute on verticals? (a) loss of traffic from Google.com because folks search elsewhere for some queries; (b) related revenue loss for high spend verticals like travel; (c) missing opty if someone else creates the platform to build verticals; (d) if one of our big competitors builds a constellation of high quality verticals, we are hurt badly
(footnote 102, citing GOOG-ITA-06-0021809-13) Notice Brougher's sole focus on Google's business interests, with not a word spent on what is best for users.
Moreover, the staff report documents Google's willingness to worsen search results in order to advance the company's strategic interests. Google's John Hanke (then Vice President of Product Management for Geo) explained that “we want to win [in local] and we are willing to take some hits [i.e. trigger incorrectly sometimes]” (footnote 121, citing GOOG-Texas-0909676-77, emphasis added). Google also proved willing to sacrifice user experience in its efforts to demote competing services, particularly in the competitive sector of comparison shopping services. Google used human “raters” to compare product listings, but in 2006 experiments the raters repeatedly criticized Google's proposed changes because they favored competing comparison shopping services: “We had moderate losses [in raters' assessments of quality when Google made proposed changes] because the raters thought this was worse than a bizrate or nextag page” (footnote 154, citing GOOGSING-000014116-17). Rather than accept raters' assessment that competitors had high-quality offerings that should remain in search results, Google changed raters' criteria twice, finally imposing a set of criteria in which competitors' services were no longer ranked favorably (footnote 154, citing GOOGEC-0168014-27, GOOGEC-0148152-56, GOOGC-0014649).
Specialized search and favoring Google's own services: targeting bad sites or solid competitors?
In public statements, Google often claimed that sites were rightly deprioritized in search results, indicating that demotions targeted “low quality,” “shallow” sites with “duplicate, overlapping, or redundant” content that is “mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators … so that individual pages or sites don't get as much attention or care.” Google Senior Vice President Jonathan Rosenberg chose the colorful phrase “faceless scribes of drivel” to describe sites Google would demote “to the back of the arena.”
But when it came to the competing shopping services Google staff sought to relegate, Google's internal assessments were quite different. “The bizrate/nextag/epinions pages are decently good results. They are usually well-format[t]ed, rarely broken, load quickly and usually on-topic. Raters tend to like them. …. [R]aters like the variety of choices the meta-shopping site(s) seem… to give” (footnote 154, citing GOOGSING-000014375).
Here too, Google's senior leaders approved the decision to favor Google's services. Google co-founder Larry Page personally reviewed the prominence of Google's services and, indeed, sought to make Google services more prominent. For example: “Larry thought product [Google's shopping service] should get more exposure” (footnote 120, citing GOOG-Texas-1004148). Product managers agreed, calling it “strategic” to “dial up” Google Shopping (footnote 120, citing GOOG-Texas-0197424). Others noted the competitive importance: Preferred placement of Google's specialized search services was deemed important to avoid “ced[ing] recent share gains to competitors” (footnote 121, citing GOOG-Texas-0191859) or indeed essential: “most of us on geo [Google Local] think we won't win unless we can inject a lot more of local directly into google results” (footnote 121, citing GOOGEC-0069974). Assessing “Google's key strengths” in launching product search, one manager flagged Google's control over “Google.com real estate for the ~70MM of product queries/day in US/UK/De alone” (footnote 121, citing GOOG-Texas-0199909), a unique advantage that competing services could not match.
Specialized search and favoring Google's own services: algorithms versus human decisions
A separate divergence from Google's public statements comes in the use of staff decisions versus algorithms to select results. Amit Singhal's 2008 post presented the company's (supposed) insistence on “no manual intervention”:
In our view, the web is built by people. You are the ones creating pages and linking to pages. We are using all this human contribution through our algorithms. The final ordering of the results is decided by our algorithms using the contributions of the greater Internet community, not manually by us. We believe that the subjective judgment of any individual is, well ... subjective, and information distilled by our algorithms from the vast amount of human knowledge encoded in the web pages and their links is better than individual subjectivity.
2011 testimony from Google Chairman Eric Schmidt (written responses to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights) made similar claims: “The decision whether to display a onebox is determined based on Google's assessment of user intent” (p.2). Schmidt further claimed that Google displayed its own services because they “are responsive to what users are looking for,” in order to “enhance[e] user satisfaction" (p.2).
The FTC's memorandum quotes ample internal discussions to the contrary. For one, Google repeatedly changed the instructions for raters until raters assessed Google's services favorably (the practice discussed above, citing and quoting from footnote 154). Similarly, Page called for “more exposure” for Google services and staff wanted “a lot more of local directly into search results” (cited above). In each instance, Google managers and staff substituted their judgment for algorithms and user preferences as embodied in click-through rate. Furthermore, Google modified search algorithms to show Google's services whenever a “blessed site” (key competitor) appeared. Google staff explained the process: “Product universal top promotion based on shopping comparison [site] presence” (footnote 136 citing GOOGLR-00161978) and “add[ing] a 'concurring sites' signal to bias ourselves toward triggering [display of a Google local service] when a local-oriented aggregator site (i.e. Citysearch) shows up in the web results” (footnote 136 citing GOOGLR-00297666). Whether implemented by hand or through human-directed changes to algorithms, Google sought to put its own services first, contrary to prior commitments to evenhandedness.
