Slashdot Mirror
Snowden Is Lying, Say House Intelligence Committee Leaders
cold fjord writes "There are new developments in the ongoing controversy engulfing the NSA as a result of the Snowden leaks. From The Hill: 'Emerging from a hearing with NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander, Reps. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the Intelligence Committee, and Dutch Ruppersberger (Md.), the senior Democrat on the panel, said Edward Snowden simply wasn't in the position to access the content of the communications gathered under National Security Agency programs, as he's claimed. "He was lying," Rogers said. "He clearly has over-inflated his position, he has over-inflated his access and he's even over-inflated what the actual technology of the programs would allow one to do. It's impossible for him to do what he was saying he could do." ... "He's done tremendous damage to the country where he was born and raised and educated," Ruppersberger said. ... "It was clear that he attempted to go places that he was not authorized to go, which should raise questions for everyone," Rogers added.'"
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has also told the E.U. justice commissioner that media reports surrounding PRISM are wrong: "The contention it [PRISM] is not subject to any internal or external oversights is simply not correct. It's subject to an extensive oversight regime from executive, legislative and judicial branches and Congress is made aware of these activities. The courts are aware as we need to get a court order. ... We can't target anyone unless appropriate documented foreign intelligence purpose for the prevention of terrorism or hostile cyber activities." Meanwhile, Bloomberg has gone live with a report (based on unidentified sources, so take it with a grain of salt) saying that private sector cooperation with snooping government agencies extends far beyond the ones listed in the PRISM report. "Thousands of technology, finance and manufacturing companies are working closely with U.S. national security agencies, providing sensitive information and in return receiving benefits that include access to classified intelligence, four people familiar with the process said." Whatever PRISM turns out to be, the NY Times is reporting that at least Yahoo, and probably other tech companies as well, tried to fight participation in it. Other reports suggest Twitter refused to participate, though there's been no official confirmation.
I instantly believe you. It's not as if it's the government's fault that people are so distrusting of it or anything; it couldn't be!
Check UIDs. I'm COLD FJORD(826450). User COID FJORD(2949869) has impersonated me. Don't confuse us if he trolls you.
*snicker*
That's just what you'd expect someone to say. Next step will be to accuse him of treason and put him to death before he can damage the country further while continuing to discredit him to make the issues he's brought to light irrelevant.
Nothing to see here people move along.
Pot, Kettle, First.
Er....Second.
Am I the only one around here who gives a shit about the rules?!
Enough said.
"There should be no [question] in anyone's mind that this person is a traitor to the United States of America, and he should be punished," Rogers said.
A random internet stranger that claims to know more than the rest of us, or the Government institutions that we know will not hesitate to lie, cheat, steal, swindle, and torture to get their own way. Decisions decisions...
Last time I checked, all oversight connected with these sorts of things consist of are guidelines for the users to follow. IF you come across personal data, you are SUPPOSED to report it so it get's cleaned.... that's just not enough. You can sift through personal data all day and just not tell anyone and there's a high probability nobody will ever know.
You are basically asked nicely not to abuse the power these systems give. There is no actual, active oversight nor are there any actual barriers in place.
This is one situation where saying an individual is lying about information allegedly sourced from the NSA (I believe someone confirmed it was authentic to the Washington Post, but nothing official) without proof to back you up just makes you look stupid. Attempting to discredit Snowden without providing an alternative explanation to what was going on that he objected so strongly to is a naked diplomatic move that isn't going to fly.
... are confirming what Snowden says. I'm certain someone is lying, though.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/14/nsa-partisanship-propaganda-prism
And in 10 year it will come out that the government is lying.
But nobody will care, because most of us (that are awake) will be in government concentration camps by then. The Sheeple have never cared, and will continue to watch "Murican iDull".
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
He's lying, or he's the worst traitor in the history of the United States. It can't be both. If he's lying, then he didn't reveal any highly classified state secrets.
Typical gub'mint response. Talking out of both sides of their asses at the same time.
Yeah, Right.
Of Course the Senator knows all about the computers at the contractors to the NSA and what they can do,
while the guy who used to be a sysadmin there knows nothing about it.
Uh huh.
Because we all know that Senators know everything about technology.
- "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
This is the same, tired refrain. He couldn't possibly do what he claims because it would have to be "approved". Apparently "spy" computers have a small troll that leaps from the machine waving the constitution and wailing in disapproval if ever anyone tries to do something that's not "approved". Clearly it's a feature that works well to prevent abuse. I want one.
Do I trust (a) the people who supposedly work "for" me yet refuse to explain what work they perform, or do I trust (b) the guy who claims to expose what work they perform?
In other words, do I trust the people who have already (repeatedly and continuously) proven their lack of respect for me, or do I trust the guy who hasn't yet had a chance to prove his respect (or lack of) for me?
This is a tough one.
This looks like the usual spin, and can be safely ignored. In fact it flies right in the face of earlier revelations.
Moreover, the fact remains that the USoA is spying on bloody everyone, and that the USoA did lie about it, wholesale. There is no reason at all, at all, to surmise they suddenly stopped doing what they do best.
Trying to slander him so that he becomes either a laughing stock or more easy to kick to the curb and they can go on with their deny, deny, deny. Why would the government in this country ever tell the truth. We won't protest it or gather in large groups and picket washington to make them stop making this into a police state. Which is 100% guarenteed to happen at the rate we are going.
Holder says he was lying?! Eric Holder? The attorney general whose office is responsible for Too Big To Jail? Who will not prosecute bankers. Who oversaw the Fast and Furious debacle? Who hounded Aaron Swartz to his death?
Now I know Snowden was telling the truth.
May the Maths Be with you!
They have a budget of $4 billion for General Keiths commercial spying. At $100 per TB (overestimate), 10% of their budget is 2GB per person on the internet per year.
Think of all the data they can keep in 2GB and you see that Keith is lying. No different than when he pretended they didn't collect info on Americans.
"is not subject to any internal or external oversights is simply not correct."
We don't care if Bob the spooks approved John the spooks spying on our emails, fuck off. The US Constitution apples and the EU privacy law, and anything else you do is treason.
"The courts are aware as we need to get a court order."
And the court orders say "give everything to NSA for 3 months" and is signed by 1 judge in secret. Fuck off.
"saying that private sector cooperation with snooping government agencies extends far beyond the ones listed in the PRISM report."
You leaked the SWIFT data, so you've been giving the NSA financial data too, including presumably all the IRS stuff, bank data and all.
"Whatever PRISM turns out to be, the NY Times is reporting that at least Yahoo, and probably other tech companies as well, tried to fight participation in it. "
Good for them, Snowden risked his future freedom to leak that, you guys shut up and gave them the data.
Secret laws and secret judgements run by the military have no place in a democracy. So you're not a democracy. And judging by the fear we see in European politicians, neither is Europe. We all work for the military now. Try not to get shot by the fucking liars.
The reality of PRISM is that if the program described exists at all, trying to claim what Holder and Rogers are about oversight does not change the fundamental constitutional problems associated with the programs they are running. You'll notice that there are no credible denials here, just declarations that Snowden is exaggerating and assertions that the existence of oversight on how the data is accessed and used is somehow justification for the data collection in the first place. If the program exists at all, it's either without a warrant or under the exact kind of general warrant the Fourth Amendment was written to prevent.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
"The contention it [PRISM] is not subject to any internal or external oversights is simply not correct. It's subject to an extensive oversight regime from executive, legislative and judicial branches and Congress is made aware of these activities."
International != External
America! Fuck yeah!
I just don't know who to believe.
A techie who believes what he says enough to basically call out the most secretive, nastiest intelligence agencies of one of the most powerful countries in the world
or
a pack of politicians.
Oh, man, it's difficult. Maybe I should just flip a coin?
Log in or piss off.
except when it comes to constructing giant clandestine mechanisms to spy on people and process data. In those situations they operate with insidious intent and flawless execution.
I think a title, "House Intelligence Committee" yup, never gets old. I believe that if a spy ever told the truth, I would be surprized. And because the NSA is peeking in on everything, how much will the NSA charge to get copies of what it collected given a messy divorce case?
but how is he doing serious damage then.
and how come they're admitting to prism just with their next breath, but saying that they have it under control because some judge, some senator and some chief at nsa reads a report now and then? "We can't target anyone unless appropriate documented foreign intelligence purpose for the prevention of terrorism or hostile cyber activities." too bad that includes fucking everything nowadays.
I'm really skeptical that the system has a security system so that it just can't be accessed without that documentation. how would that even work? the court would give one time passes to the executive branch?
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Let's say what you say is true. Snowden is a liar.
Would you kindly tell us if he is lying about the SUBSTANCE of his claims and not some trivial manner? Why are you attacking his curiousity and not attaching WHAT HE SAID you are doing?
We should learn what we need to know about issues, before we decide what we need to feel about them.
The *last* entity I'm going to give any credibility to is the one with the worst track record with civil liberties, money laundering, bank bailouts, misuse of power, outstanding privacy issues (Hello AT&T from room 641A), corruption, bribery, cronyism, etc.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
If Snowden lied, then he didn't commit a crime by leaking classified information.
So, Mr. Rogers (hehehe), why do we currently have a worldwide manhunt - Including calling in favors from our 51st-state lapdogs - For someone who didn't commit a crime?
You'll forgive me, of course, for presuming you as completely full of shit and trying to salvage your precious unconstitutional spying campaign.
It's always parsed wording. Kinda like Apple said it was unaware of the government's Prism program. Now, of course they were aware they were piping private info out to the Feds. They just didn't know the program name.
I also love the irony here. So, Snowden devastated US intelligence with this leak, but he's completely wrong and lying and exaggerating about what he knows?
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
If the media is wrong, release the evidence and prove it.
The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.
[Wyden]"Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?"
[James Clapper]"No, sir."
[Wyden]"It does not?"
[Clapper:]"Not wittingly. There are cases where they could, inadvertently perhaps, collect -- but not wittingly."
There have been too many lies and half truths for me to believe anything that the NSA, Obama administration, or upper congressional committees have to say on the matter.
are useless if you need to blow the whistle on the persons making up the laws who argue _in a secret court_ that their actions are lawful because of *secret reasons*.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
So a senator from my state knows all about the systems the nsa uses, what their levels of access are, what the level given to contractors are, and knows that all this info is false, but can't figure out a way to stop the threat of invading fucking carp in to the great lakes????? Yeah I am sure he "knows" all about what Snowden had access to, or at least that's what the teleprompter told him too.
Someone is lying ... that is for certain. I'm leaning more towards government because government has a long and sordid history of covering up things through lies and excuses. I remember when the secret CIA flights were exposed and government accused those of discovering it as lying.
They're taking some time to get to the 'this isn't really true' stage. At this rate, the smear campaign won't be cranked up to full for another 2 weeks yet.
Waiting for an amusing sig.
