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NSA Surveillance May Have Dealt Major Blow To Global Internet Freedom Efforts
An anonymous reader writes "Simply put, the US government has failed in its role as the 'caretaker' of the internet. Although this was never an official designation, America controls much of the infrastructure, and many of the most popular services online are provided by a handful of American companies. The world is starting to sober up to the fact that much of what they've done online in the last decade is now cataloged in a top-secret facility somewhere in the United States. The goal has been to promote internet freedom around the world, but we may have also potentially created a blueprint for how authoritarian governments can store, track, and mine their citizens' digital lives."
We had absolute power (or close to it) and we know what that does. Here's a disturbing thought: What if the Internet is just unworkable? What if it's just too tempting for *any* caretaker to avoid using as a giant eavesdropping machine? What if people start opting out en masse?
Somewhere, a postal worker's ears just pricked up.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
The NSA is a pack of dimwitted fuckers for pulling this, because the blow back when this was discovered (not if) would clearly far exceed any benefit they could possibly gain. Now, I think this might not be an entirely bad thing that they pulled this shit.
I suspect that as a result, the rest of the world is going to be deeply suspicious of the US in the future, and it is going to be much more difficult to maintain control of the Internet's key systems and keep them inside US borders as much as is possible. I also think this might kick off a new round of encryption and paranoia, which really is a good thing for consumers of tech resources in the long run. Bad for the spy types, because RSA1024 on everything will really put a damper on their ELINT gathering capabilities. They might have to go out and do some honest on the ground trade craft for a change.
Who ever is running the NSA should be sacked on the spot. Not for engaging in massive illegal wire tapping, but for being such a shallow idiot and not considering the fall out of being caught. You have to suppose that there are analysts writing papers about what will likely happen when they get caught, so the Director isn't paying attention to their own intel papers and projections. Fire him for being a fucking inept moron.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
I've been posting for years every time discussions about ICANN, DNS and other US-centric Internet systems came up that the party line "but only US control guarantees that it remains free and open" is bullshit at best.
Frankly, putting everything under UN control is probably the best thing we could do. Not because the UN were any less power-hungry or insane than any individual government, but because they have more trouble ever agreeing on anything, and less resources to do crap in secret.
Cue the USA-USA-USA answers...
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Countries such as Saudi Arabia and India have successfully demanded for access to blackberry mail.
Countries such as Syria and Turkey have demonstrated that they can cut off the internet from their country at will.
Iran is actively trying to promote their own intranet over the Internet at large.
The disclosure of the PRISM programme will only accelerate this trend and I forsee three major consequences arising from it :-
1) Now governments all over the world will demand that internet companies such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft etc disclose data that they want including the data of parties who are not their citizens. If the US will assert extra-territorial jurisdiction over the data of foreigners, so will they. And I don't see any excuse that these internet companies can use to refuse to disclose without being seen as hypocrites and as tools of the US government.
2) Governments all over the world, especially those who have not been historically friendly with the US will restrict or hinder the use of internet communication tools such as Facebook, Twitter, GMail and the like and accelerate the development of their own internal versions. To a certain extent this has already been taking place, for example VKontacte has largely supplanted Facebook in Russia, and in China Tencent, Sina, Baidu and its legions of smaller competitors rule.
3) PRISM will be a large or even fatal blow to internet freedom. Authoritarian governments will argue that they are justified in monitoring their citizens because the US does the same through PRISM.
Just because YOUR government is corrupt doesn't mean that all governments MUST be corrupt.
And what is your fix for this? Hand over to the corporations because power will be allotted by money? Did you know that most of your politicians are executives for these corporations? Therefore if they aren't employed in government, they're employed in those companies you're going to have collecting this.
Or is it OK if corruption is done for money by a private industry but not when it's done for money by a public one?
Here is my perspective as I view it:
The NSA expects us all to basically support their agenda.
The NSA wont tell us any detail on what that agenda is.
The NSA monitors our every behavior, but uses deception and basically lies to us telling us they aren't.
The NSA lies to congress, refusing to admit it even after the leak.
So the problem here is the NSA believes it requires secrecy to a greater degree than the US public can understand. If this is a case where the US public is simply uninformed, then the NSA should give out security clearances to journalists and to more people within the American public so that it can inform them.
I understand the NSA does not want to tip off the foreign enemy. The problem with what they are doing is when they apply deception, and act as they are acting, the uninformed American citizen feels like the foreign enemy. I understand that leaking to the media isn't necessarily the best way to handle it because the element of surprise is important in warfare. Enemies foreign and domestic did not need to be tipped off along with the American people. But enough American people have a security clearance, these surprises are going to seem directed against the American people as a whole.
So the question is why do so few Americans have security clearances? Are we supposed to believe that all those American people without a security clearance are "enemies"? If they aren't then why can't they be given enough of a security clearance so that at least the basic agenda of the NSA is known. When journalists don't even known, and when congress doesn't even known, well then who does know? If only the cleared individuals know then why not expand it?
