Google Pressure Cookers and Backpacks: Get a Visit From the Feds

How'd the government know what they were Googling? by csumpi · 2013-08-01 05:27 · Score: 5, Insightful

You really need to ask this question? Or you just playing stewpit?

Re:How'd the government know what they were Googli by jaymzter · 2013-08-01 05:28 · Score: 4, Insightful

I'm just glad the phrase "begs the question" wasn't used in this regard.

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Bush by Anonymous Coward · 2013-08-01 05:28 · Score: 5, Funny

If only we could get this Bush guy out of office this stuff wouldn't happen.

Re:Bush by Oysterville · 2013-08-01 05:32 · Score: 5, Insightful

Changing the puppet doesn't not necessarily change the puppeteer.
Re:Bush by ImOuttaHere · 2013-08-01 05:51 · Score: 5, Insightful

Which begs the questions: Who is the puppeteer? Why don't Americans do something about it?
Re:Bush by HornWumpus · 2013-08-01 05:52 · Score: 2

And we're not going to let you forget Obama. Get used to it.

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Re:Bush by meta-monkey · 2013-08-01 06:08 · Score: 5, Insightful

Actually, the statement "changing the puppet doesn't change the puppeteer" begs the question, "is the president a puppet under control of a puppeteer?" The statement begs that unanswered question by assuming the answer to be yes.
If the answer to that question is "yes," then we would raise the question, "who is the puppeteer?"

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We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Re:Bush by Lunix+Nutcase · 2013-08-01 06:10 · Score: 5, Insightful

You do realize that people can criticize Obama without having wanted to vote for Romney, right? People can actually have views beyond that false dilemma.
Re:Bush by DickBreath · 2013-08-01 06:17 · Score: 5, Interesting

See Lawrence Lessig's TED Talk about Lesterland.

The reason American's don't do something about it is because the Lesters (aka, the puppeteer) only offer puppets in the general election that the Lesters have pre-approved. A candidate not meeting with the Lesters' approval never makes it to the ballot of a general election. Thus making the farce of a general election seem meaningful when in fact it is not.

As long as the population can be approximately 50/50 split over two parties (that both are attached to the puppeteer's strings) and political party fighting and mudslinging can be kept to a maximum over issues the Lesters don't care about, the populace will contentedly remain asleep and feel that they still have some actual power through the ballot box.

The founding fathers never foresaw global megacorporations with concentrations of wealth and power that exceeds that of some actual countries.

I hope that answers your question. Sorry for not linking the Lesterland TED Talk video, but I'm sure you can google it.

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I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Re:Bush by Lunix+Nutcase · 2013-08-01 06:23 · Score: 2

I have. Multiple times. But then I wasn't the person you originally replied to.
It's just amusing to watch the defensive posts when you criticize either party as if you're instantly a fan and defender of the other side.
Re:Bush by omnichad · 2013-08-01 06:32 · Score: 3, Insightful

It might be a false dichotomy, but it's not a false dilemma. All your choices are bad. Voting for someone who has no chance of getting enough votes to get into office might be more respectable, but it's still a bad choice too. That is, unless you're going by the original Greek roots and that saying dilemma means there are only two choices. That's not really the current meaning in English, though.
Re:Bush by n1ywb · 2013-08-01 06:42 · Score: 5, Insightful

The founding fathers never foresaw global megacorporations with concentrations of wealth and power that exceeds that of some actual countries.
You've obviously never heard of The British East India Company.

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Re:Bush by Kaenneth · 2013-08-01 07:01 · Score: 4, Funny

In short "Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos"
Re:Bush by HeckRuler · 2013-08-01 07:02 · Score: 2

All your choices might be bad by mid-November when the ballots are already printed. But it'd take an awfully cynical view to claim that all the choices were bad during the primary election. And I don't think anyone would say that all your choices for the 2016 election are bad right now. Because at this point you could push, campaign, analyze, and interrogate damn near anyone.
I mean, you know, if you actually care about politics, the US government, or being a good citizen. Hey, I understand, it's hard to Google all this stuff. And there are SO many names to remember. And football is on the TV right over there with your top 7 favorite teams and whatnot. So sure, sure, just let someone else make that decision. They'll narrow it down for you by November 2016.
Re:Bush by hey! · 2013-08-01 07:14 · Score: 5, Insightful

If you folks on the right had asked one of us *liberals* back in '08, we'd have told you Obama wasn't one of us. He's essentially what would have been a centrist Republican thirty years ago. These were people, like Bob Dole, that we liberals didn't agree with, but could respect and work with. In fact, "Obamacare" pretty much follows the private sector oriented reform plans of Bob Dole. If Obama were a liberal he'd have gone with single payer, and negotiated tough price concessions with pharmaceutical manufacturers (which is the source of America's runaway heath care spending). You'd have seen banks regulated or broken apart, and criminal investigations in response to the financial crisis of '08, not an attempt to put the system back together again the way it was before the crash.
In fact Obama is very much the kind of president Dole would have been: an economic pragmatist, a diplomatic multilateralist, and an aggressive user of military force where he perceives an imminent threat to national security.
If you want to stop state intrusion into private affairs, you've got to stop being afraid, and convince others around you to stop being afraid. The more fear there is in the political climate, the more impunity the government has in its actions.
Liberals got behind Obama in '08 for the same reason we got behind Obamacare: we backed the best alternative achievable in a climate of fear -- a climate, by the way, that makes the state internal security apparatus feel empowered to do anything it wants in the search for terrorists.

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Re:Bush by dcollins · 2013-08-01 07:21 · Score: 4, Interesting

"The founding fathers never foresaw global megacorporations with concentrations of wealth and power that exceeds that of some actual countries."
The problem is not "both parties are the same team", nor "puppeteers giving false choices". Those are distractions.
The problem is that the U.S. system failed to account for parties. The fact that half of Congress is on a "team", in support or opposed to the President, causes them to vote pro-team instead of for the country or their constituents, which short-circuits the checks and balances that the division of government was meant to establish. This is compounded by first-past-the-post voting which by Duverger's Law guarantees a two-party system. Then voting game theory all but assures that those two parties will converge on certain key topics (like law enforcement and war, i.e., the important stuff).
Did the founding fathers foresee this problem? Definitely yes -- it's the whole point of Washington's Farewell Address, and it's eerily prescient. Countries with constitutions that admit to, and take into account, the presence of parties in politics don't have quite the same level of dysfunction that the U.S. does.

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We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Re:Bush by meta-monkey · 2013-08-01 08:12 · Score: 5, Informative

You are employing the modern misuse of the phrase. It does not mean that a question "begs to be asked." Questions cannot beg.
But people can.
"Begging the question" essentially means you are begging the audience to grant you assumptions without requiring you to prove them (generally falsely).
If I were to argue, "To reduce crime we must build more prisons to lock up minorities," that statement begs several questions be answered in a way favorable to my argument, but that I have not proven. Are minorities committing crimes? Will building prisons to lock them up reduce this crime? I haven't proven those things, but I'm just skipping over that messy business and begging the audience to act as if those questions were asked and answered in favor of my argument.
It's basically how politicians speak at all times.

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We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Re:Bush by AK+Marc · 2013-08-01 08:16 · Score: 3, Interesting

John Adam's wrote about the role of government being to protect the property of the ownership class (paraphrasing).
That's all they've ever done, then gone and lied about it to the people. The Civil War was about economics, not slavery. Slavery was involved as an economic issue, not a human rights one, and the slaves were freed as a wartime tactic to cause problems within the South (and help get the generally pacifistic abolitionists in the North on board with the war). But, once we won the war for the rich white northerners, it became a war of liberation of the slaves.

A standing military benefits only the rich. If Mexico invaded tomorrow and took over the US, how do you think the lives of the homeless in San Francisco would change? Not a bit. How do you think the life of Bill Gates would change when Mexico nationalizes Microsoft and seizes his holdings? Yes, the middle class may see an effect, but not nearly as much as the elite asserts. The rich are the only ones benefiting from a standing military, and spend billions planting the idea that the poor should pay for it.

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Learn to love Alaska
Re:Bush by khallow · 2013-08-01 08:56 · Score: 4, Informative

The founding fathers never foresaw global megacorporations with concentrations of wealth and power that exceeds that of some actual countries.

And the obvious counterexample to that claim is the East India Company, which was a global megacorporation of the 18th century. Recall that one of the defining events of the US revolution was the Boston Tea Party which was a protest against a tea tax and trade monopoly which was imposed to assist the East India Company. The tea that they happened to dump was East India tea.

And at the time, the East India Company had power far beyond any modern corporation or crime organization with a valuable opium trade with China (often illegally), a standing army in India, and considerable backing from the English government who saw them as a tool to increase English power in India and elsewhere.

So the founding fathers had a working example of such a global megacorporation in their time and had already crossed paths with it.
Re:Bush by camperdave · 2013-08-01 09:58 · Score: 2

A: The modern usage isn't a misuse. It is an alternative definition, in much the same way that a gay hacker can either be a lumberjack with homosexual tendencies, or a person happily breaking through computer security.
B: You were the one that used the phrase "begs the question" (granted, in response to the ancestral poster who used it).
C: I deliberately anthropomorphized "the question" to avoid this whole "begging the question" tempest in a teapot, though my attempt obviously failed.
D: The question is still "who is the puppeteer?"

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Re:Bush by ChrisMaple · 2013-08-01 11:22 · Score: 2

A standing military benefits only the rich.
Try that statement on a survivor of Pearl Harbor.
One seldom gets the opportunity to meet a true idiot.

