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More Details Emerge On Domestic Spying Programs
The feed brings us this NYTimes story giving new details on the telecom carriers' cooperation with secret NSA (and other) domestic spying programs. One revelation is that the Drug Enforcement Agency has been running a program since the 1990s to collect the phone records of calls from US citizens to Latin America in order to catch narcotics traffickers. Another revelation is what exactly the NSA asked for in 2001 that Qwest balked at supplying. According to the article, it was access to the company's most localized communications switches, which primarily carry domestic calls.
Of course if this were a story about Government abuse of civil liberties in China, as applied to privacy, people would be decrying it as immaculate example of that failed, corruptible political system we call Communism. In America it just defers to "Well what have you got to hide, bad guy?"
Describing America in the context of Democracy becomes increasingly difficult.
So, my point: before posting a rant about the fascist big brother state that rules from beyond the centre of the Ultraworld, for heaven's sake take some actions to register your protest, and to work against it. This is the real freedom for which more abstract things like the right to not have your comms intercepted by the government. No-one's going to kick your door in at 5am and drag you off to Cuba for it, not yet anyway -(sadly I have to now include the disclaimer "unless you're very unlucky" :( ) There are 300,000-something EFF members and many more supporters, and we haven't ALL been arrested, not yet anyway ;)
Please, stick your hand in your pocket and send 'em $30 or whatever you can. Join, if you can afford it.
We now return you to the Soviet Russia jokes, tinfoil hat conspiracy theories and hair-splitting arguing the toss about the precise spec of the optical splitters being used in San Francisco.
The Govt has ALWAYS maintained the ability to do this for international calls. Old FDR did it, probably every administration since the beginning of telecommunications has done this.
Dicks? Yes.
Surprising/News? No.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Come on, now. The seriously bad dudes out there running major operations aren't (usually) dumb enough to pick up the phone and chat away about their to-do lists. I'd think the use of commodity encryption software and computers has probably replaced a lot of insecure communications channels for these people, leaving the feds to pick up the low-hanging fruit. Sure, you might nab man number 137 on the totem pole o' dealers through a wiretap, but you're not going to be troubling the guy at the top of the food chain.
I'd imagine this applies to all sorts of bad guys, whether they're slinging coke by the truckload or plotting terrorist acts. That begs the question: what's the real value of these surveillance programs?
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
Didn't we have a different administration for most of the 1990's? I am pretty sure that Slick Willie was in the White House from 93 until the end of 2000. While I understand your comment, I think that as a group that is of the opinion that we are smarter than the masses, we really need to stop buying into the Democrat/Republican B.S. and remember that the vast majority of politicians, regardless of of party, are crooks, liars and cheats who hold the interests of their constituents fairly low on their list of priorities. Obviously that excludes election time, and then it's just a matter of how much crap they can shove down our throats to get reelected.
Yes, I remember the Clipper Chip. Essentially, a government-supplied encryption scheme with a backdoor that a law enforcement agency could get a court order to take advantage of.
I find it difficult to compare that egregious bit of stupidity -- which was proposed and thoroughly shot to pieces in full public view -- with this secretive, shadowy, unaccountable program.
These spying operations are both unconstitutional, and a complete waste of taxpayer time and money.
Black marketters (i.e., criminals) have wisened up to the fact that the telephone, and the Internet, is not a safe way to communicate. Many of them are even weary of the keyboard, since tapping into a keyboard with a stroke logger has been used to put some people away.
The drug war amazes me. Powerful interests involved in the profiteering over private medicinal use co-opt the security organizations to battle their competition. And yet few people call for the end to the drug war. The masterminds have long walked away from using technology that is easily spied on. The software, and hardware, that the masterminds use is far and away more powerful than most of the pro-privacy stuff I use. While I'm sure that the security organizations are continuously working to hack into the newer systems, they'll constantly lose ground to that battle.