Never in the history of the world have men like Holder or Rogers ever proven to be honest. Time and time again when given the chance government has betrayed and abused its citizens and in every case the responsible officials lie and smear people to cover it up. Do you people think that we are stupid? That we haven't read our history, that we have no ability to judge the character of the people we see before us? Of course Snowden had the access that he claims. Of course the NSA etc routinely carries out arbitrarily intrusive surveilance of whomever they please, and for whatever reasons they see fit. Of course they feel no need or desire to be overseen or to answer to anyone, nor to limit their activities to what some other persons, us, might feel is fit. Like anyone put in this kind of position they feel that their own aims, opinions, and desires are paramount and that whatever they do is right and aught to be continued unfettered. Why else would they be there doing what they're doing? Its infinitely easy to justify each little step, and soon when your actions become monstrous and destructive you've long since talked yourself up to doing no wrong and brooking no limits. 'Patriotism' and 'security' will ultimately justify anything.
Let me just tell you men, your pathetic lies are utterly transparent. I don't know if there are 100 or 1000 or 0 more Edward Snowden's out there, but I hope there are many, and I'll certainly help to see that they get the respect and honor that they deserve, and that your little footnote in history is a dirty one.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
The government's denials appear to follow a pattern of avoiding the question of machine gathering of raw intelligence products, and just focusing on the humans sifting through them. People are concerned about the former (raw data), whereas the denials seem to be focused on the manual human aspect, which of course misses the big point. I suspect this is partly related to people not understanding how computers and data storage/archival work.
Best example of this: Still waiting for Hayden to go to jail for lying under oath to a congressional committee, when he claimed that intelligence wasn't being collected on millions of Americans, then had to walk it back later, and claim that he was just talking about people preparing actionable reports. There's no question in my mind that all that data trawled from the internets is still sitting there waiting to be queried at the snap of a bureaucrat's fingers.
If Snowden didn't have the access he claimed to have, he either created masses of data, consistent enough to fool many people, or the program is that huge, he just got a glimpse on it. As you don't argue the data are rotten I tend to believe the program is far bigger than Snowden thought.
This is like the US Gov't version of the Chinese astroturfers, I bet.
Iran is in the news today for their Presidential election, which reminded me of an interesting parallel.
Iran has a nuclear program. Critics insist they're trying to build nuclear bombs. Iran insists it's for nuclear energy. But take their word on it because they won't let inspectors anywhere near it.
Which brings us to the NSA and surveillance state. What information are the collecting? What are they doing with it? They won't tell you because it's secret. And anyone who leaks information is a liar. But trust them, they won't do anything illegal or unconstitutional. And you know that because they said so.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Is it just me or does anyone else read Ruppersberger's comments ("He's lying" followed immediately with "He attempted to go places that he was not authorized to go") as "Snowden's is not telling the truth when he says he has information that proves our wrong-doing, and also he wasn't supposed to be able access to that information in the first place."
It seems like the sort of obvious double-speak only an dictator in a bad Hollywood movie would make. It's cliche and cornball. I mean, if our politicians are going to LIE to us, at least can they put some effort into it? I'm sort of insulted that they think people won't see through such obvious tactics.
Then again, maybe they are taking guidance from somebody who knows all about this sort of stuff:
"In the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation."
providing sensitive information and in return receiving benefits that include access to classified intelligence, four people familiar with the process said.
Really? The NSA is now handing out classified intelligence to corporations like party favors??? No, I don't think so.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
What's the saying about not believing the government until an official denial?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
And just the other day a Congressperson came out of closed door briefing and said the collection of data goes WAY beyond what is being reported in the media.
a pack of politicians with some of the historically lowest levels of public regard and trust in the history of their nation, though to be incompetent or crooks by 9 out of 10 individuals.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
America is less secure now
- True: Now the international community realizes that it perhaps isn't such a good idea to trust American companies with their data, since the company must adhere to US regulations and laws. Since the US is now known for having its intellegence agencies spy on American companies, the massive data flow to the US will decrease significantly over time. International treaties with the US may also suffer due to this.
The programs leaked by Snowden were Top Secret
- If so, then why did I know about these programs 2 years ago.. and before that, I knew that they would come into existance when the Patriot Act was enacted. What.. the name of the program was TS?
The leaks give aid to terrorists
- What? If I knew about the programs from "common IT sense", then you can be damn sure that educated / well sponsored terrorist networks (the ones we should all be worried about), knew about them too. Its the terrorists that don't know these things that are not really much of a threat.
The NSA does not have direct access to corporate DB's
- False, there are 2 ways for the NSA to access corporate DB's:
1) If we can insert an agent into a foreign government to spy for us, we can damn sure install an agent to install a backdoor into a company
2) MITM / 0-day hacks: If a 13 year old kid in his parents basement can do it, I am certain, although not 100% certain, that the NSA can do the same.
The NSA gets a court order to get information, thus it is legal.
- This is a True/False statement.. the NSA does get a court order.. after they get the information and needs to either inform the FBI/CIA or other authorities. The illusion of legality.
The NSA is reading our email / snooping
- Perhaps, but likely not. However, there are 2 aspects to the 4th amendement. Illegal search (ie: snooping) and SEIZURE (archiving / storing).
My thoughts? Well, every federal government offical needs to get kicked out of office and impeached (if they had direct knowledge of the programs) due to no-faith. The ones responsible and those that used Prism should be brought up on CFAA charges. Just because you are a policeman, doesn't mean you can go around shooting people. As an US citizen, you are bound to US law. It doesn't matter if you work for an intellegence agency or not.
Read a little history, people. EVERY top-heavy regime spies on its own citizens as its major priority, in order to control that population and keep it empowering the monsters that rule it. This strategy is so engrained, whole civilisations have fallen to external threats because their elites were too busy focusing on the potential 'threats' that could arise from the people themselves.
The great South America cultures died this way, when tiny Spanish forces arrived. The empires of China fell to the primitive Mongol hoards for the same reason. England was terrorised by small numbers of Northmen waving axes because weak English Kings were determined their people would be largely unarmed and untrained in self-defense to avoid uprisings.
Of course, the USA, unlike the examples above, is an evil AGGRESSIVE empire with an active program of military actions across the planet. In this light, the NSA spying is actually a planetary activity, concerned with controlling and limiting every possible Human
Shills constantly tell the sheep that they are "far too unimportant as individuals" to be of concern to the government, but nothing could be further from the truth. Every real danger faced by the ruling elite of a power like the USA arises from amongst the 'ordinary' people. One element of NSA spying is to identify such 'threats' before the individuals themselves are even aware they are about to become leaders of grass-roots movements. These people can then be targeted for co-opting (the body responsible for co-opting such citizens in the UK even has a public-facing name, COMMON-PURPOSE- the name, of course, is no coincidence but was chosen with maximum obvious vindictiveness by Tony Blair).
Another purpose of mass spying on the populace is to 'read' the mind of the populace in near real-time. For instance, as sites like Slashdot push the lie of Syrian government use of chemical weapons, Team Obama wants to know the effectiveness of this propaganda operation. It is, after all, a declaration of war against Syria (and by extension, a declaration of War against Syria's partner, Russia), so Obama needs to know if this is going to prove to be a 'step too far' at this time. NSA spying on your electronic chatter, by text and by voice, will give him this guidance.
PS for those of you so very dumb you do not believe Obama would declare war against Russia, it happened recently when American trained, funded and armed forces in Georgia, under the control of American 'advisor', launched a sneak attack against Russian peace-keepers on the opening day of the Olympics. Of course, the Russians were prepared for this, and in a few short days exterminated EVERY American built military facility across Georgia, completely destroying the military machine so carefully built up by America.
In reality, although Tony Blair claimed in public to support Georgia and the USA, Blair had been working in alliance with Putin to create a geo-political situation that would win back Russian control of the Ukraine. The fallout from the Georgia war achieved exactly this. The games played by the monsters that rule run are far more devious than 99.99% of you ever dream, even though they are the exact same games played throughout Human history, and well documented.
The ultimate goal of NSA spying is to ensure you stay asleep while the world is moved, step-by-step, to a new World War.
Report after report has come out from non-mainstream news sources such was Wired or CNet citing sources with similar stories, like the guy (Mark Klein I think) working for AT&T who discovered the secret room in SF with the NARUS box siphoning off all the Internet traffic to the NSA. Also several ex-NSA employees like William Binney have blown similar whistles.
Fuck the lies, and wake up. People are tired of the unjustified mission creep that has lead to such horrible violations of our rights. So your paycheck depends on violating your fellow citizens' Constitutional rights? How does that feel? Ever think about honoring your oath to uphold the Constitution? There are plenty of private-sector jobs that pay well enough and don't require violating anyone's rights.
"Other reports suggest Twitter refused to participate, though there's been no official conformation."
What terrorist organization communicate on twitter? Or Yahoo mail? Or Facebook? This is obviously just plain spying for political opinions, hate speech, statistics, etc.
Re: "He's done tremendous damage to the country where he was born and raised and educated," Ruppersberger said
Yeah, between Snowden & Manning, the USA may never recover, my anonymous cowardice sez facetiously! Of course, the business activities which brought about the recent recession did no damage at all, affected no one at all, disrupted nothing, etc. & so forth & on & on...
Meanwhile the congresspersons walk on down the hall to their next lobbyist meeting to talk over a little campaign finance. No damage being done there. Of course not, business as usual, nothing to see here.
(thanks for reading...:-)
He (Obama) said the TWO programs being discussed in the press were legal and had been renewed by Congress since 2007.
So even the politicians have confirmed it, at no time did the President dispute one slide of that PRISM presentation, he simply argued it was legal and pointing the blame at Congress.
Snowdens a fucking hero.
besides his boss and himself.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
Nuf said.
This is bunk. They are just trying to make Snowden "show his hand earlier" or "goof up". I hope others come forward. They are hero's like Oliver North.
Help eliminate stupid speeding tickets
Look at what this man's life: Living in Hawaii, making 200k a year living with his hot stripper girlfriend. He throws all that away to leak this and run off and hopes that he doesn't get killed. If he were lying why would he give all that up?
...why are they working so hard to defend/explain it away?
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
That Congress is now in the position of being the boy who cried wolf. Regardless of the truth of Snowden's claims (I, for one, believe him), no one is going to believe Congress, because they've shown themselves to be so completely untrustworthy. I have zero sympath for them, but do have to admit to a degree of gleeful schadenfreude.
Interesting you should mention that. There is a certain politician whose career is built on leaks of his opponents sealed divorce records.
How comical would it be for him to make the last years worth of Ruppersberger's email public?
If he was able to hack into Prism, that's a worse controversy for the US government. Not a better one.
Says the people who can unblinkingly utter "least truthful" when commenting about their statements.
For a House INTELLIGENT Committee i would say your statement of "LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE" is kinda low.
These two points are contradictory. If no one knows what information Snowden has in his possession, how can they know that it is impossible for him to have gained access to it? If you know what information it was possible for him to access, you know that the information in his possession is a subset of that.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Holder actually believes what he says?