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Re:Bush by bmo · 2013-08-01 11:40 · Score: 4, Interesting

The founding fathers never foresaw global megacorporations with concentrations of wealth and power that exceeds that of some actual countries.

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.
Thomas Jefferson
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BMO
Re:Bush by Zordak · 2013-08-01 11:47 · Score: 4, Informative

While enshrining the right to vote solely in the hands of wealthy, white land owners
That's a crass, unfounded lie. They were protecting the right to vote for wealthy, white, land-owning males.

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Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
Re:Bush by bogjobber · 2013-08-01 17:30 · Score: 2

While I agree with your general point, you can't separate the civil rights issue from the economic one. The reason the South seceded was because they knew they were losing their political power. They had already lost their power in the House and after it became apparent Kansas was going to be a free state they knew they had lost it in the Senate as well.

But the *reason* they were going to lose their power was because of abolitionism. The Republican party in swept into power in the late 1850s as an anti-slavery party. This anti-slavery platform was very firmly rooted in a moral argument, springing from the wildly popular Christian reawakening of the time. To divorce it entirely from human rights is just as foolish an argument as trying to divorce it from economics.

Refuse the search? by Hatta · 2013-08-01 05:29 · Score: 5, Insightful

This raises another question. What happens when these people refuse to answer questions or allow a search of their home?

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Re:Refuse the search? by tmosley · 2013-08-01 05:31 · Score: 3, Informative

They murder their dogs, and break their arms. Or maybe snap their spines with their jackboots.
Re:Refuse the search? by gandhi_2 · 2013-08-01 05:32 · Score: 5, Funny

This is why I always answer the door wearing a balaclava.

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THL phish sticks
Re:Refuse the search? by Wonko+the+Sane · 2013-08-01 05:39 · Score: 4, Interesting

What happens when these people refuse to answer questions or allow a search of their home?
Those people will turn out to be <adjective>-wing domestic terrorists, who were also <group which is politically acceptible to revile>. When the police arrived for a routine investigation the terrorists shot their own dogs and then comitted suicide by shooting themselves in the back on their heads. Twice.
At least, that's what will happen as far as you'll be told.
Re:Refuse the search? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-08-01 05:50 · Score: 3, Interesting

I think we already know the answer to that question.
Re:Refuse the search? by mooingyak · 2013-08-01 05:54 · Score: 5, Funny

This is why I always answer the door wearing a balaclava.
Answer the door eating baclava too if you want to get a real reaction.

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William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
Re:Refuse the search? by pongo000 · 2013-08-01 05:55 · Score: 5, Informative

This raises another question. What happens when these people refuse to answer questions or allow a search of their home?
IANAL, but I've done quite a bit of reading about this topic. The rule (at least in the US) is very simple: You are not required, nor should you allow any law enforcement officer into your home or business without a search warrant. Needless to say, you should not be talking to them at the front door either. They are not going to bust your door down, and it's likely they will not return.
Keep in mind that you should never talk to a federal agent without your attorney's advice. The reason? It is a federal crime to lie to a federal agent, and there are many cases of people being charged with lying rather than the original crime for which they were being investigated.
Don't take my word for it. Read the words of a former government attorney (scroll down to "The Raid"). There are any number of good articles and videos authored by attorneys. Here's another one that's worth a read.
Re:Refuse the search? by TWiTfan · 2013-08-01 05:55 · Score: 2

That's when it comes to light that they're wanted on a rape charge in Sweden.

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Re:Refuse the search? by gewalker · 2013-08-01 05:57 · Score: 5, Funny

I had to look up balaclava on Google -- hmm, someone banging on my door
Re:Refuse the search? by chihowa · 2013-08-01 06:02 · Score: 5, Insightful

I think it's interesting that they talked to the people at all, even though they showed up looking like they weren't there to talk.
I just rewatched War Games the other day and had to laugh at the way the FBI was portrayed apprehending Broderick. They were supposed to look all intimidating, but they seemed so polite compared to how such an operation would go down today. His dog survived the operation, his parents weren't pissing themselves on the floor at gunpoint, there was no profanity yelled at anyone. And he was a national security threat.
Ah, those were such civilized times.

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If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
Re:Refuse the search? by Professr3 · 2013-08-01 06:06 · Score: 2

Neither asserting your right to remain silent nor refusing to consent to a search constitute probable cause IN ANY WAY. The police have tried that before during traffic stops, "You don't consent to us searching your car? That's probably cause for us to search your car." The judges seem to take a dim view of that.
Re:Refuse the search? by sociocapitalist · 2013-08-01 06:20 · Score: 4, Insightful

"You are not required, nor should you allow any law enforcement officer into your home or business without a search warrant."
And just how difficult is it these days for the Feds to get a search warrant from the invisible national security legal system?

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blindly antisocialist = antisocial
Re:Refuse the search? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-08-01 06:24 · Score: 3, Informative

Keep in mind that you should never talk to a federal agent without your attorney's advice. The reason? It is a federal crime to lie to a federal agent, and there are many cases of people being charged with lying rather than the original crime for which they were being investigated.

Martha Stewart for one.
In addition remember, federal agents will not record their interview with you, they merely take notes. So when they charge you with lying, it's their word against yours. Who do you think the judge and jury will believe?
Just sayin'.
Re:Refuse the search? by Hatta · 2013-08-01 06:42 · Score: 5, Funny

Ooh, madlibs!

Those people will turn out to be poopy-wing domestic terrorists, who were also ugly.

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Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Re:Refuse the search? by lgw · 2013-08-01 07:02 · Score: 2

This is the biggest problem with policing today. Why do we tolerate jack-booted thugs? There's no question of national security or anything like that. Police in all forms should treat suspects politely and with dignity, and be responsible for any damage they do.

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Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Re:Refuse the search? by MarkGriz · 2013-08-01 07:32 · Score: 2

Is that the new term for angry democrats?

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Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
Re:Refuse the search? by SuricouRaven · 2013-08-01 08:05 · Score: 4, Insightful

Because most people have a sense of 'justice' that is little more than a polite cover for the urge to see criminals tortured. They'll support just about any abuse of police power, so long as it isn't directed at them.
Re:Refuse the search? by Seumas · 2013-08-01 08:16 · Score: 2

The best way to do this in your home is to step outside and close the door behind you, giving the cop no reason to come inside. In a car, it's a little more difficult to do as all you can really do is just not roll your window all the way down (which you may or may not get away with).
Unfortunately, so few people are willing to exercise their rights simply for the sake of it (I believe a wise man said something along the lines of "rights are only meaningful if they are regularly asserted and tested") that the assumption that you are suspicious for asserting your rights is probably not even that absurd. Wrong in principle and law, but probably not wrong in practice.
Unfortunately, schools seem to keep spitting out more and more "if I'm not doing nuthin' wrong, what do I care?!" piglets, so I don't expect to see any sort of rise in regular innocent people doing this.
Re:Refuse the search? by psm321 · 2013-08-01 08:56 · Score: 2

If only the Supreme Court agreed with you (and the Constitution...)
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2013/06/salinas_v_texas_right_to_remain_silent_supreme_court_right_to_remain_silent.html
Re:Refuse the search? by nbauman · 2013-08-01 10:29 · Score: 4, Informative

Lawyers have repeatedly told me (1) never talk to the cops unless you have a lawyer. (2) Never give them permission to enter your home without a warrant. (3) Never give them permission to search your home without a warrant.
Once they get inside your home, they can look around and possibly find something illegal.
The husband's answer should have been, "Give me your business card and I'll get back to you after I've talked to a lawyer."
Yes, it's tempting to get rid of them by explaining that you're not doing anything wrong.
But a lot of people who didn't think they were doing anything wrong have wound up in jail. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_C._Butler

Let's all Google together. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-08-01 05:30 · Score: 5, Insightful

We should all Google 'pressure cooker' and 'backpacks'. Let's send them for a spin.

Re:Let's all Google together. by lister+king+of+smeg · 2013-08-01 05:32 · Score: 2

that sound like a good idea maybe we should all make pressure cooker and backpack our sig

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---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
Re:Let's all Google together. by neminem · 2013-08-01 05:45 · Score: 2

I just did, and I'll tell everyone in a forum I frequent to do that later today. :D

BAD article, better source, and other notes... by nweaver · 2013-08-01 05:31 · Score: 5, Informative

The Atlantic article is BAD. Not only is it a summary with no additional information (and information removed), but uses a bad and unrelated photograph!

Read the original article on Medium, and I strongly suggest that a Slashdot editor change the article link.

Although circumstantial, this implies one of two possibilities. Either Google is voluntarily looking for "suspicious" searches and reporting them to law enforcement, or law enforcement (using a warrant, a wiretap, a NSL, or similar) is either forcing Google to look for such suspicious searches or simply wiretapping Google.

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Re:BAD article, better source, and other notes... by h4rr4r · 2013-08-01 05:40 · Score: 2

Either way this should be illegal.
Re:BAD article, better source, and other notes... by Hatta · 2013-08-01 05:50 · Score: 4, Insightful

Shame on her husband for allowing jack booted thugs into their home. Never consent to a search, and never speak to the police, except to assert your right to remain silent and request a lawyer. Every citizen who consents to these searches encourages them to do more.

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Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Re:BAD article, better source, and other notes... by phantomfive · 2013-08-01 06:00 · Score: 4, Interesting

There's another possibility......their son just got served with a warrant for drugs/vandalism/whatever, and they don't want the neighbors to know. At this point all we have really are rumors.

Don't jump to conclusions, remember, that's how innocent people started getting harassed when Reddit 'found' the marathon bomber.