At the same time, Google systematically applied lesser standards to its own services. Examining Google's launch report for a 2008 algorithm change, FTC staff said that Google elected to show its product search OneBox “regardless of the quality” of that result (footnote 119, citing GOOGLR-00330279-80) and despite “pretty terribly embarrassing failures” in returning low-quality results (footnote 170, citing GOOGWRIG-000041022). Indeed, Google's product search service apparently failed Google's standard criteria for being indexed by Google search (p.80 and footnote 461), yet Google nonetheless put the service in top positions (p.30 and footnote 170, citing GOOG-Texas-0199877-906).
The FTC's documents also call into question Eric Schmidt's 2011 claim (in written responses to a Senate committee) that “universal search results are our search service -- they are not some separate 'Google product or service' that can be 'favored.'” The quotes in the preceding paragraph indicate that Google staff knew they could give Google's own services “more exposure” by “inject[ing] a lot more of [the services] into google results.” Whether or not these are “separate” services, they certainly can be made more or less prominent--as Google's Page and staff recognized, but as Schmidt's testimony denies. Meanwhile, in oral testimony, Schmidt said “I'm not aware of any unnecessary or strange boosts or biases.” But consider Google's “concurring sites” feature, which caused Google services to appear whenever key competitors' services were shown (footnote 136 citing GOOGLR-00297666). This was surely not genuinely “necessary” in the sense that search could not function without it, and indeed Google's own raters seemed to think search would be better without it. And these insertions were surely “strange” in the sense that they were unknown outside Google until the FTC memorandum became available last week. In response to a question from Senator Lee, asking whether Google “cooked it” to make its results always appear in a particular position, Schmidt responded “I can assure you, we've not cooked anything”--but in fact the “concurring sites” feature exactly guaranteed that Google's service would appear, and Google staff deliberated at length over the position in which Google services would appear (footnote 138).
All in all, Google's internal discussions show a company acutely aware of its special advantage: Google could increase the chance of its new services succeeding by making them prominent. Users might dislike the changes, but Google managers were plainly willing to take actions their own raters considered undesirable in order to increase the uptake of the company's new services. Schmidt denied that such tampering was possible or even logically coherent, but in fact it was widespread.
Payments to publishers: as much as possible, or just enough to meet waning competition?
In public statements, Google touts its efforts to “ help… online publishers … earn the most advertising revenue possible.” I've always found this a strange claim: Google could easily cut its fees so that publishers retain more of advertisers' payments. Instead, publishers have long reported – and the FTC's document now explicitly confirms – that Google has raised its fees and thus cut payments to publishers. The FTC memorandum quotes Google co-founder Sergey Brin: “Our general philosophy with renewals has been to reduce TAC across the board” (footnote 517, citing GOOGBRIN-000025680). Google staff confirm an “overall goal [of] better AFS economics” through “stricter AFS Direct revenue-share tiering guidelines” (footnote 517, citing GOOGBRAD-000012890) – that is, lower payments to publishers. The FTC even released revenue share tiers for a representative publisher, reporting a drop from 80%, 85%, and 87.5% to 73%, 75%, and 77% (footnote 320, citing GOOG-AFS-000000327), increasing Google's fees to the publisher by as much as 84%. (Methodology: divide Google's new fee by its old fee, e.g. (1-0.875)/(1-0.77)=1.84.)
The FTC's investigation revealed the reason why Google was able to impose these payment reductions and fee increases: Google does not face effective competition for small to midsized publishers. The FTC memorandum quotes no documents in which Google managers worry about Microsoft (or others) aggressively recruiting Google's small to midsized publishers. Indeed, FTC staff report that Microsoft largely ceased attempts in this vein. (Assessing Microsoft's withdrawal, the FTC staff note Google contract provisions preventing a competing advertising service from bidding only on those searches and pages where it has superior ads. Thus, Microsoft had little ability to bid on certain terms but not others. See memorandum p.106.)
The FTC notes Microsoft continuing to pursue some large Google publishers, but with limited success. A notable example is AOL, which Google staff knew Microsoft “aggressively woo[ed] … with large guarantees” (p.108). An internal Google analysis showed little concern about losing AOL but significant concern about Microsoft growing: “AOL holds marginal search share but represents scale gains for a Microsoft + Yahoo! Partnership… AOL/Microsoft combination has modest impact on market dynamics, but material increase in scale of Microsoft's search & ads platform” (p.108). Google had historically withheld many features from AOL, whereas AOL CEO Tim Armstrong sought more. (WSJ reported: “Armstrong want[ed] AOL to get access to the search innovation pipeline at Google, rather than just receive a more basic product.”) By all indications Google accepted AOL's request only due to pressure from Microsoft: “[E]ven if we make AOL a bit more competitive relative to Google, that seems preferable to growing Bing” (p.108). As usual, Google's public statements contradicted their private discussions; despite calling AOL's size “marginal” in internal discussions (p.108), a joint press release quotes Google's Eric Schmidt praising “AOL's strength.”
A Critical Perspective
The WSJ also recently flagged Google's “close ties to White House,” noting large campaign contributions, more than 230 meetings at the White House, high lobbying expenditures, and ex-Google staff serving in senior staff positions. In an unusual press release, the FTC denied that improper factors affected the Commission's decision. Google's Rachel Whetstone, SVP Communications and Policy, responded by shifting focus to WSJ owner Rupert Murdoch personally, then explaining that some of the meetings were industry associations and other matters unrelated to Google's competition practices.