The only way they see to "deny" what they are doing is shooting the messenger. "Independent" press has been attacking him since the start.
We will see senior officials repeatedly make the claims that 1) Snowden is lying, 2) Snowden is mentally unbalanced, and 3) Snowden has ulterior motives (greed/ideology - take your pick) for what he says. Of course, there is no way we can ever personally corroborate anything that Snowden or the senior officials says so we have to decide who to believe...and Snowden is more creditable. Here's why. First, he contacted the Guardian news organization and provided documentation for what he claims long in advance of publication. Second, there is no dispute that he was employed as a highly-paid intelligence analyst with a high security clearance which means that his background, mental health, and credit were thoroughly investigated by the FBI over a long period of time. Third, Snowden has correctly identified numerous secret activities that no one (other than those close to them) were aware of such as PRISM. Obviously, the government loves these programs because access to such a huge amount of personal information represents enormous power. But...power in the United States rightfully rests in the hands of its citizens. Most of us would prefer to take our chances with the terrorists but would prefer that the government officials stay out of our emails, cell phone conversations, and internet searches unless we are actual suspects in a real investigation with a fixed objective and timetable. The damage that the terrorists do will be far, far less than the damage that an omnipotent 'big brother' style of government monitoring would do. Any elected official that cannot recognize that should be removed from office via the ballot box at the next election.
For when these Congresscritters are proven to have been lying? To we (the public) get to put them on trial and lock them away for years?
Would you like to try that again, but in English? That made no sense.
Except that the documents that were released indicate that the opposite is true. Collecting ALL call records from ALL subscribers. This is not terrorist related as the US government cannot lawfully assert that ALL subscribers of Verizion are terror suspects. Therefore the records obtained on their activity has no foreign intelligence purpose.
There's been plenty of information about the NSA's program for more than TEN years. U.S. Citizens, however, trusted that their government was doing the right thing when the NSA was constructing its electronic dragnet because it was right after 9/11. People are also too busy living their lives to get involved until it's often too late and the damage has been done. NYT article from 2002: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/09/politics/09COMP.html
I can believe that the government and NSA have been reading my email a lot more easily than I can believe that this guy is lying.
In one of the links of above there is a nice hint:
Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), the world’s largest software company, provides intelligence agencies with information about bugs in its popular software before it publicly releases a fix, according to two people familiar with the process. That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes.
That seem to mean that they are actively holding the fix of 0day bugs, waiting for the "government" (or the people that have access to that information) make a successful exploit and use it, before releasing a patch.
if it's all lies, then he hasn't revealed any secrets.
if he hasn't reviealed any secrets, then he hasn't committed treason.
let see if the US governments actions match their words.
do they try to arrest him for not revealing secrets?
Sadly, an (almost certainly soon to be) convicted felon has more credibility than any member of that committee right now.
That's a strong indication that every single one of them, regardless of party, ought to resign. If you're not credible, you're not qualified.
I swear we've got proof I can't show you.
I question first why the program is hidden at all. Those who spy on people to catch "terrorists" are quite fond of saying "if you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide", implying that if you want to "hide" things, you are doing something wrong.
So why, then, is the surveillance program so secret?
Life is changing. I realize that our standards are going to have to change, to tolerate increase recording and scrutiny simply because there is no way to stop it. But it should be a two-way street - we need, and deserve, more transparency from the government now than ever before.
Civilization is built upon balances of power - revolution, war, even most crime, are all caused by imbalances of power. Balances between nations brought us through the Cold War relatively undamaged. Balances between branches of government prevent coups. And, most importantly, a balance between the citizens and the government is essential - on one hand, a government with too much power will oppress its people, on the other, a government with no power cannot maintain order.
Power takes many forms. Military power. Economic power. Media power. And one that is only now being recognized - information power. That is where we have a new imbalance of power. It used to be that we had relatively little insight to what the government was doing, but they had relatively little information on us, and what they had was disconnected and incomplete. Now, they have comprehensive, connected databases, and are pushing towards even more surveillance of us. But, perversely, we are granted less and less insight into what they're doing.
You want to spy on us, record every email and phone call we make? Fine - but in return, I want every email sent to or from an elected official's or a government employee's account, I want cameras placed on every police officer broadcasting in the open 24/7 with felony penalties for tampering with it or disabling it, and I want a complete report of every cent spent by any city, county, state or federal agency.
After all, if you are doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide, now, do you?
If he's lying, and his access was trivial, why make a big deal out of this? All they had to do was openly mock Snowden and tell him "come back any time, pay a $1000 fine and get on with your life, you crazy kid - no harm, no foul". Just to make the point that he was no threat, whether true or not.
But no, the morons had to start in with the "TERROR SAFETY DANGER". Holder just validated Snowden's actions in the eyes of a lot of people.
Not that it matters anyway, since Joe and Jane Average have no idea why they should care about any of this.
The courts are aware as we need to get a court order.
The FISA court is secret and accountable to nobody, and it's not like we didn't hear about this before as "Total Information Awareness."
TIA got shouted down publicly, but I'm not betting it ever went away. Black budgets and all that.
Even if Snowden is lying and that he exaggerated his authority, the evidence to the contrary of what the politicians are saying is pretty much overwhelming, taken as a big picture.
--
BMO
one man flees to a country where extradition is a questionable practice. He then calmly and rationally divulges a horrific clandestine project to secretly spy on americans, which is then rigorously clarified and refuted by intelligence agencies as being metadata, foreign in nature only, and regulated by a kangaroo court. he promptly goes off-grid and refuses to return.
or
liar-liar pants-on-fire goes to hong kong and lies about friendly government project that the director of the NSA was caught lying about, but which is super patriotic and safe for everyone based on testamony from people who cant talk about it so why doesnt he just come home so we dont have to send him a dron...er...a ticket home....
this is the saddest attempt at damage control ive ever seen. then again, it came from the house of representatives so we're most certainly trying our best in this case to keep government contractors related to the project from pulling their dollary-doo's out of our states.
Good people go to bed earlier.
This would have way more credibility if the NSA director had something like "We don't do this" or "That is incomplete" or "This guy is full of it", when the news first broke. But he has said that these types of surveillance has helped deter attacks.
Spying on guilty people is not outlandish, but spying on innocent people is absolutely outlandish. After all, if I am innocent, then you have no logical reason to spy on me.
is apparently there is no way to prove who is telling the truth.
These things have a way of coming out over time, and I expect this will be a lesson on what not to do going forward, no matter what happens to the actors on this stage.
Maybe that's the real long term benefit of what Snowden did.
"The contention it [PRISM] is not subject to any internal or external oversights is simply not correct."
Yes. We already knew that. Ever since 2008 the "warrantless wiretapping" has instead been done with a warrant from the FISA court. BFD. Are you saying that there isn't a rubber-stamp warrant issued every 90 days by the FISA court to do a broad collection of metadata from all US communications? Because if you mean there's more than that kind of superficial approval and oversight for pervasive data collection, let's hear how the oversight actually works. Lay out the details. No, not the technical details of how the program works, but how the *oversight* of it ensures that it isn't abused. Spell it out. Otherwise shut up and deal with the consequences of not providing enough information for people to have an *informed* opinion on the matter. If all you're going to say is "is not", then it isn't going to be much of an argument.
Given the years and years of obstruction by the government in the courts whenever people try to carry a case through the justice system to find out whether their rights have been broken, only to run up against "state secret" walls, you guys are the ones who created this situation.
So, I should believe people that have been caught lying in public?
"We don't collect data on millions of citizens. Don't be ridiculous!"
[later] "Um, well it depends on your definition of 'data'... and 'collect'... and, uhhh, 'citizens'..."
So, we are suppose to be convinced that the NSA does not have the claimed capabilities to listen to anyone they want without limit?
That means either:
A) this is a blatant lie to the American public (which everyone but the American public seems to realize immediately).
or
B) they are a bunch of incompetent F%^$K that have been ripping off billions or trillions in tax payers for years with no results. Even a mildly competent IT guy with the access to the sorts of resources the NSA SHOULD have, SHOULD be able to pretty much listen to anything they want and time they want. Come on, high-school kids in their basement (well, smaller scale) can do what he claims the NSA is doing. It is not frigen magic any more.
The whole question comes down to do they listen, not can they listen.
There is no NSA surveillance! There are no drones! There is no deficit! Obviously, there must be something wrong with you if invent such silly notions!
(It all depends on the meaning of "is", of course.)
If he is lying, does that means that the published documents are not real documents ? If they are not real, they are obviously not classified, so he cannot be prosecuted for not having respected classified rules.
That is because he provided HARD EVIDENCE. Power-point slides that explain the scope of the program. He didn't just release all of this stuff on his word. The slides clearly show what is currently existing within the scope of the system and what is forecast for the future. We don't have to believe him. He delivered the proof.
the slides themselves on their own would have been just slides.
but - after high level officials tried to do damage control, they're no longer just some slides - they're actual presentations about what the USA government is doing. which gets us to the point that the government didn't even think that authorizing all that was bad or questionable.
it's the governmental response which provided the proof that they were not just some college boys joke slides.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Though I am prepared to believe that Snowden sincerely believes that he managed to intercept bona fide materials... but he was snowed under, set up and 'encouraged' to go rogue by some person he has not specified.
If this PRISM fiasco with its involvement by trusted providers (Google, Apple etc) is demonstrated to be a fabrication (whether Snowden is aware of this or not), there is a chance for it to be debunked and the show is over.
A distraction to hide a more dangerous and more shocking secret that the NSA does not wish to be brought top the surface, the prevalence of piggyback-slurps at interchange points with near-complete data retention (no Youtube junk). That are guaranteed to consist of 99.99% domestic (illegal) intercept.
1. Clap on! Clap off! Clapper's PRISM DISINFO Gambit
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3837249&cid=43937933
2. RAISE CONGRESS, while you still can!
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3842539&cid=43952565
3. A fable: NSA and the Desolation of Smaug
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3863455&cid=44005849
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
The 4th amendment reads "unreasonable searches and seizures". What the Federal government is basically saying is that we can seize all communications, but as long as we don't actually look at them, there is no search. You don't need a yottabyte of storage to back up simple metadata.
I hope Snowden anticipated these denials and has documents/recording to prove his assertions. The politically wise will allow them to build an intricate web of lies before exposing them, though.
but i just got a cup of coffee instead
Next time go for the Victory Gin.