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"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Re:BAD article, better source, and other notes... by intermodal · 2013-08-01 06:32 · Score: 2

It is illegal...unless Google is giving them the information voluntarily. At which point it is no longer a fourth amendment issue in the strictest of technical senses.
The real issue with how things are being run right now is that while we are protected (in theory) from our own papers and effects being searched and examined without warrants, the records being used are not our own. A gross violation of the intent of the fourth amendment, but disturbingly not a violation of the fourth amendment until they force the records to be turned over involuntarily without a valid warrant. And at that point it isn't even our rights being violated, it is the service provider's. Most of whom only care about how much reaches the press.
The real moral of the story is, if you don't want to get ratted out for things that aren't even wrong, don't hang out with rats.

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In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
Re:BAD article, better source, and other notes... by sjames · 2013-08-01 06:55 · Score: 4, Informative

An FBI spokesman confirmed the Guardian's report.
Re:BAD article, better source, and other notes... by SuricouRaven · 2013-08-01 08:08 · Score: 2

The latest rumors, based on some recently released but heavily redacted documents, is that the NSA uses a 'three hop' system. Anyone suspected of terrorism is monitored, even if a US citizen, but the warrant used also includes any of their contacts, and any of their contacts, and any of their contacts. So with just a handful of suspected terrorists, the entire US population is suspect-by-association.
Re:BAD article, better source, and other notes... by RabidReindeer · 2013-08-01 08:49 · Score: 2

Wasn't the PRISM program designed to 'spy only on foreigners'? How can a Ma citizen then be legally spied upon? I'd open a can of legal worms if it were me, this is not only unconstitutional but so illegal that everyone involved should be thrown in jail. For a very long time. The program shut down. And all details open to the public to review what their government has been working on.
Well, there might have been FISA approval.
But you're not allowed to ask and they're not going to tell.

Re:How'd the government know what they were Googli by alphatel · 2013-08-01 05:32 · Score: 4, Insightful

The title has changed to "get a visit from the cops" since it was confirmed that it was the Long Island Task Force. However, the FBI was "aware of the operation".
I am sure they are aware, of a a lot more things. Damn pressure cooker backpacks...

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They can't get all of us by XxtraLarGe · 2013-08-01 05:33 · Score: 4, Funny

Maybe overload is the only way to combat this sort of thing. Encourage all of your friends to search for pressure cookers and backpacks today.

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Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.

Seems obvious by stewsters · 2013-08-01 05:33 · Score: 5, Insightful

Because they are not just looking at the metadata of what you search on the internet, they are looking at the content of those searches.

Re:Seems obvious by Applekid · 2013-08-01 05:49 · Score: 2

Because they are not just looking at the metadata of what you search on the internet, they are looking at the content of those searches.
If metadata is data about data, then clearly the data about the data in your data is also metadata, isn't it?

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More Twoson than Cupertino
Re:Seems obvious by poo9 · 2013-08-01 05:57 · Score: 5, Insightful

See, "metadata" is a slippery term.
Go ahead and do an innocuous google search. Once the results show up, take a look at the URL you've accessed.
There it is: your search terms right there, (in human-readable format, even) in the URL itself. Is a URL metadata? I'm sure the NSA would say "yes"
So, Google doesn't need to be complicit in any way. This is all unencrypted stuff that could easily be filtered and could theoretically be defended as being "metadata"
Kinda makes me wonder what else you might call metadata. Are the SMS messages that piggyback on phone packets metadata? (I'll admit I don't really know anything about that so this is just speculation)
I'd be very interested in other people's opinions on things we think of as communications content that could be argued as being metadata. Thoughts?
Re:Seems obvious by meta-monkey · 2013-08-01 06:22 · Score: 2

This will be explained as:
"We are not monitoring what you look at on the Internet, just the meta-data. Go watch that furry porn video, that's fine, we're not collecting the data that's on the pages you looked at."
And it would be true. They're not collecting the contents of your web browsing activities, not downloading a copy of the videos and not even scraping the text off that site. Just the meta-data, like the header information for the HTTP request to furryporn.com from your IP address, including the referring "furry porn" search tags, and the metrics that showed you stayed at furryporn.com for 3 hours before sending another search request to google for "recommend cream stop chaffing."
See? Just meta-data, but no one is spying on the contents of your browser window. That would be an invasion of your privacy.

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We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.

Using google... by flogger · 2013-08-01 05:33 · Score: 2

I use a gmail, so I figure google has tabs on what I email. it is interesting when I send a friend a chapter or short story I am working on and the ads I get after this...

That being said, will the feds come get me if I am sending a short story about an assassination?

A habit that I have gotten into a while back though, so as to not tie my searches in with my gmail, is that I use firefox for gmail and I use Opera in private browsing to search google. After reading this article, I realize that I am probably tracked via IP. This is disheartening.

It's time to invest in an anonymous proxy. I think I am going to start with this article then investigate further.

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~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor

Re:Using google... by Seumas · 2013-08-01 06:05 · Score: 2

DuckDuckGo doesn't change anything. People seem to keep making the mistake of assuming that the government is spying on people with the collusion of businesses at the other end of our communications who are providing them the data and mechanisms to search and filter it (or even directly reporting it themselves). While much of that is going on, it has also been made pretty clear that what is also happening is that the government is tapping and shunting main connections just on the "outside" of these businesses/data centers. DuckDuckGo can claim to be the best whatever in the world they want, but there is nothing (short of encryption and who even knows, then...?) that they can do when the government is just directly siphoning off data from a shunt just outside of DuckDuckGo's purview.
This is also why, theoretically, a company like Google could say "we are not helping the government in any way whatsoever!". Theoretically, the government could be sucking down all their data as it transmits, but from a source just outside of anything Google "owns" and therefore have no fucking clue it is going on. Even if there is collusion, this would be a sneaky way for everyone to go about achieving the same thing, while still technically claiming plausible deniability.

Re:Wireshark by Anonymous Coward · 2013-08-01 05:33 · Score: 5, Insightful

Except that google.com defaults to https. So whoever was wiresharking had Google's SSL key or some other kind of inside access.

Re:Duh? by gl4ss · 2013-08-01 05:33 · Score: 3, Interesting

Is it because the US government TLA brigade is staffed by hyper-paranoid assclowns that frequently drop the ball when it comes to making use of the illegal intelligence they happen upon?

Yes - and skipping all the intelligence they have legally.

Besides, if you're into camping and canning foods you're obviously an insurgent, right?

funnily enough two of the task force should have raided themselves. I think the problem is that you have such a task force ready to go with nothing to do all fucking year long, so they claim to do 100 raids a WEEK and that once a week(1%) they caught something. why is none of those ever reported?

warrant isn't mentioned in the article either, not for getting the data and not for performing the raid(which they i think claim was "consentual", but what the fuck do you expect people to do if you come up geared for a war and want in..)

--
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.

Re:Was local police, not Feds. by MozeeToby · 2013-08-01 05:34 · Score: 5, Insightful

Oh well just the local police, that's fine then.

[/sarcasm]

I know what I am doing when I get home by Sparticus789 · 2013-08-01 05:34 · Score: 4, Funny

$i = 0
while $i = 0
wget ”http://www.google.com/search?q=Pressure+Cooker"
wget ”http://www.google.com/search?q=backpack"

'Nuff Said

--
sudo make me a sandwich

Re:I know what I am doing when I get home by tgd · 2013-08-01 05:46 · Score: 5, Insightful

$i = 0
while $i = 0
wget ”http://www.google.com/search?q=Pressure+Cooker"
wget ”http://www.google.com/search?q=backpack"
'Nuff Said
When I see an angry dog, I like to poke at it with a stick, too. Rational things happen every time!
Re:I know what I am doing when I get home by Anonymous Coward · 2013-08-01 05:53 · Score: 2, Funny

Pick up that can, citizen.
Re:I know what I am doing when I get home by broken_chaos · 2013-08-01 06:04 · Score: 3, Informative

If it's any comfort, the shell will just look at him with a confused expression rather than actually executing an infinite loop.
Re:I know what I am doing when I get home by HiThere · 2013-08-01 06:20 · Score: 2, Interesting

No, what you are doing is coercing the government into investing in AI, in an incremental sort of way. AI as an "evolutionary arms race".
(Actually, they've probably aleady passed the point where your approach would work. But they'll still need to look at it carefully so that the counter-AI doesn't slip messages into something they've decided is irrelevant.)
FWIW, I'm rather certain that this particular arms race is already well advanced. Unfortunately. I'm much rather that a working AI evolved out of a hospital management system, but the progress along that front is looking much slower.
It's important to realize that nobody understands the large computer systems that run things. Different people understand different parts of them, but the interactions between the parts are frequently surprising. Usually these interactions are bugs...but that's the nature of evolution. (Note that evolution is an abstract process, and DNA is only one concrete instantiation of the abstract class.)

--

I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.

has been happening for a while by KernelMuncher · 2013-08-01 05:36 · Score: 5, Interesting

A coworker of mine is from Pakistan. His son ordered a detailed book on the engineering of the Boeing 777 airliner. Shortly thereafter two FBI agents came to his house to investigate. My coworker called his son down to meet them. When the agents found out he was 11 years old, they laughed, apologized and left.

This happened about three years ago.