Without records confirming discussion topics or how decisions were made, it is difficult to reach firm conclusions about the process that led the FTC not to pursue claims against Google. It is also difficult to rule out the WSJ's conclusion of political influence. Indeed, Google used exactly this reasoning in critiquing the WSJ's analysis: “We understand that what was sent to the Wall Street Journal represents 50% of one document written by 50% of the FTC case teams.” Senator Mike Lee this week confirmed that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary will investigate the possibility of improper influence, and perhaps that investigation will yield further insight. But even the incomplete FTC memorandum reproduces scores of quotes from Google documents, and these quotes offer an unusual opportunity to compare Google's internal statements with its public claims. Google's broadest claims of lofty motivations and Internet-wide benefits were always suspect, and Google's public statements fall further into question when compared with frank internal discussions.
There's plenty more to explore in the FTC's report. I will post the rest of the document if a further FOIA request or other development makes more of it available.
Met Police Condemn Snapchat (http://order-order.com/2015/04/22/met-police-condemn-snapchat/)
People: Mark Rowley
April 22, 2015 at 11:43 am
police snap
The Met Police’s Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley has condemned tech companies that don’t make it really easy for him to do his job. Speaking at the London Counter Terror Expo, Rawley accused makers of encrypted communication apps of developing software that is “friendly to terrorists.”
Rowley begged technology firms to leave back doors in their products so the police can waltz into our private communications at will:“Technology] can be set up in a way which is friendly to terrorists and helps them and provides all sorts of opportunities for them, ways for them to work and creates challenges for law enforcement intelligence agencies or it can be set up in a way which doesn’t do that and maintains the ability of law enforcement intelligence agencies in different ways to defend their communities.”Would you be happy with Rowley going through your snap chats?
Terrorists also use water, air, and brains. I propose we outlaw them all! :P-Renegade (April 22, 2015, 08:58 AM)
To help spread its message, the NSA has produced a coloring book. You know, for kids
By the time I found the National Security Agency booth on the expo floor at last week’s RSA Conference, all the best shwag was gone. The most prized giveaway was a faux-leather Post-it Note kit bearing the agency’s seal.
“We can’t print enough of those,” the agency rep manning the booth told me. “Next year, we are going to make the seal even bigger. Kids will really like that, like a badge to show their friends at school.”
Is it strange that the NSA, which takes such care to stay out of the public eye, should be so keen to capture the attention and aspirations of the young?
While I wasn’t able to score any government-issue school supplies, and none of the representatives could tell me if the NSA was still operating out of the hermetic former AT&T fiber optic hub down the street at 2nd and Folsom, I did walk away with a copy of the “CryptoKids Fun Book”, images from which you can see below.
Which anthropomorphic Myers-Briggs Type crypto-kid are you? I’m Decipher Dog, always looking for “the hidden messages behind the words, symbols and sounds,” and reading the latest robot news in Cryptobyte Monthly. That said, I don’t condone Dog’s habit of wearing shoes in bed and looking at kitty porn on his laptop. You bad dog you.
Security: Cloud Bigtable is built with a replicated storage strategy, and all data is encrypted both in-flight and at rest.
There is an announcement dated 2015-05-05 on the Google Cloud Platform blog:
Announcing Google Cloud Bigtable: The same database that powers Google Search, Gmail and Analytics is now available on Google Cloud Platform (http://googlecloudplatform.blogspot.co.nz/2015/05/introducing-Google-Cloud-Bigtable.html)
Amongst the verbiage, it gives a list of "key benefits", which list also makes the classic confusion of features with benefits. One of these "benefits is described thus:Security: Cloud Bigtable is built with a replicated storage strategy, and all data is encrypted both in-flight and at rest.
Pretty impressive, eh?
Yes, but it set my BS alarm off. What exactly does "in-flight and at rest" mean? Well, it's using ambiguous clichés, so it could mean anything you wanted, or more probably it means nothing, but the desired implication would seem to be that everything is safely encrypted and cannot be decrypted or viewed by other parties. So why didn't they just say so? Probably because if they did say that, it would not be true/provable, and they don't want to lie about it because it could not be confirmed in contract, and they know that very well and so just obfuscate instead. Heck, this "announcement" is only a marketing puff, after all.-IainB (May 06, 2015, 08:24 AM)
In other - possibly related - news, it might not have escaped your attention that Dropbox have announced that they are setting up data storage farms in Ireland to house all the data belonging to their business users and other paying customers outside of North America.
Now why would they do that? ;D-IainB (May 06, 2015, 08:24 AM)
Patrick O'Neill writes:
It's not just DuckDuckGo — since the first Snowden articles were published in June 2013, the global public has increasingly adopted privacy tools that use technology like strong encryption to protect themselves from eavesdroppers as they surf the Web and use their phones. The Tor network has doubled in size, Tails has tripled in users, PGP has double the daily adoption rate, Off The Record messaging is more popular than ever before, and SecureDrop is used in some of the world's top newsrooms.
_____________________________
...But in some of the attitudes I see being expressed now about "forced" encryption regimes -- even browsers blocking out fully-informed users who would choose to forgo secure connections in critical situations -- there's a sense of what I might call "crypto-fascism" of a kind. ...
...
...Yes, we want to encourage encryption -- strong encryption -- on the Net whenever possible and practicable. Yes, we want to pressure sites to fix misconfigured servers and not purposely use weak crypto.
But NO, we must not permit technologists (including me) to deploy Web browsers (that together represent a primary means of accessing the Internet), that on a "security policy" basis alone prevent users from accessing legal sites that are not specifically configured to always require strongly encrypted connections, when those users are informed of the risks and have specifically chosen to proceed.
Anything less is arrogantly treating all users like children incapable of taking the responsibility for their own decisions.
And that would be a terrible precedent indeed for the future of the Internet.
