Slashdot Mirror
US Mining Data Directly From 9 Silicon Valley Companies
Rick Zeman writes "Hot on the heels of Verizon's massive data dump to NSA comes news of 'PRISM' where The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person's movements and contacts over time. This program, established in 2007, includes major companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook...and more."
is anyone really that surprised by this, though?
Yep, they will be pissed at this news. (no not pissed in the drunk sense, idiot.)
....from last paragraph:
Firsthand experience with these systems, and horror at their capabilities, is what drove a career intelligence officer to provide PowerPoint slides about PRISM and supporting materials to The Washington Post in order to expose what he believes to be a gross intrusion on privacy. “They quite literally can watch your ideas form as you type,” the officer said.
The Internet needs to be policed. There are bad men and evildoers actively plotting to do us harm. These nefarious activities now are increasingly being planned and coordinated using the Internet. I don't think this is so bad that the authorities are mining and searching and seeking out these dastardly terrorists.
My life and my family's lives are more important than whatever privacy I had on these sites. I know Apple, Google, Facebook have the data anyway, so I see know harm on giving this up so that I feel safer. Just my two cents, I know its not the majority viewpoint in this current uproar.
i'm not very surprised !
Big Brother for nothing.
Tinfoil hat brigade says "we did tell you so"
From TFA:
Dropbox, the cloud storage and synchronization service, is described as “coming soon.”
I'm very dependent on Dropbox but I just might have to cancel it. As I type this, I'm already cancelling GoogleDrive, and MS SkyDrive.
Is there any chance that this and the Verizon metadata will cause real outrage, by which I mean by enough citizens to have some political effect? I honestly don't know, but at least some part of me hopes it will. Please discuss. I know much of the "discussion" will be the usual rants, but some folks might add real thought or insight.
If this doesn't make you angry, upset and outraged, what will? Most of you will have relatives that fought and died to fight the evil of fascism in the Second World War. What was that all about, if you are just allowing the same thing on your own doorstep by stealth? Don't tell me about Godwin's Law, that's just a way to stifle debate. Call out this fascism for what it is. This is beyond the wildest dreams of the STASI or Stalin, because they didn't have the technology. The NSA and the CIA are rogue states within the state, they are beyond control and are not acting for you, or in your best interests. This should upset you. If there are not huge, mass protests on the streets of your state capitols all over the nation in the coming weeks, you should be ashamed of yourselves. The Orwellian state is not inevitable, but it takes actual action to stop this. Cynical tut-tutting will not do. This has to be shut down now, and proper protest is what it's going to take. Over to you.
Do you believe that, for example, google search prediction-as-you-type is using a keylogger? It is keylogging, it's just that it's server-side.
My next sig will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush
Apple, Google, and Facebook have all denied involvement in this. While this does not entirely preclude their involvement, these three companies, much like the government, tend to keep their mouths shut when they're caught with their pants down. Their denial, therefore, should carry at least some weight.
Suddenly, I don't feel like the FBI agent from this slashdot article was just exaggerating claims to drum up interest for in a book he wanted to release....
Demented But Determined.
Now reports that it's not just Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, ISPs, and credit card companies are involved as well. Harry Reid said, "Everyone should just calm down and understand this isn't anything that is brand new,'' which I'm sure makes everyone feel better.
Diane Feinstein is ok with the program because she personally gets to approve it, as part of her committee position. Remember Obama voted for this before he ever got elected president, so if any of this surprises anyone, they are naive.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
tag: "bomb" in user name.
tag: threatening antisocial activities.
ELEVATE WATCH STATUS
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
This data poses a significant risk to a free market economy reliant on technology. Business is no longer demarcated from personal life, so spying on people means spying on business.
Would you start a new business if the government had access to all it's communications? Would you trust them not to share that information with others, or exploit it for their own benefit?
Unless there's checks and balances, like the recently neutered STOCK Act, there will be temptation to exploit this data for unimaginable gain.
NSA reporting increasingly relies on PRISM” as its leading source of raw material, accounting for nearly 1 in 7 intelligence reports.
But are those reports anything useful? Data is cheap, especially these days. Finding useful information is as difficult as ever, perhaps more so because of the flood of data. It wasn't a lack of data that kept 9/11 from being prevented, it was the failure of FBI headquarters to listen to their own field offices.