Re:has been happening for a while by h4rr4r · 2013-08-01 05:41 · Score: 5, Informative

This needs to stop.
When they come to your house you tell them to fuck off and come back with a warrant. Cooperating only encourages them.
Re:has been happening for a while by jovius · 2013-08-01 05:57 · Score: 4, Insightful

United Stasi of America. It's here. X-Keyscore proves it can't be avoided almost in any way.
Full take of all of the data is constantly analyzed. By now the responsibility must have been given to a faceless algorithm, so there is no one to sue, no one to accuse. People around the machine are just supporting staff, like those working at the concentration camps - who just followed their orders given by the machine.
Re:has been happening for a while by Nethemas+the+Great · 2013-08-01 06:15 · Score: 3, Informative

Actually I believe you have that backwards. It may be within your legal right to do something but that doesn't mean exercising that right is free from consequence.

--
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once ... with negative results.
Re:has been happening for a while by h4rr4r · 2013-08-01 06:15 · Score: 2

Bullshit.
They could have gotten warrants, or were they surveilling them illegally?
Re:has been happening for a while by Hatta · 2013-08-01 06:48 · Score: 5, Insightful

What exactly does it mean to have a right if the government can punish you for exercising it?

--
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Re:has been happening for a while by zzsmirkzz · 2013-08-01 08:48 · Score: 3, Insightful

It means you have a tyrannical government acting above outside of or against their mandate.
Re:has been happening for a while by Nethemas+the+Great · 2013-08-01 11:41 · Score: 2

An excellent observation, but then that's always been the problem with the foot-soldiers of bureaucracies right? No accountability to the public.

--
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once ... with negative results.

How do you know it was Google? by oneiros27 · 2013-08-01 05:37 · Score: 2, Interesting

Yes, she admits to using Google ... but how do we know it wasn't Amazon, or some product review site that was giving the NSA the information? Or even Facebook, with all of the sites that end up linking back to them so you can 'like' their page.

Honestly, if I worked for the NSA, I'd start up my own ad network ... I assume the existing ones are profitable (or they wouldn't exist), so you can undercut them to get lots of sites to use your service, and randomly inject code into people's web browsers. Or just buy them outright. Or just usurp their business and have them do your dirty work for you without having to pay them.

--
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.

Re:How do you know it was Google? by rullywowr · 2013-08-01 05:58 · Score: 2

Why even bother? The NSA already gets whatever information they want from any service provider or website information holder. What they don't get they can trace back via IP requests.

Good thing all terr'ists is dum, rite? by pla · 2013-08-01 05:37 · Score: 5, Interesting

Which raises the question: How'd the government know what they were Googling?"

I, uh, don't really think we have all that much doubt about that one anymore.

As the better question - Do the wardens of our panopticon really consider the terrorists that stupid, that they would A) try the same attack again, and B) really need to Google the concept of a backpack?

Re:Good thing all terr'ists is dum, rite? by PPH · 2013-08-01 05:59 · Score: 2

It gets worse. People Google for bing.com.

--
Have gnu, will travel.

Re:How'd the government know what they were Googli by Remus+Shepherd · 2013-08-01 05:38 · Score: 5, Funny

Oh, god. Now I really want to Google 'stewpit', but I'm worried it's some keyword for a terrorist cannibal org.

--
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.

Re:Wireshark by Tr3vin · 2013-08-01 05:39 · Score: 2, Insightful

Google does not default to https. It only does that if you are signed in with an account. If these people weren't, then anybody could have seen their searches with relative ease.

Re:Wireshark by hairyfeet · 2013-08-01 05:40 · Score: 5, Insightful

Uhhh...I thought it was common knowledge that the search engines and the feds are all buddy buddy? Not that it would have really mattered since we now know about the wiretap they have on the AT&T trunks which everything goes through at one time or another.

What I find ironic about all this is if they EVER catch a single terrorist thanks to all this big brother crap? It'll be the kind too fucking dumb to have been any good at being a terrorist, your Richard Reid "useful idiot" kind of Muslim extremist. Any terrorist that could actually do any damage, your Abu Nidal mean motorscooter types aren't gonna be so damned retarded as to Google for instructions with zero obfuscation, not when you have multiple free anonymizing services and search engines that don't log like DuckDuckGo and Scroogle.

So once again we have the government wasting huge piles of money and infringing the rights and privacy of everyone for a program that won't work...must be Thursday.

--
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.

Re:How'd the government know what they were Googli by Hatta · 2013-08-01 05:41 · Score: 3, Interesting

It's not a mistranslation. "petitio" in latin means request. It's cognate with the english "petition". Begging is a request.

As for proper english as she is spoke, I don't see what sense of "beg" means the same as "raise". It *might* make sense if you anthropomorphise the question, and say that the question begs to be asked. But by normal rules of grammar the phrase "begging the question" clearly has the question as the subject, not the object of the begging.

--
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!

Re:How'd the government know what they were Googli by virgnarus · 2013-08-01 05:42 · Score: 3, Funny

You really need to ask this question? Or you just playing stewpit?

Honestly! Redundant questions like that really get me steamed up.

Encryption by nullchar · 2013-08-01 05:42 · Score: 2

Even https://encrypted.google.com/ won't save you!

This guy has standing to sue by Animats · 2013-08-01 05:42 · Score: 5, Insightful

One of the big problems the EFF has had suing the NSA is that of "standing" - they have a hard time showing actual harm. This guy has standing to sue. He can show actual harm from unauthorized surveillance.

Re:This guy has standing to sue by cheekyjohnson · 2013-08-01 05:52 · Score: 3, Interesting

they have a hard time showing actual harm.
Which is what I don't understand. Why is that necessary? Is the existence of blatantly unconstitutional practices not harm enough for them, or do they like giving the government yet another reason to keep everything secret? Oh, who am I kidding? The answer is obvious...

--
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Re:This guy has standing to sue by wiredlogic · 2013-08-01 06:03 · Score: 2

Wish I had mod points for this. This is exactly what the EFF has been needing to further their argument.
It's also a boneheaded thing for the feds to act on since you would have to be a pretty incompetent terrorist to need to conduct a web search on something so readily available as a backpack regardless of what other "suspicious" searches you have performed. Chalk another one up for the thick headed pea brains looking to justify their outsized egos and overreach of power.

--
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
Re:This guy has standing to sue by TheSpoom · 2013-08-01 06:21 · Score: 2

He has standing to sue if he can prove to a FISA court that he was unfairly targeted. Good luck.

--
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Re:This guy has standing to sue by SuricouRaven · 2013-08-01 08:22 · Score: 4, Insightful

It's to stop people from clogging the courts in protest. It'd be really annoying if the government passed a law of slightly dubious validity and a thousand activists decided to file suit against it. With so many cases going on at once, it's inevitable courts would issue conflicting orders. While such a process could be used to stop unconstitutional laws, it could also be used to stall laws that are perfectly valid but have a dedicated opposition.

Proof! by ThatsNotPudding · 2013-08-01 05:44 · Score: 5, Funny

This is proof we're still living in a free country! They didn't die in a hail of military-grade automatic weapons fire.

Re:Proof! by Agent0013 · 2013-08-01 06:19 · Score: 2, Insightful

That was just luck. Look at the examples where the swat team goes to the wrong address and the family does end up dead. Free country indeed!

--

-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
Re:Proof! by tekrat · 2013-08-01 06:26 · Score: 2, Informative

That's 'cause they were probably white.

--
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.

I'm googling pressure cooker and backpack now! by stevegee58 · 2013-08-01 05:45 · Score: 2

Let's see what happens.

Re:Obummer the Messiah will save us! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-08-01 05:45 · Score: 5, Insightful

When will Americans get their heads out of their ass and accept that this is not about any single president? This is bigger than the President. It's bigger than either party. And it's not good for Americans regardless of their party, their gender, their age, their color...

When we use childish reasoning it allows the abuse to continue.

Re:Duh? by sycodon · 2013-08-01 05:48 · Score: 2

What will happen is that the feds will watch obsessively for people doing this (pressure cookers and backpacks) until someone figures another way to hurt others, then the will switch to that.

That's why we still take off our shoes (shoe bomber) and then sniff our undies (underwear bomber).

I usually eat lots of aromatics before a flight to make sure the undies have a very nice bouquet for TSA should they insist on the Full Monty

--
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.

Re:Wireshark by Seumas · 2013-08-01 05:49 · Score: 5, Insightful

Have you guys not been following US news for the last two months?

One thing the article skipped for criteria by SuperKendall · 2013-08-01 05:52 · Score: 3, Informative

In the middle of the article, you'll see that the husband also had trips to China and South Korea, so the trigger was more than just searching for backbacks and pressure cookers.

--
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley

Re:One thing the article skipped for criteria by mu51c10rd · 2013-08-01 06:22 · Score: 2

Which is a poor correlation. The Boston bombers had nothing to do with either Korea nor China. I am betting he visited South Korea...which is no threat beyond the occasional dud smartphone...and China still wants to play nice as long as we buy their goods. Backpack and bombing should have nothing to do with those countries.

Well if you've nothing to hide... by cervesaebraciator · 2013-08-01 05:52 · Score: 5, Insightful

This is another reason why I hate the, "if you've nothing to hide" nonsense. In the past year, I've bought a pressure cooker, large capacity backpacks, fairly sizable quantities of pure sodium hydroxide (more, anyway, than one needs to unclog the drain), soldering irons and other equipment to work on electronics, numerous tanks of propane, gun powder, and we go to shops and run in social circles frequented by Arabic speakers. Why? Because, respectively, we (my wife and I) have a garden and can vegetables, we like to go hiking, we make our own soap and detergent, I like to fool around with electronics for fun, we use propane to heat our kettles while brewing beer, I hunt with a muzzle-loader, and as Orthodox Christians a great many of our coreligionists are Palestinian or Lebanese.