_____________________________
OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE RESPONSE TO
Pardon Edward Snowden
A Response to Your Petition on Edward Snowden
Thanks for signing a petition about Edward Snowden. This is an issue that many Americans feel strongly about. Because his actions have had serious consequences for our national security, we took this matter to Lisa Monaco, the President's Advisor on Homeland Security and Counterterrorism. Here's what she had to say:
"Since taking office, President Obama has worked with Congress to secure appropriate reforms that balance the protection of civil liberties with the ability of national security professionals to secure information vital to keep Americans safe.
As the President said in announcing recent intelligence reforms, "We have to make some important decisions about how to protect ourselves and sustain our leadership in the world, while upholding the civil liberties and privacy protections that our ideals and our Constitution require."
Instead of constructively addressing these issues, Mr. Snowden's dangerous decision to steal and disclose classified information had severe consequences for the security of our country and the people who work day in and day out to protect it.
If he felt his actions were consistent with civil disobedience, then he should do what those who have taken issue with their own government do: Challenge it, speak out, engage in a constructive act of protest, and -- importantly -- accept the consequences of his actions. He should come home to the United States, and be judged by a jury of his peers -- not hide behind the cover of an authoritarian regime. Right now, he's running away from the consequences of his actions.
We live in a dangerous world. We continue to face grave security threats like terrorism, cyber-attacks, and nuclear proliferation that our intelligence community must have all the lawful tools it needs to address. The balance between our security and the civil liberties that our ideals and our Constitution require deserves robust debate and those who are willing to engage in it here at home."
Follow @WeThePeople on Twitter all day long for a series of Q+As with various Administration officials on the petition responses we released today.
Tell us what you think about this response and We the People.
I wasn't sure whether this came under the category of "silly humour" or "Snowdengate", but either way it made me smile:
Microsoft Invests In 3 Undersea Cable Projects To Improve Its Data Center Connectivity | TechCrunch (http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/11/microsoft-invests-in-3-undersea-cable-projects-to-improve-its-data-center-connectivity/)
I guess this sort of thing is increasingly likely to happen, as US Cloud-hosting corporations attempt to at least give things a semblance of "wanting to be seen to be not in league with the NSA" and so start planting their data centres offshore of the North Americas.
It will be interesting anyway. There could be far more capacity in those cables than MS would be likely to need...
Maybe MS is about to offer telco services too? :tellme:
Some people (not me, you understand) might query whether the NSA will be connecting to these cables as they are being laid, or afterwards; however, I couldn't possibly comment.
_____________________________-IainB (May 12, 2015, 02:55 AM)
AWS announces UK region offering local cloud storage in wake of Safe Harbour ruling- The Inquirer (http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2433763/aws-announces-uk-region-offering-local-cloud-storage-in-wake-of-safe-harbor-ruling)
But what effect is May to December?
By Chris Merriman
Fri Nov 06 2015, 15:19
AWS announces UK region offering local cloud storage in wake of Safe Harbor ruling
AMAZON WEB SERVICES (AWS) has announced a new UK region for its cloud services. It is expected that the UK operation will be complete by the end of 2016, and that the facility will bolster the current AWS regional offerings in Dublin and Frankfurt.
The news has a double impact for customers in the UK. On an operational level, it will create a lower latency, higher speed offering for customers that will significantly affect organisations such as Channel 4 which uses AWS as the backbone of its All 4 service.
The second aspect comes from the continuing controversy surrounding the Safe Harbour ruling. UK companies will now be able to store data in the UK, thus avoiding any unpleasant laws governing access to files that may exist in other countries.
Of course, the news comes in the same week that the so-called Snoopers' Charter was revealed, which includes a number of clauses that will make UK-based storage less appealing.
Government CTO Liam Maxwell was glowing in his praise of Amazon's decision and referred to the need for onshore data storage.
"It’s great to see that AWS will provide commercial cloud services from data centres in the UK. Not only will this mean a significant investment in the UK economy, but more healthy competition and innovation in the UK data centre market.
"This is good news for the UK government given the significant amount of data we hold that needs to be kept onshore,” he said.
The announcement of a UK region comes just a day after Amazon revealed a string of new data centres in South Korea. Jeff Barr, one of the main cloud evangelists at AWS, said in a blog post: “We have always believed that you need to be able to exercise complete control over where your data is stored and where it is processed.”
Which is all very noble, but Amazon probably hadn't bet on Theresa May.
We reported last month on an Australian university that had made the decision to switch from Google Apps to Microsoft Office 365 specifically to ensure that its data would be stored in Europe rather than the US. It's an illustration of what's at stake when planning a cloud infrastructure.
Clearing the Air on Wi-Fi Software Updates (https://www.fcc.gov/blog/clearing-air-wi-fi-software-updates)
by: Julius Knapp, Chief, Office of Engineering & Technology
November 12, 2015 - 12:09 PM
This week marked the closing of the reply comment period in the Commission’s radio device approval modernization rulemaking. The comments and replies are largely supportive of the Commission’s proposals, but one particular element generated thousands of comments from individuals concerned that the proposal would encourage manufacturers to prevent modifications or updates to the software used in devices such as wireless local area networks (e.g., Wi-Fi routers). I’m pleased that this issue attracted considerable attention and thoughtful submissions into the record and would like to make it clear that the proposal is not intended to encourage manufacturers to prevent all modifications or updates to device software.