In 2011 4.2 million people had access to the governments classified information. 4.2 million people is not a lot of people out of 300-400 million Americans. As a result you have a lot of propaganda and misinformation confusing the uninformed American citizen into believing conspiracy theories while the 4.2 million who have access get to know the truth but can't say anything. Until more people know the truth, the only access American citizens get to the truth is through these leaks. The problem with these leaks is the enemy gains access at the same time.
Absolutely this. Many of those allies supported the US in the latest round of efforts to wrest overall control of the Internet from US government appointed organizations and place it into the hands of bodies under the auspicies of the UN or the ITU. When the next attempt starts, and I'm pretty sure it's going to happen really soon to take advantage of the furure over the Snowden and Prism "revelations" (seriously, is anyone surprised this was going on?), I expect at least some of those allies are going to be more reluctant to maintain that support.
It's probably just a matter of time now, so it's time to pick a side... the UN, or the ITU? Not a good choice.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Do you seriously believe European or Asian governments aren't doing the same thing? They are actually closely collaborating with the US and exchanging spy data with each other on each others' population. The only differences are that (1) the NSA is technically better at it, and (2) in the US, people are actually making a fuss about it, and maybe it will change. The NSA spying is unconstitutional and we need to do something about it. Fortunately, we do have the legal means at our disposal in the US.
I mean PRISM was obviously intended to be a redundant backup of the entire Internet.
Funny that you should say this. An accused bank robber asked his cell phone provider to disclose phone data that he claims would have shown it wasn't him. They don't have the data. Now he is asking the NSA for it.
Is it too late for the NSA to spin this as just a huge misunderstanding?
A misunderstanding? No. It was all for your safety, citizen! As we all know, America is the home of the brave, so we have to give away all of our rights in an effort to stop terrorism; that's just what brave people do.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
What is worse, is that this might have nothing to do with terrorism, and more to do with spying:
Or maybe it has more to do with this: http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/55749
I sincerely hope that story is pure BS, but at the same time, the US government's behavior over the last few decades and particularly over the last decade or so makes it at least somewhat plausible. Particularly in light of all the recent large-scale military/police drills & rehearsals that have alarmed people across the US that the authorities are very reluctant to be forthcoming about, apparently by the type and nature of the forces and their tactics, preparing for large-scale domestic urban combat actions against large numbers of unarmed/lightly-armed civilians such as protesters and rioters.
Interesting times, indeed. Damn you unknown ancient Chinese writer of proverbs/curses!
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Because informed voters are extremely dangerous
Think again !!
Voters, whether they are of the "informed" group, or otherwise, most of them can not comprehend that much anyway
I was listening to BBC's world service just yesterday and they had a BRITISH PROFESSOR spinning his yarn for NSA
If a PROFESSOR can say things like that, you think Joe Six Pack can think otherwise ?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Why keep it a secret from us if it's to protect us?
The problem is that when you use "us" you appear to mean "US Americans", who only constitute a fraction of worldwide Internet users. Even if US voters agreed, the majority of the world does not agree to being spied on. The NSA has an (unproven, but well-known) track record of conducting industrial espionage against befriended countries, and spying on any foreigners is apparently considered perfectly legal and constitutional in the US.
The fact that other countries might attempt to do the same is no excuse. The real problem is that all the data that is collected is already used to undermine constitutional rights. There are quite persistent and credible rumors that when e.g. the BND wants some data on a German they may not obtain legally (according to German law), they'll just ask a US agency. I'm pretty sure this also works the other way around.
Things might look different if the people in power would really endorse democratic principles and human rights, which they don't.
I agree. An example is the UK in the late 1980's. At the European Parliamentary elections 15% of the electorate voted Green. They didn't win a single seat, because of the system, but the "main" parties were so shocked at the swing that they immediately set about trying to "green" themselves.
rt
Because informed voters are extremely dangerous, keeping people uninformed is a top priority for any pseudo-democratic government.
Informed voters are NOT dangerous!
They only become dangerous when you allow them ballot options which would result in substantive change. As long as you provide them only Aristotelian A/B choices similar to "Heads, I win"/"Tails, you lose", then things keep moving in the direction that the people whose job it is to draft the choices want them to move.
This is one of the reasons that the California voter initiative process pissed them off, and it's the reason that recent initiative results have simply been ignored, and the powers behind big government has done what it wanted to do in the first place anyway, from funding projects that failed to pass public muster, to ignoring constitutional changes, to slipping in language to prop 13 at the last minute to have it also apply to commercial property, after public debate was complete.
The upshot, in particular of the prop 13 change, was that each property owned by a large company is actually owned by a newly incorporated holding company. Then, rather than selling the property, as is done with non-commercial property, and having its tax rate corrected at that point, they sell the holding company to another company. Since the property has not changed hands (it's still owned by the same holding company), the tax rate effectively never corrects on commercial property, and the burden, over time falls more and more upon non-commercial property owners, while the commercial property owners get a free ride.
So as long as the outcome of a vote won't rock the status quo boat, it really doesn't matter which option of those presented wins, nothing changes the progression vector.
It's kind of elegant engineering, if you think about it; it's on the order of the "Demopoll" concept in Frank Herbert's "The Whipping Star".