Even the lesser members of the underground are moving away from open communications. Technology isn't cheap, but it's cheaper than jail. It's a wonder that people have faith in our security forces, who will always be one-step behind. As far as I'm aware, many of the ex-government security technologists are likely working for the other side (it's much more profitable). If I was truly profit-motivated, I'd likely do it myself, considering the amount of money that is available for someone tech savvy who is willing to provide the latest and greatest hardware and software to stay ahead of the security forces. Of course, morally I'm opposed to such work, but not because it is illegal. It just doesn't interest me to be part of the organizations of that sort. I'd rather do things morally, the law be damned.
So what is the end purpose of all this technology? It isn't safety for the citizens. I can only think of one reason, mostly conspiratorial, for the money and time spent: the learn how to use it for the powers that control the security forces. They all have their fingers in the pie, and by using taxpayer money for their research, they get the best of both worlds. Yes, it sounds like NWO-Alex-Jones mumbo-jumbo, but it's the only answer I can think of as to why we continue on with these programs.
You're saying this "could very well have benefitted you"?!? Specify exactly how, please.
AFAICT, the only thing the war on drugs successfully accomplished in MY life was to increase the cost of drugs so much that the only way a lower-class American could pay for them was to commit property crimes. Thus I can personally thank the war on drugs for my car and mail getting stolen, and having to change my bank account. Hooray!
Without the war on drugs, someone in my neighborhood would have been using drugs while holding down a low-wage job. I'm certainly glad that nightmare scenario was avoided!
Why does this post assume that domestic spying happens? Does domestic spying assume spying on US persons (including US citizens, green card holders, etc)? The government isn't allowed to spy on US persons in the US or abroad - see 4th amendment or EO 12333. Even if a US citizen lives in Iraq, NSA cannot monitor their calls. Conspiracy theorists point out that spying centers are in the US, but that doesn't mean they spy on US citizens, and especially not "surveillance" (as the article claims), which is a systematic monitoring. The NY Times article is written with a lot of assumptions and the article also notes that the details are not really known about any of the cases. What does this mean? It means, that the article is based largely on speculation.
Gee, where's your faux outrage now?
There's plenty of outrage to go around. Don't break this into red vs. blue BS. What part of "2001" don't you understand?
Support the constitution and the 4th Amendment no matter what year it is, and no matter what party is currently in "control".
You know what I LOVE about this?
When "those evil communists" (and they WERE evil, no doubts about it) did the same damn thing in other countries, America's people wondered HOW IN BLAZES the Russians and the other Eastern Block people didn't revolt.
I mean, their rulers were reading their mail. Kidnapping those who spoke out against abuses, and torturing them... ahem *enhanced interrogating them*... Free speech zones were established, and those who dared speak elsewhere were arrested and sent to Gulags. People who failed to show up for vote or voted for the "upstart" candidate were harassed, and sometimes not heard from again if they dared speak out. Experiments were often run on citizens, and often on the military, without any information or informed consent given. Evidence was often planted of "seditious behavior" or "conspiracy to overthrow the People's Government", usually with some rusty gun being found in someone's haystack as "evidence". One of my uncles ran a small investigation unit when he was younger, and remarked to me as I was growing up, that it was amazing to him that the same gun was found in a dozen different individuals' homes. Those individuals, of course, were quickly apprehended for "intended terroristic activities" and were slam dunked in a typical "kangaroo court" (the name used was "special tribunals"). Nobody mentioned the serial number on the gun... those individuals were eventually executed.
How is it that those poor bastards living under communism didn't notice all this and put an end to it?! Well let me ask you this... how is it that the poor bastards living in the West don't also notice all this and raise hell? The pattern is the same, even the TERMS in use are the same. Strange that those digging in the future will ask the same questions of this civilization.
"How come they didn't see it or put an end to it? Were they really that stupid, gullible or blind? Did any of them at all actually walk away? Did any make it out?"
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
While I believe some drugs should be legal (Cannabis, Heroin, LSD, etc) I think some should still stay illegal and be completely eradicated like cocaine which can cause major problems within a society.
Totally eradicating a drug is virtually impossible. There's also the problem that drug prohibition cause a lot of major problems to society.