As I wrote last month, this proceeding has taken on a significance beyond the Commission’s original intent. One of our key goals is to protect against harmful interference by calling on manufacturers to secure their devices against third party software modifications that would take a device out of its RF compliance. Yet, as the record shows, there is concern that our proposed rules could have the unintended consequence of causing manufacturers to “lock down” their devices and prevent all software modifications, including those impacting security vulnerabilities and other changes on which users rely. Eliciting this kind of feedback is the very reason that we sought comment in an NPRM and we are pleased to have received the feedback that will inform our decision-making on this matter.
In my last post I recognized the need to work with stakeholders – particularly the user community – to address these concerns in a way that still enables the Commission to execute its mandate to protect users from harmful interference. I’m happy to say that the OET staff and I have spoken directly with some of these stakeholders in the last few weeks.
One immediate outcome of this ongoing dialogue is a step we’ve taken to clarify our guidance on rules the Commission adopted last year in the U-NII proceeding. Our original lab guidance document released pursuant to that Order asked manufacturers to explain “how [its] device is protected from ‘flashing’ and the installation of third-party firmware such as DD-WRT”. This particular question prompted a fair bit of confusion – were we mandating wholesale blocking of Open Source firmware modifications?
We were not, but we agree that the guidance we provide to manufacturers must be crystal-clear to avoid confusion. So, today we released a revision to that guidance to clarify that our instructions were narrowly-focused on modifications that would take a device out of compliance. The revised guidance now more accurately reflects our intent in both the U-NII rules as well as our current rulemaking, and we hope it serves as a guidepost for the rules as we move from proposal to adoption.
There is more hard work ahead of us as we finalize rules, and we welcome continued input from manufacturers, users, technologists, and others.
Updated: November 12, 2015 - 12:09 PM
_______________________________
Ahh, now it all makes sense - it seems that it was because of Snowden that all those people in Paris were massacred yesterday: Edward Snowden and spread of encryption blamed after Paris terror attacks (http://www.dailydot.com/politics/paris-attack-encryption-snowden/?fb=dd)-IainB (November 15, 2015, 10:16 AM)
I can't believe that the French security services would have known for some time that the Bataclan was a defined prime Islamic terrorist target and yet apparently have done nothing to anticipate it and protect French citizens...-IainB (November 15, 2015, 10:16 AM)
Nah, it must have been Snowden's fault.-IainB (November 15, 2015, 10:16 AM)
Maybe French citizens should start pressing for the right to carry arms, to avert such "workplace accidents" as this?-IainB (November 15, 2015, 10:16 AM)
Roughly translated: "Whoops! Ha-ha. Oh you spotted that did you? Silly me."-IainB (November 15, 2015, 10:29 AM)
Obama Calls Alternative Media 'Domestic Propagandists" (https://www.davidicke.com/article/397360/obama-calls-alternative-media-domestic-propagandists)
BY DAVID ON 17 DECEMBER 2016 GMT ACTIVISM, USELESS MEDIA
Untitled (210)
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
Obama Calls Alternative Media 'Domestic Propagandists
BY DAVID ON 17 DECEMBER 2016 GMT
Tags: ACTIVISM, USELESS MEDIA
‘The war on alternative media intensified today when Obama blamed talk radio and other “domestic propagandists” for the rise of “fake news.”
“If fake news that’s being released by some foreign government is almost identical to reports that are being issued through partisan news venues, then it’s not surprising that that foreign propaganda will have a greater effect,” Obama said. “It doesn’t seem that farfetched compared to some of the other stuff folks are hearing from domestic propagandists.”’
Read more: Obama Calls Alternative Media ‘Domestic Propagandists'
______________________________________
Dear X,
Edward Snowden is one of the most important whistleblowers in American history.
Snowden's leaks about the far-reaching NSA surveillance led the agency to limit its bulk collection of millions of Americans' phone records.1
But Trump and his CIA director have already said they consider Snowden a traitor. And since Snowden is currently living in exile in Russia, he'll be at the mercy of Trump's buddy Vladimir Putin.
With less than 30 days left before Trump's inauguration, Snowden's time is running out.
Will you chip in $5 to help call on President Obama to pardon Edward Snowden before he leaves office? (https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/snowden)
The U.S.’s top lawyer, Eric Holder, has said that Snowden's leaks were a "public service."2 In an interview, he recognized that while the leaks were technically illegal, they prompted an important debate.
In less than 30 days we will inaugurate a president who has said Snowden is a traitor.3 Trump's pick for CIA chief agreed, saying Snowden should be brought back to the U.S. and tried for treason.4
Donald Trump has said that he wants to have the power to spy on his political enemies.5 It's only because of whistleblowers like Snowden that we, the American public, have any real chance to stop him.
We're calling on the Obama administration to pardon Edward Snowden before Inauguration Day. Will you chip in $5 to help free Snowden?
Thanks for standing with us,
David Segal, Demand Progress
DONATE
Sources:
1. NSA ends bulk collection of US phone records, Al Jazeera, November 28, 2015
2. Eric Holder says Edward Snowden performed 'public service' with NSA leak, The Guardian, May 30, 2016
3. Ibid.
4. Benghazi Investigation and Hillary Clinton's Emails, C-SPAN, February 11, 2016
5. Donald Trump’s most chilling comment on the DNC hack had nothing to do with Russia, Vox, July 27, 2016
PAID FOR BY DEMAND PROGRESS (DemandProgress.org) and not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. Contributions are not deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes. Join our online community on Facebook or Twitter.
You can unsubscribe from this list at any time.
_________________________
Obama has less than 30 days
lo pardon Edward Snowden.
Otherwise, Snowden could be
forced to live the rest of his life
in exile—or worse. Will you
chip in S5 to help call on
Obama to do the right thing
before Inauguration Day?