Of course the protectionist or supporter of the national security state will say, "See, you had nothing to hide. No big deal." But that's just the point. With enough information on people's activities, even the innocent ones can be construed as potentially dangerous. With enough information, anyone and everyone becomes a suspect. To say nothing of the fact that this subjects people to unreasonable searches, it lessens the chances of actually finding a legitimate focus for suspicion.

Re:Well if you've nothing to hide... by darkHanzz · 2013-08-01 06:14 · Score: 2

Just wondering thought, why would you make your own soap ?
Re:Well if you've nothing to hide... by cervesaebraciator · 2013-08-01 06:47 · Score: 5, Interesting

Partly because we like to avoid the shear quantity of unknown components that go into most industrial goods. Soaps and lotions, for example, often have chemicals like parabens in them which can mimic estrogens. The jury's still out on whether exposure to these leads to higher incidences of cancers, etc., but we don't really care to be part of this over-sized experiment to which industry has managed to subject us all. We don't go all organic and avoid all industrial products--indeed we're unable to do so as we don't have the capital to do so. But we do what we can, where we can.
Partly because we have an interest in old traditions and dying arts. My wife is a weaver and a spinner by trade and I often at least try the older methods when I do something (thus e.g. making my own bows for archery, mixing egg tempura for when I paint, or learning to build fire with flint and steel). Even if one decides that modern methods are more convenient, doing things the older way can give a better since of quality in goods and what goes into them than one would otherwise have. At one point, my wife decided to give soap-making a try and it just stuck. It was easy enough and gave her enough control over the product (using different fats, applying different scents from the garden and elsewhere) that she found she preferred this over buying soap. I might also add that it's cheaper.
Above all because we don't want to be like Arthur Dent who, during his sojourn on Lamuella, assumed that as a modern man he would be able to introduce to the primitive natives a great many modern conveniences. Then he realized that he actually didn't know how to do or make much of anything. Fortunately for him, he still fared well as the sandwich maker.

Re:Wireshark by TWiTfan · 2013-08-01 05:53 · Score: 5, Funny

.I thought it was common knowledge that the search engines and the feds are all buddy buddy?

But, but...the NSA head and several Congressmen have assured us that they aren't blanket monitoring everyone. And surely they wouldn't lie!

--
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."

Re:How'd the government know what they were Googli by JWW · 2013-08-01 05:53 · Score: 5, Interesting

We may know that the government was doing.

But the government has still never answered that question.

And therein lies the problem, in our Republic, there is an expectation that we the people know how our government operates. We aren't necessarily entitled to all the governments information, but full and complete information oh how our government runs is something a "free" country would be expected to know in detail.

Re:Wireshark by Synerg1y · 2013-08-01 05:55 · Score: 4, Informative

With ease?

Are u sure u know how all this works?

There's nothing simple about intercepting client server anonymous traffic on the net. Much less the scope of the data that google processes. Also ssl doesn't matter if google is forking over the data internally.

Re:Never Cooperate With the Cops by PPH · 2013-08-01 05:55 · Score: 2

And always wear clean underwear.

--
Have gnu, will travel.

Broke the law, go to jail? by quietwalker · 2013-08-01 05:56 · Score: 4, Interesting

Now we have had various ample proof that parts of the government are exceeding their power, that they are literally breaking laws, and even the checks and balances of our system do nothing to detect and correct, often times due to collusion or tacit approval . We have whistleblowers pointing out these abuses, and they're to be prosecuted, and while people may cheer for them and call them heroes, little else seems to be happening. There are more protests and support rallies for these folks in foreign lands than here in the US.

It's not even complex: Parts of the government have been knowingly breaking the laws that they themselves were supposed to protect and enforce, yet they have not been put in jail, or even brought to trial. Nothing appears like it will change.

I hate to sound all tin-foil-hat-infowars-crazy, but at the point where the government decides it doesn't have to follow the law, and can do anything it wants - without even a hand-waving distraction, it's not a democracy or republic - it's authoritarian leaning towards totalitarianism. Laws were broken. Someone, perhaps whole groups of someone, need to go to jail. Claiming that it's okay because a law is open to interpretation, without question, by a government body not privileged with the power of interpreting law, and then further masking it with secrecy in part to hide the legality is right out! That's not a senate committee issue. It's black and white - trial time. If the president says he knew and explicitly approved, it's also impeachment time, followed by jail time. This isn't getting a hummer in the oval office level stuff, this is beyond Nixon-level stuff.

People turned out in the thousands for the OWS, and they didn't even have a good argument, much less any sort of attempt at a solution. Where are the thousands for this?

Re:Broke the law, go to jail? by cervesaebraciator · 2013-08-01 06:03 · Score: 3, Interesting

Where are the thousands for this?
Taking an extra shift at their third part-time job, trying to pay down student loans. One has to wonder how much the bad economy is covering for the growth of the national security state, since folks are doubtless expending most of their political concerns over how to stay afloat financially for the next year.

Drones by gmuslera · 2013-08-01 05:57 · Score: 2

50 civilians are killed by drones for every terrorist. I suppose that at least same amount of false positives will go for the information gathered by the government's data snooping operations, but with far more hits as there is a lot of information gathered. And those false positives effect could go to just stipping you of any privacy left, no matter if you are an US citizen, to get visit from the Feds, to "dissapear". Don't be afraid just of the Big Brother, now the Texas sharpshooters will be in your next nightmare.

Not necessarily flagged from their Google Searches by tangent3 · 2013-08-01 05:57 · Score: 3, Informative

Missing from the summary, of course, is that the family had a son who has actually clicked on a link to an artlcle on how to make a pressure cooker bomb.
"But my son’s reading habits combined with my search for a pressure cooker and my husband’s search for a backpack set off an alarm of sorts at the joint terrorism task force headquarters."

Google may not have been involved at all here. All the investigators needed were the logs for the website hosting the offending article, and a cooperating ISP, to find that family.

Re:Wireshark by Salgak1 · 2013-08-01 05:57 · Score: 4, Interesting

1. The check is in the mail.

2. Trust me, I'm a Lawyer.

3. You won't get pregnant, really.

4. The NSA is not blanket monitoring everyone.

These 4 statements have something in common. We leave determining what that is, as an exercise for the alert mind. . .

Tell Google to turn off Google monitoring by eyenot · 2013-08-01 05:58 · Score: 2

It's not any good. Google doesn't even have a truly working syntax, any more. You can try and force specific phrase searches all you want and the "AI" or whatever they're using goes out and grabs "similar" terms anyways, to add unnecessary things to your results. You can exclude certain phrases or words all you want BUT if they are one of the "similar" terms to something else you're searching for, they will still show up. Google is totally broken with all of its "smart"-ness!

Meanwhile, this "smart" searching is backed by loads and loads of monitoring. There's I guess what we could call "passive" monitoring, where complete search phrases are stored and used to create some kind of "likelihood" for the sake of "quick searching", where search results are provided for you in a drop-down menu below the text input control on the search page.

But that "quick searching" means there's what we could call an "active" monitoring, where every keypress you enter is being sent to the server that responds with likely search terms based on that database.

So not only is it kind of broken, but it's also kind of Orwellian.

And I thought Google was already on the list of evil corporations that are stealing our privacy and handing it to whatever despots make a demand. So why don't news articles continue that rhetoric instead of sounding so aghast that this company that has been mined for data by the feds in the past is potentially creepy?

--
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee

Re:Duh? by Frobnicator · 2013-08-01 05:59 · Score: 5, Informative

warrant isn't mentioned in the article either, not for getting the data and not for performing the raid(which they i think claim was "consentual", but what the fuck do you expect people to do if you come up geared for a war and want in..)

Imagine: "Sir, do you consent to a search where we poke and prod around your house and not damage anything, or will you force us to get a warrant and we can completely destroy your house during the 'search'?"

Hint: Courts have ruled that damage done under a search warrant is generally not compensated.

There have been cases where officers "looking for drugs" will damage homes to the point where they are uninhabitable, but the courts rule the individual must pay for the damage. Police performing a "search" can destroy just about any property they want. Smashing vases and poking holes in drywall as part of the "search" are generally considered legal. The police can even burn down your house an not pay you for it (see Patel v US and many other cases).

It has gotten to the point that "inverse condemnation" via police action is now a thing. Police and other government agents so greatly damage the property that it is the equivalent of condemnation.

No, you really don't want them force to get a warrant if they already don't like you.

--
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement

Re:Wireshark by KiloByte · 2013-08-01 05:59 · Score: 4, Informative

Or if you use the proper extension.

--
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

Cops? by troll+-1 · 2013-08-01 06:01 · Score: 3, Insightful

These are soldiers. It's time to start calling them what they are. The only reason they wear para military uniforms is to intimidate you. Camouflage is the new red.

Re:How'd the government know what they were Googli by Anonymous Coward · 2013-08-01 06:01 · Score: 5, Insightful

You people really have too much time on your hands.

Re:Let it go, Dipshit... by Salgak1 · 2013-08-01 06:01 · Score: 4, Insightful

They're ALL Assclowns. And once they get inside the Beltway, the notional difference between Brand D and Brand R tends to fuzz out.

I like my plan, better: All Elected Officials serve two terms: the first in office, and the second in jail, based on what they did during the first. And no "country club prisons. . . "

Re:Obummer the Messiah will save us! by poofmeisterp · 2013-08-01 06:04 · Score: 2

You say that as if Romney was any better in that regard. We all know that every president is going to support the military police state. But at least Obama isn't trying to destroy America with tax cuts so that a few billionaires can masturbate into an even larger pile of cash.