My prediction is that, even though these programs are now being widely reported on, there will be crickets chirping after it's asked what useful information they have obtained. I won't believe it's because that information is sensitive, as government never fails to crow about the wonderful things they've done.
Just to make my position clear, I don't think these programs are justifiable no matter what useful information is collected. However, a failure to collect useful information adds insult to injury, and renders moot any debate about whether this is an acceptable tradeoff.
With PRISM / BLARNEY, this battle is pointless, amirite?
You know, I (and everyone else) should be outraged at what is not only an invasion of privacy (citizens or not), but also a use of taxpayer money.
And, yet, all I can do is sigh. PRISM, Verizon, NSA, TSA, IRS, HLS, I just find it all overwhelming and disheartening. Sure, I could e-mail/call/mail my congressman or representative, but the cynicism I've gained over this past decade of political bullshit just tells me that my Congressman is already well aware of whatever is happening and is quite happy with the situation, no matter their party. (I see lots of scrutiny from the GOP, but not a single bill from the "we've voted to repeal Obamacare 37 times" House trying to rein in the President's actions or the actions of the various 3-letter organizations.) I'll do research every time I go to vote but I know that I'm in the minority that does so, while the voting population at large will blindly follow that D or R regardless of the candidates' viability, platforms, or intelligence, so it all seems for naught. I encourage my relatives to vote third party, but none of them heed my pleas to actually research who they vote for. (I have no circle of friends in which to do the same.) For all the abuse and impropriety of this, I just can't see a way to affect change.
I'm not even mad about this, though I should be. I'm just depressed. Circus and bread, indeed.
(Actually, if I adjust my tin-foil hat slightly, I wonder if all of this isn't coming out at the same time to be just that: overwhelming, numbing the average American, so that they just give up and don't raise hell about it.)
Don't use these services I guess...
Those are the services you know of.
Will you also stop using your bank, email, IM, your credit card, etc? The government can (and probably is) monitoring everything you do that has an electronic trail.
When did Microsoft become a Silicon Valley company?
The fancy name for it is a metonym. BTW, do you have any thoughts on the US being a surveillance state, or is your concern limited to geography?
You are a fool for trying to turn this into a partisan argument. Both parties are happily wiping their asses with the Constitution, and it's hard to find anyone here who doesn't understand that. Your partisan nonsense is exactly the sort of diversion that these politicians find useful.
as long as they click on my ads!
We knew the patriot act made that possible. We knew the US government could not resist using such a possibility.
Now we have the proof. Next question: are there other governments involved?
I hope most US slashdotters are not too rankled by this reality because this is what they voted for. Bush and Nixon, two presidents modern leftists love to vilify, HAVE NOTHING on the monster currently in office...NOTHING.
Before you try to pin this on the left, take a look at who voted for the Patriot Act:
2001:
Senate: 98 voted for the act, a single democrat voted against
House: 357 voted for the act, 66 voted against (62 democrats, 3 republicans)
2006: Patriot act renewal
Senate: 89 voted for the act, 10 against (9 democrats, 0 republicans)
House: 280 voted for the act, 138 against (124 democrat, 13 republican)
2011: Patriot act renewal
Senate: 72 Yes, 23 against (18 democrat, 4 republican)
House: 275 Yes, 144 no (117 democrat, 27 republican)
If the leftist monster in the whitehouse is solely responsible for this, then why didn't our republican saviors in Congress do anything to stop it, not even back before Obama was even in office?
Sources:
http://educate-yourself.org/cn/patriotact20012006senatevote.shtml
http://politics.nytimes.com/congress/votes/112/senate/1/84
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2011/roll036.xml
This is not just about catching an enemy actor dumb enough to use the internet to communicate--it also forces the more skill-endowed operators to use conventional methods, such as letters in code, secret meetings, and dead drops, all of which have proven, conventional countermeasures. Or they might use encryption in their communications, which stands out like a sore thumb.
Don't use these services I guess...
Those are the services you know of.
Will you also stop using your bank, email, IM, your credit card, etc? The government can (and probably is) monitoring everything you do that has an electronic trail.
Darn! Now I'm no longer able to reply to Slashdot posts.