I'll donate
(https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/snowden)
_________________________
____________________________
"...at the mercy of Trump's buddy Vladimir Putin..."
____________________________
Thus, whilst many people reading the request for donations might want to donate to Snowden's fund, I could imagine that many potential $donations might be withheld simply because the donors could have been put off by the political bigotry implicit in that gratuitous line about Trump. Goodness knows how many thousands of dollars in withheld donations that single line could have cost the cause.
Go figure.
Talk about cutting one's nose off to spite one's face. It seems cretinous to me, but then I never could understand the divisive, partisan and antithetical dichotomy apparently created by and seemingly fostered by American political camps, when we are all brothers under the skin.-IainB (December 23, 2016, 05:58 PM)
":...you're either completely blind to the current political clime within this country - or you're indulging in wishful thinking. ..."
_____________________________-40hz (December 23, 2016, 09:18 PM)
It is now officially an "us or them" situation. Our halls of power are not interested in compromise. They've made it abundantly clear with the constant refrain given via tweets and Facebook comments over the last two months: "You lost snowflake. So suck it up, buttercup!"You may be right, but your reaction to IainB's comment is making the situation *worse*.-40hz (December 23, 2016, 09:18 PM)
White House fails to make case that Russian hackers tampered with election (http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/12/did-russia-tamper-with-the-2016-election-bitter-debate-likely-to-rage-on/)
... Sadly, the JAR, as the Joint Analysis Report is called, does little to end the debate. Instead of providing smoking guns that the Russian government was behind specific hacks, it largely restates previous private-sector claims without providing any support for their validity. Even worse, it provides an effective bait and switch by promising newly declassified intelligence into Russian hackers' "tradecraft and techniques" and instead delivering generic methods carried out by just about all state-sponsored hacking groups. ...
...Besides Communist Party loyalists, few would argue that China’s internet control serves as a model for democratic societies.
______________________
...At the same time, China anticipated many of the questions now flummoxing governments from the United States to Germany to Indonesia. Where the Russians have turned the internet into a political weapon, China has used it as a shield.
______________________
“This kind of thing would not happen here,” Mr. Zhao said of the controversy over Russia’s influence in the American presidential election last year.As some wag called Ben Thompson (https://twitter.com/benthompson/status/920210556430065665) points out,
__________________________________
...the reason it won't happen in China is because there are no Presidential elections in China.
(Copied from the TechDirt post.)
_________________________________
We spend the hour with former New York Times reporter James Risen, who left the paper in August to join The Intercept as senior national security correspondent. This week, he published a 15,000-word story headlined “The Biggest Secret: My Life as a New York Times Reporter in the Shadow of the War on Terror.” (https://theintercept.com/2018/01/03/my-life-as-a-new-york-times-reporter-in-the-shadow-of-the-war-on-terror/) The explosive piece describes his struggles to publish major national security stories in the post-9/11 period and how both the government and his own editors at The New York Times suppressed his reporting, including reports on the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program, for which he would later win the Pulitzer Prize. Risen describes meetings between key Times editors and top officials at the CIA and the White House. His refusal to name a source would take him to the Supreme Court, and he almost wound up in jail, until the Obama administration blinked.
Copied from: The Biggest Secret: James Risen on Life as a NY Times Reporter in the Shadow of the War on Terror | Democracy Now! - <https://www.democracynow.org/2018/1/5/the_biggest_secret_james_risen_on>
NSA DELETES “HONESTY” AND “OPENNESS” FROM CORE VALUES
<https://theintercept.com/2018/01/24/nsa-core-values-honesty-deleted/>
Jean Marc Manach
January 25 2018, 1:29
THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY maintains a page on its website that outlines its mission statement. But earlier this month, the agency made a discreet change: It removed “honesty” as its top priority.
Since at least May 2016, the surveillance agency had featured honesty as the first of four “core values” listed on NSA.gov, alongside “respect for the law,” “integrity,” and “transparency.” The agency vowed on the site to “be truthful with each other.”
On January 12, however, the NSA removed the mission statement page – which can still be viewed through the Internet Archive – and replaced it with a new version. Now, the parts about honesty and the pledge to be truthful have been deleted. The agency’s new top value is “commitment to service,” which it says means “excellence in the pursuit of our critical mission.”
Those are not the only striking alterations. In its old core values, the NSA explained that it would strive to be deserving of the “great trust” placed in it by national leaders and American citizens. It said that it would “honor the public’s need for openness.” But those phrases are now gone; all references to “trust,” “honor,” and “openness” have disappeared.
The agency previously stated on its website that it embraced transparency and claimed that all of its activities were aimed at “ensuring the safety, security, and liberty of our fellow citizens.” That has also been discarded. The agency still says it is committed to transparency on the updated website, but the transparency is now described as being for the benefit of “those who authorize and oversee NSA’s work on behalf of the American people.” The definition of “integrity” has been edited, too. The agency formerly said its commitment to integrity meant it would “behave honorably and apply good judgment.” The phrase “behave honorably” has now been dropped in favor of “communicating honestly and directly, acting ethically and fairly and carrying out our mission efficiently and effectively.”
The new list of values includes the additions “respect for people” and “accountability.” But the section on respecting people is a reference to diversity within the NSA workforce, not a general commitment to members of the public. Accountability is defined as taking “responsibility for our decisions.” The one core value that remains essentially unchanged is “respect for the law,” which the agency says means it is “grounded in our adherence to the U.S. Constitution and compliance with the U.S. laws, regulations and policies that govern our activities.”
