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Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
IainB:
...
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)
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Absolutely. Those are words one could wish one had not uttered. Very damning and at the same time illuminating words.
I suppose it's a variation of "ignorance is bliss", but it would not be correct to call it a rational justification of illegal actions.
For example:
"Sure I stole the old lady's money out her handbag, but she never knew of it, so, like, no harm done, eh?"
________________
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Yeah, right.
wraith808:
A US Rep actually had the gall to post this on facebook:
How bad is it when they actually say what we've been saying all along that they meant- and expect to get away with it?
IainB:
^^ Moronic.
More absurdity:
(Copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images.)
UK Gov't Losing The Plot: Now Claiming Snowden Leaks Could Help Pedophiles
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.
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.
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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:
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.
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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."
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IainB:
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.
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.
_______________________
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Of course, it's a very sincere letter. You can tell that, because the person sending it signs off with "Sincerely".
"So, I immediately clicked on all the links and went crazy 'liking' it. Nice to see Google championing The Cause of Internet freedom."
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Yeah, right.
In a basement discussion here, we discussed a case: Could this be a cynical suppression of (political) free speech in the US?
Some people (not me, you understand) might say that the Google email above is a pathetic, whining and belated attempt by Google to create an artificial defence by inference that it is free from responsibility for "opening the kimono" to State/NSA surveillance, and to suggest that - golly gosh - they've even been campaigning like mad to fix this for ages don'tcha know and thus have been all along helping to make the world a better place. However, I couldn't possibly comment.
"Censorship is shown to be most effective when we dare not speak about it openly."
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There's an interesting comment about this by Jack D. Douglas (a retired professor of sociology from the University of California at San Diego), from November 29, 2005: None Dare Call It Censorship
IainB:
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 anti-terror laws to criminalise legitimate democratic protesters by associating them with "terrorism".
The State's pursuit of hacker Jeremy Hammond seems to be a case in point.
Hedges: Jeremy Hammond Exposed State's Plan to Criminalize Democratic Dissent
Though I don't understand some of what the guy being interviewed is talking about - e.g., when he talks of JH being a product of "the black block" or something - it did seem to me that when he drew parallels between JH's treatment and the treatment being meted out to (for example) Snowden and the Guardian journalists who were detained/investigated under laws related to terrorism, there were some troubling similarities.
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