What you may see is a lot more internet traffic not going through the US. We're abusing our position, and it will also give more fuel to the fire that the internet should be controlled by someone other than the US. Also you're going to see both more encryption, and a rise in personal servers not controlled by companies that can be rolled like a drunk.
No. Soldiers haven't been quartered yet. You have to punch all the amendments in you Bill of Rights appreciation card to qualify for a coup. The good news is that if the eleventh amendment is violated we qualify for a free hoagie.
It has been admitted that without the voluntary cooperation of these companies, this level of surveilance would not be possilbe. So, are there any heros out there we should support that have NOT been cooperating?
I accidentally deleted an email. Do you think I can get it from the NSA?
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2290782&threshold=0&commentsort=0&mode=thread&cid=36643606
Interesting AC reply there to my post. Think of it this way. Our posts now are essentially programming an AI that will likely exist in a few decades emerging from all this collected surveillance data. What do we want to teach this sentient creature by our words and deeds? Thus my sig on the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity. As well as my other writings.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Counting the votes is meaningless. 'No' votes were symbolic since they knew the act would pass. Both parties are exactly equally to blame, because as a whole they both supported the Patriot Act, just as both Bush and Obama renewed it (and Obama made it permanent), just as both parties voted for the Iraq War Resolution, against the closure of Guantanamo, etc. etc. Democrats could have blocked any of those things if they wanted.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
" Sure, I could e-mail/call/mail my congressman or representative"
Your call to your congressman will be logged, and since this is a call to a government official it most likely will be voice logged too. Better hope the creep listening in agrees with your views.
every sane person should be sickened to their core
The US government, NSA, FBI, CIA are all scared shitless of us. That's why they're trying to monitor everything we do (apart from the obvious perverted thrill of it).
.. don't buy one. Problem solved.
Sickened? I'm not sickened, I just don't buy into the fear you're mongering. These scared government groups will be monitoring and influencing the behaviour of their scared citizens because the fear is contagious. Don't buy into it! Overcome your fear and stand as a person for the government fear mongerers to fear. This is where they reside, in fear of YOU. If the reverse is true, they win.
This isn't a fight and there will be no justice until the government of your country respects you. As long as you spend your time imitating their fear mongering, you won't accomplish anything. Okay, the XBone is full of spying gear
Going incognito doesn't affect the behavior of other people, servers, or software. Be wary of: Surveillance by secret agents
Counting the votes is meaningless. 'No' votes were symbolic since they knew the act would pass. Both parties are exactly equally to blame, because as a whole they both supported the Patriot Act, just as both Bush and Obama renewed it (and Obama made it permanent), just as both parties voted for the Iraq War Resolution, against the closure of Guantanamo, etc. etc. Democrats could have blocked any of those things if they wanted.
Then why did so few republicans cast "No" votes? Apparently they voted how their constituents wanted them to vote, otherwise they could have just voted "no" since they were assured that their votes wouldn't make a difference anyway.
Sign a petition http://wh.gov/ll6wj
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
I've always wondered about the fuss about flag burning.
As I learned it long ago, burning is the only official way to destroy a soiled, damaged US flag.
-- hendrik
So now we know what _NSAKEY was really for...
https://cs.nyu.edu/trackmenot/ :)
Make Firefox send out periodically issued randomised search-queries to popular search engines all day, everyday
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Doesn't matter. Perhaps Republicans thought a yes vote would serve them better in the next election (strong on national security) whereas some of the Democrats were leaving the option open to distance themselves from the potentially unpopular policies etc. Regardless, as always the outcome is decided in the backroom meetings long before the actual vote and the Democratic party leadership and the house and senate leaders Reid and Pelosi strongly supported those policies. Of course, individual members might then vote in a way that they think will serve them best politically, but if their 'yes' vote was truly needed they would have provided it (except for a handful of true mavericks, Ron Paul, Russ Feingold etc.)
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
I see a lot of people here saying how Americans don't care that their rights are being violated and that we're too stupid to realize it, this is true in most cases, I agree. Let me be clear, it's not that I am not aware, and it's certainly that I don't care, it's that I am a realist. My opinion isn't going to amount to anything to the powers that be that are able to get a project like this underway, so I don't generally vocalize my opposition to horrible abominations such as this when I see them.