FTFY

Re:How'd the government know what they were Googli by DickBreath · 2013-08-01 06:07 · Score: 2

The questions are indeed redundant, but you don't explain how.

If the first question is answered Yes (you need to ask), then obviously the answer to the second question can only be No (not playing stupid, but really are stupid).

If the first question is answered No (no need to ask), then obviously the answer to the second question can only be Yes (playing stupid, because I am smart enough to already know the answer and didn't need to ask).

--

I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.

Security committee lies by gr8_phk · 2013-08-01 06:08 · Score: 2

So on NPR just this morning they were interviewing the head of one of those oversight or committees and he was all about how snowden was wrong about the scope and what was reported is way more info than they really collect. It's just the metadata - he had to point out the oddness of the word metadata probably to make people think about it and get confused. So we continue to learn new things: 1) what snowden said about domestic data collection 2) he's proof that they don't have protections against misuse of the data and 3) we can't trust the authorities to tell us what's going on (as evidenced by TFA here contrasted with said NPR interview) because they actively lie about it to the public and the rest of the government.

Re:Wireshark by Tr3vin · 2013-08-01 06:09 · Score: 4, Insightful

Yes. With ease. I'm assuming that their local ISP will gladly hand over information. We have seen in the past how willing ISPs are to work with the RIAA/MPAA, so why wouldn't they work with law enforcement or the FBI?

Re:Wait a second... by Cro+Magnon · 2013-08-01 06:11 · Score: 3, Interesting

The good news is, they only inspect the contents if they think you're a terrorist. The bad news, they think about 300 million of us are terrorists!

--
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.

also Re:Tell Google to turn off Google monitoring by eyenot · 2013-08-01 06:12 · Score: 2

Google NSA's "Echelon" and CARNIVORE. Not too many years ago the NSA were already world wide web levels of notorious for claims that they were monitoring every single cell phone and internet communication, of domestic and unsuspicious Americans, and that those communications were being converted into text by computer, and that the text was being scanned for keywords.

The process involved searching texts or textualized conversions of voice data, for National Security-sensitive keywords like "bomb", "assassinate", "president", and so on. Then these texts were made all lower-case except for the keywords being upper-case (or something like that, who cares) and they were stored and the keywords were tagged onto the files.

Based on how "weighty" the communication appeared to be -- which was calculated using some telemetrics involving the parties involved, the subjects involved, the timing, and the number of keyword phrases included -- the text might be "flagged" and this might get a person watched by the NSA.

So, there was this huge backlash that used the internet to spread the word about Echelon and CARNIVORE and to create support for a movement against it.

The idea was that people would post an overload of messages with keywords in them like "BOMB", "ASSASSINATE", and "PRESIDENT", for the purpose of creating needless and indeed (given that the authors had no motive of making a bomb, or assassinating anyone, let alone the President) senseless work for the CARNIVORE system to churn through.

I can't remember what such buzzword-loaded messages were called. Carnivore Bombs? Something like that?

Anyways, WHERE THE FUCK is all of that historical context when Slashdot authors post new shit or comment on shit about the NSA?

Where your head at?

I'm not upset that this isn't "NEWS". In the strictest sense, the NSA watching *everything you say* isn't news unless you count things that were apparent over ten years ago. But that's not what's upsetting me, right now. Not slashdot's tendency to feature content not quite "news"-worthy, at all.

Instead, I'm upset that the people who submit and comment either have some kind of inability to connect historical events together and keep a relatively sane sense of the importance and relevance and other things that are really REALLY freaking important when you're critically analyzing a situation, or, they're all simply too young.

Too bad there's not a way to realistically age-filter submissions and comments because frankly anything anybody under 25 has to tell me about the NSA is "cool-talk" that has more to do with posturing and meeting some weirded-out hipster status-quo than anything to do with speculation on directions our country is headed, privacy, etc.

It's like the people who, twenty years ago, were still angrily shouting down and taunting anybody who mentioned the "NSA" as paranoid, crazy, schio, etc. ... are today just keeping a low profile and towing the "hip talk" line. Even if not the same individuals, the same personality profile.

They really secretly are like "this is bullshit, this doesn't exist, people who think like this should be zombified and marched into a large oven", but because it's "hip" subject material, they don't really put any thought behind it but hit the "submit" button and are like "hope nobody notices I think they're all batshit crazy."

--
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee

Re:It has been known for years by dgatwood · 2013-08-01 06:12 · Score: 3, Interesting

The remarkable thing is that they've never come knocking on my door, given how many times (as part of research for my novels) I've searched for all manner of bomb-making chemistry, information about types of firearms, information about poisons, etc. I guess when they saw me use a planetary orbit calculator to compute precise positions of planets several hundred years in the future, they concluded that I wasn't dangerous, just seriously OCD. :-D

--

Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

Re:Did you even RTFA? by TheCarp · 2013-08-01 06:19 · Score: 2, Insightful

Except they said they do this "100 times a week". The implications of that are staggering. 100 times a week? That is 5200 raids a year.... if they are not putting terrorists away by the truckload then they have some serious explaining to do.

--
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"

Re:Wireshark by Nethemas+the+Great · 2013-08-01 06:20 · Score: 3, Informative

How ironic it is to see the first post under "You may like to read:" be DuckDuckGo: Illusion of Privacy...

Remember:

Knowledge is power, but he who controls the information reigns supreme. --Hackers Creed

--
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once ... with negative results.

Google as it used to be by Dialecticus · 2013-08-01 06:22 · Score: 3, Informative

Google doesn't even have a truly working syntax, any more. You can try and force specific phrase searches all you want and the "AI" or whatever they're using goes out and grabs "similar" terms anyways, to add unnecessary things to your results. You can exclude certain phrases or words all you want BUT if they are one of the "similar" terms to something else you're searching for, they will still show up. Google is totally broken with all of its "smart"-ness!

This is not entirely true. On a search results page, you can click on "Search Tools" and then change the middle dropdown from "All Results" to "Verbatim". This makes Google work much the way it used to in the Good Old Days(tm).

Re:Wireshark by lgw · 2013-08-01 06:24 · Score: 2

DuckDuckGo is mostly an front-end to Bing, providing shallow anonymization. It would be a lot of work to figure out what https query to some DDG server matched what bing query. Yes, you could probably get the answer by capturing all metadata for the internet, and putting the pieces together, but even with the data it's non-trivial. I'd say DDG gives pretty good privacy.

I assume the case in TFA was just the feds telling Google long ago: "send us the IP address of anyone who makes any of the following queries" and more recently adding "pressure cookers and backpacks" to that list.

--
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.

Re:Duh? by omnichad · 2013-08-01 06:27 · Score: 4, Insightful

But in this case, they couldn't get a (regular) warrant. There is no probable cause. The only power they have is the threat of a warrant. Unless secret warrants are easier to get.

Re:Not necessarily flagged from their Google Searc by RandCraw · 2013-08-01 06:27 · Score: 3, Interesting

The subplot about the son is missing not just from the summary, but from The Atlantic article as well.

Where did you get this quote? Or are you just trolling?

Re:Wireshark by BlueStrat · 2013-08-01 06:30 · Score: 3, Insightful

So once again we have the government wasting huge piles of money and infringing the rights and privacy of everyone for a program that won't work...

The problem here is your definition of "working", in this context. You appear to believe them when they say the system is meant to catch terrorists, rather than monitor & control the general population, including congressmen and other politicians, judges, etc.

It's working just fine.

Strat

--
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.

Re:Obummer the Messiah will save us! by Nadaka · 2013-08-01 06:31 · Score: 2

No. Less taxes does not mean less money for the NSA. it means the same NSA money, and more deficit spending, leading to America's total economic collapse, leaving China as the only remaining superpower.

Nature of the Internet: Information exploitation by recharged95 · 2013-08-01 06:31 · Score: 4, Informative

A former buddy of mine at 'the fort' (cough) once said information wants to be free.

Having worked not soley at the fort (like my buddy) but at SV companies to launching rockets, I found that his assertion was not true, but that information wants to be exploited. It's already free if you search "the right way" (as mentioned by another buddy at the 'other' agency).

Hence, How'd the government know what they were Googling?"

Easy. Just like every other company that does ads, they buy the info from Google.

Of course, once weak selectors have triggered from the google data, the gov't has other systems (e.g. let's say telco info) to get the location and possibly user of the IP address that google recorded. It's what's been known in all market analysis and the hollywood industry for awhile: federated metadata search. Big Data Analytics is the buzz word for it nowadays. Nothing new here.

Now what do we get out of this? That being anonymous is NOT anonymous anymore. We've hit the Uncertainty Principle in information sharing: if you touch "the system", you're identified. Period. Much like if you measure it, you effect the results. So to the tinfoil hat folks, either stay under your rock or quit complaining and 'work' the system (aka opt in or opt out).

Lastly, the Gov't takes actions that are threatening, where as the credit card companies do the exact same pattern matching, and take similar actions, of course less threatening to you by context. Think about it and you'd be more surprised if the gov't wasn't doing this in the 1st place.

Re:So no-one should ever investigate anything by MozeeToby · 2013-08-01 06:45 · Score: 5, Insightful

A) (The number of pressure cooker bombs made) / (the number of pressure cookers sold) is virtually 0.
B) (The number of backpacks used to bomb something) / (the number of backpacks sold) is virtually 0.
Even taking A and B together, (the number of pressure cooker bombs transported in backpacks) / (the number of people who own both pressure cookers and backpacks) is virtually 0.