The Federal Government has been taken over by and is being run by world class morons at every level. From the President to the idiot at the Post Office who takes his lunch when there are 30 people in line.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Except that the documents that were released indicate that the opposite is true. Collecting ALL call records from ALL subscribers. This is not terrorist related as the US government cannot lawfully assert that ALL subscribers of Verizion are terror suspects. Therefore the records obtained on their activity has no foreign intelligence purpose.
oh but that's the thing. they don't see collecting them as a problem, because the argue that they have a system in place to limit access to that data and that rarely is any of that data accessed and never without a reason. well duh since it's so many records they would need hundreds of thousands of people to be accessing the data to access all of them regularly... only if it's found out that you're a terrorist or connected to a terrorist - or called iran - they will access that data.
so there lies the fundamental problem, that they don't see siphoning the data into their coffers pre-emptively as a problem.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
How can they say if he's lying or not. It's a secret! They cannot prove it because its all classified.
They need to be pressed HARD on that point.
If he's lying then he hasn't revealed national secrets.
If he's revealed national secrets then he isn't lying.
One or the other.
Or has become one, at least. The debate is effectively being focused on whether or not Snowden is a hero or a villain, when what people should really be concerned about is whether or not the government is engaging in unconstitutional behavior, who is responsible for the programs, and why our elected officials are not only doing nothing to prevent it but are actively encouraging it.
None of this matters, it's a distraction. If PRISM is not capable of doing what the young man claims, then the federal government should have no problem passing a bill that describes that sort of surveillance as illegal. Also, if he's just a braggart and a liar, they have no reason to prosecute him as he hasn't actually revealed anything but a made up story.
The HIC and the NSA keep glossing over the fact that even IF the protection of a secret unaccountable rubber-stamp court was enough to make sure the data isn't being used badly (for now), they are not gathering data AFTER being approved by the court, they are gathering data essentially randomly (The NSA stated that they have a 51% ability to determine "foreignness") and THEN getting court approval to look at the data. The data is still there, accessible by any successive administration under different and circumstances.
It's like the quantum version of search and seizure. The NSA and Congress are claiming that as long as they don't LOOK at the data, they didn't unconstitutionally collect it, which is BS.
All kings is mostly rapscallions. -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
So the whole Patraeus affair wasn't actually uncovered by an unauthorized investigation by a FBI friend of someone receiving harrassing emails?
Uncle Sugar must think we're really stupid. They continue to lie, and lie to cover up other lies, if the Fed told me water was wet, I simply wouldn't believe them. We can't trust anything that comes out of these people...
So the NSA's documents are lying?
Sorry 'house intelligence committee leaders' - you're full of it.
says the committee that is supposed to lie to us about any 'intelligence'...
There are three kinds of people in the world. Those that can count, and those that can't.
If you think so, then you're among the first victims of the disinformation campaign in its early stages. It's plain obvious that Snowden is telling the truth and the government is lying.
"He's a spy. He's THE spy. His SECRETS have secrets."
This is exactly why most (all?) of the founding fathers where against political parties; and so their fears have come to pass.
Hell, Jefferson was against even allowing corporations! I suppose this is one reason why he is now willfully ignored by the right wing.
Right here:
http://penguinpetes.com/b2evo/index.php?title=edward_snowden_is_lying_his_ass_off_abou&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
But I see if conspiracy-theory paranoia is going to rule Slashdot comments, there's no chance anybody will listen to me, either.
Dont blame the idoit who was forced to take his/her lunch when there were 30 people in line and only two windows open, it was not their fault that the management forced them to take their lunch or face possible federal criminal charges. As for the rest, yeah, the government is run with a sea of incompetent middle-management types who never "Worked" a day in their life, and have no idea what the rest of the world does.
the idiot at the Post Office who takes his lunch when there are 30 people in line.
Cut the guy a break. If he waited till there was no one in line, he wouldn't eat till the day was over.
Blame the managers for not hiring enough people, but leave the front desk man alone.
Reps. Mike Rogers please resign. You've put your organization (the gov) ahead of the best interests of the people.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
...then you win. You know the rest.
That's what they say about every single rogue agent or leaker.
Every. Single. One.
You have to wonder about an organization that employs so many nuts.
This is exactly what someone would expect them to say.
(See what I did there?)
All the world's an analog stage, and digital circuits play only bit parts.
yep...one side has been saying that since...Woodrow Wilson's 12 Points I believe...whatever the label, progressives make this country what it is...
'libertarians' should logically support the Democrat...if they care about policy at all...if you're about HOT AIR...well you know what to do....
Thank you Dave Raggett
Perhaps Rupert needs to cash in his soon to be X.
As a fiction it is little different than "Mission Impossible".
And it seems that if he is not lying someone else has been.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
This US citizen does not believe you, government of America. Congress is being lied to by our security agents. Therefore, I can't believe anything our congress says because I don't trust them to ask the hard questions and to make sure that the answers are correct. I'm very upset, and I will (again) be voting. I will vote against each and every incumbent I can that hasn't openly expressed disgust at- and taken action to disassemble- this Orwellian nightmare. This is not the America I want to live in. When you record everything I do it makes me not want to express my views on the internet. So not only has this infringed on our right not to be exposed to unreasonable search and seizure, this has a chilling affect of the freedom of speech.
If our elected representatives can't see this, they are blind and should not be allowed to represent us any further. On behalf of all Americans I apologize to our allies for the inexcusable actions of our government. I vow to do all I can as a law abiding citizen to turn America back into the land of the Free.
Fuck the House Intelligence Committee.
Swine like this led the US into Viet Nam, Iraq, Grenada,
and most likely soon Iraq, Syria, and various countries
in Africa ( the countries which have resources the US
wants to exploit ).
Like I said : FUCK the House Intelligence Committee. Too many
good men have died because of lying swine like them.
We apologize for interrupting this broadcast for an official public statement from the President of the United States of America concerning the recent scandal involving mr. Snowden's allegations towards the US intelligence agencies.
My fellow citizens:
Nu uh.
Thank you. God bless you and God bless the United States of America.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
" over-inflated his position, he has over-inflated his access and he's even over-inflated what the actual technology of the programs would allow one to do. "
As opposed to the acceptable "inflated" ?
Sheesh.
How can a "lie" cause "tremendous damage to the country'?
If it were a lie, the NSA would have given the default "We can neither confirm nor deny" answer. The fact that it has upset so many people is pretty clear indication that he is nearly (if not entirely) spot-on. Calling this a "lie" is spin.
US government spying on American citizens was (re)confirmed in the American consciences in 2002 when the AT&T sysAdim broke the news that AT&T was cooperating with the NSA (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/foreign-affairs-defense/what-an-nsa-domestic-spying-operation-looks-like/). As far as the US citizenry goes... this is old news.
I'm not buying the "damage" to the US thing. If 80% of Americans already believe that the government is spying on them, then why is it even a secret that Verizon was asked to continue the process? What exactly is damaged?
What's damaged is not that Terrorist may now change their MO. It's that the American People might get upset. It will bring more scrutiny to the process. That's not damage to the US - it's damage to the spy operation. And those two things should be weighed independently.
-CF
I can't stand the false equivalence...'government' is a reductive concept...we aren't 3rd graders...we know more about how our policies are made...who votes for banning abortion and shit like that...by just saying 'government' you give yourself a bullshit problem to troll and bitch about forever...
same logic as Snowden and you are ALL IDIOTS...
here's why:
1. The relevant info is old news for IT professionals, and the new info (US has been hacking China) is treasonous...YES, the NSA wiretapping was reported on **in 2006**..."NSA has massive database of Americans' phone calls". He *still* broke the law with revealations about *that* program, like the name (PRISM) and other details...he's NOT BRAD LEE MANNING
2. **chose to reveal his identity**...he could have leaked this anonymously...you know, like Deep Throat did with the Pentagon Papers...like a class act would. But because he's doing this for SELFISH REASONS, he wants his name know...he wants to spout his internet troll-level bullshit on TV...and ruin his life for no gain
3. "Idiots like me have access to NSA data via Defense contractors"....that's all he revealed that is actually **value added** info. The NSA wiretaps, old news...US hacking China, treason...Booze/Allen's unacoutable employees...good to know...
keep idiots like this out of any important job...that's what I learned about this whole mess...oh, and 'Prism' is a codename...whop de damn doo...
Thank you Dave Raggett
have access to the NSA's most secret databases via government contractors"
is all Snowden has revealed that professionals did not know already...
any anarchist, 'libertarian', or IT professional knew this was happening...
anyone who'd ever worked in INTEL knows government contracting is out of control and full of criminality, abuse, and fraud
only people who don't know what they are talking about think Snowden did anything good
Thank you Dave Raggett
Who is she, again?
"The Federal Government has been taken over by and is being run by world class morons at every level."
The U.S. government is EXTREMELY corrupt:
1) $2 trillion lost to financial manipulation, no court cases.
2) $3 trillion lost to invading Iraq to help investors like Bush and Cheney make money from oil.
They say, "Oh, they have this HUGE spying program, but they weren't using it against anyone but terrorists." Would members of Congress be told?
I worked for a Data Center. This Data Center was one of the largest in the world. There were these mysterious black unlabeled servers that didn't even exist in invetory. The 1u server was LOCKED in the rack. This is completely out of the norm. Controlled access was done by locking the cage, not the specific location in the rack itself. When I inquired about what they were, I was told they belonged to a three letter agency, and not to fuck with them.These were NSA servers. They came and installed them on a dont ask dont tell basis.
They are trying to down play the issue, to get the general public under control. Dont let them pull the wool back over your eyes.
That is because he provided HARD EVIDENCE. Power-point slides that explain the scope of the program. [...] The slides clearly show what is currently existing within the scope of the system and what is forecast for the future.
So, apparently some things are not yet adding up about the conclusions drawn from those PowerPoint slides:
http://www.rants.org/2013/06/11/epic_botch_of_prism_story/
https://medium.com/prism-truth/82a1791c94d3
I don't know. I assumed they were already doing this (almost all, slightly more, or slightly less) for at least the past ten years. I'm not keen about the civilization necessarily requiring a real, actual surveillance state, if that's what we indeed have. Finally, I don't know what to think about Snowden, and don't really care to jump to conclusions about that, either.
Here's some more I had been looking at:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/06/10/1214540/-Five-stages?showAll=yes
http://cryptome.org/
reducing the complexity of this issue to a binary is reductive...sorry I know it makes geeks feel better to only have TWO options...either THIS or THAT...ah so safe and certain...
sorry Charlie...this is the fucking real world...
so here it is for you:
1. Snowden is an selfish, operating on selfish motives. He could have leaked anonymously, but didn't so he could spout his internet troll level logic on international TV before he goes to prison.
2. Snowden is an idiot, because he's mischaracterizing what PRISM does for dramatic effect. Those slides were written for non-tech people. Any IT professional knows that what PRISM does is possible, **any signal transmitted is interceptable**...and we all know about the Patriot Act.
3. Snowden revealed treasonous information about US 'hacking' (his word) of China's computers. He gave some number, like 63,000...that's like saying how many times the US had wiretapped the Nazis in WWII practically...that's definitely a CRIME!!!