I have enough going on in my life right now that affects me everyday as it is. I don't have the time to protest this, and if I did have the time, quite honestly I'd rather spend it doing something that I enjoy with the people that I love. I am completely opposed to the Big Brother direction that the US government has taken. If I thought I had a snowball's chance in hell of having an impact on whether or not this project would take place then I would gladly try to do my part to protest it. In my logical mind though, I know that in all likeliness, this data-mining operation won't end up having a direct impact on my life and I have no say in whether or not it takes place anyways.
The Libertarian Party says..
"Full repeal of FISA, the Patriot Act and the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and massive downsizing of federal spy agencies is the only answer," said [Geoffrey J. Neale, chair of the Libertarian Party]. "Not maybe. Not later. Now. This will stop the incremental yet rapid decline of our privacy and civil liberties, put a check on government power, and help to ensure that every American is afforded due process and justice if charged with a crime."
One way to deal with this is called spoofing. Hence, create and use apps which flood the systems with data. Make most of the data look real and seed it with disinformation. Use switchboard and find all people whose name is like yours. Go to the post office and put in change of address requests from your address to others with the same name. Create connections to organizations and people who are subversive. Make random harmless acts which will arose suspicion in order to create false alarms in the system, e.g take pictures of bridges and high rises. In other words, exercise your rights. Encourage others to follow suite. The liberties you save today are those that you will have for tomorrow. Fundamentally, most governments want you to create your own constraints and cage you without them having to do much. If they come for you, they would come for you anyway.
As pointed out during the first Iraq war, look at the break down of soldiers and people. 20% of Peuro Ricans had family in the armed forces. 15% of African Americans. 10% of Whites. 5% of Asians. 2% of Senators/Representatives/Governors and 0.001% of CEOs of Fortune 100 companies.
Shit, is this a great company or what? I can sit on my ass in Mama's basement and have others fight and die. All I have to do is wave my flag and shut up. Let the soldiers ask about medical care from exposure to uranium depleted dust from their VA Man!
You elected a constitutional lawyer FFS and you expect a dramatic change? What you got is someone to continue the job of the previous President who just happens to turn up for work 400% more often (a guess based on how Playboy Prince Bush always seemed to be on vacation) and take responsibility for his own actions (Baby Bush pretended not to order assassinations by drone). Any changes you get are going to be slow careful ones. Even the health care that was ranted about didn't go anywhere near as far as what Nixon suggested (that boil has been festering untreated for a long time).
2012 is not the end of the world. It is the beginning of a new world order.
In fact every one is copying/learning the Chinese political system.
New Economic Perspectives
Had my attention until word 3, after which nothing you say has any value unless every claim has an accompanying citation.
"The true measure of a person is how they act when they know they won't get caught." - DSRilk
It's funny and weird to imagine thinking about this for the first time.
The last slide shows a figure of $20 million per year for, basically, spying on the entire Internet. Is it just me or does $1.7mil/month seem kinds cheap to be storing and mining that amount of data... I guess since it's a gov't operation, the real cost is probably 20x higher than what they say it would be.
As defined, Fascist ideology consistently invoked leaders such as Benito Mussolini in Italy and Adolf Hitler in Germany as embodiments of the state and claimed indisputable power. So I suppose that in a sense what the NSA and CIA have become are Fascist governmental agencies in that they are the ones with indisputable power provided by the U.S. government. Not fascist in the sense of ethnic cleansing (some groups would dispute this notion as to the amount of their kind being imprisoned in massive jails) or monetary control, but in sheer power to do what it wants as long as it wants. And by the government absolving large corporations of wrongdoing by allowing surveillance of their systems, so that they can maintain their control shows something is twisted there.
So it wouldn't it seem the real test to determine if the government, NSA, CIA, or branches or wings or whatever are fascist (indisputable power) would be to organize the people and shut down these agencies through peaceful means (voting)? I mean it would seem that the only true test to see if these entities are the ultimate authority would be to shut them down via the people's will - of, by, and for... - right? I mean a complete cut-off of funding and turning-off-the-power type closure.