A and B are meaningless. Worse than meaningless, they waste resources that could be put toward investigating real threats.

C) With all the news about pressure cooker bombs, there are lots of people, in the 10s of millions, who have searched for what a pressure cooker bomb is, myself included.
D) Lots of people travel. Neither China nor S. Korea are hotbeds of terrorist activity. N. Korea is all but impossible to enter from either of those countries.

And for gods sake, most importantly, absolutely none of this should have been known by any law enforcement agency because they had no probable cause to start an investigation in the first place. There is a serious problem when everyone American citizen's internet activity and travel history are being constantly monitored.

Always preventing the last attack by ulatekh · 2013-08-01 06:47 · Score: 5, Insightful

Do the wardens of our panopticon really consider the terrorists that stupid, that they would A) try the same attack again, and B) really need to Google the concept of a backpack?

That's the problem. One of the truisms in the armed forces is that the generals are always fighting the last war. Similarly, our anti-terrorism forces are always trying to prevent the last attack. Thanks to the Unabomber, we still can't mail packages bigger than 16 ounces unless we do it in person. Thanks to the shoe-bomber, we have to take off our shoes when we go through the metal detector at the airport. Now we can't Google for pressure cookers and backpacks. Fer Crissakes.

God forbid that some clever terrorists decide to Google for suspicious terms, with the intent of luring anti-terrorism forces into an ambush. I wonder how our somewhat dim and reactionary anti-terrorism forces would deal with that. Good thing that the average jihadist is too stupid to play that type of chess.

And to think I was turned down for an Army info-sec position...I have exactly the sort of devious mind it takes to stay several steps ahead of the bad guys. Sadly, they prefer people with "N years of experience in this field, N years of experience in that field"...sigh.

And the worst thing about this...it means that the terrorists have won. They never claimed to be able to destroy our country, or overwhelm us in a military sense...they said they wanted to destroy our way of life. Well, our freedom has been replaced with a paranoid, reactionary, technologically-supercharged fascist surveillance state. The terrorists didn't even have to impose it; the western world imposed it on themselves. Somewhere, two guys with a lot of Mohammeds in their name are toasting the defeat of their enemy.

--
"Once we've identified and embraced our sickness, we'll have strength...and that's when we get dangerous." - John Waters

Re:Wait a second... by omnichad · 2013-08-01 06:49 · Score: 3, Insightful

Right. They record your phone call, make a text transcription and then discard the recording (unless you're on a special watchlist or trip any red flags). The text is just the metadata!

Inflamitory reporting by jklovanc · 2013-08-01 06:50 · Score: 3, Informative

Take a look at the picture in the article and compare it with the actual description of what happened;

Six gentleman in casual clothes emerged from the vehicles and spread out as they walked toward the house, two toward the backyard on one side, two on the other side, two toward the front door.

There was no assault team. The wife and children were not present. The picture make it look like the police terrorized an innocent family when the truth is far different.

I hate inflammatory reporting and this is a prime example of it. The story is bad enough as it is without adding falsehoods.

No, they'll have to sue by ulatekh · 2013-08-01 06:50 · Score: 4, Insightful

Which is what I don't understand. Why is that necessary? Is the existence of blatantly unconstitutional practices not harm enough for them, or do they like giving the government yet another reason to keep everything secret?

Unfortunately, our system isn't based on common sense, or even passing the giggle test. All our system offers is the chance to take them to court. And our courts aren't impartial arbiters of facts; a trial is more like a poorly-produced stage play.

But this is supposed to be better than the alternative.

--
"Once we've identified and embraced our sickness, we'll have strength...and that's when we get dangerous." - John Waters

Re:Wireshark by BlueStrat · 2013-08-01 06:51 · Score: 2

I assume the case in TFA was just the feds telling Google long ago: "send us the IP address of anyone who makes any of the following queries" and more recently adding "pressure cookers and backpacks" to that list.

The answer to this behavior is for lots and lots of people to Google pressure cookers and backpacks.

Something like a browser plugin that, rather than Googling for random stuff "Scroogle"-style, randomly Googles keywords like pressure-cooker, etc.

Poison the well. Make their systems useless.

Strat

--
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.

I have something to hide by ulatekh · 2013-08-01 06:59 · Score: 2

This is another reason why I hate the, "if you've nothing to hide" nonsense.

I certainly have something to hide from the NYPD cannibal cop that abused a restricted law-enforcement database.

I have nothing to hide from a just government, but we don't have one of those, given that it's comprised of people. Our Founding Fathers knew that, and tried to write a Constitution forming a government with limited powers.

Legalize the Constitution!

--
"Once we've identified and embraced our sickness, we'll have strength...and that's when we get dangerous." - John Waters

Terrorist plot #57... by Andy+Prough · 2013-08-01 07:02 · Score: 4, Insightful

...FOILED by PRISM. Nice work boys.

Article is wrong: NOT due to Google searches... by bgarcia · 2013-08-01 07:12 · Score: 3, Informative

The police didn't intercept her Google searches.
She posted pictures of M-66 explosives publicly on her Facebook account.

Google Plus posting on the topic
The facebook photo in question

--
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.

Re:Not necessarily flagged from their Google Searc by RandCraw · 2013-08-01 07:26 · Score: 3, Informative

The blog does NOT say the son searched for instructions on how to build a bomb. Here it is:

"
Most of it was innocent enough. I had researched pressure cookers. My husband was looking for a backpack. And maybe in another time those two things together would have seemed innocuous, but we are in âoethese timesâ now. And in these times, when things like the Boston bombing happen, you spend a lot of time on the internet reading about it and, if you are my exceedingly curious news junkie of a twenty-year-old son, you click a lot of links when you read the myriad of stories. You might just read a CNN piece about how bomb making instructions are readily available on the internet and you will in all probability, if you are that kid, click the link provided.

Which might not raise any red flags. Because who wasnâ(TM)t reading those stories? Who wasnâ(TM)t clicking those links? But my son's reading habits combined with my search for a pressure cooker and my husbandâ(TM)s search for a backpack set off an alarm of sorts at the joint terrorism task force headquarters.

Thatâ(TM)s how I imagine it played out, anyhow. Lots of bells and whistles and a crowd of task force workers huddled around a computer screen looking at our Google history.
"

She assumes her son could have clicked on a link. But she does *not* say he did, contrary to your claim.

She posted public photos of explosives... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-08-01 07:30 · Score: 2, Interesting

She posted public photos of explosives to her facebook a couple weeks before the cops showed up and tried to construe it as the feds watching her Google search according to a cnet correspondent: https://plus.google.com/112961607570158342254/posts/FWAVRVaN64h?e=-RedirectToSandbox

Last I checked there is no expectation of privacy when you post facebook photos as public.

Re:Let it go, Dipshit... by da_pfunk · 2013-08-01 07:36 · Score: 2

We have that already: we call it the Govenor's office in Illinois.

Re:Obummer the Messiah will save us! by icebike · 2013-08-01 07:41 · Score: 4, Interesting

When will Americans get their heads out of their ass and accept that this is not about any single president? This is bigger than the President. It's bigger than either party. And it's not good for Americans regardless of their party, their gender, their age, their color...

What you have to be asking, is how do these spy agencies get a guy like Obama, who painted himself as the grand reformer, the president for the people, to jump in bed with them and defend them to the hilt?

Did they tell him: "We know what you did in Russia, Barry!"? Or did the intelligence community as a whole run this guy for president (twice) and make sure he won? How many ballot boxes did they stuff? How many electronic voting machines did they compromise?

And in light of their capabilities, how can we ever contemplate electronic voting in this country?

--
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.

Re:Wireshark by Dunbal · 2013-08-01 07:41 · Score: 2

Of course we only have their word for it. And how many of those 58 were instigated by the FBI as traps to try to catch wannabe terrorists who were never a real threat anyway?

--
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.

Re:Wireshark by budgenator · 2013-08-01 07:42 · Score: 2

.I thought it was common knowledge that the search engines and the feds are all buddy buddy?

But, but...the NSA head and several Congressmen have assured us that they aren't blanket monitoring everyone. And surely they wouldn't lie!

That depends on how you define " is ".

--
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds

Oblig XKCD by Minwee · 2013-08-01 07:52 · Score: 4, Interesting

I can't believe that nobody has linked this yet:

What's the worst thing that can happen if you misuse a pressure cooker in an ordinary kitchen?

Re:How'd the government know what they were Googli by SeaFox · 2013-08-01 08:02 · Score: 2, Interesting

Now I really want to Google 'stewpit', but I'm worried it's some keyword for a terrorist cannibal org.

I know you meant this as a joke, but the underlying punchline isn't funny.

Are we reaching a point where people will begin self-censorship? Where we will curtail our own curiosity even in the privacy of our own homes because even there Big Brother is listening to make sure we're not a threat to the State?

Re:Wireshark by darkonc · 2013-08-01 08:14 · Score: 2

It doesn't matter if Google uses https for searches, if the feds know what the top links are for those searches. If you end up going to presure-cookers.com and backpacks.com, then the NSA can get the http headers from your ISP's feed when you go to those sites (also your DNS queries).

They could also pay for (web-bug) ads for those search terms, if they wanted to be perfectly legal about it.

--
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.

Re:Wireshark by Curunir_wolf · 2013-08-01 08:16 · Score: 2

Wonder if they would have got picked up so fast if they used anon search engines like startpage.com or duckduckgo.com?

Maybe, but then they wouldn't have actually FOUND anything!

Thanks, I'm here all week.