In response to questions from The Intercept on Tuesday, the NSA played down the alterations. Thomas Groves, a spokesperson for the agency, said: “It’s nothing more than a website update, that’s all it is.”
Copied from: NSA Deletes “Honesty” and “Openness” From Core Values - <https://theintercept.com/2018/01/24/nsa-core-values-honesty-deleted/>
Some people (not me, you understand) might say that "The USA would seem to be unequivocally "stuffed", but I couldn't possibly comment.The NSA really is turning into quite the mad dog off its leash - Christ we are so screwed.-IainB (January 25, 2018, 04:30 AM)
...Then again we could at least try to appreciate they're finally being honest enough to admit their complete lack of honesty.. :-\ :DWell, yes, that would seem to be true, yet, though that is an amusing comment, the implications could be quite frightening: It would seem that the gloves are off and the intrusive spying is brazenly admitted to. It's an in-your-face middle digit sort of "How do you like them apples, buddy!?" to the American people at large (never mind the rest of the world).-Stoic Joker (January 25, 2018, 07:11 AM)
...Then again we could at least try to appreciate they're finally being honest enough to admit their complete lack of honesty.. -Stoic Joker (January 25, 2018, 08:11 AM)Well, yes, that would seem to be true, yet, though that is an amusing comment, the implications could be quite frightening: It would seem that the gloves are off and the intrusive spying is brazenly admitted to. It's an in-your-face middle digit sort of "How do you like them apples, buddy!?" to the American people at large (never mind the rest of the world).-IainB (January 26, 2018, 09:10 AM)
These would not seem to be the actions of a pukka civil servant per se, but rather the actions of the master, so secure in its position that it can overtly demonstrate a boorish/arrogant indifference to any public opinion/objection.
Maybe it's a first step in a process of desensitization of citizens towards a creeping erosion of rights and/or civil liberties - in the hope that, eventually, protest fatigue may set in and apathy take over.-IainB (January 26, 2018, 05:49 PM)
Or maybe it's jumping the gun a bit? Speaking of which, at least in the US, the citizens still have the ability to ultimately protect themselves from the State in a worst case scenario, via the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution (i.e., the right to keep and bear arms), despite the seemingly ceaseless assault by the State, on those rights, at every opportunity.
Other Western democracies don't seem to have anything like that.-IainB (January 26, 2018, 05:49 PM)
By Catalin CimpanuThat settles it then. If all "Five Eyes" countries are in consensus, then it must be true - right? :tellme:
February 18, 2018 05:50 AM
"All the countries part of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance — the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand— have made formal statements accusing the eussian Federation of orchestrating the NotPetya ransomware outbreak." (...more)
Copied from: All Five Eyes Countries Formally Accuse Russia of Orchestrating NotPetya Attack - <https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/all-five-eyes-countries-formally-accuse-russia-of-orchestrating-notpetya-attack/>
US Congress Passes CLOUD Act Hidden in Budget Spending Bill (https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/government/us-congress-passes-cloud-act-hidden-in-budget-spending-bill/)
By Catalin Cimpanu
March 23, 2018 09:22 AM 1
US Congress
The United States Congress passed late last night a $1.3 trillion budget spending bill that also contained a piece of legislation that allows internal and foreign law enforcement access to user data stored online without a search warrant or probable cause.
The legislation is the Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act (CLOUD Act), a bill proposed in mid-February, this year (S. 2383 and H.R. 4943).
Lawmakers use toddler trick to pass controversial bill
US officials never discussed the bill, but merely appended it to the Omnibus budget spending bill (page 2201) they introduced in Congress on Wednesday night.
The budget bill was deemed a priority and officials were almost forced to approve it in its current form to avoid a complete US government shutdown starting next week.
The budget bill passed a day later, Thursday, with a 256-167 vote in the House of Representatives, and a 65-32 vote on the Senate floor, including with the embedded CLOUD Act that got zero discussion, feedback, or modifications from regulators.
What is the CLOUD Act?
The unaltered and now official CLOUD Act effectively gets rid of the need for search warrants and probable cause for grabbing a US citizen's data stored online.
US police only need to point the finger at some account, and tech companies must abide and provide all the needed details, regardless if the data is stored in the US or overseas.
Further, the bill recognizes foreign law enforcement and allows the US President to sign data-sharing agreements with other countries without congressional oversight. The CLOUD Act will then allow foreign law enforcement to require data on their own citizens stored in the US, also without obtaining a warrant or proving probable cause.
Privacy groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation argue that in the US' hunt for criminals located in other countries, it might enter data-sharing agreements with countries known for human rights abuses and allow autocratic regimes easy access to their own citizen's data. Since there's no more need for a foreign law enforcement agency to obtain US warrants or prove probable cause, this opens the door wide open to political abuses.
But these data-sharing agreements might be a poisoned pill that could be employed for espionage and intelligence gathering as well. For example, foreign law enforcement could request data from their own citizens engaging in communications with US citizens. Tech companies will then be required to pass over that foreign citizens' entire communications, including his messages exchanged with the US person, potentially exposing details that an intelligence agency will consider valuable.
EFF: There was no need to backdoor the Fourth Amendment
Nonetheless, giving law enforcement access to data stored overseas could have been done by preserving the need for search warrants and proving probable cause, and without backdooring the Fourth Amendment, as EFF experts bluntly put it.
The reason why the CLOUD Act was proposed in the first place was to end any future litigations like the one put forward by Microsoft five years ago when it fought a US police's request to access a US citizen's data stored on a server in Ireland.