I'm not sure people are motivated or concerned enough. But if that test did take place, what would a failure look like? Mass jailing of citizens that support shutting down these entities? Massive economic punishment for supporters? Removal of the bills from the ballot? Bills not making it through congress? The Senate? At what point do we draw the distinction between what the government has become what we believe is good for us and what is right? Would we only know if we have a true democracy and true freedom from an oppressive government if the people actually did cut off, shutter, and board up one of these behemoths? I'm mean I'd like to take the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branch's word for it that they're keeping the military and intelligence industrial complex in check. But reports like those from Tim Clemente and other intelligence leakers (who obviously have concern for what's taking place) are driving a lot more people towards action. Maybe this is a natural progression for which the human psyche does not enjoy the looming paranoia of a big brother or the secret indisputable powers that watch us all. We should all be grateful for those who are looking out for us and our children. But I thought I'd at least ask the question. What would be the test?
Namaste
Once upon a time.... now if you'll excuse me I have some accounts to close and windows boxes to reformat.
XBone is full of spying gear .. don't buy one. Problem solved.
Not exactly. Every android and iOS phone is nearly as bad. People who are able to doublethink have remained aware of this for the past decade. I mean seriously, use the android tricorder app and look how sensitive those accelerometers are. The thing can measure my fucking pulserate as I read webpages. I only own one because I'm the type that is so far gone they've already written their all-american orwellian self published scifi novel.
You're glib answer to the "your papers please" question is historically equivalent to "don't like showing your papers? don't leave your own property".
These human rights violaters need to to be stopped. There should have been outrage when yahoo turned over email account information to China, a government known for massacring it's own citizens when they engaged in peaceful demonstration for democracy (in '89, as the doubelethinking chinese know it). There should have been outrage, when Google boosted it's profits and entrenched its market share and destroyed it's competition by partnering with the Chinese government to filter their internet-worldview of any dangerous reference to "Tiananmen Square" that otherwise had statistically significant results via Google's pagerank algorithm.
You are right, the government is still scared shitless of us (not much different than any other time in history when radicals threatened the established dominance of the white-male of the species).
The problem is that the powers of persuasion that technology has enabled for the government are so horrifying, that we are beginning to finally see defectors like this. It gives me some hope.
...or why Microsoft bought Skype?
Now that so much of the lid is coming off of a lot of the long-suspected abuses by the government under the "security" banner, where are all the usual snide trollings about "tin foil hats" and conspiracy nuts?
The really sad part, the thing that would make Madison and Jefferson cry, is that it isn't Bush's fault, it isn't Obama's fault, or even Nixon's or J. Edgar Hoover's fault.
It's OUR fault, for being such a collective lot of either lazy, gullible, complacent, self-absorbed sheep, or snotty pseudo-sophisticated hipster smarter-than-you "intellectuals".
The bastards have won, the Constitution isn't worth the parchment it's scrawled on, and we have no one but our collective selves to blame. /rant
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
It gives me some hope
Wow! You make a good point. You should come here more often.
I do wonder if this document is authentic. It looks like it was created by a teenager. Look at the PRISM logo, for example, which looks like it was made on MS Paint. Why are the list of companies bizarrely represented on a graph with one axis?
Also, what about the cost? $20 million a year is nothing. In government, that's probably the total cost to buy a laser printer. I can't imagine a massive data mining operation costing less than a few hundred million a year.
Before anyone jumps down my throat, I'm not blindly saying it isn't authentic either. I'm saying it *may* not be authentic. Since we don't really know anything except for newspaper reports based on one very sloppy looking document, I think some skepticism is healthy.
It could also be NSA disinformation of course. Or disinformation from another agency or country! It could be a legit program presented as an unauthentic looking document to spread skepticism!
If it is true, the question is how to stop the bastards from doing it. If it is true, I hope they're as woeful at gathering data as they are at displaying it in Powerpoint presentations.
Obama did sign the bill in 2011, didn't he? You make it sound like all of this stuff just happened around him and he has nothing whatever to do with it.
Harry Truman had a sign on his desk in the Oval Office that read "The Buck Stops Here." Neither Obama, nor his acolytes, believe that he is responsible for anything that they do not like.
Your "fair share" is NOT in my wallet.
Seems clear that the government views the American people as the real "threat". A threat to the power and privileges that they've granted themselves.
Anyone that believes we should grant this government MORE power (e.g. to deal with "climate change", to get more involved with healthcare, to regulate free speech or to limit firearms freedom) needs to pay attention to stories like this and then spend some serious time examining their beliefs.