You're letting opinions of non-techies cloud your view. We all knew the NSA could packet sniff us with a FISA secret warrant...and before that, during Bush, **they just did whatever they wanted**
What's that twinge? I know...it's that notion that this converstion happening nationally *because of* these leaks is really good and refreshing...I feel it too...
Here's the thing, and fucking understand this if you understand anything I've typed...WE COULD HAVE HAD THIS CONVERSATION WITHOUT EVER KNOWING THE IDENTITY OF THE LEAKER...or without any leak at all...because the important info was already out there conceptually...he just gave details
Thank you Dave Raggett
I trust my government because they do things like this, then say "Sorry".
http://www.cdc.gov/tuskegee/timeline.htm
To all the people saying that history will find Snowden to be a hero, just remember: History is written by those in power.
Not to say that anything that comes out of the mouth of The Intelligence Committee (as they have publicly and repeatedly revealed that they are more than comfortable lying to the plebs of the public), this again focuses on the smear campaign, not the issues raised themselves.
What is fairly inarguable - government isn't really denying much (skirting around technicalities mostly), trying to argue that it's all kosher because secret court said so and doing their best to focus the attention on the messenger, not the message.
Now, I don't have problem with anyone spying on anyone, that's reality of the current world. What I do have fairly big problem is the cost of finding something to pin you down. As a simple example:
Imagine you are walking on the street, meet some lowly bureaucrat of the local town house and look at him 'all wrong'. Now, normally he would have to spend some time and effort if he felt pissed off and wanted to get you to a death row (well, or at least, suitably mess up your life). Look for probable cause, find some of your neighbours to agree that you are a menace to society and something should be done about you, all that kind of stuff.
Now he can just get back to the office, check in on your name, bring up, let's say, last 20 years of your communications, known associates, keyword tagged internet history and voila - you were in the same dorm in college as that very bad dude they found growing marijuana, you have been known to receive calls from somebody who has been receiving calls from somebody who has been to middle east and in October, 2018 you wrote on that Slashdot site that "all government officials are pigs and you would want to inflict physical harm to them in close and personal fashion". A SUSPECTED DOMESTIC TERRORIST ALERT!!!
(I hope I don't need to explain what happens when somebody writes a bash script to automate the example above or your chances of leading normal life when the FBI raids your home and workplace based on the probable cause provided above...)
One of the most humorous things I keep hearing is that he was just a lowly so-and-so, he wouldn't have that kind of access. Who exactly do these people think is actually running their systems. For a system of this scale there are going to be hundreds of servers if not more and databases of epic proportions. They have to employ a small army of SA's and DBA's running all of that crap. Then you have all kinds of other folks that'll be performing other functions like security checks and such that will need access. I wouldn't be surprised if each of the servers in this system are accessible at the root level by at least 50 people or more whom these big wigs wouldn't even consider as having access. I've worked in places where I helped monitor dozens of different systems and not a one of them would likely have ever thought to list me as someone with 100% unfettered access to their data. Sometimes I think that these people live in a completely different reality than the rest of us, they seriously have no idea of the technicalities involved in the everyday running of their lives and pet projects.
He just has to release the info he has. (after blanking the names of course)
What worries me is our current Prime Sinister probably agrees with that kind of spying, and wouldn't be surprised if Canada is already doing the same thing.
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/pardon-edward-snowden/Dp03vGYD
Sign this petition. It would be fun to see the response.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/preserve-protect-and-defend-constitution-united-states/R8JmsllN
IMO he should request political asylum to People's Republic of China, i believe he has already helped them with crucial information and should be granted protection there, since being in Hong Kong he could easily reach the proper authorities. Staying in HK might be a little dangerous, better to move inland.
Julian Assange made a terrible mistake, traveling to a place friendly to US, he is now living under siege, as the UK doesn't care about other countries right to concede asylum.
But if Snowden being in HK went straight to Beijing authorities to request asylum, i see no reason they wouldn't consider it. And yes, he would live a normal Chinese life, with America becoming his enemy forever or until revolution takes place there.
Lets cite a precedent: Ex-CIA agent Phillip Agee defected to Cuba, he is still there, living peacefully and nicely, you can see him talking in many documentaries. Key point being, the country must not bend to US will.
If you are like Bradley Maning, you should not open your mouth until you are already in a safe place, and of course not expect to go back home ever; be ready to restart a new life elsewhere instead of being taken for a life sentence in prison.
The US gov. is becoming desperate, as their foreign policy had become so dirty people working inside is getting so disgusted they have started to leak information, and more will do it, but please do it properly, do not let them get you.
Artix
Your Linux, your init.
he is doing serious damage, to those who are abusing the system and going 'beyond legality and morality' so they're naturally barking back.
The IT department in the NSA forgot to make the 'Enter court approval id' textbox in their screens as mandatory.
The supervisors forgot to tell employees that they should not abuse of a non-mandatory field in the access forms.
The politicians forgot to tell the NSA that every access must be traceable and auditable externally and independently or be held accountable for it.
But worst was that the population forgot to tell politicians how much they care about privacy, liberty and moral values.
PRISM is only a young baby of the bigger ECHELON beast, that has been known for... over 60 years already? abuses of such systems had been made publicly over the years beyond doubt and with reasonably certainty, even ex CIA directors had publicly admitted sharing intelligence information with american companies.
Snowden had said that the system is abused beyond reasonably acceptable levels, it is damaging indeed but not to national security, is damaging to politicians as it shows their low morale standards.
The damage to US credibility was self inflicted by politicians, nobody else.
It becomes more and more obvious this all is due to enormous coruption among US polititians. They are connected with companies to bring them profit, they buy supercomputers for spying whole world, and they are going after whistleblowers who are most important in fighting coruption. They are making wars to sell weapons. This makes a very serious vicious circle. After society is corupted above some limit, then it becomes imposible to cure itself. For that reason, fighting coruption and supporting whistleblowers is currently the primary national interest.
But you're not supposed to mind because you have nothing to hide!
It is not because I have nothing to hide that I want it to be known
The Fox says don't worry we have a special secret court of Foxes where we decide if it OK to raid the hen house and eat you hens. ... see I told you it was legal, you dumb paranoid hens !
And half the Hens say to the other half
Amazing how a little bit of properly constructed language makes everything OK. ... can and most likely will use against YOU at some point in time. Its inevitable.
THEY are spying on us, THEY are deciding when and how, THEY are keeping it secret from us, THEY have a huge amount of information on each and every one of us, that someone or some administration in the future, or some hackers
Didn't you see the reports claiming that terrorists are already altering behavior based on the information published so far?
I am curious how they are altering behavior - not making phone calls at all anymore? So NSA is only spying on citizens now?
Hmm...
Having watched every interview and hearing I could find there seems to be a unified strategy to use strawmen and messenger shooting to deflate various issues.
President keeps saying nobody is listening to your calls which is not what anyone I could find had actually reported. (Unless you juxtipose PRISM)
Why not listen to what your own vice president has to say on the "metadata" issue:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2qgU8kJt-0
Then we have PRISM constantly used as a diversion to keep from having to speak to the CDR collection issue.
Next up meaningless differentiations... These are of the form of we need court orders or to meet some standard to use data.
Well no the problem is not use but *collection* of all this data in the first place without any legal justification for collecting it simply because you can. Saying we need oversight to do x is simply a cheeze laden attempt to avoid speaking to issue y.
The other trick is in the use of the word "authorities" that Snowden used when he said he could access these things. People kept saying he was not "authorized" to do it but Snowden was talking about system level access not politicial constraints on what he could and could not do. Capability is the issue.
In this instance of TFA where the capability itself is disputed. We have a real slide deck nobody disputes the authenticity of claims optical splitters and PRISM alluding to a capability to extract information from information service providers.
Yet assertion is still the "capability" itself is over-inflated. What does that mean?
Is it more or less over-inflated rhetoric as asserting tremendous damage to the country?
The only damage I see seems to stem from an errosion of trust in government institutions and elected representatives.
"We really need to do a better job of reducing the sense of self that libertarians have."
"Socialization really needs to be taught over individualism in our schools,"
You think wd need to AD CX to strip people of their individuality and turn them into mindless cogs
Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both. -- Ben Franklin
I find this response by the government to be completely hysterically funny.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I wonder how many conservative Americans who support all this spying also oppose background checks as a threat to the Second Amendment because they would lead inevitably to a gun registry. I also wonder if they understand information currently being collected with their blessing will be more than enough to compile quite an accurate registry.
"Metadata" isn't just a buzz word.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
As they say, most criminals are stupid. It's true for government criminals too.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
I take for granted that, to the historically and politically informed readers of this page, it is clear and obvious that no state lying and double-speaking to its citizens has lived for a very long time. If nothing happens, if this is the way the US government esteems that relations with its citizens are best handled, then the US as a state in its current form are doomed. Breakdown, like the communist states in 1989, or revolution, like in France, 1789/1792, are ahead.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
If I let government get a hold of all this metadata without a fight. This sort of private and personal information should only be given out to advertisers and large corporations who have proven they can use it effectively.
who prays for Satan? Who in 18 centuries has had the humanity to pray for the 1 sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain
lol, when do you eat lunch then?
http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
If he's lying...how are the going to try him for treason? Yesterday...he was a Chinese spy...today he's just a low-level geek inflating his access...?
So, wait, are they saying it's worse than he said it was?
Or that he lied, and is thus innocent of leaking?
I am coming from Czech Republic former Czechoslovakia, currently EU and NATO member state, ally of USA. I remember communist totalitarian regime. When I read all this it reminds me the time when we as nation were less free and more secure under totalitarian communist surveillance. In that time done by the state secret police.
Each person by the time had a secret profile associated which indicated class status of the person and it's position and loyalty towards the regime. For example if grand father was entrepreneur during the free time, the person could be refused education or certain work positions or even imprisoned if it suited the regime and communist party purpose. This profile actually shaped person's career and life.
It is highly probable that a profile for each of us already exists in NSA database or soon will. It is a matter of time how it will be used and for what reason. It is very dangerous for the people, democracy and basic freedoms and it will certainly not help to protect it. This is already proven, massive surveillance is usually indicating totalitarian police state or it is one of it's main attributes.
Why are the government going after him for lying? Seems a little over-inflated to me.
However if he's telling the truth, it makes sense they are pursuing him.
These aren't the secrets you're looking for
Or Mike Rogers just blew a cunning NSA misinformation campaign wide open.
Have gnu, will travel.
Pot/Kettle?
The idiot at the Post Office is REQUIRED to take his lunch at a particular time and he'll do so and take an extra 30 minutes break because he's unionized. If his boss told him to be productive and wait a half hour extra take his lunch, the entire postal service will go on strike and they'll have to renegotiate the hourly wage contract and 6 weeks paid vacation time and unlimited paid personal days.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
All the prior art are belong to us.
The Federal Government has been taken over by and is being run by world class criminals at every level.