--
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia

Re:Wireshark by Anonymous Coward · 2013-08-01 08:26 · Score: 2, Insightful

"Google does not default to https"

It does when you've got HTTPS Everywhere (EFF plugin) installed on every PC you use :)

Re:How'd the government know what they were Googli by l0ungeb0y · 2013-08-01 08:32 · Score: 5, Insightful

but full and complete information oh how our government runs is something a "free" country would be expected to know in detail.

Didn't you get the memo? On Sept 11th 2001 the US stopped being a "free" country and is now a "safe" country.
So shut up about your worthless "freedom" and "constitution" and "rights" you terrorist defending traitor!

Re:How'd the government know what they were Googli by idontgno · 2013-08-01 08:41 · Score: 4, Insightful

I know you meant this as a joke, but the underlying punchline isn't funny.

It wasn't particularly funny 40 years ago either, but that didn't keep it from being a fairly common joke:

Q: How do you contact the NSA?
A: Just pick up the phone and start talking.

I think the major change is that we communicate in more ways than just the telephone nowadays, and the technical means to monitor those communications has gotten more pervasive and sophisticated... so more of our privacy is exposed.

Yeah. I'm not laughing either.

--
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.

Re:Wireshark by Jeng · 2013-08-01 08:47 · Score: 2

That strategy has been in place since the time of Echelon being the program everyone was worried about.

I would say that everyone though needs to use a slightly different list every time they put out the list, otherwise the list would be immediately recognized and ignored.

Here is are some examples of the old Echelon list.

http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi/noframes/read/703

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/05/31/what_are_those_words/

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread455848/pg1

--
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.

Re:How'd the government know what they were Googli by JWW · 2013-08-01 09:08 · Score: 5, Funny

Yeah, I got the memo, but too much of it was redacted to know what it said.... ;-)

Re:How'd the government know what they were Googli by spacepimp · 2013-08-01 10:19 · Score: 2

The entire social (governing) contract is based on the consent of the governed. We cannot consent to what we cannot know.

Wrong question and outrageous use of unrel. photo by wonkey_monkey · 2013-08-01 10:22 · Score: 2

Which raises the question: How'd the government know what they were Googling?"

Actually, for me it raises the question "How do you know they were visited because of what they Googled?" As far as I can tell we've only got one side of the story here.

Here's a quote from the article (emphasis mine):

Or perhaps the NSA, as part of its routine collection of as much internet traffic as it can, automatically flags things like Google searches for "pressure cooker" and "backpack" and passes on anything it finds to the FBI.

Or maybe it was something else.

Yes, maybe it was something else. Unfortunately "something else" wouldn't be as sexy a story right now, would it? Maybe - and to be honest, this seems like a simpler explanation to me - they were visited for an entirely different reason - legitimate or not - and a) this is the best guess the people concerned have as to why they were visited or b) they are actually hiding something else.

The use of the outrageously sensationalist photo accompanying the story - actually taken from when they were doing door-to-door sweeps after the Boston bombings and unrelated to the story in question - is a pretty shitty and seemingly biased piece of journalism on its own (there's no caption; it's only explained in the middle of a paragraph further down the story) and enough for me to have serious doubts about the accuracy and impartiality of the piece.

--
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.

From their employer, it sounds like by Sycraft-fu · 2013-08-01 12:59 · Score: 4, Informative

So it looks like this all may be an over-blown non-story.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/08/government-knocking-doors-because-google-searches/67864/

Supposedly, the cops got a tip from their former employer that they'd found these searches and then went to investigate. If that is the case, well then it is pretty much a non-story. Some employers regularly do look at what is done on their computers because they are paranoid employees are wasting time, stealing, whatever.

Re:Wireshark by turp182 · 2013-08-01 13:16 · Score: 2

Here's the new Oath for Federal employees (Office of Personnel Management):

I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constipation of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

The original, with a single major word change:
http://archive.opm.gov/constitution_initiative/oath.asp

Seriously, we get up in arms when the flag is burned, but when the Constitution of the United States is involved it appears to be toilet paper.

--
BlameBillCosby.com

You're being delusional by Anonymous Coward · 2013-08-01 14:35 · Score: 2, Funny

First, Obama is FAR too far to the left for the modern GOP, which has become radical leftists relative to where it was in 1980... so there's no possible WAY Obama could have been like an earlier gen of the GOP. The modern GOP is too far to the left to tolerate what used to pass for a shining example of a left-wing Democrat: JFK (the modern GOP supports higher taxes and bigger government and a smaller military than JFK did, and while JFK NEVER supported gays in the military, gay marriage, publicly-funded abortions, or women in combat, some modern Republicans do.) Modern Democrats have moved so far left that they would DETEST FDR (opposed unionized govt workers), Truman (dropped atom bombs on people), JFK (see preceeding sentences), and LBJ (Vietnam...). I'm sorry if the Democrats have not YET, PUBLICLY, moved far enough left to elect Karl Marx and this makes you unhappy... just wait a few more years and they'll get there; Shortly thereafter, establishment Republicans will move to the left of today's Obama and liberals will again say the GOP (which will still be to their re-positioned right) is "too conservative for Ronald Reagan" .... rinse...repeat...get confused about why the country is further melting-down...

Obama as an economic pragmatist?????? go back to your water pipe dude! Obamanomics are a nightmare. Have you LOOKED at the number of people who are now on foodstamps (highest in US History and nearly double the Bush numbers) the number of people who have given up on work and gone on disability (highest in US History) the massive boost in difference between the incomes of the rich and the middle class (worse than under Bush) and so forth? A pragmatist would do some practical things and NOT the pure left-wing ideological dung Obama had been shoveling (largely through unelected bureaucrats issuing regulations that the leftist press never reports on but businesses get buried under). When Obama took office, Bush had run the national debt to $10Trillion... Obama has taken it to $17Trillion in only 4.5 years! (and the Bush part of the debt includes the Bush debacle of bank and initial car company bailouts... Obama has little excuse) there's nothing "pragmatic" about this no matter WHO does it. There is NOTHING pragmatic about Obama.

Obama's "aggressive user of military force where he perceives an imminent threat to national security"???? You're KIDDING, right? The only things "aggressive" about his military policies are: [a] aggressive cuts to active forces and withdrawl from warzones that lack any realistic plan to prevent collapses of any gains made by shed blood, (while transferring money to "green" activities like $50/gallon biofuels and conversion of military base land into habitats for plants and animals) [b] aggressive attacks on any remnants of traditional culture in the military being replaced by propaganda for perverts (I refuse to be any more politically correct toward lefties about their dysfunctions and proclivities than the left is toward the right when they attack normal heterosexuals as "breeders" and label any religious person on the right as an anti-science moron who thinks the world is 6000 years old and believes Jesus rode on dinosaurs) [c] aggressive use of drones to kill-off anybody Obama personally chooses to kill (this is automated murder, not warfare... he is NOT targeting an enemy force or an enemy machine, but rather a specific named individuals)

Liberals got behind Obama in 08 for the same reason they will push Hillary in 16... because the ends justify the means, and ANY dirtbag that will further the cause of tearing down the greatest nation in history will get the rabid support of the fevered left. The U.S. with its religious not-leftist not-Marxist culture in 1969 put a man on the moon, and has always been visual proof to the argument that free markets and free people trump managed economies, central planning, and national or international socialism every time. When a religious America with a free-market economy leads

Re:How'd the government know what they were Googli by dublin · 2013-08-01 16:19 · Score: 2

Note that Michelle Catalano herself did not say this was JTTF or FBI. That was apparently asserted by The Guardian or The Atlantic writing about the incident. Michelle's own writeup simply refers to men with guns and badges, and does not specify who they were with. (BTW, Michelle Catalano is a moderately prominent blogger and writer whose writings certainly remove her from the likely terrorist suspects, if any of these badge-carrying morons had bothered to actually Google anything for themselves before showing up to harass free citizens.)

Here is what Michelle herself had to say about the incident, the most chilling part is at the end:

This is where we are at. Where you have no expectation of privacy. Where trying to learn how to cook some lentils could possibly land you on a watch list. Where you have to watch every little thing you do because someone else is watching every little thing you do.
All I know is if I’m going to buy a pressure cooker in the near future, I’m not doing it online.

All of a sudden, Glenn Beck's ranting about the Cloward-Piven-Ayers "collapse the system" strategy doesn't sound so far-fetched. We know now that we have far more to fear from our own government than we do from any terrorist group, even the bloodthirsty suicidal Islamic ones. (FWIW, no Islamic terrorist has ever tried to humiliate me by groping my junk as painfully as possible, but the TSA has. It's time to face the fact that the entire Dept of Homeland Defense was an insanely bad idea and disband it back into its constituent agencies, at pre-9/11 staffing levels. Hell, DHS couldn't even stop the Boston bombing after the Russians *told* us these guys were bombtastic Muslims, so why on earth should we accept any loss of freedom at all to these totalitarian goons?)

--
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last ./ post

We've been taken for a ride, folks by FuzzNugget · 2013-08-01 22:46 · Score: 2

I like a hate-on against the budding police state as much as the next Slashdotter, and for all I know, they could very well be monitoring your Google searches, but that doesn't appear to be the case here.

According to Wired, it was actually a former employer that reported the searches to the police after finding them on the man's computer. It's not at all surprising to find that private employer is looking through and monitoring their *own* systems.

Too bad this comment will probably go unread and unmodded amongst the 600+ or so at the time of this posting.

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Google Pressure Cookers and Backpacks: Get a Visit From the Feds

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