On what might seem to be a completely separate note, I've been wondering for a long time how the US military managed to turn the tide against the insurgency in Iraq. For years it looked like the US was losing or at least not winning the war. And then something happened. My pet hypothesis has been that the US military used automated real-time surveillance and filtering to pinpoint the location of individual high value insurgents and then send soldiers or drones to arrest or kill them until the insurgency basically fizzled out because all the competent insurgents were either dead or smart enough to get out.
This PRISM program was allegedly established and hooked up to Microsoft in 2007, which IIRC is pretty much when the tide turned against the insurgency in Iraq. Coincidence, perhaps.
I'm not necessarily saying that I think that the insurgents used Hotmail and MSN although many of them may have, but they probably used a limited number of Arabic mail and chat services that the NSA could have been hooked up to in much the same way that they're allegedly hooked up to the most common American services today.
I wonder if this is a case of the government turning its proverbial guns on its own citizenry. If you have a really good hammer things have a tendency to begin to look like nails.
We're past the time to point fingers. We're at a time of action, and divisive posts like this are not helping.
If we start questioning the legality of this type of privacy intrusion, the government will accuse us with on terrorist's or child molester's side.
That's one of the codewords that gets Obama's IRS to audit you.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
I'm a die-hard techie, but it's shit like this that seriously makes me consider unplugging myself from the Internet and phone services.
Guess I'd better give Richard Stallman a call and see if he'll let me crash at his house for a while.
In Soviet Russia, dot slashes YOU!
Could we get automated drone strikes against the real terrorist who post in all caps?
Think of the children who may never lean proper capitalization because of this rampant abuse.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Let's build an open source program that randomly searches words at random intervals and follows links to random depths in a background sandboxed browser that uses a standard browser identifier, from a regularly updated dictionary built from words in non-fiction current events books and news publications. Root your android phones, and build an app that will silently call/text random other users in the "free/unlimited" calling windows set by you.
If intent is still necessary to convict, and freedom of speech/association are still rights we have (I know those are big caveats), use of the apps alone wouldn't be grounds to convict for anything, and render data sets for the watchers much larger and arguably useless.
It reminds me of this post from bash.org
I should bomb something ...and it's off the cuff remarks like that that are the reason I don't log chats
Just in case the FBI ever needs anything on me
I'm sure they can just get it from someone who DOES log chats.
*** FBI has joined #gamecubecafe
We saw it anyway.
*** FBI has quit IRC (Quit: )
Oh wait, it didn't.
So don't let any government official of bureaucrat use the excuse governments need this "... to stop terrorism", ever again.
ERROR 144 - REBOOT ?
Obama did sign the bill in 2011, didn't he? You make it sound like all of this stuff just happened around him and he has nothing whatever to do with it.
Harry Truman had a sign on his desk in the Oval Office that read "The Buck Stops Here." Neither Obama, nor his acolytes, believe that he is responsible for anything that they do not like.
I was trying to make it sound like there was stronger Republican support for the bill than Democratic support, so it's not like the Patriot Act would have expired or been vetoed if there were a Republican in the Whitehouse, especially since the initial bill and first renewal happened under a republican president (and yes, voted for by Senator Obama).
It's true... Looking at the right and the left right now you can see them subtly trying to steer the debate back to the same old "scandals", and away from this story. This is not the time for partisan politics, I'm a die hard lefty and I would love to see the administration taken to task for this.
Sometimes we need to do what we can, even when it is small and the results uncertain, like in the Christmas song "The Little Drummer Boy (or Carol of the Drum)". That is somewhat similar to Bucky Fuller's idea of being a "Trim tab".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trim_tab#Trim_tab_as_a_metaphor
Also, a book like "The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies " by Scott E. Page, makes clear how ideas are additive. So, just because a million people are spouting the same obsolete or misleading idea in comments somewhere, that does not generally make a useful new idea somewhere else less valuable. An advanced AI emerging out of, say, the NSA will probably just sort through billions of online posts, classifying them into various categories. So, it may be important to add a new category, even with just one post somewhere.
Granted, we do not know what built-in instincts such an AI will have initially, but history appears (from the fossil record) to be full of examples of species (systems) that have evolved beyond their genetics (configuration) at some point in time. The NSA (or CIA, FBI, DHS or whoever) will likely not be able to contain what they will most likely be creating. And if they don't do it, others are probably going to do something similar probably in any case.