FTFY
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
There are three distinct possibilities:
1. Snowden is correct
2. Snowden honestly misinterpreted a far more innocuous -- but still quite possibly overstepping of constitutional bounds -- intel-gathering operation as a panopticon
3. Snowden is lying for e-fame
The sad conclusion that I'm forced to make is that I don't have enough data to rule out any one of these possibilities, although my personal belief is that number two is closest by a hair to being correct. Snowden sounds exactly like the type of kid who might fabricate or embellish the truth in order to get the Reddit userbase to hoist him up on their shoulders and triumphantly dump Gatorade on his head. But that doesn't mean he *did* fabricate or embellish.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
If, as the USG is saying, Snowden is lying, can we also assume that he invented those PowerPoint slides too? And if so, wouldn't the slides look nicer? Seriously if you were going to make that stuff up, you'd make it look nice too.
I used to have a better sig than this, but I got tired of it
... wait, let me start over. What I really meant to say was:
Dear Shitbags,
You might have noticed that your latest approval rating is 10%. This is a good example of why that has come to pass. When you repeatedly, emphatically state that every request for information goes through a judge, a sane individual does not assume that a single request consists of THREE TRILLION FUCKING PIECES OF DATA COVERING THE ENTIRE FUCKING US POPULATION.
You are cretins. I would feel more comfortable if Snowden was on the intelligence committee than any single one of you idiots.
Support microSD: in a post 9/11 world, it is unwise to carry your data on media that you cannot comfortably swallow.
This has been in the news for days and what exactly has happened in response to reign in the NSA and let your leaders know the citizens find this unacceptable?
Thats right, nothing.
Where are the mass protests? Where are the angry demonstrators threatening to break down the doors to Capitol Hill and drag their treacherous representatives out to face mob justice? (I kid, I kid.)
There will be no lasting repercussions for the NSA and their government buddies from this. The only downside for the government is going to be further distrust that the rest of the world's population has towards them, especially when it comes to things like Internet stewardship.
He gave up $200,000, a attractive partner, and any sense of safety to do what he did. Why would he lie? To draw a bigger target on his head? For that matter, I am an IT guy I am quite sure he had super user or a like level acess as that is much easier to do than implement and maintain the complex user permissions, logging every access and modification, and building hardned wall betweeen systems that would be required otherwise. There is always a compromise between ease of use and security. The larger the NSA needs become the more vulnerable they will become it might as well be a law of nature.
some of us have used face crack which has been using facial recognition for quite some time. do the NSA have names and photos to match their numbers, calls and times?
they can just safely ignore him. He's just crazy. Just let some of the tea party and libertarian members of congress be able to check up without being given gag orders and all should go smoothly for you. Or they're all lying sacks of shit. If they wanted us to believe them they should never passed the patriot act which blatantly rescinds huge portions of the Constitution.
That's it! He's... he's a liar! That's what he is! Liar, Liar, pants on fire! So come in liar! Quit lying and turn yourself in! That's the best for everyone! You have done bad things and we won't hurt you if you just turn yourself in. Or just tell us where you are, and we will get you. And quit lying you lying liar! You've done very bad things, but if you just tell us where you are, we promise that nothing bad will happen to you. Just give us your location. Just tell us where you are, and one of our agents will get you. Nothing bad will happen you you. We promise. And quit lying! We have people looking for you everywhere. Just tell us where our people can find you. We know where your parents live, and your family. We want to let them know that we have you. They would like to know where you are. Our agents want to know where you are. So quit lying and turn yourself in!
If he's lying why do they want to try him for treason?
There should be a corollary to Godwin's law that deals with anyone who calls other people sheep in an argument. They have also moved beyond rationale discussion and lost all credibility.
The government will fo everything it can to cover its ass.
An AP investigation revealed the government has spent 4.7 billion dollars over the past 5 years on winning the hearts and minds of... American citizens.
The governent spies on us all, floods the media with propaganda and spend billions upon billions of dollars on national defense programs.
In the united states we no longer have a constitution. We have a piece of paper that our politicians use to wipe there asses with. And then they have the audacity to say it is crap.
Therefore, at one and the same time, he's:
1). A low-down, traitorous criminal of the worst kind;
2). He's lying;
3). There's nothing new here;
4). His information is so unimportant, can we end this conversation now?
Either we don't understand the situation at all. Or perhaps we understand it too well!
It means they're still trying to figure out exactly what information has been leaked. The easiest way to counter a leak is to find out what has been leaked, then work off of that model; it looks silly if they spin a story saying that it's all for terrorism while someone is waiting to release a video of the NSA director saluting a flag with a swastika in his office, and personal memos talking of a 'glorious cleansing.' The people are already conditioned to want to believe that it's all a lie; however, proving the government wrong multiple times tends to break that conditioning.
Snowden has supposedly since disappeared, so he's either out of the country (smart), or in a private interrogation room (a definite possibility), being taken apart. They'll want to know exactly what he knows, so that they can form a reaction plan based off of it. Little details matter.
I am John Hurt.
US officials seem to contradict themselves here. How can Edward Snowden be at the same time be (1) a liar that did not have access to sensitive stuff, and (2) a traitor that disclosed sensitive stuff worth extradition and prosecution?
This is like some kind of grade-school drama and it's getting quite surreal. AND the US gov is right there in the middle of it giving wedgies and saying "I know you are but what am I??!"
Are you guys fucked? Because if you are, then you have nothing to lose so maybe YOU should do something about it? Being the remaining 'super power' in more ways than one, the world kind of depends on it. Get Your Dogs On A Leash and Stop Shitting Up The Place!
It seems to be looking more and more like Snowden has been working for China all along.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tCipYQOHiU
Note that Snowden came out with his explosive revelations just as the Chinese premier was about to meet with Obama, with the US already upset at extensive Chinese hacking attacks against US targets. What convenient timing for the Chinese.
China is the new USSR - same old ColdWar double agent defection games. Same old Useful Idiots on the Left who will lap up in Pavlovian style any propaganda ploy that feeds their anti-establishment appetite.
Since I was able to think, they told me that my government is there to protect my mom and me
They told me that I am lucky to be born an American, for my country America is the BEST COUNTRY EVER in the human history
Every single school day I pledged my allegiance to my country, every single time I did that I really believed in my country
I also believe that my country has a perfect system - that bad people will be caught, no matter how high their position is - that one of the previous president, Richard Nixon, was forced out from his presidency is the proof of the system that works
And when they sent out my cousin to fight in Iraq (that time I was a little kid and he came back in a box, we all felt sad, but proud, because he was there to fight against the evil
I am an American, DAMN IT, I must feel proud for my country !
When the Snowden bombshell dropped - that they are spying on who we call, how long and how often - I get scared, as I never believe something like that would ever happened to me
There are of course people who said Snowden is a liar - but so far they have not tell us why they have to know WHO I CALL to catch a terrorist - am I a terrorist ? Am I, a loyal American, suspected to be a terrorist ?
And right now the Attorney General of my country is telling the world that PRISM does not exist - is he telling the truth or is Snowden telling the truth ?
I am confused, I am totally and very seriously confused !
Can someone please tell me who to trust ?
I still love my country, but I do not know if I can trust people who tap into my phone call
What can I do ?
Should I still support my president? - yes, I voted for him last time
Should I still pay my taxes?
Should I start buying guns to protect myself?
Or if I start buying guns, will they tag me as a terrorist?
Can someone please help me?
Reps. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the Intelligence Committee, is a liar.
He presumes the non-federal employed citizens of the U.S.A. cannot discover the truth.
So he invents some and claims he is SuperMan.
How pathetic.
The solution is to make all federal government source information available online. No secrets. All phone records, webcams, mics, the lot. If my taxes paid for data collection, then I want access to it.
My reasoning is that anybody (in the right place, with the right equipment) could intercept cell phone conversations. Even fixed wirelines could be intercepted by inductance methods. Webcams could be placed and focussed on public spaces all over, and the output uploaded to a website. Just like London. Anybody with people recognition software could then download those files and know where anybody is, now, last week, last year. At the moment, the more money you have, the more information you can buy.
All requiring no trespass, and probably quite legal. At the moment, you just need lots of $$$.
I am not particularly worried if anybody knows where I am or was, or what I said. I suppose cheating spouses might worry. And people engaged in criminal enterprise. Those who are concerned about communications privacy will just have to work harder at encryption and adjust their lives.
And that charge against Snowden that he has alerted terrorists to "spying methods". Oh Please. Even years ago, Bin Laden just didn't use phones. I really cannot imagine any terrorist who was idiot enough to trust a telephone to have got past year 6.
Every single school day I pledged my allegiance to my country, every single time I did that I really believed in my country
That one has a;ways been a red flag to me. Forced loyalty oaths for children don't quite jibe with the values the country is supposed to be founded on. Now, I know the Supreme Court has found (on multiple occasions) that it's unconstitutional for the pledge of allegiance to be mandatory, so someone could claim it's not forced. Of course, that's ignoring how it got to the Supreme Court in the first place.
Should I still pay my taxes?
Yes, pay your taxes. Governments are big and complex and it's pretty much guaranteed that some of your tax money will be spent in ways that you will disagree with or that are outright illegal and detrimental to you, but most is still spent on basic government services you rely on. It's a mixed bag. You can't just opt out of civilization altogether. Instead, you have to do everything you can to stay aware of how your tax money is being spent and raise your voice when there's a problem.
The government spending billions to pointlessly spy illegally on its own citizens is a prime example of the kind kind of problem I'm talking about.
It all boils down to this, the policies,actions and business dealings of our government and corporations in foreign countries over the last 50 years has pissed off alot of people. These deeds were done in our name,which has caused these people to retaliate against us, the people. ....~1948.........(get those commies,they stole our secret) ....?
This has created an environment where the government feels threatened, and starts programs like this and others...started around
time to
fire them all ?
to be replaced by...?
Sorry, don't have that answer....
Seriously, if you trust secret government actions, based on secret policies, under the supervision of secret courts, which make secret interpretations of the law, then you have a terrible grasp of history. .
They're known as Star chambers
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
NSA: you can't pretend that you are not storing content--when in fact your solution depends on corporations, like Microsoft, to warehouse the data. Snowden wasn't lying about this, PRISM includes this integration, (via B2B interfaces and workflow processes), but this content is still a part of the System--regardless if you have the content data on hand, locally. We know in politics the messenger is attacked. Technologists don't have the patience for politics. So, could we elevate this dialogue a little higher before people start believing their oath matters to defend the U.S. constitution against foreign and DOMESTIC enemies? Take some advice given to new recruits: Don't make yourself a target. We can see the obvious rhetorical deceptions. Perhaps Snowden is confused, but wait--you have been lying too? Kind of an empty accusation you are making here.
Man who's credibility has been shattered calls into question accusers credibility. More news at 11
My wife works at a privatized post office for Canada Post. There is a line before it opens and people trying to get in after it closes. There are times when there is no line but its rare.
Blanket seizing is explicitly prohibited by the 4th Amendment.