Regulators also argued the CLOUD Act will help with fighting terrorism, albeit its most important impact will be in going after ordinary criminals, like fraudsters, hackers, scammers, and more.
Analog Equivalent Rights (19/21): Telescreens in our Living Rooms (https://falkvinge.net/2018/05/04/analog-equivalent-rights-telescreens-living-rooms/)For more info, go to the actual post to follow the various links/references. (I have only embedded a couple here, for convenience).
tags: Privacy
Rick Falkvinge
MAY 4, 2018 • UPDATED APRIL 29, 2018 • BY RICK FALKVINGE
Image: cctv-camera-security-on-wall-background-in-room-picture-id478644146
PRIVACY: The dystopic stories of the 1950s said the government would install cameras in our homes, with the government listening in and watching us at all times. Those stories were all wrong, for we installed the cameras ourselves.
In the analog world of our parents, it was taken for completely granted that the government would not be watching us in our own homes. It’s so important an idea, it’s written into the very constitutions of states pretty much all around the world.
And yet, for our digital children, this rule, this bedrock, this principle is simply… ignored. Just because they their technology is digital, and not the analog technology of our parents.
There are many examples of how this has taken place, despite being utterly verboten. Perhaps the most high-profile one is the OPTIC NERVE program of the British surveillance agency GCHQ, which wiretapped video chats without the people concerned knowing about it.
Yes, this means the government was indeed looking into people’s living rooms remotely. Yes, this means they sometimes saw people in the nude. Quite a lot of “sometimes”, even.
According to summaries in The Guardian, over ten percent of the viewed conversations may have been sexually explicit, and 7.1% contained undesirable nudity (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/27/gchq-nsa-webcam-images-internet-yahoo).
Taste that term. Speak it out loud, to hear for yourself just how oppressive it really is. “Undesirable nudity”.The way you are described by the government, in a file about you, when looking into your private home without your permission.
When the government writes you down as having “undesirable nudity” in your own home.
There are many other examples, such as the state schools that activate school-issued webcams, or even the US government outright admitting it’ll all your home devices against you.
It’s too hard not to think of the 1984 quote here:
The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it, moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live — did live, from habit that became instinct — in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized. — From Nineteen Eighty-Four
And of course, this has already happened. The so-called “Smart TVs” from LG, Vizio, Samsung, Sony, and surely others have been found to do just this — spy on its owners. It’s arguable that the data collected only was collected by the TV manufacturer. It’s equally arguable by the police officers knocking on that manufacturer’s door that they don’t have the right to keep such data to themselves, but that the government wants in on the action, too.
There’s absolutely no reason our digital children shouldn’t enjoy the Analog Equivalent Rights of having their own home to their very selves, a right our analog parents took for granted.
(This is a post from Falkvinge on Liberty, obtained via RSS at this feed: <http://feeds.falkvinge.net/Falkvinge-on-Infopolicy>)
Google removes “Don’t be Evil” clause from Code of Conduct (https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/google-dont-be-evil-code-conduct-removed-alphabet-a8361276.html)
Google has removed its famous motto “Don’t be Evil”, which used to be the very first thing in its Code of Conduct and reiterated twice more within the first few paragraphs has quietly replaced this simple phrase with generalized references to “ethical business conduct”. “Don’t be evil” is now only mentioned once in the 6,313 word document, toward the end, seemingly as an afterthought “And remember… don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t right – speak up!” (Emphasis added, ‘cause when you think about it, that’s exactly what got James Damore fired).
Further, as previously reported here, the internal revolt at Google over Project Maven, its JV with the US DoD to build military drones continues, with about a dozen employees quitting and over 4,000 signing a petition to cease the project.
espionage /"EspI@nA;Z, -IdZ/
· n. the practice of spying or of using spies.
– ORIGIN C18: from Fr. espionnage, from espionner ‘to spy’, from espion ‘a spy’.
Concise Oxford Dictionary (10th Ed.)
Episode 296 Scott Adams: Wildfires, The Tucker Test, Forgotten Black Voters, SNL, The Abortion Ad, Broward (http://blog.dilbert.com/2018/11/11/episode-296-scott-adams-wildfires-the-tucker-test-forgotten-black-voters-snl-the-abortion-ad-broward/)
Topics:
* “Bad forest management”, President Trump vs. Alyssa Milano
- Should it be illegal to report how segments of the population vote?
- Reporting creates an “us vs. them” frame
- Reporting sides, causes people to take sides
* Boxes of votes keep getting “found”
- CNN correctly reports no proof of voter fraud, true, but…
- Fox and conservatives say look at all the suspicious stuff
- Suspicious stuff isn’t proof of crime, just like Russian collusion
- Why do all the found votes always favor Democrats?
* Are Democrat run things less competent than Republicans run things?
- Republicans are more system process oriented, follow rules
- Democrats are more goal oriented, less rules oriented
* SNL had Crenshaw on for “free punch-backs” at Pete Davidson
- Dan Crenshaw brought respect for veterans in his appearance
* Pro-Choice commercial, my view…it’s fake IMO, from a mole or hoax
* “The Tucker Carlson Test”
- IF an article doesn’t include reasons, just links to the reasons
- THEN the reasons don’t exist or are a misinterpretation
* Mueller’s “dozens of sealed indictments”
- What would he do if he possesses info that could cause a civil war?
* Alexa, who is Scott Adams?
- Some funny person changed Alexa’s response to be Scott Dale Adams
* Macron statement about need for France to protect themselves from America
- Fake news ignores that statement refers to cyber defenses