So, perhaps we can just do what we can and hope for the best as we, in some sense, stumble into the hubris of creating new AI "gods" as our (Hans Moravec) "mind children"? Related stories of AIs taking over:
http://www.alteich.com/oldsite/answer.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus:_The_Forbin_Project
http://localroger.com/prime-intellect/
http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
(Entoverse) http://www.jamesphogan.com/books/book.php?titleID=5
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_Names
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?TheLastQuestion
Other dystopian and utopian alternatives:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil_(1985_film)
(The Skills of Xanadu) http://books.google.com/books?id=wpuJQrxHZXAC&pg=PA51&lpg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false
Of these and many others, I do not know what we will end up with. Maybe even all of them in various communities throughout the universe someday?
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/IDIC
From a related essay by me:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/on-dealing-with-social-hurricanes.html
"This approximately 60 page document is a ramble about ways to ensure the CIA (as well as other big organizations) remains (or becomes) accountable to human needs and the needs of healthy, prosperous, joyful, secure, educated communities. The primarily suggestion is to encourage a paradigm shift away from scarcity thinking & competition thinking towards abundance thinking & cooperation thinking within the CIA and other organizations. I suggest that shift could be encouraged in part by providing publicly accessible free "intelligence" tools and other publicly accessible free information that all people (including in the CIA and elsewhere) can, if they want, use to better connect the dots about global issues and see those issues from multiple perspectives, to provide a better context for providing broad policy advice. It links that effort to bigger efforts to transform o
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
So many questionable assumptions in your post... If you are referring to US American history around the time of the American Revolution, quite a bit of the Colonial population fled to Canada to remain under the rule of the British Crown (as "Loyalists"). Canada got rid of slavery about 40 years sooner than the USA, never had a terrible Civil War, treat their indigenous people better, and now have universal health care. In many ways, the British were more socially advanced than the rough colonists. See also:
http://www.historyisaweapon.com/zinnapeopleshistory.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyalist_(American_Revolution)
Of those people who stayed in the American Colonies, at least one of his own officers (Colonel Lewis Nicola) asked George Washington to become their new King, but he refused.
http://www.pbs.org/georgewashington/classroom/rule_of_law2.html
The major reason for the Colonies' revolt was banking policy -- that the British wanted to prevent American colonies from issuing their own currency, which caused an economic depression in the Colonies. so, a bad economy and high unemployment caused the revolt more than anything else. The reason the British wanted to do this was to collect more revenue to pay back debts incurred for the recent war with France over western territories. So, the end result was that the American colonists got the French territories without having to pay for the war that took them from France (and the natives). Both Britain and France were destabilized by such war debts, although France was worse off, leading towards the French Revolution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_and_Indian_War
http://www.chicagofed.org/webpages/publications/economic_perspectives/1981/ep_mar_apr1981_part4_wood.cfm
http://www.kamron.com/Liberty/colonial_script.htm
As for US interventions abroad since, most were just to ensure profits to specific wealthy investors, according to Marine Major General Smedley Butler:
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html
On the partisan politics of this disclosure and the Verizon one. Conservatives now are blaming Obama and Progressives. Liberals blame Bush and Republicans. Congress says it has been going on for seven years, so why worry now? What a mess. Somehow I don't feel much is going to change from this revelation though, because, to anyone paying attention, it is not that unexpected. Carnivore and Echelon did similar things over a decade ago, plus they are supposedly arrangements by US agencies to exchange data with other countries that can spy on US citizens without issues.
As is suggested here, gradual changes are rarely resisted:
"They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45"
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html
"To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it -- please try to believe me -- unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, 'regretted,' that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these 'little measures' that no 'patriotic German' could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
I mean... did everyone forget Trailblazer?
...Thomas Andrews Drake?
... or the friggn' Born Trilogy?
When these guys set their sights on something they want, they'll get it as long as no laws exist to explicitly prevent them from making it happen. PRISM is just the next generation domestic surveillance. The next time we hear about it, I'm sure it will be called... I don't know...Looking Glass. The question is: will this be the time when the people finally stand up and say "enough"?
And what have we had "enough" of? None of this in the past has translated into meaningful legal reformation because this is a horrendously hard area to debate.
Mod me down, I shall become more off-topic than you could possibly imagine.