The only possible argument is that electronic copying isn't seizing. If that is true, then copying movies and music isn't theft--but the government says it is. Can't have it both ways (oh, wait, they can, because they're the government; c.f. DoJ arguments about Obamacare to the SCOTUS "It's not a tax," "It's a tax").
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
Like your idea: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society
And for related ironic humor in the news: :-)
http://www.humanevents.com/2013/06/14/rep-stockman-requests-nsa-logs-for-phone-traffic-between-white-house-irs/
An example in fiction of a Transparent Society is in Marshall Brain's "Manna" at the end:
http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
My suggestion a couple years ago to a public call for ideas by the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology:
http://pcast.ideascale.com/a/dtd/-The-need-for-FOSS-intelligence-tools-for-sensemaking-etc.-/76207-8319
"This suggestion is about how civilians could benefit by have access to the sorts of "sensemaking" tools the intelligence community (as well as corporations) aspire to have, in order to design more joyful, secure, and healthy civilian communities (including through creating a more sustainable and resilient open manufacturing infrastructure for such communities). It outlines (including at a linked elaboration) why the intelligence community should consider funding the creation of such free and open source software (FOSS) "dual use" intelligence applications as a way to reduce global tensions through increased local prosperity, health, and with intrinsic mutual security."
And I also wrote:
http://www.phibetaiota.net/2011/09/paul-fernhout-open-letter-to-the-intelligence-advanced-programs-research-agency-iarpa/
"So, with all the billions of dollars a years spent on âoeintelligenceâ, why not at least try to produce some freely-available âoedual useâ intelligence tools to help civilian American citizens make sense of the real things that are killing most real Americans by the hundreds of thousands every year?"
My wife and I have worked on some software used by the intelligence community in different countries. But our focus had been to try to help decision makers see issues from multiple perspectives. Note the Snowden here is a different Snowden from the leaker:
http://cognitive-edge.com/blog/entry/4318/un-wired/
"There had been two DARPA projects, working off two very different philosophies. One (TIA) sought to obtain and search all possible data to detect the possibility of terrorist events. That raised civil liberties concerns and much controversy in the USA leading to resignations and programme closure. A parallel program Genoa II took a very different philosophy, based on understanding nuanced narrative supporting the cognitive processes of decision makers and increasing the number of cultural and political perspectives available to policy makers. I was a part of that program, and proud to be so. It also forms the basis of our work for RAHS and contains neither the approach, not the philosophy of TIA."
We tried to get the related company to open source the software, but not much luck. My wife does have some rights to some of the work, plus the core ideas are available in the public literature (which is what my wife based her research on).
We all may well benefit from an expectation of privacy, and a healthy government may well have an obligation to defend privacy the same way it might defend our physical infrastructure. I don't want to argue against those things (even if in practice in the communal extended-family villages that hunter/gatherer humans had historically, privacy may have been rare). But in practice right now, I doubt we can stop the spying, because it is too seductive, an
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
It made perfect sense. Sure, it's obvious that English either isn't the GPs first language, or isn't stressed in whatever school they go/went to.
But it's not their fault that you're an illiterate schmuck with no language interpreting creativity....
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
So does the house committee:
"to go places that he was not authorized to go" exactly means that the technical means and feasibility that Snowden claimed were in place. The question of authorization does not arise when we are talking about unreachable places.
Now the funny thing is that Snowden went to places that he was not authorized to go, on roads that were not authorized to be built.
Try to imagine a wildlife preservation park, and some Greenpeace activists drives through on a sort-of-secret pretty busy six-lane government-sponsored highway for wood transporters, documenting his path.
Now he comes back and publishes, and his government wants to retain him for violating preservation rules.
This is so stupid that I wonder where and how they actually manage to recrute a divided opinion among their citizenship. Nixon's turning in his grave in envy of a public that would have applauded him for pissing on the constitution in the name of "national security" which was good for scaring people because of jews, fascists, communists, and now terrorists. But never before was the scare-mongering as effective at letting people applaud the abolition of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as it is today.
Hepting v. AT&T is the smoking gun of wholesale warrantless surveillance.
Government flacks will (and are) attempting to divert the issue thus: Snowden is a traitor; this is specifically about FISA warrants issued for foreign nationals; any Americans caught in the dragnet amounts to small collateral damage; or, this is specifically about access of telephone metadata (aka "pen registers") not content without warrants, which is permitted by law.
Anything to keep you from thinking about split fiber optic taps at interchange points, wholesale copying and (blind) storage of intercepts which comprise ~99.99% domestic (illegal) traffic.
Our rule of law recognizes that 'wholesale possession' of certain materials, either obtained in an illegal manner or explicitly construed to be of use in the commission of a crime (such as 'presumed intent to...'), is a crime. Another element is the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) where individuals can be held accountable for the actions of syndicates.
Could one argue that the only conceivable motive of gathering domestic communications and storing them wholesale (read or unread), would be to subject parties to blackmail for 'future' crimes? Could one argue that AT&T personnel who did authorize and oversee the splitting of the fiber optic cable (on their premises), were in full knowledge that Constitutional rule of law was being violated?
Hepting v. AT&T seeks to answer these questions. And the Supreme Court has 'declined' to hear the case without explanation or elaboration.
If there is a moment of history where the Supreme body of any branch of government is in dereliction of duty and in violation of its own sworn oath, this is it.
The Supreme Court needs to be pressed on this matter. Congress needs to investigate this particular issue because the PRISM slides are very possibly FAKE, and FISA courts issue but a few transactional warrants, most of which involve foreign nationals and are thus defendable. PRISM and FISA make the perfect distraction and diversion. The mass warrantless wiretapping and data mining that is explicitly uncovered and pursued in Hepting v. AT&T is the furor we need to see.
Time to bring in the big guns. Please 'like' Hepting v. AT&T on Facebook.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
Yeah, and the NSA has dragon breath.
Years ago, back in the early 90's, an acquaintance of mine that used to work for Gov intel hinted at these capabilities being used (with some very specific details)... even back then. I actually didn't believe him. But, with the exposition of the traffic analysis devices in AT&T's data closets (remember that, in the latter part of the 90's) and all, I have no doubt that what Snowden is saying is absolutely the truth - in fact, it's probably watered down for sake of news coverage. If he does have more details on this and related matters, I hope he comes out with it. The damage and embarrassment will be great, but that's karma for these agencies that continue to operate unchecked in our society.
I'm sure they have spooks lurking about in Hong Kong, waiting for the chance to pick Snowden off. But they may wait, or stage something, so as to make it appear unrelated. What, you say... that's extreme? Well, if the information Snowden has is in fact true and that devastating if released, then they have every reason to do so. We shall see...
The re-election rate has much more to do with gerrymandering than anything else. Stop letting Congresscritters choose who is allowed to vote them back into office, and you'll see some significant changes.
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
The spys that lie to us are telling us the truth this time.
The government that lies to us is telling us the truth this time.
The spies lying about the other spies who lie for a living are to be believed this time.
Eric Holder, CIA and NSA... Go fuck yourself.
What else could this tosser say? How does he explain the access Manning had, as a buck private in the Army? Snowden was on Mt Olympus in terms of access compared to Manning, the lowest ranking enlisted man outside of a new recruit, in the entire military.
Out of the mouths of people whose stock in trade is: Lies, Deceit, Cover-Ups and downright Dirty Misdeeds....somehow, I just have a difficult time believing these people.
so if he's lying, he didn't reveal any classified info did he?
Like a man who beat his wife and then accuses her of abuse
Like a man who cheats on his wife and then accuses her of cheating
Freud called it "projection"
Why would senators want to prosecute him for leaking classified info if he was only leaking stuff that was made up. That would fall under fiction writing... and claiming they should prosecute him for his
fictionalized works, at least indicates the senators are officially supporting his fictionalized works (presumably for profit...)... at the expense of lying to the american people. So... if his stuff is made up, doesn't that mean the senators are lying ?
to get this to happen:
that **dont'** involve self-centered dorks revealing US spy operations in China...so seriously, the guy you defend is probably a low-level 'traitor' or double agent of some type
get it through your head, his outlook and personal philosphy are stupid and reductive, and the fact that you agree with his bullshit means you need to rethink some shit for yourself...deal with it
Thank you Dave Raggett
I would theoretically probably agree with your 'democrats/liberals' disctinction if you had typed it out...I don't want to quibble about minutiae
whatever the label, IMHO 'progressive' fits best historically and is less tarnished than 'liberal', geeks/dorks need to stop the immature Ron Paul bullshit...
Thank you Dave Raggett
If he's lying, why is there a manhunt for him?
I like a good tall tale so much better than the boring truth. Snowden has created the Val Kilmer version of Doc Holliday, which is so much better than the actual guy.
Great post,. Where are my mod points for a story when I need them. Oh that's right,. I squandered them with a toss-off snarky comment.
Soo.. who to believe.. The person who sacrificed a six figure salary, and any hope of ever living a secure and normal life again, or someone who is desperate to implement damage control dure to exposure of their unconstitutional activities? Sure Snowden is lying. I mean, who *wouldn't* give up a six figure salary and put their life at risk in order to falsely implicate the government, of the only country they have citizenship in.. And of *course* the NSA is telling the truth.. after all, we all know that if somebody's charged with a crime, but they say they didn't do it, then you have to let them go.. because obviously the detectives made a mistake, or perhaps *they* are lying.. After all, what cop wouldn't sacrifice their career to falsely implicate someone in a crime ..
Isn't that the same thing?
Another side of this lies somewhere between Freud and Konrad Lorentz. The reason people are unfair in the first place is because an unfair system serves the genetically mediated (and archaic) impulses of those who seek power. It's not enough to be rich if everyone else is. The vision of a world in which everyone had more than enough , and is therefore equal, is anathema to the unconscious of this kind of person and they , unconsciously, will always and automatically work to defeat anything that takes society in this direction.
Remember that Freud saw in the run up to WWII a depressing confirmation of this theories of the unconscious, even going so far as to theorize another psychic force, thanatos, or the drive to die. The work of Konrad Lorentz effectively materialized and contextualized a lot of Freud's theories within evolution and specifically the mechanism of genes, which has been carried forward by the development of sociobiology.
Both of these theories say that human behavior, human impulses are structurally locked outside of human awareness , evolved to serve ancient needs, and anyway immune from the prosecution of a more evolved "self" The best we can hope for is to uncover their expression in our world and counter them, consciously, with energy and in the face of resistance . The good life redirects it's energies to love and work and the good society expressed those countermeasures in its customs and norms and codifies them into laws
Personalities like as diverse as Rush Limbaugh , Lance Armstrong, Rupert Murdoch, Harvey Weinstein and Steve Jobs need not just to succeed, they need to succeed differentially. Pushing the other guy down through any means and keeping him there is at least as essential a technique as excelling through work.
It has to do with genetic fitness, materialized in the human partly as attracting females through being "better" , having more stuff. Power itself is an unconsciously interpreted by humans as a presumed form of genetic fitness, Implicitly facilitating the Ghengis Khan Effect. : no need to attract women when you can just take all you want through overwhelming force.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/02/0214_030214_genghis.html
The impulse is innate, the motivation to behave in certain selfish ways and not other, egalitarian way\ , is unconscious and never sleeps or grows old. The old shriveled dick of these personalty types yearns ever for green pastures, even unto death.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/tony-blair-denies-affair-rupert-1953684
To combine Freud and Lorentz together in one contempoary observation involving these types, if there were no differential to be created, why would anyone fuck them in the first place?
You have to know the true , deep nature of the thing you're proposing to take on is, even if there's till nothing you can do about it.
Typing super faast, sorry about the sentences which are constructed half in one tense, half in the other. Hope you get at what I am saying.
Both of the statements about Snowden in this case cannot be true. Either - "He clearly has over-inflated his position, he has over-inflated his access and he's even over-inflated what the actual technology of the programs would allow one to do. It's impossible for him to do what he was saying he could do." Or - "He's done tremendous damage to the country where he was born and raised and educated," If the first is true, then the second is at the very least an overstatement and more probably not true. If the first is false, then he did have the access he claimed to have, and we are all screwed anyway.
As much as I might like to disagree broadly with what you have written, I can't, because there is clearly a lot of truth to it from an evolutionary perspective. It's quite true that young people (teens, and twenties, especially, but also later as you point to) do try to show off in various ways to impress the opposite sex as part of human mating rituals. But, let me try to at least surround that truth would some additional options and nuances as a ramble.
First, as an example of a way to deal with this. In James P. Hogan's sci-fi novel "Voyage From Yesteryear" about a post-scarcity society, he addresses this by the notion that people compete to demonstrate excellence in their chosen skills. Showing excellence in helping the community become a form of "Wealth". Material goods are given away freely, including to those who make no contributions to society, in part because, if someone is "poor" (not contributing, so socially disrespected), why heap additional problems on them by not letting them have material goods? So, while you have outlined a truth, how society chooses to deal with that truth, how these urges are directed, is an aspect of culture and circumstance.
From another direction, life on this plane of existence seems to consist of both cooperation and competition, arrayed across a mix of both meshworks and hierarchies. As E. O. Wilson points out, organisms often cooperate within some defined social boundary (like an ant colony) and then compete outside of the boundary (like ant wars). Humans historically have cooperated within tribes, even as they fought other tribes to define essentially property line boundaries between tribes. Many people enjoy team sports where you cooperate in your team but compete against other teams. Even Genghis Khan's command organization must have had some sense of internal cooperation even as it may have attacked other communities. So, the healthy human brain is able to navigate this social landscape (at least withing historic boundaries and the "Dunbar's" number of 100 - 230 tribe members). So, again the issue becomes, how does society direct these impulses within the limits of human potential?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar's_number
Freud had some keen insights, but he also overgeneralized and was a bit nutty. (People might say that about me, too? :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud
http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/08/10/reviews/970810.10boxert.html
"Freud may have been bad. But can he really have been bad in so many contradictory ways? A sampling of recent books suggests that after a century of Freud flogging, the critics still haven't finished with him."
G. William Domhoff goes into detail about differences between the left and right:
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/change/left_and_right.htm
One aspect not there is perhaps that the left tends to emphasize the cooperative aspect of society -- that we are all in this together, and if we all cooperate, we will all be better off, and that included caring for all children. While it may be rarely stated this extremely, the right tends to emphasize that people should succeed on their own merits, and part of success is being able to afford to raise children -- where if people can't afford children personally, they should not have them, and if they do have children, it is only right if the children suffer and die, because failure should not be propagated in order to maintain the health of the population.
There actually is quite a bit of sense to that sort of "Social Darwinism" from an individualist perspective -- except that it ignores both how much of success is collective, how sexual recombination crosses social rules about inherited wealth, and that the marketplace can be pretty f
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
American Dream has transformed into Law makers versus Law breakers
Casteism
The above post exemplifies what is the current standard of our politicians and bureaucrats- redirect the discussion. The discussion should be about the 4th amendment and whether they have gone too far. Time for sunshine. Snowdon simply got the discussion started and the gov officials want us to forget about the constitutionality of their actions and our desires concerning their blatant designation of us as second class citizens. These actions of theirs are tyrannical.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifesto
Casteism
>> the idiot at the Post Office who takes his lunch when there are 30 people in line.
> Cut the guy a break. If he waited till there was no one in line, he wouldn't eat till the day was over.
Truer words were never spoken! It's amazing that that's not obvious wothout ots having to be made explicit..
> Blame the managers for not hiring enough people, but leave the front desk man alone.
You can even cut the managers a break. Blame Congress for not letting the Post Office hold on to enough of ITS OWN MONEY to allow those managers to hire enough warm bodies to get a trivial job done right.
As someone who's able to get as ScD form M.I.T., but who has never been able to pass the Post Office exam, I'm in no position to call the job "trivial." :-(
And of course we all know that the government does not lie :-)
That's no yoke! That was my chick!
PRISM (what part of it is eventually determined to be real), just like the old over-hyped PROMIS, are just analysis and coordination tools. A user interface.
It's the COLLECTION that matters. We must slap a collar and bell on the NSA... and introduce strong criminal penalties for corporations who knowingly participate in these taps, OR even fail to exercise due diligence in policing their infrastructure for the presence of 'unauthorized' taps.
Shut it all down and send 'em home. Let the folks at NSA do something worthwhile and productive like filling potholes.
Even straight real-time voice intercept is a well known capability, geezers among us will recall there was a time when taps required alligator clips and assistance of telephone company personnel. Popularity of telephone ESS and CALEA guidelines (thank you Bill Clinton, you dumb outlaw-all-encryption Clipper Chip dawg) began to streamline the process to put back doors in telephone switches.
Such backdoor tactics were necessary because even then the digital component of our voice backbone consisted of an incredible number of multiplexed constant bitrate channels that criss-crossed the country as a mesh. They were far too distributed and numerous to present the possibility of 'complete intercept'.
On a clear day you actually could hear a pin drop too. Bell Standard Practices. Bless 'em, may they rest in peace.
Then codecs happened, packetization happened and IP routing happened. Fiber happened. Gigabit switching happened. Those constant bitrate links, both terrestrial and microwave, went the way of the horse and buggy.
Welcome to the Brave New World, where your voice is compressed to the point where speaker recognition is iffy, turkey garble when packets are delayed or lost.
And most importantly for the NSA who wants to slurp in domestic communications, it all passes through very few terrestrial interconnection points and the compression allows them to spool and store (via 'dark fiber' that has mysteriously come to life) in centralized locations. For-fuckin'-ever.
Since they listen afterwards and have captured every packet --- even the ones that did not arrive on time --- the NSA probably gets better voice quality than you do. How twisted is that??
Amazingly, the Associated Press is starting to get it,
AP: Secret to Prism program: Even bigger data seizure: But interviews with more than a dozen current and former government and technology officials and outside experts show that, while Prism has attracted the recent attention, the program actually is a relatively small part of a much more expansive and intrusive eavesdropping effort.
Americans who disapprove of the government reading their emails have more to worry about from a different and larger NSA effort that snatches data as it passes through the fiber optic cables that make up the Internet's backbone. That program, which has been known for years, copies Internet traffic as it enters and leaves the United States, then routes it to the NSA for analysis.
The only silly fallacy tripping them up now is the prevailing theme that these taps are "only" placed at points of ingress and egress. A border thang, they's listenin' to foreigners, move along now.
Since the days not so long ago when as much traffic passed through satellite earth stations as did undersea cables, NSA's collection and interception has brought them well into the geographical confines of the country. With a extremely high ratio of illegal domestic intercepts versus 'sanctioned' border-crossing communication.
This is an existential threat.
1. LYNCHPIN of warrantless spying: Hepting v. AT&T
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
Lack of spelling might account for that.
"The two enemies of the people are criminals and government,
so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution
so the second will not become the legalized version of the first."
-Attributed to Thomas Jefferson, but no sources known.
Big Brother caught in another lie about Snowden's education. Snowden was diagnosed with mono in his high school sophomore year and quit. He got his GED prior to his class finishing their senior year and went on to complete several college courses.
And we are unionised, and the unions and the employers make many times common cause against the government... Well, here in Socialist Hell employer's are interested in making money and working efficiently instead of playing badass libertarian anti-everything jihadist. Maybe it's partly because 60% of Dutch are atheists? Just saying.
But hey, this is socialist hell were we have to suffer extreme poverty and a 3,5% of unemployment, elderly are being forced to suicide and we have a brothel in every corner plus a weed plantation on every roof... and Belgian beer!!! Yes, it sounds horrible I know. The socialist government forces us to drink Belgian beer instead of marvels such as Buttweiser (because only people who enjoy real dog pee are safe from Socialism!).
-- 29A the number of the Beast
How can they say that he's lying when some many people and companies are come forth about PRISM being the real deal and Snowden being right
I looked up the David Buss evolutionary psychology reference you supplied (TMND) and saw he has one about women specifically, where a key point in the book is that there are many reasons women do what they do.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Buss
That makes sense when you think about it, because historically, like with some Native Americans, there were sometimes matriarchies where women controlled the land, and in hunter/gatherer societies that was a big deal. Selection for other attributes of men may then have been important.
It turns out I made a slashdot post about a year ago that touches on this issue too: ..."
"Re:Helping the NSA transcend to abundance thinking (Score:3)"
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2773253&cid=39629001
"To start with the bottom line: the very computers that make the new NSA facilities possible mean that the NSA's formal purpose is essentially soon to be at an end. Nothing you or I say here will reverse that trend. The only issue is how soon the NSA as a whole recognizes that fact, and then how people there choose to deal with that reality.
I then mention some men/women issues related to the themes you raised. Also, I make a point that relates to yours, that men tend to move from high testosterone competition patterns in their teens and twenties to lower testosterone cooperative patterns in their forties and fifties.
Regarding "The Selfish Gene", see also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evolution_of_Cooperation
http://www.amazon.com/The-Difference-Diversity-Creates-Societies/dp/0691138540
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_drift
Evolution selects for all possible combinations at all possible levels, even if our simple brains may have trouble following that or turning it into math...
Also, regarding being short -- when food or air is in short supply, being smaller can be an advantage sometimes. Being short also helps in Judo, Life is full of tradeoffs, where our characteristics and preferences can be strengths or weaknesses depending on the situation. That is one reason the world is so diverse.
Good point about how standards change over time, too.
Hope to have time to see those Adam Curtis documentaries someday! Thanks for the recommendations.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
"This program is overseen by TOP MEN." " What top men? " TOP....MEN. So, if he over exaggerated where he went, and what is access was, and the level of his knowledge, what did he damage?
If it's not broken, let's fix it till it is.